Chapter 9
Miscellaneous Adventures
The singles club.
In 1957 I ‘came out’, I was a debutante. This procedure, for the
uninitiated, was when, at the age of 17 or 18 curtseying to the
Queen at Buckingham Palace, whirling about at balls, attending Ascot
Races and Henley Regatta, plus rushing up to Scotland in September
for more balls and races, established the fact that you were grown-
up and marriageable. Ready for marriage, that is, with an eligible ex-
public schoolboy. Men in the Brigade of Guards, or at Sandhurst
perhaps, merchant bankers, stockbrokers, barristers, solicitors, and
men with titles were sought after and fought over, by zealous
mothers anxious to see their daughters ‘settle down’ with the ‘right’
sort of man.
For me, being a debutante was a failure. Undeniably I had two
serious disadvantages. I was short-sighted and dumpy. The choice of
spectacle frames in the 1980s is not as plentiful as one would wish,
but in the 1950s there was virtually no choice at all. I had a pair
shaped like blue plastic butterflies in Dame Edna Everidge style. If I
wore them at dances in order to see, no one asked me to dance, and
if I didn’t wear them, I could see nothing. Strapless dresses were in
fashion, which on tall, thin girls looked marvellous but which did not
suit me in the least. However, despite protests my mother,
determined that I should be properly launched, bundled me off to
The Ritz, The Savoy, Claridges and The Dorchester where I danced
with, or at least mingled with, dukes, earls, lords, varying degrees of
aristocrats, and the odd foreign prince. But from the debris one good
thing did emerge. I discovered dancing is a lovely way of taking
exercise, without getting tired or bored, as I do with almost all other
exercise. This feeling for dancing has never left me and I frequently
dance alone in my kitchen with Flute, the cat, as my audience. But
Andy, a single girl friend, wished me to accompany her to a club she
knew. She enthused about the music and dancing, the fun and
excitement to be had at the Singles Club dancing evenings held on
Thursdays, at a hotel in Wheatley, just outside Oxford. The tickets in
1982 were only £1.75, she said, and well worth the money. I was
quite easy to persuade since I thought having a partner after several
years without one would be quite a novelty.
What to wear was a dilemma as my wardrobe did not run to
suitable dresses or skirts to dance in. (In public). After trying on
various garments with a view to attracting partners I settled for a
black cotton skirt, an old, flowered silk shirt, and lots of my daughter
Jessica’s jewellery – bright pink earrings and necklace. I picked Andy
up just after nine and as we approached the hotel, I felt very
nervous. We both admitted afterwards that had the other one said
that it was all a mistake and that the wish to go dancing had quite
vanished, great relief would have been felt, and we would have gone
home. But we admitted no such thing. The hotel car park was almost
full when we arrived, and we joined a furtive and hurrying crowd
heading towards the entrance. Here was a slight hold-up. It was the
queue to pay for the tickets and then, in addition, to be scrutinized
by the management to see that our clothes were smart enough to
pass for evening wear. (Men had to wear ties). You also had to
declare that you were single and over 25. We went to hang our coats
up in the Ladies, where there was a general air of excitement.
Masses of new make-up was applied – more lipstick, to already
lustrous red lips, to eyes, more blue, and to lashes, more mascara.
Calvin Klein would have recognized his monstrous regiment of
women. They were all there, in every guise. All sizes, ages, heights
and degrees of sexual attractiveness. But there was one common
denominator – everyone was single. I suspect, although I have no
evidence, that the aims were also similar: to have a good night out
and possibly find ‘Mr Right’.
Andy and I decided to start our evening in the bar. Remembering
the old joke about ‘two gin and tonics (or equivalent) and I’m
anybody’s’ I thought at least if I had one, my knees and hands would
stop shaking. The band was playing very jolly, catchy, tunes from the
fifties era onwards. I felt a touch of nostalgia hearing songs from big
musicals like Oklahoma, Paint your Wagon, Annie get your Gun,
Showboat and so on. Disco lights of different colours winked over the
dance floor. But in the bar, there were only small table lights, with
red lamp shades, discreetly dotted about. I wondered whether the
darkness in the bar, where friendships were struck up, was a subtle
plan on behalf of the management. It was difficult to tell in the
gloom the features of the person you were talking to, and this, in
most cases, was a definite advantage. By the time you reached the
dance floor and saw your partner’s face under the light, or he saw
yours, it was too late to change your mind about a dance.
