Family and Friends

by Anita Brookner

  She did not make many friends. All the women she knew were adorable to begin with but were apt to turn mean and selfish within a very short space of time. Betty enjoyed a quarrel, but she also enjoyed having the last word, a predilection which she shared with many of the Hollywood wives who, like herself, had little to do with their days. Betty would put down the telephone triumphantly on one of these former friends, only to realize that she had forgotten to ask the name of that new hairdresser that everyone was raving about, and be forced to call back. In this way she had many acquaintances, very few of whom she trusted or who trusted her, and need never lack for company if only she would condescend to ask for it. But her constant stories about these acquaintances, and the grudges she seemed to build up so easily, became wearisome to listen to, and she began to bore her husband.

  She bought clothes, dozens of them, in the light bright colours that she favoured, and she would change several times a day. Max usually brought someone home in the evening, so there was a reason to have a long scented bath at about five o’clock and get into something dramatic and floating, but after she had taken all that trouble it was too unkind of them to talk business as if she were simply not there. When Max required her to give a dinner party she came out of it rather splendidly, for most of the male guests adored her English accent and her piquant looks, and if there were enough people she need not bother with the women at all. The women, in any event, could take good care of themselves. When she idled away an afternoon with any of these women, either beside her own pool or somebody else’s, she heard talk of money, of infidelity, of settlements. This bewildered her, and she was still enough of her mother’s daughter to consider it very mauvais genre. After one of these afternoons, she would treat her husband with more care and respect, would be quiet when he wanted to be quiet, and would place a little dish of sweetmeats at his elbow as he worked. All in all, Betty was a good wife. And Max, although occasionally unfaithful, had the good taste to ensure that she never learned of it. Location trips, he explained. Reno. Las Vegas. You wouldn’t enjoy it. All that sand.

  One of the mean and selfish things that people do to Betty is not to send her money from England. It seems to her to be lacking in humanity that Alfred, who is, as everybody knows, a rich man, does not make her an allowance. She does not need the money, of course, but she is on the lookout for injustice. Therefore she writes to Alfred, putting in a bid for her share of ‘my father’s money’. He has become, in retrospect, her father and nobody else’s. She is so used to thinking of herself that her brothers and her sister have no reality for her. They exist in her memory, and she is incurious about their present life. In fact they serve only to fuel those anecdotes about her childhood with which she regales her friends or Max’s colleagues or, if there is nobody else immediately available, her maid or the man who comes to clean the pool. When performing this particular number at dinner parties Betty’s eyes widen and her face takes on the look of the spoilt child she has grown into. These anecdotes make an initial impact but generally fall on deaf ears. Childhood is not much valued here in Hollywood. And with so many exiles and refugees in their circle, it is not always entirely tactful to refer to her uneventful early years in such sentimental terms. ‘You never talked about your childhood when we met in Paris,’ Max says to her curiously one evening, as they are undressing for bed. ‘Why go into it now? You are getting older, not younger.’ At which she flounces into the bathroom and does not speak to him until the following day.

  She never made a film, of course. The early rising, the harsh lights, the heavy make-up, would not have suited her. In any event she was never really given the choice. Mr Markus fixed up a screen test for her but oddly enough, or perhaps not, she came across as impossibly mannered, and her sultry expression merely made her look bad-tempered. Conferring with Max, Mr Markus tried to salvage Betty’s honour by offering her a very small part (‘A cameo,’ they explained to her) as a waitress in a French estaminet frequented by international criminals. She refused it with a certain amount of shouting and screaming and it took several days to calm her down. She had expected the lead, and to this day blames the meanness and selfishness of the director who, she is convinced, wanted the part for his mistress. She still refers to this incident with some acrimony although it took place a very long time ago. Since then she has formed the habit of reading novels and proposing themes to Max on the basis of what she has read. Betty is the only member of the family to whom reading does not present itself as a silent activity. These scenarios would involve huge budgets, expensive adaptations, and of course a prominent part for Betty. ‘I see myself as Madeleine,’ she says to Max as they eat dinner. (Or Dolores. Or Andrea.) ‘I could really bring something to a part like that. And perhaps they could work in a dance routine. A ballroom scene. Or you could do it in costume.’ Max knows how to deal with all this. ‘I am at the mercy of the finance department,’ he says. What really annoys him is her insistence on telling him the plot of anything she happens to be reading, which makes for some very dull evenings.

