Incidents in the Rue Laugier (23 page)

To the wedding itself she was indifferent, though Nadine seemed to luxuriate in every day of preparation. In order fully to enjoy the various consultations that seemed to be called for—with the dressmaker, with the chef at the Hôtel de la Cloche, with those friends to whom, did she but know it, her assiduity after years of independence came as a surprise—she required to be alone, not hampered by a silent daughter whose pace was so much slower than her own. Maud left the flat on the pretext of visiting friends and then took refuge in the museum, where no one would think of looking for her. In these last days before her wedding she accorded herself a treat: tea in a tea-room, among women spending an inconsequential afternoon gossiping, before going home. Yet the treat failed to match her expectations, and she was reduced to going home herself. In her room a mysterious swathed white garment hung on the outside of her wardrobe.

Edward telephoned every evening. She listened to his voice with a mild pleasure, though he had little to say, until the evening when he told her that his father had had a mild heart attack and that his parents would not be able to come to the
wedding. She was genuinely sorry; she had liked the man, even loved him, had glimpsed through his kindness to her how her life might have been had her own father lived. Then Bibi came on the phone sounding tearful. ‘I am so sorry about the wedding, Maud. I hope it won’t spoil it for you.’

‘But you will be there, Bibi. And I shall look forward to seeing you again.’

Finally the day arrived, and Maud Lucie Simone Gonthier was pronounced the wife of Edward Harding Harrison. The brief civil ceremony was a mere formality; everyone knew that the real celebration was the wedding breakfast. There were thirty guests, Nadine having found it impossible to muster a great number. Even so, many of those invited were surprised to be remembered. The bride, in her white silk tunic and short white silk skirt, was judged to be well dressed for the occasion, though her expression was rather glum, as was that of the bridegroom, preoccupied no doubt by the state of his father’s health. The bride’s mother’s outfit—peacock blue jacket over a multicoloured silk skirt—was thought a success; she at least seemed to be enjoying herself, though as course followed course (too elaborate, they decided: a buffet would have been more appropriate) her colour mounted dangerously; between her flushed cheeks and her peacock blue hat her fine eyes issued a challenge and an invitation to the husbands of all her new-found friends. Bibi, looking very pretty, was seated next to Xavier. They appeared to be getting on extremely well, until Germaine put a stop to that. How she managed to do so, subjecting Bibi to a flow of bewilderingly charming conversation, Bibi never knew. Maud and Edward exchanged a sour wry smile at this performance. They might have been married for years.

They spent the night in Paris, at a pompous hotel that Edward thought she might enjoy. They soon realised that he
had been too ambitious, forsook the restaurant, and ordered chicken sandwiches from room service. She felt sorry for him, for having spent so much money, and for aiming so wide of the mark. They were both exhausted, they told themselves and each other; they would have an early night. It seemed better not to attempt an embrace. In the morning they flew to London and their new home. A mild sun pierced the cold mist. It seemed impossible not to accept this as an omen.

O
F THE TWO OF THEM, IT WAS HARRISON WHO FOUND
married life difficult and who sometimes gave vent to unjustified irritation. He was particularly irritated by Maud’s cooking, which he judged to be too ambitious, too far removed from the comforting platefuls to which his mother had accustomed him.

‘What’s this?’ he might ask, poking with a suspicious fork.

‘It’s fish. You like fish.’

‘What’s this stuff on it?’

‘Sauce mousseline. Don’t you like it?’

‘I like plain food. Anyway I don’t want a heavy meal in the evening. I’d rather have something simple. Tea, fruit, that sort of thing.’

