A Closed Eye

by Anita Brookner

  When the blush, and the successive blushes, faded, she felt a chill that sent her to her bedroom for an extra sweater. That was when she had that curious episode of being unable to get warm. Freddie had been quite alarmed by her pallor, and by her apparently insatiable desire for sleep. On the pretext of her indisposition she slept voraciously, going up almost as soon as they had finished dinner, spending afternoons under a rug on the sofa. Her descent into sleep was voluptuous, as though it were all she had ever craved. She awoke trying to retain the fragments of a dream, or even a memory: for instance, what had the shops on either side of her mother’s shop in William Street been called? Where precisely had she bought the cakes for tea, when Mr Latif was due? The persistence of these memories horrified her, as did the sight, when she awoke, of the thick cream linen curtains and the thick white carpet of the bedroom she shared with Freddie. He was very kind to her at this time, thinking that she was upset at the prospect of their daughter going away to school. ‘It is your age,’ he said. It was undoubtedly a crisis of some kind, but in fact it only lasted for a month or two. She tried to treat it like a physical illness, was not above using it as an excuse for her desire for sleep. Freddie, convinced that she was undergoing a process common to all women, left her alone, for which she was grateful. The coldness, the sleepiness, and the gratitude persisted; even when recovered she retained a memory of disorder.

  They had a family holiday that year, the last before Imogen went away to school. They took a house on the Devon coast, near Salcombe. ‘Do you want Lizzie to come?’ she had asked. ‘Lizzie’s not my friend any more,’ said Immy, tossing her head. ‘Sophie and Alexandra are my friends. Anyway, I don’t like Lizzie. Are we going to a hotel? I’d rather go to a hotel.’ ‘We are going to a very nice house,’ said Harriet patiently. She managed not to say, And do be nice to your father. He has a great shock coming to him. It is called retirement. She knew that Freddie would be bored with no office to go to, knew that he disliked the house in the daytime, disliked it even more now that he could hear the distant bark of the dog, had suggested that they have dinner earlier, could be heard making hearty telephone calls. Yet the holiday had been a success, she thought. They had felt happier away from London, at least she and Freddie had; Immy had been bored, except when they took her out to dinner. The weather had been perfect, a succession of hot cloudless days, and the doors of the drawing-room opened on to a patio, where Freddie sat in a short-sleeved shirt and a panama hat reading P. D. James. She wore a cotton dress and sandals, and did her shopping first thing in the morning. Then she took Immy to the beach, and read What Maisie Knew. They ate sparingly at lunch, and, in deference to Immy, dressed up in the evening and had dinner at the hotel. ‘And how is Madam this evening?’ asked the waiter with a flourish of napkin. ‘Very well, thank you,’ said Immy distantly, fingering the necklace of corals which Freddie had found for her in a local jeweller’s. She had, at those moments, an entirely adult air.

  She thought that they had been contented on that last holiday. The idea of going back to London had terrified her. At night, after Immy had gone to bed, she and Freddie had stood wordlessly in the little garden, Freddie with his arm round her waist. Then she knew that he too was reluctant to leave this place, and to face a future without work, without Immy. In bed he did not touch her, occasionally gave a kind of groan. ‘I am too old,’ he once said, into the darkness of the night. So that is to be the end of it, she thought, and it is all I have ever known. She felt sorry for them both, sorry for their daughter, who would have to deal with lightless parents when she herself was on the verge of so many discoveries. She would get no help from them, and must therefore encounter no hindrance from them either, must not endure the humiliation, the tastelessness of prohibitions, warnings. Yet Harriet longed for her daughter to marry young, and happily, to go away from them to a better life, not a worse one. They would do what they could for her, acknowledging their deficiencies. It was all that they could do, for the young now had the upper hand. They were both conventional people; perhaps convention was what they had in common. It may even have been all they had in common. Immy would have her year abroad, if she wanted it (but she seemed to take no interest in her future), and then they would prepare the upstairs flat for her; she would have her own friends, and no obligations. But how would they endure the long days without her? She was sometimes bad-tempered in their company, as if they were a heavy burden for a child with such high standards of beauty. Her beauty had already staked many claims. She was effortless with the opposite sex, already commanded the attention of the twelve-year-old French twins staying at the hotel. She was shedding childishness rapidly, too rapidly. Already she found this peaceful holiday dull, was bored with the beach. At fourteen she would be a woman, while her mother was still a girl. ‘Can’t we go out somewhere?’ she fretted every morning. ‘It is too beautiful a day to spend in the car,’ Harriet would reply. But Freddie could not quite hide his disappointment.

