Love in the Blitz Read online

  Tuesday 8 October Lord Nathan was Displeased with me, darling, because I had filed letters under ‘Compensation’ which referred back to letters in the possession of The General – whereas I ought to have Tracked Down the first letter of the correspondence, before I filed the second one. Oh! dear. Now, I’m so terrified of making another mistake that I feel I’ll never do anything right again.

  Wednesday 9 October I’m taking Miss Watson out to lunch, darling, (she takes down my letters – and considering what she has to Put Up With in the way of Stumbles and Clucks, I feel I owe it to her).

  Last night while we were having dinner the roof nearly fell in on top of us – from the vibration of a bomb explosion – so Pa has decided that we must Dine in the Shelter. The warnings now last from seven in the evening till seven in the morning – so the sooner I leave London the better, darling. I go in to bed at about three, as a rule. (They’re all asleep then, and they’ve forgotten about it by breakfast time – so I’m able to avoid trouble) but still, undiluted Family from the time I come home from work to the time I leave in the morning – (almost) is Too Much.

  Darling, why, when Jews are Awful, are they slightly more Awful than anyone else? There’s a little man called Jacobs who marries my letters for me – (i.e. traces the first letter when anyone writes in a second time). He’s Officious, Unctuous, and altogether nauseating – a non-Aryan Uriah Heep4 – and he’s the worst spiritual power I’ve ever encountered. He has a Great Respect for me, because I’m under the wing of what he pleases to call ‘His Lordship’ – so he never actually touches me – but when he says ‘Please Miss Alexander’ and ‘Thank you Miss Alexander’ and ‘May I do it for you, Miss Alexander’ and ‘Now don’t you worry, Miss Alexander’ – I have a dim & sickening feeling that he’s really mollocking with me in an underhand kind of way – with the typists & secretaries he’s on a lower plane still – and they feel as ill as I do. Ugh!

  Thursday 10 October Darling, I had a remarkable experience last night. My mother has a dreadful cold, so she slept on the sofa in the drawing-room – and I slept on the floor – (I thought that, if the house was bombed, I should not much enjoy living à deux with Pa, afterwards) and Pa stood in the garden acting as unofficial ‘spotter’. At about ten, he rushed in, terrifically excited, and said that there was a shower of parachute flares in the sky and that it was one of the loveliest sights he’s ever seen. I went with him into the garden, and, darling, the sky was full of outsize stars the size of cricket balls dropping very slowly towards the ground. It was incredibly beautiful.

  Friday 11 October Darling, today I’m so lonely for Cambridge that it’s a physical ache. I had a letter from Mr Turner to say that he had four Girton Research students living in the house. Helen Brown (Zoology – my year – well-cut tweeds and Repression – Good human material – but unexploited – She hasn’t decided yet what her values are, so she’s a bit hoydenish – She’s on rather a High Plane with Lord Rothschild, with whom she works). Rosa Morris (Maths – Welsh – Clever (capital ‘C’) Self-made (capital ‘S’) Religious (very large ‘R’) Worthy (Almost an Illuminated ‘W’) and painfully, agonizingly dull). Jeanne Fisher (Anthropology – kittenish – suburban – with a mind as Constricted as I always imagine the Polish Corridor to be) and Alison Dewar (Classics – one of Joan Friedman’s clique – a mean-spirited, pedantic, unprepossessing creature if ever there was one).

  Oh! darling – it scratches at the sensitive lining of my stomach to think of those four at Girton Corner – our home – yours & mine and the Turners’. Mr Turner’s only comment is that they all seem fond of music and play all their gramophones at once. They’re the sort of girls who would use one half of the chaise-longue for balancing their midnight cocoa & biscuits on – our chaise-longue!

