Agahta Christie - An autobiography Part 31

'We don't mean what you you mean,' they said. 'We don't mean photography mean,' they said. 'We don't mean photography cla.s.ses, cla.s.ses, at all.' at all.'

'What do you mean?' I asked, bewildered.

'Oh, being photographed in bathing-dresses and things, for advertis.e.m.e.nts.'

I was horribly shocked, and showed it.

'You are not not going to be photographed for advertis.e.m.e.nts for bathing-dresses,' I said. 'I won't hear of anything like that.' going to be photographed for advertis.e.m.e.nts for bathing-dresses,' I said. 'I won't hear of anything like that.'

'Mother is so terribly old-fas.h.i.+oned,' said Rosalind, with a sigh. 'Lots of girls are photographed for advertis.e.m.e.nts. They are terribly jealous of each other.'

'And we do know some photographers,' Susan said. 'I think we could persuade one of them to do one of us for soap.'

I continued to veto the project. In the end Rosalind said she would think about photography cla.s.ses. After all, she said, she could do model photography cla.s.sesit needn't be for bathing-dresses. 'It could be real clothes, b.u.t.toned up to the neck, if you like!'

So I went off one day to the Reinhardt School of Commercial Photography, and I became so interested that when I came home I had to confess that I had booked myself myself for a course of photography and not for a course of photography and not them. them. They roared with laughter. 'Mother's got caught by it, instead of us!' said Rosalind. They roared with laughter. 'Mother's got caught by it, instead of us!' said Rosalind.

'Oh, you poor dear, you will be so tired,' said Susan. And tired I was! After the first day running up and down stone flights of stairs, developing and retaking my particular subject, I was worn out.

The Reinhardt School of Photography had many different departments, including one on commercial photography, and one of my courses was in this. There was a pa.s.sion at that time for making everything look as unlike itself as possible. You would place six tablespoons on a table, then climb on a stepladder, hang over the top of it, and achieve some fore-shortened view or out of focus effect. There was also a tendency to photograph an object not in the middle of the plate but somewhere in the left-hand corner, or running off it, or a face that was only a portion of a face. It was all very much the latest thing. I took a beechwood sculptured head to the School, and did various experiments in photographing that, using all kinds of filtersred, green, yellowand seeing the extraordinarily different effects you could get using various cameras with the various filters.

The person who did not share my enthusiasm was the wretched Max. He wanted his photography to be the opposite of what I was now doing. Things had to look exactly what they were, with as much detail as possible, exact perspective, and so on.

'Don't you think this necklace looks rather dull dull like that?' I would say. 'No, I don't,' said Max. 'The way you've got it, it's all blurred and twisted.' like that?' I would say. 'No, I don't,' said Max. 'The way you've got it, it's all blurred and twisted.'

'But it looks so exciting that way!'

'I don't want it to look exciting,' said Max. 'I want it to look like what it is. And you haven't put a scale rod in.'

'It ruins the artistic aspect of a photograph if you have to have a scale rod, It looks awful.'

'You've got to show what size it is,' said Max. 'It is most important.' 'You can put it underneath, can't you, in the caption?'

'It's not the same thing. You want to see exactly the scale.'

I sighed. I could see I had been betrayed by my artistic fancies into straying from what I had promised to do, so I got my instructor to give me extra lessons on photographing things in exact perspective. He was rather bored at having to do this, and disapproving of the results. However, it was going to be useful to me.

I had learnt one thing at least: there was no such thing as taking a photograph of something, and later taking another one because that one didn't come out well. n.o.body at the Reinhardt School ever took less than ten negatives of any any subject; a great many of them took twenty. It was singularly exhausting, and I used to come home so weary that I wished I had never started. However, that had gone by the next morning. subject; a great many of them took twenty. It was singularly exhausting, and I used to come home so weary that I wished I had never started. However, that had gone by the next morning.

Rosalind came out to Syria one year, and I think enjoyed being on our dig. Max got her to do some of the drawings. Actually she draws exceptionally well, and she made a good job of it, but the trouble with Rosalind is that, unlike her slap-happy mother, she is a perfectionist. Unless she could get a thing perfectly as she wanted it, she would immediately tear it up. She did a series of these drawings, and then said to Max: 'They are no good reallyI shall tear them up.'

'You are not to tear them up,' said Max.

'I shall tear them up,' said Rosalind.

They then had an enormous fight, Rosalind trembling with rage, Max also really angry. The drawings of the painted pots were salvaged, and appeared in Max's book of Tell Brakbut Rosalind never professed herself satisfied with them.

