by Ruth Rendell
He had never, of course, been as bad as Uncle Ken, an insensitive brash man who, in any woman between the ages of thirty-five and sixty, blamed every divergence from the strictest convention on ‘her time of life’. Before my mother died, before my mother was even ill, Swanny had gone to him with her desperate inquiry. He, after all, had been there. He had been, not an infant, but a child of five at the time, a child of school age.
She could remember herself at five. She recalled the death of Edward VII in the May of that year and her father saying the Danish Queen was a widow now. She even remembered one of the scandalous stories so dear to the heart of Asta who repeated the rumour that Queen Alexandra wore collars of diamonds to hide the scars on her neck where the King had tried to strangle her. Surely Ken could remember Asta giving birth to a daughter, his being shown the child, the nurse or doctor or both in the house. At that time she was passing through one of those semi-hopeful phases, in which she went along with Torben and tried not to believe any of it.
Ken couldn’t remember. He said, quite proudly according to Swanny, that he remembered absolutely nothing of what had happened before he was six. He could barely remember the house in Lavender Grove which they had moved out of when he was six and a half. She, Swanny, had always been there in his life.
‘It’s her age,’ he said to Torben, basely repeating to her husband everything Swanny had asked him. ‘They go a bit mad, I’ve noticed it time and time again. And it takes them all of seven years to get over it. At the very least.’
I’ve since wondered if Ken couldn’t remember because (as Daniel might have said) he blocked off that early childhood, if trauma excised those years which were too painful for recall to be allowed. They must have been bad years, with the continual shifting from place to place and country to country, his parents’ vicious quarrels, the death of a baby brother, the move to England and a new language and his father’s apparent desertion. No doubt that would have been enough to blot out the past. Things got better soon afterwards; the year of Swanny’s birth was the family’s lowest ebb.
On the other hand, he may have remembered but been too bolshie to tell. That again would have been typical. Women shouldn’t be indulged in their fancies, women were ‘strange beasts’. He often said how glad he was never to have had a daughter. But I don’t believe he knew any more than he told. The facts of conception, pregnancy, birth, were carefully kept from children when he was a child. Mor went to bed and someone brought her a baby. She says so in her diary.
Maybe it was true.
Mormor wasn’t a woman who loved nature or even seemed to know it was there. A garden to her was a place you sat in when the sun was shining and ate in under an arbour. In fact, one of her contentions with Torben and Swanny was that they had never made proper provision for eating out in their garden. There was no table under a tree with chairs round it, no garden furniture with sunshade to be brought out each spring and arranged in some suitable corner as a breakfast nook or tea place. This she lamented often, citing Padanaram where it had been so ‘cosy’ (a favourite word) to have tea under the mulberry tree. A photograph testified to this: Asta pouring tea from a great silver pot, Swanny beside her, my mother on Morfar’s knee, the boys in Norfolk jackets, and Hansine standing behind and beaming, got up in a maid’s uniform and cap for the occasion. Torben disliked eating in the open air and earned her incredulity by saying so.
Because it was impossible to sit there, except on a hard teak bench, Mormor seldom went into the Willow Road garden. There were flowers but not the sort she liked. Her preference was for florist’s rosebuds and scented waxen exotics out of hothouses. Swanny and Torben employed a gardener who came two or three times a week. Even then, in the sixties, I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to have bonfires; even then, London and its suburbs were called a smokeless zone. Still, he did occasionally have them to burn autumn leaves and path sweepings and, according to Swanny, was very surprised one afternoon to see ‘the old lady’ come down the path and make off with his wheelbarrow. If he asked her what she wanted it for Mormor probably played deaf, as she sometimes did when she didn’t want to answer, though her hearing was as good as mine. Off she went with the wheelbarrow, at a run, the gardener said, marvelling at her vigour.
Swanny was out having her hair done. When she returned the gardener was just leaving. He told her ‘the old lady’ had come back with the wheelbarrow full of books and papers but by then he had put his bonfire out and was treading out the wood ash. She asked him if he’d be having another fire the following week but he said, no, not till next year.
