So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald. Penelope Fitzgerald

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СКАЧАТЬ the night – is really just a spare office with a sofa, in case he can’t manage to stagger home. And Joan bought some pretty tea towels for it!

      I’m sure you don’t realise, as one can’t, working away at it, day by day, what an immense amount you’ve done at Moorland Rd, and how well everything is beginning to look. The hall, with the coloured glass, is such a good introduction to the house, then the other colours follow.

      A letter from Broccoli Clark inc., Columbia, asking for my impressions of the Booker Prize. I think I might give them a few of my recollections, which would stop them being so painful, as surely nobody in England would be likely to read them.

      I rang up Ria to congratulate her &, if everything doesn’t freeze up, hope to have lunch with her tomorrow, when she doesn’t have to lecture until 3.

      We usually have the vegetable soup and French bread at Habitat and Ria recklessly takes more than one or indeed 2 of those miserable little squares of butter. I do hope nothing has frozen up in Bishop’s Road, there is such a complicated balance to keep going there, and of course Tom-Tom hates the cold, but he has plenty of room to extend himself there.

      Theo has come in, and is smashing the ice in the bath. BBC advises elderly people living on their own not to cut down on the food, so shall have my dinner, parsnips and bacon.

      Now I’m going to ask you something which I hope you won’t find mad or irritating or both, and that is, do you think that you and Terry could possibly find something else to go down on the living-room floor except the serape? I thought it was lost, and never expected to see it again, but since you’ve found it, and all the lovely colours (though not the right ones, I know) I should so very much like to keep it as what it really is, a bedspread, I haven’t one here in London and of course not the Bishop’s Rd bedsitter, (if John and Maria really feel able to do that) – it is the only thing I have left from Chestnut Lodge, as I wasn’t allowed the opportunity to say what I wanted to keep from the sell-up at Blackshore, and all the things I cared about most were sold – well, all that’s in the past, – but I carried the serape all the way from Mexico City, through N. York, then Halifax and back to Liverpool on the old Franconia, and it was never meant as a rug or a carpet, any more than your own heirloom patchwork quilt, and if it has to be on bare boards without any undercarpet I don’t think it will last long, if it’s walked over. Please don’t think me mad, or even worse, stingy, but please could you take it up, I was wondering whether the green cotton dhurries would do instead, they’re machine-made (the serape is hand-woven) and don’t matter a bit: but I suppose they would be the wrong colour? Anyway I would be glad to contribute to another rug for your birthday, if I could please keep the serape, I think you can see from the way it’s wrinkling up that it isn’t really intended to go on a floor? It never has before. – I wish now I’d kept the undercarpet from Theale, but no matter. Don’t be annoyed with me, truly I appreciate your goodness to me over so many years – it’s just a weakness of old age to want to keep a few ‘nice things’ connected with the past and the serape as we said is 35 years old – I could never buy one like it now – and I should so much like to keep it – perhaps it isn’t a ‘nice thing’ to anyone else, but it is to me. so much love to you all Ma.

      

      28 March [c.1988]

      

      Dearest Tina, so many thanks for lovely Easter visit – Mary said on the way back in the train that she realised she’d overdone things with the envelopes and this holiday had made all the difference and I’m sure it has, and you know what it means to me to see you all, and I think it’s gallant in the extreme of you and Terry to manage outings and expeditions to the beach as well as even more than the usual list of other things to do – but I think this has got beyond the stage of lists.

      I hope dear Luke will change his mind about being tired of the human race, as he told me on the beach, or at least he’ll kindly make a few exceptions.

      I have been brushing my best black coat with a damp brush, and it looks all right, but then the hairs come back again, they appear to be growing out of the coat while my back is turned – (now hanging in the lower basement while some fanciful alterations are going on)

      much love to all from Ma

      

      [postcard of Paul Klee image]

      [1988]

      

      Dearest Tina – I’m sending you this although it’s been up on the wall, because I thought you might like it – do you remember your knobblyhead?

      I was so happy at Watchet, and loved the Vikings even in the adverse weather conditions. Thankyou for listening to my probably imaginary and certainly small and dull difficulties (I could feel how dull they were even while I was describing them) while you were at such a point of exhaustion and hateful headache and I can’t tell whether it’s gone away even now but I do hope and pray so, as it looked only just about bearable. Note that I’m not giving advice or talking about Nurofen or feverfew.

      I got the train with 2 minutes to spare – wonderful, just like Round the World in 80 days – a train too grand to stop at Newbury, though they always do at Westbury, perhaps because there are so many Nobs there. The castors on my bed work very well – without them I know I should never have dusted behind it and perhaps I shan’t now – but I know I could. Joan asks to know why I left my ironing-board behind? When it’s hers and I only left it after a severe struggle of conscience. Too late now!

      All my love to all the family and best wishes for

      

      [incomplete]

      

      29 November [1988]

      – distraught –

      

      Dearest Tina – Just off to dreaded all-day Commonwealth Fiction judging, followed by Kipper^* exhibition (manias), still feel dreadful, but Ria much better and Sophie singing and chirruping. I’m in a terrible state because I wanted to ask you whether the weekend of 8 Dec would be any good, as there are various things (not important) I shd. be doing on 16th and 17th, but if Luke has part in play it’s different and MY TELEPHONE HAS GONE DEAD.

      Sad because Francis^** has had horrid operation and can’t get over David dying. much love Ma

       27 Bishop’s Road, N6

      Tuesday [August 1989]

      Dearest Tina,

      I could hardly believe that you’d taken the time to write me a letter and such a nice long one. I loved hearing about the house – I still have your letters describing Milène’s family, and Uncle Georges in the cellars, and this one is even better. I’m so glad you went to Brittany as the weather is so wonderful you’ve got every possible advantage, and a proper garden and fruit and grass instead of a square of paving and 2 geraniums in pots and an unclimbable carob tree. I, too, wondered if P.^* might be thrown out, and am so glad he isn’t, I can imagine him climbing and singing and Jemima running – how she ran on the beach at St Audries – and Luke, I can see, quite invaluable, bless him, fancy producing his French at 2 o’clock in the morning. No-one will ever have grandchildren like mine, you know.

      It СКАЧАТЬ