Making Things Better

by Anita Brookner

  And she had thought of him, even when he had only noticed her indifference. She had retained memories not only of himself but of other family members, had shown discernment, had suspected something obscure in the attitude of his mother to his father, had detected the jealousy of other possible influences in her insane regard for his brother. Even now, even he had inherited the family trait of resentment, castigating Fanny for her hauteur, her self-regard, which, on examination, could be seen as a necessary disguise for ordinary frailty. He was cast into a terrible pity for her, although until he had read her letter he had been prepared to be disbelieving, sceptical, even unkind, dreading the prospect of seeing her again, or if not seeing her listening to her. But in fact her complaint had been that of common humanity: love, loneliness, regret. She had revealed herself, if only slightly, as a simple woman, one who was no longer sought after, who was in fact left alone to pay the price of the confidence that had once surrounded her and which other women so resented. She was being punished, or so it must seem to her, for her early endowments, for the teasing crowd of followers she had once attracted, for the atmosphere of security in which she had existed until exile put an end to all certainties. Though vigilance had certainly been in order, though practical arrangements had of necessity to be made, she would have sensed that she was being sacrificed. She might have stumbled on an even darker truth, namely that if all had been well and they had been able to stay in Germany she would still have been sacrificed by those who claimed to know her better, and who were, moreover, convinced of their good faith.

  To go back further would be to enter the unknown world of those two sisters, whose lives, he now saw, had been entirely unmodified by the men they had chosen, or who had been chosen for them. A distrust of natural appetites would have been implanted in them from their earliest days, their inclinations to pleasure seen as a dereliction from family observance. They would therefore feel the same distrust for children, whose lives, they were so lately to realize, might lead them into wider expectations, even opportunities. Such mothers had thought their own narrow upbringing the only true guide. His aunt Anna was no less guilty than his mother, had regarded Fanny as her own creation, her own preserve. For all her hospitality, lavishly dispensed in her sunny salon, she was a martinet. Herz had always known this, had been dismissed too many times, not for any fault of his own but because he represented, or might be thought to represent, an incarnation of impulse, of instinct, from which Fanny must be guarded. She had succeeded in preserving this daughter throughout the uncertain years of exile, but largely for her own benefit. The husbands she had chosen for her had the advantage of compliance, could be persuaded to accept her as a necessary accompaniment. Perhaps Fanny had been presented as delicate, fragile, requiring her mother’s care. This mythology had undoubtedly ensured their communal future. Herz saw with pity that Fanny had been denied access to her own desires, and, worse, may even have known this.

  He walked into the public garden, sat on his usual bench, regretting that he had not brought the letter with him. Yet the news that it contained had seemed too troubling for a casual re-reading. There was matter here for intense regret, largely for what he now saw as Fanny’s unhappy life. Over and above this, and indeed indistinguishable from it, was the knowledge that she had thought of him, had regretted him, a factor of which he had been entirely ignorant. She had even felt for him as a woman should feel for a man; why else had she said that they should have been lovers when they were little more than children? ‘When we were young and perfect’ had been her phrase, disconcertingly close to his own wistful approval of young lovers. That phrase had indeed established a kinship between their two selves; quite simply they had known each other all their lives. In revealing her regret that they had missed their chance Fanny had come closer to him. He had been deceived by the masks that adults are obliged to wear, whereas it was the girl, and his own wishes, that should have been addressed.

  He shook himself out of his trance, got heavily to his feet, and made his way to a home that was now as fictional, as phantasmagorical, as the Beau Rivage. In that sense they were interchangeable, as they had appeared to him in his original, almost forgotten, vision of flight. He knew himself condemned to leave, not for any practical or impractical reason, whichever was the stronger, but because he had a role to fulfil, an investigation to undertake, a potential response to a need which had impressed him as being within his competence. Their reunion might, almost certainly would, prove a disappointment, but it might enlighten them. He was not quite able, however, to dispel uneasiness as to Fanny’s motives. She was needy now, without support. Her letter had certainly revealed aspects of a character with which he was unfamiliar, but he was still subject to doubt. Crassly, he felt suspicious of her appeal for help. She had always been an expert at confusing him. Her letter was perhaps disingenuous; he had no means of assessing her sincerity. He shrugged. Perhaps this did not matter. The fact remained, however, that her apparent honesty was entirely out of character.

  Meanwhile her letter required an answer. ‘My dear Fanny,’ he wrote. ‘Your letter arrived this morning and I have been thinking about it ever since. I dare not re-read it in case it affects me adversely. This is what I mean. I agree that we should meet, if only to see what we have become, but such a meeting might, and almost certainly would, disillusion us. Now that I am at last free to cast a very cold eye on our family circumstances I see how helpless we were, in our original innocence, to fight against what had been laid down for us. We were possessions, no more, no less. I had the fate of my parents and my brother in my hands, and you were charged with the task of ensuring your own and your mother’s survival. That we accomplished our respective duties made those duties no easier. I see now that we were given little freedom to grow, were forever imprisoned by family expectations. I do not blame you for your mercenary mother: at the same time I deplore her. I deplore my own. I deplore my father who provided so supine an example. I remember painfully, as if it were yesterday, your beauty, your confidence. In many ways it is almost easier to remember you as laughingly dismissive of my callow intentions than it is for me to think of you as dependent on the favours of others, as you now seem to be. I have too much wreckage on my own conscience to feel sorry for you. I merely recognize another victim.

