Making Things Better

by Anita Brookner

  ‘But I wonder if that really keeps you together. Some things can’t be put into words.’

  ‘Most things can.’

  ‘I was thinking how the smallest changes are often the most subtle. How one unconsciously reverts to what I suppose were one’s origins. Nowadays I find myself eating the sort of food I had at home. And it’s not a conscious decision. I do it instinctively.’

  ‘You want to look after yourself, you know. You’re looking a bit thin.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine.’

  ‘You should take a holiday.’

  He smiled. ‘I look forward to hearing about yours. Shall I get the bill?’

  ‘Let me.’

  ‘With all this money it’s the least I can do.’

  They parted on the usual good terms, Herz waiting on the pavement until Simmonds’s car drove off. Then he walked to the bus stop, remembering, in spite of himself, Bijou Frank and his first experience of servitude. He smiled. How had she lived, poor Bijou? And when had she died? There had been no notice in the Deaths column of The Times, although there was no reason why there should have been. It had been an obscure life, dignified by a sort of loyalty. That was what he missed, the sort of loyalty observed by people who had little in common but their origins, but who understood each other in a more rooted way than the rootless young could ever understand. He understood it now, almost wished those lost connections back again. He was not trained for freedom, that was the problem, had not been brought up for it. He had done nothing more than glimpse it. The irony was that he now possessed freedom in abundance, but did not quite know how to accommodate it. And it was, it seemed, too late for him to learn.

  At the bus stop he was suddenly overcome by a feeling of unreality, so enveloping as to constitute a genuine malaise. He placed a tremulous hand on his heart, and seconds later wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. He stood for a moment, trying to regain his composure, glad that there were no witnesses. He had no memory of the journey home, in a providential taxi. In bed he felt better, ascribed his faintness to the second glass of wine he had imprudently drunk, but slept badly. The morning came as an unusual relief, one that he had barely expected.

  7

  ‘It was like a cloud descending,’ he explained to the doctor. ‘Like being enveloped in a cloud, or indeed a cloudy substance. Opaque, you know. I couldn’t otherwise explain it, although I had to explain it to myself. The only thing I could think of was Freud’s experience on the Acropolis.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Freud reported a feeling of unreality which overtook him when he was visiting the Acropolis. He was alarmed, as well as feeling unwell, although he didn’t go into that. Then, being Freud, he worked out an explanation; he was uneasy because he had gone beyond the father. In other words he had achieved a way of life— moneyed, cultivated—which would have been denied to his father. He had overcome his father’s constraints. Freud knew that his father would have had no access to the sort of excursion he was taking; therefore he had in a sense betrayed him, outclassed him. The theory is very beautiful, don’t you agree? I too have gone beyond my father, who was a hard-working and unhappy man. Do you think I might have experienced something similar?’

  ‘When did you last have your blood pressure checked?’

  ‘Oh, some time ago. Your predecessor, Dr Jordan . . . What happened to him, by the way? A young man . . .’

  ‘He went to Devizes to take over his father-in-law’s practice. Couldn’t wait to get out of London. The pressures on GPs in London are formidable.’

  ‘Yes, one hears a lot about that.’

  ‘I’ll just check. Roll up your sleeve, would you?’

  On the wall behind the doctor’s desk hung an inept watercolour of boats at sunset.

  ‘Your own work?’ he enquired politely.

  ‘My wife’s.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Our house is full of them. It’s rather high, I’m afraid. Too high. I’ll give you something for that.’

  He consulted his computer. ‘I see that Dr Jordan prescribed glyceryl trinitrate. Have you used it at all?’

  ‘Those pills one puts under the tongue? No. I don’t use anything. I prefer not to. I think I only saw him once. Dr Jordan, I mean.’

  ‘They will help you if you have a similar experience again. Silly to ignore the pills. They are there to help you.’

  ‘Oh, I carry them around with me.’ He patted his pocket. ‘But I prefer to know what’s happening to me. What, in fact, is happening to me? I’m not really ill.’

