The morning passed without incident. Roger brought no news of Marianne’s condition. She had been in the hospital for three weeks and now the baby was almost due. Hartmann felt a thrill of fear: if bad news were to come it would come from that quarter. It was only natural that his nerves were on edge, he thought. Perhaps if Fibich were to become a grandfather he might behave more sensibly, might realize that energies have to be reinvested in that new generation, not squandered on his own past. But he thought that Fibich might be denied the opportunity to see his grandchildren. He somehow knew that Toto would remain unmarried for a very long time, would indeed regard his youth, and in turn his youthfulness, as his stock in trade, and therefore remain professionally famous as a young man until at the very least in his late thirties. Hartmann realized with a shock that Toto was already twenty-nine, nearly thirty. Where had the time gone? Again with a shiver of disquiet he determined to bring Fibich to book, as if he alone were responsible for all this ageing, as if time had less purchase on Fibich than on the rest of them, as if it devolved upon Fibich to bring them all safely through to the untroubled prospect that was, by now, surely theirs by right.
At half-past twelve he knocked on Fibich’s door. Fibich, his hands folded and resting on top of an almost empty desk, looked up mildly. Hartmann resented his inactivity, as if this were proof of some private decision to abandon serious matters, until he saw that it was not inactivity at all: in the background, by the safe, was John Goodman, their all too devoted company secretary, whose eagerness was out of all proportion to what Hartmann and Fibich saw, still, as the frivolous nature of the enterprise. A small fortune built on flair, nothing but flair: how could they take credit for it? They had always had an amiable attitude towards work, the two of them, both knowing that in another life they would have done something more sensible, more serious, recognizing what they actually did do as appropriate to their uncertain position in every sort of hierarchy. Hartmann had the ideas and Fibich did the worrying: it suited them both perfectly. It was something of an effort for them to accommodate the personal career ambitions of both Myers and Goodman, young men on whom, Hartmann thought, youth was wasted, but fervid in their belief that what they did in this toy empire was important. Dark-suited, their rolled umbrellas a mark of gravitas, Myers and Goodman treated each other in a perfectly affable manner but with a lack of intimacy that entertained Hartmann profoundly. ‘Such senators!’ he had once remarked to Fibich. ‘Such men of the cloth!’ For he thought that work should be tackled exuberantly, light-heartedly, or not at all. Fibich was more tolerant, at least of Myers. Goodman worried him more. It was Goodman’s assiduity he found hard to bear, his almost feminine desire to be necessary and wanted. And those extraordinary pleading eyes, the eyes of a harem favourite, quickly cast down, at the merest hint of reproof, into a double arc of dense, almost tangled lashes. Fibich had devised many ways to outwit Goodman’s sensibility, and had been forced to improvise many others, but that sensibility had never been exhausted. Trying to spare Goodman’s feelings frequently brought on one of Fibich’s migraine headaches. Hartmann treated him more teasingly and suffered from him accordingly less. Fibich could hardly bear to think about Goodman’s life with his mother, in their little house in Putney, the news of the day faithfully served up to her over the evening meal. He saw them as himself and Aunt Marie Jessop, all those years ago. Nevertheless he continued to enquire after Mrs Goodman’s health, although the radiant answers made him uneasy. Hartmann quite simply saw him as unawakened, waited for him to break out. In the meantime, since there were no signs of Goodman’s ever breaking out, he would sportingly assume the existence of several girl-friends. ‘Still out and about, John?’ he would say. ‘Still fancy free? Still tormenting the women?’ Goodman would modestly lower his fabulous eyelashes, uncertain as to how to respond. At an admonitory shake of the head from Fibich, Hartmann would relent. ‘Leave early today, John,’ he would say. ‘Give your mother a surprise. Everything seems to be taken care of. You do an excellent job.’ Fibich often wished he had so light a touch. Goodman always appreciated Hartmann’s sallies, but it was to Fibich that he looked for praise.