My first partner, Les, was an ex-policeman. He hinted at being in
possession of numerous MI5 type secrets which he might reveal, he
said, should we later become more intimate. But he was hopeless at
dancing, so I left him. Unlike debutante dances where, if I was
abandoned I spent the rest of the evening in the Ladies, at the
Singles Club after the end of a dance, partners thanked each other
and returned to their original table. At Australian parties, apparently,
all the men stick together at one end of the room while the women
huddle together at the other. At the singles club I observed a
definitely Australian influence. Men of all descriptions stood still and
silent, grasping drinks. The only thing that moved was their eyes,
which slunk around, seeking a woman to their taste.
I must have had some of the right qualifications since I was asked
to dance, in quick succession, by a motor mechanic, a draughtsman,
and a milkman. Then I met Terry, an RAF engineer from Brize Norton.
He was about 25, and wore a smart blue suit and a forces tie. He had
a short back-and-sides haircut. His appearance was ordinary and his
conversation non-existent, (except about divorce or separation, a
topic of conversation where everyone had a story), but he was a
really amazing dancer. We jived, rock-and-rolled, tangoed, waltzed,
Charlestoned, and twisted for two hours, and I loved it.
Unfortunately, Terry had the same constraints on him as Cinderella –
midnight was his deadline for leaving. He had to get back to base.
I danced a last dance with an electrician, one Pete, who was
wearing a blue nylon shirt, green tie, and beige terylene trousers.
With the later hour the music had become romantic. A rendering of
favourite Des O’Connor, Val Doonican, and Julio Iglesias’ love songs
were sung by the enthusiastic band leader, doing his best. It wasn’t
bad and there was a feeling of something in the air. ‘By the time I get
to Phoenix’ was playing when Pete cleared his throat to speak. We
were dancing quite close and my fingers were stuck to his nylon
shirt. Perhaps it will be something romantic, I thought, but in fact
what he said was: “Looking round this room, I’m most disappointed. I
would definitely say that the club I go to in Maidenhead contains a
much higher class of person. Do you know what I mean….?”
The approach to women at dances by dukes, earls, lords,
electricians, mechanics or what-you-will is indubitably much the
same, it seems. If you are chosen to dance, it is with the idea that,
after a bit of bald flattery, a few sexy dances with the electric current
on, and a run-down on their astounding abilities in bed, you will rush
home with them to see the evidence, and test its truth. In my
opinion, the only difference between men at dances, wherever they
are, is whether they can dance or whether they cannot. And as I
found a better partner at the Singles Club, Wheatley, than I ever did
at The Savoy, London, for my £1.75 that is where I would rather go
for a good dancing night out.
Rape Crises Centre
Mandell Creighton, a nineteenth century ecclesiastic, said: “No
people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.” Now,
twenty-five years after I started on the do-gooding road, I would
agree with him. It would be a rash generalization, and wrong to
suggest that all do-gooders were harmful, but certainly the motives
for wanting to do good are often questionable, and the results often
undesirable. If it is true, and it seems to be, that altruism doesn’t
exist, the only reason that people are ‘wonderfully self-sacrificing’ or
whatever, is because that is what they wish to be. Naturally this does
not apply to anyone looking after a disabled member of the family,
or some such, who, therefore, has no choice.
Most of the women and men I met at various voluntary activities
were over thirty-five, with time to spare, looking for something to fill
their empty lives. In my married life, I was one such a woman.
Many voluntary organizations encourage their volunteers to see
themselves as ‘counsellors’. (This terrible word means nothing
superior whatsoever, but is simply someone who listens, or talks, or
who gives good or bad advice). The ‘counsellor’ then acquires a
sense of power which otherwise she or he would not possess. There
are indeed training schemes to train volunteers from being ‘ordinary
folk’ into ‘caring counsellors’. How to acquire a ‘caring’ voice is also
taught so that whatever filth is metered out to you on the telephone,
at one of those establishments, you have to keep repeating “I know
how you feel,” in a caring voice – even if you haven’t the least idea
what it must be like to be masturbating in a telephone box.
Knowing that there are others sadder and more bereft than
oneself can have a cheering effect on the listener. When I was
unhappy years ago, I had many so-called friends. I have many less
now, and the reason, I think, is that my present contentment is a
touch dull, whereas my misery, for them, was exalting. One of the
characters from Aldous Huxley’s Ends and Means said: “I can
sympathize with peoples pain but not with their pleasure. There is
something curiously boring about someone else’s happiness.”
