Incidents in the Rue Laugier

by Anita Brookner

  Walking under the trees, in an attempt to calm her furious disapproval, her unhappiness, she would sometimes encounter Harrison, with a disconcerted expression on his not unattractive face. Harrison too was unhappy but supposed it did not matter. He had not chosen to stay in this place; it had been chosen for him by Tyler. And out of a sense of how it behoved him to conduct himself, he modelled himself as best he could on Tyler, since Tyler appeared to be giving satisfaction all round. On one occasion he had allowed himself to be led into the summer house by Patricia, only to come upon the other two furiously engaged. To stay would have been unthinkable, to leave equally so: he stayed. This went so sharply against his instincts that he thought back almost with nostalgia to his quiet days in the rue Laugier, where at least no one outraged him. In his worst moments, the moments following the scene in the summer house, he saw himself pensive, his head bent to a glass case containing Egyptian scarabs, his mind on higher things. He discounted the loneliness. Loneliness, he felt, was sometimes the price one paid for integrity. Yet he felt uneasily that he was bound to stay here for as long as Tyler did, for he was in some sense Tyler’s guest. And Tyler showed no desire to leave, although Harrison knew that at some abrupt and unheralded moment Tyler would decide the day of their departure. Then, he supposed, he would be free, free even to go home, although at this juncture he could hardly remember the shop, which he saw as some kind of fiction. He dismissed the part of his life that he knew would be lived in shadow, away from the light of this place, which he could see was beautiful, but with a beauty not entirely meant for him. When he came upon Maud, whose expression indicated that her thoughts were not dissimilar to his own, he felt a shock. Something inside him softened; at the same time he rejected the sense of failure that apparently united the two of them, or would have done, had they been more in sympathy.

  ‘I’ll walk back with you,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It must be nearly one o’clock.’

  Neither made any reference to the events of the morning. Those events were experienced, in retrospect, as alien. Yet what shame they felt was not the shame of onlookers but of outsiders. Fate had ordained that they should be unclaimed, uninitiated. Harrison knew that Patricia had exhibited not kindness in leading him into the summer house, but a sly pleasure in his confusion. How these women liked to take the lead! He had a passing moment of compassion for Maud, the unqualified, until he remembered how disastrously unqualified he was himself.

  On the terrace the heat was extravagant. A wasp settled on the sticky rim of Tyler’s empty lemonade glass.

  ‘It will be too hot for tennis this afternoon,’ said Germaine. ‘I dare say you will want a siesta.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Tyler abstractedly. ‘I like the heat.’

  ‘Ah, here are the others. Take my sister in, Tyler. She thinks she may have a touch of the sun.’

  ‘It is cooler in Dijon,’ Nadine explained, her hand to her forehead. ‘I am not used to such sun.’

  ‘Then no doubt you are looking forward to going back,’ said Germaine tartly.

  ‘Yes, perhaps we should think about that. Maud goes to London next Monday.’

  Germaine, moved against her will by her sister’s red face—how quickly she had lost her looks!—said, ‘Then you could stay here for a few more days. Xavier will drive you to the station when you want to go. Perhaps we are both a bit tired. It has been a busy time.’ She sighed. It was time the others went too, she thought. The girls would surely melt away as soon as the visitors left. She had thought her words to contain the most delicate of hints to Tyler, although at night, alone, she willed him to stay after the others had left. In the light of day she thought differently, and otherwise, longing to be left alone again, among more manageable sensations. Tyler, however, appeared not to have heard her.

  At lunch they were more silent than usual. Germaine regretted that the roast veal with endives was too heavy a dish for so hot a day, although the young people ate mechanically but with good appetite. Marie-Paule and Patricia, like the healthy animals they were, wanted only to eat and to fall asleep. Maud and Harrison ate precisely, not looking at each other. Even Tyler seemed abstracted, while Nadine, her hand moving gingerly to her forehead, drank glass after glass of water. Nobody wanted cheese. Only Harrison and Maud ate a peach. It was almost with a sense of relief that they rose and moved away from each other.

  ‘I will ask Marie to make you more lemonade,’ said Germaine, tired now. ‘Remember that the servants are not to be disturbed. They are going out anyway. The cinema, I believe. In this heat! But it is probably cooler in the dark. Come, Nadine. We will leave these young people to their own devices. But perhaps Marie-Paule and Patricia have something planned? Your aunt will not have seen much of you today.’

  Harrison and Tyler saw the girls down the drive and across the road to the house inaptly named Le Colombier, where their aunt was lying down in the dark with a headache and desirous not to be disturbed. Harrison yawned, and quickly effaced the yawn with his hand. ‘I think I’ll go in,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel up to much after that lunch. I’ll see you later.’ After they had watched him go back into the house Maud turned resolutely away, determined not to ascertain whether Tyler was following her. She made her way instinctively to the summer house, and sat on the steps, as she had seen Tyler do that morning. After a few minutes she registered the fact that she was entirely alone. She sighed and lifted her face to the sun, tired of the holiday, which was not a holiday, tired of the further politeness that would be demanded of her, and which she would offer, with her usual dignity, to Jean Bell’s parents. It would be all art galleries and ancient buildings in London, she thought, and when Jean Bell returned with her it would be all questions about the date of the tombs in the Dijon museum.

