A Careless Widow and Other Stories

by V. S. Pritchett

‘Yes, you told me,’ said Ethel, pitying her. ‘He had no regard for anyone’s convenience.’

  The Image Trade

  What do you make of the famous Zut – I mean his stuff in this exhibition? Is he just a newsy collector of human instances jellied in his darkroom, or is he an artist – a Zurbarán, say, a priest searching another priest’s soul? Pearson, one of a crowd of persons, was silently putting these questions to them on a London bus going north.

  Last July, Pearson went on, he was at home. The front-door bell rang. ‘He’s here! On time!’ his beautiful wife said. She was scraping the remains of his hair across his scalp. ‘Wait,’ she said, and turning him round, she gave a last sharp brush to his shoulders and sent him dibble-dabbing fast down three flights of stairs to the door. There stood Zut, the photographer, with his back to Pearson and on impatient feet, tall and thin in a suit creased by years of air travel. He was shouting to Mrs Zut, who was lugging two heavy bags of apparatus up the street to the house. She got there and they turned round.

  As a writer, in the news too and in another branch of the human-image trade, Pearson depended on seeing people and things as strictly they are not. The notion that Zut and his wife could be a doorstep couple offering to buy old spectacles or discarded false teeth, a London trade, occurred to him, but he recovered and, switching on an eager smile, bowed them into the house. They marched past him down the hall, briskly, like a pair of surgeons, to the foot of the stairs and looked back at him.

  ‘I hope you had no difficulty in finding this – er – place,’ Pearson said, vain of difficulty as a sort of fame.

  ‘None,’ said Zut. ‘She drives. I read the street map.’ Mrs Zut had not put down her load. Zut seemed to ask, Are you the body?

  Well, said Pearson spaciously, where did they want to ‘do’, or ‘take’ – he hesitated between saying ‘it’ or ‘me’. He said this to all photographers, waving a hand, offering the house. Zut looked up at the stairs and the high ceiling.

  Pearson said, Ground-floor dining room, tall windows, books? Upstairs by half-landing, a balcony, or would you say patio, flowers, shrubs, greenery, a pair of Chinese dogs in stone, view of neighbouring gardens? Down below, garden seat under tree, could sit there taking the air. And talking of air, have often been done – if that is the word – outside in the street, in overcoat and fur hat by interesting railings, coat buttoned or unbuttoned. No? Or first-floor sitting room. High windows again, fourteen feet in fact, expensive when curtaining, but chairs easy or uneasy, large mirror, peacock feathers on wife’s desk, quite a lot of gilt, chaise-longue indeed. Have often been done there, upright or lying full length. Death of Chatterton style.

  Zut said, ‘Furniture tells me nothing. Where do you work?’

  ‘Work?’ said Pearson.

  ‘Where you write,’ said Zut.

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Pearson. ‘You mean the alphabet, sentences? At the top. Three flights up, I’m afraid,’ apologising to Mrs Zut. (Writer, writing at desk, rather a cliché for a man like Zut – no?)

  Already Zut was taking long steps up the stairs, followed by Mrs Zut, who refused to give up her two rattling bags, Pearson looking at Mrs Zut’s grey hair and peaceful back as he came after them. From flight to flight they went and did not speak until they were under a fanlight at the top. In a pause for breath Pearson said, ‘Burglar’s entry.’

  Zut ignored this and, pointing to a door, ‘In here?’ he said.

  ‘No, used to be children’s bathroom. Other door.’ The door was white on the outside, yellowing on the inside. They marched in.

  ‘It smells of – what would you say? – decaying rhubarb, I’m afraid. I smoke a pipe.’

  There was the glitter of permafrost in Zut’s hunting eyes as he studied the room. There were two attic windows; the other three walls were blood red but stacked and stuffed with books to the ceiling. They were terraced like a football crowd, in varieties of anoraks, a crowd unstirred by a slow game going on among four tables where more books and manuscripts were in scrimmage.

  ‘That your desk?’ said Zut, pointing to the largest table.