Not entirely cured of my somewhat manic desire to be of help to
the community, I answered an appeal I heard on Radio 4. It was for
people to man the telephones at the local Rape Crises Centres. Rape
Crises Centres were, apparently, short of volunteers to perform this
activity. I rang locally, and spoke to a woman who told me to come
to a meeting taking place on the following Wednesday evening, at
7.30. The address was in the Cowley Road, which, although I have
grown fond of it, is not a place to be when the light has faded.
Cowley has been described as dirty, lawless, dangerous, and noisy.
This is an accurate description.
When I arrived at the given address, from outside I could see one
light. It was coming from an attic room. I pushed the front door open
and found myself in a dark, gloomy hall. Following the light I started
up dirty, bare, rickety stairs, until I reached the top landing. I knocked
on the door and was asked in. In this bizarre room the floor space
was almost entirely covered with old mattresses. On one of them sat
a young woman, but, to my conventional and untrained eye, she
could have been a man. She wore a man’s shirt, red braces, trousers,
and bovver boots. A donkey jacket was by her side, with a tin of roll-
your-own navy cut tobacco sticking out of the pocket. “Hello” she
said, “I’m Linda – I’m on duty for Lesbian Line.” “Oh” I said, confused,
“but I thought this was the meeting place for the Rape Crises
Volunteers.” “It is,” she said, “they take place in the same room –
this room. Why don’t you sit down?” Since there were no chairs, I sat
down on a mattress and looked about me.
The walls were entirely covered with posters unflattering to me.
viz: All men are rapists – Penis Power is woman’s violation – Rape in
Marriage is a crime, and many more of a similar nature.
There were pamphlets and printed sheets littered about, all
pertaining to feminist causes and female rights. Soon women started
arriving. They were between twenty and twenty-five, and mainly
Linda-look-alikes, although there was one in an Indian skirt. A fierce-
looking androgynous person asked me who I was and why I was
there. I muttered about the radio appeal which seemed to satisfy her
and the meeting began.
The room was very small and with nine
people in it, mostly smoking roll-ups, the atmosphere quickly
became pungent. I was squashed between to women in donkey
jackets who smelt quite strongly of sweat, tobacco and beer.
Fervently I wished that I had not answered this particular call for
help, and that I could run back home. But that was not possible
without drawing attention to myself, so reluctantly I stayed.
Among several points to be brought up on the agenda, the
boycotting of Miss Oxford remains the most prominent in my mind.
It was to decide what role each one would play in seeing that this
event did not take place. Or, if it did, it would only do so with
maximum harassment. Various tactics were discussed, including
bottle throwing, tyre slashing, crowd agitation and several other
destructive ideas. Suddenly I was asked what I was going to do in the
way of disruption. My heart beat faster as I suspected that, in this
particular company, mentioning that I was a magistrate and
therefore, ineligible to fight the battle, might not have been
appropriate or appreciated. Indeed, there could have been positive
hostility. The quiet and gentle heroines of Mrs Gaskell and Jane
Austin that I so revere were about as far removed from these women
as could possibly be. I declined with some excuse. At 10.30pm the
meeting adjourned and everyone, except me, went to the pub. (God
knows why, since there must have been men there to contend with.)
So much discussion about men’s bestiality, so much emotion, so
much earnestness, and so much real spite all delivered in a totally
humourless way was a pathetic way to waste one’s life, I mused on
the way home. And so was it a waste of my time getting involved in
organizations which I did not believe were constructive or even
useful. Perhaps I will have a go at Meals-on-Wheels next time I get
the do-gooding urge – at least I know that is worthwhile.
My own theory on rape is that it is difficult to put the crime under
one heading. There are many many different kinds. No one could
possibly get them confused. One is an outrageous attack on a
woman, by a person or persons unknown. Another rape can be
perpetrated by a husband, a son, a lover, or a family friend. For these
men, when and if convicted, life imprisonment is too short, I think.
However, I have known of women both stupid and naïve in their
dealings with men. In some cases, women invite men into their
homes and lead them on with drinks and general coquetry and then
are surprised and horrified when they are ‘raped’. In my youth a
crude saying “if you don’t want the goods don’t muck about with
them” was expedient and, I think, still could be.
Attitudes experienced when eating out minus a male escort.
