Brief Lives (17 page)

I found this aspect of Julia’s reduced life unbearably pathetic. That a woman of her quality should spend her time on these productions, should take them seriously, should actually discuss them, made me see the emptiness of her days. I was probably wrong, or my conscience may have made me more susceptible. Julia regarded a novel as she regarded a glass of whisky or a cigarette, as something to be consumed and endlessly renewed. She got through one a day, or rather a night, for she was never tired, and kept her light on long after everyone else was asleep. A shabby plastic-covered pile waited on the table.

‘I thought Maureen got them for you,’ I said.

‘Maureen, I’m afraid, is quite hopeless. And anyway she’s always round at that church of hers. God knows what she does there.’

‘Maybe God does,’ interrupted Maureen merrily.

Julia closed her eyes, as if in pain. ‘Or at Peter Jones,’ she said, as if this were the same thing. She seemed to regard both establishments as derogating from her own pre-eminence.

‘Nevertheless,’ I demurred. ‘Maureen is more on the spot than I am.’

‘That’s your fault,’ said Julia sharply.

‘And anyway I’ve taken on the parish magazine,’ said Maureen, who seemed in the best of humour. I had often had my doubts about Maureen, could find no cause for dislike, but felt it all the same.

‘No earthly use asking Pearl,’ said Julia. ‘She’s never read a book in her life.’

Pearl Chesney flushed. She was aware of her uncertain status in this little group, aware of her past years as Julia’s dresser, her devotion to her, which may not have been repaid. She turned up regularly and faithfully, but I suspected that she came for the cup of tea and the glass of sherry, the touch of glamour conferred by Julia’s superb appearance, the professional pride she felt in seeing her so beautifully turned out. I know that from time to time she took some of Julia’s clothes home to wash and press, and that she was useful about letting down hems. Charlie, I am sure, paid her handsomely.

She was a homely looking woman who wore a lot of make-up, rouged cheeks and cherry lips in the style of the 1940s, above which large eyes the colour of oyster shells looked out humbly at a world which had changed too much for her. Over seventy now, she still laughed appreciatively
at Julia’s every sally and could be counted on to come up with a loyal and flattering reminiscence. I think she adored Julia, hoped only to be useful to her for the rest of her life. Julia was tired of her, except for her skills as a dressmaker, and was increasingly cruel, in a reflective throwaway style which seemed to have no malice behind it. Pearl Chesney was not unaware of this, as she was not unaware of her physical gracelessness, her increasingly stout figure, her lack of all the attributes that Julia admired. Yet sometimes she took away a whole suitcase of Julia’s clothes, which she would bring back, minutely repaired, on her next visit. She would insist on travelling by bus, back to St Maur Road, in Fulham, although Julia would say in a bored tone, ‘There’s no need for that. Charlie left you money for a taxi.’ Mrs Chesney was uncomfortable about taking it, I could see. It occurred to me that these matters could have been more gracefully managed.

I believe that she was a good woman, rather lonely, more sensitive than anyone understood.

‘I’ll help you with those, Fay,’ she said, bundling four of the books into her basket. Her face was red with unhappiness. It was her eagerness to be gone that weakened my resolve not to have anything to do with Julia’s wretched books.

‘I’ll change them, Julia,’ I warned her. ‘But this is the first and last time. I’ll bring you some paperbacks the next time I come. I’ve got dozens in the flat.’

‘Quite useless,’ she said. ‘With these silly hands of mine I can’t keep them open.’ Paperbacks were dismissed, along with my bottle of scent.

‘I believe they have a better selection at the Kensington branch,’ she said. ‘Or there’s Brompton Road, if that’s
nearer for you. There’s no need to put yourself out on my account.’

I felt angry and helpless as I left and could sympathize only too well with poor Pearl Chesney, who trotted beside me manfully, although her heavy breathing should have told me that I was going too fast for her. I was too angry to slow down, but when we reached Drayton Gardens, with our four books apiece, I asked her in, as I should have done a long time ago. I never invited anyone to the flat if I could help it. I thought of it as a place reserved for shadowy meetings, not to be exposed to the light of day. Looking back this makes me groan with irritation: I see it now as one of the traps into which women fall so easily. But really I had divested myself of my friends in the interests of this love affair. If I had fallen ill I should not have known whom to call. Only the doctor, I suppose. Fortunately, I am never ill.

