Leaving Home

by Anita Brookner

  Apart from these considerations I found myself oddly inattentive to the business of ordinary life. My circumstances lent themselves to this passivity: I was warm, I was comfortable, I was undisturbed. I had learned that I had inherited some money from my mother, who had been saving on my behalf. This both consoled and saddened me—consoled me in so far as it reminded me of her love, and saddened me because that love had been so wistful, so undemonstrative. There was no reason I could see why I should not remain here, but there was a factor I could not ignore: I was becoming increasingly unwilling to leave the flat. I made a few hasty purchases first thing in the morning and ate what I had bought without interest or appetite. I marvelled at my insouciance in the cafés and the occasional restaurant I had frequented in Paris and knew that I could not replicate it here. I preferred my own company, my own solitude, although efforts had been made to reduce that solitude to what others considered manageable proportions. Friends I had not seen since college, and who were now married, urged me to attend their dinner parties, dismissing my reclusion as unhealthy, unseemly, something no reasonable person could contemplate. So far I had resisted these kind invitations, but the perceived danger of even greater isolation would eventually oblige me, with a heavy heart, to comply. I had been in London for three weeks, nearly a month, and I would end up doing what others wanted me to do, because that was what people such as myself usually did. It was just that late evenings, in strange houses, held no appeal; moreover they would interfere with a particularly precious time, when I renounced the day and surrendered to the dark. I went to bed earlier and earlier, and lay there waiting to fall asleep. The dread that I had experienced on that first night had not disappeared, but now I knew that it would always be with me, like some chronic weakness, a bad knee, say, or a blocked sinus, and that I could and should live with it. It is perhaps significant that I found waking much more problematic, part of the inevitable decision-making from which I was not to be relieved, however many invitations came my way, however much advice I appeared to welcome. My real deliverance was nowhere in sight.

  What finally decided me was the beautiful weather, which I could no longer ignore. Every morning the sun rose into a cloudless sky; a dawn mist would leave droplets of moisture on blades of grass which emerged with almost pre-Raphaelite intensity. After completing my early purchases I went home, intending to do something useful, but would be drawn to the window to contemplate the brilliance of the day. It was the light that delivered me from my torpor, and although imprisoned in a strange idleness I could see that action was called for. I was as ready as I ever should be to go back to Paris, and, more difficult, to link up with my two friends. I knew that we should all be constrained, and that the limits of our friendship, now that there was no longer continuity to sustain it, would soon be reached. I saw that habit, and more than habit, proximity, can create a sort of friendship that is in fact not intimate, and wondered if my letters had presumed too much, revealed too much, or, worse, reminded the recipients that I had needs that they were required to address, when in fact it was in both their natures to be massively self-absorbed. It was entirely possible that they were not where I expected them to be, that the habits which I took for granted had already been cancelled, in which case I should merely collect my things and avoid making contact altogether. There would be no need to explain this; they both had my address should they wish to get in touch. In my worst moments I imagined them puzzling over my name: Emma? Emma who? This I put down to the general nervousness which had overtaken me whenever I left the flat. That nervousness increased when I booked my ticket.

  Paris was subtly different, or maybe I had changed, grown accustomed to birdsong and small front gardens and women impatient with their lot and a populace hypnotized by what it watched on television. Yet my room in the hotel remained its own uncommunicative self. I picked up my briefcase and made my way to the library. Françoise’s eyes widened. I was right; she had not expected to see me again. Nevertheless she pointed to her watch, and then beyond the door, and indicated that I was to meet her at our usual café round the corner. I almost wished that I had come and gone in a spirit of secrecy which would have served me better and spared my friends embarrassment. No one knows how to behave in the presence of death, and Françoise, for all her boldness, was no exception. She regarded me curiously, as if I might manifest worrying symptoms, almost warning me not to bring my concerns into her life, precariously balanced as it was between her mother’s will and her own. I knew that I must exert tact, and so I told her that she looked well, and that I was glad to see her, however briefly.

  ‘You’re not staying, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, no. There’s really no reason for me to do so.’

  ‘How will you live now?’

  ‘Oh, much as usual, I suppose. If you’re ever in London you must come and stay. There’s plenty of room in the flat.’ There was a pause, almost but not quite awkward. ‘How’s your mother?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘You’ve met my mother. Incidentally, you made a very good impression.’ She lit a cigarette, something I had not seen her do before. ‘My mother is odious,’ she said calmly.

  ‘I found her rather impressive.’

  ‘Oh, she is certainly that.’

  Another pause. ‘And Jean-Charles?’

  ‘Fortunately he and his mother are away. They have a small property near Montpellier. Most people are away, or going away. It’s Easter, after all.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘You should take a holiday, Emma. After such a difficult time . . .’

  How does one survive without a mother was what she wanted to ask me, yet she was fearful of doing so, anxious not to touch on the great drama of her life, a drama that would overshadow any that she might encounter with lovers or eventually her husband.

  ‘Will you marry him?’ I asked, conscious that this was none of my business, and no longer very interested.

