Love, Nina (22 page)

Later, when MK got home:

Me: Did you get my message about the crab being OK?

MK: Yes, loud and clear.

Me: I didn't want to be too explicit, just in case.

MK: Very considerate.

Anyway. It was a nice supper and everyone liked the crab pâté and the next course, which was chicken pieces cooked with garlic cloves. No potatoes. Horrible little khaki beans out of tins and one of AB's salads (dressed). Overall, though, very nice and a gooseberry pie that came with a guest (plus one of AB's uninvited milky things).

Someone mentioned Beatrix Potter so I told about the philosophy student with the squirrel in his pocket and MK said, “tell them about the horseshoe,” and “tell them about the Appleseed girl.”

MK: (
to all
) She has the most amazing time.

Writer Woman: Which college is this?

Me: Thames Poly.

Writer Woman: I don't know that one—where is it?

Me: The Greenwich area.

MK: I always think of it as Dartford.

Me: Well, from now on think of it as Greenwich.

MK: OK, but where is it?

Me: Woolwich.

MK: Right. Now tell about the Appleseed girl.

Ring me soon.

Love, Nina

PS Re P, I'd say no. But I'm not 100% against.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Don't think I ever said I didn't
like
the name Peter. Might've been MK and her penis-names thing. Peter's fine. Though it does sound a bit penisy. But then, so many do.

When you read American fiction you get to accept all sorts of names that were unthinkable before. Dick, Frank, Milo, Chuck, Micky, Dick, Biff, Willie, Gullie, Happy, Augie, Fritz, Artie, Woody, Rocky, Bill.

A character in one of Nunney's favorite books is called Dick Diver.

Sam was given a bag of marbles by a friend of MK's (Will got a compass). Sam was unimpressed and ignored the marbles until the friend had left.

Sam: How do you play marbles?

Me: I don't actually know.

Sam: Is it to do with rolling them?

Me: I think so, but I'm not sure how exactly.

Sam: Didn't you play marbles in your day?

Will: She lost them at a young age.

Here's a thing. Whenever Misty has sex (with boyfriend) she thinks of St. Thomas's church opposite the Esso garage. She's wondering if it's a message from above. She's confused because she's never been inside the church. She did walk past once, years ago, and soon after passing it a dog (that looked like a pig) leapt over a low wall and chased her (growling) all the way to the park…where she was able to run in and shut the gate against the drooling dog.

And that whole episode plays through her head while they do it.

She asked my opinion. I said it sounded as though the dog-that-looked-like-a-pig is significant,
not
the church. The church is just a landmark. The church doesn't do anything whereas the dog leaps and chases and looks like a pig.

Misty: So it's not a message?

Me: It
is
a message, but from your subconscious.

Misty: What's it saying?

Me: It's reminding you to shut the gate.

Misty: Wow!

Also, she's had her ears pierced and is wearing tiny gold moons. Pretty.

Love, Nina

PS It's a shame Misty isn't at Thames Poly and in our
Autobiography & Fiction
seminar group.

Incidents full of revealing symbolism always happen to her and she doesn't even realize. She's at Roehampton doing science.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Nunney came to visit the Crescent (i.e. Tom and S&W). He had his friend “the Dog” with him. The Dog doesn't smoke or drink tea so they all played a type of cricket in the car park while I had a cup of tea.

Nunney having the Dog with him reminded me about Misty imagining being chased by a dog-that-looked-like-a-pig during sex with her boyfriend.

I mentioned it to Nunney later. I didn't say who it was because Misty and Nunney know each other a bit and she'd be mortified to think he knew her intimate sexual imaginings. It wasn't a gossiping thing—I just thought it might be a bit Freudian and therefore of (academic) interest to Nunney.

Me: And then, running, she reaches a park and shuts the pig-faced dog out.

Nunney: (
thinking
) What's the boyfriend like?

Me: A bit piggy—why? Do you assume the dog/pig represents the boyfriend?

