Well, thank you enormously, and I hope your own life is satisfac. and offspring all you wd. wish.
With love from Sylvia W.
24 January 1987
Dear Julian,
One of the mads here has been seeing ghosts. They show themselves as little green flashes, in case you should wish to spot one, and they followed her here when she gave up her flat. Trouble is, whereas they were benign in their previous location, they have reacted to finding themselves incarcerated in an Old Folkery by playing the merry devil. We are each of us allowed a small refrigerator in our “cubicles” in case of Night Starvation, and Mrs. Galloway fills hers with chocolates and bottles of sweet sherry. So, what have the sprites been up to in the middle of the night but eating her chocolates and drinking her sherry! We all demonstrated due concern when this was raised—the deaf showing more concern, no doubt because they were unable to comprehend—and tried to offer condolences for her loss. This went on for a while, long faces being in order, until one day she came into Lunch looking like the Cheshire Cat. “I got my own back!” she cried. “I drank one of their bottles of sherry which they left in the fridge!” So we all celebrated. Alas, prematurely, for the chocolate continued to suffer nocturnal depredation, despite handwritten notes, both stern and pleading, which Mrs. G took to leaving attached to the refrigerator door. (What languages do you think ghosts can read?) The matter finally went to the full assembly of Pilcher House one suppertime, with Warden and Sgt-Major present. How to prevent the spirits from eating her chocolate? All looked to Head Girl, who miserably failed the test. And for once I have to praise the Sgt-Major, who showed an estimable sense of irony, unless—which is perhaps more likely—he actually believes in the existence of the little green flashes. “Why not get a fridge lock?” he suggested. Unanimous applause from Ds and Ms, whereupon he offers to go himself to B&Q to obtain one for her. I shall keep you au courant, in case this is useful for one of your books. Do you swear as much as your characters, I should like to know? Nobody swears here, except me, still internally.
Did you know my great friend Daphne Charteris? Maybe your great-aunt’s sister-in-law? No, you said you were Middle Clarce in origin. She was one of our first aviatrices, Upper Clarce, daughter of a Scottish laird, used to ferry Dexter cattle around after she got her licence. One of only eleven women trained to fly a Lancaster in the war. Bred pigs and always named the runt of the litter Henry after her youngest brother. Had a room in her house known as the “Kremlin” where even her husband wasn’t allowed to disturb her. I always thought that was the secret of a happy marriage. Anyway, husband died and she went back to the family house to live with the runt Henry. The place was a pigsty, but they lived quite contentedly, getting deafer together by the month. When they could no longer hear the doorbell, Henry rigged up a car horn as a replacement. Daphne always refused to wear hearing aids on the grounds that they caught in the branches of trees.
In the middle of the night, while the ghosties are trying to pick Mrs. Galloway’s refrigerator lock to get at her Creme Eggs, I lie awake and watch the moon slowly move between the pines and think of the advantages of dying. Not that we are given a choice. Well, yes, there is self-slaughter, but that has always struck me as vulgar and self-important, like people who walk out of the theatre or the symphony concert. What I mean is—well, you know what I mean.
Main reasons for dying: it’s what others expect when you reach my age; impending decrepitude and senility; waste of money—using up inheritance—keeping together brain-dead incontinent bag of old bones; decreased interest in The News, famines, wars, etc.; fear of falling under total power of Sgt-Major; desire to Find Out about Afterwards (or not?).
Main reasons for not dying: have never done what others expect, so why start now; possible distress caused to others (but if so, inevitable at any time); still only on B at Lie Brewery; who would infuriate Sgt-Major if not me?
—then I run out. Can you suggest others? I find that For always comes out stronger than Against.
Last week one of the mads was discovered stark naked at the bottom of the garden, suitcase filled with newspapers, apparently waiting for the train. No trains anywhere near the Old Folkery, needless to say, since Beeching got rid of the branch lines.
Well, thank you again for writing. Forgive
epistolomania.
Sylvia
P.S. Why did I tell you that? What I was trying to say about Daphne is that she was always someone who looked forward, almost never back. This probably seems not much of a feat to you, but I promise it gets harder.
