Undue Influence (23 page)

‘Those look delicious,’ I said tamely.

‘I’d better get on,’ was her reply. Yet this was reluctant, dragged out of her. ‘I’m on duty in half an hour.’

‘Nice seeing you,’ I said. ‘Maybe we’ll bump into each other again. Next time we really will have coffee.’

She smiled, with relief, it seemed, but perhaps she was just not used to dealing with impromptu conversations, as I had learnt to be in the shop, and before that in the encounters I cultivated, and even in my odd habit of making up people’s lives for them. I had had no success here. I told myself that the girl’s awkwardness had nothing to do with me, that she felt divested of an authority when not in her uniform, that she was no doubt performing a kindness for someone who was in her care, that she genuinely found it difficult to remember who I was. Yet her scrutiny had been intense. Was this due to the half-light in the hallway in Weymouth Street, in which it had been difficult to see anything except her white coat and in which conversations had been conducted in a whisper? And yet she had seemed to know me, in a way that precluded any intimacy between us. This saddened me, not because I desired to make a friend of her, but because it seemed symptomatic of my new condition. It was only natural that I seemed uninteresting; I was even uninteresting to myself. The proof of this was my new
inability to speculate. This had always been such a resource, an endowment, even a gift, that its disappearance, however temporary, however ephemeral, however rationally explained—my change of circumstances—left me desolate. I could no more penetrate this girl’s defences, as I once could have done, than if those defences did in fact exist. Yet I had no reason to suppose that there was any personal dislike involved, only that curious scrutiny, and as its accompaniment, a certain reluctance to engage, even in such a conversation as I was having to provide.

‘I’ll let you get on,’ I said, aware of being something of a failure where I had once felt myself to be an expert. ‘Goodbye. Have a nice day.’ As I heard myself utter this formula, which had never passed my lips on any previous occasion, I registered the depths to which I was sinking. I watched her make her way to the till, pay for her mangoes, and leave. By the door she looked back, saw me, and gave a brief wave of farewell. That cheered me a little. Sometimes a gesture is more eloquent than words.

The odd incident disconcerted me, as though I were responsible for the other’s wordlessness, her stare, her lingering indifference that was not quite oxymoronic: she was indifferent, and she had lingered, considering me as if she knew that we had met yet did not remember me. It was her opacity that shocked me; her eyes had searched my face, but without interest, and if she hesitated it was because I was blocking her path. She volunteered no information apart from the fact that she was shortly on duty, and all the time she weighed the mangoes in her hands, as if they, and only they, explained her presence in that place. I realized that I had not told her my name, and that I would not expect her to remember it, if in fact I had ever given it. We had met in circumstances that were extraordinary
to me but no doubt not to her. I wanted to ask her how Cynthia had died; this became a matter of supreme interest to me, particularly as I had never heard an explanation. Again I was back in Weymouth Street, in the darkness of the vestibule, while beyond, in the bedroom, that strange drama was taking place. I worried about those missing details, which to her must have been without mystery. If I had been the nurse, witnessing those terminal events, I should have been willing to unburden myself, indeed anxious to. And I was not in one sense an outsider; I had been something of a friend. Yet those events remained a secret. Something prevented me from asking a direct question: I did not want to offend her professional discretion. It was for her to offer information, and this she refused to do. Indeed I wondered whether Cynthia was to be distinguished from any of her other patients, whether she had in fact remembered her with any exactitude. Certainly she did not remember me. And yet she had waved her hand at the door, as if some memory had struck her, too late for any exchange. This worried me, together with my inability to imagine her out in the street, the mangoes now in a bag, no doubt to be presented to a grateful patient. An ordinary girl, attractive in her no-nonsense way, with whom it had been demonstrated that I had so little in common that I felt a disconnectedness that had something uncanny about it, as if I were deprived all at once of the ability to sympathize, to comprehend, to invent, even to feel anything over and above a generalized confusion, as if I had committed an offence.

I dismissed the incident once I was out in the street, although this offered little in the way of diversion. Crowds moved slowly, in search of bargains. I had a sudden longing to get away, to some more noble place, even thought respectfully of those French cathedrals that I had once got to know so well,
in particular of Rouen, which was perhaps my favourite of them all. But, stranded as I was in Baker Street, France now seemed unreachable, and worse, alien. I remembered Eileen Bateman, and how she had left bravely on her summer holiday for as long as there was a context into which she could be re-absorbed, and how she had given up once she was on her own and had no one to whom she could recount her adventures. This had now happened to me, although I knew that the comparison was false. And my surroundings were so mundane that I would willingly have embraced another cathedral. But I also knew that an effort of will would be needed if I were to make the journey. I also knew that the journey was necessary.

In this way I formulated a half-hearted plan. I would go away, and when I returned I would drop into the shop, just to see how they were getting on. I should by then have found the right form of words—they escaped me now—which would let Peter know that I was willing to return. If he did not respond then that chapter was closed. Somehow between now and then I should have worked out the formula that would have him rise gratefully from behind the desk and ask me to stay. There was no reason why this should not be entirely possible. Reason also told me that he was not ready for me to offer my services. Let him pass a few boring weeks in the shop, staring longingly through the door at the outside world, and he would be only too eager for a break. Strange how the shop had never struck me as a place of constraint; rather the opposite. If anything it emphasized the freedom I possessed to walk out at six o’clock and resume my own life. In that way it was like school, which I had enjoyed, particularly the last hour of the day, when my movements would reassert their independence. I had had the same feeling of
physical optimism when Muriel, and latterly I, had locked up for the day, no matter what my plans were for the evening. It was enough to be out in the air, the darkness left behind me, but within that darkness the assurance of a familiar welcome on the following morning. I had thought it would last, against all the evidence to the contrary. I had grown so used to it that I regarded it as my normal setting, rather more so than the flat, which I no longer saw. Yet it was the flat that was waiting for me now and would continue to do so. The flat was now my only home. I was not easy with this thought; the flat seemed less mine than the shop had done. In the flat I was alone; that was why it seemed inimical.