  She ignored this. ‘What you should do is come away with me this weekend. Yes, why not do that? My mother would be delighted.’

  ‘I should be getting back. . . .’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at your hotel, if you like. Or better, collect me at the library tomorrow evening. I’ll drive us down. The evenings are light now.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ I said politely. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ She picked up her bag. ‘Until tomorrow evening, then.’

  I watched her leave, sorry to see her go, although our meeting had not been satisfactory. I wondered if this had been my fault, if I had been less than correct in broaching matters which had once been frankly discussed. Suddenly I wanted to be at home, undisturbed, above all unquestioned. I did not want to be a weekend guest. The invitations I had refused in London would have been less wearisome than the formality I should have to observe with her mother, if I were not to betray my sadness. And yet it would have been impolite to refuse, though a more competent person would have done so at once. My very politeness had, once again, let me down.

  I spent the day aimlessly wandering, visiting one or two bookshops, longing for the evening when I might see Michael. But when evening finally came there was no sign of him. This I put down to forgetfulness on his part, nothing more sinister. I went to bed early, as I usually did, but regretted my soft bed and slept badly. I woke in a fever of impatience to get the day, the weekend, over, so that I could go back to being obscure and undiscovered. I squandered the morning and much of the afternoon. I presented myself at the library almost angrily. Not only did I not want this, but Françoise, and even more so her mother, would not want it either. We drove down almost in silence.

  Yet the beauty of the house conquered me once again. It was flushed with pink in the light of a dying sun, its doors open to let in the last of the light. Mme Desnoyers was nowhere to be seen, but her high heels could be heard on various surfaces—tiles, wood—and her appearance would be signalled by the usual dramatic sound effects. When she did appear she greeted
me with a kindness for which I was unprepared. So unprepared was I for this that the tears I had not shed since my mother’s death made their way down my cheeks and grew more abundant as I tried to check them. She surveyed me almost thoughtfully, then took me in her arms. ‘Pauvre petite,’ she said, and turned to Françoise. That is how a daughter should behave, was her unspoken message. Will you ever be of this quality?

  After that it was bearable. I succumbed to what was already a routine: the airtight bedroom, the lukewarm food, the laconic exchanges between the two women. In the absence of her adversary, Mme de Lairac, Mme Desnoyers seemed homelier, less effortful. Her ambitions for the moment laid aside, she almost regressed to whatever had been her original status. There were even signs of carelessness in her less rigid posture, her worn jacket. On the other hand, and possibly not unconnected, her sawing asthmatic breath was no longer noticeable. She was comfortable as she was.

  After dinner we watched television, the same American serial that all England had been watching.

  ‘Pouah!’ she uttered. ‘Ils sont mal élevés, ces gens.’

  It was that disgusted ‘Pouah!’ that underlined the resemblance between mother and daughter. I smiled; Françoise did the same, but with a certain constraint. What we had been watching was a scene of more or less unbridled lust in which two extremely glamorous people were conducting their courtship in a setting of fabulous luxury. I saw, with some surprise, that Françoise was inclined to take this rather more seriously than I would have suspected. Was this, then, her ideal? A total escape from everything she had been brought up to observe? Would she have wanted this surfeit of worldly goods? Would she have made her peace with them, even embraced the vulgarity that was, if anything, an added temptation? Mme Desnoyers intuited this, though gave no sign of having done so. But her breathing became noisier, and when she switched off the television Françoise did not protest.

  We were in her bedroom, no television being admitted in the grand downstairs rooms, though her bedroom was grand enough. Grand, but untidy, a chair pushed away from a small desk, a cupboard door not quite closed. The huge bed seemed inappropriate to one so obviously celibate. The bed, in fact, belonged in the sort of scene we had been watching rather than as part of the life so carefully cultivated here. ‘Maman!’ warned Françoise.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am tired. We must all go to bed. Bonne nuit, mes filles.’

  I never forgot that. It seemed like a sign that I still existed as a daughter, that my daughterly condition was once more acceptable. I was so grateful to her that I kissed her, which was a grave mistake. She stiffened; it was after all for her to kiss me, if she wished, not the other way round. But this was somehow part of living in France, doing the infinitesimal wrong thing. It was part of the barbarism of being English. As I retired, slightly shamefaced, I realized that I was irreducibly English. And yet I was beguiled, as an outsider, by a way of life that would, I knew, continue to exert its fascination. The experience had been decisive: I had been included. What was more, I had given some sort of satisfaction, if only by virtue of my naïveté.

  Françoise confirmed this as we were driving back to Paris. ‘You seem to have a good effect on my mother,’ she said. ‘You don’t know how rare that is. When I went in to her this morning she told me to tell you to come again. Will you come again, Emma?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I assured her, knowing that my assent could be easily overlooked. ‘I’d love to.’

