Family and Friends

by Anita Brookner

  When Alfred leaves for the factory every morning, breathing conscientiously the only fresh air he will encounter until the evening, and breathing rather hard, as if his antipathy were already at work, he is unaware of the random enquiring glances sent in his direction by many girls and some women. He is aware only of the task before him, planning to plunge directly into the morning’s work so that, in the hour he takes for lunch, he can pay a visit to Charing Cross Road where Mr Levy has put by an interesting six-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays, illustrated with photographs of contemporary actors and actresses in appropriate costume. Alfred cannot afford it but Mr Levy is touched by his attention to the books and is allowing him to pay a little towards them every week. For Alfred, although doing a man’s work, is still drawing a boy’s salary. This is thought to be good for him, for, unknown to himself, Alfred has been entered on a long course of character training by those who know better than he does. In this way his character will be trained – by privation, of course – beyond those of any whose friendship he is likely to seek. His character, in fact, will be a burden to him rather than an asset. But that is the way with good characters.

  Alfred, trying to deal with the antipathy that this way of life has forced upon him, and trying also to deal with the good conscience which is perhaps only blamelessness in disguise and can be forfeited at any moment, knows from his reading that virtue is its own reward. This seems to him rather hard, for by the same token vice is also its own reward. But if he translates his predicament into fiction, if he views it as a pilgrimage or a perilous enterprise or an adventure, if, in fact, he thinks of himself as Henry V or as Nicholas Nickleby, then he can soldier on, comforted by the thought that his efforts and his determination and all his good behaviour will be crowned with success, recognition, apotheosis. In this way it even crosses his mind that when Nettie comes home she will find him admirable. He desires to be found admirable by Nettie, thinking himself entitled to this desire, since he has obeyed the rules so far. He has, above all, obeyed his mother in everything. He does not yet know that men who obey their mothers in everything rarely win the admiration of other women.

  Alfred is a worthy character, although he has had worthiness thrust upon him. His only reward is the approbation of others: of Sofka, of Mimi, who admires him and almost understands him, of Frederick, who is so delighted that his sibling promises to relieve him of all responsibility that he laughingly defers to him on many matters and readily acknowledges that Alfred’s judgment in business is already superior to his own. And there is Lautner who truly respects him. Without Lautner, of course, Alfred’s apprenticeship would be infinitely harder than it is at present; without Lautner at his elbow, always prepared to make suggestions and to work late, Alfred would be much more restricted. And for two years, perhaps three, Alfred repays Lautner’s care and thoroughness; by the age of twenty-one Alfred will know every detail of the workshops and the sheds and the warehouses and will be gravely cognisant of the people who labour for him. In the meantime, he refuses to take more than an hour for lunch and he works so regularly himself that there are fewer opportunities for Lautner to visit the house on Sunday evenings, for coffee and for marzipan cake. And as Lautner sees Alfred succeeding beyond his expectations, he is almost disappointed at his own growing distance from the family. Therefore he makes it his business sometimes to go over to the house with a message or a reminder or even a suggestion. ‘You need not have bothered,’ says Alfred who dislikes the incursion of his everyday life into those blessed truces which are observed at the weekends. ‘It could have waited until tomorrow.’

  It is therefore a terrible shock to Alfred’s very hard-won equilibrium to get home one evening and to find Sofka in a state of considerable agitation over Betty. This is doubly unsettling to Alfred; he has never seen Sofka in a comparable state over himself, and in any event he judges Betty to be unworthy of his mother’s care. As far as Alfred is concerned Betty is a futile and self-regarding girl and he begrudges her the money she has received on her eighteenth birthday. It now appears that, not content with her idleness and her money and her music lessons, Betty is to be allowed a long holiday in Switzerland at the family’s expense. Worst of all, Betty will have access to Nettie for she is to be sent to the same establishment at Clarins where mysterious things are done to make girls worldly, educated, and poised. Like many another man, Alfred views this process with concern. If anyone is to go to Switzerland, let it be his sister Mimi whose vagueness could do with a little tempering; even Alfred can see that. But Mimi is of all things his friend; Mimi, knowing of the six-volume edition of Shakespeare coveted by Alfred, presented it to him the moment her money came through to her. In this way Alfred has received the ideal gift; he could not have bought it himself because he has only his salary, and part of that goes into the household expenses. Their father, in his wisdom, decreed that the girls should have money and the boys shares in the business. So Alfred, burdened with adult cares, is more than a little shocked that Betty should benefit from so much of their mother’s concern.