On 28th March 1930, Vera Britten wrote a piece in the
Manchester Guardian telling of her bizarre experiences when trying
to buy a cup of tea of coffee in a public place, such as a restaurant or
café, unaccompanied by a man, after a certain hour. She found it was
not possible. The rules were made, presumably, with the thought
that no woman without an escort after dark could be on legitimate
business, such as wanting a cup of tea, but was obviously there solely
to tempt men to prostitution. My own mother, in the thirties, before
the divorce from her first husband was finalized, was courted by my
father for many months without him being allowed to stay with her
after 10 o’clock at night. There was a creepy fellow apparently called
the Queen’s Proctor, who, had he caught them at 10.01pm together,
would have assumed they were having a sexual orgy. The inference
being that sex could, or would, only take place after dark and after
10 o’clock. That was fifty years ago and since then some progress has
been made, indeed the permissive society has been born. But there
is still a long way to go it seems in changing the rules as to where
unattended females are allowed, or dare, to tread.
A very old friend, Maggie, a painter from the North of Scotland
and I decided, after a sad gap of several years, that we should meet
somewhere for a weekend. York was agreed upon as a halfway
house. We stayed at a lovely bed-and-breakfast farmhouse, just
outside the city, but had to buy lunch and dinner elsewhere. On
Saturday night Maggie suggested that we went somewhere special
for dinner. We were recommended to go to a nearby hotel which
had French food and was apparently very popular. So, we booked a
table. We both dressed up in our best and I think we looked very
respectable. The hotel car park was full of Mercedes, large Rovers,
and sports cars. Despite high unemployment in the North, the old
saying about ‘where there is muck there is brass’ seemed apt in that
area, if nowhere else. We walked into the restaurant to find flowers
on every table, gleaming silver cutlery, lighted candles (of course)
and linen napkins. The head waiter came up to us with a large smile.
“Have you booked?” he asked. We told him we had. “A table for
four?” he said. No, not a table for four, we said, for two. He looked
puzzled. “For two?” he echoed our words. His smile vanished and a
distinctly disapproving look came into his face. I suspect that the
following kind of thoughts ran through his mind. (a) That he could
say that there were no tables free so we would have to go
elsewhere, or (b) that there would be a two or three hour wait until
we would be served. But since we could see this was not to be so, he
reluctantly showed us a table in the farthest corner of the room, as
out of sight as possible.
Maggie, a married woman, had not really understood when I,
newly single, told her briefly of the feeling of extreme vulnerability I
had, as one of a minority group – like being single when convention
and society mainly caters for doubles. Although we were a couple in
this restaurant, we were both women. In a world where it is the
norm for men to take women out to restaurants on a Saturday night,
we were the odd couple, as it were. But although the waiter, when
he finally materialized to take our order, did so with more than a
touch of disdain, he could not spoil our enjoyment. Eventually the
food arrived and it was delicious, we had interesting and lively
conversation (not about men) and a good bottle of wine. Having a
candlelit dinner with a woman friend is thoroughly to be
recommended, with none of the complications of sexual domination
or sexual attraction, or both. I do hope, as the sexes become more
equal, women will be able to have lunch or dinner either by
themselves or with another woman in an expensive restaurant
without the feeling that they are unwanted outcasts intruding in an
out-of-bounds no-go area. And, although we were allowed in the
restaurant where I think it was unlikely anyone dining thought we
were prostitutes, the attitude of the hotel staff had not, I thought,
changed radically since Vera Britten’s day.
* * *
My daughter Jessica and I went on an outing to the Tate Gallery to
see the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition. An important point to this tale is
that I am sufficiently old-fashioned and middle-aged to dress up
when visiting our capital city, although studying the masses hurrying
by, my assumption that others feel the same way I do, is misplaced.
Those who went to the exhibition will remember the enormous
crowds it attracted; more that 300 people every hour going through
the rooms was the figure stated on the wireless. I had to queue so
long to see the ‘Light of the World’ that Jessica got fed up and went
off on her own. We were reunited about three hours later, spiritually
fulfilled but bodily exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. We searched for
the snack bar but long before we saw it, we saw the queue, four
deep, going in its direction. We had little time left, and as I had seen
a sign for the restaurant we decided to try there instead. Here there
was no queue. A manageress approached us, looking us up and
down. She said frostily: “This is the restaurant. The snack bar is down
the passage.” I told her of the queue, that I was in a hurry, and
pointed out that I could read and knew therefore that I was in the
restaurant, and that I wished to sit at a table for two people. “There
is no table for two laid” she said, “Never mind, we are not fussy” I
said, “we will sit at a table laid for four”, and did so.
