Brief Lives (28 page)

I think that those few words were my greatest mistake. Julia laid a heavy wet arm round my neck, disarranging my hair in the process. ‘Going away?’ she said. ‘Well done.’ She pretended to fall, or maybe she did fall, I no longer know, and in her effort to hold on to me tore the stitches from the shoulder of my blouse. I could feel the slow uncoiling of my hair as it fell down my back. Her body, a dead weight, supported itself on my shoulders as I staggered back; she had renounced all responsibility for her movements, either that or she was more incapacitated than I knew. Horrified, I managed to get her into the bedroom. She drifted slowly to her dressing-table, contemplated her face, turning it this way and that. Her eye, when it met mine in the mirror, was ancient and amused. I suppose I did look amusing, with my hair flopping down my back and my wet ruined blouse. My one thought was to get home and repair the damage. Rain spattered like bullets against the window. Julia rubbed cream into her face, with a caressing gesture. ‘Charlie loved to see me do this,’ she said. ‘He adored me. “You are the woman of my life,” he said. “There will be no other.” Has
anyone ever said that to you?’ Without looking back I ran out of the flat.

Rain was falling quite heavily, heavily enough to banish all taxis from sight and to jam up the rest of the traffic. I ran, as well as I could, all the way to Drayton Gardens. I must have looked insane. Inside the flat I found my hands trembling so much that I struck match after match without being able to light the oven. Miraculously, I managed to get the rice, the herbs and the stock into a baking dish. While the chicken was simmering in the rest of the stock I laid the table, then ran back into the kitchen to put the dish in the oven. Once everything was assembled I might just have time for a bath. I took out the wine, unmoulded the terrine, filled a jug with mineral water, and then the bell rang. I actually hesitated before opening the door, half hoping that anyone there would go away, even if it were Alan Carter himself. I was aware of my ripped blouse drying unevenly on me. ‘Good evening, Madam,’ said the two pale young people on my doorstep. ‘Are you interested in learning more about the Bible?’ At that moment the telephone rang. Shutting the door on the two young people I ran to the sitting-room to answer it. ‘Hello, Fay,’ said Pearl Chesney. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ Through the window I could see Alan Carter coming along at a steady jogger’s pace. I promised to ring Pearl Chesney later, ran to the kitchen to turn down the oven. Turning, my skirt caught the corner of the terrine which I had put too near the edge of the kitchen table. The dish fell and smashed on the floor, sending a spray of carrot mousse over my shoes.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ asked Alan Carter, following me into the kitchen. He sounded annoyed rather than concerned. He was one of those men who hated to have his evenings ruined, one of the characteristics of an
unmarried man, I suppose, or perhaps he saw too many distraught women all day to have any patience with them after working hours. For himself, he liked regularity, order, distance.

‘Everything’s gone wrong,’ I said helplessly, beginning to weep.

‘I can see that,’ he replied, with a note of distaste. ‘If you’ll change your clothes I’ll take you out to dinner.’

‘I don’t think I can,’ I said, sitting down and wiping my eyes on a tea towel.

He poured himself a glass of wine. ‘I didn’t realize you were so moody,’ he said.

‘Of course you didn’t,’ I burst out. ‘Oh, it’s not your fault. You like an orderly life. So do I. I am a very orderly person. But things go wrong, even in an orderly life. You never seemed to realize that. You never asked me what I liked, what I wanted.’

‘Why should I?’ he said, annoyed. ‘It’s not up to me to put your affairs in order.’

‘Why not?’ I said slowly. ‘Why not? Why shouldn’t you ask me what I wanted? Because you don’t want me to want anything?’

‘There’s no need to be hysterical,’ he said. ‘As for what you want that’s neither here nor there. You invited me to dinner. I offered to take you out, as the dinner seems to be on the floor.’

‘I have a rather bad headache,’ I said. ‘If you don’t mind I’d rather go to bed.’

‘That seems to me the best idea,’ he said. ‘Goodnight. Ring me in the morning and tell me how you are. We might be able to get together another time.’

