2PM – Shadowe Island Sat Mar 18 – 78
Every time I come back to this beautiful island I wonder why I ever leave. Dogs are in paradise. Mom and Dad relaxed, involved, charming. A all defensive about the “failure” of her life with Mason so I am off the hook – temporarily. I’m reading The House In Paris – restores my high estimation of Bowen. The trouble with this island is that the rest of existence vanishes totally when I am here. I am eating too much but the food is so fabulous it would seem immoral to resist – roast lamb, new potatoes, spinach quiche, sour cream gravy, stuffed mushrooms, strawberry trifle. We stayed up late reading Ruth Rendell’s mystery stories aloud, then I fell asleep and I had the most delicious erotic dream about J – much better than the real thing. Felt what it would be like to be a deep-throated cello vibrating endlessly. Mon Mar 20 7:00 PM Why is it around my parents my self-confidence takes a nosedive? Every fingernail becomes deciduous. I had better call Plush Palace and get put on next week’s schedule. Finished House and began Heat of the Day. My mother asks questions that reveal her to be jealous of all the reading I do. Her delicate hint – she would feel “lazy” doing so much reading because there must be something that she would be neglecting. I tell her I, on the other hand, if I were not reading, would feel guilty. (As well as deprived.) Thus we must differ. The great thing about Eliz B – she writes like no one else. To criticize her would be like saying the plumed flycatcher has a little too much plume. Managed to prevent Mom from inviting “young people” to a “weenie roast on the shore” for me and A. We are here to HIDE. She was very nice about it. Do imagine I could live here. Listening right now to Haydn’s Clock Symphony. Now that would be a great title for a short story about an unattached woman in her late twenties… A and I have wonderful conversations in our twin beds like a pair of teenagers home on holiday from school, listening to the distant waves crash on the dark shore. I realize we could still be feeling like this even when we are a pair of decrepit old maids – which is probably why families like to stay together. You are timeless for each other. She asked me which of my boyfriends had known me best. I think Toss Sheffield – certainly better than my own husband. But this is not a flattering conclusion since he seems to have run wildly in the opposite direction. Wed Mar 22 78 – 4:15 PM Waiting for cocktails, I discover a flaw in the divine Miss E B. She doesn’t like to admit that she is of the same clay as her characters. Those creatures based on the Mosleys she repudiated utterly as if creatures from another planet. I’ve got news for her. Creatures from another planet are not that interesting. Last night was one of the most traumatic family evenings I have ever experienced – I think my eyes are still puffy. I heard we would be having Island People to dinner – he used to be a university president/professor so presumably would be good company – they met because somebody was the bridesmaid of somebody else’s bridesmaid so there is a connection. It started with me wearing a green silk shirt, my denim gauchos and hardly any makeup (yes I wore eyeshadow) and being told by Mom that my “get-up” was “more suitable for a bar.” (All of a sudden she’s an expert on bars.) Harvey and Edna turned out to have “heard of my job” – I gather in some commiseration session on Incredibly Unsatisfactory Children – however they refuse to accept that there is any difference between being an exotic dancer and being a stripper (hello! I don’t strip) and somehow Harvey segued from castigating “exotic dancers who try to feel superior to strippers” to criticisms of “ total sexual freedom” which apparently means that “everybody should jump on everybody.” I tried to dignify this mess by explaining that it is actually the reverse – in the “old days” under the “ancien regime sexuelle” a dancer could expect to be “jumped on” by “anybody” because of her job (like poor old Degas’ ladies) but that actual freedom for women would mean a world in which one could be a barely clothed dancer (I would think anyone would admit nudity is at least an equally valid way of expressing the art of muscle, line and form as heavily costumed artificial approximations) without it becoming some sexual signal that one has “lost caste” and therefore privacy and choice. I recommended Susan Brownmiller’s book to this painfully ignorant male (God knows what he taught – he had never heard of Brownmiller – seems to have her confused with Ti-Grace Atkinson assuming she must write books no self-respecting intellectual would read (maybe he was the type of university president who just brings in wads of cash). He challenged my premise that the ultimate societal freedom would be for unattached females to not to be under the threat of rape every minute. Harvey insisted – with a perfect straight face that women rape men every bit as much as the reverse – “psychologically of course” which he says is just as terrible – and in fact probably even more so since we all know the “physical thing is no big deal” and often does people a “favor”. I must say this does not reflect very well on his wife Edna but she was smiling smugly so I think she may have just been too obtuse to follow any of the arguments. I really could not cope with this free-for-all avalanche of idiocy especially when my parents played their trump card – if bars where women sit in front of a drink and watch barely clothed men cavorting don’t exist, therefore this is an antifeminist exercise and my claim to be a feminist is a sham. I think it was at that point that I burst into tears. Which of course was totally demeaning. I sorely missed Avril’s assistance – she refused to jump in but made peacemaking noises like “you both have a point” (untrue – their “points” are a disgrace). Ugly Harvey apologized – what a monster! but there could be no satisfaction in it for me at that point. Avril went walking with me until they left. Alas, waiting till they were gone did not end the discussion. Mom and Dad pounced on us to drive home their point that the male animal is a violent dangerous creature barely contained by the civilizing influence of the female. (Guess they can’t get behind Harvey’s “female rapist” idea.) Of course they are going to rape any female who lets down her guard for a second and it will all be her fault. (Didn’t R make this case? I’m ashamed to share a world with these people.) Any kind of a sexual display (I guess the beach would certainly qualify) is a declaration of “Jump in boys! It’s free today!” At least they recognized Harvey’s behavior as extreme (“Two drinks and he’s lost” was Dad’s comment.) Basically as long as I work at “this bar” I’m the “lost cause” and if any decent male finds out about it our relationship will be over in a trice. This kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother to visit them. Fortunately I’m leaving soon, but the whole ferry reservation problem means one loses the right to fight irretrievably with one’s hosts on this island. Dad’s big mistake was giving me an example of a good marriage as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett! Did I blow my top! He probably thought I’d listen to him if he produced a literary example. He wasn’t aware that not only were they not married but Mr. Hammett was married to someone else and cheated on poor Hellman whenever he could manage to stay stiff long enough. (I really didn’t want to “get in” to the alcoholism problem. Lillian tried to make him look like a “mentor” but honestly she was his keeper and bail bondsman.)
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Alysse Aallyn
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