  ‘You are not a young man. Have there been other episodes?’

  ‘Not really. A little faintness sometimes. I’ve only consulted a doctor once, I think.’

  Again he thought of the German doctor in Baden-Baden, who had literally laid on hands. Herz placed a protective hand over his heart. The doctor did not see the gesture, being occupied with his computer. In that instant Herz determined not to consult him again. He was no doubt quite adequate, but in Herz’s opinion did not have the artistic, even the poetic sympathy that would enable him to understand another’s malaise. And his malaise lingered, not in any physical sense, but again in the shape of a cloud on his mental horizon. All his life he had been, not robust, but resistant to illness, obliged to spare others the knowledge of his own weaknesses. And there had been weaknesses, but overcoming them so as not to disturb his parents, even his wife, had been his overriding preoccupation. In this way he had built up a certain immunity to physical distress, though conscious all the time that such defences could be breached. So far he had not succumbed to major illnesses, for which he could take no credit, or to minor ones, for which he could. In his experience a good night’s sleep would enable him to fight another day, and generally he had been proved correct, but lately he had slept badly and sometimes woke in a panic, his heart knocking. It was at times like these, in the very early morning, that he was grateful that he lived alone, could perform the morning rituals slowly, during which time his heart would settle down. As the day wore on he experienced no further tremors, put such tremors down to a nightmare from which he had not woken, but which had been sufficiently disturbing as to make itself known in the form of an inchoate disturbance, largely of the senses. He told himself that altered perception, such as that occasioned by a nightmare, might have physical reverberations. At the same time he was anxious to capture any information that might have been vouchsafed to him in the course of that forgotten dream.

  The previous evening’s occurrence had alarmed him sufficiently to arrange to see the doctor, but now that he had done so he decided that the incident was at an end. This consultation had disappointed him—the computer, the watercolour, the curious air of distraction that coloured the doctor’s attention—displeased him to the extent of inspiring a certain anger. This was unusual: he was not given to anger. But he felt his politeness threatening to desert him. He would have appreciated more of a dialogue, was conscious of demanding more than he was likely to receive, recognized this as part of his unavailing desire for closeness, intimacy. His Freudian comparison had fallen on deaf ears, yet to him it was a matter of some significance. If he could ascribe the weakness of the previous evening to some profound metaphysical cause he would feel sufficiently heartened to carry on the struggle. If, however, it proved to be some sort of physical mishap he was on shakier ground. For all his faith in remote as opposed to immediate causes he knew that the mind cannot always outwit the body, and that the body that one took for granted could at any moment reveal itself as fragile, and worse, treacherous. He preferred to consider the knocking of his heart to be caused by anger at what he thought a dull-witted performance, regretted once again the grave seniority of the German doctor—so long ago!—even regretted his previous fortitude, which now threatened to desert him. He did not want to die, still less did he want to succumb to illness, yet that was the condition of seeking help. And the help that was available was to his mind inadequate. Above all he was conscious of boring this m
an, of wasting his time, not merely by presenting routine symptoms, common, he supposed, to all old people, but by seeking to interest him in speculations of a no doubt discredited nature. Freud was old hat now: young people, especially young doctors, had no time for him. He turned his anger on himself, felt confused, foolish, prepared to leave, aware that the interview was over, that the computer was even now spewing out a prescription, that he was in alien territory, where only the verifiably physical was important, and all theory could be ignored.

  ‘I want you to take a blood-pressure pill every day, and to come back in a couple of weeks’ time. People of your age should take blood pressure seriously.’

  ‘You think that’s all it was, then?’

  ‘At this stage I can’t say. You seem fit enough.’

  But how could he know? As an investigation this left much to be desired. Above all it had proved to be strangely tedious. He tried to imagine the doctor at home, with the watercolour-painting wife, and the requisite images failed him.

  ‘I expect you will be going on holiday?’ he asked, in a last effort to establish some kind of mutuality, on the doctor’s terms, if necessary.

