Untitled Document

1.2: Parents and siblings: a new distance

Now that I was no longer a schoolboy, I was anticipating that a new manner of relationship might be established between my father and myself: something more adult and fraternal perhaps. But that wasn't to be. As the relationship between Henry and Daphne became increasingly unstable, he was probably reluctant to permit anyone else within his family to maintain ideas about stepping out of line. But I wasn't happy with the thought that the situation between ourselves should continue unchanged. I needed my adult status to be fully recognised.

It is also true to say that my respect for Henry had never really recovered from his decision to beat me, some three years previously - for no greater an offence than making a mess of spilt water on the linoleum floor of the bathroom, when washing my dog. And now that I was this much older, his authoritarian parental attitude irked me with increasing vehemence. And the very idea of him writing to my Colonel in the Life Guards, to suggest that I have some discipline drummed into me, was somehow typical of how intrusive this attitude might be, even though I was now an adult male, earning my own living away from home.

Henry's whole personality was too brittle - like sharp crystals glued together with precision, and yet without comprehensive form. Fundamentally he distrusted everyone, and suspected them of deceiving him about their motivations. In the back of his mind he secreted unfavourable images of their identities, and it was only on trust, so to speak, that he allowed himself to view them with favour. If anything went wrong, he was going to treat them as if they had betrayed this trust: as if they had deliberately hoodwinked him into a departure from his original distrust. And I was living in a perpetual state of fear that this was just about to happen to myself. What would happen if I failed to pass out with my commission as an officer? How would Henry regard me if I failed?

Henry's judgement upon my performance in life was still the crucial criterion by which I measured my successes. On a deeper psychological level, I was still attempting to become the sort of person that he aspired for me. Without him feeling that I had excelled, there would be no sense of achievement in my heart. So his opinion on how I was faring was all important to me. But the strain of the whole business was quite unbearable at times: especially as the doubts began to take root in my heart that I might be proved wanting in these officer-like qualities, that were deemed so important. Behaving as if I possessed them was just a charade, that might collapse at any of the successive gradings.

My relationship with Daphne was something different. She had always held me in high regard, and there was no way that this regard might suddenly be withdrawn. I felt as if there was a solid permanence in our relationship, which furnished me with an inner strength of some kind. She wasn't always at home nowadays, for she was often up in London, or taking trips abroad with Xan Fielding: accompanying him officially as his photographer, in his research for books that he was writing. That had been taking them out to Crete, where Xan had been responsible for organising the resistance against the Germans, in half of the island during the war. And the subject which was his current concern were the pirates of the Barbary Coast in North Africa. I knew with half my mind that they were close enough to be called lovers; but I never really thought about the matter with much concern.

The sense of bonding between Daphne and myself was constantly present in my mind, even when we were absent from one another. I had been criticised at Caterham for awakening the rest of the squad at night, with cries of: "Hellooo, Hellooo, HELLOOO!" This had become a traditional way for Daphne to greet us over the phone. So even though I was too exhausted to remember what I'd been dreaming, I knew that it must have been on an idea that I was communicating with her by phone - and probably telling her about all the terrible things that were happening to me.

Something to note is that, dating from the time when I left Eton, I took the decision to reverse the order in which I wrote their names at the beginning of each letter home. It was always "Darling Mummy and Daddy...." now, rather than the other way round. Without remembering precisely at this distance in time, what thought was in my mind behind this decision, it was consciously made, and must surely be indicative of the way I now regarded them. Beforehand, the foremost position had been given to Henry, because it was clear in everyone's mind that he was the head of the family; and with some element of male chauvinist values in sway, it had always been the order of precedence in which I held them to be. But I was now taking a conscious decision to think of them the other way round, which may have indicated my recognition of the fact that I was never liable to do well enough in his regard, so I was urging myself to give greater weight to her judgement instead. Or to put it another way, my sense of personal identity should in future be more wrapped up with Daphne, than with Henry.

Week-end passes back home were by no means a rarity during these months of training, so I'd been getting back home to Sturford quite a fair amount. But as I've said before, it was often to find that Daphne was away; and while things remained friendly with Henry, I did not feel close to him, so I was apt to avoid his company. And Christopher and Valentine were only at home during the school holidays: more concerned with keeping each other company, than with developing any relationship with myself. Life at Sturford was very much an egocentric concern. We all did our own things, unimportant though these might be. Dropping in to see how old Nan was faring in the cottage where she lived in her retirement, just over the other side of the main road. Or pottering around the garden, and perhaps venturing out for a stroll in the woods.

Over this particular period, Henry was probably feeling irritable with all of his three sons, but possibly just marginally the less so with myself than with the others. He was lumbered with our upbringing, at a juncture in his life when he was beginning to regard the family he had acquired as a liability more than as an asset. He was probably seeing a great deal of Virginia Tennant over this period, although not when any of us were at home. We were the complication in his life, so to speak, and it irked him when we did not fit readily within his plans. But as he saw it, the army was now grooming me into shape. There was greater cause for concern about Christopher and Valentine: particularly the former. For Christopher was always having a problem in satisfying his teachers that he was putting sufficient effort into his work. In trials, his place was invariably near the bottom of his Remove. And the particular subject which had currently given rise to Henry's wrath, was the fact that Christopher had omitted to put his name down for the school boxing competitions.

I say this with feelings of criticism for Henry's attitude in these matters. Chris had never been of any use in the boxing ring, and had only ever felt obliged to box because of my own prowess in that field. But it was a mere ten per cent of Etonians who entered these competitions. So why should Chris feel that he was under expectation to submit himself to such battering, when it was invariably the losers who suffered the most? The point which irked Henry was that Chris had sought to excuse himself by saying that he had merely "forgotten" to put down his name - which was construed as a case of deliberate deceit. Scorn was heaped on his head, on the grounds that he had just "funned" it. But it was a harsh verdict from one who had never seen fit to box, when he himself was at school.

Caroline was out of my orbit nowadays, although I still loved her dearly. But we were both very much aware of the age gap. She appeared well established in her London social life, from the house at 90 Eaton Terrace where she and David Somerset had set up home - with almost two years of marriage to their credit. David had been taken into partnership by the Marlborough Gallery in Bond Street. And this was working out very well for all parties concerned. It wasn't so much that David was supposed to be greatly knowledgeable about art. But he moved in the circles where such purchases are made. Their living rooms were adorned with samples of what the gallery had to offer, with paintings largely from the Impressionist, the Post- Impressionist or the Expressionist eras. It worked out that there was a brisk sales turnover - arising from their entertainment of potential clients back at home.

I did drop in to see Caroline whenever I was in London, although I never felt greatly at home in David's presence. There was an aloof bonhomie about his attitude towards Caroline's younger siblings, with more than just a savour of arrogance and disdain about it too. If he was there, I didn't feel truly at ease. But I imagined how these matters would improve as we got to know one another better.

I in fact called in to see Caroline, the day after I had finally received my commission as an officer. She was sitting there alone in her drawing-room when I arrived. With my heart still heavy from the low grading, I tried to conceal my feelings with a breezy smile.

said: "I thought you'd like to hear that I've passed out!"

But Caroline was far better acquainted with the whisky-and-soda culture, than with any talk about officer- like qualities. Putting on the censorious tones of an elder sister, she replied: "How utterly disgusting of you!"