I had to admit I hadn’t, not from cover to cover. I didn’t know at the time that very few people had.
He spoke for an hour. He accepted my coffee and biscuits and went on talking. I wish I could remember more of what he said; it was extremely above my head. Had I read Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann?
I hadn’t but I had heard of it. I evaded the question by taking a chance: ‘But that is about something in particular.’
He said it contained nothing but details, and went on. Had I read Proust?
Yes, I had read Proust.
‘And you say it’s about something in particular?’
It was twelve noon. The angel of the Lord brought the tidings … ‘Well, it’s about everything in particular, isn’t it?’
The word was made flesh …
‘Well, my novel is about everything in particular.’
Hail Mary, full of grace …
‘So it is,’ I said. ‘But it isn’t Proust.’
‘So you’re looking for another Proust?’ he said. ‘One isn’t enough?’
I forget how I got him out of the office; I only remember his going. I recall that the date was 1st November and that an evening paper showed the portrait of Winston Churchill by Graham Sutherland which was presented to him by the Houses of Parliament, and which, after his death years later, his wife awesomely destroyed; and I wonder in the night what her real reason was. I wonder, too, what has happened to the beautiful young man and his large book, so large that he had to hold it in two parts, one under each arm, as he left the office.
Now, it fell to me to give advice to many authors which in at least two cases bore fruit. So I will repeat it here, free of charge. It proved helpful to the type of writer who has some imagination and wants to write a novel but doesn’t know how to start.
‘You are writing a letter to a friend,’ was the sort of thing I used to say. ‘And this is a dear and close friend, real — or better — invented in your mind like a fixation. Write privately, not publicly; without fear or timidity, right to the end of the letter, as if it was never going to be published, so that your true friend will read it over and over, and then want more enchanting letters from you. Now, you are not writing about the relationship between your friend and yourself; you take that for granted. You are only confiding an experience that you think only he will enjoy reading. What you have to say will come out more spontaneously and honestly than if you are thinking of numerous readers. Before starting the letter rehearse in your mind what you are going to tell; something interesting, your story. But don’t rehearse too much, the story will develop as you go along, especially if you write to a special friend, man or woman, to make them smile or laugh or cry, or anything you like so long as you know it will interest. Remember not to think of the reading public, it will put you off.’
In the two cases where this method succeeded with first novels they did very well. It was also successful in other cases with short stories.
On 1st December Martin York was sentenced to his seven years’ imprisonment. Later, for Christmas, I wrote to him at Wormwood Scrubs but like so many others who had written, I got no reply. He had gone into the shadows. The day after the sentence the papers were full of articles by some of his former acquaintances testifying to his chaotic world, his boyish charm, his reckless drinking and spending, his wild schemes and ambitions to become a world tycoon. Among the writers of the articles were some who I knew had been heavily in Martin’s debt. There was the first of many pieces by Hector Bartlett. He insinuated, without actually stating, that he himself had been a victim of Martin York’s fraudulence, which I knew to be totally untrue.
In those sad days of early December I began to compare in my mind the two publishing houses that fate had led me to. Before I fell asleep at Church End Villas, South Kensington, I would lie, looking at the darkness for at least an hour, recalling the noise, and the frantic, fugitive atmosphere of Ullswater Press. Cathy the book-keeper, Ivy the telephonist and typist, Patrick the packer and his visiting wife Mabel, wild-eyed and accusing. The wear and tumble of a sinking firm, and Martin York sitting in his chair, needing company. There had been a great deal wrong with the business, but was there anything more wrong with the people themselves than there was with the élite company at the far grander and money-stable Mackintosh & Tooley? It seemed to me more than ever that the staff at Mackintosh & Tooley had been deliberately chosen for some slightly grotesque quality; and although these were all much better qualified, educated, and led more facilitated and privileged lives than those poorly paid hands at the late Ullswater Press, there was really something saner and healthier about the Ullswater staff. They had their oddities but they had been chosen in spite of, not because of them.