5 October 1987
Dear Julian,
Wouldn’t you think language was for the purpose of communication? I was not allowed to teach at my first practice school (training college), only to listen to classes, as I got the tu of the Passé Simple wrong. Now if ever I had been taught Grammer, as opposed to Knowing French, I could have retorted that nobody would ever say “Lui écrivis-tu?” or whatever. At my “school” we were mainly taught phrases without analysis of tenses involved. I have constant letters from a Frenchwoman with an ordinary secondary education who happily writes “J’était” or “Elle s’est blessait” regardless. Yet my boss, who dismissed me, pronounced her French Rs with that horrid muted sound used in English. I am glad to say all that is much improved and we no longer rhyme “Paris” with “Marry.”
I am not sure as yet whether the long letters I write have lapsed into senile garrulity. The point, Mr. Novelist Barnes, is that Knowing French is different from Grammer, and that this applies to all aspects of life. I cannot find the letter in which you told me about meeting a writer even more antique than me (Gerrady? sp?—I looked for him in the library but could not find; in any case I shall surely have conked out before getting to the Gs). As I recall, he asked if you believed in survival after death and you answered No and he replied, “When you get to my age, you might.” I am not saying there is life after death, but I am certain of one thing, that when you are thirty or forty you may be very good at Grammer, but by the time you get to be deaf or mad you also need to know French. (Do you grasp what I mean?)
Oh! oh! oh! for a real croissant! Yet French bread is made with French flour. Do they get that in your part of the world? Last night we had corned beef hash and baked beans; I wish I didn’t love my food so. Sometimes I dream of apricots. You cannot buy an apricot in this country, they all taste of cotton wool impregnated with Austerity orange juice. After frateful scene with Sgt-Major I cut lunch and had a samwidge and knickerbocker glory in town.
You write that you are not afraid of dying as long as you don’t end up dead as a result. That sounds casuistical to me. Anyway, perhaps you won’t notice the transition. My friend Daphne Charteris took a long time a-dying. “Am I dead yet?” she used to ask, and sometimes, “How long have I been dead for?” Her final words of all were, “I’ve been dead for a while now. Doesn’t feel any different.”
There’s nobody here to talk to about death. Morbid, you see, and not naice. They don’t mind talking about ghosties and poltergeists and suchlike, but whenever I get going on the real subject the Warden & Sgt-Major tell me I mustn’t scare the ducks. All part of my battle against the tabooing of death as a subject—or Fear of It—and the energy with which the medical profession tries to stop the dying from dying, keeps alive babies born brainless, & enables barren women to have artificial children. “We have been trying for a baby for six years”—Well! so you go without. The other evening we all got double-yolked eggs— “Why? This is strange.” “They are giving the pullets fertility drugs to bring them into lay earlier.”
What do I keep in my refrigerator, you ask? My purse, if you must know, my address book, my correspondence, and a copy of my will. (Fire.)
Family still united? Yours? Any more children? I see you are doing your Modern Father stuff well. George V used to bathe his children, Q. Mary didn’t.
V. best wishes, and succès fou to you,
Sylvia
14 Octo
ber 1987
Merci, charmant Monsieur, for the food parcel. Alas, the combination of the GPO & the Sgt-Major meant that the croissants were not as fresh as when they left you. I insisted on having a General Distribution of this Lease Lend, so all the deafs and mads got half each. “Poddon? Poddon? Wozzit? Wozzit?” They prefer floppy triangles of white bread toast with Golden Shred. If I pushed the leftovers through the letter-box for Dominic—still in window—do you think Warden wd have me gated? Sorry only postcard, arm not good. Best wishes, Sylvia
10 December 1987
Barnes comes at about chest level, Brookner you have to get on the floor. I do think her “Look at Me” is a beautiful piece of tragic writing, unlike “King Lear” which I have just read for the 1st time. Apart from some purple patches, plot and characterization total balderdash. Emperor’s clothes paradigm (word I’ve just learnt from crossword). Only postcard—Arm. V. best wishes, Sylvia
14 January 1989
Dear Julian,
(Yes! Old Winstanley), Please forgive more senile garrulity. Also state of handwriting, which wd shame Nanny.