Horses were procured from the Sheikh, and Rosalind went riding, accompanied by Guilford Bell, the young architect nephew of my Australian friend, Aileen Bell. He was a very dear boy and he did some extraordinarily lovely pencil drawings of our amulets at Brak. They were beautiful little thingsfrogs, lions, rams, bullsand the delicate shading of his pencil drawings made a perfect medium for them.

That summer Guilford came to stay with us at Torquay, and one day we saw that a house was up for sale that I had known when I was youngGreenway House, on the Dart, a house that my mother had always said, and I had thought also, was the most perfect of the various properties on the Dart.

'Let's go and look at it,' I said. 'It would be lovely to see it again. I haven't seen it since I went there calling with Mother when I was a child.'

So we went over to Greenway, and very beautiful the house and grounds were. A white Georgian house of about 1780 or 90, with woods sweeping down to the Dart below, and a lot of fine shrubs and treesthe ideal house, a dream house. Since we had an order to view, I asked its price, though without much interest. I didn't think I had heard the answer correctly.

'Sixteen thousand, did you say?' thousand, did you say?'

'Six thousand.'

'Six thousand?' I could hardly believe it. We drove home talking about it. 'It's incredibly cheap,' I said. 'It's got thirty-three acres. It doesn't look in bad condition either; wants decorating, that's all.'

'Why don't you buy it?' asked Max.

I was so startled, this coming from Max, that it took my breath away. 'You've been getting worried about Ashfield, you know,'

I knew what he meant. Ashfield, my home, had changed. Where our neighbours' houses had once been ringed round usother villas of the same kindthere was now, blocking the view in the narrowest part of the garden, a large secondary school, which stood between us and the sea. All day there were noisy shouting children. On the other side of us there was now a mental nursing home. Sometimes queer sounds would come from there, and patients would appear suddenly in the garden. They were not certified, so I presume they were free to do as they liked, but we had had some unpleasant incidents. A brawny colonel in pyjamas appeared, waving a golf-club, determined he was going to kill all the moles in the garden; another day he came to attack a dog who had barked. The nurses apologised, fetched him back, and said he was quite all right, just a little 'disturbed', but it was alarming, and once or twice children staying with us had been badly frightened.

Once it had been all countryside out of Torquay: three villas up the hill and then the road petered out into country. The lush green fields where I used to go to look at the lambs in spring had given way to a ma.s.s of small houses. No one we knew lived in our road any longer. It was as though Ashfield had become a parody of itself.

Still, that was hardly a reason for buying Greenway House. Yet, how it appealed to me. I had known always that Max did not really like Ashfield. He had never told me sobut I knew it. I think in some way he was jealous of it because it was a part of my life that I hadn't shared with himit was all my own. And he had said, unprompted, of Greenway, 'Why don't you buy it? 'Why don't you buy it?'

And so we made inquiries. Guilford helped us. He looked over the house professionally, and said: 'Well, I'll give you my my advice. Pull half of it down.' advice. Pull half of it down.'

'Pull half of it down!'

'Yes. You see, the whole of that back wing is Victorian. You could leave the 1790 house and take away all that additionthe billiard room, the study, the estate room, those bedrooms and new bathrooms upstairs. It would be a far better house, far lighter. The original is a very beautiful house, as a matter of fact.'

'We shan't have any bathrooms left if we pull the Victorian ones down,' I pointed out.

'Well, you can easily make bathrooms on the top floor. Another thing, too; it would bring your rates down by quite a lot.'

And so we bought Greenway. We put Guilford in charge, and he redesigned the house on its original lines. We added bathrooms upstairs, and downstairs we affixed a small cloakroom, but the rest of it we left untouched. I only wish now that I had had the gift of foresightif so I would have taken off another another large chunk of the house: the vast larder, the great caverns in which you soaked pigs, the kindling store, the suite of sculleries. Instead I would have put on a nice, small kitchen from which I could go to the dining-room in a few steps, and which would be easy to run with no help. But it would never have occurred to me that a day would come when there was no domestic help. So we left the kitchen wing as it was. When the alterations were all done, and the house decorated plainly in white, we moved in. large chunk of the house: the vast larder, the great caverns in which you soaked pigs, the kindling store, the suite of sculleries. Instead I would have put on a nice, small kitchen from which I could go to the dining-room in a few steps, and which would be easy to run with no help. But it would never have occurred to me that a day would come when there was no domestic help. So we left the kitchen wing as it was. When the alterations were all done, and the house decorated plainly in white, we moved in.

Just after we had done so, and were exulting in it, the second war came. It was not quite so much out-of-the-blue as in 1914. We had had warnings: there had been Munich; but we had listened to Chamberlain's rea.s.surances, and we had thought then that when he said, 'Peace in our time', it might be the truth.

But Peace in our time was not to be.

