Family and Friends

by Anita Brookner

  On this sunny morning, as on so many others, Frederick walks down the Corso Italia, turning his head from side to side the better to savour the varied delights that are brought to the attention of his senses: the smell of vanilla from the café, the hose playing about the orange-tree tubs in the garden, the pleasant bustle of early morning, and the impeccable sky of uninflected blue. Despite the charms of Bordighera, Frederick is making for Nice, as is his habit. If the car is not free he will take the train, which saves him a lot of trouble at the frontier even if it does take a little longer. He is usually in Nice by midday and he takes a taxi to the old town so that he can spend an hour in the market before sitting down to a pleasant lunch in any of half a dozen favourite places behind the harbour. Frederick will rarely buy anything in the market but the place has become essential to him as a storehouse of further sights, smells, and impressions to feed his ever greedy sensorium. From the flower market, with its tightly furled bouquets of carnations – red, pink, white, yellow, striped, and even dyed blue – Frederick will penetrate to the inner secret depths of the old town. Here, on precipitously stepped and cobbled streets, twisting blindly and abruptly around corners and slippery with fish scales, Frederick will tread carefully in his pale shoes, tipping his hat to those stall holders who recognize him from previous visits. He will appreciate, with an equal and a discerning eye, a tuft of coarse grass thrusting up through the cobbles where the alley meets the wall of the church of St Rita, the butcher’s boy emerging with uplifted hatchet from the back of the shop to check on the symmetry and the quantity of the day’s display of lamb chops in white enamelled trays, the priest with his long soutane and his furled black hat, the basket of cheap but elegant shoes in the doorway of a shop so dark that it is necessary to put most of its goods on the pavement, the sharp and almost sickening smell of the cheeses laid out on leaves of fern and palm, the sudden gleam of a coffee machine and the spurt of its steam, the blessed sight of the fresh loaves of bread, newly baked for lunchtime, being set up vertically in the window of the baker’s shop. Sometimes Frederick will imagine himself loading baskets with sticks of bread and portions of different paté – the rabbit, the goose, the hare – and bushels of mirabelle plums, and taking those baskets somewhere where he and Evie can steal away from the children and eat. But as he is on his own, Frederick puts his excellent sensual imagination to work and enjoys, vicariously, the delights which the shopkeepers and stall holders arrange for his delectation. Frederick is such a happy man, so elegant, so smiling, as he wends his way down the slippery and sharply descending streets, that everyone gives him a greeting; it hardly matters that he never buys anything, for he has become in a sense the spirit of the place, if not its patron, and merely to see him there in his pale shoes and his immaculate shirt and his panama hat is to receive a lift to the heart, as if this market, in which humbler people ply their trades, has been granted a certificate of excellence from the most enlightened of connoisseurs. Frederick raises his hat to old ladies in black who have slipped out for a cutlet and a bottle of wine and a baguette for their lunch; he notices the sinewy cats that weave figures of eight around the old ladies’ slippered feet, and he empathetically imagines that he too is an old lady, free at last to please herself, to get fat, and let her feet go, and emerge from aromatic gloom to the dark blue sky above and the dusky smell of the cheese shop and the cool shape of the bottle in one’s hand and the prospect of a long siesta. Frederick raises his hat to the priest, and, for courtesy’s sake, enters the small hot gaudy church of St Rita and slips some money into the wooden box; sometimes he lights a tapering candle, for the sheer pleasure of seeing the flame reluctantly take hold and climb up the white unsullied wick and achieve a steady pale glow; he will sniff the incense with the same careful nose that he once laid to a cigar. Finally, he will take a small cup of black coffee standing at the counter of a dark café, a mere tunnel between two shops, glittering with the chrome of its coffee machine and alive with the cries and greeting of the midday clientele. Here, too, he is known.

  ‘Eh bien, M’sieu Frédéric, ça va, la santé?’

  ‘Très bien, Martial, je vous remercie.’

  ‘Qu’est-ce qu’on vous sert aujourd’hui, M’sieu Frédéric?’

