not. I do love him but because he is dear & kind & my cousin. So DD how will I know when the right man comes along for me? Maybe I won’t recognise him, I’ll think it’s me being silly again? I hope not. This worries me.
Louisa & the BH are also strange to me. I assume they love each other? They are certainly here together & he is her boyfriend & I would hope they are, especially the way she raved on about him before he arrived. The only time I HAVE ever seen them alone together is late at night, when he asked her if he could kiss her breasts & lick them, which is what he did ask that night, in a silly boyish voice (yes that is indeed what he said. I have decided to be honest about such things. !!!! Why does he want to, and in this awful baby voice? So strange. They’re just there, they don’t do anything). They talk to each other in front of us, but I never see them go off for a walk by themselves, or chat together at the table, it’s always with other people. He flirts with Miranda, it’s disgusting (‘You have the last piece of bread!’ ‘No, YOU! You need to keep your strength up, I’m going to beat you at tennis this afternoon!’ ‘Oh, really!’ bleurgh like they’re in Salad Days) and he laughs with Guy or Archie all the time, never with Louisa. The people he hardly ever talks to are Dad and Mummy. I don’t think he knows what to say to Dad, and I think he finds Mummy intimidating. In fact I think he has a bit of a pash for her. He blushes when she talks to him.
And Louisa is always hanging round pretending she’s busy & being all bossy trying to organise things whereas in fact I know she just wants BH to go for a walk with her. Is that what being in love is like? Hanging around for someone? Seems rubbish to me.
Dad answers questions, but he never asks them. He is like a piece on a backgammon board: he will be moved around by you, but according to his own rules. He comes for meals & then goes back to his study, & I used to think what a fraud it is, that he is a philosopher who writes about people, & yet he must exchange less than 10 words to the 9 other people in the house.
I have been noticing things since I started writing this diary, one of them is that I don’t mention Dad much. I don’t talk to him. He’s just there.
Today after breakfast I asked if we could play backgammon again. He said ‘Yes, with pleasure, Cecily.’
When Mummy said, ‘But you’re sitting for me this morning,’ I said, ‘Please Mummy, just for today,’ & she looked at Dad & at me & she said,
‘Oh, all right then.’
I like Dad’s study but I never go in there. It is filled with books as you would expect, but it is not too much like a library, there are lots of blue Pelicans & books on Indian art & paintings in there, & a low, comfortable chair for me to sit in. It smells nice too, Dad told me it is sandalwood, & he gets it when he’s in London, because the smell helps him to work.
He won best of 3 & then I noticed the piles of paper at the side of the board for the first time, & the old typewriter, which Mrs Randall uses when she comes to type things up for him, & I wonder (because I’ve been away for two months at school) how long it’s been since Mrs Randall came here so I asked him how the new book was about, which I never have before.
I’m so curious about what he’s been working on all these years but I know this question really really annoys writers. So I tried to think of a subtle way to ask but I couldn’t.
Me: So what’s the next book about?
Dad: Do you know the story of the Koh-i-Noor diamond?
Me: (pleased as never know answers to questions like this normally) Yes, it’s the one in the Queen’s crown.
Dad: (smiles to himself) Not quite. The Empress of India’s crown. Now the Queen Mother’s crown. It is not the largest, nor the most beautiful diamond in the world, but it is the most famous.
Me: (anxious to prove have some knowledge): Yes, we learned about it at school, when we did the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was presented to the British by the Indians & I saw it when we went to the Tower of London last year.
‘“Presented to the British”,’ Dad smiles. ‘Very interesting. Do you know what Koh-i-Noor means?’
It is v hot in Dad’s study. I remember that even in winter & today in the heat it was baking.
Me: No.
Dad: It is called “The Mountain of Light”.
Me (slightly dim): That’s what your book’s called! So you’re writing about the diamond?
Dad wags his head, 1/2 nodding, half disagreeing: You know the man who gave it away to the British? He was called Duleep Singh. The British brought him to England. He was only 6, a little boy. Maharaja. Maharajah. He never went back to the Punjab. He had given away their greatest treasure. When 2 of his daughters returned to Lahore, the Twenties, I remember it, people were fascinated. They were the daughters of the last King of the Punjab, the crowds went wild. But they couldn’t talk to them. The girls had never learned to speak Punjabi.
Me: That is sad.
Dad: Not really. You are my daughter, you can’t speak Punjabi.
Me (looking to see if he’s upset about it but I don’t think he is, I don’t know): No I can’t.
Dad: The diamond is in the Tower of London. You can go whenever you want. So perhaps it is
