Leaving Home

by Anita Brookner

  I was relieved. The main feature, which they were all there to witness, might not take place at all. With that in mind I was prepared to play my part with as much goodwill as I could muster.

  ‘Of course, he hasn’t been the same since his wife left him. Do bring your glasses. I hope you’re ready to eat.’

  All these people were prosperous, it seemed. There was some sort of help in the kitchen. Everyone but myself had traded up. The talk was of property prices, and holidays, past, present, and to come. Their principal occupation seemed to be taking holidays; nowhere was too distant, no terrain too difficult. Susie and David went skiing. Alison and Jim had recently been trekking in Nepal.

  ‘You must be awfully fit,’ I ventured, sincerely impressed.

  ‘You ought to do something like that,’ said Sarah. ‘Do you more good than all that studying.’

  ‘What exactly do you do?’ enquired Alison, the trekker.

  I was spared the possible embarrassment of a reply by the irruption of a harassed-looking man whom they all greeted joyously as ‘Philip!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he replied, with an attempt at breeziness which seemed suitable for the occasion, though it did not quite eliminate the heaviness of his features.

  ‘Sit down, sit down. I hope you’re hungry,’ said Sarah. ‘Though it must be spoiled by now.’

  I felt for her then, for her energy, her desire. All this was imprinted in her gestures. And the food was indeed excellent.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and sat down humbly. All watched him eat. He seemed to be something of a celebrity, or at least someone whose company was something to be cherished. He answered questions while forking food into his mouth. Even the men looked on approvingly.

  I studied this man whom Sarah had produced for my benefit, though from the look on her face, just as much for hers. Large, rumpled, and perhaps as uncomfortable as I was. A brief look in my direction had identified me as his partner. The breeziness, no doubt his professional manner, lapsed from time to time into a sombre-seeming passivity. The breeziness was resumed manfully as plates of food were placed before him in quick succession. He seemed anxious to get the business of refuelling over as quickly as possible.

  ‘You probably had no lunch,’ said Sarah fondly.

  ‘Busy day,’ he replied, rousing himself from a momentary lapse in attention. ‘Philip Hudson,’ he said, looking at me properly for the first time. ‘Emma Roberts,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh!’ said Sarah, clapping her hand to her forehead. ‘I forgot to introduce you.’

  Philip Hudson retrieved his social manners. ‘Delicious,’ he pronounced. Then, digestion having begun its work, he fell back into a silence which seemed to be more natural to him. The look in his eyes had something mournful about it.

  ‘Coffee next door,’ announced Sarah.

  In the sitting room I was able to observe him more closely. He did not seem the kind of man to entertain one with anecdotes about his holidays. On the contrary, he seemed serious, weighty, no trace of his bustling entry. His hand idled with his coffee cup until Sarah took it from him.

  ‘Are you very tired?’ she enquired, as his silence deepened.

  ‘Well, as I said, busy day. A full list.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘If you don’t mind, Sarah, I’ll be on my way fairly soon. I’m scheduled for eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘We’ll let you go this time,’ she said, disappointed but brave. ‘But only if you promise to give us a proper evening very soon.’

  ‘Too kind, my dear. Can I give anyone a lift?’ He glanced in my direction.

  ‘Actually, Sarah, if you don’t mind, I’ll make a move myself.’

  ‘Oh, Emma, there’s no need. Well, if you’re sure . . .’

  ‘It’s been lovely,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll ring you before I go back.’

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘To Paris. One or two things to clear up.’

  She let me go with what seemed like genuine regret. Dr. Hudson was retained for a multiplicity of leave-takings. Finally we were in the street. The sudden silence, and the beautiful evening, or rather night, calmed us both. I felt as if I had been away from home for weeks, though, strangely, I was not tired. I was well-disposed towards Dr Hudson by virtue of the fact that he was a man who knew how to make a quick getaway, and to take me with him. At the end of the street leading to Sarah’s flat lay freedom, and with it lights, passing cars, the lit window of a café. That the café was filled with solitary-looking people endeared it to me. I might, in other circumstances, have been one of them.