  Late in the warm dark nights she found that she missed Tessa painfully, and on waking she yearned for her. The house had wide sunny windows, which reminded her of the flat in Beaufort Street, and the afternoons they had spent there before the children were born. She missed a female friend, who would be all compassion, all competence. This too she saw as an illusion, for Tessa had been brooding and sometimes impatient. But female friendship, these days too often turned into some kind of ideology, was what she craved, something to soothe her unreliable heart, and she saw that that was what they had both wanted, and even Mary and Pamela as well, some vision of safety in a cruel world, some haven, once they had outgrown mothers and fathers, who, in her case at least, had proved insufficient. Tessa had been strong, wayward but strong. And she had been right, entirely right, in forcing Jack to marry her—it was indeed a proof of her strength—for Jack would have passed on, not unaffected, but unregarding, irresponsible. Suddenly the image of Jack was diminished by the memory of Tessa, of Tessa’s lonely face on her hospital pillow. She longed to have her back, to assure her of her own loyalty. She longed, once more, to protect Tessa, although she had never been in a position to do so, had in fact been the weaker of the two. Tessa, until she was cut down, had wrestled with life, and her defeat was cruelly out of character. Now Harriet could see that they had susceptibilities in common, and longed to tell Tessa as much. She thought that if she could see Tessa now, there would be no lies or silences between them. Tessa, having experienced death, would forgive her friend’s ultimate foolishness, for there is little time for foolishness this side of the grave. That flower-decked horror at Golders Green … And no Lizzie. But where was Lizzie now? Did she belong entirely to the past, and to her uncertain future? Lizzie, as always, registered as an absence, an unknown, passed over by the likes of Imogen. Sometimes Harriet yearned to be with Tessa, childless again. Yet Immy came first, must come first, and it was for Immy that she persevered in what had become a difficult and lonely life. Even Freddie, she saw, was lonely. But Freddie was lonely because he knew that his daughter did not love him. This added another silence to all the others.

  The return to London was as bad as both she and Freddie had privately believed it would be, and was further darkened by the prospect of Immy’s departure. The child was now restless, demanding to go out, yet all that Harriet could devise was met with an elaborate show of disappointment. She kicked her way round Peter Jones, waiting for her school uniform to be assembled, and had to be mollified with a milk shake in the restaurant. This was not entirely to her liking either. Harriet could see that her daughter had it in her to be one of those rich proud beautiful women who seem to be composed of superior materials to the ordinary model. She felt a sudden chill of estrangement as she contemplated the brooding face, and it was with a curious misgiving that she compared it with the childish hand clasping the spoon. ‘My darling girl,’ she said gently. ‘We shall miss you very much. You won’t forget us, will you?’ She despised herself for this appeal, but felt in that instant so denude
d that it might have been she who was leaving home, and going away from all that was familiar. Leaving home! Even the thought of it made her weak, yet she had not particularly minded leaving home herself, had in a sense volunteered to go. And yet ever since she had longed to get back there, not in any geographical sense, but symbolically, had felt a yearning, a heaviness, an aching sense of loss on summer evenings, had never felt like the rich woman she was supposed to resemble, had never believed herself to be a suitable or even a credible consort for a wealthy man, had longed for old simple ways, for her little walnut bed, the rain beating against the windows of the back room, the cracked willow pattern plate, and the cup and saucer which did not match it. Were they happy, she thought, suddenly and painfully, those childish parents, in comparison with whom her daughter was infinitely more worldly? Did the day drag for them, did they, with a sigh, contemplate the empty noisy sky outside their windows, the traffic, the raucous gulls? Was the day empty for them until the light faded, and they had their baths, and with a languid air, as if the day had exhausted them, prepared themselves for their public appearance, in hotel lounge or bar, aware that they were too old to be frivolous, and never, in any case, fond of drink?