Slowly, with the sound of an abruptly closing door echoing in my ears, I cleared up, threw the food away, took off
my ruined clothes and put them in the linen basket. I should never wear them again. I lay in bed with burning eyes until the light faded and finally died. It was all quite trivial, I told myself. A ruined dish, a ruined evening. At my age one should dismiss such things as unimportant. But it had been important, crucial, in fact. I had shown Alan Carter an unpleasant side of myself, a hapless deranged side; he had seen me with my hair lying on my shoulders and my blouse ripped and my eyes red: we should not recover from this. I had probably lost him, that fastidious and so-successful unmarried man, in the way that women lose to men when they are not very vigilant. I had asked, in the worst possible way, for his succour, for his support, for his indulgence. Really, I had been asking for his love, and he knew it. This was a terrible problem for him, for he was not prepared to give it. Whatever his desires or his intentions they did not include a madwoman with a disorderly appearance. In his mind I was to remain stately and pleasant, a possibility, no more than that. Whatever I brooded upon was to be my own responsibility, not his. I was a widow and he was a divorcee; there was to be no question of marriage. I saw that now, too late.

I saw also that it was not entirely his fault. One does not give men sufficient credit for their hurt feelings. I had disappointed him. A more skilful woman would have avoided this. But I had always been impatient, susceptible. I wanted happiness. I wanted a full life. This one is not always able to procure for oneself. I wanted his co-operation, and this I seemed to have forfeited. I would have given anything to turn back the clock, to shut the door on the ruined kitchen, and to present myself, smiling, and saying, ‘Sit down. I shan’t be a minute. I’m just going to change. It’s only an omelette, I’m afraid. We’ve been busy today. Why don’t
you pour yourself a glass of wine and relax until I call you?’ All this should have been possible. But I had not been able to manage it.

Behind my own ruin lay Julia. I knew this, had known it even before the fiasco had enacted itself. It was as if she had willed it. Ridiculous though this may sound I knew it to be true. Whether out of past resentment or present frustration she had brought about my defeat. It was important to me to believe that she had brought it about because of my chance—so slender!—of happiness. This was not revenge. Julia’s revenge would have been more terrible, more immediate. She could have tormented me so much more successfully had she intended to, could have deployed her remarkable resources to humiliate and ostracize me. She was not a good judge of character, that was all. She could only see herself. Had she been a subtler woman I really think she would have seen to it that I came to grief, in a way I dared not even imagine.

These were the thoughts of the middle of the night. In the morning, still with an aching head, I realized that it was all exaggerated. Probably all that she had ever known, ever seen, was a speculative glance from Charlie in my direction. That was enough for her. And maybe this had all taken place a long time ago, before I was ever aware of it. Maybe it all went back as far as that holiday in Nice, when Charlie and I had sat in a café, waiting for Julia to finish her interminable toilette, harmlessly reading the papers. What stimulated that ancient grudge was the prospect of my going away with Alan Carter, with whom she thought I might be happy, as indeed I had. I should never see her again, although I might now supply her with what she wanted to hear, an amusing story of how I had spoilt my last chance. I was not able to do this. Therefore I must abandon her, as
I had always wanted to do. Strangely, I found this idea very difficult.

The weather was cool, grey, a disappointment after the radiant days that had gone before. I remembered standing in the rain outside the house in Gertrude Street after the burning days that had preceded Owen’s death. This was dead reckoning. I sat in the flat with my hands in my lap, knowing that I should not be going on holiday that summer. My holiday was over. I rang the surgery and got through to Alan straight away. ‘I’m so sorry about last night,’ I said lightly, for lightness was all. ‘I get these awful headaches from time to time. Will you let me give you dinner again, next week, perhaps?’ ‘I’m rather busy,’ was his reply. ‘I’m glad you’re better.’ (But I had not said so.) ‘I’ll give you a ring.’ I put the telephone down very carefully, knowing that I should have to wait a long time before I heard from him again.

