Brief Lives (31 page)

At the airport dread descended on us. Pearl and I struggled with the luggage while Julia tried to maintain a regal presence. I could see how hard she struggled, and I willed her to succeed. We had to say goodbye before we were ready to do so, for the attendant was already present with the wheelchair. This may have been providential; the strain was beginning to tell on us. ‘Goodbye,’ I cried, although the crowd was so dense and the noise so distracting that I doubted whether she could hear me. Pearl was already in tears, while I was nearly incapacitated by a mixture of anxiety and relief. ‘Goodbye!’ I shouted, behind the backs of people pushing trolleys. ‘Goodbye, Julia. Good luck.’ As if in answer her hand was briefly raised. She did not look back.

I took Pearl back to the café, sat her down, and let her cry. ‘It’s for the best,’ I said, and then I remembered that that was what people said to grieving relatives after a death in the family. ‘It had to happen this way,’ I amended. ‘Just think! In three hours’ time Julia will be in the sun.’ Nevertheless we felt diminished, and we clung together as we made our way to the taxi rank. I brought her back with me and made a strong pot of tea: neither of us felt like eating. We spent the afternoon together, as if we were recovering
from a deep shock. Fortunately it was the day I did not go to the office. ‘Do you think she’ll telephone when she arrives?’ asked Pearl anxiously. ‘I’m sure she will,’ I assured her. ‘Then I’d better get home and wait for her call,’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, Fay, I’m rather tired. I’m quite looking forward to being in my little flat again.’

As I was. Julia had done this for us, she had reconciled us with the inevitable. The evening darkened outside the windows as I thankfully drew the curtains and put on the lights. I promised myself little treats—television, an early night. These were now to be my lot. But, for the moment at least, I was thankful, thankful to grow old unobserved. Tomorrow I might feel differently. But then tomorrow is always another day.

SHE NEVER CAME BACK
. Whether this was from pride, as I suspected, or because she had been made genuinely welcome we never discovered. All the news we had of her was contained in the messages on two postcards, which we examined with a care which would not have disgraced a couple of paleographers. Pearl’s card said, ‘Arrived safely. Weather marvellous. Love, Julia.’ Mine, which was more mysterious but more affecting, stated, ‘Should auld acquaintance … Regards, Julia.’ There was no address. Thus she had effectively put herself out of reach.

For a little while this was a torment. The ghost of Julia, whom nothing escaped except the correct interpretation of what she saw, looked on sardonically as I, a plump spry figure, pretended to myself that all was well. In some secret depth, the depth to which I consigned unbidden truths, I knew that she was merely tolerated by her brother and his friend, that she was having to adapt herself to their grudging and ambivalent company, that the green paradise of
childhood loves was effectively cancelled, and that there were no happy endings. At least, I thought, as if to reassure or comfort myself, she will have servants and the warmth of the sun. And then I shrugged at my continuing and guilty concern. Julia was no worse off than the rest of us. I thought of my old people on the telephone to me at the office, unable to get out, to shop or feed themselves, sometimes suffering from painful conditions, and dependent on the likes of Mrs Harding and myself for a little cheer. I thought of Pearl, sad-eyed and trusting, marooned in her tiny flat in a suburb which held no charm for her, brooding on her memories in which her grandchildren expressed no interest. Last of all I thought of myself, growing old alone, with all hope gone.

Gradually things returned to normal. Pearl’s anxious telephone calls became less frequent, although I could rely on her wistful voice on Sunday evenings, at the time when she used to talk to Julia. She wanted to chat, to discuss the week’s news, to exchange a favoured set of platitudes for the ones I would dutifully counter in return. I associate these calls with a particular melancholy, with the aching vacuum of a late Sunday afternoon, with fading light and infrequent footfalls on the pavement outside my window, with clouds of ennui rolling up from South Kensington or down from Earls Court, and with my regularly reinforced suspicion that I must get away or fall into a trap from which there will be no release.

I dread the weekends. I dread the pretence that drives me to the shops on a Saturday morning, and the shame of buying a solitary chop and a few vegetables, which I cook for my lunch. I feel the burden then. I dread the calm of Saturday afternoons, punctuated only by the distant roar from the football terraces. Something stops me from going
out, as if I might be in danger of missing a visitor, though no one comes. I sit by the window, with my hands in my lap, looking out and waiting. Old habits are not easily discarded and sometimes leave an unconscious trace. I watch the light fade with a sort of anguish, an anguish which is not entirely temporal. I perceive the symbolism of the end of the day. I usually sleep badly on a Saturday night and am always awake to hear the thud of the newspapers on the doormat. I try to take things slowly, but am always ahead of myself, and frequently sit down to lunch—an omelette—at midday.