PART X

THE SECOND WAR

I

And so we were back again in wartime. It was not a war like the last one. One expected it to be, because I suppose one always does expect things to repeat themselves. The first war came with a shock of incomprehension, as something unheard of, impossible, something that had never happened in living memory, that never would happen. This war was different.

At first, there was an almost incredulous surprise that nothing happened. One expected to hear that London was bombed that first night. London was not bombed.

I think everyone was trying to ring up everyone else. Peggy MacLeod, my doctor friend from Mosul days, rang up from the east coast, where she and her husband practised, to ask if I would have their children. She said: 'We are so frightened herethis is where it will all start, they say. If you can have the children, I'll start off in the car to bring them down to you.' I said that would be quite all right: she could bring them and the nurse too if she liked; so that was settled.

Peggy MacLeod arrived next day, having motored day and night across England with Crystal, my G.o.dchild, who was three years old, and David, who was five. Peggy was worn out. 'I don't know what I would have done without benzedrine,' she said. 'Look here, I've got an extra thing of it here. I had better give it to you. It may be useful to you some time when you are absolutely exhausted.' I have still got that small flat tin of benzedrine: I have never used it. I have kept it, perhaps as an insurance against the moment when I should should be utterly exhausted. be utterly exhausted.

We got organised, more or less, and there we sat, waiting for something to happen. But since nothing did happen, little by little we went on with our own pursuits and some additional war activities.

Max joined the Home Guard, which was really like a comic opera at that time. There were hardly any gunsone between eight men, I think. Max used to go out with them every night. Some of the men enjoyed themselves very muchand some of the wives were deeply suspicious as to what their husbands were doing under this pretence of guarding the country. Indeed, as months pa.s.sed and nothing happened, it became an uproarious and cheerful gathering. In the end, Max decided to go to London. Like everybody else, he was clamouring to be sent abroad, to be given some work to dobut all anyone seemed to want to do was to say: 'Nothing could be done at the present''n.o.body was wanted.'

I went to the hospital at Torquay and asked if they would let me work in the dispensary there to freshen up my knowledge in case I should be useful to them later. Since casualty cases were expected all the time, the chief dispenser there was quite willing to have me. She brought me up to date with the various medicines and things that were prescribed nowadays. On the whole it was much simpler than it had been in my young days, there were so many pills, tablets, powders and things already prepared in bottles.

The war started, when it did start, not in London or on the east coast, but down in our part of the world. David MacLeod, a most intelligent boy, was crazy about aeroplanes, and did a great deal towards teaching me the various types. He showed me pictures of Messerschmitts and others, and pointed out Hurricanes and Spitfires in the sky.

'Now have you got it right, this time?' he would say anxiously. 'You see what that that is up there?' is up there?'

It was so far away it was only a speck, but I said hopefully it was a Hurricane.

'No,' said David, disgusted. 'You make a mistake every time. That is a Spitfire.'

On the following day he remarked, looking up at the sky, 'That is a Messerschmitt coming over now.'

'No, no, dear,' I said, 'it isn't a Messerschmitt. It's one of oursit's a Hurricane.'

'It's not a Hurricane.'

'Well it's a Spitfire, then.'

'It is not a Spitfire, it's a Messerschmitt. Can't you tell a tell a Hurricane or a Spitfire from a Messerschmitt?' Hurricane or a Spitfire from a Messerschmitt?'

'But it can't be a Messerschmitt,' I said. At that moment two bombs dropped on the hillside.

David looked very like weeping. 'I told you it was a Messerschmitt,' he said, in a voice of lament.

That same afternoon, when the children were going across the ferry in the boat with nurse, a plane swooped down and machine-gunned all the craft on the river. Bullets had gone all round nurse and the children, and she came back somewhat shaken. 'I think you had better ring up Mrs MacLeod,' she said. So I did ring up Peggy, and we wondered what to do.

'Nothing has happened here,' said Peggy. 'I suppose it may may start any time. I don't think they ought to come back here do you?' start any time. I don't think they ought to come back here do you?'

'Perhaps there won't be any more,' I said.

David had been excited over the bombs, and insisted on going to see where they had fallen. Two had fallen in Dittisham by the river, and some others up on the hill behind us. We found one of these by scrambling through a lot of nettles and a hedge or two, and finally came upon three farmers, all looking at a bomb crater in the field, and at another bomb which appeared to have dropped without exploding.

'Dang it all,' said one farmer, administering a hearty kick to the unexploded bomb, 'regular nasty it is, I call it, sending those things down-nasty!

He kicked it again. It seemed to me it would be much better if he did not kick it, but he obviously wished to show his contempt for all the works of Hitler.

