Читать книгу A Notable Woman - Jean Lucey Pratt - Страница 18

8.

Of Her Own Accord

Saturday, 22 July 1933 (aged twenty-three)

Jamaica.

It is astonishing how easily I am able to disconnect myself from the affairs and atmosphere that affect me in one place and absorb those of another. These last few days there has been a devil raging within me, and it was roused by the devil in Hugh Patrick (‘Bill’).

He has been such marvellous fun to know even for a little while. But now I am crazy to know more of him, to search those deeps in him that I know are there. There was something in him that responded to the cry in me. Oh, if I could have him for a few hours at ease by my side, that I may say all I want to say and hear all I know he would say in return. It was not that he is in the least like Chris either – feature or figure – but he has the same latent depth and warmth of feeling, the same light in his eyes when he looked at me sometimes, the same rather stiff, amused little gestures, the same masculine magnetism, the same superficial gay recklessness that I find so irresistible. God, what a lover he might be, and how wild and impossible my ideas sometimes are.

But he sails on Tuesday back to his wife in Truro.

How magnificently he will work in as the character of the tragic love affair in my novel – he and Chris combined. Why do I always get my deep feelings roused by married men? It wasn’t the sea. I want to have him teasing me again, pulling my hair and being thoroughly rude, then growing suddenly quiet. Miss Neil (fortune teller) read my hand on board: ‘You will not get married until you are about 45, then it will suddenly happen.’

And now I must not waste Pooh’s electric light any longer, it is past 1.30. The Jamaican night is raucous with the odd strange calls of its creatures. My sheet is scattered with moths and insects, fireflies glitter past the windows, mosquitoes nibble at any bare part of me they can find. It is marvellous being with Pooh again. To think I am the aunt of a most magnificent niece!⁴⁴

Monday, 31 July

Heat, damp sticky breathless heat, mosquitoes, flies, many moths, deep banks of green fern round the verandah, black ants scurrying across these atrocious Victorian tiles, Sam watering the roses, whistling as he handles the hose.

I never realised how hideous European clothes were until I saw them worn here. The girls adore pale pink georgette and bright shiny satins and flimsy hats. And why is our civilisation so efficient and so ugly? Everywhere one goes one finds the inevitable mark of the white conqueror’s Victorian heel. Beastly little houses, American advertisements, petrol pumps, cinemas. If someone would only put the black woman into loose brightly coloured skirts, beads and the gay head handkerchiefs many of them still wear. But as soon as she has won her freedom she must have her silk stockings and high-heeled shoes. And although they copy us so exactly and slavishly they hate us – all the black people. One can feel it everywhere. Except that everywhere the white man is feared and respected. But their deep envy and hate is there. Possibly the backwash, as Pooh suggests, of the bitterness of the slave.

Monday, 14 August

I am bored to the soles of my feet. Domestic bliss is all very well for the two people most closely concerned, but my God how tedious it can seem for the mere onlooker. I never realised how much older Pooh is to me until I met his wife Ivy and her friends. It is odd how the men in my family are attracted to the conventionally minded female. I feel rather mean to be criticising her while still a guest in her house, and she has admirably sterling qualities and will be loyal to her last breath. And she will look after him as he so badly needed looking after.

I don’t think a sub-tropical climate is really good for me. On Friday I shall have been here a month, half of my precious holiday will have gone, and I have done hardly anything. And I am not going to try to be Christian-minded about it. I came out here to have a good time, and I could have had it too if there were someone just to take me about a bit. It is a great pity Pooh must be so busy just as I get here.⁴⁵ I must have the most amazing powers of self-control and self-restraint that I can screw down my impatience and restlessness so that none of them seems aware of it.

I wonder if Pooh’s awkwardness with babies is due to my mother’s distaste for them – her fear of having any and her efforts not to have Pooh. It is all rather terrible, but she was marvellous enough to us when we did arrive.

I am tired of these correct, nice people with their stiff and settled ideas on proper ways of living. I want London and Gus again and a little Bohemianism.

Wednesday, 16 August

If I have to sit on that verandah much longer I shall explode. But what with hurricanes and snapped cables and babies I am hemmed in and doomed for 8 weeks. And even if the trams did manage to get going again tomorrow, where on earth can I go? The slopes of Kingston bore me to tears, and I am frightened of exploring those backstreets on my own. Well I can go home and tell the usual lies.

Saturday, 19 August

Please God don’t let this go on.

Tuesday, 22 August

Pooh is still repairing cables.

Monday, 28 August

I do so badly want a home of my own, wherein I could experiment with all the exciting recipes I came across in such mags as Good Housekeeping. Varieties of sandwiches for tea; stuffed vegetables for supper or light lunches; new kinds of sweets, grated milk chocolate for instance, with mashed banana and cream.

Now supposing I was suddenly left a million pounds, what should I do with it? Clothes of course. Learn French. I would take a room again in town. I would give the old folks a new car and chauffeur and a boiler for constant h.w. And I think I should give up architecture for the two-year Journalism course at UCL.

And now the damned idea’s got hold of me I realise there are no practical obstacles to prevent my taking the course. Only fear has held me from considering the idea seriously. Writing is the only thing that has meant anything to me. I’ve been doing architecture for nearly six years now (three years at the office and three years at college), so I ought to know whether I’m capable of dealing with it or not. And honestly, I’m afraid I’m not.

