Still Wednesday night, in Bristol.
I went to bed fairly early but read some of Jennie’s books in bed. I was sleeping in her room; I don’t know where she’d gone.
She took me into the English department the next morning and we spoke then to the secretary. As I say it was surprizing how little I felt (having just been turned down by them), then and later. We went to the library, and then she left me at the place I’d arranged to meet Dad. I didn’t size her up; but for her purposes it didn’t matter, she looked after me as well as anyone could have, although was a bit impersonal – but I would have been suspicious of anything else.
Dad was late and I stood in the rain for half an hour. We set off, for Wells Cathedral, Cheddar Gorge, Bath and then home.
Back to work tomorrow. I don’t really mind at all; but it would be more inviting if I felt closer to Mrs Gemmell. As it is, she does nothing for my self-respect. I always feel soul-less with her as if I’m a quite unremarkable and almost non-existent being.
Thursday night
I don’t mind being back – except for one thing; I am working so hard I have no time to think or read about things for my interview which looms frighteningly near and has assumed a vital importance. I arrived at about lunch-time and this afternoon was spent exercizing two ponies, mucking out two filthy boxes (which hadn’t been cleaned since last Monday) and cleaning two filthy sets of tack. I enjoyed the riding, but finished absolutely worn out and disinclined almost as much to mental as to physical action.
Friday night
A relaxing day, relatively speaking. The ponies were mucked out, exercized, fed; the tack cleaned, an hour and a half spent helping clean the dust-inundated drawing-room and a bonfire burned all before six this evening. Mr and Mrs Gemmell were going out to dinner, so I had the evening entirely to myself, my books and the television.
There was an interesting documentary on an African national park near Kilimanjaro. I felt very religious all of a sudden; I wanted to kneel down and acknowledge my own ineffectualness. I longed to argue with one of these self-important, egotistical, arrogant atheists who consider themselves men of reason when a more accurate description of their streak one be one unimaginative, petty and small-minded – not forgetting the most detestable trait of all; the self-congratulatory air. Gabriel Barker tends towards this; he is certainly proud of his atheism and will quote Camus at you delightedly – and he fails to realize that a believer, at least of the kind that I feel I am becoming, is not talking about politics.
Saturday night
My work-rate is slowing . . .I had an emotional crisis this afternoon. There was a misunderstanding on my part over lunch; I’d thought I would be alone but it turned out there was Mr Gemmell to cook for, and Mrs Gemmell’s mother was agitating for something to take to Mrs at the nursery. I ambled in at 1.30 intending to help myself to bread and cheese and was confronted with both of them. Granny made a point of being cross; Mr said nothing to me but I know he complained to his wife for it was the first thing she mentioned when I saw her later.
Well, I don’t mind her reprimands; she was quite right anyway, I should have listened. But Grannie’s complaints left me feeling distinctly hostile, and knowing that Mr had complained – and with every justification; he came home hungry at lunch-time expecting a meal and found nothing – knowing that he must think ill of me, I cracked up after Mum phoned this evening.
It was nothing very dramatic; I just retired for a 10-minute weep in my room. Mr and Mrs Gemmell were momentarily concerned; they thought it was something Mum had told me.
And in a way it was; she rang to say Sophie Nordmann had found me a job in Hannover teaching English with a woman who trained interpreters – for 6 months. My instant reaction was one of horror – and then, when my mother said I should have more confidence in myself, I burst into tears. I said little, I don’t think my mother knew I was crying. I couldn’t have told her why; I didn’t know myself; I only knew I felt horribly tired and weak.
I put a fairly bold front on for the rest of the evening. It is hard knowing you are criticized but you have to try to shut out the knowledge. I must be more stoic .. . it is ridiculous, my vulnerability.
The ponies suffer too, when I’m unstable. I confuse them with my moods and they get worried, not knowing how to take me, and can’t trust me.
I must be less academic, less critical, for the time being at any rate, if I want to hold down this job.
Monday night
And so . . .tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. It has to happen tomorrow. Oh God, I daren’t think how much I want it to happen. I must realize how easily it could not happen.
Oh my mother, how I love you, you are my prop, for I know that you will always be the same. Whether I pass or not. You are the only person. . .
She rang this evening and she told me among other things that the two other girls sitting Oxbridge English at Havant have been turned down without interviews. It reminds me how intense the pressure is; I didn’t feel so much better than them – my marks on the whole were worse.
Miranda Musgrove is pretty definitely in. Apparently Mary Bennet, of St Hilda’s house staff and Miranda’s aunt, rang the Musgroves to confirm it as far as she could . . . goodness I am nervous. I can feel it now, I will be in an absolute terror. .
It comes as an almost automatic gesture, to pray, Oh please, please God be kind to me . . . The fact that I don’t believe in that kind of a God becomes irrelevant.
Dear Diary 