Angus Mackay Diaries Volume XVIII (2002 - 2004)

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 177

Friday February 1 2002 - May 10 2002.

Friday February 1 2002 Saturday February 2 2002

To Chiswick this a.m. to shop for K and give him a choice. Got back at twelve, but no sign. Arrived at something after one, animated newsy talk, and an omelette with the blewits and chanterellesI got at the lovely greengrocers - £29.50 a kilo. About two four inch blews and four or five chant. about £3, not bad for such deliciousness.

Now it’s Saturday night, and K’s gone, after two wonderful days.I have done nothing except stand up and sit down, and prepare four meals, and I’m exhausted. I fear K might have felt I was lazy or feeble. Well, he started out – ‘Can’t stop here talking, or the light will go’, on the buddleia, ‘which job do you want done first?’ He sawed it right down, and I do see that it’s partly destabilised some bricks. A great relief. I hope that silly fussy man won’t find something else to shout to me about. I was becoming quite reluctant to go into the garden. Horrible to cut anything down, but on balance welcomed it. Comically, the wind was the strongest I’ve heard since I’ve been here. Quite expected a letter of complaint from the next door just as we were cutting down the dangerous bush. They have a ‘patio’ (sic) garden and are clearly nervous of a jungle takeover, or indeed anything they can’t control.

He cleared all the debris onto the baseball platform. Tho’ he is so careful, goodness knows what he’s trodden on, because he knows nothing of plants. Collected up rubbish on the other side, fallen off other neighbour’s side, balanced on their wall by their nosy child. What else could he do, those turfs, so yes he could dig the choisya bed to screen off the platform and did so. I only asked him to turf it, but he dug as well. Perhaps not deep enough, but still incredible.

So dusk fell, and indoors. The halogen lights over the hob and the sink were replaced and he taught me how to replace them. He tidied up the wiring. He hung the rest of the pictures – about twenty. I did none of these things and didn’t watch all of them, so why am I so tired now? Well, the visit to Chiswick, and walking to the local shops for bread before he came. Then he asked me to go again, to get some cigarettes, and later on to get the replacement bulbs, two more walks to the shops. Now I don’t mean to say I wish he’d gone, wasting his time. But I am a bit depressed that I am tired and will be stiff tomorrow. Oh yes, I did clean a few pictures. I fear he must think me a poor creature and self-indulgent. But he loved his dinner, halibut steaks, and we had a good talk before and dafter. I asked about Arlete and drink. It must be me! As says he’s only noticed it that time with S and here.

Today, after a bad night, I heard him about at nine. (I am foolish in that I have to stop myself thinking he’ll need waking, - hasn’t for years.) He had a poor night too and I’m not surprised, on this poor old sofa. He put a brilliant bulb in the utility room at last, so I can, see, and put up the pink glass shade in the bathroom, on a longer wire. On the ‘phone about his meeting, a bit on off, and finally on. He went out, I thought for something to do with it, but he came back with two trellises. ‘I thought you might want another.’ One for the double clematis above the jap. anemones, and in the south corner for jasminum polyanthum. He cleared up the rubbish and mugs, freebies, and other things that fell off next door’s wall, where they prop them up for some reason. He repositioned the kitchen bookcase, to give me the full use of the marble slab.

Settled on my bed, with some relief to my legs, and heard his visitors arrive, quite quietly. I went to have lunch at my usual time, and was just getting it ready, when a man came in and made me jump. I’d assumed, out of corner of my eye, that it must be K, who had somehow got taller. He said mysteriously. ‘You must be the devil.’ We shook hands, and I went back to my lunch. A little while later K brought Maria R. through to meet me and go to the loo. She said very pleasantly, ‘Thank you for letting us have our meeting in your flat.’ ‘I hope Kevin has been looking after you properly.’ ‘Well, he tells me off a lot.’ ‘Ah, you don’t do that if you don’t care about someone.’ She leant over to look at my book-rest, admired it, and said, ‘So I suppose you don’t watch television.’ All on the strength of one detective story. ‘I’ve never seen so many books.’ K took her in here, and I heard her voice ‘Oh, it’s a library.’ She’s a real little cockney-fizzing with vitality. They should feature that. On Live and Kicking she might have been one of dozens. Later she went, and K brought Andy Cook, the tall man, into lunch. A pleasant witty intelligent chap, public school, I think, and suppressing it, as they do nowadays. I had coffee with them and managed one or two funny bits. K got their lunch, - Ilove seeing him treat the kitchen as his own for his friend. They may be partners in some sort of way. They’ve both decided not to go to the same agent, a sort of bond. A.C. is looking for a flat, and K gave him a rundown of getting this place.

Roy rang twice to arrange a date. Darling K, so good.

Sunday February 3 2001

Just sat.

Stupid journalists ‘actors corpsing and then giggling.’ Really.

Monday February 4 2002

Still stiff. Just sat again.

Tuesday February 5 2002

Could not put off my lunch with S, Woodcock, again. And anyway I enjoyed it as usual. Brought the new life of Isadoro Duncan. What an ass she was, you can tell just from the photographs and a line here and there. But she must have had some sort of gift for a time. People who sneer at her dancing, for example, when she sometimes didn’t move from one spot, wouldn’t sneer if they’d seen V. Redgrave do just that with astonishing effect in Martin Sherman’s play. After lunch was making my way stiffly – it’s really all that getting up and sitting down – across St. Martin’s Lane, when there was a little cry and a touch on my shoulder – Joyce, John N’s Joyce. Smaller, a bit shrunk, a lot of lines, but otherwise, to me at least, exactly the same. We walked to the Piccadilly Waterstone’s, she talking affectionately, and reminding me how responsive she is to every half-shade and allusion in the talk. Gave her my number. No hideous Jeremy. I hope.

Really exhausted in W’stones. Tube to H’smith taxi. Had to drag myself.

Wednesday February 6 2002

Still tired obviously, the wine glasses at last. Quiet pleasant, tho’ not as good as the ones K bought, only he can’t remember where.

Decided to shop at the big Tesco in S. Bush road at 6.30. Had go roundabout to get there, because in the road was a huge traffic-jam, solid from the roundabout obviously all the way back to H’smith, and the traffic-lights all turned off. Taxi from another firm, not so good and went much too fast. Can’t blame Browne’s, the rush-hour and I only ordered it at half-past five.

Thursday Feb 7 200

More mail order arrivals raining in. This morning the peebottle arrived, very much à point, as I was able to pack up the old potty, thick with a yellow crust that resisted even a Brillo pad and a garden-knife. I’d Demesto’ed it, and I think it wasn’t pouring germs into the room, or smelling. The very potty on which Iras sat. But it looked disgusting. I was dreading K perhaps catching sight of it. Happily he never did, and the dustmen came this morning, so off it went. A bottle supposed to be unspillable, for my old age. In the p.m. the two cases of French wine arrived from the Telegraph wine service. Two of them at least, are non-vintage chardonnay. Also in the posta type-script from S of his introduction to a new edition of one of Michael Chekov’s books on acting. I’m afraid he’ll get criticism for saying acting no longer has the effect it once did… Card with all his plans on it, three weeks of Dickens at Albery, interrupted by five days filming at £160,000. Then Broadway 90% certain, if a show called ‘Urinetown’ transfers (yes, ‘you’re in town.’ Ugh.) Says his mother ‘is being advised on a regular basis by mother Teresa of Calcutta. Most useful.’ His letter began ‘Are Keith and Agar related?’ (He lives in Agar Grove.) I wrote back and said ‘Yes, but Agar was in fact a Stone age ancestor, and could be seen in A Million Yrs BC, saying ‘Agar hungry’ to Raquel Welsh. ‘Why don’t you write a script for a prehistoric film? You only need nouns and adjectives, and not many of those.’

Tonight took Roy and M to the Brackenbury. Cab quarter of an hour late, but happily they were late too, and I was there to greet them. It was a lovely evening, I hope, tho’ I’m afraid I talked too much, I was suddenly in terrific spirits. R told me nothing about his work as usual. Very curious, he seems to lower his voice deliberately when he speaks to me. I can hear her perfectly. Delicious fried sprouts, lemon and rosemary chicken, crème brulee, two bots. of wine, £178.

Friday February 8 2002

Sat and read, starting the I. Duncan. Hm. The final mail order this week arrived, together with a letter saying the manufacturers have run out of the mixer, so that’ll be later. This time it was the six sheets. Satisfactory. The duvet had been on for six weeks, and it’s black. The bottom sheet has a small tear at the top, and a bigger tear at my feet. This had become two foot square, and the under-blanket – Enda’s door curtain! - torn thro’ to the mattress ticking. All clean pillow-cases on all five pillows, clean duvet cover, new sheets and a fresh whole under blanket. Felt very suave. Took two Veronica Westwoods to bed. (That would be distinguished of me if true. I must read something of hers again. I thought them indeed distinguished and almost unique in being scholarly and readable at the same time. But of course I meant Veronica Stallwood,not Wedgwood.)

Saturday February 9 2002

Since Hazel told me she’d ‘come down’ to reading the lists of deaths in the Telegraph, I too have ‘fallen’.I must make a few notes of really extraordinary names. Today, for example, Ruth Harrowing. But one death I mightn’t have heard of – there may be no obituary – was a remarkable link. Angela du Maurier, Gerald du M’s eldest daughter, aged 97.

She could have told a few tales, I daresay.

No need to look in the list for poor Princes Margaret. Some reasonable comment, and obituaries, but one or two ‘discussions’ on TV were most unpleasant. I don’t say there is no legitimate criticism to be made, but now is not the time. What happened to not speaking ill?

Started the Isadora again, as I only skimmed a few pages yesterday. Better written than I expected from an unknown American biographer.

Rang Mary L for the first time this week, and thought at first she was being funny. ‘How are you?’ ‘I’ve got my chest. I’ve got cataracts, and I had a slight stroke on Sunday.’ However, I’m used to hiding my smirk at the first, and was shocked by the rest. When she woke her left hand wouldn’t work, her speech was slurred, and when she got out of bed her left leg wouldn’t support her. Luckily the nice couple were in and called an ambulance. In hospital for two nights, and like me, no sleep, no food. Sleep partly prevented by talk and laughter from nurses’ quarters. Cataracts in six or eight weeks – not bad. Poor woman, she must have been frightened. And what bad luck. She eats abstemiously, hardly drinks, is a vegetarian, a non-smoker, and a little withered slip of a thing. What hope is there for me?

Roy rang to thank me for last week, and said neither of them thought I talked too much. I expect he’s glad I didn’t ask too much about his work. Said something about a bread-making machine.

Sunday February 10 2002

To local shops at six to get soup, brown sugar, butter, salt, gin, tonic. That’s all, a hundred yards walk, and had to sit down at once. Oh dear. J says Maggie S is great reader.

Monday February 11 2002

Was all set to take the clock to repairs, and come back to H’smith, do various things, get my pension, and get a black cab. Pouring all day, so couldn’t risk it. Dreary.

Tuesday February 12 2002

Woke at 3.10 a.m. Read in bookroom at 6.0 for news and two apples. Back to bed with the papers. Dozed and woke at 2.45, really!

Rang Mary L and found her more or less recovered, but still tired and fragile. Not that she was unable to wrong foot me as usual. Poor creature.

A series of programmes this week about the West End. Really well done, the excerpts from shows unusually skillfully photographed – Mamma Mia, for instance, with the audience, giving a standing ovation and the frenetic dancing, must seem a really glamorous affair to those who like that sort of thing. (As far as I could see, the audience consisted entirely of middle-aged gay man.) And, while I would pay a substantial sum not to see it, and other shows surveyed, the whole affair was swift and crisply done and I feel would make any young person, who didn’t know about the theatre, feel that it was an exciting and infinitely varied place to be. The theatres themselves looked rich and smart, and like no cinema that ever was.

Pleased that Lady Glenconner, a close friend of Princess M, saw her last Wednesday, and she was listening to an audiotape of the Pickwick Papers.

Wednesday February 13 2002

Heavens, I get claustrophobia from just seeing on TV people sitting in those crammed aircraft cabins. I couldn’t… What low standards the majority have – in everything, more or less.

How ridiculous and unhealthy our attitude to dogs and cats is. In a soap-opera, a woman pawns her little all to treat her dog. When it dies, she pretends to herself it isn’t dead and still buys dog food, and altogether carries on as if her entire family has been painfully murdered. Only saving grace, she is a censorious busybody with a felt hat down on her ears and no hair showing. Still…

Clocks tomorrow? Please.

Oh forgot to say J and I had fixed our dinner at the Maquis for tomorrow night, she could only confirm it today. Rang to book, fully booked. Rang her to say Brackenburg. Rang back. Fully booked. We cancelled. Well, I’m glad local restaurants are doing so well.

Thursday February 14 2002

Did get to the clock clinic in Putney at last. Much too grand for my poor old clock. Quite polite and not too dismissive, but ‘It would have to be taken to pieces as if it were an antique clock, cost £250, and (tight smile) it wouldn’t be worth anything! The shop was full of 19th Century French and English clocks in elaborate cases – nearest to me a carriage-clock, six inches high £1,250. My clock is a Napoleon Flat shape, rather suburban, nor surprisingly as it was presented to Mummy and Daddy by the Mothers Meeting in Birmingham in 1927 when they left. A sad comment on life now that a solid mahogany case with brass rim to dial and a brass movement and pendulum, isn’t ‘worth anything.’ Back to H’smith shopping and home for lunch. So tired lay down on my bed and had three hours snooze. Good.

J rang in stitches. ‘The restaurants were booked up because it’s Valentine’s day, and husbands who’ve been unfaithful are taking their wives out.’ ‘Some having told, and some palliating guilt. If we’d got the last table, we might have been rather uncomfortable.’ As we agreed that neither of us had registered it was Val. Day, and had never taken part in it, or known anyone who had, except as it might be an understudy or something in a company, we had no idea of the day. All the cards, and great columns of messages in the papers, are, of course, like Father’s and Mother’s day, a cynical American invention to make money. When I first knew K. I had to reveal this to him, when he was still feeling guilt while not at all wanting to take part.

Frost tonight, thank goodness.

Friday February 15 2002

Woke at 3.15 a.m. Read. Book-room at 6.0 for TV news. Back to bed with papers at 7.0, at 11.0 call to Tablewhere, fairly disgraceful inefficiency. Lunch, smoked eel and scrambled egg. Mixer arrived. Lay down on bed at 2.30. Woke at 4.45. Dozed and woke at 6.0,dinner late. Quelle Vie – what’s the French for dull?

Saturday February 16 2002

Reading the later M. Innes we thought substandard. They seem better now in this lead age.

Bright sun. Snowdrops. Daffodils. Day-lilies shooting, and roses, good gracious. Must get on with garden – if I can sleep.

Sunday February 17 2002

44th wedding anniversary.

Hazel has finished her book.

So sleepy.

Monday February 18 2002

So sleepy last night, I had no whisky, and only put two ice-cubes in last night’s thermos. Could hardly get into pyjamas. Amusing, as I slept a little better. Are pills any good? Still no garden.

Tuesday February 19 2002

Probably the same people who re-named the post office, Consignia, have discovered that we have been mistaken on dating history from birth of Christ, and A.D and B.C we now start from The Common Era. Yes, indeed.

Situation upstairs still unclear. The wheelchair no longer in evidence, tho’ crippled clumpings still in evidence for a minute or two morning and evening. But today, when my bell was rung - by mistake, as usual – a younger woman came down the stairs to let in a meals on wheels woman, muttering something about nobody can answer the bell – so I suppose the poor little bald woman is certifiably ill, and even sitting on the bottom step of the stairs for a bit, doesn’t give her enough energy any more to get up them. It did not occur to me till today that her baldness might be the result of chemotherapy. But surely they don’t put somebody through such a regime, while at home looking after a crippled husband, and having the grandchildren of a Sunday. Still, some change has occurred.

Fascinating. A TV series ‘Footballers Wives’ – one of them called Chardonnay – is obviously richly ridiculous, and has been hailed as such by the highbrow critics. But no second series it seems, because it hasn’t attracted enough people. The big audience don’t want that quite subtle satirical edge even if they can’t identify it. In just the same way, those of us who find the Mills and Boon novels – or the idea of them – funny, couldn’t write one to take in the fans.

J tells me of S Powers redoing of her mews house. The contents of the Kitchen and two bathrooms, - not their installation or decorating – are costing, £48,000 – perhaps £49.

Wednesday February 20 2002

Really, people are such credulous idiots these days. It seems that today at two minutes past eight, the date and the time can expressed 20.02, 20.02, 20.02. Actually on Television, someone was prophesying the future and telling fortunes from it.

Next installment from upstairs, a huge double mattress delivered. Do they still sleep together? Isn’t a narrower mattress better for nursing? Painful to think of two difficult diminishing narrowing lives upstairs. Of course, speaking selfishly, the mattress suggests they’re not leaving yet, and two ill people are quiet.

David Warner back in the West End after thirty years of stage fright and bad Hollywood films. Interviewed, he is rather venal and sentimental. I wish I could have shown it to the surly gauche pointlessly rude sixties icon I worked with on Morgan.

S. Powers re-decoration saga. J tells me just the contents of the kitchen and two bathrooms, are costing £ - no, that was yesterday – today the whole bill is likely to be £122,000 and rising.

Millions of Muslim gathering. All kneeling and kow-towing together. As horrifying to me as the Nazis, with the perilous abandonment of self. Someone said on TV that an Afrikaner taxi-driver had said to him of the blacks, ‘Bring back the death penalty, or something like it.’

Tuesday February 21 2002

Another interview with David Warner, positively easy and urbane, almost oleaginously so. Has a wife and daughter of twenty. Oh that ‘sixties lot.’ Rude and surly without finding out a thing about you, not even to discover you ought to be snubbed!

Two deliveries today. First from the book searcher Jeremy Dore, a mint copy of A. Bennett’s Imperial Palace. And at last the three coffee cups, saucers and cream jug, from Tablewhere.

A bit of energy, so did one or two things. At last dug that little raised bed at the end of the privet in the front, a bit of compost, settle, and little sissinghurst Rosemary will do there.

Friday February 22 2002

Hoping for a good night as I was deliciously sleepy, when there was a kerfuffle outside and inside, the peep-peep-peep of some council or public vehicle. Dust-cart and so on make that noise. Why? Looked out, and it was an ambulance. Out came Mrs. Vallely on one of those curious little low trolley things – there’s nothing of her. So I suppose it’s serious at that time of night. I’m not surprised, she’s been looking ghastly lately, but I can imagine her going on till the last minute. Today the daughter or, in-law, was there for most of the day, giving it a clean-through, it sounded like, and looking after him, I suppose. They’d gone by six. Of course it made me think of the future.

John Thaw dead at only 60. Good heavens, I thought he was nearer 70, he certainly looked it. I was in the first episode of the Sweeney, and found him rather rude and I thought, cautious and calculating. Cf David Wagner, although a rather subtler version. I was amused to hear of his background. Mother ran away when he was seven, father a long-distance lorry-driver. Like a Royal Court parody, of course over the last thirty years, that has become a valued pedigree. Sad, as the poor people have been half crippled by it. How awkward and surly they both were, quite unable to tell what I was like.Now I could have perfectly amiable talk with both… and I haven’t changed.

Such a waste of time. (I’m glad Sheila H said he was rude and surly in one of the obituaries. Hm. Her manners left something to be desired.)

To Chiswick in p.m and got a lot of lovely fish and veg, and two pictures to be framed.

Saturday February 23 2002

Woke at 5.0 a.m. Read paper. Dozed. Woke at 2.15, so I adjust.

Sunday February 24 2002

Oh, it does make me laugh, - congestion charges are attacked on all sides, attacks of sweet reasonableness, ‘I’m not against the intention, but they really won’t work.’ This tone is taken against any attempt to curb in anyway the motorist’s absolute freedom. I shall laugh even more when the first really major traffic jams cover the whole of central London. As it will. Soon.

Monday February 25 2002

Finished the Knox Brothers. Finely done, but, except for her father, the brothers are far less sympathetic than I’m sure she ever realised. And Ronald K is positively repellent.

The slug trap and the portable compost arrived. And the post came at 9.0. So unreliable.

Tuesday February 26 2002

K’s b’day. 41. Rang at lunchtime and got an ‘aaah’ out of him. Lots of people in the studio.

He rang at 7.15, all about plans for the fence etc. Has signed a record deal, so he and that Caroline girl will be in the studio everyday till the end of April. But I’m not to worry and he was very sweet and tender and concerned.

Wednesday February 27 2002

Got a fair bit done this p.m, tho’ not in the garden, rain all this week. Had a car at three. Took two pairs of trousers and a shawl to the cleaner’s. Had written to Neil and Lynda at last, so bought the stamps for that, and a sheet of first-class stamps, - twenty-five of them – and posted seven other letters. To the newsagent’s for Pritt- stick, - he gave me The Stage, which hadn’t come in in time to come with the papers. All shops in the first row roundthe corner from here. Then to the Indian Lesbian’s ironmongers, a bit further along Uxbridge, for bamboo canes and two mouse traps. So much for K’s throwing away everything, I have to buy two new ones – the old ones were perfectly good, if a bit grubby and rusty. To my amazement, I was able to buy two new ones, identical in every respect to the two bought for the cottage by Edna, and thrown away by K. fifty years later, the little nipper.

Finally Tesco’s.

Later, Spike Milligan has died. I have laughed at some of his one-liners quoted in papers and books, but I never heard the Goons, I was working too continuously and anyway I’ve never listened to the wireless in any systematic way since before the war, and children’s hour. The ‘new’ comedians came too late to be part of my imagination, as they seem to be of the generation below mine. I did see SM in Son Of Oblomov in, of all places, a matinee at the pavilion in B’mouth. I did laugh now and then, but Monty Python left me cold because they were all such awful actors, so many misplaced inflexions and gestures and timings, so much ineptitude, so painful when you could tell what they were meaning to do. Eric Idle, oh dear, and whichever that one was who offered squawking middle-aged chars as embarrassing as a karaoke in a dull pub.

So I feel no nostalgia at all. Now, if I heard that S.G. Hulme-Beaman or L. du Garde Peach had died…

I wonder how long they have been dead.

Thursday February 28 2002

J suggested lunch on Sat. High St Ken.

The wine I ordered thro’ The Spectator arrived with almost worrying speed. A paper through the door saying they’d tried to deliver at 12.30, and it was round the corner under the window. All I can say is they can’t have rung the bell. The case was the other end of the front garden, which is out of sight of the road and front path, I admit. When opened, it was not the twelve bottles of the first Hoggart’s choices, but a mixed case, all mercifully white, but still a bit annoying. I shan’t take up their offer again. I have a feeling Mrs. V had died, so I washed the front hall tonight, pretty grubby with muddy footsteps, but worth washing since K brought that big new front door-mat, and it goes with the pictures I’ve hung there, and a clean hall for a funeral. Even if she was a graceless woman, poor soul. A harsh life, I imagine. Certainly at the end.

Friday March 1 2002

Lakeland delivery. The wine cooler, an insulated thick plastic sheath, in rather strong blues and greens, a baking sheet, and a convertor, an ingenious card in another sheath, so that you can slot it along and get every old equivalent for the wretched new metric measures.

Two TV trouvailles. A flash of John Thaw in 1987 as Inspector Morse, ‘Can I have a word?’ It’s an expression you hear very often on TV, especially police and medical fictions. I have yet to hear it in real life.

On a chat-show ‘phone-in (sic). ‘You sound very young. Do you mind telling me how old you are?’ ‘I’m twenty-four, but I’m off work with the flu.’

Gardened at last. Not as much to do as I thought. As souvenir de la M. didn’t lose its leaves, they’re looking rather second-hand. Many new shoots, but will the old leaves be replaced before the summer? Interesting. The old camellia seems to be recovering, five or six flower buds and the leaves a better colour. No sigh of wood anemones, snowdrops, primroses, cowslips, daffodils, violets.

Saturday March 2 2002

To High St. Ken. Books, ordered three from a charming girl upstairs which was more or less empty. Bought a couple of detective stories. On way to Café Pasta, bought the Anglepoise lamp for Mary L, and an extension lead and two spare bulbs.

Satisfying lunch with J. I had made up my mind to ask her whether she charged enough. She did not take offence, and said she had decided only this week to raise her charges, unchanged since 1997. She should be really well-off.

Sunday March 3 2002

A lot of movement and toing and froing upstairs tonight. Had to put my earplugs in.

Monday March 4 2002

Not my night last night. Was woken at 4.30 by a loudish mechanical noise, quite nearby, tho’ I could see nothing. Probably through the iron gate and in Becklow. I took it to be some sort of engine running, something unstopping a drain? Goodness knows, but it happened twice more at quarter past five and ten to six. No more sleep. No sign of anything when I went out later.

Well, no sign of that, but plenty of sign of the toing and froing, the front garden fairly full of a wodge of stuff, four or five packed bin-bags, various boxes and part of a kitchen-cupboard. Later in the morning, undertakers, always unmistakable, arrived with huge wreaths. So that poor little bald creature has died. They’re obviously what’s left of a real solid working-class family, all the men in black, standing outside smoking. The woman upstairs. All away by 12.15, and no further sign, so I suppose the baked meats were served elsewhere, thank goodness. Only peeped through the bedroom curtains, net as well, twice, so never glimpsed the husband, - in his wheel- chair, I presume. (I have to record I’ve only glimpsed him once in the two years very obliquely, and my impression was of someone fairly robust, dark and certainly not more than fifty, so perhaps he’s a son, oh dear.)

To H’smith for 3 weeks’ pension, Tesco’s, nothing in BooksEtc.

‘Buddy’ closes after 5000 perf. Another mercy from Sept 11.

Tuesday March 5 2002

Got myself to Austin Reed’s for a haircut. Being partly re-done, so Giovanni, as well as being the only barber barbering, was in the opposite corner to the usual. As the place is uniformly decorated and oval, - so no corners – and I’ve had G for ten? twelve? years, disorientating.

Traffic thinnish for these days, so was able to go first to the big Piccadilly Waterstone’s, to get a set of Josephine Tey for H. Rather shocked to find they had none with their huge stock. Disgraceful. Back at the desk I asked a bright-looking girl to look up Faber’s new Walton Letters. ‘How do you spell Walton?’ A fortyish woman edged in to help.

On the way back along Shepherd’s Bush Rd, a sign just before the green, on a garage, ‘Touchless Car Wash.’ Thrilling that the underbody wash isn’t touchless…

Wednesday March 6 2002

Think the poor crippled man is the one left there. Awful, but I have to think of the future.

K rang, so intent and concentrated, to say he’d got someone to do the fence, ‘Pete’. ‘He’s a drummer, he’ll ring’ That he can think about me in the middle of everything. Told him of the death.

Thursday March 7 2002

Out in garden at 8.30, putting the slug trap in a new place, and saw a light in the window, after compete silence all day. Slug-trap lovely and full by the way, a dozen.

Friday March 8 2002

I see the trade Center Buildings were put up in 1966. Another charge against the hideous ‘60s

Kabul Zoo on news. Someone saved the animals – more important than the children, of course.

Saturday March 9 2002

Child upstairs as usual, but not much noise. Absolutely silent at night, relations only come round during the day and then only for an hour or two. I hope it’ll be alright, I’m a real little Carlyle when it comes to noise.

H rang today because tomorrow is Mothering Sunday and the children are coming round. Even them, oh well. Geoffrey is seeing the doctor on Wed. ‘He’s still rather weak so we’ll hope it’ll be all right.’ This is H speak for being worried as it would be for me in similar circumstances. Was. I was concerned at the doctor saying last week that G’s weakness and so on, was due to a sudden drop in blood-pressure, an unusual thing. This struck me as the sort of thing doctors say when they think it’s more serious but they haven’t found out exactly yet. I’m sure H sees it all, not to mention her life if he dies. Can she stay on there alone? I’m sure that, if she was alone, she would come back to London, for which she still has an appetite, if it was made easy for her. But the children are down there, and Tom is much too self-centred to let her go. Many matters rest on G’s life for her.

Oh and dear M rang and we had a long chat – both.I wish I saw more and heard more from both of them. If only they and K would ring every week like H, or most days like J. But it’s not in their generation to do so. Well, I would like K to ring me every five minutes.

Amused to think how my friends would laugh at what I watch on television. And do. I’m like martial, I like to see my times, preferably by a scene here, an idiot phrase there. Dry for some days. Rain on Monday, so first mow tomorrow.

Sunday March 10 2002

Bright windy day, drying the grass as much as possible. Mowed the lawn about five, on, after a short experiment, the top setting. Hope to go to the bottom setting later in the week, unless the rain is too constant.

Just as I have observed that my and D’s generation is the first to see our past constantly re-run on the cinema, television has speeded-up this process. If you are an actor, you can see your entire past before your eyes. Of course there are your own repeats, but tonight I saw two character-actors much concerned with D and me, Howard Goorney and Ewan Hooper. H was D’s opposite number in Free As Air,Ewan was with me at Bristol and in Hooray for Daisy. The point is that I saw them tonight, within two programmes of each other. Not having seen them for forty years.

Monday March 11 2002

Casseroled the second wild duck. A quite thin,unthickened by anything except the vegetables and monosodium glutamate cube (ugh).But it worked, the meat fell off the bone, and was good. Roasting is useless.

Tuesday March 12 2002

Strong lowland Scots accent from a Chinese face. Just like which vol? of Gibbon.

Going on with the George Moore with some difficulty. Too long, of course and too many obscure and third rate people.

A large blue dungareed workman went upstairs, carrying some chromium poles? Rails?, and scraped and screwed and moved but didn’t bang, and was away after an hour or so. Does this suggest some frame work for looking after himself? Poor soul, alone up there, - he depended on her.

Wednesday March 13 2002

More DSS letters for upstairs, for him and a woman, - his daughter? in-law? carer? Staying?

H rang, vice Sunday, skated over Geoffrey. Has sent me her latest. Lovely. Sounds alright.

A day packed with in… Gasman at 8.30. Brown and Forrest at 9.45. Cheque for Merry Gentleman, 10.45. Dozen socks at 11.35. Rain every day since Sunday, so when mow?

Thursday March 14 2002

A 10.0 a.m. energy burst again, carried me to Chiswick. To the greengrocer’s, where the girl wondered why I could bother with real peas and beans, and had never heard of Ken Branagh, whom I once introduced to pea pudding, an unknown mystery to him at the time. Went to the English delicatessen, Mortimer and Bennett. Most interesting, owner short, middle-aged, and as so often with men who start specialist food shops, a mixture of grumpiness, bossiness and defensiveness, in case you’re going to know more about cheese than he does. ‘I haven’t been to your shop before.’ ‘A pity.’ Ordered the Spanish ewe’s cheese, R&M recommended, ‘Manchego’? forgotten already. He recommended I buy a slab of quince jelly ‘They always have them together in Spain.’ Hm. Also some taleggio, of a really big slab with rather pinker rind. Delicious. The Spanish was good, too, with three or four layers of taste. Hard, faintly translucent. Very pale yellow.

Back here, H’s new book, Leonara, arrived. Read hundred and fifty pages and rang to tell her. Lovely chat.

More DSS letters for upstairs.

Friday March 15 2002

Visit to Mary L with the Anglepoise lamp. Always less picturesque on her own ground. She was not very enthusiastic, as she’d ‘had a lamp at Denville which…’ It turned out not to actually to be an Angle poise. ‘Don’t forget to take all that rubbish away with you.’ Later she rang and was really grateful once she found how helpful the lamp is. Dear Pat drove me. Very interesting about getting the license for the cab firm, legislation introduced just lately. That’s why the controllers have been a bit fussy about details.

Saturday March 16 2002

Finished the George Moore biog. Not as poor as I at first thought it, - there is more perception and a better style. Even so it is twice as long as it should be, and with far too much detail, and too little appreciation of the obscurity of some of the people he brings into it. The chapter on the Irish Literary Theatre is almost unreadable from this last. As none of the authors mentioned have the smallest dramatic or theatrical talent, and even I have scarcely heard of most of them, it is comic that Shaw and Wilde are not mentioned in this connection. (Has anyone read Synge lately?) Sounds like camp Irish advertisement.

Some irritating American provincialisms and clumsiness. ‘Met up with.’ Like all, or most, American locutions, it is not only inexact, - after all, if you meet someone, you are obviously with them, and not necessarily up, - but longer. Then there is the absurdly suburban habit of calling a married woman by three names, her maiden name between her Christian and married name. Perhaps necessary round the campfire and inside the covered wagon circle, it is ridiculous in modern America. But used on European women, it is quite inaccurate and should be avoided altogether. One wonders who he is writing about sometimes. Comically enough, he leaves out the middle initial at one point where it’s necessary, Leon Lion, poor old Leon Lion, one sees why he put the M in, to try and dilute an outstandingly silly name. Usual mistakes over titles, Lady Hazel Lavery. He’s taken a lot of trouble. Not quite enough.

Sunday March 17 2002

Hazel rang. Whitlow rather painful. Awful for her, with ceaseless meals and housework. That she writes her books as well, andas well, is a wonder to me. I’m afraid she hates and despises Geoffrey more than she knows. More or less always something wrong with both of them.

K rang. Pete comes on Tuesday to see about the fence. We shrieked over the light coming on again. ‘The only thing I’ve done is take down a toilet-roll from that shelf in the loo – ‘A toilet roll from that shelf?!!!’

‘I expect it was something to do with that rubber insulation in the cooker – didn’t it go last time the light came on?’ And so on. Had time to tell me a bit about the record deal. It’s with Jive Records ‘Who have Steps etc.’, already recorded seven songs – I think, or worked on them, at any rate. I’m so pleased – let’s just hope it doesn’t end ludicrous and mean. It won’t be him.

Monday March 18 2002

K rang again 9.0 to confirm Pete, who’s coming ‘from the scrubs.’ Tho’ not as an inmate, I think.

Tuesday March 19 2002

Pete arrived promptly. Asked him ‘Pete what?’ ‘Lloyd.’ ‘Because I might be burgled, and if he strangled you, what would I tell the police?’ Took it well. Tall, rather haychet-faced, upper lip slanting in, which always gives a mean look, quite unfair in his case. Intelligent, considerate, listened, suggested, humourous. Offered a drink, but said he was tired and going home to a meal cooked by his wife. Happy, I should think. Another good choice of K’s.

K rang 7.30ish to see if Pete had been. ‘Pete said he’d ring you.’ ‘Oh.’

Wednesday March 20 2002

Poor night. Went back to bed twice today. Once at 10.30, once at 1.45. Snoozed an hour the first time and till 4.15 the second.

Started the Flaubert Letters. First batch of letters to Louise C. Tedious and tediously self-absorbed.

Thursday March 21 2002

J pouring out the S.Powers saga. No real plums yet. I think I’m a help just listening. And sometimes say a useful thing. She’s definitely decided to give Stephanie notice. Good. Today. She’s also been dashing round to Jean Muir and Armani and somewhere else I didn’t catch, to organize Maggie Smith’s clothes, and much else, for the Oscars. S. Powers secy in L.A. and N. York, and her other aide, now agree with J that S.P. is rather round the twist. Well, at 58, a decidedly fading beauty on goodness knows what American youth drugs, she may be. I prefer to wait to see how she copes or doesn’t, with the King and I. Her record with e-mails and faxes and other queries about the decorators may extend to forgetting the lines, too.

When J rang at 5.30, she had just got round to opening the post, and Tricia had gone home to give her children breakfast….

Friday March 22 2002

Chiswick. Sea Bream.Salsify. Haven’t had it for twenty odd years. Never seen it.

Saturday March 23 2002

To W’stones to pick up two of my ordered books, The Garden at Chatworth, and the Life Of Leonard Smithers. A quick glance at the illustrations gives a wonderfully immediate sense of sleaze – what for instance, has been happening in that house in Acton? Couldn’t get either of the Primo Levis J wants. A pity, as I’ll have to go out again and get them to her, next week. Bother. Good talk as usual, tho’ I was interested, when we talked of books, she became a little defensive, even touchy, if I disagreed on the value of a book that she particularly liked. I noticed it the other day over The Lord of the Rings, she got quite huffed when I said I found it unreadable, but a day or two later, gracefully took it back by saying that it caught her generation when they were young. She has not had the luck to talk enough about books with enough people of her own taste and brains. Her taste will, and does, tell her.

Continuing with the Flaubert. Hm. Comments at the end.

Sunday March 24 2002

Outside lights still on. H rang as usual. Told her of duck-eggs. Warned me about them quite in the mode of Mummy and Lalla. She is certainly interested in health and so on, oh dear. Too wet to mow, but was too tired anyway.

Monday March 25 2002

Flaubert has, in extremis, that 19th Century use of ‘beauty’ as if it were an absolute, unquestionable, actual.

Economics get more and more mysterious. Now the Post Office is losing one and half million pounds a day. When I was young and long after, the Post Office was an absolute unquestionable, actual. Why should it be losing money now? Can’t they adjust the prices to the day? 15,000 jobs to go?

Tuesday March 26 2002

Very poor night, but day proved to be inspiring and not tiring. Cleaned up a bit, and a good deal of washing up. He arrived at four o’clock very fresh and young. As he’d promised, he was on the ‘phone for about three hours, in the sitting-room with the door shut. Went to the Post Office for him, and Pete Lloyd arrived, at six-thirty, looking exhausted. I made him sit down at once.

They talked of the fence in the garden for sometime. I had to go in and sit down, and come out again. I’m sure it needs all that talk, but I find it tantalising, I’m not at all practical, and just want the fence up at once, by magic.

K was simply wonderful, funny and teasing and tender and protective, thinking only of me in talking to Pete, who was a bit more grudging this time. He is so good to me. I don’t deserve it.

Wednesday March 27 2002

Had the other goose egg as an omelette. No ‘strange’ taste at all. H’s stricture was pure superstition.

Wanted to mow but felt too sleepy, and stale, after going to H’smith for pension and shopping. The hideous holiday is looming, to the tune of fewer taxis and a longer taxi queue.

Forgot to record that Michael Biggs, son of the mail robber, came to K perhaps to ‘be produced.’

Paul Merton said Britney Spears would be very good rhyming slang for ears. ‘She’s wet behind the Britneys.’

Thursday March 28 2002

The plants I ordered from Burnclose arrived today – very quick,another hurdle. Still didn’t mow today – just didn’t feel up to it.

Finished the Flaubert letters. Various observations. First, there is the barrier of translation, which deprives one of any surface pleasure of style or idiom. Second there is the editor, who may be one of those solemn with the serious, and may be the reason there is so little detail in the letters, nothing about food, clothes, pictures, furniture. Certainly Flaubert has an overlarge dose of the abstract thinking so dear to the French. He has an even larger dose of self-absorbed intense selfish egotism.

But third, his critical sense is unerring. I had forgotten he was friend of de Maupassant’s parents, and a mentor to Guy by the age of fifteen. He gently led Guy away from poetry, and when Guy sent him Boule de Suif, he wrote back at once to say that it was of classic quality. And if you are of a booky nature, the hairs rise slightly on the back of your neck when Flaubert gets a letter from Turgener, enclosing a new three volume novel for his opinion, entitled War and Peace. Happily Flaubert thought it good. I was nervous for a minute or two.

These letters were a couple of months apart.

Friday March 29 2002

An hour-long television programme about people who believe in angels! I saw about two separate minutes – an idiot from Coronation street and a football presenter are obviously fountains of logic and clear thinking and some ‘seer’ with bulbous eyes, the white showing round the iris – thyroid? – surged into a ‘cave’ hung with tat and ‘fossils’.‘This is my grotto’ in a bright neurotic high-pitched Essex whine. Amazing.

Billy Wilder had died. Directed some of my favourite films and was one of my favourite wits.

‘Hollywood awards are like hemorrhoids – sooner or later every arsehole has one.’

Coming out of a church packed for a funeral of Lousi B. Mayer, ‘There you are, what I always say, give the public what they want, and they’ll come.’

Saturday March 30 2002

Mowed the lawn at last, and on the lowest slot, - a success, and just in time as there were some yellowish patches, from too long growth.

When I cameback in at sixish, found the television in the throes of the Queen Mother’s death. No surprise, except that one thought she would somehow arrange not to miss, or disturb the queen’s jubilee. A lot of rubbish talked. All the same, it’s the end of something. She was good at being The Queen Mother and there will be many stories.

Sunday March 31 2002

I was right. Everyone who speaks about her has a good vivid personal word to say – because that’s how she made them feel. One example: A Persian driver employed by the British Embassy there, found in tears after he’d driven her. When asked why, he said she was the only English person who wanted to know if he was married, and then asked to see photos of his children.

Another, Peter Ustinov on his first meeting, ‘I was immediately offered a voluptuous toffee, and, when my mouth was thoroughly stuck, she asked me a complicated question about the poetry of T.S.Eliot. Much later on, a year or two ago, I told her about it, and she said, ‘You were wicked to notice.’

Monday April 1 2002

Certainly very foolish. An ocean of repetitive dross, in which I can’t be bothered to search for nuggets.

Tuesday April 2 2002

Yes, that’s the ghastly thing about TV news now, they keep repeating and repeating and repeating, and filling in and padding, - going back again and again to Buck House where there is no-one but a wretched reporter talking about the public reactions. Such treatment can devalue anything or anyone.

At last my Oddbins order. Supposed to be between 12 and 1 on Friday. Had to go out, and came back to a note saying they’d tried to deliver at 2.45… only two and three quarters late.

Left a message for Sarah W as no acknowledgement of book or letter. A film this p.m. about Queen Mum. A film, not news, acceptable. Everyone had a good word, quite plainly from reality not sycophancy.

Penny K’s irises fully out. As I don’t know what they are, I don’t know whether they’re early or not. But one of the iris Pallida had a mature flower stem, and a flower colouring, which is supposed to be June-flowering. An Ophelia bud is colouring, as is the etoile de H. Climber, only planted in November. S.de la Malmaison has many buds, most plump and colouring, and I should think, one will be out by next week at the latest, weather permit. Wallflowers out and more or less continuous sunshine, 68º promised!

Wednesday April 3 2002

At last planted those last three plants of the Clare Austin order. To my relief in those elaborate plastic cases, they were still moist and sprouting. After – how many weeks? Astrantia major. Also the two purple hellebores from the Telegraph. The Jasmine polyantha in the warmest corner by the myrtle, on the new trellis. It survived on the balcony at St. Dunstan’s, being up in the air, and H saying they have one on the wall in Somerset, and she’s seen others. Lilies showing more. No sign of S. seal or hosta.

Cornilla and vines not sent, run out. Bother, as I wanted them most.

Thursday April 4 2002

Suddenly felt energetic, rang around and felt more so. Rang Read’s the last nursery that hasn’t delivered. Ma sounded vague, ‘Yes, do tell me what your order is.’ Did so, it sounded as if it came as news to him. No choisya. Were there no choisya when I first ordered by letter in Oct. or Nov? Still, that’s easily found elsewhere. They do seem to have the vine and Meyer’s lemon and the olive.

Long chats to J – more of S. Powers’ absurdities. John N, who’s overseeing the Queen’s visit to the Academy on May 22, so lunch or dinner after that. How odd to think we used to have lunch once a week. But then I’m a dull old stick now. Also Sarah W got all that straight, and she asked me to tell her about Vivien L. Wanted to pick my brains. I became surprisingly valuable. Gave me a lift.

To local shops and back to plant the two solamon seals.

Friday April 5 2002

To Chiswick shops, such a treat. The three of them side by side. Some caerphilly delicious. Red mullet, halibut. Globe Arti.

At last, and as I hoped, the Queen Mother’s coffin processing from Windsor to Westminster hall, attracted 400,000 people standing quietly. And it looks as if the queues to walk past the lying in state will be equally large. I really believe this may be a help. People under fifty have so little sense, or indeed knowledge, of history, That the many retrospective films and articles may reveal to them for the first time what the monarchy had been and is.

The cyclamen corms have come, a good size and cheap.

Saturday April 6 2002

Yes, the queues are huge, doubling back on both sides of the river, and finally going all the way to that ridiculous wheel, meaning a wait for six or seven hours. What a delight.

Sunday April 7 2002

A strange anniversary. I have lived here two years, and D has been dead for twenty five.

A bad night, went round the garden. It’s really coming on, managed to pick off greenfly and do a bit of ladylike spraying.

Monday April 8 2002

J’s asked herself to dinner on Wed. for me to deal with one of her b’day presents, some basil and tomato seeds and a pot of compost.

A Frank Heyer has died aged 90, brother of Georgette, good heavens. Surely he died thirty years ago aged 80, at best.

Planted three Arums and decided on place for the four agapanthus. H says they grow about three feet. Catalogues etc. vary from two to four, for the same varieties.

Tuesday April 9 2002

The funeral. Perfect procession, a model of organisation and taste. How insensitive people are about the Royal Family. I was able to go to D’s funeral alone, which was all I could bear. I try to imagine what it would have been like to go through it with thousands in the church and millions pushing their faces into mine through every minute of it.

I was satisfied to see that the one wreath on the coffin, - from the Queen, with Lilibet on the card – was a wreath of all white flowers. Just as all funeral flowers should be. All those terrible plastic-wrapped sheafs –

Moved by the whole thing, as I always am by something perfectly done, but some amusement as well. The fall on the catafalques in the Abbey was that awful Low Church saxe blue that goes with pale oak, very thirties. The bearers, getting ready to pick up the coffin, took off their bearskins. Two sergeants went off with them hung on their arms, as if on some mad shopping trip.

Another encouraging sign, a crowd of a million.

Wednesday April 10 2002

Off to Chiswick to shop for J’s dinner. Prawns, halibut, plaice, had., globe artich., peas, broad beans. She said she’d bring raspberries and cream. To make up for me forgetting them last time. (But this is another indication of her difficulty in accepting- like Prim she has to bring something.) In the end, she played her usual trick and cried off. A pity, not that I care, - I hope she doesn’t do it, with people who mind. I shall eat the food for ten days!

K rang, fence next week, and we had a dear talk about Hay-on-Wye. He agrees with me about the cottage, no hotel, ‘I can do dinner and we’ll go out.’ All so sweet. Doesn’t seem to know if Arlete will come, I hope so, for my sake as well as his. As long as she doesn’t get tight.

Rang Burncoose and Read’s to get the plants settled. No Coronilla or those ever- green cines till next year. All round jolly day, tho’ still a cold north wind.

Thursday April 11 2002

Another jolly day. The Only Fools and H cheque came, £1707. Wrote cheques, for service charge, wine etc.

Was clearing up the videos that hang about the trolley for instant recordings – I mean on the spur of the moment – and ran through a prog about dear Joan Betjeman. His daughter, Candida, said, ‘He was the most marvelous father. He told us lots of nursery rhymes… I thought they were the usual ones, until other children… one of them was Baa Baa Centipede.Have you any jelly? No sir! No, Sir! It’s all gone smelly.

It seems one of the Palestinian suicide bombers said that it gave them the feeling of being alive. Really, it’s amazing that people can’t see the cancer of organised religion. Afghanistan, India, the middle east, N. Ireland. The common element is keeping the people in ignorance. Look at Catholic countries, and the others are much worse, - those pathetic closed stupid unknowing faces. Oh the unhealthy need for certainty, and the cramping result of making your mind up about everything, too soon and in a strait-jacket of a system.

Friday April 12 2002

I’m glad I now read the death notices in the Telegraph. I’ve always read the obits. But this is quite worth it. Someone died called Haddock… someone died of a tragic illness, as opposed to comic one, I suppose. Today, a Douglas Squires died aged 99. Funeral, Tumbridge Wells MethodistChurch. Now, that made me almost sure who he was. Mrs. Squires, a rather rich woman in the B’mouth church – one of that numerous, group of my parents friends, who became closer friends as the extent of their riches became clearer, came round one day in the early thirties with her son, Douglas. I suppose he was in his late ‘twenties, and I was seven, eight? But I remember him vividly because he played with me, and was one of the very very few – perhaps three or four – who spoke to me without stupidity or jocularity, giving me the dignity of such rationality as I could command then. I wish we’d met again.

I am enjoying the Carlyles more than I expected, due mainly to Jane Carlyle’s wit, and the comically pessimistic cold comfort farm side of Carlyle. How the Guardian would love him now! One of J C’s regular correspondents had been very irregular, more or less silent, in fact, so J.C. was much amused to get a letter ‘… “astonished that you have not written to inquire the reason for my silence”, to your surprise you are transformed into the offending party.’

Did a really good swathe of weeding in the big right-hand bed.

Saturday April 13 2002

Quiet day. Letter for upstairs from N. Ireland Housing Trust, oh dear. H rang quickly, children coming. No book in the papers again that I want. Etoile de Hollande and Pierre Oger out! Picked Ede H for house.

Sunday April 14 2002

Planted the two bowls of basil, seeds from last year still in their vacuum envelopes, so we’ll hope.

J told of going to Diana Boddington’s Memorial service at St. Paul’s Covent Gdn. She goes back a long way, the Vic in the famous war-time seasons at the New, and she was still with Larry for The sleeping Prince in 1953, went right through his West End management and Vivien and Joan, and on through the National. I don’t know when she retired. She was the old and excellent type of stage director, a twin-set and a skirt, glasses, utterly reliable, completely firm, authority, without ever putting backs up. J says there are two children, middle-aged, with dozens of children each. ‘They’re Catholic.’ Oh dear.

K rang, says fence Tuesday or Wednesday. Has marked five cottages in the Hay brochure.

Three iris pullid out. Beautiful deep blue, more usual then I expected.

Finished the Carlyle book, rather an effort to get through it sometimes, because of him mainly. Not a pleasant character, with some very nasty prejudices in later life. But she is another matter. I must get hold of her letters. Describes Mrs. Brookfield, Thackeray’s mistress, as ‘Does not speak abovea breath, and comes the startled fawn perpetually. Gentlemen admire, and ladies want to set a dog on her.’

He is deservedly forgotten.

Monday April 15 2002

Two names in death list, Snowball, - gracious – and Crawley-Boevey, funny enough in itself, also May Slade’s mother’s maiden name. This one is 90, and I suppose May’s second cousin. One of her Christian names is Albinia, which, I have a race memory, was one of May’s, too.

I have meant to record the disappearance of most of the beggars I have been used to seeing in the last five years. It particularly caught me because I have been keeping a pocketful of small change to give and have only once found a Big Issue seller to give it to. Even the big tramp-like creature a fixture outside Londis, went a while ago.

Pete Lloyd rang. Fence on Thursday. No use pretending I dread horrors of trampling and so on. Nobody seems to understand, who is capable of putting up a fence, that the fence is there for the plants, not the other way round.

Forgot to record Brien Chitty died. Not surprising, as anyone changing Brian to Brien can be fairly forgettable. A collector of Irvingiana in a mode.

Tuesday April 16 2002

Clearing up in house and garden. Tying plants up and stopping ways on to the beds with canes.

Dreading Thursday.

Wednesday April 17 2002

K message at eleven saying come and have a bit of lunch at the studio and see the Hay on Wye cottages. Rang back on the mobile and got the answer-service.Quite flustered, as I had to shave and dress and get a taxi, and – then he answered and gave me the address, behind Royal Crescent, in Holland Park Avenue, Olaf Rd. Westside Studios. A curious anonymous ugly area, like an industrial estate surrounded by council flats. It is an industrial e. sur. by., despite being in one of the smartest bits of London. There’s a film studio in the same car-park, called Westway. Into the usual reception area – how familiar it suddenly seemed – a big leather sofa with some magazines on it, and the remote control of a large TV set, in full blast with the mute button on. A big desk, shortly occupied by a big fair girl, a peach bloom complexion up to the eyebrows and beyond, a ring in her nose, and an infinitely amiable smile for all the world. If you cut her in slice, from head to toe, you’d get a pile of perfect circles. She paged K – I wonder how many people of my age have stood in that foyer. He came along, in pale blue and white, - never seen that before, and ‘Howya doing?’ and a big hug. Left me the cottage details – imagine, he’d got them thro’ all this work. The first one I looked at attracted me at once by being down a bridle-path, and looking on to nothing but woods and fields, 400yrs old, ‘For those of a literary turn of mind, it appears in Kilvert’s Diary.’ I kept my finger on that, and silently held up the book I’d brought… To the unbooky, it is of course a magical coincidence. Very sweet. A glass of wine and a chicken and mayonnaise sandwich in the studio bar, and good chat with them all. How much nicer artists are than the ordinary run of people. Lovely to see him at work and obviously respected. Arlete not coming to Hay – a pity.

Thursday April 18 2002

Pete arrived at eight, not seven-thirty, with a mate, as in friendship and plumber’s. Andy. Pete is narrow faced, firm-mouthed and cautious. Andy is round-faced and more open. But all went well. I had not quite allowed for everything taking place outside. After easily carrying the fencing through the house without difficulty, all went quietly. Odd that K has always had quite an obsession with ‘putting all that rubbish over that gap in the wall - bring the van up and tip everything over.’ He hasn’t quite caught on that I would rather stuff thro’ the house than plants trampled… As it turned out, Pete went round to see if you could get there, and came back to say you couldn’t. I didn’t follow that, but grabbed at the chance of the stuff going thro’ the house. Once they got out there, silence fell. I think they spent quite a time on the other side of the wall. I couldn’t stand the thought of them trampling, and turned tail and fled to Ken High St., as I did during the rebuilding and decoration. Or so I thought at first, and then changed my mind in the car, and went to the Café Pasta in Garrick St. Risotto didn’t seem so nice. W’stone’s for a couple of detecs. And to the National Portrait Gallery – at last – for a fresh supplyof postcards. Quite disgraceful, no card of Shaw or Hardy, but two or three footballers. Sales are, of course, important, but a National subsidised gallery, should be that, National. I’d noticed some roadworks outside, - when I went over the penguin crossing, a policewoman and a civilian, I suppose from the gallery, lifted police-tapes to let people walk along the pavement. When I came out, more police and a couple of mounted police. A taxi came by, I got in and said The Renoir. He suddenly realised he was stuck, and said ‘I can’t go North.’ Charing X Rd. and St. Martin’s Lane were closed. I had to get out, and walk towards the Strand, where I got a taxi and was driven perhaps rather further east than usual beforeturning North, and getting to the Renoir in time for the film. But oh dear, while walking to the strand I was overcome by peur d’age or, I suppose, viux, or whatever the wretched noun is, in case I had to go on walking beyond whatever closed zone there was, - bomb scare or whatever – when would I sit down? Would I get caught in the rush-hour, my big terror now?! It made me see how defenseless I could be now. The film was pretty awful – a Mexican affair called And Your Mother Came Too or some such. A bit of soft porn with the sort of photography where you’re not quite sure whether it’s bright moonlight or poor sun light, and the actors rather dark in the foreground. Ridiculous coda where heroine bestowing experience on two callow boys, turned out to have been riddled with cancer all the time. Notices quite amazing. And absurd, ‘delicate’ (heavens), ‘Verve and wit’, ‘Film making on a very high level.’ Only stayed ‘cos I’d ordered a car to pick me up. Dead on time. Back here about four-thirty, and they left soon after. Kitchen with tools etc carefully distributed as usual over the widest area. But - they’ve re-built the gap in the wall, put up one of the wall-panels, and put up one panel on the left. Purging. Next door said she didn’t like it. Good. An end to the rubbish.

Friday April 19 2002

Saw they’d finished the milk, all but an inch. Unfortunately didn’t see it till late last night, so found myself out at 7.15 a.m. Mysterious. The light coming from the opposite direction.

Shop displays not out yet. When did I last…

And when I came back in the p.m. they’d brought their own semi-skimmed. I think Pete’s a bit of a health freak. I suddenly realised they were hoping to finish today. The four and a half days was to be him alone. Off to Chiswick and lot of stuff, and when I came back, the fence was nearly finished! And looked wonderful. No overlooking now. They’d chopped down a bit of the left-hand shrubbery, which actually opened it up rather well for the woodland effect I want later. I see that there are one or two clumps of bluebells I didn’t know about. The only serious trample is those poor astantias I kept so long in their box. We’ll see. A great day.

K rang and asked how it was, and ‘can people still look over the wall?’ ‘Kevin, a giraffe couldn’t look over the wall.’

He’s booked the cottage.

Saturday April 20 2002

A pity lunch with J as was too tired to appreciate it. Got one or two books, and some things from Dyas. J went off somewhere, and I waited and waited, twenty-five minutes for the pick-up cab. First time let-down. Back aching.

Sunday April 21 2002

Getting over it all.

Monday April 22 2002

Wretched Le Pen creature shocked everyone by getting too close to the French presidency. Reflected how splendid a breeding-ground the pop-concert and football- crowds would be for any fascist dictator who turned up here. The punched first salute, the violence, the hysteria, all there.

Tuesday April 23 2002

Chiswick for Mary L’s stuff. Asparagus, globe artich., peas, Jersey royals, s.salmon. Well, she is a vegetarian… Dear Pat turned up to take me, as well as the shopping, at last was able to take in S’s photo for framing, Karen having sent me the s.a. envelopes and the photo after only six weeks…

Back here, as we were unloading the shopping, and crossing with it to the house, when a police-car in full cry and speed burst on us. It stopped just in time, as a blur of a person rushed past me, dropping a crash-helmet as it went, with a policeman in violent pursuit. The merest luck I wasn’t sent flying. Must record that this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this in my life. I suppose the ‘criminal’ had seen on TV someone escape a police-car by dashing down a cul-de-sac with a pedestrian exit.

Wednesday April 24 2002

Poor J.Stephanie P. rings from Edinburgh where The King and I has opened – it’s all, it seems, ‘Lovely’, the cast, the audience, her – J had sent her a three-page fax full of queries and statements for answers and confirmations. ‘I haven’t got it with me, read it to me.’ I know, meat–axe stuff. To Mary L – Dear Pat again. Forgot the S. Salmon. Had to get some from the nearest supermarket. Annoyed with myself. But know exactly how it happened. Pretended to Pat it was Mary’s fault. Rather disgusted with myself.

Still no rain.

Thursday April 25 2002

Ballet shoes being made. The cobbler’s great big scarred grubby hands, yet he was turning out and back and forth the pale pink silk round his nailed soils, and they were still clean when he finished them and put them up on a shelf and they stood by themselves on point.

Friday April 26 2002

Poured last night and most of today. A joy. Did nothing. Finished Spencer’s List. As funny and well written a novel I’ve read for years. A first novel, know nothing about her. Warm, humourous face with a twist.

Saturday April 27 2002

Some poor people ‘caught’ plane-spotting in Greece, and arrested as spies. You’d think it would be cleared up at a glance, but no, they’re back in Greece being tried, already £16,000 in legal fees. Of course I’m sorry for them, but can’t help laughing as well. A ludicrous illustration of misunderstanding between nations. Spies? A more outstandingly insipidly innocent group, could only be found in England. Reading M. Holroyd. A book of reprinted reviews of essays, around the theme of biography. Rather thrown together. A coda telling us he’s ill. Needs the money. Some entertaining stuff, equally some irritating. Still rain.

Sunday April 28 2002

Two books I might get. P. Larkin’s fictional fragments, unfortunately the girls’ school spanking stories as well. Also Jane Austen and Shakespeare – better cast my eye over it.

Monday April 29 2002

The local magazine arrived, very well got up, and in it a page on H’smith and Fulham Council smartening up the borough. A special number for graffiti, which I rang, and was very impressed by the response. A courteous man, who quickly found my letter, and was able to tell me that both lots of graffiti had been noted, and the owner of the respective buildings told they must get them removed, either by private contractors, or with the council services. Have I already said how pleased I was to get rid of the mound of rubbish inside the low wall of the block of flats at the corner? And how, a while later, the two gardens were laid down to new turf? It’s true, graffiti encourages the wrong people. Tramps, and once a group of nasty-looking youngsters, sat on that wall, encouraged by the rubbish and graffiti, to feel it was their sort of place. It’s important to start here.

A letter from next door, sort of accepting the fence, but asking for the bay-tree to be cut down to the level of the fence, ‘As it makes out kitchen dark.’ How obsessed people are with ‘light and bright.’ I shall have to, much as I hate it.

Out for the first time in four days, mainly because of the rain, to Tesco’s in Brook Green. Dear Pat came to drive me – I feel he’s a friend.

Tuesday April 30 2002

TV advert: more people go to art galleries and museums than to football matches. If that is true - and I’ve more than once seen it said of theatres, too – why are football- matches allowed to push aside any TV programme – about theatre or museums, as well, if there were any – without proper notice? Why are there large separate Sports sections even in broadsheets?

Wednesday May 1 2002

Terry Plunket Greene’s wife has died at 79. Never knew he had one, certainly never appeared in our time, and surely she must have been a generation younger than he. Didn’t he die shortly after D, and much the same age - mid-sixities or more? Sounds a fanciful creature, Aurora Navas, Christian (sic) names, I suppose. Nee Navas de Gigo. Fancy. Well, if you’re called Plunked-Greene…

Fine at last. Weeded a good chunk of right-hand bed, and planted for agapanthas. Covered in cat-shit, hand, shirt and sweater sleeve. Ugh. I ought to tell H. It is disgusting in one’s own garden.

Thursday May 2 2002

Finished the K. Amis. What an awful man. I’ve always flinched at the idea of his funny faces, and never admired any of his novels that I’ve read, at most half a dozen. His attitude to women and his dishonesty to them, revolting. And he was frightened of the dark and being alone, as well. What a creep.

Plants arrived from Read’s at last, rather sensibly packaged in a four-foot narrow box, the vine, the olive tree and the Meyer’s lemon. I wonder if they’ll survive.

Friday May 3 2002

Planted the vine, olive and lemon. Very Mediterranean.

Saturday May 4 2002

To Chiswick for a shop before the tiresome holiday.Picked up S’s composite picture. A great success when I unwrapped it here. Fits the space between the 1870s fashion plates and the wardrobe. Long and narrow.

At the greengrocer’s, two artichokes, and four of those v.small Italians, all eatable. Peas, broad beans, Jersey royals, asparagus – at M&B Caerphilly, those blue eggs, and plaice, and some tiny baby hake from the fishm. Oh what a treat those shops are. Oh and some potted shrimps from the ‘fridge’, which I’d not noticed before, must investigate.

Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem under siege for some weeks, with Palestinians taking refuge inside. Amazing how little outrage there seems to be. It shows how little real hold religion has here. What price the crusades?

Sunday May 5 2002

Delicious lunch with potted shrimps and the little artichokes, a luscious mouthfuleach. Perhaps I should tell Rules about the shrimps…

Read Accidents in the Home, anther first novel, by Tessa Hudley, 40ish, good observation, and a few points, but mainly a need to make her mark. Unhappily she can’t find much of a plot, and it just stops.

Some Tory woman M.P. has been sacked from the shadow cabinet for making a racist joke at a rugby dinner. What a hard life women have now, having to go to rugger dinners in the name of feminism. As for the racist joke, ‘Asians are ten a penny.’ I feel I lack a certain context to get its full insult. By the way, I must remember to call all those actors who play women’s parts, men as well as actors…

Monday May 6 2002

Ah yes, I see, the joke – part of that dreariest of joke conventions, the Englishman, Irishman, etc. Other nationalities now, of course. A joke of throwaway, so, the Eng- man, throwing Asians out of a train, ‘They’re ten a penny.’ Never mind racism, the mode most pub habituées choose for ‘jokes’ in itself needs prison treatment. Or it would be good, self-immolation.

Solemn discussion on Television, as yet another pensioner, 76, battered to death. Tony Banks et cie, ‘We must rebuild respect for authority’ and so on. And yet people still defend the ‘60s source of so many of our troubles.

Have re-read M. Allingham again, as I do so often. Her sense of character is exactly mine. For instance, she has the only portrait of Lalla I’ve ever come across. Asparagus for lunch – Oh how delicious.

Tuesday May 7 2002

Had geared myself up at last to go to Selfridges for shoes and slippers. Watched the weather forecast, or started to, but caught the travel news, - a shooting in Regent Street earlier on, so it’s still roped off. These days, one broken-down lorry can bring the whole of the West End to standstill, so I didn’t want to waste the gearing up so went H’smith for three weeks pension and Tesco. Oh the pleasure every now and then to go and not think what I’m spending.

Wednesday May 8 2002

Woke at ten to two a.m. so to Selfridge today. Lay down after lunch and slept for two hours.

J rang. Recommended v. warmly a novel by William Maxwell, Time Will Darken It. Maggie Smith told her of it, and she can hardly bear to finish it.

Thursday May 9 2002

At last got to Selfridge’s to buy new slippers and shoes, and hoping to have the energy to go to HMV for videos and CDs. As I thought.

A curious day. I felt like a revenant, or as I’d stepped into an H.G. Wells short story. The food-halls and the downstairs men’s dept. looked much the same, as I went up the escalator, but on the first-floor, all was Japanesely modish and my heart sank. I wandered on, walking much further than ‘just at the top of the escalator,’ as the shoe dept. has been for? since the war? to the list of depts. and back and again, to see a long thin alcove of white shelves at one side. No assistance, nowhere to sit, no shoe of the fifteen or thirty on show that I could possibly wear, or had ever seen before, in most cases. I had so exactly pictured me asking for, and buying shoes and slippers that I’d bought before over so many years, that I felt a bit vague and walked on and down and out into Oxford St. Oh yes, HMV, a longer walk than it used to be, beyond Bond Street and – it wasn’t there.I felt vaguer – looking up I saw a blue plaque saying that HMV left in April 2000, the year I moved here. And it’s the original ‘home’ of HMV. I felt even vaguer, and firmly took a taxi to the big Waterstone’s in Piccadilly. Even then there found none of the books I needed, but picked up the William Maxwell novel J told of. I see there are at least a couple more reprinted. Struggled up – even tho’ in the lift, it’s struggle now- to ask after the new Shakespeare critical anthology, edited by John Gross. A willing young man ‘It was here, I put it here myself, I haven’t moved it, but it’s not here.’ As usual, a pleasant helpful assistant, who has never been there long enough to know what he’s doing (or being paid enough.)

Walked back out into the helplessly strolling bemused tourists blocking my way, and did get to the HMV in Cranborne St., but of course a very inferior version of the main shop. The classical section, on smallish bank of CDS about ten yards long, - the whole of the rest of the largish shop, Rock, pop and R&B videos etc. making it ?10% of the whole, did resolve itself into a couple of Walton CDs incl. Centenary box, holding almost everything I wanted, and the Schubert in B that I haven’t heard for too long. Beaux Arts thought I might pick up a taxi outside that hotel opposite J’s – she not at office yet – but no go. So limped to St. Martin’s Lane to get in the right lane, as it were. Long way round still at Charing X and Tr. Sq, and with bad traffic, the bill was £21.10. Hm. Drank one glass more than I meant, went to lie down and woke at quarter to six, Mary L rang.

Friday May 10 2002

Mary L going for an examination today, before her cataract operation on May 28th.

Rested. Must try and garden soon. Oh dear, the Queen already on her Jubilee tour, with her usual composure and grace. It makes me angry to think of the criticism in the past. With all the ghastly sentimentality about nowadays over death and grief, why aren’t they wondering how she can embark on such a demanding series of engagements a few weeks after losing her only sister and her mother? Ha. She moves me because everyone has to behave considerately and politely in her presence, to be civilised, in fact.

Started the William Maxwell novel, Time Must Have A Stop, or Yesterday Is Tomorrow or something. Quite readable, like a sort of American Arnold Bennett on an off day. We’ll see. The faint scent of best-sellerdom hangs in the air.

Another rail accident. Potter’s bar. Again. Odd as it’s my only association with P.B. Do people live in P.B? Who? I’ve never met them.

Card from K. Sat 21stto Sunday 28th. ‘Alas recording did not go smoothly, but I’m catching up now.’ Enigmatic. Dear thing.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 178

May 11 2002 - July 25 2002.

Saturday May 11 2002

Woke at ten to one a.m. Oh dear, I get through so many books.

The William Maxwell is so-so, I don’t think he quite knows how tiresome his leading character, Nora, is. For instance, in love with a married man, who makes it clear at once that he is only prepared to listen, and be tolerant. She insists more than once on detailing her feelings, to the point of his wife saying ‘I think you should go home now, it’s after midnight.’ So she’s been talking, entirely about herself and her feelings, for three hours. And it feels like it.

Lay down after lunch, woke at a quarter to six, feeling stale. Tesco’s have a ‘finest’ range, which, we are told, yuppies serve one another as their own gourmet cooking. The fish-pie, supposed to be enough for four, ran to two largish tablespoonful’s of mashed potato, so mashed that it had no texture or taste – ‘reconstituted’ when I read the ingredients – a crude cheese sauce, two small pieces of salmon, ditto of smoked haddock, all for tasting of nothing, and three ‘king’ prawns on top, with the texture and taste of rubber, quite unchewable.

Sunday May 12 2002

Woke at ten past one. Stiff and off-colour all day, as if I were sickening for something. But just tired. Tried not to doze in the p.m and more or less succeeded. Didn’t go to bed at any rate.

But with that strange clarity of mind that sometimes follows a poor night, I made a number of decisions and ‘phone calls on the many small matters still to be decided on the flat and garden.

Monday May 13 2002

First on the list, mow lawn. It poured.

Tuesday May 14 2002

To Clifton Nurseries at last. Bought a big square terracotta pot, and another four rounds for the front. Three window-boxes, compost for all this, and a few plants as well, a peace-lily, a new palm for the kitchen some bone-meal, a new seedling watering-can and some weed-killer. A well-spent £300.

Ran through the Margery Allingham biog, - amazed to find I bought it in ’91 written by someone whose first biog. it was, and as far as I know, her last, and struck by her naiveté. She seems to think it is rather suspect to praise the novels too much, and finds fault with every one. I think she thinks that proves her integrity.

Sad to find a message on the machine from Karen L to say S is coming back on Wednesday night. She kindly explained the hold one critic has on New York audience. Oh dear, Poor S, I fear this may be affecting the tour, and he has failed to establish himself on Broadway. It’s many years since I lost any respect for the B’way audience. Imagine not going to a play because one critic says it’s no good. Even if all the critics… and then there’s the obligatory standing ovation, which has seeped over here, a pathetic undermining of a genuine response. How unspontaneous Americans are!

Wednesday May 15 2002

Mowed lawn at last, it looks good, but must try and mow more often, or it won’t. Dear Lucas Phillip’s ideal of two or three times a week, is far beyond me now. I do try, and generally succeed to mow when it’s dry and just before rain is due.

Thursday May 16 2002

An eventful day. Car first to the Gingko Garden Centre at Ravenscourt Park. Much bigger for the shopping, rather larger than I expected, and well stocked, miles better than F.Pal.Rd, to which I won’t go again anyway, after their mess-up last year, and possibly better than Clifton Nurseries, and certainly cheaper. And nearer. Bought some medium pots, a white camellia, some dwarf lavenders, a tomato plant, coyly named Gardener’s Delight, and a choisya, so now I have four. To Turnham Green for shopping, Wensleydale and double Gloucester, and couple of turkey eggs, artichokes, baby artichokes, broad beans, and skate and lovely small whole halibut. M&S, so four or five large bags. It was that very pleasant young black driver, with whom I always have a rather touching chat. This one resulted in me explaining what Debrett was, and him asking where he could find it. Back here, he kindly started to help with the bags, opened the boot for the garden stuff, I bustled in with the food, back out a bit flustered not having expected him to help, the front door closed behind me, and I’d left my keys on the bed. Oh, it’s such a horrible feeling, as if you might never get back. I thought of the keys at Janet’s, and quailed at the thought of going all the way to Whitcomb St for her keys to get my keys, and then take her keys back to W.St. because my set of her keys were inside. But what else? So I said to the nice young driver could he take me there. ‘Of course I could.’ So I got back in, we drove ten yards and the engine died… I paid him and left, feeling guilty, to the ‘phone-box at the corner and rang Janet. She wasn’t in the office! I left a panic-stricken message for poor J. What could she do except worry? Then of course I thought of K. A taxi? Yes, not too long, to the studio off Olaf St. The same reception, a different girl – K wasn’t there anymore! Did she know where he was? At another studio? ‘Yes, I’ll just ring them.’ ‘Don’t disturb him in the middle of something.’ She spoke, and I realised she’d got straight to him just as she rang off… ‘Ring back’ as he could answer. He was wonderful, calm, matter of fact.‘I’ve got the keys with me, I’ll send a courier.’ Oh, the relief. I sat and looked at the concrete car-park outside and found it beautiful. It’s on a sort of mini-industrial estate. A keynote – just outside the main doors is a waist-high brick coffin with even the dandelion struggling – never mind, the keys were coming, and I’d spoken to him, however briefly, and then a pied wagtail flew down on the concrete just outside the doors. He, for it was he, hopped and wagged looked round and flew away. I haven’t seen such a thing for years, tho’ no doubt I would if I ever went to the parks. A delightful sight after misery. The keys came after about half an hour, all alone in a largish courier van. A tiresome bit, waiting for a taxi home in the rather hot street. Only ten minutes but it seemed longer. I felt like a wrung out flannel.

Had just sat down and the ‘phone, K? No, W’stone’s to say the Index Book has arrived. Dear K rang from the car on the way home.

Friday May 17 2002

Tired. That missing girl, Milly Downer? Looks more than thirteen, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she was off with someone. Look at her nostrils! The little artichokes and turkey egg for lunch. Scrumptious.

Saturday May 18 2002

Started on the circle of brick round the lawn. Cleared about six or seven feet. V hard work.

Sunday May 19 2002

Weeded the herb bed by the French doors. Purging.

Southernwood a good stout small bush already.

Monday May 20 2002

To H’smith. Found I’d forgotten my pension book, there are still no proper stamps, and there are no registered envelopes anymore, so there was no way of sending K’s keys back.

Tuesday May 21 2002

To Garrick St. eventually. Remembered my pension b. this time, paid in a cheque, and took a taxi from the rank. Driver looked up Brewer St, an ominous sign. Soon we were stuck in Ken High St. for twenty minutes, then we were stuck in Piccadilly for twenty five minutes. He made no attempt to avoid the jams. Naively announced that he really lived in Derby, and only did taxiing on Mondays and Tuesdays. Fare £21! I didn’t know the black cabs allowed such things. To Café Pasta after W’stones. Picked up two detect., The Shawcross Queen and Country, and the Index Book. Left C.P. at ten to one, all other tables empty. Went back on tube, to help the £21. Found my travel pass was out of date. Autres temps, autres moeurs. A very fat and very unhelpful man in a booth untruthfully labeled assistance, told me I must go to the Town Hall to get it renewed, and the trouble is, I can’t remember what I’ve done before. The Post Office? After all, the pass has ‘Property of London Transport’ printed on it.

Wednesday May 22 2002

Hoped the rubbish I’d asked the council to take away would go. It did. The place no longer looks like a slum. Amused to see that S, despite his Dickens being a failure, has received a 2002 Theatre World News Award for outstanding debuts on or off Broadway…. Oh, Americans.

Swept the front with great satisfaction and put in the four big flowerpots as a first step. I’d pulled a few things away from the cellar door to get the broom, so a big bin- bag full of flower-pots was in the sitting-room doorway, as I came back in, the ‘phone rang, and I rushed – I still rush to answer it, tripped over on my left knee, my good one. It was only on the side of it, but it’s worrying, I’ll see tomorrow.

Queen on News opening the new Gallery at Buck House. Leant over a young boy looking at a picture of the Callinan Diamond, pointed to her brooch and said ‘This is the other bit. It fell off.’

Thursday May 23 2002

Knee v. stiff, but hope and think it is only a bruise, as I only hit the side of it. But goodness it gives me a glimpse of complete incapacity, no gardening, painful standing and so on. All the more irritating, a ring at my bell, turned out to be the doctor – ‘The doctor’ said in patronising tone to a simpleton when I asked who he was – shut the door on him. He then pressed the right bell. A brass plate with my name in letters this size M is obviously not enough even for a doctor who presumably knows the name of his patient. Then Elmhirst called saying his gardening man was there, and would I like – no, I wouldn’t. really, people are extraordinary. Can’t he feel the huge invasion of privacy? They would be here all day, in and out, all through, and with no notice. Not to mention I’d already written to him. he’s hangdog about it, only doing it for his wife, and guilty towards me.

The third bell was a wine delivery. The only one I didn’t answer!

