The Diaries of Jane Somers

It is so dark outside. Maudie pulls the curtains over. Maudie goes out to the back door and sees that all the dirty saucers are gone from under the table, and the cat mess gone, and there is a smell of disinfectant. She lets in the cat, and takes the opportunity for a quick visit to the lavatory. She comes back, and pokes up the fire, and sits down opposite Janna, who is sleeping like … the dead.

Maudie has not had this opportunity before, of being able to stare and look and examine openly, to pore over the evidence, and she sits leaning forward, looking as long as she needs into the face of Janna, which is so nicely available there.

It’s an agreeable face, thinks Maudie, but there’s something … Well, of course, she’s young, that’s the trouble, she doesn’t understand yet. But look at her neck there, folded up, you can see the age there, and her hands, for all they are so clean and painted, they aren’t young hands.

Her clothes, oh her lovely clothes, look at that silk there, peeping out, that’s real silk, oh I know what it’s worth, what it is. And her pretty shoes … No rubbish on her, ever. And she didn’t get any change out of what she paid for that hat of hers! Look at it, she flings it down on the bed, that lovely hat, the cat is nearly on top of it.

Look at those little white quills there … the Rolovskys used to say that they never had anyone to touch me for making those little quills. I could do them now, it is all here still, the skill of it in my fingers … I wonder if …

Maudie carefully gets up, goes to the bed, picks up the lovely hat, goes back to her chair with it. She looks at the satin that lines the hat, the way the lining is stitched in – blown in, rather; oh yes, the one who did this hat knew her work all right! And the little white quills …

Maudie dozes off, and wakes. It is because the fridge upstairs is rumbling and crashing. But almost at once it stops – that means it has been on for a long time, because it runs for an hour or more. Janna is still asleep. She hasn’t moved. She is breathing so lightly that Maudie is afraid, and peers to make sure …

Janna is smiling in her sleep? Or is it the way she is lying? Oh, she’s going to have a stiff neck all right … is she going to stay here all night then? Well, what am I expected to do? Sit up here while the night goes? That’s just like them, they think of nobody but themselves, they don’t think of me …

Rage boils in Maudie Fowler, as she sits caressing the lovely hat, looking at sleeping Janna.

Maudie sees Janna’s eyes are open. She thinks, oh my Gawd, has she died? No, she is blinking. She hasn’t moved anything else, but she is lying there in the chair, eyes open, looking past Maudie at the window that has hours ago shut out the wet and blowy night with old greasy yellow curtains.

Maudie thinks, she is taking a long time to come to herself, surely? And then Janna’s eyes move to her face, Maudie’s: Janna looks, suddenly, terrified, as if she will get up and run – and for a moment all her limbs gather together in a spring, as if she will be off. And then the horrible moment is past, and Janna says, ‘Oh, Maudie, I have been asleep, why didn’t you wake me?’

‘I have been looking at this gorgeous hat,’ says Maudie, stroking it delicately with her thick clumsy fingers.

Janna laughs.

Maudie says, ‘You could stay the night next door, if you like.’

Janna says, ‘But I have to be home to let in a man to do the electricity.’

Maudie knows this is a lie, but does not care.

She thinks, Janna has been asleep here half the night, as if this is her place!

She says, ‘I have been thinking, this is the best time of my life.’

Janna sits straight up in her chair, because, being young, her limbs don’t stiffen up, and she leans forward and looks into Maudie’s face, serious, even shocked.

‘Maudie,’ she says, ‘you can’t say that!’

‘But it’s true,’ says Maudie. ‘I mean, I’m not talking about the short joyful days, like carrying my Johnnie, or a picnic here and a picnic there, but now, I know you will always come and we can be together.’

Janna has tears filling up her eyes, and she blinks them back and says, ‘For all that, Maudie …’

‘Will you remember to bring me in some batteries for my torch?’ says Maudie, in the humble but aggressive way she makes requests.

