The Diaries of Jane Somers

She was sitting straight up now, her sharp chin lifted in a combative way, her eyes frightened and angry.

‘No, they were kind enough. But I don’t like it. They fill you with pills and pills and pills, you feel as if your mind has been taken from you, they treat you like a child. I don’t want it …’ And then she added, in the tone of one trying to be fair, and at this attempt leading her into more, more than she had intended. ‘ … There was one little nurse. She rubbed my back for me when I coughed …’ And she looked at me quickly, and away, and I knew she had wanted me to rub her back for her. It had not occurred to me! I do not know how!

‘Well,’ I said, ‘no one is going to force you to hospital.’

She said, ‘If they’d take me in after last time.’ And suddenly she was laughing and alert, her enjoying self.

‘What did you do?’ I said, pleased to be able to laugh with her.

‘I walked out!’ And she chuckled. ‘Yes, I had had enough. And I was constipated with all that good eating, because I am not saying they don’t feed you, and I was feeling farther and farther from myself every minute with the pills. I said, Where are my clothes? They said, You can’t go home in this weather, Mrs Fowler, you’ll die of it. For there was snow. I said, You bring me my clothes or I’ll walk out in your hospital nightdress. And so they brought them. They would not look at me or speak to me, they were so angry. I walked down into the hall and said to the porter, Call me a taxi. My bits of money had been stolen in the hospital ward. But I was going to tell the driver and ask him to bring me home for the love of God. If God is anyone they know these days. But there was a woman there in reception and she said, I’ll take you, love. And brought me home. I think of her. I think of them who do me good, I do.’ And she gave me the most marvellous merry smile, her girl’s smile.

‘For all that, I have to go to Munich. I’ll be away for four days, and you know very well you can’t manage. I want to hear you say, in so many words, you don’t want a nurse. I’m treating you seriously, not treating you like a child! If you say no nurse, I’ll do no more. But I think you should let me. A nurse isn’t going to be the end of the world.’

‘And how about all the pills then?’

‘All right. But say it, you don’t want me to ring a nurse.’ And I added, really desperate, ‘For God’s sake, Maudie, have some sense.’ I realized I had called her by her Christian name, but she was not put out.

She shrugged. ‘I have no choice, I suppose.’

I went over to her, bent down to kiss her, and she put out her cheek, and I kissed it.

I went off, waving from the door, I hope not a ‘charming’ wave.

I was late for the Conference.

First time. This Conference is in my view what gives the mag its life. It was my idea. Later I’ll write down an analysis, it would help me clear my thoughts, for I see they need clearing, about the office, work, everything. This afternoon I was alone: Joyce at home because she’s going to be in the office all the time I’m in Germany. I was trying to get information about the Services. I have all the leaflets as dished out to the consumers, Your Pension Rights and that kind of stuff. No, I want to find out how it all really works. After a while I knew what I had to do. I have to find That One Person. If this is a law for our kind of work, then it probably is everywhere. (Maudie talks about there always being the one person, though she means it in a different sense.) Joyce and I use it all the time. Long ago, we discovered that if you want to make things work, you have to look for The One Person in a department or an office who is in fact running it, or who knows about it, or is – in some way or another – real. Well, Hermione is certainly not that. No. You have to have people like Hermione, if only because there aren’t enough of the others: it’s not that they don’t do any work, or are useless, but they are peripheral. To find out how to get Maudie what she really needs, and what could help her, I can’t use Hermione. But I rang her this afternoon – she was out – and left a message that Mrs Fowler will need a nurse for five days. And then something warned me, and I told my secretary to ring Hermione, and then Joyce’s secretary too. She can’t be left with no one, for four days.

Wednesday.

First, my state of mind before I went in to Maudie. I flew back from Munich midday, went straight to the office recharged, all systems go. I adore these trips. What I adore is my efficiency. I like making things work, knowing how to do it. I like them knowing me, giving me my room, remembering my tastes. Saw friends through weekend. Rather, ‘friends’, work contacts, then Monday and Tuesday, the Fair. What I like is being in control. I am so full of energy, I eat exactly what I should, don’t drink a mouthful too much, hardly sleep, rush around all day. I know exactly how to present myself, and how to use it. I saw myself, coming into the Show, Monday morning, sitting down, people smiling and greeting: and at the same time I was back fifteen years, seeing myself through those eyes, the way I saw, at thirty, the established women who had been doing it for years. I admired them, wished to be one of them, and while I examined them, minutely, every little detail, I was looking for what they overlooked, signs of processes that would lead to their being replaced by others, me among them. Of those women whom I examined then, one remains, though some still are in the field in other ways. I have spent four days wondering what is at work in me which will lead me to be thrown out, or to remain in the office at some less taxing job, while – who? – goes off on these trips. I cannot see what it is. Simply ageing? Nothing to do with it! That I will get bored with it all? I cannot believe that, yet.