Friday May 24 2002

Read the little book about Reginald Farrar with pleasure. A small thing, well done. Skipped thro’ with many lumps, the Shawcross book on the Queen. Could not explain to anyone – not even K – how much the Queen and the idea and reality of a monarch moves me, as it did D. Shall I ever forget how moved we were the last Christmas of her life, when I hired a television set – we never had one – to watch the recording of the Coronation being put out in preparation for the Jubilee? She never saw it at the time, as Bristol Old Vic rehearsed all through. Something perfectly done, - on the lowest level.

Had delicious dressed crab – from M&S, not the delicatessen – and later in the afternoon had bad bloating indigestion. I’ve always heard of this, hope it doesn’t mean I have to give up crab.

Two very minor theatrical events. The pop-star, Madonna appeared on the stage – at Wyndham’s, no less – in a play. Silly behavior from ‘fans’, those whoops that Americans feel appropriate to artistic judgment, and ‘a standing ovation.’ Another American desideratum for a performance, however terrible, if the performer is at all ‘legendary.’ Led in this case, by her husband from the front of the dress circle.

And Bryan Pringle has died, at 65, I thought him older with that battered crumpled picturesque workingman’s face. He certainly played up to it, with a rather aggressively demotic manner, tho’ he turns out to be a vicar’s son. I came across him, very early in his career, - only a couple of years in, at most – in Salisbury, weekly rep. that dreary play about a submarine disaster. ‘Morning Departure.’ On that tiny stage, the two naval officers either side on the ‘phone never moved, so making the study more difficult, pouring out streams of sometimes technical stuff. I was at one of the ‘booths’ right thro’ the play- B. Pringle only appeared in the other occasionally. He patronised us all and never learnt it. In the ‘60s climate he was rarely out of work.

Knee is only bruised, thank goodness.

Saturday May 25 2002

It seems football will be all over everything for the next month. Caught a fleeting glimpse of Swedish footballers brawling on the pitch. It cut to that ghastly ‘football pundit’ with an even more ghastly moustache. To my amazement and deepened horror, he’s shaved off the mustache and looked even more ghastly. Asked for his opinion of the Swedes, he said he saw them as ‘just about ready to play.’

Sunday May 26 2002

Struggling through the Smithers book. Almost painful detail, much of it microscopically bibliographical details, many repetitions, and some amusing Yank misunderstandings of English idioms and manners. For example when Beardsley writes ‘This weather must give you the hump’, he attempts to tie in this painful medieval symptom with Smither’s possible rheumatoid arthritis. More revealing in his misunderstanding of Wilde’s life after prison, is his wondering what exactly was the kindness Mr Smithers offered to him. The kindness was in recognising him or speaking to him at all, when most people cut him in public. This is a bad mistake for a professor of literature, if only in Iowa. As for the repetitions, he is emeritus, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was a bit of vanity publishing.Rivendalo Press?

If only we’d gone to live in Bournemouth in 1888 instead of 1928,well – comic to see Beardsley writing saucy letters from pier view, Boscombe, thinking of the careful suburban insipidity of Boscombe in the ‘30s. I was fourteen when we left in 1940, but I can claim to have sensed something of the old B’mouth still in the air till the war. The big house hidden from the road, on whose gardens then, bungalows have since been built. The Russell-Cotes Museum was already completely démodé – hardly even ignored – I tried to get Lalla to take me far more often than I succeeded. The Irving Room was the main attraction, the Hamlet costume hanging there… it is moving to me now that when I first went there, Irving hadn’t been dead for thirty years. E VIII bought or built, a house for Lillie Langtry, Stevenson lived there for some years. Beardsley convalesced there for months at a time. Didn’t Wilde and/or Douglas go there sometimes? Not to mention Shelly House in whose grounds I played. And Hardy could have seen me in my pram…

Television programme about the first exhibition at the new Queen Gallery. Shown the handsome bookcases holding the Queen’s collection of six hundred drawings by Leonardo De Vinci, ‘the next biggest collection holds twenty-five’.There’s some solid silver furniture made for William III in 1699, apparently in emulation of Louis XIV, who had to melt his down to pay for some war or other, and his own extravagance, so ours are the only ones left. A most delicate Fabergé, tall, fragile flowers, only a spray or two, in a tall vase, sent by Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth the Queen M. (then Queen) at the height if the blitz. Wonderful. Almost every art expert who spoke was plainly gay. Like eunuchs being priests of ancient orders.

Monday May 27 2002

Sarah W. chucked for lunch tomorrow. Jolly chat as a result, she’s kind and lets me talk. Oh dear, I am certainly at not only the garrulous stage, but also delight at not having to do something.

Call from Roy at nine p.m, meet in ten days. Says the Mary Norton ‘Is by Emma’s bed.’ Oh well. Told of a book called the Wishlife? By Eoin Colfer.

Weeded at five as usual, got heart burn, had once or twice at this time, even without weeding. Sinister? How well I am tho’, judged by so many.

Started sleeping in again, and dreaming – anxiety dream, about Edna and getting her a car. Good heavens.

Tuesday May 28 2002

Leading article in The Standard, sixteen people arrested for drug offences, dealing and so on, round Earl’s Court Station, since when street crime, muggings and burglaries have dropped by between sixteen and twenty seven per cent.

How long ago was is that D went back to E. Court for the bank? Perhaps, some time after we moved, and remarked that everyone round the station looked as if they’d just come from doing the Manson Murders? Sometime in the ‘60’s. I mark it’s decline from the introduction of one-way traffic for E.C.Rd and Warwick Avenue. It’s taken them forty odd years to realise. I must offer my instinct to the government.

Wednesday May 29 2002

Death list: Snowball, Howl.

A waiting about day. The woman coming to inspect the bay-tree rang over an hour after her apt. to say her mobile had been stolen, and she’d come tomorrow. The main delivery came in the middle of the afternoon, a pleasant young man carefully repressing his public-school accent, told me they couldn’t find the big terracotta pot…

It only cost £125. Astonishing incompetence. I suppose somebody sold it. Still, I took pleasure in the window-boxes fitting, and the large choisya to go in the missing pot, and the palm for the kitchen, and the anthurium for the sitting-room, so the waiting wasn’t altogether vain.

Rang Mary L day after her operation, still rather woozy, but let home all the same. (Not that she told me, I rang to see if she was home, or if I’d had to pick her up, as she’s suggested.) Said she’s lost her address-book, and could she have my address and tel. number. ‘Well, you won’t be writing to me just yet, will you?’ Her eye is still v. blurry, and of course, she worries in case that is sinister. But brave, whatever else she isn’t.

Big TV play in four parts with Julie Walters, whom I much admire, playing a mother whose son has been murdered. It’s told in the four parts, by the effect on her, a journalist hoping to get a story to offset his own troubles, the man who found the son dying, and the woman police officer in charge of the case. I turned it off after only quarter of an hour. I could accept that the hideous journalist might leap over the garden wall, and get into the house, but I couldn’t accept that almost the next minute the mother would accept a cup of tea from him without noticing that he was a complete stranger. I’ve been in that position, and I know.

Thursday May 30 2002

Heard the world famous footballer David Beckham speaking for the first time, in japan, for some reason. Poor little shrimp.

To H’smith for two weeks pension, and bought a Jubilee Crown Piece with it at the P.O. Tesco, and also bought the new Sparling short biography of Sonia Orwell, which, it seems, is a defense and reappraisal of the woman misrepresented in the biogs. of G.O. Difficult to judge who is right. Beyond a point or two of evidence, documentary or personal testimony. However, unlike Hazel, I think highly of it. Spurling, so we’ll see. Elegant small book, a hundred and ninety pages or so.

The landscape woman came eventually, eve today, nearly three-quarters of an hour late. A pleasant rather defeated woman, Flo Stoney, middle-class, with the speech and the looks. Didn’t give much confidence and wants to take the debris over the back wall. More trampling – oh when will it all be over and people not walking on the beds. And now the huge holiday weekend. So.

Friday May 31 2002

More inefficiency. Cliffton Nurs. rang to say they couldn’t find the terracotta pot, will get another. Oh dear. Bay tree woman had hinted at Saturday, or Wednesday ‘Though it might be a bit tight before…’ No sound. Oh dear, dear.

Read the Spurling. One has to say that even with her partisanship, Sonia O comes over as not always sufficiently mitigated hell. Even her generosity to Jean Rhys, god- children, Ivy C.B, ill friends and so on, sounds suspiciously like bribes some of the time. I have to admit that I am influenced by her being a childhood Catholic. What havoc they can cause! Guilt about sex spreads to all the people they’re having sex with. She had an atomically strong personality, and could send unease in all directions.

Big article in Telegraph by Michael Sheldon attacking the book, well there you are, he says, S.O. was even more hell than H. Spurling paints her, difficulty of checking, evidence – G.O. dying in hospital in West End, H.S says in wine bar with Lucian Freud and his then lover, Anna Dunn. M.S. seems to have consulted the same authorities, but with a different result, in a night-club forgetting about G.O. And so it goes on.

Anthony Powell witticism I’d forgotten, Cyril Connolly, with his constant need for cossetting and flattery, leapt in circle of extremely attractive, extremely formidable young women for that purpose, and was, as A.P. said, ‘held together by maenads.’

Saturday June 1 2002

Radiant sunshine, tho’ thank goodness not hot on the flat yet. Wonderful for the ‘Prom’ in the garden of B. House. Twelve hundred inside, goodness knows how many outside, wonderful reception for the Queen, truth will out, integrity gets its reward. Sobbed my way thro’ two joyful hankies. Taped it all for John N as he asked. They’ve gone away for the weekend, as Simon R hates royalty. So J will watch it here.

Memo, mow after 6.30 when sun has gone.

Sunday June 2 2002

Mrs. Lawrence, the wife of that admirable Head Master who was stabbed outside his school a few years ago, has been asked by a social worker to apologise to his murderer for not accepting his remorse. I seem to remember she has already publicly forgiven him, in a gesture of great forbearance and self abnegation. I was quite surprised nowadays to find that the social worker has been sacked.

‘Daisy Pulls It Off’ revival is to close after rapturous notices and only three weeks. Again directed by David G. Annoyed with myself to find I was a bit pleased. Nasty dog-in-manger, still I was disappointed at the coarsening of his personality the last twice I saw him.

Finished the last two sticks of salsify, delicious.

Pipe slipped off nozzle behind outdoor pipe, water pouring out by the woodshed. Initially I thought it was something wrong with the boiler. Rang K hoping to leave a message. Got him. So good, and sensible. Told me what to turn off. And he’ll be free in two weeks. That is wonderful. I miss him so badly, tho’ I am so grateful and proud for the reason.

To J in the p.m. for half an hour or so, to take the compost for her tub hydrangea. Silly to put hydr. in a tub except in a gardener-garden, because it is such an artificial and unsuitable medium for such a plant. J gave me the pot with tomato and basil seeds she’d mentioned. Rather stupid inclusive offer from somewhere someone had given her. I’ll try and do something useful with it. It’s quite an effort to walk to J’s and back. Touched that she said she hoped I’d get home safely. ‘Ring me when you do.’

Today taped ‘All the Queens Horses’ but didn’t watch it. Partly not to weary myself with too much, but mostly because horses mean little to me. I will watch it with dear Fast-forward. If only I could live long enough to get a ff for life.

Monday June 3 2002

Today the Pop Concert at the Palace. It seems to have been a huge success, tho’ again I didn’t watch it. So many of the performers I can never watch or listen to again.

I must mention the fireworks on Saturday during the Handel. Perfectly timed and tailored and almost musical to the music. Who did them? Millennium might take note.

Tried twice to push the pipe back on the nozzle, and got it some way up, but it is awkwardly placed being the tap, and I have so much less strength in my fingers and arms then I had – and never much. I remember a workman – oh god how I hate workmen, - saying to me… if you had more masculine hands! It used to be a distinction, not to have coarse hands.

Tuesday June 4 2002

Watched almost the entire thing, except most of the ethnic procession, too boring. Everything else perfection. On the procession to St. Paul’s, I noticed that every foot of every pavement all along the route, was crammed, all along the way,Strand, Fleet St., all.

And when the processions were over, and the policeman so carefully eased the crowds towards the Palace, the Mall was solid with people waving.I’ve never seen all the way to Admiralty Arch solid – they said nobody would come. A million people and only three arrests. That is the glory of ordinary English people, so often traduced. I say ‘English’ particularly, because tho’ there are many most-decent Scots and Irish and Welsh, yet one has to say, if you hear a crash of glass from the public bar, whose voice is most generally raised? Amused that Prince Andrew’s entrance – good heaven’s that dreary Lothario - Prince William’s entrance on the balcony brought a wild pop-star scream. He jibbed charmingly. All the same, a difficulty to be addressed later. How difficult it must be for a modern youngster to wave from a landau. How even more difficult to feel your future is entirely decided. Imagine the outrage if you asked any ordinary person to make that sacrifice.

Planted the two choisya to mystery mask the baseball platform.

Wednesday June 5 2002

As rainy a day as I can remember, heavy rain all day. Heard on the news nearly two inches over London. The pond full, when before it was four inches below the rim. I’m pleased for the new plants, but wanted to weed.

Another shooting in Uxbridge Road, at the junction of Bloemfontein Road. Car with bullet holes. Nobody hurt. I bet they were black, such a pity. I wish people would admit that black people, Caribbeans anyway, are naturally more violent, hear them talk, listen to their music. And this, I presume, was to do with drugs. Why is it that education seems to be able to do so little with so many of them? I forget the percentage of the Caribs. expelled from school, but it’s high. Cf. my remarks about the middle-east and India, that those closed peasant faces remain the same after fifty years. Why? Well, Islam, of course, worse than the RC’s.

Messages on machine from S. Would I like to go to a Mahler Concert – ‘I know it’s short notice’ – listened carefully three times, did not mention when, I suppose tomorrow. Decided to ignore it, because I was hurt. He sends me those sweet cards and jokes, and says we must meet, ‘So so much to say,’ about The Dickens and so on, and yet proposes yet another truncated evening with an hour and a half of that over supper.‘You’ll be home by midnight,’ at least an hour too late for me. I haven’t seen him since January, and then it was a lunch after which he said we’d hardly had time to ‘scratch the surface’ True. Oh, how he scrapes the surface – I am old and probably more boring than I think, but I wonder if he does this to everyone. It may well be me, as I say, after all, John N and I used to lunch every fortnight… but it’s S’s skimming I don’t like.

Thursday June 6 2002

More rain. Rang Oddbins Chiswick from bed! They assume that same-day deliveries are usual. Wonderful.

At last, an article in the Evening Standard, leader page, sub-headline, …ultimately the only solution to traffic chaos is for the Government to reduce car usage. Fancy. If only they’d listened to us in 196?

Amusing column in the Independent about Peter Pan. ‘Is everyone all right with this? Peter thimbling Wendy in the nursery.’ And so on, his quotes were from the book not the play. In which case I’m surprised he doesn’t quote my favourite. Which I can’t quote exactly, something like ‘There are little boy fairies who are blue, and there are little girl fairies who are pink, and there are some fairies who just don’t know what colour they are.’ It’s exciting to think Barrie and Freud were contemporaries and were making their discoveries at the same time… Just as well for Barrie’s.

The rain goes on and on.

Friday June 7 2002

Message from China–search. I hoped it was tea-cups, but I’m afraid they, too, were inaccurate and hadn’t crossed off the coffee cups and cream jug that I’d told them about. And they had coffee-cups. A pity, it would have been just in time for H.

Rain.

Saturday June 8 2002

To the shops for H. Bourbons and chocolate digestives. A good little local list of airmail paper, kitchen-paper, etc. But nothing like instant coffee, two, or even three pounds more than the supermarkets.

Didn’t sleep till five a.m. then dozed and woke at ten. Estimate from Clifton N. to cut down bay-tree, £158, not bad to be sure. Impressive writing-paper.

Sunday June 9 2002

Reading Dick Francis in the a.m. Horses’ brains are the size of a clenched fist. Does the Queen know?

Article about The Observer by Katharine Whitehorn. Haven’t seen anything by her for some years, my contemporary. I thought she might go on writing, but she doesn’t seem to. Excellent article as far as I can tell.

Monday June 10 2002

H’s visit, absolutely on time, looking well, less lined, skin looking fresher. Poor girl, her big legs had bruises, one as big as my palm. Her feet in what looked almost like surgical boots, oh dear.

I’d put out a few small remnants of Mummy’s tea-table, and D’s coffee-tray. Lace- edged cloths and tea-strainer, sugar bowl – covered! – etc. and the biscuits in a fan on a doilied – is that an adjective? – plate. It was only an amused gesture. But I was slightly disappointed that she hardly commented. When offered milk and lemon, which of three teas, she rather nervously refused everything, except Earl Grey tea, neat. I wish she’d laugh about my trouble.

Curious little ritual for her – she asked for us to watch ‘Neighbours’ together! ‘What a rich episode.’ Oh dear. Still lovely to talk with my own generation. Bea Lillie, for instance. If ever there was a performer of genius, she was it. And if ever there was genius impossible to describe to someone who never saw her, this was it. The cab came on the dot, and she was gone. The dear old clock I’d taken out of the bag and put in the book-room, started this morning. It never went at St. Dunstan’s, overwound, I thought. Goes ten minutes slow but can adjust the pendulum. How familiar the tick is. Sounds of my childhood.

Tuesday June 11 2002

Tired. Even her visit needed more running about, before, during and after. Planted the tomato and basil seeds for J and the courgette for myself, all in pots.

Picked up the Muriel Spark stories again. Brilliant, in the true sense of another word being debased.

Wednesday June 12 2002

Shopping in a.m. at H’smith.

In my favourite bit by the wall, a fern rather trampled, and a new branch broken off the Bealimahonia. I would have thought it was someone had come over the wall, but it wasn’t that, unless they went straight back up. V. annoying all the same. The Veitchii hydr. suffered, too.

Thursday June 13 2002

Table in the paper of comparative house prices in London. Fashia certainly rules.

Average house price as follows:

Ken and Chelsea £595,462 Westminster £411,341 Camden £347,010 H’smith and Fulh. £316,147 Islington £276,364

Newspaper from K! from Nigel. Note: 1 week to go. I am physically and mentally fucked. Article about Hay.

Patrick Woodcock has died at 79. No obituary yet, only a short announcement in the Telegraph columns. I wonder if he’s left any memoirs or evidence - he certainly has many tales to tell. Who wasn’t his patient? Noel, John G, us? Fascinating. I wonder what, if anything, the obituaries will say?

Couldn’t garden again, ground too wet. Very overcast.

Friday June 14 2002

Stella Richman died, never met her, but I’d be interested to ask D about her, if I could, as she was Alec Clunes’ first wife, presumably all thro’ the times D was at the Arts, and while Prim was having her affair with A.C. A biography would be interesting, I can remember now the shock I felt at hearing that he was talking over from Rex H in My Fair Lady. As director of The Arts in the war and after, he was so bold, so daring, so discerning, with a wonderful mixture of fruitful revival – he did all Shaw’s one-acts and may other Shaws incl. a complete Back to Methuselah – and anything new and difficult that turned up. Who was it said The Arts was a national theatre – before the National Theatre, of course. What happened to him? D couldn’t explain, nor Prim. Interesting, has there been a history of hisArts Theatre? There should be.

K rang. Coming for the whole of Sunday. And will rest. Oh, food.

Saturday June 15 2002

Nigel Hawthorne’s autobiog. notices. Poor stuff, it seems. I’m not surprised. He was a small-scale person and actor, withheld and, and in my small experience of him, rather calculating and patronising. But that may have been a public caution. He must have had a warmer, and more generous side to him, if Trevor Banham could be his partner for last twenty years.T.B company manager for D in What Ev.,ery Woman Knows in ’73, was and is, (I think, as J tells me of him) a mild sensible warm man. Interesting that the review by Lynn Barber, says the book is rather flat, and indifferently written, except for TB’s afterword; the MS was sent to the publisher only two days before N.H died, and TB hadn’t seen it. (Did I say ‘caution’?) Lynn B suggests that a collaboration might have made a great difference.

Of course any talk of Nigel as a ‘great’ actor is quite wrong. A competent and sometimes witty character actor. ‘Yes Minister’ was his limit. It is only an indication of the decay of standards that it should be suggested that his King Lear was a failure because of a poor production or his illness. He couldn’t touch it at any age. Bits of G.III look to me like any middle weight ordinary actor.

Oh, oh, K not coming.

Mowed lawn.

Sunday June 16 2002

Bed at eleven, woke at quarter to one, and never got back.

Slept this afternoon. No garden again.

Monday June 17 2002

Bay Tree murder today. Well, I didn’t expect to sleep, but I did wake a little later, up at seven and to get some milk, semi-skim, for their elevenses, or possibly tenses, at eight. Left note on door, and saw van turn in as I came back, and there they were. Smart van, young men, serious glasses, 26? Two would-be nubile girls, 19?20? All plainly far from plebeian origin. Girls with that pale golden transparent skin, the result of an upbringing in wildest Surrey, with entrepreneur Daddy bringing back unlimited protein and fully-fitted ponies. As soon as I could, left them to it.

I have to get away from workmen if at all possible. Which is why moving in was such a strain, even tho’ it was K. In this case, there was an added reason. I can’t bear any plant or tree to be cut down, except for its own good. I love the dim shadows the poor bay-tree casts, but you can’t explain that to the ‘bright and light’ brigade. So out of Uxbridge Rd. to get a black cab, at twenty past nine. I have often sat in the bus shelter opposite the Princess Victoria, grateful for a seat, but never so early and on a Monday. Sat there for over an hour today. Memo: don’t try to pick up a black cab for anything important early on a Monday. Today it was a help, I wanted to pass the time. They’d said an hour. As I sat I was interested that the traffic-jam traffic was going West, towards Acton etc., and not East towards the West End and the City, as I’d supposed it would. Shopping, pension etc.

Back here. The dim mysterious corner blasted with boring sunlight.

Still, the bay tree will sprout again and I can plant different things in the meanwhile.

Tuesday June 18 2002

Thunderstorms in the night. Couldn’t decide whether they or insomnia woke me. To lunch with Sarah W. Idiot driver, for once, with a thick accent and found myself going up Sussex Gardens instead of on to Park Lane and thro’ Mayfair to Garrick Street. Spent some time in traffic jams in those narrow streets north of Oxford St. How odd so many motorists are in not going straight to where ever it is, or as straight as one can. But so many love speed first, and do detours hoping to keep the speed up, regardless of going out of the way. Froze him off.

Agreeable lunch as usual. Caesar salad, with goujon-like bits of ch.icken. To W’stones where I spent £124 of S’s money buying a book for S.W as well. She chose a book I must get, Lost Country Houses.

M.L. worked with Stella Richman in 1940. Very efficient stage manager in her first job. She was surprised to her Alec was married to S.R?!

Wednesday June 19 2002

Another outing, oh dear, to get ML’s new Hoover. Surprisingly easy, as Curry’s is four doors from easy parking. Left a parcel of books at Oxfam, picked up some light- bulbs from Ryness, and the cheapest Hoover, £49.99, all near by. Same driver as yesterday.

Read the new Rosamond Lehmann biog. by excellent Selina Hastings. Wonderfully readable. I’m rather proud of myself that my fairly brief glance at RL at the Ivy CB memorial, and my conclusions from it, are confirmed to minutest particular by this excellent book. I think the keynote might be Stephen Spender and RL writing to friends after a meeting, each saying what a monstrous egoist the other was. Very amusing, Dadie darting in and out, and quite a list of people I knew, her son Hugo, and his first wife, Margaret Heathcote. Another confirmation, called the Zulieka Dobson of her time. Mine, too. True. Also Patrick Kavanagh, her daughter’s husband, whom we knew at Salisbury Rep.

Oh dear, a melancholy picture of self-centredness to a painful degree. It comes to something when S.H. is driven to decide that Beatrix was the nicest and the sanest of the three siblings. I worked with her… sane?

Thursday June 20 2002

Read N. Hawthorne’s biog. As I expected. Pedestrian stuff. Too little art to avoid ‘and then I…’ often enough. But I was surprised by the open waspishness of some of the comments. Paul Eddinton gets a nasty slap, not that he doesn’t deserve it, but I didn’t think it would be N.H. who’d give it to him. Apparently N.H. thought P.E thought he and David Foulds weren’t good enough for him. Ironic as they were all exactly the same weight as competent middle-brow second-rate actors. Book full of not very well concealed self-justifications. Trevor B’s afterword is the best part of it.

One fact I was pleased, in a way, to find, Mike Gwilym, that pleasant chap who got the Clarence Derwent Award at the same time as D, is not dead, but left the business, living in France, occupation, if any, unspecified.

Friday June 21 2002

Forgot to say that last night potted that variegated euonymus, so unsuitably in left- hand border when I arrived. Shoved it, 18 months ago, in a pot torn to bits, with a bit of compost barely covering it roots. Its survived, I’m touched, so I’ve repotted it, in one of the old water-lily pots and put it out front. Fairly straggly, but it may fill its pot and be an ornament.

Later. Tiring day. Hoover to Mary L, struggle to install. Got dear Pat the driver, who mercifully came to help. A slight thing, but pleasant. ML thinner, more than I like.

Planted four of the fern in the new space outside the sitting room left hand window. One day, it will be a dim cool charm. Looked over the weeding for tomorrow – olive sprouting. ‘Mackay’ in credit on Yank film. Lovely they don’t know me!

Saturday June 22 2002

Another very poor night, and a strange little experience today. I went back to bed at 1.15 p.m. after lunch, slept at once, woke about 4.30, thinking it was the next morning as of course it is light at 4.30 a.m. just now. Read for a bit, but so tired still, slept again and woke at 9.25. And of course it was still light. Went to look for the Sunday papers, not there, of course. Went to book-room and exclaimed at how dark it was getting, rain? Looked out the back, rosy light on the clouds. Odd. Video clock said 21.25. Oh God it’s gone wrong, now how - even then I didn’t quite realise. Odd, and I have woken a little disorientated from my rest before, but, of course, I’d never slept eight hours in the day before. Proud of my ‘metabolism’ as I expect some idiot would call my constitution, for making up the sleep. Fascinating, I filled up my newspaper sack… well, it was Sunday.

So I had my first gin and tonic at ten, and sat down to dinner at quarter to eleven.

Sunday June 23 2002

Weeded at last. Thank goodness the worst weed uproots easily.

K rang. Coming tomorrow at 4.0. Dinner? Yes, what? A bit of supermarket whiting and frozen veg. Oh dear, still he doesn’t seem to need a pudding or cheese.

Monday June 24 2002

Tired of course, but oh so happy, warmed right thro’. He was looking radiant not at all tired – during the aft and evening he put the two bulbs in – out for two months – and took the opportunity to put that shade from the bedroom to the utility room, its proper sphere, - he cleared the CD player, put together the outside tap, and said, just as I said ‘g&t?’, ‘I don’t think I’d be happy if I didn’t repair the light over the sink, because the wire’s burnt thro’ for some reason, so - ’

Earlier, he’d rung Tesco about delivery – I was so impressed that he just quietly rollered over some ghastly manager, never raising the temperature, just grinding a creature called Williamson into insipid pumice stone.

I am so lucky.

Tuesday June 25 2002

Wimbledon again. I can watch a little of this but only after the match is over. Two woman competitors called Casanova, and, enchantingly, Smashnova. Out early on alas.

Spike Milligan’s mem. service, Peter O’ Toole in paper, a death’s head. One way and another, what a sad picture Albert and P.O’T. present, in their different ways, compared to John and Ralph. And that’s not because they lacked any more opportunity. Such fame as they both had, makes its own opportunity. Judging by Albie, whom I knew well when he was 19-20, neither are very bright. That’s a difference. Except Larry.

Wednesday June 26 2002

Weeded at last and well.

Jeanne Watt’s obit. in the stage.D’s understudy in Salad Days, had a fair go with Larry at Chicester and afterwards at the National, Olga in 3 Sisters and so on. Rather overparted, I thought. Sweet-faced, rather insipid, married another understudy, Richard Pesand, tall odd egg-shaped head and face, features on a disc, no hair or ears visible from the front. Lived just down the road from us in Clapham, and was kind to me after D died. Son had serious op. at 18. Asked to see me in hospital. Don’t know why.Malk’s godson, and Malk wrote the obit. Rather too flattering, could have done with a little shade. She died on Feb 15, an odd time lag. Her career was quite enough for a newspaper obit. and certainly for The Stage at the right time. I wonder what happened or didn’t, I should think poor Richard will be lost. But of course the boys will be forty or so and will rally round. I liked the younger one best, at 17 the best of them.

Wimbledon’s on, and I watch it, as ever, after each match is decided, and not much then. How I despise the dreary little creatures nowadays, only interested in winning. Another yank gift. Still, a lot of those dreary seeds have gone, the dreariest of all, Sampras, I hope for good. If I had ever cared for, or liked games, I would be in despair now-a-days. We invented most of them, but we invented them for fun. What messes people make, who have no sense of humour.

Thursday June 27 2002

John N rang. Dinner tomorrow, and could he come early to watch the Jubilee tapes? A bit of a surprise, as I didn’t think we’d fixed an actual day, only the week. But I daresay, I got it wrong, tho’ I usually put it straight down in my diary – but a very nice surprise.

Felt a bit below par, so started on my book-room table and the cuttings.

Friday June 28 2002

A lovely day. With a friend as old and as intimate as John, I feel no pressure of any kind, just pleasure in his company. He arrived about 4.30, having, as he said ‘Cleared his desk’ at his very high-powered job at the R.A. He sat entranced until we left for the Brackenbury at a quarter to eight, saying, from time to time, ‘You don’t know how good of you this is.’ I was so tickled – and so was he – to think that someone who has just organised a seven hundred strong artist reception at the R.A. for the Queen, should be obliged to skulk in to a cul-de-sac in Shepherd’s Bush as a closet Royalist, because his partner dislikes royalty. He did enjoy it all, and took three videos for a fuller view, - fast-forwarded a good deal. Where will he do it?

Brackenbury just as good. Caesar salad with fresh anchovies. Fried plaice curious- looking triangular folded in two portions, but well-crisped black skin and delicious. New pots well-buttered. Cheese.

Good talk. He relieved Joyce hadn’t rung. I said, for accuracy’s sake, that we’d never seen any of her difficulties. J said, ‘Well, she’s two people.’ Pathetic when the one we knew is so intelligent and perceptive. I always like hearing about his mother. She remarked of the Rostropovich item from Buck House Ballroom. ‘I went and made some tea because I can’t be doing with the cello’, thus sweeping aside a whole swathe of European music. A certain grandeur…

Amazed at one point to hear him say that I am one of the most centred people he knows. Why not the most? Not that I really know what he means. A bit of jargon, I fear.

Saturday June 29 2002

Chiswick in the p.m. Driver that middle-aged wide boy, but now a gardener with a fish pond, asking me about the cat scarer. Bought two red-mullet and a halibut steak, bit nearer my size, and a couple of pots of potted shrimp. Forgot bread. So made some scones when I got back. Big interview with Tom Stopard, 65, written a trilogy. Wonderful. Planted, or re-planted the holly fern.

Sunday June 30 2002

Rang J.Stephanie back tomorrow. Fireworks expected.

Meant to garden but felt too tired.

Monday July 1 2002

Rang Austin Reed to make a hair cut apt. and got a shock. The Barber’s shop is closed till May. When I went last time, some six weeks ago, part of the salon was boarded off, for what I took to be redecoration, and probably making smaller again. Giovanni was at different chair, and ‘explained’ about the redecoration but his English is so poor, even after cutting my hair for fifteen years, that I may have missed some more fundamental change. But it is a sad sign of the deterioration in the treatment of customers. Daddy took me to the salon first in 1940, back from school, and I have gone there whenever I’ve been in London, ever since.Mr. Mather from the fifties till about fifteen years ago, and Giovanni since. The telephone girl was quite shocked that I didn’t know. Am rather dreading having to find somewhere else. Unisex? With music? With a girl giving me a pubbing-basin cut, as at the BBC? Encouraged to find a separate list of Barbers, as opposed to Ladies’ and Men’s hair dressers, and that one built into the Met. line station at H’smith. Too dispirited to shop. RAIN.

Tuesday July 2 2002

A serendipitous day. Black cab to H’smith barber just by easiest drop point. Two of the barbers, in blue overalls, chatting at the door, suggesting they were free, one of them a mild late-sixties chap, the other forties. A proper barber’s, with shaving- brushes and soap in the window. Got two weeks’ pension, went back, sat down at once, ten minutes. £4 OAP’s cheap offer. Mon-Thurs. Excellent.

Then I found the new Brawn in Books Etc. and got a taxi home at once with all the food. Very pleased with barber, no expensive cab to West End and back, cheaper and no apt.

A picture phrase-book, for tourists without languages given away with The Observer. Hilarious. You point to the photo of what you want. Trouble is, it’s half the size of a paperback. There are some pages of anatomical detail. I suppose they’re for doctors to inform patients, as I can’t imagine that a patient would go and ask to have his appendix out. But the pictures are so small, that you’d need a needle either way, to be sure you had your pancreas out and not your spleen. A useful page of common phrases begins ‘Hello.’ ‘Goodbye.’ ‘What’s was your name again.’ ‘I like Boys.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you speak English?’ Perhaps yes and no should come a bit earlier.

Rain again. At Wimbledon dreary Pete Sampras out in complete ineptitude, thank goodness, but dear Agassi out, too. So few players now. But I only watch a few minutes, perhaps twice a session.

I must try to live more in the moment, as he does, because I may not have many.

Wednesday July 3 2002

Rain. No garden again. Too tired anyway.

Rain good for those small ferns in the little pots out at the front.

Nigel M rang. Good heavens. In London, wants to come round tomorrow. Asked him to dinner at Brackenbury, very à propos with £1100 cheque from Only Fools and H. Booked Brack. and the cabs. Rather dreading it.

Thursday July 4 2002

To Ravenscourt Garden Centre on the strength of the £1100 to get a few things for the front garden. Only pots, of course, as there’s no earth! Some more ornamental pots, and some small ones, some fuchsias ivy-leafed ‘geraniums’.I’ll get those hostas from the corner-shop. I bet they’re really cheap, but they don’t look bad at all. The order was delivered at 1.25. Shades of Clifton. See someone mad, in a ‘soap opera’ tears up the Bible, in the local church and sets fire to said church, in a burst of religious mania. Do mad people engage with the church in this godless age? Still? Surely they’d burn down something. XX

3lbs peas from the market.

Managed to mow the lawn just before rain, rain.

Friday July 5 2002

An apparently authoritative analysis had pronounced that vitamin supplements and minerals are useless. £175 million spent on them annually. Comic. I expect John N and Simon R take them. Another blessing from Yanks, I imagine, under the usual delusion that if you don’t do this and do do that, you’ll never die. Of course won’t stop people taking them, as it isn’t rational to start with.

Rain, rain, rain.

Saturday July 6 2002

Could not write after Nigel came, and then had to leave it till this evening, from exhaustion. I was a bit worried he wouldn’t get a taxi at H’smith at 6.30ish, and be late for a table at eight. I needn’t have bothered. He rang the bell on the dot of seven, having walked from H’smith. A little dashed to find him in sweatshirt and jeans, not that it matters, but he is rather plump now, and certainly does not look trendy. We got on old terms quite quickly. He is a crude affair compared to K, but very sweet- natured. Quite funny, but not as funny as he thinks he is. Amused to find that there was a distinct tinge of boys-out-on-the-town, a faint echo of long ago and his five friends. He downed three large g&ts like soft drinks, slurp, slurp, slurp another two at the Brack, two bottles of wine, and back here, a little whiskey, ‘No, I’ll have another Gin and Tonic.’ I had the salad of fresh anchovies again, and baked sea-bass. No pudding. He was rather pleased with the taxi picking us up, but the obliquity about it taking him back, turned into him wanting to stay the night, oh dear. Disruption in here. A fascinating little dream/prescience/vision on my part. Night a bit disturbed, not unusual, a trifle hung-over, bicarb., dozing, and picturing N being sick in the book-room, on the little rug, and came thro’ the dream and laughed. Got up about ten, and realised I’d got no milk, bread or butter, for an unexpected guest’s breakfast. A useful little shop. Guests are useful… He was up when I got back. I’ve noticed leaving the house usually gets them up.

Turned out he had been sick on the mat. It was hung on the wheelbarrow. He spoke dubiously of the fish… Left about twelve. ‘I’ll have a look around Notting Hill.’

Nowhere smelt of sick happily, but everything was upside down, and I couldn’t find the remote control for some hours. It turned out to be on top of books on a rather remote shelf, and I’d moved the sofa…

Dear Nigel, he has preserved that touch of absurdity that he’s always possessed. I’m glad he wanted to come.

Big parade in Ebbw Vale on the closure of the steel works after two hundred years, tho’ whether in celebration or protest, I couldn’t quite tell. For myself, it’s wonderful to think of such a barbarous work-place going. Such work forces men out of physical and mental shape. I can never forget Lalla and her stunted generation, some of them bottomlessly bitter, some of them movingly, with their humour and intelligence preserved, tho’ sadly educated below their deserts. How I loather what such life did to so many hundreds of thousands of people, making so many of them intolerable to be in the same room with. Lalla’s father and her youngest brother, Harold, were miracles of detachment, humour and reachings towards music and books.

K rang from Crete. ‘I’m not sure I sent the deposit on the cottage, can you ring?’ ‘Well, I’m getting another copy of the brochure, so can I get them thro’ that? What about the papers you showed me?’ ‘Well, I don’t know quite where they are.’ By this time we were helpless. Is he 41 and in charge of his destiny?

‘Are you having a real rest?’ ‘We’re surrounded on three sides by the sea.’ ‘So you’ve been swimming a lot?’ ‘I am dripping as I speak.’

Oh, I’m so glad he’s doing nothing.

Sunday July 7 2002

Spread the mat flat on the lawn, in the heavy rain. I also felt it possible that dear little tits and blackbirds may find treats down in the weave of the rug.

As H wasn’t ringing today, went to Notting Hill for bits of shopping and books. C.Lycett Green memoir, Thwe’s Burmese memoir, Tom Stoppard biog. Dianna Mosley’s Life of Contrasts with updated chapters.

J very funny about the younger Olivier’s daughter’s wedding. She didn’t expect to be asked, but Joan spoke and said they weren’t asking the housekeeper because she got unacceptably drunk, so did she mind – and she doesn’t. I don’t think I’ve got that quite right. I’ll check on Saturday, when we are having lunch.

Monday July 8 2002

‘Arranging’ is starting to loom large. ‘Fitting in before’ and my b’day are colliding. Karen rang and eventually we settled for tomorrow week at what she charmingly called Le Escargot. Fixed Roy and M for Thursday at Fish Hook off the Chiswick High Rd. Lunch with J on Sat. Oh dear.

The copy of the Hay Brochure arrived, so I was able to ring the owners of the cottage. He was mild and retired, I’d say, and got her, ‘The mistress of all.’ She sounded delightful, cultivated with a ready laugh. She teaches art somewhere. And yes, K had sent the deposit, all is well, ‘And I’ve sent all the details – to Highbury, isn’t it?’ I didn’t know whether he’d done father-son stuff. So continued in case. It seems the woman they usually leave the key with is away…

Rang K in Crete. A. answered, a bit of a squawk, then a bit of a struggling noise, ‘Out of the pool?’ ‘No, getting the umbrella.’ Not explained.

Meant to garden, meant to get shoes tomorrow, probably won’t.

Tuesday July 9 2002

Didn’t. Started the Candida L. Green Over The Hills And Far Away. Hm. Slightly sets my teeth on edge. Too much rather inept travel description of not always very interesting country and people, a good deal of misplaced geography, and rather absurd procession of famous names in every possible supporting part. Now I am well aware that her childhood and youth were obviously packed with such names. I’m afraid she hasn’t really enough delicacy or relish of style to pull it all together. And then there’s her breast cancer, poor woman, making a docu-faction-fiction of it. I wish someone near her had stopped her writing it. ‘It might make her feel better.’ Privilege, you see.

Wednesday July 10 2002

Comedy and coincidence. Message on the machine, hearty male young, ‘Nigel, Mel. The band’s playing at the Chiswick Institute, so come to my gig, nine-ish, Friday, if you can make it. Bye.’ For fleeting moment, I thought ‘Why didn’t he tell me about this? Hasn’t he got a Liverpool accent?’ Of course it was for M. Carrick. But it’s another world, isn’t it? I haven’t heard his voice before, I’ve been here years last April, and he didn’t even say ‘Long time, no see.’ A locution I hear him using. Got his number from 1471, and rang back telling him she sold me the flat two years last April… He rang back while I was out, most politely, thanking me for my ‘courtesy’ and sorry for bothering me. Well, I knew she and her circle were a whole pack of cards.

Otherwise a pleasantish day. The smoked fish order came, s. salmon to keep M.L. at bay. A cheque for Jewel and The Crown, £62.

No weeding again. Oh dear.

Thursday July 11 2002

Chiswick. No rasps or eng, straws in g-grocers. Wild salmon steak and small whole plaice on the bone.

Friday July 12 2002

Quiet day. Rested. Started the Tom Stopp. biog. He’s such a wit, lots of it.

Saturday July 13 2002

Lunch with J in Ken High St, preceded by considerable irritation at Waterstone’s. It seems the Charring X Rd. branch has closed,! An ominous sign, I’d have thought, so they can’t ‘access’ the details of my card, and therefore can’t let me use it. The polite girl went ‘upstairs’ to solve it, but it still didn’t appear on the scared screen. She was finally obliged to say, after twenty minutes, that I’d better leave it to her, and she’d post the books to me, as soon as possible.

‘Do you suppose this little charade will be necessary at each branch?’ ‘I’m afraid so.’

In the dear old days of dealing with humans, ‘upstairs’ could have taken the responsibility of solving it. I went away without the books. Wilfrid Blunt Linnaeus,the Mark Gertler biog, the Paul Binding novel and an Elizabeth George.

Enjoyable lunch. The risotto has changed for the better. She gave me my present. She is good, and clever at choosing. She pointed me in the direction of the organic shop, and I must have walked past it. That happens to me nowadays, - I look at objects and buildings, and don’t seem to see them.

Sunday July 14 2002

The Mary Llewellyn experience. Happily that pleasant small respectable-looking Irishman as driver. He turned out to know the way and the whole district really well, and indeed took me to a different Somerfeld’s. Oh the sophistication. M.L. was mild, as she is here, and more now as she gets frailer. But there hasn’t been a complete sea- change. The temperature was 76º, in here getting on for 79º. Although she only had to walk three or four feet to the cars either end, she had on the salmon pink winter overcoat of wool – lined – under it a sleeveless jerkin of quite substantial linen, and under that, a stout tweed skirt, and a knitted white polo-necked jersey. I parked her in the sitting-room while I paid the taxi, and came back to find her sitting in the chair unmoved. ‘Can I take your coat?’ ‘No sun.’(It was bright thro’ the cotton curtains. And to think, during the chillier moments last week, I’d thought of turning the central heating on…) She was happy in the full heat of the middle of the lawn, -85º- and relished the smoked salmon. No cheese, no cream, no milk, makes life easy. She sat out there till I joined her in the slight shadow of the dead pear-tree, - soon to be a dream, the Felicite Perpetue is already taller than me, and very bushy next year, others will see what I mean and give me real shade. So she was in that full heat, with only the pink overcoat pushed back, for half an hour before, and an hour and a quarter after. At least this time she had a few beads of sweat. Rang from home saying how quickly the car had taken her home. She is frailer, thinner, and shuffles even more, seeming without noticing. A little point. Just as Edna complained of the stairs at St. Dunstan’s, and other places, being too steep, so M says of books, ‘Only if they have bigger print.’ Odd. I would say, ‘Sorry I’m too stiff to manage these stairs easily’ and ‘Afraid I can’t read small print anymore.’

I hope she enjoyed it. I think so, as it was her only outing this year. Except for her cataract operation…

Monday July 15 2002

76 b’day. Rather queasy all day. Read the birthdays and found that Juliet Pannett is not only alive and ninety-one, but she shares any birthday. I wonder if the ‘Panet’ pronounced á la francais, has been fully treated in here all those years ago. In case, when I asked Jo Tewson why everybody blanched at the mention of her name – this is when I was in Salisbury Rep. in 1956 and Mrs. Pannett was not only a distinguished painter of more human than human dogs, and secretary of the Theatregoers’ – Jo pondered, and said ‘Whatever you’ve done, she’s done it in Brazil.’

Queasy later on and kept up feeling bloated and sick, and never got back to sleep.

Tuesday July 16 2002

Stomach still disturbed, coming on in middle of morning. Walking up and down the passage sipping water trying not to be sick, but it seems to be wind really. Cried off S’s dinner, dreading the taxi and the heat, and the bad night etc. Dreading this whole week, with J’s lunch and Roy and M on Thurs. I need time between any events now.

Wednesday July 17 2002

Woke at 1.10 a.m. Queasy.Bicarb. Kwells. Walking up and down passage again. Read in here with fan till 3.0. Back to bed, reading till 5.0 woke at 10, hungover feeling, tho’ I’d had a tiny whisky in half a tumble of water.

Another letter re. Carrick, rang Angela Mann. They’re going for bankruptcy, - what a bore a disorganised person is.

An article in The Stage about John Barton. Still not speaking to P. Hall.

Dear John, we were good friends for a few years and he was very good to me in ’52, with theatres and meals, and staying at the Chiltern Court Flat. I have always been sad that I was neither interesting enough or successful enough or a good enough actor to retain his interest. I was surprised at his close alliance with P. Hall, but then I was naïf enough to have no idea of the attraction of power to both of them. Even a man as intelligent and cultivated as J.B, can behave like a sulky schoolboy when he is beaten in a show of show of strength. Tho’ I have to say I hear the note of mild reason that made him the president of the ADC in his second year aged 20?

So perhaps he isn’t sulky. And P. Hall will never understand that if he hadn’t been so demonically clever at plotting to get his own way, he might have achieved more.

K rang. Sian had dumped Nigel. In floods on the ‘phone, so he’s going down to pick up the pieces? So can I meet him in Bristol on Sunday, and he’ll come round on Friday and pick up most of the stuff then? He’d looked up the trains and fares and everything. I was so touched and so apprehensive and flurried. I have been so looking forward to piling everything into a car without having to think and plan, and now, - take my pillows alone, I might put the vital two at the back in the car, and use instead what? for Fri & Sat nights? Not to mention the horror of facing a train and a station after ten years. Would I hear the ticket-clerk? Aren’t there seventy three different sorts of tickets now? And so on. Although he was a bit put out, he eventually said he would come for me back from Swansea on Sunday. The relief.

Rang later on and left a message on the machine, ‘Why don’t we ask N. to cottage for a night or two? A change, apart from anything else. I don’t really want to waste a moment of my time alone with him, so rare, but I feel a little troubled that I didn’t pick up on N’s pain and upset. Poor little morsel. Well, there’s no doubt he is still visibly immature, and likely to be strikingly so compared to a woman of the same age. I mean, that I could get the faintest tinge of a lad on the town, is not promising. Oh but why a child?

Thursday July 18 2002

Am I a liar? Not exactly. A third completely sleepless night, and I felt light-headed, still a bit queasy as well, perhaps because lunch with J and dinner with Roy and Marian, what could be nicer? But I couldn’t face rising to two such occasions, and I was very off-colour. But I suppose I could have done one or both, tho’ with strain, and feeling oppressed by the approach of Hay. So I rang, and it’s no use pretending that I put it on a bit. But it was such a relief. Just to sit and think about Hay. I suppose it’s all right, - I am old. And I didn’t cost them anything. No. I couldn’t do either.

Friday July 19 2002

Mananged H’smith, two weeks’ pension, and some shopping. Black cab both ways. Yes, but no talking, no occasion to rise to. That’s what strains me, not to mention eating while talking, which nowadays seems to bloat me. Message on machine from R, and I’d just finished listening to it, - arrangements to take the pepper-mill etc. he bringing his espresso machine – when it rang again. It was him. ‘Are you on the way to Swansea?’ ‘No, I’m outside.’ He blew in, obviously glad to find me all right, alerted by J. She rang while I was asleep and I’d somehow not on purpose, turned off the answer machine, so she rang K, who rushed round. Touching. He guessed at once, ‘So you’ve been acting a bit, have you?’

Off to Swansea, says he’ll be back here about two on Sunday. Hm. We’ll see. I think I’ll ring when he’s in the car to ask if he’s got the instructions for the keys etc.

Bought Ponsonby book and a wanted Braun at Books Etc. for Hay. Back here rang W’stone’s at 4.30 as books promised hadn’t arrived. Tried to ring the Ken High St. branch for five minutes twice, and the ‘phone just went off. So rang head office, and got ‘Lucy’. She very helpful and shocked. Said ‘We’ll get you the books from other branches and taxi them to you today.’ Believe that when I see it, and of course she could only find one of them, and then only if I went to Brompton Rd. shop tomorrow! She had tried to ring the Ken High St branch and she couldn’t get through! I said calmly to her part-excuse that it was being re-built, ‘Well, either nobody’s answering the ringing ‘phone, or nobody’s noticing the ’phone isn’t ringing.’ She did ring back three times, and did say she was sorry they’d let me down. Incredible these days, vide Clifton Nurseries.

Saturday July 20 2002

As witness, a cheque for £10 from Clifton Nurseries. No apology, no complement slip even, and my name spelt wrong.

Finished JA and The Theatre, some really interesting points made, in a supple way and a light touch.

Mowed lawn. Am apprehensive of journey tomorrow.

Sunday July 21 2002 Monday July 22 2002

Well, well.

He arrived earlier than he’d first said. I rang at half-past ten to remind him about ‘the instructions’ – after all, he had forgotten whether he’d paid the deposit – and found him already well on his way. Later he rang to say he was a hundred miles away so would get to me about twelve-thirty. Meanwhile J rang and said she’d come round in half an hour, when she heard of K. As she arrived, so did Mr. Vallely’s daughter or daughter-in-law, with the two small- four or five? – boys, and a plate with a blue and white cloth over it. Rather orange make up, and heavy helmet of jet-black hair, squat finger! figure, grateful for J’s go-between and interested at said Vallely’s ingratiating manner. Asked her to drop my letters on the mat. ‘I’ll push them under the door if you like.’ ‘Oh, don’t go to any trouble.’ I hope my boys don’t make too much noise when they’re upstairs.’ I said ‘No,no’, tho’ of course they do. But, poor woman, I heard in her voice, the subservience of the council tenant towards the householder, whose complaints might get them turned out. Quite struck by her humility.

J looked capably around, and went off with her two tom.plants and my tom., and some basil and basil seedlings. He arrived just as he said and wouldn’t let me move or carry a thing. The car loaded up to the roof, we drove away for a week’s holiday, my first since Sark in 1958. After that, we went to the cottage.

I’d taken a travel-pill, but I had forgotten the absolute smoothness and speed of motor-way driving, so that you feel almost nothing. I did feel nothing and was very grateful, as I’d been dreading it. The time passed very quickly, as it always does for me when we’re together. Soon we were leaving Bristol on the left, and crossing the Seven, which I’d never done by car. Almost like crossing the sea, it’s so huge. Striking how much of the country is still empty, whatever people say. We stopped in Abergavenny to go to Tesco’s, and I sat in the car thinking ‘This view of the War Memorial and so on would be an everyday sight for Myra all those years ago when she came to stay, forty or so years ago. And I see it after she’s been dead a year. Curious. He’d got a bit of lamb, well, I hope it’s Welsh but you never know with supermarkets. He decided to go off to the left, as it were, rather out of our way, but easier and quicker, with the Black Mountains dramatically on our right. We turned off an A road onto a small country road with high hedges on either side for sometime, but this was the road with the turning point to the cottage. The hedges got higher and higher and became a wood. Thicker and thicker, the trees arched and joined above and our heads. It was about six, the sun was low, and flickered and glinted through the leaves so brilliantly that I said ‘Who did the lighting?’ A track to the left with hardcore either side of a strip of grass, - we bumped up it for a minute or two, on the left a deep valley with pine-trees slanting all down the banks, and an iron field gate and the Welsh name, and the white cottage showing its corner to us, unlike life, exactly like its brochure photo. He jumped out and opened the gate, ‘Look’ he said, ‘barn and cowshed for the studio’ at some out-buildings. Built on a sharp slope, I could see, but as we came up to the door and went up the slope opposite to look at the view, we were amazed. A huge valley, stretching to all three horizons, with mountains behind, all away below us, with a little mist between…

The cottage is perfection for its purpose. Like staying with pleasant friend without them there. Old furniture, faded loose covers, plenty of books, A. Powell, Sapper, Blue Peter Annuals, etc. A draught-board. Old pewter, etc etc. Plus an entirely modern kitchen and bathroom, and linen linen on the beds. He hugged me with delight. Better than we could have imagined.

Later he realised he’d forgotten coffee, so – oh the delight of a car – we drove into Hay, where we had one of the memorable laughs of our lives. There weren’t many people about, and Hay being on a hill, and criss-crossed with triangular clusters of buildings, one loses one’s way quickly. We asked our way. ‘Go up to the clock- tower and take the first left, second right.’ At second right we asked again. ‘At the bottom of Castle, take the short cut to - ’ ‘Starting from the - ’‘If you- ’ ‘It’d probably be better…’ By this time we were in open and helpless shrieks. Eventually we found the branch of Spar, the only shop open. The doubtful benefits of corporate civilisation were perfectly represented by the poor little mini-market, stocked with nothing local, only the usual mass-produced stuff. Once inside, one could be anywhere in London, probably a back street.

Today we went into Hay to start on the bookshops. K came in with me to the first one! It was big, with rooms opening out of one another in the usual manner. Not specially struck, more rubbish than I expected, more remainders, even worse more pristine paperbacks by entirely unknown authors, clearly publisher’s detritus. Still, very enjoyable. Bought Death Of A God by Osbert Sitwell, 1st Edition. Max Beerbohm’s A Varity of Things, in that ‘50s format like my others, N. Mitford’s Blessing, hope it’s the one I’m missing but have the D.J., Theatres reference book 1850-1950, second issue of the earlier Curtains, and Simon Brett. Some shopping and everything in the car. What luxe. And K to myself.

Tuesday July 23 2002

Only crumpled roseleaf, a double-bed, very high, so that by the time I have dragged myself up in to it, and then across it, my pyjama trousers are dragged half off, and my pyjama jacket was trapped under my bum. And that little lift to free it, is just the sort of thing that is becoming difficult. I expect I shall adapt, and it’s comfy once I’m there.

Nigel’s coming to stay for two nights. I’m glad for it’ll be company for K. when I’m in bookshops. To Hay, and started in again, in bookshops where I brought Katharine Mansfield’s diary, I found a whole side-chapel devoted to the Observer books and was able to find at least a dozen I wanted. I realised from the prices that they had become an idiot cult. As I only wanted to read and learn, I bought at the cheapest rate.

‘First, thus’ forsooth for such books, to the Co-op for beef, wine etc. Oh that out of town supermarket civilization. Fortyish mums and teenage children, whose whole idea of shopping is a car and a trolley and a boot, and get back in the car again. How helpless they will be if anything happens…

Nigel arrived well in time for dinner, thank god. Delicious. Local peas and beans. Left them to talk.

Wednesday July 24 2002

Up at 12.15. Woke at 5 and read a bit, and slept. Wonderful. K said he and N were going out to see a reservoir… a good idea, I’m sure, and K means to take N off my back as much as possible, poor little unknowing morsel that he is. There is something missing there, I fear.

I had a heavenly afternoon in this beautiful place, listening to the silence right down to the bottom end of my ears. I need time alone, even with darling K. He went to have a snooze before dinner, and probably a wank – a week without Arlete, well. Gave me the nod to talk to N. Didn’t get very far with Nigel, I don’t know either of them well enough, and he seems almost completely sunk in himself. At least he did say, when I said he shouldn’t wait on me, as he brought me a g&t, ‘You’ve waited on me often enough.’ Another delicious dinner, of free-range organic chicken bought by K at the farm for £3. Says it would be £9 in London. Would it? I hadn’t noticed. Beautiful smooth clear skin. Smelt of chicken as you lifted it on the fork.

Finished The Blessing, a dust-coverless first edition that I can unite with the dustcover that was all D brought back from some tour! No, I don’t care except I like lost partners to be reunited. Dustcovers and people.

Thursday July 25 2002

The afternoon at the reservoir seems to have been a modified success. Odd experience, it was empty and huge, except for a pool about fifty feet around, above an enormous drainage hole. On the edge, a glove with just the fingers showing… ‘Any fingers in it?’

Today off at 12.30, first stop the detective-story shop. I’m afraid most of the books were by unknown or unsuccessful writers. Only J. Tey Daughter of Time, the one H has got. Bought a Simon Brett and a Gwendoline Butler, and a replacement copy of A Murder Has Been Announced, one of Agatha’s best.

Met them for lunch at Oscar’s, but none of us took to the mumsy atmosphere, not to mention stuffy. We tried outside, but a van parked touching the back of K’s chair, so we moved again, this time to what he described as, ‘The pub’ – a small Georgian hotel, regrettably called Kilvert’s. Tables outside. Twenty people or so. Anchovy and artichoke salad. Anchovies with seales, artichokes tastelessly of a tin, not too bad all the same. Another van parked nearby, loaded with tall gas cylinders. The driver clearly felt they needed extensive rearrangement, and, just out of sight, ‘Crash!’ ‘Bang, bang! Rattle, rattle, rattle, tinkle, crash! We went bravely on with our conversation – bang. Thump! Rumble, rumble, rumble, Crash, crash crash, bang, bang!! I couldn’t avoid K’s eye, and we began to laugh… ‘So what shall we do…’ Crash! Ker-plunk! Bang bang bang bang Krash! We were lost. ‘Are you recording this? After all, percussion was your subject’ – crash!! Crash bang! Helpless open mouthed... CRASH! He went to the back of the van, stood on the motorized lift, and floated down. He should have kissed his hands to our crowd for applause. He folded up the lift with one last sharp CRASH. The overture was over. He drove off very quietly. Nigel had looked at us with surprise.

Tonight we go to Ludlow. Goodness knows what it’ll be like. He gets ratty over such things. I just hope I won’t feel sick in the car there or back. It’s always interesting, either way. But oh how I’m enjoying myself. And how wonderful he’s being. Does all the shopping, all the cooking, watches me to stop me doing anything tiring or dangerous. He’s the only person left who notices I’ve had my hair cut.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 179

July 25 2002 cont. - October 23 2002.

Thursday July 25 2002cont.

Nigel left us in Hay and we drove away. A good rest. And no, the Ludlow affair was not a success, tho’ happily he didn’t get ratty – much. It was a ridiculously provincial place, and, tho the food wasn’t bad, he chose two dishes in creamy sauce, which he doesn’t like anyway. The bourride was quite good, with chunks of sea bass and scallops, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he likes. He behaved a great deal better than I did over that Chinese meal in Camden Town. Especially as he had to be taken into another room to smoke… It turned out we’d have to go into that ‘other room’ for coffees, in case he smoked, no doubt. The middle-aged woman who did a bit of serving, came and told us that jug-thing of coffee was in the other room. ‘The cafetiere?’ I’m afraid it was a jug of instant, with again, a rather suburban dish of ‘sweeties’ in the midst of huge pieces of furniture of unexampled hideousness. Last straw to me was the steepest most dangerous stairs of my life to get to the loo.

Wasn’t sick either way, thank god, and home by 9.30.

Friday July 26 2002

In two of the cheapest sections of bookshops – ‘Honesty–money in box’ – and ‘Hardbooks 50p, p.backs 10p’ at first sight in both sections, both in open air, I was depressed by a row of four or five of those good Olive Shaw collected editions, but then thought no, they’re as common as A. Christie because they sold so many at the time. And someone young…

It is so kind his memory of the book-shops. He said wouldn’t I like to go back to the garden-book-shop, and the huge shop made out of the old cinema. And he came into the big one with me and was there for quite a time, not once has he betrayed any trace of boredom or impatience with books or bookshops. Has been reading Moonraker and nearly finished it, comparing it very favourably with the film ‘So much more in it.’ Well, yes. People forget that Bond’s things were not only of first rate quality but all English. Jermyn St, Savile Row, etc.

I didn’t care for the couple who ran the garden shop. I asked for A.J. Johnson and they mentioned a copy of The Garden in Wales for £68, - was there a murmur of extra illustrations? – sounds unlikely to me. But a good copy of the Mill Garden continuing the story from my two, read so often, and so lovingly alone at the cottage. Then to the Addyman Annexe, the rather up-market branch of the Addyman’s and the Murder shop. Depressing. The ‘collecting’ element naturally means that the actual merit of the book means less and less. The rarity of the object is all, as if it were Paul McCartney’s trousers.

K had mentioned ‘1984’ for someone? Arlete? Found an impression of the first edition in a dust jacket for £12, but he’d be better off buying a new paper-back in that shop between the market and Highway? Rather good, bought a handsome two-volume edition of Meredith’s Letters – the edition, I suppose – with photo–gravure plates with protective tissue, £15. Well, Meredith’s novels are right out of fashion, but I’m interested in him. Also Creevey’s diary, edited by John Gore, Geo V’s biographer. I’ve always meant to get to grips with him and Greville as the foundation of my favourite period. We met at the Ice-cream parlour again, ginger again, supposed to be good for nausea…

Back here, after dinner, he tackled me about B’mouth. I sent the letter to Donald at the beginning of the week. He isn’t sure Donald isn’t letting it all slide, for convenience ‘If he sells the whole house, what could he buy for half of it?’ He is right to make me confront it. It makes me sick to the heart and stomach, that my wretched family is still hanging on in a mess. ‘Well, let’s look on the bright side for the moment.’ A Sop.

Saturday July 27 2002

In my own dear bookroom. Had a bad night worrying about B’mouth and suddenly felt very tired. This week, tho’ wonderful, was so different. Even he has no idea just how much I moved about, more than I do here, never mind the tension of travel. But he noticed I was tired, and suggested we go home today. I was pleased in one way, and apprehensive in another. I immediately began to feel sickish and chokey. I stripped the beds and folded everything, so the beds looked tidy, but couldn’t do much else. We got off at three-ish, and stopped in Hay for shopping. That’s when I almost felt worst, when we stopped and he talked of food, and I tried to say what he could get for me for the weekend but had to say don’t talk of food, and he went off saying Christ. Of course he was irritated, I don’t blame him, nobody understands who doesn’t suffer for (a) travel sickness and (b) the fear of it. It hurt me that I’d irritated him. He bought two pounds of peas and two of br. beans for me and some eggs. Once we were on the motorway, I was alright as before, and we were home by quarter past six. He carried in everything, I tried to thank him and said I was sorry to be so irritating, and he said, ‘Now that irritates me’, and went, but waved when he drove past.

He is so good.

Sunday July 28 2002

I’d left the mousetraps baited and set, but nothing last night. This morning, an inch or two from the one by the kitchen-door, was the large plump mouse I’ve seen twice. The trap set off, it escaped, but with a broken neck. It only tottered. I put it in a bucket of water, when it swam frantically. Why couldn’t it walk then? Held it down with my pick-up tongs until it was dead. I didn’t want to bash it over the head, quickest, because I couldn’t be sure of doing it in one blow, and where? There’s more blood in a mouse than ‘people’ think.

Rang H briefly to say we were home, pretending it was today. And K. He didn’t realise corkscrews and those dear good tongs were mine. Left my toothbrush there, so I can’t complain.

Monday July 29 2002

Hottest day in London since ’89- 89º.

I’m better at it now, and went into H’smith in the morning and did a Tesco’s shop and bought the Ridley book with my two weeks pension. But otherwise v. frustrating. Hoped for corkscrew and tongs at Habitat, but their sale was on, and now, in the now rather uncivilized way, they only had their sale items on sale. Not the way to go on. And so trudged to the Boots in the tube station, passing the big one in King St., and found it closed for stock taking, so no toothbrush, because it was too far to walk back. I don’t think I could explain to make him believe it! Home with a good mass of food for the week before the real heat of the day strikes. And back to the comfort of the fan. And I thought B’mouth might have brought me an air-conditioner by this time!

Picked up the Ponsonby book again, which I took to Clyro but got distracted from. Done with a light touch, unexpectedly from an American, supply written, no title mistakes etc. I could have done with much more of his reporting his talks to the Queen. But a treat all the same. Worth it for Nancy M’s saying to E. Waugh that Fritz P’s book had ‘a shriek on every page.’

Neil left a message, back here!

Tuesday July 30 2002

Rang Neil at Bowden’s. They’re away, he works from home, so the answering- machine – ‘voice-mail’ – kicked in with no ringing tone – would he have been able to answer if he’d been there? saying it was full and couldn’t take any more messages. Result – Neil rings K. who rings me, a bit concerned. Suggests I have K and him to dinner next week. ‘Well, he hasn’t seen the flat.’ True.

Feeling rather exhausted and slumped. Today, so pleased that Waterstone’s delayed order, - tho’ I told them I’d be away. They delivered it last week, so the P.O. tried twice. Mercifully their system is better now, one ‘phone call, and it was here this morning, - and Oddbin’s gin and Scotch order, so I could slump.

Tried the C. Logue biog. – Faber, no less – because he was in B’mouth for some years. Unreadable, to Oxfam.

Wednesday July 31 2002

Planted the Clyro plants, a small male fern with a large root, a hart’s tongue from the dry wall, and a fragment of an unknown geranium.

Rang Neil and K about Wednesday, as it turns out. Good.

Thinking of those ghastly TV efforts in how to sell yr. home (sic), it is obvious that almost everyone has no ability whatever to see a flat as it actually is, without removing any sign of individuality. ‘Paint it in neutral colours, remove clutter, (i.e. books except for a row of six unread Book Club and two ornaments), so that they can picture their things there. Incredible. Present the flat of an illiterate with negative taste, and you’re in. Goodness knows what they think of B’mouth. I suppose the percentage of people with imagination, which remains settled at about 2½%, affects this as well as everything else.

Started the Mark Gertler. Well done. I knew about him as a figure in other Bloomsbury biogs. My first impression is of a lesser figure, not necessarily a lesser artist, than most of the others. Worried about his background and lack of education. Oh dear, if only they knew, what a bore.

Thursday August 1 2002

Another good night. Went on with Mark Gertler, obviously a bit of a honey pot sexually, to both sides. So often has a bad effect on the character. Except that he was in love with Carrington. How she imposed herself on everyone at the time. I obviously don’t know, but I can feel nothing but impatience with her on every count. People who can’t decide who or what they want, either genuinely or by design, but especially the second, always ‘completely’ forfeit my sympathy. What a silly mess she was. Nobody seemed to notice this.

J’s day for finishing with S. Powers. Not there. Probably a whimper…

Friday August 2 2002

Finished the Gertler. Yes a second-rate figure, rising, I take it, because I can’t tell, to two or three first-rate things. Suicide is selfish with a wife and a six? year old son. Epilogue, with what happened to… Rather a high percentage of suicides. Luke Gertler helped with the book, but isn’t mentioned in the epilogue. Started the Ridley Lutyens affair.

ForSale board next door, taken down. Sold? Decided against it? Bother. Spoils a good story. Four other boards in this bit of the road. Property boom.

Rang J about S.P and got her. As I thought, it was all an anti-climax. No mention of present or dinner. J provided a little tiresome climax herself by leaving her purse in a taxi with all her credit cards… Freud?

Saturday August 3 2002

Bad night. Reading till six. Restricted day. There seem to be no rules.

Sunday August 4 2002

Tesco’s B. green, to pick up a few things before Wed. Oh, how I dread it, the effort. Tho’ I love to see them.

Winkworth board up next door! Good!! Donald, take note. Also picked up my tomato plant from J’s.

The closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games took place in torrents, but came off v. well. As far as I can see, the Queen was the only person under cover. Just like me, she’s probably been soaked to the skin a great deal more often than all these young people who have been largely insulted from real life. But, also, like me, she wouldn’t want to be soaked on duty. Very wet. Soldiers standing to attention splashed a foot in the air.

Monday August 5 2002

Out to get a corkscrew at 9.30 for some reason. I’d slept better, I suppose and the understudy corkscrew hurt my hand badly, and was such an effort.

See that the nice little café K and I had a sandwich at, is now Portuguessa!! I thought it might fade from not enough muscle.

Suddenly realized Winkworth’s was across the road, and there next door was! ‘Immaculately presented.’ Pictures of front and loft extension room, full of nothing except an empty screen on the wall, and a long narrow futon- and a shot of the garden, with two small built up beds, and some spindly whitewrought iron garden chairs and table, - against the other side of my fence, - giving perfect privacy! £525,000…

Tuesday August 6 2002

Meant to do much for tomorrow, and did nothing. Entertaining at seventy six is tiring, I suppose. Still, needs must…

Wednesday August 7 2002 Thursday August 8 2002 Friday August 8 2002

Yes, that’s how tired I was. On Wed. a.m. to Chiswick, and bought smoked wild salmon, two red-mullet and a good piece of skate. Veg – peas, and broad beans, pots, globe artich. for later, - went to the smart (sic) butcher’s for the first time to get two organic free range chicken, and found that at eleven-thirty a.m. they had no whole chickens at all! Shop packed with rather too many prepared pieces of everything, not impressed. So had to go to M&S, two Antrim Bronze, good. Also cheese from Mortimer and Bennett.

Back here, had lunch. Dusted, hoovered and tidied, washed up, - which sounds most efficient, but of course took the whole afternoon, with many rests on the bed in between. Cooked the chicken.

Had rung K to ask if he could cut the hedge, coming a bit early. He was here by not long after six – it’s just so lovely hearing him about and feeling safe. He’d just finished and was putting everything away, when the bell rang. I’d worried about Neil getting a taxi, with the threat of torrents, but there he was on the dot, and looking just the same. Much celebration after two and half years. Neil had a g&t, hadn’t had one since… Well, that’s LA for you. Dinner was a decided success – think. I gave them a few potted shrimps with the S.S. and K left his p.s. The chicken were cold for less trouble and heat in the room. Slightly miffed that N. had brought a ‘special’ bottle of red wine from L.A, so, of course in the barbarous modern fashion, we had to have it with dinner, tho’ it was completely wrong for the food and didn’t taste special to me. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they are depriving their host of choosing the wine. I suppose they’ll be bringing the food next. But this food was a triumphant success, and there were seconds. Raspberries to finish, and cheese after. N with LA niminy-piminess, no sugar, a small dash of cream, only touching about two raspberries.

Oh dear, I seem to be rather on the negative side… you’d never know how pleased I was to see dear Neil. But, of course, I can’t deny that American habits and manners annoy me. He seems more settled and less frantic than of old. He brought some family photos. My prophecy about the younger daughter seems to be coming true. At fifteen she is tall, and already looks at the camera with the empty perfection of a model. She sings as well, it seems. N played a CD of her droning on to a guitar as they all do, - I still can’t get over that extraordinary persistence of the guitar. Why doesn’t a new young man or woman come along and say ‘I can’t sing to a guitar, you mean like my father and grandfather?’ Still, I was fascinated to hear them talk it over, just as Hazel and I might talk over a book, and throw a number of common comparisons about in the conversation, so did they, ‘Like Norah Jones’ and so on. And even more satisfied to hear K’s air of proper authority as he gave N his judgment and advice. He gave certain limited encouragement. Don’t have singing-lessons, for instance… I must ask him for his undiluted opinion. My only contribution – at the very beginning, as the CD finished, because I knew N needed an immediate response, and K doesn’t do I.R. – was to say that no layman would mistake her for an amateur. Less complimentary than it sounds. But much of the evening was full of affectionate fun and stories. I was proud to have them both. At one point much amused to hear K sort of asking about N’s fitness regime. I fear he is getting that desiccated look that so many Americans have, as a result of dry sun, and ‘giving up’ things. Poor Americans, they really believe, if they give up smoking and butter and g&t, they can live forever. Dear old puritans, only pleasant things must be given up, or it won’t work…

On the photos dear Lynda looks exactly the same! Lucy a plain version and still has ‘learning difficulties’ i.e. is a bit dim.

During dinner as I was facing the French doors, a really unusually spectacular lighting display, which appeared next day on all the news bulletins. But here at least, no particular rain.

Most put out to find I’d been wrong to say it was Tony Bowden, and not Paul Hailey, who did the cottage move. I don’t thinkit’s old age – somehow N must have given me that impression at some point. But it’s my mistake, not my forgetting.

The boys left, at five past one, K giving him a lift. I cleared up two glasses, put food away, and fell into bed.

Woke at five-thirty, Thursday.

Read till the papers, read the papers. About nine-fifteen dozed off and woke at one forty-five. After lunch, went back to bed. Slept till seven. A bit of cold chicken, back to bed, but another poor night. Started one of the Roy Fuller novels, the Carnal Island, v, good, reminds me of A. Powell, weren’t they friends?

It’s Friday now. The skate smelt like ammonia, but hoped cooking would stop it. It didn’t. Had two eggs instead. Only bought it Wed. after all. At my age most time rushes. N’s family seems to grow older more slowly than I expect. There’s no use pretending that I still feel something awful is going to happen to them, in some way. I wonder why that is. Prejudice?

I’m still a bit shocked at how tired and stiff I got.

Saturday August 10 2002

Bad night. Delightful retreat. Looked up Roy Fuller in A.P’s autobiog. And found myself reading it with great appetite, and fun. Yes, they were friends. And that somehow lead me onto N. Mitford, and I galloped thro’ Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Wonderfully funny and touching. How lucky we were to float in them at Cambridge, ’49 and ’51. Bad nights.

Sunday August 11 2002

Bad night. Even I can’t read for six hours at a stretch.

H delayed her call until after three-thirty. Oh dear, and I was longing to lie down. Always a joy to talk, and it does mean I’ve haven’t slept, so perhaps – bed at 9ish, when I…

Monday August 12 2002

At last the rain seems to have stopped, so hope to mow by tomorrow. Today I felt stronger and went to H’smith in a.m. Two weeks’ pension and shopping. Rest went on till 6.0, fully asleep. More strength.

I really think August is my least favourite month, wars and atom bombs go off, heat waves and humidity. The papers are padded, so little is published. But the heat coming back is the worst.

Most painful case of two little girls abducted in a Cambridge village. (It’s small enough for its ‘phone no’s on shops to be Ely nos. Made me think of dear Robin E and his adopted family. Wouldn’t the younger child be about the same age? And perhaps they’ve had a child together? Perhaps they’re not still there?) Missing last Sunday. The awful thing is you see pedophiles and maniacs everywhere. The father of one of the girls has either shaved his head or has alopecia, and looks sinister, in the midst of his pain. The poor parents, so obviously mild suburban people, who have possibly never conceived the existence of intense suffering.

Post Office difficulties. Though I think the fifty-thousand or whatever-it-is redundancies has concentrated somebody’s mind. After all, a parcel at eight o’clock from an English postman… An admission of five hundred thousand letters going missing, is still only 0.05 per cent of the total. Amusing comments on the public’s mudde-headedness. ‘How do you deliver a letter addressed to ‘A man I met on holiday with brown hair.’

Oh the horrors of television! Winced through a programme where, the actors from a series in the ‘70s we never saw, of course, were brought together for a reunion. Why did I watch? Because I knew so many of them, Derek Benfield, Margaret Ashcroft, Kate O’Mara, Colin Baker. It showed actors to the public at their silliest and worst. To appear on such a programme at all, would be, to our generation of actors, unprofessional in itself, like allowing people into rehearsal. M. Ashcroft more aged than her years might expect, but then she’s married to Morris Perry (or has been for many years, tho’ they may have parted, or he be dead.) Rather hunched, with a dowager’s hump, which can’t please her as she has, or had, tiresomely pronounced left-wing views. Kate O’M and Colin B need no explanation…

My only comfort was to think that the only dignified member of the cast, Jean Anderson escaped the programme by death.

Tuesday August 13 2002

Woke at 2.30. Tired. Was going to mow.

Rest 1.45, woke 5.45. Bother.

They’ve found two bits of disturbed earth in woods outside New Market. How terrible for the parents to wait through the night, and if the girls are there, to realise they’ve been dead for a week. Not to have known, what suffering.

Wednesday August 14 2002

So sleepy. To bed at 10.30, woke at 1.20, but dozed off again over a book, and I really must congratulate my subconscious on a splendidly convoluted semi- nightmare, trying to get out of something like a combination of a Victoria station and Nonsuch Palace. I suppose some relation to stage dreams trying to get to the theatre. The opposite. What does this mean? Woke at 3.45, so some sleep.

