American Isis by Carl Rollyson

Author:Carl Rollyson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER 6

THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER

(1960–62)

1960: Plath and Hughes rent a London flat; 1 April: Frieda Rebecca, their first child, is born; October: The Colossus, Plath’s first book, is published; 6 February 1961: Plath suffers a miscarriage; 28 February: Plath undergoes an appendectomy; March: Plath begins writing The Bell Jar; July: the couple purchases a manor house in Devon; 17 January 1962: Nicholas Farrar Hughes is born; May: David and Assia Wevill visit Court Green.

On 3 February, Sylvia sent a round-up letter to Marcia Brown, explaining what it had been like to move back to England. She and Ted had stayed part of the time with Hughes’s parents in Yorkshire, but with Olwyn visiting and other relatives dropping by, Sylvia had little time to herself or space in which to read, let alone write. Ted’s mother, a messy housekeeper who left greasy pans in the oven and cupboards, got on Sylvia’s fastidious nerves. Sylvia wanted to help out, but Mrs. Hughes resisted. Sylvia felt hurt, she later told her friend Elizabeth Compton. Mrs. Hughes, Compton felt sure, did not want to exclude Sylvia, only wanting to pay respect to this well-educated woman of a different class.

Then there had been a ghastly three-week search for a furnished flat. The awful rainy, cold, and windy weather—always sure to depress Plath—and the appalling, dingy condition of the housing stock that cost more that twenty-five dollars a week (out of their price range), made her feel adrift in the large city, especially since she wanted to be near a good doctor and hospital. The American poet W. S. Merwin and his English wife, Dido, tried to be helpful, making phone calls and using their contacts, but they also agreed with Sylvia that the English were the “most secretly dirty race on earth.” Even new items in department stores looked shabby to Sylvia. To get anything decent seemed to involve “key money,” a form of large bribe to a real estate agent or landlord. Welcome to England, which had yet to boom itself out of its postwar blues.

Thanks to the Merwins, Sylvia and Ted finally found a flat on Chalcot Square near Primrose Hill, a very pleasant, almost country-like setting. The place needed a lot of work (Sylvia was applying her third coat of paint), but they were happy to have a home on a three-year lease—and relieved, since the baby was due in late March. They had a sunny kitchen and a view of the square, where Sylvia watched birds and children playing. They had to buy appliances, but the Merwins lent them some furniture. At the equivalent of eighteen dollars a week, plus charges for gas and electricity, they could budget enough using Ted’s Guggenheim Fellowship money. And of course the National Health Service would cover all costs associated with childbirth. Ted’s letters share Sylvia’s enthusiasm for their new home, as well as her dismay over what he called the “frightful competition for flats.” Sylvia reported to her mother on 7 February that Ted had

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