Letters From Constance Read online

  Your penitent friend,

  Constance

  Ealing

  May, 1940

  Dearest Sheila,

  Your letter took me by surprise. There was I, reliving my two visits, picturing you and your companions eternally wading through flowers on the Backs, or drifting peacefully beneath the willows - and you say you are sad?

  Sad for friends, splendid in the vigour of early manhood, minds the sharpest they will ever be, who suddenly pass out of reach. Too much passing for such a young place. And of course, I can see there will be a problem for those who return from the war to finish their interrupted courses. I’ve heard it argued that they will be a lot wiser, but you reject this consolation. As I read I can hear the passionate impatience in your voice. Wisdom can’t make up for the loss of that young freshness, that openness of mind, the willingness to let the imagination soar. Your feeling is so strong that I experience an odd little pang and I ask myself, is Sheila in love? (Could it be the man with the Red Setter?) When you speak of the adventure of letting go of all the guy ropes and allowing the mind to spin into space, I find myself grieving that no one told me university might offer such an experience; when the matter was under discussion it was represented as a hard slog. Your fear for these young men is that great adventures of the mind may be followed by adventures of a grimmer kind; and with the Germans storming through Norway and now Holland, it does seem a bit dodgy all of a sudden. Whatever may happen to the lads - or is it a lad - you grieve for, university experience will be a disjointed affair, something which has happened at different times to different people and impossible to make a whole out of it.

  What of Miles, though, the brilliant one who can’t fight, or won’t, or is it both? He looked as if his continuing presence would make up for any number of lost others. I found him rather alarming. A spirit of anarchy come to mock the pretension of learning. It was the eyes that disturbed, not missing a thing in spite of having a restricted view thanks to that dark mop of hair. What was it the eyes saw? I wondered, I had the feeling that if we were all to write accounts of the afternoon we had spent together, his version wouldn’t bear any relation to what the rest of us wrote. The others, although they disagreed so furiously, picked up cues from one another, but not he. He told me he is a musician. That afternoon he was playing in a different key to the rest of the band. I couldn’t make out whether he realised it and enjoyed it, or whether he was quite oblivious of the way he was breaking up the rhythms of conversation, introducing discords, switching from major to minor, and mocking, always mocking. Is he usually like this?

  Towards the end of the day it came to me, in one of my intuitive flashes which are the despair of family and friends, that he wasn’t aware - no, let’s get this particular intuition quite right - he was aware but didn’t care about any of us, except you. As soon as I realised that was a possibility everything he said and did made sense because it was all a ploy to claim and hold your attention. I am not unfamiliar with attention-seeking myself; but with me it is an effort to make sure I’m not left out of life’s little party. With him, it was more like attempted hypnosis. I do believe he wants you under his spell. You, however, behaved as if you were quite unaware of his machinations. Really unaware? Could he have been the companion who shared frosty walks with you and a dancing Red Setter? Somehow, I think not.

  To be continued when we meet in what you call the long vac, and I persist in thinking of as a holiday.

  Your impatient friend, eager for the next instalment,

  Constance

  Ealing

  July, 1940

  My dear Sheila,

  Mummy has written to your parents and although I shall see you on Wednesday, I felt I must write.

  John was always so kind and gentle. I remember particularly how he climbed the tree to bring me down when your other brothers just rolled around laughing. And on holiday it was John who rescued you from that bad-tempered old donkey who ran away with you on the beach. I can hardly bear to think of quiet, patient John dying with no one to come to his aid.

  Sheila, there is something I want to say and I don’t know if I’m going to do it very well. John called on us before he rejoined his regiment and we said all the usual heartening things; Mummy assured him that the Germans would never break through the Maginot Line and I trotted out those stories about the Germans having had to put young, inexperienced soldiers in the front line. He listened politely. He seemed much older than when I last saw him. When we had finished buoying up his spirits, he began to talk about the camping holidays he had in Germany before the war. He told us that some of the people in the little town were members of the German Confessing Church (I think that was the name). They had stood out against Hitler and several of their friends and relatives had disappeared. He said that whatever might happen to him, he would never be as brave as they were because they had to act and think alone while ‘I am only a soldier under orders.’ It was as if he was telling us that something - and I don’t know what, but something to do with life and death - had been resolved between himself and these people. Now, when I think of him, it is sitting in our front room, talking quietly about the Germans who were fighting evil before we ever took up arms. I know that a lot is made about the waste of life in war, but I don’t think John would want his death to be thought of in that way.

  How can we talk about waste? If there is any waste, we are the ones who will be guilty of it. That’s what I wanted to say. I hope you won’t think this an awful cheek.

  My love and grief,

  Constance

  Firewatch, County School

  November, 1940

  My dear Sheila,

  Have no fear, things aren’t nearly so bad as the rumours you have heard would suggest, although a string of bombs was dropped alongside the Great Western Railway line. Tonight Mummy is staying with your parents, who have insisted she must not be alone on the nights when I have to firewatch. Your mother has had a great influence on Mummy, who has now joined the Women’s Voluntary Service. I think she is enjoying herself, but as this is not something she would wish to be observed I am careful not to comment. You ask particularly about your father. I agree he is very quiet and I, too, have noticed that he often sits with a book open on his lap gazing into a corner of the room. But I am sure he and your mother will be all right; they do so much for other people it doesn’t leave much space in the day to think about themselves.