Janna says, ‘I tell you what, I’ll bring in my torch from the car, and you can have that.’

She goes out, in her usual striding way, but then comes back to say, ‘Maudie, it’s morning, the sky is alight.’

The two women stand in Maudie’s entrance and see the grey light in the streets.

Maudie does not like to say that now she will probably lie on her bed, with the curtains drawn, and stay there for some hours. She suspects Janna of intending not to sleep again that night. Well, she’s young, she can do it. She would so much like to have Janna’s torch, because after all Janna might not come in tomorrow – no, today.

But Janna kisses her, laughs, and goes rushing off down the dingy wet pavements. She has forgotten her hat.

Janna’s day.

The alarm makes me sit up in bed. Sometimes I switch it off, sink back, today not: I sit in the already bright morning, five o’clock, and look through the day ahead: I cannot believe that by the time I end it I shall have done so much. I make myself jump out of bed, I make myself coffee, I am at my typewriter ten minutes after I am awake. I should have put in: I emptied my bladder, but I am still ‘young’ and do not count that among the things that have to be done! But today I shall write down the visits to the loo, otherwise how can I compare my day with Maudie’s? The articles I wrote, so tentatively, and without confidence, last year, have become a book. It is nearly finished. I said it would be done by the end of this month. It will be. Because I said it would be. That I do what I say gives me such strength! And then, there is a project no one knows about: a historical novel. It was Maudie gave me the idea. I think of that time as quite recent, my grandmother’s; but Vera Rogers speaks of it as I might speak of, I don’t know, let’s say Waterloo. I plan a historical novel, conceived and written as one, about a milliner in London. I long to begin it.

I work hard until eight. Then I drink coffee and eat an apple, shower, am into my clothes, am off, in half an hour. I like to be there by nine, and I always am. Today, Phyllis was late. No Joyce. I collected mail for the three of us and called the secretary and it was done and out of the way by ten and the Conference. Phyllis most apologetic: she is like me, never late, never away, never ill. The Conference is as usual, lively and wonderful. It was Joyce who said it would be like a Think Tank. Everyone, from the PRs and the photographers’ assistants to Editorial, encouraged to have ideas, no matter how wild, how crazy, because you never know. As usual, Phyllis writes it all down. It was she who volunteered to do it, and both Joyce and I knew, when she did, that she was thinking, it is a key position. Phyllis does not let these ideas disappear, she lists them, she has them duplicated on all our desks through all the departments. An idea that drops out of sight might emerge again a year later. Today somebody revived one, that the ‘uniforms for women’ series should include the types of clothes worn, for instance, by female television announcers or women going out to dinners with their husbands for career reasons. That is, a certain kind of dinner gown, or style, as uniform … that makes my style a uniform! But I knew that! I wear it all the time. Even, said Freddie, in bed. I never wear anything but real silk, fine cotton, lawn, in bed … he used to joke that if I were to wear a nylon nightie, it would be the same for me as if I committed a crime.

Thinking about Freddie in the office, I surprised myself in tears, and was glad that I had said I would interview Martina, and got to Brown’s Hotel just in time. I am never late. She easy to interview, professional, competent, no time wasted, full marks. I got back at twelve thirty, asked Phyllis if she would do the Eminent Women Luncheon. She said firmly no, she could not, I must. I am a stand-in for Joyce, who is the eminent woman, but she is ill, and Phyllis is of course right, was right to look surprised: for it would not be appropriate for Phyllis to do it. Once I would not have made such a slip, but the truth is, my mind is more and more on my two books, the one nearly finished, my lovely historical novel soon to be started.

I look at myself in the washroom. I forgot this morning about the Luncheon, no marks for that, I am slipping! A button hanging on its thread, and my nails were not perfect. I did my nails in the taxi. The Luncheon agreeable, I made a speech on behalf of Joyce.