Reflecting thus, one night I was suddenly moved to switch on the light, get out of bed and look at myself in the long glass on the inside of my clothes cupboard. I stood there, massive in my loose, warm nightdress. What was wrong with me? Why had I been chosen by Mackintosh & Tooley? It was then the reason dawned on me: I was immensely too fat. I was overweight, I thought, to the point that anyone employing me must be kinky. It was plain to me that no-one who had a complaint to utter or anything against the firm, especially an aggrieved author, could express themselves strongly to me. It would have been unkind. It would have been like attacking their mother. Above all, it would have looked bad. I was one of the Mackintosh & Tooley alibis.
From that night I decided to eat and drink half. Only half of everything I normally ate, in any circumstances. And I decided to tell nobody at all about my plan. Just to say, if pressed, that I’d had enough. And just to consume half, or perhaps even a quarter, until I reached a reasonable weight and size. And I started next morning eating less, drinking less.
The act fitted in with my sadness in those early days of December 1954. Not many days later, just as I was leaving the office, came a screaming phone call from Mabel with her usual accusations. Patrick evidently came into the room from where she was phoning, for he shouted above her voice into the phone. ‘Take no notice, Mrs Hawkins. Please take no offence. Mabel’s not well.’
I thought he meant not well in the head, which she obviously wasn’t. I said, ‘Mabel must see a psychiatrist.’
‘I’m going into hospital tomorrow,’ Mabel said, more quietly. ‘And, Mrs Hawkins, you’ve been so good to Patrick. I only wish you wouldn’t sleep with him in your spare time.’
She was operated on next day, poor young woman, but nothing could have saved her from the galloping malignant disease that she died of within a week. I visited her twice in the hospital. She recognized me, but was glazed and doped. I went to her cremation at Golders Green and seeing her coffin slide away, I regretted I had ever thought ill of Mabel, or treated her like the nuisance she had been. Oh Mabel, come back; come back, Mabel, and persecute me again. Patrick cried all the way through. He told me, ‘I knew she had mental trouble. But she was always all right physically. This came on so quick, so quick, Mrs Hawkins.’
To my great joy my black lace evening dress needed to be taken in a good inch both sides when, in January of 1955, I tried it on with a view to wearing it at a smart dinner party, how smart, I did not quite know until I got there. In fact, until I got there I didn’t realize it was my first smart London dinner party. Up to that time I had been out to dinner a great many times, at friends’ private houses or in restaurants. But never, so far, on such a formal occasion.
The invitation card was on my desk one morning, ‘Mr Ian and Lady Philippa Tooley request the pleasure of the company of Mrs Hawkins …’ At the lower corner were the words ‘Black tie’, which I knew to mean I had to wear an evening dress; but that was all I knew. I explained to Milly, who handled the invitation with interest, that the black tie was what the men had to wear. I replied that Mrs Hawkins had pleasure in accepting Mr Ian and Lady Philippa Tooley’s kind invitation … And there I was in Wanda’s room, having my black lace dress pinned and tucked, and the neckline cut low, with a view to its b
eing reduced to my latest size and remodelled, as Wanda put it, to bring it up to date.
Wanda’s room was still the workshop of old. Piles of clothes to be altered, and among them another dress of mine. She often altered dresses for me, but this was the first time she had to take one in.
‘I have such terrible rheumatism,’ said Wanda, who was on her knees, with her pins, sticking them abundantly into my dress. T’m behind with my work.’ I told her the lace dress was urgent.
It was difficult for her to move. She was having treatment, she said.
‘What treatment are you getting?’
Wanda evaded the question; and perhaps, I felt, I was too inquisitive. All Wanda said was, ‘It takes time… got to have faith.’