  Firewatching here seems rather pointless. So far, we have had only one incendiary device, which fell harmlessly on the Technical College playing field and was a great joy to the Principal, who collects bits and pieces of bombs with all the zeal of an archaeologist for a Roman remain.

  The Education Officer is much harassed by his responsibility for the staff. When we had the daylight raids, which most of us thought such fun, he was very perturbed because no one took cover. After much brooding, he came up with a solution which would allow us to go on working while not actually in range of the enemy. For some reason it’s considered necessary to have a spotter on the roof of the Technical College, and this lone figure is clearly visible from the front windows of our office. The Education Officer decreed that we should take it in turns to watch the spotter and that when, from his vantage point, he gained early warning of approaching enemy aircraft, he should wave a large white handkerchief whereupon we should take cover. Cover, in this dilapidated building, is a damp cellar with slippery stone steps. You can guess what happened, if not to whom. It was one of the councillors, a pink, ponderous man who doesn’t like us very much and had called to apprise us of his latest cause for displeasure, who slipped and broke an ankle. His removal from the cellar occupied the greater part of the morning. The Juvenile Employment Officer, a more robust character than the Education Officer, did his best to convince him that this was one of the hazards of war, but I think he is of the opinion that it is one of the hazards of visiting an inefficient, badly organised office.

  Fortunately the office buildin
g does not merit a firewatch, so we are on duty at the County School nearby. Our team consists of the Education Officer, three girls and an elderly School Attendance Officer who greets us every morning with the words ‘Another bloody dawn’. I think we’re constituted thus because the Education Officer thinks we girls too young to be put at risk in any other grouping. I’m assured that some teams regard firewatching as an exercise in licensed debauchery.

  And speaking of debauchery . . . There is a man at the office who deals with transfers to secondary school, a matter of such concern to the general public that it is necessary for him to have a little box of a room all to himself so that he can interview parents in private. This, at any rate, is the theory he has upheld successfully against all efforts to make him share a larger room, thus releasing his cubbyhole for the duplicator - which machine at present stands at the top of the stairs in such a position that very fat people are discouraged from ever visiting staff in the upper regions. On several occasions when I have taken Mr Randall his tea, I have found him at work on pen and ink drawings. At first, he was quick to put them to one side, but as he came to recognise my footsteps he ceased to make any effort at concealment.

  ‘Your pictures seem to tell a story,’ I said to him one day last week.

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ he replied, without looking up, ‘I’m a book illustrator. These are preliminary sketches.’

  ‘Why do you work here, then?’

  ‘Because, so underrated is the artist, his work doesn’t bring in enough money to keep body and soul together, let alone support a wife and child.’

  ‘Is that why we all had to work late last term, helping you to get the transfer notices out to parents?’

  ‘You could say I know my priorities. Does that shock you?’

  ‘I was shocked when I had to work so late.’

  He put his pen down and looked at me. He is one of those pale men with straw hair which merges into ashy skin. His face looks grubby as if he becomes easily discouraged while shaving and his body has that sort of looseness which comes of never having tried very hard at anything. He gives the impression that however hard you washed him he would never come up looking clean and fresh. Rumour has it he is going into the RAF. One wonders what they will make of him.

  ‘You must be helped to overcome this tendency to be shocked,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, with your looks, you are going to have an exhausting time.’

  I did not return to his office to collect his cup, but later, when I was washing up, he came behind me and put the cup in the basin. The sink is wedged into a corner of the store room and there isn’t space for two people to stand side by side, so I didn’t think anything of his standing behind me until he slid his hands beneath my breasts. I would not want to tell this to anyone but you, Sheila. The result quite startled me. My body behaved as though it wasn’t part of me. While my mind was saying with admirable coolness, ‘Hello, what is this?’ my stomach muscles knotted and contracted in the most painful way and my breath came through my lips like steam out of a kettle. Then members of the general public came labouring up the stairs and began to negotiate the duplicator. Mr Randall removed his hands, which had wandered to my stomach to be rewarded with yet more surprising spasms, and departed.

  The next day, he discovered some civil defence questionnaires which he had neglected to send to the three grammar schools. He asked the Education Officer if I could accompany him to the schools as I was familiar with the work and could help the school secretaries to complete the questionnaire. He said he had overlooked the forms which had to be returned to Head Office at the end of the week. As there was a lot of trouble over the last lot of forms which Mr Randall had overlooked, the Education Officer agreed to this.

  The school secretaries did not need any help from me and we had finished distributing the forms before lunch. Mr Randall said that as he lived nearby and we had plenty of time, perhaps I would like to see some of the books he had illustrated. You know your Constance, Sheila. I was flattered as I think I have an eye for a good drawing; and I have to confess I was curious to see how an artist lives and to meet the artist’s wife. If my reading is reliable, artists’ wives are a very special breed.