The restaurant was only half full and there were plenty of waiters
standing about but it seemed that Jessica and I were invisible. We
studied the menu and made up our minds. But no one came to take
our order. A sort of silent pact seemed to have been made by the
waiters: leave the old bag and daughter to stew. Eight young
businessmen were sitting at the next table, guffawing, and swilling
down bottles of chilled Sancerre. Indeed, they commanded a great
deal of attention, but when I tried to catch the waiter’s eye,
somehow, he just did not see me. After half an hour we got up and
left. We bought sandwiches at a café down the road and ate them,
reflecting, on a seat overlooking the Thames. Jessica was stoical but I
was enraged. I asked myself these questions about expensive
restaurant hostility to women:
Are they worried women will not be able to pay the bill?
Do women lower the standard of the restaurant by the lack of male escorts?
Do women look like prostitutes?
Do women understand the tipping system properly 10% and all that.
Do they think women will not buy wine which is where they make their profits?
To these questions, I do not know even yet, the answers. And
probably never will.
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Chapter 9
Summing up
Had I known of the many difficulties I had to face alone, I might
never have started the journey. The easier choice is to stay within
the security of marriage, however it might not be to your liking.
Leaving it needs courage, determination, and a sense of humour
because, indubitably, it is tough on your own. Especially so if you are
over forty, not qualified for a well-paid job, (and not sure you would
be capable of doing one, given the qualifications) and, in twenty odd
years of marriage have been protected from the rates, the insurance
and unwanted attentions of visiting tradesmen.
To leave a marriage in the years after the dreaded fortieth
birthday is a very different matter, I think, from returning to the
single state in the twenties or thirties. The ineluctable truth is that
after forty, your sexual attractions are considerably reduced.
However, this is no disaster if solitude is the desired goal but this fact
does make all the difference to the life to be led thereafter.
My sister, divorced and living alone in her early thirties, had more
suitors than I could count. Going to stay with her in those days was
lovely. She had a beautiful cottage in a valley under the Wiltshire
downs. In the evenings sitting by a log fire, she told of romantic
interludes in her own life with a variety of exciting men. The
telephone rang constantly with calls from would-be suitors. She was
very pretty and talented so it is not to be wondered at, I have known
other women alone in their twenties or thirties who whirl about
romantically with great success. But the demand for divorced
women over forty is definitely less. Their romances are more
usually, to be nostalgically remembered than currently enjoyed.
Obviously, I am not able to speak with authority for anyone save
myself, but on evidence gathered from different sources
(newspapers, magazines, novels and above all friends in similar
circumstances) I feel, sadly, that my deductions are accurate.
In the first few single months I was in an emotional state. I felt
extremely vulnerable, and wept a great deal. There were so many
confusions and conflicts in my mind to think and worry about.
Complete disorientation descended on me sometimes, to such an
extent that I could not remember or think who I was, or what I was
doing. It seemed that I was homeless, rootless, and lost. All day and
much of the night I asked myself the questions about the failed
marriage, over and over again. Friends at this time had to be very
patient, and were, as I constantly repeated the same dreary things.
Felicity was particularly kind while I stayed with her in the first week
after my flight. Although very busy herself, she always made time to
listen. And it is someone to listen that is needed more than anything
else. I learnt to dismiss negative thoughts as waste of time, and that
whose fault it was or whatever, is simply a thought cul-de-sac. The
decision to leave my marriage was not taken lightly or quickly. It is
not a step anyone would take, I suspect, without great thought and
deliberation. But, having made the decision, I had to believe that it
was the right one. New and difficult roads had to be taken and all my
strength needed for the forward journey. There was absolutely no
time whatsoever for wasted energy looking back.
The first lesson I learnt was that I could only cope with each day as
it came. Early on, very small things assumed very large proportions
and if normal daily happenings for some reason failed, for instance
the milkman forgetting to leave the milk, it seemed like a major
disaster. But I am so glad that I learnt then about life on a daily basis.
For me, it has proved the best way to live . I recommend reading
Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Next, please’. In it he writes of the great
importance of each single day. Before my metamorphosis, I literally
wasted days. I let them slip by, unaware of their true value. Forgive
me for repeating the pertinent old story about the octogenarian
who, asked on his deathbed to elucidate on the good things he had
done in his life, replied: “It is not the things I have done, it is the
things I have not done that I mind about, and now I have no time.” If
I had continued the way I was going, smoking, and drinking too
much, on an early deathbed I would have had only wasted years to
look back on.