  However, he will be very glad to see the back of her. And of Frederick too, if the truth were known. He feels instinctively that Betty and Frederick form a natural pair, and that he and Mimi form another, quite different, alliance. Together and apart, Mimi and Alfred stand for those stolid and perhaps little regarded virtues of loyalty and fidelity and a scrupulous attention paid to the word or promise given or received. The house seems to him a friendlier place the moment Frederick and Betty are out of it, although he is a little hurt to see the extent of his mother’s grief, when only Mimi and himself are left. For the three days of their absence Alfred is happier than he has been for some time; when he returns in the evening, it is to find a subdued and rather quiet Sofka, and to hear the strains of a Chopin étude drifting down from the old nursery without the interruption of Betty’s high voice or the slight moral exasperation afforded to him by Frederick’s ever good-humoured presence. And although Sofka looks preoccupied and somewhat sad, and although Mimi’s presence does little to cheer her up, Alfred finds that his mother clings to him in a way that makes him feel very strong, as if he is in a better position to care for her alone than with all the others put together. He finds this heartening, and something of a sop to his injured pride.

  His position as head of the household elect, to which he has been steadily moving and for which Sofka has been preparing him, is absolutely consolidated when Frederick returns. Frederick, who is under the impression that he has delivered Betty to the Lausanne train, is ready to receive congratulations, and indeed Sofka has prepared a congratulatory meal for him. It is in the course of this meal, and under the closest questioning from Alfred, that Frederick reveals that he last saw Betty at the Hôtel Bedford et West End the night before she was due to leave for Lausanne and he to see her to the train. It was with a promise of good conduct from Betty that Frederick sailed off into the blue Parisian evening for a late stroll and a last brandy. It is, after all, much easier for him to catch the morning train to London, and Betty is not a child. She is quite capable of catching a train at her age. ‘She is quite capable of catching a train at her age,’ he says affably to his mother, not focusing on her dawning look of uneasiness. ‘How do you know she caught it?’ demands Alfred stonily. ‘Why wouldn’t she catch it?’ asks Frederick, his eyebrows lifted. ‘It’s not as if she knows anyone in Paris.’ For a moment they sit, digesting this sentence. Try as they may, they cannot dispute it. Betty knows no one in Paris. She has not been there since she was a very small child, with her mother and her nurse and her father, just before he died. She must have remembered it, in some mysterious way, as an agreeable alternative to home, as a place where life is a holiday.

  With a stifled exclamation, Sofka gets up from the table, dropping her napkin, and is on the telephone, placing a call to Mme Renaudin in Clarins. There is no conversation during her absence, but Alfred fixes Frederick with his increasingly stony glance. At that moment he feels that h
e can discount and discard his brother; it is almost a moment of triumph. Mimi is pale and frightened; she is also guilty, for she thinks she knows something of what Betty has in mind. If Mimi knew for certain what she thinks she knows she would faint with the grief of that knowledge; therefore she puts it away from her. But she cannot recover her colour, even when she reflects that her mother must be more anxious, and it is only due to her abiding innocence that she does not in that moment renounce her obligations altogether.

  In the brief interval of Sofka’s absence, telephoning to Mme Renaudin, Frederick’s status has undergone a slight but permanent alteration. Frederick’s agreeable lightheadedness is perceived in that moment as unreliability, and when Sofka returns, pale and with a fixed expression, she ignores the hand he thrusts out towards her and waits for him to get to his feet and pull out her chair. ‘She has not arrived,’ Sofka finally says, after what seems a very long period of silence. Mimi puts her hands to her face. ‘Alfred,’ says Sofka, turning to him and disregarding the other two. ‘You had better ring the hotel. If she is still there, I’m afraid you will have to go and get her back.’

  It transpires that Betty has left the Hôtel Bedford et West End, that she in fact left when she was meant to, so as not to arouse undue suspicion. But she has not gone to Lausanne. She has moved to another, smaller hotel, the Hôtel des Acacias, the address of which she has deposited with the hall porter. How she got hold of this none of them can work out. It happens to be where Frank Cariani’s family stay when they are in Paris, and it must have been Frank who mentioned this in the course of a long-ago conversation. But Mimi, who was also present when that conversation – a mere exchange of pleasantries – took place, at the very beginning of the girls’ association with members of the Cariani family, is suddenly as cold as death. She imagines that it was Frank and Frank alone who planned this coup and for the first time in her life she recognizes the sad need to defend herself. ‘If Alfred is going to Paris,’ she says, ‘I am going with him.’ ‘Good idea,’ agrees Frederick. ‘Paris is very charming at this time of the year. You are all making a fuss about nothing. I will stay here and keep Mama company.’ None of them acknowledges this remark.

