Four aircraft carriers have passed in a long line northwards.
Thursday, 24 March
Nockie is in a deep depression over the possibility of war. If Mussolini bombs Malta we shall be lucky if we have 24 hours’ notice. The Spanish may seize Gibraltar and close the Straits. What should I do, I was asked, if I was suddenly awakened by guns?
Yet for all this talk of bombs and dictators and death I believe that I shall survive, and that my journals – if nothing else – shall survive with me. Some of the old faiths must remain. I shall pack my papers and send them home.
Friday, 25 March
We are seeing the death of democracy, says Nockie. Sooner or later we shall have to fight for our Empire, though not perhaps for a few months. There will come a form of Fascism to England. We may win if we fight.
Monday, 28 March
Nockie describes me sometimes as an engaging rabbit who will not leave its burrow, and that I must go out and suffer experiences as she has done: ‘I have had more experiences crowded into my 34 years than most people have in a lifetime. A war would not help me, but it might do you a lot of good.’
It’s time I went home. God, please let me survive the next three months.
Wednesday, 5 July
The luggage has gone. Just like that. A completely wasted year as far as my work is concerned. Have learnt something more of life, met many people, but in essence am no happier, no clearer, no surer of myself or path. But if it is possible, this ambling is going to stop as soon as I get to Graham Howe.82
Friday, 15 July
Hampstead. And now I am back again where I left off. Malta is an awkward dream that seems to have left little impression. Joan and Elsie Few gave me an uproarious welcome. The flat looks spotlessly clean, Joan has arranged flowers charmingly in my room.
It rained heavily as we approached Victoria. England was very grey and very green. I do not think that there are anywhere more beautiful trees than those in England. It is lovely, lovely to be home.
Friday, 22 July
I want a love affair. Something really exciting, stimulating. I know I am not unattractive, but I also know that love affairs don’t drop into one’s lap. I’m stuck, in danger of losing whatever little charm and ability for living I once possessed. Marriage with some worthy, reliable male seems the only hope. Today I counted up 8 or 9 possible paths to follow: architectural journalism, short story writing, the novel, ballroom dancing again, a job on the Dancing Times (through the Silvesters), furnishing and subletting flats as a commercial proposition, working for an architect’s diploma, marriage (to someone like Alan Devereux) or cutting adrift completely. I want, as Monica Haddow puts it, ‘to be rescued from virginity’. Feel myself growing flabbier and flabbier.
Urging myself to write to Graham Howe.
Monday, 25 July
I have been obsessed with the appalling idea of marrying Alan Devereux. In many ways so suitable – provincial upbringing, passionately fond of music, a very bad architect, loves argument, good physique, plays tennis well, owner driver of reasonable DKW,83 tends to be conventionally unconventional, I like his sister – but oh one wants something more than this. I must be sure of physical reliability and possibility of satisfaction. I compare every man I think of in this way with Colin Wintle. I had no doubts about my desire to sleep with him at all; I still think that if we met again now I shouldn’t hesitate to have an affair with him. I wish we could meet and lay this bug.
I have had a cable from Barbados. Pooh and family expect to be in England by August 31st.
Friday, 29 July
I am still obsessed with the A.D. idea. I think it will be a long and difficult task, for he is obviously rather woman-shy. The idea is being most villainously encouraged by my friends. The Devereuxs go to Bavaria on Thursday. I made up my mind to join them so that I might have a chance of considering and settling this foolishness.
Wednesday, 3 August
The idea is with me day and night. All because I come home starved of affection, attention, caresses, a little scared by the approaching 30s, a little more tolerant of the idea of marriage, less willing to live alone.
A dream I had the other night is worth recording. I was stranded in Italy, brought into Mussolini’s presence, lavishly entertained and courted by him, was flattered by his attentions, had no doubt as to his intentions, but decided it would be amusing to lose my virginity to a dictator. But when he discovered I was a virgin he slapped me into prison. I tried to console myself with the thought that he is said to have syphilis.
Tomorrow we leave for Bavaria.
Friday, 19 August
I blush at my last entry. Nothing to record but another failure. We were bored with and irritated by one another. The object of my meditations was a muddler, fussy, with a tendency to meanness and narrow-mindedness. He bit his nails and gobbled his food and has a humiliating lust for cream cakes.
The Devereuxs, so Elsie tells me, are descended from Robert, Earl of Essex, their mother’s family from an illegitimate son of James II. I’m supposed to have an Elizabethan ancestor too, but it doesn’t seem to help very much.
Today I shall write to make that appointment with Graham Howe.
Friday, 26 August
I am
going to see
Graham Howe
(oh God!)
14.
Into the Woods
Saturday, 27 August 1938 (aged twenty-eight)
I have chosen to visit Graham Howe on Monday morning rather than be at Plymouth to meet Pooh and his family. I am afraid Pooh may be hurt, but I want to see Dr Howe before – I want to feel not quite so hollow. Pooh may suggest my asking along a Boy Friend to make a foursome for something or other, and I Shan’t be Able to Find One.
Monday, 29 August
2 p.m. I went through dull torture from 7 o’clock this morning until I began to answer Dr Howe’s questions. I am interested at how still I sat, how quietly I spoke, and I answered everything he asked me as honestly and fully as I could. He suggested that the death of my mother had left a serious blank in my life which I have ever since been trying to fill. I have looked for this maternal understanding in the men I have known and imagined, and have made a refuge of my writing when it should have been an attack. ‘If, by talking things over with you, I can give you a new orientation in life …’ Orientation – I have never properly examined this word.
Dr Howe said that he did not believe in long analysis if he could get to the root of the problem by more direct methods. Most psychologists apparently go in for
