Harriet Evans - Love Always

Me: Where have all these new clothes come from? M: Connie gave me some money, I told you.

Me: Well I don’t believe you. Neither does Mummy. There was a weird look on Miranda’s face. She said: No one ever believes me, do they. I try & I try to get better, and feel better & it still comes back to nothing. I get nowhere.

She said it in a really sad voice, & then she shrugged. I looked at her, diary, she looked different when she said it. So beautiful, so alive & like she fitted everything for once. Like Mummy in her studio: another person, the real person somehow.

I remembered Guy saying it must be hard, being Miranda. I didn’t ask him what he meant. But perhaps it is. Archie is the son, it’s easy being the son. It’s easy for boys, that’s the truth. They can do what they want. If they make a mistake, or fail their exams, they go to agricultural college or train to be something boring. If you’re a girl, you either have to be either useful or decorative. Like a lamp. I think about this a lot & it makes me angry. Mummy is the only person I know who does both, have a talent and be beautiful, and sometimes I think she doesn’t like either of them.

Perhaps that’s why Miranda’s decided to be beautiful, this summer. It takes work, it’s funny. Perhaps that’s why Mummy’s so cross with her.

She doesn’t like her being beautiful.

Oh, this is all rather long & confusing but I know what I mean.

I put on my dressing gown & said I was going to have a bath. She let me go but just as I was leaving she said, ‘Can I tell you one thing about Mummy, Cecily?’

Me: Yes.

M: (in doorway looking pleased) If she’s so wonderful, why was she up here yesterday, trying on my clothes, when you were out at the beach?

Me: What’s wrong with that if she does?

I tried to pretend it wasn’t anything unusual but it’s odd, I knew that right away.

M: She’s made me give her two of them. A coat dress I hadn’t worn yet. And the cocktail dress.

Me: The black gros-grain one?

M: & that’s not all she wants.

Me: What else?

She nods, & then she flops down on the bed. ‘You’ll see.’ She’s smiling up at the ceiling. ‘You’ll find out. I hope it’s not too late.’ & then she flounced out.

I have told this so badly, sorry DD. But I wanted to get it all down and so I’m writing this now before breakfast. I don’t know what to make of it all. Things have changed, perhaps since the Leightons arrived? Since the weather got hotter? Since we grew up? I just don’t know.

It is now evening & Miranda & I are sort of speaking but not friends. I keep looking at Mummy over supper, & wondering if it’s true about her trying on the dresses. I just know it’s not, that’s all. My favourite advert in the Illustrated London News this week is: Take No Chances with Facial Hair. The shop is 7 doors down from Harrods. Extraordinary. Miranda is obsessed with her facial hair, maybe I should cut it out & leave it on her bed, but I don’t think that would improve her mood.

Tuesday, 30th July 1963

I spent a lot of today playing backgammon with Dad again. I am now outside, on the bench under the apple tree on the edge of the lawn, writing what we talked about up, as he told me to. The lavender smells beautiful, perhaps Dad is right.

Since I came back home this summer I have been thinking about relationships. It is strange, being in love. I was so sure most of this year I was in love with Jeremy. And now I know I’m not. I do love him but because he is dear & kind & my cousin. So DD how will I know when the right man comes along for me? Maybe I won’t recognise him, I’ll think it’s me being silly again? I hope not. This worries me.

Louisa & the BH are also strange to me. I assume they love each other? They are certainly here together & he is her boyfriend & I would hope they are, especially the way she raved on about him before he arrived. The only time I HAVE ever seen them alone together is late at night, when he asked her if he could kiss her breasts & lick them, which is what he did ask that night, in a silly boyish voice (yes that is indeed what he said. I have decided to be honest about such things. !!!! Why does he want to, and in this awful baby voice? So strange. They’re just there, they don’t do anything). They talk to each other in front of us, but I never see them go off for a walk by themselves, or chat together at the table, it’s always with other people. He flirts with Miranda, it’s disgusting (‘You have the last piece of bread!’ ‘No, YOU! You need to keep your strength up, I’m going to beat you at tennis this afternoon!’ ‘Oh, really!’ bleurgh like they’re in Salad Days) and he laughs with Guy or Archie all the time, never with Louisa. The people he hardly ever talks to are Dad and Mummy. I don’t think he knows what to say to Dad, and I think he finds Mummy intimidating. In fact I think he has a bit of a pash for her. He blushes when she talks to him.

And Louisa is always hanging round pretending she’s busy & being all bossy trying to organise things whereas in fact I know she just wants BH to go for a walk with her. Is that what being in love is like? Hanging around for someone? Seems rubbish to me.

Dad answers questions, but he never asks them. He is like a piece on a backgammon board: he will be moved around by you, but according to his own rules. He comes for meals & then goes back to his study, & I used to think what a fraud it is, that he is a philosopher who writes about people, & yet he must exchange less than 10 words to the 9 other people in the house.

I have been noticing things since I started writing this diary, one of them is that I don’t mention Dad much. I don’t talk to him. He’s just there.

Today after breakfast I asked if we could play backgammon again. He said ‘Yes, with pleasure, Cecily.’

When Mummy said, ‘But you’re sitting for me this morning,’ I said, ‘Please Mummy, just for today,’ & she looked at Dad & at me & she said,

‘Oh, all right then.’

I like Dad’s study but I never go in there. It is filled with books as you would expect, but it is not too much like a library, there are lots of blue Pelicans & books on Indian art & paintings in there, & a low, comfortable chair for me to sit in. It smells nice too, Dad told me it is sandalwood, & he gets it when he’s in London, because the smell helps him to work.

He won best of 3 & then I noticed the piles of paper at the side of the board for the first time, & the old typewriter, which Mrs Randall uses when she comes to type things up for him, & I wonder (because I’ve been away for two months at school) how long it’s been since Mrs Randall came here so I asked him how the new book was about, which I never have before.

I’m so curious about what he’s been working on all these years but I know this question really really annoys writers. So I tried to think of a subtle way to ask but I couldn’t.

Me: So what’s the next book about?

Dad: Do you know the story of the Koh-i-Noor diamond?

Me: (pleased as never know answers to questions like this normally) Yes, it’s the one in the Queen’s crown.

Dad: (smiles to himself) Not quite. The Empress of India’s crown. Now the Queen Mother’s crown. It is not the largest, nor the most beautiful diamond in the world, but it is the most famous.