the Autobiographical Association. She easily entered into the spirit of nostalgia; she felt herself persecuted and she had a great longing to be loved. I was alarmed at her sincerity and inability to detach herself from the situations of the others. I warned her, I kept on warning her that I suspected Sir Quentin was up to no good. Dottie said, ‘Have you planted me in that group for your own ends?’
‘Yes. And I thought it might amuse you. Don’t get dragged into it. Those people are infantile, and every days becoming more so.’
‘I shall pray for you,’ said Dottie, ‘to Our Lady of Fatima.’
‘Your Lady of Fatima,’ I said. Because, although I was a believer, I felt very strongly that Dottie’s concept of religion was of necessity different from mine, in the same way that, years later when she made dramatic announcements that she had lost her faith, I was rather relieved since I had always uneasily felt that if her faith was true then mine was false.
But now in my room after returning with me after a meeting at Sir Quentin’s, Dottie said, ‘You planted me. I’ll pray for you.’
‘Pray for the members of the Autobiographical Association,’ I said.
I don’t know why I thought of Dottie as my friend but I did. I believe she thought the same way about me although she didn’t really like me. In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn’t think of discarding them just because you didn’t altogether like them. Life on the intellectual fringe in 1949 was a universe by itself. It was something like life in Eastern Europe to-day.
We were sitting talking over the meeting. It was already late November. I had argued with Dottie all the way home, on the bus and standing with her in a queue at a food shop which ran out of stock of whatever it was Dottie had her eye on while the queue was still forming, and we the tenth; and anyway, it was closing time so that the brown-aproned grocer shut his doors with a click of the bolt and we plodded away.
The Autobiographical Association had taken her mind off Leslie. Neither of us had seen him for over three weeks. I had decided to finish with him as a lover, which was easy for me although I missed his face and his talk. Dottie was infuriated by my indifference, she desired so much that I should be in love with Leslie and not have him, and she felt I was cheapening her goods.
That afternoon was the third time I had attended a meeting of Quentin’s autobiographers since I had been at the job. So far Dottie had produced no biographical writing of her own for the others to see. She had in fact written a long confessional piece about Leslie and his young poet and her consequent sufferings. I had torn it up, violently warning her against making any such true revelation. ‘Why? ‘ said Dottie.
I couldn’t tell her why. I didn’t know why. I said I would be able to explain when I had written a few more chapters of my novel Warrender Chase.
‘What has that got to do with it?’ Dottie reasonably said.
‘It’s the only way I can come to a conclusion about what’s going on at Sir Quentin’s. I have to work it out through my own creativity. You have to follow my instinct, Dottie. I warned you not to give yourself away.’
‘But I like those people and Beryl Tims is so sweet. Sir Quentin’s odd, but he’s very reassuring, isn’t he? Like a priest I once knew as a girl when I was at school with the nuns. And I’m sorry for him with that dreadful old mother. He has real goodness …’
I sat with Dottie in my room trying to muddle my way into clarity. Whereas Dottie, with perfect clarity, was arguing a case for her own complete involvement, and I sensed trouble, either for her or from her.
‘If you feel as you do,’ Dottie said, ‘you should leave the job.’
‘But I’m involved. I have to know what’s going on. I sense a
‘Yes. And I thought it might amuse you. Don’t get dragged into it. Those people are infantile, and every days becoming more so.’
‘I shall pray for you,’ said Dottie, ‘to Our Lady of Fatima.’
‘Your Lady of Fatima,’ I said. Because, although I was a believer, I felt very strongly that Dottie’s concept of religion was of necessity different from mine, in the same way that, years later when she made dramatic announcements that she had lost her faith, I was rather relieved since I had always uneasily felt that if her faith was true then mine was false.
But now in my room after returning with me after a meeting at Sir Quentin’s, Dottie said, ‘You planted me. I’ll pray for you.’
‘Pray for the members of the Autobiographical Association,’ I said.
I don’t know why I thought of Dottie as my friend but I did. I believe she thought the same way about me although she didn’t really like me. In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn’t think of discarding them just because you didn’t altogether like them. Life on the intellectual fringe in 1949 was a universe by itself. It was something like life in Eastern Europe to-day.
We were sitting talking over the meeting. It was already late November. I had argued with Dottie all the way home, on the bus and standing with her in a queue at a food shop which ran out of stock of whatever it was Dottie had her eye on while the queue was still forming, and we the tenth; and anyway, it was closing time so that the brown-aproned grocer shut his doors with a click of the bolt and we plodded away.
The Autobiographical Association had taken her mind off Leslie. Neither of us had seen him for over three weeks. I had decided to finish with him as a lover, which was easy for me although I missed his face and his talk. Dottie was infuriated by my indifference, she desired so much that I should be in love with Leslie and not have him, and she felt I was cheapening her goods.
That afternoon was the third time I had attended a meeting of Quentin’s autobiographers since I had been at the job. So far Dottie had produced no biographical writing of her own for the others to see. She had in fact written a long confessional piece about Leslie and his young poet and her consequent sufferings. I had torn it up, violently warning her against making any such true revelation. ‘Why? ‘ said Dottie.
I couldn’t tell her why. I didn’t know why. I said I would be able to explain when I had written a few more chapters of my novel Warrender Chase.
‘What has that got to do with it?’ Dottie reasonably said.
‘It’s the only way I can come to a conclusion about what’s going on at Sir Quentin’s. I have to work it out through my own creativity. You have to follow my instinct, Dottie. I warned you not to give yourself away.’
‘But I like those people and Beryl Tims is so sweet. Sir Quentin’s odd, but he’s very reassuring, isn’t he? Like a priest I once knew as a girl when I was at school with the nuns. And I’m sorry for him with that dreadful old mother. He has real goodness …’
I sat with Dottie in my room trying to muddle my way into clarity. Whereas Dottie, with perfect clarity, was arguing a case for her own complete involvement, and I sensed trouble, either for her or from her.
‘If you feel as you do,’ Dottie said, ‘you should leave the job.’
‘But I’m involved. I have to know what’s going on. I sense a
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