On the way back from the Luncheon I go into Debenhams and up to the top floor, and there I look for Maudie’s kind of vests, real wool, modest high petticoats, and long close-fitting knickers. I buy ten knickers, and three vests, three petticoats – because she wets her knickers now, and sometimes worse. Rush, rush, rush, but I’m back by three thirty. I phone to make an appointment with the hairdresser, another for the car. Phyllis said she felt awful. She looked it. So apologetic, such a criminal! For God’s sake, go to bed, I said, and swept all her work from her desk to mine. I did the recipes, summer food, I did Young Fashion, went off with the photographers to Kenwood for a session, came back and worked by myself in the office, no one else there, until nine. I love being by myself, no telephones, nothing, only the watchman. He went out for Indian take-away, I asked him to join me, we had a quick supper on the corner of my desk. He’s nice, George, I encouraged him to talk about his problems, won’t go into that, but we can help, he needs a loan.

I was tired by then and suddenly longing for bed. I did some more work, rang Joyce in Wales, heard from her voice that she was better, but she was noncommittal. I don’t give a damn, she said, when I asked if she were going to the States. She is saying, too, I don’t give a damn about you either. This made me think about the condition of not giving a damn. On my desk, in the ‘Too difficult’ basket, an article about stress, how enough stress can cause indifference. It is seen in war, in hard times. Suffer, suffer, emote, emote, and then suddenly, you don’t care. I wanted this published. Joyce said. No, not enough people would recognize it. Irony!

I said good night to George at nine thirty, and got a taxi to where I leave my car, and drove up towards home, thinking, no, no, I can’t go in to Maudie, I simply cannot. When I banged, I was irritable, I was tired, I was thinking, I hope she is in the lavatory and doesn’t hear. But when she opened, I could see by her face … I switched on everything I have, and made myself crash in, all gaiety and liveliness, because I am afraid of her black moods, for once she starts I can’t shift her out of them. That is why I arrived, female Father Christmas, HM the Queen Mum, all radiant, I have to stop her muttering and raging.

When I reach her back room, it is hot and smelly, the smell hits me, but I make myself smile at the fire. I see from her face what is needful, and I go into the kitchen. I was nearly sick. I whirl around the kitchen, because I know the Indian grocer is about to close, and I run across the road, saying, ‘Please, just another minute, I need stuff for Mrs Fowler.’ He is patient and kind, but he is a grey-violet colour from tiredness. Sometimes he is in here from eight until eleven at night. Often by himself. He is educating three sons and two daughters … He asks, ‘How is she?’ I say, ‘I think she isn’t well.’ He says, as always, ‘It is time her people looked after her.’

When I get back, I cut up fish for the cat. It is no good, I cannot make myself appreciate cats, though that makes me an insensitive boor. I clean up the cat’s mess, I get the brandy and glasses. I realize I have forgotten the vests and knickers in the office. Well, tomorrow will do. I take out her commode, because she is not looking at it, with a trembling pride on her face I know only too well by now. As I wash it, I think, here’s something very wrong. I shall have to tell Vera Rogers. I rinse the inside of the commode carefully and use a lot of disinfectant.

When I sit down opposite her, with brandy for her and me, I fully mean to tell her about the Luncheon, with all the famous women, she’d like that, but – that was the last I remember, until I came to myself, out of such a deep sleep I could not find myself when I woke. I was looking at a yellow little witch in a smelly hot cave, by her roaring fire, her yellow shanks showing, for she had no knickers on and her legs were apart, and on her lap she held my hat, and she was using it for some bad purpose … I was terrified, and then suddenly I remembered, I am Jane Somers, I am here, in Maudie’s back room, and I fell asleep.

She did not want me to go. She made an excuse about batteries for her torch. I went to the door into the street, and it was morning. We stood there, looking up – oh, England, dismal and drear, a grey wet dawn. It was four thirty when I got home. I had a long, long proper bath, and then to my book again.

