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Authors: Julian Symons
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envelope immediately after use. No tell-tale traces would be found in his pockets.
‘A hundred people. Oh, E, I wish you could get out of it.’ Joan was almost in tears. He stroked her hair.
‘Sometimes I wish I could too. But once you’re in the service, you’re in it for life.’
DIARY
Sunday May 18
2 am. Sitting at my desk. Peaceful. Just been down to see Clare. She is sleeping quietly, one hand clutching the coverlet. Stood looking at her, all colour gone from her face leaving it like milk. She seemed very young, I felt sorry for her. But the person I have to feel sorry for is myself. I have ruined everything.
After Hubble had gone this evening I thought about my life and saw it as a record of failure. I have never done anything that succeeded, never carried through any idea, although I do believe I have had some good ones. Sometimes I have been really stupid, as I was about the cleaning cream. I trust people too much. I remember Mother putting her hand on my head and saying she hoped I should find somebody to look after me, because that was what I should need in life. I didn’t understand her then, but do now. Remember also Roberts, headmaster at the grammar school telling Mother that I lacked resolution. He was right. Sometimes it seems to me that what we do is a matter of the way we look. If I looked different I should be different. I think I have proved that through EM.
Putting it down here may make me feel better. Tonight shan’t be able to sleep. Desperate.
Came back on Friday, asked Clare how she had been. Tuesday night she had been sick, she said, Wednesday morning sick again. Said perhaps she’d had too much protein after all, had she rung Hubble?
‘I nearly rang him. And then I thought I should be able to find out what it was myself. Couldn’t be the food. I’d been ill before that. And I did find out what it was.’
‘What?’
‘My tooth powder.’ I was aghast, terrified. I stammered something, said it couldn’t be. She gave me a glare of hideous triumph.
‘Don’t you see? Every time I brushed my teeth I was sick. There was something wrong with that tin, it must have been bad. I’ve changed to a tube, had no trouble since.’ I asked what she had done with the tin and she said she’d thrown it away. Also said she would tell Hubble when she saw him tomorrow.
‘Tomorrow?’ I must have looked foolish, but then she always thinks I look foolish. She said she had asked some people in for drinks, Hubble one of them.
After thinking about this I realised that perhaps it was all to the good. When Hubble came I should be able to drop in a worried reference to her gastric trouble, even mention in a joking way her attribution of it to tooth powder. Then tomorrow night a small dose of Z in her nightcap. The large dose the following weekend.
We played bezique (let her win) and I made the nightcap and took it up. She said I made a good whisky toddy. Expect I looked strange at that, because she went on: ‘Not been drinking, have you?’ I said of course not. ‘It’s for your own good I’m saying it, you know you can’t drink.’
She put her hand on mine, then belched. I was disgusted, it was all I could do not to turn away my head. Her hand is very coarse with the veins standing out, actually it is bigger than my own hand which is small and rather delicate. There is something coarse altogether about her which I find repulsive.
That was Friday. Saturday was routine. Up at seven-thirty, breakfast, potter round the garden in old clothes, out with the shopping basket. Clare doesn’t like me to go shopping. However. I like it so why shouldn’t I do it? Why should I feel guilty as though I were letting her down, shopping isn’t a thing a Slattery man would do?
Damn all Slatteries.
Remember thinking, soon I shall be able to go shopping without worrying, all on my owneo, buy what I like. That would be a real pleasure. I wonder if it’s true that all the most intense pleasures are
‘A hundred people. Oh, E, I wish you could get out of it.’ Joan was almost in tears. He stroked her hair.
‘Sometimes I wish I could too. But once you’re in the service, you’re in it for life.’
DIARY
Sunday May 18
2 am. Sitting at my desk. Peaceful. Just been down to see Clare. She is sleeping quietly, one hand clutching the coverlet. Stood looking at her, all colour gone from her face leaving it like milk. She seemed very young, I felt sorry for her. But the person I have to feel sorry for is myself. I have ruined everything.
After Hubble had gone this evening I thought about my life and saw it as a record of failure. I have never done anything that succeeded, never carried through any idea, although I do believe I have had some good ones. Sometimes I have been really stupid, as I was about the cleaning cream. I trust people too much. I remember Mother putting her hand on my head and saying she hoped I should find somebody to look after me, because that was what I should need in life. I didn’t understand her then, but do now. Remember also Roberts, headmaster at the grammar school telling Mother that I lacked resolution. He was right. Sometimes it seems to me that what we do is a matter of the way we look. If I looked different I should be different. I think I have proved that through EM.
Putting it down here may make me feel better. Tonight shan’t be able to sleep. Desperate.
Came back on Friday, asked Clare how she had been. Tuesday night she had been sick, she said, Wednesday morning sick again. Said perhaps she’d had too much protein after all, had she rung Hubble?
‘I nearly rang him. And then I thought I should be able to find out what it was myself. Couldn’t be the food. I’d been ill before that. And I did find out what it was.’
‘What?’
‘My tooth powder.’ I was aghast, terrified. I stammered something, said it couldn’t be. She gave me a glare of hideous triumph.
‘Don’t you see? Every time I brushed my teeth I was sick. There was something wrong with that tin, it must have been bad. I’ve changed to a tube, had no trouble since.’ I asked what she had done with the tin and she said she’d thrown it away. Also said she would tell Hubble when she saw him tomorrow.
‘Tomorrow?’ I must have looked foolish, but then she always thinks I look foolish. She said she had asked some people in for drinks, Hubble one of them.
After thinking about this I realised that perhaps it was all to the good. When Hubble came I should be able to drop in a worried reference to her gastric trouble, even mention in a joking way her attribution of it to tooth powder. Then tomorrow night a small dose of Z in her nightcap. The large dose the following weekend.
We played bezique (let her win) and I made the nightcap and took it up. She said I made a good whisky toddy. Expect I looked strange at that, because she went on: ‘Not been drinking, have you?’ I said of course not. ‘It’s for your own good I’m saying it, you know you can’t drink.’
She put her hand on mine, then belched. I was disgusted, it was all I could do not to turn away my head. Her hand is very coarse with the veins standing out, actually it is bigger than my own hand which is small and rather delicate. There is something coarse altogether about her which I find repulsive.
That was Friday. Saturday was routine. Up at seven-thirty, breakfast, potter round the garden in old clothes, out with the shopping basket. Clare doesn’t like me to go shopping. However. I like it so why shouldn’t I do it? Why should I feel guilty as though I were letting her down, shopping isn’t a thing a Slattery man would do?
Damn all Slatteries.
Remember thinking, soon I shall be able to go shopping without worrying, all on my owneo, buy what I like. That would be a real pleasure. I wonder if it’s true that all the most intense pleasures are
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