Letters From Constance Read online

  There. My personal social worker, Kathleen, has come in and switched on the lamp. She thinks I am one of the more vulnerable of her clients and tells me that it is bad for me to sit here mooning. A tray has been laid by my side and on it there is a cup of hot chocolate and a Danish pastry so light the Danes would be proud to own if. This is Gillian’s contribution to the cheering of Mother and must be remarked upon, since Gillian is easily slighted. My girl children are in charge of me and I am left alone only because they know I am writing to you.

  You will guess from all this that I have been deserted, left to cope unpartnered with the daily round of life for two weeks. Stephen, James, your Toby and Fergus are at this moment - we hope - pitching a tent in some lonely Yorkshire dale. Or perhaps on an even lonelier fell. Before setting off they had a trial run in the garden and it took forty-five minutes to get the splendid new tent off the ground. But they will manage well enough once Stephen has been forbidden to lay a hand on any of the ropes and the others have stopped arguing and accepted Toby’s directions.

  Peg wanted to accompany them. As stout of body as heart, she was prepared to walk her legs to stumps. The assurance that in a few years she would be a grand fell-walker was no comfort. It is the here and now of life with which Peg is concerned. She fears they will never do this trip again; it was her one opportunity to have sole care of four beloved males and she could not understand why it should be denied her for no just reason. Toby very kindly took her for a long walk on the Downs, which enabled her to make the decision to wait until her fourteenth year, a mere nine months hence. Even so, she was tearful as she watched them set off. I was surprised because when she was very young I used to doubt that this child had a tear duct.

  ‘This chance won’t come again,’ she mourned.

  I told her she would get over it and she gave me such an odd look, like a very old woman listening to a cradle song. Oh, the pain of youth! We say, ‘She will grow out of it’, but the person who will then emerge will be a different person. Youth wants the complete experience that life doesn’t provide and the pain is the knowledge that every gain involves a loss. When we are older we distance ourselves from that loss, but youth knows, as it struggles towards the compromise which is maturity, that something is dying.

  Enough of melancholy. As you know, Linnie came at last with Pavel - for the day. He was very quiet and I was a little in awe of him, conscious of another, older culture in which different rules apply. Fergus seems to handle this sort of situation better than I, probably because he is less aware of boundaries. James had a long talk with Pavel about Hinduism. One would have imagined, listening to them, that my son was the better informed. I thought Pavel was gentle with James and very patient.

  I was surprised to learn that his parents disapprove of their friendship. I had always understood Hindus to be tolerant of other people’s gods, but Linnie explained that it wasn’t religion they were concerned about. In their eyes, she was socially inferior. ‘You have to remember they were civilised when we were living up trees.’

  ‘So it has nothing to do with the iniquities of the Raj?’

  ‘That,’ she said scornfully, ‘was yesterday.’

  ‘Will you become a Hindu if you marry him?’

  ‘Pavel is agnostic. I think that is where I stand at present.’

  I suspect she is prepared to stand wherever he happens to be. I know you are right when you say that the difference in culture is much greater than she is prepared to admit; but I sometimes feel that personality is an encumbrance she would be happy to part with.

  As I looked at these young women around me, I wondered whether by the time Dominic’s daughter is their age, it will be fashionable to be plump, well fed and neatly dressed, by which I mean calf-length skirts and blouses that fit. Kathleen has lost so much weight it makes her even more forceful; she has the look of a hungry hawk. Linnie, by contrast, her crumpled floral skirt trailing the ground, looked under-nourished as a Victorian waif. But am I mistaken in discerning a certain strength of will in the line of the mouth, an inflexibility in those quiet eyes? I like to think in her very submissiveness there is a purpose, that she is saying, ‘I don’t choose to accept the kind of challenges which are presented to women today; I have other ideas about how life should be lived.’ In spite of the objection of his parents, I would place a bet on Linnie marrying Pavel. Will you take me on?

  My comforters have come to light my way to my lonely bed. We send you our love -

  Constance

  Sussex

  ]une, 1973

  My dear Sheila,

  A book dedicated to me! This, being a collection of poems written over the years, is the book I would most wish to be particularly mine. I was afraid you might have destroyed those earlier poems which express so lucidly the feeling of our times.

  Although I don’t recognise what the words of ‘To Constance’ imply, I am moved by the picture you paint and hope that one day I may grow into a fair likeness. Did I make a great leap into the unknown all those years ago? How brave you make me sound. Certainly it was not what my mother envisaged for me. ‘When you went into the Wrens I thought perhaps you might marry a sea captain and settle in some quiet place doing good in the village.’ Instead, Fergus. It is his alien presence in this stolid land which has been the making of me. What contribution have I made to his life? You wouldn’t care to write a poem on the subject?

  Yesterday, Saturday, I stood peeling potatoes and looking out of the window at him working in his shed. He was intent on one of the processes in his beer-making, his face puckered in concentration, so lost in the glory of his creation one might have imagined him to be preparing a libation to the gods. Such a dear, familiar, unknown face. I expect I may have given him a quarter of what he needs. I hope it is enough for him to find our marriage worth preserving. The children fill my life whether I want it or not; they are there and I am here and must answer their needs. For years there wasn’t much of me left over by the time I had met all those needs. During those same years Fergus was working in an environment he liked less and less. I used to get tired and bored, angry sometimes, but mostly I loved having the children to care for. Did he have as much satisfaction as I did?