  ‘Un express et un verre d’eau fraiche, s’il vous plaît, Martial.’

  For Frederick rarely drinks, and in any case seems to despise any additional stimulus which might heighten and ultimately falsify his own excellent imagination.

  Finally, as the crowd drifts away from the café, Frederick takes his leave of the owner, settles his hat once more on his head, and goes out in search of lunch. He prefers to leave it late, for then he can enjoy the spectacle of the Vieux Port slumbering in the early afternoon heat as he sips his coffee and lights his cigar on the terrace of whatever restaurant he has chosen for that day. Frederick is abstemious, and although no longer mindful of his thickening waistline, prefers to eat a modest meal, perhaps merely a grilled sole or an escalope of veal and a little salade cuite, before settling down to his half-hour of contemplation with his coffee and his cigar. Now the sky is powdery white with heat and he can no longer make out the horizon; cars dazzle him with the reflection of the sun on their chrome, and in the longer and longer intervals of quiet, he can hear the creaking of the masts of the little boats in the harbour. Draining his coffee-cup, Frederick asks for the bill, enquires after the health of the lady at the cash desk who nods to him and mimics a reply, and glances to left and right before deciding which route to take to his afternoon place of entertainment. He will either walk along the front, made giddy by the brilliant light and the swoop of traffic, or, more usually, thread his way through the back streets, where trees and rough pavements soon give way to commercial arcades selling the sort of odourless and manufactured produce for which Frederick has no use: magazines, sun glasses, picture postcards, stamps. Once past the Place Masséna, the town is of no further interest to him. He hardly notices it.

  At the Ruhl they know him, of course. They are assured that he will spend no more than an hour at the tables, that he will bet modestly, and neither win nor lose a great deal, and that he will be on respectful and easy terms with the ladies who come there, carefully coiffed and made-up, every afternoon, ostensibly to take tea, in fact to attach to themselves a dancing partner, even if they have to pay for one. Frederick is at ease here, and the management are always pleased to see him; his good nature and his good manners ensure that no lady will remain too pathetically and too obviously on her own for more than five or ten minutes. Compliments have always come easily to Frederick; therefore he considers it quite natural to steer these ladies round the tables and to offer them tea. Sometimes the ladies order something stronger and suggest that he stay on for dinner, but Frederick has never cared for that sort of behaviour. In Frederick’s universe, the man offers and the woman gratifies. It would seem a reversal of the natural order to proceed in any other way, and indeed he has never needed to do so. Therefore, after a cup of lemon tea and a little expert and desultory conversation, so that the lady should not feel herself to have been offended, he looks around for his panama hat, stands up, and, kissing the lady’s hand, takes his leave.

  He never stays later than four o’clock. By this time he is feeling a little tired, a little less than the immaculate self which he presented to the world that morning, in the shining air of Bordighera. On the train he pats down a yawn and applies himself to the evening paper which he has bought at the station, noticing with a slight exclamation of distaste that the print has soiled his hands. No matter; at the Hotel Windsor he will ask the upstairs chambermaid Maria to draw his bath as soon as he gets back, and he will recline in the coolish water, scented with New Mown Hay, until he feels his energies return. Then he will dress in his hotelier’s evening wear: an immaculate pale cotton suit with matching tie, a fresh shirt, a clean linen handkerchief. He will smooth his sleek greying hair down with his father’s silver brushes, which came to him as a matter of course
, and, no longer noticing his pear-shaped figure or his dark brown face, he will go downstairs, and, with a discreet but none the less heartfelt kiss, will imply to Evie that she is now free until dinner.