Swanny asked Mormor about it and got, as she put it, a dusty answer.
‘It was private, lille Swanny. Why do you think I chose to do it while you were out unless it was private?’
‘If you’ve something you want to burn, Mor, it can go in the kitchen stove.’
‘I changed my mind.’
No change in her was obvious after the diary-writing stopped. If it stopped, as I believe it did and as the diaries themselves bear witness, in the autumn of 1967. She continued to walk, to attend Swanny and Torben’s parties, to tell stories, to read her Dickens and, when she did so in company, to read aloud long passages she found specially astute or insightful, regardless of whether her companions wanted to listen or not. Her favourite characters were those as unlike herself as could be found: Amy Dorrit, Lizzie Hexham, Sidney Carton, Esther Summerson.
I don’t believe I ever entered the room she had up there on the third floor. She had chosen it herself and refused to be moved, refused to listen to all Swanny’s protestations that the stairs were too many for her to manage. And when Swanny asked what she thought people would think of a daughter who allowed her mother in her late eighties to climb three flights of stairs to reach her room, Mormor replied with a rather grim smile.
‘Haven’t you learned by your age, lille Swanny, that it’s no use worrying about what people will think? They will think something whatever we do and they usually think quite wrong.’
Up there she kept her Dickens, her photographs, her clothes and had once kept the diaries. The other things were fairly obviously displayed, Swanny said, even the clothes, as she left her wardrobe door open all the time ‘to let the air in’, but not the diaries.
The diaries were lying low, waiting.
8
June 29th, 1910
JEG VOKSEDE OP MED Had til Tyskerne—eller Prøjserne og Østrigerne som vi dengang kaldte dem. Krigen mellem dem og Danmark eller skulde jeg sige Besættelsen af Danmark var forbi i 1864, længe før jeg blev født, men jeg skal aldrig glemme, hvad min Fader fortalte mig, hvordan vi maatte give Afkald paa en Del af vores Fædreland, det hele af Slesvig og Holsten, til Prøjsen.
I grew up hating the Germans—or Prussians and Austrians as we called them then. The war between them and Denmark, or their invasion of Denmark, I should say, was over in 1864, long before I was born but I can never forget what my father told me, how we had to give up part of our country to Prussia, the whole of Schleswig and Holstein. He had an uncle and aunt living in Schleswig. But the worst thing was my own grandfather, my mother’s father, who had fought in that war and had a terrible wound. He had a permanent gangrene in his foot and one day the pain got so bad that he went out into an outhouse where they lived and hanged himself. My mother found him hanging from a beam. She was only sixteen.
So I hate all Teutons. They are always trying to take other people’s countries away from them. Last year it was Bosnia-Herzegovina and they tore up the Treaty of Berlin, on which the peace of Europe was founded. Or so Rasmus and his friend and business partner Mr Housman were saying this evening. They talked for hours about my least favourite subject, war. I suppose it makes a change from motor cars. I said that if it does come to war, we won’t be involved and nor will Denmark.
‘Women,’ said Rasmus charmingly, ‘what would you know?’
I could see Mr Housman trying not to smile. He covers up his mouth with his hand when Rasmus says w
ords beginning with a ‘w’. ‘Vimmin’ and ‘var’ and ‘voothe’ for ‘would’.
‘Europe is preparing for var, you’ll see,’ Rasmus said. ‘Not just Austria-Hungary but France and Russia too. You mark my vorthes.’
I shouldn’t laugh. My own English is far from perfect. I admire and envy the children who speak it so well, all three of them. There’ll be a fourth next year. I’m almost sure and for once I’m happy about it!
The one I conceived soon after my husband came back from Denmark that first time, I lost three months later and I was sorry. I felt too bad and bitter even to put it down in my diary. Some things go too deep even for writing down. Then, for some reason—I can’t say what for there was plenty of ‘love’—I haven’t fallen again until now. It’s a mystery, what goes on inside a woman, and I suppose no one ever will quite understand it.
February 11th, 1911
Another girl. If I have to have babies, and it appears I do, I much prefer girls. I haven’t written in this diary for months, I’ve been so afraid of having another boy.