But I couldn’t forbear to pass her a piece of advice. ‘Rheumatism, Wanda,’ I said, ‘takes many forms. I hope you’ve got a good doctor. However, whatever it is you’re taking for your rheumatism, believe me, it’s a great help to eat a banana a day.’ I myself had suffered attacks of rheumatic pain two years before and on the advice of an American negress whom I met in the bus, I had started on the cure of a banana every day, since when I had felt no further pains in my legs. All this I told to Wanda while she was snipping round my neckline. (I omitted to tell her that for the past six weeks I had eaten but half a banana a day.) But Wanda only frowned, creaking herself to her feet. I noticed her head shifted jerkily towards a point on the floor below the window. Wanda was still haunted; all her old confidence and tranquillity had left her. Now, as I turned round at her request for some further pinning-up, I saw, under the window on the floor, a black leather-covered case, very much resembling Ian Tooley’s radionic Box. I thought it so unlikely that Wanda, a fervent cult-Catholic, would have any traffic with the Box that I felt this was some other container with fittings, some sewing or dressing-case.
Wanda said, ‘How did you come to lose the inches, Mrs Hawkins?’
‘Nature is adjusting itself,’ I said. ‘And not before time.’
I was still automatically studying the black case under the window; Wanda’s hands trembled a little with her pins. This was unlike her.
On the chance that Wanda’s box was truly the Box, I said, ‘You work the Box?’
‘What box?’ said Wanda. She had turned scared. I thought she was going to give that cry of hers.
‘I mean a box that is used in what people call radionics. They claim to cure people, and presumably do other things.’
‘Other things?’
‘One would suppose … But anyhow, I don’t believe in it.’
‘I don’t know about Box. Maybe you get a bit thinner still, Mrs Hawkins?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘I hope to lose a lot more weight.’ I felt quite hungry as I said it with the prospect of months ahead of eating half. But I didn’t tell Wanda my secret, and she didn’t tell me any more of hers.
I gave the Box a rather contemptuous glance when I left, dramatically hoping Wanda would notice it. It seemed to me that Wanda was now afraid of me and regretted her half-confidence.
‘I need another fitting for your dress, Mrs Hawkins. I promise it comes out lovely. Another fitting, tomorrow night. Keep well.’
What did she mean: keep well?
I was touchy at that time. Who should ring me up, just as I was getting ready to go to the Tooleys’ dinner party, but Isobel’s Daddy?
‘Good evening, Mrs Hawkins, Hugh Lederer speaking.’
‘Yes, Mr Lederer?’
‘You sound as if you’re in a hurry.’
‘I am, rather. I’m going out to dinner.’
‘Well, lucky man, whoever he is. I saw you in church last Sunday but you didn’t see me.’
‘No, I didn’t see you.’
‘You were in a hurry, then, too. And if I might say so you were looking very pretty.’
It was true that the loss of ten pounds’ weight was beginning to give my bone-structure a chance. I was glad to hear this speech of Hugh Lederer, but I had a good idea what he was ringing me about: Isobel’s problem.
‘I really am in rather a hurry, now, Mr Lederer. I have to get dressed, and —’
‘Mrs Hawkins, will you dine with me tomorrow?’
‘I’m afraid ‘I’m can’t,’
‘Friday, then?’
‘Is it about Isobel?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s one of the things.’
‘I really can’t help you, Mr Lederer. I found her a job with a chemical export firm but she didn’t want it. There are very few jobs in publishing. I’ve already told you.’
‘It’s a personal problem. Isobel has a difficulty.’
I said, ‘Why don’t you let her solve her own problems?’
‘Oh, Mrs Hawkins.’
‘I’ ve got to go, now.’
‘But Isobel apart, can’t we meet and talk? And I wish you’d call me Hugh.’
‘I’ll have to ring you back. What’s your number, Mr Lederer?’
He gave me a number and I repeated it slowly enough to make out I was writing it down, which I wasn’t.
* * *
The Tooleys’ house in Lord North Street was one of a row near enough to the Houses of Parliament to contain an old bell for members. It was, in fact, narrower and smaller than Milly’s Victorian dwelling. The door was opened by a manservant in such an ordinary brown suit that it seemed to mean to tell you that his employers moved with the times. I was greatly taken by the charm of the interior. I had expected something larger and more imposing: something of a challenge, and here there was none. But there was no time for me to take in more impressions, for a few people were arriving behind me, and when I had left my coat I was waved upstairs where the social noise was going on. Ian Tooley met me on the threshold of the drawing-room and introduced me to his wife, Lady Philippa, and the other guests, and put in my hand the dry sherry I asked for.