‘Lunch,’ said Hartmann firmly, determined to get down to the matter in hand. ‘I am taking you out to lunch. All right, John, get some lunch yourself. And tell Tania to go too. We’ll be back about two-thirty.’
Fibich looked at him in surprise. ‘I am not hungry,’ he said. ‘Yes, John, finish up here later. I don’t really want to eat.’
‘I am taking you to lunch,’ said Hartmann, handing him his hat. ‘That is what is the matter with you, Fibich. You’re neglecting yourself. And it’s time we had a talk.’
In the street he looked about him with displeasure at the prolonged sunlessness, the absence of good weather. Brave girls were dressed in flimsy garments, their bare legs white, their shoes inadequate. Harsh light came down unmediated from the colourless sky: rain still threatened but refused to materialize. Turning into the hotel dining-room, Hartmann was mildly put out to see nearly all the tables occupied. He stood majestically by the door, waiting to be ferried over to safe keeping. Reaching a table that was not his usual table, he flourished his white napkin, waved away the menu, and said, ‘Sole. Grilled. Is that all right with you, Fibich? Fish is what you like, isn’t it?’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Fibich. ‘Sole, by all means.’
They sat in silence for a while, Fibich staring at his hands. Eventually Hartmann, who knew him so well, sighed.
‘What happened there?’ he asked. ‘What did you find?’
Fibich looked up at him, still mildly.
‘I found a foreign city that I did not remember,’ he said. ‘Rather a pleasant one. It meant nothing to me whatever.’
‘And yet, since you came back you’ve been different. Changed. Something must have happened. What was it?’
Fibich smiled painfully. ‘The only memory came last of all,’ he said. ‘Do you remember a commotion at Heathrow? A woman fainting?’
Hartmann nodded.
‘The last sight of my mother,’ said Fibich finally. ‘She fainted when she said goodbye to me. I seemed to see her again. And since thinking about that moment, I find that I cannot endure…’
He dropped his head, made a helpless gesture with his hand, and knocked over a glass of water.
‘Fibich!’ said Hartmann warningly, summoning a waiter.
‘I should have gone back,’ whispered Fibich. ‘I should not have left. I should have got off the train.’
‘Is everything all right, gentlemen?’ asked the head waiter, removing the wet tablecloth.
‘Quite all right,’ said Hartmann, rather too loudly. ‘But I’m afraid we are in rather a hurry.’
‘Your lunch is served, sir.’ And the table was put to rights, hastily, while another waiter dealt with the fish, taking it off the bone and decorating it with lemon wedges and tartare sauce. ‘A little wine, perhaps? If Mr Fibich is not feeling well?’
‘No, no,’ said Hartmann, again too loudly. ‘That will be all.’
‘Thank you,’ said Fibich, in a voice slightly higher than normal, feigning enthusiasm. But his face was pale, and as the smell of fish rose from the plate in front of him his eyes filled with tears.
Hartmann stared at him in alarm. A collapse here, in Durrant’s Hotel, where he lunched every day? A break-down, the end of Fibich? He watched as Fibich tried to eat, raising and lowering his fork, disguising the untasted fragments beneath the sauce, the tears sliding down his face. He glanced round to see if anyone were watching. Conversation had ceased at the adjoining table.
‘Come, Fibich,’ he said. ‘Thomas. You are safe. You are here. Try to eat. You have such a good appetite. Make an effort.’ He was distractedly torn between anger and pity. But as the tears continued to fall he summoned the waiter again. ‘On my account,’ he said. ‘We have to go.’
‘Of course, sir. I understand.’ They were outside in what seemed like record time, their passage shi
elded by waiters, their hats handed to them silently. Hartmann was aware of a momentary cessation of activity, a collective holding of breath, before they reached the blessed anonymity of the street.
Somehow he got Fibich back to the office, his coat hanging off his shoulders, his hat on the back of his head. Hartmann could not bear to put him to rights, simply drew his arm through his own, walked him like a child, aware of what they must look like, an upright bourgeois with his dissolute brother. Two girls, passing, giggled, taking Fibich to be drunk. As they reached their building, Fibich stumbled on the step. Then they were inside, safe from alien eyes. Hartmann guided Fibich to his room, to his chair, removed his hat, stood there while Fibich wept.