  It was with the greatest difficulty that she pulled her mind back to this hot morning in the present, the sun flashing off the plate glass window of Peter Jones, the plastic bags collapsed at her feet. ‘I think we should go down to Brighton,’ she said. ‘Granny and Grandpa will want to see you before you go away.’ She hated the sound of the words, and their long echo, but could not see how to avoid them. Immy appeared unmoved. ‘I don’t want to go to Brighton,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to do there. And they don’t see me anyway.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘They must come and see us. Remind me to ring them when we get home.’

  She would book a table for tea at the Ritz, she thought: they would love that. It seemed more important to provide pleasures for her parents than for her daughter, who was so disdainful. Oh, darling, she thought, please be a good girl, a loving girl, one with tender feelings, and a long memory. I know that you think us both inadequate, your father and I, and have no time for that pathetic couple, your grandparents, but it is important that you keep the faith, or memories will come back suddenly, unannounced, when you are far advanced into another life. You are our miraculous child, unhoped for, more beautiful than we had ever dreamed you would be. You have the advantage of us there. But you take for granted what is only temporary. It is necessary for you to develop a loving heart, in which, at the moment, you appear to be a little deficient. It is not your fault, or rather it is not your fault yet, but one day it may be. Then she saw the little hand clutching the foamy spoon, and felt her own heart nearly break. ‘We shall miss you,’ she said, having received no answer to her earlier question. ‘We must see that you have a good time before you go.’

  At home she telephoned her parents, who agreed, with apparent carelessness, that they might have a day free towards the end of the week, that they could just manage lunch at Wellington Square, that tea at the Ritz might be fitted in. And then, on impulse, she dialled Directory Enquiries, and asked for a number for Mackinnon in Old Windsor—she had the address from a postcard which Lizzie had been instructed to send her, thanking her for her new clothes. Soon a crystalline Home Counties voice answered. ‘Miss Mackinnon? This is Harriet Lytton. My daughter is a friend of Lizzie’s.’

  The voice expressed polite interest, but held forth no promise of further exchange.

  ‘I was wondering if Lizzie would like a day in London, before going off to school? With us, I mean. I should like the children to have something nice … The ballet, I thought. My husband can always get a box at Covent Garden.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Swan Lake,’ she said, rather more decisively.

  A throat was cleared at the other end. ‘Well, of course, it’s very kind of you …’

  This signified neither yes nor no: how did Jack put up with this woman?

  ‘I’d be very grateful if you could make arrangements to bring Lizzie to London,’ she said firmly. ‘She can stay the night here. She is quite used to us.’

  ‘She can come up by herself,’ said the voice. ‘She is used to that too.’

  ‘On the train?’ said Harriet, horrified. ‘At her age?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Then shall we say Saturday week? She can stay the night, and I’ll bring her back the following day.’

  ‘Oh, there’ll be no need for that. For her to stay the night, I mean. I shall be driving up to Judd Street later that afternoon. If you put her into a taxi she can join me there.’

  ‘Will her father be at home?’ asked Harriet at last.

  ‘I’m not sure. He’s being posted to Berlin at any moment.’

  ‘In that case won’t you come to us for a drink?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, thanks. Just put Lizzie into a cab; she’ll be all right.’