Anyway, I felt stronger to the point that I went out to cut the grass edge of the Jap. anem. border for ten minutes at 7.30 a.m… At 10.30 a.m. changed the compost in the front window-boxes ready for the universal pansies. At 6.0 p.m. mowed. Hard work, as it was so long and thick, but managed it, and it doesn’t look as bad as I expected. It’s not really my delay. The rain has made it impossible to mow since I mowed for Nigel. As for the weeding, I learnt long ago that ‘neglect’ shows you what plants really survive.

Thursday August 15 2002

At last read the new Magnus Mills, Three To See the King. Started it in restaurants twice, for some reason, and then was distracted from it by many things. I think partly I wanted to read it at a sitting, and partly I was nervous I might be disappointed, having relished the first two so much. I needn’t have worried. It preserves the extraordinary spell, the plain writing, the complete balance of the form and the content. As the title is underlined by a star on the cover, I suppose there is to be presumed a Christ figure in Michael. But if so, it is not more than a possibility, or I would have been irritated. Beautiful plain writing, a real original, and shows no sign of running out of material.

Too tired to weed after yesterday. 82º as well. Also too tired to note a thank you card from K for dinner – an usual occurrence. Also unusual was its arrival on the mat after dinner, after I’d written last night’s entry, perhaps it was because he forgot to put my name on it, just the address… talk of Alzheimer’s. Happily he’d begun Dear Angus. Glad to see I’d got back into the ‘swing’ of entertaining. I suddenly saw that he likes to be here when I’m entertaining, perhaps in both senses of word. Perhaps being the son of the house, as it were, not talking the responsibility of the evening. Perhaps it’s the only place left where he can rest. I was touched, as I showed Neil round the flat, to hear him murmur, as I spieled away, ‘I haven’t heard you do this before.’ And when I took N thro’ the absurd litany of the utility/b’room/lav colours, ‘Primrose, cowslip, sulphur, orange’, I heard him murmur ‘He thought of it all himself’ – ‘poor old thing’ understood. Oh dear, he does love me, I do see.

Friday August 16 2002

I have kept meaning to examine my rather expensive Firbank’s letter to his mother, their first publication, and just the sort of book to be most valuable if it’s been in a safe straight from the publishers. I’ve now put it on my table in the sitting-room. It’s such a bore looking after a book as an object. But I do hope to make a bit of money for him after I pop off.Firbank died May 11, 1926, a month and a few days before I was born.

Also started English Court Theatre, and got really stuck into it this time.

H rang today, as the w/e is full, - we had, as always, some memorable laughs, which I can’t remember.

At last weeded, in what passes for the cool of the evening after six o’clock. The lilac bed, behind which, as one of the lilacs has mercifully died, I hope to make a little bit of woodland, anemones etc. It ought to be leafy. Weeded along to the pyracantha, and when all is done in front, shall fork over and hope to find it leafy.Surely. Dog’s Mercury is rather hell. Grows so quickly and constantly, but it’s one great point is, it uproots really easily and cleanly.

Saturday August 17 2002

The school caretaker and his girl-friend have been arrested for the murders. He looks a bit dim, a bit turned-in. She has a sneer somewhere on her mouth, and small hard eyes.(They could still be innocent!) All the same, it perpetuates my conviction that caretakers and night porters are often round the bend. Shall I ever forget the very high incidence of dottiness in the sixteen or so night-porters of the Wildest Dreams tour in the sixties. Huge forensic search of their house and the school. I suppose they haven’t said where the bodies are. Rather amused ITV made a mess of the announcement. Only a mid-distance shot of the house and two policemen, and the inspector, in quite another place reduced to a mere voice-over. Dreadful affair.

Rang Mary L after her second cataract operation on the 14th. She was so knocked out before, so we agreed. Alas this time the op. ‘went wrong’, oh dear. Poor woman. Her character has partly been formed by her bad luck. Has to go back tomorrow, which proves it’s serious. Think I was a bit of help, said I’d be on the end of the ‘phone.

Watched the Glyndebourne Carmen. An excellent louche production – at least the so- called sexual revolution seems to have enabled even opera choruses to do louche. Anne-Sophie Von Otter v. good. Only blot, a plumpish bearded acned fortyish Don Jose, with a mouth always open, name Marcus Haddock. Kedgeree possibly but not Don Jose.

Presenter’s English, ‘The Pope is returning to Poland with emotion and joy…’

Weeded again, and made a big impact on lilac bed.

Sunday August 18 2002

Very sticky, tho’ temp. not so high.

To the big Tesco at eleven, to avoid worst of heat. Just after opening, savage thirty- five year old mothers with two crying children, and trollies piled high with everything I’ve never eaten. Cereals, crisp, pizzas, fizzy drinks – as far as I could see, not a single bit of natural food to be seen – so I had a quiet quick time.

Monday August 19 2002

Did just half an hour of weeding and clipping, and had to come in. What a comedown, years ago I could have done the whole garden in a day.

Not quite so hot. Read Put Out More Flags again. It never palls.

Did I register Guy Vaesen’s obit? Distinguished figure in the theatre, friend of Harold Pinter, turns to painting as a profession, moves to a Greek island in the ‘70s and dies there – says his son. HIS SON? That nasty little malicious sucking up old queen had a son? Stupefied. Oh he was a waspish little thing when he ran Worthing. Most loathsome, he not only sucked up to us because we were the West End ones - at the time – but talked down the rest of the cast to us behind their backs. And to think people will believe the obituaries. Married in 1939!

Tuesday August 20 2002

Lethargic, though I slept through, waking at five. Pouring today, so excused weeding. Started R. Fuller’s Ruined Boys. As good as the others, in fact he keeps up as even a standard as anyone.

There you are, the caretaker has not been arrested after days of questioning, but sent straight to Rampton for assessment. TV reporter says policeman said to him ‘What do you do with a guy who doesn’t answer questions, but just dribbles?’ There you are, dotty.

Apparently abduction of children is very rare, only six or seven a year, in England and Wales. Why do we never read a detailed description of pedophile’s genesis, needs and reasons? I mean, I have no idea what started John Holmstrom?

It’s being wisely said that the law mustn’t be changed ‘on knee-jerk reactions’, ‘at a time of great emotion.’ Odd, I never feel those ‘knee-jerk reactions’, sympathy, but I think my judgment is unaffected. Well, one good thing came out of the ‘sixties’, the abolition of the death penalty.

Wednesday August 21 2002

To H’smith a.m. Shopped to stay in. Little girls not identified yet, ‘Because of the state of their bodies.’ So they have been dead since the day they disappeared. It’s been hot, but even so, would a fortnight make them unrecognizable from decomposition alone? Surely not. They were in woodland, so I suppose there had been weasels!

Altogether, the pain for the poor parents is as bad as it can be. How do you bear the random wantoness of it? Death and loss is bad enough. And that poor 12 year old brother. What a burden of guilt.

Thursday August 22 2002

Rang Mary L. She went back to hospital on Monday, but the news is better. Different eye-drops, and drugs, come back in a fortnight, and they seem to think the eye will be alright. She read a bit again today, thank goodness, as it is her only pleasure.

Wrote to Donald again at last – such a bore – and to S on J’s old cat paper. I dread the answer from Donald.

Friday August 23 2002

Half-an-hour clipping the long grass where the fritillaries weren’t, or only two of them, and a bit of weeding. I must try and keep going. Jap. anemones beautiful.

Saturday August 24 2002

The silence of holiday. Why have people started talking about ‘carnival’ with no article?

A programme about Carter-Carnavon again. Where did Egypt get all that gold? I suppose it isn’t, or wasn’t,all sand.

Started on Katherine Mansfield’s diary. There’s no doubt there’s something very irritating and self-absorbed about her, not least that she seems not to have seen through that unpleasant mess she married.

It’s half-past seven and pouring. So perhaps Monday I can weed and mow. Oh, K.M. – a letter better.

Sunday August 25 2002

In middle of Prom, pianist Alexander Toradze interviewed. Wonderful ebullience, wonderful command of English, wonderful playing. Hope S has met him!

Mowed!

Finished Katherine Mansfield. Hm. MM’s editing is partly to blame. He has included many passages from what is plainly writer’s notebook, without saying. When it is dated, or a letter, it leaps to life, if not, not.

Good talk with H as usual, though she has little to report, of course.

Odd, and satisfying, to think that ghastly Notting Hill Carnival is only walking distance away, but might as well be many miles away.

Monday August 26 2002

To local shops. The Londis in limbo with a Co-op sign on it’s dirty fascia – odd – for some weeks – has been ‘transformed’ into a small modern supermarket. Inspected it closely, and it certainly will be more use than Londis, tho’ I can’t do a real shop there either. For example, they have better cream, but I still bought the last three small pots of single – they still don’t have big ones. More vegetables, but not more interesting. A certain selection of chicken and lamb, much better than before, if it lasts, but no fish. And, v.odd, no salted butter. I fear this is going to be a modern trend. I hope I don’t live long enough to have to hang around King’s Cross for crack salt. Young white crude manager, leading a would–be corporate life among the shelves. I wonder if there is to be a Sainsbury’s across the road, and they getting this in in time, - but wouldn’t it have to be a long time? Hope not.

The environment summit being boycotted by the Yanks. The nation that is responsible for at least twenty-five percent of the world’s pollution, refused to come to the summit, with the magisterial pronouncement, ‘The American way of life is not negotiable.’ Fat, petrol, turgidity and inaccuracy.

Tuesday August 27 2002

Must read Middleton and Rowley’s A World Tossed at Tennis.

Mary L. left a message, on the machine, ‘Thank you very very much for the two Stages, and I thought you should know I’ve dislocated my right shoulder.’ I had just come in from my second visit to the dazzling new Co-op, and rang H immediately, who caroled with happy laughter.

Of course, it’s sad. It’s the phrasing.I didn’t ring M.L. as goodness knows where she was in the treatment and sleep.

Wednesday August 28 2002

Rang Mary L. Good and brave as always with a real complaint. Arm when in sling not painful, tho’ manipulation back into place was, despite having gas and air, ‘What you have when in labour.’ Two hospital visits next week, for shoulder and cataract. And scaffolding and workman round the flats. Oh dear, her poor luck.

Hugh Cruttwell died. Ex-Rada head. Advisor to K. Branagh!! More tomorrow.

Thursday August 29 2002

Peter Lloyds rang about the job. He’s leaving London for good in three weeks, a village outside Banbury, his home town, the result of his girl-friend leaving him, I suppose. Another handyman leaving, just as I felt there was someone I could call on, with K being perhaps further away in future. But a great relief for this job, so I don’t have him snap my head off about it. Amiable chat. Is bringing Andy with him. Why? To hold the posts, I suppose.Sept. 2. Good.

Friday August 30 2002

K rang! Coincidence. At 11.0 p.m. Shrieks. ‘The studio lights have all gone out.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘There’s a pink bag in my things in the bathroom.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, there are some transformers in it.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Nigel’s on his way to stay the night, and is about 10 minutes from you.’ K at his best, improvising brilliantly in emergency… Had ‘flu and still sounds nosey. Possibly pre-album symptoms. The single is out on the 16th and the album on the 30th. He told me their titles, and I listened so hard and I forgot them.

Earlier weeded rest of left bed, and at last planted the ordinary honeysuckle to climb up the old lilac. Dreading to have to ring Donald after the weekend.

Saturday August 31 2002

At last replanted the old camellia in one of the new pots in the front in lots of fresh moist compost. V. necessary, as the ball of soil was more or less hard and bone dry despite the wet summer. I think it was too near the big forsythia. Let’s hope it improves.

Sunday September 1 2002

No word from Donald. Madding. Painful stupidity.

Monday September 2 2002

Rang Donald at 12.0 and immediately knew he had become subservient. When I asked him why the delay, his first words were, ‘Well I’ve been waiting…’ He hadn’t even rang a estate-agent! ‘The value of houses has gone up wonderfully.’ ‘And it’ll come down wonderfully any minute.’ I can see after he agreed to everything that I shall have to ring every week, to keep him up to the mark. Oh my family! And then Christine was amazed and upset that I didn’t want to meet her ever again.

But happily his feebleness stimulated me, and I rang K who said gloomily through his blocked nose, ‘I knew he’d done nothing.’ Rang round, and felt energetic. To local shops, quite a lot of things, snacky meats, but no smoked salmon. Smoked mackerel tho’, exactly the same price. But, a real help, Charlotte potatoes.

Thursday September 3 2002

Up at 6.0 ready for ‘Pete and Andy.’ Not a cartoon series, but two really pleasant young men, who did three excellent, satisfying and boil-bursting jobs. They arrived at 8.0, with the stuff for the fence – backed up the first remains of the first fence on the basketball platform, which Pete fetched at some point, remembering where the key was, without asking me to get up and find it. He’d also brought the spring closure for the front gate. By ten-thirty they were off to the glass-shop for the pane of glass to replace the pane in the book-room with the draughty plastic ventilator in it. This has been especially irritating to me, as there was a similar ventilator in the top pane in St. Dunstan’s beaming ice-cold draught on to my right shoulder-blade in exactly the same way. K insists he shut the thing, and he has, I think, a worry that St. Dunstan’s became damp because of lack of ventilation. He denies the draught, and now it’s been removed, I can’t show him the net curtain blowing out as the door was shut.

It took Pete about half an hour to get the glass out – it was setin, and nailed. Purging that new pane, and it’s lighter, more than I expected. They cleared up everything, and were a pleasure to have about.£160.

I asked Pete about Andy, and whether he could do jobs for me when Pete leaves London. He was modest about his skills, but Pete said he could do ‘everything I can do.’ He pays him £50 p.d. Andy told me he’d got a vine round his balcony. I said well, Dolmadakia. Not heard of it. Gave him E. David’s Mediterranean food. ‘My girl-friend would love this.’ She was lead singer of Sleeper and they have a vine round their balcony, and she hasn’t got E .David… said I’d buy the novel she’s written. Good Night Steve McQueen, Louise Wener.

A satisfying day, with three irritating worries removed.

Wednesday September 4 2002

Rested.

Thursday September 5 2002

Rested. Looked at rosemary.

Friday September 6 2002

Rained well in the night.

A seventy-four year old man, Lionel Bayley, suffocated his wife, and was not sentenced. He had nursed her for sometime. She had motor neurone disease.

Saturday September 7 2002

Troweled over that little bed in the front, now protected by the new fence. Rather dry, even after the rain. Which suggest that it does go down to real earth. Investigate.

Hideous Donald. Can only read thrillers.

Sunday September 8 2002

Grapes on old vine are ripening since the bay tree was lopped. Black. Two eatable. H didn’t ring - tiresome suspense.

Monday September 9 2002

Rang Donald. No answer either time. Receiver off? Rain in torrents.

Tuesday September 10 2002

Children’s cemetery vandalised, everything broken. Worst of all, it was a stillborn and died in a couple of days sort of babies. Frightful, even tho’ I hate the sort of sentimentality it represents. Poor parents.

Wednesday September 11 2002

Donald still not there. The B’mouth thing is on my mind. I hate having to talk to him. Can only read detecs. at the moment.

Well, except that I suddenly plucked J. Osborne’s biog out and galloped thro’ it. It was always a good read, as, within limits, almost undiluted bile is. Never a natural dramatist. I remember D and I looking at one another at the first matinee when Jimmy Porter prefaced another monologue with ‘I don’t think I’ve told you this before, have I?’ or some such locution.

To H’smith in a.m. to get my hair cut and pension and a bit of shopping. In the p.m. rang H in case of mishap. She didn’t apologise for not ringing up – as she always would – she’s been to hospital with really bad nose-bleed, more than once. Isn’t that an effect of high-blood pressure? And hospital in Minehead. So off to S and L’Escargot. Sad that now I look forward to outings being over.

Thursday September 12 2002

Slightly tiresome start to evening. Ordered the car a quarter of an hour earlier than usual after seeing the traffic in H’smith in the morning, and seeing the various and extensive road closures on the news. I need hardly say that the journey was quicker and emptier of traffic than ever before, so that I was at L’E by ten past seven. Not impossible for a seven-thirty dinner, which I am sure Karen said, but not for a table at eight… I made for the bookshops where there might be a chair… and a loo. Sale at Foyle’s, entitled Literature all at £1. Mostly slim obscure academic books, but plucked out at once a book by Iris Origo, pub. J Murray and the name Ruth Draper. Turns out to be most interesting, four short biographies of four people linked in life, Lauros de Bosis, Ruth D, Gaetano Salvemini and Ignazio Silone. 1984. Never heard of it at the time. Crossed the road to Borders for a pee. Seldom in the W. End of an evening now, and struck by nobody else of my age about. Back in L’E, about 7.40, and went upstairs to the very pleasant restaurant. Brasserie d’stairs was full. Up, one couple, and later, a party of eight at a round table in the middle of the room. The first couple left quite early, another couple came. And that was it, the room only a quarter full. Pleasant for us, as the party made enough noise to give us privacy, but not so much that I couldn’t hear.

The food was a bit of a disappointment to me. It was when S said the restaurant was now owned by Marco Pierre White, dread syllables. No game on menu, Poulet des lands is only a tasty chicken. Starters not specially tempting, no smoked fish. Foie gras a small slice about four by two, with a little edging of santernes getee, tasteless, and the slice scarcely as thick as the melba toast. Then the poulet des lands, a medium breast, ‘with broad beans and salsify.’ Three pieces of salsify about the size of my little finger, undercooked in the modern manner, so the full taste wasn’t brought out – I don’t think anyone would be drawn to S if this were their first taste of it – and broad beans, skins removed and the halves sprinkled round the poulet – about six whole beans… cheese, six or seven small pieces of cheese in a circle on the plate, and the waiter tiresomely identified them – tiresomely, because there they were, no choice. The first time in a first-class restaurant, no proper cheese board. Wine good, chateauneuf du pape, v good when it is good.

S cheerful as ever. Talk of Daniel who seems to be getting a bit more sensible. Against some odds. Some idiot somewhere put up a quarter of a million dollars, and Daniel got some of it for a production. And he’s going to direct S in something an hour long at Southwark Playhouse. A mistake, I think. About an old couple, and Ann Mitchell… S seems to be happy with him, and doesn’t suggest us meeting. Which I’m happy with. Said, rather de haut en bas.‘You read detective–stories, don’t you?’ He’s been offered the lead in a detective series, and he can choose which detective. We talked of it momentarily, but, as he knows none of the detectives, we left it. (Thinking it over today, I am doubtful. Is he really right for any detective? And then there’s some sex in any man-woman interrogation, and he can’t do that. But I can’t say so. Maigret?)

His mother seems rather less mad, tho’ only temporarily, I should think. Bernard Levin came up for some reason. ‘Does he still write in The Times?’ ‘No, he’s quite gone with Alzheimer’s. Has been for the last eight years. Only thing in point since, was a bit about his cat, it’s childish sentimentally excused by cat madness. Oh dear and whatever else he wasn’t he was exceptionally quick-witted. There’s no pattern to it at all.

More wine with the cheese, all vanished in a flash, as did my memory… Lovely evening, and the cab there on the dot outside. What a treat!

Today, Thursday, rested and finished off the second Osborne vol. S said somebody said to him, it was the only thing of O’s that will survive.

Friday September 13 2002 Saturday September 14 2002

Forgot to say that I have bought and started Louise Wener’s Good Night Steve McQueen, V. Good. Light, funny, touching. Thank goodness. Took it with me on Wed. S didn’t ask about it.

J kindly said she would get me a battery for the portable ‘phone she gave me last year. Went up to her flat to collect it, and found there was a football-match just over. On the way back, thought I’d get a bus back, but was put off by the queue at the bus-stop, and then as I walked on, by the stationery traffic. When I reached my road, some ten minutes later, the bus that had been in sight up by the Green, had not come round the bend in Uxbridge Rd. half-a-mile or more away.

That last paragraph was, of course, Saturday. Should say that Donald rang to say the first agent says £175,000. ‘For the house?’ ‘No, for each flat.’ That’s more like it. The fool, to have delayed, rang K and got 1571 for an hour and gave up. A. on ‘phone to her mother in Portugal?

So on to Sat. again. Finished the Wener. Most enjoyable. Wrote Andy and told him so. Wrote Pete L, thanked him and alluded delicately to his girlfriend/wife leaving him. He’s leaving London for a village outside Banbury, root territory, I think.

Rang K, busy, rang back in five mins. Shrieked at various things over silly Donald, but he’s pleased too. Arlete, has been offered a job by the Bank of N. York, in charge of a dept.of seven people. Of course, I’m pleased, on one level, that’s she’s done so well, but a job in tone and hours so removed from our work, makes me doubtful of it working. I am reminded of her droning on remorselessly on those three drunk times, and like the dreariest sort of businessman, and of my feeling from the first, that this might be the girl friend who leaves him.

Long funny talk to J. Battery £12.99. I left £5, never saw bill. She compared me to J. Slade.

Oh, K said the single not out till the 23rd, next Monday ‘Though it’s already on air. Arlete gave me Ethan Hawke’s new novel, and he was going to be interviewed, and I heard my song just before! First time I’ve ever…’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ ‘Angus dear, you’re not going to listen to Radio 2 for an hour and a half, on the chance…?’ ‘No, I’m not.’

Sunday September 15 2002

H rang as usual, or rather, not as usual, as she’s still in bed with her nose packed.

Later found two items to put on a postcard for her.

Two books on a painted library wall, Principle in Politics by Harold Wilson, and Merrie England by Sir Stafford Cripps. (I imagine we’re the youngest people left to get those jokes.) On Jubilee tour, the Queen in a small unknowing shop. Shopkeeper: ‘You know, you look very like the Queen.’ ‘How reassuring.’

Monday September 16 2002

Bit of local shopping. Five-thirty, traffic completely stationary again. Curious apathy.

Tuesday September 17 2002

Tim W rang. I was pleased. Sweet and muddled as usual. Mistook the day. Fortune being re-done at it was bought by the Ambassador Group. ‘Though nothing’s been done to the dressing-rooms.’ Fancy. Tells me Helen – I must recover her other name – had an interview for a Keith Waterhouse play directed by Ned Sherrin and starring Peter Bowles. What a geriatric affair, can it be any good? That, and a certain something, made me feel that her career wasn’t quite on the heights it was when he first told me about her. Asked him about the prices in Walthamstow where his friend Mark went to live, £145000 for two-bedroom flat. Really cheap.

Wednesday September 18 2002

Tired. Up at eleven. Back for the rest at two. Slept till 3.30. No garden.

S. Woodcock rang. Rather touching in message said Theatre Museum in case… Felt a little guilty but had made up mind to see if she wanted to go on. Must make her say firmly whether museum wants anything I have. No date to meet, ‘I’m too cross, not with you.’ The director leaves in April, and they have big exhibition on Kenneth MacMillian. A little put off by finding only three costumes, and a bit of scenery, so – ‘Well, we have photographs coming out of our ears.’ What is the point of photos as the main element of a major theatre exhibition?

Tried to rise above the B’mouth apathy to start the Meredith letters. Hm. Hardly edited by his son.

Thursday September 19 2002

Curious apathy due to B’mouth.

Sent card to Arle. congratulating. Sent cutting to K of Hudlow chef being made ‘AA chef of year’, with ‘Don’t take it out on me’ card to H with three jokes on it to help nosebleeds. Two Stages to M.L. and the telephone bill.

Friday September 20 2002

Tired. Woke at 2.45 a.m. Read. Dozed. Woke at 5.0 a.m. Read. TV news in bookroom. Papers at 7.40 in bed. Read them. Dozed. Woke at eleven. Lunch 12.30. After put my feet up and slept till 4.0. Thought I’d shop but didn’t. Didn’t send S’s books, tho’ all ready. Didn’t mow.

Exact apathy.

Saturday September 21 2002

Leaflet from the Catholic church off Askew. Even if I were religious, I wouldn’t risk going to a church, where you can be sure of the warmest welcome.

Rang dear Tim W. to get some details of house prices in Walthamstow for Donald. Typical kindness, he was just going shopping and said he’d ring back. Produced four estate agent’s numbers, and told me Mark Carey – that’s his name – and family sold their house there, 4 bedrooms, for £200,000 last year. They bought a run-down something ten miles from Stratford for £170,000.

Sunday September 22 2002

Rang Donald. Says he’s sent me various agents’ reports. Seems to be making progress, but it’s all going to be depressing, I can see.

Monday September 23 2002

Woke at 1.15 appr. and thought it was the usual. But saw in the papers there’d been an earthquake! Enough for five thousand – no five hundred people to call from London, tho’ the centre of the thing was the West Midlands, where there were five thousand calls. Interested that that is the most earthquaked bit. I remember Mummy telling me the General Strike was a couple of months before, and an earthquake a fortnight after, I was born. Enough to rattle a vase on the mantelpiece in B’ham. Accuracy wasn’t her strong point, but the strike was in May ’26. As for the earthquake, no wonder…

To H’smith for pension etc. and bought H. Carpenter’s Angry Young Men. A bit of book-making, I’m afraid, with not enough new material, not to mention insights. Still read it at one gulp for what it had. Struck all over again at how rather unpleasant they all were, and how messy their lives were. Take Osborne’s marriages, for instance, - by our standards they were completely superficial affairs. If he had not married, perhaps his biographers, not to mention him, might have seen this. (How odd to remember that one lunchtime, post – and pre-long hours and in bed, we were in that pub that is now a men’s shop in the Kings Road, just behind Draycott Place, and the only other people there were J.O and Mary Ure, clinging together, no doubt in the same state, - of course they never noticed us, - when was that? ’57, something like that?) How selfish they all were, and really without the supreme gifts that can justify it. It was always plain to us that they were minor figures. ‘Look back’ for instance, no new departure, and has shown no real endurance. As far as a real audience is concerned, it’s as dead as Pinero was by 1930.

Amused at myself, for as well as now reading the death columns in the Telegraph, as well as the obituaries – what a lot of ‘as well as’ – I find myself adding up how much longer I’ve lived. ‘Three years longer than Noel’ etc. Poor J.O., what a lot of bile and general resentment. Just as his father died of T.B. Clever people in a bad place.

Tuesday September 24 2002

Woke at 1.45 a.m. In p.m. slept 2.30 – 5.0. Bother.

Wednesday September 25 2002

A hash of a school programme, about Mendelian theory. Little girl whose mouth can hardly control the words ‘Everyone in our family has blue eyes except the cat.’

Woke at 12.20 am! P.M. slept 2.30-5.0

Letter from Donald, wondering why he hadn’t got the London details of possible areas. Comic. Now he’s urgent. Rang him twice, not in.

Thursday September 26 2002

Good day.

Slept four hours here and there. Post, £100 cheque from Dr.Who, S’s letters for Waterstone’s, rang Waterstone’s, rang Donald and got affair bit cleared up, quoted him W’stones and Willesden stuff. Rang Oddbin’s, order coming tomorrow. Rang Karen to thank her for letter a day early, and to ask her to send bike boy to deliver detect. stories to S. Rang N.Hill W’stones to check on Worley book – reprinting! Did tax form – last week for it – after getting J to add up pension on her ‘lap-top’ – I think they call it. (Oh, how I thank god that I’m just too old and it’s that bit too early for me to have cope with these ridiculous machines.)

Rested and slept two till four thirty-five. Walked to post, and came back feeling wobbly and thinking, can I? Had a brief rest, and MOWED. Must try and now again by Tuesday, as of course it was rather long, and poor finish.

Friday September 27 2002

The spread of literacy goes on apace. Fourth leaders used to begin like that. Headline to Joan Collins item: My secrets to looking fabulous.

J sent me another novel, The Fencing Master by Arturo Perez–Reverte. Italo-Spano- French, I presume. Her taste is uncertain in writing, and doesn’t chime with mine in, for instance, liking historical novels, which I can’t read, with very few exceptions. Henry Esmond, for instance. I’ve never got through Helena for example, tho’ a biography of her would be fascinating, if it were good.

Saturday September 28 2002

Local shops in a.m. Slept all afternoon. Booked Maquis, as J thinks she can manage lunch on next Wednesday, because of tube strike. Keep hoping to weed and can’t quite manage the energy.

Sunday September 29 2002

Expedition to Tesco’s. A couple of glasses of wine, and felt what? queasy? sick? acid? Not sure, but I decided to miss lunch. Tired, of course, and wanted to lie down more than usual. Rang H at 2.15 to say couldn’t talk, no answer! Went to bed with everything turned off. Woke at six and ‘phone peeping. When I rang, she was very sympatric, too sympatric… Not exactly a hypochondriac, she is much too interested in health for my taste. She and Geoffrey always have some complaint on the go. Nose-bleeds her latest. I confessed to ‘a tummy bug’ – that is de rigueur phrasing – tho’ in fact nothing happened except that I took some bicarbonate of soda and fell asleep. She said I must take Dior-? something to replace all the minerals and salts I’d lost! She’s too delicate to say in all that puking and shitting. A short disquisition on the essential merits of a hot-water bottle on the stomach. Have I got one still? That holds water? Another suggestion that I’ve forgotten. Rang off, promising to stay in bed and ‘take care’. And a large g&t and bigger than usual dinner.

Over my coffee I was thinking about foreign travel and computers, twin towers of modern fashion. Do I notice any benefits that foreign travel bestows, except dissatisfaction with English weather and a simple exchange of surface reminiscences. Everyone has less to say, of less interest, and millions of machines to say it on and send labourisingly round the world. I can’t see any difference, on that score, between myself and K and S, for instance.

Interesting physical fact. Sneezed while shitting. Both holes exploded together, drops in front, - in back.

Monday September 30 2002

So there are new physical sensations even at seventy-six.

Rang K about their holiday and him coming over for a work day. Got Arlete and had a jolly talk. They go on Wed., so no workday, I fear. H rang and I expect was disappointed to find me completely well…. Marian rang, La Trompette, on Tuesday, 7.30 for 8.0.

Starting weeding at last!

Tuesday October 1 2002

Five or six hours sleep here and there.

Did Mow again, and in the morning. Took up a surprising amount of cuttings. If only it would go cold, and the grass stop growing.

K rang back. Let him off coming, the dear idiot was thinking of coming round tonight, and flying off tomorrow. A. got my message wrong. Told a lot about the single and the album after saying he’d tell me about it when he got back. Oh dear, it’s obvious it’s not being advertised or publicised or pushed, at all. He and Catherine Porter went to the Islington HMV, and found they’d had fifteen copies of the single and ‘Yes, they’d sold all of them’ – history didn’t seem to relate whether they were thinking of re-ordering. I had thought he’d be prepared for this, - it was obvious from the budget that it wasn’t going to be a Top Of The Pops – multimillion pound record deal – on every chat show sort of affair. It may be a word of mouth affair, that’s the only way. But I fear he may be disappointed in this – he still wants that popular acceptance despite all his success.

Picked the last of the tomatoes. Enough to line them up the length of the bathroom window. How soon they ripen without the sun, but with the sun, the lingering smell of summer.

Wednesday October 2 2002

At last our lunch at the newish restaurant in Hammersmith Grove. (Imagine such a thing even a few years ago.) A bit rough and ready, but perfectly acceptable as a local place. Folding glass doors across the front, folded right back on a warm day like today. Fair space between tables as the place must have been made out of at least two if not three shops. (Next door is another shop which they run as a delicatessen, a bit disappointing, with a minimal selection of organic veg. – largish courgettes, for instance – was there cheese? But J came in and we went to eat.)

Plenty to eat on menu. J had sea bass and apple sorbet. I had skate and rosemary and vanilla brulée. She was pleased. Skate not quite so delicately presented as some, but delicious, covered with capers, baby carrots with a little green in - and cooked – a nob or two of rhubarb; interesting wine in two columns of size of bots., and, as I know nothing of litres and so on, I ordered the smaller capacity, something cl., thinking it to be a half-bot. But it was a full bot. Had it just the same, but what was the other list, liters, jeroboams? I must bone up on my kilograms. Orvieto, and good. J had a glass with no encouragement from me. I hope she doesn’t suffer from it.

I was interested that I was in very high spirits before a sip of wine. Such wit as I have, was in my tongue. I so remember K saying once, during one of those meals at the house-Elfort, I mean in the middle building – ‘he’s dangerous when he’s like this.’ I had a lovely time – hope she did. Cab on time. A good day.

Thursday October 3 2002

Slept 9.30 a.m. to 12!

Rang J. One glass of wine, and she had a headache all day, and still has it today.

Tidied up in garden, but still all that weeding, but we need rain - Sept. dry, and weeding is so much better done after a bit of rain.

Friday October 4 2002

K rang. Would I ring back with no. of CottagesFrance. Lovely to think he can count on me, even for something as trivial as this. (I must ask him about that couple he asked me to take in years ago, ‘I knew there was no-one else I could ask.’ – I’m proud of that, too, a rare tribute, from a twenty- ?, to me at sixty? and the girl went off to an audition in bare feet…) ‘So how’s the holiday?’ ‘All right.’ Rather dull inflection. Oh dear, their holidays.

Donald rang me. He is moving. Will see man next door, and has had bumf back from Walthamstow.

I think smacking children is going to be forbidden. Stupid when they mustbewarned. What about smacking adults? I’ve smacked K and S in my time.

How many people are reading volume 1 of Meredith’s Letters while watching CD:UK with the sound off in case K’s single might happen to come on?

Sunday October 6 2002

Rushing impetuously into the left hand shrubbery to position the sprinkler for the new fence – no rain since Sept. 9 – cracked my forehead on a pruned branch of the apple. As always with scalp wounds, dramatic blood, covering my left spectacle lens before I got in the house. Am always cynically amused that news reports choose a little scalp wound to illustrate a bomb attack rather than, say, a ruptured spleen which is only inert on a stretcher.

Monday October 7 2002

Half-hour chat to J. She’s been to lunch with Trevor Bentham down in the country. Hertfordshire, is it? Big place, ‘with a garden it’d take you an hour to see properly.’ Full-time gardener. Seems to be bearing up after Nigel H’s death. I suppose he’ll sell it in the end.To H’smith, bought the three vols. of the new Stoppard. The girl asked me if I’d seen it. Gave her a little sketch of knowing T.S., which I hope gave her a minute vicarious thrill. Who knows, perhaps she’s a nascent author or actress or artist, working her way through a b’shop?

Back here, to the Meredith like an acolyte. Still, it’s getting a little better. Lewes and Swinburne and Stevenson have turned up now, but alas Mered. hasn’t.

Tuesday October 8 2002 Wednesday October 9 2002

Rested all day. Car arrived, a driver I didn’t know, and more I didn’t know emerged during the evening. Billy has been controller for my firm for suspiciously long, and now I realise how right I have been to think of him as bad news. He told me to tell the driver about pick-up. This driver said he was from another firm and knew nothing about it, and I’d have to ring. Hm.

At any rate, there I was in Devonshire Street, which I knew to be getting smart. And there’s a pet shop, - what could be smarter? Perhaps a restaurant – understated, a hedge, frontage unnoticeable, as is the décor inside. Wooden floor, white cloths and napkins. 7.40 nobody there but me and the waiters. Amused. Shown to table by serving-door, the worst. Well, R and M are always on the late side booking, I’d guess. Still, there was a pillar to put my ear against. Ordered a g&t, they arrived soon after. Animated chat, presented R with the immaculate first edition of A Severed Head, perfect dust-jacket etc. Oh, how first editions fetish bores me! Except for wanting to know what the author first saw. But how I despise the value of a book being highest if it’s never been opened, not to mention the disgust at the margin of profit people grab at. Told Marian that I’d been re-reading Trollope in my sleepless nights, and mentioned our very successful Trollope reading, (Eileen Atkins and Jill Balcon came round at Blackheath and said it was the best reading they’d ever heard done anywhere by anyone!) Read them the para. from Miss Mackensie that D made such an exquisite and wistful impression with, very disconcerted that they burst out laughing. Afraid that made me have second thoughts. I didn’t think they noticed how they’d upset me. We ordered. I wasn’t carried away by the menu, by no means one of those where I could fancy every dish. Eventually settled for Brochette of sardines with tapenade and ? Escabeche? Anyway, sardines on little spits and lot of flavor around. Roast halibut on a little sea of truffled potato, which I though tasted of nothing, partly because it was so finely mashed, but the halibut was good. Wine delicious, meant to note the name of the second bottle, as it was something special. Touched at Roy’s naiveté, saying to me later on, ‘When you first met me, you’d never have thought I’d know anything about wine, would you?’ No, certainly not, he ate like a mad dog, defending his prize against wolves.

Roy rang the taxi firm. They claimed they’d come and gone away again, and couldn’t send another car as they ‘only had one car tonight.’ A nasty shock after the firm being so good. I think Pat was the good he’s obviously been gone some time. Well, that’s it.

R and M sweetly took me home, but clouded for me by them laughing at Miss Mackenzie. I think I read it acceptably, of course I’m not D or a woman, but others have been taken with it.

Today, Wednesday, rested. Repotted palm on desk. Odd to think I’ve had that and the aspidistra for forty-years. Went on with Meredith. No word from K. I must try not to worry or not to let him know.

Thursday October 10 2002

Half-hour chat J again. Hare play, people queuing from eight a.m. for returns, and it hasn’t opened yet. All seems to be going smoothly. How the wretched journalists would love them to be quarrelling. Well, they aren’t. She agrees with me about David Hare, overrated. To me he’s the Pinero de nos Jours and will fade like him.

Two boys expelled for forty-four telephone calls, threats of deaths etc. to a master who told them off. Mother, hard-faced creature, defending them wanting them ‘reinstated.’ And some appeals committee set up by this government says they can go back, and neither the headmaster nor the Education Sec. can do anything about it, it seems. Really, I think common-sense has vanished from the world.

Still no rain. None since Sept. 9. No K.

Friday October 11 2002

A burst of vitality – well, a trickle – found me going to J’s optician finally to get my proper glasses put in fresh frames. Pleasant middle-aged man. Shop just by S.B Market, on Uxbridge. Found two v. suitable frames of tortoise-shell type for bi- focals, and nothing flash for reading-glasses which nobody sees except K and A and me…

So amused that the woman at the desk, friend of J’s, said ‘You really ought to have an eye-test. We can tell how healthy your eyes are, and what health problems you have, and so often it’s too late… of course I made an appointment at once…

Walked back all the way home, and was pleased, no backache, legs held out. Aforesaid vitality, I suppose, which also made me full of appetite. Odd. No word from K.

Saturday October 12 2002

Looked up amnesia in the medical dictionary. Witty mention of the case of the Rev. Ansell Bourne. He vanished and was found some months later keeping a small sweet- shop under the name of A.J.Brown. His amnesia was undoubtedly genuine. All the same, we would like to know the state of his church’s finances, and something of his wife, Mrs Brown.

Rang K, I was just going to ring. They got back last night. My mistake. Coming round not this week, next. Heaven.

Sunday October 13 2002

Torrential rain all day. Called Donald again. Oh the irritation! The man next door, held out as a possible buyer ‘for his two sons’ turns out to have bought a house for them two years ago. He also claims he doesn’t remember me telling him to sell the flat in December! How people hear what they want to her! I must get things on paper from now on. He also mentioned that he’d told his solicitor to draw up two leases. ‘Leases? I don’t want a lease, I want to sell the freehold, otherwise I’d be responsible for the building fabric.’ He backed down on that. Hopeless.

J tells me she has been acolyte in Maggie S’s dressing room on the last few first nights. Never sees the play, as she can’t stand first nights. (Nor I, and now they are, artificial events. Even thirty years ago, I doubt if a real audience was in the majority.) J saw to the drinks ordered and poured. Now M’s new dresser, Jennie, has started calling herself Dame Maggie’s personal assistant – don’t think she knows yet to say P.A. – and Dame M said Jennie ‘would do it.’ No apology or anything. Not that J cares. Tells me there were fifty bouquets for M.S. by lunchtime as a rule. Rain still teeming – went to check in search of truth…

Monday October 14 2002

More, and more frightfulnews of terrorist bomb in Bali. Two hundred or so dead, many injured, mostly young. Australians, caught in a night-club, of course it’s frightful, but could not quite understand the scale of Australia’s shock, until I reminded myself how far away they are, physically and mentally, and even more that two hundred is as socking to a total population of eight million, as the three thousand in New York (good gracious, is it really only eight m.? Goodness, the empty beaches there must wonderfully be!)

Donald rang, quite conciliatory, wished he could give me the £8000 debt… Leases on hold.

Travel programme about Venice. Presenter showing us round kept reading out letters from previous English visitors, including ‘a whole bus-load got in touch with us’. from such centres of intellectual and aesthetic excellence as Essex and Sevenoaks and Mansfield. And then people wonder why I never travel. I’ve never had the money to travel as I would have to, to come near enjoying myself.

Rain all day.

Tuesday October 15 2002

Rain. To local shops between showers. Dames play first night, J says more than fifty bouquets. Left message for K to ring when he has 15 or 20 mins.

Wednesday October 16 2002

Notices of Hare Play pretty damning. Dames do their best. As I said, I see Hare as Pinero, so on the nail that he goes quickly off it, and nobody so completely outlived his day as Pinero did.

Rang Monarch new car firm. Good reliable English voice. We’ll see. Books Fri.

Thursday October 17 2002

Driver foreign and inscrutable. Rattled letter-box which hardly heard. Hadn’t been told my name, so which bell? Hm. Then I directed him wrongly… however, we got to the garden-centre and I got what I wanted at last for the front-box, bay, laurustinus, and two hostas for price of one.

Wit from C. Harrod-Eagles. Detective from the north complains of bar-stool seat, ‘We don’t have them up North.’ ‘No, they’re for Londoners only. Surely you’ve heard of the London derriere?’

Policeman to P.C. during discussion of case, ‘Honestly, Alec’, said Norma kindly, ‘I’ve had dresses that were more intelligent than you.’

K rang back, ‘Hullo, it’s me. 60, 59, 58, 57… V. good B’mouth talk. What a curse it all is. But what would I do without him? I suppose this is a return for the swift easy sale of St.Dunstan’s.

Friday October 18 2002

At last to Waterstone’s again, armed with S’s letter. Happily upstairs at Notting Hill, that intelligent girl – I must find out her name – now deals with accounts, and all was easy. As I handed over the biog. of Max Beerbohm – oh dear, he wouldn’t like ‘biog.’ – she said, ‘One of my favourite.’ Rare for someone that age to have heard of him. Bought that, and the new, no doubt rubbishy Life of Alec G.by Garry O’Connor – to be corrected by me, as if any serious writer could call himself Garry, even with one ‘r’ – The new biog. of Wilfred Owen by Dominic Hibberd, and Andrew Martin’s new novel, enjoyed the other two.

I think I haven’t noted that I finished the Meredith Letters. Or rather struggled through them. One way and another what ammunition it would give an anti- Victorian! The first thing to say is stupefying dullness of the two vols. They are edited by his surviving son, Will, who is described as not very bright at one point. I imagine he was desperately conventional, and anxious to brush out all signs of lowly origin and anything remotely racy. So that’s one element.I fear G.M. also had some of that, and the last third is suspiciously full of Lady Ulrica this, and Lady Grandby, and Diana Manners popping up almost out of the nursery. Even worse, the first third is invested with two or three correspondents unknown to history, - one later an Admiral and another a knight – who call out of GM letters of an even more mind- numbing banality than he might naturally write. He had a room in Rossetti’s house for some time, and didn’t I say that there is the leaden facetiousness of that circle in some of the early letters as well?

But the death-blow comes from M himself and his style, which, I think, killed the readership of his novels. Every now and again, he writes plainly and well, but I suppose his lack of education leads him to fearful elaboration, which does not fit him to criticise Hardy, rather than retract from his power. An example or two. ‘Convives’ indeed.‘The prose of Shakespeare and Congreve is perfect. They have always the right accent on their terminations.’

Quite a lot of political comment. I presume he only had access to the papers like everyone else, despite John Morley, so his comments are as valueless as any old man. As for judgment, ‘The Risovgimento is the most important event of the 19th century.’

Swinburne, Stevenson, Gosse, turn up, but he can’t think of anything interesting, let alone witty, to write.

Saturday October 29 2002

Weekly weather article in S. Telegraph, on famous storms, most of which I find I’ve lived through. The Great storm of Oct. ’87, which blew past the St. Dunstan’s flat and blew down a tree a good twenty feet taller than the house in Margravine, and I never woke. My unhappiest year, 1952, was treated to the Lynton-Lynmouth catastrophic in August, and in early December what I think proved to be the last great London pea-super fog. I was staying with G Irvine in Kingly St at the time. People don’t believe in the extremity of such fog now, so – I’d gone to see the Innocents, a version of The Turn Of The Screw at Her Majesty’s – not dreaming that I’d be acting, or in the same play as, it’s young star, Jeremy Spenser by next year, - and walked back up the Haymarket, keeping my hand on the shop-fronts, in case I wandered into the road, by mistake. When I’ve told people that, I can see them not believing me. Well, it’s not only true, but when I got to Piccadilly, and crossed over to go up Regents St, I found, after a bit, that I was walking along Piccadilly instead. Then there were the North Sea Floods in Feb. ’53, round Marble Thorpe, wasn’t it? And 307 people drowned. Didn’t know about severe floods in North London in August.

Even more personal, it’s the 40th anniversary of ’62-63, the coldest winter since 1740. We were doing up, and moving into, Manchuria Rd. I can still see the individual lumps of snow, all well-known to me, as they never thawed, all round the pillar-box on the corner. Two exceptional snowstorms in ’78, never registered – ‘Highlands and the west country.’

I suppose he doesn’t mention the ’46-’47 winter, which seemed to me far worse, because it isn’t an anniversary. Oh, and the fog killed 7000 people.

Rang K and had a lovely comforting talk about B’mouth, re. estate-agent etc. So sensible. He is so good.

Sunday October 20 2002

Rained in torrents all day. Working up for an anniversary? Started the Alec G. biog, not expecting much and not finding it. Garry O’Conner is so messy, inaccurate, and crass.

Monday October 21 2002

Finished the Alec G. Some bits of new material, though he doesn’t know what to do with them. For instance, the book is dedicated to and often quotes, Angela Fox, a spectacularly unreliable gossip, with little or no judgment.

Says there was ‘a terrible anger’ at AG’s centre. I would call it a terrible malice. Says his character in The Lady Killers was a brilliant portrait of K. Tynan. Rubbish. Such a thing never occurred to anyone, let alone me, then or now. The fact that Elaine Dundry confirms it, confirms me.

Quotes A.G. as reading the Star Wars script ‘avidly’. I can’t watch a frame, let alone read the script of such pre-school rubbish. A.G. also admired John Le Carré.Gosh. But then A.G. by no means eschewed the second or third rate. His friends! John Warner, Mark Kingston, his executor – Coo. He plainly liked the company of his intellectual inferiors. This, and other qualities, led S as he told me, to drift delicately out of A.G.’s life, who plainly liked his company.

K rang. More B’mouth talk and agreement on tactics. Rang solicitors re freehold. Rang Donald, and he agreed to my sale, well, agreed not to be grumpy. So all is settled. Rang K back, just two sentences.

Tuesday October 22 2002

Donald rang to say another estate-agent had some property developers who wanted to buy the whole house, and he’d asked £400,000. I said I’d go on with my sale, as we might as well do both and see what happens.

Wednesday October 23 2002

Dreamt of Reggie S for almost the first time, and a vague theatre anxiety dream, for the first time for a long time. Is it fading? Sleeping so much better. Why? Nothing has changed.

To H’smith for pension etc. Still English raspberries at Tesco’s, Cambridge this time, not Kent, two different varieties. Some excellent late varieties have come out in the last twenty years and this year, with September so warm and dry, has been an excellent year for English grapes, and berries of all sorts. And these bred without ruining their taste, as with the wretched straws we get now.

Books Etc. which so often, even this rather down-market branch, Hammersmith being still what it is, has the books I’ve just read about, while Waterstone’s sometimes lags. Why? Bought the unexpurgated Cecil Beaten ’70-’80 diaries. Goodness, the previous volumes were just like his photographs, every wrinkle smoothed away. What was that play called, when an actress of a certain age and even more certain double-chin, turned away from the camera, with graceful hand cupping the bulge, - en profile perdu? Fairly vicious about Larry and Joan. Tony Snowdon’s ma comes in for some smacks. I always thought she was supposed to be rather a marvel. Perhaps it was because she was Oliver Messel’s sister? On the other hand there is a mild and almost tender portrait of Noel in old age – three years younger than I am now – ‘so old and beat’ – and a beautiful section on Cathleen Nesbitt, who was indeed a warm sensible balanced and intelligent woman. I remember a talk in the foyer of the Albery before What Every W. Knows that I remember with great pleasure. I thought better of Rupert Brooke because of it…

Donald rang while I was snoozing, so rang later. The ‘property developers’ came, and looked round, with much talk of ‘here an en-suite bathroom’ – oh the horror of men like that. I’m happy to say he said go on with selling yr. bit.

K rang later. Week of Nov 4, ‘two days to check out the sofa bed, and then week in December. I’ll do all the other jobs and sleep in it.’

Oh the joy!

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 180

October 24 2002 - January 31 2003.

Thursday October 24 2002

The sounds and routine upstairs seemed slightly different, and more thumps and movement than usual. Suddenly there was a great mass of bulging bin bags outside again, twenty or so, and a newish looking ‘fridge’. The silence. Oh god don’t tell me he’s left, the grandchildren thumping round now and then is a small price for the usual silence. I keep having frightful fantasies, of fearful noise, and jeers at me in the garden and going up to protest and them hitting me… oh dear how he would despise me.

Read the Beaton at a gulp. This is the last ten years, which hasn’t been published before anyway, writing a trifle better, but no natural gift. Nevertheless there are many funny bits, some funnier than he thinks. Did I know he was at John’s? I thought it was Magdalene. I expect CB did, too. I must look to see if it was a tactful little bit of touching-up. John’s was probably just as dreary and unchic as in my day. All the same, the diary is in the library there. Imagine.

The sort of thing that gives it the gulp factor. Staying with Mickey Renshaw. Picture of a skimpy old dear of uncertain years, mincing across the courtyard of his villa in Cyprus, where he has retired on a sizable private income, source unknown. ‘We’ve got a couple of majors to dinner. Rather sweet. They met during the war, and fell in love, and decided they wanted to live together.’ What was CB’s surprise to find they were two elderly ladies called Betty and Phyllis? Then there was Lady Barnes, no less than Sir Kenneth’s widow sister-in-law of Irene and Violet Vanbrugh, turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of the Portuguese Marquis de Soveral, a notable Edwardian roué, and lady (Mabel Graham, sister of Lady D’Abernon.) And living off the royalties that her lover Margaret Irwin, left to her in her will. !!

M. Irwin- heavens, all those impeccably boring historical novels we were recommended to – were there erotic passages? Possibly. I could never read one and I daresay said erotic passages which would be quite imperceptible today. Oh, the delight of past gossip, what you find out. And of course, there is a serious point in finding out that there was another reason for an artistic mistake e.g. Noel and Graham Payn.

Mary L rang ‘You know that Hoover you bought for me’ (she paid for it), ‘I tried to change the bag, and now it won’t pick up anything.’ I said, ‘I’m afraid you must have put it in wrongly, so that there won’t be a vacuum. That’s why it’s – I’ll try and come over. £25 to change a bag!

Friday October 25 2002

Rang K re B’mouth, so helpful and good, thinks and comes to a fresh and different conclusion as I listen. Told me to ask for ‘quotes’ of charges from the solicitors. Made me feel sick to have to do this, but I can’t expect him, or anyone of his generation to understand this. Heavy rain again.

Saturday October 26 2002

Work out front for a while to work the pots after the new delivery of compost and plants. Potted up the two box, and brought the dozen small pots of ferns away, dug about and turned over by that squirrel.

Sunday October 27 2002

Big storm. Even here felt the wind, despite being in a terrace north and south, and the wind, 80mph in places from west. A lot of noise, like someone breaking in.

Halfway thro’ the Hibbard Wilfrid Owen. Impressive and persuasive. The family - The mother I knew of, but the brother, Harold, worse – censored massively, poor things, gayness so horrific, but even worse, possibly betrayal of working-class or manners or deprivations.

Monday October 28 2002

Bad night. I hope I haven’t started another stretch of bad nights. Not just now. Too tired to do more than long p.m. snooze and the local shops. Meant to go to the West End for watch repairs and books. It’s hateful being without my dear watch. Couldn’t bother to ring Donald. I didn’t feel strong enough to have my teeth put on edge.

Only light at the end of the tunnel was a light upstairs, so perhaps…

Tuesday October 29 2002

Another bad night, disturbed this time. Again no West End trip. Didn’t answer Donald at lunchtime. Glad, as talk later left me feeling sick one way and another. ‘Property developers’ – good heavens – only offered £300,000 – ‘no use to me.’ – but one of the estate agents has someone else who wants to turn it into flats. He went over the place much more thoroughly, into the loft - I didn’t know there was a loft – said it was over the whole house, and fifteen feet high, so there could be two more flats up there. The magic figure of £600,000 was mentioned. I said that was what they would get, and anyway it would take months. ‘Oh, nooo, noo, noo just get planning permission.’ I said I’d stick to selling my bit, he spent a little time saying shouldn’t I think of him a bit, went over the wretched facts again and then said he still hadn’t decided whether to move or not. I just managed not to put the ‘phone down five minutes before he finished. Felt sick with the mess of my family. All I have chosen in my life I love and respect. This is the last messy dishonest helpless problem that I have to solve. Left message for K, to ring.

Sanity and Love.

Wednesday October 30 2002

No sleep at all last night. To book-room at 6.0 to watch the TV news as just a relief from bed. Back to bed for papers. Dozed after till 2.0. Felt a bit off, had two glasses of wine but didn’t seem to want any lunch.

For dinner, had the other mullet, cold grilled, delicious, and felt better. Read the new Max Beerbohm biog. by N. John Hall. Good.

Thursday October 31 2002

Another terrible night. No message from K.

Hilarious obituary in Telegraph of a Hungarian film director, André de Toth. My eye was first caught by his success as the director of more or less the most successful 3-D film ever, The House Of Wax, although he only had one eye… Other gems. With his black eye patch, he was mistaken for Moshe Dayan, while on location, and he was born in Hungary, not always the case with Hungarian film-directors, Sasvari Farkasfalvi-Toth Endre Antai Mihaly.

In addition to losing his eye, de Toth broke his neck on four occasions…

His first wife was Veronica Lake… ‘De Toth is survived by his seventh wife, Anne, and by many of his 19 children.’ You do see.

No answer from K yet. Left another message. Finished Beerbohm and re-read Strachey’s Victoria and Florence Nighting.

Friday November 1 2002

Woke at 1.45. Dozed. 7.30-9 a.m. and 2-4.10p.m. No call from K. Is he ill? Something’s the matter. Insomnia makes you boring.

Started that Green Shadows book by a Burmese boy. Had to skip. Anythingnear a travel book slips right off the surface of my mind.

Saturday November 2 2002

‘From The Land of Green Ghosts’ by Pascal Khoo Thwe. Lived in quite a primitive way, and survived the Burmese revolution, and eventually, through English benefactors, came to Cains and took a degree in English. The last quarter is very touching and illuminating; his description of the impact Cambridge and English life made on him, moved me very much. I’m afraid all the part before left me cold. I can’t read descriptions of foreign countries, but I can’t read a description of an English town, or garden. Oh dear, I thought I should scream if I read ‘rice-wine’ one more time. And a lot of it was like an action film. In exactly the same way, they don’t realise that such experiences are extremities to be deplored, and render them in some ways incapable of natural response. I think he dimly realises this, in the guilt he feels.

C4 prog. Edward and Mary – the unknown Tudors, not dumbed down? (sic)

K rang at last. Quite safe and well. In a way. Messages I left were either not taken by Arlete, or were swallowed by the ordinary ‘phone machine, which is a bit broken. But, over all that, the dreadful news that Nigel tried to commit suicide. It seems he’s been getting more and more upset. He was taking two months off work, and going to Australia. He went, and came back in a week. I could have warned him he’d have far too much time to think, and not an activity he’s at all gifted for at the best of times. More worryingly, he went over to see Sian and Charlie, drunk, and ‘beat her up’ in front of Charlie. I don’t know that he really hurt her, but the impulse is there and the frightening prospect of the ‘saving-them-from-an-evil-world’ affliction.

K went down for the inside for the week. Said Paul, the chap Nigel is staying with, - I nearly wrote ‘the poor chap,’ – is a good thing, ‘mature’ which N is certainly not. He had booked into a hotel under a false name, and if he hadn’t rung Sian, and maundered on, they’d have had no chance of finding him. He’d tried to cut his writs with a Stanley knife, so he was a bit bloody, - he’d written a letter to Charlie and got blood on that. Happily he’d only made superficial cuts, but I suppose, in more self- pity, he’s saying ‘I couldn’t even kill myself’. Thank goodness he didn’t manage it, or that poor little boy might find his life blighted by that letter. If you are alone in the world, it’s bad enough. But, with a wife and child, it is a supremely selfish act. I hope this is the end of it. He’s seen a psychiatrist, and had some pills. Much good they’ve done.

Sunday November 3 2002

Article very a propos about Pascal Khoo Thwe. The great gift that England can offer to the world, is symbolised by rescuing him from a primitive jungle tribe and installing him in a bed-sitter in Muswell Hill…

Started Creevey.

Monday November 4 2002

Insomnia is destructive. I hope to get to West End for my watch, and the optician for my spectacles. Woke at 1.45 a.m. so only managed a walk to the P.O. and shops here. Still posted the Beaton etc.

Rang the estate-agent. He hadn’t sent it yet, ‘We’ve had three off in the office, I’ll send it to your brother, or is it brother-law, tomorrow.’ ‘No, you won’t, send a copy direct to me.’ More little messes. And how limp, and venal he sounds.

Tuesday November 5 2002

Someone called Margaret Booth has died in L.A. She was born there in 1898, and went to work in film in 1915, and was in with MGM from its inception. An extraordinary link. Not that she doesn’t sound bigoted small-minded hell.

After another bad night, slept from 2.0 p.m. till 5.14, and woke with another was it night? feeling. To local shops, again, but this is getting me down and I don’t know what to do.

K rang. Can’t come this week after all, - the Nigel affair has put him back nearly a week. Katherine P is touring for radio… an odd concept. Seems the sofa is off, too, but he will come later anyway. As usual, a cancellation of any visit or chore, even him, is a sort of relief, because inertia can be uninterrupted. But I was warmed right thro’ all the same.Nothing from Lees.

Wednesday November 6 2002

Pouring in torrents. The Lees proposal arrived. Completely unacceptable. No kind of guarantee of Donald’s price, the money not arriving till April!, and a couple of thousand to pay beforehand.

H rang to thank for Beaton I sent her. To West End?

Thursday November 7 2002

No. I’d ordered the cab and arranged my itinerary, but realised I couldn’t do it and cancelled the cab. After lunch, snoozed and because I woke at 3.0 a.m., slept from 1.45 – 5.30. Bother.

Little programme, statues and monuments. A man called Wallenberg, of whom I have never heard and I should have, saved 100,000 people, mostly Jews, I take it, from the Nazis. I came in halfway through, so I’m not quite sure where the statue is. Looked to me like a square north of Oxford St. or Bayswater. Wonderful.

The other statue was that Siddons in that churchyard, only to be seen now from the motorway, at any rate without going to the church from the other side. Not worth going, as in close-up, it looks like nothing like, not the nose, nor the breadth of the face, nor the pose. Perhaps this is the way now, I’ll only see through the television. No, I won’t have that.

Friday November 8 2002

Woke at 2.50 a.m. Slept this p.m. 1.45-5.30. Woman rang bell, saw her in front with a folder, upstairs? Went away.

Heavy rain all day.

Saturday November 9 2002

Another bad night. But to H’smith. Got a black cab almost at once. Memo.

Got two weeks’ pension, a lot of fish, a hen pheasant-good, and the new volume of Ben’s Hillier’s Betjeman, riveting so far.

Still fireworks. Except that it was only a thirty-second burst, quite near, at 10.10. Odd lives some people lead.

Sunday November 10 2002

H rang as usual. Shocked that she had a little golden moment, telling me how clever George Bush is, ‘So skillful’.Really, such naked prejudice. It reminded me of Mary L and Wedgwood Bena. Both H and ML are quite intelligent enough to tell what both are really like, but – they’re prejudiced. And, as usual, the insult that they actually assume you agree with them. Comic, and neither of them have any idea. All our lives, D and I have stared aghast, - detached in the middle.

Enjoying the Betjeman very much. Full of every sort of detail, which I love, and with echoes of Gerard !and that life so long ago. So much surprised at as vicious an attack in a notice by Charles Saumaurez Smith as I’ve read for many years.

Monday November 11 2002

At last the expedition to the West End. Called for my glasses at last, different rather minimal frames, expect K will like them.But, arrived at Notting Hill traffic lights and realised I’d forgotten my watches, the main reason for going at all. Oh dear. However, when I got there, - the cab-fare was £17 – the shop was closed. Very closed at eleven, with sheets of cardboard against the windows, with various cards of watch-straps with only one strap left, for instance. I was peering in, thinking perhaps he’d closed for good – when a rather bent old woman paused – possibly older than me – ‘Isn’t he there?’ ‘No, perhaps it’s closed for good.’ ‘Oh no, it always looks like that when he’s closed.’ Cockney, cheerful, ex-barmaid? but obviously local. New Row is her village Street. I wonder how long he will be there. Passed what used to be Pearl Cross. Now a cheap snack-bar. Sign of the times, tho’ not a sign I like.

To Waterstone’s to find not a single assistant I knew. A funny little spinster, the manager, thought I wanted to pay my account, but all was well in the end. A new and as yet unreviewed biog. of Joyce Grenfell, the E.J. Howards autobiog., Slipstream, Ann Thwaite’s Philip Gosse, Wilfrid Owen’s poem’s and the Alan Ayckbourn book on the craft of play-wrighting.

Before I went out, partly around five, when I couldn’t sleep, wrote to the estate-agent to put the Bournemouth flat on the market, to my solicitor, to Donald, and to K sending him the Lees proposal for amusement, and a list of financial decisions we must make. Well, he’ll make them, of course…

Tube to H’smith and taxi home. Driver v. young. I could have believed he was 18, but 25. Father born 1937, and he’s the youngest of five children. Perhaps that’s why he looks so young. Talked well all the way, andlistened.

Oh, forgot to say the two minutes silence was announced over the tannoy, and observed. Everyone was silent – only two other customers, - but the young assistant didn’t know to stand still.

Tuesday November 12 2002

Read new Joyce G before finishing the Betjeman. By the daughter of that family she half-adopted. Rather undistinguished effort, and made disappointing use of a lot of new material, J.G’s diaries, for instance, oh dear, I always forget what rubbish Christian Science is! How could J.G. and Virginia G. bear the frightfulprose, let alone anything else.

Donald rang twice. Didn’t answer and wiped both messages without listening to them. My letter clearly didn’t suggest to him we should write from now on. But then I never thought it would…

Now Richard Ingrams gives the Betjeman a jolt.

Rain allday.

Wednesday November 13 2002

Woke at 1.45. Finished the J. Grenfell. Yes, a wasted opportunity. Still we do get a bit more of what must have been her infuriatingly priggish side.

Rang estate agent - £160,000 - and Angela. Checked they both knew about the division of the garden, don’t you need a drawing?

Thursday November 14 2002

Now A.N. Wilson demolishes poor Bevis Hillier. What about the notices for the first one? A. Powell – ‘Brilliant’ it’s all rather odd. Why are they all so cross?

Mysterious form from the agents, for details of the flat, which of course, I can’t give.

Friday November 15 2002

Offer from the agent in letter, £144,000. Rather cheeky, only £16,000 under the asking price, for a first offer, too. Wrote to refuse it, and sent form to Angel M. No call from Donald. Good.

Mysterious call on machine at 9.30. Sounded a bit drunk and spoke badly. Heard ‘Ravine Road.’ But a couple of playings and the volume turned up, didn’t give me the number – or the price. How dare Donald give my number to anyone let alone this?

Saturday November 16 2002

Striking call from the estate-agents, saying that there had been ‘ten to fifteen board calls and two firm offers, one for the asking price. ! A ‘board call’ is the result of the ‘for sale’ board going up. I don’t quite know how you can be in doubt as to the exact number of calls…

J had suggested lunch in Ken High St. but cried off again. Bad night, headache. Still, I was glad as I wouldn’t have been in for the agent’s call.

Rang K and he called back, full of pleasure. A great relief. If only it can be quick…

Caught a moment of that Popstars thing, unwatchable, but I was amused at the whirligig of fashion. The presenter and one of the judges wore lace dresses, and what’s more, all ruched and fitted like elderly maiden ladies in the ‘30’s, and colour to match, one in eau-de-nil, and the other in that insipid pinky-orange, whose name I forget.

Myra Hindley dead. Of course her crimes and lack of remorse were terrible, but ever- lasting bitterness, and hatred are terrible, too.

It is so bizarre that Hindley means to me the most nerdish niminy-piminy streak of nothing at school, who became, god save the mark, a Methodist minister. Imagine him giving spiritual advice. I bet his life was as narrow as it could be.

Sunday November 17 2002

Oh dear, H has done it again. She assumed that I, and every other cultivated person, ‘can’t be doing with Harry Potter.’ No question of asking… Happily I hadn’t happened to say that I’d just started reading through them again. I suppose it comes from a lack of confidence really. If something is so violently popular, it can’t be any good, so that’s a safe guide… it’s all of a piece with the upper middle class opinions and mores she has adopted. With my accent, such people assume a certain set of values, and judge you disloyal if you don’t agree to them. I never bother to contradict her…

Rang K, and he rang back to say he would come with Nigel to do as much as possible on Wed and Thurs. N staying there, and N might be helped by working in the garden etc. K might be helped, too.

Monday November 18 2002

K rang tonight. Said Nigel not good. We talked of the work and the garden, and I snapped at him. Ashamed.

Tuesday November 19 2002

Rang the waste disposal man and told him to ring K at 12.0. Rang K to tell him, got the machine, and apologised as well.

Well, well, a really extraordinary day. I’d made up my mind I must get my watch repaired. Taxi to H’smith, two weeks’ pension, £200 odd. Cashed £200 heating order. Paid in £44 royalty and £3,020 in post, another installment from Lalla’s will!!! To W. End in taxi, cabbie a real cockney, lively face, talked throughout, fascinating about his parents, who retired to Lincolnshire and regretted it, as born Londoners. Father comes back to cabby at w/ends. Heavy traffic, traffic-light at Trafalgar Sq. end of the Mall, forever as the other week. To locksmith in Cecil Court, lovely crammed shop, run by an obvious family. Copies of door keys, pick-up after lunch. To dear little watch-makers in New Row. Sad story. Just like Pearl Cross, he was packing up. Rent up by three-quarters. ‘They don’t care’ at first said he couldn’t… then remembered D at the Albery, and, I think, felt a tug towards his own generation and the sort of customers he worked for, and said he would take my watch for his last job. To Café Pasta with the collected Peter Cook that I’d bought at H’smith, and picked up the keys. Back to H’smith on tube, and Tesco’s thinking of Wed. Back here, rang estate agents. Firm offer of £163,000, three over asking. Rang K. ‘Did you read your starts yesterday?’ Pause. ‘What time is it?’ ‘Seven ten, g&t time for something else turning up’…

Wednesday November 20 2002 Thursday November 21 2002 Friday November 22 2002

The boys arrived about twelve, Nigel silent, almost catatonic, and remained so, K hair shorter again, looking creased and puffed, - lack of sleep, I expect, talking to Nigel, ‘Do you want lunch?’ ‘Not yet, and I’m not very hungry.’ ‘Well, there’s bacon sausages and mushrooms and fried potatoes…’ ‘You have yours, we’ll get on and have it about half one.’ I always forget the energy – they went to the baseball platform – I must find another name for it – and, seeming almost before I could glance out again, they were carrying the rubble through to the front. In the end, there were about fifteen bags of rubble, and half a dozen of garden rubbish. He’d cut down the buddleia in the wall again, it had grown as big as before, and, piled on the platform covered it completely to a height of six feet – and bagged up the pile of branches. Pete Lloyd left after the fence. It was wonderfully purging not to see the untidy bags and piles of stones left by the leveling of that side of the garden.

On one trip thro’ the house, I was able to tell him that the estate-agent had rung to say there was a firm offer from a man with the cash, no chain, of £800 above the asking price, £168,000. I accepted. Wonderful. Let’s hope there’s no slip-ups. They came in to lunch. ‘So I thought a one-egg omelette with two or three oyster-mushrooms…’ ‘Didn’t you say something about sausages?’

In the p.m., K replaced the washer in the cold bath tap. I haven’t been able to turn it off for months, so no baths or shower. A great relief. N hung some pictures, the composite Simon, and Grandma Newton’s drawn thread work. Another relief, as pictures so often get broken when they’re not on the wall.

Dinner, two pheasants, carrots (fork), broccoli, courgettes. A Chilean Les Brizes. Tolerable. N still more or less silent. He went to bed rather early, or to the sofa in the book-room, his silence meant that K and I laughed and talked and must have seemed to forget him from time to time. K talked of him with much love (which I’m not sure he entirely deserves), mentioned some confidences that he can’t tell me yet about their (N and Sian’s) relationship, I suppose, perhaps some sexual or personal failure or offence, but the phrase I’ve carried away from all the attempts to resolve the wretched situation was ‘and Nigel won’t accept that.’ And there is his closed face to prove it. Alas.

Yesterday, Thursday, he put up the other two chandeliers that have been skulking in boxes under my desk. Then we went off to Chiswick to Sofa Workshop. I could see at a glance it was hopeless, all as common as Ikea. Dreadful low backs with no springs. Arms all right, but every sofa painfully out of proportion. He is so masterful in these shops. I wonder what he’d be like in a really distinguished shop, if there is such a thing anymore. Hopeless, SF. However, he revealed he didn’t care about it being a sofa bed, and his sofa cost £1,450 odd, so… Wesley-Barrell and we’ll see. We went to the food shops, at first skeptical, he bought fish and bread and taramasalata, and made me pay for it. Oh he is so subtle and catches every fine shade. He knew I would relish paying for him again.

They left about half-seven to take N to the Swansea train, but he called first ‘Come and have a farewell drink with us.’ So few of his generation would have put it like that.

Today, Friday, getting over it, sitting about like poor catatonic N. Found a pile of five or six dirty tea-towels by the pink armchair – out of N’s case? – rang K. They were round the chandeliers, says they’re mine.

Rain all day.

Saturday November 23 2002

Guardian delivered by mistake. Meant for 53, the black house. Amusing, as it is exactly the paper I’d expect them to take. Rang newsagents and said firmly I’d leave the G. on the step. ‘I’m in my pyjamas.’ Well, it’s a big account, even if I don’t pay for it.

Christmas Book. Poorly printed in The Observer. Hilary Spurling one of the selectors. Another example of H’s prejudice. Her work is not only exceptional, but of just the kind J likes. But A. Powell was attracted to her, and made it too plain I suppose, for H.

Full of euphoria.Chatted to J and to Mary L, Sarah W.

Torrential rain.

Sunday November 24 2002

Rang John N to tell him about the flat sale. Delightful. Told me of his gossip, as an appetizer, ‘My mother’s pacemaker’, and ‘I laughed about my father for the first time thirty-years later.’… Just like me, only a bit slower.Arranged to dine at the Brackenbury on Dec 11, paid for by me!

Delightful chat to H. Well, all’s delightful now.

Wrote to Nigel thanking him for his work last week. Said I was sad he was so unhappy. Probably will mean nothing to him, but I couldn’t not.

Water off a few hours. When I rang about seven, thinking of dinner, it had been on since twenty to five, it seems. Filled the potato saucepan with water jug and glass dregs. Good to find you can get thro’ to a person talking live. Left tap on, and all was well. Fault at junction of Boscombe Rd and Uxbridge. All so trendy round here, there must have been dinner-parties in jeopardy. Rang K twice.

Monday November 25 2002

To Chiswick in the a.m. to go to the antique market, and the bookshop. It looks good but is open on Thursday to Saturday, and the market wasn’t in sight and might have been too far. However, I walked down Devonshire St. and saw all the shops. At least three shops selling useless things and another selling holistic massage and other treatment even I have never heard of. Good pet-shops and the sort of antique-junky shop with a good wall of books.

Did some useful food shopping at M&S, bought F. McCarthy’s Byron, and found a taxi at once.

The fish shop was closed…

In p.m. rang tile shop, and there was tiler called Steve taking to the man I spoke to. Arranged. Rang Banham’s to get locks done. Coming Thursday. Rang Tablewhere, no cups of any kind. Chinasearch dismissive.

Tuesday November 26 2002

Rang Oscar’s Clocks. Comic response. Quite big showy panel in the yellow pages, headed with Collection and Delivery. ‘If you want it collected, you’re taking me away from my work, and it’ll cost £20.’ Quite truculent and seemed intent on putting me off. ‘Didn’t like’ the sound of the clock.

Tile man hasn’t rung. And there were the dead-ends yesterday…

Wednesday November 27 2002

Tile man rang early. Left message on his machine, then decided to go out, and left another. No response to either.

Thursday November 28 2002

Banham’s man rang at 7.25 yesterday, to say could he come earlier, between two and four. Came at five to one and all was over in five minutes or so. Oddly he put another Chubb lock on, saying it was as good. Couldn’t put a chain or a mortise lock on the front door, as it’s illegal to do so on a communal door… so, an expensive lock with a handle on the inside to unlock it in an emergency.

Did nothing else. Upstairs daughter-in-law picked up post, so…

Friday November 29 2002

Pouring.Tile man rang and we spoke. Quite jolly. Monday at six? ‘Could I come earlier, I’m working your way. Four?’

A spending day with Lalla’s legacy for a beginning. Oddbins order. Watchmaker rang. Thank goodness, dear man, £65. Any time.

Bought pair of shoes from Shepherd’s Heneage. £159. Asked about Turkish slippers. Yes, they can do them, tho’ not in catalogue. Later, he rang to ask me whether I wanted a hard sole or a soft, and I heard myself saying both and not asking how much they were.

Persisting with the Creavey, and quite firmly skipping the completely arid political passages. They are entirely about the tos and fros and twists and turns of power, without a word of the acts they are in power to pass. I am struck all over again by my complete lack of interest or comprehension of the sort of calculations and shiftings that interest people who are fixed on power, and not on real life. Like people in the theatre who are more interested in getting their own way than in what the play or the acting is like.

Part of my pleasure in spending is the thought of Lalla’s penny-pinching character. I am well aware that the legacy comes from the penny-pinching. But think of the effect on her of determining never to have any nice food, clothes or rooms, so as to leave £34,000. Spending it is my values against hers, and a victory for generosity. Because it will also be spent on my friends.

Saw mouse in the bathroom; running the length of the room, vanishing under his boxes of tools.

Saturday November 30 2002

Dear Andy Maclure rang back, has got some musical work touring and so on, but will be free to help K after Christmas.

To H’smith to bank – Mary L’s money – shopping, and bought the new Byron biog. Fiona McCarthy.

Back here, put in mail orders for a cheapish watch, £78, to have by me. Without my dear watch, I am more helpless than I expected and have to walk further and spend millions on TIM, especially in the middle of the night. And I mustn’t wear a £500 gold watch which is 45 years old in the garden. Also a box of wine from the Spectator, free delivery, no trouble. And at last headed writing-paper.

Message on machine from Mike Hall!!! As far as I can remember, the last time we spoke, was the dreadful second night of that play at the Phoenix, the first time I met Neil, in 1973… ‘Hullo, it’s Mike Hall…I wonder, Angus, if you know the title of that TV play you did with Deborah Kerr and… um…er…Oh, I forget things now, anyway, it was set in the Ritz, so give me a ring.’ And he left a number without a code. That play must be twenty years ago? And wasn’t at all a hit. Odd.

Rang K and told him about the lock. ‘Why did you need a new lock?’ and sounded accusing.

Sunday December 1 2002

Rather tired, in a basic way. Why? Rain nearly all day.