It is not that great things have to be achieved daily, I found, but
daily I liked to try to achieve something, however small, that earned
my own self-respect. Something like ringing my mother, helping
someone with something, or actually accomplishing in the day what I
set myself to do, whatever it was. The importance of each day is
highlighted in a prayer I particularly like by Professor William Barclay:
“Help us ever to remember that we cannot tell if for us tomorrow
will ever come.” This is such an obvious truth, since we do not know
what will happen to us any tomorrow, so I think if today has even a
chance of being my last day, then it better be a good one.
Lesson two was not only confined to being re-singled. Not only
had I become single, but middle age had arrived as well. I had,
reluctantly, to accept this fact from the amount of material evidence
surrounding me. On the kitchen table sat cod liver oil capsules for
stiff joints and approaching arthritis. I had acquired several pairs of
spectacles – in the constant hope that one of them would be
attractive – and my newest jacket was size 14. I had now to accept
that the artistic director of life’s theatre would no longer hand me
out the lead parts. From now on, I thought, it is back row of the
chorus – but it still took some time for this truth to sink in. Over the
last year or two, seeing myself in mirrors or catching glimpses in
shop windows, I had not accepted the reflected image. I would say to
myself that the reason I looked such a fright was because I had a cold
of some excuse, and replaced the image I wished to have of myself,
back into my mind’s eye. I suffered the age-old illusion of seeing
myself as I wanted to be, rather than as I really was. I have often
heard older people say that they feel no older inside than they did in
their youth, and that they still picture themselves as young. This is a
sentiment I have to agree with, though a small objective part of my
mind reminds me that whatever I feel I still look – almost – my forty
plus, years. Thomas Hardy, in his eighties, wrote a sad poem called “I
look into My Glass.” This is the last verse:
But Time, to make me grieve
Part steals, lets part abide
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
I’m not, to be sure, eighty yet but I do know what he means. Indeed
many poets lament about youthful feelings in ageing frames.
Anyway, photographs, if enough are taken, do not lie. My friend
Michael took some of me at a seaside resort we went to in the late
summer, but it was still too hot for covering up in layers of shape-
disguising clothes. The photographs, just like me, apparently, were
not flattering. It was at this point I decided on a long-term diet:
indeed, intermittent dieting has now become a way of life for me
and, happily, the results are rewarding.
After considerable thought, I decided on a ‘middle way’ approach
to my middle years. This was inspired by study of the Buddha who,
after meditating for seven years, decided the best course to take in
life was the ‘middle way’. Not the hedonistic way, not the way of the
ascetic, but something between. I did not wish to exercise myself for
three hours a day in order to look seventeen again, or emulate Jane
Fonda (whose ex-husband is alleged to have said that she is
extremely boring as a result), nor did I wish to look matronly or
mumsy. But it is possible to keep vaguely under eleven stone, and to
buy clothes that don’t look better on your daughter or your mother,
and the importance of the effort is for yourself. If you live alone, it is
essential to learn to like yourself, be your own best friend, since you
are your only companion for many solitary hours.
Learning to live alone depends much on your attitude to doing so.
If I had left my marriage in order to be with someone else, or if I
anticipated a new partner to replace the one I had left, I would not
have tried to learn about the joys of solitude. It is a commonly
accepted fact that most people are lonely in their own company.
They need someone to talk to, to share with, to confide in, or gossip
to, and, to love. This is entirely natural since man is fashioned to
have a mate, and it is considered odd to choose otherwise. I am
genuinely happy on my own, whereas at gatherings of any kind I
often feel lonely. Perhaps this is because I do not belong to any
particular group. People like to belong to groups, or clubs, or classes,
and feel safe when they are among their own kind. But loneliness is a
difficult subject on which to elaborate with any authority, since it is a
very personal matter. Where one might be lonely, another would
not.
One thing I have learned from living on my own is that one’s
defences are constantly alert, for the solitary life is thought to be
selfish. A harassed married friend staying with me one night said
irritably “Well it’s all right for you, no wonder you are happy, you live
such a selfish life.” If a selfish life is structuring the day as I please,
choosing who I see and where I go, then, certainly, I do live a selfish
life. But there are debits and credits to freedom. I have mentioned
many of the credits. Here are some of the debits: the bills, the
leaking roof, the quarrels with neighbours, or the constant fear after
dark that perhaps tonight someone will break in. And other worries:
if you fall and have an accident of any kind, and cannot telephone,
who would know? Or care? How long would it be before someone
came? Who would shop for you when you are in bed with flu? Who
wants you for Christmas? These sorts of questions are vital to think
about should you be thinking of a change.
