18.2.70 [two aerogrammes, both handwritten]
Well, well, well, the order of
things in this world does change rapidly. In my last letter I said that I’ll
think about getting a new job tomorrow, meaning, in the future, but someone
pulling the strings has taken me up literally, and the day after that letter, I
was informed of what I’d already heard from Rumour’s mouth ˗ that the
powers-that-be wanted some changes made. Examples: two in the pay-box all the time, instead of one, ten more hours work for a pound a week more money (!); complete
change of rota, so that we’d be working through from afternoons till the end of
the show (instead of just evenings) or from the morning till later than we do, and starting earlier. So after saying I’d
let him know next day, I gave him a week’s notice then, and started on the
great job hunt.
Well, I tell a lie there, because
in the post on the day of the news came a notice from the telephone exchange
saying that they now had a vacancy for a part-time telephonist, but, since that pays only £8 or so a week (on which I’d die) I inquired about
full-time work: anything between thirty-six and forty-three hours a week, at
about $16-10-0 gross (goes up when I’m twenty-five) (plus another £2 or so a
week when I ‘qualify’. I’ve got to train
for, I think, six weeks in the day time, and then will work evenings and nights
(overnight sometimes ˗ that’s when you work fewer hours a week). So I’ve got
the job ‘subject to all my filled-in forms being sent to Enoch Powell to see if
I can be allowed to work for the British’ ˗ or somesuch! I start on Monday (as
long as my great-great aunt wasn’t a Chinaman) and they seem to think I’m
bright enough to work in their International Exchange ˗ when I come out of school. Heaven knows how dumb some of the people
tested are (as dumb as the tester who insisted I try and read a chart without my glasses even though I told
her I couldn’t see a thing glassless. There was a guy at home when I went for
my driving test who did the same thing: only there I had to look down some long
funnel thing; I haven’t found out yet
what was at the end of that!) because it was all incredibly easy; the
form-filling-in was considerably more difficult. The tester-lady seemed quite
surprised that I should know so many British place-names so well, and eyed me with
some suspicion, I felt, when I said it was because I’d read English books, and
had seen English films.
About the new management ˗ as I said
before it’s all drearily staid, but gentle. The fact of the £1 extra pay for ten hours is that apparently Mr
Neilsen had been paying us the total rate already (I’d always thought it high
for a part-time job) and the extra hours have nothing to do with it: we ought
to have been working them anyway. But it doesn’t matter ˗ I am fed up with the
place ˗ Margaret is the only one who has any life in her, much ˗ and I’m also
fed up with the people in and the general monotony.
So!! I don’t know that I greatly
care for the eventuality of working all night
but it may be interesting ˗ there will shortly be no time in the twenty-four hours that I haven’t worked! It’s all
experience cont...
P.S. Good Grief; don’t buy a David Copperfield: £3.50 [or
possibly this was meant to be $3.50] is far
too expensive. Hope we’ve sorted all these out now; sorry to have confused you.
[second aerogramme]
And I think it may have the advantage
of finally giving me a job which I can actually fall back on! 1970 may yet turn
out to be the year at least when I finally set my life in order. It is fitting that it should be done in my
(good grief) 25th year, isn’t it?
Have you started your new Rite of the Mass yet? Our Parish Priest
said Mass this morning and we had bits left in and things left out and he
seemed to know as little about the
whole proceedings as anyone. He’s left the Offertory Prayer out a lot lately
which means that you have half the congregation waiting for it and half
ignoring it altogether. I rather like it all (but as you no doubt know I’m
rather prone to change!) though the depleted Confiteor is a bit disquieting
just yet, and only saying, ‘Lord, I am not worthy’ once is positively upsetting
˗ I always said it several times more anyway because neither the Good Lord nor I
have any illusions about my worthiness!
We have a new guest in the flat
(and when he leaves will have Chris, Angela’s sister, back!), called Andrew Tansley
˗ seventeen, and a very pleasant young guy. Recommended to us by Hazel with
whom he’d worked. He’s there till he finds a flat, and is working in a new
mystery play (with Anthony
Quayle) as a props man. [The play was
probably Sleuth.]
I went to see some Ionesco plays done
by the Tower (amateur) Theatre on Sunday night. This is the group Ian and Angela
and Rod are all associated with, and their standard was surprisingly high. After
the plays, on the way back Ian and I got into a discussion which eventually lasted
till two in the morning (Ian is out of work, again, just now ˗ oh! these artists)
and in which we tried to reconcile his argument
that he puts up a barrier to protect his ‘inner’ self from new relationships
and mine which was that hiding
oneself in oneself is not as much use
to one as risking getting to know people better, quicker ˗ even though one
may be hurt. There’s always the
chance one may be helped. (Sorry
about the preponderance of ‘ones’ but I’m not allowed to use ‘you’ once I’ve
started, so I’m told!) We did reconcile it all eventually (with help from each
of the others as they came and went ˗ to bed), after covering the same ground
about fourteen times; because I still put
up my own barriers (though I’m getting past them more quickly) and Ian knows
that what I said has its own value if he cares to apply it.
I have this crazy urge of late to know everybody ˗ properly, not just superficially
the way I often have before. And I think I’m even going to the extent of
appearing to pry ˗ I hope not, as I don’t really intend that.
Kingsley came up for lunch on
Sunday (dinner, I mean) and seemed all right when he left. Now he had something on his mind, and while
he told me a lot that surprised me, and
interested me, and showed that he too
as matured (and has a Lenin-style
beard!!) I couldn’t somehow get past the barrier?!!?
On this Sunday Mike is coming up
with one of his innumerable
collections of ladies, Mickey, by name, and guess who? Kevin Rowlands! And Mike
knows him apparently. So that sorts that out!!
Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you what
time I’m starting at the Telephone place. 8.15 am. Love (yawn), Mike.
P.S. Still nothing further from
CIB ˗ you can have an unlimited number
of tries for the price of one! (I think
˗certainly more than one; after too many goes I should think they’d advise
giving up and doing something else!!)