‘Oh, Fay,’ said Mrs Chesney. ‘What a lovely flat! How happy you must be here. Although of course you must be lonely without your husband.’

‘Sit down, Pearl,’ I said, ashamed. ‘I’m going to give us another glass of sherry. And I’ve got some little biscuits that would go nicely with it.’

‘It’s very kind of you, dear,’ she said. ‘And I’m glad of this opportunity to have a word with you. There’s something I’ve been meaning to say.’

I all but paused, but managed to hand her her glass.

‘The truth is,’ she said, ‘I shan’t be seeing you again. I think my days at Onslow Square are over.’

‘You’re not ill, are you, Pearl?’

‘No, I’m fine, except for this chest of mine. Julia doesn’t want me there and that’s the fact of the matter. Oh, I’m useful to her, I know, but I’m getting old; women of my age
are retired. I can’t keep it up, Fay. I may be an old fuddy-duddy, but sometimes I think Julia forgets how long we’ve been together. I bore her,’ she finished simply, but her eyes were wet.

‘I think we all bore her,’ I said. ‘She strikes me as a woman with an enormous capacity for boredom.’

‘And perhaps a tiny bit selfish from time to time,’ said Mrs Chesney, putting away her handkerchief.

‘Perhaps,’ I said.

She had been badly hurt, I realized, over a number of years, probably all her life, and she did not possess the resources to deal with what others would have construed as contempt. She was weary, and fatally badly dressed: her nylon raincoat, with the nylon fleece collar and cuffs and the useless trimmings of synthetic leather, spoke even more eloquently than her words had done of slights received and misunderstood.

‘So I’m going to live near my son,’ she went on. ‘He’s found me a little flat. He’s a good boy. He says it’s my turn to be looked after. Out Surrey way, it is. It’ll break my heart to leave London, but I dare say I’ll get used to it.’

‘I didn’t know you had a son,’ I said.

‘Well, I don’t talk about him. My mother brought him up. I wasn’t married, you see, that’s why I went on working. I wanted him to have the best. He went to university, you know, won a scholarship to Queen Mary College. Engineering, he did. He’s been with British Rail ever since he left, on the administrative side, of course.’

‘We’ll miss you,’ I said. ‘Julia will miss you.’

‘She’s got her husband, hasn’t she? That’s more than I ever had.
And
he spoils her. Well, he’s been good to me, so I won’t say a word against him. But they don’t know the half of it, really, either of them. How other people have to
live.’ There was a little silence, in which I could think of nothing to say. ‘I must go, dear. It’s been so kind of you, and I hope you won’t pay too much attention to what I’ve said. We’ve all got our feelings, haven’t we?’

She fastened her creaking raincoat, put on her gloves, picked up her basket. I did not suggest a taxi, thinking that at that moment her independence was her proudest possession. I gave her my telephone number, kissed her, and waved to her from the window. For the first time in all the evenings I could remember I wanted to be alone. There was a tiny knot of uncertainty, even of bitterness, somewhere inside me, and if Charlie had come I might have been unwise, disappointing. I might have asked for assurances which would not, could not be forthcoming, and I was glad that there was no opportunity for me to do so. A suppliant is never popular.