When I got into the office Joyce was waiting for me so she could go home: without ever formally arranging it, we make sure one of us is always there. She looked tired. She said she had had a dreadful time since I left, with her husband, she’d tell me, but not now, and off she went. There was a message from Hermione Whitfield that she had not got my message about the nurse till Monday, and that then Mrs Fowler refused to let the nurse in. This brought me back with a bump to my London self. I have worked all afternoon, mostly on the telephone, and then the photographers for tomorrow. But I was thinking at the same time about Joyce. I have understood that this business with her husband means the end of our working together, or at any rate, a change. I am sure of it. This made me depressed and anxious, before I even left the office. Another thing I have understood in a way I didn’t before: Joyce is my only real friend. I mean, friend. I have a relationship with her I’ve had with no one, ever. Certainly not Freddie.

I was coming straight home, because I was suddenly tired. But made the taxi put me off at Maudie Fowler’s. I stood there knocking and banging on the door. Freezing. Not a sound. I got into a panic – was she dead? – and noted, not without interest, that one of my reactions was relief. At last, an agitation of the curtains at the window of her ‘front room’, which she seems never to use. I waited. Nothing happened. I banged and banged, absolutely furious by then. I was ready to strangle her. Then the door opened inwards, sticking and scraping, and there she was, a tiny little bundle of black, with her white face sticking up out of it. And the smell. It is no good my telling myself I shouldn’t care about such details. I care terribly. The smell … awful, a sour, sweet-sharp reek. But I could see she was only just able to stand there.

There was nothing ‘charming’ about me, I was so angry.

‘Why do you keep me out in the cold?’ I said, and went in, past her, making her move aside. She then went on ahead of me down the passage, a hand on a wall to steady her.

In the back room, a heap of dead cinders in the grate. There was an electric fire, though; one bar, and it was making noises which meant it was unsafe. The place was cold, dirty, smelly, and the cat came and wound itself around my legs miaowing. Maudie let herself slide into her chair and sat staring at the grate.

‘Well, why didn’t you let the nurse in?’ I shouted at her.

‘The nurse,’ she said bitterly. ‘What nurse?’

‘I know she came.’

‘Not till Monday. All the weekend I was here by myself, no one.’

I was about to scream at her, ‘Why didn’t you let her in when she came on Monday?’ but saw there was no point.

I was full of energy again – anger.

‘Maudie,’ I said, ‘you are the limit, the end, you make things worse for yourself. Well, I’ll put the kettle on.’

I did. I fetched coal. I found the commode full of urine, but no worse, thank goodness. Thank goodness was what I thought then, but I see one gets used to anything. I then went out into the street with a carrier bag. A grey sleety rain. There I was, in all my smart things from Munich, scrabbling about in the skip for bits of wood. And again, faces at the windows, watching me.

Inside, I scraped out the grate, clouds of dust flying about, and laid the fire. With a fire-lighter. Wood and coal. Soon it was burning.

I made tea for both of us, having scalded the filthy cups. I must stop being so petty about it. Does it matter, dirty cups? Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes.

She had not moved, but sat looking at the flames.

‘The cat,’ she said.

‘I’ve given her some food.’

‘Then let her out for a bit.’

‘There’s sleet and rain.’

‘She won’t mind.’

I opened the back door. A wave of cold rain came straight in at me, and the fat yellow cat, who had been pressing to get to the door, miaowed and ran back again, to the coal cellar.

‘She’s gone to the coal cellar,’ I said.

‘Then I suppose I’ll have to put my hand in it,’ she said.

This made me so angry! I was a seethe of emotions. As usual, I wanted to hit her or shake her and, as usual, to put my arms around her.

But my mind luckily was in control, and I did everything I should, without, thank God, being ‘humorous’ or charming or gracious.

‘Have you been eating at all?’

No response.

I went out again to shop. Not a soul in the corner shop. The Indian sitting there at the cash desk looked grey and chilled, as well he might, poor soul.

I said I was buying food for Mrs Fowler, wanting to know if she had been in.

He said, ‘Oh, the old lady, I hope she is not ill?’

‘She is,’ I said.

‘Why doesn’t she go into a Home?’

‘She doesn’t want to.’