Fascinating telly of lion-cubs trying to eat porc-épic (why épic?—Larousse says corruption of porcospino which is obvious but why not épine instead of épic?). I am not really attracted to the hedgehog—I had a cattle grid at my cottage into which hedgehogs constantly fell. I found lifting them out by hand was the simplest way, but they are vermin-ridden and have inexpressive eyes, rather mean.
Foolish and senile of me to go on about your children when you say you have none. Plse forgive. Of course you make things up in your stories.
As I am eighty-four and still have an excellent memory I know it is inevitable that coincidences should occur, e.g. parrots, French scholars, etc. But then the Famous Art Person. And a month ago, I learned that my great-niece Hortense Barret is to go to university to read agricultural science. (We had Forestry in our day. Did you have Foresters? Earnest young men with leather patches on their elbows who lived in colonies near Parks Road and went off together for Field Work?) So the same week I am reading a book about hydrangeas and learn that the Hortensia may have been named after a young woman called Hortense Barret who went on the Bougainville expedition with the botanist Commerson. Enquiries reveal that there were however many generations between them, in and out of marriage, names changing, but the line was direct. What do you make of that? And why had I chosen to read a book about hydrangeas? I own neither pot-plant nor window-box nowadays. So you see, one can’t attribute all this to Great Age and Good Memory. It is as if a Mind from outside—not my own unconscious mind—were saying, “Take note of this: we have our eyes upon you.” I am agnostic, I may say, though could accept the hypothesis of a “guide” or “surveillant,” even a Guardian Angel.
If so, what about it? I am only telling you that I get this impression of a constant dig-in-the-ribs. “Watch it!” and this I find of signal use to me. May not be your pigeon at all. To me it provides evidence of educational intent from Higher Mind. How is it done? Search me!
As I am on the psychic belt I notice how evolution in the understanding of the Mind is progressing almost at the speed of technology: ectoplasm as much dated as rushlights.
Mrs. Galloway—she of the fridge lock and the green sprites—“passed on” as the Warden likes to say. Everything passes here. Pass the marmalade, she passed such a remark, Did it Pass? they ask one another of their troublesome bowel movements. What do you think will happen to the little green flashes, I asked one dinner-time. Ds & Ms considered topic and eventually concluded that they probably passed on too.
Amitiés, sentiments distingués, etc.,
Sylvia W.
17 January 1989
I suppose, if you are Mad, and you die, & there is an Explanation waiting, they have to make you unmad first before you can understand it. Or do you think being Mad is just another veil of consciousness around our present world which has nothing to do with any other one?
Do not conclude from Cathedral postcard that I have stopped Thinking own Thoughts. “Vegetable Mould and Earthworms” in all probability. But perhaps not.
S.W.
19 January 1989
So Mr. Novelist Barnes,
If I asked you “What is life?”, you would probably reply, in so many words, that it is all just a coincidence.
So, the question remains, What sort of coincidence?
S.W.
3rd April 1989
Dear Mr. Barnes,
Thank you for your letter of 22nd March. I regret to inform you that Miss Winstanley passed on two months ago. She fell and broke her hip on the way to the post-box, and despite the best efforts of the hospital, complications set in. She was a lovely lady, and certainly the life and soul of the party around Pilcher House. She will be long remembered and much missed.
If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours faithfully,
J. Smyles (Warden)
10th April 1989
Dear Mr. Barnes,
Thank you for your letter of the 5th inst.
In clearing out Miss Winstanley’s room, we found a number of items of value in the refrigerator. There was also a small packet of letters but because they had been placed in the freezing compartment and then the fridge had been unfortunately switched off for defrosting they had suffered much damage. Although the printed letterhead was still legible we thought it might be distressing to the person to receive them back in this condition so regrettably we disposed of them. Perhaps this is what you were referring to.
