Running to Paradise (16 page)

‘
But what on earth will we do in Jarrow?’

‘
You’ll see,’ he said, ‘You’ll see.’

Algy
thinks I’m off to Ma’s for the weekend: why do I have to lie and not him?

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 31st January 1933

My
back aches, my head aches, I’ve got curse pains but no curse and I’m bruised all over my backside. Last night on the way home, I lit a candle in Westminster Cathedral. I knelt in front of a rather sickly statue of the Virgin Mary. The chapel smelt of candle grease and unwashed bodies, and I damn near caught my sleeve alight in the candle flame. God, how alone one really is. It doesn’t matter how many people love you, no one ever really reaches you. People like Barny get near, but they do more harm than good. They pry into your soul, batter you with ideas, force you to think about the world outside and then, when you’re ready at last to take them in, turn round and blandly tell you it’s not possible; they’re not prepared to venture any further. And there you are, worse off than before, because like Eve, turned out of the Garden of Eden, you can’t go back. It’s absurd, but I feel more alone than ever in my life before, and a little frightened too. I won’t be for long; tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, I’ll be strong again, but now...

Barny
’s going to China on Friday; sent by his agency. He knew he was going, he says, but didn’t tell me until we were driving back from Jarrow because he didn’t want to spoil it — CHRIST!

Algy
and I had a ghastly row last night (hence the bruised backside). He said the beef at dinner was overcooked and threw his plate on the floor. I promptly hurled the salt cellar at him and Nanny had to separate us; she’s the only one of the servants who’d dare, I suppose. I think I want to die, but am damned well going to join the Labour Party first. Barny’s boat sails from Tilbury on Friday; he wants me to see him off, but can I bear to?

And
the Jarrow weekend? It was sad, uncomfortable, lovely, funny, heartbreaking — oh, everything. If I never see Barny again I shall never, never forget it, even if I live to be a hundred. The reason for it was Barny had been commissioned to do a piece on the ‘special areas’, i.e. where unemployment is virtually out of control. He chose Jarrow because there it’s reached sixty-seven per cent, and because a friend of his, one Reg Barstow, whom he met during the General Strike in ‘26, lives there. He’s an ex-foreman in the shipyard, a senior official in the Union and a big wheel in the local Labour Party.

‘
He’s always said, “Come and stay any time and bring a girl if you like, just so long as you tell them down South what’s happening up here.” So I’m taking him at his word. He’s a darling man, you’ll love him. When I asked what to bring in the way of a gift for the larder he said: “A ham from that fancy grocer’s of yours in Piccadilly and enough whisky to keep my committee going for a couple of days.” Knowing his committee, that means a crate.’ In the end I bought the ham — the largest Fortnum’s had — and Barny bought the whisky. We drove up there in an ancient Ford. ‘The Hispano wouldn’t go down too well,’ Barny said. It was freezing and we broke down twice, but we sang Irish rebel songs, ate sticky buns and took a swig from B’s silver flask when we felt the need for it.

We
stayed the first night in a pub somewhere off the Great North Road on the edge of Yorkshire. They lit a fire in our bedroom and we went to sleep with the flames flickering on the ceiling. I woke cold and happy, to hear the sound of sheep under the window. Barny lay on his back, his black hair trailing on the pillow: I thought he was asleep, but he wasn’t.

‘
What noisy sheep,’ he said. ‘It’s time we were on our way.’ It was only mid-afternoon when we reached Jarrow, but everywhere was dead. Our little car rattled through the empty streets, past boarded-up shops and empty offices and it started to snow gently.

We
turned into a side street of respectable Victorian villas and stopped outside one with ‘Glen Afton’ in large, Gothic letters on the gate. Barny hooted and the noise echoed down the empty street. Then the front door to the house flew open and out came Reg, a tall, majestic-looking man in overalls, followed by Olive his wife, a tiny woman (smaller than me) in a pink flowered pinafore.