  ‘I’ve had a couple of weeks. I prefer to go away in the winter. Get away from all the winter ailments.’ He laughed conspiratorially.

  At once Herz understood this man. He was simply not cut out to be a doctor, loathed medicine, loathed the care he was obliged to take, even loathed himself for this kind of emotional failure. This would account for his morose attitude, his preference for the computer over the living body, his all too palpable conscientiousness.

  ‘A medical family?’ he enquired, testing his theory.

  ‘Yes. Clever of you to guess that. It was assumed that I would carry on where my father left off.’

  ‘Difficult to disappoint him, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ In his voice Herz heard a lifetime of thwarted wishes.

  ‘It is indeed difficult to fight one’s family’s expectations.’

  And you would rather be doing something else, anything else, he thought. You would have preferred your freedom, and you were denied it. You made a good enough job of necessity. You minister to the sick in your own way. But in fact it is hardly ministering. Nor is it art. And surely medicine is the highest of the arts? What Claude and Turner cannot tell us is in your hands. It is a priestly task. And a man of true discernment would have turned down his wife’s watercolour, though this might have provoked marital disharmony.

  ‘Keep the other pills by you,’ said the doctor. ‘Place one under your tongue if you experience any more discomfort.’

  He stood up with an air of relief, handed over the prescription. ‘My nurse will check your blood pressure. Just pop in in a couple of weeks’ time.’

  Herz put the paper in his pocket. He would take the pills, or rather give them a try. In the interests of science he would have his blood pressure checked by the nurse. After that he rather thought he would do no more, would prefer to rely on his ancient knowledge of himself in order to confront whatever ordeals might have been prepared for him.

  ‘I suppose Freud is completely out of date now,’ he queried, as he reached the door.

  ‘Completely. Goodbye, Mr Herz. Take care.’

  Out in the sunny street he felt less exasperated, although a lingering consciousness of disappointment remained. He remembered having noted a small public garden off Paddington Street, the only amenity in this district other than the too distant park. He would sit on a bench and think things through, in company with other old men, and old ladies too, perhaps. The weather had proved surprisingly stable: after a lacklustre spring the warm days shaded off only gradually into breathtaking evenings, although the darkness came earlier now that it was August. Now it was difficult to ignore the scattering of fallen leaves or reports of drought in the newspapers, impossible though it was for anyone to wish for rain. It was enough to issue out each morning into sunshine to dispel thoughts of what was to come. Of the coming winter he refused to think. He sank heavily onto a wooden seat, the paper crackling in his pocket. He would take it to the friendly chemist whose advice he had always found reassuring. For the moment it was enough to sit with the other old men, and the old lady reading the Daily Mail, with whom he felt solidarity. He would perhaps exchange a few remarks with them sooner or later, about the weather, naturally: he would not make the mistake of discussing Freud, or related matters. That had been a mistake. He felt confused, wondered if others noticed, blamed himself for advancing into alien territory, for revealing an undue curiosity. But how to live without it? After years of dutiful obedience, of deferment to the will of others, he saw this timid examination of ideas as a permitted emancipation. He no longer had to make things better for everyone; that was his conclusion. He could read, speculate, entertain impious thoughts. He could reach conclusions that would have seemed unwise in the days of his obedience, for it had been obedience rather than servitude, and therein lay a certain residual sweetness. He was not sorry that it had come to an end, but the contrast between his life as a worker and this disturbing freedom was hard to assimilate, to manage.

  He would, as always, have liked to discuss the matter, in the interests of genuine enquiry, with one or other of his elderly companions in the sun, and regretted, as always, that the thing was impossible. He would be looked on as an outsider, and worse, someone whose eagerness to make friends revealed him as no more than an ageing schoolboy. Yet if he had had the courage to break through that invisible barrier how enriching the revelations might be! But it seemed to be agreed, in this small space, that the utmost privacy should be observed. Indeed the faces he saw were stern, none relaxing into the half-smile of reminiscence. The silence being observed reminded him of chess players, or rather those he had noted, through a similar confusion, in a café in Nyon, as he was about to board his train, after his so polite meeting with Fanny and her mother at the Beau Rivage. He realized that the sadness and humiliation he had felt on that occasion had prepared him for a lifetime of the same, of repeated episodes of defeat. That was the essence of his sentimental education.