  I also got a letter from Mrs Woodcock saying that she’d heard from Col. Makin ‘That you were accepted & were joining them shortly!’ so I suppose I’ll hear from the Air Ministry on Monday. Oh! darling, I see duty as a desiccated, wispy, mouse-coloured non-conformist Missionary – rather like some of the Girtonians working at Bletchley in fact. I’ll do this job – and I hope I’ll do it well – but I was born for other things – and now I wish I’d stood up to my parents and gone on with research. To investigate why a beautiful thing is beautiful is a very Great Solace – to find out why a Heinkel is Efficient may be of use to the War Effort – but on a Lower Plane. Never mind, dear, when you are with me again, I shan’t care whether I’m in Cambridge, Bletchley or Bermuda – The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

  Darling, how the monuments and symbols of our stability have been bruised in the past week – St Paul’s with a bomb through its head – and Mr Loewe, dead. Mr Loewe was my first link with Cambridge – and, subconsciously, I must have been convinced of his immortality, because I was so outraged to hear that he had died. I think that what made Mr Loewe the only nice member of his family, was a touch of Puckishness – of naif fun – in spite of all his ponderous scholarship and bigotry. Darling, I’m frightened that we’ll go back to a new and strange Cambridge, which refuses to acknowledge us. I suppose these are the things which make adults of us.

  Joan writes that Sheila was bombed out of Earl’s Court, and had to take refuge with her mother-in-law, which is asking for trouble, & the sparks will most certainly fly upwards.

  Have you read Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief? It is Very Beautiful in parts – but on a Very Low Plane in others – But he’s certainly got the Oriental mind wriggling on a pin from beginning to end – his jibes at British Diplomacy are Nice too – It’s a pity he’s so childishly crude in parts.

  Monday 14 October The Victoria Welfare Office was bombed at the weekend, and this building is swarming with Homeless Minions – That’s why I can’t see Lord N. His room is one Seething Mass of Sightseers. Darling, if that lecherous old Jacobs comes and drips over me once more I shall Scream Loudly, and then Lord Nathan will Send for Me and say, perhaps in a more Civil Idiom, ‘Be off – or I’ll kick you downstairs.’ Oh! Woe.

  Nurse and I took a rather Guarded leave of one another this morning. She’s leaving, in a Cloud of Curlers, Sheets and Recipes, sometime during the day. Her Condescension is Superb. Her Eye Flashed Regal Fire as she said Goodbye. I, it seemed to say, am married to a Sergeant – you are Walking Out with an AC2 – but I’m no snob. Darling, don’t tell anyone – but I don’t like Nurse.

  Wednesday 16 October Darling, I intervened in what was really a Fight to the Death between two women on the Moorgate platform this afternoon. Both had been bombed out of their homes and both were trying (illegally and pathetically) to reserve a place for the night against the wall.

  They hated one another, and they were nervy and disconsolate within themselves – I went and talked to them, and told each of them that the other was tired and disturbed – and liable to say things she didn’t mean because of her overwrought condition. I said we all felt the same at the moment – and at this point another Grand Old Woman marched up and croaked, ‘Look at me – Six bombs I ’ad outside my front door – I never want to see my flat no more – Never I don’t. Lost me voice wi’ fright – I did – so everyday nah I comes to the choob at eleven in the mornin’ and chooses me place – Nothink else for it –’ – and then the other woman edged nearer to hear more – and I left the three of them exchanging pleasantries as to the manner born.

  Lord Nathan asked me to sit in the Client’s Chair in his Office this morning – and repeated his suggestion that I should stay on here – (Did I tell you, darling, that I had a letter from Mrs Woodcock yesterday, or it may have been the day before saying that I was under no obligation to go to Bletchley unless I liked?) But the more I think about it the more certain I become that I’d be better and happier at Bletchley.

  I had a Beautiful letter to answer today – It was from a woman, who said it was all-very-well saying that wives ought to write more often to their husbands in t
he forces – but what about husbands in the Forces who refused to write to their wives? She implored us to Look at Her Daughter, whose husband never wrote and spent all his Leaves with Another Woman in York – (Please don’t spend your leave with Another Woman, darling, in York or elsewhere).

  Friday 18 October I had a letter from Col. Makin this morning, telling me to Hold Myself in Readiness and that I’ll hear from the Air Ministry soon.