I am going to write books and plays and articles.

Wednesday, 30 August

I cannot really believe that this may be true. I am about to do the thing I have always dreamed of doing. Rain drips from the verandah, the mad Jamaican ants scurry across the tiles, and I am deciding to make a bold mad plunge into a river I don’t know. Nothing is going to shake me or make me change my mind anymore. But give me words, not bricks, to play with and I will build you palaces for kings.

Difficulties? Millions of them! Failure? Inevitable.

Thursday, 14 September

The last idle hour I shall probably ever have in Jamaica. A stray breeze blows through the room that has sheltered me for so many weeks. Net curtains fixed to the lower half of all the many windows. Cream-washed cracked plaster walls. Grey paint on sills and frames and boarded ceiling. The curtain rings of the wardrobe rattling in rhythm with window sashes. The cupboard door under the table blown open. Outside bananas and bamboo fronds. Coffee berries. Lime and orange trees. Ebony, pear, Spanish oak. Mauve convolvulus creeper, hibiscus flowers. Heavy sweet scent by the waterfalls. Night coming down over the mountains. Lights of Kingston miles below.

Tuesday, 19 September

I am the only unmarried female aboard.

Wednesday, 20 September

I am hating all these lousy old men, old men who want to make love to you. I would like to wring their necks and slap their faces, but I don’t. I encourage them by holding their hands, and then offend them by not trotting off into some dark corner after dinner to be slobbered over.

Dear God I’m getting some experience of men. But they are nearly all old, at that stage where any fairly young girl could amuse and flatter them enormously. How I hate being mauled about. Poor Billie B. (my brother’s boss in the Kingston office) – what a fool! What an undersized and boring fool! ‘You’re not afraid of me are you?’ as he tried to make me go for a drive with him. Afraid. If I had only said, ‘My dear man, I’m bored to tears with you, take me home at once,’ instead of soothing him gently by murmuring ‘Oh, I think you’re very nice …’ And how could I explain that foolishness when we danced at the Silver Slipper after eating ham and eggs, and that his touch excited in me memories of other men and other moons, and that as a man I despised him utterly, and that I compared him to some rotten, undeveloped kernel, green and mouldy in a dry and brittle shell.

Friday, 29 September

I don’t know whether I am more amused or angry with myself. But I do know there are a damn sight too many men on this ship, and I was very foolish to allow Neville into my cabin to say goodnight.

I loathe myself for that, and I don’t know how I’m going to get beyond this. There’s not one of them wouldn’t make love to me (or hasn’t tried) if I encouraged them enough, from the Captain downwards. Whether they have bets on it or not I can’t guess, but I know I’ve gone just a little too far with Nev and I wish to God I hadn’t. Reason said, ‘Why not?’ and instinct said, ‘No’. And once he was in my cabin, instinct said ‘Let him stay’ and reason said, ‘Send him away at once’. And there he is now writing letters. His presence naturally disturbs me. He has just asked me if I write poetry and says he is writing a fairy story. Oh Lord, oh Lord, what have I done?

Saturday, 30 September

‘But listen Jean,’ said Nev. ‘Making love on board ship means nothing.’ Which is just the crux of the whole matter. The whole bitter point of it. I want someone who will mean something to me.

My physical needs as a normal woman are badly wanting fulfilment. I’ve got to somehow make them understand that I have no anchor; that an ordinary full-sexed woman must centre her interests on one man, otherwise she must inevitably go to pieces.

I’ve learnt a lot from this voyage, and one thing from Nev which is forceful and important – that platonic friendships are impossible. To show my trust in my little boyfriends I left my door unbolted; although they had drunk too much, I knew I could trust them. But I’ve bolted it again.

Undated

Dearly beloved Pooh and family,

Home again, and I’m wondering if it’s three months or three minutes that I’ve been away. Everything is exactly the same here. The voyage was on the whole gorgeous fun. I was the only young unmarried female on board, and what a time I had. There were twelve passengers altogether, and they were all damn decent to me and danced divinely, added to which I got off (disgusting expression) with the Captain, quite an achievement if you know the Captain, while the ship’s doctor tried to get off with me. I used to annoy him by calling him Daddy. His wife was also on board, doing the round trip as a holiday. Then there was the fat and amusing little German commission agent. When I sat curled up on one of the settees at tea-time he used to stroke my ankles and tell me what a faithful husband he was and what a bad girl I was, and once when he had drunk too much beer said that it was fortunate we had not met sooner or there might have been trouble. Piglet managed to keep her head well above water although it was a strain at times.

Now I’m trying to concentrate on the session ahead of me. Pop has taken my decision to transfer to Journalism amazingly well. If he was at all distressed he is quite resigned to the change by now.

Wednesday, 18 October

I sat in the Refec drinking tea by myself feeling acutely lonely and very old.⁴⁶

How is one to get beyond oneself? To get into contact with people – easy and friendly contact. I must get to know the journalists of my year. It is not in the nature of human beings to remain solitary. One wants to feel one is popular and liked. But one wants only a few very intimate friends – people who really matter in one’s life.

All a matter of growth – of patience and endurance and courage.