[Virginia Woolf]

1955

  Hear the crickets chirping

  In the dewy grass.

  Bright little fireflies

  Twinkle as they pass.

  That’s my greatest ever poem. From when I was eight. Everything since has been a misguided, depressing distraction. Hear the crickets chirping. Birds, bees, spring, fall, all those subjects which are absolute gifts. Then adulthood rapes the mind and steals away true beauty, true passion.

  Isn’t nature wonderful? And now I’m no longer there. I am outside the universe, waiting to be removed from limbo and taken to heaven, hell or – best of all – silence.

  Daddy, you died shortly after I heard the crickets chirping in the dewy grass.

  At university, I studied everything I could. I sought out fact and opinion wherever I could. I took courses in French, Botany, Art, Government, History, Russian Literature, and of course, English, my major. I was an aspiring writer, but that was never a job. My occupation was cleaning— vegetable picking— nanny— waitress (or waiter, as it should be)— everything. Everyone I met made it into a story. Everyone I became made it into a poem.

  From ‘55 until ‘57, I was at university again. Beautiful Cambridge, shimmering in summer, delicate crystal in winter. I was between – a delicate crystal who shimmers – the autumnal leaf nearing my fall.

  By the time I graduated, I was already married to dear Ted.

  1956

  I met Ted as a Fulbright scholar in February. On June 16th we married. June 16th killed me. And February never helps. Ted’s profession was ‘writer’; mine merely ‘student’.

  A Yorkshire man who knew the countryside better than he knew his heart. A beautiful man, with his dashing English looks, his keen wit and his mind the endless source of wonder and insight.

  When I finished my final year of education – but never the end of learning – Ted taught at a local school, his rough Yorkshire ways chafing the delicate winter minds of children and turning the learning urchins into china poets.

  The Cambridge sons and daughters must never have suspected a Ted of Yorkshire birth would teach them how to rhyme, how to make metaphor and simile, how to alliterate and reiterate, and all the time, Ted shook his head at mistakes and carried on teaching. He was a great teacher, but not the classically Cambridge Great One.

  He can talk a foul phrase; that mouth made to do violence on.

  Through portico of our elegant house he would stalk. I stalk like a rook, brooding the winter throughout, gaunt hemlock prickling my heels as I rush away from that which I desire. The panther’s tread is on the stairs.

  We made a departure to Benidorm. No runaway train to another world, just a lost weekend of summer. No shimmer like Cambridge, but enough beauty and feeling to make me write those poems, those colossal poems, though I had no idea where or when they would end up.

  In October, the BBC called him forth. He was drawn into London for a reading of Yeats’s poetry. I was still unpublished, unregarded, unfertilised. That was where I found my loss. I am alone in my love for my own writing.

  1957

  My darling house in Cambridge. Stunning Cambridge, with its quaint view over my beloved Cam. The Cam moves slowly, being a mere tributary of the Great Ouse. It moves slowly and I see life gently flowing by. I love my mother Cambridge.

  We inhabit a strange world, Ted and I. Poetry written on the sides of used toilet roll tubes. Verse on the back of shopping lists, so every trip schedule reads: ‘Petals boat ants along the stream/Iceberg lettuce’ and ‘Bent double, waiting for compassion/Feta cheese’.

  I was sat in the armchair the whole year. I was sat reading. The man I loved before Ted. Jack Kerouac, oh, Jack Kerouac. We are on the road together, vaulting over streams and fields and downs and depressions and mood swings and discomfort. Ted came into the room and kissed me.

  ‘Ted,’ I said, ‘have you ever read On the Road?’

  ‘No,’ he said in his smooth Yorkshire brogue. ‘Is it any good?’

  ‘It’s the best.’

  ‘If it’s the best for you, I’ll read it.’

  We bought him a copy. A beautiful shiny book, from the bookshop on the corner of our street. We stepped out into the daylight, wincing at the sun, and looked down towards the Cam.

  ‘Shall we read outside?’ asked Ted, before my lips could beat him.

  ‘Yes.’

  We found a soft spot on the grass on the banks of the Cam. Ted lay down and started reading On the Road. I lay perpendicularly to him, with my head resting on his side.

  ‘I’m not feeling too well,’ I announced after some time.