  It is fashionable nowadays to assume that men have a better quality of life than women. But when I read the feminist writers it seems to me that so often they are comparing the lot of all women with that of a few exceptionally gifted and highly rewarded men. Fergus isn’t exceptionally gifted and I am afraid he may not have been highly rewarded; but he has given us the best years of his life and he has given cheerfully, bless him.

  ‘Do you ever think of leaving me?’ I asked him when we were in bed.

  ‘A bit late in the day for that,’ he answered absently.

  ‘On the contrary. Some men are rediscovering their youth in their sixties, running away with women half their age.’

  ‘And an uncomfortable time they will have in their seventies, by which time their partners may well have started thinking about rediscovering their youth. I look to you for solace in my dotage.’

  It may be that faithfulness is a part of his personality. Sometimes he will drive hundreds of miles in the evening for nothing better than a change of scene. Were we to leave Sussex tomorrow he would not give it a backward glance; he has no sense of belonging in any one place. It is in his family that he puts down his roots.

  Even so, I think perhaps I should take up evening classes, sharpen my mind, think up a few intelligent questions to worry at.

  Forgive me that I have used the occasion of your new publication for a long screed about myself I am so grateful to you. How I have managed to hold on to your friendship and Fergus’s love when I am so occupied with my own business is a mystery to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Love,

  Constance

  Sussex

  October, 1973

  My dear Sheila,

  Thank you for your letter and for writing with such warmth to Cuillane.
We hardly dared to hope for an Oxford fellowship. It is a life for which she seems ideally suited and we are very happy for her.

  You ask for news of the rest of the family, since you see less of my children than I see of yours. Now whose fault is that? Stephen is enjoying London, both the university and the metropolis. As far as Stephen is concerned, all new experience is good. He has an Irish girlfriend who is less than charming; the flinty-eyed type who seems always to be awaiting the call to the barricades. He still plays with the group he formed at school. How long he can continue to combine music and study, I don’t know. He is not a disciplined or organised person, yet so far he has managed to hold together the multifarious threads of his life without getting them badly knotted, something of which James would be incapable. One strand in the wrong place would cause James considerable pain. He goes to teacher training college next year and already has his future career mapped out right through to the time when he will be head of a Roman Catholic comprehensive school in one of the inner cities, which he will transform by his zeal and organisational ability.

  Kathleen is working at a clinic in Brighton. She brings a different young man home each month, but I fear she is so self-sufficient that all but the bravest must be daunted. Dominic, who would like to think of himself as daunting, is on the local circuit and we are honoured by his presence. He is plump, if not yet portly, and his style of speech is better suited to the courtroom than the private house. He offers advice on any subject one cares to name. He dotes on Manuela and Teresa; and there is another baby on the way.

  Gillian is studying catering at the technical college. She is rather sulky at present because she and James are less close and, never having wanted the rest of us very much, she has now decided that we never wanted her.

  Peg will soon be the last one at school and foresees a time will come when she is the last one at home. What will she do alone in this echoing house with no playmates, no one to tell her their troubles, to weep on her broad shoulders? Thank goodness I am beyond an age where I can do anything about that.

  If you want more news about the Byrnes you have only to come for Christmas.

  Love from us all,

  Constance

  Sussex

  May, 1974

  My dear Sheila,

  I was just thinking that it would be too much to hope that, having spent Christmas with us, you might find time to come again this summer, when your letter arrived.

  I would dearly love to stay with you for a few days, but I can’t see my way clear at present. I seem to be as busy about the house as ever, only my role has changed. I am now the landlady. I leave a board up in the kitchen on which the children sign whether they will be in to supper or not, and if in, with whom. Why not come next month and add your name to the list?

  In hope and with love,

  Constance

  Sussex

  October, 1974

  Monday

  Sheila,

  The police came yesterday about Stephen. For an hour I have been staring at this paper, trying to summon the resolution to write words on it. I shan’t post it - not yet. There is a fear I might harm you by association. But I have to write it down. It is like driving a car after you have been involved in an accident: you must do it quickly or you will lose your nerve. If I don’t make one gesture of communication I shall be afraid to leave the house, look people in the face, speak. Also, if I don’t write, my mind will continue its dreadful spiral. I am writing in the hope that if I slow the pace of my mind, impose a discipline, set things down in an orderly way, I shall make sense of events and then I shall be able to control them. When one can see a pattern, one is supposed to be able to work out the next move.

  Fergus is downstairs talking to Dominic on the telephone. Dominic is in London this week. Fergus is choosing words very carefully. This is another Fergus.

