Clifford wrote nothing in his journal for the months of January, February and March 1947. Editor
April 19 1947
So long since I have looked at this journal. Now I must write again. I cannot go on living with Lillian. It is not my sort of life and I can’t settle to it. I miss living amongst my own things. I must find a way to leave, a way that will not hurt her too much for she deserves better, far better than me. She has done everything, but I am miserable. And I still love Hanna, hopelessly. I still think we will be together some day. I have thought this out carefully and I know that even if I do not get Hanna I must still leave Lillian. I can contemplate being quite by myself and I am not afraid. I cannot think that I will ever be with Marion again. That is finished.
When can I come to live here again? I want to be (here) now but I feel that this year will settle it. A few months more. I must be here by winter. So weak, so foolish, so cruel – I am all these things.
I have tried to be happy with Lillian, I have really. But happiness does not come that way. I knew and yet I was too weak to act as if I knew it. But whatever it costs I must return here for here is my place. I do not belong anywhere else. May it be soon.
April 26 1947
Saturday. I have decided to tell Lillian next Thursday. It is going to be horrible, but it must be done and it must be final. Then I will be here again and alone. Alone, in a sense, but not really, for I will be among my own things once more. I wish I did not have to do it, for her sake, she has done everything possible and she deserved to succeed. Things just don’t work that way.
And I am not going to leave her because of Hanna for Hanna is as far from being with me as ever. I do not know what will happen in the future. Just the same I must be here again. I must. I must. I am a pretty hopeless sort of person.
April 27 1947
I began this morning and we talked for hours. Finally we agreed that I come here for two or three months and here I am. Almost, I want to run back but I won’t. And does she think that in a few months I will go back? I feel nothing, I simply do not know.
June 4 1947
8, Trafalgar Studios, Wednesday.
It could not go on any longer and I told Lillian on Monday. I have hurt her deeply and I am entirely to blame. But there was no other way. I know that for certain.
This is what I did. When Hanna married on May 18th 1946 I was desperate, utterly broken. Lillian was an old friend. We had both had our troubles and had often confided in each other. I saw her that May and during the weeks after more often than usual. Then Kate began. Finally Kate told me that I was seeing too much of Lillian, ‘people were talking,’ and she really must ask ‘what my intentions were.’ Good God, I had none , then. But I began to think. I did not want to lose Lillian’s friendship. It meant too much. I had, I believed, seen Hanna for the last time. ‘Be happy with him,’ I told her, ‘for my sake.’ And I meant it. I decided that the love I needed was never going to be mine. Might it not be best, I began to tell myself, to talk to Lillian and perhaps, one day, when I was free, marry her. We had a wonderful friendship, mutual respect and admiration. Perhaps those were the qualities with which real happiness was firmly built. Love, as I had believed in it was a failure; at least for me. And so on August the 28th, in the country whilst the wind bent the trees and threatening clouds hurried through the sky I told her I loved her. Love, women expect that. It wasn’t true. I had everything else in the world for her but love. It was, I see now, a wicked thing to have done. Soon after I had done it I was horribly frightened but still determined to go on with what I had begun.
I had not seen Hanna, although before I made up my mind to speak to Lillian I had telephoned and told her what I intended to do and she said I must do it for she could never come to me now she was married.
For two months I did not see her and how I wanted her.
And then she wrote. She could not bear it, she must see me. Poor Lillian, I gave in at once. Hanna came and I knew I still loved her.
That is all, so far. Hanna wants to come to me now. Has she the courage to do it? Often I think she has, sometimes I am sure. Finally I believe she will.
But it was a wickedly irresponsible thing I did to Lillian. I do wish I had realised it soon enough. Lillian did everything possible. Terrible to say it – she never stood a chance.
August 26 1947
Paris
Montparnasse – Rue Bonaparte.
Stage sets. The same, the players are no longer there. Superseded now.
For what are streets, cities, towns but the settings men build for themselves in which they play parts assigned to them by Fate?
August 29 1947
Streets in the sunlight. Cast shadows. Not just blue, or purple, too easy, although they contain, of course, both these colours – and red and yellow and green as well Not absence of light but a different kind of light. Shadows full of light in fact. And they must be painted quickly. You may labour in the light if you have to, but I implore you, strike in your shadows once and once only. Otherwise they will have no vitality, no life in time.
September 8 1947
My love is here now!
Here, there is 5 month long gap in the journal when Clifford wrote nothing more. This means that he wrote nothing about his second solo show at Roland, Browse & Delbanco, which was held in October-November 1947, despite the fact that it was at least as successful as his first show there in terms of sales. Editor
Some pictures from the 2nd Roland, Browse & Delbanco show
Subsequently bequeathed by Sir Edward Marsh (1872-1953) to the Contemporary Art Society and presented to the William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley, South Africa,1956. No colour photo currently available.
It is very curious that this clearly unfinished painting was included in the exhibition. Especially as it was the largest work presented. It is, however, signed (bottom right), which is a clear indication that Clifford had no intention of doing any further work on it. Along with ‘The Dying Sun’, 1947 and ‘Les Noctambules,’ 1945, it is, of course, noteworthy as an obvious precursor of his series of Bather pictures from the 1960s and early ‘1970s.
To be continued