  Ted ignored me. For the first time in our marriage, he ignored me.

  ‘Ted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not feeling too well.’

  ‘Can’t you see I’m reading.’

  I could see he was, but I needed him. ‘I’m really not okay.’

  ‘Can’t you take a paracetamol?’

  He can be unresponsive when he wants to be.

  The real Ted, the one in my mind, would have said, ‘No, do go on.’ This is not what the physical Ted said.

  ‘I guess I won’t bother you.’

  I remained silent as he continued reading his book.

  In June, we were scatterbrained, lost, distributed between the worlds of Europe and America. We left Cambridge for Yorkshire, then left Yorkshire for Southampton, then left Southampton for New York, then left New York for Wellesley, then left Wellesley for Cape Cod. By August, we were living in central England’s Northampton, me teaching at Smith College and bleeding poetry in the candlelit evenings.

  Rosebud, knot of worms, the tightness of my stomach. I had never longed for success. I had longed for happiness, and never found it. I wanted to be poor and merry with Ted or rich and successful, or poor and loved.

  Ted was gaining success. Everyone wanted to read his latest poems. They’d cry to have him speak them. And nobody wanted me. That was what my life was to be.

  1958

  I try not to bother Ted, because he’s so involved with his books. He spends so long at universities, schools and libraries, reading, writing, teaching for hours and hours after work has finished.

  'How are you, honey?' I asked when he returned home. He just mumbled something gruffly and wandered through to sit in front of the television.

  ‘Shall I just leave you here?’

  He didn’t respond, so I just left him there.

  In my room, I spent some time perusing my bookshelf. It was filled with all the wonderful books I collected over the years. It was still there. My own, personal copy of On the Road. Kerouac’s classic.

  I laid on my bed and picked up On the Road. I opened it for the third time (well, I open it to stroke its pages all the time, but this is a new complete reading).

  It gets more beautiful with each time. I am spreading layer upon layer onto Kerouac's work.

  We spend spring in Massachusetts, scattered again through the ether. April takes us to Harvard before we head back, where we read, inform, teach, yet always, always people see Ted the poet and me the housewife.

  How is it being married to a poet? they all say, not caring for the response. Perhaps they should ask Ted. He’s married to a poet.

  August takes us back to the BBC to read more of Ted’s poems. I am still unpublished, though I’ve written substantially more than him and mostly of a higher quality.

  When we end up in Boston, I take the time to indulge in reading again. My favourite works are the only thing which takes my mind from depression, and I love to live in beautiful worlds beyond.

  We spent our time sat around, reading The Tempest, me composing ‘Full Fathom Five’, and Ted working on his own stuff. I finished The Tempest quickly enough, and turned back to On the Road as quickly as I could, my relief on a down day.

  I couldn’t tell if Ted hated On the Road or not, but he interrupted my many rereadings of it. That was when he wanted me, not any other time, only when I began to read On the Road.


  ‘Sylvia,’ he said. ‘Sylvia, I need a word.’

  It’s only ever when he needs something that he talks to me.

  ‘Sylvia, I need something.’

  I continued to read.

  ‘Sylvia.’

  In my own time, I find a break, an even point in my book to split off and return to reality.

  ‘Sylvia, I’ve had a bad day.’

  I looked at him over the top of my Kerouac. ‘I’ve had plenty of bad days, yet you never listen to me.’

  ‘I really need a talk, Sylvia.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why do you love Kerouac?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why do you love Kerouac?’ Ted asked. ‘You spend so long in that book, reading over and over again. Why?’

  ‘Because it’s beautiful. Kerouac is beautiful.’

  Ted laid back on the grass, intrigued by my reading an author. It enthused him, perhaps, to imagine someone looking into books more successful than their own.

  ‘What would you do if you met him?’ asked Ted.

  ‘If I met Kerouac?’

  ‘Yeah. What would you do with him?’

  ‘I’d probably have a chat and tell him I like On the Road.’

  ‘Really? Nothing more?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, I thought you’d mess around a bit.’

  ‘Of course not. I’m yours,’ I said, kissing Ted. ‘Have I passed the test?’

  Ted didn’t have much more to say.

