3

As usual in the midst of the catastrophically unusual. Soon, it seemed to be all we knew. Each day might be our last, whether in Whitechapel or Buckingham Palace. Nothing for it but to take the nights as they came, then pick up and get on with the business of the day. People watched out for eachother, British reserve broke down, strangers opened up and communicated. Workers went to work, housewives attended to their duties.

My mother had been in London all along. Bryher stayed on in Switzerland. Then, restless in that peaceful neutral country surrounded by enemy forces, she applied for repatriation. And set off on a circuitous journey in sealed buses, through unoccupied France and Spain, wait listed for a plane out of Lisbon. Incommunicado from start to finish. "Don't worry," Osbert Sitwell said to us, "she'll arrive with the invasion barges."

Winston Churchill gave one of his rousing speeches -- with an aside often quoted in later years, not heard by listeners at the time, "and we'll fight them with beer bottles because that's all we've got."

Bryher was at the door a couple of days later.

She moved into my mother's apartment in Lowndes Square, the two of them close together as they had never been before. The place wasn't big enough.

Bryher's energy was prodigious, now it had nowhere to go. She should have been running a platoon, if only she could find one to suit her talents. She wrote letters compulsively, ten twenty a day. She was on the telephone, constantly, or it was ringing again. Everything echoed.

Nobody, we might have thought, could be more pathologically
unsuited to bombardment than my mother.

After September 7th, she never mentioned her nerves.

Her mornings were orderly and serene, consecrated
to work. She wrote a long poem, _The Walls do not Fall_,
which eventually became a trilogy.

Bryher channelled her executive powers into keeping
house. After reviewing the events of the night with Hodge
as soon as she shops opened
the doorman, she set off with a clutch of string bags and
the
madexx rounds off the shop. Also made friends, chatting up
the staff, hearing their bomb stories.

She was genuinely interested in people, how they lived,
how it all was for them; she remembered every detail -- Mum's
arthritis, sister Betty the landgirl digging potatoes in Essex,
Dad's duties as an air raid warden -- the broken windows,
the scares, the troubles. They in turn responded to the
austere little figure always there at the same time every day.
They stashed extras aside -- precious chocolate biscuits,
a jar of Bovril. Then over to the fish monger -- yes, some
nice Finnan Haddie, just in, handy for supper. On to the baker,
sometimes he had scones, sometimes not, anyway his bread was
better than most. And so it went, methodically, diligently.
It took quite a lot of time. Home, laden like a pack pony.
She unloaded in the kitchen and went out again to meet Osbert
Sitwell for their daily walk in the park.

5

They gave tea parties, the most popular form of entertainment, easy to cater, guests well on their way home before the blackout. My favorite writer, Elizabeth Bowen, often came over from Regent's Park, an area particularly vulnerable to unexploded bombs.

Despite cordons and cancelled transportation she always arrived punctually, dressed as if for a garden party. Beautiful hats. She was an entertaining conversationalist, despite a stammer which she turned into part of her style; a rewarding listener too.

Ivy Compton-Burnett, a little wirehaired terrier of a woman, brusque, didactic; and her plump easy going friend Margaret Jourdain. Faithful Osbert Sitwell, sometimes accompanied by his spectacular sister Edith. Nobody mentioned the war.

These eminent people loved to gossip -- what Cyril Connolly had said to T S Eliot and Harold Nicolson to Evelyn Waugh; some critic's dastardly review, Dylan Thomas' pub crawls.

Name dropping, good laughter, it did them all good. became

After dark, things were edgy. When would the onslaught begin? Maybe, with luck, dinner in peace. But no rather than doubt that it would come, sooner or later, as night fell earlier.

Bryher finished up her noisy correspondence. HD took up needlework, losing herself in skeins of wool and mythical x in an orchard.

They remained upstairs for the nine o'clock news, then went down to the box room -- rented storage space, little more than a cupboard. There they slept fitfully, or not at all, on Spartan cots, surrounded by luggage.

I answered a call for mobile canteen drivers, meals on wheels for the rescue workers digging out casualties, alive or dead.

There were two of us, a partner buddy and I. We worked out of a depot in the East End, loaded the van and sped over broken glass, past through the ruins, and parked where we could.

"Here come the ministering angels!"

Wonderful burly Cockneys, full of jokey banter.
They had to maintain some balance of cheer on that grisly job,
or go mad. They were so grateful as we poured tea and distributed
buns, helter skelter.

We then collected the mugs -- no Styrofoam or paper cups in those days -- and raced back to wash up, load up for the next round.