  The police came yesterday about Stephen. The home-based children were at the ten o’clock Mass so Fergus and I were alone. I answered the door. There were two men standing there and one of them said, ‘Mrs Byrne? May we come in, please.’ It was quick, yet there was time to know that something had overtaken me, I had been found out, made a fatal miscalculation. I still have this feeling that fundamentally I am at fault. No, start again. The police came yesterday about Stephen. ‘Mrs Byrne? May we come in, please.’ They intended to come in. I didn’t examine the card one of them showed me. Their manner was their authority. Fergus came into the hall and the card-carrying man said, ‘Mr Byrne? You have a son, Stephen Byrne?’ Not the tone which announces an accident - more ‘You have a black and white dog’ followed by the accusation that the animal has ravaged a sheep.

  They were in the sitting-room and we had conceded their right to be there. They conceded nothing. I have always expected people to accept that I am an honest woman and that Fergus and I are decent, good-living people. What else they think is their affair; tastes differ, I don’t ask that we should be liked. But I have expected the acceptance of our honesty. It was not that proof of this might now be required which disturbed, but the sense of its being irrelevant. Their hostility was a weapon, but it was not personal. Our personal characteristics were irrelevant, we ourselves were irrelevant. We were people on the fringe of an event, of no consequence. These men did not have to bother about our self¬perception, our feelings, our dignity, our right to justice; complaints to the Chief Constable were not in order in this case. Their composure was massive. Right was on their side. No, not fight, right irrelevant. Facts important. Main fact, their presence. Start from that.

  The police came yesterday about Stephen. They wanted information. When was Stephen last at home, how often did he come, had he brought friends with him, was there anything of his in the house . . . I wanted both to assert and deny. He is our son, this is still his home, of course he brings his friends here, leaves his belongings lying about. No, there is nothing, nothing of his here for you to paw over; never has he brought a fellow student here, particularly not a girl whose name I do not intend to recall. They wanted information yet they conveyed the impression of knowing many things, of being in possession of a large number of facts. I was afraid to form even the simplest sentence lest it collide with one of their facts. Fergus spoke to them. That chilled me, the way he spoke, looked, answered, considered, was silent. This careful man, wary of confrontation, was not Fergus. There was sweat above his lip. I was shaking inwardly, buttocks clenched hoping the shaking would not show. I clamped my teeth. Even small confrontations can make me shrill. One must never antagonise such men, the ones with mica chips set in stone faces.

  The police came yesterday about Stephen. They asked questions but explained nothing. When Fergus said, ‘You can at least tell us whether he has been hurt,’ they asked another question. When Fergus said, ‘Until we know what has happened to our son we shall not answer any more questions,’ one of them said, ‘You would be wise to co-operate with us, Mr Byrne.’ Fergus said he must be the judge of that. They told us that Stephen was being detained for questioning in connection with the horrific incident in Guildford last week.

  I could have cried with relief; this was a case of mistaken identity and soon the police would have to apologise to us. Fergus and I spoke at once. I was laughing way up at the top of my head and he was red with anger.

  Then they told us that Stephen had been seen running through the streets of Guildford just after the explosion. Several people had seen him, including one witness who identified him as the drummer with a group which played that night at a private party in Guildford.

  The police came yesterday about Stephen who is being held at a London police station for questioning in connection with the Guildford pub bombings. They told us . . . no, we found out, as a result of their questions, that Stephen’s girlfriend has a brother in the IRA and that Stephen attended a meeting which was addressed by an IRA sympathiser. Fergus pointed out that a large number of people, including Ken Livingstone, also attended that particular meeting. They were not inter
ested in what we had to say, other than our answers to their questions.

  They asked to see Fergus’s shed. ‘You are Irish,’ one of them said. ‘And a chemist, isn’t that so?’ He nodded to himself, ‘Irish and a chemist’, much as he might have said, ‘on parole and in possession of an offensive weapon’. Then, ‘And you work in Surrey?’ They looked at Fergus as if they were willing him to make one false move. I saw that he understood them perfectly and knew that he must suffer their insolence for Stephen’s sake. Do you remember Mademoiselle at school, Sheila? How she would fly into a rage without warning? I used to think that one day she would lose her temper with me and I prepared myself for it. That was how it was with Fergus; he was dealing with a situation he had always known might arise.

  He is downstairs now talking to Dominic on the telephone. I hear him saying, ‘I appreciate that you know more about the law; but you don’t understand the position here. There is intense local feeling and the anti-Irish sentiment is not peculiar to the police. They are under a lot of pressure. I am not defending the police, Dominic, I am saying it is a very grave situation, so don’t give the impression you are enjoying yourself. In fact, leave it to the solicitor . . . I am not afraid for Stephen, Dominic, I am bloody terrified!’

  The police came yesterday about Stephen. No. I can’t get it right. I cannot get it in the right order.

  Tuesday

  They have turned the boys’ room and Fergus’s shed upside down. Our civil servant neighbour has called to say it is an outrage. He and Fergus had a long talk. I didn’t join them. I don’t feel able to meet people in case I say something which may harm Stephen. Fergus says our neighbours aren’t informers, but someone informed on us about the shed. Or could it have been that policeman who came about Mrs Shipman? He didn’t like Stephen. Have we an enemy there? If we have, I summoned him when I reported Mrs Shipman missing. No, that is too personal. We are not sufficiently important to be the enemy; we are people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; Fergus, an Irish chemist and working in Surrey, Stephen, his son, in Guildford and running.