After this I was very calm. At the end of the morning, as I was about to go to the office, I remembered Pearl Chesney and called her back. She seemed delighted to hear my voice. It appeared that she was coming to town the following day. ‘It’s very nice here, of course, and lovely to be so near Colin and the boys, but I do miss my London!’ I invited her to come and have coffee with me. ‘And you’ll be seeing Julia, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes, dear. I do miss her. Funny isn’t it? Here I am, with a life of my own at last, and yet I think of her all the time.’

‘Well,’ I said slowly. ‘I suppose she is a memorable woman.’

‘That’s it, dear. Memorable. You always did have a way with words. We did have some laughs, didn’t we?’

I put on a cardigan to go to the office. After all, I was an elderly woman and it was incumbent upon me to look
after myself. I think that day marked the beginning of my real old age, although all things considered it has not been too bad. I sat in the office, taking comfort from my pale blue cardigan, with Doggie by my side, reasoning with myself. I was free now, free of encumbrances, free of hope, that greatest of all encumbrances. The idea was not particularly terrible. I was surprised at how little I felt. It was not until I was preparing to lock up and go home, when a shaft of late sun pierced the heavy cloud, that I felt a little pain. I thought of a house on the Isle of Wight that I should never see. ‘No, I shan’t be going away,’ I said to Mrs Harding. ‘I can carry on here, if you feel you can trust me.’

‘Then I can tell my sister that I shall be coming to her,’ she replied. ‘What a treasure you are, Fay. Have a good weekend.’

Old times, sad times. I feel better about them now than I did then. Then I felt like a girl, bewildered, although I was of an age to know better. This girlishness of mine, persisting in spite of the evidence of my body, had proved my enemy to the end. For it was the end of something, and I knew it. No more excitement, no more expectation, no more power. The old are disempowered. I caught sight of myself in a plate glass window as I walked slowly, more slowly than usual, towards Drayton Gardens. I reminded myself of someone, but someone I had not seen for a long time. It was not until I was in the flat and smoothing my hair in the glass that I recognized myself. I looked like my mother.

PEARL SAT OPPOSITE
me in the other chair, the chair that was meant to be occupied by a companion, the chair that I had placed by the hearth in a facsimile of domestic contentment. And yet I was glad of her company. I had become humble and quiet since what I thought of as the débâcle, and desirous of simple affirmations of goodwill. The smallest cliché pleased me, for I saw it as a counter in a game of conversations which admitted of no ambiguity. Conscientiously I played this game as if I were a beginner, a novice, as indeed I was, for I had graduated in an academy where words were used as a disguise and where the whole object was to divine the unspoken intention. It was an utter relief for me to observe to a neighbour that the nights were drawing in or that it was cold enough for a touch of frost and to have these observations accepted and confirmed.

Pearl was of inestimable comfort to me since she thought and spoke in such terms but did so as if they were new minted: it was a measure of her peculiar innocence that she
believed eagerly and passionately in those statements that obviate the need for originality of thought. ‘Dear old London,’ she said, as she sank down into the other chair. ‘Although I understand that women are not too safe on the streets now. And the transport doesn’t get any better, does it? I waited twenty minutes for a bus. I could have taken the underground, but I’m a bit nervous. You read such terrible things, don’t you? All these young unemployed people with nothing to do. I wonder they don’t bring back National Service.’ She accepted a cup of coffee from me, her colour high, her trusting eyes bright with the anticipation of a day in town. Exile had not diminished her enthusiasm, although I sensed that she was much lonelier than she had thought possible. Her humility and her loyalty forbade her from ever mentioning this in other than well-worn phrases, with humorous references to getting old and to her salad days being long past. The truth was that she had nothing to do. The little flat, the little bit of shopping were not enough to keep her occupied. Her son was at the mercy of his wife, and her grandsons came only on alternate weekends, with a lot of dirty washing and the occasional girlfriend. Without her telling me I knew that Pearl was endeavouring to make herself useful to this family of hers, and that she paid for the Sunday visits with a multiplicity of small services, mostly of a stay-at-home nature. Part of her enthusiasm, as she took a shortbread biscuit, was due to the fact that she was once again enjoying a life of her own. She had escaped, she had been welcomed, and was now being entertained. She was such a decent woman that these factors were sufficient to make her happy; she did not look beyond them.