  You know, in many ways Pa is the most objectionable man I’ve ever met. His first letter to Ma arrived tonight packed with honeyed phrases. He adds that he misses us all & ‘even Eileen with her idiosyncrasies which she will lose when she’s met a few more young men’. After hearing that, darling, I felt so mud-spattered that I had to go and decontaminate myself in a bath. Darling, I’m sick with rage. Please may I cry about it on your shoulder? Thank you.

  Saturday 19 October Darling, the Girl who Listens to the Dictaphone suddenly Unburdened Herself to me yesterday. Her name is Hojgaard (Her father is a Dane) and, as I told you, her family are Pillars of the Salvation Army. In the middle of the morning she turned to me, all unbeknowst, and told me that she was Walking Out with a Married Soldier in the Orkneys. She said that they’d Found One Another before he was married – but he’d been ‘going with’ (ugh!) his present wife for three years – and he didn’t like to disappoint her. So now he wrote her Impassioned Letters from the Orkneys – which she hadn’t the heart to burn – though she felt she really ought to. She couldn’t agree to a divorce, which incidentally he has not suggested, because his wife has just had a child – and besides they’ve only been alone together three times in their lives, and she’s afraid they might not like one another, if they were to become better acquainted. The whole thing, she assured me, is a Great Sorrow to her – she’s pining to be married and have a large family and she’s afraid she’s lost her only chance. The man sounds rather unscrupulous to me, darling. He thinks he can run a wife and a solace and get away with it. How happy can he be with either when t’other dear charmer’s away. I told her this, since she asked for my advice, and said that, if her main object was to get married – she’d better stop writing to the Man in the Orkneys and look about for an Eligible YF. She said that men never took any interest in her, (except the soldier in the Orkneys) and she’d be very Lonely without Bruce’s Letters – and if she Found a Nice Young Man – Bruce would Understand. (Uncommonly Civil of him, don’t you think, dear?) Why, darling, do people tend to Tell me All? (This is not a rhetorical question.) They inevitably do – and on a very brief acquaintance. It can’t be because they regard me as a Tower of Discretion can it, darling? No … I was afraid not.

  Darling, I’ve just had a letter from Joan Friedman which drastically alters my attitude to the Bletchley job.

  Here is the relevant passage and it is derived from Barbara Parker, who can be regarded as an Authoritative Source since she’s been working there for three months: ‘They work in 8 hour shifts, you know – So you would have a week of nights every three weeks – And Barbara says she is more concerned with figures than with Italian … They expect the most astonishing versatility for the meagre salary they offer.’ I read this to my mother and she said immediately that I’d never be able to stand night-work – and I’m dreadfully afraid she’s right. I think you have to be uncommonly robust for that kind of thing, and while I’m better in health now than I have been for years and years, I do feel that night-shifts every three weeks would be a bit of a strain. I said ‘What about Gershon’s leave?’ so my mother said (entirely without prompting, darling) ‘We’d be pleased to have him here, if he’d be willing to come – otherwise don’t you think you’d like to meet him in Cambridge – the town you both love?’ She suggests that I should work voluntarily for Lord Nathan until about a week until your leave is due, and that then I should go for a fortnight to Cambridge for a change and a rest – and come back to London after your leave is over – when I could go back to Finsbury Square as a whole-time paid employee. I think this is a lovely idea, darling – only it will need some arranging, and I’ve lost count of the weeks, so could you please tell me again, the approximate date on which you may expect your leave? Then I could write to Girton and ask them if they’d be willing to house me for a fortnight (and give me a key!) and put my case to Lord Nathan.

  I’ve written to Lord Nathan, asking him if he’s still willing to have me, and if so, whether he’ll give me a fortnight’s holiday before I begin. I’ve told him that I’ll be wanting my holiday in about a fortnight or three weeks’ time – That must be about right, darling – surely you’ve been very nearly twelve weeks in Blackpool – (it seems like ten years or a hundred years or a thousand years).

  It’s rather cowardly of me to write to him instead of asking him in person, but I’m very nervous of him, darling, and when I stammer & hesitate, as I do when I’m frightened, he just raises his eyebrows & looks bored – which isn’t very helpful really.

