From my father

This is the only letter that my father wrote to me in his lifetime.  Mostly a filter for my mother’s voice.  This was written in response to a communication from Clive after my procedure had gone wrong and I ended up aborting the fetus in the toilet of my room in Clive’s apartment.  The Dr. visited and said that if I did not stop bleeding I would have to go the ER.  But luckily I mended quickly and was well enough to start my new job with AMF in Old Burlington Street.  I quote:

Sunday, August 16, 1964

My dear Candace:

Mummy and I are very happy and relieved to hear that the emergency seems to be over.  Of course, we had just had yours and Clive’s letters on Thursday and Friday, and had not the slightest inkling that all was not well.  Our letter to you, with your allowance, was to be posted Monday.  We can easily understand your state of panic and awful feeling of helplessness that must have ensued when started bleeding all over the place.  We only wish we could have been there to help.  Again we are most glad to hear that you are now on the mend.

Now I want to cover some points that are not so easy to understand.  Clive phoned us on Saturday in a high state of quasi hysteria and said many things which he would never ordinarily dream of even hinting at.

When one is in such a state, as when drinking too much, one usually says what one really feels.  It ran, in essence, like: we had abandoned you, we didn’t offer any love to you, we hadn’t bothered to phone (too cheap) to find out if you were still alive, we were far more concerned with “family disgrace” than the fact that our little girl needed help, that while you were lying there bleeding we were having a ball running around in our Jaguar, that we had made you pay for all incidental expenses and even intimated that somehow we were keeping some of your money, that we were so happy to see you leave that the only tears in our eyes were caused by the grit kicked up by aircraft engines at the airport.  And many, many more – so much so that Mummy couldn’t understand him and I had to do all the talking.

We had not abandoned you.  You had abandoned us.  When you failed to bring us into your confidence at the start you, in reality, didn’t give a rat’s ass how we felt.  Your only concern was what seemed to you to be an easy escape from an intolerable situation.  Your main attitude all the way, what is easiest for Candace.  The choice of going to England was yours – not ours.  You were, you know, offered other alternatives.  You knew, in advance, as did Clive, that none of this was going to be a bed of Roses.  You knew that money was and is very tight.  Our attitude toward you over the past three months was dictated entirely by your own actions.  Your actions were selfish, deceitful, lazy and ignorant.  And although all of this was somehow connected with the ape they were all evident before we knew you were in a pickle.  And, believe me, right up until the plane left you acted like a petulant, spoiled brat and apparently are still doing so.

Of course, we love you.  Why else would Mummy and sometimes me lie awake night after night wondering what you were doing?  Why would we make sure you went to the dentist or had your tonsils out or made sure the tires or brakes were okay on your car.  Why else would Mummy gamble on alienating the affections of her favorite brother by letting you go over there?  It is also why we made you shoulder some little amount of the expenses.”