Nunney said the dog-that-looked-like-a-pig probably represents the boyfriend's thing. And Misty's imagined reaction to it suggests that she doesn't want it anywhere near her.

Honestly, sometimes I'm so relieved not to be studying Freud and Jung etc. at college. Imagine having to go into all that in seminars and say things represented things etc.

Suppose you got it wrong and thought something represented a thing and it didn't…It'd be like being in a Woody Allen film.

Love, Nina

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

I'm so sorry about you having to sell Molly O. I know it's the right thing to do but it's still very sad.

I have written a five-minute poem for her. I know it's no consolation but it's the kind of thing people do when they're studying literature.

Let's promise we'll go riding somewhere nice on a beach soon or in Spain or somewhere exciting and new.

Beginning to love poetry courses. I avoided to start with because tutor seemed mardy and difficult to please. But: (a) Romanticism course was rumored to be running with a different tutor (the marvelous John Williams), and (b) the mardy-seeming tutor cheered up a bit anyway (due to private life improvements?).

Having said all that, I'm stuck on an essay (Romanticism).

I'd have loved to study Yeats, MacNeice, T. S. Eliot—I know them from them hanging around at 55 (the books, not the poets). Especially loved
The Secret Rose,
which I found underneath an old cup of tea (with a skin on it) in MK's sitting room when I'd gone in to nick a fag.

I am going to suggest you start reading poetry. I know it's the last thing you ever thought you'd hear me say but I mean it. The thing is, Vic, poetry can be beautiful and amazing even if it's quite old. And if you set yourself to read some, you might love it. And though you can't have a horse anymore, you'll have these poems in your life. And if you read a good one a few times and learn it, it can spring to mind at unexpected times and make you feel better, or at least clever.

But, when I say old, I don't mean
really
old—don't go earlier than 1900 (for now).

Told MK I'd picked the wrong poetry course.

Me: Not all that keen on the Romantic poets.

MK: Oh dear.

Me: Everyone else loves them, but I don't that much.

MK: It's sounding like Shakespeare all over again.

Me: It's not that bad, I just prefer later stuff.

MK: Such as?

Me: Stuff you have lying around—Eliot, Yeats and co.

MK: Mm, good and bad.

Me: Why?

MK: Good you like it. Bad you'll nick my copies.

I'm
typing
the essay (Romanticism) because someone's told us you get good marks if you type, even if it's total rubbish—lecturers being so grateful not having to read scrawl and scribble. The thing is, typing gives me an ache in my collarbone (left side, the one I broke) and I hate typing the word Wordsworth.

Always think of that shop (Worth's Gifts & Toys) where I bought the ashtray for Elspeth with sixteen squares of different-colored glass. And poor Mr. Worth claiming their name was actually Wordsworth but they'd shortened it for the shop-front sign so they could fit in the word “toys.”

Love, Nina

PS Here's my poem for Molly O:

Dark and dappled Connemara mare,

Soft mouth, responsive, sixteen hands high.

Genuine, heart-breaking reason for sale,

Sound in heart and wind and eye.

I can't have a horse anymore,

Shan't live by pasture nor down a lane.

Got my eye on a blue Fiat Panda

But I'll never own a horse again.

Easy to catch, shoe, box and hunt,

Nice action, four legs, good pace.

Hardy, out to grass all year,

Maybelline lashes and a blaze on her face.

Quiet in traffic, runs on cinder or sand,

A perfect hack for someone's wife.

Molly O, I'm letting you go,

I need the three hundred to start my life.

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Been working on my
Autobiography & Fiction
essay. I have considered every word. It's very autobiographical with a touch of fictionalization. You're in it, obviously. I'll send you a copy (if you want). It's a few words over the limit. Our max is 3,000 words (unusually long, but PH said it's hard to keep autobiographical writing short) but he did ask us to keep it “very much shorter than that—if at all possible.”

Unforeseen consequence: Before I began (essay) I thought Elspeth had been a bit of a menace as a parent. But now I see her as a bit of a hero (MK/Thames effect) and realize that if she'd been a bloke, people would not have treated her like a menace. And that would have been nicer all round. People treating her like a menace was the worst aspect (in my opinion).