  Yet what he felt now, sitting in the sun, was more like a new frustration, based on little more than an inability to talk things over, or rather a prohibition against such an exchange. He was accustomed to spending time on his own, was not exactly lonely, but was aware of an absence of ideas, such as might have been the currency between like-minded people. And surely those around him were in the same category as himself? Perhaps it was the absence of a proper meeting place, a café, for example, such as would have been found near a similar public garden in any continental town. He felt suddenly hungry, looked around him, saw only a pub, which was not to his taste. He had never liked pouring cold liquid into his stomach, as younger men seemed to do. With a sigh he got up, decided to eat lunch at an Italian restaurant in George Street, thought it too far to walk, settled for a sandwich and a glass of wine. He would buy an evening paper and return to his seat in the afternoon, spend the day there, in fact. He did not want to go home.

  The memory of the previous evening’s disturbance had faded until it was almost acceptable. That it had been an occult manifestation, a message from the unconscious, Herz had no doubt. It was the doctor who had sought a routine explanation and in so doing had removed the air of mystery that had proved such a rich source of associations in the past. The doctor could not, in the end, explain it any more satisfactorily than could Herz himself, had somewhat ostentatiously stuck to his brief, had advised taking the pills. But Herz knew that behind his life, the life he lived now, in Chiltern Street, in Paddington Street, in this garden, stretched unexamined territory, most of it compounded not only of his own mistakes, but of the mistakes of others. What if Fanny had consented to marry him? How would they have lived? On his salary? Impossible. He too would like to have lived at the Beau Rivage, thinking such a place a dignified representation of his life as an exile. His malaise had been a reminder of that condition: useless to asc
ribe it to any other cause. And short of consulting a specialist in these matters there was no way in which this extremely interesting phenomenon—interesting to him— could be elucidated.

  That he had been willing to take his malaise seriously, sufficiently seriously to consult a doctor, he put down to an anxious susceptibility which he habitually masked with a smile. The smile was his disguise, and also his defence: it proclaimed him to be a harmless, even a well-meaning person, of whom favours could be asked, by whom favours would be granted. That was what he had come uncomplainingly to be, but there were unanswered questions. He could, he knew, have been different. He remembered saying to Simmonds that in later life one reverted to one’s origins, and he had been a romantic young man, even a romantic middle-aged man: how else to account for that flight to Nyon, and that fidelity to a mirage of his youth? And that after an all too prosaic marriage, which he nevertheless viewed with some indulgence. He still felt an affinity with Josie, with her appetites, with her acceptance of him, so soon relinquished. And so easily! This was the difference between them. Even now he sought some spark of recognition from her, while allowing that none might be forthcoming. The attention he reserved for her was all on his side; he accepted this, just as he accepted that she rarely thought of him, was satisfied with the life she had made, saw her marriage as a stage she had passed through, as others passed through adolescence, leaving him an old man sitting in the sun, among others of his kind. He felt no rancour, only marvelled that he had so little to show for what had seemed to him a longed-for permanence. It had not left him much diminished; the reality had passed, the illusion resisted the change. He still longed for an ideal companion, to be enjoyed in an ideal landscape. He saw it as a form of retirement from the world, a private state which would remain a secret, half-wish, half-dream. Though it had faded it had never left him. In the most primitive, the most archaic part of his mind he still cherished it, wondered, even, how to bring it about, while at the same time knowing that he had had his chance. He did not see, at this stage, how he could have acted differently. He accepted that his defeats were honourable, while at the same time wondering how much honour he had wrested from his experiences. He felt sadness, even shame, certainly regret, but also felt as if his part had been written for him, that certain cosmic laws were in operation. Quite simply, he was unalterable. The cloud that had enveloped him on the previous evening was, he thought, a reminder that he had wasted his life.