H rang as usual. Told of a radio progr. based on B. Pym and P. Larkin’s letters. Got Penelope Wilton. Can I suggest someone for Larkin? Worried that Richard Roberts and Anthony Thwaite in their different niminy piminy ways, may feel their ‘monopoly’ sic is being invaded.K said he’d ring, but didn’t.

Monday December 2 2002

Tile man suggested four to my six. At six, he hasn’t come or rung, so I rang to cancel the whole thing.

Tuesday December 3 2002

To West End, stopping at H’smith to get my hair cut, my pension, and the champagne for Mr. James. To my surprise, Tesco Metro had sold out of all know champagnes. Aren’t people odd? Took the tube to L Square. I think now of Daddy saying to me he couldn’t go on the tube anymore, because he couldn’t stand up and get to the door before they closed again. Up New Row to that Tesco, where there was no shortage. Moët et Chandon. £18 odd. What a good thing I can’t see the point of champagne. Took it back to him. ‘My favourite.’ Had a jolly chat about the whole days. He’d said he’d let me know a clock-master, and he will. Told me that, for instance, during that play at the Duke of York’s that John did, the last but one, I think, the ASM brought along his stage cigarette-case between the matinee and the evening. To replace one of the pieces of elastic. Now where would they go? I see Berman/Nathan/Angels has moved to Hendon, too far for a panic visit, thus does the West End become equipped and diminished. Mr. James said goodbye, polite and mild. He belongs to another age, mine.

Wednesday December 4 2002

Pouring. Bell rang, little electrician from council to do work upstairs. They have gone.Oh god! But cross that electr. had rung my bell because the keys that he’s been given didn’t fit the lock! And there are bank statements for Vallely… Well, I’ll face it when it comes. Thank god I’m deaf in one ear.

Two huge packets in the post – scripts - S’s revised Being An Actor brought up-to- date, and a new preface. The letter different matter. ‘Had a ‘frenzied fling’ or some such expression, with someone in Australia. So it has damaged our relationship rather gravely.’ No, I must get the letter and quote properly ‘… had a rather fervent fling with someone. When I came back, I confessed, and since then the shit has been hitting the fan more or less continuously, with the predictable result, i.e. shit everywhere.

My fault entirely, though not without reason or reasons, but I’m afraid it’s damaged out relationship rather gravely. It may also have saved it in a more realistic form. We’ll see’. Goodness knows what absurdities ‘reason or reasons’ contain, and the ‘saving’ is probably illusory, the start of papering over the cracks.I find I am not only disappointed but rather repelled. They have only been together for two years or so, and the poor boring boy is so young… He has had a cruel introduction to S’s fast- forward personality. Which is getting worse. He’s started rehearsals for the play at Southwark, while doing three more perfs of The Play What I Wrote, and a cameo? stint? in a film version of Vile Bodies which is the other script. It’s by Stephen Fry and called Bright Young Things because Stephen Fry knows better than E. Waugh what his novel should be called.

Rang H and mulled over it. I find myself repelled by the superficiality by the ridiculous assumption of having had any sort of ‘relationship’- absurd word – at all. I’m afraid he has and will probably never have any perception of a real life together at all.

Thursday December 5 2002

Electrician again. In a rage rang the council. The rage eventually produced a calm mild man, with obviously some sort of authority, who apologised for the key, and I said ‘The elec. told me the front-door lock would be replaced.’ He said it as if there was no choice for me, - a decision of the all conquering council! I’m glad the mild man was shocked. Said he would clear it all up and ring me back. He did – more later.

Item on news reminds me that today is the fiftieth anniversary of the great smog of 1952, that painful year when I was staying with dear Gerard. I think I described it in detail, perhaps at the time, but fairly lately, so I shall just say I walked up the Haymarket from her Majesty’s to go back to Regent St. and found myself fifty yards down Piccadilly.

Rang China repair which didn’t answer the other day. This time an answering machine said that the Elliot Family were out, but…

Ring the Goldhawk Rd. big tile-shop, as ‘Steve’ is a dead duck. They have someone who’s a real expert in those black and white tiles, but he’s in Mexico until next week! Sounds fanciful, but the voice was laconic, cockney, confident.

That frightful ‘tenor’ Russell Waters, poor creature, has shouted his voice away, to the point that his concert before Christmas, has been rescheduled till May. !

‘Council’, in the person of the mild man, rang back at six-ish, while I was at the local shops. Proper apology. Bill Geddes.

Friday December 6 2002

Cold at last. Rang H to suggest casting for the radio programme on B. Pym’s and P. Larkin’s letters. They’ve got Penelope Wilton, so I said they could get someone of equal effulgence, which H didn’t seem to have realised.

Postman rang bell with a packet too big for the letterbox, and amazed to see him in shorts . ‘Well, it keeps you on the go.’

To the garden for a little visit. Lemon well-grown to three feet. Wrapped it up a bit. Arare and rather jolly experience, dropped two large eggs. Another plus for wooden floors. Enjoying the Byron. Read nothing about him before. Pulled out a J. Agate in the night, and it pulled on like a comfy old slipper.

Saturday December 7 2002

Book-room light went again. Must get John N to put it back.

Think I reported that next door’s sale board has come down. Do other people’s minds work like this? The sale is off, the pushy wife has left him, he’s killed himself, - all this in the flash of a second – and I’m in the middle of a statement to the police, aloud… ‘Well, officer, I don’t really know them very well.’

Fell asleep before lunch.

Sunday December 8 2002

Apprehensive about upstairs and tomorrow.

Started dipping into Anthony Lane’s film reviews and profiles. Accomplished and very funny. Witty even.

Monday December 9 2002

Sleepness night – see above – not the usual insomnia, expecting the workmen – but nothing.

To H’smith. A long queue at the P.O. Suddenly thought I’d enough cash, having been to the bank, and my back was hurting. Just shopped. What is happening to the British Empire? The Boots in the Broadway ‘complex’ no longer sells bicarbonate of soda!

Tuesday December 10 2002

In the death column Luxton caught my eye. Not a common name. A big hairy prefect at school, who was kind to me when I was bullied. Was it him? I couldn’t remember his initials, but then I saw the memorial service and presumably burial, was at a church – the church perhaps – at Uppingham. There were three other places mentioned, where I suppose he lived and worked, but the coincidence of Uppingham is surely conclusive.How odd, he liked it. He impressed us all by having a hairy chest, when 16? 17?

Fairly loud mechanical noise on Becklow Road, out of sight. Road surfacing? Building? Quite loud. Surely one should be told in advance. You couldn’t listen to music, or read without ear plugs. Nor can I. Modern life. Odd, when expecting the noise to come from upstairs.

Burncoose rang. Plants tomorrow. Wish I were ready for them. So much rain. Later. K rang, oh how wonderful he is. Suddenly on my letter. Has done the Austen CD for Hazel and do I want one? Putting a C’mas card in with it, Hazel’s that is, and he went on to take on the financial side of my letter. At last he rang John Davis, and came back to me to say it would all work splendidly.I could put the flat in his name, and the B’mouth money, and he could finance me. He hadn’t believed me, I think, about the seven-year rule and so on. It seems now, you still get a concession if you can live three years after the gift. The full is still seven years. Well, Daddy died at 89, and Mummy at 93, so…

Heavenly comforting talk.

Wednesday December 11 2002

In all day, nothing from Burncoose. Whole day geared to John N and dinner. He said he’d walk from S. Bush Central Station. Thank goodness he has no silliness about muggings etc. Standing on the doormat, ‘I have got to pee.’ Taxi on time, and the usual table, in the corner. I was paying, for the first time since goodness knows when, so I was pleased that he fearlessly chose the goose, the most expensive entrée. I started with artichoke, choke sliced up with a light dressing and an even lighter handful of salad. Then grilled sea bream, with roast fennel, broccoli flowers, and little new pots, crème brulée. Wine, Chateau Neuf du Pape – white, as curious and individual as the red – coffee, - I had a Cointreau as it was twenty mins till the cab. Wine, £34. Bill £104. Satisfying. How cross Lalla would have been.

Our talk for the last half-hour or so, was all of dear unhappy Joyce. John needs to say it all, as we all do, but I don’t know that he gets very deep. They met in Quaglino’s upstairs bar. Joyce began by saying, with huge venom, ‘Your mother’ repeated twice ‘Said I ought to see you.’ The trouble is that Joyce’s neuroses don’t make very coherent telling, - it’s much the same every time, with John finding comfort in being told he has done everything that is right, but in the last few years there has been little progress. It is so strange to me that Joyce, with her fine perceptive edge, should be locked in this antagonism to J who never did any harm. No advice to give. But oh how grateful I am for his continuing undemanding friendship.

Made a note, no, tomorrow.

Thursday December 12 2002

Yes, a note that read ‘R.Hill, ‘you, are etc. So the £34 Chat. Pape was potent.

Still not plants. Rang Burncoose. Still more rain, so delay welcome.

Present of a bar of Floris soap from dear Tim Watson, an expert in guilt. Says I must meet Helen, as they’re getting married in March!

The J.A. CD arrived from K. Played bits. I am struck by the fact that I have not forgotten her voice at all, nor do I come fresh to it. It is exactly as if I’d just spoken to her. Reduced to tears tho’ by Miss Bates, because it so perfectly balances the absurdity, the pathos and the goodness of the character, the humility to be pleased by so little.

Started The Books of Eels. Fascinating and well written – which it mightn’t have been. Mentions the smoked fish firm I go to, Brown and Forrest.

Friday December 13 2002

Plants arrived, tho’ no message from Burncoose. Order from Oddbins.

Obituary for an actress called Zeph Gladstone. Well, one of the charters of old age is seeing what becomes of people, good or bad. Z. Gladstone arrived at Salisbury as an ASM in, I think, ’57. Now I can see she was an early example of ‘60s girls. Greasy rats tails, dirty T. Shirt, feminist, contemptuous of the plays and the conditions of weekly rep., giving her opinions to all and sundry, her theatrical experience, her drama school ‘She wasn’t going to…’ I’ve heard nothing of since. So was she a bright light of the Royal Court, or the author of a searing exposé of - or….

So what is the headline of her obituary – ‘Actress who played Vera Dowend, the ‘Tart with a heart’ in Crossroads.’ How long was she in it? Seven years or so, ’71-’77. But what did she do after some years of rep.? Struggle thro’ the fringe? No, she played Miss Casewell in The Mousetrap for a year, a boulevard play with Ian Carmichael !at the Strand in ’63 that I never heard of ‘Also acted in TV commercials, most memorably as one of the ‘Omo’ girls.’… ‘After leaveing Crossroads.’ – in 1977, remember – ‘She understudied Joan Plowright in the Cherry Orchard at The Haymarket (1983).’ Then she retired, and ‘concentrated on running antique shops in Fulham High Street, before settling into retirement when she enjoyed going to the theatre and traveling the world.’ Talk of hindsight.I should have told her all this in 1957. Rain.

Saturday December 14 2002

That money Carrick owes from four years ago to the Council, arrived addressed to me! Outraged. Went hot and cold all day, even tho’ I can pay it, at the injustice of it. Rang K and felt better.

Psychiatrist guilty of 10 assaults and rapes, hoping for patients, I suppose –

Sunday December 15 2002

A bit worried and cross in waves, but got over it.

Antique Road Show set in Uppingham, at the school. Odd feeling, not made easier by the film’s distortion, - of the relation between buildings, for instance.

Monday December 16 2002

Spoke to Angela Mann. Not much help. ‘Caroline deals with litigation.’

Told J about Zeph Gladstone. To my amusement and amazement, she was still on wardrobe of that ‘Cherry Orchard’ She told me Z.G. was pretty impossible, v. unpopular, went on for Joan in Croydon!, and was ‘terrible.’ The amazement is because I met Z.G. in her first job, and J in her last. Age has its compensations.

Tuesday December 17 2002

Spoke to Caroline: She polite, and seemed to know the details. But I am liable for somebody else’s four year old debt. That’s the law. Well, the law is even more an ass than I thought. It puts me in a rage that someone thinks I haven’t paid £3000 for four years, and lied. Ugh.

Rang darling K. Ringing tomorrow. Such a comfort. The only comfort. It’s so distracting. Can’t fix my mind on anything but detective stories.

Wednesday December 18 2002

Talk of single spies. Just heard the answering-machine come on. – a burglar in the kitchen? It was eight-thirty. Turned out to be Hanson’s wanting to deliver John N’s wine. Minutes later, dustman clatter, bang, and three dustman types come in, put mats down over the front puddle, and began throwing the rubbish? out of the stairs. Only glanced once, and saw a great swathe of crimson material come down. Mysterious. They’d gone after half an hour. Tried to compose myself.

K rang after 12.0. Asked me to ask Angela M whether she has the letter where the Council said they had no charge, which was why she returned Carrick’s deposit.K says it may have been her mistake.If so, we dump her. Was too thrown to say what about Bournemouth? I asked him to speak to Caroline. The dear chap said he would. Sat on tenterhooks, imagining the conversation, bit by bit. Went and shaved to stop myself thinking. Eventually he rang to say she hadn’t been in… I still love him. Very comforting, ‘Remember, I’m a fighter.’

So, three things. I settled down to H’s present, smoked eel part, when the ‘phone rang. Banham’s to do the new lock. ‘In about half an hour.’ Small child arrived with thick black stubble. Took him 20 mins. Swept any mess into a corner. Came into the sitting-room to tell me price of cheque. Left. A few minutes later, door bell rang. ‘I left the cheque on your desk.’ I ran to get it. ‘What would the office say when you got back?’ No reaction. Lock excellent.

Thursday December 19 2002

Workmen smashed the Choisya in the urn by the front door, cost £44.

Roy rang. I wish he rang more often, - I can talk to him without any kind of barrier or reserve, not to mention wit. They’re off to Cornwall for ten days – imagine. Well, they’re young – would they say so? Told me of his TV series, cast included Alun Armstrong, Dennis Waterman, Amanda Redman, and another fairly refulgent name I forget.

Friday December 20 2002

Mary L cast her usual spell. The cab ordered was already on its way when the driver told me he couldn’t wait and return because he had to pick up his two little boys from school. I had fallen asleep after lunch, so when he rang I had to collect all ML’s stuff, books, s.salmon, fruit wine, - and dress. So, thinking I was going from door to door, despite the rain and cold, I was in just a shirt and trousers and jacket. Was I to be shot out into the wilds of Cricklewood, with no coat or umbrella? Happily ML was able to resist her own spell, and got me a car. On time, and only £9, a bit of a triumph at this time of year, with rain and horrendous traffic. Frailer, face more of a mask. Poor creature, if only she weren’t such a pessimist. She has such strength of character, so badly directed.

Saturday December 21 2002

Ba Lott dead. A jolly rather over-jolly bossy woman, but, very brave about Harry’s dreadful drinking, and fairly dreadful AA proseltysing. One of the worst cooks of our experience. I remember Prim, staying with us for her broken ankle, and D talking the day after. ‘What was the meat in that casserole?’ ‘So over cooked, veal?’… ‘Or chicken?’… ‘Fish?’ Rang M.L.Ba L. with D. at Arts in old days.

Sunday December 22 2002

Think I woke a little before a police-car arrived opposite my gate, revolving lights blazing and ghastly siren shrieking, at twenty to three. I supposed they were chasing someone thro’ the gate, as before. Well, perhaps, but the siren continued for a few minutes, and the lights for half an hour. No other sound except little bits of voices, saw shadows of the police standing talking- falling on the bonnet of the car. Another car further away and a van. No suggestion of further action till they all left at twenty to four. Standing by to stop an earth on a drugs raid? Goodness knows, years ago such a noise would have had to be allowed by the residents, there will be nothing in the papers, and we’ll never know what it was for. Happily I would have been insomniac anyway. To big Tesco’s today, no bicarb. there either.

Monday December 23 2002

Rested. Picked up Creevey again, after finishing Anthony Lane, six or seven hundred brilliant pages.

Tuesday December 24 2002

To H’smith for three weeks’ pension, the rest of the shopping, and bought the Hulme biog. and that Schott collection of trivia, might do for J.

K rang. Dear talk. They’re quietly at home. How sensible of him not to ask me, or say he wasn’t. Too much trouble for me now. Good talk about the solicitors. He is so good.

Tickled by an item in The Standard. Man so drunk he fell between the train and the platform. Ambulance etc. rushed. The moment he was horizontal again, he fell asleep. When he was finally on a stretcher, they had to wake him to tell him what had happened to him.

Wednesday December 25 2002

This is always a quiet street, but I love the absolute silence at such times as this.

Moved by the Queen’s simplicity. ‘I have tried to do what is right.’ And for the perfect taste with which she didn’t mention other matters.

Dreadful ‘family progs’ on television, with everyone being ‘jolly’ and attempting more than their very minimal abilities. Went on with Creevey and started Hulme life.

Thursday December 26 2002

Can’t say I warm to Hulme. But then I always find it difficult to agree with people from the North that they have a monopoly of reality.

I see James Forman has died, 72. A niminy-piminy Yank director, who became a niminy-piminy secretary for The Board of Film Censors, where he took refuge, as he though from the difficult decisions of directing, and found niminy-piminy decisions cause trouble whatever they’re about.

Recorded yesterday and watched today an hour and a half programme about John Osborne. It left a melancholy impression. He could write certainly, but, as it turned out, only polemic, and that does not improve with time. We never thought him a natural dramatist. Nobody seems to remark on the clumsiness of Look Back in Anger’s construction and stage craft. I remember so vividly a character being obliged to say ‘I don’t think I’ve told you this before, have I?’ and I think now, the revelation of the other girl at the ironing-board later would get the wrong sort of ‘oh, come on’ laugh. We thought he had a gift, but not a specifically theatrical gift.

The personal life is sad. He became too much like the mother he so despised, in his violent prejudices and heartless behavior.

But, of course, I felt that stupid human regret for someone who was young and confident and dangerously complacent. An afternoon, it must have been, in the summer of 1956? Odd, I think I still had the Draycott Place room. But I was in B’ham by then. Never mind. Somewhere we had a long afternoon fuck, and went to the pub on the corner of Lincoln St. which is now a modish men’s shop. Then it was a quietish pub, just before the transformation of Chelsea. A drink before D’s show, still in S.D., no-one in the largish saloon bar, except in the far corner, John O and Mary V, now I realise near the beginning of their affair, and no doubt having spent the afternoon in the same way . I’m afraid we didn’t quite come up to their youth and glamour. But we lasted. I thought West of Suez and The Paul Sco. one better than this prog. did.

Friday December 27 2002

Curious inertia on these short silent days. Post and letter again.

K rang. Jan 6 for week, get all the work done.

Ring Andy. He is so wonderful, he takes responsibility! What would I do without him? Rain.

Saturday December 28 2002

Heavy rain all day. Could only read detective stories.

Sunday December 19 2002

Torrential rain all day.

Monday December 20 2002

More rain, watched a carefully small dose of hagiography of John Thaw. Rather nauseating. You’d think he was a great actor, instead of the apotheosis of the vast suburban audience, whose standards and assumptions he embodied and never disturbed. I was amused and depressed equally, to find that he had the obligatory Royal Court deprived childhood, mother left when he was seven, father a long- distance lorry driver… it’s a wonderfully complacent attitude. He’s wonderful to rise above it, and any deficiencies, are the result of it. Sounds like the usual Northern emotional cripple, speechless, can’t speak his feelings, etc. etc., not to say surly and rude. I wish they could see that a deprived childhood is exactly that, they lack something vital for the rest of their lives.

Rang J. No answer either number. Left message later saying she’s been ill all day, cramps, squitters etc. and was going back to bed. She gets too many minor complaints.

Tuesday December 31 2002

Rang K and wished. Ha ha. Rain. More inertia. The tenants upstairs and the money thing.

Wednesday January 1 2003

Rain, heavy. Rain heavier. Papers arrived ten-fifty. Paper-boy presumably over- hung.

Finished the Creevey letter with some difficulty. Every now and again he is delightfully gossipy and perceptive. But so much is concerned with politics, and not politics in any general social way. There is almost no mention of any actual bill the Commons was discussing, no problems, social or otherwise, just endless interest in the ebb and flow of power between the parties, power in vacuo, than which nothing is more boring. One day, how I hope competition is banished from the world.

Caught a moment of the gruesome concert from Vienna, nothing but Strauss waltzes. Like being force-fed chocolate creams. Switched to another channel, - was I mad? Someone playing Mowgli in a version of the Jungle Book, was dancing to a Strauss waltz…

Rang H to wish them a Happy New Year, and had an unexpected reward. Geoffrey, who usually says no more than ‘I’ll get Hazel’, talked for five mins. about the Jane A. CD, and gave even me enough praise to be satisfied. And then H came on, and kept up the revels, saying they’d been playing it to their friend Jan, who is a bit of an expert, and wants a copy to play to her students. A belated boost to my confidence.

Thursday January 2 2003

Rain. Karin rang a.m. Dinner with S on Saturday. ‘Would I like to go to Mrs. Warren’s Profession, or just have supper?’ ‘Supper’ ‘Simon knew you’d say that.’ What did he expect? So despite the apprehension of the West End on a Saturday and no taxi? I said yes. I was rather touched that she rang back this evening to say he didn’t want to drag me in to the West End to L’Escargot or somewhere, so would I suggest somewhere near? Odd that neither mentioned the Brankenbury. She booked it.

Rang K, and left a message with Andy’s number.

Long – twenty minutes? – chat to J. She knows how to chat.

K rang back to thank, and say he was sending my Christmas Card….

Friday January 3 2003

Card arrived. On back of evelope, ‘Written 24.12.02. Sent 2.1.03.’

Bad floods again and now it’s going really cold. Good.

Saturday January 4 2003

Dinner with S at Brackenbury. Led to the usual table by pleasant young maître. S arrived five mins. later, looking well but a bit strained, hair rather curlier, whiter, rather en brosse. Had two run thros of Weaver Tales – is that the title? – today, but vitality not in the least quenched. We talked as usual for half an hour before we could bring ourselves to order, his usual glass of Champange and my g&t. I ordered sliced pigeon-breast and grilled sea-bass with little beans and new potatoes. To my surprise, and for the first time-ever, he said ‘I’ll have the same.’ Well. The usual delicious talk, of which I never remember a word.Alas, I do remember too much of the talk about Daniel and their unfaithfulness to one another, because Daniel has been – did he say, could I have heard‘to bath-houses?’ Are there still such places? I kept my sympathetic face on with difficulty at times. It’s the shallowness, the apparent lack of any real knowledge of what love between two people means, and what it requires. I can only hope I helped a bit, but, if I did, how pathetic that I could.

Thankful to say that he doesn’t want me to see the play, too difficult for me. So thoughtful, as in choosing The Brack., but asked if K could come, as it was so long since he’s had a time with him. Perhaps they could work together again, I would love K to work in the theatre again, but I wonder whether he would.

Made him come in on the way back, and look at his multiple picture. Amused at his faint bridle when I said he was really still like his seven-year self underneath.

Sunday January 5 2003

A bit hung-over, not surprisingly, as we had a bottle of wine each.

In the p.m. to the big Tesco’s, for the first time and the last. Over-run and no lemons. Still a good stock-in all the same.

Monday January 6 2003

No outer invasion of tenants or workmen yet. Despite what he said on ‘phone, K arrived at 9.30, with bed and, more compellingly, his espresso machine. So I knew he was staying. Heaven tho’ hell as well. Started on kitchen and getting wood etc. in. Chicken breast, two and chicken thighs, six, for dinner.

Looked thro’ solicitor’s letters at 11.0. Comforting.

Tuesday January 7 2003

It’s torture, of course. This is the coldest day so far, more or less below freeing all day. The bathroom window and the garden-doors open all day. This seems a necessity for all practical work, even when it’s my nearest and dearest. Thank god for central heating, and the position of my bedroom, still bearable with the door shut.

Andy arrived at twenty to ten, - K had been at it since 7.30! – and I was nervous that K might take against him with one of his hates – like poor Tim W. – and a little later on, he did say, ‘He’s a bit slow, but …’

Later on, in the afternoon, I heard them positively chattering. Eavesdropping shamelessly and heard, just what I hoped, ‘There was a gig at…’ ‘No, Louise was with the bass player then and’ ‘The drummer gets really pissed off.’ Etc. Good. Musician chat.

Over lunch, dear old mushroom and bacon omelette, asked Andy about Louise and I was hoping she wasn’t a one-book wonder as G. St. Mc. is obviously partly personal. But I was delighted and admiring to find the she’s just got the gallery proofs of her next, which sounds entirely original, call The Big Blind.

To the shops at 5.35, just for a change.

‘K, there’s the cold chicken from last night, another breast and two thighs, and there are some, sausages. Which?’ ‘Both!’ He had the breast and four sausages.

Wednesday January 8 2003

More hell, but satisfying.K is gradually, fascinatingly, finishing the kitchen. Andy has taken all the cassettes down and piled them on the armchair in the loo alone… and started on the new video shelves in the utility-room. Extra strain to the day. As the book-room is closed to me, for Nigel’s friend, Paul – K.‘Is his name Varley?’ –I’m lying on the bed dozing and reading detect. – passing the time somehow, sustained by knowing this was probably the worst day.

K went off to pick up Paul V. about 7.15 after he rang to say he’d been to a film and was in S. Bush. Cool and a bit rude, as we had to put back dinner. In the end, it was put back even more, as the oven decided to play up, and went out obviously shortly after I put the guinea-fowl in. K and Paul didn’t bat an eyelid and went on having g&t’s until after nine. I can’t do that. I get past it, so did myself a couple of bits of trout and ate them in the drawing-room. There is something to be said for not knowing about conventions.

Paul himself is a character. Six feet four, and broad in proportion, a thickish very rapid Liverpool accent, and a distinct tendency not to listen. However, it’s partly his striking independence, which has enabled him to take in Nigel and bear with his very unstable behavior over some months. However, he had some better news, N did go back to work on Monday, came down at the right time, shaved and smartly dressed. So much to the good. Striking head, shaved, had a face like a brass bust, all straight lines and flat planes. Went to bed at half past ten, as I found him a bit difficult to hear, and a bit tiring. He’s a ‘good thing’ but not quite up my street.

Thursday January 9 2003

Paul and K stayed up talking, but P left at 10.30, quite fresh, and he and K had been out for the new olive green paint by nine o’clock! As he left, he said gracefully, ‘Thank you for your hospitality.’

I was sent off to buy sandwiches. The Co-op! Will they eat them? No cooking today, so showed K that smart folded card from the Crown and Sceptre, and we went there. Five mins. in the car. Pleasant-looking traditional corner pub ina residential area, no shops. No theme, thank goodness, no noticeable décor. About twenty small tables, not quite a restaurant. I had booked a table, though caught an odd note in the man’s voice. Still, there it was in a corner, a piece of paper with reserved scribbled on it, K facing the room and the bar. Waved for drinks, and a v. young man with parti-coloured hair and a pleasant manner, took our order and gave us a menu. I had wild-mushroom risotto and K had cod and chips, both good, and a better plate of cheese than the Brack, at which K also picked. Some really fresh apple. Two bottles of Sancerre £57. But when the young man brought the bill, he said quite nicely, ‘We don’t do table service.’ Now K had been facing the room, but doesn’t pick up social details, any more, oddly, than D ever did. I would have seen and commented on the people going up to collect their own food and drink. When I got up and turned round to go out, it was comic. The place was now full, and every table was full – and every couple were between thirty and forty-five, the age-group which I presume is largely responsible for the ‘gentrification’ of S. Bush in the last ten years. It seemed that every head turned as I walked to the door, many heads turned, and felt like Linda in Brave New World.

Lovely chats. Just like D, too, he can, when he wants to, but seems to think it a luxury… but how I enjoy it when it descends on me. And he came back home with me.

He saw a fox by the pub just after we went in.

Friday January 10 2003

The kitchen is painted. Oh how purging, that bottle-green is gone. Not a pleasant colour in itself, it screamed at the Adamish Green of the dining-room.

A sandwich lunch again. K revealed he is revolted by cucumber. I ate a leftover from yesterday, with a straight face, altho’ it had my revulsion in it, raw onion.

Oh so many things done. The videos are up in their new shelves, and the cassettes back in their old shelves, but in the wrong order despite Andy saying he’d kept them in order. Amused that the one row of pop now greets your eyes in the most prominent position. The loo shelves are painted, and books up in the wrong order.

K is so thorough, not only clears everything up (sometimes so that I don’t find it for some weeks) butcleans everything up. He was already tired. I was lying reading in the bedroom, out of the way… when first the Anglepoise went out. Then the main light went out. And came on. And went out again and K was going up and down the passage. Now we had trouble with the lights here and there, but not with the power. After a time he came in and said it wasn’t him doing some adjusting – he didn’t know. Eventually he found another trip switch in the cellar, which he attributed to Carrick. I hate him working so hard and getting so tired. He left at 6.15, having packed his car with a mass of stuff he left in the hall yesterday – ‘Are there any people upstairs yet?’ !...

I tried to thank him, what words are there?

After two and a half years, he took away those crates of tools in front of the nasty little chest of drawers that was in his room at St. Dunstan’s. Both drawers full of scripts and letters and ? That’s something to look forward to.

Saturday January 11 2003

Quiet day, enjoying all the changes. Satisfying pleasure going through the chest of drawers, and browsing thro’ the videos. What a lot I have.

Sunday January 12 2003

Pete Townshend accused of looking at child porn on the internet. Said he was researching for his autobiog. No doubt that’s what all the boys say. Now I hold no brief for rock-stars, not to mention pedophiles, but I so wonder what you have to go through to research pedophilia. I suppose you apply to the police etc. etc. What about freedom of speech? Not to mention scholarship. Pedophilia is a subject like any other. An enquiring mind might well ‘log-on’ or whatever it’s called, and get interested, and go onto contribute the definitive study of the subject. And something might be done about this perversion, which nobody seems to try to solve. That young enquiring mind would now be arrested.

Up at 4.30 a.m. for a pee, and heard a familiar cough – familiar from years ago at the cottage but never before here – a fox. Saw one trotting along past the gate, a vixen, no doubt, followed by a dog-fox. Poor Londoners would call the police.

Monday January 13 2003

Estate agent rang from B’mouth to ask why nothing was happening. Iwas out, and when I rang back she was on the ‘phone to Donald! When we spoke, I said ‘So you were talking to my brother?’ ‘Well, I was listening.’

J rang about C.Gdn tickets. April 21, Grand Tier. You can eat starter and main course before, and have rest in interval. Told me Antony Havelock-Allen has at last died, aged 98-9? I think it will be a relief to her. She had trying times with him over correspondence and his memoirs, and even more trying times with his rather neurotic Brazilian wife. I know it’s not easy nursing a ninety-nine year old husband, and perhaps that came into it, but she’s the sort of person who asks you to lunch ‘on Wednesday. Well, Thursday? Friday?’ and has taken J to a Chinese restaurant more than once, tho’ J has told her she doesn’t like Chinese food.

Started and am much enjoying Ann Thwaite’s biog. Of Edmund Gosse’s father, the naturalist. Most fascinating and readable. Has any fully educated man – he left school at fifteen – ever been a fundamentalist, believing every word of the bible to be literally true? And a natural historian too, a friend of Darwin? Poor chap, what a muddle he was in.

Tuesday January 14 2003

To H’smith, and standing in the queue at the P.O. saw the date, and suddenly thought, ‘It’s Lalla’s b’day. The first one since she’s been dead – no, the second.’ And again I cursed Donald. Had written to Angela Mann and Caroline Siells at the solicitors. What a bore it all is.

J had asked me to keep obits of A. H-A. Rang her to say, but she’s bought all the papers. Told me we’d got the tickets. Caught my balance at the bank, £2400. Just as well. Mild.

Wednesday January 15 2003

Rain. Call from Angela M. sending me a letter to send to D’s solc. as from me.

Covent Garden tickets arrive, rather beautiful. £77 each.

J tells me A. H-A’s son is arranging everything. ‘Is he responsible?’ ‘He’s a judge.’ No garden again. Still, it’s not dark till 4.40 now.

Thursday January 16 2003

Fine. Went into garden. Picked up all the bits of wood K left out there. Told me he’d left them, because of the electricity bother, and it had got dark. I at last pulled a good bag of that awful dog’s mercury, and brought it inside, only way to get rid of it. But real gardening. Ground soaked, so couldn’t go on beds. Fait weather, please. A bit of Gillian Taylforth’s This Is Your Life. Whatever else she hasn’t got, she has that extra vitality that makes a star name, if not a star actress. Final guest, Anna Scher. I thought she was probably a bit affected and she is.

Friday January 17 2003

Nothing from C. Sielle. Must do something about Mary L’s fucking Hoover.

Saturday January 18 2003

Walked in garden. At least positioned that poor camellia and the G. Thomas honeysuckle by the new trellis. Saw Agapanthus had survived, and olive. Good. Still sodden.

Sunday January 19 2003

On the Antique Road Show, a more or less middle-class woman, stunned the book man by bringing a pretty-well-filled diary for 1917, of Florence Hardy. Where did it come from to get to her, seventy-something years later? Odd woman, had inherited it from her sister, and knew F. Hardy’s maiden name, and Hardy was a famous novelist… Quite difficult to chart her possibly impenetrable stupidity. I’m thankful that his tentative and, I’m sure, considerable under-estimation at £10,000, put her completely and crudely out of countenance. Where had she been? Fav. moment. ‘Have you told the Hardy Society about this?’

Monday January 20 2003

Rang K over w/e, to get comfort and advice but no luck, and machine didn’t click in. He rang at lunchtime, thank goodness, and I poured it all out, a bit hysterically, as I hadn’t slept at all, and had had two glasses of wine… No use pretending I’m not worried on three tiresome fronts, none really important but they keep going round in my head. He was so sensible and kind, and jumped me right out of it by saying eventually, ‘Would it help to go and look at your lovely new kitchen?’ I shrieked and said ‘Oh yes, that some extremely kind young friend so sweetly did for nothing.’

Tuesday January 21 2003

Another famine, or rather two or three, in Africa. How awful and pathetic that they make less and less impact now that they seem to be endemic. It upsets me that nobody remembers our rule in so much of Africa, except to despise and utterly denigrate it. From my tiny indirect personal experience, I cannot believe that it was all bad. Indeed, I am pretty sure our parts of Africa were a great deal better off under us than they are now. For instance, when I think of Prim and Malk and Mary L in Nairobi for a season of complete security and peace, and certainly no starvation anywhere, but if I go back to the thirties, I think even more striking are the witnesses of the missionary nurses who came back to speak to us at St. George’s, either in public or just meeting them. They were the sort of women who might have been sisters in hospitals. They would never have countenanced dirt or lack of method for a minute. As for the peace for the country, they came back! and led a life in Africa away from their work of stifling Non-conformist conformity. And finally there was my uncle Will, whom I never met – possibly as well – my father’s youngest brother, who was a medical officer of health in Tanganyika. He was the only white man for two hundred and fifty miles in every direction, far from danger or unrest. He met and married a young girl of nineteen on one of his leaves. She stayed with us in 1940 in B’mouth, before flying out to be with him, where he felt she’d be safer.

A medical fact I didn’t know, and I saw on the screen. At a certain stage of starvation, African babies’ hair starts to turn brown. Would European brown hair turn blondish?

A do-it-yourselfex-foliate for dry skin, lemon juice, oil and sea salt.

Wednesday January 22 2003

‘Phone. Warm Jamaican voice, saying she’d ring again. B’ground noise surely from BBC record library. Caribbean section. Didn’t catch any name, so perhaps not Carrick, just wrong number and an expensive one no doubt.

Thursday January 23 2003

Fine! Suddenly saw Angela Down, in a children’s series, for the first time for twenty? years. Very middle-aged round the mouth. Such a good actress. Where has she been? She was so prominent years ago.

Friday January 24 2003

No garden again. Too tired.

Saturday January 25 2003

Still stuck in inertia, and my troubles. To local shops.

Sunday January 26 2003

D’s b’day. Unbelievably her 90th. Another programme about motor neurone disease. A poor man, completely paralysed, tho’ he could talk better than D, going to Switzerland, where he can legally be helped to commit suicide. His wife of 50 years a quiet painful dignity. I wonder what state I’d be in if I’d had to look after her for forty years. I hope I wouldn’t have failed her.

Later to Brook Green. Ordered the cab yesterday, so was half amused when a large white, mini-bus turned up, just like the ones that take OAP’s on hospital visits. He produced a small plastic box for me to step on to get in, so I felt I was quite keeping up the character. Quite funny, makes me wonder about the firm, ‘Only car available!...’

Wrote Sielle again, and renewed my Kew ticket.

Prince Charles’ garden at Highgrove, a perfect programme. I’m sure they’ll find a way to rubbish it. Personally I love to see someone who can enjoy a perfect garden perfectly kept. Caught parts of an episode of Fawlty Towers. Never to my taste, and even less after working with J. Cleese. His insults are real insults, his paranoia is real paranoia, and he has forgotten, or is unable, to transmute them into art. I looked into his eyes and he wasn’t really there.

To think she’d be 90. I miss her every day.

Monday January 27 2003

At last got in the garden, even tho’ the soil is still, in places, sodden and/or impacted, lightish tho’ it is. At last planted that poor camellia, and positioned the Graham Thomas honeysuckle. Four ferns behind the lilacs, in front of the floodlights box. Also three half-sprouted Madonna lilies – oh dear – in front of the myrtle. Well, it’s not my fault. They may recover next year, and look good against the dark glossy m. They’re so awkward anyway, they may surprise me. It’s so long since I did any, I felt a bit faint when I came in, not dizzy, just overdone from unusual exercise.

Tuesday January 28 2003

It’s gone cold now. Oh, for some ordinary blowy open winter weather with a bit of sun.

Rang Mary L to start the vacuum repair. She has always been a mistress of the put- off and put-down, but this time, on an incredulously rising inflection, ‘I can’t talk right now, I’m about to have an enema.’ Of course. I should have known.

K rang to see what was happening. Talked it over. Lovely. He made a curious noise, three times, and I never twigged it was A’s version of Pescador. They went to it, and ‘The fish is incredible. When can I take you there?’

Wednesday January 29 2003

Woke at 1.30. Peed three times. Shall I worry? God knows.

People upstairs about eleven. Very quiet. Saw two men leave. Workmen?

Rang a vacuum repair firm and made an apt. for Mary L’s Hoover, and Town Hall for MP’s name to register the Carrick debt.

Rang Mary after the repairman’s visit. Belt gone, and it’s not a year old.

Over my g&ts, I added up my troubles, the b’mouth sale, the Carrick debt, the boxes of unplanted plants, the new people upstairs who may be hell, Mary L’s Hoover! And I felt angry, because none of them is of my own making or fault.

Thursday January 30 2003

Snow. About three inches. Didn’t go to Chiswick, as am not sure enough of my feet. More (the same?) people upstairs. Just looking, I presume, as no sound.

Is another sign of old age a sudden virtuosity in tummy rumbling? Sitting up in bed last night, I thought someone was breaking into the flat…

Friday January 31 2003

Too treacherous to go out. I think that’s the first time weather has really kept me in. If I slipped I couldn’t save myself.

A workman upstairs, moving and banging, but for about twenty minutes. Didn’t take anything away. What was he doing?

Forgot to note during the work – K forbidding me to ‘wander about’. Did so and upset a tin of paint. Dear Andy scooped it into the dust-pan – happily much the same colour, and I slunk back to the book-room. K came back and heard, and put his head round the door and said, ‘Yes, you sit quietly there and read. You’ve been a very naughty boy.’

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 181

February 1 2003 - May 3 2003.

Saturday February 1 2003

No sleep at all, really. Possible bladder infection. Arranged my funeral, and ran thro’ all financial arrangements uselessly. Oh well, even if I don’t live to avoid inheritance tax, he’ll get a nice wodge.

Wryly comic traffic scene. Huge traffic jam on something called ‘The Em Eleven’, with motorists sitting there for eighteen hours, from the moment they left their offices early at three thirty, to avoid the difficult conditions, till the time they get home, some time today. I really believe the vast mass of people have now no real perception of the actual world. Air-conditioning pursues them, and without it they gasp, like fish out of water. No doubt the road people were inexpert. (Tho’ I am amused that all the complaints are on the lines of ‘The Scandinavians have ten inches… and cope…’ Goodness, how cross they’d be, if such arrangements were kept on tap, and used for a week every now and then. Do they not look at the everyday weather map, with nasty floods in Belgium and NE France, and U.K. mildly nothing? I sometimes think that’s what they can’t bear, the nothingness of our climate, and symbol of the glory of the British character.) But I’m sure that the complaint that the roads hadn’t been gritted in time, was at least in part, the result of motorists rushing to get ahead and creating the jam. The keynote of the car obsession if selfishness, sitting in the grand privacy in a luxury and dismissing everyone else. Until that is looked at, there’ll be no progress. And of course it’s bedevilled by the tiresome Americaninfluence. Motorists expect American standards of traffic movement without American space. Already that dreadful American restlessness is more and more dominant here.

Mary Ellis had died, at 105. Extraordinary link. Never mind Ivor Novello in the ‘30s. She divorced her third husband then. He was Basil Sydney, Claudius in L.O’s Hamlet film, and the lead in my first tour in 1952, Treasure on Pelican. Perfect for Claudius, a ‘profile’ with a weak mouth. But even more extraordinary, she was the original Rose Marie on Broadway – she was American. But the most extraordinary, she was the last living singer who created a role in a Puccini Opera, Suor Angelico, part of Il Tritico in 1919! The year my parents were married. People said she was a monster, but they say that about anyone and everyone. J worked for her, over her autobiog. I think, I suppose ten or fifteen years ago, and said she was delightful. But then J wasn’t an actor or actress in competition on the stage. She had a good voice, but was wise to go into operetta and musicals. Light, with beautiful soft top notes.

Snoozed this p.m. and again slept into illusion. Lay down at about two, woke at 6.20, and took my watch off and wound it and thought a long night of insomnia lay ahead, until I saw all the houses lit up, I still had my socks on, felt rested, and it was nearly time for my first g&t.

Sunday February 2 2003

One of the space planes has crashed and killed all seven crew. But I hardly feel the whole of the ITV news should be devoted to it. How easily American hysteria transfers itself around the world. About the deaths, I am sad up to a point, but only to the point that none of them need have gone, in just the same way that the deaths of Antarctic Explorers leaves me, and them, quite cold.

As for space trips, I have yet to have any evidence that it is any use to anyone. Poor old yanks, they know you go on exploring but don’t know when it’s pointless.

To big Tesco. No mini-bus. A pleasantly chatty driver, some failures in his life, I guess. I felt better, and did a good future shop, £60, and filled the freezer. Two pheasant pieces and a guinea-fowl. Antiques Road Show at Sherbourne School, whose head master wanted me to go there in 1938.

Monday February 3 2003

Workmen today. Mass of rubbish in front. Ugh, but I can’t say anything, after our mess.

Rang K re solicitors etc. Asked him at last what was a good time to ring. 6.0 I choose because he seems to be cooking or washing-up, as he was today. But if he has a session, it’s a v. bad time. Twelve is better before he starts. Good. We talked it all through, and he was good and kind and warm. He wants me to fight, tho’ he knows how I dislike it.

Goes to S’s play this week. ‘Anything else?’ Yes, lend me another £2000, to get thro’ this ghastliness.

Tuesday February 4 2003

Michael Jackson programme - a big interview by the same creature who did that Princess Diana thing, a good indicaction that both of them deserve each other. I only saw two bits of it on the news or somewhere. Imagine watching all of it! The poor creature is completely unbalanced and out of touch with any sort of reality. His spokesman here is the spoon-bender Uri Geller… it seems that 67% of English viewers thought better of M.J after the documentary than before. Well, how long have I been saying commonsense is vanishing from the earth? M.J is an American idol…

Later. Some old famous group returning - suddenly Catherine Porter singing with them. Not more than a snatch, but it was thrilling. She had her hair done properly, and she photographed much better than I expected. Rang K, excitedly to tell him. A little dashed that he wasn’t there, but then I thought he was where she was.

Wednesday February 5 2003

To H’smith. Bought three books, the novel about Nureyev, one of the Braun detec. I haven’t got – lucky, as I only need three, out of twenty-three. And a biog. of Gary Cooper, published last year, and in a sale box, 75% off. The Nureyev thing I got really for Mary L. – after all, Margot F did drop in during Quiet Weekend – as I was v. chary of it, and, flipping tho’ it now, even more chary.

Bought a pheasant, and tonight tried one of the expensive pheasant pieces from Tesco. Skinless, and grilled, tasted approx. 75% less than a whole one. Hm.

Started flipping thro’ the Gary Cooper. Not a stupid show-biz affair, but a pedestrian faintly academic Yank affair. G.C stayed at the Hotel Savoy on visiting London…. Still, I did find out he was entirely English in origin, quite believable thinking of his reserved personality, and looks. What a lot of terrible films.

Thursday February 6 2003

The two bags of rubble left by K’s visit, I dragged near to yesterdays leftovers, and the special council collection early today, very prompt, and they took them thinking they were part of it. Good.

Today, lots of huge banging and dragging apparently huge what? across the floor, front filled again with rubble, and a large iron sheet. What was that?

Found they’d used one of the terracotta window-boxes as a gate-stop, and left it there when they went. I shall leave a note tomorrow. Oh how I hate workmen.

Friday February 7 2003

Now the Yanks react to the Jackson thing. California oozing all over it. But a sharp looking girl in New York redeemed America for me momentarily, by saying ‘He’s an idiot. An idiot with a lot of money.’

To Chiswick at last, to check Café Pasta which is still in the directory. Gone some months ago. Went to the antique market in the old cinema also at last. Ground floor seems all one shop, - an unmissable middle-aged queen welcomed me. I had come up against an elaborate tinted photograph by Vandyk from the ‘30s.Ellaline Terriss, I think. Asked me whether it was ’20s or ‘30s, astonishing ignorance. After all, he was fifty?, and surely knows the difference between the short skirts of the ‘20s and the long of the ‘30s. Well, he asked me, which is something. Asked him about book- slides. He had two in a glass case, v. elaborate, brass chasings etc., one was £395… To shops, Blue Vinny and Mulleen, not the Irish Mullien tho’ the young man had poor English, let alone Irish. Globe artichokes. Halibut, potted shrimps, red mullet.

A report on Iraq from Downing St. Complaints on all sides, because part of it is verbatim from a report by a student twelve years ago! How wide the spread of illiteracy is! Perhaps it is a mistake of some kind, but there was a very distinct assumption that anything twelve years old couldn’t be relevant or true.

Dear little ten minutes film about an English film prop-maker. A big-faced wonderfully laconic teeth-maker, ‘You have to ask “what do goblin or fairly teeth look like?” Teeth are his thing, vampires, werewolves and so on.’ But subtler worryingly irregular everyday madmen, I would show this to the entire American continent as an antidote to hysteria.

Saturday February 8 2003

No workmen thank goodness. Polite letter from Council man to whom I wrote about the Banham lock. So K was wrong about councils.

Had the two globe artichokes for lunch. So delicious, I forget to pour a glass of wine. The little scrapes on each leaf, getting more and more tasty as you approach the choke, and then the tussle with the ‘choke – which is why you must cook it for at least three-quarters of an hour if it’s any size – and the delicate luscious buttery thing.

Rang K at ten to twelve. Still in bed. Rang at fiveish to say S’s play was ‘Terrific.If it comes into the West End, you should see it.’ Now he isn’t by any means a special fan of S’s, and has been harder on his over-acting than I have ever been.

Sunday February 9 2003

Pouring all day again. No garden. Torture.

Judi D. isn’t to do the David hare on B’way. It is, everyone says, a much less good part than Maggie Smith. A pity for M.S. as it will need so much more effort to transfer.J gave me one or two insights – that, for instance J.D. is thought never to read a script before accepting. Well, possibly, specially lately. Perhaps Michael chose for her. Well, my guess is that she’ll have a bad time soon, as she seems to have put her grief off. Partly for her daughters perhaps? From my small but actual personal knowledge of both – a fortnight in a TV series with Michael and D’s time with her in Too True To Be Good, and a long lunch at Biannchi’s with just Judi and D and me, I’d say she depended on him more completely than she realised. Certainly, just looked at from the outside, she has blinded herself with work since he died.

Monday February 10 2003

The B’mouth agent, Ann, rang and said she’d asked around, and per. we could write to Mr. Lloyd, the head of the firm. I thought of the Law Society. Rang back, she’s a good thing.

Hazel rang to tell of the BBC radio play about B. Pym, starring Penelope Wilton.

K’s £2000 loan cheque arrived, how good is he?

Tuesday February 11 2003

On qui vive all the time re events upstairs. Leapt out of bed at whirring engines - saw large removal size van outside, with Argos on it. Well, Argos may have gone into removals. More and more, every firm does everything. Watched it with engine throbbing, and while I did, a robin perched on the new front trellis with a leaf in its beak. Flew off and came back. Twice. Nesting in February? The van went tamely off. Either delivering or more likely, having mistaken the cul-de-sac. No workmen.

J rang re car firm for Easter Mon. £100 for night. I think she got special terms - a firm Stephanie P used! – That is for the whole evening. A relief.

Wednesday February 12 2003

Workmen upstairs again, some banging and sawing, bangs on floor as bits of wood fell off. Kitchen surfaces? Only till lunch. Rang dear China search and a good brass plate firm.

Thursday February 13 2003

No workmen, a poor treat by my own. Felt energetic enough to take that puffer coat that I found on the dustbin, and couldn’t get the Salvation Army interested in, to the Oxfam Shop, and a shop around. How many months is it since I found that coat? Before Christmas surely. So the taxi dropped me in Leamore Street, and I went bravely burdened with the coat, quite an armful, and a full heavy bag of paperbacks – to find Oxfam ‘closed for re-fit.’ Oh, the comfort of money and paying in K’s £2000. Took a taxi straight to Chiswick Oxfam, and back. I could hardly carry them to the taxi-rank. No books in Books Etc., two weeks’ pension, Tesco.

Back here, at last a letter from A Mann, - they have had some bumf from Donald’s dread solicitor at last, and I hope it will move to a completion. Solicitors are hell, too.

Friday February 14 2003

Despite all my worries, have I entered another cycle of good nights? For no discernible reason? Last night woke to pee at half one-ish. Woke finally at ten past five. Seven hours sleep. ‘Last night’ was Wed. night!

Last night woke to pee about three. Woke again at seven twenty. Nine hours with two pees, after all I drink. No workmen yesterday or today but I didn’t know that, so my subconscious couldn’t have smouldered away.

Saturday February 15 2003

No workmen, but a another big van hovered. But went meekly away.

Roy rang! and apologised for not doing so before. Inspirits. A pity he cannot ring when he’s depressed. Still, I’m pleased. The pilot seems to have been a success, not that it’s gone out yet. At least they’ve asked him to write some follow-up episodes. A relief. I felt I needed a comfortingly funny book. Plucked down N. Mitford’s letters, and amazed to find it’sten years since it was published. Most enjoyable.

Message on mach. from M.L. about the wretched Hoover. It hasn’t occurred to her to ring about it herself though she saw the engineer.

Huge march in protest about Iraq-war. The largest, over a million. As far I know, I have never known anyone who went on a protest march.

Sunday February 16 2003

Finished the letters, and skimmed thro’ the H. Acton memoir. Valuable as a source and for atmosphere, but fairly inadequate because of his old maidishness and useless reticence. Not to mention his removal from reality thro’ his inheritance and money.

H rang. Usual agreeable gossip, except for, apropos of I forget quite what, she said that she and Joy ‘Have to have someone (each other) to complain to about our husbands.’ ‘Or you might murder him?’ ‘Exactly.’ She has noidea how distasteful this was to me. How painful to find that even someone like H feels it acceptable to betray a husband like that. We never did. I never, did and I know that D never did either.

Monday February 17 2003

Celebrated my fifty-fifth wedding anniversary by finding the workmen had switched off the water in the kitchen, bathroom and loo, without warning. Charming. A young black man, in plaster dust from head to foot, wanted to look round, did so, and attempted to explain the water-system to me. Like all workmen they cannot understand why an interruption is so maddening, because they have no thought to be interrupted.Got over it eventually. They’ll be back tomorrow. Left note saying ‘Tell me so I can go out. Please write on the page and…’

Rang M.L. re Hoover. Very trying. Even she thought I deserved something nice. I must be low.

Tuesday February 18 2003

I’d left the note on the stairs, and said put it on my mat. They did, with nothing on it. If you have people with such low standards of convenience themselves, I suppose this is what you expect. How impractical practical people are. They can never tell you how long a job will take or what it will entail. Not very practical to disrupt my life unnecessarily.

Plucked down N. Mitford’s letter, and am re-reading them with great pleasure. Amazed to find it’s ten years since they were published. No garden again.

Later. Dear Pat from my cab company rang to see why I hadn’t used them lately.

Wednesday February 19 2003

Quiet workmen – painting, decorating? - all day.

Dear Tim rang apologetic as usual, tho’ even more inappropriate than usual. He’s getting married. Imagine, he’s made a decision. Helen Grace. I was so delighted. He’s sending me an invitation, but made it very clear that I didn’t have to go, he’d really understand. And he really would, I’ve never cared for weddings and wedding receptions even less. I don’t think I could sit or stand thro’ either now, and I saw some ominous names on the guest list. A lovely talk which rather galvanised me (or is it z?) Wrote for the brass plate, the electric bill, wrote to dear Pat and rang him to say. Decided on writing-paper.

Thursday February 20 2003

Quiet workmen again. Left at 4ish. Why?

Put clean sheets on bed, and gardened again at last. Planted the Graham Thomas honeysuckle up the new trellis where next door’s ceanothus was. Let’s hope it’ll keep their noses out eventually. It’s within sight of the Graham Thomas rose. Planted two more Hart’s Tongues to make three in the fern bed, and cleared the cyclamen patch, and the herb bed by the French doors.

K rang, so Lovely. Sounded a bit blurred, as he does when he’s been at it for days on end, ‘Up to my eyes.’ Suggested possible dinner at the Portuguese place I told A. about, at weekend. See what A. is doing. At this point, he said there was someone at the door. Turned out to be A., whose hands were ‘too cold to get the key.’ He said he’d ring at w/e. I thought there was something a bit off. Well, 9-5 doesn’t go with a creative life.

Friday February 21 2003

J rang to ask for the cast of ‘Easy Virtue.’ As always, in that period, there are at least ten more people than you remember in the cast. 1926. 19 people, and seven or eight ‘guests’ at dance – one of whom was Laurier Lister…

Discussion about the teaching of sex to school-children, perhaps even oral sex. Parent on telephone, ‘We already ram sex down children’s throats.’….

Tied up Gloire de Dijon on its new trellis. Started to open boxes of plants. Iris ledger heeled in, a bit yellow but will survive I think. Cleared L hand bed. Good. Tired. And planted wood anemones. Pruned Dogwood to go more upwards. 15 Regale pack looks intact. Madonnas looking etiolated, are transformed to green, and maysurvive in this warm garden. Tireder. Aching after only an hour.

Saturday February 22 2003

Tired and achy. No garden. Managed to take down and clean out bird-feeder. I put bacon-rind in, and they weren’t touched. Had to poke out a blackened rubbery mess, with a skewer and a lot of bother. Filled it with the nuts I bought at that vegetable stall in Chiswick, - well, seeds more than nuts. I hope the birds patronise it this time. It’s recommended by the RSPB, and is a cage with the seed column in a smaller cage inside. A pile of seed spilt on ground as well, so let’s see. Saw that robin again yesterday. I’d like a resident robin.

Dear Pat rang in answer to my letter. He was really flattered by getting it, and I hope it’ll be all right now.

No word from K. A bit glad really, as I don’t like going out at weekends.

Sunday February 23 2003

Managed at last to pot the bay and laurustinus in the big pots out front. Bending over the bag of compost and trowelling it into a bucket, and trowelling it round the shrubs, made my back ache to the point where I could only do the two.

No word from K.

Monday February 24 2003

Mislaid/ lost torch. Not on left bed-post…

J upset in the stomach on the ‘phone, - after two sentences she was either too busy or just had to be sick. I wouldn’t blame her for either.

Put in a drinks order to Oddbins. Forgot it and went to the shops. Back here. Rang Oddbins to apologise ‘Could the driver come now?’ ‘No, he’s gone home.’ Struggled out to the shops for a bottle of gin. Just as I was halfway thro’ my gin, the bell rang- the driver had had a flat tyre. He hadn’t come before. Told him and Oddbins that I’d locked myself out. Oddbins said ‘What a nightmare.’

Tuesday February 25 2003

Gardened. Planted seven Iris Ledger’s variety, saved, I hope, from the wreck. Started clearing the big bed. Red camellia out. Dug LH bed for Coronilla. Did nearly an hour. When I think of the cottage…

Spent most of the day without the central heating. Therm. stayed at 68º

Rang Pat for car tomorrow. A meticulous reception. Hope it works.

Wednesday February 26 2003

K’s b’day. 42.

The car arrived on time, that big Mercedes and that tall black man, one of the very best of the drivers whom I hadn’t seen for months before I left the firm. He said he’d said ‘What about Angus?’ one day. Well. Stuck on the fly-over as usual.Why do they go on it, except that ‘a freeway’ – ha, ha- still excites drivers. However it didn’t matter- he is very sensible and we found the restaurant quickly. A curved small- paned bay, and A and K waving from the window-table. Tottered in, and saw it was not at all full, three or four tables, I think, tho’ hugging them both meant I saw nothing behind me till l left. A. looked older, slightly thinner in the face, slight lines by her mouth, six months responsibility and five staff? But still chic and loving and warm. His hair looked good, the right length to make it fall in its natural and handsome waves at the front. The talk, of which I remember little, warmed me right through, and I gave him a freshly made will, so at least he got a sort of birthday present.

The menu was in a plastic envelope, with suspiciously large choice in every department, and all the entrées followed by ‘with potatoes and two vegetables.’ They didn’t have starters so I didn’t – a pity, as starters are a test – I ordered halibut, grilled, broccoli and chips. (When did I last have chips? A year ago? Eighteen months?...) they ordered similar – A dried cod, gave me a bit to taste, ‘like smoked haddock.’ (It isn’t dried is it? but it’s universal there.) My grilled halibut was perfect, crisp full chips, broccoli a little underdone for me, tho’ K said it was still ‘murdered.’ All perfectly acceptable. Niceish Portug. wine and A. chattering away in Portuguese to the polite waiter–maitre.But it took an hour to arrive. Now I said the place was emptyish and I saw some other customers come in, but still… of course it didn’t matter to me. Because a fortnight in their company is an hour. And it was cheap, as things go now.

One moment I hope I brought off, when she said she was only staying a year at the job, and they ranged round a place in France. I pinched my hands and got over it.

The car was there all beautifully, and I swept away, feeling loved, as I hope he did.

Thursday February 27 2003

Didn’t sleep at all. Why? No reason that I can tell. Plucked down a P. Partridge for comfort. Did nothing I should.

Friday February 28 2003

Didn’t sleep at all.

An hour or two dozing during the p.m. Otherwise, ditto.

Saturday March 1 2003

Tired. Advancing thro’ Partridge.

Sunday March 2 2003

To Tesco.£57. That will fix me up for a bit. Another nice driver I haven’t seen for months. Still Partr.

Monday March 3 2003

Got menu for Covent Gdn. Rang J and had a chat about it. What is Avocado tian? J says D. Rigg has retired to South of France.

Still exhausted.

Tuesday March 4 2003

Much banging. Then – after they’d gone, water dripping from the utility room ceiling. This, at nine-ish. Rang the emergency Council line, and was sent their emergency plumber. He arrived, a bit too smooth for my liking, quite young. He had, of course, no key for the first-floor flat, so had to send for the emergency locksmith. Nearly two hours later, during which, I imagine, he and the locksmith had a quite a drink together, he said the drip had stopped. I forgot to say that the cold water in the bathroom and lavatory had been off. ‘Is it on again?’ ‘Yes.’ I went and ran the taps as he watched.

Wednesday March 5 2003

Taps ran dry. He must have known. Rang Mark Bishop, the black Housing Officer at 9.0, and burst out at him.‘You’ll have your water back on in half an hour.’ Couldn’t bear the whole thing, and went out, leaving them with the impression that I was going to work! Jacket and umbrella. To H’smith, already hot with rage and worry. Pension, books, shopping. To J’s for refuge. Shirt and vest soaked. Stripped and hoped they’d dry out and not smell, if I lit the gas-fire, and didn’t hang them too close. Had bought snack lunch at Tesco. Smoked salmon ‘parcels’ – a bit of mousse. Two boiled eggs. Chicory. A bit pricier bottle of wine. I hoped for a snooze but J’s new sofa is no use for that, having no back or much arm. Squirmed on it without comfort suddenly feeling utterly exhausted, and knew I must get home and lie down whatever else happened. A carrier bag of books, the remains of my meal, and stick. I looked ahead and wondered if I could get there. Sat down twice in bus shelters on the way. Lay down and got up when the bell rang at five-ish. Now water back, of course. Ghastly little creature middle-aged talker. Said the water was back and it was. Told me the ceiling would drip for a bit, but stop quite soon.

Came in at 7.30 to get dinner, still dripping. After dinner, suddenly became aware it was running like a tap. Rang emergency plumber again, same suspicious smoothie. I’m upset. He reduced the flow, and said it would stop. It did, half an hour later. Half an hour later, half the ceiling fell in. A piece of ceiling a couple of inches thick and five feet by four, a mass of rubble and a lot of wet black slurry. Rang K. He was so sorry many times. Coming tomorrow. What could he do tonight? Or me? Or the fucking council?

Thursday March 6 2003

Didn’t sleep at all. K at 9.0. Gave me a hug and I cried. It was so comforting to have him here. He took command. Video’d the damage, spoke to the councilman and thoroughly interviewed the wretched little foreman. Rang Angela Mann. We can sue. He moved the woodshed for when the pipe is repaired, so its contents are in the dining-room. Two youngish men pushed in to look at the damage half an hour earlier than anyone said, as I wasn’t there. I was in the middle of lunch and had indigestion all the p.m. When they came back to clear everything up they were more cringing with plenty of sirs. I suddenly realised they’d thought I was a council tenant before. Loathsome. Shut myself in my bedroom, saying Close the door behind you and put my earplugs in. Went to sleep and heard nothing.

Friday March 7 2003

They cleared up in a basic way, but much depressed to find fine plaster dust all over the bathroom, and the kitchen and dining-table.

Started re-reading the Hart-Davis Lyttleton letters with much escapist pleasure.

Flash of an archaeological programme with some idiot dressed up as an English archer. Still, interesting, reckoned some five thousand plus arrows would be shot at a battle. Where are they all? Makes you feel you couldn’t have a picnic without sitting on one.

How odd is memory. I don’t know what made me wonder about it. Where did we get our hair cut at school? Like the tuck-shop, there must have been a barber at Uppingham completely dependent on the school, but I have no memory of it at all, odd, at a time when one’s memory is so keen. After all, I can remember Austin Reed’s from 1940.

K rang. They’re coming tomorrow to help, Arlete as well. Oh so wonderful. It’s not just the help – he’s going to be here when I feel so exposed and angry.

Dear Arlete to want to help.

Saturday March 8 2003

They arrived at three-ish and they’ve just gone at ten-thirty. I have done nothing but cook the dinner, and I am exhausted. They have worked non-stop from three till seven-thirty. She cleaned the entire bathroom, all the bits and pieces in the dining- room, he wiped and dusted all the books and cassettes and videos and surfaces in the utility room. How can you thank someone for such help, all done for love?

Guninea-fowl for dinner. They never seem to want a starter or pudding. But I glory in him finishing and picking at the bird without asking, as his right.

He played At The Drop Of A Hat to her ‘because it’s so English’ – he really loves it, and Donald’s clever music. Shrieks – more shrieks when he confessed he lost the will-form. Freud? Doesn’t he want the flat?! Heavenly.

Sunday March 9 2003

Forget to say there were workmen yesterday till two, and today in the p.m. with a bit of banging. Is that allowed? To invade the weekend?

To ‘my rest’ after dear H’s call, during which I gave her a carefully edited account of my misery, with K and A. as a triumphant finale, and slept form 3.30 to 6.45. This can’t go on! And as I took my second mouthful of dinner, there was a power-cut again. Which lasted for an hour and half. Hurried round with candles. So different to go on reading now, unlike cottage times.

Monday March 10 2003

No men upstairs, I think. Nothing to register, anyway. Still Hart-Davising with much mild pleasure.

Rest two o’clock, woke at six. Oh dear. I must stop this. On the other hand, I must have some sleep.

Adam Faith dead at 62, and Barry Sheen at 57. Some observations. Selfish pleasure at just having lived longer, especially than two men, who, I’m sure ‘went to gyms.’ Being on the series ‘Budgie’, talking to Adam F’s wife in the canteen, for half an hour or so with pleasure, and him joining us and half attacking me with a bit of verbal bullying and jeering. I suppose such behavior possibly to be expected from his background. The only reason I remember it, is that, as with a few other memorably rude moments, he offered it to me with no previous acquaintance or knowledge of what I was like. Vide A Lloyd-Webber, David Hare etc.

But the most depressing thing was their deaths were items on the national news – a second rate pop-singer and third rate actor and bankrupt ‘financial wizard’ and a motorbiker. And then they say ‘dumbing down’ doesn’t exist. The very illiterate phrase is its own proof.

Tuesday March 11 2003

A young man, 18, found dead, after wandering off during a fairly wild night, I suppose, in wasteland between two buildings in Pall Mall. It is believed he had been there for three weeks.

Three weeks! Waste land in Pall Mall!!

K rang a.m. to say the men were doing the pipe-repair without coming over the fence, taking the ladder through one of the first-floor windows. What a relief.

Sat down to order Tim W’s wine wedding-present, and thought I’d dropped my credit-card in mid order. Couldn’t find it – worrying. Cancelled it at once, and got back to nice Berry Bros. and said I’d send a cheque. Rang dear Tim to see when it should be sent. They are having a honeymoon, so I’m sending it in first week of April. I’m so glad he’s made up his mind to a real decision, and hope it’ll be a happy one.

After my nap, about five-thirty, the men gone, I went out quite convinced they’d done nothing, as I hadn’t hear a sound or a movement. And there was a new pipe, and no plants flattened. Amazing.

Started Lees-Milne for more comfort. Hoped to shop or garden, and did neither.

Wednesday March 12 2003

Frightfulness. Rang K to tell him of the pipe etc. He sounded croaky, quiet. ‘Oh dear, did I wake you up?’ ‘No, no, Nigel’s killed himself, I’ll speak to you later, darling - ’ and we rang off.

What do I feel? Pain for K mainly – but for the girl and the little boy – relief that it’s over because I couldn’t see what else could happen, - ashamed as also a certain excitement. All my times with N running like a film I can’t turn off, the fourteen years old at St. Dunstan’s for three and a half years without speaking. The white face coming up Baron’s Court tube steps after the Heysel Affair, living with me for three months. Coming up to K’s those times, with four other ‘lads’ getting determinedly drunk, with a great deal of laddish unhumour and forced laughter. But I can’t recall any talk of other people and their characters, no perception of other people except of the most surface kind. I always had the feeling that the great ebullience and pushy ‘fun’ was a surface a long way from whatever was the ‘real’ Nigel. Now that reality has come up from the depths and destroyed him. Those days at Hay showed me he really had no perception of other people, and that he was a lost cause. I hope at last he had that last little bit of consideration to kill himself somehow without traumatising some innocent chambermaid, or, worse, a friend.

Poor darling K, he had always looked after him tenderly, the only member of the family he could really love, his little brother. I fear he will blame himself in some way, tho’ there was nothing to do more than he did. However rational one is, there is always a feeling of fault. And oh dear, there’ll have to be an inquest and Phil will be busying about, and it’ll all drag on. It’s awful to feel relief but of course I do with the increasing threat of upset and who knows what?

Later K rang. Said he was ‘O.K.’ He’d come to John Lewis tomorrow when I was buying the Hoover for Mary L, ‘and we’ll look for a sofa and you can ask about the curtains.’ Didn’t say much else.

Thursday March 13 2003

Rearranged my life and wondered about a taxi, so, at twelve, having heard nothing. Rang K to see what was, or wasn’t, happening. He said he must have been mad to suggest it, he’d cancelled all his music engagements. Did his best to pull a bit of his brain to me saying Don’t forget to get a sample of that pink material. Touching.

My p.m. snooze lasted from 1.30 – 5.30. Bother. Spectator today. Not a book I wanted to open, let alone buy.

K rang before dinner, to ask how it went, of course I didn’t go because of credit-card, apart from anything else. Told me that N. hanged himself in Paul Whitaker’s house, a fine return for kindness, and friendship. Sian is ‘bearing up’ – the phrases that turn up, - and hasn’t told Charley yet. Poor child, it may mess up the rest of his life. ‘Shall I write?’ ‘Yes, to her and Paul.’

Friday March 14 2003

Wrote Paul W. and Sian. Split in bathroom ceiling bigger. Rang K to tell him so, in case the workman rang him. Two sentences. Credit came, but still further delay for pin no. to be sent, and activated. The words that occur to illiterate people.

Gardened at last. And a last unwrapped the poor plants. Planted Garrya Ellip Euphorbia out, and two vitis cissus striata. Planted coronilla, which looks sad, but has a branch, so may survive.

Saturday March 15 2003

Started clearing r, hand bed. Strawberries as an extensive weed.

Rang H to say ring in week, in case K. rings.

Sunday March 16 2003

A patch of fine weather, thank goodness. Hoped K would ring, but no. Too wobbly to garden as well as shop.

Later.

Of course, I didn’t expect him to come round and throw himself sobbing into my comforting arms. But I do sit and think of him and Nigel in that childhood together, and I suppose I think I could be of some comfort if I had the chance. But probably not. Poor K. He is in pain.

Monday March 17 2003

Rang K at 12.0, exact transcript of conversation. ‘How are you?’ ‘All right, I’m getting through it.’ ‘So when are you going away?’ ‘Wednesday. Funeral is Friday.’ ‘Shall I send any flowers?’ ‘No, no, of course not.’ ‘Oh well, I – give my love to them, to Ernie.’ ‘Bye.’

Did some local shopping. Emptied the window-boxes at last. All I could manage today.

There’s one thing about a phony war. It only takes a minute to read the papers.

Tuesday March 18 2003

K rang. Off tomorrow, and perhaps over weekend. ‘I worry so much about you.’ ‘You don’t need to.’ ‘I can’t help it.’ And rang off. I’m a fool.

Of course I can’t tell him that I see the rail, air and road crashes as I don’t know which way he’s going. ‘Sad double tragedy’ – what it is to have a hair trigger imagination. My mother and daddy’s mother coming out. And in the middle I laugh.

Wednesday March 19 2003

To the chiropodist at last. On South Park, in Bedford Park, a large Edwardian house and beside it, a smart surgery, an OK-yah receptionist. A large fortyish man in a grey sweater came to look at appointments, and a minute later called me, some minutes early. A sort of dentist’s chair, only with raised rests for one’s legs. Man like an amiable rugger-forward. Looked at the soles of my feet for some minutes, like an art critic with a painting. Fiddling with the masses of dry skin, all corrugated, on my heels.

Said the nail which came off my left big toe last night was due to fungal disease! Picked bits off with a scalpel rather desultorily, and finally said I should rig up two scrubbing brushes to rub my feet on after soaking them, to get enough of the skin off so that he could treat it with some ointment whose name he scribbled on a piece of paper, along with the fungal remedy Phytex, which I already had. ‘Come back when you’ve got a lot of the skin off.’ And for that he charged £40. Hm.

I’d ordered the cab for 10.30 for apt at 11.0. It was a little early, so I did my Turnham Gn. shopping before.I am still in some upset over K and Nigel, hardly able to think of anything else, so I found myself buying some quite obvious treats, tho’ not extravagantly so. I bought a dover sole, a wild salmon cutlet, the centre piece of a skate, a cod’s roe, a buckling, and two pots of potted shrimps – and some wild boar apple and cider sausages, and cheese, and bread at M&B, and artichokes, broad beans etc at g’grocers.

Had half the buckling for lunch, all I could manage – I’d forgotten how rich and filling it is. When did I last have buckling? It’s in D’s notes that I thought it better than smoked trout.No, just different, but, me younger, liked the extra richness. Now I’d certainly want both.

And tonight I only ate half the grilled Dover sole. I was prepared to give it a second chance. When did I last - ? It is meaty, solid, boneless (so important for a favorite British fish), - and tastes of absolutely nothing, so no wonder there are seventy-three ways of doing it. And there was a soft roe! The fishmonger is one of the half-dozen best in London, and it wasn’t Monday…

Followed K all the way to L’pool. When I turned on the video for something, the time was 2003! The same as the year!! Is K dead? What a good thing I’m not superstitious as well as fearful? With our families, it’s so pitiful that even a suicide’s funeral can be irritating as moving.

Thursday March 20 2003

Little noise from the workmen. Such a relief.

Getting over yesterday, and thinking of poor K occupied me most of the day. Cold quail and two of the wild boar sausages for dinner.

Friday March 21 2003

A good post, with the brass-plate at last, and my card pin no. really easy to remember, 1326, birth year, nearly. Had the other half of the Dover Sole. Just as tasteless. Rang Oddbin’s at last and Brown and Forrest. O.said can deliver tomorrow.

Saturday March 22 2003

67,000 ‘use’ Gaelic in Scotland. Hm, how many of them don’t know English?

Obscene coverage of the war on television, hours on end.

K rang 7.50, safely, if that’s the word, back. Said little except ‘The service was awful’, said so perfectly non-committal that I couldn’t tell whether the hymns had been terrible or an aunt had got drunk, or he had been unbearably moved.

Sunday March 23 2003

John Preston reviewing Freddy Raphael’s memoirs… ‘There is almost total recall of a remarkably uneventful childhood. This unfortunate combination…

Watched five mins. of Fawlty Towers. (Basil Henson - dead these how many years, married to Eleanor Drew at start of Salad Days). John Cleese always worries and embarrasses me because he is really paranoid, really frantic, deeply embarrassing. I’m not at all surprised that he wrote a book with a phony Yank psychiatrist, and I daresay he’ll go publicly round the bend eventually. The comic inventions are most of them simply painful.

Told Hazel of Fred R’s book. Says he was up with us, - and I knew he was at John’s too, and went down in ’54 - anyway, thank ‘God’ I never met him. J. Preston also says he has absolutely no sense of humour, and I can also believe that in next Sunday Telegraph will be a letter from F.Raphael, written thro’ the chip on his shoulder, explaining exactly why he has the keenest sense of humour.

Monday March 24 2003

Rang Bush House for H to ask about the Shakespeare videos she wants for Natalie, Twelfth Night and the Dream. Young man said ‘We’ve got Twelfth Night but we haven’t got the Dream.’ Came back with T.N., I said ‘No dream?’ ‘No.’ ‘It was done, wasn’t it? A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’ ‘Oh, A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’ ‘Yes. It’s often called The Dream?’ ‘Who by?’

K rang at ten past two. Coming round on Wed. ‘about six’. Said he’s not working for the foreseeable future. Is that a good idea? Longing to hear the facts and the truth.

Tuesday March 25 2003

The blue noose from our video all those years ago, turned up, and afterwards I hung it on the bathroom hook to get it out of the way, and found it fitted exactly into the blue and gold of the room. Suddenly saw it and put it in my wardrobe. It’s a comic object, but not at the moment.

Wednesday March 26 2003

One of the days of my life, and I may be too tired to finish. He was here soon after six, looking just as usual, with the file about the flat in his hand. I said could he put the woodshed back before dark? He said that was first on his list. We did it a bit together. Put a fuse back in the kitchen lights, which have been out more or less since he was last here. ‘Where are the fuses? I suppose you’ve put them somewhere safe. And forgotten.’ Turned out he’d put them somewhere safe and forgotten. On top of the electric-meter.

Then we settled down, and he started telling. I had to know, to stop my imagination. He’s always bad about dates, but I knew that I’d rung him more or less just after he’d heard, as turned out to be so. The C.I.D. had rug Ernie as next of kin the day before when it happened, and no one had rung him. It was Phil who rang, a great pity, for he cried too soon to help K. A business-man and sentimental, a poor and very common combination. ‘I was knocked out.’ Interesting that he rang that night to propose our shopping trip. Nice to think it was a stab to normality.