The most important lesson of all was to learn to ‘know myself’.
To recognize my faults, to see myself as a reality, not as a fantasy,
and to be my own judge and jury – ‘mine own executioner’. I needed
to find self-respect, we all do, since without it we despise ourselves
and are in turn, despised. In Chapter 1 ‘know myself’ was mentioned
in a slightly defensive and pejorative way. But it is fourteen months
since I started writing this book and I am now of the opinion that ‘to
know thyself’ is the one important statement in it. My argument, to
those sceptical, is this. If you start your life again, it has to have a
new beginning. And the new beginning starts with you. And if you do
not ‘know yourself’, do not understand your nature in the least, and
have never questioned your attitudes or beliefs or why you have
them, how on earth can you contemplate setting out? And if you do
set out, without the vital knowledge of your own intricate workings,
then success, I feel, is likely to elude you.
A subject constantly discussed is appearance and reality; nothing
is what it seems. On that premise it is possible that you are not what
you appear to be. Just because every year you take your annual
holiday in Margate, or play golf on Sunday afternoons, or sit on
committees, does not mean necessarily, that that is what you would
wish to be doing, or even like doing. For years I sat as a magistrate. I
sat on committees, and I sat at dinner tables where I discovered, on
knowing myself, I did not wish to be in the least. I wrote a letter of
resignation to the Lord Lieutenant, no longer sit on committees and I
am no longer asked to fashionable dinner parties. The ensuing bliss is
indescribable. It may cause merriment when I say “I found myself”
since it sounds so ridiculous. But I did and will risk being accused of
foolishness by so declaring this. I like to think I am not self-satisfied
or complacent as a consequence, since it is well-known that life is
‘downhill all the way’ after forty, and I will no doubt have my share
of tumbles.
When unhappiness predominates your life, and you hasten ever
faster and faster trying to chase elusive happiness, you observe
nothing. But with the slower tempo of life suddenly ordinary things
are viewed with a different eye, with a new sense of wonder and
awareness. Driving slowly along the country lanes these days, the
hedgerows tell me their seasonal stories. The first green buds, then
the Flanders poppies and cow parsley, later the mistletoe and then
the dark and bare branches of winter. I had never seen and thought
about them before – just seen them, unaware.
I have often been asked how I knew I had made the correct
decision to reapply for a single ticket. I did not know at the time of
departure, but I know now. The man I married, and I were simply not
in the least compatible. He likes rural pursuits and the touch of
heather round his ankles and I like the touch of a pavement under
my feet and a bus stop down the road. These are two fundamental
differences where compromise is almost impossible. So, leaving was
right for me. But each marriage is individual. Only you know how
unfulfilled, unhappy, and unloved you are. And this could be your
own fault. You could be unfulfilled because you do nothing, unloved
because you are unlovable, and unhappy as a result of these two. To
blame your partner for the misuse of your life is not justifiable. And
leaving would solve nothing. But if, when thinking in the silence of
the night, every aspect of your existence appears untenable, that the
debit side is full, and the credit side is empty, then leaving it might be
right for you. As it was for me. Obviously there are problems and
worries with any way of life, whatever it may be, shared or not
shared and these last five years have not been easy. But I have found
the peace I knew to be somewhere, and happy with it, I am very glad
I made the break.
Many middle-aged women are supposed to seek consolation from
religion. I suppose this means that, married or single, despairing of
the human race, they turn to God as a last resort. The British as a
race are inclined to shy away when God gets a serious mention: not
many of them think of Him in terms of a possible strength, When
talking about Him even in the vaguest terms, the facial expression of
my friends leads me to believe that they think I have, finally, gone
dotty. But for myself – and I suppose I am a middle-aged woman
seeking consolation, I know that I could not have existed without
God’s support, guidance and most important, His Love, during this
time. Therefore, I end this tale with a favourite quotation from
Proverbs 15, Chapter 15: “He that is of a merry heart hath a
continual feast.” In my re-singled state, I have found this, unlike
fallible human prophecies, to be one of solid truth.
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