Later she would find him sitting at the kitchen table with a book, an open packet of biscuits to hand. So she got used to preparing a fruit salad for him, and a pot of Earl Grey tea.
Shortbread biscuits, of which he never tired, were arranged on a flowered plate. He would inspect this modest supper to see if she had added anything out of the way, then when he was satisfied that all was in order would eat with every appearance of enjoyment. After a while, tired of seeing her dishes neglected, she joined him in this simple meal. Both ate lunch separately, Maud in the flat, Harrison more often than not at Overton’s, with any visitor to the shop who seemed inclined to stay and talk. On Fridays he took Cook out and stood him a good meal, after which they both spent a somnolent afternoon going over the books and waiting to shut for the weekend. Maud made painstaking vegetable soups for herself, and meat dishes which she put in the freezer. She ate her lunch calmly, laying a place in the dining-room for herself, drinking a glass of wine. Very occasionally, when Bibi came up for the day, or when Jean Bell was over from Pittsburgh, where she was doing postgraduate research, she went out to wine bars, bistros, restaurants in department stores, but was always happy to get back to the quiet of the flat, to whatever book she was reading, and to the unchanging landscape, becalmed in the winter afternoon, beyond her window. As darkness fell she would get up to switch on the lights, go into her bedroom to draw the curtains, briefly inspect her face, and prepare for Edward’s homecoming.

She was always relieved to see him, standing in the doorway with an aura of cold night air surrounding him. She never failed to kiss him, anxious for his approval, conscious of the slight constraint between them. If she felt apologetic it was because she sensed an unhappiness greater than her own. Indeed she was not altogether unhappy, having found a setting and a line of duty in which her peaceful temperament felt at home. She knew that all was not well between them, knew that, in ways she refused to examine, the past impinged on the present.
She knew that she was more pragmatic than her husband, had settled unadventurously into what had been offered, submitted to her husband’s embraces not unenthusiastically but always with a slight timidity, as if fearful of awakening ghosts, willed herself to be passive so that he could be all the more uninhibited. She discovered something she had not expected, a slight savagery in his lovemaking which she learned to accommodate.

It seemed to her daily that she knew him less and less, and that she had married a stranger whose kindness was not entirely to be relied upon. Yet she looked forward to his homecoming every evening, conscious, after the long silent day, of loneliness, conscious of the black leafless trees outside her window, and the sad sound of footsteps in the quiet street, where no cars passed all the long afternoon, so that she sometimes had the impression that she was the only person alive in this permanent winter. Combing her hair at her dressing-table, adding perhaps a necklace, she tried to summon up a sense of anticipation. But there was little to anticipate, apart from the mild kiss, the modest meal, the peace and comfort of an uneventful evening. Frequently she would say to him, ‘I’m going to bed now. I’ll read for a while. You won’t disturb me.’ She did this as much for his sake as for hers, knowing how he savoured his solitude, once he had satisfied himself that she was at home, waiting for him. She sensed in him an immense disappointment that he had failed to bring her to life, failed in fact to bring them both to life. Sometimes, when she looked across to him in his chair, she would see his expression as brooding, thoughtful, even yearning, but yearning not for her presence, which he had, but for some promise which she had failed to fulfil. She had seen that look before, in the rue Laugier, when he had offered to marry her. Because that sad look of yearning was unbearable to her she would close her
book, bid him goodnight, and go to bed. She longed for darkness and for sleep, but stayed awake until Harrison joined her in the bedroom: it seemed only good manners to exchange a few last remarks with him. Their final ‘Goodnight’ released them both from the day’s obligations. She slid into sleep easily, gratefully; he, his hands behind his head, stared for some time into the darkness, his memory more active in those night hours than it was in the daytime, when he was agreeably besieged by preoccupations of a more practical nature, distracted by decisions and conversations. In the daytime he would think gratefully of Maud, of her fastidious quietness. At night he would feel a certain familiar sadness when he listened to her steady breathing from the other bed.

She was amazed at her lack of unhappiness, while he was eternally surprised at his sense of loss. In the first three years that followed their marriage they gave the appearance of a well-matched couple. Neighbours who saw them out walking on a Sunday afternoon thought them exemplary, their silence if anything a forceful indication of their inner harmony. Max and Nelly Kroll, dining with them once a month, were charmed by Maud’s ceremonious preparations, her meticulous menus, her poached salmon or her lamb with flageolet beans, her apple tart or her lemon soufflé. Nelly Kroll, a sparkling seventy-five-year-old, exclaimed at Maud’s beauty, and privately thought how greatly she would be improved by a little animation. Max, happy with his cigar, his brandy, and the chocolates that Maud always bought for him, thought how much he would have appreciated her had she been his daughter. But there were no children. The Krolls had made their peace with this long ago, their disappointment faded into a comfortable resignation. Nelly Kroll, in the kitchen, had broached the subject with Maud, relying on an old woman’s privilege to examine this most delicate of matters.