Paul Whittaker found N. He’d hung himself from the banister, and walked down the steps until he was off balance, having first bound his hands. This was about four o’clock, and Paul got back at eight. He opened the door and saw N apparently standing on the stairs. ‘Nigel, what are - ’ and turned on the light. Behind him was a woman friend of his, and her ten-year old daughter. He hurried them out of the house making the daughter cry by his haste. He thinks she didn’t see the reality.

‘The funeral was awful.’ K’s rather stupid, rather narrow-minded, rather weak family, refused to ask Sian to the funeral.

Thursday March 27 2003

That’s all I could do last night. K rang Sian and helped her to accept this grotesque decision, by telling her that it was as well she didn’t come, as ‘Auntie Dot’ and Uncle ‘Frank’ would be so rude to her. Although I don’t think even they based their ‘decision’ on N and S, not being married, at this time, - at any rate, none of them said so – I wonder what they would have decided if they had been married. ‘A legal right to be there’ and so on. As it was. I suppose the hideous sentence hanging in the air was, ‘If it hadn’t been for you, Nigel, would still be alive.’ Ernie did nothing about it, which doesn’t surprise me, for when has Ernie done anything about anything? Not to mention that his new inamorata the ‘lady’ from next door – (they were to have been married in June, but it’s been put off) was the moving spirit behind all this.

They are sending her half the ashes…

Then he went on to tell me why he can’t work for the moment. It’s not a turning- point, but a bit of a limbo, a pause, a need to reculer… He’s going to have a three week holiday by himself. Otherwise plans are v. fluid, - a pied a terre in London, and a house in the country/in Provence/in Tuscany. A three-week trip to Nashville and another to L.A., perhaps a five year stay, he and Arlete going round the world for sixmonths… Nigel’s diaries, with all that restless useless travel, out of which he certainly got nothing that he ever communicated to me. But there’s his poetry – that K’s sending. Then he said that there would be three weeks of sorting everything for me. A cleaner and someone to do bits and pieces – hedge, light bulbs etc. and all the curtains and sofa and so on, ‘So that I can go away and not worry.’

I was moved to the ground by this, and felt I could bear the separation and worry because of it.

K rang to discuss an air-conditioner mentioned last night! Shopping, sofa etc. Monday.

Rang Mary L to tell of Hoover and Roy to tell of Nigel.

Friday March 28 2003

K to Swansea. Last night full of wind and indigestion and heartburn, food? What? Upset? Yes? Up and down for an hour or two. Two goes of bicarb. If I sat in bed reading, it got worse. The beginning of?

I think the result of Wed. and upset and emotion generally.

Dear Andy rang. So pleasant. Asked them to come to dinner after Easter. Says Louise’s new novel will be published in June and they might have a copy for me by our meeting. Rather surprised that he said he can’t wait to see me again. Unfortunately phrased.

Saturday March 29 2003

Small pool of water in utility room at 6.45 p.m. Not again. Put bowl down, assembled and cooked diner round it, and determinedly left it. By ten, there were only a couple of tumblerfuls, but still… I didn’t know, that at 6.45, did I?

Bravely did ring K. Never known this sort of suspense.

Sunday March 30 2003

K rang. Told him. Said it was probably a spill of some sort, and he was ringing ‘Frank’ a.m tomorrow. Our shopping expedition Tuesday not Monday.

Monday March 31 2003

Tim W rang. Back from honeymoon. Obviously happy, but rang to get me to tell plot of Blithe Spirit, to help Helen audition for Elvira tomorrow. A real actor’s return. He’s a sweet man, as a nut is sweet.

Rang K to fix time and place, didn’t seem to have thought of it! Hoover dept. John Lewis, about 11.0.

Tuesday April 1 2003

How pleasant to think that nobody I know does April Fools any more. A day to remember of undiluted pleasure and joy.

How many years since I was in John Lewis? It’s still a milder, kinder better signposted shop and the assistants all obliging and polite without exception.

Hoovers in basement, and, as I was hovering, there he was coming along smiling and making me feeling safe. Bought the lightest, and simplest, Panasonic, £75, one. Said on its front, ‘Extra Lightweight’ and seemed to both of us no different from any other. We went firmly into getting it sent already assembled. Oh, the horror of modern commerce, and its neglect of the old. Then to curtains and curtain-poles. He is so thorough and never leaves a point without fully understanding it and following it through. Other finishes, other sizes, the end-stop, and so on. There is now a special curtain ring to slip over the extra supports needed for a bay with heavy curtains. When we were sitting at the desk for the tiresome details – which, of cause takes three times as long as they used to while the man fiddles with a mouse instead of a pen, though it is some years since I bothered to suggest it, as no one young believes you, - K said he had been wrong for saying you couldn’t have rings on a bay. A generous concession for a control freak. As if he was.

Sofas and upholstery were next. V surprised to find that K was all set to redo my dear old sofa, as he doesn’t want a sofa bed. (His enquiries about Andy’s air-bed also suggest that, in view of his travel plans and career, it isn’t worth a sofa bed as he won’t get the wear out of it. Oh dear. I said that, not him.) But I’m delighted. He was surprised that I was surprised by him saying this without warning. Because he’d come to this conclusion, he thought he’d told me. This often happens. My dear brocade, of which they had five or six shades, which seemed eternal, are now ‘discontinued.’ Sad, as they are classical 18th Century designs, and should never be out of fashion, in palish shades, which jar with nothing.

Then lunch. Last lunch in J.L., I think, with D. No more tablecloths and waitresses, of course, even in JL. He did it all. Open baguettes, all plastic, of course, all self service, and six or seven counters around the floor, hot food, sea-food, salad, etc. quite a distance from one another.I would have been tested to struggle along between them. He brought in five or so minutes, a bottle of white wine, of previously unknown origin, a couple of delicious fresh long rolls, butter and the cutlery. Later a spag.bog for him, and a spag. tomato, basil and mush. for me. Only it was macaroni in both cases. It said ‘Pasta’, he said, but as it was bog – so kind to get white w., as he likes red. It was all me today. After, it was lampshades, a bit abortive but I got some addresses of makers – he has no idea that’s what you need for real shades. Glasses, - he said ‘I’ll pay’ for four goblets. By three-ish I was finished – he’d found me chairs everywhere – and finally, out in the rain, a taxi. I was so touched at his delicate and detailed and care. Drove off in the rain, first time since the 7th. Stuck in Oxford St. among myriads of bases, couldn’t see, no idea which side of the road I was on, as J.L has front and back exits, fare already seven or eight pounds before we moved more than a yardor two every now and then. Eventual fare £17!

Back here, 6 messages on machine. 1 from J. Five going blurt! blurt! for a minute each time. Have vague memory K says this is a mistaken fax. Sounds like a poor scholar.

Forgot to say that we also looked at carpets for the runner in the passage, the very centre of the flat, and a tiny picture gallery. How fascinating he is in resisting my first choice as a rule. Painting the passage white threw him rather. I suppose he hadn’t noticed there was little natural light, none if the doors were closed, despite him always turning on the lights! I said it would have to be stair-carpets, and, after rejecting some rather expensive actual runners – v. expensive – which happily weren’t long enough, we found two William Morris among the stair-carpets. Odd, only two, when, W.M. is talked of with such respect. A red with paler pattern, distinctly related to the wallpaper, was my decision. But I said nothing much. I am wiser now. The red one worried him ‘as it might clash with the wallpaper’, said with a bit of worry! (I should have brought a sample!) The other W.M was black and gold not typical W.M and the stair-carpet borders more obvious. He took details of both, and got the assistant, a small middle-aged Jewish man, rather stunned by K, to get the manufactures to send samples.Oh, he’s so wonderful, he and I together make a perfect human being.

Wednesday April 2 2003

Tired but happy.

Thursday April 3 2003

Meant to go to H’smith for two weeks’ pension. Too tired, the B&F salmon paté for lunch.

Note of C. Garden car came. Good. And J.L. curtain person on April 14th. Such a good gap.

Friday April 4 2003

Carpet samples came, red one perfect. Told him. He was so good, just as he’d been at finding you could have heavy curtains on a bay-window pole. Also writing-paper proofs.

Saturday April 5 2003

Mowed the lawn! A little too long, and bit of an effort, with the box having to be emptied at the end of almost every row. But oh the satisfaction! Who invented close mowing? He had a real eye, as straight away, all the plants make the most of their height, and the grass becomes a frame. Lovely.

Sent card off to Cresset Press ordering writing-paper. Very satisfying. So I shall have had writing-paper for every house.

A sudden snatch of television, caught by chance, is a lottery. Tonight, on something called ‘Stars In Their Eyes Kids’ – gracious – saw a girl imitating Kate Bush – K admired her moderately at one time. Rather remarkable as K.B. explored, rather absurd, the higher reaches of coloratura (sic) pressed into the service of pop. This girl has the notes, and a real control of gesture and movement. And only 16. Jacqueline Bell.

Sunday April 6 2003

Unpacked finally big box of plants. The Madonna lilies seem to be doing v. well, so I’m hopeful for these others. Rather more coreopsis and lily of valley than I remember, but a veitichii hydrangea. The paeonies. Planted three anemones? from someone else. I really am getting on. As long as I can get over those fucking workmen coming over the fence without losing too much – if only my plants were puppies.

K rang. Made me shriek. Found my will in the leather jacket he wore the night of the Portuguese restaurant, has he really a subconscious resistance to inherit the flat? I really wonder? Still, he’s found it.

Must ring the cleaning people tomorrow. I don’t know what to do – I’d like a recommendation. Oh, H told me ‘My other knee’s gone’, and is to have an op on it Monday week-tomorrow week. Other knee op. v. painful, not specially effective. But I can’t trust H on health. Even now there was a faint edge of satisfaction in ‘My other knee’s gone.’ How shocked she’d be if I ever told her it had a shade of Mary L’s, ‘I’ve got my bronchitis.’ She can’t drive now – never again? - Is this a first step to leaving house? Who knows? It’s so foreign to me.

Monday April 7 2003

Anniversary. Twenty-six years. Move, three years, incredible.

On Saturday, J told me she’d got off going to her sister’s for the night, by lying. Good. I must build up a short picture of sister and hubby and kiddies some time. For a start, like me, she hates spending a night away, and her sister is a neurotic control freak, whom, she is convinced, will split from her hubby after the children have gone, and go back to live in her parent’s house in Lincoln. Fixated on her dead father, you see. So today, J’s forgotten her sister’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary… straight to hell. Then there’s their move to Exeter, that no one wants, except ‘The Husband.’

Asked her about cleaners. I rang the two cleaning agencies. Really, they might be the same firm, Selclean and Abbotsbury. S. an accented possibly far Eastern robot, Abbot. a nauseatingly jovial advertising executive. £7.95 an hour, £5 cash to the cleaner £2.95 remitted on standing order quarterly to the agency… ‘Our agents could visit you next week with the contract, before you see the cleaner.’ Hm. J said standing orders were dicey, and could only be cancelled by recipient and not account-holder. Can that be true? Well, J runs her own business.

Tuesday April 8 2003

Indigestion came on quite sharp, heartburn, as I finished my whisky and was about tolie down. Felt a bit chokey, but better sitting up in a chair, not in a bed. Bicarb. didn’t help. Up most of night, hoping to belch.

Day spoilt. One glass of wine for lunch – a mistake – and a small piece of bread. Dinner, spinach soup.

‘Phone calls went on and an Oddbins order – will I live to drink? – went on. A van driver delivered a case of wine from D. Telegraph Wine Club. ‘I didn’t know I’d ordered it,’ signed for it, and then, after he’d gone, saw the box was for 59. K.G. Rushed out in my Pyjamas, and happily he was still in his van, no doubt laboriously transcribing further programmes of inaccuracy.

Bed at nine. Took down clay hanger, and did sleep.

Wednesday April 9 2003

Still heartburn. Waiting for call and K p.m

Rather dreading it. Driven out to get Gaviscon, as bicarb did nothing. Felt better out. Gaviscon supposed to be stronger, and certainly the thick viscous liquid seems a proper texture and smooth over it. Anyway it worked.

Rang K and he cancelled. Someone was sending someone to pick up a CD or something, and they hadn’t come and it was half past two and he had cancelled the lunch that was bringing him over in the first place. For once, relieved as I’m v. tired.

Don’t think I said that J had come up with a Filipino woman in White City who cleans for Peter Yates etc. and might know someone for me, she said ring p.m. Did so at 6,7,8,9. No answer. Out on the razzle despite cleaning rich houses six days a week.

Thursday April 10 2003

How quickly the hours and days go by! How right Granham Robertson was.

Concorde is finished and is to be grounded. It should never have been started. The ‘rushing from thing to thing to thing’ that I so dislike with S, is magnified a thousand times with Concorde. Ghastly business-men, stupid artists, paying, I now discover, £8400 a time. No wonder Islam hates and despises us. If such journeys are vital, will capitalism provide no alternative?

And can I ever forget D’s terror when Concorde had a completely unannounced trial run over our house at Clapham. That brought her away from her piano in her sitting- room to the top of the stairs in tears. For the first and last time I wrote to The Times. Well, they sent me a proof… it made her feel the blitz was back.

Friday April 11 2003

To H’smith for three pensions, no books and no Ken High St.

However, wrote S about Nigel, and sent H the duplicate Agute biography. I’d completely forgotten I’d got one, let alone two.

Saw a girl on Top of the Pops without the sound, - thought she had a little something – listened a little. Avril Lavigne. Hm. She’s a teen idol I’m afraid.

Saturday April 12 2003

Collapse day.

Synopsis of Madam Butterfly, from C. Garden. ‘He undertakes a wedding with her.’ Well, I know it’s a ‘tragedy’, but… why not fund someone English to write these things?

Sunday April 13 2003

Dreading tomorrow. Dusted the window-frames for John Lewis. Bedroom surprisingly dirty, sitting-room surprisingly clean.

Still no books in the Sunday papers.

To bed at 9.15 on Sat. to harness the overwhelming sleepiness that seems to come over me these days and woke at 12.30 a.m. Lay in bed for a bit, then to book-room reading, or re-reading, the Ashton biog. till the S. Papers, oh dear.

Monday April 14 2003

K couldn’t come, so busy and something or someone hadn’t come. No real need for curtains, but still, it would have been a comfort. Tells me they’re coming over the fence to do the two jobs tomorrow, torture, and the garden will be trampled. And the new tenants move in on Wednesday. So Easter will be torture too, as so often. Said something about the freehold, which he thought I had. The builder talked of injunctions. I do hope K didn’t challenge him, as he willdo.

The John Lewis girl arrived at exactly the right moment, after my first glass of wine, and left just in time for my lunch. A pleasant terre à terre mild girl, an engagement ring, probably to a carpet fitter. Measured etc. without moving much, and measured the corridor carpets as K had suggested I ask. Oh dear, K doesn’t believe my measurements, and won’t believe hers, mark my word. And it’s the cleaners tomorrow. Oh God.

Tuesday April 15 2003

It’s no use pretending I don’t feel besieged. Up at six and shaved! Then it’s going to be earplugs all the way. Shut all the doors so that any noise might be that much contained. And went out. A taxi in U. Rd at 9.45, to H’smith, 3 mths pension. To Ken High St., already tired, and suddenly feeling sickish in, the taxi, - nerves, I’m sure – took advantage of the usual traffic difficulties, to get out and walk. If advantage it is, when I can’t walk far, still, did get something done. Bought a blue gingham check shirt at M&S, which, with my blue spotted tie, will give a ‘70s jolt. Oh, the relief of being old because peopleexpect you to look like nothing and wear odd things. Walked back to W’stones. Found the new Sue Grafton and Rowse’s diaries. And a good armchair, so had a twenty minute rest. Then to ironmongers, for rust paint and black paint, in tiny pots, for the horseshoe. Finally Banham’s for the keys, all different from last time. Such low chairs I daren’t sit down. Keys – four- cost £60. To Café Pasta, sill feeling a bit queasy – why? Didn’t quite finish my wine, but the risotto stayed down. Back here to no sounds, and at 6.30 interviewed the cleaner recommended by ‘Feely’, ‘Tessie’ who was accompanied by her husband, - and Feely. Just as well, as neither of them seemed to have much English – Feely is small and vital, with well-cut hair and rather bossy. Tessie is only staying till the beginning of June, when they’re going back to the Philippines. Then Feely takes over. Well, J says she’s good and ‘does’ for some smart people. The dread word Pledge occurred.

Exhausted.

Wednesday April 16 2003

Shut in against the workmen trampling the garden, and the tenants moving-in day. But neither happened. Well, the workmen did the jobs, but went over the roof instead of over my fence. Wonderful. K rang three times, so comforting. Went out with the ‘phone to tell him of the work done, and quite knocked back by the summer heat – 76º at least – and S. de la Masison out.

Made him sit up a bit with the J. Lewis estimate for the pole, various brackets, forty- two rings and a fitting-fee, - with us having the rings sewn on the curtain here, as they don’t do own curtains – the estimate was £1386. Quite disgusting, and, even allowing for the difference in the value of money, a sad decline from the John Lewis money of forty years ago.

The ‘War’ in Iraq seems to be over. The twenty or so pages helpfully marked in black, have given way to the more respectable and soothing story of the trial of the Soham Murderers.

Thursday April 17 2003

The plastering is to be after Easter, so four treat days – I hope, and Covent Garden at the end.

The ‘hope’ is tempered by meeting the new tenants. The bell rang during a telephone call from Mary L. I hope not a sinister omen. A tall blonde couple, with perfect skin and open expression (him) shook hands, and was really most polite, asking where my bedroom was, for noise, and the other rooms. No wonder. It turns out they have three small boys… another bright spot, he’s putting down ‘laminate wood floors’ on top of the hardboard the workmen covered the whole place with. This should really help. If only they’d put carpet on top! They are certainly no more than thirty, and could go straight on a cereal ad. as a radiant ideal couple. So why did I feel he was a bit too good to be true? She stayed back and said little. I may be quite wrong but I sensed a bit of a fresh start, perhaps? That she’d heard his charm before and… if they’re so ideal, what does he do, or no do, that they haven’t their own flat by this time?

Friday April 18 2003

Had fantasy of them asking if the boys could play in the garden.

Banging from 11.0 a.m. onwards – he asked when he should begin. Over by 2.0, and the banging became perceptibly more muffled.

Unpleasant little item in the paper, a Muslim grandmother found festooned with rashers of bacon in her mortuary at Hillingdon hospital. Now, of course, it could be a vicious racist insult. But equally it could be a stupid adolescent joke, vide Nigel and his ‘chums’ years ago. When such boys get together, it’s always the lowest common denominator they turn into. I hardly know which is worst.

Top Of The Pops ‘archive’ tapes. A foursome, with completely spherical hair, song called Hallelujah, marching relentlessly through ten choruses, each advancing a semi tone. A tin of treacle over one’s head. Group’s name, Milk and Honey.

Saturday April 19 2003

Mowed the lawn, good finish for length. Must treat weeds. Could manage little more.

Queasy and heart burning at five after rest. Why? Rest a bad idea?

The silence of holiday. One or two footsteps, but no noise.

Sunday April 20 2003

Managed a bit of garden. Must plant hydrangea, but there is tomorrow.

Monday April 21 2003

A success, thank goodness. I was afraid of toothache and indigestion and neither happened. The acid heartburn of the last week or so, on and off, coming in at five or so, didn’t. I ate a three-course dinner in the intervals, and drank a bottle of Pouilly Fumé, all but the glass J couldn’t finish. Now why is that? I’m not sure I do enough. The trouble about age is that you haven’t enough energy to do enough.

The car was, of course, ‘à point’ and Paul was as pleasant and ‘bluff’ as he seemed on the ‘phone. Has mastered the chauffeur’s art of talking exactly as much as his passenger wants. The car is just the right size and comfort but not ostentatious. We went through the park, delicately green and fresh. Sat in Bow St. for about ten minutes, got out and there was J. Good.

So we made for the Floral restaurant. I let J lead the way, because I knew she would take command, and think I didn’t know the way. Her natural bossiness has to have an outlet. She doesn’t have a secretarial agency for nothing! The first impression of the rest. not specially appealing, but then I do like to be shut in. Just one row of tables round the top balcony of the Floral Hall, and the chairs are too utilitarian metal chairs. Perfectly comfortable, but should be changed. Well furnished tables with white tablecloths and napkins. The service was unexceptionable. Immediately a copy of my menu was produced and followed. The Avocado tian was a modish little mound of nottoo pureed avoc. out of a mold. A little roulade of something brown, I didn’t recognise but liked, and some garnish. The red bream, three curled pieces of plump meaty fish and a mélange of carrot and chicory? Delicious puree. The Pouilly Fumé was good – not worth it’s price, but good.

Our seats were in the Grand Tier, C29 and 30, slightly to the right. I was caught out of myself at once, it was full and I said to J ‘Where are all these people who like ballet when you go to a terrible party?’ ‘Well, they don’t go to terrible parties.’ (When did I last go to a party?) Certainly all the accents I heard were my own, and I saw no tourists or poor business-men bored to sobs.

So the production looked beautiful, 1760ish Watteau Fragonard, muted colours, as far as my memory goes. The staging is decidedly different from the old one. The second act had many fresh passages for me. And for instance, there was virtually no attempt at the palace being lost in a jungle, beyond thorny-looking cloth being drawn across the stage. Tho’ it was never big enough to cover the whole stage. Coming to the Royal Ballet for the first time for some years, I was very satisfied by the overall standard of dancing from the technical point of view. (Especially to those of us who remember the old days, when R. Helpmann was the leading man partly because he was the only one who could do a Tour En L’air and come down facing front.) But there was little exceptional about the principles. The Lilac Fairly, Zenaida Yanowsky, had the right breadth and serenity.Thiago Soares as the prince is v. young and a bit gauche, but has a great jump and will improve. The Aurora, Tamara Rojo, is clear, exact accomplished, but I never saw her smile, and she gave me no feeling of joy. The Bluebirds didn’t thrill J as the first sight of it did me. Kenta Kura (who looked Japanese?) and Vanessa Paler danced it, but didn’t electrify the house as they should. Odd.

Still, J loved it, and I was held throughout. I must find a more exciting evening for her. The car home in perfect ease and comfort – delicious. She rushed in her house, and brought me the Hallifax book and I lent her the Derek Malcolm.

Tuesday April 22 2003

So the cleaner came, and brought her husband, who also dusted and didn’t expect to be paid! They are so hard-working and willing that I had to assume they understood me, and told them to do the bedroom first and then the sitting-room. After about an hour and a half I thought I’d better look, and found them turning out the dining-room and kitchen instead of the sitting-room. I must mime more. She’d washed up, but happily there were only two of the bone-handled knives soaking and I rescued them in time, the sink was already so clean it looked as if it was new! And at five-thirty, I could hardly get rid of them. They’d re-arranged my diaries, which will all have to be sorted into order afresh. ‘No books touched.’ Must be the watchword. Ornaments all change, but then that’s cleaners.

Wednesday April 23 2003

Someone cheated and was taken to court from that Millionaire show. Last night they showed the episode when the cheat took place with a confederate coughing a code from the audience. It seems 17 million watched it. I suppose the man was interviewed too. How can people watch such a display of pettiness and greed? The loathsome joy in failure and guilt.

Thursday April 24 2003

To Turnham Green Terrace for shopping. At Fishm. two red mullet, one wild salmon steak, two pairs of Arbroath smokies, two potted shrimps. At gr. gr. two big close- leafed artichoke and four little ones. Three black truffle pots – whatever they are – two pounds of peas, and two of broad beans. At M&B, a nice lump of Caerphilly, and a little round soft cheese.

Land registry! Why has this not been discovered and dealt with during the six months the thing has dragged on? What pathetic hell solicitors are, pathetic little people pretending to be professionals.

Mary L had her examination yesterday. A blood test at once – and then two hours later, a nurse came past and said ‘Are you still here?’ A youngish man, not one she’d seen before, gave her an internal examination ‘Very painful’ but it seems she needs another even more searching, ‘which will have to be under anesthetic, and you should stay in a night, because of your age.’ It sounds serious, and may be, maybe not. Still, perhaps it doesn’t matter, as she said ‘Of all the many mistakes I have made in my life, living to be over eighty is the worst!!’ If it turns out it’s cancer, and the treatment (sic) is to be a colostomy, I’ll encourage her to refuse.

Saturday April 26 2003

Had a cab ordered for Notting Hill, farmers market and bookshop, but felt queasy. Why? The thought of the car? I think so. So didn’t go. Bother.

Sunday April 27 2003

Finished Halliday. Wrote a ‘review’ of it for Joan P. Shall be amused if she’s quoted, written by me. Here it is:

‘To anyone in the theatre this will be a fascinating book. It gives us a unique view of the three most interesting theatres of the period, The Royal Court under George Devine, the RSC under Peter Hall, and the National Theatre at the Old Vic and taking possession of the new theatre on the South Bank, under Sir Laurence Olivier. That Mr. Halifax was the man chose to run backstage, under various titles, by all three, is an extraordinary tribute to his character and his gifts. His simplicity, single- mindedness and transparent honesty combined with an impressive command of detail, and unusual organisational gifts, are all apparent in this book. The chapter on the assembly of the National repertory prgramme from 2 January ’74 to the end of 76, is enough, in itself, to make any layman’s head spin – and not only a layman’s !

And please note, he is not a cold and efficient machine, he has a touching and delightful relationship with his bosses, especially with Sir Laurence. He has an eye for acting, and there are perceptive notes of bits of business, and character-studies to prove it. The letters to him from Sir Ralph Richardson in themselves show the trust and affection that can exist between a stage–manger and an actor.

Mr. Halliday says he has kept no diary. Then what a memory he has! But there is no scandal or gossip in this book. Mr. Halliday says he never observed cause for any.

I didn’t say that occasionally, at the start of the book, he attempts a ‘theatrical anecdote.’ So little pay-off does he manage that you feel you’ve missed a stair in the dark.

In Antiques Road Show an elderly v. patrician gent, in run down clothes, put a piece of scrimshank on the table in close up. Black fingernails. Bet it’s a smallish manor house full of dust and possible valuables. Gardened a bit.

Monday April 28 2003

Cleaned up for cleaners. Rang Mary L for cheering-up purposes. John N rang up to put off. Good, as it’s a possibly full week.

Rained all day.

Tuesday April 29 2003

Cleaners. Turned them loose at the kitchen, dining-room etc. It took them allthree hours. At end the husband asked me something, - I felt it to be important, but his English is nonexistent, no distinguishable words, and he might have been asking for more Jif. He certainly can’t be expected to be paid, as I only ordered and accepted, one cleaner.

While they were here, the John Lewis sofa man came. Very pleasant, asked who Ellen Terry was. I wish K hadn’t made me see him. We obviously aren’t going to accept either estimate, so every time there’s a failed estimation, it adds to the coat of the next.

Dear K rang in the middle of a big studio day to say ‘rang to say ring if you want me.’ What?

Wednesday April 30 2003

Picked up the Rowse again, Goodness me! Interested that Hardy a – presumably Honorary – Fellow of our Magdalene, and, when he died, Kipling was made one in his place, and was humbly pleased. Our M was always taken to be a quietly subtly distinguished college, with the aura of Bibliotheca Pepysiana to prove it. I wonder if it’s so now, or then.

Thursday May 1 2003

K rang last night, instead of tonight, ‘Can I come to dinner tonight?’ Scratch meal, lemon sole and frozen peas. He never wants pudding now, a sliver of cheese. Altogether lovely evening, discussed the money and the flat transfer and got a lot settled. I didn’t irritate him once for a change. Then household things. I said I’d prefer a porch of some kind outside the French doors, rather than in the s.e.corner, as there are the old railway-sleepers to base it on. He argued against it for a bit, and I couldn’t quite see why, and said so, when he expressed doubt about the sleepers, and suddenly started to giggle, like a naughty boy, ‘Because I put them down.’ 19 again. Oh, I’m so lucky. Didn’t mention Nigel. They’re off to Madeira on Sunday for a week, Arlete’s mother joining them. It seems she’s always wanted to go to M., and never been free or rich enough. It’s Portuguese, too, of course, no difficulty with English… I suppose it’s like someone in Burnley dreaming of a holiday in B’mouth.

Lovely time with him.

Today planted parsley and marjoram in Etole bed.

K on ‘phone, so thoughtful.

Friday May 2 2003

K ‘phoned again. Has ordered, and paid for, passage carpet. Also rang John Davis re- inheritance tax etc. Brought up point they didn’t seem to have covered, and said he’d ring back. Didn’t! Someone rang, on an unknown number – him from some studio? Tho’ no message on machine. Rang back, got the ringing tone after engaged and then cacophonous jangle four times. Not him. A pity, as I have to listen.

I rang to say ‘Café Pasta? Ken H St? Sat?’. Yes.

TV progr. An international competition, or rating, of restaurants, Merchant House in Ludlow, 14th in the world. Well, we’re no connoisseurs. Shoved off into a pub lounge with a cafetiere of instant, served by a sixty year old woman who couldn’t pronounce cafetiere. Poor K was smoking. Survey of the most suburban clearly.

Saturday May 3 2003

To Ken H St. Balance at bank, £1500 odd. Better than expected. To M&S for another check shirt, £22. To W’stones, for the A. Lane book J wanted and the new Anne Stallwood. The ironmongers for a new corkscrew another of those awful metal ones that hurt my hand. No sign anywhere of my sort that K, curse him, left at Hay. Over lunch J told of her days as L. Olivier’s secy. 28? St. Leonard’s Terrace. Housekeeper? locked them in. Sir L. ‘I can see the headlines now, -Lord Olivier and secy. burned alive.’ Lunch, then a courier arrived with a film-script, the letter-box was right down the bottom of the door. J knelt and called to the courier and he undid the packet and pushed the scripts thro’. L.O. said, ‘You read this one. If it’s aged man dying, that’ll be my part.’ ‘Last Days of Pompeii’ plenty of choice of dead. Taxi man recognised me! Satisfying.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 182

May 4 2003 - August 1 2003.

Sunday May 4 2003

Cab 11.0. To Tesco, good, lots of food. Lovely chat with H. Mowed lawn, tho’ v. tired. Tomorrow, NOTHING.

Monday May 5 2003

Finished the Rowse, and began the new biog. of George Orwell, which, I forgot to say, I also bought on Sat. It’s the one by Gordon Bowker. There’s also one by D.J. Taylor – centenary time, you see. One way and another, the next biog. I read must be about someone I like.

Now I’m not sure that Rowse is at all well-served by his editor, Richard Ollard, who, I see, has also written his biog. These diaries are inadequately edited. Each entry has only its date, not the year, so, at one point, there is Jan 14 on the left page and Jan 13 on the right. But the editing may be more seriously inadequate. What we look for in Rowse is rampant malice and paranoia. There is much boredom from windy descriptions of nature, and lists of pictures seen in galleries, which he seems to have ‘done’ like an American tourist, and only a few pages of enjoyable gossip. Interesting that Arthur Bryant was a friend. He wrote equally unreadable ‘history.’ How can anyone bother about Rowse again, after the Dark Lady absurdity, except as a gossip? R. Ollard is also a pompous ass. The preface to the ‘60s has a second para. that begins ‘The period is characterized by Rowse’s transhumance from England to the U.S.A., following the pattern of the seasons as regularly as any mountain shepherd. A ridiculously forced image, with a ridiculously obscure word. Silly ass. Perhaps he and Rowser are well matched. As for Orwell, I am much surprised at the status now accorded him – genius, supreme, brilliant etc. He seems a minor writer as he did to Rupert Hart-Davis, to me, a good plain style, no doubt, a good journalist, but no more. In 1946 I was in the army in London. My father came up for some conference, staying at the Thackeray in Bloomsbury – temperance, you see, is it still there, but I bet it’s not still temperance – and after lunch, we went to a book-shop and he picked up a new book, Animal Farm. I think I only read about five pages before I could tell it was an imperfectly disguised political tract, and guessed who’d done it. 1984 I put down early on, too, as, like D with Heart Of The Matter, it was so childishly pessimistic. Catholicism and communism, both excuses not to make up your mind, and a refuge both ways, for or against. Years later we bought the penguin four- volume collected, and browsed in it a bit, one or two interesting articles and book reviews – how often he was wrong – and his pursuit of difficulty and upset became more than irritating. In the end, they joined the Oxfam bag. I thought I’d try a biography, and see.

John N to postpone again. Rather pleased as it helps my week.

Slept through till five a.m. Dozed till papers. Read papers. Slept from nine to eleven. Restorative.

Tuesday May 6 2003

Cleaners. Turned out what he wanted was his fare… Went to H’smith partly to escape the pressure of someone in the flat.

Went on with the Orwell. Review in the Standard said O was a great writer…

J suffers from Sara Havelock-Allen’s foolishness and lack of consideration and self-centeredness, and, as with Stephanie, seems to find it impossible to keep her at bay. I keep saying, ‘Just tell her you’re busy’ but she can’t seem to. And she has her own business.

Wednesday May 7 2003

In Stage Reggie Salberg dead at eighty-seven, a good age. Tho’ I probably shan’t think so. I have always thought of Reggie with great affection, and gratitude for taking me on in 1956, when I’d done nothing professionally to speak of. No doubt my connection with D had its effect, but I wouldn’t have been kept on. He had very good judgment of actors, and rarely picked a dud. The company I went into, included Josephine Tewson, Leonard Rossiter, Timothy West, - the wardrobe mistress afterward became the head of London Weekend TV’s wardrobe. And so on. And this was weekly rep. It was run by R, a part-time secretary, Stanley Astin, backstage carpenter and everything else, and Mrs Astin, what was her Christian name? That was it. Look at the list of 50, 60, 90 names in so-called reps now. But I think his best gift was for programme-building, even more vital than usual with weekly rep. It was the gift of a good cook, knowing almost always so exactly what play to set before the audience, in what he sometimes called, I think unconsciously, the menu.I think I saw a little more of him than most actors, as, in a rare lapse of judgment, he made me Assistant Manager, until he found out I was almost supernaturally unfitted for it. Then he was good to lame ducks. Basil Foster, a sort of star of the ‘20s, a former manager, and John Maxwell, a study in himself. Almost most important, he was a warm, genial omnipresent boss, firm, just, and snuffling into laughter. The theatre had gone bankrupt under some ghastly creature, and R carefully nursed it back, doing popular but never contemptible plays, until, in my time, he went fortnightly, and afterwards three-weekly. But, when it was still weekly, we did a respectable Cherry Orchard and a Dream that D saw and said was as beautiful an affair as she’s seen. Costumes by Kate Servian, see above, all made in the week. He loved running and being part of a company. Many tales of parties ruined by intransigent leading ladies, unsuitable alliances, positions being jockeyed. He couldn’t pronounce his ‘r’s. This gave a delightful resonance to his love of gossip. I think it was Gerald Harper’s wedding at St. James Piccadilly I was telling him about, (so it must have been during ‘Free As Air,’ 1958?) He’d mentioned an actor called Freddy Jaegar, - he thought he would ‘go places,’ but he didn’t, I’m afraid – so I said ‘Freddie Jaegar was one of the ushers, as he’s apparently a close friend of the bridegroom.’ ‘Yes,’ said R, ‘and an even closer friend of the bride.’

We lost touch as time went by, and he would have hated me seeing him old and dependent. He was humble and honest. Thought little of himself. I can see him now in D’s d-room during ‘Jean Brodie’ standing up and going pink because Donald Albery had come in. There is a scale of values in which Reggie Salbery could be said to have contributed far more to the theatre.

Quiet day, planted basil bowl. Fiddled in the garden. Oh for some rain!

Thursday May 8 2003

B’mouth agent rang. Ray Powis, the only one who’s talked sense.

Went on with the Orwell, surprised by judgments. The only novel that I at all finished was The Clergyman’s Daughter. She was the only thing resembling a person as opposed to a ‘political pawn.’

In the Independent, a survey of bad books by ‘famous’ people. John Mortimer chose Tolkien – well, that’s something. Oh, what a lot of obscurities! Books as well as people.

Then, thump! H’s new book came on to the mat. The one during its writing, Macmillan deserted her. Rang her at once, and said we’d talk of it on Sunday. How self disciplined she is! I do admire her resolution and wish I had it.

Friday May 9 2003

Finished Orwell. It hasn’t changed my opinion of him, or my irritation with him. His outer self, of plain style and apparent common-sense, was miles away from what he actually was. I hadn’t read many of his predictions, - all wrong. There will be a nuclear war in ten-twenty years – in 1948. 1984 is the Russian Threat – no breath of complete collapse of communism. His predictions about people were even more astray. I don’t know about his deplorable ignorance of women. His first wife, presented as more or less delightful, wrote him a letter, admittedly when she was ill and facing what proved to be a fatal operation, saying how she hated London. ‘…. Every meal makes me feel sick because every food has been handled by twenty dirty hands and I practically can’t bear to eat anything that hasn’t been boiled to clean it… As for eating in restaurants, it’s the most barbarous habit and only tolerable when one drinks enough to enjoy barbarity.’

And it is never suggested that Orwell knew of this pollution obsession, or coped with it. The only comment of the biographer is that ‘she… released a torrent of unhappiness she had bottled up throughout the war.’ And presumably long before. The subsequent operation was not the cause of a hysterical fantasy, but the lever that let down the truth.

Judging by his friends, Cyril C, Tony Powell, that I can sort of respect as friends, he must have had some sort of charm – tho’ as they were all three Etonians, that is rather moot – nevertheless, someone with terminal TB, who moves permanently to a farmhouse on Jura, in the Outer Hebrides, and dies, fairly shortly after, having said ‘I have three novels in my head’, attracts only my impatience.

Now this, to me, absurd, over-valuation, is explained. The initial printing in The States was two hundred thousand, in the spring with another ten thousand in July and September. The Book of the mouth run was two hundred thou. over three years. The Signet paperbacks sold seven hundred and fifty thousand over three years. The Reader’s Digest did an abridgement! And Life Magazine a strip-cartoon, of course. It fed exactly into their usual paranoia and hysteria though, also as usual, they got it a bit wrong, and described it as a savage satire on the Socialist party, and G.A. was obliged to write a letter of protest. Fun all round, I see.

Rang sofa and curtain. Still sounds good.

Forget to say that I ordered two CDs from the British Library Sound Archive after an article in The Telegraph. Prose and poetry, the poetry starting with Tennyson and Browning in 1889, good heavens.

Saturday May 10 2003

H tells me her Yank friend Jan, is much concerned with the upkeep of her block of flats in New York. Foolishly one imagines all New Yorkers are rich and to find that service charges are fierce and the building in poor repair is a surprise.

This p.m. K rang to say he was safe and back, was on tube. So good, since he really laughs at my fears, but still answers them.

Monday May 12 2003

The CDs arrived. Most fascinating. Tennyson reads the whole of Charge of The Light Brigade, and Browning speaks a few lines of Aix from Ghent, forgets it, and the by then, rather boozy dinner-party hoorays. These are actually audible, infinitely better than the completely inaudible Irving on my L.P. W. de la Mare has a beautiful voice – that’s a compliment – and doesn’t read ‘beautifully’. Hilaire Belloe sings a song of his with considerable élan. Siegfried Sassoon, E. Sitwell with Walton and Orchestra and Façade in 1929. She’s quite audible, at least on record, but not very expert with her voice. T.S.Eliot, hardly Yank at all. ‘Writers’ starts with Shaw, who gets a laugh almost at once, - no wonder he’s my favorite author – W.S. Maugham firm, warm and masculine (fancy), Granville Barker!, a bit genteel, E.M. Foster, see W.S.M, V. Woolf, just as I expected, a bit more like J. Grenfell’s don than I’d like, tho’ programme note says friends disagree as to how like it is. Hugh Walpole reading a fairly deplorable extract from Wintersmoon, Agatha Christie, unexpectedly brisk, authoritative, and impatient, Vita S. West, a bit less woffly than Woolf, Rebecca West, light, girlish, gamine – can she be acting? I hope not, as it would be such a front for her savaging reviews, J.B. Priestley in 1940 wartime radio, Noel the youngest – it’s 19th century writers only – rather disappointedly represented by the P. Lives love scene from Act 1 which must be much less rare than most of the others. The only records of Conan Doyle, Kipling, and P.G. Woodhouse in Germany. Still have to face Gertrude Stein. A real treat, and worth a long careful listen. Rang H to tell. Asked me for order details.

Tuesday May 13 2003

Cleaners and Jean Smith, the sofa woman. Exhausted.

J.S. much what I expected, eager, bobbled, strap-over shoes. Long jacket over self skirt, good grey cloth. I’d say knows her job thoroughly. Loved the flat and garden, I’m sure genuinely, as she lingered. Said her son would love the book-room. ‘Have you read them all?’ I hope she’ll do. How expensive such things are now. Well, at least upholstery is a craft, and is quite complicated. Unlike John Lewis curtain pole etc. Cleaners v. sweet – Jean waved hello to them – just did the bedroom. Paid for three hours just the same.

Wednesday May 14 2003

Woke at 2.30 a.m. Read. TV a.m. Read papers. Slept from 9.0 to 11 a.m.

A pilot’s body from the war has been found and buried. Some statistics given, which surprised me much. I suppose they must have been published before, but they certainly weren’t till long after, when I would never have read anything about the war, - and still wouldn’t. So I was surprised to find the total of RAF pilots killed in the war, was 70,000 and the number of bodies never found, 29,000. Heavens, the scale of it, and the pain.

Jason, the curtains man recommended by Jean S, was coming at 6-6.30 -7, his wife said yesterday. He rang at four to say he was outside, and was that all right? I said if he didn’t mind my pyjamas it was perfectly all right!

Personable Cockney, 34, knows his stuff, we’ll see. Agreeable chat. When he found I was an actor, he said he knew Matthew Jay Lewis, who’s in a rather dim ‘soap’. Amused me that he said, ‘He’s in a soap, and I was at school with him.’ Reminds me of Shaw’s friend, who said, ‘Jones write a play? Rubbish! I knew his father.’

He was doubtful about the bedroom curtains. They are a little rigid after forty years, and he found a couple of holes hidden in the folds. Took his time, and I’m hopeful.

Thursday May 15 2003

Review in Spectator by P.J. Kavanagh of D.J. Enright’s memoirs.‘Chubby Broccoli’, who has produced all the James Bond films, said ‘If I hadn’t got a James Bond film to look forward to producing, I’d just become a vegetable.’

To Mary L to take some books and so on.‘So on’ consisted of two packets of smoked salmon, some asparagus tips, some baby courgettes, and two cartons of Covent Garden soup, spinach and nutmeg, and vegetable chowder. I said the spinach was delicious cold, but I don’t suppose she’ll think of it. She has already refused fresh peas – that one has to say fresh – and broad beans, and refused both baby new and charlotte pots. – no Jerseyroyals at Tesco, where I went on the way, why not? – she likes baked pots. And she’s a vegetation. Oh dear, still she was not dismissive, or not so much as usual. For the thousandth time, I marvel at her impact on people – rude, prejudiced, eccentric, radical, mad-leftie etc. – that still leaves her making judgments about them based on wholly biased premises. Poor girl.

I was rather apprehensive about the case of wine – Shiraz, 6 bots for £24. We’ll see. If there was a Grand National for looking a gift horse in the mouth, she would win it.

Friday May 16 2003

No estimates. I’m always surprised at how long people take to solicit custom. Today came J. Lewis estim. for sofa. Some £300 less than for the curtain-pole and 48 rings. Also divided into option A and Option B, which, I presume, suggests a choice between them. If that is so, I can only think I failed to convey my intentions to J. Lewis man.

Poor J and Sara Havelock-Allan. A widow in grief? Hm. A very silly woman left as a very limp bit of ivy after a 99 year old wall fell. S. H-A has gone to U.S. – of course, she’s Yank or Brazilian or something incontinent – and J has to record certain TV progs for her. This means going to the flat in Victoria, and setting up a new recording. She found someone was staying there – ‘Men’s underpants on the floor.’ Of course it worried her, not to mention made her apprehensive – was he behind the bedroom door? And she couldn’t find the remote control. Finally got Sara H-A on the ‘phone in the depths of somewhere, who told her the remote control was ‘on the top of encyclopedia Britannica, where I hid it for safety.’ The man was the son of the owners of the shop nearby… Dear J must have more resistance to all these clients who presume on her conscientiousness` and, I’m sure, her too low charges. Only in extreme cases, S and Stephanie Powers, does J rebel, and it costs her much. (How cross S would be to be classed with S. Powers! Serve him right.)

Told me, for instance, M. Smith, alone, since Harry Potter, ‘gets 300 fan letters a week, all needing autographs.’

Saturday May 17 2003

I wonder if I have ever recorded 1940. Well, some of the facts are in those Schoolboy diaries, but the feelings aren’t. Not that I have ever felt ‘traumatized’ – that’s the word now. I mean, my life as a child, in bland, not to say insipid Bournemouth, went on its unclouded way till the summer of ’40. Suddenly there were the Dunkirk survivors in the church-hall, a stick of bombs, unexploded, near enough to the house for us to have get out, with the tea on the table, and the boxes half packed for our move to London. Stayed with friends, briefly back to house, an uneasy holiday in Ilfracombe. Stayed in London one night, in the Anderson shelter in the garden. The drawing-room we walked thro’, we found on our way back was wrecked, the grand piano in half. Straight to first term at Uppingham, where I was bullied and not allowed to wash for the whole first term. Traumatic, eh? Impossible to say. I was unhappy, but knew I was.

How mysterious illiteracy is! How do they choose the wrong word, the grammatical mistake? Article about cloning the first human scientist, ‘who is devoted to becoming the first…’

Sunday May 18 2003

K rang at 2.20 to say next w/e, he and A. Mentioned the hedge. ‘The loo tank has a drip.’ ‘Only the ballcock.’ Heavenly.

Usual comfy talk to H and I do not mean to take those adjectives for granted.

Monday May 19 2003

Woke at 2.30. Read till papers. Dozed over them at 10.30 and woke at 12.0. Another snooze in p.m. Bother. And I can’t find any reason.

Drugs in football. One leaves the subject ‘with a higher proportion of red corpuscles, than is humanly possible.’ Do I presume the footballer is dead?

Tuesday May 20 2003

One of the unimportant books which got a bit wet because of the loo tank was by Richard Ingrams, on the three way friendship between Hugh Kingsmill, Malcolm Muggeridge, and a Hesketh Pearson. Skimmed thro’ it for the first time in twenty years. Quite entertaining – Ingrams knew them, too, and get some fun out of them, tho’ his literary judgments are rather astray. No inkling, of course, that all four are decided second-raters, if not lower. M. Mug. a real pervert, - no, I don’t mean sexually.

Only really amusing tale by Michael Holroyd, of HK’s brother’s attempted suicide. He was by the sea, so… ‘The only objection… was the unpleasantness of getting wet, and this he partly offset by borrowing a mackintosh from a passing stranger. Fully equipped, he… entered the sea… he had not realised that the shallow water extended far over a mile off land. A lonely, but resolute figure… he continued paddling out, while the level of the water still obstinately refused to rise above his ankles, until at last… he was forced… to turn back.’

But a bit I especially liked, was a list made by Hesketh Pearson, ‘Nearly all the greatest men have hardly ever left their native land, Shakespeare, for instance.’ He and Kingsmill, in antiphonal suggestion, Jesus Christ, Beethoven, Buddha, Rembrandt, Wordsworth, Cromwell, Dr. Johnson, Sydney Smith.

At least got up energy to get my hair cut, partly inspired by getting away from the cleaners. Cab at 2.45, hair, across to Post Office for Pension. A little treat. There’s another wretched Bank Holiday, so, as well as last week and this week, I got next week’s as well - £300. To Tesco, so curious no Jersey Royals again in this Tesco, too. Then to Gingko Garden Place, ordered tobacco plants for window boxes, seeds for parsley, tarragon, and globe artichoke. Yes, I know they’re five foot high and you don’t get globes, for two years. Well, I’ve got room for one.

Rang Andy yesterday re little para. in Observer paperback section about Steve McQ book, and to retrieve my dinner invitation ‘after Easter.’ Must remember that they are not simple struggling beginners, despite his needing £50 a day to paint my kitchen. She is having a bit of attention, is being sent to Las Vegas to write an article for somebody. Perfunctory exchange about Las Vegas. Seems they have already been there twice. I suppose I should have remembered her pop group tours. I felt a faint unease after our talk about dinner. Still, a restaurant is always better for first time. She may be quite formidable. I hope.

Rain, rain, rain.

Wednesday May 21 2003

Mowed lawn, as it was dry enough and sunny enough to bother. Dandelions. So, much more to do, there’s only so much you can make of leaving nettles for peacocks, and painted ladies.

Our cul-de-sac has been being re-paved for some weeks. The pavements from Uxbrid. to the angle were asphalt, and needed repair, never mind repaving, badly. Our part of the road seemed perfectly all right. But it has started to be repaving. Quiet unnecessarily, and I shan’t write to the council, oh dear. Yesterday it got to my gate, and I went to H’smith, treading thro’ sand. Today, with a few thumps and deafening, but brief, cutting of stones, I saw them laid, a path for my coffin.

Thursday May 22 2003

Independent review of Joan P’s Pirandello play – of course, it’s Right You Are etc – by Rhonda Koenig, quite sharp, but says of Joan, ‘Gives the play the brush of a dove’s wing.’ How I wish we could have kept in touch with Joan. But one way and another, we didn’t. How isolated she must have been in some ways by marrying Larry. Stardom does isolate people. Shall I forget Ingrid B saying how often she went home alone?

Rang K. When and how many meals? Sun. or Mon, lunch?or dinner? Shop for both.

Felicité Perp. one bloom out.

Friday May 23 2003

Nothing done. Plucked down Mrs. Keppel’s Daughter, - goodness, what a messVita S-W was. To me the most unsympathetic quality, wavering between two people. How is that possible? Violet K. a monster, of course. Misery on her face when old.

Saturday May 24 2003

Felicité, two flowers and many more to come. New Graham Thomas, six feet tall and through but has fallen. Why? Longing for rain.

K rang. They’re coming tomorrow! Heavens.

Sunday May 25 2003 Monday May 26 2003

A lovely day, that I’m just getting over, tho’ how little I did. Darling A. cut the hedge all by herself, and bagged up all the leaves. Cut it perfectly, better than him, as she cut less deeply, so it’ll look good this year! He staked up the shrub roses, with a little help from me. Oh, age, - I have to take care on anything like uneven ground. He put chains on the rubbish chute? and the carrier-bag thing. He moved the two bags of cement? from outside the woodshed to the pyracantha corner. Didn’t seem to want to get rid of it.

Dinner, halibut, peas, broad beans, - no beans for A., she’s allergic, since when? Oh well – rasps. How odd people are now, he had about seven. One punnet is only just enough for me. No wicked sugar for them either, and only a drop of cream. What they miss? He got on his low horse about me dismissing action films, fascinating, It’s his uneducated side coming out. Not for liking action films, but reacting too much against me dismissing them. He has always needed not to react against aesthetic disagreements. He knows, somewhere inside, that action films are for anoraks. In fact, really creative people always have these wicked tastes. It’s only sterile critics like me who… and oh dear, to tease him, when we came to discuss the estimates and money etc., I pretended that I’d thought Jean thing’s estimate was £2,575, tho’ it was her ‘phone number. He was quite cross, and I climbed carefully down. About ten- thirty they left. He said he was tired, and apologised, and I could see he was. But it had been ‘A lovely evening.’ And I was touched that he left a message on the machine after I’d gone to bed, to say he was sorry he hadn’t finished and put up the lucky (sic), horseshoe. Poor love, he felt he hadn’t done as much as he should have done, quite the reverse. It’s just so wonderful to have him here at all.

Very tired today, simply from standing up and sitting down, and cooking and so on, - at a rough estimate, just moving about seventy-five times more than on an ordinary day.

Yes, I think there is someone on the Radio Times with a literacy problem. New example, ‘never shirked away from controversy.’ And I’m sure the emphasis would be on the ‘trov.’

Both thought the garden lovely etc., a relief, as it’s a mess to anyone who knows.

Tuesday May 27 2003

Skipped through a biog. of Queen Alexandra. Distinct echoes of Mummy, to whom she must have been an idol of some kind, born in 1887, and twenty in 1907.

Cleaners today. Decided to have my p.m. rest just the same, and slept thro’ the lot. Next week they’re coming on Monday. Hm. Oh dear, cleaners, all ornaments out of place, and books pushed back on shelves, v, worrying for 18th century stuff.

Wednesday May 28 2003

Biblical videos advertised on TV. ‘Order Jesus at a special price £9.99 and get Jacob absolutely free.’

On the way to get a taxi in Uxbridge Rd., saw the Vallely daughter in law? and the two noisy boys coming out of the flats. Said Hello, I suppose she expectedto get the flat upstairs. Thank goodness she didn’t. In U.Rd was stopped by two suited and tied very young men, who said something about Jesus. Evangelists. I patted one on the shoulder and said, ‘My father was a clergyman, so I’ve had enough of Jesus to last me a lifetime’, and went off feeling vaguely they might offer me a ‘Jacob’ video. Shopped in H’smith. Lay down after lunch, in plenty of time for the John Lewis delivery between three and nine. The bell rang at quarter to two. The carpets. What is it about deliveries?

But the carpet was like a fantasy come true. A neat roll wrapped in plastic with only bits of string to snip. Put the roll down, and it unrolled by itself all the way to the bookroom, and it was in place, a perfect fit and just the mysterious dim pattern I’d hoped. Rang K to thank him. He said, ‘There.’

Thursday May 29 2003

Rang and accepted the estimates. Delivery for upstairs, pressed my bell despite their new bell. What is it?

Friday May 30 2003

Hideously hot again. 81º. Stuck in bookroom with fan again. Picked up Left Hand R. Hand, first time for five years or so. How I love it, even on a hot day.

Saturday May 31 2003

Hotter, may be 87º this p.m. Inside with all curtains drawn, I feel really off. What a good thing I’ll be dead before real global warming.

Sunday June 1 2003

Rain, thank goodness. Saves the labour of the pots out front. So I can weed tomorrow. Oh no, cleaners.

Bread flat. Yeast gone? Yes.

Monday June 2 2003

It’s wonderful to have the cleaners, but there’s no doubt you have to do quite a bit of work before they come. Remade the bed, put away various things they misplace. After they went, I had to rearrange all the ornaments, some of which had ended up on different pieces of furniture. Quite extraordinary. All the pictures needed straightening. The other day all the rubber gloves were missing, and turned out to be almost too far back in one of the low cupboards for me to reach them. Cab almost at once to take me to H’smith. Pension, bookshop, bank, then on to big Tesco and did good big shop. No rasps, b’berries, straws, new C.G. soap, sugar-snaps peas and mint.

Told the cleaner before I left to wash down the window-sills out front, to be ready for the new plants in the window-boxes. When I got back, they’d done the sills and the entire paint-work of the front, right up to the first floor…

Rang K about hideous Donald, reminded him about money, - he amazed me by saying he’d send me £5000, to be sure I’d be all right for sofa and curtain time. Told him of ‘I love you’ in various languages. He especially shrieked at Danish ‘Jeg elsker dig’.

Tuesday June 3 2003

I wonder if any of my friends know that I spend the whole day now, one way and another, working up to going out to dinner. Dear John arrived on the dot of 7.30. I think he walks from the tube station, and had a nice time, I daresay. Slumming it down Uxbridge Road.

A lovely evening as usual. We both had asparagus, rather thin asp. with grill marks on stalks, and parmesan shavings over and a little flavoured butter, I take it, under. Isn’t it odd that they want such a variation? Quite pleasant, and possibly necessary, as the asp. by no means of the first quality, and possibly also, because of the lack of taste so widespread now, for some ‘strong’ taste because their palates are too coarse to revel in the taste of good plump asp. with a little wodge of butter?

He had bream. I had plaice – three fillets, draped across a delightful mess of braised veg, courgettes, aubergine and I wasn’t quite sure what. He had a sort of small pancake over some cherries – v. good, he said cheese for me. No mention of – the gap is the result of my forgetting Joyce’s name for more or less twenty-four hours Stella? Monica? Did he tell me that A Lloyd-Webber is now a drunk! Well, as his paintings are to be at the R.A., he (J) should know. Quite a surprise, I would have expected him to be too calculating, and self-regarding to lose control. Rather touched to find J noting down Andrew Martin and Magnus Mills as readable novelists.

Wednesday June 4 2003

Rested, though J left at ten, and we had no coffee. No garden. Read O. Sitwell auto. first time for some years, as funny a book as I’ve ever read, and I keep them in my bedroom to prove it. Dear Henry Moat, retired butler and friend, writing from Whitby, ‘… a fancy dress ball where two nice young ladies arrived in skirts so short they didn’t cover their tea-things.’ Proper servantsare friends.

Thursday June 5 2003

Made up the three window-boxes with the pink dwarf tobacco plants, and cleared up generally in front. Rescued the two ferns that the squirrel trod into the dust. Repotted them and put them out the back. Mow demain?

Rang Mary L after her hospital visit on Tuesday. They found nothing. They were a bit shaken by her hoping it was cancer, as she ‘wants to die.’ Not quite such an ordeal as before, as there was a bed next to her on only one side. But there was a window open near her. Horror, a window open on June 3! And they offered her some drug or other ‘Cold water, so I had to make them get hot.’ Really, she has a monomania about heat. As for her complaint, I do confess to a suspicion that it is partly due to her diet and hypochondria, and partly to the tension in her whole personality. She has deep wells of rage and frustration in her, which would freeze anyone’s bowel. It strikes me she minds too much in the wrong way about it, on the lines of auto- poisoning or whatever. But I must emphasise that the remark about cancer is not an idle one. The reverse of her tiresomeness is a really strong character, which has survived a fearfully hard and empty and unlucky life. She means it when she says she wants to die. She sees that her selfishness and awkwardness would redound on her if she were helpless.

Friday June 6 2003

So odd, a lot of talk of D-day to which I didn’t listen, but rather gathered they were celebrating an anniversary. I suppose someone will remind them it was 1944…. Read the paper on the houses’ hall table, and walked to breakfast across the beautiful sunny flower-filled fields. Alone, of course.

Rain, rain. Finished the Sitwell, and the wonderful final volume, Noble Essences, with such pleasure.

Saturday June 7 2003

Took down Forster’s Longest Journey and read it this morning. I don’t think I’ve read a EMF for at least five years. Quite surprised how unsatisfactory I found it. Certainly it is the weakest, but I see now that there is a dishonesty at the heart of all of them. A bit of rough trade. Forster can’t admit his fascination openly, and the result is false. How ridiculous the fight between Ansell and Stephen and Philip and Gino. Reminds one of Lawrence’s similar absurdities. For fighting read wish-fulfilment fucking. A pity because of course there are many good things in it – the women, mainly. Spinsters he understands… no wonder younger people are harsh about him and he has lost his former stature.

Darling K rang to see if I was all right and confirm Wed.

J came round about seven. Had told her I would be mowing the lawn, and to bring her keys. In the end, I couldn’t, and get the dinner as well. I made a salade nicoise with the halibut steak, lettuce, chicory, peas, b.beans, little Jersey royals, and a handful of sapphire on top. She gobbled her plateful with, I think, genuine pleasure. Oh, and hardboiled eggs, but only for me, ‘I’ve had one egg today already.’ What absurdities modern health fads lead you into. Nice evening. She doesn’t drink coffee!

Sunday June 8 2003

An article in Sunday Telegraph by Ian Hislop, an affectionate tribute to his English master at Ardingly, who has just died at 73. Quite struck to find it was Colin Temblett Wood, to whom I haven’t given a thought, and not many before, since 1951 when I went down. He was, I see, three years younger than I, and may have been a year or two behind. Curious crumpled features, a bit of a bumbler, rather shambling – what a lot of ‘mb’s! I remember dimly being a little irritated by his resistance to taking acting seriously, and suspicion of anything like slickness. So I find I am not at all surprised that he became a schoolmaster teaching English, where he could impress the unknowing. But don’t mistake, I quite see that he might be a successful English teacher. His wife died a few years ago. Glad he found a wife, he needed one, a bit helpless, I bet.

Forget to say, asked J to bring some single cream. Brought hideous long-life, with that terrible cardboard after-taste. Now it’s all too possible that that was all that was available, but she didn’t mention it, and I wonder if she feels it ‘better’ for you than hideous fresh cream. Heavens, it’s thinner than top of the milk.

Had praised the ‘fridge to J as my best appliance, below par today, bother. Washed hair and soaked feet.

Monday June 9 2003

Dream, first for a while. Out to dinner in remotish country. Quarrel, no taxi, ‘and don’t use my mobile, they’all fuse.’ Need to get somewhere, and some theatrical content. Noone identifiable. The sort of dream that leaves you feeling on edge for quite a time after you wake up. I wonder why you don’t dream.

Cleaners tomorrow, plasterers the next day, and possibly ‘fridge following day. Three horrendous days.

Tuesday June 10 2003

Turned tail from the cleaners – ‘Today do the dining-room and kitchen’, chatter in kitchen, he came back to point at sitting-room, ‘dining-room?’ – and to H’smith. Taxi on way back letting off about immigrants flooding the country non-stop all the way. Hm. He was olive-skin, fuzzy hair, and a pretty impenetrable accent…

Dear K rang about tomorrow. So thoughtful. Emptied bath-room, legs very tired.

Wednesday June 11 2003

A day I dreaded, but was almost completely redeemed by K being here.

To my relief, the workmen didn’t arrive until nine-ish. The one who spoke, I recognised as one who pushed past me the first time, and went to look at the room, ignoring completely, in silence, my saying that it wasn’t convenient as they were two hours early. This time, he was cowed, and offered an uneasily cheerful comment. I replied formally that ‘my son would be along soon, if they had any queries’ and locked myself in the bedroom, to read the papers, which had just arrived. Couldn’t hear a peep from there, even without my ear-plugs. Nodded off over the papers, came too about ten forty-five. All seemed quiet, and then I heard the bleep of the answer- machine. It was him, on his mobile. So I rang it – and found he was in the ironmongers on Uxbridge Rd. just round the corner, getting some keys cut for someone he’s lent the studio to, while he’s away. He’d come in, talked to the workmen, at which he’s so much better than me nowadays, knocked on my door, and got no answer. How farcical! He turned up the next instant and sat on my bed and took my hand and brought me up to date. He said they were working well, and it mightn’t take them too long. So I should hope. It turned out that they left at three, everything cleared up properly, the bath and basin having been under cling film the whole time. Such a relief that he was here. We had lunch with complete freedom with them in the next room and the door open. If I’d been alone, I would have had a hole and corner snack on my knee in the book-room. He was being very funny, and seemed not to be still shadowed by Nigel. But after lunch, in the sitting room, he suddenly told me of the painful talks with Phil about Sian and Charlie and the money available. It seems there is £18,000 from N’s job and bank account and £100,000 from a life insurance policy that N. took out, just long enough before his death to benefit from it. (Well, I hope so. K seemed to feel it would be honoured, enough for he and Phil to have crossed swords about it. I thought suicide wiped out such a policy, and by the way, the inquest is in July.) There is also another sum I didn’t quite understand, and another, raised by his friends and office staff running a marathon. So I suppose there may be something like £200,000. It is suggested, by Phil, I presume, that a trust should be set up for Charlie, trustees Phil, K and Sian. ‘Though’, said Phil, ‘It must be arranged that that bitch doesn’t get her hands on a fucking penny’… K said, just as D did of Molly, ‘If only he weren’t so stupid.’ K had to say to him that he and Sian would outvote him if he attempted to take the money from her… The £100,000 is coming to her by probate, I hope. Phil blustered about making his solicitor etc. a trustee as well, but he hadn’t thought of the difficultly. What on earth will Charlie, for whom all this is supposed to be in aid of, think of Phil etc. when he’s eighteen, comes into the money, and – at what point? finds out how his mother’s been treated by his uncle? This happened last week. ‘Why didn’t you tell me last week?’ ‘You were upset about Donald so…’ He looked a bit moist-eyed. How odd, but somehow comforting, that we both have tiresome elder brothers. What havoc stupidity and lack of imagination can cause.

He’s off to Pete Sinfield for three days. Haven’t heard his name for some time and none of their songs together seem to have come to anything, any more than C. Porter, whose CD I still haven’t had. Then they’re off to stay with Paul (‘You remember mad red-haired Paul?’ Not really – just?) in Brittany for the inside of the week, back on Friday. Amazing fares just now, air fare £9.99, and only £19 back.

Roy rang. Good long talk, so he wasn’t offended by me having to cry off.

Later. Much touched to the point of a tear, a ring at the door. Found a tall fair mild- looking youngster in the hall, about thirteen? On the edge of adolescence, a frowning eleven-year-old behind. Did he say his name was Charlie? Possibly.‘I’m having a party for my birthday on Saturday, so I thought I’d tell you. We’re not having any music or anything.’ Much struck. Surely it’s a rare mother and youngster that thinks such warnings necessary. I told him he had been most courteous. Hope that was sufficiently pompous.

Thursday June 12 2003

Very tired. Did nothing. Re-read Irma Kurtz’ Dear London. Forget to say how I enjoyed her new book.

Friday June 13 2003

On Top Of The Pops someone out of Dr Caligari, white face huge black… can’t even bother to describe such a stale old eight-hand affair. How pathetic popular music is now.

Saturday June 14 2003

Investigation into a murder in B’mouth, Irene Wilkins. Reverted for a bit, because the murderer was a chauffeur in Beachward Avenue… (wonderful tatty garden, quite impossible at that time and on B’mouth’s soil), and because there were only five hundred cars in B’mouth then. The two ‘detectives’ the impossibly affected Brian Sewell, and some demotic lady detective writer – or rather, no lady – went to the present-day Masonic Lodge to dectect and I hoped to see the names of daddy and Mummy’s corrupt Methodist friends, but alas the camera didn’t pause long enough. So I left my B’mouth five minutes behind.

Planted two ferns in the ‘fern bed’ outside sitting-room window under the vine.

Sunday June 15 2003

Fridge is definitely conking out, ice still bubbles after all night freezing. Rang K and left message, saying it is pointless to get an engineer, or just buy a new one. (Is it engineer?) Did limited shop at Tesco. Oh dear.

Gardened at last. Cleared one of the big nettle-clumps by the sweet-briar. No sign of caterpillars, alas. Did a good half an hour, and then suddenly felt a bit sick and came in, can’t decide whether it was due to bending, which I never do as a rule, tempted by the nettles being about four feet tall, bending and straightening was it that? Or some emanation from the nettles? Bother. And I can’t see me having energy to go on till about Wed.

Monday June 16 2003

Rang K. He said repairs. Good. Just about to swim. Mr. James rang – at last. Suggested we meet at J’s, as he’s taking her watches back next Tuesday. Called her Janette. Shan’t let her forget that.

To those of us who detest politics and war, it is a positive relief to have the first headline ‘TV actress falls from second floor balcony in smart West London mansion.’

Ordered Oddbins. Nobody said it would be other than the usual five-ish delivery. Came while I was snoozing with ear-plugs in. What is it about deliveries? Aren’t there mobiles phone? It’s like men driving further and further on without looking at the map.

Tuesday June 17 2003

Bustled around getting ready for the cleaners. Got so hot, and even then forgot to put the stone jar full of the bone-handled knives and forks out of their clutches. Happily they didn’t touch them as it wasn’t their day for the kitchen. Bedroom, ready for curtain-man. Still, better than not be able to do it, and in other hands. A sinister phrase. They were early again, and I turned them onto the bedroom, and the front hall. I will say, they learn. This time the pictures were straight, most of the ornaments in place. I went on a trip to Chiswick, not Turnham Green, - a rather grumpy cab driver – to try and get some of the things on a two-year old list. No back bath-brush, or proper nail-brush or pumice stone in two chemists or Boots, in Ironmongers no possible glasses or plant pots, no corkscrew of my kind, no possible door-handle for the French doors. Did a morsel of food-shop at hideous M&S. Only raspberries American! Really, M&S is enough to make me feel anti-semitic. Altogether most unsatisfactory. Even more unsatisfactory, I couldn’t do a real shop because of the ‘fridge failure. The man is coming tomorrow, thank goodness.

Back here, put my key in the door, and found the door bumping into the Hoover. To my amazement, dear plump Tessie was bent double sweeping the ‘crevice nozzle’ backward and forwards over the carpet at six-inch sweeps. Broke to them the mystery of the carpet head, but I shall wait to see whether they master it. Have they mastered the buttons on the thing? Do they know about maximum and minimum?

Happily this time I had realistically taken my outdoor things into the bookroom, so was able to lie down at once in the book-room, getting back an hour before they left. And they left well before the three hours, thank goodness. I was still so hot, and I had to brace myself for the curtain men. Curious repetition.

Wednesday June 18 2003

Drunk.

Cleaners came early again. Cabbed off to Chiswick High Road to get away, in an attempt to get at least some of the thingson my list for months. Some ofthem are the result of dear K’s ‘clearing out’ principle, the bath back-brush, for instance, the corkscrew left at Hay with the pincers… more or less abortive, the most positive being a nonstick frying-pan for fish, which stick so easily. Otherwise, some superglue was about it. A few bits of food at M&S and I came home too early, and cross without wine-glasses, small plant-pots, pumice stone, nail-brushes or Pinaud’s Bay Rum.

The cleaners gone, I still couldn’t relax. (Ask anyone of seventy six what that means.) Nancy Panther, the wife of Jason, the curtain man, rang to say he might be late as he was in Kilburn. Did he say a time? Anyway he arrived about ten minutes later. But all workmen are like that now, and with deliveries, good or bad. I repeat, they have no life as we understand, only material ‘jobs’ to be finished or interrupted, taking the kids to school or whatever. ‘Trains of thought’ would be a mysterious expressing, I’m sure.

Jason arrived with a six foot two assistant, and broad in proportion, to whom I addressed a jovial, I insist, word or two to be answered in surly monosyllable… then I took a closer look at the juvenile complexion and ingenious expression, and realised he was about fifteen.Jason is a typical Cockney, used to live here, kept going out ‘To check on my car, because you never know round here, there was a young man in your front yard when we got here, probably checking where somebody had left him his stash...’

Took away the dear red velvets and pink W.Morris bed-rooms. These last to be cleaned ‘and I can’t be responsible’, and to be relined. A relief to get the reds off the floor, and out of either the armchair of my bed, when the cleaners come.

Pay-off line to some TV prog. Two young men, confiding. ‘And they’ll say I raped a schizophrenic Lesbian, but it wasn’t like that.’ So comforting that we all know what raping a schizophrenic Lesbian is like.

Wednesday June 18 2003

Well. I think I got all Tuesday in, in the end…

Today I had to brace myself for the ‘fridge repair. A pleasant quiet man, black, as it happens. I hope the day will come, not in my time, when one won’t mention ‘black’. Nobody could be more English than he. I knew at once that he could put it right, and save me from a tiresome visit where? to buy a new one, and K. cross because I hadn’t got the proper bargain. Billed between eight and one – typical but so insensitive and unnecessary – he arrived at nine- thirty. Took all the drawers etc. out, put everything from the freezer in the ‘fridge, and left it to thaw, helped by my fan. I am amused that a frost-free, no defrosting ‘fridge has to be defrosted. Still, can’t complain if it’s only once every three and a half years and done by someone else. Came back about 11.45, tinkered a bit, said it was all right, and only charged the £79 call-out fee. Well, £79.11 actually, ridiculous. Rang K, in Brittany to tell, ‘Just the call-out fee.’ ‘Fantastic.’ Rang off, me I mean.

Thursday June 19 2003

Tired and hot, just sitting still. S sent a sweet letter, ‘and I thought Ben Jonson’s names were overdone’ of his Honour Judge rant.

On technical staff of something, ‘Gay Flashman.’ A woman, I suppose/hope.

Friday June 20 2003

T&H again. Lazy.

Extraordinary confluence of mail orders, this morning, all from different carriers. The garden chairs came, most satisfactory, with a smart little table one side that lifts up and clips secure, the other side a series of canvas pockets, two pairs of cheap garden trousers, £9.99, from chums, Brown and Forrest order lasting over some weeks, all in swift succession, before the laundry. What the neighbours thought? And the right bell always pushed. The man bringing the Brown and Forest called me Angus off the label…

Darling K rang me to say they were safely back. I’ve noticed he’s done this more and sooner since Nigel. ‘How was it?’ ‘I’ll tell you when I see you. The place is fine. Paul’s a dickhead.’

Some useful points made about the black Henry V. N Hytner described this a ‘colour blind casting’, but the term is misleading since H would never cast a white actor in a black role, and, indeed, there isn’t a single white face to be seen in Elmina’s Kitchen, the new play at the National set on Hackney’s murder mile,

Another example of the same trend is choosing dumpy, middle aged actresses to play beautiful young women.I can’t tell you how many RSC productions have been ruined by having to watch besotted young men chase hideous old crones around the stage… the excuse… typecasting is boring and unimaginative… that phrase… is misleading… RSC directors never choose hot young actresses to play Gertrude or Beatrice. No, when it comes to casting, if you’re young, good-looking and white, it’s very difficult to land a decent part on the British stage, even though nearly all the best parts were written for people exactly like you. A point worth addressing.

Saturday June 21 2003

Jason Curtains arrived about three, by himself, put up both sets of curtains very well, and didn’t leave till 7.15. It’s all exactly as I wanted, but it does seem a long time. He’s a sort of dear, but, I see, a whingeing dear. Had to tell me how long it took him to unpick this, and how dirty his seamstress found that. However, one bit of whingeing really pleased me. ‘Who sewed those brass rings onto those red velvet curtains? It took me more trouble to get them off than anything I’ve had to deal with, in fifteen years of curtains.’ Well, D of course, in 1962, and not a ring had come off. Ten foot heavy velvet in three houses.

Darling K is the onlyone who has let me draw on B’mouth, or even thought of it. Still Jason did a good job with the curtains.

Sunday June 22 2003

Rang Mary L, as I do more frequently now. Does she speak to anyone else? I don’t think. She takes to chats about the theatre of forty or fifty years ago like on oasis in the desert, so I think it helps. But she did tell me something optimistic and encouraging for once, even though she has hardly been born again exactly, as the main figure was in the cast of Quiet Weekend.Jeanne Stuart played the glamorous down from London guest, and was just that. (I do have D’s evidence, as well as ML’s obsession). She was not only glamorous, but good hearted and a working actress. Yes, even during the war, she had rich boy-friends, beautiful clothes and drink and food, but she shared them with her fellow-actresses. Her life went smoothly on, she plainly had the art of pleasing without compromising her integrity. Not surprisingly, she ended up on the Riviera with her last – Count, I think it was, and I’m sure she looked after him tenderly and faithfully, putting together D and ML’s picture of her. So now ML had heard from her connection with Denville – she’s applied for entry, thank goodness – that Jeanne S, dying at 93, had left her money, -£6 million – to Denville, ‘because I know many of my fellow-actresses who have not enough money and bad health and need looking after’ or words to that effect. Indeed a tart with a heart.

A comforting chat as usual, with Hazel.

Monday June 23 2003

A further flooding of deliveries. The foot massager, which may help me to go back to the chiropodist. The Harry Potter book was propped against the door post, and given me by the postman, obviously I’d slept thro’ its delivery. And a cardboard cylinder – the Panama hat, a really good one and a perfect fit.

Found out I’d put Mr. James meeting on Wed. instead of Tuesday, as I think it is.) I was really muddled last week,) Rang J., confirmed and ditto with Mr. J.

Started the H. Potter at once. Right up to the others, now for the usual complaints.

Tuesday June 24 2003

By usual complaints I mean the criticism that will be, is being, showered on Rowling. Quite a bit of it is jealousy, of violent success – the money mainly, and the praise of more discriminating people than usual, for a terrific popular success. Of course huge best-sellerdom is a signal of stale writing and well-worn clichés disguised with a lick of modishness, and so many critics relax into using best-sellerdom as a standard of inferiority. But sometimes, even now, it isn’t. And Harry Potter isn’t. It has a narrative impetus, a logic, a satisfying command of detail, honest detail, that deserves every success it has had. Here I am, reading all seven hundred and whatever it is pages without stopping. Children’s books often, quite often, have real merit. And again.