Back and forth and on to yet another site. Pork pies
sausage rolls, for
and sandwiches at lunch time, cakes at tea time. And back to
do the dishes
base: wash up, mop the floor, scrub the van.

Rush hour on the Underground was complicated by
crowds ensconced for a safe night, a vast sprawling picnic at
the bottom of a tunnel.

Home at last, dead beat.

in

My second wind blew quickly. A girl had to have
some fun, as did our boys, in town between spells of arduous duty,
some on embarkation leave, about to push off to African deserts,
Asian jungles.

We gathered at the Four Hundred club, a marvellous
A terrific band. Jazz comoser
dark hole lined with red fabric. The piano player, Reginald
at the piano.
Forsythe, was a friend of mine, a West Indian who looked like
an Assyrian king. He treated us like royalty.

We danced, we talked, how we talked -- long soul
searching exchanges. Wait for me, darling, write to me,
promise.... Yes, Yes.

"That certain night
the night we met
there was magic abroad in the air
angels dining at the Ritz
and a nightingale sang in Berkely Square

Our Song to numerous romantically inclined couples.
With everything else abroad in the air, including bombs on
Berkeley Square, that song, rising up, going through.

A bomb fell on Leicester Square. Reggie played
on without missing a beat.

That's the way I lived.

8

Was I ever scared? YES! At times, by no means all
In the line of fire, always.
the time. Whenever I heard that long whistle as of giant
shears ripping down a mile high bolt of silk -- followed
by violent explosion. And another and another, six in a row,
each getting nearer. A scary count down as as even the most
hardened battle veterans admitted. Delayed action bombs came
singly, the same silky descent with a dud landing -- homes
evacuated on the instant, streets cordoned off while new
age heroes tinkered with fuses. Land mines, chained to
parachutes. Clank, clank, hither and thither with the
horrendous radius
wind, megablast over a wide area on first contact

Then, one night in late November, rain on the window
pane, searchlights criss-crossing the sky, the nine o'clock
news as depressing as ever. But no sirens. We waited
endlessly, couldn't settle down. The silence was totally
disorienting. It took us at least a week to adjust.

The lull continued until the eve of New Year's Eve,
when the entire sky turned crimson under a brief but massive
attack of fire bombs. St. Paul's was saved that night,
only just.

9

So ended that chaotic year. It seems a very long time
ago, as remote as the Wars of the Roses. Who was that girl?
Passing sensations bring it all back, with total immediacy.
A waft of the perfume I wore at the Four Hundred, the miasma
of burn out and rotting masonry from derelic houses.
Sirens still set my adrenalin to pumping. And always,
most fatally, the music. Recently at the Algonquin,
A Nightingale sang in Berkely Square.
And, as Noel Coward said, "nothing as potent as popular music"
Recently, at the Algonquin, A Nightingale sang in
Berkely Square.

years later, into Mrs. John Schaffner -- no Lucy Stoner I --
and plain, self explanatory. I'm still uneasy when asked
about my maiden name: Aldington-Macpherson....? Unwieldy.

It would have seemed acceptable for newly weds to set
up their own establishment, even temporary, in this case a
hotel or a service flat. No. Bryher insisted, when in London
they must stay with Family. So Kenneth was thrust into the
maw. As the legal daughter I was too. My mother obviously
preferred the arrangement. 169 Sloane Street was now her
exclusive domain, no rambunctious eight year old <u>желатель</u>
humping through her thoughts. It was not an outright
rejection, I saw her almost every day. And now I <u>кann</u> understand.

Kenneth has his fictitious job. Otherwise he was
expected to dance attendance. He got along well enough
with Sir John -- courteous exchanges, not much else. He
respected the old gentleman, but fond him abstracted,
impersonal, just as I did. He was very good with young
John who was sorely in need of a confidant, someone older
yet young enough to empathize with his discontents and talk
him out of his moodiness.

He proved a great leader in the场.
Most importantly, Lady Ellerman adored him. He
played backgammon with her after dinner, sometimes even
participated
in the afternoon motoring runs. His presence had a
calming effect. She confided, unexpectedly that she loved
music halls, and sighed but of course nowadays that kind
of thing would never do, she sighed.

And
next why not?

Well, Sir John would never allow, and what would the servants think?

Kenneth cut through all the nonsense, bought two tickets to the Palladium -- a good roaring variety show such as she pined for -- and supper afterwards. Surprisingly, Sir John complied, insisting only that the Rolls Royce convey them on the entire round.

After midnight supper with a bottle of "bubbly" they returned shockingly late. A sleepy footman waited up for them, in full livery.