Two of the guests already present I knew by name and newspaper pictures: Sir Arthur Cary, the tycoon, who stood somewhat apart, and his vivacious wife who loquaciously held court in a group at the other end of the room.
‘Mrs Hawkins was an editor at Ullswater Press,’ said Ian Tooley, urging Sir Arthur towards me. ‘And now we are so fortunate as to have her with us.’
‘Ullswater Press …’ said Sir Arthur, and gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Well, Martin York certainly took me for a ride.’ He continued to laugh so much that I wondered how seriously he had been taken for a ride, and, if it was such a light-hearted matter, why he had caused Martin York to go to prison for seven years.
We sat down fourteen for dinner, in a dining-room with rose-pink walls and a ceiling of a terracotta colour. The pictures were flower paintings in oils, good but not moving, and one portrait of a man, early Victorian, who resembled neither Ian Tooley nor Lady Philippa although he did look like somebody’s ancestor. Lady Philippa wore a black lace dress, slightly old-fashioned, remarkably like mine. This made me feel relaxed, it confirmed that I was suitably dressed, and I sensed from her swift sweeping glance that Lady Philippa was mildly amused to find herself dressed virtually the same as another woman in the room.
I sat between one of their cousins, a young man named Aubrey who worked at Sotheby’s and a red-faced retired Brigadier General. The candles duly twinkled, the silver glowed and the chatter went on. I made some headway with Aubrey on the subject of Lucky Jim, not long published, but when it came to the Brigadier I found him difficult at first. He seemed to glare at me, with watery small eyes, out of his very red face. But his glare was evidently only a mannerism, or perhaps something medical, for although he didn’t cease to glare he came round to a conversation when I said something to the effect that he must have had an interesting life.
‘Could write a book,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you?’
’Can’t concentrate.’
‘For concentration,’ I said, ‘you need a cat. Do you happen to have a cat?’
‘Cat? No. No cats. Two dogs. Quite enough.’
br /> So I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.
The Brigadier listened with deep interest as he ate, his glaring eyes turning back and forth between me and his plate. Then he said, ‘Good. Right. I’ll go out and get a cat.’ (I must tell you here that three years later the Brigadier sent me a copy of his war memoirs, published by Mackintosh & Tooley. On the jacket cover was a picture of himself at his desk with a large alley-cat sitting inscrutably beside the lamp. He had inscribed it ‘To Mrs Hawkins, without whose friendly advice these memoirs would never have been written — and thanks for introducing me to Grumpy.’ The book itself was exceedingly dull. But I had advised him only that a cat helps concentration, not that the cat writes the book for you.)
While I was talking to my neighbours at dinner, aware of the chatter and tinkle of forks along the rest of the table, I sneaked a glance at the amount everyone else was eating. It seemed enormous in relation to my half. The voices were expressing opinions on the following: numerous people I didn’t know; Billy Graham; Senator McCarthy; Colonel Nasser; again, Lucky Jim; the Box; and ‘They’, which meant they, the Government, they, the Americans, they, the Irish, and many other they’s; which left a very small world of ‘us’; also, Martin York and the shock to his poor father. One young woman took a second helping of a delicious concoction of fruit and frothy cream. She smiled across the table to me, ‘I’m eating, for two. Pregnant.’ Lady Philippa smiled and said, hastily, ‘When are you hoping to finish your lives?’ Which curious question, in a moment, resolved its logic by turning out to refer to the Lives of two saints which this girl was writing; I learned, too, with the half of my attention that was left over from my neighbours, that although she was only twenty-eight (my age) she already had five children. I assumed she was a Roman Catholic and reckoned that her helpings added up to four times mine. If I hadn’t been in conversation with the Brigadier and the young man who worked at Sotheby’s I would have advised her that eating for two is not desirable in pregnancy; and I resolved to tell her so later; but as things turned out, after dinner I forgot, being too puzzled and in the disarray of wondering if I had done the wrong thing about something else.