But writing truthfully is very hard—i.e. I wrote about when we took the ponies upstairs and had to blindfold them to get them down again. At the time it seemed like a funny emergency but written, it seems cruel and mad.

I didn't mean it to seem cruel or mad (in the writing). I meant it to seem funny, but whatever way I wrote it, the ponies seem terrified and we seem insane. In the end the writing wins and you have to assume it was the way it seems in the writing of it.

Which is why you might be less than truthful. It's sort of: to tell the truth, you have to lie a bit.

That's what this course (
Auto & Fiction
) is trying to show us. I now feel a bit sorry for the student from Luton with the bra story that kept changing.

Stella is struggling for the opposite reason. Her upbringing has been very normal and quiet and, apart from a few foreign visitors (including Japanese and South American and Communists), it's been totally normal (you might say boring). Which might sound great to us, but when it comes to writing autobiography, it's the last thing you want.

Plus, she's not the show-off type and always likes to do the right thing, so even her recent life has been quite dull. Highlights so far: becoming a certified Clark's fitter and one summer season in a doughnut booth at Butlin's—where she met new people and, for the first time in her life, didn't have a fixed food schedule and could eat chips on Tuesday instead of Friday.

Anyway, all this means she's finding it difficult to write her autobiographical essay.

I said maybe she should really exaggerate the normality/boredom aspect and write a list of things in a monotonous way. She didn't like that idea and is considering doing it in a “stream-of-consciousness” style like Virginia Woolf. This has reared its ugly head because she's doing a modernism course.

SH: I'm thinking of doing it in a stream-of-consciousness, like Virginia Woolf.

Me: (
thinking “Fuck!”
) Yeah, s'pose you could.

SH: I thought I'd just sit down and let it all stream out.

Me: Yeah.

SH: It might turn out boring.

Me: But you could add interesting nuggets after, like the thief cutting your hair off and you having a sexual awakening.

SH: I don't want a sexual awakening.

Me: I wish you would.

SH: Why?

Me: It would be hilarious.

SH: Well, you have one.

Me: I can't, it wouldn't fit with my themes.

SH: Anyway, stream-of-consciousness means you present whatever comes streaming out, you don't tweak or add funny bits or sexual awakenings.

Me: I bet Virginia Woolf added bits.

SH: (
shocked
) No, she didn't, she invented the concept, and she wouldn't cheat her own system.

Hope you're all well. Bad about the toilet seat. Ours at 55 was like that (before the replacement). Nunney used to call it “the pincher.”

Love, Nina

PS Anyway, about to hand essay in (eek!), tell me if you want to see a copy. You're in it!

*  *  *

Dear Vic,

Will's been on about how swear words that we use today have actually been around for centuries and were invented by clever and funny writers of old (Chaucer and Shakespeare for instance). Sam and me decided we wanted a new swear word for the modern world. It had to be annoying but not too rude, so that if we said it in front of anyone proper (Ras's mum) it wouldn't matter. Our main objective was to drive MK and Will mad.

We came up with the fantastic “flip-flop.” We kept saying it, instead of fuck, shit or damn. Soon it began to get on Will's nerves.

Will: Can you stop saying flip-flop?

Sam: I got it off her (
me
).

Will: Yes, you both say it all the time and it's really annoying.

Me: We're saying it instead of F-U-C-K.

Sam:
(
pots the white ball
) Flip-flop!

Will: I'm finding flip-flop more offensive than fuck.

Sam: Yeah, and we invented it.

Later:

Sam: (
to MK
) Will can't stand flip-flop.

MK: What?

Will: It's their pathetic new swear word, instead of fuck.

MK: I hadn't noticed.

Will: It's annoying.

MK: Yes, I prefer fuck.

Pippa phoned and asked if she and boyfriend could stay Saturday night (last) so they could attend various events at a jazz festival (MK & S&W were going to be away).

Asked MK: