2.3: Siblings: new forms for old relationships

With Christopher still serving his National Service with the Life Guards out in Egypt, and with Valentine still at Eton, I saw rather more of Caroline over this period. I was apt to ring up and ask her if she could put me up overnight at 90 Eaton Terrace on the occasions when I was invited to some party up in London - although I was never quite sure just how welcome I might be where David was concerned. His sister Anne was a regular visitor to their house, and Caroline might have assumed that her own brothers would be regarded as equally welcome. But there had always been a closer relationship between David and Anne, than existed between Caroline and myself - or at any rate since the time when I became a schoolboy, and she herself began to identify with the adult world.

It’s also true that we were a more numerous bunch of siblings, so could be considered a greater imposition if we were each to intrude ourselves too frequently upon their hospitality. I had heard tell - from [X] who got it from her friend Jinny Beaumont - that David "disapproved" of me. I was never quite sure for what reason, but I might hazard the guess that he found me gauche in the company of the friends he invited to his house, and that I drank too much. I had never felt that he was consciously cultivating my friendship. His attitude to me displayed something more in the nature of a blasé condescension, and he would usually find some pretext to go upstairs when I was around. I describe my feelings towards him in my journal entry for 11th February 1954.

I can never really hit things off with David. He is very different to me, and he has an uncertain temper. I do not expect his marriage with Caroline to last.

Daphne had in fact hinted that I should avail myself more frequently of her own stepmother’s proffered invitation to stay overnight at her place in Chester Street, where I would be made very welcome. But I had always loved and admired Caroline, and I looked forward to the possibility of reopening a close relationship with her - something more adult and mature than we’d ever accomplished in the past. There was uncertainty on both sides however, as to what form the new relationship should take. I think that Caroline may have felt that a greater intimacy could be brought about by reducing our self-consciousness concerning nudity and the like. The following extracts from my journal are in evidence of this - the first dated 11th February 1954.

Caroline’s attitude to me has a slightly incestuous character, in the sphere of sexual curiosity. She always opens the door between her bathroom and my bedroom, when she is about to have a bath. Ostensibly it is because she wishes to talk with me while she is having the bath, but I cannot help suspecting that there is some degree of desire for me to see her in the nude.

She made an attempt to watch me having my bath as well. She came in with my little nephew Harry, declaring that he always likes to see people in the bath. But she - or Harry - was too late, as I’d already climbed out and was dressing.

Perhaps I’m being unfair on her, for it’s possible that she simply holds that brothers and sisters should overcome their worry about appearing naked in front of one another, so that she is just putting that principle into practice. Yet I can never really persuade myself that such an interpretation rings true.

Journal: 24th May 1954.

I went up to London for Jill Buckley’s dance....

Just before going to the dance, I went to see Caroline. She is very proud of a new dress she has bought, because she is able to make her breasts jump out of it whenever she raises her arms. She says she performs this as a party trick whenever the party needs livening up.

Caroline was also endeavouring to become someone in whom I could confide my troubles, and there was an instance of this after I had sunk into a depression concerning my relationship with [X], with whom I had just had dinner. But it would seem that I was reluctant to avail myself of such a generous offer.

Journal: 30th April 1954.

I arrived back at Caroline’s house in thoroughly low spirits. She was in her bedroom. We talked for a while, but I was feeling far too dejected and we found very little to say. When David and Johnny Norton came up, matters became even worse. Johnny was urging me to come on to some party, but I turned it down saying that I was not in the mood. By the time I got to bed, I was feeling thoroughly miserable....

When I woke up next morning I felt very little better and tried to leave before meeting Caroline, but she brought Harry in to see me before I could do that. It was all so strained since I could find nothing to say - reverting more and more to my old habit of stammering. I just wanted to get away from it all - to be alone without any fear of being disturbed. I longed to be able to sit down and to pour out my feelings in this journal. At last I managed to escape.

Soft echoes from childhood are suddenly awakened,
(like the baker’s muffin bell;) and I tell myself
that the well of life’s experience is now too deep
for a sleeper’s nostalgic memories to surface by day.
They say not to mingle new wine with old,
yet boldly you display a sauciness you’ve picked up
at suppers with your Mayfair social set, popping it
on top of your former role as close confidant.
I bridle with undue restraint at your truly splendid
generosity of spirit, because I lack
the knack of opening my heart to others, in brotherly
reciprocation of the cryptic sibling pact.
I have no wish to lay my soul all bare,
when plunging deep in amorous despair.

Caroline had always been the sibling to whom I felt the closest in spirit. The one I knew the least of all was Valentine, for at no stage in our lives had we been companions. The divorce must have represented a greater upheaval to him than to any of the rest of us, since he was more dependent upon the rearranged family order at Job’s Mill. At Sturford he had always been regarded as the baby of the family, but at Job’s Mill that was no longer the case. Virginia’s children, Georgia and Biblet were just a few years younger than himself. He got on very well with them, but they altered the character of the household, which had suddenly shifted from male to female dominance. Much personal adaptation must have been required.

But he was the same personality of course - gutsy and aloof - giving the impression that he was wrapped up in a dream world of his own. At Eton he had managed to retain his place within the boxing team, and had now been awarded his boxing colours which, at the age of sixteen, was a year earlier than I myself had earned them. Valentine had never been someone to allow himself to be pushed around, and he was quite capable of keeping himself withdrawn within a little shell of his own while the rest of the household managed to sort themselves out.

He also went to stay with Daphne in Cornwall for some portion of his holidays, and we were down there together during May - where Nan resumed her role of taking charge of him so that Daphne could concentrate upon the task of meeting her publisher’s deadline. I find one entry in my journal which concerns him.

I got annoyed with Val for the most petty of reasons - because he was insisting that I had introduced rules for playing the game `Keyword’ that were different to the ones I had laid down the previous evening. I was sure that I had not done so. But what irritated me enormously was not that he claimed that I had, but that he kept saying: "I promise that you did." I realize how it is absurd that I should get angry over such a point, but I can’t help it. Promising that something happened was to ignore that he might conceivably have misheard, or misunderstood whatever I had previously stated. And by expressing his opinion of what had been said, authenticating it with a promise as to its accuracy, I felt obliged to regard what he was saying as a lie. But I do realize how my irritation was quite unreasonable, and that I should adjust my attitude.

What I am really saying is that I was discovering that Valentine had a mind of his own, and he was giving out signals that he was reluctant to allow himself to be pushed around. But we always got on well enough together.

I received one letter from Christopher over this period, while he was serving with the Life Guards in the Canal Zone. And it would seem from its tone that we had successfully surmounted the ill feeling which had arisen from my initial letter to him at the time of his departure for Egypt. It is dated 3rd May 1954.

Many happy returns of the Sixth - although I doubt if they will reach you on time! I’ll be sending you some oddity from this sun-kissed land - as Val likes to call it - but it may take me a week or so to beat the wog down to the price I intend to pay for it. The best people to buy from are the street peddlers, since most of their goods are stolen, and they’ll sell it for almost any price, to get rid of it before it is found on them by the police.... I bought some filthy postcards today - which are so filthy I almost blush when I look at them. As to their filthy books, I’m amazed at the detail they describe.

It is unbearably hot at the moment.... The afternoons are too hot to do anything other than swim. We saw a young shark the other day, which scared us shitless. The Colonel has bought a speed boat and we’ve taken up water-skiing, which is tremendous fun.