J. Powers - Suitable Accommodations - An Autobiographical Story of Family Life - The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963

BIRDIE AND AL STROBEL; BERTHA SEBERGER

Ireland

12:40 a.m., October 14, 1957

St Cloud

6:40 p.m., October 13, 1957

Dear Bertie, Al, G’ma,

Here we are with our dying fire, into our second bottle of Canadian Club (compliments of Doubleday & Company), and I’ve just finished, with much help from Betty, my ad for The Irish Times , which I’ll be dropping off tomorrow when I go to Dublin.

Wanted to rent house in possible surroundings for long period by unpopular author and family. Greystones to Dublin. 5/6 bedrooms. Cooker, immersion. View of sea? Require furniture, expect to have to collect it, but would consider furnished house if this would not mean eyesores, radiogram veneers, contemporary. State rent and other interesting details in first letter.

Well, there it is. It is calculated to catch the eye of that exceptional person who would not ordinarily reply to a blind ad but who, on reading this one, would suddenly decide to move out and rent it to us. […]

As you can imagine from this, we are not in the best of spirits — I speak loosely — and whatever happens from here on can’t help being better. We have had hard times ever since we left the Britannic , and the last two days on it, with each of the kids being sick with the flu and finally Betty in Cork, where we stayed another day, not according to plan, so she could recover. Even now, everyone isn’t well, Hugh and Boz still very much off their feed. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for three days on account of Hugh — the first night in Cork he started off in bed with me and then tired of me, as men will, I’m told, and I ended up on the floor between two comforters, short ones at that, with my head sticking out one end and my feet the other. (Betty, should your question concern her, was in the other twin bed, and very narrow twin beds they were, about what we’d call an army cot.) And so it goes. […]

Jim

You amaze us with your salesmanship. I refer to the way you’ve been selling our things. I am most impressed by the sale of the watercooler. I am the only person I know who would be tempted by it. […]

MICHAEL MILLGATE

St Stephens, Victoria Road

Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland

October 23, 1957

Dear Michael,

Hoped by now that I’d be writing from a more permanent address, but we are still at the above, having arrived here on the 12th, with no prospect of improving ourselves. […] I have more or less despaired of finding what I had in mind: a small Georgian residence in surroundings and view of the sea. I just sit here with the Telefunken. I celebrated Trafalgar Day on the Light yesterday, the return of the queen to London, and today listened to Victor Silvester and His Ballroom Orchestra, an old favorite of mine (he makes Guy Lombardo sound like Count Basie). And of course it’s nice having The Observer and Sunday Times right after Mass on Sunday. Beauty we have too, the sea — snot green under the sun today — and Bray Head and the Sugar Loaf Mts. Stilton cheese and Double Diamond in this Crown Colony and Jersey cream. But … but this isn’t it, Michael, and I’m not inviting you over. We would like to see you here when and if we find the place. (Betty is off seeing an agent now who advertises that he covers the waterfront. Words, words.) Let us hear from you.

Jim

LEONARD AND BETTY DOYLE

St Stephens, Victoria Road

Greystones, County Wicklow, Ireland

October 29, 1957

Dear Leonard and Betty,

Betty has given you a good picture of our life here. I can mention two more positive items. Haircuts are two bob (two shillings or 28¢); 1⁄ 6(one shilling, sixpence) for lads like Boz. Do you want me to get an estimate on bearded gentlemen? The other thing is Jersey cream and Irish oatmeal. I haven’t made oatmeal a feature of my life in the past, but here I look forward to it. Of course radio you know about, the highbrow 3rd Programme on BBC, of course, but I have a weakness for such music from “Grand Hotel, the Palm Court,” which means “Tell Me Pretty Maiden” and “I Leave My Heart in an English Garden,” medleys from Gilbert and Sullivan, “Zigeuner,” and such, just the thing for the middle-aged tea toper …

I am full of questions about the Movement. I do hope you’ll draw closer to it, Leonard, and not be the outsider you were, appearing only rarely at the smaller gatherings. Make a practice of dropping in on the Humphreys and O’Connells and others I want the latest on. Think of yourself as a routeman or roundsman, as the expression is here. If necessary, go to work for Jewel Tea or Watkins Products. You may not sell a lot, but you will get around regularly, and no one need know your real business — which is news, news, news! About payment, well, you name it. Maybe legman is the term for what I want you to be. Especially Don needs close covering. He’s tricky, as everybody knows. Even when I was there on the spot, too much escaped me, and unless Mary is involved in the opposite point of view — unless it is to her personal advantage that the truth come out — you can expect little help from that quarter. Then, too, where you are concerned, she is inclined to be skittish, if you know what I mean. You are familiar, I hope, with the theory some of us hold that women are both fascinated and horrified by you. Mary is not the only one so affected; your wife is another; and there are others nearby. In fact, I can’t think of a single one who doesn’t qualify. You are the lion in that little jungle. There is a sudden stillness when you come nigh. My reports, such as they are, on Don haven’t been much. I learn he is limping about; I learn he has worked Sputnik into his repertoire. The latter I had known instinctively. I still don’t know what it is, what it’s for, only that it somehow serves Don’s ends on earth …

I was amazed to hear of Em’s coming trip to Paris, having heard from him in the first mail today. (Incidentally, there is another advantage, two deliveries of mail in Ireland.) Burden him with commissions; perfume; pornography; the latest on the priest-workers. You should get some good evenings out of his trip. Let’s hope it won’t all be the kind of grist he can turn to CFM1 purposes. I hope he manages to get drunk while there. I do not go so far as to wish him syphilis. But I do hope he has a good time. All for now. And please write. I was happy to have your letter, even though I could do with less detail on eye doctors (as you sensed, judging from your final remarks). You really must curb your interest in the physical, Leonard. Man does not live by homeopathy alone, you know. Do you need any seaweed?

Jim

We had a call from one of Fr Fennelly’s curates this afternoon. He disturbed me somewhat by repeatedly mentioning that I should call for him if I needed him. He asked what I thought of Fr F.’s practice of having the Mass explained from the pulpit as it’s progressing, and I said I didn’t care much for it but that I wasn’t much of a missal man myself. “Nor am I,” said he. We said we found eggs pretty high in Ireland, and he said, “Oh, keep a few hens.” He also said that Greystones was the most Protestant town in Ireland except for Belfast. Yes, I said, we’ve been told that living here, we’re not really living in Ireland. “Exactly,” he said. I thought this might be a good thing but didn’t develop the idea.

JOE AND JODY O’CONNELL

St Stephens

November 4, 1957

Dear Jody and Joe,

[…] JF taking over here (Betty suddenly conked out and would like to turn in but is chary of cold sheets). Let me say too that I enjoyed the letter and the portrait,2 and I wish you wouldn’t apologize for either — not that anyone did apologize for the portrait. I am thinking of a large — about seven feet — frame for it, the thing being so small it would have to be widely matted, with hair, I think, old beard combings or, in default of those, horsehair such as pokes through our mattress and through the sheet. I always think of Leonard when I feel a sprig of horsehair at my backside. But be that as it may. Both of you should continue in your respective fields: the news of the Movement from Joe; sketches from Jody — and how about a few nudes? The subject could be the same — say, that one scene where the principal ingredients are horror and moonlight, call it “The Kill,” or “Connubial Bliss.”