'Can't even explode properly,' he said with disparagement.

They were, of course, all very small bombs, compared to what we were to get later in the warbut there it was: hostilities had had begun. Next day there was news from Cornworthy, a little village further up the Dart: a plane there had swooped down and sprayed the school playground when the children were out at play. One of the mistresses had been hit in the shoulder. begun. Next day there was news from Cornworthy, a little village further up the Dart: a plane there had swooped down and sprayed the school playground when the children were out at play. One of the mistresses had been hit in the shoulder.

Peggy rang me again, and said she had arranged for the children to go to Colwyn Bay, where their grandmother lived. It seemed to be peaceful there, at any rate.

The children departed, and I was terribly sorry to lose them. Soon afterwards a Mrs Arbuthnot wrote to me and wanted me to let the house to her. Now that the bombing had started, children were being evacuated to various parts of England. She wished to have Greenway for a nursery for children evacuated from St. Pancras.

The war seemed to have s.h.i.+fted from our part of the world; there was no more bombing; and in due course Mr and Mrs Arbuthnot arrived, took over my butler and his wife, and established two hospital nurses and ten children under five. I had decided that I would go to London and join Max, who was working there on Turkish Relief.

I arrived in London, just after the raids, and Max, having met me at Paddington, drove me to a flat in Half Moon Street. 'I'm afraid,' he said apologetically, 'it is a pretty nasty one. We can look around for something else.'

What slightly put me off, when I arrived, was the fact that the house in question stood up like a tooththe houses on either side of it were missing. They had apparently been hit by a bomb about ten days before, and for that reason the flat was available for rent, its owners having cleared out quickly. I can't say I felt very comfortable in that house. It smelt horribly of dirt and grease and cheap scent.

Max and I moved after a week into Park Place, off St. James's Street, which had once been rather an expensive service flat. We lived there for some little time, with noisy sessions of bombs going off all round us. I was particularly sorry for the waiters, who had to serve meals in the evening and then take themselves home through the air raids.

Presently our tenants in Sheffield Terrace asked if they could give up the lease of our house, so we moved back in.

Rosalind had filled in forms for the Womens' Auxiliary Air Force, but she was not particularly enthusiastic about it, and thought on the whole that she would prefer to go as a landgirl.

She went for an interview with the W.A.A.F. and showed herself lamentably lacking in tact. When asked why she wanted to join she merely said: 'Because one must do something and this will do as well as anything else.' That, though candid, was not, I think, well received. A little later, after a brief period delivering school meals and doing work in a military office somewhere, she said she thought she might as well join the A.T.S. They weren't, she said, as bossy as the W.A.A.F. She filled up a fresh set of papers.

Then Max, to his great joy, got into the Air Force, helped by our friend Stephen Glanville, who was a Professor of Egyptology. He and Max were both at the Air Ministry, where they shared a room, both of them smokingMax a pipewithout ceasing. The atmosphere was such that it was called by all their friends 'the small cat-house'.

Events happened in confusing order. I remember that Sheffield Terrace was bombed on a weekend when we were away from London. A land-mine came down exactly opposite it, on the other side of the street, and completely destroyed three houses. The effect it had on 48 Sheffield Terrace was to blow up the bas.e.m.e.nt, which might have been presumed the safest place, and to damage the roof and the top floor, leaving the ground and first floors almost unharmed. My Steinway was never quite the same afterwards.

Since Max and I had always slept in our own bedroom, and never went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, we should not have suffered any personal damage even if we had been in the house. I myself never went down to any shelter during the war. I always had a horror of being trapped under-groundso I slept in my own bed no matter where I was. I became used in the end to raids on Londonso much so, that I hardly woke up. I would think, half drowsily, that I heard the siren, or bombs not too far away.

'Oh dear, there they are again!' I would mutter, and turn over.

One of the difficulties with the bombing of Sheffield Terrace was that by this time it was difficult to get storage s.p.a.ce anywhere in London. As the house now was, it was difficult to get into it through the front door and one could only get access to it by ladder. In the end, I prevailed upon a firm to move me, and hit upon the idea of storing the furniture at Wallingford, in the squash court which we had built a year or two previously. So everything was moved down there. I had builders in attendance ready to take out the squash court door and its framework if necessaryand this they had to do because the sofa and chairs would not go through the narrow doorway.

Max and I moved to a block of flats in HampsteadLawn Road Flatsand I started work at University College Hospital as a dispenser.

When Max broke to me what he had already known, I think, for some time, that he would have to go abroad to the Middle East, probably North Africa or Egypt, I was glad for him. I knew how he had been fretting to go, and it seemed right, too, that his knowledge of Arabic should be used. It was our first parting for ten years.