She was born yesterday morning. It wasn’t a difficult birth but short and sharp, a swift affair with one terrible pain at the end, like a sword cutting me in two, and there she was. After I’d had a sleep and a good meal I sat up in bed and thought about the contrast between this birth and the last one. Things have certainly changed for the Westerby family.
Quite a nice house, for one thing, and a girl to help Hansine with the ‘rough’. Enough money not to go short of anything. When Swanny was born Hansine brought me a great plate of sausages and potatoes which she slapped down on the bed in front of me. This time it was salmon in krustader and roast fowl to follow. I’m wearing a new white silk nightgown and the ring on my finger my husband has seen fit to give me because I’ve made him so happy! His words.
We are going to call her Marie. For once we are in agreement about something, if for different reasons. I just happen to like the name, it’s my second favourite girl’s name after Swanhild, it has such a pretty sound. Rasmus, of course, likes it because it can be English and all things English he adores. ‘The English can pronounce it,’ he says, by which he means they pronounce it ‘Maar-rie’, as in Marie Lloyd whom we’ve seen on the stage. ‘The French can pronounce it too,’ I said in my way, ‘for what that’s worth,’ but he doesn’t mind what I say at the moment. I am perfect because I’ve given him a daughter. Anyone would think she was his first!
March 3rd, 1911
Today I went out for the first time since Marie’s birth. I’m a ‘lady’ so I’m supposed to spend weeks in bed after being confined, though there’s nothing wrong with me. Lower-class women never do that, they’re up and about next day, they have to be. I’ve known cases of servants secretly delivering their babies in back kitchens and outhouses and returning to their work the same day.
It was good to be out, even though Rasmus insisted on my being driven about in the horseless carriage by him. Not that I’m allowed to call it that in his hearing. It has to be the ‘motor’ or even the ‘automobile’, and this one was one of the American electrics. It goes so slowly you could walk as fast—well, run.
Luckily, I get my figure back within days of being delivered. In fact, I’ve never needed corsets, though of course I have to wear them. Rasmus has become nearly as fond of fashion as he is of motor cars—I tell him that when these ‘autos’ go out of favour, as they must do, he’ll be able to sell frocks—and wants to see me dressed up. I suspect he thinks it good for business to have a handsome wife about when customers come to the house. Not that I’m handsome but these days I do look smart.
Out in the motor this morning I wore my cream pongee coat with green linen revers and my hat with a whole bird on it, I don’t know what kind but with black and green feathers. I had a green motoring veil and a white fox muff and I was freezing cold all the time we were out.
Rasmus could see me shivering and said what I’d never dared hope to hear from him. ‘I’ll tell you what, old girl, I’m going to buy you a fur coat.’
It’s a promise I’m going to hold him to. He’s been buying me this new magazine from America that’s called Vogue and I’ve seen a fur coat in it which is the one I want. It’s Persian lamb trimmed with white fox, very showy and enough to make people stare, but that’s what I like. I suppose I don’t really care for clothes the way some women do, I just like dressing up and being looked at, people thinking what a lot my clothes must have cost and wondering how I dare wear such outrageous things.
My ring has an emerald, deep set in 22-carat gold with tiny diamonds in the ‘shoulder’. He says it cost £500 but he always exaggerates. I love it but I’d give it up if by doing so I could make him love my little Swanny. I’d throw it in the River Lea or give it to Hansine, only I know you can’t buy things that way in this life.
It’s worse since Marie was born, or it seems worse. He never took much notice of the boys when they were little, he was proud of having sons but that was all, but he holds Marie in his arms and carries her about. He takes her out into the yard and shows her the motors standing there. She’s three weeks old and she’s supposed to understand when he talks to her about battery power and detachable cylinder heads.
I don’t mind him loving her, I’m glad he does, it’s a real change to see him love anyone. He actually loves me at the moment, though it can no more last than Ford motors can and I expect they’ll go on longer. He’s all right with the boys, I mean he’s not unkind or anything, but he’ll never play cricket or football with them, which they’d love. Anyway, Mogens at thirteen is nearly as tall as he is and growing whiskers on his chin, so I expect it doesn’t much matter. But Swanny’s only five and she’s such a sweet gentle little thing. She’s the best-looking of our children too. Marie will never come up to her, I can say that without a doubt though she’s such a tiny baby still.