  Max, in any event, is working in different directions, a fact which Betty manages to overlook. Max is doing very well. He was one of the first to respond to the possibilities of television and an audience so captive that it does not have to stir from its favourite chair. Within the restrictive boundaries of the small black and white screen Max is a perceptive and a creative cineaste. He specializes in police dramas, with the sympathy very clearly bestowed on the outlaw, the fugitive, the man on the run. This format has the added advantage of permitting any number of settings. Max has had men on the run in sunlit Paris, in foggy London, in rainy New York. What he is good at is not the thrill of the chase, or the escape, which is entirely predictable, but the life of the streets in which the outlaw or fugitive spends much of his time trying to assume a new identity. No doubt Max has a personal feeling for such a predicament, although he would laugh at the suggestion, not being a man who cares to share that part of his life with anyone. In this he is unlike Betty who can summon up instant rapture or instant despair when referring to an incident in her own past. Some of Max’s most haunting images come from a certain area of his carefully stored memory bank. Thus the American public has come to know and to appreciate that shot of the concierge with her cat, or the little boy carrying home the long stick of bread, or the cobbles of a street in Montmartre glistening faintly after a summer shower. Max’s films are interesting because they concentrate on emptiness, on the time before things happen, the time when the outlaw might just get away with it. He also has a deep nostalgia for the world and the time he left behind. His men tend to wear rather long leather coats, his women fox furs and little tilted hats. Max is making quite a name for himself. As time goes on it could be said that he lives for his work.

  Betty did not expect to be left alone quite so much. This is another grievance to be added to the rapidly mounting pile. ‘I’m sure you could find a place for me at the studios,’ she tells Max. ‘I’m very sympathetic and I know how artists behave.’ Or, ‘I really ought to have a seat on the board. After all, I’ve been in show business myself. I know all about it.’ Max is quite capable of dealing with this. In his experience all wives are discontented and can be placated with gifts of jewellery. And Betty, who is now voluptuously plump, is still a very attractive woman. Although permanently complaining about something or other, she has acquired sultry clinging ways which sustain his interest in her. She is one of those naturally unfair women who rule by bouts of ill-humour and whose sudden unpredictable changes of mood bring about relief, gratitude, and a general lightening of the atmosphere. Max is used to dealing with women and their changing moods, and indeed would not know what to do with the sort of wife who tries to please. If he had a wife like that, a wife who waited on him, laundered his shirts and scented them with lavender and vetiver, cooked him his favourite dishes, and enquired sympathetically whether he had had a hard day, he would be far more unfaithful than he actually is. Max requires diversion and
contention from a woman, and either by luck or by judgment Betty supplies him with both.

  The one thing Betty has never been able to recapture is that sense of effortless superiority that she possessed at the age of sixteen. Where once she had only to display herself against the dreamy passivity of her sister Mimi, she is now surrounded by women of her own type, all of them, according to Betty, ‘lacking in humanity’. For this reason her thoughts sometimes go back to Mimi, especially when she receives the really surprising news of her sister’s marriage. Betty has no clear memory of Lautner, to whom she never paid any attention, but she is quite glad that Mimi did not marry Frank, with whom she has completely lost touch, not having bothered to inform him that she was leaving Paris. Mimi married! That only leaves Alfred, with whom Betty has never been on good terms. She must look for a lovely wedding present from Max and herself. She really must make time to do this, perhaps tomorrow. But when the wedding photographs arrive and she sees how astonishingly prosperous Mimi looks in her white dress and with all those flowers, Betty turns thoughtful. She reflects that Mimi seems to be doing very well for herself. She then remembers that her family made no contribution towards the cost of her own wedding, which in fact cost absolutely nothing, and from the pile of discarded dresses which she had put on one side for the maid, she retrieves an orange chiffon evening gown and a short brocade jacket, parcels them up, and sends them off with a card in her extravagant hand: ‘Love and kisses, Betty’. After all, the dress, when Max bought it for her, had been very expensive, and she has only worn it two or three times.