  Wednesday 23 October Lord Nathan was very kind, and said he’d be glad for me to stay if I liked – that he thought I would soon learn to be useful, though at the moment it was glaringly obvious that I’d never had anything to do with Real Life at all. Of course I could have my holiday – you know, darling, I think I’m going to be hurt quite often here – but I’m afraid that would happen anywhere – and I am going to be able to have my holiday with you in Cambridge, which is what matters more than anything else in the world.

  Lord Nathan said this morning ‘I wish you wouldn’t write me letters in a hand that I can’t read with a magnifying glass, let alone ordinary spectacles’ – obviously Lord Nathan is not one of my Following.

  Friday 25 October I went straight into my mother’s room, via the bathroom, with the blasts of autumn blowing about my bare body under my pyjamas – (In my agitation, I forgot to put on my dressing-gown) and said what about my going to Blackpool? My mother said that, as far as she was concerned I could go, only she Must Ask my Father – (I believe and trust, darling, that this is only a formality – but I shall know more when I’ve discussed it further with her this evening).

  Evening. Darling, I’ve cried a lot since I started this letter – I’m sorry – Apparently the question of asking Pa was not a mere formality – Mum says she feels that to agree to my undertaking a long journey alone in these times, is a responsibility she can’t face alone – So, at her suggestion, I have written to my father, asking him to wire his decision. He is coming back from Douglas on Tuesday for a few days – so, in a day or two, Opposition will be so to speak at the door. You see, darling, what is making me cry is that if Pa says No – I shan’t be able to oppose him and come to you, in defiance – because of my mother – but if he says Yes – then, my dear love, I’m ready to leave at any time – (My mother won’t mind my being away for her birthday, as Pa is coming back specially to be with her.)

  Oh! I will pull every string to go to Blackpool – but if Pa wires back ‘no’ I’m powerless.

  Saturday 26 October I had hundreds of forms from the Air Ministry this morning, dear, and a request to report for duty to Col. Makin on Monday morning. Darling, if I were to go into the Air Ministry, I should have to forfeit all my aeronautical inventions to the Government – and if I were asked to Broadcast under my Official Titles, I should have to get permission from the Air Ministry – so I shan’t go. (Of course, the real reason I’m not going is that, if I did, Blackpool would be out of the question.)

  You know, I would Defy Pa and come to Blackpool, whatever he said – except that it would hurt my mother so dreadfully – she seems to think that there’s a reasonable hope of his agreeing – but I think it’s a safeguard to err on the side of pessimism – I started being in Solace too soon at the thought of being with you again in Cambridge – and what I’m afraid of, is that I’ve done the same thing about Blackpool.

  Tuesday 29 October I’ve had a wire from Pa, my dear love. It says ‘Your letter just received please await my arrival Wednesday fo
r sympathetic family discussion love Dad.’

  What he means, darling, is that he’s going to oppose my going, tooth and nail – I had a letter from him this afternoon in which he says that he can’t look forward with the same pleasure as I had expected, to my journey to Cambridge. He then goes on to talk about lack of balance, dignity & reserve – you know.

  You see, darling, I can’t be really angry with either of my parents for their attitude in this matter – (My mother isn’t happy about it either, but she’s willing to put my happiness before her Standards). They believe sincerely that it is wrong for me to stay with you in your lodgings, unchaperoned – They both reiterate their perfect confidence in me and (because I love you) in you – but in their world (as, doubtless, in your parent’s world as well) such a step would not have been contemplated – let alone executed.

  Friday 1 November I can expect no quarter from my father, darling. He feels that in coming to you I shall be committing a moral wrong – and he says he’ll never speak to me again. He says that he and my mother (and this is true) feel that I shall be committing a terrible breach of principle in staying with you in your boarding-house. That if you had written to my mother asking her to bring me to Blackpool, he would have agreed – That he would have assented to let me stay in your parent’s house – but that, unlike my mother, he is not prepared to put my happiness before his principles.

  I want to be with you more than anything else in the world – but if my father repudiates me publicly, (as he will do) it will put you in the position of a co-respondent in a divorce case. Perhaps you will say that he has no right to place you in such a position – but, darling, the more I think of it, the more I feel that it is I who have no right to put you in that position – simply for my own happiness.