Goodman, returning, and thinking to find the room empty, went in to finish his work at the safe. He stopped at the sight of Fibich, whose tears were now spent, sitting with his head lowered to his clenched hands, still in his coat. Hartmann lifted his hand in warning, putting his finger to his lips. But Goodman, who was all too naturally of a filial nature, disappeared, came back with a glass of water, knelt by Fibich’s desk, and took his hand.
‘Mr Fibich,’ he said gently. ‘Would you like me to make you some coffee?’
Fibich raised his head, looked around him, and then looked down into Goodman’s extravagant eyes, while Hartmann eased his coat from his shoulders.
‘John,’ he said presently, in an almost normal voice. ‘I think I must have turned a little faint.’
‘Drink this, sir,’ said Goodman, proffering the glass.
Fibich drank slowly, shuddering as the icy water reached his stomach. ‘That’s better,’ he said, his face still ghastly. ‘Did you have lunch, John?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Goodman’s voice was devoid of embarrassment. Life at home, even at the age he was, must have conditioned him to work of this nature. Hartmann’s opinion of him rose.
‘And do you look after yourself properly, John?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Goodman again. ‘My mother sees to that. We eat very healthfully. Mother sees to it that I eat a lot of salads.’
‘That’s good,’ said Fibich. ‘Take care of your mother, John.’ Hartmann turned away and looked out of the window. ‘Is she in good health? Do you keep her company?’
Goodman did not appear to find these questions unusual. ‘We’ve always been close,’ he replied. ‘My father left home when I was little, so there’s just been the two of us. We do everything together.’
‘And what will you do this weekend?’ asked Fibich.
‘I dare say we shall go over and visit my married sister,’ said Goodman. ‘I’m an uncle, you see. My sister has a small girl. We like to see her as often as we can.’
‘That’s good, John, very good.’ Fibich’s colour was returning, as if the contemplation of Goodman’s home life were gradually filling him with reassurance.
‘Perhaps a cup of coffee, Mr Fibich?’
‘Why, yes, John, if you would be so kind.’ At a nod from Hartmann Goodman left the room.
‘Hartmann,’ said Fibich. ‘Something has happened.’
Hartmann stood behind him, his hands on Fibich’s shoulders.
‘Nothing has happened,’ he said. ‘You’re still here. And so am I. Perhaps you did what you had to do, faced facts, did your grieving. Perhaps it is over for you now. I was lucky,’ he went on, wiping the moisture from his eyes. ‘I dismissed it all. And I was able to do this, somehow. I don’t know how. I can’t explain it, any of it. Perhaps you had to go through this to be free of it. A little crisis,’ he said, blowing his nose. ‘One might even say it was overdue. And all managed without the benefit of psychiatrists. Think of that!’
Fibich looked around him wonderingly. ‘I feel better,’ he said. But he did not look well, Hartmann thought. Nevertheless, his colour was nearly back to normal, and he drank the coffee that Goodman brought. Both watched him as he replaced the cup carefully in its saucer.
‘Perhaps you should go home, sir, when you’ve had a rest.’
‘Yes,’ said Fibich. ‘I should like to go home.’
‘We will both go,’ said Hartmann. ‘And you too, John. Finish what you have to do and go home.’
‘Buy your mother some flowers,’ said Fibich. ‘Give her a nice surprise.’
‘I usually do, at the weekends,’ said Goodman. ‘We always enjoy our weekends.’
They both watched him as he collected the cups. Doomed, thought Hartmann. Saved, thought Fibich.