  1959

  Ted spends much of his time sucking a lollipop. I can’t abide by it. He sucks his lollipop like the overgrown child he is. I watch, like a keeper reviewing an ape, but have nothing to say.

  I haven’t the time today for Ted nor for his lollipop. My heart is on creation and my mind is on fire.

  Of course, I can survive on my own. I am an accomplished poet of my own right, despite what some might say.

  Just me and my mind. It would be bliss. Or a nightmare. I gave it a go, the old college try.

  I looked at Ted. He looked back at me. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m down, Ted.’

  He put down his book. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘One of your friends asked me what it’s like to be married to a poet.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘Ted, I am a poet.’

  ‘I know you’re a poet.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t the world know?’ I shouted.

  ‘Sylvia, you’re a beautiful artist. You don’t need anyone else to verify that.’

  ‘It may be greedy, but I’d still like some recognition to make me feel the love I deserve.’

  Ted had no words, and no actions other than sleep. I lusted after the sleep as he had it. An endless abyss, which he voluntarily wakes up from in a heavy break each morning. I wouldn’t be foolish enough to wake.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ I told him.

  ‘Neither can I,’ whispered Ted. ‘Just relax and read a book.’

  I groaned and sighed in one painful bundle. ‘Why do you never talk to me any more?’

  ‘I am talking to you.’

  ‘You aren’t really talking to me. You’re ignoring the question, brushing me off.’

  ‘I’m being serious,’ Ted said in another dismissive tone. ‘Sit down and read a book.’

  ‘I need to talk to you. I need you to be there for me.’

  From here, I desperately needed to relax. I headed through to my bedroom, and once more picked up On the Road. My favourite, a work perpetually able to take my to the land which I so desperately needed to travel to.

  I cried that night because I knew I would die. Even if I could stop I depression, I would never be able to prevent I body from crumbling into mortality.

  I looked back at Kerouac’s words. They were the only consolation now.

  It was at this point that I disappeared. The saviour that was Kerouac led me into a deadly realm of freedom.

  A gentle, modest saviour. He would not help me indefinitely, but he allowed me the freedom to exist in my very own abstract world. I could now be beyond human understanding. I was finally free, but only for a short while.

  On the Road was simply perfect. No other book allows for such free emotion.

  In the lounge, Ted was stretched out across the sofa, nose deep in On the Road still.

  Meanwhile, Ted had no idea what my thoughts were. He had no idea how angry I was. He had no idea I had been suffering from depression more powerfully than any point in the previous decade.

  I was disillusioned. My mind was all over the place. And Ted paid no attention, instead choosing to read his book. I didn’t know or care what book he was reading. I didn’t ask. I needed attention. I needed serious help. As soon as possible.

  1962

  I have realised why they call it labor. I am in labor. After months upon months of walking like a watermelon on ivory, the day has come when I must receive my child unto the world.

  And when he arrives, it is the happiest moment of my life. For a blissful eternity, all the hatred and fear in the world fades away as I gaze longingly at the innocent, carefree life I have brought into the world.

  Nicholas, my precious baby, lies gently in my arms. Free temporarily from the woes of the world. In 47 years, he will kill himself.

  Blasted Ted! Ted, you scoundrel! With a student? With one of your own students? Ted, you blasted scoundrel, how could you?

  I looked at him, my scathing glares cutting shards into his face. But he doesn’t care. He just pretends that nothing has ever happened. He sat down on the sofa, comfortable as the womb, and started to read his paper.

  ‘What do think you’re doing?’ I asked angrily. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t hold it in.

  'I'm reading,' he said in his typical attempt at wit. 'It's a concept you may or may not be familiar with.'

  I wasn’t having any of it. Not today. Not after what he had done.

  'I’m familiar with reading,’ I said, littering my every word with excess spite. ‘What I’m not familiar with is sleeping around.’

  Ted sat up in shock. ‘Who’s sleeping around?’

  ‘There is work to be done. I can’t stand timewasting.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Ted growled.

  ‘You. I know you’re unfaithful.’

  Ted looked down sadly, with some remorse but not enough. There could never be enough remorse. ‘So you found out about Assia and me?’

  That was too much. I collapsed into the chair and started crying my eyes out.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sylvia.’

  ‘Who’s Assia?’ I screamed.