  The more Betty thinks about it, the more this wedding inflames her with a sense of injustice. She particularly dislikes the way Max pores keenly over the photographs, and, pointing with his long forefinger, demands, ‘And this one? Who is this? Whose mistress is this Dolly? She is very fine, but the other one, the little one, is more sympathique.’ Betty snatches the photograph from him. ‘Nettie?’ she asks doubtfully. ‘Well, she was pretty as a child, but I don’t think she’s very remarkable now. And that awful hat.’ She continues to study the photographs, in odd moments, as does Max. Quite frequently, each will come upon the other, looking at this family group. Max seems fascinated by the array of handsome women, by the supporting cast of good-natured men. It is like a dream of home to him. Betty merely notices, with some annoyance, how everyone seems to have grown up, grown into a state of possession, while she has been absent, in this rented house, beside a chemically coloured pool, on someone else’s land, in a distant country. And they all look so rich! How could her Mama not have sent her the money to attend this wedding, where she could have made a spectacular entrance and stunned everyone with her transatlantic sophistication? She forgets that she has not yet replied to the letter informing her of Mimi’s forthcoming marriage, a letter to which Sofka has added, in her angular but now shaky handwriting, ‘We should so love to see you, my darling.’ Ignoring this, Betty considers it outrageous that Alfred, with all his money, should not have sent two first-class tickets and arranged a welcome. The prodigal returns! Betty forgets that she has enough money, or rather enough of Max’s money, to arrange her own passage home, that she could, on receipt of Mimi’s letter, on an impulse, have bought an airline ticket and gone home to embrace her mother. But that is not the way in which Betty thinks it should have been arranged. Her family should have petitioned her, begged her, postponed the wedding until she should have imparted her plans, waited, with mounting anxiety, to see whether or not she would be able to attend. And the least they could have done would be to have invited Max, whom they have never met. This is Alfred’s doing, of course. Alfred was always down on her.

  Mama is getting old, thinks Betty, with a tiny thrill of fear. And when she is no longer there, whose favourite will I be?

  Suddenly the sun in this place looks garish and the scenery insipid. Max’s images on the television screen seem to reflect a denser reality than that enjoyed by Betty in her high-heeled sandals and her lounging pyjamas. Her mind slips gratefully into those dark, cool, bluish streets, those gas-lit alleys, that provincial café, that park at midnight with its dripping trees where the man on the run waits for the woman who has sworn that she will go with him. Betty watches, achingly, as the figure in the long leather coat, with his hat pulled well down, slouches, unrecognized, through a curiously empty Pigalle. Max is flattered by this new interest she shows in his work. But Betty only really sees herself, tapping her way confidently to the stage door of the Moulin Rouge on the day of her first (and only) audition. She feels, with all the pain of true nostalgia, the crispness of the November air in Paris, smells the coffee and the cigarettes, settles her hand more firmly round the handle of her little make-up case. She remembers dancing with aplomb and attack; she remembers how little she thought of her gift, sleeping late in those lazy mornings, buying herself cakes to eat as a treat on her way home, gradually taking less exercise, putting on weight. Now she would no longer dare to try on her practice dress. Now she prefers loose filmy clothes, although her legs are still good.

  Max, grunting slightly, switches off the television, stubs out his cigarette, and sits with a cautious hand to his chest. Indigestion or something else frequently finds him in this position. Betty at such moments makes him a cup of tea and reminds him that they have arranged to meet some people downtown for dinner and that when he has drunk his tea he had better take a shower and change. Fortunately Betty is not one of those wives who make a fuss. It would not occur to her to call a doctor, and in this way Max is preserved from an invalid’s regimen, but will continue to lead his intense and sceptical and by this stage very withdrawn existence. He is grateful to his wife for not noticing that anything is amiss, grateful too that she is tough enough to take whatever may come, grateful that their love is not of the overwhelming variety that makes such thoughts unbearable.