  9

  ON LOOKING THROUGH MY TEXT I WAS AGREEABLY SURPRISED to find it quite interesting: my chapter on Le Nôtre was, I thought, on the right lines. I had planned to spend the morning doing this; in fact it took less than an hour. When the telephone rang I was almost grateful, less so when the caller turned out to be Sarah Buchanan, now Cartwright, whom I had known at college, though Sarah always made it seem like school. She was a bustling insensitive girl whom I had never much liked, although she appeared to consider us firm friends. She regarded me with some condescension, both for living at home with my mother and devoting my time to work of a not immediately relevant nature. ‘It’s not going to save the planet, is it?’ she quipped when informed of my choice of subject, and laughed at her own sally. I was reminded, as were we all, that she was engaged to a medical student, and thus doing her bit for humanity. She tolerated me as a rare example of one so backward that I could only benefit from her guidance. As I was slightly frightened of her I did my best to defuse her quips without actually giving offence. I never considered her a true friend, not knowing that true friends are exceedingly rare, but simply as part of the context from which I had emerged and which now seemed infinitely distant. At the same time I recognized that it was kind of her to telephone. I was a little bored— a sign of recovery, perhaps—and still uncertain whether I should stay in London or not. France had treated me kindly, in an unobtrusive way, and Michael was still there. I was unhappy that I had missed him on my last visit. This was unfinished business, and I wanted to talk to him. Indeed he was the only one to whom I did want to talk. As a solitary he would have understood me perfectly; more than that, his very solitariness gave him intellectual prestige, like the desert fathers who were assumed to have gained wisdom from their limiting circumstances without doing too much to give an account of themselves, content to be pictured contemplating a skull in many an Old Master painting.

  ‘Listen,’ said Sarah. ‘I won’t ask you again. Dinner on Friday. There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  These words struck terror into my heart. I knew her range of acquaintances, an even heartier reflection of her own nature. Her fiancé, now her husband, and now a doctor, was her exact equivalent. How lucky they were! Yet I did not envy her, nor did I question her choice. This was a Darwinian partnership, a blueprint for survival which one could not question. And they were the fittest, no doubt of that. If they made one feel lacking in evolutionary potential, that was hardly their fault. And yet the air of triumph that was Sarah’s outstanding characteristic could not be explained away entirely by the powers of love.

  ‘I really don’t think . . .’

  ‘Now, don’t let me down,’ she menaced. ‘You know where we are. Dorset Square, eight o’clock.’

  Eight o’clock was when I sometimes wondered whether it was too early to go to bed. It was only on reflecting that this behaviour was aberrant that I thanked her and said that nonetheless she should not expect me to fall in with her plans.

  She laughed. ‘France hasn’t changed you much, has it?’

  ‘I’ve enjoyed myself enormously,’ I said primly. ‘In fact I’m thinking of going back.’

  ‘You must tell us all what you’ve been up to,’ she said. ‘Don’t be late. Eight o’clock. No need to dress.’

  Until that moment I had not given a thought to what I was to wear. Now I was doomed to shop for something. This would no doubt fill the day, and it was too fine a morning to be spent in this manner. But I remembered my shame at being found wanting by Mme Desnoyers and her guests (and perhaps by Françoise as well), and resolved to do better. I preferred to be unobtrusive, anonymous, to eat in a familiar café where a mere nod of the head was understood as a means of communication, a brief greeting enough to establish recognition. Now I should have to dress up and be on display, patronage having been advertised in advance. Harrods might have something, I thought vaguely. Then perhaps I could eat lunch out. I needed to be reintroduced to the outside world and thought this as good a way as any.

  In fact the day served to establish the distance between the present and my past existence. So disconcerting was this distance that I resolved to embark on some further study, knowing that I would be undisturbed in this endeavour and perhaps succumbing to the delusion that I would always be young, a beginner, an apprentice. I did not crave the company of Sarah and her like. The women in Harrods seemed confident and purposeful, and there were no men at all. I spent far too much money on a dress I was quite sure I should never wear again, though it was pretty enough and fitted per
fectly. In the mirror I looked like a child dressed for a birthday party, and was shocked by my own unworldliness. This perhaps was the obverse of a life of study, this fear of social situations in which I should be found wanting, having nothing to offer in the way of gossip or news or plans, too obviously ignorant of the game to be played, the prizes to be won. The person whom Sarah wanted me to meet could be dealt with quite easily. I was quite expert in this matter, having been the focus of unwanted attention on several occasions in Paris. But there it had had little to do with formal introductions, and not very much with social standing. I knew that Jean-Charles de Lairac would have indicated his intentions had his mother not been present. In comparison with what that would have entailed, Sarah’s friend would pose no problem.

  Nevertheless I was glad that I was dressed up when I was introduced to the two other couples, both married, the women rather more impressive than the men. They were named as Susie and Alison, both of whom, I knew, would recognize the provenance and price of my outfit, which looked fussy compared with their sleek trouser suits. The husbands, conferring among themselves, were, I supposed, doctors, as was my intended. ‘Philip will be a little late,’ explained Sarah. ‘He had to go back to the hospital. He said to go ahead without him.’

  ‘Oh, Philip,’ smiled Susie or Alison. ‘Always impossible.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I was lucky to get hold of him at all.’