  ‘I’m a table man,’ said Pearson, apologising, bending to pick up one or two matches and a paper clip from the floor. ‘I migrate from table to table.’ And drew attention to a large capsized photograph of the Albert Memorial propped on a chest of drawers. Accidentally, Zut kicked a metal wastepaper basket as he looked round. It gave a knell.

  Yes, Pearson was inclined to say (but did not), this room has a knell. Authors die. Dozens of funerals of unfinished sentences here every day. It is less a study than a – what shall I say? – perhaps a dockyard for damaged syntax? Or, better still, an immigration hall. Papers arrive at a table, migrate to other tables or chairs, and, when they are rubber-stamped, get stuffed into drawers. By the way, outgoing mail on the floor. Observe the corner bookcase, the final catacomb – my file boxes. I like to forget.

  Mrs Zut dropped to her knees near a window and was opening the bags.

  Now (Pearson was offering his body to Zut), what would you like me to be or do? Stand here? Or there? Sit? Left leg crossed over right leg, right over left? Put on a look? Get a book at random? Open a drawer? Light a pipe? Talk? Think? Put hand on chin? Great Zut, make your wish known.

  Talk, Zut. All photographers talk, put client at ease. Ask me questions. Dozens of pictures of me have been taken. I could show you my early slim-subaltern-on-the-Somme-waiting-to-go-over-the-top period. There was my Popular Front look in the Thirties and Forties, the jersey-wearing, all-the-world’s-a-coal-mine period, with close-ups of the pores and scars of the skin and the gleam of sweat. There was the editorial look, when the tailor had to let out the waist of my trousers, followed by the successful smirk. In the Sixties the plunging neckline, no tie. Then back to collar and tie in my failed-bronze-Olympic period. Today I fascinate archaeologists – you know, the broken pillar of a lost civilisation. Come on, Zut. What do you want?

  Zut looked at the largest table. It had a clear space among pots of pencils, ashtrays, paper clips, two piles of folders for the execution block – a large blotter embroidered by pen wipings, and on it was a board with beautiful clean white paper clipped to it.

  ‘There,’ said Zut, pointing to the chair in front of it. Zut had swollen veins on his long hands. ‘Sit,’ he said.

  Pearson sat. There was a hiss from Mrs Zut’s place on the floor, close to Zut. She had pulled out the steel rods of a whistling tripod. Zut gave a push to her shoulder. Up came a camera. She screwed it on and Zut fiddled with it, calling for more and more little things. What fun you have in your branch of the trade, said Pearson. You have little things to twizzle. Well, I have paper clips, pipe cleaners, scissors, paste. I try out pens, that’s all – to save me from entering the wilderness, the wilderness of vocabulary.

  But now Zut was pulling his creased jacket over his head and squinting through the camera at Pearson, who felt a small flake of his face fall off. And at that moment Zut gave Mrs Zut a knock on her arm. ‘Meter,’ he said. Then he let his coat slip back to his shoulders and stepped from the end of the table to where Pearson was sitting and held the meter, with shocking intimacy, close to Pearson’s head. He looked back at the window, muttering a word. Was the word ‘unclean’? And he turned to squint through the camera and looked up to say, ‘Take your glasses off.’

  My glasses. My only defence. Can’t see a thing. He took them off.

  Ah, Zut, I see you don’t talk, because you are after the naked truth, you are a dabbler in the puddles of the mind. As you like, but I warn you I’m wise to that.

  ‘Don’t smile.’

  I see, you’re not a smile-please man, muttered Pearson. Oh, Zut, you’ve such a shriven look. If you take me naked, you will miss all the et cetera of my life. I am all et cetera. But Zut was back under his jacket, spying again, and then he did something presumptuous. He came out of his jacket, reached across the table, and moved a pot of pencils out of the way. The blue pot, that rather pretty et cetera tha
t Pearson’s wife had found in a junk shop next to the butcher’s – now a pizza café – twenty-four years ago on a street not in this district. Zut, you have moved a part of my life to another table, it will hate being there, screamed Pearson’s soul. How dare you move my wife?

  Anything else?

  ‘Not necessary,’ said Zut and, reaching out, gave Mrs Zut a knock on the arm. ‘Lamp,’ he said between his teeth.