  ‘You said you knew.’

  ‘I knew about you and that college tart! I didn’t know there was one with a name.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Who’s Assia?’

  ‘She’s another woman.’

  I sank to tears, hating myself for my own depravity. From the beacon of independent hope I had once been, I had now married a man who didn’t know the meaning of respect. ‘Why does there have to be another woman?’

  1963

  On the Road had the perfect characters. The isolated Sal. The lone man, travelling the road to explore his own being.

  I am Sal. I am the lone traveller, meandering my way from one place to another. Nowhere is my home and no time is now.

  I looked over towards Ted, sat in the corner of the room, uncomfortable in our old armchair, but content to read his book. I didn’t care what book it was any longer. He had long since forgotten I ever persuaded him to read On the Road.

  He had long since forgotten I had spoken to him. He rarely remembered anything of our time together. It scarcely mattered to him.

  His thoughts remained on Assia. Some days he didn’t come home at all.

  Victoria Lucas, I adore your discomfort. Embrace me in your celestial non-presence. Take me away to the world where you exist. Victoria Lucas, I am you, but you are not m
e.

  Why did it have to be that summer? Ten years ago, when they burnt the Rosenbergs.

  Now of my threescore years and ten,

  Twenty will not come again.

  — Lies, oh lies! You treacherous Housman, your days were not numbered until you made it to immortal.

  ‘The narrator is not the writer’ — lies! More lies! I am the artist, and how can I separate my dying mind from my letters. My letters are me. My letters are always me! My words perpetually cry out my name.

  A. E. Housman, you lie! You were not threescore years and ten, but 77 years to live. I had not the time nor the patience.

  After some time, Ted was forced (or at least believed himself forced) into ending the reading session. He ran out of time. He had writing to do.

  Ted placed down the book and looked around the room. He needed to find a pen, and jot down all his thoughts as poetry, or what passed for poetry after my death.

  He had some time to jot down his fleeting notes. However, they could never match up to his carefree days he should have spent caring for his many loves.

  In these recent times, I had barely spoken to my once-beloved Ted.

  Assia – the horrifying other woman will not go away. She has full control over the man these days. Ted is no longer my own.

  I looked across at him in his armchair. In that moment, I despised him. For many years I had desired to take my life. And for many years I had been holding back because of Ted and the kids. If we had never brought the kids into this world, I would have gladly cut my throat in front of his eyes. I could have died then and there.

  Then it happened. I took my life into my own hands, and took my life at my own hands.

  Taping pillows and bedding around Nicholas and Frieda's bedroom door, I put the gas on without the ignition, and jammed my head into the oven, using the small door as a welcome entrance into a new world, or (hopefully) none at all.

  On February 11th 1963, I was pronounced dead.

  1964

  There were pressing issues, thought Ted. There is life to be lived. People have died in my place. I shan’t let their lives go in vain.

  I – the unseen spirit of Sylvia Plath – tell him to go on. I tell him to live where I could not. To find the happiness I rarely saw. To enjoy life. As usual, I am not heard.

  Ted had yet to discover that there was more to do in the world than reminisce.

  There were things to do other than just sit around and indulge in literature. Novel was just a book. There was life to be lived.

  There was more to life than On The Road. There was more to death than Sylvia Plath. Ted felt he must move on.

  1965

  My ghostly apparition filled his brain. My memory reminded him that there were things to be doing whilst he sat there reading. Why wouldn’t he take notice of the world around?

  ‘Don’t be daft, Sylvia,’ Ted said to my isolated concept. ‘I can read when I want to.’

  Isn’t there anything you want to remember about me? the thought in Ted’s head suggested.

  Ted continued to read, ignoring this thought. His mind should be at peace with Literature.

  Literature once meant you could learn, I said. It used to mean developing the mind and soul. Now it was a break from reality for Ted.

  1966

  Ted thought back into his memories. He drifted back into the thoughts he had lost. He dug up old ideas for new conversations.

  ‘The best romances are unrequited,’ Sylvia had remarked, many years earlier. ‘Think The Great Gatsby. A perfect couple, and passionate because they could never be wed.’

  ‘The private matters of couples aren’t to be shared,’ Ted agreed. ‘A book about a couple would never work. Romance behind closed doors isn’t a story, but romance revealed in a cardinal sin.’