‘
Barny, it’s been too bloody long — how are ye?’ Reg said, embracing Barny. ‘Who’s the little lady?’

‘
This is Char and she’s one of us,’ Barny said, ‘or will be by the time we’ve finished with her.’ And by God I am. Whatever else the bastard’s done, he’s made a Socialist out of me. After that I was embraced and we were swept into the house — oil cloth on the floor, aspidistra in the hall and a lovely, warm kitchen smelling of baking bread.

Our
bedroom looked out on the sooty back alley behind the houses and was just big enough to take the huge brass bed in it. It was chillingly damp and cold, but in that room, in that bed, I found a happiness I thought impossible for one human being to experience. Perhaps it was the circumstances that made it so sweet and pure (silly words really but I can’t think of any others). I don’t know, but it was.

That
night, after high tea, we met the committee and their wives. We drank B’s whisky and they told us of Jarrow’s shame and hopelessness. I couldn’t help thinking, though, with men like them about, things couldn’t be all that hopeless. Then back to ‘Glen Afton’, hot, strong tea and upstairs to our tiny bedroom. I undressed by the light of the gas lamp outside, and my feet congealed to ice on the freezing floor.

‘
You’re beautiful,’ Barny whispered. ‘And somewhere locked inside you there’s another Char, the real one. I was conceited enough to think I could free her, but now I know I can’t, there just isn’t time.’

‘
What do you mean by the real Char? It’s not fair to start something and then not finish it.’ But he put his finger over my lips as he had done that first evening and then we made love and forgot about everything.

Next
morning the three of us — Reg, Barny and I — piled into the Ford and drove round Jarrow. Desolation beyond belief; at first I wanted to cry and then I just got angry.

‘
She’s quite a militant, your Char,’ Reg said as we drove away from a house in which a man, his wife plus four children, the youngest of which was suffering from croup, battled with, for me, quite unimaginable poverty, and I had tried to express what I felt about a government who let such a wanton waste of people’s lives occur.

It
was on our way back to London on Monday morning that Barny told me about going to China. I couldn’t speak at first; just sat looking out of the car window, the muddy, Midland fields and tawdry roadside cafes racing past me in a blur of tears. He was going away for months, possibly years, leaving me alone with nothing...

Cuckoo Farm, Dorset — 4th February 1933

Am down at Ma’s. I fled from Tilbury yesterday; I simply couldn’t face going home. I rang Algy and told him Ma was ill. ‘You said she was so fit last weekend, what on earth’s gone wrong?’ He sounded accusing and rather cross. ‘We’re dining with the Maltravers on Saturday in case you’ve forgotten. What the hell am I to say to them?’

‘
That Ma’s ill, of course, what else? And why can’t you take Edwina?’

‘
Don’t be childish,’ he said, ‘you know this dinner’s important...’

This
afternoon I galloped Firefly over Digbery Down. The wind was icy and my eyes watered from the cold. There was just me, Firefly, and miles and miles of grass and I shouted into the wind how I hated everything and everybody and no one could be trusted any more. I felt a bit better after that and rode home to tea.

Ma
has a chef! He’s a refugee from some Mid-European country and is actually a professor of something or other. ‘So brilliant,’ Ma says. ‘A mind like that must not be wasted.’ His name’s Paul and he is a good cook, actually, although his cooking’s wasted on Ma, who lives mainly on bread and custard.

If
I shut my eyes I can see the SS
Oriental
Star
slowly moving away from the dockside. A band on the quay was playing ‘Tipperary’ and it was raining a bit. I could just see Barny high above me leaning over the rail waving, but there were so many heads it was difficult to see which one was his and I was crying anyway. I drove him down to Tilbury in the Hispano. He didn’t seem to have much luggage, just a battered, leather suitcase covered in labels and a portable typewriter.

‘
Couldn’t you have waited,’ I said, ‘just a little longer? We’ve only known each other a month and you’re running away.’