  ‘I forgot to bring the car. Or rather I decided not to. I can’t give you a lift after all.’

  ‘I’ll get a cab,’ I assured him. ‘In fact I think I’ll walk a bit. It’s such a lovely evening.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you. Actually I live quite near. York Street. I often walk home from the hospital, Chelsea. And from Harley Street, of course.’

  ‘You’re a doctor?’

  ‘Surgeon. Most of the people I meet are unconscious, properly anaesthetized. Saves a lot of idle chatter.’

  ‘And yet you turned out for a dinner party.’

  ‘It was either that or a takeaway.’ We walked on. ‘And what do you do?’ he said finally.

  ‘Nothing, really.’

  ‘You were described to me as a distinguished scholar.’

  ‘That was nice of them, but far from true, I’m afraid. I live alone. My mother died recently and I came home to settle things. I’d been away, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I’d picked that up.’

  ‘I suppose this is home now but I find it very disconcerting. Everyone seems so well-off. And it’s a different sort of conversation one has here. Full of jokes.’

  ‘That may be defensive.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People don’t trust seriousness. It worries them.’

  ‘I find jokiness far more worrying. Perhaps I am ill-equipped for it. I work alone, you see,’ I went on, suddenly anxious to give an account of myself. ‘I sit in a library and work on my book. At least it’s not a book yet, but I think it might become one. . . .’

  ‘You’ll find that everyone in England is writing a book.’

  ‘My book—if it becomes one—would be very boring. It’s about classical garden design.’

  ‘I have rather a nice garden.’

  ‘In York Street?’

  ‘No. I have a house in Winchelsea.’

  I gave up. There was no point in going on. Besides, he had lapsed into his intermittent state of absence. I assumed that he had more important matters on his mind. Or maybe he was anxious to get rid of this tedious obligation to be polite. We were both uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m no good at this sort of thing.’

  ‘I don’t like it much either.’ I saw no harm in speaking my mind out here, in the calming night air. I had not forgotten the mild pleasure of walking with a man.

  ‘Do you mind living alone?’

  ‘No, not really. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘I live alone myself. My wife left me, you see. They probably told you that. She was exasperated by the hours I kept. Also she liked company. She was—is—very beautiful.’

  ‘And family?’

  ‘One son. A junior doctor in Liverpool. I don’t see much of him. He lets himself into the house from time to time and goes to bed, exhausted. We don’t talk much. But we get on pretty well.’

  ‘You’re proud of him.’

  ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘People assume that I’m lonely. That’s why they ask me to dinner.’

  ‘Same here, I expect.’

  ‘And are you lonely?’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly, cutting off that line of enquiry.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That sort of question seems taboo here. In Paris it’s considered a legitimate preamble to a far-reaching discussion.’

  ‘God, how awful.’

  ‘I can see a cab,’ I said.<
br />
  ‘Do forgive me. As I said, I’m no good at this.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ I was struck by a sudden disappointment. The weekend was approaching, was nearly upon us, a laborious Saturday and an empty Sunday, which even this newfound English joviality could not combat. I was still subject to the memory of other Sundays, but I saw that I had built up an illusion of true partnership which had nothing to sustain it. That peculiar charm of mutual silence would not stand up to scrutiny, nor could it be conveyed. The roses would now be in bloom at Malmaison, I thought with a pang. Mothers-in-law would be taken out for their weekly treat. The children would be pacified with ice cream. All would be well-behaved, pacific, ready for the next working day. And I felt part of that petit-bourgeois world, protective of it.

  ‘I hate the thought of Sunday,’ I heard myself saying.

  ‘I don’t much like weekends,’ he said. ‘I usually look in to the hospital. Or go out to lunch.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you have many invitations.’

  ‘No, I mean I go to a restaurant. Or an hotel. I’m no cook.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to lunch one Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

  ‘Sooner the better. What about this Sunday?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Hyde Park Hotel, twelve-thirty. That suit you? I’ll get that cab. You must be tired with all this walking.’

  Little did he know. We had merely reached Marble Arch; had it not been for the no-man’s-land of the park I should have carried on.