  As soon as we got into the house I experienced that sense of having gone deaf which I get when I enter empty buildings. ‘When does your wife get home?’ I asked. He said she was in Dorset, and pushed me into the sitting-room. He kissed me, bending my head back so hard I thought my neck must snap and getting one of his legs in between mine so that we were all tangled up and it was a wonder I didn’t topple over with him on top of me. As we lurched round the room in an ungainly tango he contrived to get my dress unbuttoned and my bra unhooked. Had he cursed or implored me by name I would not have been so frightened; but he applied himself to his task as if I were not a person but a Christmas parcel he was endeavouring to tear open, some of the goodies already on view. I was surprised by how well-equipped I was to fight. The body has several sharp joints, each of which I used to some purpose. I also discovered that I had at some stage acquired a knowledge of the male anatomy and it was a shrewd placement of the knee joint which eventually brought an end to our engagement. The realisation that I could handle this situation gave me a feeling I can only describe as pure joy. When I had adjusted my clothing and he had recovered his breath, I said that I would like to see the books now.

  He said, ‘Never mind that. You’ll make your way in life without having to use your head.’

  By the time we got back to the office my legs had stopped shaking and I felt quite self-possessed, although one of the School Attendance Officers gave me a quizzing as I passed him in the doorway. Later, in the corridor, I overheard this man say to the Juvenile Employment Officer, ‘I reckon Blondie there is ripe,’ and he made a sucking noise as if messing with a juicy fruit. I was so angry I went straight to the Education Officer and told him I had been in the office for nearly a year and I didn’t think I should still be doing the tea; either the other girls could take it in turns with me, or there wouldn’t by any tea in future.

  The air-raid warning has sounded so I shall have to stop now. Let me know what you think about this. I have a feeling your experiences are much more profound.

  Love,

  Constance

  Ealing

  January, 1941

  My dear Sheila,

  I’m glad you thought Mummy so much better. When your parents asked us to Christmas lunch I was afraid she might not fit in very well. It’s not that she wants to spoil other people’s pleasure so much as that she seems to have lost the knack of being a part of it. She did do rather well, didn’t she? I think it helps now that she has all these tales to tell about her WVS work.

  We didn’t have much time to talk and as you didn’t reply to my November letter I feel a bit out of touch with your news. I hope you weren’t put off by that letter? Or has something made you unhappy? Mummy commented on how thin you had become. ‘She used to be sturdy, now she is all bones.’

  Dear bony one, I don’t mean to pry. If you are unhappy and don’t want to talk about it, I shall understand. But don’t not write. Tell me the dreary things, or send a postcard saying no news from Cambridge. Anything so long as I know you haven’t written me off as too trivial to bother with.

  Your loving,

  Constance

  Firewatch, County School

  January, 1941

  Dearest Sheila,

  How good of you to write at once when you are feeling so wretched. Whatever the trouble, it will pass because you are not the sort to go under for long.

  The Randall affair is an episode in the past. Those delicate artist’s hands are now sorting screws at an RAF base. He came to the office to show off in uniform. How can I blame him when I shall soon be doing the same thing? I have been accepted for the WRNS and expect my call-up papers any day now. Rejoice with me. Much love,

  Your excited Constance

  Royal Naval Air Station in

  the West Country<
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  Time and place: the Control

  Tower at dead of night

  April, 1941

  My dear Sheila,

  I am sorry to have been so neglectful, though I did send postcards, which may have been lost in the bombing. I will try to make amends now, while I wait for the 0100 chart.

  Mill Hill Training Centre was splendid. All the girls so attractive and from such distinguished backgrounds - diplomatic corps, Harley Street, the Inns of Court. I visited the home of a girl whose mother was a famous ballerina. They have a basement flat in Holland Park. Mother was elderly and gaunt, wrapped in a rug, only the head, swathed in a turban, visible. She talked about bad plumbing in a husky voice like Garbo’s; with a voice like that you don’t need subject matter. On our last evening four of us had drinks at the Berkeley. This is it, I thought: life will never be the same again.

  After Mill Hill came the course. My category is meteorology. I had been determined to become a coder since they have the best chance of serving abroad. It seems, however, that coding can have a bad effect on people of a nervous disposition and the Wren officer in charge was adamant that I am nervous. She also had doubts as to my stamina and ruled out such categories as radio mechanic, parachute packer and boat’s crew. I began to be afraid she would pronounce me generally unfit, so when she suggested that the Met. branch might manage to absorb one highly strung, debilitated Wren, I submitted gratefully. In six weeks I learnt to recognise a surprising number of cloud formations, to assess cloud height and estimate visibility, to read a variety of instruments and to attend to a teleprinter which disgorges sheets of figures which must then be translated into meaningful symbols on a weather chart. Mercifully, the thinking is done by the Met. Officers.