We still miss Miss Winstanley very much. She was a lovely lady, and certainly the life and soul of the party around Pilcher House during her time here.
Yours faithfully,
J. Smyles (Warden)
Appetite
He has his good days. Of course, he has his bad days, too, but let’s not think about them for the moment.
On his good days, I read to him. I read from one of his favourites: The Joy of Cooking, The Constance Spry Recipe Book, Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery. They may not always work, but they’re the most reliable, and I’ve learnt what he prefers and what to avoid. Elizabeth David’s no use, and he hates the modern celebrity chefs. “Ponces,” he shouts: “Ponces with quiffs!” He doesn’t like TV cooks either. “Look at those cheap clowns,” he’ll say, even though I’m just reading to him.
I once tried Bon Viveur’s London 1954 on him, and was that a mistake. The doctors warned me that over-excitement was bad for him. But that’s not much to tell me, is it? All the wisdom they’ve given me over the last years can be boiled down to this: we don’t really know what causes it, we don’t know how best to treat it, he’ll have his good days and his bad days, don’t over-excite him. Oh yes, and it is of course incurable.
He’ll sit in his chair, in his pyjamas, with his dressing-gown on, shaved as well as I can do him, and with his feet tucked fully into his slippers. He isn’t one of those men who wear down the backs of their slippers and turn them into espadrilles. He’s always been very proper. So he sits with his feet together, heels in his slippers, waiting for me to open the book. I used to do this at random, but it caused problems. On the other hand, he doesn’t want me to go straight to what he likes. I have to seem to stumble across it.
So I’ll open The Joy of Cooking at page 422, say, and read out “Lamb Forestière or Mock Venison.” Just the title, not the recipe. I won’t look up for a response, but I’ll be aware of him. Then “Braised Leg of Lamb,” then “Braised Lamb Shanks or Trotters,” then “Lamb Stew or Navarin Printanier.” Nothing—but nothing is what I expect. Then “Irish Stew,” and I’ll sense him lift his head slightly. “Four to six servings,” I’ll respond. “This famous stew is not browned. Cut into 1½ inch cubes: 1½lbs lamb or mutton.”
“Can’t get mutton nowadays,” he’ll say.
And for a moment I’ll be happy. Only a moment, but that’s better than not at all, isn’t it?
Then I’ll continue. Onions, potatoes, peel and slice, heavy pan, salt and pepper, bay leaf, finely chopped parsley, water or stock.
“Stock,” he’ll say.
“Stock,” I’ll repeat. Bring to boil. Cover closely. Two and a half hours, shake the pot periodically. All moisture absorbed.
“That’s it,” he’ll agree. “All moisture absorbed.” He says it slowly, making it sound like a piece of philosophy.
He was always proper, as I say. Some people pointed the finger when we first met; jokes about doctors and nurses. But it wasn’t like that. Besides, eight hours a day walking back and forth to reception, mixing amalgam and holding the saliva drain may be a turn-on to some people but it used to give me a bad back. And I didn’t think he was interested. And I didn’t think I was interested either.
Pork Tenderloin with Mushrooms and Olives. Pork Chops Baked in Sour Cream. Braised Pork Chops Creole. Braised Devilled Pork Chops. Braised Pork Chops with Fruit.
“With fruit,” he’ll repeat, making his face into a funny snarl, pushing out his lower lip. “Foreign muck!”
He doesn’t mean it, of course. Or he didn’t mean it. Or he wouldn’t have meant it. Whichever one’s correct. I remember my sister Faith asking me when I first went to work for him what he was like, and I said, “Well, I suppose he’s a cosmopolitan gentleman.” And she giggled, and I said, “I don’t mean he’s Jewish.” I just meant that he travelled, and went to conferences, and had new ideas like playing music or having nice pictures on the wall and that day’s newspapers in the waiting-room instead of yesterday’s. He also used to make notes after the patient had left: not just on the treatment, but on what they’d talked about. So that the next time they could continue the conversation. Everyone does this nowadays, but he was one of the first. So when he says Foreign Muck and makes a face he doesn’t really mean it.