The experiment cheered Lady Ellerman no end. It was repeated, not too often, boundaries had to be observed. Every three weeks or so, and she would drop the hint.

"Kenneth dear, I wonder what's on at the Paladium.

He brought monkeys into the family -- not South Audley Street, But the Sloane Street maisonette, with H D their temporary custodian. A rare species from Brazil, small and squirrellly, with orange fronts, grey backs, enormous black eyes rimmed in white circles. Bill and Sister. They chittered happily in their cages, were let out to entertain visitors.

the guest

They accompanied us back to Switzerland, a room was set up as a monkey room, the nucleus of a new menagerie.

We were all together

Free of London's irksome restraints; a creative surge set in. Kenneth started writing a novel, Bryher finished one. H D retreated into mysterious projects. Somebody was always typing, often several at the same time. As I had my own typewriter and it seemed the thing to do, I embarked on a saga about a boy hunting hippos; they swam away and I couldn't decide where to go next.

X

LANDSCAPE DESIGN • PLANTINGS • GARDEN MAINTENANCE

Galen Williams

27A SPRING CLOSE HIGHWAY • EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK 11937 • (516) 324-62204 7

SCHAFFNE

08/30/91

PERDITA SCHAFFNER
1223 SPRINGS FIREPLACE RD.
EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. 11937

ORDERED: 08/30/91 PAYMENT DUE: 09/09/91

TERMS: NET 10

<table><tbody><tr><td>AUG 16</td><td>DARLEEN 2.5 HRS<br/>WATERED BOTH MAIN GARDENS AND IMPATIENS AND<br/>VINCA ALONG PATIO.</td><td>68.75</td></tr><tr><td>AUG 23</td><td>DARLEEN 4.5 HRS<br/>REMOVED DEBRIS FROM 2 MAIN GARDENS. CUT BACK<br/>AND STAKED WHERE NEEDED. WATERED IMPATIENS.</td><td>123.75</td></tr><tr><td>AUG 26</td><td>JANE 4.75 HRS<br/>CONTINUED CLEANING UP. WEEDED, CUT BACK AND<br/>DEADHEADED IN MAIN GARDEN. WATERED WISTERIA<br/>BORDER. DEADHEADED BARREL.</td><td>130.63</td></tr><tr><td>AUG 27</td><td>JANE 4.75 HRS<br/>WATERED MAIN GARDEN, HYDRANGEA BED, STONE<br/>WALL, PATIO EDGE AND LIBRARY AREA. DEADHEADED<br/>WINDOW BOXES. CLEANED UP HYDRANGEA BED: CUT<br/>BACK AND WEEDED. CLEANED UP IMPATIENS AT<br/>LIBRARY.</td><td>130.63</td></tr><tr><td>AUG 29</td><td>JANE 4.5 HRS<br/>PLANTED MUMS IN MAIN GARDEN AND WATERED IN.<br/>WEEDED AND CLEANED UP.</td><td>123.75</td></tr><tr><td>AUG 30</td><td>DARLEEN 2.5 HRS<br/>WATERED ALL GARDENS. SPOT WEEDED AS NEEDED.</td><td>68.75</td></tr></tbody><tfoot><tr><td>TOTAL</td><td></td><td>646.26</td></tr></tfoot></table>

"Dolly, Dolly --" that soft but peremptory voice.

Bryher on the gallop, hauling me along "Yes, Mama"
and to me, "hurry up we have to get ready."

Ready for what? Yet another inconsequential event --
meals and outings, that was what life added up to. 8 o'clock
sharp, 11 o'clock, 4.30 -- toe the line at least ten minutes
before that awful sharp.

Asprey's of Bond Street for visiting cards and writing
Lengthy consultations with
paper, Fortnum & Mason's for chocolates. Monsieur and Madame
of South Molton St
Blanquart, Queen Mary's dressmaker. Over to Knightsbridge,
Harrods, Woolland's, Harvey Nichols. All frippery -- household
marketing
shopping was done by the downstairs staff. Bryher and I followed
her around, two passive handmaidens dressed in our very best,
and bored out of our minds.

"Oh, the traffic," Lady Ellerman would exclaim, "it
gets worse and worse every day --"

Exactly what

Musk as we all say today in every city of the world,
yet it seems it was just as bad way back then. Much of it was
horse drawn, hooves merging with the rumble of the big red buses.
The clip-clop of the milkman delivery vans, the ponderous clomp
of cart horses hauling coal. Stuck No Traffic lights had not
been invented, policemen directed the stop and go. Now The
huge
Rolls Royce stuck alongside a shaggy horse peering in.

peering into
mostly stop, shaggy horses alongside, the Rolls Royce.