This morning, felt tired, oppressed, and tho’ I’d ordered a cab, and really do want to get the watches repaired, I left a message on J’s machine at 8.30, that I was not up to it. And I wasn’t. I’d had a poor night, but also claimed an upset stomach. A lie. But the relief I felt when I didn’t have to go, without a definite plan, - J. couldn’t settle for lunch etc. - made my lie more acceptable to me. PM K cross ‘cos I hadn’t rung sofa woman.

Wednesday June 25 2003

Young woman upstairs rang my bell to tell me she had two mice. Did she want a trap? No, she had two cats. And she’d seen a fox in garden. Hm. Odd that people can’t see that it’s a little tactless to tell someone a fact about their garden, and assume they don’t know it. I may also be wrong, but I sense a certain pressure. Heaven forefend they want to be good neighbours. As usual, she never said I’m sorry to interrupt you. They have nothing to be interrupted, only to be diverted from. An idle moment for her, no doubt, so an idle moment for me…

Gardened. The new hydrangea has come on splendidly, despite being in a pot for well past. Cleared the nettles from the two camellias. One way and another, there is enough planting in the pyracantha corner to complete it, if I can just keep the weeds out for long enough.

Thursday June 26 2003

Curtain bill £750, not bad remembering what’s-his-names for the bathroom, not to mention J. Lewis.

Dear John Nick rang to say about ourK dinner. So kind when he’s so busy. All those banquets.

Angela Mann rang to say ‘A very interesting letter from Donald’s solicitor’s to say that my buyer, a Mr. Gray, has offered to buy the freehold of the whole house, and that Donald has agreed. She’s sending me the letters. Hm.

Rang J about it and left message for K.I long for his comfort.

Friday June 27 2003

Finally threw Monica Ali’s Buried into the Oxfam – Mary L bag. Lively and full of local ‘Paki’, Bangladeshi and generally ‘Indian’ detail, which I find interesting and illuminating. It is I’m afraid, finally a tract for students of racism. Still, she has gifts and may do better later. Radiant notices in case of racism. She personable, ‘with two children’, - Hampstead? Something like that, entirely Western in expression, clothes and general mien. Only her darker skin Indian.

Stage didn’t come. Rang news agent and found they hadn’t had it either, and in fact The Stage returned their credit, and she thinks it won’t come at all. Disgraceful carelessness of someone.

Banging and drilling overhead again, but mercifully not continuous, and seems to have stopped. But still just over the bookroom as it was far so long. Really the room above must be solid wood nailed together from floor to ceiling.

Saturday June 28 2003

Talked to K reB’mouth. He only pointing out facts. Left me in depths. Horrid.

Sunday June 29 2003

Cancelled my talk to H as I knew I would talk too much out of depression. The squalor of Donald! How right I’ve been scarcely to have spoken to him for forty years.

Watched Cardiff Singer of the World. Standard not so high, not enough of the young aspirant about the five finalists. Of one of them, one of the judges said, ‘I had absolutely no idea what language she was singing in.’

Monday June 30 2003

They say this was the warmest June since 1976. Rubbish.

Steeled myself to ring Angela Mann. Ill again, spoke to her assistant, who sounded reasonably intelligent, tho’ didn’t know the details, and at the end of the talk, said he’d tell AM, so it was a pointless – and expensive, no doubt, call. Rang K and he depressed me badly by putting the worst outcome.

Rain. Tired.

Tuesday July 1 2003

Rang K to apologise for being so down. He said don’t be silly, and proceeded to depress me further, ‘Donald may let it go to completion, and at the last minute say I must have six months to look for somewhere to live.’

Angela M rang, and was unexpectedly positive. I can make a firm stipulation about time. Rang K to say so. What would I do without him? Especially as the cleaners didn’t come. Got all ready, and prepared for my rest, but no earplugs, and they didn’t come and didn’t come, and the whole afternoon was a strain. What with one thing and another, felt a little light-headed, and heard myself talking rather incontinently to Mary L, who I ring more often just now.

Rang ‘Feely.’ She’d tried to ring - no she hadn’t – Tessie and husband go back to Philippines on Thursday. I daresay that two-month extension was a mistake. Of course it might be my mistake, through the clotted monosyllables of the man’s English. She’s hoping to get ‘a friend’ to take over. No mention of her as she said originally. Told her to tell them what good workers they were, and how pleasant. I wonder if they go off, and think at all pleasantly of me, and wish they could have said goodbye. But they expect little.

Wednesday July 2 2003

Reculer etc. tho’ will I jump. Rain. BBC news, raining at TV centre, but not here, a five minute drive away. Rain…

Thursday July 3 2003

The painter arrived on the dot of nine, as promised. A dear, fortyish very Geordie, disposed to talk, v. sympathetic for the messup. Went back to bed to read the papers, nodded off, woke at ten-thirty, he’d gone. He’d said he’d have to come back tomorrow for second coats. Good. Snooze. 2.15 to 4.0. Still tired.

Henman beaten again. Good. At least an Englishman can still lose gracefully. But I’m afraid he doesn’t see it like that. I am proud that there is no English player to go for nothing but winning with a cross little face. What we invented was a game. All of them.

Friday July 4 2003

Letter from dreaded Wendy, Donald’s fearful solicitor, farcical phrases such as… ‘Discuss details… as soon as possible’, ‘…Pressed by buyer’s solicitors to proceed as quickly as possible’.What a scream – and a nerve, when theirs has been all the delays. As it happened, I’d written the detailed letter necessary with the unequivocal statement that the sale must take place within a month. I notice that she asks for my ‘phone number for all this urgency. Sent my letter predated to yesterday, starting Dear Sir. After all, when I wrote it, I didn’t know it was to be to her. On my paper, no number, and I don’t want her to have it, as she – and Donald – can’t renege on a letter. Interesting, so perhaps it will be quick- er.

Decorator again, second coat to ceilings, touched up both yellows. Gone by ten. Excellent.

Saturday July 5 2003

Rang Andy. The young never think of not getting a table. To my delight got Louise and she is just as delightful as her book suggests. Supple talk, funny, quick. I’m glad I’ve broken the ice with her before we met. Funny about Las Vegas. Start with that. And her family.

Sunday July 6 2003

Rang L at 7.0 as she hadn’t.Thursday? She hadn’t spoken to Andy!

Monday July 7 2003

Rang sofa woman, who hadn’t dreamt of answering my letter of a week ago, let alone two ‘phone messages. Hastily assembled such brain cells as she could find, and said they’d pick up the sofa on Saturday 18th. ‘It’s the 19th’, ‘Well, the 19th.’

Booked table for Andy and Louise for Thursday. Andy rang later to confirm. Hope I don’t chatter.

Tuesday July 8 2003

Still waking at two. It spoils the whole day as I have to sleep in the p.m.Picked up William Plomer’s ‘Double Lives’ and am enjoying it very much. I try to re-read and sift. This will certainly stay. I see I bought it in 1971. And I find, I remember it in curiously fragmented details.I feel it’s probably very like him, judging by what others say of him. A small but quite distinctive subtle talent.

I shall have to get someone to help me with the garden.

Wednesday July 9 2003

More talk of drugs being legalised. I don’t know why not. Wouldn’t it, to a large extent, get rid of the huge price of drugs and the resultant drug barons, and crime and so on? And yet it doesn’t happen and people argue against it.

Home movies from the ‘30s. Vaguely reminded of my childhood, and B’mouth, and why I always longed to be left alone to sit and walk quietly. How they rush about, swimming, playing every sort of game, not able to see a calm stretch of water without disturbing it, preferably with a noisy motorboat. No wonder such people make cross bitter old people.

Thursday July 10 2003

Louise Wener and Andy Maclure to dinner at the Brackenbury. They arrived half an hour early when I was actually nude… I loved her at sight. Tall, slim, fine-boned – when I took her wrist, my fingers went round twice. Aquiline but delicate features, and delivate responsive, subtle, with a supple mind that picks up everything. I loved and felt easy with her at once. I hope we can be friends. Most interesting talk. She is a third child, but has quarreled with her elder sister, Susan, married to the journalist, Jonathan Margolis.And no wonder.S is a writer, too, and was so cross at L starting to write, and having a novel accepted, not to say well reviewed, that she attempted to crab L’s career, trying to discredit her with her agent etc. She took note intently of my b’day, and will send me her new novel. Most inspiring of all, she’s started her third. Has Andy given her the security?

Poor Mary O. Her hospital day today.

Friday July 11 2003

Plucked down the Ackerly diaries to read in my exhaustion. Clarity and a sort of balance but oh dear what a mess.

Just on cue, after I’d rung J to ask what I’d better do about Feely, she rang to say she’d got someone, ‘She is with me now, sir.’ They’re coming on Monday, three o’clock. Tired.

Saturday July 12 2003

Boiling hot, 85º in here and it faces north and the blue velvet curtain has been drawn for weeks. Why do people like it? Sweating thro’ my hair.

Read Ackerley’s sister book. It is impossible to understand how such an intelligent and charming man – and he was, D knew him through Henry Reed, and liked him much – could be so completely lacking in judgment of people and himself. I simply don’t know how he could write at length such unreal rubbish. As for his sister, push her away. After all, on his death she became much calmer and more possible. It’s hard to decide whether their lives together, or on their own, were more arrantly selfish. Equally mysterious, that he was possibly, for his thirty-five or so years at the Listener, the best literary editor of the century. No garden.

Sunday July 13 2003

Woke at 2-ish a.m, so no Tesco’s. Snooze at 1.30. Woke at 8.0 pm! Dinner 9.0 etc.

Disrupting.

Commercial about baked beans. Rather revolting pictures of beans in orange goo – I have only tasted them once, and realized that their gross popularity is not only their fast-food ease of preparation, but much more revolting, they are overwhelmingly tooth-achingly sweet.

Monday July 14 2003

What a b’day, John Nick and K coming together to arrange for my death to be as accommodating and comfortable for my heirs as possible. Only useful insight I contributed was two estate-agents including in their details, shelves for 3000 books. And that was before they get here.

Nancy Panther rang to say tiebacks and cushion-covers tomorrow. Made it clear that it must be three thirty, and not when ‘My guests’ would be there. As if they would care.

And at three today, Feely turned up on the dot with the new cleaner, so similar in ethnic type, I thought for a moment it was Tessie. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Ling ling.’ Has the second ‘Ling’ a capital L? Certainly L-L can’t tell, but she has more English. We shall see how much. Paid her for this week of no work. Delight. An investment. Boiling. Frightful.

Tuesday July 15 2003 Wednesday July 16 2003

Another heavenly evening. Time went on, and seven passed, and no sign of either. About half-past they arrived, together. So I said thro’ the glass panel, ‘Now which of you is it?’ It was so hot, and both sleeveless and J in shorts. It’s a treat that now you can be comfortable and who could be more at home here than them? I’d forgotten how well they get on although they haven’t met all that often, sympathy, fun, affection, what more? The dinner was, I think, a success. Three small strips of smoked eel – so rich – lemon, a dish of roast quail, cooked in the morning, so the kitchen wouldn’t be hot, six of them, two each, and a big salad, lettuce, chicory, with peas and broad beans, and quail eggs. Can’t remember a single word of conversation, but I took keen pleasure in their pleasure and obvious complete relaxation. And I gloried in K getting up and doing the coffee and knowing where everything is. They both brooded over B’mouth for me, as always making me braver.

K stayed on after J to tell about the inquest. I could see he wasn’t quite as distressed as before, Phil is simmering down, Sian has to have that £100,00o whatever happens etc. Still, he’s disgusted, as I am with Donald!

He brought me the CD at last. I’m nervous of it. I have noticed he is more protective and close since N’s death. It reminds you. Told me to ring gardener.

I’m writing on Wednesday! Tired. Three page letter from Donald’s solicitor, Wendy thing. Ugh. Got gardener numbers, snoozed 2.15. Woke at 6.30! but felt better and calmer and less guilty about the garden. No way to go on. Still boiling. Greasily sweaty, and drunk from happiness and drink.

Thursday July 17 2003

Sofa woman rang to remind me they were coming to collect the sofa on Saturday. Yes, I see it’s a small scale operation.

Finished the rather poor new N. Mitford biog. A few insights, but not enough to be worth it. Read around for fun, as ever.

Friday July 18 2003

Royalty for Only Fools and Horses, £637, but I don’t think it was for the actual repeat, but for DVD and video rights etc. Well.

The S. Times wine delivery turned up just as the boy upstairs was coming in. The ‘delivery’ turned out to be a smallish young woman with a rather impenetrable accent out of apparently a private car. She managed to tell me she had some wine, but that ‘The cases were very heavy…’ The young man said he’d carry them in, and did so. So left two as a thank-you – bots, I mean, not cases. Kind, of him, but I must keep them at arm’s length. Not impressed by the S. Times arrangements.

I see some high up scientist in the M. of Defence, and much embroiled in the ‘Why did we start the war in Iraq’ row, has committed suicide. Rang J about something else, and amused that she immediately damped me down, and pooh-poohed my idea of a huge government scandal.

Must remember not to say ‘I told you so’, as a full-scale top-notch ‘crisis’ erupts. How lovely that I have no interest in its details or development.

K and John N were insistent that I rang B’mouth solicitor and a gardener for here. Wrote to B’mouth and rang Andrew, a name given by Gingko Garden Centre, where he works every Monday. That pleased me, as everyone I’ve spoken to there, as opposed to Clifton Nurseries, has been universally pleasant, informed and mild. Andrew was no exception. Tall, personable, late twenties, brown as someone who works outside and will not turn to skin cancer, he is slow to talk, thinks and talks, and thinks again. We’ll see how we get on. Coming to see me on Monday night after Gingko.

Saturday July 19 2003

Eventful. Sofa to be picked up between ten and twelve. As usual, a call, ‘we’re behind schedule’, and eventually it was quarter to two. Meanwhile the water went off. They’ve had some sort of workman about, so… and then I rang poor K and wished I hadn’t, - he felt he might have to come up. And then I remembered the Water Board. Rang them, to find ‘a water main had burst in Uxbridge Road, and men were working on it, further advancements would be…’ a relief. Soon there wasn’t even a trickle in any tap, and the loo. Tank was empty. The only exception was the cold tap in the bathroom basin – why? – So I was able to fill saucepans and kettles for dinner. This time it did affect J too, and she told me it was at the junction with Lime Grove. By 8.50 the loo was flushing again.

Plucked down the Mitford-Waugh letters to carry on from N.M.’s own vol. What a good witty editor Charlotte Mosely is. J rang twice to talk about the water, like the blitz.

Sunday July 20 2003

Restful day not caring about anything except the Sunday papers and Mitford-Waugh. Garden has become a burden I see, by virtue of its being possibly removed.

Saw upstairs coup. in hall.‘Haven’t had the wine yet’, he said, tho’ he hadn’t thanked for it.

Monday July 21 2003

Interview with Andrew a great success, just as I remember him, tho’ I didn’t say I’d seen him before. He might be a real treasure. Quiet. Had a glass of wine and put wet glass on mahogany wine-table, though three cork mats on table to his right! Much too hot. Oh dear.

Tuesday July 22 2003

Mitford-Waugh carry me away still.

Ling-Ling on time. Opening the door to her coincided with the young couple upstairs coming in with shopping. I have done this too often lately and must take greater care to avoid them. Meetings mean intimacy to such people. Already she calls me Angus, and offered to do my shopping when I came back with my driver carrying the bags. How odd that I suppose some people like such attentions, and I quite see the good nature. But…

The shopping was, of course, a refuge from Ling-Ling. When I woke up from my rest, at four-thirty, she’d gone, thank goodness. Everything done, the sink and the hob never used by humans etc. – how suburbanly American everyone is now – it took me ten minutes to find the corkscrew, and five to find the oven-glove, under the gardening gloves, obviously too ‘soiled’ or even ‘filthy’ to be used in the scared hygienic preparation of food. (I suppose that’s why J and John Nick etc. seem to have so many minor complaints – they need a bit more dirt. Certainly even in those circles it is being suggested that children are being brought up in ‘too clean environments.’ Oh, the jargon.) Another delight. She washed everything, including the picture glass – must stop that – and the salt-cellar. Naturally not wanting to waste the mysterious and possibly valuable white powder within, what to do? Opening another lidded bowl, ah, more and identical white powder. She brought them safely together.

So I took a mouthful of my raspberries and salt, and had to empty them into the garden…

Brown and Forrest order, nine o’clock, ordered yesterday down in Somerset. What a gem.

Wednesday July 23 2003

Delicious collapse. Garden guilt dying down.

Thursday July 24 2003

Will in Telegraph of Alexander Elmslie Campbell of Oxford, who left £40,000 to Keble, but £20,000 each to John’s, Camb and King’s, and £10,000 to Girton.

What is the story and the fine shade behind it?

Friday July 25 2003

Wretched creature who invented the fertility process, and its twenty-fifth anniversary, combined with a new step forward, ‘Infertility may soon become a thing of the past.’ Huge reunion of the million IVF children, headed by the first one, Louise Brown, a most unprepossessing stones over-weight insipid suburban girl of twenty five.

Does anybody but me feel the desperate necessity of there being less people than more? We are more or less helpless against the almost rancid sentimentality of the masses for ‘kids’.

Later. Curious little association. Continuing with Waugh, picked up Loved One, and read it straight through. Flawless, a perfect thing, perfect not only in its expression, but in the material fitting exactly into its form. At one point, getting up to get a drink, turned on the news in case the world had ended and I’d been left out of it, saw the two sons of the Hussein Creature, no longer battered and smashed but put together, by Americans, of course, with all Max Factor’s skill.

Saturday July 26 2003

Shaw’s b’day and the sofa coming. Not that he was at all one for omens. Nor am I, but I could have been, as the sofa arrived at eleven-thirty, heralded by a tall fair child, just like the boy upstairs, who handed me a receipted bill, and said ‘Jean Smith.’ I gave him the cheque, and went back to bed, claiming flu, to the book-room, as it happens. Tho’ he didn’t know that.

I wanted to be sure to miss the difficulty of getting the sofa in, especially taking my front door off its hinges, as threatened last time – visions of the incompetents saying ‘we can’t get it back on, you’ll have to…’ sleeping the weekend without a proper door, and so on, not to mention ripped and scratched wall-paper on every corner. And the sofa looked just as I’d hoped, ‘clothed in white samite, mystic wonderful.’ Yes, Saint Shaw protected me.

Rain, rain, good. Very quiet upstairs, tho’ school holidays. Out for day? Holiday. Not that it’s ever really noisy.

Sunday July 27 2003

Rang Marian and Roy at last and had a long and funny and satisfying talk with both. One or two bits of news – the Chiswick is shut. Bother, just my sort of place – that’s why it’s shut, no doubt. R’s filming has started, and so has the money. A warning word with K without being choked off for work, before Denmark. Told me that the price now of parking his car at Stansted airport for the eight days he’ll be in Demark, has gone up and is now £108… So he’s taking the train, £20.

Took up Ann Fleming’s letters. Pub. ’89. Have little recollection of much of it. How could I have forgotten Mr. and Mrs. Forbes Adam appear, and Timothy and Penelope. Is Nigel alive?

Monday July 28 2003

Stage anxiety dream, quite an unmistakable and acute one. Why? Going on as one of the black-suited somethings, a group of some kind, in a Shaw, I hadn’t had time to learn, and couldn’t find a script. A pleasant ASM tried to help…

A burst of activity. Rang tile-man, Jean Smith, Denbigh printer and the gardener. Put Mary L off to next week, because of the weather. A tiring day tomorrow.

Tuesday July 29 2003

On the principle laid down by Katharine Whitehorn, that, if you have an unpleasantor exhausting thing to do or undergo, arrange two or three other things on the same day, instead of wrecking a week. It was Ling-Ling’s day, so I told the gardener to come at 10.30. He’d mentioned a partner – not in the sexual sense, I suppose – and he’d seemed to agree. Nevertheless, two turned up, the other with shaven head and ear rings, not earrings. How K would despise me, I didn’t turn him away. And they asked or suggested three hours’ work. Two hours, and that cost me £80. He asked me about the cat-scarer. ‘Does it work?’ They went at two hrs., and had four bags of weeds etc. in the new council garden waste bags to put outside. I didn’t go out, couldn’t face it as they were weeding with forks. But I could see there was no edges trimmed; by the way, there was a false alarm at the door at 10.25! NTL for upstairs. Someone had been sawing and carpentering a bit in the front. Well, another ‘thing’ got rid of on a nasty day. (I thought NTL were the firm suing Mr. Vallely late of up stairs…) So I had lunch, with what I hate, an eye on the clock. Ling-ling came on the dot of 2.30, and I turned her onto the sitting-room, telling her not to wash the pictures, just dust them. And mimed putting the dusters in the dirty-clothes basket when they were too dirty to be used any more, as opposed to the previous couple washing the same two dusters to rags every time they came. I think they have – Filipinos – a fixation about water, because, in a hot country, it vapourises, so quickly. When I got up from my rest, she’d washed the sitting-room floor, still gleaming with little pools. Well, at least she went at five when she was finished. How I envy Ludwig of tame rather earlier than the agreed four, 3.35 perhaps. Well, I’m all for that. Tall blurred- looking, almost impediment in his speech but knows his stuff. The tiles are porcelain – ‘I’ve got a ton of them in reserve! Quote, £110, which he obviously thought very bad news. Booked him for August 14th.

One piece of good news didn’t arrive. Did I say that I rang a delightful Grace McNair in Glasgow about these notebooks? She’d sent my order to arrive today. It didn’t. But another good news did, - £411 for Dr. Who – so that’s £3000 odd to play with. – just at the right moment.

Wednesday July 30 2003

Unlike, it seems, the overwhelming majority of the British, perhaps all, people, I cannot take any pleasure in discomfiture, humiliation or failure, and I cannot watch people to whom fearful personal disasters have just happened. Enchanting collapse today. I indulged myself. Took down D. Sayers’ letters for a closer read. It isn’t quite so hot and the Denbigh note-books arrived, a great wodge of them, of this. J said how long can you stay alive to fill them. In garden found cat-scarer flex cut.

Thursday July 31 2003

The Sayers letters – most fascinating in the first volume, but just as Peter W says he hasn’t got the philosophical mind in Gaudy Night.I haven’t got in either, and particularly not the theologian’s mind, which seems to me a batting about in Nothingdom if you don’t believe. A lovely club with limits, with lovely comforting limits, if you do. She was brave though. Her illegitimate son, for instance, how easy it would have been to go all sentimental and ruin both their lives even more deeply. Curiously poor judge of character in partners and friends to a point. Imagine being taken in Patrick Mclaughlin for a start.

To Tesco, hoping to find fairly empty day. Why did I think Sunday? That v. pleasant big black diver who took me to K and A that first time I returned to the firm. Dreading the possible heat ahead, spent a thrilling £100!

Friday August 1 2003

Finished Sayers. I’d forgotten the editor said there were to be two more volumes. This, Vol II, only goes up to 1943. I’ve heard nothing of them, and they would surely have been noticed. But this second vol. had to be published by the D Sayers Society, as I suppose Hodder and Stoughton got cold feet. Second volume done proud with proper ackn.,sources, index footnotes etc. But perhaps the D.L.S.Soc. was a bit stunned by its cost, and I seem to remember I had to order it specially and never saw it anywhere. Tomorrow Ken High St, lovely shopping-list, and lunch with J – Oh, no, she’s cried off. During my gin and tonics, had a sneezing-fit, an unusual time for it, usually in bed at night. The usual thirty or so sneezes at unusual time. On all the weather forecasts, we get hotter, Denmark has rain. He’ll never notice. He’ll be in the windowless studio.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 183

August 2 2003 - October 19 2003.

Saturday August 2 2003

Bad night to the point that I was afraid I’d oversleep the cab in the morning, so cancelled it. A pity, as I was buying an extra fan – it nearly kills me plugging it and unplugging it in the bedroom. No Ken High St, but gardened. Despite their awfulness, the clearing is a crude help. I found two huge sacks of weeds etc. hidden in the shrubbery to the left, and J’s weed basket propped on the lemon bush, bending one of its branches. (I’d specially mentioned the lemon) and the cat flex – that gave me a really horrid shiver – it seemed so nasty. If they disapproved of it, couldn’t they have asked me to turn it off?

Sunday August 3 2003 Monday August 4 2003

Hotter. I have the fan on twenty-four hours a day, aimed at my face in bed. I sometimes wake and feel so stifled.

More and more animals are being threatened with extinction. I’m not surprised. They don’t have a minute to themselves these days.

Today Monday 32º. Try to keep the plants watered.

Tuesday August 5 2003

Hottest yet. Cleaner day. Dallied with the idea of sending her away paid, as I couldn’t imagine not just lying on the bed in my pyjamas, in the tiny help of the fan. That all seemed difficult enough, my head was throbbing, when a long letter with a contract came from Donald’s solicitor, saying that Donald’s being allowed to stay on for six months while looking for somewhere to live, would mean completion couldn’t take place until the six months was up. No mention of my month’s dead line. Went hot and cold – well, hot – all over and felt frantic for the moment, frantic that people can be so perverse and selfish, and the overwhelming need to sever myself finally from my awful family. If only I weren’t dependent on this money, I have, in every other way, rid myself of them. That is why this last clawing me back into small- mindedness and selfishness, is so distressing.

Later. Rang K and thank god! he was back. Poured it all out (and the gardeners) and he was so comforting. Rang Angela Mann and she was comforting, too, and said I could sell it separately, and go ahead and tell Beauchamp– Ward. But first I shall ring Ray Powis of the estate-agents in Bournemouth, the only one who’s talked sense throughout, and get him to talk to the buyer. Did so. He’ll be in tomorrow at 11.0. Someone - Andy – rang at five and asked if he could help. I thought he’d probably thought he’d get the gist to save Ray P. time.

Ling-Ling over heated the Hoover – a full bag to be fair – and broke one of the nice glasses K brought me. And she was only supposed to be doing the bedroom.

What would I do without him? Hotter than ever. Awful. As hot as I’ve ever known it, and I don’t think that’s an illusion of age.

Wednesday August 6 2003

Over all, the hottest day in London ever, 36º, 97º.1.

Rang Powis at 9.30. In meeting. He rang back at ten to ten. Told him, sell it to Mr. Gray, or I’ll sell it to a new buyer. He said as before ‘No building society would give a mortgage with the freehold as it is to a new client, but Mr.Gray is another matter. I think he’s not on holiday yet, I’ll ring you back. If I don’t get him, I’ll ring you on Friday.’ Now Mr. P has always performed more than he’s promised, an unusual ability. He rang back before lunch to say Mr. Gray would exchange contracts on Friday, and complete a fortnight later. Rang Angela Mann, who said get all yr. documents back from Beauchamp-Ward, and send us a letter authorising her and her assistant, Christopher Lloyd, to sign the contract in my name. Obviously she expected difficulties one way or another, from time or Beauchamp-Ward or Donald or anyone. Made me ring Wendy B.W. Light voice, tho’ even Donald said she was v. fat. Told her. Send the docu. back. No mention of any letter saying I wanted a deadline, deprecating murmur. Outlined sale. Hackles. ‘Without delay.’ – ‘I can’t do it at once, we’re short-staffed and I’m going on holiday.’ ‘As soon as you can.’ Rang Lloyd Acs. and told receptionist to tell Angela the form, and to send someone to get the documents in case B-Ward sat on them. This was in response to J telling she might sit on the documents, go away on holiday, and nobody perhaps might know where they were… I am disgusted that both J and darling K have to advise me of such repellent duplicity and selfishness from people who are supposed to serve us.

So here I am, on the hottest day London has ever known, obliged by Donald… to take a letter to the post to Lloyds for my contract authorisation. That was this morning at about 12. Odd airlessness and only a short walk. Later had to get some gin as Oddbins is in the throes of staff holidays, and my nice van-man away. So they came without warning at threeish, when I was out with exhaustion. So I went out at about five when I suddenly felt strong enough, and went to the Co-op mini-market. This time the brassy blank clang of the heat over my bald head quite frightened me, and I carefully sought any shade there was. How fast the cars and buses seemed. Waiting at the corner of Percy Rd to cross – how cruelly quick cars turn into it from either direction, so I have to wait till the lights turn green from the Green, and nothing coming else. The Iron stanchion post was burning tho’ it was in the shade.

Thursday August 7 2003

A little cooler on the thermometer -33º, 88º, but no different for the poor body. Some statistics, first nothing to do with the heat wave.

I’m afraid people pretend that black people aren’t more likely to offend than whites. A huge gap shows them to be wrong. After all, all of them can’t be wrongly accused. But I do think a lot of it comes from that lack of control in West Indians, to be winced at in their loud voices and general excitability. Oh dear, how bored I am by black singing and dancing, all that natural childlike quality. As time goes on, it will be interesting to see if those who are English born lose the tiresome Jamaican incontinence.

There are signs that they may. And I suppose many of these prisoners are drug victims of one sort or another.

In the Independent there were two pages on exceptional weather. I thought I’d list the items that occurred in my lifetime. (i) The hottest Aug 6 ever was in 1933, 33.6.93. This was a specially good summer, and probably my reason for thinking all my childhood summers were wonderful, as we lived in Bournemouth, and I was 7. (ii) The Lynton-Lynmouth disaster. I was staying with Gerard Irvine in London or immured in Torquary. Either way I was too poor to buy a paper, too dispirited to listen to the wireless, and had never seen TV and knew nobody who had one. (iii) Unbroken fog over London on two occasions, 26 Nov. to 1 December ’48. I was at Cambridge, never heard of it. On the other hand, 5-9 Dec. ’52, I was staying with Gerard Irvine, in Kingly St. just behind Regent St. I had gone to The Innocents at her Majesty’s in the Haymarket, and was walking back. I suppose it is difficult for someone who never saw a real London fog – and I would say this was the last of them – to believe that the fog was so think that, in crossing over Piccadilly to walk up Regents St, I lost my way and walked up Piccadilly for some distance instead. And I’d lived in London on and off since ’40. (iv) The great storm on the east coast. More than 300 dead in England and 1800 in The Netherlands. Same reason as (ii), hardly registered it. (v) The great freeze of 1962-3 lasted from Boxing Day until March. We were in between flat and house. We borrowed Prim’s flat in St. George’s Drive, and my memory is that we were entertaining the Barringtons on New Year’s Eve – Champagne cocktails all night – and by the time they went, about 12.30, they couldn’t get the car to start, not that it could have moved, and had to walk home to Maida Avenue. I don’t remember much snow before, - perhaps just frost – but I do remember the lumps of frozen snow at the particularly bleak corner of Manchuria Rd by the pillar-box, lying there for weeks on end as we scrambled with heavy loads of paint and so on for the weeks till we moved in. (How odd that the really bad freeze (see over) (vi) Summer of ’76. Driest 16 month period since records began in 1772. For two periods temp. was 90 for six successive days. (Must be getting near beating it now.) A bad memory, as D was rapidly failing. She hated the heat anyway, so it was cruel her last summer should be the hottest. (vii) Great storm of ’87 when all those trees blew down, blew across my house, went past my window instead of into it, and I actually never woke. (viii) Hottest day ever in G.B.1991, 98.8 in Cheltenham. Interesting, one might have expected it to be in the S.E. Never heard of it before.

Only surprise is the omission of the really terrific freeze of ’46-’47, when the icicle on my office guttering in Footscray never melted from Xmas to March 30 or so. Not to mention the other exceptional summer I’ve lived thro’ that followed in ’47.I was stuck in the Army in Belfast.

Friday August 8 2003

Went to Tesco yesterday. Cab, air-conditioned supermarket, cab. But the closing of the H’smith flyover meant the drive to H’smith for post office and book shop took half an hour… The nicest cab-driver, Ali.

33º today. TV adverts prurience. Baby’s wee and woman’s curse aren’t yellow and red, but pretty transparent blue. But, I suppose, only if you wear the proper brand of nappy or S.T.

Saturday August 9 2003

This heat is vile.

Finishing House of Mitford, and, with it in my head, turned on television-set to get the weather forecast, and the man said, ‘Now. Love in a Cold Climate.’ Turned out to be about moose having love problems in Moscow… N.M. would have liked that I guess, absurdity and immortality.

Now fertility treatment to be free on the NHS. Monstrous.

Felt really oppressed and stifled and almost frightened by the heat. J rang and we had a long talk about various things, and gossips, which restored a certain feeling of reality.

Again I’ve left out something from yesterday, just as I did from the day before. (I wish I got about more, I could excuse almost anything by ‘It’s the heat.’…) I bought the new Rose Macaulay biog, and the Patricia Highsmith for J, not my taste.

Sunday August 10 2003

Everyone boasting about it being 100º - the record broken etc. No mention of the hideous discomfort.

H rang as usual, as it turned out, exactly at 2.43 when the 100º was recorded. V. sympathetic about my discomforts, headache and bursting, faintly sick, the film of sweat making my dry skin prickle and dart with needles of itch so that I could tear it all off. But I was chastened by her going on to tell me of two sadnesses and an ordeal. Yet another of Geoffrey’s cousins/aunts/uncles/secondcousins twice removed etc. etc. is dying and they have to take her cousin/aunt etc. down to see her aunt/cousin through baking motorways to somewhere – does Bristol come into it? – and poor Hazel still has a bit of a stomach upset, not to mention the hideous heat, ‘and although the car is air-conditioned, you don’t know at this time of the year, and I would ask Geoffrey not to come back on the motorway, but you know what men are!’ Even worse, she went on to tell me that James, her agent of 30 years, rang with much impaired speech, to say that he had made such arrangements for hers and Tom’s books through his wife and some firm I don’t know, and he thought he had only two weeks. Frightful. We agreed how difficult it is, because doctors are such hell, and people so often die years later, or days earlier, than they predict. Poor Hazel, she will sadly miss him. I only hope her lodgment with Allison and Busby will survive healthily despite this. Cancer of the bile duct. (Oh dear, a rather suitable complaint for an agent.)

Yes, and another thing left out from yesterday. Started the Rose Macaulay biog, and found it quite agreeable and acceptably written. Seems a bit lightweight. I wonder if I ever wrote about my half hour alone with R.M. It would be easy to look back in diaries – but it wouldn’t. Staying with Gerard I. in Kingly St., nobody there one afternoon but me – I think I let her in, yes, I must have, she would never have come in by herself. She looked exactly like the photos of the time. I had met quite a lot of well-known people there. She was the first to be mild and quiet and ask about my life and myself, draw me out and find troubles. I have seen since that she was reticent by nature and sensed that in me, and perhaps released it in me. I don’t mean that the other ‘well known’ people were rude of insensitive – after all, most of the time, Gerard and others were there as well. But R.M. gave me some soothing balm. I was possibly intelligent and cultivated, and worth talking to?

Still a lot of fuss about the ‘distinguished’ scientist David Kelly, who, ‘they say’ committed suicide. Nobody seems to have remembered that distinguished scientistacan often be very silly human beings. More often than not, because of a narrow little specialisation. He seemed a silly little chap to me, whispering away at the hearing. Perhaps we shall hear more to his credit. I doubt it. Not that the whole boiling of the Cabinet shouldn’t be put to the torch.

Started the Highsmith. A great artist? I’m afraid not.

Monday August 11 2003

33º. Not so bad tomorrow, it seems, but it comes to something when you have to say ‘It’s only 90º today,’ with relief.

Rang Roy Powis. He’s ringing Donald’s awful solicitor on Wed. when she gets back, and says there’s nothing I can do till then. I really think he deserves the solicitors’ fees more than they do.

Rang dear Brown and Forrest, who give me a feeling of hope.

Tuesday August 12 2003

29º. Ling-Ling at 3.0 as she had asked to do. The kitchen and dining-room. Made her taste the salt and the sugar, but she didn’t really connect. I’d done every bit of washing-up, as she broke two glasses last time, one of the nice ones K bought me at John Lewis.

Slept right through her time. It’s all very well J saying a snooze in the p.m. makes me have a bad night. Well, she must try keeping my eyes open.

Wednesday August 13 2003

How odd. Just as I finished reading that raft of Mitford books again, Dianna Mosley died yesterday, 93.I’m glad the obits said some rude things. Her arrogance and smugness need rebuking.

Ray Powis rang at 12.30 to say he’d rung ‘Wendy’ three times since 11.30, her supposed time of arrival at her office. I’d rung Christopher Lloyd, Angela Mann’s deputy, but he hasn’t rung back, solicitors seem to be completely unreliable these days.

Thursday August 14 2003

Flight cancelled. Flu. Said he’d been up all night and was totally exhausted twice. I think it was the same night. Too weak to drive from Kent, but would come tomorrow – and give me flu, I suppose.

Slept till 4.30 after another bad night. Keep going over B’mouth. No calls from anyone else, not even R. Powis.

Friday August 15 2003

Rang C. Lloyd again. ‘On ‘phone 10.0’ Told her he’d not returned my calls, and she tut-tutted. Waited till lunchtime, not able to do anything but listen for the call, nothing. Made a stand, said I was going away and would write – heavens, one must have some written evidence, ‘The cab is at the door.’ Some time after I’d got into the cab (sic) return call, the dread Caroline Sielle, ‘I’ve taken over the file.’ Left it on the machine, and said in my letter I would be back on Wed. evening. I’m certainly not going to speak to her until I’ve heard from Roy Powis. I need a rest.

Huge power failure in Yank-land, and I mean huge, 50m people.N. York, Chicago, Detroit, and up into Canada, Toronto and Ottawa. Like Ada Leverson, I know nothing about electricity, I prefer there to be some mysteries in life. I was – well, perhaps not electrified – to find that this failure started in one place and spread to all the others. Why are they connected in such a way that one can ‘fuse’ lots of others? Also delighted to find that there was mention of a third-world system in a first-world power. Just like them. Not, electricity for the public good run by the state. No capitalist makes money out of that…

Don’t quite know how it happened, but I never wrote about the cabinet-maker I ‘phoned. Mark Baker, huge young man, taller than me, twice as broad, shorts, huge legs. Most jovial, and saw he’d just come from Edinburgh where he’d been carpentering for a theatre group for a fortnight. Loved it. Caught on quickly when I said it was a world like almost no other. Time, for instance. Do it now, audience won’t come back tomorrow. Hope I can afford him.

Saturday August 16 2003

A sortie for further shopping. On the way to Turnham Green dropped off the P. Highsmith biog. at J’s and picked up the new L.J. Brawn J. got for me. Insomnia is a frightening consumer of books.

T Green was a bit below par. The Fishmonger’s display cabinet was empty, and half the big tall refrigerator. No game, and the assistant (new?) seemed not to know of such things. The other, - I did know – turned and said, ‘Grouse, last Tuesday.’ They had none, nor pigeons, nor wild duck. Well, it may have been a clear-out of some kind, and it is the sort of shop and district, where a really substantial number of customers must be on holiday. John Nick, for instance. Still, bought a small turbot, two small, deliciously fresh plaice, bright orange spots – I love black skin – four sardines, and two pots of potted shrimps. At the cheese etc. shop, none of the cheese I really love, except Tallegio. Bought that, and a French cheese I hadn’t heard of- ? and a wodge of Mrs. Somebody’s Cheshire. Also some eggs and cream, and qualified for a free cake which I refused.

Plucked down Celia Johnson’s biog. by her daughter. Not a distinguished book, but an excellent picture, I’m certain. Started the Braun, and found it quite up the mark, remarkably even Standard.

Sunday August 17 2003

Getting a little less hot each day. Almost bearable now.

Saw James Hale’s death in the Telegraph, and in the Indep. the only entry there. I never much liked the sound of him, but H. valued him. He was certainly brave at the end. Only last Sunday. H told me James had rung during the week to tell her of the arrangements he’d made with someone for the safeguarding of her books, although, she told me, he could hardly speak and she could hardly understand. An unusual stoicism for an agent. Only sixty-something.

No rain for three weeks.

Monday August 18 2003

Black cab to H’smith for pension and further shopping, food, and the Paxton book and P.D. James’ Death in Holy Order. Thought I’d try her again. The Paxton is excellent – racing along in fine style.

Tuesday August 19 2003

Ling-Ling came and did the sitting-room. I slept. Still no rain.

K rang, oh the bliss. I wish he could come round, but so busy working thro’ the weekends. Poured out a bit of the horror, not enough to weigh him down. It goes on and on, and really only he is my fixed point, the only secure place that I can come to.Paxton excellent, use of material, style, construction, first-rate.

Wednesday August 20 2003

Yes, excellent, and short, or rather, the right length for a biog. – not one of those vast books with ‘everything’ in because the author has no judgment, and is probably German. Yank. Except for a few grammatical errors, a couple of hanging participles, for example. She’s fairly young, thirty?, and I believe the poor dears aren’t taught any grammar, as such at all these days. Now well into the P.D James. Set in a Catholic ordinands college, it benefits from the enclosed situation, and is not so ponderously discursive as I remember.

During the afternoon, I picked up and finished the little book Bill Deedes had published about his trip to Abyssinia with Waugh in the ‘30s, and his possible identification with William Boot. Now B.D. is a journalist thro’ and thro’ – only other book Dear Bill, letters purporting to be by Denis Thatcher aren’t they? – and has a perfectly respectable third-class mind and style to match. Within those limits. He tries to be fair and pays lip-service to Waugh’s ‘greatness’, yet again and again one senses an unconscious resentment at his own subservience, and that almost wistful bewilderment of the third-rate not really believing in the first-rate. I bet in his heart of hearts, and alone in his bedroom, he thinks his version is better than Waugh’s, who exaggerated. He’s exactly like William Boot. Imagine, he actually says he never wrote nature notes. A simple soul. And didn’t someone else, in the Army with W. Publish a little booklet called At War with Waugh? Pleasing that he’s either never heard of it or thought he’d get away with it. I don’t know which I’d prefer. A bit third-rate of him.

Thursday August 21 2003

Rang B’mouth. Ugh.

But better news. Ordered some detecs. Forme from Murder One.

Suddenly started, and finished in one gulp, that delightful little Phoenix edition, - oh, our youth – of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, which I bought at the Chiswick shop a year or so ago, with K. It’s an attractive blue – I thought they were all red. I think this was her most successful novel, pub.1962. Consummately done, only failing an unsatisfying ending, which somehow betrays the truth of the book. Lovely writing. I woke at two-ish, and thought I’d save the P.D.James for getting to sleep, and had finished L.W by 6.0ish.

Friday August 22 2003

To Tesco, for all sorts. Stringless and stringful beans. Still rasps. And back here. Louise W’s new book, The big Blind. A lovely card and a lovely inscription. A treat.

Saturday August 23 2003

Turned on the television set for the news.I got a bit of some interminable running race through the suburbs of Paris, oh imagine the boredom. But looked for the background, for a minute or two, and was touched to see a traffic sign saying, ‘Theatre Gerard Philippe.’

Sunday August 23 2003

K rang – they’re coming tomorrow. Heaven. I feel better, less tired already.

H rang as usual. Tom was asked to write James’s obit, a thousand words for the Telegraph, and has done it well, she thinks. I daresay he has. Really her life – there is something every day this week, most, if not all of it, tiresome and wearing. Example ‘We have to drive a cousin of Geoffrey’s, who isn’t very well, to see her seriously ill cousin.’ My god.

Monday August 24 2003 Tuesday August 26 2003

Collapse today, Tues. But couldn’t, as it was Ling-Ling’s day for bedroom so no proper p.m. rest that I was longing for. Heavenly day yesterday, one of the days of my life. All went perfectly. They arrived about three. He got going on the hedge at once, and she started weeding the corner bed behind the platform. Wonderful, - I managed to clip the edges on the left hand side, and later K mowed what’s left of the lawn after the drought and A did a noble job taking out many dandelions. I’m afraid she doesn’t know about their tap-roofs. He hauled the mower out – I think his first time with it – and I was called minutes later ‘How do you start it?’ I came out and pressed the red button and pulled the handle up. Roar. I was faced with an outraged twelve-year old. ‘I’ve just done that’, pulling the handle up and pressing the knob… ‘Never mind I’ll come and help you with all those difficult machines in the studio next week.’…At six or so, I called ‘Drinks at 6.20’. As he’d said dinner at 7.30, still v. busy. At ten past six found him cutting a piece of bread, ‘I want some toast.’ ‘But…’ Later the twelve-year old appeared to me in the book-room ‘All right, I give up, where’s the toaster?’ ‘With the sink on yr. right, look straight ahead and it’s the rectangular metal object next to the electric kettle…’ She worked as usual very hard, and as well – I was so touched – brought two new outfits to show me, both by Vivienne Westwood, and modeled them for me, changing in the bathroom and cat- walking in the sitting-room. The first an evening dress, black ‘grosgrain’, I said, but it was a cotton-silk mixture. Slight ornamented shoulder-straps, over a straight mildly boned bodice, a skirt not straight and not full – I wonder what you call, - and a belt at the waist. Nevertheless it is unmistakably an evening-dress, and while not sensational, could go more or less anywhere on her. The other was a coat and skirt, again black, dull black with a very fine pin-stripe, a sharply boned jacket, and a crisply tailored straight skirt. Big flapped pockets flat on each hip, a real ‘fifties suit’ which looks perfect on her perfect figure. We talked of the material and the cut, and I saw she wanted to tell me the cost. I’m glad to say there was no hint of ‘getting three quotes’, or indeed of asking the cost, tho’ there was a little touch of confessing in the presence of a third party. She paid for them herself, about £500 each. Well, she gets £29000.

Dinner was a success, I think. Quail again, and salad with everything in, and rasps. He chose it, and she only had one quail this time, she had five rasps, he about nine, probably to please me. He’d brought good coffee. Only the faintest touch of a house elsewhere, - I shall face it when it comes. We didn’t mention B’mouth. I might have broken their backs with my hugs. Oh the luck.

Ling-Ling left-left at 4.10. Good.

Wednesday August 27 2003

Rain. At last.

H rang at say she got the J. Teys. So grateful, and she really appreciated their quality. She needs a bit of easy pleasure.

Card from S. Dinner on Thursday. Rang home and Karen to say yes.

Thursday August 28 2003

Rain, good, penetrating, all day. My order came from Murder One. The two E. Crispin’s, Love Lies Bleeding, and Gilded Fly, were both secondhand, new, I’d say unread, first editions of the Penguins. Thought there was a market in such, but they were only £2.50 each. Three Brauns ordered, two sent, one following ‘when in’.

Still raining, despite the ghastly suburban weather people. Like the estate agents, it’s ‘light and bright.’ They really need to be reminded that we would die quite quickly if there were no rain. Some of them quite frighten me so far have they lost touch with reality.

Friday August 29 2003

S. arriving at 6.15, according to Karin. Actually it was 6.45. Hair v. short, v. sweet, clutching a bottle of Tanqueray gin, - ‘is it strong enough?’ – I’d bought him a half- bottle of Moet and Ch. – his usual aperitif. I always forget how absurdly expensive ch. is, £12 something for this half. I have never seen anything in Ch., - fizzy acid white wine to me, and after all, M&C. etc. are among the best. The dear thing asked to see the garden, really selfless, as he has no knowledge and no real interest. I was pleased to tell him ‘This is rue.’ Imagine, he’d never seen it, well, not to know what it was. I told him people had lost their way in the flat, and, later on, he went to the loo, and opened the book-room door. Claimed he’d done it on purpose – I’m not sure… so off we went to the restaurant. As we got out, we saw two smartish blondes at one of the tables outside, looking at us and laughing. A little irritating. One came forward and said ‘When you booked, we thought you were Simon Cowell.’ Obviously that would have been unwelcome, tho’ as she had obviously no idea who S. was, one way and another, neither was she. She turned out to be the new maître, - the restaurant went under new management a fortnight ago. What a pity, just as I was really adopting it. Still, I have to say that the other two things that slightly clouded the evening weren’t her fault, or anything to do with the new management. First, it was Friday night, when I never go out, if I can help it, because the great tide of dreary business people come out on a Friday to see the endless weekend stretching ahead, and escape from their dreadful prosperous jobs. So I hear even less. It had another rather pitiful encounter to come. A tall fair girl loomed over us, to tell us how wonderful out English accents were. I did just hear that but in the din, couldn’t tell what hers was. Now one sentence might have been forgivable, but she stayed at least a minute – a long time for such an intrusion – and had time in her excitement to put her hand over mine, more than once, if she’d had her way. I was amazed to see S being diffident and deprecating. I assumed she was a Yank, and said sharply ‘You are mistaken. We simply speak English, you speak English with an accent.’

The menu and the food were the same. My, first course was a curious affair, a base of artichoke with Parma ham and celeriac, three of my favourite things. What appeared was a white inch-thick slab on a bed of celeriac. Where was the Parma ham? Again S’s diffidence and timidity surprised me. He pointed out that the Parma ham was an edging round the slab, both rather colourless. All three constituents tasteless. Odd, he took her side… Chicken, with various bits, quite good vanilla ice, tho’ chocbrought first.

S very touching about Daniel. It’s still on, with ups and downs of course, and my blood curdled, unobtrusively, of course, - I hope – to find that the gruesome ‘treatment’ of Punch and Judy, with live actors, is still on the cards, and it has been joined by something even staler, if possible Maeterlinck’s the Bluebird…Oh dear. I delicately inquired whether D had earned anything these two years. He hasn’t. (Think of K at the same stage, in that awful stationer’s shop in the Holloway Rd. for months.) So I wasn’t altogether surprised when S said he had had a bit of a crisis earlier in the year. Such is the flood and eddy of his talk that I am no longer clear weather it was an overdraft or a tax debt, though I am clear it was £62,000. Before I could step on to dry land, the flood rushed on, to tell me that he’s bought the flat upstairs – that’s explains the sale board K saw – and his part in The Phantom of the Opera film, which he starts on Monday, was only to last for three weeks. But the director was a most amenable gay. They obviously got on like a camp on fire, and the new part goes on till December, and he’ll get half-a-million. The flood went delightfully on, and Noel C took up most of the rest of the time, a subject of which I know as much as most, but whether S is writing a book, a play, a TV prog. or a novel, the flood and eddies swept away. He’s written the first page of Vol II of Orson Welles…

Saturday August 30 2003

Started Wener. V. good except first person singular again. No more after this one. Much cooler, thank goodness.

Long and sympathetic talk to J re S, I think she is glad to hear of him, as she was so close to him for so long. We have the same impatience and the same love for him.

Complete silence upstairs, rather unexpectedly, as doesn’t school term begin this week? I immediately had visions of the young man having murdered them all, and just picking up the post. Is there a strange stain on the utility room ceiling? Can I smell a worrying smell? ‘Well, officer, I hardly know them, except to say a word in passing.’ ‘No, they seemed to get on well, the boys were well mannered.’ ‘I heard nothing…’ and I still hear nothing and the road is unusually quiet, with empty spaces where the cars are on holiday.

Sunday August 31 2003

Bought some Globe artichoke seeds some weeks ago, and meant… Planted three in one of the big pots, and will keep it inside till they are big enough to resist the wretched squirrel digging. With luck and my warm garden, I may be able to put them outside for a few weeks, against the wall on the little platform. I need to see the plant, as I’ve forgotten what it’s like and how big, even in a pot.

The Wener has a great deal about the game of poker, and the games around it. I can’t imagine anything less sympathetic or interesting to me. And yet despite that, she holds me completely, me, who asked for a patience board at twelve – which I still have – and have never willingly played any other card-game since. Or any other game of any kind either. Willingly.

Monday September 1 2003

An autumn month at last. The cabinet-maker rang on the machine – I wasn’t up – to say he was passing and … lunchtimeish but her never turned up. So I left a message saying I was sorry if he’d had a fruitfulness call. We’ll see.

The Kelly thing leaves me rather cold. My impression of him as rather silly, is certainly not removed by the announcement that he belonged to some rather dotty faith called Balu Hi or something. To me, he also seems to have quite insufficient reason to commit suicide, and bring such pain to a wife, who, as far as one can tell seems to have the dignity and weight he looked as if he lacked. Questioning by a parliamentary committee? Well.

Alastair Campbell is another matter. Again simply from TV and the papers, he revolts me with his smile, self satisfied – is that tautology? – smile, and that very suspect swaggering–shoulders walk.

Tuesday September 2 2003

No cabinet-maker, you’d think he’d ring back. Not these days. Ling-Ling left dining and bath-room smelling like a gents.

Wednesday September 3 2003

Andrew Ray dead at 64.In Incident at Vichy in 1966, the year after, I now see, his suicide attempt. It seems he was given his child-star earnings at 17 and went considerably astray, drugs, crashing cars, etc. (Why 17?) Said earnings were £5000. By my little list, that was £55,000 now. Something fairly dangerous happened during Brighton, that Alec G had to straighten out.

There was something appealing about him, of course, and he seems to have had a happy marriage, to a point, and was on the Equity Council, good heavens. In 1966, he was tarred with the ‘60s brush, and was rather uselessly cheeky, which stopped me from finding out what he was really like. Like the Beatles, he was cheeky before finding out whether the person before him was worth being cheeky to. And I don’t mean me. Poor boy, doesn’t sound too happy a life.

On football prog. I heard repeated twice, with no inflection, let alone irony ‘Cameron was reprimanded for kicking Jumo jumba in the community shield.’ Painful.

Thursday September 4 2003

Still fucking dry.

Plants are dying, the lawn is dead. Oh those forecasters who think only of their shoes.

Wrote to Louise W. I had to acknowledge the book, but I wonder how much she relishes compliments from someone of 77. Might worry her that it appeals…. Well, I hope she gets plenty of fan-mail to set against it.

Found I hadn’t read any of E. Crispin for forgetting time except L.L, Bl. and Tog Shop. Enjoyment. Nights have been better for some time.

Friday September 5 2003

Paid all my bills and a card to Roy, and S. S had sent such an indecipherable card that I told him that after trying to read it, I was taking a short course, only a month or two, on Phoenician epigraphy. I hoped to discover what alphabet he’d used, and he’d get a short pamphlet about it from the Museum. The pillar-box at Tesco’s is a pleasure to me. To post a whole wodge of post so easily. Still no Globe artich., even in exotic veg. No doubt proles don’t like them.

Saturday September 6 2003

Rain last night at last, a reasonable shower. Some more forecast, but ‘patchy’, ‘light’ moving away by… what we want, and I hope can expect, at least in the next month, is three weeks of solid heavy twenty-hour a day rain. All grass round here is dust. The forsythia is dying, the C. Armandi I trained up the shrubs there for the winter, is dead.

I admit I am incidulated tonight. I was lunching with J in Ken High St. The Café Pasta has become Café Mexico or something. I wouldn’t go near it left to myself, and perhaps that’s the reason I had a wretched night, and felt so tired this morning, really exhausted, I rang up to cancel. Later we talked of it as a resistance to going. Perhaps, but I had a god deal of important purging-off-my-lists shopping, including the loose- cover material at Barkers possibly.

Programs that I don’t want to see, are cancelled because of football matches and other foolish sports, overrunning. I wish someone would show me the statistics to justify this (that more people go to the theatre than to football). On the lines that it has been fewer people watching football than go to live theatre. Hm. I shouldn’t think that’s still true. It might have been once.

Sunday September 7 2003

Half-page article on Kathleen Ferrier. It’s fifty years since she died, at 41, poor girl.I suppose I didn’t write about my meeting with her. It says in the article that she first sang Messiah in London at The Abbey, with Britten and Peter Pears, in 1943. My memory is that she sang at my father’s Archway Central Hall at Easter, ’42, but that may be wrong, or it may be it didn’t count... When we went round, to the vestry!, she was smoking.I was fifteen, I think, and I was amazed that she talked to me more than the others. She told me she had only two evening dresses, and smoked two cigarettes, a day, ‘Should be none.’ I like to think that she felt drawn to whatever made me become an actor, that we were both artists, tho’ one of us was just an embryo. As for the performance, I had been quite overturned by her. Messiah was part of every church choir and choral society’s repertoire. Vast numbers perfs. around the country, a social occasion, a comfortable feeling that you were having a jolly time and appreciating possibly taking part in an undeniable work of genius, that you didn’t have to be much affected by, any more than you were by the hymns on Sunday.

‘He was despised and rejected’ left the Archway audience quite out of countenance. Tragedy and overwhelming pathos had swept through them, perhaps she sensed that I had been swept away, too. I must get the diaries and letters, previously much censored by her loyal sister.

The evening dress that I saw was white and gold, very becoming, she was always good at clothes. I last saw her at a concert at the Guildhall, Cambridge. In a deep crimson full-skirted dress, magnificent as her performance.

Roy rang specially from the car, the family going to lunch with friends in Richmond. On one of those programmes showing clips of things going wrong, which I can’t watch, not caring for people being put out of countenance, Roy told me a R.C. priest was going down the line of kneeling communicants at Mass, and was heard to murmur, ‘I’ve run out of bread.’ A little further along, he whispered ‘Just pretend’. To some of us non-believers, they were pretending all the time.

I don’t feel that priest’s faith can be of the deepest. I really feel I shall write to the Pope…

Had a delicious salad tonight, lettuce, chicory, bacon bits, two boiled eggs, split with anchovies, sliced new pots in bottom. Quite delicious, oh and peas, a handful or two scattered on the top.

Monday September 8 2003

Another K Ferrier article, another half-page, good after fifty years. Ordered the CDs, two for £8.00 p&p included. Excellent.

Long talk to J during which she said she probably ‘couldn’t tell this to anybody but you.’ That she rushed to the loo, and was in such a hurry she peed on the lid. Curious streaks of naiveté. She is so clever and cultivated, but has certainly been held back by not enough companions of her own intelligence.

In garden the big forsyhthia is dying from the drought, and the C.aemandii I planted thro’ it. A pity about the last, but the forsyhthia and the two lilacs, are all dying and dead. What silly planting, three deciduous shrubs at the west boundary of a garden. I shall have them grubbed out this winter, and a new lawn.

The artichoke in the pot in the kitchen, on the other hand, is sprouting. Perhaps I can plant them out in the spring.

Tuesday September 9 2003

Plump spectacled girl of infinite humdrumness. ‘If you hadn’t been an optician’s laboratory technician, what else would you be?’ ‘A helicopter pilot.’

Caught Ling-Ling washing the sitting room floor again. Awash. Stopped her halfway through.

To H’smith for pension. Must get it sent to my bank, such a long queue, my legs ached. Bought the Kabul book after a notice in The Spectator. It sounds like a personal account of people. An impersonal ‘survey’ of a country by an unimaginative and imperceptive man, as all too many politicians and journalist are, is useless to me, and this, by a woman journalist, and Swede, might be the answer.

No Phytec for my poor feet in the local chemist or Boots. Really, chemists. No doubt it comes from calling themselves Pharmacies.

Rain all night. Lovely.

Wednesday September 10 2003

Quite a few good showers. Chatted to J. Tells me that Maggie Smith has an admirer in Canada who writes and send presents. A large box has just arrived, containing, among other things, a moose, a bear, books on the more bleak parts of Canada, jars of Jam, chocolates… ‘I am thinking of coming over to London, as I have never been to the theatre, and am hoping you will advise me what to see.’ The moose and the bear weren’t full size… She’s not, I’d say, a mad fan – how we know those – she’s clutching a teenage dream. ‘How old is she?’ I said, ‘Forty-something?’ J went off ‘phone mouthing thro’ a letter, eventually turned up that she had a son graduating from university… ‘There you are.’ Poor girl. Painful middle aged naiveté. She’s watched all M.S.’s films many – oh, god, how many times – if she can do it, so can I etc. Told J not to answer at all, kinder. Would M.S be at all accommodating to a fan like that coming over? I doubt it. I think J will take my advice.

Motor-bikes, ugh! D., disgusted and startled at the deliberate ‘revving’ of a motor- bike as it rushed past, shook her fist after it, ‘Arrest that man and confiscate his machine.’ Hideously noisy, - physically, and socially in the attitudes that gather round them, the very picture of ugliness, they were of course invented by Yanks.

Thursday September 11 2003

Didn’t go to John Lewis after all, too tired. Who knows, perhaps J.L. is a target… Quiet day. Letter from C.Sielle showing much more grasp and progress in a fortnight then wretched Angela Mann has in six months. Rain. But we still need at least three weeks heavy.

Friday September 12 2003

Rang Sielle to say satisfactory letter. She rang back to say they would exchange today, if they had the transfer document – but A Mann was back, and slagged off Sielle, found reasons for delay, and made me sick. I can’t write of it.

Home in cab by very strange route, but driver charged me the usual thank goodness. Ugh, Ugh.

Saturday September 13 2003

An antidote to the farmer’s market at Notting Hill, most ‘conveniently situated in Waterstone’s car-park’.Very, for me. It seemed thriving. Lovely fruit, but such a long queue in such baking sun that couldn’t stand-forty in front of me – but bought a brace of grouse and a b. of partridges. A lovely cheese stall with a swathe of real cheese – Caerphilly for instance, a half pound. Two cartons of Jersey cream, or is it Guernsey? And two dozen fresh eggs. I’ve just poached two of them, and gobbled the creamy foamy tight circles of fresh yolk. No point in poaching eggs older than two days. Vegetables rather disappointing, some misshapen, runner-beans – I wouldn’t mind that, but they looked tough. The rest were roots, parsnips- ugh! – carrots, turnips, - broccoli that didn’t look special, or tender. In Waterstone’s, bought three detecs. A new Robert Barnard, Short Cat Stories by Lillian Braun, and one by Stephen Booth, his first novel three years ago, I thought I’d try. The R. Barnard is another Theatrical one, like Death and Chaste Apprentice. Flipped over it, and caught again that curious use of ‘interval’ without definite or indefinite article. In some way or another, he had thought this was a professional usage, ‘I met him in interval.’ ‘In internal we…’ a less clear usage was ‘the big doors’ for the dock doors. At first I thought he was using ‘big’ as a preparation for ‘dock’, but ‘dock’ never appeared. And ‘interval’ is an entirely unjustified usage. I have never heard it. Was he in Yank-land once? Not that I’ve heard it from that world of ugliness.

Sunday September 14 2003

Bad night. Slept in the end, or fitfully dozed, 4-7.30. How sick I am of being too hot and throwing off the duvet.

Mary L on Wed.

Monday September 15 2003

Yes, Mary L on Wed. saw the farmers’ forecast on the Country File and Wed. was to be 82º in London. Hideous, but she must have it to come out.

Quiet all day, thank goodness. Read the Stephen Booth. Curiously uneven and amateurish, characters suddenly acting quite out of character to suit the plot.

Yes, it’s still airless and humid. Oh for a frost.

Tuesday September 16 2003

Ling-Ling to do bedroom. Always a bad day, no rest, so went shopping. Tesco, and on way Phytex, arrived at the local chemist, and a replacement for the ‘fridge light. Man recognised the type from one word.

M.L. repressively frugal when offered treats or food. A salad after the smoked salmon? No. She eats too little, and although vegetarian, not nearly enough variety, no wonder she’s bunged up.

Wednesday September 17 2003

Exhausted. Went to fetch Mary L. Nice Paddy the driver, who’s done it before, thank-goodness. M.L. brought down the bags of books and took back up my bags of fresh books and wine and food, because the old lift mightn’t take two. (What on earth would happen to her if it didn’t? She’s walking even worse, little tittuping steps like a geisha. What is the cause of this? Wearing the heavy pink wool coat with a shawl collar. Temperature 82º. At least she had a thinnish blouse on, though with long sleeves, and a stand up collar to her jawline. Usual talk. Typical moment. Mentioned Janet going to see Shelia Gish in Seagull, and her loss of an eye from cancer, poor girl, and my misgivings about the future as if it returned it would be in the brain. ‘Like Joyce Grenfell’, I added unwisely. Within two sentences we were meeting Joyce Grenfell in Italy in 1944 with the Quiet Weekend Touring company, a story I have heard too many times to count…

Even I am surprised by her pathetic repetitions of her past, - sixty years ago – for she is harsh on people who live in the past, and seems to have no idea that she mentions QW in almost every conversation. And this is by no means a symptom of old age, - she has always laid down the law on non-existent data.

Thursday September 18 2003

Still exhausted. K rang. Corsica on Sunday. Comic talk about their breadmaker. ‘It’s £50 cheaper than yours, but the loaves don’t seem to rise.’ Then he asked after B’mouth, and I was moved at his distress. ‘You must find out what exactly is this delay, or I won’t go on holiday till I know.’ I have to ring tomorrow. Another sleepless night, but disgracefully I was upheld by his minding so much.

Friday September 19 2003

Steeling myself to ring A. Mann, at ten, perhaps, after the post, the ‘phone rang at 9.15, the K. Ferrier CD people, some confusion. As I was already with the ‘phone in my hand, rang her quickly before I could think about it. ‘She’s working from home, she’ll ring you.’ Let off as no home number given? She rang back, not working from home. Better news, tho’ contract have still not been exchanged, and completion in six weeks after they have been.Blew up, said it must be no more than four, preferably two, after a year! She did say that ‘things were moving to the end now.’ So I should hope, after two years delay. Put the best gloss on it to K to be sure he can go to Corsica with a tranquil mind.

Another call, from De Wolfe’s. Found out his dear wife died five years ago. So kind to me at Chalk Farm.

Saturday September 20 2003

John Ball’s Other Island put on by a modish director, Dromgoole. ‘Discovered’ again, ‘a much-neglected play’, ‘uncanny accuracy of Irish portrait’ etc. Amazing. They don’t draw the conclusion that only a great playwright can span a hundred years like this. One or two also know to bring out ‘all talk’. ‘needs cutting etc.’ The Truth is most of them can’t follow an argument, or perhaps see that an ‘action’ film needs some of its ‘action’ cut for those of us, who see the emptiness. Most encouraging, as Dromg. is supposedly avant-garde. Amazing that they always start as if he’s a discovery when his plays are still done everywhere. The truth is he’s still before his time. I read a bit of his criticism to someone and they think it was written yesterday instead of over a hundred years ago. Imagine cutting a logical argument. Rather anti- climatically rang K to get Sian’s surname. Amused, after all this, that he couldn’t recall it either. Had to ring Ernie! ‘One of those Welsh names, Davies or something.’ Actually Thomas. He’s off tomorrow, gives me a feeling of release, with B’mouth still looming and more distress for him. But also because, he who is the centre of my life, is the only person who can demand my whole self and energy, and I worry that sometimes I haven’t got it to give.

Cooked the two partridges I’d been saving for K’s possible visit. I let him off that on Thursday.

Bad night.

Sunday September 21 2003

Three hour snooze this p.m. Richard Eyre has published his diary of his time at the National. If anyone can give an intelligent, cultivated account of such an institution or time, he can. How seldom real intelligence and cultivation are, or have ever been, applied to the theatre! No wonder D was a help to him in one of his earliest productions when he was the side-kick in Edinburgh. ‘The Ha-Ha’ when D stole the notices, and when it came to Hampstead, and Angela Pleasance had gone a bit berserk again, June Watson, in D’s part, was unnoticed. I remember a delightful, for us, evening when we took him out. Had D lived she would have been at The National, I think.I have ordered his diary by post. Amused that such offers in newspapers and so on, special low prices, but postage and packing put it on again.

On the Antiques Roadshow, the only antiques show I can watch. It has reasonably expert and cultivated balanced treatment of money values, - not that that’s saying much, thinking of the profusion of tastelessness on other programmes. I was intrigued today by a man who brought in three medals, the main one from the Crimean War, with bars on it for Alma, Balaclava, Sebastopol and so on. Also an Indian Mutiny Medal. The expert much approved, I forget the value. The man looked about sixty-five, might have been a youngish seventy. So what was my surprise to hear the medals claimed by him as his grandfather’s who took part in and survived the Charge of The Light Bridge. This was never queried, I hope the ‘expert’ knows when the Crimean War was. I supposed the third medal, not described, was awarded the grandfather after Waterloo.

Monday September 22 2003

Call on machine from A. Mann to ring her. Did so, and she told me contracts had been exchanged, and completion wild take place on Oct 17, or a fortnight earlier ‘if they can.’ (I bet they can’t). So there it is – I hope.

Rang K and spoke to him with his feet still in the sea. ‘This is really great news.’ Raving from him… J and Hazel and Marian. But felt little, but pleasure in their pleasure. The most is the removal of a deep irritation, the continual going over Donald’s stupidity, and solicitors’ dishonesty and sloth, the composing, in the middle of the night, of letter after letter of raging anger that I spat out so that I would not send them. What a letter I could write to Donald! ‘Thank you for depriving me of my inheritance and the interest on it, for two whole years. Thank you for endless petty irritations with yr. solicitor and mine, and making sure that my solicitor’s fees were probably two-thirds more than they would otherwise have been. Thank you for two very tiresome years which have prevented me, for much of the time, from serious reading, and contributed insomnia and indigestion to the enjoyment of my life! But I won’t of course. An angry letter would be as wasted on him as an affectionate one. Two wives haven’t divorced him for nothing.

I didn’t feel specially euphoric, yet circumstances, and,I suppose, purgation, took me out and gave me a bit of energy. K had asked me to send his camera, left here the other week, to Arlete, she’s off to Port. on Wednesday, and there are some snaps she wants to show her mother. I could have sent it, but a combination of tired legs and the need to get the sofa material, tempted me to get a cab, go to Alexander’s on Wigmore Street, on to K’s and finally Tesco’s. One of the nicest drivers, £40, two hours,I don’t care. (Yes, it was the result of the good news.)

As for the material, Marian, J, and Sarah W had all three, and independently, told me that an average price for a good material, was about £15 a metre. J and S.W. recommended Alexander’s in Wigmore Street. Good heavens, it’s an old-fashioned, a real, drapers. Two elderly people working at tables, a large worn hole in the floor covering, a smiling forty-ish woman took me over, and in the time it takes me to write this, she’s taken my sample and found a bolt of material and I’d chosen it. And the whole thing would have been over in another two minutes if she hadn’t had to check my credit-card as it was over £300. That took her into the modern world and took seven minutes for her to get through to the supersonic pace of computerised banking. Delivery tomorrow or certainly the next day. What a treat. Thought K’s looked a bit tired. Gate off one hinge.

Back here, chat to J. Asked me if I’d seen notices of Woman of No I. at Haymarket. Very mixed, said I was a bit disturbed by one which said Pru S. was putting more pauses in than might be expected. J gave me a shock. Tells me that Pru’s memory is going and she has her lines thro’ an ear-piece, like poor Michael Redgrave getting the ambulance services on it, during some play. This has been going on since, last year. Oh what an irony! Pru, the put-down control-freak and condescending superior of all time reduced to this. I shall never forget Eileen A. saying, ‘I never come away from Pru without feeling that I have done nothing, I know nothing and that I am nothing.’ And this from Eileen, who is more something than almost anyone I’ve ever met. Poor Pru, no one deserves this. It’s having a pretty bad effect on the rest of the cast, Samantha Bond told J, as Pru doesn’t remember if she’s mucked up a line either. Oh, I can’t get over it. I’ve laughed about Pru for years, but I could never have imagined such a vicious rebuke to her pride. Poor girl.

Tuesday September 23 2003

Radio Times not delivered. Rang newsagent, but later found it behind one of the window boxes, so had to ring him again.

The material was delivered, or tried to be delivered. I’d dozed off, and never heard the bell. Most accommodating, coming tomorrow.

Told Ling-Ling about the bleach, and asked her to be sure to clean the loo-brush holder, very easy as it’s made in one smooth curve. She didn’t use bleach, but didn’t clean the loo thing. Odd.

Re-reading Janet Neel’s detecs. Mary L. She is certainly getting vaguer, and seems at once to think she may have read so and so before, but quite refuses to keep any sort of list.

Wednesday September 24 2003

J rang to say Prue Sc. and Sam Bond were to be on This Morning, a chat show. Watched the whole thing without sound. They weren’t.

Thursday September 25 2003

Perhaps Prue forgot. Anyway there they were today, Prue a little disheveled, her semi-bouffant as if she’d just run her fingers carelessly through it. A cherry polo- neck sweater, the neck curling over. Oh that manner! The ever so faintly condescending smile, the eyes never quite meeting yours, the artificial speech, a combination of would-be mandarin and jolly hockey-sticks. At one point, the presenters said, ‘Now it’s your fortieth wedding anniversary soon, and you’re having a party.’ The jolly hockey-sticks took over, she rather lunged forward, with her teeth bared, ‘Oh, yes, Ruby jobs.’ The control has always been so rigid – perhaps the loss of memory comes in at equal intensity, as a reaction.I must say, I’ve always found it difficult to put the Tim W. I shared a d-room with for a year? at Salisbury with her, but obviously it’s worked splendidly. Though I can’t imagine how!

A wry television reporter on ITV outside 10, Downing St. A long intelligent face on Tony Blair’s difficulties ‘Non-stick Tony’s Teflon surface is rather scratched.’

Friday September 26 2003

An interesting post. (I must say, I can’t help sometimes thinking that the postman these days, saves them up for one easy journey.) A. Mann with detail of completion and charges. Quite disgusting, but I can’t make any more protest, or there will be simply more time wasted and more money in solicitors’ pockets. Letter from Mann, estate-agents, Council charges here, none apparently… Comps from John N for the Pre-R exhib. at the R.A. Raphilite (sic) new spelling?

The R. Eyrediary is riveting. Some good jokes, some clear pictures of the National, but some very odd friends. David Hare is one thing, you might expect but not condone it, but that they are on dinner-party in quatre terms with Neil and Glenis? Kinnock.Good gracious. His judgment of acting? Ian Holm great as Lear? Asking him if he should accept a knighthood? He did, of course. What a sad degeneration from Sir John Gielgud to Sir Derek Jacobi, if nothing else that no man in the street knows who Jacobi (or Shakespeare) is. Loose covers October 10.

Saturday September 27 2003

Finished the R.Eyre. He is just as pleasant, diffident and gifted a character as I might have expected from our brief acquaintance forty years ago. But his judgments of plays, acting and people make me uneasy. I hope it is partly the need to temper his judgments to people he may still want, or need, to work with. John Neville? John Birt??!! I might have written to him. Now can’t.

Sunday September 28 2003

K rang. Back. Stayed only the week and A didn’t join him, never was to. He went to get his head straight and didn’t. Nigel still, oh I wish I could help, but I know too little of N in the last ten years and almost nothing of Sian.

Monday OSeptember 29 2003

I wrote October, because it is now Oct 4. When H rang on Tues. I found I’d lost this book! It upset me much and I quite wore myself out looking for it everywhere. And looking under sofa – kicked there? – moving beds, - slipped behind the head – is no joke at my age. Kneeling down needs a lie-down. It was in a box in my wardrobe between two other things. I only found it by wanting one of the things.

So to Monday. Woke at 1.30 a.m. Read. In p.m. slept from 1.45 to 5.45. A nuisance. Reading Jake Arnott’s latest. Quite extraordinarily inflated notices for what is a fairly run of the mill Cockney thriller. I seem to have a race–memory that he has a real crime connection of some kind. That sort of thing gives a niminy piminy Hampstead critic a thrill, I suppose, and encourages him to take the authenticity on trust.

Tuesday September 30 2003

Same pattern of sleep. Spectator volume arr. celebrating 175 anniv. Handsomely got up, like a gala programme. Full of interest. Contemporary review of Great Expectations. Says Dickens much better at lower-class than upper. Perfectly true, a lot of upper-class caricatures and inaccuracies, but I wouldn’t have chosen Estella and Miss H to illustrate this. Both are too extreme and twisted to be authentically upper- class, anyway. John Osborne’s last diary page, at Christmas. When was it? Article prophesying wide revolutionary use of the car in 1897. Good for whoever it was. To H’smith to shop and £300 of pension. Brought A.N. Wilson’s The Victorians, in p- back now, thank goodness. Nigel Slater’s autobiog., Toast, and another of R. Boothby detectives. A job well done as K rang. Coming on Thursday lunch and dinner. Heavenly.

Finished Arnott.Hm. Mary L’s contempt for food, and talk of food or cooking. No wonder the poor thing’s constipated.

Wednesday October 1 2003

Harold Fielding dead. The Cameron Macintosh of his day, just as tasteless, but not quite so successful. Know something of him because he put on Sail Away. A vulgarian and a shyster, it showed how far N.C. had sunk. His wife, a miserly ugly woman, a real horror, turns out to be very suitably named, Maisie Joyce Skivens. Made darling Edith Day line up with the chorus for her money. K. no lunch – good.

Copying this from a rough sheet.