The second post brought a card from Wiggy but no letter from Martin. The card showed a view of the cousins’ house in Scotland; it looked imposing. Wiggy was due back on the 12th, when the house emptied to receive another lot of guests for the shoot; I should see her on the Saturday. I longed for this, as if she were my only contact with the world. Also Wiggy, who spent her days alone, painting her rather good miniatures, would understand my new isolation, and also the reasons for it. These reasons were not confined to my fortunes at the shop but had more to do with Martin’s absence. It was difficult for me to accommodate a sensible view of his holiday, for I knew that he would be a favoured guest, and that his hosts, who seemed to have his well-being at heart, would do their utmost to rehabilitate him, having no doubt discussed his unfortunate condition between themselves. He would represent an interesting problem, one with which they would sympathize, having kept away tactfully while Cynthia was alive. Perhaps they had originally earmarked him for one of their friends; perhaps friends of that type were already gathering. These friends too would be sympathetic; in fact he would be in receipt of much
sympathy and attention. He would be perceived as dignified, worthy of discreet indulgence. The contrast between his status and my own was difficult to understand. I could only judge this matter from afar, using my well-worn and suddenly offensive powers of visualization. This was more like envy, or perhaps the contrast between a house party and an empty flat was too strong. Predictably the weather had clouded over again, and the flat was filled with a dull white light far removed from the Italian sun. It was the peak of the holiday season, when families decamped, no doubt to other families, in resorts of their choice. It was a season for easy companionship. I even envied Wiggy, who had a family of sorts, and whose relations, those cousins, remained faithful to their obligations. I seemed to be the only person I knew who was not similarly endowed, as if my antecedents had failed in some genetic task. Thus I was doubly deprived, of a family, preferably not my own—for my own family seemed too sad, even tragic—and of Martin, who might provide me with a family in the future.

I had not considered this in any depth before. I did so now. Perhaps it was the silence of the flat that encouraged these thoughts, but the fact was that I longed to feature in another’s plans, even if I had to manoeuvre my way into them. My own independence had been fashioned in response to the neediness of others, of my parents, who, for their respective reasons, desired always to know where I was, where I was going, when I would be back. I had accepted this all my life, together with an awareness that I might have to have recourse to concealment. I had been conscious always of their wish that I remain at home, at hand. My contact with the Gibsons had brought to mind the tedium of those similarly burdened. And yet the life I had fashioned for myself was inventive, certainly, but not fulfilling. I saw that now. That was why Martin, who was allowed out on
sufferance in the daytime, inspired in me such a depth of fellow feeling. I recognized that this was not the only explanation for what threatened to become an
idée fixe
. But it did seem to be that what I had to do was to point out the parallels in our lives in order to awaken him out of his self-absorption, to make him see that further depths of understanding could be reached.

Part of me knew that this was excessively sentimental, and, what was worse, out of character. All the hard work I had put in to myself over the years was threatened. I had thought that I had won a victory over those softer feelings that undermine one and which deserve to be repressed: loyalties which were once in order but which no longer obtained, pity for those unresolved conflicts which would now never know any resolution. I had refused to be enrolled among the defeated, to know the hapless resignation which my mother so dutifully disguised. Gradually I had hardened, always seeking out the easy solution, the easy compensation. This I had considered worthy work; now I was not so sure. I had eliminated certain responses, notably that of genuine understanding, even of the sort of compassion that I despised, and this may have been more noticeable than I was able to appreciate. I had become as self-centred in my way as Martin was in his, and no doubt for good enough reasons. What was now both untimely and inconvenient was my new desire to break this pattern, and even, dangerously enough, to become fallible, vulnerable, appealing even in my weakness. Cynthia had been all of these things, which I had seen as unsatisfactory. Now they seemed merely sensible. Anything demanding hardness, boldness, courage I thought I could manage. I even took a measure of satisfaction from my ability to put these qualities to the test. I had made myself into the sort of independent character that qualified me for inclusion
among today’s women. I knew the opprobrium that is visited on those who do not make the grade, spinsters like Muriel and Hester who come to a tragic end. What sort of end is reserved for determined women like myself is never mentioned, as if women of my type can be relied upon to save their own lives, or at least make a decent job of trying to. Yet we too will be subject to change, to shock, when the verdict is unfavourable, when we are shown the X-rays after the final diagnosis. Then no doubt the virtues of dependency will manifest themselves, and it will be too late to cultivate the softness that might have brought them into being.

I spent the afternoon in the Wallace Collection, listening to my footsteps on the shining floors. I saw little, but merely noticed a remote excellence. This was a place of virtue, perhaps the only virtue I should ever know. My mood was sad. The incident in Selfridges still puzzled me, as if my contact with others had been abruptly terminated. That night I slept badly, though I was not troubled by dreams. Perhaps I was not sufficiently asleep for dreams to occur. I got up very early, made tea, read an old copy of the
New Statesman
until the arrival of the post. There was a card. ‘I will be with you on the 15th. Regards, M. G.’

Seventeen