  Stern but in full control, Alfred stands at the window the following morning, waiting for the car to come round. Mimi is a little delayed; as usual, before any sort of a journey, she feels unwell. She does, in fact, need all the forces at her command in order to accomplish this mission, although she does not quite know what she is going to do. One thing is certain: Betty is to be brought home. If nothing is said – and it would be better if nothing were said – then the implications of this desertion need not haunt her, and somehow they will all get over it. The unmentionable act, the image of which Mimi finds constantly in her mind, will have been, if not avoided, then certainly not consummated. That is all she can hope for now, and she begins to see, sadly, that this must be enough. She begins, in the way of all those who are born to lose, to imagine her way past this terrible damage and to try and regain favour in Frank Cariani’s eyes. She will, she thinks, have a cheerful but honest explanation with him; no reproaches, of course, merely an indication of how she herself feels. Being a decent fellow, Frank will then compare the conduct of the two sisters in his mind and be won over by Mimi’s honesty. Mimi thinks that this is how hearts are won, not believing for a moment that Betty’s is the surer way. Behind this belief lies an unbearable vision of the world’s duplicity that must not come to full realization.

  On the train they say little to each other, although Alfred is considerate towards his sister. He knows that she will have a bad crossing. He himself is filled with a rising tide of distaste for this adventure, although he still derives a certain comfort from his displacement of Frederick. He is young enough to take pride in his manliness, and in the feeling of his grateful mother’s arms about him as she embraced him for the last time. He does not ask himself why Betty has chosen to disappear. He attributes this escapade to her basic instability, and he realizes, with a coldness which could be unrelenting, that she has exchanged an innocent sojourn in the company of Nettie for this grubby escapade in an unfamiliar hotel in Paris. His distaste, which is tempered in England by the knowledge of Frederick’s loss of favour (for Alfred has always been jealous of him), swells almost out of control by the time they are in France. Jolting down the corridor of the French train, in an effort to buy a cup of coffee for the woebegone Mimi, Alfred is accosted by a rough-looking individual with a tray round his neck, and is forced to purchase a bottle of some nameless cordial for a very high price. While he picks up his change and tries to work out the tip, the individual becomes restless. ‘Alors, Monsieur,’ he upbraids Alfred. ‘C’est pour aujourd’hui ou pour demain?’ There is a further muffled altercation as Alfred attempts to squeeze past him; he stumbles a little and the man with the tray is not displeased.

  This tiny incident puts Alfred off balance and when he is once again seated next to Mimi and the overhead wires and cables of the track seem to rush together as if anxious to reach the journey’s end, he surveys his sister’s pale face and suffering expression and tells her rather sharply to tidy herself up. Alfred is in fact in an agony of discomfort, feeling himself to be disregarded and unknown; although his French is excellent it is the French of Victor Hugo and it has not been of much use to him so far. And there is the business of the hotels to be sorted out – he imagines that they will have to get on the trail as soon as they arrive – and he is very hungry and they have brought too much luggage. Seeing him momentarily disconcerted, Mimi rallies her forces, and like the excellent sister that she is lays a hand on his arm and says, ‘First things first. We will go to the hotel, take a hot bath, have a meal sent up, and get a good night’s sleep. We have done quite enough for one day. Tomorrow we can start again.’

  In this way, impervious to the globe-shaped lights and the ineffable blue Parisian evening, they struggle into a taxi and are speeded towards the Hôtel Bedford et West End. ‘We must telephone Mama,’ says Mimi, who, in her tiredness, has let down her hair and loosened the collar of her dress. Glancing sharply at her, Alfred is surprised to see Mimi looking so old, and is immediately glad that he has ordered a suite instead of the two rooms that were offered. Money is no problem. Their father, in one of his mysterious but so adult arrangements, has left certain funds in the care of a lawyer acting for a deceased partner, and Alfred supposes that this lawyer must be contacted as soon as possible so that they are not to starve. A further telephone call is put through and Alfred is reassured to hear a polite voice speaking in strongly accented English, which to him at that moment means infinitely more than the French of Victor Hugo. Maître Blin will send a representative to the hotel in the morning and will meet Monsieur Dorn at the bank; a signature is all that is needed.

  This conversation, together with some hot soup and a glass of wine, restores Alfred’s equilibrium. He sits with Mimi in their stuffy little salon until it seems reasonable to send her to bed. He hates to see her looking so wan and defenceless and hopes that she will have repaired herself by the morning. Left alone, he puts through another call to Sofka, and this time manages to be less testy and more reassuring. Sofka, more impressed by his testiness than by his slightly mechanical reassurances, praises him for his aptitude; already she is reacting to his assumption of control, having persuaded herself that this will carry the day. Left alone, and with no one to talk to, almost too keyed up to go to bed, Alfred pulls aside the curtain and gazes down on the rushing traffic of the Rue de Rivoli. Faced with all that speed, he knows a moment of discouragement. Leaning his head against the cold glass, he remembers that it is his birthday. He is seventeen years old.