  Mrs Zut scrabbled in the bag and pulled out a rubbery cord; at the end was a clouded yellow lamp, a small sickly moon. She stood up and held it high.

  Zut gave another knock on her arm as he spied into the camera.

  ‘Higher,’ he said.

  Up went the lamp. Another knock.

  ‘Keep still. You’re letting it droop,’ said Zut. Oh, Florence Nightingale, can’t you, after all these years, hold it steady?

  ‘Look straight into the camera,’ called Zut from under his jacket.

  ‘Now write,’ said Zut.

  ‘Write? Where?’

  ‘On that paper.’

  ‘Pen or pencil?’ said Pearson. ‘Write what?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Like at school.’

  Pearson tipped the board on the edge of the table.

  ‘Don’t tip the board. Keep it flat.’

  ‘I can’t write flat. I never write flat,’ Pearson said. And I never write in public, if anyone is in the room. I grunt. I make a noise.

  I bet you can’t photograph a noise.

  Pearson glanced at Zut. Then, sulking, he slid the board back flat on the table and felt the room tip up.

  Zut, Pearson murmured. I shall write: Zut keeps on hitting his wife. Zut keeps on hitting his wife. Can’t write that. He might see. Zut, I am going to diddle you.

  I shall write my address, 56 Hill Road Terrace, with the wrong post code – N6 4DN. Here goes: 56 Hill Road Terrace, 56 Hill Road Terrace . . .

  ‘Keep on writing,’ said Zut.

  Pearson continued 56 Hill Road Terrace and then misspelled ‘terrace’. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the little yellow lamp.

  ‘Now look up at me,’ said Zut.

  The room tipped higher.

  ‘Like that. Like that. Like that,’ hissed Zut. ‘Go on. Now go on writing.’

  Click, click, click, went the shutter of the camera. A little toad in the lens has shot out a long tongue and caught a fly.

  ‘You’re dropping it again,’ said Zut, giving Mrs Zut a punch.

  ‘Good,’ the passionate Zut called to Pearson, then came out of his jacket.

  ‘My face has gone,’ Pearson said.

  But how do you know you’ve got me? My soul spreads all over my body, even in my feet. My face is nothing. At my age I don’t need it. It is no more than a servant I push around before me. Or a football I kick ahead of me, taking all the blows, in shops, in the streets. It knows nothing. It just collects. I send it to smirk at parties, to give lectures. It has a mouth. I’ve no idea what it says. It calls people by the wrong names. It is an indiscriminate little grinner. It kisses people I’ve never met. The only time my face and I exchange a word is when I shave. Then it sulks.

  Click, went the camera.

  Pearson sat back and put down his pen and dropped his arm to his side.

  ‘Will you do that again,’ said Zut. ‘The way you just dropped your arm,’ Zut said.

  Pearson did it.

  ‘No,’ said Zut. ‘We’ve missed it.’

  Pearson was hurt, and apologised to Mrs Zut, the dumb goddess. Not for worlds would he upset her husband. She simply gazed at Zut.

  Zut himself straightened up. The room tipped back to its normal state. Pearson noticed the long lines down the sides of Zut’s mouth, wondered why the jacket did not rumple his grey hair. Cropped, of course. How old was he? Where had he flown from? Hovering vulture. Unfortunate Satan walking up and down the world looking for souls. Satan on his treadmill. I bet your father was in, say, the clock trade, was it? – and when you were a boy you took his watch to pieces looking for Time. Why don’t you talk? You’re not like that man who came here last year and told me that he waited until he felt there was a magnetic flow uniting himself and me. A technological flirt. Nor are you like that other happy fellow with the waving fair hair who said he unselfed himself, forgot money, wife, children, all, for a few seconds to become me!

  Zut slid a new plate into the camera and glanced up at the ceiling. It was smudged by the faint shadows of the beams behind it. A prison or cage effect. Why was he looking at the ceiling? Did he want it to be removed?

  Pearson said, ‘Painted only five years ago. And look at it! More expense.’

  Zut dismissed this.

  ‘Look towards the window,’ said Zut.

  ‘Which one?’ said Pearson.