  She surrendered herself to the heat of the day, opening the collar of her blouse a little wider to allow the afternoon sun to reach her skin. The heat met some desire in her for expansion; she wanted to melt, to be absorbed. To be taken over! With this desire came a sorrow that she could not be more active, could not hold, or, it seemed, even attract attention like those girls had done this morning, could not in fact energise or convert the feelings that had so disconcerted her when Tyler had disappeared into the summer house and then reappeared alone, and had sat as she was now sitting, his back view expressing something new, solitariness, as if he were subject to ordinary human feeling, even as she was. But that was the difference between them, the insuperable barrier that would hinder any exchange, for while she was aware of her inadequacies, Tyler appeared to have none. Even the other man, Harrison, whom she had initially thought to be more interested in her, had given way to easier distractions. They were like some primitive species, she thought, like mayflies, or plants that bloomed only once, with the difference that their more evolved condition, their higher animality, enabled them to revive again and again, ready for further play in the humming summer air.

  The grass was so dry that she did not hear his footfalls, and when she saw his feet approaching she lowered her eyes suddenly to the ground. The wooden steps creaked under his weight as he sat down beside her.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said absently. ‘Aren’t you too hot?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I like the heat.’

  Indeed she felt that the heat had given her some power, so that she did not immediately move away from him.

  ‘I think you are not having a very good time, Maud.’

  ‘No,’ she heard herself say. ‘Not very.’

  ‘I expect you miss your own friends. Your boyfriend. You have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Of course.’

  This was not entirely untrue. The young instructor of her English course was plainly fond and had asked her out several times. When it came to inviting him to the house and introducing him to her mother she had decided that her mother’s enthusiasm would be more than she could endure and had deduced from this that the man had no real fascination for her other than a mild liking and an opportunity to avoid the Sun
day visit to the cinema. He would drive her out into the country: they would have lunch: they would kiss in a manner more consistent with friendship than with desire. Sometimes, on the return journey in the car, she would almost regret not having gone to the cinema with her mother. It was the cinema that now came to mind, images of other kisses, other bodies.

  ‘You seem quite happy here,’ she said with an effort.

  ‘Oh, I’m not happy all the time.’

  He picked a blade of grass and slid it between his lips. Inside the open collar of her blouse he could see her breast rising and falling. He stood up abruptly, but lingered. She waited, bracing herself for disappointment.

  He held out a hand. ‘Come on. I want to show you something.’

  She took his hand, touching him for the first time. He led the way across the parched lawn, into the cool of the house, up the stairs and along the upper corridor. He took her to a door at the very end which was always kept locked, turned the key and pointed to another, dustier staircase which she had not known existed. It was very dark. When he pushed open a door at the top the sudden glare confused her until her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw that they were under the roof. It was very hot, very silent. She walked to the dormer window and rested her head against the glass. She knew without looking that he stood behind her. Then he turned her round, put his hands on her waist, and laid her down gently on to the bare boards.

  ‘I have never done this before,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ he replied. ‘That’s all right.’

  It was over too soon. It was she who reached up to him and encouraged him to start again. When a distant clock chimed four she put out a hand and reached for her clothes. ‘I love you, Tyler,’ she said. He said nothing.

  They locked the door at the bottom of the stairs behind them, stood for a moment looking at each other, then parted without a word. When she slipped into the room she shared with her mother she merely noted that her mother was asleep, then stretched out on her bed and fell asleep herself.

  That evening, at dinner—stuffed peppers and pancakes—they were all in a better mood. All, it seemed, had slept and were refreshed. Nadine noted that her daughter looked better, had lost that air of haughty composure that occasionally made her look too old for her years, a fact apparently also noted by Harrison, who gazed at Maud with frank admiration. How simple he is, thought Nadine, who appreciated quite another kind of simplicity in men. Tyler was at his most charming, waiting on his hostess with the most delicate attentions, making her laugh, even teasing her. Germaine, her colour high, attempted to tease him back, without, it must be said, a great deal of success. Our generation is no good at this sort of thing, thought Nadine, who was not altogether unhappy to discover this. She is making herself look ridiculous, she thought; then, in an excess of sisterly solidarity, resolved to put a stop to it.

  ‘Maud must think about leaving,’ she said. ‘She is expected in London next week. When did you tell Jean to meet you, Maud?’

  ‘Next Monday. It will mean a very early start if I am to catch the train. Or perhaps I should leave here on Sunday and spend the night somewhere in Paris. I could ring up a friend … My friend Julie,’ she explained. ‘Julie is studying in Paris.’

  ‘But will she be there?’ enquired her mother. ‘I think you said she will be in Corsica until September.’

  ‘Well, it is nearly September,’ said Maud calmly.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ said Tyler. ‘Noddy and I must be going too. You have been too kind and we have had a marvellous time. I can’t thank you enough. But we should be moving on. Maud can come with us tomorrow and spend some time at the Vermeulens’. I know they’d be delighted. Armand Vermeulen is a friend of my parents.’

