are attracted to the conventionally minded female. I feel rather mean to be criticising her while still a guest in her house, and she has admirably sterling qualities and will be loyal to her last breath. And she will look after him as he so badly needed looking after.
I don’t think a sub-tropical climate is really good for me. On Friday I shall have been here a month, half of my precious holiday will have gone, and I have done hardly anything. And I am not going to try to be Christian-minded about it. I came out here to have a good time, and I could have had it too if there were someone just to take me about a bit. It is a great pity Pooh must be so busy just as I get here.45 I must have the most amazing powers of self-control and self-restraint that I can screw down my impatience and restlessness so that none of them seems aware of it.
I wonder if Pooh’s awkwardness with babies is due to my mother’s distaste for them – her fear of having any and her efforts not to have Pooh. It is all rather terrible, but she was marvellous enough to us when we did arrive.
I am tired of these correct, nice people with their stiff and settled ideas on proper ways of living. I want London and Gus again and a little Bohemianism.
Wednesday, 16 August
If I have to sit on that verandah much longer I shall explode. But what with hurricanes and snapped cables and babies I am hemmed in and doomed for 8 weeks. And even if the trams did manage to get going again tomorrow, where on earth can I go? The slopes of Kingston bore me to tears, and I am frightened of exploring those backstreets on my own. Well I can go home and tell the usual lies.
Saturday, 19 August
Please God don’t let this go on.
Tuesday, 22 August
Pooh is still repairing cables.
Monday, 28 August
I do so badly want a home of my own, wherein I could experiment with all the exciting recipes I came across in such mags as Good Housekeeping. Varieties of sandwiches for tea; stuffed vegetables for supper or light lunches; new kinds of sweets, grated milk chocolate for instance, with mashed banana and cream.
Now supposing I was suddenly left a million pounds, what should I do with it? Clothes of course. Learn French. I would take a room again in town. I would give the old folks a new car and chauffeur and a boiler for constant h.w. And I think I should give up architecture for the two-year Journalism course at UCL.
And now the damned idea’s got hold of me I realise there are no practical obstacles to prevent my taking the course. Only fear has held me from considering the idea seriously. Writing is the only thing that has meant anything to me. I’ve been doing architecture for nearly six years now (three years at the office and three years at college), so I ought to know whether I’m capable of dealing with it or not. And honestly, I’m afraid I’m not.
I am going to write books and plays and articles.
Wednesday, 30 August
I cannot really believe that this may be true. I am about to do the thing I have always dreamed of doing. Rain drips from the verandah, the mad Jamaican ants scurry across the tiles, and I am deciding to make a bold mad plunge into a river I don’t know. Nothing is going to shake me or make me change my mind anymore. But give me words, not bricks, to play with and I will build you palaces for kings.
Difficulties? Millions of them! Failure? Inevitable.
Thursday, 14 September
The last idle hour I shall probably ever have in Jamaica. A stray breeze blows through the room that has sheltered me for so many weeks. Net curtains fixed to the lower half of all the many windows. Cream-washed cracked plaster walls. Grey paint on sills and frames and boarded ceiling. The curtain rings of the wardrobe rattling in rhythm with window sashes. The cupboard door under the table blown open. Outside bananas and bamboo fronds. Coffee berries. Lime and orange trees. Ebony, pear, Spanish oak. Mauve convolvulus creeper, hibiscus flowers. Heavy sweet scent by the waterfalls. Night coming down over the mountains. Lights of Kingston miles below.
Tuesday, 19 September
I am the only unmarried female aboard.
Wednesday, 20 September
I am hating all these lousy old men, old men who want to make love to you. I would like to wring their necks and slap their faces, but I don’t. I encourage them by holding their hands, and then offend them by not trotting off into some dark corner after dinner to be slobbered over.
Dear God I’m getting some experience of men. But they are nearly all old, at that stage where any fairly young girl could amuse and flatter them enormously. How I hate being mauled about. Poor Billie B. (my brother’s boss in the Kingston office) – what a fool! What an undersized and boring fool! ‘You’re not afraid of me are you?’ as he tried to make me go for a drive with him. Afraid. If I had only said, ‘My dear man, I’m bored to tears with you, take me home at once,’ instead of soothing him gently by murmuring ‘Oh, I think you’re very nice …’ And how could I explain that foolishness when we danced at the Silver Slipper after eating ham and eggs, and that his touch excited in me memories of other men and other moons, and that as a man I despised him utterly, and that I compared him to some rotten, undeveloped kernel, green and mouldy in a dry and brittle shell.
Friday, 29 September
I don’t know whether I am more amused or angry with myself. But I do know there are a damn sight too many men on this ship, and I was very foolish to allow Neville into my cabin to say goodnight.
I loathe myself for that, and I don’t know how I’m going to get beyond this. There’s not one of them wouldn’t make love to me (or hasn’t tried) if I encouraged them enough, from the Captain downwards. Whether they have bets on it or not I can’t guess, but I know I’ve gone just a little too far with Nev and I wish to God I hadn’t. Reason said, ‘Why not?’ and instinct said, ‘No’. And once he was in my cabin, instinct said ‘Let him stay’ and reason said, ‘Send him away at once’. And there he is now writing letters. His presence naturally disturbs me. He has just asked me if I write poetry and says he is writing a fairy story. Oh Lord, oh Lord, what have I done?
Saturday, 30 September
‘But listen Jean,’ said Nev. ‘Making love on board ship means nothing.’ Which is just the crux of the whole matter. The whole bitter point of it. I want someone who will mean something to me.
My physical needs as a normal woman are badly wanting fulfilment. I’ve got to somehow make them understand that I have no anchor; that an ordinary full-sexed woman must centre her interests on one man, otherwise she must inevitably go to pieces.
I’ve learnt a lot from this voyage, and one thing from Nev which is forceful and important – that platonic friendships are impossible. To show my trust in my little boyfriends I left my door unbolted; although they had drunk too much, I knew I could trust them. But I’ve bolted it again.
Undated
Dearly beloved Pooh and family,
Home again, and I’m wondering if it’s three months