UNCHARACTERISTICALLY, I CAME
down with some sort of virus and had to tell Charlie, when he telephoned, not to come. He always telephoned at some point during the day, or, if he missed a day, or even two days, shortly afterwards, never leaving me for too long without some contact with him. I knew better than to telephone him. I had done so once, and having to speak to his secretary had filled me with shame and confusion. I had reflected then, as I had done on subsequent occasions, that what I was doing was too difficult for me. I think concealment is difficult for a woman, unnatural even. Most of the time I felt confident, lighthearted, but when I look back I realize that this too was unnatural. I was like someone on a euphoric drug, not giving a thought to eventual withdrawal symptoms. Those timid mornings, those empty afternoons were all part of my adventure: after a time I stopped noticing the loneliness and congratulated myself on having arranged matters so well. No interruptions, no unforeseen visitors, no telephone
ringing at awkward moments, for I had managed to anticipate and to ward off unwelcome callers. Most people took notice of this and left me alone. Even Julia, it seemed, had become more passive, less peremptory. Now that she had annexed me into changing her books—and how could I deny her something to read?—her famous ‘Now, look here!’ was relatively rare. The always uneasy compromise with my own conscience was resolved, or partially resolved, time after time by my leaving the books with Maureen or Mrs Wheeler and pretending to be on my way to somewhere else. I thought this quite a successful ploy, and somehow persuaded myself that it was temporary: I was performing a service which I might revoke at any time. Julia, slowly trying on earrings in her bedroom, would hear my cheerful voice at the front door, but be too preoccupied to call me in. In any event she had never expressed much desire for my company. Attendance was enough.

With the slight illness that had brought me down my euphoria vanished and I realized just how isolated I had become. Dark silent days in the muggy warmth of my flat set my head aching: I was wretched and rather frightened. I even called the doctor, something I had never done before, and the action filled me with terror and relief. I was voluble when he came, thanking him and apologizing at the same time. ‘It’s probably only a cold,’ I said, and in my head I could hear Julia saying, ‘Fay is hapless. Don’t you think Fay has become very hapless recently?’

‘No, not a cold.’ He smiled. ‘One of those opportunistic viruses. Have you let yourself get run down?’ He looked round the room, which had shadows in its corners, although it was only midday. ‘Live alone, do you? What sort of things do you eat? Do you cook properly?’

I was shocked. I had always cooked properly, but it had
seemed so silly to buy joints of meat for one person and I had gradually stopped doing it. Pies I made for Vinnie, and cakes out of an old housekeeping habit, but I rarely touched them myself. There were other meals, and I cooked them and ate them, or perhaps I just ate one dish, as one does when one is alone. I shopped normally, I even cooked normally; perhaps what I did not do was eat normally. But in my own eyes I was so far from being that elderly self-neglecting patient that doctors have in mind that I shrugged off his questions and resolved to buy a chicken as soon as he had left. I calculated that I could walk as far as the shops, although I felt weak. I was anxious not to appear weak, at least as long as the doctor was there. Afterwards I should probably sink back on the sofa and sleep. I felt too nervous to go to bed, in case I should never get up again.

I did nothing else for a couple of days. I felt strange and light-headed; more than that I felt uneasy, as if there were no help for me in all the long lonely mornings, now as long and lonely as the afternoons had always been. Illness distorts, but that distortion can serve as a commentary. I now saw the days for what they were, hours of simply waiting for the evening to arrive. And then suddenly came the unbidden thought: this is intolerable. And having once allowed it, the word re-echoed in my head. Intolerable! I was too old, I was too tired, it was all out of character. Those children, those young people I admired so much in the early mornings—they were the proper occupation for a woman of my age. Sometimes, these days, I dressed myself defiantly, as if challenging unknown and unseen onlookers to criticize. I believed those who maintained that a woman is as old as she feels, but these days I surprised myself by feeling older than I looked. All my hopefulness had vanished. I thought of myself as I had once been, naïve, happy,
and obedient. Or perhaps just happy to be obedient. In the films of my youth when the heroine married the hero that was the end of the story, and life was justified and fulfilled. But when they both survive the ending the story changes. And when one of them survives or outlives the other the story changes again, and not for the better. For the worse! I saw that now. In the dim light of a February afternoon, with the grey carpet a lake of darkness, I saw all too clearly that some changes have to be resisted. I had thought that I was resisting them in the right way, the only way for a woman who is growing older. I had thought to outwit the changes, to defy them, but in fact I had fallen into a trap, one that had narrowed my life, diminished it, so that I sat here, stranded on my sofa, wondering how I was to continue. For continue was the only thing I could do. There was no other course open to me.