  When Betty finds Max sitting on the bed, staring yet again at the wedding photographs, she tells him quite sharply that if he does not stop mooning about in this uncharacteristic way they will soon be late. When he says that he does not feel like going out she reproaches him for being selfish. When, with a sigh, he gets up, having weighed in the balance the very few options open to him, Betty exclaims, ‘And about time too!’ When he slowly topples forward Betty is at her dressing-table, trying on and discarding various pairs of earrings. In that way, when she looks in the mirror, she sees behind her reflection only absence.

  In the days of terror that follow Betty refuses to leave Max’s hospital bed. There is no need, they tell her, for her to stay. He will pull through: it was not a serious attack. But she sits there, her eyes wide, her hair uncombed, clutching his hand. The room is full of stupendous flowers and unreal-looking fruit. Mr Markus comes every day and so do many of Betty’s friends, those friends whom she has always rather disliked. She is anxious for them all to leave, and despite their sudden kindness and the disquiet in their eyes she hastens them to the door. She knows, without being told, that Max will recover but that he will be diminished, and she is unwilling for anyone to share this knowledge. For this reason she sits by him, holding his hand, letting him sleep, urging him silently to come back to her, promising, in her mind, that she will be good.

  They are a quiet couple now. Max cannot work much, and he has become rather morose. The illness has affected him more slowly but more profoundly. Betty looks after him with great devotion. Thanks to Alfred, to whom Betty wrote as soon as Max came home, they live quite comfortably. Of course, life is very dull. Sometimes Betty wonders if she will ever have anyone to talk to again. In the afternoons, when Max is having his rest, she wanders down to the pool. She stares at the water. ‘Isn’t it a pretty colour?’ she says forlornly to the man who has come to filter it. ‘I had a hair ribbon just that shade when I was a little girl.’

  13

  BEFORE ENTERING the bedroom Mimi composes her face. She takes a deep breath, straightens her back, and opens the door. ‘Look, Mama,’ she says. ‘Dolly and Hal have sent t
hese lovely flowers.’ She puts the heavy vase down on a little table where Sofka can see it from the bed. Sofka’s eyes never leave Mimi’s face. My poor girl, she thinks. You are beginning to treat me as if I were your child. Then it must be nearly over with me.

  Mimi tiptoes from the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Since that bout of influenza, from which Sofka does not appear to recover, the drawing-room at Bryanston Square is rarely empty. Mimi is there every day, of course, and Lautner joins her devotedly whenever he can. Alfred stays in every evening now. Sometimes Dolly and Hal come round, sometimes Nettie and Will, sometimes all four of them. On occasions like these, smiles grow wistful, conversation more poignant. In the kitchen the girls, Lili and Ursie, are kept busy making relays of tea and coffee, cutting up cheese-cake, honey cake, almond cake. Sometimes the atmosphere is quite animated. They pull the curtains, switch on all the lamps, bustle around with plates and trays, go through to the kitchen to see if the girls are all right, take it in turns to sit with Sofka, come back to report no change, stand up again and produce cigars, offer brandy. This atmosphere is very persuasive, almost festive. Only Lautner looks uneasy. Eventually he waylays Alfred, who has continued to dislike him. ‘Should you send for Frederick?’ he asks. Alfred dislikes him even more. ‘There is no need,’ he replies. ‘My mother is a little tired, no more than that. As you can see, she is being looked after perfectly well. Are you coming back inside?’ he asks rudely, indicating the door of the drawing-room. ‘Or are you taking Mimi home? She looks dreadful, by the way. Are you sure she is being properly looked after?’ And with that he turns his back and prepares to rejoin the others. He will never forgive Lautner for making Mimi pregnant.