Anyway, enough of silly school. It’s hard sometimes, to get back into the swing of life here after being away at St Kat’s for months on end. One’s head is full of drear things like plimsolls and kit bags and hymnals. I’m back now. It’s over! (for a while).
So what shall I tell you, diary? I shall start by describing where I am and what’s happening.
It is after tea & the house is quiet, but there are sounds, all dear & familiar to me after months at school. Mary is in the kitchen, cooking supper; I can hear her feet on the floor & the pans clattering.
Dad is humming in his study. It sounds like wasps, buzzing. Dad is a famous sort of writer. He wrote a book people always want to talk about, called The Modern Fortress. I haven’t read it. But lots of people have. It is an IMPORTANT BOOK. Miss Green, our headmistress, said that to me last year. ‘IMPORTANT BOOK CECILY.’ That means she hasn’t read it, I absolutely bet.
(must be kind & what if they do read it even though they said they wouldn’t?)
My cousins Louisa & Jeremy arrived today. They are playing with Claude, our dog, on the lawn. Louisa is wearing a beautiful striped bathing costume, I covet it. She has a new lipstick and she is terribly pleased with herself, for she has been offered a scholarship to Girton, and she is dreadfully ambitious and clever. Jeremy is at medical school in London. Jeremy is my favourite cousin, there are only two of them that I know, I don’t know my cousins in Lahore, in Pakistan, but perhaps I would like them more than Jeremy. I doubt it. He’s awfully nice.
Jeremy has been for a swim & carried the table outside for supper after the rain. That’s enough about them for the moment.
My sister & brother (Archie & Miranda other way round) are gossiping in their secret annoying way, about who knows what as they walk round the edge of the lawn together, like Jane Austen heroines taking a turn about the garden. They are twins, 2 yrs older than me. They have just finished at school. Though Archie is staying on an extra term, to do the exam for Oxford and Cambridge, though he says he won’t go. Miranda is not doing that exam. She is not doing anything.
They are strange, the twins. I am not sure if My hand hurts already. But I must go on!
Finally Mummy. Mummy is painting. She is in her studio, down at the end of the corridor. She is a famous painter. ‘Famous painter’ – I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, but it is how she is always referred to by people. The Picture Post did a spread on us a couple of years ago. ‘Famous Painter at Home with her Family’. As if her fame is as important as her painting. I wonder if it annoys her. Mummy has an exhibition this autumn & she is making me sit for a portrait. I don’t like sitting for her except we talk, which I like. I sat for her this morning. The exhibition is soon & she is painting furiously, she is behind. She is short with Dad, but he doesn’t notice. She smokes & looks out of the window a lot, & I hear her pacing up & down in the studio when I’m in my room. She’s doing it now.
Anyway, I will write more about them all I am sure. We are to be joined in a few days by Frank and Guy Leighton, Frank is a schoolfriend of Jeremy’s & he is Louisa’s boyfriend. Guy is his brother. Mummy loves having people down. I do too, it’s more fun when there are more around.
There are so many things I want to read & see & do, so many thoughts I keep having. I want to write it all down, to experience things I haven’t (please excuse me Diary, I will try & write as much as possible). I want to Broaden my Mind, & summer holidays are the time to do something about this, & I undertake it in earnest. I shall read the papers & comment on them so this diary is also a well-informed record of the times.
For example, I was interested to see that the memorial service of the Rev Cuthbert Creighton took place yesterday near Worcester, & that Miss BP Hards (that is a funny name) has got engaged. Also that the Duke of Edinburgh will be attending a lunch of the Heating & Ventilation Engineers next Tuesday at Grosvenor House in London.
The bell for dinner has not gone yet. So here is some more information, this time about me.
Name: Cecily Ann Kapoor
Age: 15 (16 in November)
School: St Katherine’s School for Girls
Favourite Subjects: English! Drama, Art, History, Latin.
Best Friends: Margaret, Jennifer, Rita. (NB. I should like Linda Langley to also be my friend but she is not, as she is the year above.)
Favourite Teacher: Miss Powell
Favourite Book: Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Favourite Poem: The Prisoner, by Emily Brontë
Favourite actress: Kay Kendall RIP. Jean Seberg in Bonjour Tristesse the film, I want my hair cut short like her, so chic & gamine but Mummy says NO.
Favourite actor: Stewart Granger in Moonfleet, SWOON! Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird DOUBLE SWOON, also Dirk Bogarde & Rock Hudson.
Favourite film: It used to be Moonfleet but it’s a bit babyish for me now. Bonjour Tristesse, I LOVE that film, & the book, it is all so chic glamorous. And To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a marvellous & extremely wonderful evocation of the Deep South & its problems.
Favourite song: NOT The Beatles, everyone likes them & it’s so dull! Miranda & Louisa practically weep every time they come on the radio. They play Please Please Me every day on the gramophone. They only like them because they are boys & from Liverpool ie dangerous, according to my Aunt Pamela, Louisa’s mother, but she thinks the bin man on her road is a dangerous communist because she once saw him reading the Tribune. Miranda & Louisa are silly when it comes to B.O.Y.S. anyway. I don’t like boys (apart from Gregory Peck & Stewart Granger & they are men). I am concentrating on becoming an interesting & accomplished person because one day I want to be a writer & writers don’t become writers by sitting around listening to Please pleasezzzzzzzz me. Or Frank Ifield. Can you believe it, Louisa actually has an album by Frank Ifield. zzzzzzzzzz again.
Anyway my favourite song & album is Juliette Greco. I also like the Four Seasons, & the Beach Boys. She is French, they are American, & I like that, it is something different. Not boring old England, all the time. Sometimes you would think it was the only country in the world.
Other interesting things about me: My father is from what is now Pakistan. My skin is darker than the other girls at school & so I don’t need to lie in the sun to tan, which is good. Some of the girls like Annabel Taylor make me feel awful about it & say nasty things, I wish they wouldn’t, I am as English as them. Mrs Charles, the Deputy Head, called me a clumsy little wog when she was cross after I dropped all the blackboard dusters & made chalk cloud fly in her face & make her cough. I asked Archie what it meant & he was very cross with me.
Dear diary, (the truth is I really don’t like writing about this) but they are worse to Miranda, her skin is darker than mine. I feel sorry for her but I don’t tell her, she gets cross. We are the only girls like it in our school. Dad came with Mum to drop us off last year & I don’t know why he did, he barely knows we exist. I shouldn’t say this diary but I was embarrassed of him. He is small & quite eccentric & doesn’t make sense when he talks, because he talks in riddles. Even though he is a famous writer, the girls at school don’t know that, or at least they don’t care. I wish they did, but they don’t.
Thank god for Mummy.