But I cannot concentrate on it. I am thinking about Maudie’s ‘This is the best time of my life’. What I cannot stand is, that I believe she means it. My running in at the end of the day, an hour, two hours, so little, is enough to make her say that. I want to howl when I think of it. And too, I feel so trapped. She might live for years and years, people live to be a hundred these days, and I am a prisoner of her ‘This is the best time of my life’, lovely gracious Janna, running in and out, with smiles and prezzies.

I wrote Maudie’s day because I want to understand. I do understand a lot more about her, but is it true? I can only write what I have experienced myself, heard her say, observed … I sometimes wake with one hand quite numb … But what else is there I cannot know about? I think that just as I could never have imagined she would say, ‘This is the best time of my life’, and the deprivation and loneliness behind it, so I cannot know what is behind her muttered ‘It is dreadful, dreadful’, and the rages that make her blue eyes blaze and glitter.

And I see that I did not write down, in Janna’s day, about going to the loo, a quick pee here, a quick shit, washing one’s hands … All day this animal has to empty itself, you have to brush your hair, wash your hands, bathe. I dash a cup under a tap and rinse out a pair of panties, it all takes a few minutes … But that is because I am ‘young’, only forty-nine.

What makes poor Maudie labour and groan all through her day, the drudge and drag of maintenance. I was going to say, For me it is nothing; but the fact is, once I did have my real proper baths every night, once every Sunday night I maintained and polished my beautiful perfect clothes, maintained and polished me, and now I don’t, I can’t. It is too much for me.

Late summer, how I hate it, blowzy and damp, dowdy and dusty, dull green, dull skies; the sunlight, when there is any, a maggot-breeder; maggots under my dustbin, because I hadn’t touched my own home for days.

Maudie has been ill again. Again I’ve been in, twice a day, before going to work and after work. Twice a day, she has stood by the table, leaning on it, weight on her palms, naked, while I’ve poured water over her till all the shit and smelly urine has gone. The stench. Her body, a cage of bones, yellow, wrinkled, her crotch like a little girl’s, no hair, but long grey hairs in her armpits. I’ve been worn out with it. I said to her, ‘Maudie, they’d send you in a nurse to wash you,’ and she screamed at me, ‘Get out then, I didn’t ask you.’

We were both so tired and overwrought, we’ve been screeching at each other like … what? Out of literature, I say ‘fishwives’, but she’s no fishwife, a prim, respectable old body, or that’s what she’s been in disguise for three decades. I’ve seen a photograph, Maudie at sixty-five, the image of disapproving rectitude … I don’t think I would have liked her then. She had said to herself, I like children, they like me, my sister won’t let me near her now she’s not breeding, she doesn’t need my services. So Maudie put an advert in the Willesden paper, and a widower answered. He had three children, eight, nine, ten. Maudie was given the sofa in the kitchen, and her meals, in return for: cleaning the house, mending his clothes, the children’s clothes, cooking three meals a day and baking, looking after the children. He was a fishmonger. When he came in at lunchtime, if he found Maudie sitting having a rest, he said to her, Haven’t you got anything to do? He gave her two pounds a week to feed them all on, and when I said it was impossible, she said she managed. He brought home the fish for nothing, and you could buy bread and potatoes. No, he wasn’t poor, but, said Maudie, he didn’t know how to behave, that was his trouble. And Maudie stuck it, because of the children. Then he said to her, Will you come to the pictures with me? She went, and she saw the neighbours looking at them. She knew what they were thinking, and she couldn’t have that. She cleaned the whole house, top to bottom, made sure everything was mended, baked bread, put out things for tea, and left a note: I am called to my sister’s, who is ill, yours truly, Maude Fowler.

But then she took her pension, and sometimes did small jobs on the side.

The Maudie who wore herself ‘to a stick and a stone’ was this judging, critical female, with a tight cold mouth.

Maudie and I shouted at each other, as if we were family, she saying, ‘Get out then, get out, but I’m not having those Welfare women in here,’ and I shouting, ‘Maudie, you’re impossible, you’re awful, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’