  ‘Unrequited love in literature has an air of beauty particular to writing. Nobody really wants to read about the couple that went well. They say they want to read that, but not really.’ Sylvia looked back at On the Road. ‘I think that’s why I find it so wonderful in On the Road. There is no Hollywood romance in the book. There is just the reqal life of real people.’

  1967

  They’ll call this one the summer of love. Maybe they have already. Maybe no-one ever really did. But they’re wrong anyway. There is no love here.

  I was already dead, observing Ted from my plinth.

  Even Assia, whom I hated so much in life, would soon follow my lead into death.

  1968

  These were sad days. A bleak point between my death and Assia’s. Goodness knows much pain she must have been going through.

  1969

  Assia. Poor, poor Assia. Although I hate her for what she did, for taking Ted away from me and taking my life, I cannot help but see her as a victim, too. We too are both victims of Ted.

  Assia lived with Ted. A live-in lover. A full-time partner. And she became cursed by the man who had cursed me. Then one day it became too much. Evidently I was an inspiration to her.

  There was no bread and milk for her children. The baby Shura went with her, totalled when she could only toddle.

  March 23rd. Another death date for the calendar. Even Kerouac had drunk himself to death. Perhaps death was the way of life.

  1970

  Ted spent his life devoted towards reproducing the same experience. The glee of enjoying great literature was all that he desired.

  In his mind, he was distracted. His time with Sylvia would never be forgotten. How he’d neglected her could never be forgiven.

  I could never bear to see a man idly blow his time away. There are so many things a man can do if he puts his time to it. The notion of wasting it in petty concerns would have made my dad sick.

  'What you doing?' I asked. The arrogance of Ted to sit there idly flicking through a book while I spent my time cleaning the house and cooking his food. How had it come to the point where I was a meaningless housewife? I had become the drone I hated. The lifeless shell of the American Dream.

  Ted had a way of speaking back to me where he could convey the cruellest disregard with no effort at all. When an American man speaks with spite, the hatred and dismissal is clear, abrupt. When a Yorkshireman wants to show he does not care, he makes it clear that he real does not care. 'I'm reading,' Ted muttered simply and dispassionately. ‘That’s what I want to do.’

  ‘I know you’re reading.’ Ted really was so foolish to think that I could not see what he was doing. ‘I’m well aware of that. But do you have to be so painfully rude about it?’

  ‘Rude?’

  ‘You’re being lazy. Completely lazy.’

  ‘Lazy?’

  ‘Oh, stop it. Shut up about

  ‘Who’s lazing around?’

  1971

  1971, a new year, a new fame. Crossing the Water comes this way, a work I had never planned. And Ted, what do you say to that? Where have you brought these images from? Ted, you who killed me have given me life. Crossing the Water is not me; it is broken pieces of my broken mind rearranged to make a new heart and thinking brain for the Sylvia suicide doll you drew like a phoenix-slave from the dead thought-fox I once knew myself to be.

  1972

  Two lovers down, and all Ted could do was read. He spent his time idly sitting in his room, reading. He never knew what to read. All the world of literature, one of the great poets, and still Ted was out of ideas.

  Then an old thought came to him. About a current prolific writer who wrote endless tales of his travels. It was Jack Kerouac, a favourite of Sylvia since she studied under his friend Robert Lowell.

  Ted tucked himself away in the corner of the lounge where his favourite armchair sat.

  In his mind, he had the vision of Sylvia wandering the house, in her manic thoughtful way. She pranced this way and that, a sporadic fox. The creature that was the wild Sylvia crashed around the kitchen, then the spirit of her memory transformed back into a human.

  Ted returned to reading his book. On the Road. It b
rought back unwanted memories of years earlier. In the vision, he was lying on the banks of the River Cam with On the Road in his hands and mind. Sylvia was talking

  How painful that memory was now. How horrible it was to know he could have asked anything he wanted. The thoughts rushed back to him, even the simplest things. How are you doing today, Sylvia? Are you enjoying the weather? How many times have you read On the Road?

  Now he would never know.

  Ted Hughes, as he existed then, realised that all his questions would never be answered. No matter who he met, he would never care. He only wanted to ask the views of Sylvia.

