The Rules of Engagement (28 page)

“
The ability to deal with loss is perhaps as
important, or rather as significant, as the
loss itself.
”

There spoke the therapist, I thought, that figured
in the background whose shadowy presence I had
intuited.

“
And yet my husband was too kind to leave me
bereft. I miss him as a friend as much as anything.
Just to know he was in the next room was enough.
”

I did not tell him that it was the other one I
missed, sometimes with an urgency that shocked me.
I took a draught of wine, hoping that it would
make me drunk. Sober, I did not think I
could add much to this conversation.

“
Some losses are in nature, of course,
”
I heard him say.
“
Those are the ones from which one
eventually recovers. Mine was not like that. Mine was
entirely self-inflicted.
”

“
How do you live now?
”

“
Oh, quietly. I am a disgrace
to everyone's concept of masculinity.
”

I could hardly, on so short an acquaintance,
ask him about sex.
“
I do the same. I am a
disgrace to my generation. But I think I
was born a little too early to appreciate the
fact that I was free to please myself.
”

“
That is the orthodoxy now, certainly. Though
I think it has to be amended by wider considerations.
One's own freedom is rarely absolute.
”

“
The idea is attractive.
”

“
Yes. And misleading.
”

There was a silence after this, as if to mark the end
of the matter. Silence did not seem to worry him,
although I felt the need to furnish it. It struck
me that his evenings might be spent in such a manner,
perhaps without a companion. When I thought the silence
unduly prolonged I asked him whether he would go
away. What I wanted to know was what he did
about holidays, apart from leading students on forced
marches.

“
I shall go somewhere, I suppose, I usually
do a long walk in France. I have friends in the
south. And you?
”

“
I had a journey in mind, yes. The
details are yet to be confirmed.
”
This seemed
to me both vague and respectable, as if I too
had friends to whom I could go.

This journey now seemed to me
phantasmagorical, though it remained a
presence in my mind. There were in fact friends of
Digby's, whom we had dined with
and met at the
theatre, who had pressed me most warmly
to visit them, in the houses they seemed to possess
in a variety of places. I had always thanked
them but had managed to imply that other friends had
offered similar invitations. The real reason, and
I think the correct one, was that I knew that my
silence, my solitude, acted as a deterrent
on both sides, and that these kind people would do better
without me. That they did not know the depths of that
solitude seemed to me preferable. I knew it
was not something that would yield easily to day-long
company. My own company, unrelieved as it
was, seemed to enfold me like a carapace; I
doubted now if I could ever manage without it. Within
its restrictions I knew what I could and could not
do. This seemed to me a knowledge worth preserving,
whatever the cost.

Yet at that moment I saw that the cost was great.
In these pleasantly familiar surroundings it would
be easy to let down my guard. But there was no
reason for me to do so. I was with a stranger, whose
conversation, interesting though it was, revealed a
solitude as closely guarded as my
own. It was not in my interest to dismantle it, nor
indeed in his. He was luckier than I was in
having activities that absorbed him. I was
lucky only in being free of financial
considerations, in being housed and independent, in not being
a burden. I knew that my earlier thoughts would
return when I was alone again. The despair, the
shock, the thoughts of flight were part of a pattern which
seemed to me fixed, not subject to alteration.

“
Would you like to come home with me?
”
I heard
myself saying. It was then I knew I was drunk.
When I could bear to look at him I saw that
he was smiling, a rare smile that illuminated his
austere face.

“
Is that you speaking, or your generation?
”
he
said.

“
Women do this all the time. It seems there is
nothing to it.
”

“
So you want to be part of the Zeitgeist?
”

“
Oh, yes. I never have been. I have been a
fool. And now I dare say it is too late.
Please don't look at me like that. You are
supposed to acquiesce eagerly, no questions
asked.
”

“
The questions may come later.
”

“
Not this time?
”

“
Later. Shall we go? I'll walk you home,
of course. If you are not too tired.
”

Outside the blue evening had deepened,
darkened, giving promise of fine weather on the
following day. Cars rushed by, their headlights
cutting a swathe through the otherwise quiet street.
I felt weary, ashamed, headachy, unequal
to the task of rescuing this strange evening. I
searched for anodyne subjects of conversation.
Easter was early this year; surely that would do?
Yet the thought of Easter, the first of the year's
annual migrations, depressed me even further.
Everyone had plans: it was a social duty
to enquire what these were.

“
I suppose you will take a break?
”
I
said.

“
Probably. Almost certainly. And you?
”

“
I'm not sure yet,
”
I said, maintaining
the fiction of those friends vying with each other for my
company. We walked on in silence.

“
Did you really just happen to be in the
neighbourhood this evening?
”
I asked.