He doesn’t like the way Swanny looks. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine why. I’ve asked him, I made myself ask him, and first of all he said that was nonsense, where did I get these ideas from. But I persisted. There’s this beautiful little girl, tall for her age, really straight and upright, a credit to my good meals and care, lovely skin as white as milk and hair the colour of a guinea, the true bright gold, eyes that are a soft sea-blue, not the harsh colour mine are, and he doesn’t like the look of her! He admitted it at last.
‘She looks so Danish,’ he said.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I said.
He just gave one of his silly laughs. I knew he meant he wants to be English and all his ‘possessions’ (which is how he describes us) English too. The funny thing is that no one who heard him talk could for one moment mistake him for anything but a foreigner. I know I’ve got an accent and I always will have but at least I don’t say ‘schooth’ for ‘school’ and ‘tree’ for ‘three’.
Of course it wasn’t long before he was telling me he loved all his children equally, they were all the same to him, but that’s only what he thinks he ought to say. It cuts no ice with me, as the Americans say. But I feel like killing him when I see her go up to him, lay her little hand on his knee and ask him something, and all he does is brush her away as he might a dog. In fact, he takes a lot more notice of Bjørn, our Great Dane puppy, than he does of her.
What is it about her he really doesn’t like? I get frightened when I think of it like that, so I try not to.
July 28th, 1911
Little Swanny’s birthday. She was six today. We gave her a doll the size of a real baby and with real human hair. I write ‘we’ but of course I chose it and bought it and smuggled it into the house without her seeing. Rasmus just had his name on the card: love from Mor and Far.
I’ve been meaning to write something about Rasmus in this diary for a long time. I’d like to say he’s a peculiar man but how would I know? I’ve only lived with one man, been married to one man, and a girl never really knows what her own father is like. Usually she sees the best side of him or the side he wants
her to see. It may be that Rasmus is no stranger than any other man.
There is a shed or outbuilding at the end of our garden and this he has turned into a workshop. It is big enough to get a motor car inside and it’s in there that he tinkers with engines. He spends hours and hours in there taking motor engines apart and putting them together again. When he comes back into the house he smells of oil no matter how much he washes. The oil has a very strange smell, bitter and like you’d imagine metal might smell if it were melted to liquid, and if you smelt it long enough it would make you feel dizzy.
He also has a workbench and a lot of tools and has made Bjørn a kennel with a window in the side and a sloping roof with real tiles on. I couldn’t help admiring it and showing my admiration, though as a rule I try not to show anything like that because it goes to his head. All the time he’s thinking of new things he wants to make and do. Glass-blowing is the latest and I expect sculpture will come next. While we were out in the motor today, supposed to be taking little Swanny for a birthday ride, I with Marie fidgeting about on my lap, he stopped by a yard where a monumental mason was working and we must have been there an hour while he watched this man chipping away at a gravestone, of all things. And all this down at South Mill Fields, the most slummy desolate place in the neighbourhood.
Rasmus is hardly ever in the house. There seems to be some sort of rule that women are indoors and men outside. It’s funny because we all get very shocked and on our high horses about women kept in the harems of the east but I can’t see that it’s so very different here. I live in the house and Rasmus lives outside it. Of course I go out, I go out for walks, I escape, but that’s what it is, an escape, and if Rasmus ever talks about it that’s how he treats it. ‘You were out a long time,’ is what he says, or, ‘Haven’t you got anything to do in the house?’
When he’d finished making Bjørn’s kennel he wanted to make a Noah’s Ark for the boys. It was the idea of carving all those little animals that appealed to him, I expect. If I want to speak to him between the hours of, say, eight in the morning and nine at night, I have to interrupt one of his business deals or else take myself down to the workshop. I went down there yesterday morning and asked him if he knew how old his sons were.