  ‘I don’t think …’ said Germaine.

  ‘Nothing to worry about. And then we’ll put her on the train on Monday morning. That way she’ll be taken care of.’

  ‘What do you think, Nadine?’

  ‘I think it’s very kind of Tyler, and—what did you say your name was? What did he call you? Noddy?’

  ‘Edward,’ said Harrison firmly. ‘My name is Edward.’

  ‘Then that’s settled.’

  ‘You’re sure, Nadine? After all, it means imposing on these friends of Tyler. Of Tyler’s parents.’

  ‘I am quite reassured to know that Maud will not be alone in Paris. After all, the times have been so unsettled.’

  ‘But this is 1971, Madame. You need have no fears on that score.’

  She smiled at him. ‘And now I should like to offer an invitation. I should like to take us all out to dinner tomorrow night, to say thank you to Germaine, and to thank her not only for her hospitality but for a most enjoyable holiday. Where do you recommend, Germaine?’

  ‘Well, they say the Anneau d’Or in Meaux is quite excellent, but really, Nadine, there is no need …’

  ‘There is no need, but, I’m sure, every wish.’

  She smiled triumphantly at her sister, surprised a smile on Maud’s face, she who never smiled. Harrison—how simple he was, she thought again—smiled as happily as a boy. Tyler did not smile but stood behind his hostess’s chair. When she stood up and turned round to thank him he took her hand and kissed it.

  All went to bed quite happy that night.

  SEVEN

  HARRISON DID NOT IMMEDIATELY ENQUIRE HOW TYLER had prevailed upon the concierge to open all the doors in the flat, which was now revealed as agreeable and even welcoming, in sharp contrast to the archaic bedroom to which he had earlier been consigned. He particularly appreciated the salon, with its yellow walls and carpets, its two navy blue sofas, its glass coffee table, and its faux-naif pictures of cows in sunlit pastures on the walls—an interior decorator’s touch, he deduced, and bethought himself fleetingly of the red brick building in which he had so hastily rented a flat. Instantly he decided to move from there, to put down roots, to exert his claim to pale walls and carpets, and to say goodbye for ever to makeshifts, to sharing, to discomfort.

  He even looked forward to putting down roots in the rue Laugier now that he had been rescued from loneliness. He reckoned he might stay another two or three weeks, or until these Vermeulens let it be known, via the concierge, that they were about to return. He was, after all, owed something in the nature of a final holiday before taking up the burden of his adult life. Moreover there was something attractive in the prospect of spending days in the company of Tyler and Maud, three being a more propitious number than two for his immediate purpose, which was to drift in their wake, like a child with his parents, not having to speak or even to listen, but simply to stroll dreamily ten paces behind them, and thus free to enjoy the sights and sounds of Paris without that obligation to be constantly on the alert which destroys pleasure.

  ‘Which room shall I have?’ he asked, heaving his bag into the salon. It seemed, as always, natural to ask this of Tyler. Maud too, he noted, waited respectfully for him to pronounce.

  Tyler ran his fingers through his black hair, which was growing rather long. He had caught the sun at La Gaillarderie and was now brown down to the opening of his shirt which he wore carelessly, as he wore all his clothes, but with an elegance which Harrison knew he could never master. He regretted his tie, his blazer, his lace-up shoes, all relics of an earlier life which should have been left behind long ago. He might ask Tyler to accompany him to the shops or perhaps advise him in some way: no, the idea was instantly repugnant. He would just have to keep a weather eye open for that exact colour of blue Oxford cloth, and that type of cream cotton trouser. In the meantime his blazer and flannels would have to do. Fortunately he had plenty of white shirts, but none so well cut as Tyler’s, which, owing to his dramatic height, would have to have been custom made. This interlude in the flat would provide him with an ideal opportunity to study Tyler for his own purposes, to acquire from him by stealth pointers to successful living, to watch him at leisure and unobserved, while Tyler’s attention was devoted to Maud, poor Maud, who would soon
be eaten up and as easily digested as all the others who had gone before and who would certainly come after. Not that he was out of sympathy with Maud; he thought her very pretty and admirably quiet, but he pitied her for allowing herself to be beguiled by Tyler, particularly since she had already witnessed the tenor of his behaviour from his activities in the summer house.

  If he thought of Maud and Tyler making love, as he not infrequently did, certain looks and tiny gestures on her part having been intercepted by him—or was he preternaturally alert?—it was with a kind of woeful excitement which was both pleasurable and dangerous. If he thought more of Tyler than of Maud in this connection, the fact did not strike him as unnatural. He had predicted this affair before it had even happened, simply by virtue of Tyler’s being Tyler; he could not see that Maud had anything to offer him, attractive though he could observe her to be. She was, quite simply, not as glamorous as Tyler; Tyler outshone her, as he was programmed to do, probably for the rest of his life. Thus Tyler’s success held the seeds of Tyler’s downfall, for although he would constantly be loved, admired, appropriated, he would always be frustrated by the sameness of the pattern, and the quest for his true partner, who by the nature of things must be as prestigious as himself, would be unending.