  1973

  Ted wandered around the room, glaring at every spot he stepped into. Inevitably, he could not stand the silence any longer.

  He went to the record player and began to listen to music.

  As he was beginning to enjoying the music, he realised a sudden guilt. Why was this? Where had the feeling come from?

  Then he remembered when he’d listened to the song many years ago. Sylvia had said, ‘I’ve never liked this song.’

  And now that memory was back. He switched off the song. He couldn’t bear to listen to it. Not after remembering Sylvia’s disdain.

  He replaced the LP on the record player with a recording of Jack Kerouac reading his poetry.

  He couldn’t go on like this. Not feeling sorry for himself as he stayed inside his empty house.

  1974

  Ted realised what he had to do. He stepped out of his house. He wandered around Cambridge. He truly looked at the place as he had never examined it in many years.

  This was a walk around Cambridge to revitalise his appreciation of the place. This was a calming walk he desperately needed to have. He had avoided this walk for a while.

  He needed to get back to his own mind. He had ignored it for so long.

  1975

  Ted wandered into the kitchen of his quaint cottage Alone again, with two lovers gone, two children asleep, and the infant Alexandra somewhere between the two. His silent heart led him in the late hours of darkness towards his wearing teapot. It had been bought in his teenage years at Cambridge University, when he first discovered the lust for tea; the dark treasures of silent night-times in the kitchen; the innocence of the private tea-making ritual unique to ever drinker. The spotted blue and white paint was peeling off, to show an ancient and rusting ginger metal.

  1976

  Play my favourite track, Ted.

  He knew which one it was. He went to the record played and moved the needle to ‘American Haiku’.

  As Jack Kerouac’s ghostly voice read aloud his poetry. His gentle, lilting voice told the past in hauntingly neutral, dispassionate tones.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Sylvia,’ Ted moaned to himself. ‘You were beautiful.

  1983

  Ted sat back sadly in the old chair he had always known and loved. He placed the recording of Jack Kerouac reading his poetry onto his gramophone and picked up his copy of On the Road.

  ‘A raindrop from/ the roof/ Fell in my beer,’ spoke the radio, the words of Jack Kerouac calling out from the now-distant grave of 1969.

  His harsh, raspy tone was now pained and unforgiving after years of neglect, though the sound itself had of course never changed.

  1993

  ‘How are you today, Sylvia?’ Ted stared out at my memory, scorched by red sun.

  ‘I’m alone.’

  ‘Don’t be alone,’ he said hopelessly.

  ‘I've started to read.'

  'You've always liked to read,' I mentioned.

  'I mean really read. A particular novel you used to like.' Ted picked up my battered copy of On The Road.

  My ghost smiled. ‘So you finally came to like On The Road?’

  ‘Yes. It’s excellent.'

  My haunting image smiled a faint reassurance. ‘You’ve read it before, of course.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Ted seemed happy more at the memory than he had been at the time. ‘All those many years ago, on the banks of the river Cam.’

  He put down the book and I saw the white letters on black of the front page of On the Road.

  ‘I like On the Road. It’s Kerouac at his best.’

  I patiently whispered from the kitchen, ‘You never liked him in his lifetime.’

  ‘I’m old and bored of life. Ghosts are the only interesting people.’

  Ted looked fondly at the now-classic copy of Kerouac’s words. In his life, Mr Kerouac was regarded simply as a drug-addled hippy with no artistic value. Now he was one of the greats, sitting alongside Fitzgerald and Twain as creators of the Great American Novel.

  Ted’s copy was a new edition, with a fancy decorative cover. So unlike the cheap paperback we bought in Cambridge so many years ago. On the front cover:

  On the Road

  by Jack Kerouac

  A noble declaration, or perhaps a eulogy. The words appeared as though written on a gravestone. Fitting, since the great writers of the fifties were so rapidly dying.

  My ghost – the spiritual voice of Sylvia Plath – muttered my adoration for that book. Ted knew and said the same.

  1998

  As he lay on his deathbed, Ted compiled all his final thoughts. The summation of years of passion and regret.

  Birthday Letters – his final say on all the world. His request for forgiveness. A sad sigh as his last breath left the world.