  Such rudeness, she thought, putting down the receiver; intolerable. I have never been as rude as that in my life, although I may have wanted to be. And I have no reason to be polite to her either. Ah, I am out of my depth here, and everywhere else too, it seems. It occurred to her that Elspeth Mackinnon disliked her for exactly the same reason that she disliked Elspeth Mackinnon: she had been discovered. Oh, to hell with it, she thought; and it is now too late to cancel the arrangement. I should never have spoken to her. But then Lizzie would have been deprived of her treat, and I do so want her to enjoy it. Freddie must come too: a Saturday matinée, and they can drink fruit juice in the Crush Bar. Except that Immy would demand champagne. Oh, let her have it, if that’s what she wants. There was so little time left for her to enjoy herself, although it was clear that she regarded school as more of a treat than anything else that might be planned for her. Otherness was what Immy wanted. Unlike her mother, she had no fear.

  For her parents she made a cheese soufflé, with a green salad, and caramelized oranges to follow. ‘We don’t normally eat lunch,’ said her mother, picking up her fork with every sign of reluctance. She was nervous, Harriet saw, intimidated by the size of the dining-room and its heavy appointments, all inherited from Freddie’s parents. ‘We usually have a sandwich in the kitchen.’ She took tiny mouthfuls of the delicious concoction until it cooled, when she pushed it aside and lit a cigarette. Hughie ate cheerfully, greedily, fork clattering slightly against the side of his plate. ‘Don’t give him any more,’ warned Merle. ‘He’ll only get indigestion.’

  ‘And where’s our precious girl?’ asked Hughie, impervious.

  ‘She’s downstairs with Miss Wetherby,’ said Harriet. ‘I wanted you to myself for a few minutes.’

  In fact she had wanted to protect her father and his tremulous hands, their quiver now restored by his increasing age, from the child’s sharp gaze. Her parents looked much older, she thought, were now sadly too old to be bright young things. And becoming timorous, perhaps. But still, she had to admit, expertly turned out. Her mother had dressed for the Ritz before leaving home, in a bright blue silk print dress, with three rows of cultured pearls. Her father wore a grey suit. They looked more than presentable; from the back they looked remarkable. Only full-face did the eagerness, the longing show, in their naked eyes, as they waited for Immy to join them. Both now seemed to be afflicted with a degree of agitation.

  But the afternoon was a success, practically a triumph. ‘It was smashing, Mummy, ace. We saw —’ and the name of a rock star of whom even Harriet had heard.

  ‘And did you thank Granny and Grandpa properly?’ she said.

  Her parents, now fully recovered from their earlier timidity, and restored by the friendly impersonality of the hotel world, their world, held out loving arms. After Immy had embraced them—and Hughie had tried to lift her, but had found her too heavy—they stood, flushed with pleasure in the child and with pride in each other. ‘A lovely day,’ they assured Harriet. ‘Just a little bit tired now, dear.
We must be getting home.’ And, ‘Au revoir, darling,’ they waved from the taxi. Immy, at the drawing-room window, waved back.

  And the ballet tomorrow, thought Harriet, going thankfully to bed. And then, next week, she will be gone.

  The sight of Lizzie, at the front door, was so familiar that Harriet did not for a moment recognize what made her look so different. At last she saw what it was: Lizzie was wearing a dress. It was a Laura Ashley creation, with a sash and a lace collar, above which her serious face appeared too old. Or perhaps the dress was too young for her. In any event it was ill chosen. She gazed impassively at Harriet, her personal effects in a small pouch on a long strap over her shoulder. ‘Hello, darling,’ said Harriet. ‘How lovely to see you. Did you get here all right? Well, of course you did. Lunch is nearly ready. Do you want to go up and see Immy?’ She saw the child nearly wrecked on the dilemma of whether or not to tell a polite lie, saw that for her a lie would be an impossibility, decided to rescue her. ‘Would you like to come into the kitchen and help me with the fruit salad?’