  These early evening hours are when Frederick both lays himself out to please and excels himself. Not a guest enters the lobby of the Hotel Windsor after a weary day on the beach or sight-seeing further down the coast but does not feel a lightening of the spirit on encountering Frederick in his pale blue or his pale grey suit, always ready to order a late cup of tea for them and to hear about their day’s adventures. Frederick’s sybaritic leanings incline him towards indulgence and he has a special smile with which he listens to feminine chatter; it is with a lighter step that so many women guests go up to take their baths and to decide what to wear for the evening. Dinner is a fairly formal affair: Evie and Frederick dine together at a small table slightly out of earshot of the other guests; the children having eaten earlier, either in their suite, if the maids are not too busy, or, more probably, in the kitchen, where they can more easily satisfy their robust appetites. Evie and Frederick have coffee served for all in the salon rather than at the tables, an English habit which makes a favourable impression on the guests, many of whom have returned to the hotel two or three times. When they have enquired after the health of the one or two carefully selected retired couples who intend to spend the winter there, Evie and Frederick tend to say good-night to everyone and to slip out, knowing that they have stimulated the sort of remarks which will be made about them in their absence. ‘A quite devoted couple, it seems.’ ‘Yes, isn’t it charming? And they always take this evening walk together before they retire for the night. I find it quite touching.’ ‘So delightful. It makes for such a pleasant atmosphere.’

  In the scented night Evie and Frederick take their late walk, arm in arm, sometimes hand in hand. The sky is now an impenetrable indigo, yet along the horizon there is still a faint smudge of salmon-coloured brilliance. The wind rustles the leathery palm leaves and the oranges and lemons glow on the trees as if lit from within. Amber light gushes from the café, where the coffee machine gleams and the scent of vanilla is now mingled with the aroma of cigarettes. Evie and Frederick walk up the steep Corso Italia, away from the sea, away from the station, to the higher ground above the little town. Here, like an elderly couple, they sit on a municipal seat, and here Frederick smokes his second and last cigar of the day. They sit in wordless companionship, looking down on the dark vulture-like shapes of the palm trees, hearing nothing but the whine of a passing moped. Strange, how peaceable Evie has become, she who used to be so noisy and so disruptive. Strange, how excellent this marriage has proved to be, the man offering, the woman gratifying. Strange, how fearless and how original they are away from the constrictions of home and family. Strange, how rooted they appear to be in this frivolous place, divorced from serious need or concern. Soon they will rise to their feet, take each other’s hand, and slowly wander back to the Hotel Windsor. They will appreciate the new keenness of the air as a little wind blows up and the houses darken. In their room they will find the bed turned down on both sides, and the shutters closed. Evie will light an incense stick to keep mosquitoes at bay. In no more than a few minutes they will have undressed, kissed, and fallen asleep, safe and calm in the conviction of another beautiful day tomorrow, under the same unalterable sky.

  No wonder Frederick never seriously considers going home again.

  12

  BETTY SPENDS a lot of time reflecting on the meanness of people, their selfishness, their lack of humanity. ‘Lack of humanity’ is her rather noble way of putting it; what she really objects to is the fact that she is not having the good time she always promised herself. Sitting beside her swimming pool, in lime-green lounging pyjamas, she ruminates on various grievances in the hot and characterless garden in which she finds herself permanently exiled. To begin with, she never wanted to come to Beverly Hills, which is not at all to her liking. On the boat, a new bride, she had been deliriously happy. Not only had she married a handsome young husband, but the first days of her married life had passed in an endless and intoxicating whirl of cocktails, dances, fancy-dress parties, keep-fit classes and deck games which made of life a prolongation of that childhood she had been so anxious to shed. It seemed to her then, in the slight atmosphere of hysteria engendered by the panic from which they were all escaping, that if life could go on like this she would never grumble again. Her eyes like dark glass after so many cocktails, so many late nights, her hair blown into a halo by the strong Atlantic air, her bangles slipping up and down her thin arms, her flimsy chiffon blouses – in peach, in coffee, in lilac – tossed carelessly all over the cabin, Betty, in the early days of her marriage, revealed an inventiveness, a love of pleasure, which finally subjugated the obdurate Max who became temporarily enslaved by his wife. What Betty did not know was that Max, who was rather like his uncle in this respect, particularly savoured that wild unstudied side of her nature that could turn, with equally keen appetite, from simple physical greed to the stern and unforgiving appraisal of her appearance before some evening party, when, at her dressing-table, she would moisten her lips, narrow her eyes, take up her mirror and study her reflection from every angle. When she was obsessed with herself in this way Betty would brush Max aside as if he had suddenly become unimportant, as indeed he had, for Betty’s concentration on her desires, her looks, her performance, was unvarying. Both uncle and nephew would delight in ordering some dish for her and watching her, as, dainty as a cat, she would eat her way through it, deaf and blind to what was being said or done in her presence. At moments like these Max would congratulate himself on having snared an original, a little animal who would keep him amused for as long as any woman had ever kept him amused, which was not very long, but, in his view, long enough.