Thursday October 2 2003 Friday October 3 2003

He arrived at 3.45, looking well, and rested. Not brown, but then I sometimes forget his sort of red-haired skin. He got going almost at once, and, in no special order, mended the fence, did the fridge light, mended the little aspidistra table top, sorted the paint-pots and utility-room, put back up the John G photo, and, as the light was already fading, took those stools we found in the garden, to primer paint them. (So useful and just like the seats for the first awful table at the cottage, practical for the garden because they can be seats or tables.) Halfway thro’, as twilight was near, he took his trousers off. To see better? No, he was hot. Happily his pants were dark brown and looked like shorts… Earlier I’d been slicing runner-beans in the book- room. He came in to ask something. I gestured, stuttering, It’s in the…pointing through the wall at the utility-room, whose name I couldn’t bring to my lips. He laughed his way back to the garden. ‘I hope you enjoy it as much when it’s real senility.’ Dinner was grouse on bread, runner beans, cauliflower with cheese sauce, raspberries. He tucked into his grouse at once, with such gusto that he’d almost finished before I’d dished the vegetables. Lovely. I love to see him eat my meals.

After diner, we had a long talk about Nigel –well, a long mull over. He has no specific worry or special guilt, I think, just grief and a deep feeling of responsibility, (one of his strangest impulses, anyway) for the little brother who was a bit of a son. He knows there was something wrong with N. I did what I inadequately could. He seemed to be helped as much as anything by my reading my draft of my letter to Sian. I saw him off still thinking I’d lost this diary. Upset, and wore my legs out looking, after he’d gone.

Saturday October 4 2003

Up to date now. Friday,woke, despite being so very tired, at 2.15 a.m. Snooze at 1.45 and woke at 7.15pm. This is impossible. After lunch coffee, then a gin and tonic. Hamlet has nothing to it.

Call from J. Is it ‘lying’ or ‘lieing’?

Above is Friday, oh dear. So today I was meeting J in Ken High St. for lunch as usual, tho’ rather worse for wear despite a day’s rest. Cab to Marks and S, expecting to be able to buy a couple more shirts like the blue check with double cuffs for £22. Not a blue check or double cuff in sight, tho’ it was only in May… To Waterstone’s, and bought, in quick succession, the new Lees Milne, the new C. Beaton unexpurgated – oddly the previous five years from the last. I’d collapsed into the armchair at the door, and J was paying for something. So she watched the food-bags from M&S while I bought. Then we went to the familiar Café Pasta which J had reported, had changed hands and was called ‘something like Café Mexicana.’ My taste buds reacted – spicy, sour, hot, instant heartburn. However, the change of name was to something anodynely Italian. Not memorable as I’ve already forgotten it, but it’s Monsanto or Mansoto or whatever. Otherwise the place is exactly the same.J wants me to go and look at Maggie Smith’s garden, as she thinks the (female) gardener is a phoney. On the way home, she said she had my b’day present, and rushed in and brought it out to me. Not only a beautiful big-figured calculator but an electric footbath. I’d told her I was soaking my feet, and I think she was shocked. Oh well, age.

Skipped thro’ the Lees-Milne because of the Nicolson. Mentioned it done ‘by Macallan or some such.’ Footnote, ‘Possibly Sir Ian McKellen.’ Hilarious. Still he did say ‘Very well done.’

Sunday October 5 2003

H rang as usual. Both Kim and Tom’s cars went wrong. Must be awful to be so dependent on cars, as they all are in the country. She’s re-reading Charlotte M. Yonge again. Sending me a spare copy of The Daisy Chain. I think I would have ‘got into’ Youge if I was going to, when I read everything. I notice H hasn’t read much Trollope, and never reads him now. When we have our comic talks about soaps, - which are weighing rather heavily with me now – I am struck by how often she’s utterly repelled by some man or other. Never a woman. And equally often it is a young or youngish sexually attractive man, especially if a jolie laide. Poor love, I don’t think she’s ever liked sex.

I see the authorised biog. by Piere Paul Read, of Alex G, is coming out, Auth. by dead Merula, but more importantly, live Matthew.

Monday October 6 2003

Roy rang. Marian was ‘too ashamed.’ Overdoing it, tho’ ignoring my definite message for a decision on my dinner-party was rude. But then their lives are, I guess, rather more rackety than they let on. Got straight, partly because Roy’s vocabulary doesn’t really include sincere remorse.

J rang to propose a visit to Maggie Smith’s garden for some advice, as J thinks the (female) gardener is a fraud.

Finished the James Lee-M. As good as ever, despite the paragraph about me. Started the C. Eaton. His writing does become a bit more serviceable over the years, just from practice, but his taste, his literary taste, can still give you a memorable jolt. Try this, ‘I was in a tailcoat, having come on from some other beano that warranted such apparel.’ Beautiful. I’m afraid he’s still capable of ‘imbibing all the nuances.’

Tuesday October 7 2003

Ling-Ling to do the bedroom, always a strain, no rest, but an outing instead. To Turnham Green for a few things. Halibut steak, potted shrimps, a red mullet, no, two, a salmon steak for the mayonnaise. At the green grocers’ globe artichokes are back, too. At Mortimer and Bennett, some Dorset Blue Vinny, and single Gloucester, which last was utterly delicious, I ate the whole quarter-pound. Ordered thro’ the Telegraph order service, the new life of Alec G by Piers Paul Read, commissioned by Merula, and, more importantly, by Matthew after M’s almost immediate death. I hope that will mean that Alec’s potentially vicious nature can be really explored. What about the family of that big taxi-driver in Dorset, with Alec’s hands? Also Germaine Greer’s The Boy. A woman’s view at last.

Wednesday October 8 2003

Put out mug and instant coffee, and tea-cup, saucer, and little teapot and F&M, breakfast tea, for Jean Smith’s daughter, coming to cut the loose covers on the sofa and armchairs. Delightful chirpy thin girl about twenty-five. Finished in well under the four hours Jean S had allowed for. And she made herself a pot of tea in the cup and saucer, which delighted me. (How I hate mugs! I would be revolted to be asked to drink soup from a mug, as I see all over the TV adverts.) I’d got that nasty semi- skimmed milk, for the young. Still, it was organic. As for the covers, she seemed to know what she was doing. We’ll see.

Started Wilson’s The Victorians. Excellently done, delightfully readable, extraordinary control of a mass of material. One or two of his eccentricities, but no worse for that.

Later. Heard from J that Denis Quilley had died, of liver cancer. 75. My mind went back to the first short tour of Wildest Dreams, from Cheltenham, for about five dates. We got Denis because he’d wrecked his Achilles Tendon and the part, being new, could be written around him. The songs suited his very pleasing voice perfectly, and if we’d had him in London, who knows?

We shared a dressing-room, and he was as agreeable a man as you could meet. I read the obituaries with real interest. A most fruitful, and, in most ways, lucky career, from his first West End appearance, after under studying Richard Burton in Lady’s Not for Burning, taking over when R.B. left, and his future wife of fifty years, Stella Chapman, taking over from Claire Bloom. There seems always to have been the season at the National or RSC, or a musical, or a play, coming along at the right moment, and a rich succession of parts. And yet, and yet… in the dressing-room, a little unusual for those days, he undressed completely, when changing or after the show, and would say Come in to anyone. I remember D saying there was something a bit dull about it all being so there, no mystery. Possibly echoed by a comment of Noel’s in one obit. ‘As much’ – what was the word? It might have been mystery, ‘as a thick piano leg.’ D found onstage, a certain blandness, no danger. It’s significant that the picture in one of the obits was of Aufidius. Never Coriolanus. Also amused they all said a memorably strong and happy marriage of fifty years. No doubt, but he ploughed through Anna Dawson, our leading lady, pretty comprehensively in the five weeks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of the chorus girls came in for a bit of what was so there. I liked him, but we never heard from him again and they didn’t write when D did.

Thursday October 9 2003

Cab at 10.15 to goto Maggie Smith’s house with J to look at her garden, she away filming. She lives off the Fulham Rd in Queens Elm Square, a house she bought in the ‘60s, for not much, I imagine, even then, as Fulham was only coming up. It’s almost more of a crescent, and only three sides at that. Security gates, very substantial, with electronic locks. The garden beautifully kept, a large lawn, immaculate, shrubs, roses and so on. All very upmarket, - except the house. Tudorbethan black and white imitation timbers, they have been got up regardless, because of their intensely fashionable position – now. V. suburban really. Amusing. No 7. Banham locks thick with verdigris. Inside quite narrow hall and stairs, room on right, faded chintz sofa, not old. Then at the back, opening onto a kitchen-diner the width of the house – can’t recall much of a kitchen, - a long wooden table to seat about twelve. Through door, left, to garden, more a yard about twelve feet one way, fifteen the other. A smallish raised bed, a dozen pots, two are five feet camellias, various small-flowed things in bed, ferns, palms etc. All healthy but – walls are painted white, about twelve feet tall, and, except for a six foot gap, to the south, happily, entirely surrounded by trees, bushes, a sixteen foot bay-tree in the bed, and a few feet away, in the garden to the east, a forest tree, beech, sixty feet? and, a trunk four feet wide. The white wall facing south was taken up with two chairs and a table. Hoped my advice helped. Met Polar, M.S.’s cleaner, of whom I have often heard. Portuguese, mild, middle-aged. Had had flu, I’d say she was pretty ill with something. Poor colour. As we made to go out, J offered me a guided tour. I was rather shocked, tho’ I don’t think I showed it. To leer at Stephanie Powers’ privacy is one thing, but not Maggie Smith, who, I would say, is an intensely private person. So I refused. Quite interested at the dowdiness of the part I saw. The kitchen/d in sub-blond pine colours, like the table, - was it paint or varnish? Creating no effect at all. J said ‘She doesn’t like colour anywhere.’ Her simple background perhaps makes her play safe.

Back here for lunch. I had two globe artich. andrelished every buttery mouthful.

Friday October 10 2003

Rest all day. S.F. Times wine delivered. And a book parcel on the mat. Taken in by the people upstairs. I thought it must be the Kathleen Ferrier, but it was, so speedily, The Boy and The Alec Guinness. (He would like the combination.)

Saturday October 11 2003

To Farmer’s Market again.Butter, cream, a grouse and two mallard. Big piece of Caerphilly from uncut cheese. Should have bought the whole cheese as I ate the piece at a sitting later. On to Ken High St. hoping to cross a few things off my list at Barker’s. For a start, they were having a 50% sale, - October – the Kitchen dept. but really I could find none of the items I wanted. Really the choice of glass these days makes you wonder where any pleasant glass can be bought. No bathroom stuff. In men’s dept. – two floors down, my legs – no silk handkerchiefs and no way of tracking them down, as everything is everywhere, not it sections, not to mention that there was nobody to ask within hailing distance. (By the way, some really awful stuff in the sale, quite beneath what Barker’s used to be, brought in, I’d say.) On to Waterstone’s and bought three thrillers in a hurry, two of them duplicates, without my book book.’ The driver surly and not one of Pat’sI’d say. Not one of my better shopping days.

Sunday October 12 2003

Identity cards keep being mentioned, one benefit being closer check on asylum- seekers and unauthorised immigrants generally. Good? You might think so, but many protests. I’m not at all clear why. Civil liberties are mentioned. If you are blameless of civil disobedience of any kind, why would you care?

Wrote to S at last, about Lees-Milne and Alec book. Finished Victorians. A remarkable affair. V. good in tacking himself on to old Victorians in his youth. Though he is young enough, 1950, to be my son. Well, he didn’t set my teeth on edge once, except about the Royal Family.

Palindrome quotes somewhere about Panama. Almost unique in that it makes a comparatively sensible statement. ‘A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.’

Monday October 13 2003

Rang lampshades, no answer. Rang the watchmaker recommended buy the B. horological institute, in Queen’s Club Gardens. Semi-retired, but exact and knowledge sounding, busy tone, but could take them at the end of the month.

The Alex G biog. is nastier than I expected, or he is. Compounded by its being a Catholic author as well. Oh, the smugness, and holier than-thou-ness, that led Nancy M to snap at E. Waugh. ‘Do remember that God made me too.’

Tuesday October 14 2003 Wednesday October 15 2003

The three final documents arrived for the sale – I did recognise them, and do feel it may really be ending. And, very unlike life, which usually means that, if you need a witness, you don’t meet a human being for the next month – I was having dinner with Roy and Marian tonight, or rather, giving them dinner at the Brackbenbury, so I showed them to Roy at once, as he arrived first in a cab from rehearsal and then Marian, with a lovely bunch of roses to celebrate me getting the money at last. I wish more people brought me flowers. Roy brought me a piece of Manchego and some quince jelly he’d made himself. (He’s recommended manc. Before, and it’s quite palatable – I bought some from Mortimer and Bennett – but cannot see why it’s so specially delicious. Surely a cheese which has to be eaten with a tasty jelly must be a little wanting.)

Now the restaurant. More or less full, a good sign. A sweet young waitress, but there was too long a pause between the drinks and ‘we’ll order in a bit’, and someone coming back to take the order. A bottle of white, and a bottle of red, the red ordered by Roy, as I know he is now a bit of a wine snob, the dear creature. (Said artlessly, ‘You never thought when you first met me…’). M and I had Caesar salad, not a success, a lot of lettuce in a creamy rather tasteless dressing, two proper anchovies, and some, perhaps five, cold hard croutons. Told the waitress. R had bresaola and it was good, then I had smoked haddock and poached eggs, delicious.R had a rib-eye steak, - no vegetarian he. What did Marian have? Can’t remember. Talked nonstop, as we always do. Except that R. managed not to say a word about the rehearsal he’d just come from. Do you know, I don’t think he has, even now, a real knowledge of how reserved he is. He kissed M. when she arrived, first time ever in my prescience. Cheese for me, better than previous management. How selfish of me not to have noticed what they had. So happy that all is over. What good friends they are. And they drove me home.

So today, Wednesday, ‘getting the document to the solicitors’ looms large. I was going to take them myself, but felt a bit off, and thought, ‘I’ll send it by courier.’ And rang the solicitors to ask the name of theirs. – reliable? and perhaps knows the address – the stupid receptionist got Angela M. (not stupid, they don’t give an address for nothing.) So she sent one.I rang at 9.15, and he was here by 9.40. Good for convenience, and another charge on the bill.

After all that, went back to bed to read the paper. Came to about 10.30. By my watch. The video clock said 11.25. My watch is good. Rang 123, and was considerably thrown by a silly little girl’s voice chanting the times in a broad Scots accent, to the point that I nearly didn’t hear that it was 11.25. One way and another, I had a moment of wondering whether I was being manipulated by a foreign power, or possibly having a spiritual experience.

Dear J sent me a card from the jewelers in William IV St. where the chap from Pearl Cross went. He has the same silver repairman. So sweet of her.

Thursday October 16 2003

Postal Strike. Ironic. One last delay? And still no rain.

Finished the Alex G – Read book. I was more repelled than ever by A.G, now that I have read how he treated his wife and son, not just heard about it. I wonder also if I’ve written before of his choice of friends. Alan B is one thing – he’s a writer and Alec would attract his keen observation. But otherwise, so many of his friends were pretty third-rate people. Take Mark Kingston. I shared a dressing-room with him for six months at B’ham in the 50’s. Agreeable, flattering, no brains, venal, might be gay or not. Married a funny camp girl I was at Canterbury with, neither would give Alec any trouble. M.K. was one of Alex’s executors! With hindsight, I now see that Alec was another of those rather tiresome people who are at once too suspicious of and too awed by, a university degree. Alex B. is clever enough and Northern demotic enough, to temper the prejudice. Simon C turned tail himself after a short while, as he sensed the unpleasantness. I was also interested to find that Anthony Quayle and A.G. had been quite close friends –or at least colleagues – since before the war. I had no feeling of that, but, in their different ways, they were both cold fish. A.Q. not only gave no one a card, let alone a present, but wished no one good luck. A.G. had almost no interest in me, just cool fairly polite disdain.

Friday October 17 2003

Angela Mann rang to say money would be telegraphed to my account today, this p.m. Not ‘had been’ I notice.

Saturday October 18 2003

A formal letter with the disgraceful list of costs. With the money paid to Donald the £168,000 is whittled down t £151,000 odd.

An hour and half series called Heroes of Comedy devoted this one to Len R. Fascinating and poignant. I got him his first job in the West End in Free as Air in 1958 by getting D down to the panto at Salisbury. A touch of genius. He seems to have become a monster of egotism is his later career, as I think I have described before, though I saw little of it then. Except that he turned down the part D offered him and asked for a bigger one! Cried down later. I think perhaps as well we lost touch. It also seems he was rather rightwing, to put it mildly and, shades of Roy, much the same b’ground, became a wine-snob with a temperature regulated wine- cellar upstairs. Gave un-wine snobs poorer wine in handsome decanters without telling them. Not good. Interested that Gillian R said ‘His squash had nothing to do with his heart attack.’ Hm. The last time I saw him he came out of that squash club by the cinema in Drayton Gardens, and we had a chat. Soaked in sweat, looking worn, early 80’s, I suppose. Never mind squash, any time you touched him on stage, every muscle was like a board. Sweat dripped off his jaw-bone at a December matinee of On Approval at Salisbury, at a quarter-full house with the temperature just above freezing.

Concorde being laid off after 34 years. 1969? Shall I ever forget poor D coming running out of her sitting-room where she’d been playing, in tears and fright, because Concorde had gone over on a test flight, with no warning – we’d never heard of it – and a noise like a descending land-mine? I wrote to The Times in a rage, and they sent me a proof but didn’t print it.

Sunday October 19 2003

Rang K to tell. We’ll have a day for finance. May go to L.A. with Mel B of Spice Girls, told how he went to her four and a half million house in Bucks or somewhere. Went to the loo, ‘about as big as my studio, mirrors on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, two loos, opposite one another, no cubicles, both transparent Perspex.’ ‘Seeing your own shit, is bad enough.’ ‘How did you feel?’ ‘Exposed.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 184

October 20 2003 - January 18 2004.

Monday October 20 2003

Arlete rang, and suggests Nov. 28 for R.A., bringing a friend, Ruth. ‘Did you like my card about inviting a younger and handsome man?’ ‘I pinned it up in the kitchen.’ Then she told me K had bought an exercise bike. Whether the two are connected…

Repellent little commercial. Family round the dinner-table. Ten-year-old boy deliberately flicks a forkful of food at his grandmother’s face. She cries in shock, tears, I mean. He is sent to his room as a punishment, and settles down in satisfaction to watch the football he did it for. Back at the dinner-table, the mother is comforting the g-mother, while the father flexes his fork. Nasty.

‘Dramatised documentary’ – a doubtful form – about the eruption of Vesuvius, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. In mid-eruption, on victim, ‘What does it mean?’ What it means is, get away as fast as you can, otherwise you’ll have a bad television programme made about you, 2000 years from now.

In a sitcom, a young husband has revealed to his new wife that he is the serial killer of three blonds victims, and his own mother to boot. Mark of idiot writing that she doesn’t tell anyone, let alone the police, tho’ he doesn’t lock her up – she works in a chemist – and the writers can’t think of any good reason why she shouldn’t. My attention wandered, and I idly thought, if Dorothy had killed three young men, would I go to the police? Hm. and then I thought, if D killed three young men, it could only be because they were actors acting bad perfs, in which case she would be completely justified, and I would say nothing.

A delightful coda to the idiocies and irritations of Bournemouth. A large card, six by four, from the estate-agents, Mann, ‘signed by the whole gang’, none of whom I’d dealt with, message on front, Best wishes as you move into your new home.’ Insensitive, inaccurate, and incompetent to the last.

Tuesday October 21 2003

Anxiety/theatre dream. Perform? Vague but post show. No one had bed for me. Hotel said yes but no in the end. Two big greyhounds jumping about, ugh! Bag still in theatre. A bit of wandering about in B’mouth. Woke myself up through irritation at such an insipid and pointless dream.

To H’smith. No books again. Three weeks’ pension, last time queuing for ten minutes.

Back here, ordered two of the patchwork shirts, compost bin, games-set for K only £19.99 for 8 games, joke. Two cards, to K, one quoting Woody Allen about his brother in law on an exercise bike having heart attacks, and the other, the estate- agent’s card…

Wednesday October 22 2003

Did my IT, very simple this year, sent my pension book as I can no longer claim income-support. Ordered W. Morris tray for book-room, and w.paper-basket for the sitting-room. I did like looking at Lalla’s biscuit-tin. It’s covering of painful chintz started comingoff almost at once. Out at 10.15 am to be sure K got his cards tomorrow – very rare for me to go just to the pillar-box, but thank goodness it’s getting colder.

Rang the nearest of the lampshade-makers in the list of four given me by John Lewis that lovely day with K. I had no response to the answer-machine for ten days, but at last a Mr. Dixon left a message on mine, same accent… Immediate deprecation, excuses, the phrase ‘trying to make a living out of it’ turned up early.I asked what the number of the shop? in Ebury St really was, - someone had scribbled in a biro, ‘89’, or was it ’59’? ‘We left Ebury St five years ago, and moved to Elizabeth St., but we’re in Hertfordshire, (voice rising to quell protest) – yes, but we come into London perhaps a day a week, and park the Range Rover in Elizabeth St.’ ‘So I’d have to sit in the Range Rover to look at the materials.’ ‘No, no’ – I soldiered on describing the shades I wanted, ‘with gold lace on top and bottom, quite deep lace’ – ‘But that would be so difficult to find.’ When he broke to me that it might cost £100!!, I put him out of his misery, and asked him to forgive me for bothering him, and cut off his cries. An almost academic demonstration of how to run an unsuccessful business. Poor wife, who presumably makes the wretched things back in Hertfordshire.

All the same, I’m shocked by John Lewis giving such dreadful information.

The Duchess of Devonshire has published a cook-book, of her chef’s recipes, of course. Said chef seemed a bit on the rough side, chopping things rather roughly for nowadays, and with black edges to his very short nails, tho’ youfelt it couldn’t be dirt. This week it was a vegetarian dish, which, you felt, wasn’t the Duchess’ first interest. ‘We had a Maharajah here once, who was a vegan. Not even allowed ‘dairy products’, so my chef invented this dish, which I’m sure will be delicious.’ She picked up a fork, and poised it over the dish saying, ‘Speaking as a butcher…’

Told Roy about the football commercial. He laughed as if was nothing. Still, he is so inhibited he may have taken it in.

RAIN last night and a real soaking today. Now we need that every day for at least three weeks.

Thursday October 23 2003

Another tiresome anxiety dream. Sacked Edna as my cleaner (! Imagine her outrage at being a cleaner even in my dream.) Whole company against me. Walked away through what town? Woke myself up with much impatience as in the middle of a bad book. (Or the first chapter more like?) I wonder how long these tiresome dreams actually last? They seen interminable, but maybe only seemed.

Into garden to compost bin etc. Two big rosettes of leaves of Madonna lilies. Where’s the third? Odd. No parsley. That wretched Dog’s Mercury Must weed. Rain last night, and this a.m. a really good first soak. Deliciously cold in garden. I’m sleeping so much better, B’mouth over? despite, or because, of theatre dreams.

Friday October 24 2003

To Tesco, that Irish driver who never stops talking fairly incomprehensively. Good wodge of letters posted, more orders sent.

Saturday October 25 2003

Finished the Robert Byron. Just as I thought.I had to skip many pages of travel writing which were no doubt, even when not acknowledged, fairly close paraphrases of the books. The books were and still are, much praised, and I am no judge of them, or travel writing in general. I have little or no interest in the Middle East, repulsion much of the time. But R.B. was prominent figure in the group of writers that most interests me. Nancy Mitford said he was the one she most missed – the jokes.

Gleams of that come through, though the biography has arrived so late – R.B. had been dead for nearly sixty-five years – that most personal testimony has been lost. James Knox, tho’ Eton and Oxford, has a rather terre a terre style and attitude – phrases such as ‘met up with’ loom large. A few apercus. But I plucked down C. Sykes’ Four Studies in Loyalty, which I’d almost forgotten, for his quite extended essay on R.B., which quite extinguishes the later book. Oh, how travel writing bores me!

Having done the food shopping yesterday, today I went to Chiswick with nothing to do but go to the bookshop and the sort of antique shop in Devonshire Rd. Neither v. interesting. The b’shop has far too many ‘illustrated’ books, the sort semi-educated people seem to collect. Funnily enough, that outside case of ‘bargains’ gave me the two C.E. Montague’s I haven’t got, and the Everyman 1907 ed. Of Evelyn’s Diary, all copies looking new, £8 the lot. Black taxi-cab-driver, rather obsequious ‘sirs’ sprinkled everywhere. Interesting.

Sunday October 26 2003

Finished the third of Simon Brett’s Fethering series, just right for sending me to sleep. ‘Light comedy’ is what they are, a rare commodity nowadays, quite to be expected that his denouements are the feeblest part, but then I never bother about murderer.

H rang as usual. She had someone crash into her car, parked in Taunton? Minehead? – have I written about this last week? Is my brain going? – took one door and wing off. Happily two reliable witnesses came forward. A man crashed, looked and drove away. H was sent a form from the police asking to be told everything she witnessed. As she was in the supermarket at the time… Geoffrey has his operation for cataract? on Nov. 10. Goodness, how they progress from illness to death to illness.

Forget to record one tiny moment in the R. Byron that charmed me. That horrible visit to the Nuremberg Congress, with the Redesdales and Unity Mitford, that R.B. went to so as to know, he observed Lord R as at a house party to which five hundred thousand rather odd and unexpected guests had turned up. He saw him ‘among the surging mob of fascists. Phalangists in red berets, Germans… covered with orders and medals, and badges, with his head bowed, walking, this way and that, ‘looking for a needle that Lady R had dropped from her embroidery.’ This was in the hotel foyer…

Rang K to say about clocks going back. Got Arlete, he in Bath. They’d been on their big shop – I told her not to let him ring back, and fixed the R.A. evening. He did ring back, said A had known, but he still wanted to know whether he got an hour extra or an hour less. He knows how to please me. Says the LA trip may be off.

Monday October 27 2003

Woman on news. Tall, thin, fortyish, saved a boy’s life in a swimming pool, probably in Croydon or somewhere anodyne. Asked her name, she said, ‘Wendy Wong.’

Rang Halycon Cars and Brackenbury to arrange RA evening. Musical about Jessie Matthews- good heavens - going on at Wyndham’s – more good heavens – for a limited run, is it six weeks or a month? Anyway, something quite uneconomic. And there, on London Tonight was Anne Rogers, at least forty years on if not more, a hard-faced, iron-haired sixty-five at least. Hair not only iron, but a hard brown. Goodness, she must have eaten poor Mike H alive. She was always quite prosaic and her perf. in Boy Friend was a lucky accident of a simple and innocent appearance, a good enough singing voice, and a bit of timing, probably mostly by numbers, possibly in the artificiality of BF. On the strength of that, she did My Fair Lady, - pretty awful and crude, and, as far as I’ve been aware has done nothing else. I presume Mike’s Henry Hall money is paying for this. Poor chap. When S.D. and B.F. were running side by side, D asked Anne how they were doing, and she always answered, in that hideous Lancashire quack, ‘Capahacity.’

Tuesday October 28 2003

Bad night. Cancelled cab for visit to William IV St jewelers for silver repairs etc, and gave Ling-Ling her money and sent her away as I had to rest and today was her day for the bedroom. Poor girl asked me if, in future, she could come in when she arrived, as she got so cold waiting. Of course. Really tired, but better now.

Wednesday October 29 2003

Real rain, most of the day, and raining again tonight, thank goodness.

J rang to ask the name of the Devil in Act III of M and S. Also asked about a word of Greek derivation. Explained about chi and phi, etc. She is so good. The post has now seized up, but I did get the replacement compost carrier and K’s box of games.

Thursday October 30 2003

Rain last night, another good soaking. Fine a.m.

Loose covers day. Jean Smith had rung to say ‘midday’, and lo, at five past twelve, the bell rang and there was her pleasant, optimistic daughter, S.E. Smith. ‘What does the S.E. stand for?’ ‘Susan Elizabeth.’ ‘Nice’ ‘Don’t like Susan much.’ Well, I suppose it is rather old-hat now, when I remember how many there were at Cambridge fifty years ago. She had both covers and all the cushions on and smoothed down, arm-covers and little necks, in about twenty minutes. Gave her a cheque for £770 all in. Excellent. Oddbins delivery – a big one – in the p.m., where it is raining again now, and tomorrow really heavy rain all day. And all night tonight. A good day.

Friday October 31 2003

Started Evelyn’s diary which I don’t think I’ve even dipped into before. Rather daunted by the grand tour I was almost immediately plunged into. Endless not particularly vivid or illuminating descriptions of the many palaces and houses, parks and gardens in France and Italy. He has no particular skill and so far there are not enough personal touches, too few people brought on to bring the backgrounds to life. Still, he’s only 24, and I hope is being dutiful.

An interesting Shakespeare echo. I’ve just got him to Genoa. ‘… the sudden and devilish passion of a seaman, who, plying us, was intercepted by another fellow… he put his finger in his mouth and almost bit it off by the joint…’

Saturday November 1 2003

To Farmer’s Market again. The last pheasant on that stall, and two pigeons. A dozen large fresh eggs again. Butter and cream. Half a shoulder, Norbury Blue cheese?

To Tesco, and Waterstone’s. New biogs. of Valentino, which looks more seriously researched than most Hollywood. I suppose it’s a particularly difficult society to find reliable evidence or testimony. There must be a very high percentage, possibly the highest in the world, of people who can’t distinguish between truth and fantasy. Also the Diana Mosly that she co-operated with completely, on the understanding that it wouldn’t be published till after her death. It has plainly been finished a while ago, as it has the date of her death and final illness, though that was only two months ago. There may at last be some new material, - there are certainly some new photos.

Sunday November 2 2003

Pouring rain all night and till now, twelve. Started the Mosly. Most irritating, more and more modern books have only two fly-leaves at beginning and end, and more and more often, they are deep red or brown or whatever. Making notes is impossible, signing one’s name even. Unsatisfactory.

Finished Mosly. Real new stuff, and photos, after years of trudging over familiar, two familiar, material. No wonder she insisted publication should be post mortem. Charming, intelligent? Hm. Narrow-minded, bigoted, obsessive, in her conclusions deeply stupid, would be nearer the mark. She was the unpleasant reverse of Jessica’s equally obverse. Amusing, in a way, that the saner sisters felt Hons and Rebels was painful and inaccurate. To the outside world the general gesture is the same as the others. Unity was unbalanced.

H’s call. She sent me the Daisy Chain. Lost in postal delays, and hopes it isn’t squashed as it’s rather fragile, tho’ not valuable. She’s had a car on loan. Her own back tomorrow, well in time for Geoffrey’s cataract.

Monday November 3 2003

Oh statistics! ‘One in four have some connection with adoption.’ I’ve never known anyone who was adopted, or anyone who had adopted. Knowingly. Certainly nobody at schools or Cambridge said they were adopted.

K rang. L.A. Dec 10 now, ‘for about a month.’ So not quite so long. He’s worked out my debt to him. £50,000. I’m surprised it’s so little. So wonderful to be able to pay it back.

Tuesday November 4 2003

The postal strike was over yesterday, and to my surprise, I got three pieces of junk- mail, one for the Vallelys. No date on any of them. Today, a parcel, the Patchwork shirt, ordered on Oct. 17.

Started the Valentino. Should have said it was published by Faber, the only publisher, just about, that still had an identity and independence.

Message on machine, wrong number. The principal of a nursery-school, telling a parent that she was expecting a cheque for last summer-term, at the beginning of September, ‘No doubt the postal-strike is partly to blame, but I do hope you can get your cheque-book out, as I don’t want Justin (or some such name) to miss next term! A touch of steel here. I rang back as I thought it a bit combustible. She was polite, but put out. All head-teachers are what they now call control freaks. Name Jordon, but which?

Wednesday November 5 2003

9.0 p.m.

A programme of fireworks still going on, in Ravenscourt Park. I suppose. Very loud and intrusive, not that such noise worries me. But an odd convention. A good thing it doesn’t worry me, as I had a completely sleepless night, dozed in the p.m. but still feel scraped. On news, a well-known greyhound-stadium closed. Amazing they aren’t all closed, seems so old-world. Like adoptions, I’ve never known anyone… Nobody even came close to comment that the track was called Catford.

K suddenly called, ‘will be nearby’ and called in. Oh how lovely. Hair tied back tight, jaw-muscles bulging. Brought his new computer to show me. 12”x6” x 1 1/2” deep. £2000. Didn’t ask me for cheque, but gave it him with such satisfaction and pleasure. And his set of games. ‘Can I have a glass of wine?’ Many shrieks. When he went I said, ‘well, you’re not going empty-handed’. Hugs.

Thursday November 6 2003

He went off to take A. to fireworks, strange. I cooked the Farmer’s Market lamb. I can’t decide whether it was tough or my jaws aren’t what they were…

I’d given K my letter and tickets for Arlete, which was partly why he came, and a letter for H, with a couple of articles from the Indep. supplement, one about soaps, one an interview with Miriam Stoppard. – heavens, I know why Tom S left her – by Deborah Ross, who makes me laugh. He rang to say, did I want him to post H’s letter? Well, yes, as it’s sealed and stamped… It’s good to know he has no idea that one trip to the pillar-box is not very ‘energy-efficient if it can be avoided.

Another sleepless night, again dozed off after papers, and woke at 12.20 (3 hrs.) Had careful lunch, chicken soup, and boiled egg, cold lamb for dinner. Hard to explain to young the effects of a really bad night.

Friday November 7 2003

Indigestion. Took Gaviscon. Worried, and then realised I last took it in February.

Post, four pieces of junk-mail.

Really flattered despite the effort, that J asked herself to dinner. Have nearly everything I need, but shopping tomorrow all the same.

Ordered shaver, - the one I bought some years ago was too cheap. I must try another, to take me into senility.

Saturday November 8 2003

Gave her quail, ‘I’ve never had quail,’ and big salad with everything in, peas, beans, asparagus tips, one mush, pots, chicory and lettuce. Interested that she brought up laughingly that she never met my friends, and, when I said ‘Well, if…’ laughed all the more, but I think, meant it a bit. Of course, till now, no money, but also, numbers, and time. I see Roy and Marian twice? a year, John N. the same, and it would be off- putting to them as a result, to ask a comparative stranger. Even now, I prefer a threesome, and… after all, she knows K and saw him fairly lately, and then there’s Simon!

To Farmer’s Market this a.m., and got two delicious–looking pheasants, two wonderful lumps, of cheddar, and buffalo Jonas, whatever that is. A loaf, and a dozen of those wonderful eggs. To Ken High St. and got my watchstrap replaced. I see H. Samuel, by the side of the tube-station, has gone – sign of the times. Then to Waterstone’s for the new Penelope Fitzgerald book of essays and reviews I read about this morning and two P.D. James.Strange, I went off her and gave away half a dozen, seven or eight years ago.

Sunday November 9 2003

Woke at 5.0. Not bad. Dozed, woke at 11.0. H rang, wanting comfort more than usual. I do see, Geoffrey doesn’t help at all. She always called him Eeyore, a worrier. Not to mention all those terrible relations. How lucky he’s been. The P. Fitzgerald is a gem. Wonderfully exact and illuminating – I was going to say studies – but most of them are workaday reviews. Her notice of A Few Green Leaves as good as anything I’ve read about B.P. Nothing in the Sunday papers. Who would be a journalist? Perhaps P.F. could tell me.

Monday November 10 2003

My lavender pillow by my side smelling deliciously of cheap scent, I woke at half past one in the morning. Read till six. The TV news, and back to bed with the papers. Nodded off at about nine and woke at one ten p.m. Bother.

Could there be a clearer sign of the idiocy and small-mindedness of religion than suicide bombers? And do you imagine that the inquisition would not have used them if they could? Puritanism, censoriousness and so on and so on, are all there.

Ordered the three silver coasters, instead of my ramshackle affairs. He can sell them or use them, so they’re not extravagant.

Tuesday November 11 2003

Bed last night at eleven, hoping. Woke at three. Not so bad. Ling-ling doing the bedroom, received her in my soutane over my pyjamas. I don’t suppose it took her in. Sat in the sitting-room for my rest, and did nod off with the help of the neck-cushions. Still tired.

How good the P. Fitzgerald is, both in writing and in judgment.

Wednesday November 12 2003

An assembly of dwarfs to ask for better treatment. I don’t grudge them that, but I do grudge the suburban desire to have them re-named ‘of restricted growth.’ You still can’t walk even if you aren’t called a cripple. How mealy mouthed things are becoming.

Talking of which, the C.M. Yonge novel Hazel sent me, has arrived. The Daisy Chain. Sampling it in careful doses. I find it rancid with piety, a certain sense of character, all diversified by a great command of padding and tedium.

Thursday November 13 2003

Sampling the magazine programme Good Morning, came in on an interview with an elderly man with an inch-long stubble, a large dark over-made Buddha-like wife, possibly twenty years younger, hung round with threes two? year old triplets, an older daughter about five, showing off regardless, lying on the floor seductively crying, picking at the triplets but never finding either of her parents’ laps empty. Turned out to be Peter Barnes – J’s landlord, dramatist author of the Bible in eighty-three parts, I expect by now, and his American! wife, Christie. They had the triplets by IVF, and put a time-bomb of varying intensity under them. Peter B is 72, for goodness sake. She is getting on for 50. How will they be ten or twenty years from now? Leila, the five year old, is going to be a problem one way or another. What fools the parents must be.

A possible new recruit for the Chelsea pensioners. The ‘head master’: So you’ll see the doctor for an examination and the Matron and a quick talk with the Chaplain.’ The Chaplain turned up, large, square, ‘Ronald? I’ll call you Ron.’

Friday November 14 2003

8.15.

Well! Well! Scratch dinner cooking, home at five forty-five on the dot, out I went for a treat night out… Early enough to drop in to Waterstone’s opposite, and get four more P.D. James. So pleasant to have him, thinks of everything and opens the door of the car for me. He parked in Duke St. by the side of Fortnum’s, and I went over to the R.A. You can’t drive into the courtyard anymore. I thought it was because of a revamping – old tenants out – some sort of ‘structure’ – but physically there’s nothing to stop you dropping some poor old man off by the door. A. came running to give me a big hug. It was twenty to seven – I’d thought she’d been inside since six or whenever. That was the first shock. The second was when she said Ruth wasn’t coming, she’s gone somewhere-abroad was it? (Interesting, I immediately forget it, and still do.) So we went into the exhibition, up what used not to be steep stairs. (Bad directions, as at least three counters in the foyer looked as if they were where you handed in yr. tickets.) I told her we’d split up as usual. (Now I am absolutely incapable of walking round and stopping, walking round and stopping, looking at every picture – which some people think is the way.) She turned up once to see if I was all right, and then, after about half-an hour, quite long enough for me, she told me she was a bit tired, and was it such a good idea for dinner now that Ruth… Even suggested I was a bit tired, when I had rested all Wed and Thurs to be sure of not flagging. (After all, there was Ruth, an unknown and possibly heavy element.) I hope I didn’t give any sign of my surprise or disappointment, it was now 7.0 or later, I rang on her mobile to cancel the table in the window that I’d booked so carefully for four, in case K might come.I hate to treat a restaurant like that. (My only consolation was that it was Friday night, when they are always packed, so…) We crossed the road to the car, - I told her a funny little tale of her mother’s lemons to make her feel all right. She kissed me, and I got in the car and drove home to what dinner? feeling flat. And she had suggested going.

So what was the exhibition like, Mrs. Lincoln? I’m afraid the overwhelming feeling was of clamping acquisition. You felt he could buy up all the Pre-R pictures in the world if he had the money and the space, regardless of merit. And too large of a proportion already have too little merit. The few pictures that aren’t Pre-R seem selected without feeling or taste. A Picasso because… some down-market Munnings, Stanley Spencer because, again… I think that’s why whoever it was, put the one Picasso and the Munnings side by side, and the Stanley Spencers opposite. But I was too stiff and the rooms were too full for me to do more than pick up one or two pictures. The folds of the skirt in an early Millais, La Fiammetta. A huge and hopeless Luke Fildes. An oil sketch with lilies of valley for Proserpina. A huge Boldoni of Marchesa Casti, good heavens, very showy, what was it doing? Auditioning for the cover of 1908 Vogue? Bought her a catalogue to distract her, paperback still £19.95, weighs a ton, she didn’t thank me.

Saturday November 15 2003

Recovering. A day of pampering.

Sunday November 16 2003

No books I want in the Sunday papers again. H says Geoffery’s eye is a bit dicey, just as Mary L’s was at this stage. Still, he’s working in the barn. We talked of C.M. Yonge. I had managed to put up a successful front, without traducing myself. Oh dear, peoples’ taste. Offered spare R.A. ticket to J.

K rang. Asked after our evening – she’d given him noidea! ‘Silly girl’ he kept saying. Dearest boy.

Monday November 17 2003

J wants A. L-W ticket.

Tuesday November 18 2003

Woke at 3.30am, a bit better.

Rang Telegraph Book Service for the Kathleen Ferrier. Never heard of me. Rang Notting Hill Waterstone’s. Never heard of Kathleen Ferrier. Made her order it. The assistant, I mean.

Wednesday November 19 2003

Rang Ann’s Lampshades in Kensington Church St. a ‘superior’ voice – poor girl, with delicately insecure vowelsanswered Yes, they do make any sort of lampshade. Told her of John Lewis, she deigned to laugh, and then vouchsafed to me that, ‘if you’d gone to Harvey Nichols or Harrods, they would have recommended us.’.... I can’t remember what refinements she elided through, to reveal that ‘the Queen would recommend us, too.’ Well.

Snoozed at two and woke at seven. What can I do to stop it? Had better night last night, too.

Finished Daisy Chain. One or two gleams of primitive family fun, the rest mawkish sentimentality and rancid false religiosity. What shall I tell H? How amazing she adores Yonge.

Didn’t go out, tho’ I’d arranged to.Bloody Bush.

Thursday November 20 2003

K rang. Next week might be possible for our legal day. Something’s fallen through. So nothing to be fixed yet – his work must come first.

Friday November 21 2003

Hideous bombs in Turkey. Suspiciously helpful for B&B.

Called for jury service! A number of quite expensive-looking forms. Decided to ring for the hell of it. The usual recorded parade of alternatives, ‘If you want… please press one.’ Finally got a promise of a live voice. A ‘phone rang twice and stopped. A little while later, I was disconnected. ‘Someone somewhere arranged all this, on the cynical premise, ‘they won’t want to go thro’ all that schpiele (? never spelt it before…) again and they’ll think, anyway, that they’re cut off by BT.’ They pick jurors by random selection, certainly, but one would have thought, in these over computerized days, they might have been capable of weeding out all those under-18 and over-70, - considerably – before sending out aforesaid expensive forms.

On a television programme about a young vicar, more a subject for pathos than anything else these days – a middle-aged parishioner, well-off, of course, needed help and comfort. She was driving round offering rewards, putting up posters, seeing the police, and just driving round, - looking for her missing dog. An expensive folder on the subject is handed round to all and sundry. The vicar says, - (the vicar says) – ‘He means the world to you doesn’t he?’ Tears in her eyes, ‘Yes he does.’ Every time it amazes me afresh that respectable educated people – to mention no others – can declare themselves, to be emotional cripples, and in public, on television. Even more amazing is that they patently have no idea how pathetic and deprived they are, (heavens, think of Mollie). A pet is one thing, but a substitute child or partner is most unhealthily another. Then there are the millions who have children as pets… Oh how terrible not to know how to love and be loved.

Saturday November 22 2003

Woke at three-ish, with a full morning, I hoped, but all slightly askew. Was hoping to do books, diary, post-office, lampshades, clocks, Tesco, and Farmer’s Market, but in the end, only the last three. How often that happens now. To start with, it poured with rain all day, for the third day running, thank goodness, but it didn’t help today. Car at eleven, didn’t stop at local P.O. as worried getting to clockmaster at twelve. Farmer’s Market, subdued from the rain, - about a quarter of the usual crowd, and about three-quarters of the goodsstill on the stalls, quickly bought two pheasant and two grouse, butter, cream, Lincolnshire Poacher’s cheese – whatever that is, but it looked solid and real with a proper rind – drove away still thinking of twelve o’clock apt., especially as my driver didn’t seem to react much either way to Queen’s Club Gardens, not knowing quite how to get there, and not noticing its serious gloominess when we got there. A sizable U shaped cul-de-sac, entirely composed of Edwardian mansion-blocks with the usual cream-painted trimmings of window arches and sills. I know it poured all the time I was there, but I did get quite a strong feeling of seediness and down-market.I don’t think this bit went down as far as the rest of the district, but it hasn’t come up either. My apt. was twelve, it was quarter to, so I thought it worth ringing the bell. No answer, so we sat there in the rain. Every passer-by might be… At twelve I hoisted the heavy bag the fifty yards again. No answer, nothing from the entry phone. Back to the car, and might have driven away, but the driver offered me his mobile ‘phone, and lo, Mr. Oliver answered blandly, ‘We’ve having the decorators all over the block, and they sometimes put the bells out of order. I’ll come down.’Now he tells me. A tall figure, 6’3’’?, with large right angled ears, voluble, sanguine, ‘It’s only two flights.’ Each of twenty steps, I was gasping. The hall of the flat about four or five feet wide, had two bikes to sidle past, ‘Since congestion charges we cycle everywhere and keep them here in case they’re stolen.’ And I thought they were there because of the decorators. ‘Come into the kitchen, I’ve had to set up there.’ And set out on what? – possibly the oven, were his very professional tools. He clipped little magnifying glasses on his spectacles, and off we went. I saw at once that he hadn’t been recommended by the Brit. Horo. Soc. for nothing. He concentrated totally, gave me a ten-minute run down on the invention and introduction of the fuse’s movement, giving me the usual history from the 18th century, with a glancing reference to some recently discovered material which will probably take it back to the 15th century. Much amused by me saying Mummy thought the Napoleon Hat clock was not socially acceptable. Said he charged £35 an hour, made me look at one or two bits thro’ the violently magnifying 1 inch lens.

Above the ‘work-bench’ were hanging a fish-slice, a potato-masher and a whisk, but he used none of them.

Back down, I went to Tesco, paid the driver £45 for two and a half hours, ate as nourishing a lunch as I could stomach, and fell into bed at 3.0, and woke at – 8.0. Bugger and bother. Had a scratch dinner, and no gin.

Sunday November 23 2003

Sat up late purposely, to offset the p.m. sleep, last night, and had scratch dinner. Bed at 12, woke at 4, not too bad considering. Good talk to H as usual tho’ she illustrated my Friday pet story perfectly, by leaving the ‘phone twice to put the cat out of the kitchen-door, and then again to see where he was. A stranger would be certain she was talking to a child, which in a sort of a ghastly way, she is.

Forget to say that the farmers said it was rather empty because of some rugger match. Very obtrusive all over the television. We won. Imagine.

Monday November 24 2003

A wonderfully wet few days. Astonishing statistics, 75mm of rain in the last three days, after only 25mm in the last three months.

In some prog., all carefully pronouncing, ‘Peniscola’ – ‘Penis cola’

Tuesday November 25 2003

A big Missing Persons effort this week. Sixteen year old girl missing for seventeen years. Since then mother has brain-tumour father, lung cancer. Who says stress doesn’t kill?

That rugby match. ‘For all these Rugby players, things will never be the same again.’ What a treat for them. Who would be famous now?

Wednesday November 26 2003

K and the no-oven. He arrived well in time for lunch. Smoked salmon and scrambled egg, wild, too, …off to wildest Brentford to a huge Curry’s in a wilderness of sky- scrapers and nothing.K is wonderful at these things, relentless in finding out, always asking every pertinent question, infinitely clam and polite. (Amusing stop in Chiswick High Rd. at a kitchen design shop, v.chic. K.‘A gas oven.’ Shopman. ‘A gas oven? We haven’t been asked for a gas oven more than once in the last two years.’ Even then K. went on in case, always mild, and therefore irresistible. Despite his wonderful trouble – he puts his whole self into it – we got nothing. He might have stayed to dinner, but I was suddenly too tired, although it was only getting on for four and I think he was, too, in a way, having set aside this whole day for me, with all he has to do. This is his last visit before the hol. and L.A. He drove off with his usual little wave. I sat down and had a bit of a cry. At my age, you never know if you’ll die before he comes back. And if he does, I’ll die anyway. I just hope and hope that I never tell him he’s the centre of my life. Poor chap, he almost certainly knows it. No, I’m not going to cry any more.

Thursday November 27 2003

Lovely lazy day. Why do people like ‘quizzes’?

Friday November 28 2003

Quiet day apart from two wonderfully extravagant deliveries. A case of wine at 8.45, thankfully early so I could nod off. Then the silver coasters at 11.45, which were all and more than the brochure promised. Beautiful and practical. An heirloom.

Saturday November 29 2003

In Telegraph deaths colum, a Miss Pine-Coffin.

Fascinated to see that Dudley Sutton went to Andrew Ray’s mem. service. Forty years ago I would have been surprised to hear that they lived four years, let alone forty. And Roy Marsden was there. Where has he been for the last few years? Surely he can’t have earned much lately, and he so famous at one time.

Really terrorists have no sense of the fitness of things. One has been arrested in the back streets of Gloucester, one of the most boring towns in the country, and now four have been arrested in – Eastbourne. How any self-respecting terrorist can be arrested in Eastbourne - ? it’ll be Tunbridge Wells next. Only arrival in the country the day before could justify it.

Decided not to go to F’s Market, so as to be sure to do the other things. To N. Hill and got my diary in W.H. Smith, four P.D. James, the Sting biog., the D. of Devonshire’s Cookery Book, and, at last, the Kathleen Ferrier Letters and Diaries. Then to Ryness in Ken High St. for another anglepoise lamp, for the book-room. I’ve always meant to, as the overhead is exactly overhead, and even a 150 watt bulb is not strong enough, not to mention that the bulb has gone, and K won’t be here to replace it till February… A struggle to plug in the lamp, at the point behind two layers of books, and the table with the leaf down in front of them, the other side of the table, from the room – clear? It needed four kneelings and strainings and getting ups and downs, and a torn thumbnail – with blood – the lead and the light were on and a transforming success.

Sunday November 30 2003

Chat to Marian and Roy.Ella came on to thank me for the book she bought with my token. Incomprehen. Told Roy record-shop joke which, to my amazement, he had never heard, and I had never told for thirty or forty years, because it was so old hat. He simply screamed with laughter. I said he was to be sure to tell Marian – I’ve noticed so often couples don’t these days. He told her to such effect she rang back to scream, too. Good. Shall I give it immortality?

A woman goes into a record-shop and says to the boy behind the counter, ‘Have you got Jingle bells on a twelve inch?’ ‘No, but I’ve got dangling balls on a ten-inch?’‘Is that a record?’ ‘No, but it’s not bad for a boy of sixteen.’

Monday December 1 2003

The Terrence Higgins Trust frightening new statistics of HIV infections were announced by a small round faced man with a wide happy smile and a mouth turned up at the corners like a clown…

The Meursault Les Charms arrived, and I had a bottle for lunch and dinner, what a treat, real wine, so soothing, so crisp, so digestible, so delicious. It arrived almost chilled enough to drink.

More extraordinary taste. One of those dreary programmes about property, features auctions, but auctions in full, from the first bid to the last. What could be duller?

Tuesday December 2 2003

Have decided to have a fortnight off Ling-Ling after the 23rd. I’ll pay her for both weeks, of course.

Rang Mary L and found her in some pain in her arse, hasn’t been since Friday, and expecting the District Nurse or whatever they’re called now. As usual, she clearly believes that not going for three days, means that ‘you’re drowning in your own filth’ – my father’s phrase, who also believed. Not to mention that she hates cooking, and is utterly bored with talk of food.

Wednesday December 3 2003

Trot round, first to J’s to pick up the pork-pie, the plum bread, which looks like a very curranty malt loaf, and a pot of honey mustard, that she said ‘tasted funny.’ On to Turnham Green Terrace, first to the fishmonger – halibut, turbot, potted shrimps, Arbroath smokies, and a good looking pheasant. To the greengrocers for girolles, ceps, blue and black-berries eggs, cheese-Darrus from Ireland, Taleggio, and proper Double Gloucester. Exciting moment when I saw a polystyrene box, marked truffles. Asked to look. So I looked, and the girl produced an object wrapped in a tissue, unwrapped it, and put in my hand a solid round fungus.

‘How much?’ ‘£56.’ ‘Thank you, I’ll tell my friend.’ I couldn’t eat it, tho’ at the moment, I could afford it. Rang Marl L. and found her drinking red wine. First sensible thing she’s done.

Thursday December 2 2003

Quiet day, I hope.J rang to see if K could copy a video for her. It turned out to be her copy of Laurence O’s memorial service at Westminster Abbey. Tarquin Olivier wants the Alec Guinness address for some unspecified reason, and J is loath to give him her copy even as a loan, not only because she doesn’t trust him to give it back, but because, to my amazement, hers is the only copy, as far as she knows. Joan P has no copy – good heavens – the theatre collections haven’t copies either, she thinks, - and the BBC has wiped their tapes. Extraordinary and disgraceful. Rang him and he rang back later to say he might be able to put his two videos together if the one in the loft… rang back again to say, no, it didn’t, but he’d make her three or whatever when he came back in Feb. Rang J. She said that was all right, she’d just copy the Alex G speech on audio. Safer from Tarquin, too. I said that I thought we ought to have copies made anyway – I’d like one – for historical reasons, if what J says is true.

Started the Kathleen Ferrier. I have been resisting slightly, because I know it will upset me.

Friday December 5 2003

Going on with P.D. James.I wonder what made me stop reading her whenever-it-was years ago, and actually giving hers and Ruth Rendell’s books away. (It may have been the Children of Men which is rather a silly affair about all births stopping about now, set in 2012), but most of P.D. is classic detective stuff, with all the characterisation and humour one expects.

Rang J and told her K’s news. She told me that, never mind LO’s service, the archive of the National Theatre was destroyed, up until the moment when P. Hall took over. ‘They hadn’t room.’ Fancy.

K rang. He’d rung Neil to talk of the visit, and Neil had said to him that he’d felt ‘strange’ during his dinner with us here, that we had retreated from him in some way, etc. etc. Poor boy, he’s having some ‘mid-life crisis’ – we showed nothing different, usual friendship, much interest in Coco’s singing, or at least K did.I can’t say anything, - I’m afraid it’s all in his head, and is perhaps the result of his more or less complete lack of success. Is it that? That K talked of his success and money and that I sat in this beautiful and happy flat, and that he had no personal success to talk of – it must be that. Oh dear, the poor chap has probably had a few experiences of brewer’s droop lately. What a silly boy! Neil is one of the few people I can’t imagine not loving, as much for what I owe him, as for what he sweetly and simply is.

What a pity. I didn’t write to him this year, if that’s what he feels, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with him.

Saturday December 6 2003

Frosty, though not here. Central heating on all day for the first time. Fascinated by, and much enjoyed the K. Ferrier. Dreading K going away.

Sunday December 7 2003

Finsihed K.F., and immediately played ‘O Thou That Tellest’ and ‘He was despised’ and was much moved.

H says Geoffrey’s other eye gets done tomorrow.

Monday December 8 2003

A scintillating day. Meant at last to get my hair cut, but, what the hell, I couldn’t shoehorn myself out of the house. I wonder if they do house visits, for the future. The excitement of the morning was a scaffolding van outside, doing very minimal business. An Oddbin’s order, a jolly talk to Lee, the assistant. Maddening wrestle with one of the drawers of the freezer, - why do they take to pieces, and why are they almost impossible to put back together?

On the way to bed, filled the dear thermos with ice and water, took it and my whisky into the bedroom and threw it onto the bed as is my want, and found I’d left the top off…

Tuesday December 9 2003

Ling-Ling doing the sitting-room, - told her of the week off after Christmas, but I’d pay her just the same. After my rest I found a note from her, saying ‘Your Hoover is fatally broken.’

A plug of dirt and sellotape and a match-stick in the tube. Well, I’m glad to know she can write. K goes tomorrow. No call yet.7.0.

Wednesday December 10 2003

Vivid (and now rarer) dream. Animals gnawing holes in floor and fortunately going out through them. Donald involved, good heavens. As so often so boring I had to wake myself up, tho’ there was a sort of oppression, that might have been frightening. No call. 12.30.

Discussion of, and demonstration of, a cure for Parkinson’s Disease, followed by, a ‘commercial break.’ – the first advert featuring a large quivering jelly.

K rang, thank heavens. Three o’clock waiting for the ‘plane. LA Dec 31st. Noisy where he was, in Heathrow. So good to ring when he really despises my fears for him. But it helps, and I think that’s why that’s why he does. Will try and ring Christmas Day.

Thursday December 11 2003

Quiet day. Rain, rain, lovely.

K rang 10pm safe. Safe. Quite bewildering if was 11.0 a.m. there, hot, sunny. ‘You won’t believe the pictures.’ But which day?

Friday December 12 2003

Rain, rain, rain, so good.

Saturday December 13 2003

The young man upstairs came down with a bottle of wine, and a ‘nice’ card with all five names on, and two are Charlies…

And they’re all gone away for Christmas, what a treat. Not that I hear them at all. Never heard them go as had a cab to shop at eleven. In terms of getting everything on my shopping list easily, one of my most successful shops ever. At the Farmer’s Market, I bought three rolls of salted butter, two big pots of Guernsey cream and some quails’ eggs, at the diary stall – had considerable success with the proprietor, a plain nice farmer, who had difficulty adding up, like me, and his friend, also from the soil.When I said, ‘it freezes well. (Of the Guernsey cream, as they encouraged me the other week), ‘Yes’ he said, ‘but every few lots, it doesn’t, I don’t know why?’ Calling on a phrase of Daddy’s talking of his farm youth, I said, ‘An awkward cow,’ and brought the canvas ceiling down. Then to the egg-stall, for a dozen and a half of those delicious eggs, served by a fifty year old who could earn a fortune as a rosy- cheeked farmer in an advert. To the games stall, for two plump partridges and two pheasants, £23 the lot. To the cheese stall, and bought a huge chunk of a perfect Caerphilly cheese, about a pound and a half. Wonderful.

Then down Kensington Church Street, passing the lampshade shop I’ll go to in the New Year. First Waterstone’s and bought two P.D. James, Vol II of Betjemann’s biog. and found I’d already got it and didn’t care, and E. David’s Xmas book, at last (how I hate Xmas but it’s shorter to write, except that I’ve written this bracket) and a wine-guide. Not that I want one, but I wanted to see what the idiots were saying. Then put the bags in the car, and walked to the chemist for four boxes for Boule Quies – they still have French ones there – and almost next door for the adaptor for my new expensive electric shaver, £89 and that a reduced offer, for those days when I know I won’t get myself to the bathroom. (Have I ever recorded that I am still using the same Gillette safety razor with blades in the same battered chromium box that my father gave me out of his ‘smart’ dressing-case in 1943? when such things were short, and I had to go back to school still trying out my first scabbed shaves.) Then down the road, past the Odeon, to that lesser row of shops, past the Organic, to Holland and Barrett for four tubes of my tooth paste, Sarakan, which seems to have done me good. Then, finally, to the big Tesco, where all the usuals were unusually there.

Sunday December 14 2003

Partridge and blackberries and the delicious lump of Caerphilly. Oh, the weight of Christmas bores me so.

Monday December 15 2003

Another theatre anxiety dream, odd, why again after some time? Quite unpleasant, everyone hating me and cutting me. No Donald happily but I daresay the B’mouth year is the cause. Not that I’ve ever been cut or hated by anyone particularly that I’ve felt or known.

Tuesday December 16 2003

Very cold, Ling-Ling without gloves, claimed to have in bag. Partridge again.

Wednesday December 17 2003

Soham verdict on those poor little girls proved the Huntely man abundantly guilty. He’d ‘assaulted’ – what does that exactly mean? – half-a-dozen young girls before, tho’ never charged because no evidence… Really I wonder if there is anyone left in the world with common sense except me? And a few friends. Imagine, after all that, he was appointed a caretaker of a girls’ school.

Rain of deliveries.Memo, Lay &Wheeler’s wine delivery, only ordered on Monday. Case of assorted white, burgundy. And the all-purpose gramophone arrived. Not unpleasing, but nowadays I rather dread the installing and sorting the LPs and so on, that I would have done in excitement at once. (Have still not done it.21st.)

Started N. Abby with all the usual pleasure. ‘All’s Well is a bit of a hurdle, – it’s not quite a success and from the ‘bitter’ period, isn’t it? and a mixed authorship, one way or another, I’ve no doubt. It’s something I shall settle to over Christmas. N.A. is just pure easy pleasure.

Had ‘hair cut’ in my diary for today and was truly all ready to go. But a poor man protesting on behalf of father’s lack of access to children – more on the common sense front – straddled a gantry over the Westway, and brought it and H. Park, and S. Bush to deadlock for the morning. I was fearful of going, as I can’t stand or walk for all that long, and it was quite cold. A gantry is that long slab of concrete every now and then over those hideous motorways, with signposts of various kinds applied to it. No doubt it has some structural function as well. How wonderful that I don’t have to find out what it actually does.

Thursday December 18 2003

Out to haircut, very chatty to barber, must have been him, as I hadn’t done so before. Suggested home visits. But not yet.

To Books Etc. and bought two Val McDermind, and a hotel guide. No London A to Z! Tesco Metro all re-arranged… Really, one turns one’s back for a moment. J to Sweeney Todd tonight. Oh, N.A.

Friday December 19 2003

Most irritating, what is clearly a second reminder – one sheet, not folded, and a bit ruder – for the telephone-bill, £78 odd, when I haven’t had either the bill or the first reminder. Also an income-tax demand for £65. Curious sum, I thought I wasn’t in for any. Oh well.

J still hasn’t told about Sweeney Todd. I’m rather relieved as Sondheim is not for me. He’s neither one thing or another.

Started a Val McDermid detec. One of the lesbian ones. Gay men calling each other by female names, and ‘she-ing’ all over the place, is tasteless and can be really offensive. Lesbians calling each other Jack and Rory is really pathetic as well, in exactly the ratio that a clever female impersonator can be effective, the other way round never. A male voice has a falsetto, a female hasn’t a basso. Oh the pathos of Radclyffe Hall and what’s her name Troubridge.

Saturday December 20 2003

A rare walk to the pillar-box on corner of Becklow and Uxbridge, and on to the local shops. First to the chemist’s for M.L’s nail-scissors, and Paracetamol for her arse- hole pains. Most intriguing that you can buy three packets of ’32 caplets’ only. Didn’t ask whether 97 would kill you. Heavens, I don’t think I could shallow twenty. Nail-scissors cheap, £1.44. Seems v. cheap to me. We’ll see. Then to newsagent to hand in my tip - £5 for newspaper boy. I am always interested in the survival of newspapers, even loathsome ones, and I wonder already how they survive. K has never ‘taken’ a paper. Do Roy and M? and they are forties. If it’s not delivered a.m. it’s useless to them, and most of the young perhaps already don’t have it. My dear Pakistani couple who run Venables – ha –on Uxbridge Road, always seem to find delivery boys you might think only from their frugal families, but in the one to one glimpses I’ve had over the years, they’ve been, I think, Caribbean, on bikes (odd, isn’t it much more irritating to get on and off so often?) Perhaps it is a sign of anxiety that the D.Mail, since I’ve been here, supplies a printed Christmas card to paper-boys to complete to ‘apply’ for a Christmas tip. Well, at least, he can write. But not numbers - two S’s for 55, and ‘from your paper boy.’ Put a five pound note in a Christmas card. Not much of a tip for a year. Gin from the nearest pathetic mini-market.

Back here, collected myself and went next-door, where John N’s wine had irritatingly been left.Nothing on the answer machine. Could I carry it? Would it be the trying couple I wasn’t sure had left? Turned out to be a mild bleached fair girl with a toddler? I just carried it home.

Sunday December 21 2003

Just M. Llewellin tomorrow and Ling-ling on Tuesday, and then bliss for a fortnight.

Sunday papers and the television silly with Christmas.

Monday December 22 2003

Cab at ten-thirty. First to J’s to pick you the A. L-W pre-Raphaelite catalogues, really heavy. Then to the big Tesco to pick up the perishable stuff for Mary, and my Christmas shopping. Then to Chiche le Mansions, with the Irish driver who lets flow a rather diarrhoec flow of heavily accented talk. Usually it goes in a circle. Today on how little a driver makes, and how the firm hasn’t enough drivers and how many cab- firms in the district may go bust, because there are too many. I expressed tactful concern, and the flow swept on and on, finally arriving at the opposite conclusion…

M.L. advised me to do the lift-trip in two loads, and the prospect of it breaking down – fairly real, I think – is too frightful to think of, as I might have to make at least four journeys up six flights…

So up went the four bags of books, and on the second trip, the four bottles of wine, the three cartons of Covent Garden Soup, two packets of smoked salmon, the bag of Stages, the new nail scissors, the ninety-six paracetamol caplets and a lemon. When I’d put it all in the kitchen, and the books on the bed, she came to me, her arms wide saying, ‘Thank you all you do for me.’ Touching.

Back here the driver carried my shopping in, and actually refused a bigger Christmas tip.

Tuesday December 23 2003

Ling-Ling doing the bedroom, and now the pause till Jan 6th, and the next b’room a delightful five weeks ahead. Gave her this week’s and next week’s money and £10 for Christmas. Said had she got an umbrella? Yes, she had. ‘Because if not, I was going to offer you that folding umbrella left behind by someone.’ (Actually bought by me and never used, when caught in a shower in Ken High St, but less embarrassing this way.) Amused to find when she’d gone, she’d taken it anyway. I’d say she was a bit sly. Music upstairs for a time.

Wednesday December 24 2003

More music for a couple of hours and then he went out, it must have been v. loud as I don’t hear the family’s music. Suddenly remembered the headphones K. gave me yearsago, and realised they would be a perfect solution for watching television if any noise is going on. He went out, and it stopped.

Long talk to J.I am amused that she quite often says Sara Havelock. Allen, for instance, never listens and therefore interrupts her… She would be shocked to know that she often does that to me, especially as much of the time I am only emitting encouraging phrases… I hope she finds it comforting to pour it all out, and let off steam. I do sometimes wonder if she does it to all? Perhaps my vagaries are poured out in front of somebody.

No word from S or Roy and M. A card from Ernie in answer to mine, I suppose. From him and the woman, ‘Hope you are well.’

Thursday December 25 2003

K didn’t ring, but it doesn’t matter, I knew he would think of me, and dates never matter. Lovely long talk to H – she had to watch a video of Lord of The Rings, which she? gave Geoffrey, who loves it, as does Tom. Who also writes it! How odd that we haven’t had a get-together on Tolkien before. Well, I suppose it isn’t, because of Tom. Poor H, more family torture. She can’t stand it – ‘After the ‘plot’ is sketched in, it’s just rushing about.’ Poor Hazel. I cannot imaginewatching something with D and pretending I liked it, at anylevel. Dreadful. I’ve noticed lately H is becoming rather more uninhibited about G and her life. Amusingly, if she were my wife, I would have been in difficulties with her on Sunday, if I were like her and G. I was telling about re-reading Austen, and said casually that S&S was my least favourite, rather two dimensional, - and she leapt in, saying it was her favourite. I wonder exactly why. Because it’s the least praised? I hope so, and not because it is two- dimensional. (Tho’ that’s only by her, JA’s, own standards.) I said no more, and thought of poor old J. Agate who hated P&P, except for Mr. Collins and Lady C De Bourg, the two ‘flat’ characters. Odd. I think it’s something to do with her fear of real life. She says our talk is the highlight of her week. Well, I hope it is, from one perspective, but rather unhealthy, from another…

Curious, in some serial, young people in pub on Christmas eve, singing Roll out the barrel, knowing all the words, but obviously on a song sheet rolled down by the floor manager. H and I are about the youngest people to know the words from real life. Wild smoked salmon for lunch. Good pheasant for dinner.

Friday December 26 2003

Rain all day. Poorish night again. K didn’t ring, curse him. A quietly sybaritic day, finishing the wild s. salmon for lunch, and the cold pheasant for dinner. Good snooze. So good to read thro’ Austen. Read P&P today.

Saturday December 27 2003

Emma Today. A progamme about pantos caught me. The predictable result of the ending of the Equity closed shop, has more and more catastrophic effects as time goes by. Let alone television ‘stars’ who are theatrically inexperienced, it has now come down to ‘celebrities’ and wretched creatures from so-called ‘reality’ programmes, who have no acting experience of any kind. That will inevitably creep into more of the theatre. Really I get more and more reconciled to my retirement. Oh, the silence in the road.

Sunday December 28 2003

Poor H, watching more Tolkien.

Shocked to see that Alan Bates has dies at 69. I have always thought of him as the generation after me, and he seemed so strong and solid. Seems he’s been ill for a time with liver cancer. Well, he’s had a great deal of unhappiness one way or another. When I read the obituaries, I was struck by how many of his best perfs we saw. I saw Look Back twice and the first time, in London with the B’ham Rep., having shared a dressing-room and a sort of friendship with Albert Finney, I took him to see it, - he didn’t seem to have much money, aged 19? or so, tho’ later I wondered about the bookmaker father – and the two Diamond sisters came with us. (One of them, I believe became a rather draconic Casting woman at the National.) When we went round after it was to see Alan B, who’d been at RADA with Albie only the other minute. I was rather surprised that Alan B received us in a jockstrap. By the standards of the time, that was a bit showy-offy, ‘Look at my great body’ was much more of a gay thing – as later proved to be the case. D and I went to a matinée and a week or two later – two middle-aged ladies walked out, I forget when – D said, presciently, that it wasn’t the greatest play, but other qualities made it the talk of literary London. She remarked of Alan that ‘these new young men seem to have necks thicker than their heads.’ But how good Alan was. A solid mild presence, calm and solved. I don’t suppose nasty Kenneth Haigh knew how lucky he was. He was not ideal casting, - because he was just the silly little show-off iconoclast that the play’s critics thought Jimmy Porter was.

The ‘Butley’ – Simon Gray plays showed Alan as the ‘star’- in the old-fashioned sense that he was – he prowled through them, carrying them to great success by his own skill and strength of personality. Vehicles, in the old sense, tho’ I don’t suppose S. Gray would agree beyond a point. Then there was Hamlet, - at the Cambridge. Imagine it now – in a set like a dowdy tin biscuit-box, with the first scene cut… He wasn’t good, - missed half the part.

Later on, I had a one-day cameo in Nothing but the Best and he was very welcoming and unstuffy, again unlike the usual ‘film-star’ behaviour.

Later on again, (or possibly earlier, I can’t be bothered to look it up, tho’ I think it was 1959), D went back to the Bristol old Vic to do Long Day’s Journey into Night, directed by an actor then well-known on television, Peter Wyngarde. I think we’d heard a breath of it before, but we were a little surprised to find Alan B coming down for the last week of rehearsals for Peter W, as I came down to be with D. A number of times we sat together waiting for our spouses, he with their dog, I as a husband he as a ….. It was P.W.’s first production, they were sitting just behind me on the first night. About half way thro’ they vanished. When Peter W came round after, he said he was sorry to have to leave, but he had promised Vivie to watch ‘Duel of Angels.’ I think our first introduction to a mechanical medium taking precedence over a live perf. in real life. I can’t believe that Alan wouldn’t be ashamed of that. I wouldn’t like to think that P.W’s time at Bristol led to their first break-up. But what I chiefly remember is the odd contrast between his solid strong presence on stage and film, and his real life rather limp, camp manner, utterly unassuming and mild.

Monday December 29 2003

Now the comedian Bob Monkhouse has died. I can’t imagine watching a second of his ghastly work willingly. Just catching a glimpse of him was enough. Happily he never did anything good enough for any of us to have to watch.Soconscious, so contrived, and so pleased with himself. Amused that the two appearing to speak for him on the news were the equally awful Paul Daniels and Jeremy Beadle. A curious resonance for me. I went to the first reading of a series starring him, and dreading it, tho’ we needed the money so badly. I remember nothing of it, as, when I got home, I found D dead.

Long talk to J.Agreed how often there are theatre deaths round Christmas. Will there be a third? Me probably. Told me that silly Paul has got through ‘all that money’ he inherited. Oh dear, it doesn’t seem to occur to her, that it was probably only a few thousand to start with. He is obviously such a silly little thing.

Tuesday December 30 2003

The government is proposing a fine for parents who take their children on holiday in term-time. I was amazed that such a practice was widespread enough to need legislation. Such behaviour I thought on a par with physical abuse, drink, drugs and so on. But people are so ignorant now. So many parents are so ill-educated they don’t realise the harm that is done by interrupting the discipline of a young mind. I wonder how many children don’t want to go…

The third death? Message on the machine from J after I’d gone to bed. Dinsdale Landen gone. An excellent actor, light comedian, farceur, all-rounder if given the chance. Died of mouth cancer, poor chap. Married to Jennifer Daniel, poor girl.

Wednesday December 31 2003

Thought I’d noted it before, but I don’t seem to have. Heard on religious discussion, ‘In common with all other mammals in the world, the Archbishop of Canterbury is composed of 95% water.’

Also forgot to describe the Canadian National Ballet in The Firebird before ‘Amelie.’ – a lovely little film – sent out a Christmas Day. The dancing was competent, indeed smooth and assured. The choreography was also smooth and assured – and, as far as I could tell, completely without inspiration, so completely that I started to fast forward, and whenever I turned on again, there was the same bland smooth sameness. I’m afraid the décor and the clothes revealed the absurd provincialism of the company. A brightly lit background of bare-branch tress silvered by frost? A young man in the usual jerkin and shoulder caps, in pale blue silver, but décolleté scarcely describes it, spilt to display the navel and both nipples. A bit chilly? Then the Fire-bird appeared. She was well-hung-the flying-apparatus worked beautifully, sweeping her over his head, and swooping lower leaving behind her a pretty cloud of scarlet flames and smoke, so far, so good. But all this happened to a nice bare-headed girl in a red chiffon cocktail dress…. Hopeless.

Message on machine from K about to fly to LA, ‘All is well, it’s been pissing down here. I’ve only got a minute.Speak in LA.’ Oh such a relief.

But not another flawed holiday.

Later. Dear John N rang. Confirmed new date for dinner, Jan 14, Lalla’s b’day… Lovely funny chat.

Thursday January 1 2004

Threw away stock liquid in garden, and parceled up the corpses for the dustmen. Oh dear, why do I bother? I never get around nowadays to use the stock before it goes off.

Friday January 2 2004

No call from K.More deaths. The same day as the first day, Pat Roe died, 88, good heavens. She retired fairly early, and married a millionaire, sensible girl. Now Robert Addie has died, aged forty-four. I thought him promising and rather dashing. And long talk to J who spent yesterday with Joan Plowright, a longer day than she expected. Just after lunch, Joan came back from the ‘phone, ‘looking really grey.’ Helen Montagu had died, after a stroke. It seems Joan, Helen and someone called Norma something, were a ‘little gang’ of close and old friends. I was rather surprised to hear this, as I had always heard of H.M. as a rather dubious character, though I have to say such hearing was some thirty years ago. I was first aware of her when, some little time after Binkie’s death, she became the head of Tennent’s. Some time after that, one heard awkward rumours about money, - whatever B’s faults, he always paid the bills. I last saw H.M. when they took us out to Mr. Chow’s with Ingrid, to see if D. was well enough to play the part of Wendy Hiller, eventually played in Watersof the Moon. Of course she wasn’t. H.M. was all right, plump, jollyish, if a little coarse-textured. Well, she seems to have eaten, and kept out of prison and been friends with Lady O., so… All the same, J said a production she was wardrobe mistress on, had a props firm threatening to take their props back, during the run, if the bills weren’t paid. An odd friend for Joan? But then it’s forty or so years since I knew her. J also told me Helen Osborne is terminally ill with cancer.

Later.

Arlete rang. She’s back. Seems well, gave me his LA number, and after the receptionist not answering for over a minute – twice – I got him. Heaven. Cook Islands a qualified success. It rained quite a bit, tho’ not the proper rainy reason, the food was disappointing, - all he mentioned were raw fish and hamburgers -, there was a passing reference to the Maoris who inhabit and run the islands, and all was revealed to me. I suppose ‘a native culture’ rouses expectations which the Maoris, thoroughly urbanised and coarsened by us, can naturally not satisfy. Wine was £9 minimum a bottle. Why? However, the place and the swimming and especially snorkeling in the reefs were superb. Can you beat it, you can now buy disposable underwater cameras? It’s no use, it’s not good for people. He’s off to see Neil tonight. Odd feeling. Poor silly Neil, how little natural common sense, not to mention intuition, he has. So wonderful to talk to him. My indigestion went, I felt so much less tired. But I must remember never to tell him.

Saturday January 3 2004

Very cold, thank goodness, not above 39º all day. So the ‘holiday period’ is over. How much more quickly time goes these days.

Have set up the new gramophone, did I say that? Probably. Played Bea Lillie for the first time for? years. Extraordinary unique creature, tho’ I doubt whether her full genius is caught on record for anyone who never saw her. Apart from any other quality, her command of the audience was complete.

Took up Evelyn’s diary again, and decided to turn pages, until the awful descriptions of houses and gardens and cities from his grand tour in 1644-5 and so on, was thoroughly over. (Was it called a grand tour as early as that?) There is a fearful mechanical conscientiousness about it that is quite dead, and he has no special gift for such descriptions.

Sunday January 4 2004

Put my feet up at 1.30, after smoked haddock chowder with a couple of soft-boiled eggs in it. Had all my notes for H, but nodded off and woke with started at quarter to three, no call. Gradually I sort of remembered that she was having Jan over. About quarter past three, nodded off, and woke, to my great annoyance, at twenty-five past seven. I wonder how K is getting on in L.A. Can’tbelieve he’ll like it.

Monday January 5 2004

Back to normal. Those children’s stories by The National. The notice in the Independent finishes ‘…a conclusion as piercingly sad and noble as any I have seen in the theatre.’ Fancy. ‘Parallel universes’ are mentioned. One ‘universe’ is too much for me. A faint sniff of Tolkien sent me catatonic with boredom. Even reading the notice, good for the national, cashing in on this threadbare stuff.

Douglas Cleverdon’s wife had died. I never much liked the sound of him. She sounds really tiresome. Yes, I know she was really short, five feet or less, and that wasn’t her fault, but, hearing about them from the different perspectives of D and Henry Reed, I found them suspicious. She knitted a great deal, and cooked for, if the obit. is to be believed, anyone who even hovered on the doorstep. Christened Elinor, she hated it, and settled for her second name, Nest.

Yank paranoia now venting itself on a BA plane, which had been delayed three (or four?) times over a period of four days. Exhaustively searched, passenger list ‘screened,’ plane isolated in fenced enclosure, passengers searched… three or four times. What could a bomber do after his arse-hole has been searched? It is occasionally a keen pleasure to watch an advertisement. ‘Malta!!!’ – picture of strikingly unappealing and coarse-textured travellers – caption, ‘You just have to join in.’

Tuesday January 6 2004

Ling-Ling put the light bulb in for me, in the passage, despite trying to screw it in at first. How pleased K would be. Working thro’ the dear LPs. Much better reception. Oh José Collins!

Wednesday January 7 2004

Rain a.m. Plucked down some Cyril Hare. Witty, clear-headed. Cross that I can’t do more.

Thursday January 8 2004

To shop at Tesco. On the way, dropped off the obits of Helen Montagu at J’s, and picked up a carrier bag with my Christmas present, Simon Jenkins’Thousand Best Houses, but so much beside. She gets slightly mechanical presents from her rich clients, not particularly personalised. As she doesn’t drink, and diets most of the time, such presents aren’t very suitable. In the bag was a large tin of Fortnum and Mason’s Royal Blend Tea, lemon curd, strawberry jam and bandy butter, all from F&M. Also a loaf of the delicious damp currant loaf from Lincoln. The pork-pie got lost somewhere. She said she’d tasted the brandy butter, and there was ‘something she didn’t like in the taste’. As the tag on it said ‘Made of sugar, butter and brandy’, I said ‘Perhaps it’s the brandy.’ A treat, almost a Christmas hamper.’

Friday January 9 2004

Oh dear, I wish tradesmen would believe me when I speak. That pleasant driver, who’s delivered so many times, must have tried while I was resting. How many times have I said ‘after five’? I sort of forgot and had put the ice in my glass before I realised there wasn’t any gin. He came in the end only quarter of an hour after my deadline.

Went on with the LPs. The three revue records are fascinating – perhaps more for the second-rate numbers, which are completely forgotten. Rain.

Saturday January 10 2004

I love to turn the television on and catch two minutes of something. My Martial moments. On that awful Stars in their Eyes, a woman was singing a bit of torch song. I think she as ‘being’ Bette Midler. But she had self-possession, could stand still, a few good gestures, a plangent something in her voice. A complete amateur, of course, but the sort of song and the sort of microphone, and kindly editing of the camera meant that she was just as effective and just as pathetic as the ‘professional’ singers of this sad age.

Sunday January 11 2004

Rang Tim W and Helen to arrange dinner. He’s in something by Rosamond Pilcher? Touring from tomorrow, but a week out in Feb. Just right. And they’re having a baby! How lovely- oh I am pleased that such a dear quiet good young man is settled and happy. He deserves it. I hope I like her. Also rang Roy and M. I am rather disappointed in them. I sent them a Christmas card with £5 in it for Tom. I also sent a £10 book token to Ella as usual. Previously I’d left a message on the machine for M’s fiftieth b’day, and another to wish them a happy new year. I wonder when or if, all this would be acknowledged if I hadn’t rung them. I’m not in the least hurt, just put off. Such careless and selfish behaviour, gradually erodes a friendship. Even as it was, I don’t think they’d have mentioned the children’s presents at all, if I hadn’t.

Poor H – they had to drive to Taunton and back, with G’s cousin Mina? Mynah? Miner? having a heart-attack.G had huge selection of relations, none of whom I think H can stand who are always either boring, falling ill or dying, but this last not often enough.

Monday January 12 2004

Grim, not to say sensational weather forecast. Gale, or even storm force winds, - 60,70, even 90 mph were mentioned – torrential rain – 27 flood sites warned, and all over the south. Wind expected to be at worst at 12 noon, and all afternoon. It was 10, looked out of window, raining quite ordinarily, not a breath of wind, so that the topmost slim twig was motionless. At 10.30, not a breath-light shower. At 11.0 n a b, no rain, at 12.0, ditto.

It’s 7.30. Nothing. Comic.

Tuesday January 13 2004

Rang Arlete, for her b’day, - her thirtieth, she’ll be afraid – and thought eleven would find her safely at the office. Oh dear, I woke her up in bed with a cold. However, she was very good about it, and rang back later. Gave me news of K and a number to ring, tho’ I probably won’t. The news is decidedly tiresome for the poor boy. I know it’s Déjà vu, but my instinct had been against the ‘Laurie’ who was, in some way, in charge of the visit. K never explained him – I took him to be some species of producer or manager, and in some way, connected with Mel B. Vague, you see. But I felt uneasy. K was always going on his own steam, as he’s always wanted to do, so it’s not the money. But there was no one to meet him and, when he eventually got hold of Laurie, there was nowhere booked for him to stay. L said, ‘Ask Helen, she has a room.’ She hadn’t. I suppose he went to the hotel I rang. He’s now with ‘Steve, who collects film memorabilia.’ Now, K wouldn’t be at all thrown by having to find somewhere to stay, even in somewhere he’d never been before. But, he would be very angry. They speak every day, so he’s got comfort. And he’s never relished telling me about mistakes or failures until afterwards. I wish he were a bit better judge of character, but I wouldn’t take away his trust, enthusiasm, and taking a chance. So I probably won’t ring.

Wednesday January 14 2004

John N got stuck in traffic, and didn’t arrive till 7.30, so we only had a little g&t time. However, really old and close friends are so wonderful because it doesn’t matter what happens. I wanted to be sure the restaurant was still good, and it was, and better. That rather tiresome fair girl was nowhere to be seen, and the v. pleasant maître was still there. We made for the table for two on the right hand part, where I can hear best. Just as we turned the corner, the waitress came back and said it had gone, and we saw two rather plump fortyish men about to sit down. But somehow, between John , the men, and my stick, they kindly gave it up.

Perfect sympathy – such a help. Told me his mother’s failing – at 85, well, - and actually wants to go into a home. She is relatively not ‘very rich,’ the only time I part co. with John! Very rich seems to mean an uncle who needs 24 hour care. He didn’t want to go in a home except his own, so he is paying for such care in his own house, to the tune of £50,000 a year.

Then we talked of Joyce, always a melancholy tale. He seemed to be helped by my all-too-simple advice to reply mildly, calmly, unselfishly, because what is wrong with Joyce, makes her immediately feedon any trace of hysteria or self, grab at a state that makes her feel normal. On, how little I help my friends. How I long for her back.

He had cod – I must try and try it again, nasty watery stuff. H likes it. Why. I had wild mushroom risotto – delicious three or four forkfuls – and then skate – ‘I knew you’d have skate’ – with a delicate unthickened sauce crammed with capers and little brown shrimps the same size, a roll as big as my thumb of memorable mash. No pudding, John had an early start. Perfect. Even more perfect, I asked the waitress for the name of the very pleasant maître who had called me by my name, unexpectedly. Philippe. And he told me the numbers of the two tables I like, and wrote them on a card. Good. A lovely comforting evening.

Thursday January 15 2004

Rested. Picked up Michael Innes, the Secret Vanguard. Rain. How good he is.

Friday January 16 2004

Ditto.

Saturday January 17 2004

I haven’t rung K, as A. said she would tell him, and Isaid ‘If he doesn’t want me to - ’ so, as she hasn’t rung back, I suppose she hasn’t. Oh dear, I would love to speak to him.

To Farmer’s market and bought 2lbs of delicious salted butter, three large cartons of Guernsey cream, which really freezes splendidly, a dozen eggs, two partridges, and a huge thick succulent triangle of Caerphilly. I think made with Buffalo milk, tho’ it’s difficult to tell from the little information. Then down to Barker’s momentarily, such an unsatisfactory place now. Then to M&S, not a check shirt in sight, and it isn’t a year since I bought the two. Then to Boots for lavender water, which they’ve always done. Looked about, no go, and found a slightly senior girl, about 15, ‘Lavender water?’ She looked at me rather warily and said, ‘We have a couple of bottles in the office.’ Heavens, is lavender water a banned substance? ‘Do you want it yellow, pink or blue?’ ‘I want it lavender coloured.’ I went out with my two bottles, feeling quite excited.

At Waterstone’s bought a small Oxford dict. for the bedroom, just as I did for the cottage in ’63. In the same reference shelves, found Booklover’s London, a well- researched, comprehensive list – at a casual glance, we’ll see – of all London’s bookshops, of both sorts. An E. Nesbit I’ve never heard of, House Of Arden, 1908. And a memoir by someone called Watkins, of whom more tomorrow.

Rain.

Rang Mr Oliver and Jeremy, Dove (anticipation).

Sunday January 18 2004

J had said she was dropping round today to bring me the proof of Denis Quilley’s memoirs. Well, they could a horizontal tale unfold. Every girl who would, in every company where he could. Such a dear man, but with some sort of complacency at his centre which stopped him being first-rate, despite all his gifts. Complacency isn’t quite the word. ‘No mystery’, D said. Can’t believe he can write, or has much perception. Let’s see. In the end, as so often, J cried off, and as so often, I felt relieved. I must tackle her about D’s letters.

H rang as ever, such good talk also, as ever. Can it be, in any sense, the highlight of her week? She has an undertone of disappointment and frustration.

No word from Arlete. Or K. But I don’t mind. I have little to say to help him over music or L.A! Tho, I repeat, I can’t believe he’ll like it, but I send love and love, across the hideous U.S.

ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 185

January 19 2004 - April 18 2004.

Monday January 19 2004

Rain.‘A rapist’s motives are purely sexual.’ Fancy.

Read briefly the E. Nesbit.Yes, I see why it hasn’t been reprinted. By 1908, the same sort of book had become formulaic, and flat. The zest has gone, and it limps. I seem to remember she had to write for money, and by 1908 that was obviously all she was doing.

Started the Watkins book. Hm.

Tuesday January 20 2004

Yes, ‘Stand Before Your God’ by Paul Watkins. (Goodness these new note books seem to be made of blotting paper.) His memoirs of a boy brought up in the US sent to the Dragon School and Eton. His parents were English. Curiously anodyne. If this is any evidence, he had no sexual feeling at all – though he mentions girls in a remote way once or twice, but I don’t think he speaks to one, - except not allowing his best friend ‘to see his willy.’ An odd state of affairs between ten and nineteen….

Also odd is the published history. Faber and Faber a glamorous tousled haired charmer’s photo, presumably not the author, as it isn’t identified – an equivocation the probably plainer author rather relished perhaps – it was first published in 1993, this paper back in 1994, and I bought it new from Waterstone’s shelves on Sat., no further reprinting or anything.

Really, the Post Office is so tiresome. Having never delivered anything before eleven for years, they chose a parcel ‘too big to put thro’ the letterbox’ to deliver it at 8.0 am when I was still asleep with my earplug in. Rang the number on the card, usual different lines, thro’ to the office, rang for nearly a minute and then the line went dead and no one answered…

And Ling-Ling was, I thought, an hour late. It seemed she asked to come at three not two, last week, even my poor ears can’t mistake three for two. When she’d gone, had a burst of partly irritated energy, and rang Yapp for two cases of reasonably ‘cheap wine’, delivered Thursday! Oddbins for spirits, and rang James Dore and told him to find six books. I suddenly thought I might never get them and read them if I don’t buy them now. He remembered me buying the Bennett Imperial Palace. Hm. Not much work since? Also rang the watch man, as it’s three months since I took them to him, and tho’ I said there was no hurry, I had begun to wonder whether he was still at that number… But really I knew he was absolutely artless, and so it proved. He said, ‘Oh, hello, well the dust from the builder and decorators got so bad I had to cover everything up, and daren’t work.’ So when? ‘Well, I should be able to start in about ten days and then it’ll take me about three weeks.’ He’s a card. About my age, no, ten years younger, still riding a bicycle. The point is, I know he knows his stuff.

Wednesday January 21 2004

Parcel arrived Tamely at eleven as usual. A mixed bag, as H wrote. The P. Fitzg. critical book back, an address by Father Gabriel, and a magazine from his monastery. F. Gabriel is not quite as interesting as H thinks, tho’ better than any other Yank of a similar type I’ve come across, which isn’t saying much. The notes on the various monks were amusing, as they are bound unconsciously to be. Dom Urban, who died in the May, had ‘a strong will’, but was actually obviously bloody awkward, and so on. But the best bit was Jan’s article, an introduction to an edition of Austen. It said OUP. Hm. Replacing Chapman? Surely not. But an interesting article, putting together facts and opinions that hadn’t been put together before, at least I hadn’t read such an article before.

Did I say that J had been given by Michael Blakemore, the typescript of a memoir by Denis Quilley? J wants me to read it. Most interesting, as I have known Denis a bit. Shared a dressing room with him for five weeks in 1960. Cabbed to J’s flat and picked it up. Dean Pat offered to send a driver to pick it up, but I couldn’t give J’s keys to anyone.

Thursday January 22 2004

Ordered some wine from Yapp Bros. Memo.They apologised on Tuesday when I ordered, that it couldn’t be delivered till Thursday. And here it was.

Forget to record that H also sent the number of ‘Joys excellent chair, but it may have gone out of business’, and a catalogue of gruesome aids to the old. Joy’s chair is now a travel firm. Some of the bath seats and so on, might be helpful, but you need personal experience. I mean, I don’t mind trying a seat costing £40 odd, but an installation costing £650 is another matter. We’ll see.

Picked up dear Denis’s memoirs. Writing entirely unmemorable, but not impenetrable. But I’m afraid it does tell you what Denis was like, rather bland, rather anodyne. Despite his great physical gifts in a very rare category, the handsome leading man who can really sing, there was something in the middle of him, that prevented him reaching the top rank. Always Aufidius, not Coriolanus, and so on. There was a sort of complacency there – hateful word, for he was the reverse – but I’m sure inside he couldn’t see what the fuss was about acting. I think D put her finger on it, when she said he didn’t withhold anything, ‘No mystery.’

Friday January 23 2004

J went last night to the first night of Tales of Hoffman at the Garden. Spoke v. warmly of new tenor Manuel Villazon. Really thrilling voice, tho’ huge mouth, which she hopes he’ll ‘grow into.’ V. young, first time he’s sung it and first time at Garden. Roar of applause, came forward clutching flowers, tears pouring down his face. John Schlesinger’s production from 1980. Long chat re. Denis. She amused that I told her no wonder Michael Blackmore had given it her, he quoted as the best director ever. She said he hadn’t read it, ‘Come on.’ Coming to dinner tomorrow to pick up script.

Saturday January 24 2004

A bit tired, again. To Tesco and stocked up for week and J’s dinner. Oh dear, delighted she canceled. We both laughed, and settled back into our respective relaxed comfort.

James Dove rang to say he’d found the Ackerley letters. Only £20, with his fee and postage. Curious.

Sunday January 25 2004

Good notices for Hoffman. Rare notice for what proves to be Rolando Villazon, from Rupert Christiansen, whom I respect. A new star? A photo, J had exaggerated his big mouth, obviously personable, and R.C. remarked on his slimness, which makes a change.

Rang Tim and/or Helen to tell of the table booked. Both ‘phones on answer machine. I thought the point of mobiles was that there they were in someone’s pocket, all the time. But obviously not. Poor young people, how depressing to be in love nowadays with so many ways not to get in touch with yr. beloved. Rang J, re Villazon, not answering, out? asleep? Mary L, Ackerley a safe subject. Roy rang straight after, to tell me a really funny sentence which I’ve already forgotten. Told him the rapist thing. All smiles. Then he asked about K, I said lightly that he was all right but I was worried he’d find nowhere to smoke. He said in a tiresomely incredulous voice, ‘He’s not still smoking?’ Went on to say he gave up ‘ages ago’, but his chest is wrecked, I snapped back about passive smoking being a myth, at any rate as far as I was concerned. God how I hate this Yank absurdity. It’ll be drink next. How wonderful to be American, give up everything and live forever! I’m surprised at Roy. Booze and cigs – did Shakespeare smoke? Probably.

Monday January 26 2004

D’s b’day. 91. Unbelievable.

The weathermen have messed up again. No big freeze yet,like last week’s hurricanes. No frost even last night.

Long talk to J about Woman of No Importance, which she went to on Friday, with that idiot, Janet Browne. One way and another she made it sound pretty ropey, tho’ I fear J tends to condemn too much anyway, as so many who are part of the West End do, and too indiscriminately. She cannot accurately tell one perf. from another and is also prejudiced. I’ve no doubt Sam Bond did give the best perf, tho’ Mrs. Arbuthnot is not a difficult part and easily effective, but J is a friend, so… For example, she wrote off Hugh Grant the other day for always being exactly the same; a complaint that might equally be made by a simple layman of many excellent actors, and some great ones.

As for the production a minimal and ugly set, ugly clothes except for Sam Bond’s black velvet…

Rupert Graves very good in last scene, rather perfunctory in first two acts. Well, he’s better at feeling. I didn’t point out that RG was also ‘always the same’, but an excellent actor. She said he looked too young, tho’ he must be 4 something. I bet his hair wasn’t brushed flat enough, for instance, and he certainly wasn’t wearing any make-up, they went straight round and met him coming out of the stage-door in a bobble-hat and patently without the time to take any make-up off. Shades of matinée idols throwing themselves on their swords.

Told her about the Hoffman notices, and that the young man’s name was Rolando Villazon.

The Ackerley letters arrived. A perfect copy, and most fascinating at first glance.

Tuesday January 27 2004

How interesting that I forgot to tell of Pru Scales. Painful. J didn’t notice anything except that gabbled rather, and ‘seemed in a world of her own.’ Hm. Well, one way and another, if J is right, it’s a pretty poor affair, - Wilde at The Haymarket – poor audience.

Ling-Ling came at two! A friend gave her a lift… Still, that meant she left earlier. Settled down to the Ackerley, and am fascinated. Perhaps if I’d met him, I might have liked him more. Obviously his many and distinguished friends did, not to mention Henry R. and D. So difficult to warm to someone who wakes up wishing he’d died in the night.

Wednesday January 28 2004

Snow at last, about an inch?

Two more of the books arrived, ‘Lillian’ and the ’93 biog. of Ada Leverson, - the first K lent to someone without having read it, as I misguidedly hoped he might ‘way back then’, and never got it back- and the second I couldn’t afford it at the time.Like the Ackerley, beautifully fresh copies, and all three… £20, £22 and £22, with his trouble and the postage.

Went on with the Ackerley. He’s charming, intelligent, sensitive, etc. etc. He printed most of the worthwhile poets, novelists, essayists critics, during his time at the Listener – he was responsible for Philip Larkin’s first printed poem – and yet he can write, ‘I shall never stop missing her, no human being has ever meant so much to me as she meant, … the many years she gave me of her unswerving love were the happiest years of my life’. about his Alsatian bitch, Queenie…

On the other side, talking to Mary L about him, she recalled a dinner party in 1952? Henry had a really dirty flat off the Kings Road, before he made some money and he would never have done any cleaning… he was taking Roy Ackerley to dinner and somehow Mary and D were there and came along as well.Mary found Avery charming, funny, attractive and intelligent. Well, much good the attractiveness would be. He clearly talked too much to them and was a bit too much of a success. H became tetchy, and reminded them, ‘not jokingly enough’, who was paying for the meal. How I can see.Henry, always the most self-centred of men.

Now I have the tiniest race-memory of D telling me of this probably fairly soon after, but also probably before I really knew Henry or M.L., so it didn’t register much.

The Hutton inquiry report was summarised by Lord H on all channels today, and I found myself watching it from start to finish, i.e. from 12.30 – 2.40, postponing my lunch. When did that last happen? I have little interest in the ‘issues’ – oh these words – but it was such a relief to hear terms defined and conclusions drawn and nothing else, from a clear mind. As a result, I expect there will be a lot of complaints, as there are now myriads of people who can’t understand the word ‘remit’ for a start. Not to mention any concept of the word impartial!

Thursday January 29 2004

Finished Ackerley. Curious twisted, in some ways, repellent man, but an excellent judge of, and servant to, literature. How? He and his dog – ugh!

Bad ice on pavements it seems. How spoilt people are now, how they carry on. So grateful that I didn’t have to go out at all this week. Cooked the two partridges and ate one. Lovely chat with K. Plane Sunday, speak Monday.

Supper – cold partridge.

Friday January 30 2004

Started the Leverson, and was as usual entranced. It looked to me as if all the not very extensive sources and letters and so on have been consulted, so, it’s probably as definitive a biography as we’ll get of this tiny little entrancing – that word, again – talent.

Mary L told me that the couple next door went to see the Wilde and loved it. Oh well, perhaps it works for a simple audience.

Saturday January 31 2004

Finished the Leverson. Well done, and the most we’ll get. I’m amused that Ada found her daughter, Violet, rather tiresome. So did we when we took her out to discuss a possible reading based on the novels and life. Her mother’s voice was quiet, - hers was inaudible even in a quiet restaurant near her house in Montpelier Square.

Started Lilian after thirty years or so. Found it so far the perfect little thing I always thought it.

Card from S telling of that awful aunt dying, and turning calm and noble at the end so putting the gilt on him. – oh, this blotting paper – guilt on him.

Also to say he’s playing the lead, or has been approached to do so, in Andrew Lloyd- Webber’s new musical. And him tone-deaf…

Sunday February 1 2004

As always, try not to think of him in a plane over US and then the Atlantic. Time-lag means sometime tomorrow probably.‘I’ll ring before I crash.’ Not my favourite word.

H told me they’re stocking up one way and another, as the power-lines were blown down, a live cable lying outside the back door.

Finished Lilian. Almost a novella. How undervalued he still is.

Picked up Evelyn again, and am reading it with a great deal of enjoyment, now I’m over the dreary topographical survey of his Grand Tour. Two aporeus, ‘16thAugust 1654. We arrived at Doncaster, where we lay this night; it is a large fair town, famous for great wax-lights, and good stockings.’ Well, he visited Cambridge and – oh, how proud I am – said John’s was the most beautiful collage. Compared Trinity Great Court unfavourably with The House, ‘So many more handsome churches at Oxford etc.’ Footnote from ed. ‘I would remind the reader that Mr. Evelyn was an Oxford man.’ Sweet.

Monday February 2 2004

Nothing from K. The hall-lights and the other ceiling-lights, except the utility room, bathroom and loo, have now all gone off. Two bulbs in further hall light in ten days, and the last one when I turned on, all fused with quite a bang, so I’ve been living on all the points lights and a torch. Nothing vital, thank goodness. Hope he can put them right. Spectre of re-wiring.

Now the fridge freezer is quietly packing up. As it did last year. Well, it was cheap in a sort of seconds shop, all we could afford at the time. K will take me to get a new one, and he’ll have to pay for it initially as my card only does £300. He said it would be worth paying more for a better fridge. True.

Decided not to shop, as Ling-Ling as well as the Watsons means rest. Even tidying- up means achinglegs.

Tuesday February 3 2004

Nothing from K, and a lot to do, and plunging back into work, suppose. Bit disappointed, with all the overhead lights off and the ‘fridge playing up. Day a bit of a nightmare until the evening, thinking of K and Ling-Ling, and the fuse-fuse. L.L. asked if I could ask my friends if they wanted a cleaner. Well, it means she’ll stay with me for the foreseeable future. A poorish night, but a decent rest this p.m. He picked Helen up at the rehearsal room, and it was her I saw alone, when I opened the front-door. An immediate impression of beauty and warmth and delicacy. Such a relief, both for the evening, and for dear Tim, who is so sensitive himself. She is tall, slim – just for now – with a wonderful sculptured face, a natural blonde, a lively wit, and a lovely dirty laugh. Unobtrusively well dressed, black and a beautiful scarf. She liked the flat, I think genuinely, and after a short drink, off we went. Just like a fantasy, Philippe did say ‘Good evening, Mr. Mackay.’ ‘Good evening, Philippe.’ Crab risotto, red sea bream, black-current ice, didn’t notice what they had, as talk flowed. Dear Tim looked a haggard wreck, and gobbled his food with as frantic an appetite as I’ve ever seen him. Halfway thro’ the main course, I said ‘Are you sure you’re not the one’s who’s pregnant?’ I could tell he’d found himself, and his imagination was rushing forward to embrace and be humbled by fatherhood. Oh, I am so glad he’s found her. Back home by ten. Lovely. Stopped me worrying. I was specially struck by her confirming to me exactly what I’ve always thought about girls with her looks. She actually has to resist typecasting as a blonde bimbo, even nowadays. She embraced me telling her of a well known TV director years ago, saying of a girl in the episode – of Softy Softy I think it was – ‘No, she’s not much of an actress, but I like to have her about.’

Wednesday February 4 2004

Nothing from K. Felt so worried that I didn’t fancy lunch but I think that crab risotto had something to do with it. Crab is out.

Large box of flowers arrived from Tim and Helen, small choice daisy like chrysanths, ferns, nigella, alstroem, a dozen clear red tulips, quince? Coral bude, altogether five vases. Gypsophilia, three things like a whisk. Cried. When did anyone send me flowers last?

Rang again, no answer from either number. A. can’t be away from work again….

Thursday February 5 2004

Rang J.V. sympath. Said she’d come with me to find them dead on the floor – shrieked.

Forgot to say Helen was in 85 Charing X Rd. Really nowadays! Helene Hanff, short, middle aged wry Jewish reader, is played by Rula Lenska – goodness.

No answer from either ‘phone. Trying to be sensible.

Friday February 6 2004

Still no answer whenever I ring. But why doesn’t A. ring back? I must put this out of my mind, if I can.

Saturday February 7 2004

Rang Mary L, and very shocked to find that Tesco wrote that they could no longer deliver, a delivery on which she completely depends as she can no longer shop for herself. It is particularly repellent, because Tesco agreed to go on delivering from a ‘phone-call, even though they had converted to on-line ordering. This was some years ago. There is somehow a doubly revolting cynicism in cancelling it now. Disgusting. I foresee a long stint of suggesting solutions, and arguments ensuing. The obvious answer is to get someone to put the order in over the internet. I suggested the young couple next door, but she stamped on it, ‘They’re so busy.’ She let him drive her to hospital, wait, and bring her back. So what’s ten minutes? But she’s not rational.

To Tesco. On the way to J’s to drop in the Quilley memoirs, the odd Betjeman Vol, and the Helen Osborne obits, J up and sans make-up – a compliment. I’m interested, by the way, that nobody, as yet, has expressed any misgiving about my ‘frailty’, or living alone, or whatever. Yet, I sometimes feel quit frail, old and tired. But clearly I don’t show it. Or perhaps nobody would bother to tell me…

Dear Frances Partridge dead at last. She seems to have been herself almost to the last, at 104.

Sunday February 8 2004

Dear John N. rang about the possible investment firm.‘Everyone’ may resign from the R.A., so he might, tho’ he hasn’t really enough money to do it ideally. Really? Oh well, he has a much more expensive life. Told me Sally Ducrow was with them, ‘having tests’, dread words. Polyps in the colon, possibly, may be the precursor of worse. She had what sounds like a colonoscopy, ‘which was incredibly painful.’ Why? What hell doctors are. No examination should hurt. There is still that puritan element about pain. I find I’m not surprised about Sally, like Julian, same complaint, she ate foolishly, though to a different recipe.A real ‘60s eater, a no doubt healthy diet to a dangerous extent, and just not enough. She must be fifty-something. Heavens.

I notice Cecil B. is being deified at the NGP. Very funny, when one remembers what he was really like.

H’s main news was that ‘Hilary has died.’ I expect she would be shocked to hear that I had to feel my way to find out who Hilary was. It’s a long time – perhaps a year or two – since she mentioned her. Quite natural, as Hilary was so central to her life. It seems to have been quick, a matter of ten days or so, but I must ask again. How often insensitive people have quick merciful deaths – unlike Barbara.

Monday February 9 2004

The second volume of Evelyn begins with the Plague and of course goes on to the fire. A detail that came home to me, ‘… and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse nor man, was able to tread on them’. And 10,000 houses he saw destroyed.Refugees fled as far as Highgate.

Fridge repair man rang to tell me when he was coming! The same one as last time, pleasant. Iced up again, tho’ frost free but, it seems, the seal at the top of the freezer door is defective. It’s got a bit brittle and sticky. Well, it was a cheap offer.

While he was here, K has just rung. ‘Back two mins ago, going to crash.’ Oh what a relief. Cried when put ‘phone down.

Later. Nice fridge man said the price had gone up a bit since last June! £79.11, now £83. He cleared the ice with a hair-dyer.

Later still. K rang having woken up and going through his messages, rather bleary in voice, having slept about eight hours – oh the luck of youth – but worried by my rather hysterical messages.I hope I explained satisfactorily. As I realised later, A. was away last week.

Interesting example of our sort of misunderstanding. Because words are not his first thing he sometimes mistakes my shorthand or allusions for muddle, or even senility. When he said he’d slept eight hours, but it was seven thirty, and he was hoping to have something of a proper night tonight, I said, ‘Yes, of course, because it was three o’clock in the morning when you rang me before.’ ‘Angus dear, I rang you from Elfort Rd this morning.’ I should be more careful.

Tuesday February 10 2004

‘At the end of the day, they shouldn’t have been out on Thursday night.’

J rang at exactly 8.0, just as I was dishing up. She will do it, just as she often rings during my rest. It’s not consciously deliberate, but I think it is a silent protest. There is certainly a resistance here and there, whenever I say I have my lunch at one, my first gin and t at 6.45, my dinner at 8.0. They don’t believe me, and wouldn’t mind jumping me out of it. She reminding of Tales of Hoffman radio. Forgot.

Wednesday February 11 2004

A little record of a gentle slide towards the grave.

Woke at 2.30. Read, to bookroom at 4.0, to change position partly, TV with headphones and monumental tedium. At 7.30 back to bed with papers. Nodded off 9.10, woke at 1.5! Lunch at once to fit my rest. Had it and rest and woke at 5.0.

Really, I might as well kill myself at once.

Thursday February 12 2004

I wish K would ring and come round.

On local news, a burglar broke into a house, failing to notice a police squad car outside…

Friday February 13 2004

But not unlucky for me - K rang at 11.30, ‘I’m coming to lunch – is it too short notice?’ No, it isn’t. Arrived at 12.20, looking a bit brown and a little jet-lagged. Such a joy to have him safe back, and gobbling a mushroom omelette and a lot of white burgundy, hoping to jolt his jet-lag out of the window. Did my lights for me, except the passage, which he thinks needs more radical treatment than he had time for today. Most interesting about work. They’ve got down eleven tracks of songs written – now he has to work on production. They had to get rid of Julie, the lyricist. Not her lyrics but her. He used the word ‘amateur’ about her twice, but more for her attitude than her lyrics. She sounds like a foolish girl. For instance, at one point, Mel B said to K. ‘I think I’ll take that one four or five times slower’ (or something such difference.) Poor Julie said, ‘You must be mad, it’s perfect at that tempo.’ You’re mad! Here the hand of the amateur is apparent. First, Mel B is the reason for making the album. Second, no artist worth the name would react with anything but outrage. The response is, Try it! Who knows who’s right? Mel B may see it’s better quicker, and say ‘Let’s go back to the original Tempo…’ or not.

Again, towards the end of their month of work with ten songs finished, they took two or three hours off, for a drink and a smoke? a swim?, and she suddenly burst out ‘We’ve still got one song to write, why are we etc. etc? What a silly girl. If she doesn’t understand how such things work, there is nothing else to do but decant her into the street. Which they did.

Very funny about Dave, the chap he stayed with. Very Jewish, to the point of producing paper plates for K to put the sausages he’d unknowingly brought. ‘It isn’t that I mind, but my father’s strictly kosher.’ K thought at first it was paper plates for peasants. I think I said he collected film memorabilia, but I had no idea on what scale. It seems he owns the red shoes Judy Garland wore as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. They are kept in a bank… All the same, I have a sneaking feeling that there is more than one pair of red shoes in the world. He doesn’t sound like a major collector, and K paid him five hundred dollars to stay there. Told him (K) about Ling-Ling, and he said they might use her. Still, no movement on the flat transfer and my investments. Heavenly to have him back.

Saturday February 14 2004

J came to dinner bringing the huge spider-plant – four feet across – that she is donating to me. Help. Put it in the bath.Mushroom omelette, and a big salad with new pots. in of which she ate most and finished off all that were left… V. good company, and we settled the Covent Gdn. night, she’ll get the tickets, - not pay for them, but get them… left at 9.30. Collapsed into bed, pleased. Seminal ballet prog. Daphnis and Chloe, Spectre de la Rose. L’Apres Midi d’un Faune. Les Noces.

Sunday February 15 2004

H’s call as usual. Talked a little of Hilary Pym.H is apparently to inherit Barbara’s copyrights. I wasn’t clear whether that was a formal bequest or just a casual remark of Hilary’s.I wouldn’t be at all surprised if H gets a bit of a jump from the will.

H say she cut a large bunch of purple broccoli today… well?

Monday February 16 2004

Rang round for Ling-Ling.K? Tim and Helen? Left a message for Tim.

So annoying, I completely forgot to show D’s letters to J. Freudian slip? I can’t believe she can do them in any measurable time. Told me she’d go to the Opera House for the tickets. She tends to be pessimistic- ‘booking opened in November, you know.’

From programme about dear Ronnie Barker, ‘How does he come to be Hungarian?’‘Well, his mother was Hungarian, and forgot the English word for no.’

Tuesday February 17 2004

W’ding anniversary. 46 years. Rain. J rang, the very seats I wanted, D 13 and 14 in the Grand Tier.Ling-Ling marginally pleased by my job-attempts. Tim hadn’t answered, and K ‘couldn’t get his head round it.’

Jeremy Dore rang. Has got ‘Cucumber Sandwiches.’ Lovely.

Wednesday February 18 2004

Rested and indulged. Lyndon Brook dead. Obit. in Stage, none in national press yet tho’ he died early in January. Came back to Cambridge while I was there, hadn’t he a gammy leg? And what with that and his father, he struck me as bitter and wry. This obit’s author said he could be ‘insulting.’ Goodness knows, but I sensed odd angles.

Thursday February 19 2004

Woke at 1.30, so… rang J re Covent Gdn, and the menu.

Rang Mary L. Has put her flat on the market, as a preliminary to going into Denville. Is very depressed at thought of estate-agents, and have I said, she has now repeated at least four times, in sepulchral tones, ‘I shall never go to the theatre again, I shall never go to the cinema again.’ The first agent said £200,000. She’s seeing another today. ‘He’ll offer less, as I think the first estimate is too high.’ Fancy. ‘I have another bagful of P.D. James for you.’ ‘Is the print bigger than the others? Because I can’t really - ’… talk of a half empty glass.

At 9.43 I heard what sounded like a shot. Sometimes I think they cull pigeons round the back. But really I’d never bother to report a murder…

Friday February 20 2004

V. cold, they say. Stayed in again. Certainly I kept the heating on for the first time this winter.

J polishing shoes to go to Norma thing’s party in Ovington Square, after Joan P. going to the Palace.‘She’s there as we speak.’ I wonder if J knows how awful she makes Joan’s children sound. I don’t mean malice, she tries to make the best of them.

Saturday February 21 2004

Photo of Joan and the three children. The girls still v. good looking, the son big and rather plump. None of them much like Larry, except perhaps Tamsin’s eyes and forehead. The son with a more pointed nose, perhaps like the male Plowrights. None of them with any sort of gift that have made any sort of impact. I wonder if it is, that particular talent does wear out that gene for the next generation. Supreme talent in acting can certainly mean that the children can get on quite well, from familiarity with the business. Good contacts and so on, but there are no great actors with great actors for sons.

Ordered Brown and Forrest, and for first time, got a chump. Someone had to ring back to ask for a confirmation. Hope success is not corrupting.

Sunday February 22 2004

Rang K. He doesn’t want Ling-Ling just now. I quite see that he’s so busy, and hectic, and when will there be a recording session, and if so, will she be hovering above the studio. I do see. He’s ringing John Davis. Tim still hasn’t answered.

Finished Death at President’s Lodging. M. lanes’ first, why did I think less good? Wonderfully good. Is my ankle bad again?

Monday February 23 2004

M. Innes Cucumber Sandwiches arrived from Jeremy Dore. A mint copy in dust jacket, odd feeling, as if it’d come from a 1969 bookshop.

K rang, having talked to John Davis, saying on balance, probably better not to hand over the flat at the moment, for reasons he couldn’t all remember. Good. Clear! Shrieks as usual.

Goodness, the MMR vaccine fuss. Oh, the muddled thinking, and the doctor who caused all the trouble? Look at his mouth, deeply folded in complacency and self righteousness.

Amusing and despicable notice of a religious (sic) program, - despicable because of what it reveals of religion now. The presenter, the Rev Peter Owen… Velvet waistcoat… Beads around his neck… History Rocks… For an explanation of the importance of baptism… the Rev. found himself clutching a baby which he addressed as ‘mate,’ and kissed on the head. To accompany the death of Thomas àBecket, we had a hand signing the name Thomas Beckett (sic) while splotches of blood fell on to the page; discussions of Christian teachings on lust were illustrated with film of a woman slapping away her man’s groping hand. And an actual clergyman.

Tuesday February 24 2004

That iniquitous Council demand came up again with 14 days to pay and a threat of court. I want nothing more to do with either lawyers or the council’s demands. I’ve paid it and will tell no one, not even darling K. He would probably be angry with me and want to fight it. Now with him putting together an album, and me not able to contest it without him, the worry and disgust would be too much to bear. It’s bad enough paying someone else’s debt, without losing a court case first. Wrote the cheque.Ling-Ling posted it.

J rang. Among other bits, Maggie Tysack – did I say she’s going to Australia with Maggie S. – told of, I think, The Devil To Pay, Nicol Williamson and Wilfred Lawson both in the cast, good heavens – one day, W.L. came back an hour and a half after lunch, and N. W. burst out, ‘Oh you fucking shit, how dare you treat us like this, you bloody etc. etc. etc. etc… A pause.W.L: ‘I thought we’d cut that speech.’

Wednesday February 25 2004

Estate agents for valuation, as K ordered. Of course he doesn’t know what preparation is needed, and I can’t settle. Weighs on me all day.

Happy the woman – they’re always better, was pleasant enough. Encouraged her to talk, told me they used to live in Wadhurst, did I know it? So we had that conversation, told me a huge supermarket complex on outskirts of Battle, so much harder to get into B.’ Could not understand we hadn’t a car, so didn’t bother her with it…

Came from one of the dowdier agents, Bairstow Eve. Suggested £265-280.

Thursday February 26 2004

K’s b’day.43. Rang him at 11.0ish, which he said was better. Had to chokeme off, ‘In the middle of a session.’ Oh, I hate that, tho’ I know it must be.

It’s odd how a number of things come together. The two-volume set of George Colman arrived, v. handsome. £277 from Felix for Only Fools and H. The gasman arrived, and had to turn the cellar out as usual. And second estate agent from the ‘smartest’ agent at the corner of the Green, Faron Sutaria, Caroline, asked to come to 5 instead of 6.0, and apologised for being ten mins late. She was struck by the flat, moved, in fact, said how beautiful the sitting-room was, and that there was some love put into it. All the usual, perhaps but we’re able to judge bad acting, and estate-agents are not capable of good acting. She took it all in, and pleased me. ‘If I pop off tomorrow’ I said, ‘I’ll tell my son to go to Caroline at Faron Sutaria. She left me with a very pleasant taste in my mouth, and a price of £300,000.

Friday February 27 2004

Brown and Forrest order arrived, for the first time a little bit off. I thought the chap on the telephone was also a bit off, and someone had to come back to ask me about the order. And then when it arrived, there was one eel fillet instead of six. I wondered when I’d stop speaking to the Brown or Forrest of B&F. Next stage, stuff going off perhaps?

Letter from S enclosing a pamphlet enclosing his funeral oration at his aunt’s funeral. And a photo on the front, a studio portrait from the late ‘40s, hair piled up, handsome like Coral Browne with no sense of humour. Four closely printed pages, too long as usual, certain tastelessness, and delivered by him, with a self-confessed little breakdown in the middle, oh dear. I suppose he meant it as some sort of apologia. How is that possible when he describes her political views at one point, as somewhere ‘to the right of Attila the Hun’? How awful family families are. He should have given them up and outgrown them in a rather healthier way. Poor chap.

Much spy talk. How odd that people can be interested in such dull and meaningless posturing. They obviously in some way need the mystery (sic).

Saturday February 28 2004

There’s no doubt I like shopping-trips when I cross off long-standing items. To Boots for anti-histam. and travel-pills. Farmer’s market for three cream, three butters, - they’re doing delicious cheese, Guernsey milk into Caerphilly, guinea fowl, £10. Waterstone’s for, immediately, the new Muriel Spark, a pretty little book. Posted Jeremy Dore’s cheque for £121, electric and phone bills and Mark Carey’s script at Tesco – or I would have, but the familiar pillar-box was pasted up. ‘Someone mislaid the key.’ !!

Sunday February 29 2004

The new P.D. James is really good. I went on reading it after I’d meant to stop. And the first para. of the M. Spark made me laugh aloud.

The Brown and F. trout paté for lunch, delicious, but quite a sharp bit of heart-burn at five-ish. Not as bad as the eel-paté, but sharp and so long after. Inspected ingredients, and found there was horse-radish. So duplicitous. Suddenly couldn’t face the chat to H, so sleepy – the horse radish? and rang to say I was in the middle of a bilious attack, and would ring in the week. Perhaps the heartburn was a punishment…

Monday March 1 2004

H left a message on machine, asking kindly after my upset. No doubt about it, H and Geoffrey are interested in illness, and usually have something wrong with them… if you always say, as I do ‘I’m really very well’, I am always conscious of a suppressed irritation – John N Mary L etc. – so when I confess to frailty they leap on the corpse. Even if it’s imaginary. You have joined the sacred society of those who are more interested in what’s wrong with you. Oh the remedies suggested over the years that I wouldn’t have dreamed of being in the same room with. And, as I always say, they never ask you why you’re well, because they need ill-health as an excuse and a boast.

Told her W. Lawson joke. Ordered S. Times wine.

Tuesday March 2 2004

Ling-Ling as usual. Asked her what had happened to the thermometer in the kitchen. After she’d gone, found it flush with the skirting-board.I must stop thinking she might lie.

On those programmes from the north, such terribly crude people put forward as the loveable norm. My only hope is that a new generation will think why was such ugliness and crassness thought more honest, not to say charming?

Wednesday March 3 2004

Frightful car bombs, even for Iraq, 160 dead, hundreds badly injured. All happening in the middle of the first big Shi-ite Festival allowed since Saddam Hussein. And then people seem to see religion as a reconciling panacea. In my experience, so many ‘religious’ people are arid self-centred, bigots.

Thursday March 4 2004

On the front of the Independent Review, serried pictures of twenty-four different sorts of breakfast cereals, not one of which has ever passed my threshold. Let alone my throat.

On some programme, a totally deaf woman put forward her strongly held views that totally born-deaf children should not be offered, let alone have, implants that might make them hear. Through someone who could ‘sign’ and speak, she was able to say how pleased she was that speech, weather, music, the theatre, film could go on meaning nothing to her. Her 20? year old son ‘echoed’ her through someone else’s fingers. It’s not only religious who are bigots.

Friday March 5 2004

Started the spark properly. Slight but up to standard. Rang Mary L to see if I could do any shopping in Ken High St. ‘Soup, Dentural, Garlic tablets, and some toothpaste.’ ‘What sort?’ ‘Any sort.’ I can’t think of anyone else I know who wouldn’t mind…

S. Times Wine Club delivered sooner than I expected. How did I miss the bell? There the two cases were the other end of the garden. Never like to linger, so carried them in one by one. Ended up on the bed panting for breath for about three? minutes. Quite frightened myself.

Saturday March 6 2004

To Ken High St. for lunch with J. No shirts at M&S again, those dreary blurred insipid checks, perfect for unsuccessful commercial travellers, and nervous minor businessman. At Waterstone’s I thought there were no chairs anymore so went on to the chemist to get Mary L’s stuff. Got everything but Dentural. Sensodyne toothpaste in case anyone at Denville Hall, if she ever gets there, sets her teeth on edge. Back at W’stones found a chair in a different position, and bought G. Adair’s The Dreamers, now a film, a Jill McGown, and Magdalen Nabb. J didn’t arrive so went to café. New staff a little intrusive, but nothing serious.

More footballers accused of rape, one called Dickov. The new Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club, has 7 billion more than the Queen.

Later. A message from K, coming next weekend? Saw on gardening prog, time to mow. Well, told him to keep this a pied a terre after he moves out of England. Laughed of course. Oh how lucky I am.

Sunday March 7 2004

H knows little of Hilary Pym’s will, though there is a goddaughter. Jan is coming over to check one ref. in the Bodleian, flying back without seeing them or anyone else. H describes her as ‘rather unhappy.’ Sounds like the usual raving neurotic so many Yank intellectuals seem to be.

Monday March 8 2004

K rang again. Funny. Rang Roy to tell him W. Lawson joke. Asked me to ask K to ring him! Better not mention smoking. How I hate Puritans of any sort.

Tuesday March 9 2004

Two double-barreled names came winging back from the past, Carter-Clout and Forbes-Adam. Very different.

Hilda Carter-Clout was the sister of a silly rich friend of my parents, so silly and so rich that she moved to B’mouth from Croydon to be near them. In love with my father, no doubt. Her sister, even richer, married – was it Leslie? or possibly Derek? – Carter-Clout, came down to open one of my father’s fund-raising ‘events,’ called, I’m sorry to say, ‘A Summer Fayre.’ I can see her now, making a little speech with rather shaky vowels, wearing a Gainsborough picture-hat and a frilly chiffon dress to the floor, at three-thirty in the afternoon, a tea gown, briefly the height of chic, for this was 1935?6? The tea-gown had a brief run.

Nigel Forbes-Adam was one of my closest friends in my last year at Cambridge. A dear chap, I had a real undergraduate Brideshead crush on him. He had an elder brother, timothy, who was an actor! Really! He was in the 1951 Three sisters to prove it. Not that it wasn’t a damp squib. Later he married Penelope Munday, a Tomorrow’s Star in Plays and Players, and to prove that, in Marching Song by John Whiting. A little later, both of them left the stage, when he was ordained. And there he was in an article about that amiable actor James Nesbitt, who is his son-in-law. If I can bear it, I must look back to see how, or if, I described my weekend with Nigel’s parents at Skipwith, a seminal time.

Wednesday March 10 2004

Rested as always after Ling-Ling. The books I ordered form W’Stone’s arrived at one-forty-five just as I was walking past my door for my rest. How unlike life.

Amusing tangle with M.L. In the second installment of J.G.’s letters, a mention of D, Ingrid and Irene Worth together, lowered my guard, and read it to her. ‘Well, at least now people are beginning to see thro’ his awful voice.’A little later, I talked of hospital visiting, ‘Well, at least Princess Di taught that wretched family how to visit a hospital.’ Oh dear, no judgment as usual, and no mention of all those occasions when her ‘wonderful emotional sympathy’ failed to flow. We are seeing the result all over the world of appealing to the most incontinent and sentimental and shallowest part of the public. Terrorists and fools alike. Later still. I told her of buying the Stallworthy biog. of Louise MacNiece, one of the books which came today. I told her that on the cover there was one of those, multi-snap polyphotos of him, forty or so snaps, more in the whole sheet, ‘Imagine if we’d had that of other poets, forty snaps of Shakespeare.’ Dead silence till I spoke again, as if nothing had happened. Poor darling, when she said to me a while ago, ‘All the mistakes I’ve made in my life…’ it was with no knowledge that she’s still making them.

An odd happening. Going to pull my paper out of the letter-box at 7.30 as usual, saw a woman through the glass, went back inside as I was in my pyjamas, and if it was for somebody upstairs, didn’t want to get in the way. Kept glancing, she was there for ten? minutes, never heard her ring their bell or mine, for a miracle – no one came down, and – she’d gone.

Thursday March 11 2004

Lazy day. Lazier than usual? Re-reading Harrod-Eagles detecs. A real favourite, witty and feeling.

There you are, a name from the past, and there it is again, Penelope Munday. In J.G’s letters.

Friday March 12 2004

Peter Owen, Wilfred’s nephew, rather younger, at sixty? than one might have expected, and, as far as I could tell, quite comms il faut as far as clothes and accent go, make me wonder whether W.O.’s fame intervened early enough to give the family a boost socially. There is a clear indication in O. Sitwell’s chapter that there was a certain matter of class to be excused, ‘He had the supple manners of the sensitive.’… His appearance - the nephew’s – was on the Richard and Judy affair – as it finished, they said something anodyne to him, about the honour of being W.O.’s nephew. No doubt suffering, he said smoothly, ‘It’s an honour I sometimes find it difficult to appreciate.’

Water bill from B’mouth. Can you believe it?

Saturday March 13 2004

K rang. Can’t come tomorrow, thick with cold. Disappointing. Started Macniecs.

Saturday March 14 2004

H rather subdued – perhapsI talked too much. Jan did come over, a ref. at the Bodleian, a visit to the Derek Jarman stunt at the Riverside – good heavens, and something else I’ve forgotten – Oh yanks. Conspicuous consumption isn’t it. I suppose that’s how the school of pathetic biography found it’s spawning ground, put everything in without judgment into a volume of eight hundred meaningless pages financed by a university with no brains and too much money.

No word from Marian about the script.

Monday March 15 2004

Post, form for H’s Spectator sub., a letter from pensions, usual increase three pounds. Rang Bathmate about help with bathing, and got the usual rubbish, as well as the brochure having no measurements or prices. Rang Keep Able for their catalogue.

K rang about the money, and said John D had said we must certainly wait for the Budget. He’d been to John Lewis, with Arlete, and chatted of ovens. To John Lewis eh? How bad was his cold? Also wrote to Halifax re investments. Tried to ring, but they had a new scheme that was clogging the lines, 6% and, after three-quarter of an hour of Vivaldi, I gave up. Quite glad, as I can’t understand ‘talking over’ such things with a semi-educated polytechnic student emitting streams of ‘business’ language. Really what a disadvantage it is in the modern world to have read English at Cambridge College.

Tuesday March 16 2004

Ling-Ling posted Keep AbleCatalogue letter, S. Callow postcard, J’s cheque for C.Gdn seats, form to pension people who, despite having paid my pension into my bank for some months, want ‘the details’, which they have obviously already got, on this form. To think there is a whole department sending out these quite superfluous forms with a office head and office party and everything. Rang B’mouth office, to tell them the Council tax demand should be sent to Mr. Gray. Got straight thro’ to a live woman. She wasn’t surprised Mr. G did nothing about it. Gave her details, solicitor etc. Really!

Mowed lawn, after two bright dry windy days. Didn’t have a heart attack. Weeded, some of that mad forget-me-not stuff has already spread, tap-rooted and all.Dangerous. Felt all right until did a bit of bending, instead of kneeling, weeding, came in and went to wash, and had to sit on the bathroom stool for a bit, feeling a little dizzy and a little indigestible, but it passed after a minute. My father always said I was just like his father, in shape and walk – he said once when I was ahead of him. He died bending over to tie his bootlace. At ’93.

Wednesday March 17 2004

Finally got Oddbins after ‘phoning fruitlessly for getting on for an hour last night. Number engaged, until after half an hour off and on, rang the exchange, who said it was engaged by which I thought they meant they overheard it was in conversation.

Early a.m. had an unsettling dream, looking out of the window at troubling and dangerous crowds, and putting back up net curtains and the big curtains, with such difficult and so slowly, before I felt safe again. The sort of dream when the unsettled feeling only gradually goes away through slowly parting clouds to reality. And the street outside was the view from our bedroom at Manchuria Road.

Thursday March 18 2004

Marian rang. The script has gone astray. Torture. The first time anything important has gone. Weeded the hellebore bed, cowslips seem to have vanished.

Friday March 19 2004

Rain, rain, rain. J sent me the two D letters I gave her on Sat. Typed up for, as it turned out, a computer. As always, a letter, in some sort of print, is changed and diminished or strengthened. Hers are stronger. Dear J. Perhaps it might work.

Saturday March 20 2004

Rain. RHS subscription arrived. Also a cheque from Bournemouth water refunding me £83 that I don’t think I paid. Tesco’s expedition. Armagnac – how long since? Sent for pyjamas and bathroom seat thing from Keep Able. We’ll see.

Long chat to J re S. Times article, an interview with S. and S. Fry. Oh dear. How right our generation was not to discuss the mysteries of acting with journalism. Dreadful. They must both deserve the dreadful label of ‘luvvies’. Ugh.

Sunday March 21 2004

Lovely chat to K re Chelsea ticket, booking tomorrow. Talk of cheap flights, so the date had to be settled. Told him Roy’s Story – he thrilled with horror.

H with thick cold. Solicitor dealing with Pym copyrights. She is rather negative about the possible profits. Who knows what film or TV deals lie in the future. Can H leave them to Tom, for instance? When do copyrights expire these days?

Monday March 22 2004

One of those soaps I have to watch for K. I said kindly to one of the story lines, ‘You’re a soap character, you can’t expect too much of yourself.’

Tuesday March 23 2004

Rain. Bad night again, tho’ the last three weeks have been good, Ling-Ling. Managed at last to empty the pigeon stock and two soup cartons and other detritus into the compost.Madonna group looking good, but the proof will be in the flowering.

Pleased to see that Roy’s series is the front cover of the Radio Times, but not pleased to see that there was no mention anywhere that the original idea was Roy’s. This episode by Simon Block. Surely R’s agent should have prevented what seems to me humiliation. Finished MacNiece. Dead at 56. Goodness, how I could see him as so typical of that pre-war 30’s generation, and almost more typical post war, as if the horrors and live-for-the-day life of the first war, had soaked into their bones as children. He was, after all, only six years older than D. He pushed to the edge and so, often did she. I can’t understand the sexual dishonesty, or almost death wish of so many people then, except in the context of ‘you may easily die tomorrow, so…’ But I do understand the painful need for the anesthesia of cigs and drink. Not that D was at all incontinent as L.M. seems to have been. But then he was Irish. An excellent biography. How good Stallworthy is.

Really tired. Of course she wasn’t sexually dishonest. Far from it. But she certainly had that pushing to extremes just when you knew you shouldn’t, that so many creative people have. In a very different way, S, who I’m having dinner with tomorrow.

Wednesday March 24 2004

Amused that as well as telling me the wrong date, he hadn’t mentioned a time, so that S rang at 7.40. That he was already at the Brack. Table 32 in the right hand bit, was the only table taken and only about four in the main part. Can this be part of ‘The collapse of the West End’London Tonight was shrilling about as a result of the Madrid bombings?

He was looking a bit rough and tired. Had lunched with the chap playing Samson at the Garden, - it had lasted four and a half hours, and then me. The usual delightful exchange of fun and feeling, but how strong and painful was the conviction, as so often, of him spending himself uselessly, superficially, on – the phrases I have long used – ‘on thing after thing after thing.’ Why does he want to go on seeing me? Odd. Food still good. Cheese board better.

Thursday March 25 2004

K rang, coming Sat. Heavenly.

Ordered books, wine (with John Armit) Bourgogne Aligote. Another B’mouth bill. Must send Donald a ‘phone bill. Books, 3 Magdalen Nabb.

Friday March 26 2004

Thinking of tomorrow all day! Rest. Rest. Shop a.m. demain and garden. H not ringing Sunday a help. Wine ordered yesterday arrived today at 8.25! John Armit up at Notting Hill, 2 boxes of Aligote.

Heavenly day, gets better each time. Poor night, bed at 10, woke at 12. So too tired to write. How loving he is.

Sunday March 28 2004

Slept better thank goodness. After Friday’s wretched night. I was afraid I mightn’t last out, but it was too wet to garden, which saved my bacon. Getting the dinner after the extra walking about, and standing looking up while K. looked for the Trollope – and didn’t find it! – wore me right out. It was worth it. K put the lights to rights, and cleaned the whole front, emptied the window boxes, and filled them with fresh compost. Then he wrapped them so neatly in bin-liners for squirrel proofing, that they looked like an exhibit from the Saatchi Gallery. Darling Arlete painted the garden stools, so that all they need now is the green over a really thorough priming. I’d cooked a new loaf and found it hacked about – ‘I’m starving, can we have dinner earlier, seven not eight?’ As it was then nearly six o’clock, the oven wasn’t lighted, and dinner was a really large guinea-fowl, I aimed at 7.30 without saying so…

At 6.30 I said gin and tonic time, and he brought out three big brochures of ovens. One was gas with no bloody fan. How touching to think of him going round John Lewis without me for my oven. ‘Where’s Arlete?’ ‘She’s just hoovering the book- room.’ Well, how it needed it. I thanked her, and made up my mind not to go in there till tomorrow, so as not to be horrified by it being upside down.

Dinner was a success, I think. The guinea-fowl vanished, the last picking being as usual, K, off to the side-tables to pick all the potatoes, most of the purple broccoli spears and the asparagus and the carrots off a huge green organic bunch. As they never seem to want all courses, I didn’t even mention the raspberries – wicked sugar and cream – but brought the cheese. On such short notice, there was only supermarket stuff – double Gloucester, Tallegio, - not bad, and a French brie, - fancy, I was surprised – they picked away at it for some time, to my delight. He pulled out the old Mrs. Beeton from the cooking and gardening shelves behind his chair, got intrigued, and we were caught up in a memorable laugh, ridiculous helpless laughter, over such as, ‘To test whether pickles are wholesome, throw some ammonia over them, and if they turn blue, they are not fit to eat.’ Any half-sentence of half-wit carries one further. He did the coffee – only instant but in coffee-cups – and came in saying, ‘Raspberries! Why didn’t you - ’ chomping away on a bowlful. Over the coffee, they looked at the games-box that I’d made him bring down from the top of the wardrobe. My jigsaw of the changing of the guard from the ‘30s amazed them by its three-ply solidity.

They left about 10.0, taking with at last the bin-bag with the old loose covers, and, as he went out to the car, he called back, ‘I’m pinching a bottle of the Aligote.’

Today, Sunday, as I said, I slept better. Woke at 3.0, but slept 5-9ish. H not ringing, for she has her children, so rest in p.m. 2-5.30. Well.

J rang and asked me for S’s mobile no., ‘which I suspect you haven’t got.’ Why? I had. I hope she’ll tell me why E wants it.

Amused that K, when I showed him the Meursault Charmes, he said, ‘Premier Cru’. Comic. They all come to it. How contemptuous R and he would have been in 1980. Stiff, tired, but so settled and satisfied that I gave them a good-day. They did me, certainly.

Monday March 29 2004

More from death list in Telegraph.

Margaret Fish (née Plaise.)

Peter Ustinov dead. I believe he rather resented the British for suspecting his versatility, but then, for all his brilliance, he wasn’t actually first-class at any of his many gifts, except as a raconteur. And even at that, how well I remember D telling me that his stories would dominate a dinner table or whatever without really noticing whether anyone wanted them, let alone with spaces for them to tell. And this was in the opening months of the Nottingham Playhouse where he was one of the three directors as long ago as 1966. I am not suggesting, by the way, that his conversations were anything but brilliant. But I’ve always noticed that anyone who is supreme as a wit, takes away something from his acting, and certainly V’s acting was always, to me, superficial, witty, showy, but never into any character of any depth. I see he played Lear in Canada, rather late on. Why not here, if he wanted to be taken seriously? All the same he was a considerable personality, so that I was shocked that the only person they could dredge up for a panegyric was Michael Winner, good heavens. Still, later on, on ITV, they got Richard Attenborough, who at least mentioned theatre, his most solid achievement. (And, of course D knew him in the Arts days, as a twenty something private.) Now Alastair Cooke has died, aged 95? just after retiring from those radio-talks, not one of which I’ve ever heard, except in quotation. J said ‘there’ll be a third.’ Oh dear, superstition. I think V’s headmaster said something a little more pointed and more perceptive than the report saying ‘He has great originality that must be curbed at all costs.’ He may have seen that V would spend his gifts too easily.

Tuesday March 30 2004

Good heavens. J phoned to say there had been a third death, as if it was a relief. ‘I suppose you were afraid it’d be me’, I said. Meant to garden. A bit tired. Resting for tomorrow.

Wednesday March 31 2004

Rested all day. Cab over ten minutes late, so Roy and M were already at the table, her not facing the room, odd how politenesses get lost. At once she told me the script had come. It was such a relief I shed a tear. After all, it was D’s. Delightful chats. No tension between them, thank goodness. The maitre was also delightful. Brack. shutting for a fortnight for re-decoration. Took my name and address for a party! Oh dear.

Thursday April 1 2004

On some television programme, some idiot said, ‘And these angels were actual size’…

Rested for Mary L’s mammoth shop tomorrow. Dreading it.

Friday April 2 2004

A testing morning. Cab at 10.30. To Tesco to buy thirty or forty items, listed haphazardly by M.L. so that, despite numbering them carefully, I was still rushing from aisle to aisle of the big place, and then there were many thing I’ve never bought – tinned veg. ugh – that needed an assistant’s help, and often another aisle in the far distance. I bought a bagful for myself as well, and at the ‘checkout’ – they mean the till – my bill was £80 something. Off to wildest Cricklewood, and to that little bank by W. Green tube Station. It was just after twelve, and I hoped such a minor branch might be emptyish. Not a bit of it, a queue of nearly a dozen. As D said so rightly of a post office queue, ‘All you want is a stamp, everyone else is sending contraband to Brazil.’ What goes on in banks that takes seven or eight minutes, and entails the cashier going away for a further five. All I wanted was £150 in five and ten pounds notes for M.L. to use for small transactions. So all that was another twenty minutes standing. Then to Chichele Mansions and the dodgy lift. The driver was a hire as most of them are, and ran up the three flights with some of the shopping. I took up the rest, and put them where she could load up the kitchen and ‘frig’ easily. In return she had lined up six bags of my books, tho’ I filled a bag of unknowns when I sorted them. However, I was repaid by poor M putting an arm round my neck, in thanking me, which she has never done before. I was glad I’d been able to do it, but was stiff from head to foot, and found I’d forgotten to get cream for myself.

Saturday April 13 2004

Rested and rested and rested. Trolled thro a novel recommended by who? Starter For One’ by David Nicholls, Hm. Quite funny, quite easy to read, quite… all Kingsley Amis’ fault and I didn’t like him.

Sunday April 4 2004

H rang as usual. I talked too much, bother. But then she has little news and what there is, is often illness and death. But she’s good, and I think I cheer her up.

John N rang back from his mother who’s failing, but still resisting a nursing home. Sally Ducrow is staying with them. Having an operation on Thursday. Curious little piece of the past. Polyps in the vagina, - and womb? They can, of course, be precursors of worse, so it’s good to catch them. Shades of Prim, who also had multiple partners. Oh, the past. Dinner with John in May.

Monday April 5 2004

Rather hellish day. I have had nightmares about scaffolding for painting the house, trampling the plants to buggery, but not yet. A young man turned up to say scaffolders arriving tomorrow, to repair leak in roof. Last time it was over the roof to do all that horror. Now it seems it’s forbidden for safety reason. I went right off at him, and only calmed down to arrange it for April 19th. Put off if poss. He agreed. Came back in, and sat and calmed down and thought. I rang him back and said I was sorry to have been rude and upset, that I had no right to postpone the repair, and he could get on with it as soon as possible. Scaffolders tomorrow.

Lovely talk to K. Coming at the weekend! More and more allusive and responsive every day. Oh I am so lucky.

Another lovely talk – to Sally D. Rang John and got her! Talked for ten minutes or more, with delightful renewal of intimacy. And talking of allusiveness she can pick up all those theatre ‘references’ from the past that K can’t be expected to. We had a lot of laughter. She said Polyps were in the family, - ‘Sam had a large polyp on his shoulder, and he never showed it to me.’ Hope the op goes all right. Always loved her, - she’s an optimist like me, and will always say she’s well.

Tuesday April 6 2004

More or less completely hellish day till my rest. On the qui vive or the rack till eleven, that’s when the young roof-man said if they hadn’t come by then they wouldn’t. Workmen now are so messy, I couldn’t believe it. And then it was Ling- Ling, and even then I told her not to answer the bell. Not that she would. Wonderful when it was six or so, and I knew I was alone. Rang roof-man and said it must be after Easter now, and he weakly agreed. He obviously hadn’t been able to get the scaffolders. J said you’d never get a scaffolder before Easter at this notice…

K rang. He’s arranged, with his adviser man at the bank, for me to arrange my investment. He’s so good. What’s more, he thinks his office is above my branch! Name, Keith Floyd. Odd. Still coming on weekend, ‘What’s about wine glasses?’

Wednesday April 17 2004

The double anniversary, four years here, and twenty seven years dead. Both surprising.

Rang Keith Floyd, who turns out to be Keith Broadly. 3.5%. £3000 odd. Rang K to tell him.‘Oh? I’ve always called him Keith.’ How odd to invest.

Thursday April 18 2004

10.30 cab to Chiswick, took the Nicolson letters, the K photos clearing the garden, and J’s school poem, for framing. Wonderfully serious framer. Not a smile, not a flicker. Didn’t like the choice of the dark mount. Oh, taste. How light and bright rules the world in every direction. But first to Oxfam with two big bags of books, amused to find the big black driver asked me if he could take two or three of them for himself. ‘I’m a bit of a reader.’ Usual sort of mild spinster, politely grateful. To T.G. Terrace. Three beautiful slices of halibut, the smallest down the spine for A. Shrimps. Skate at Mortimer and B, a big handsome piece of Double Gloucester, as different in its thick rough grey-brown rind from the supermarket kind as – chalk from cheese – tho’ the ‘handmade’ D.G. pieces aren’t bad, - they’re not slimy, nothing in cling-film. A jar of red currant jelly, seemingly unobtainable in supermarkets these days. A goose egg. At the greengrocer’s fresh peas and broad beans. The very slow boy took forever, and didn’t know the name of the fungi. He forgot to pick up the bag with the artichokes but then so did I… to Waterstone’s briefly and found one Braun detect. I haven’t got, and the new Donna Leon. Back home, a lot done. Rang M.L. for b’day. K rang, bringing box files for my records.

Friday April 9 2004

Now banging upstairs. Not continuous but there, and on a holiday. I can imagine an ordinary working family outraged at the disturbance. But as everyday is a holiday for me, I can’t complain, and in truth, it scarcely bothers me. Except to wonder at the banging over my head in the bookroom, when a year ago monumental banging went on for weeks. Is the room now completely three-dimensionally filled with the last installment of thirteen six foot by six lumps of hardboard that have been leaning against my pictures in the front hall? Only for a day and a half, or…

Otherwise an indulgent totally quiet day. (The banging did not interfere with my afternoon snooze, heard not a thing.) Read the new Donna Leon with pleasure, quite recovered her civilized form. Started the new Simon Gray diary. Also as good as ever. (I feel like sending a note to him that I don’t think him and DL on a level…)

K rang. Tomorrow. ‘I’ve got some wine glasses.’

Saturday April 10 2004

Another perfect day, tho’ no garden, which I need more than anything, because of rain. There were the wine glasses, perfect, and only 99p each. He plumped down on the sofa, in that way I glory in, as if he were at home, which he is. After a bit, he levered himself to work ‘otherwise I’ll go to sleep.’ He has great discipline. The vast percentage of his work he has to make himself do, and he does. He’d brought with him ten box-files, A4 size, and we started on the large piles of scripts and letters and a large envelope full of what? Arlete started painting those stools the olive green after their two coats white primer. They are just the same stools/tables as were with that rather awful table we had to start out with at the cottage, dear to me for that alone, but also because we rescued them from the garden here, where they’d just been, I suppose, all thro’ the winter before I bought the flat. So we settled down in the dining-room/kitchen – the only thing I don’t like about the flat, tho’ not too seriously – me on a chair ‘you sit down’, and he brought in the partly sorted piles. We went through them with all sorts of feelings, giggles and laughter and aahs and oohs of nostalgia. His early attempts at writing shows, Zentapuss and Luddites etc. Perhaps I was wrong to encourage him, but at the time he needed it so much. Well, he doesn’t seem to hate me. The ten files were soon full, with all the Salad Days Slade/Reynolds stuff, scripts of the first draft of 40 Years On with at least two sections cut from the show, ‘A Day Out’ and so on. But we did get a lot done. Darling A was in the utility room chuckling away.

At about six fifteen I started the dinner. Showed them the three halibut-steaks, no broad beans for A. So organic carrots, fresh peas, purple broccoli, raspberries, and three good cheeses. I was pleased that A finished her quite large halibut with relish, which has not always been the case with my cooking. A success. He loved it all, off he went, with another bottle of Aligote.

Sunday April 11 2004

K rang about C. Gdn. after talking about it fairly thoroughly yesterday, because A’s mother has not seen a ballet? So they’re taking her. I was touched that he wanted leading thro’ it, without my saying so, of course. ‘I’ve got seats in row C. In the centre of it.’ ‘Ought they not to be in the front row?’ ‘Where are they?’ ‘In the Grand Tier.’ ‘No.’ We discussed the restaurants and bars. I think I made it clear. And he’s calling in on Tuesday, between a musical lunch, and his dinner with Roy. Lovely, and more files.

Monday April 12 2004

Re-reading Simon Gray’s four? five? diaries – I’m half way through them, with great enjoyment. In preparation for S’s play this week?

Film about Jesus. An easy role. Speak slowly, evenly, never raise yr. voice, and didn’t Robert Powell never blink? A good thing Jesus didn’t live to see motorcars. He’d never have been able to call out quickly to stop someone being run down, or brake quickly enough. Silly me. He could bring them back from the dead.

Tuesday April 13 2004

No scaffold – yet. K rang to say he was over here for lunch and then dinner with Roy, so he’d drop in. Divine.

To shops in a.m. as angle poise failed after only three? years. Daddy’s, bought in 1937, I think, and still being used in 1987. Oh well. Huge young man sold new one, a full head taller than me, 6’6” at least, not gangly either. A different race? K arrived ‘Have the files come?’ They hadn’t, especially as he’d only said ‘K. Noiseworks’, and hadn’t said my name…

They turned up safely all the same, and a sweet afternoon putting away more of my more or less precious things wait gentle laughter. A farcical end, as he tried to ring Roy to find out where they were meeting and eating. Tried for getting on for an hour, He said not ‘engaged’, the sound of the fax. Tried the operator and had a wonderful tangle with her, using his flat expressionless ‘dealing with stupid and corrupt officialdom’ voice. During the 10 minutes, she, investigating Roy’s number, actually dialed it wrong three times, and he had to correct her. Finally he said he’d drive to Brentford and chance finding someone in. ‘Come back to dinner here if you don’t.’ Hoping he wouldn’t, as I was already tired. I saw him off, and hadn’t satdown before the ‘phone rang – and it was Roy. Quite miffed when I said about the ‘phone, rather unprepared to believe it.‘We haven’t got a fax.’ Said he’d left a message for K this morning. ‘He was out to lunch.’ What children these boys still are. They might have easily missed one another altogether. How little trouble they take for a dinner engagement. I suppose that’s why A. thought little of abandoning my little dinner- party at the last minute. Perhaps I should take away the Chelsea tickets at the last minute…

A five minute slot on TV, some cleric (sic) said, ‘What would Jesus do about this slot?’

Wednesday April 14 2004

No scaffold. A little gift of quiet and nothing.

S’s first night. Rang up and left a message. Quite surprised these days to get a live person off an ordinary number.

A little gift of quiet and nothing.

S’s first night still going on. I feel for him, he’s miscast.

Forgot to record the two books I bought yesterday. ‘Swimming with My Father’ by Tim Jeal, and the new Redgrave biog. by Alan Strachan who J thinks is a creep. Writes wellish, tho’. Book supposed to have come out in Feb.

Thursday April 15 2004

Still no scaffold. Suspense. S’s notice in the Indep. as bad as it could be – perplexing and embarrassing in the headline. J later said N. de Jongh in the Standard was vicious, perhaps not so suprising, but there was also a para. in Londoner’s Diary saying how bad the notices had been. Her friends Janey and Nick, who’s in management, left at the interval. (I’ve only met Janey once and Nick not at all, and have no high opinion of their taste – I would imagine they might well walk out of Chekov, if they hadn’t, by this time, known they mustn’t.)

Nothing in the Telegraph except a radiant notice for Joan Collins in a revival of a ‘50s light comedy at Wimbledon at the start of a tour. Her together look is remarkable, but regrettable. What about next year?

Post came at twenty to seven p.m.

Friday April 16 2004

Shopping with Irish driver to Chiswick. Picked up the new pictures. Perfect. At Waterst. after ‘phoning, picked up J’s books, the Raverat and Jeal. Green Gr. 21lbs of peas, which, unlike the broad beans, looked good again. Bought a huge piece of Caerphilly in thick rind, £13, but it will last me the week. So delicious. Dropped the books off at J’s, and picked up the Tesco bag she left in the dustbin… With more notices. Oh dear. Poor silly thing, he is. All the photos show him caricaturing as was taught at that wretched school.

Saturday April 17 2004

Rain. Started Redgrave.

Sunday April 18 2004

Rain all day, really heavy. Oh how I hate taking rain as an excuse not to do what I have to do in the garden.

The Redgrave is well done so far, except for one colossal bloomer. First, saying the ‘20s and ‘30s were a bit of a desert in the theatre – true for the early ‘20s – and then making rubbish of that by recording not only MR’s time at Liverpool, but JG’s Hamlet and Old Vic generally, not to mention his Queen’s seasons, and so on. JB Priestley and Noel Coward as the keynote, is very ill-judged. But worst of all is a sentence summing up the West End, ‘cosy… escapist’, ‘with leading starts, Gertrude Lawrence, Lewis Waller, Robert Loraine – of understated charm.’ Well, L.Waller dead in 1916, R Loraine in 1935, neither anywhere near understated and nothing to do with the ‘20s or ‘30s in essence. Oh, poor Gertie…

Rang K to ask about dinner with Roy, after his call. To find A. telling me he was in Ireland with some musicians from Nashville, till a week on Tuesday. She asked me if I’d like the number but I said not, in case… I must get straight with him exactly how much I do or don’t descend on him, or it will trouble him. He needs complete freedom.