  ‘My name is Philip,’ he said, shutting the door of the cab. ‘Until Sunday, then. Good night.’

  In the taxi I regretted the streets, dark, but with a summer openness, no thought of danger, no feeling of distress. I regretted the walk, uncomfortable though it had been—but then the whole evening had been uncomfortable. Sarah would no doubt preempt my telephone call, anxious to know how we had got on. There was an unseemliness about such obvious match-making. The man Hudson had shown commendable restraint on the whole. I should probably not see him again, nor need to. There remained the problem of lunch two days ahead. I did not have a telephone number for him. Sarah could supply one, but that might encourage speculation. I was not at home with these manoeuvres. I was not even at home in the flat, which seemed newly strange, dim after Sarah’s bright lights, silent after the conversation. No sane person would exchange its comforts for that hotel room. It was perhaps no more than a question of habit, or rather of usage. In those modest surroundings I knew my own mind, had achieved a certain mild autonomy. Here I was lost among strangers whom I could never please. Here was exile, but perhaps reality, a reality with which I should have to come to terms.

  10

  ‘YOU SEEM IN BETTER SPIRITS TODAY,’ SAID PHILIP HUDSON, as we ate cold salmon in the Hyde Park Hotel. ‘Perhaps you were not at your best the other evening.’

  ‘I don’t think I have a best. Better, perhaps, but not best. Yes, I do feel better today. This is so nice. It was kind of you to suggest it. Do you really come here at the weekends? On your own?’

  ‘Yes. Being on one’s own is quite an education. One sees more people but knows hardly anyone. And if one stays at home the day lacks a focus. One is inclined to read too many newspapers. Anyway, I never think of my house as “home”. I think of it as the house, or my house.’

  ‘That is how I think of my flat. I never say I’m going home. I say I’m going back to the flat.’

  A waiter removed our plates.

  ‘Do you imagine an ideal home? Somewhere you long to be? I sometimes think I could be happier somewhere else. Not happy, mark you: happier. I see some quite ordinary house and think, yes, something like that. Maybe it’s only a detail, a curtain blowing at an upstairs window. . . .’

  ‘My house suited me well enough when my family lived there. My wife. My boy, when he was little.’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Mark. My wife called him Markie. Do smoke if you want to.’

  ‘I don’t, thank you. There’s a house I visit in France occasionally. Not that I think of living there . . . I suppose one is tempted by other lives. It’s like what you were saying about seeing people and not knowing them. One is always on the lookout for something or someone. Not necessarily romantic, just an indicator of change. Will you stay in York Street, or move somewhere else?’

  ‘No need. It’s a decent enough house. You’ll see it one day. Today, if you’ve got the time. We’ll have coffee there.’

  ‘I suppose it’s always easier to stay than to leave.’

  ‘Ah. Leaving home: the great drama of our lives.’

  ‘Maybe it gets better as one gets older.’

  ‘No, worse. Everything gets worse as one gets older. Shall we go?’

  I studied him as covertly as possible in this unusual proximity. He seemed twice my age, even more, but this was due less to his appearance than to his latent melancholy, which rose to the surface, always without warning, as it did now. He carried it off but did not attempt to disguise it. If anything it added to his distinction, which was conveyed largely by his height and bulk: here, his appearance signalled, was a man of consequence. This did much to compensate for scanty hair and commonplace features. I had no difficulty in accepting him as someone with arcane gifts which I should not be obliged to understand. There was no small talk possible; in any case he did not seem to deal in small talk. Everything about him was weighty, including what he had to say. This was a great relief to me; to my surprise I found it easy to fill the gaps. This meeting, which could have been extremely awkward, was proving a success, or at least not an outright failure. If we were ever to meet again I need have no anxieties about my appearance, to which he seemed completely indifferent, or my general appeal, relevance, or desirability, to which he was equally immune. It was a relief to be beyond the range of feeling, for however brief an interlude. Everything seemed acceptably impersonal: the highceilinged restaurant, the view of the park beyond the windows, the unobtrusive service. I could see why he chose to eat here. I had originally thought his choice eccentric. Now I saw it as entirely commendable.