They took a taxi, leaving Fibich’s car behind. They sat in the back, two elderly gentlemen, Hartmann resting his hands on his cane. They said nothing, simply marking the passage from danger back to normal life. The streets were empty: it seemed as if most people had left early for the weekend, despite the unpromising weather. Fibich appeared to have recovered from his attack, or whatever it was, thought Hartmann. He cautiously allowed himself to hope for the best. He resolved, at some point during the weekend, to speak to him about retirement. They would both retire, he thought, remembering his melancholy of the morning. It was time. And it was unthinkable, in any event, that he might carry on without Fibich. Their day was done, he now saw, although it terrified him to think that this might be so. Nothing too precipitate, of course: perhaps a year to wind things up, convert themselves into shareholders, make provision for the children. It could be done, he saw, and all in due season. There was no need to get out immediately, no need to frighten anybody. Everyone would understand. And their wives would be glad of their company. He thought back to Yvette, as he had seen her that morning. All in due season, he thought. All in due season.
Fibich thought of his home, of Christine, of his son. How painfully he had missed them, he thought: how wrongly he had spent his time, trying to re-establish a life before the only life he knew. He longed to reach his home, which was the only haven he would ever reach, and yet how temporary, how unstable even that now seemed to him. In any event he had always had an ambivalent attitude towards his home, for while the idea was sacred to him, the reality of it always proved fugitive. This was nothing to do with its physical location, or the fashion in which it was arranged: he even liked Christine’s hazy muted colours, although he regarded the rooms as belonging entirely to her, with himself as a visitor, agreeably housed, but, it seemed to him, on a temporary basis. When in the office he would sometimes think lovingly of his home, yet as soon as he was back there he was afflicted with a restlessness which had him seizing his hat again and calling to Christine that he was going to get a bottle of wine, or post a letter, or simply take a walk in an attempt to dislodge the beginnings of a headache. He would wonder if he might feel better somewhere else, would search the Sunday newspapers, go with Hartmann to visit blocks of flats in St John’s Wood, in South Kensington, in Highgate or Chiswick. Hartmann enjoyed these visits as simple excursions – he was in any event curious about other people’s living arrangements – but to Fibich they were a matter of greater importance. Would he feel better if he received the evening sun, if he had a balcony, a patio, a roof terrace, if there were a caretaker on the premises, if the shops were near to hand, if there were three bathrooms instead of two, if he faced the other way? He did not know. He only knew that he felt a dismay amounting to anguish at the thought that he was already experiencing the maximum amount of comfort to be derived from the concept ‘home’. He worried that it loomed so large, yet filled him with despair. Whatever brief moments of satisfaction he had felt in his life were always lessened by the idea of going home. He could be sitting comfortably in his own chair, in his own drawing-room, doing something entirely pleasant – reading, listening to music – when the idea of home would strike through him with a pang, as if home were somewhere else. Thus the homesickness that had afflicted him in Berlin had nothing to do with any home that he had ever known, but rather as if his place were eternally elsewhere, and as if, displaced as he was, he was only safe when he was fast asleep.
Gliding down Park Lane in the taxi, with Hartmann silent beside hi
m, he began again to wonder whether they should not all sell up and go to the sun. For surely he would feel safer in the sun, source of life, all joy, drawing him out of that deathly sleep every morning, summoning him, challenging him, revivifying him? The white skies and the green leaves of London had never given him the comfort that burning heat and brilliant light would certainly supply. For ten months of the year he felt cold, and his longing for warmth, like his longing for home, seemed unconquerable. He was not like Hartmann, who had the gift of being able to enjoy everything, every change in the climate, every amusement in the working day, every prospect of a new life. Fibich wished only to be safe, and, once safe, to be free, and, once free, to be brave. He had always known this, but never so clearly, never so nakedly as he did in this taxi, which even now was at the bottom of Grosvenor Gardens, and was taking him home to his wife, who must not be told that he was gravely damaged, merely a little tired, a little over-stressed and in need of a holiday. Hartmann would see to it. Hartmann would know what to do, what to say. For his part he felt quite calm, as if that shameful weeping had sedated him, leaving him devoid of resource, devoid too of his habitual nervousness, but cold, very cold.
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