  Betty, of course, was building herself up for her future, for her great career on the screen. To this end, she practised those emotions which she did not feel. So that, in between the bouts of frenetic dancing and the late nights and the dressing up, all of which came entirely naturally, Betty would languish and sigh and flirt with anyone who came near. None of this troubled Max, who knew exactly what was going on, but it got her rather a bad name as far as the other passengers were concerned. Betty put this down to sheer jealousy on the part of women whose husbands had become assiduous in their attention to her; little did those husbands know that it was in the interests of making an entrance that Betty would stroll languorously on to the first-class deck at eleven every morning, and, twisting her key in her hand, would enquire, with the slightest hint of a lisp, ‘Now which of you kind gentlemen is going to find me a nice chair? I feel really lazy today.’ And, the chair having been found, she would stretch out, purr like a cat, and hitch up her white linen skirt, revealing her firmly muscled little legs and her dancer’s feet in tiny white shoes. This was all that she intended. Having made her entrance, she was quite content to let the whole thing lapse until it was time to make another. But various men in blazers were apt to hover around, distracting her and annoying their wives. ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Betty would say, opening her eyes wide, when Mr Markus hinted that she should be more discreet. ‘I can’t help it if they all want to be with me. I didn’t ask them to sit with me, did I?’ And she would have no hesitation in blaming the women, whom she would describe as mean and selfish, the terms that she would later apply to all those who cast a shadow on her progress through life.

  New York, predictably, enchanted her. She was so gloriously, so outrageously happy when Mr Markus took her for her first walk down Madison Avenue that he was genuinely touched, and, seeing her clasp the collar of her poor little fur jacket to her throat in unthinking rapture, he abandoned his usual mood of fairly gloomy impassivity, took her into a shop, and bought her a proper fur coat. That was probably her happiest time. When Mr Markus took her into Central Park, thinking to amuse her with the zoo and the children, she tugged at his arm, turned her face pleadingl
y upward, and begged, ‘Couldn’t we just look at the shops?’ When Mr Markus and Max were busy seeing people in the film world, all of whom seemed to Betty to be as gloomy as Mr Markus himself, she would cheerfully go out alone, and in the crystal light of late autumn, would promenade deliciously up and down Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, or (her favourite) Fifth Avenue, as if there were no more to New York than those three beautiful streets, and as if she had been destined to wear a fine fur coat and idle her days away, buying perhaps a bottle of scent or a pair of gloves or wondering where to get her hair done. Money seemed to be fairly easily available, and Betty spent lavishly. One day, she thought, she must send a little present home to her mother, and possibly her sister. But they had such boringly correct taste that Betty really wondered if they would appreciate what New York had to offer. She would take a look through the big department stores, to see if there were anything plain enough to suit them. She would do that any day now. But in the meantime, that white silk kimono with the pattern of black feathers scattered all over it, that would go beautifully with her own more forceful looks.

  Had they been able to stay in New York, Betty might conceivably have gone on being happy. When it became clear that in order to find work Mr Markus and Max would have to move to California, Betty even suggested that they go on ahead, leaving her in New York to await their return. She did not understand that the film industry required their constant presence, particularly as they were so dependent on their contacts and so anxious to work hard. ‘But I shan’t be able to wear my coat there,’ she objected. The delights of Hollywood were briefly described to her, and then, because she was now a Hungarian wife, and no longer allowed to be superior in temperament to her husband, who might just be a genius, she was told to pack her bags and face up to the fact that she must either make friends with the other women in the film colony or be prepared to spend a great deal of time on her own.