‘
I’m not,’ he said, ‘running away. I want to go to China, I want to see for myself what’s happening there; can’t you understand?’

‘
But what about me? You said you were in love with me, you wanted to help.’

‘
I am in love with you,’ he said, ‘more than ever, but...but you must help yourself. Christ! Have you never thought how bloody lucky you are compared with ninety-nine per cent of the rest of the world?’ I pulled the car into the side, switched off the engine and hit him in the face with all my might. He just rubbed his cheek and laughed. ‘That’s better, darling. I’ve never been able to stand self-pity.’ I shut my eyes and tried to stop the tears.

After
a bit I felt his arm go round me. ‘There’s a little time to spare,’ he whispered. ‘Shall we do it just once more? On board it won’t be possible, I’m sharing a cabin with a man from the
News
.’ And so we did, just once more, in a deserted warehouse somewhere in Wapping. When we got back to the car afterwards, a policeman was standing beside it.

‘
Is this your car, sir? I wouldn’t leave it unattended again in an area like this, it’s asking for trouble.’

‘It’s my wife, Officer. She’s expecting a baby, you see, and I had to rush her round the corner to be sick.’

‘
I understand, sir, it takes them that way sometimes. I know, I’ve had seven myself.’ After he’d gone we laughed so much I cried again, and then remembered.

‘
I’ll write,’ he said, ‘I promise, and you’ll be able to read my piece in the
Echo
.’

‘
Fuck the bloody
Echo
,’ I shouted and he put his finger over my lips, but he was laughing.

And
that was that, really.

Later,
after he’d gone, I had a cup of revolting tea in some cafe near the docks, smoked two cigarettes and decided I couldn’t go home, not for a day or two anyway. I rang Nanny and said I was off to Ma’s and to ask Vera to pack a suitcase and I’d pick it up on the way, and here I am.

Ma
was in bed when I arrived, Paul reading Browning’s poems out loud to her. She knew at once that something was wrong. ‘Make the child some of your lovely coffee with brandy in it, dear,’ she ordered Paul, ‘and leave us alone. We’ll finish the poem another evening.’ Of course, I told her everything. She listened without interruption; her knees under the bedclothes, drawn up to her chin, her eyes staring out into the dark garden — she never draws her bedroom curtains. When I’d finished, she put her hand on my head and ruffled my hair. ‘My poor, poor, little girl,’ she said. ‘He sounds so amusing.’

It
’s odd how Ma can still surprise me, after all these years. ‘It wasn’t just he was amusing, Ma, it was—’

‘
I understand, dear. I’m not without experience of these things. Hubert and I, you know...’ That was the nearest I’ve ever heard her come to admitting she had an affair with Hubert Stokes.

I
must go back on Monday, I suppose, after all what else can I do? I could run away, but where to? Ma says stick it out for the girls’ sake; she’s a fine one to talk.

I
had such terrible dreams last night, all in brilliant, gorgeous colours. I swore, when I woke up, that I’d never forget them but I have already.

*

SS
Oriental
Star

10th
February 1933

Char
Darling —

Seven
days out on this damned old crate and nothing to do but play poker, drink and argue with my fellow hacks.

How
are you? Still cursing me for leaving you in the lurch? I hope so, it’s better than crying. I think of you a lot and keep seeing your little figure in that absurd mink coat, waving from the quay. There was a fat lady leaning on the rail next to me who kept on obscuring my view. Eventually I had to ask her (politely of course) to get out of the bloody light, but by that time I’d lost you. The weather still cold, should be warmer when we reach Port Said, where I’ll post this letter. Write to me via the Agency — if you feel like it, that is.

Love,
Barny

PS
. Someone gave me a copy of my father’s collected poems for Christmas. I’d never read them before: they’re truly marvellous — try them, but don’t let the matador see. I’m sure he’d disapprove!

SS
Oriental
Star
— Bombay

24th
February 1933