Then there opens before me the prospect of a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has come to signify all the elaborate disaffection of a Sunday afternoon in South Kensington. It is not a benighted spot. On the contrary, it is fairly prosperous. But on a Sunday it looks undignified, with a flotilla of ice cream vans outside the Science Museum and papers blowing round the ankles of people descending the steps to the warm iron breath of the underground. Behind the window of the Polish teashop ancient faces break into vivid conversation, elaborate compliments, fervent expressions of welcome. I hurry home, away from this touching cordiality, and while I am drinking my own cup of tea I think of all that was begun and not finished, the excursions to Highgate Cemetery, and everything that should have followed but did not in fact take place.

I sometimes see Dr Carter. I see him at Caroline’s dinner parties, where he is still produced as a partner for me, and where we converse with almost natural goodwill. Or I pass him in the street, where we both raise our hands in greeting, pleased to see each other and pleased to be committed to no more than passing courtesies. I never broke his heart. I never made an opportunity to do so. I knew that any
invitation I proffered would be fraught with embarrassment on both sides, so I simply did not invite him. I told myself that when my feelings had settled down I should invite him again, because at my age one does not easily forgo a friendship. But my feelings never did seem to settle down. Does one become more easily moved in the latter part of one’s life? If so, I am glad that I never had children, for I think I should have ended up weeping for them all the time. So I keep myself to myself when this dangerous mood is on me, for another aspect of old age is loss of dignity, and I still have enough pride to see to it that mine remains intact, at least as far as the outside world is concerned.

During the week, of course, I am fine. I have my work, my little routines and pleasures, my easy life. I keep well, and am lucky enough not to require the services of a doctor, which reminds me that I must find a new one. Perhaps Dr Carter will notice that I have removed my name from his books and set on foot some sort of enquiry. On the other hand he may understand, as he understood everything that was not said between us. He is still unmarried, as I am, and losing his looks, but I still find him attractive, as perhaps do other women. During the week, when I am doing really well, I look forward quite actively to the day of our next meeting, for he still holds the key to any future I might have. I never thought this of any man before, and it seems exceedingly unfair to the memory of my husband, with whom I was, briefly, so much in love. It may seem ridiculous for a woman of my advanced years to think of the future, but I imagine that one always does and always will, and even in one’s last days one will be wondering what is to come.

That is why I rarely look back. Those old songs that I used to sing, when I was innocent of their longing, do not
haunt me. If I were to succumb to them again the pain would be immeasurable. They would remind me of the durability, the hopelessness of desire, as if underneath all experience lurks the child’s bewilderment. Why do you not love me? say the songs. And if I love you, why do I still yearn for something beyond? These songs seem to me profound because they underline a rather sophisticated acknowledgment, namely that the act of love is finite and that what is being voiced is not only the disappointment of this but one’s exacerbated need for permanent transformation, exacerbated, that is, by the act of love itself. ‘Only Make-Believe’, runs the song. And ‘You Are My Heart’s Delight’. And ‘I’ll Be Loving You Always’. But though the words are affirmative the melodies are in a minor key, and sadder than they know. I could not sing them now. I know too much of this cruel world to sing them with the touching faith of yesterday, when, in my very far-off girlhood, I thought that such moods were simply the prelude to experience and not the result of experience gained. When young one can still aspire to sublimity. Old age knows that this is, and probably always was, in devastatingly short supply.

But when I keep away from the old songs and my own disappointments I really think I manage rather well. The years have passed, and they have been, on the whole, satisfactory. Everything fades a little. I am out and active every day. I give help where and when I can. My dear friend Millie, now a widow like myself, occasionally comes to stay when up in town for shopping. Some parts of the past have not quite lost their sweetness, or so I think when we both rejoice in each other’s company. Looking at her is like looking at a mirror image of myself. We always hearten each other, indulge in little extravagances, laugh at our vanity. For it survives! In these moments I see Julia’s eyelids
descending in amusement, not altogether good-natured, as she contemplates this spectacle. At least I think that is what I see. Sometimes I see a cranky old woman in a wheelchair, planted out of sight beneath a palm tree. And this despite her death, which I read about in last Monday’s
Times
. So irrelevant did her death seem that I almost looked forward to discussing it with her, felt something like a quickening of interest. ‘What was it like?’ I should have asked. The eyelids would have come down again as she considered. ‘Not all that bad,’ I can hear her say, in her most famously throw-away tone. ‘You might give it a try one of these days.’