“
Yes. I had to see someone at Imperial
College about finding a place for a
homesick first-year Indian medical student.
”

“
And did you? Manage that, I mean.
”

“
Oh, yes.
”

He was no more talkative than I was, as
if the evening had made us equally exhausted.
At the entrance to Melton Court I
resolutely held out my hand.

“
Thank you for dinner.
”

“
It was my pleasure.
”

It did not then seem as if it had been a
pleasure. He had retreated into his earlier
mournful self. What he had no doubt wanted
was not something I could supply. The brief
recitation of his emotional history had served some
purpose, but I was not able to evaluate this. No
doubt it had been defensive, even
pre-emptive, in order to forestall any more
leisurely enquiries. It now seemed
entirely irrelevant, yet I knew that I
should give it further thought. He seemed to regret
it, but it was in keeping with his general stoicism not
to offer excuses.

“
I'll no doubt be in touch after the
holiday.
”

“
I hope you will. Goodnight, Mr Ward.
”

“
Nigel.
”

“
Elizabeth.
”

“
Goodnight, Elizabeth.
”

I turned away quickly, in case I should
seem to be watching him stride off. He would of
course walk home. It would be a relief to him
to be on his own again, as it would be to me. I no
longer had much taste for my own company, although
alternative company usually left me
unsettled. What I dreaded (but this was routine)
was returning to my empty flat, in which I should not
be disturbed. Tonight the rooms seemed airless, and more
silent than usual. I was never glad to get
home, though frequently reassured that I had
managed it. It occurred to me that I was not bound
to stay in this flat, could in fact move. I had a
vision of a house, of a family kitchen, a back
door opening on to a garden. I promised myself that
I would explore the side streets that I usually
ignored, and perhaps let myself plan an
alternative future. The advantage of moving
might in fact be even greater than the advantage
of a long journey: no one could get in touch with
me, and I need offer no explanations. And I
need never come back to this place which I
suddenly found inimical.

There was no trace of Nigel Ward's
presence, apart from his empty glass. This I
tidied away, together with my own and an untouched
dish of olives. How bored he must have been! And
yet I reminded myself that he had more or less
arranged the meeting, had telephoned, and might
telephone again. Unfortunately I lacked the
stamina for an association in which I might be
required to behave discreetly,
circumspectly, as if everything might be
reported back to the analyst, if he had one.

I had to remind myself that the analyst was, until
verified, merely a figment of my imagination:
Mr Ward, whom it would be difficult to think of as
Nigel, might be his own analyst. He
certainly had penetrating insights, was certainly
a better tactician than I had proved to be
in the course of the evening. Yet the need for
circumspection would remain, and I preferred
other ways of behaving. I preferred, in fact,
the absence of circumspection, as I believe
most women do. In trying the direct approach
I had made a serious mistake, though this
struck me as laughable rather than tragic. I had
been irked by his civilized restraint; I had
not been prey to sudden urges. All my life,
it seemed, I had longed for direct engagement,
for total intimacy, and had encountered it only
once, in the least poetic of settings, in a
rented flat of no great amenity, which nevertheless
held the secret which had at last been revealed
to me. However shabby, however second-rate,
however deplorable in the eyes of the world those encounters
could, with hindsight, be seen to have been, they had
answered my most profound need, and in themselves had
proved sustaining enough to remain the standard by which all
other attachments had to be measured.

It was perhaps strange that I, an ordinary
woman of no great distinction or accomplishment,
frequently overlooked by others, no longer
studied by men, should have discovered this for myself and should
cling to it as proof of my validity. It would, I
knew, never be repeated. The best I could hope
for
—
and this was a great deal to hope for
—
was that the
memory of such pleasure might be shared, might
bring a reminiscent smile to another's face.
I lived on the possibility that this might be so,
yet sometimes I found it hard to sustain that hope.
Now it came back to me with a sort of
anger, the anger I unjustly felt for Nigel
Ward's punctilio. Behind that anger lay the
trace of Betsy's bold claim that she had in
some way succeeded where I had failed. I no
longer saw her as touching and vulnerable; in the again
unlikely setting of Peter Jones she had
seemed confident, even over-confident. In my
memory I invested her with a slight sneer, which I
knew had not been there, but she had implied that my
marriage had been faulty in some way, that I
had not loved my husband, that her love affair was
superior to any I might have known, and for that I should
find it hard to forgive her. There was no way I
could convince her, even persuade her, that I had
emotional resources of my own, since she had
decided that no trace of these remained. And behind
even this, but stimulated by it, was the longing for a rash
act, such as I was no longer permitted, after which
I would truly vanish, with the satisfaction of
having answered a need of which others had hitherto
been unaware.