‘No,’ said Maud. ‘It’s not that Edward doesn’t like children. It’s just that I seem unable to have them.’

‘Have you tried?’ said Nelly.

Maud turned away. ‘Of course,’ she replied, her voice as calm as she could make it. ‘But I don’t seem able to proceed beyond a few weeks. I’m sorry for Edward’s sake. For myself I’ve more or less come to terms.’

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘There’s no need. I’m perfectly well. Shall we join the others? You prefer camomile tea to coffee, don’t you?’

And Nelly Kroll, convinced that Maud’s sadness, and Edward’s too, was the result of this simple incapacity—or were they mismatched?—told herself there were no more questions she could decently ask and returned with relief to her husband’s side. Absentmindedly he took her hand. He had noticed, as she had, that the Harrisons rarely touched each other. He would have liked to have known more, but his tact was superior to that of his wife.

Besides, there were more interesting matters to discuss, such as the current state of Edward’s business, and—to judge from the lavishness of Maud’s appointments, the comfort of this room and the excellent meals they always ate—the extremely gratifying state of prosperity which he had already attained and which he looked, if anything, to increase in the years ahead, if he had the good sense to rely on Max’s advice.

For the shop was a success. Since his marriage Harrison had discovered that he had it in himself to be an excellent businessman. Truth to tell, the shop was a refuge from a home life which he could not help but think of as unhappy, though he was careful not to probe too deeply into the causes of that unhappiness. With his lists of subscribers and correspondents, many of them American, brought up to date, he found himself writing to them as if they were old friends. His advertisements
had brought him a few regular visitors for whom his unusual stock, now carefully augmented, was a constant joy. It was Maud who suggested that he carry more classics, preferably in good editions, a suggestion for which he was grateful. Further advertisements in literary journals brought in enquiries from retiring dons, or the widows of defunct dons, on the verge of moving to smaller houses, and only too willing to surrender a complete set of Balzac, or George Eliot, or Zola. Out of a delicate feeling for his wife, the feeling that subsisted when all others seemed stale and crude, he concentrated on French books, putting on one side for her books with the names of women,
La Cousine Bette
, or
La Petite Fadette
, or
Germinie Lacerteux
, books he thought suitable to her frail composure, having forgotten what quiet horrors such titles concealed, and in any event immersed, as always, in Dickens. He allowed Cook a little sideline of his own: review copies collected from critics and journalists, and sold on at the book fairs he occasionally attended at the weekends. Cook too had his own list of subscribers, and was becoming increasingly familiar with contemporary fiction. In the afternoons, if there were no visitors, a calm settled on the shop: both read, as if reading were the reason for their being there at all. Customers were impressed. Their reputation was excellent.

It was when he set out to walk home, in the winter dark, his hands in his pockets, that doubts began once more to assail him. He was oddly reluctant to join his wife, while at the same time feeling an intense relief at the sight of the lights shining from the windows of the flat. This image of home beguiled him every evening, though he knew it was illusory. But it was a necessary illusion. The warmth, the light, Maud’s greeting, and the exchange of what little news they had to impart to each other, soothed him into a feeling of normality, behind which he was aware of serious discrepancies. Their union, he
knew, was weak, lacking in solidarity. There were no children, virtually no parents, no significant elders to guide them. After Arthur Harrison’s death Maud declined to accompany him to Eastbourne. ‘You go,’ she would say. ‘Your mother would rather see you on her own. And Bibi is coming up next week—we shall have plenty to talk about.’ He on his side manifested a violent antipathy to Maud’s family, particularly to her mother and her aunt, whom he saw as corrupt and infinitely corruptible. This feeling was largely retrospective, since he in his turn failed to accompany her to Dijon, and was in fact instrumental in dissuading her from going there on her own, with the result that Maud got into the habit of speaking to her mother on the telephone, conversations which both found sufficient for their requirements. Maud and her husband existed in a limbo which had its attractions, most notably in that moment of recognition at the end of the working day, when they would emerge from their respective silences to greet each other with something like joy, only to relapse again, and all too soon, into another silence, the silence which continued to subsist between them, and which neither of them could break.