  ‘Your book is finished?’ he queried as we sat in the cab.

  ‘No. At least it is almost finished as a thesis, but is far from being a book.’ This reflection slightly clouded my appreciation of the day. If I intended to go ahead with this project—and I had few other calls on my time and attention—I should need to revisit some of the sites to which I had given my attention, and I discovered that I was no longer eager to do so. I also saw that my material was thin in places (the section on Villandry came to mind) and must be radically restructured. This would mean some travelling, none of it arduous, but unwelcome for other reasons. It was not merely a question of displacement, though that came into it; it had to do with a nascent longing for a less isolated life. I had hitherto functioned well enough in solitude, but I knew that I had little hope of attaining Philip Hudson’s stoicism. For that was what was needed, however one compensated oneself with civilized pursuits. Solitude may favour study but is insufficient if one’s aim is creative thinking. And one might encounter an inconvenient longing for company, intimacy, and the anticipation of similar delights. That was the mantra of the times: entitlement. I knew that however pleasant this day had been, much was left out. Politeness had kept us in order, but prolonged politeness might prove unsustainable. I wished the afternoon to progress, but in some unexpected fashion. And when it ended, as it must do, after more polite exchanges, there was the less companionable future to be negotiated. And that future must be invested with a significance which for the moment entirely escaped me.

  ‘You have a young man, I take it?’ he enquired. He seemed bulkier getting out of the taxi, perhaps regretting this invitation. I should have left him at the hotel. I thought with some embarrassment of my obvious willingness to accompany him, and determined to leave as soon as I could.

  ‘Yes, I have a young man. At least I th
ink I do.’

  ‘Why only think?’

  ‘We are close in several unspoken ways. We are both selfsufficient. . . .’ My voice trailed off. ‘I mean we are very alike. We like the same things.’

  But those things now seemed insubstantial. Those humble Sunday afternoons were, perhaps, a little quaint. We were spectators rather than participants, far removed from those families which we observed with such approval. Michael had seemed as orphaned as myself, and yet I knew that he had parents in Oxford, and, for all I knew, a perfectly normal family life. Whatever had served to make him so unsociable was not likely to be divulged; our conversation, sparse as it was, did not explore such fundamental matters. I missed him as I might miss a familiar. If we seemed to be related it was because that was how we wished to be. In that sense I should always love him, although knowing that our relationship, though close, was in some ways fortuitous, that it left many questions unanswered, and many roles unfilled.

  ‘You are very fortunate, then. Compatibility is vital. One ignores its absence at one’s peril. My wife and I had wildly divergent tastes. I ignored that too, thinking I could make life pleasant for her.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so too. Or hoped so.’

  ‘When did you part?’

  ‘Three years ago. This is my house. I’ll make coffee.’

  ‘And then I’ll leave you. I’ve probably ruined your quiet day. You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘A pleasure. Ah!’ he said, seeing a set of keys on a small table in the hall. ‘My son is here.’

  ‘Would you like me to go? If you want to spend time with him . . .’

  ‘No, not at all. He’ll be asleep anyway. They work them so hard these days. No need to whisper. He’ll be dead to the world.’

  I took the opportunity of his absence in the kitchen to look round the room from which he was anxious to escape. I understood his reluctance to spend a Sunday afternoon here. It appeared to be half-furnished: perhaps his wife had carried off the more attractive pieces. The house was handsome enough in its flat-fronted way from the outside, but gloomy within. Dark stairs led up to this first-floor drawing room, which seemed redolent of absence. Three widely spaced armchairs and a small round table were marooned on a hardwood floor, throwing into stark relief a set of unembellished shelves. Dull striped curtains, of an obviously expensive material, obscured much of the light, although the day had been sunny. Now I was aware of a chill which seemed not so much physical as emotional. Yet he was not obviously deprived; his conversation had if anything been bracing. I thought that he had made a respectable job of his semi-widowed state, and gave no sign of torment, though that might have existed. It was not a room in which one was tempted to move about. Once assigned to a chair one would be inclined to wait there for further orders, as I did now.