  ‘On the right,’ said Zut. ‘Yes. Yes.’ Another blow on that poor woman’s arm.

  ‘Lamp – higher. Still higher.’

  Click, click from the toad in the lens.

  ‘Again,’ said Zut.

  Click. Click. Another click.

  ‘Ah!’ said Zut, as if about to faint.

  He’s found something at last, Pearson thought. But, Zut, I bet you don’t know where my mind was. No, I was not looking at the tree-tops. I was looking at a particular branch. On a still day like this, there is always one leaf skipping about at the end of a branch on its own while the rest of the tree is still. It has been doing that for years. Why? An et cetera, a distinguished leaf. Could be me. What am I but a leaf?

  One more half-hearted click from the camera, and then Zut stood tall. He had achieved boredom.

  ‘I’ve got all I want,’ he muttered sharply to his wife.

  All? said Pearson, appealing. There are tons of me left. I know I have a face like a cup of soup with handles sticking out – you know? – after it has been given a couple of stirs with a wooden spoon. A speciality in a way. What wouldn’t I give for bone structure, a nose with bone in it!

  Zut gave a last dismissive look around the room.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said to his wife.

  She started to dismantle the tripod. Zut walked to the photograph of the Albert Memorial on the chest near the door, done by another photographer, and studied it. There was an enormous elephant’s head in the foreground. Zut pointed. ‘Only one eye,’ he said censoriously.

  ‘The other’s in shadow,’ said Pearson.

  ‘Elephants have two eyes,’ said Zut. And then, ‘Is there a . . .’

  ‘Of course, of course, the door on the left.’

  Pearson was putting the muscles of his face back in place. He was alone with Mrs Zut, who was packing up the debris of the hour.

  ‘I have always admired your husband’s work,’ he said politely.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said from the floor, buckling the bags.

  ‘Remarkable pictures of men – and, of course, women. I think I saw one of you, didn’t I, in his last collection?’

  ‘No,’ she said from the floor, looking proud. ‘I don’t allow him to take my picture.’

  ‘Oh surely –’

  ‘No,’ she said, the whole of herself standing up, full-faced, solid and human.

  ‘His first wife, yes. Not me,’ she said resolutely, killing the other in the ordinary course of life.

  Then Zut came back, and in procession they all began thanking their way downstairs to the door.

  At the exhibition Pearson sneaked in to see himself, stayed ten minutes to look at his portrait, and came out screaming, thinking of Mrs Zut.

  An artist, he said. Herod! he was shouting. When the head of John the Baptist was handed to you on that platter, the eyes of that beautiful severed head were peacefully closed. But what do I see at the bottom of your picture. A high haunted room whose books topple. Not a room indeed, but a dank cistern or aquarium of stale water. No sparkling anemone there but the bald head of a melancholy frog, its feet clinging to a log, floating in literature. O Fame, cried Pearson, O Maupassant, O Tales of Hoffmann, O Edgar
Allan Poe, O Grub Street.

  Pearson rushed out and rejoined the human race on that bus going north and sat silently addressing the passengers, the women particularly, who all looked like Mrs Zut. The sight of them changed his mind. He was used, he said, to his face gallivanting with other ladies and gentlemen, in newspapers, books, and occasionally on the walls of galleries like that one down the street. Back down the street, he said, a man called Zut, a photographer, an artist, not one of your click-click men, had exhibited his picture, but by a mysterious accident of art had portrayed his soul instead of mine. What faces, Pearson said, that poor fellow must see just before he drops off to sleep at night beside the wise woman who won’t let him take a picture of her, fearing perhaps the Evil Eye. A man in the image trade, like myself. Pearson called back as he got off the bus. Not a Zurbarán, more a Hieronymus Bosch perhaps. No one noticed Pearson getting off.

  For my wife

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

  Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London

  WC1B 3DP

  First published in Great Britain by William Collins Ltd 1923

  Copyright © 1980, 1981, 1984, 1989 by V. S. Pritchett

  The moral right of author has been asserted

  The stories in this work were originally published in the following publications: The Atlantic

  Monthly, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Woman’s Journal.

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