  ‘What help I can give I will of course give. That we should be in this position at all is almost laughable, but I long ago came to the conclusion that those who are responsible for our evolution are indeed enjoying our discomfiture. There is a saying I have always enjoyed: if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans. Yet much as I adopt this wisdom I still feel obliged to shoulder blame, as indeed you should. We who should have been sceptical have been revealed, by time, as naïf. Your letter shows that you at least had some insight, perhaps more than I did. I tried to content myself with little, thinking that I was acting for the best in suppressing my nature, thinking too that I owed it to others to make rational decisions. One such rational decision was my marriage, but I have been less rational in my latter-day dealings with the world. I now see that all my affections were more or less imperfect, but as you remind me I did once have my youth to guide me. I see now the terrible errors, not of youth, which I am inclined to forgive, but of age, when the impulse to make good what has turned out so badly forces one to adjust, to compromise, to make do with less when one has always longed for more. The people I see around me as I go about my everyday business amaze me. How do you manage? I want to ask them. Are you reasonably content, or do you wish, as I do, to be liberated from your history? I once— quite recently—had the painful illusion that I could so liberate myself, and that illusion was somehow connected with early memory, or rather with early sensation. I wonder whether it was ever anything more than sensation, yet I know that sensation is sometimes a better guide than esteem.

  ‘I feel obliged to tell you this since you express little curiosity about myself. Maybe you think that you had me summed up long ago, as someone to whom you
could appeal for support if ever your usual conduct appeared puzzling or unsatisfactory. There was no reason for such an eager standby as I was to appeal to a woman who had a wide range of choices. It pains me that your choices proved so disastrous. There again I am forced back to thoughts of your mother and the choices she made for you. Even though I see that she harboured a certain primitive wisdom I think of her unkindly. And I am shocked to discover that some of that unkindness has come to be directed at yourself. There was the merest hint of opportunism in your letter and, although I am no cynic (another regrettable flaw in my character), a certain wariness grew in me as the day wore on. And it was such a lovely day, sunny and mild, a day meant for innocent pleasure, of the kind that you and I were never meant to enjoy. I lay the blame now on less than satisfactory parents, but that is what all children do, whatever their age. I cannot entirely exonerate our two selves. I am wary, you see, of easy answers. What gives me pause is that you appear to have little awareness of your own mistakes. You express a bitterness which I can understand: you express a hatred of your second husband whose touch defiled you. A more worldly woman would have arranged matters to her own advantage, would have taken a lover. If that had been the case I would almost have applauded. But you seem to have exhibited an alarming passivity, and I find it difficult to connect that passivity with your earlier self-regard. This is a matter which I would find interesting to discuss with you, yet I confess that the prospect wearies me. In some odd way I seem to have made you my life’s work. And I see that that work is not yet finished.

  ‘You almost loved me once, but decided against it. You were vain, justifiably so, and vanity is a heady commodity. I concede that you are prepared to love me now. This should be enough for me at my age, and of course at yours. If I feel bold enough to express dissatisfaction with this outcome you need not think that the dissatisfaction must be laid entirely at your door. It is lost opportunity that I crave, and in a sense the inexperience that allowed me for so long to live in hope. It seems from your letter that you have proved to be the more sophisticated of the two of us. Whatever your motives—and I must pay you the compliment of believing you to be unaware of them—I cannot help responding to the fact that you remember me so kindly. When I left Nyon that morning I felt I had disappeared from the face of the earth, never to be sighted again. You were still beautiful then, whatever you say. I knew that I had missed my chance. I am impressed by the fact that you knew this long ago. We were never mismatched, simply ill-advised.

  ‘Let us meet then, but with no illusions on either side. We shall probably not like what we see, and may soon tire of discussing those matters we have in common. We owe it to ourselves, perhaps, to do what is necessary to maintain a fiction of family attachment, yet I must warn you that I am no longer indulgent on that score. If I return to Nyon it will be for the abject desire to be greeted by someone who knew me when I was young and hopeful, and who will not judge me too harshly for what I have become. The pleasure may last no longer than that initial greeting, but that pleasure will be rare. The prospect is not without its dangers, and we are at an age when so many brave efforts are required of us. Yet somehow we still long for love. This at least is a matter of interest to us both. Yours ever, Julius.’

  This letter too he tore up. ‘Dearest Fanny,’ he wrote. ‘Thank you for writing back so promptly. Let us agree to meet, perhaps at the beginning of next month. I assume that you will be happy to return to the Beau Rivage. I will of course make all the arrangements; you need have no worries on that score. I will telephone you in the next few days to make final plans. Needless to say I look forward to seeing you again. Ever yours, Julius.’

  On another sheet of paper he wrote, ‘Dear Sophie, if you are not back too late would you give me a call?’, and went out to slip the letter under her door before he changed his mind.

  Before sealing his letter to Fanny he had had to reassure himself that he was sending her the polite or revised version, and that his earlier words had been consigned to the wastepaper basket. Though it might have relieved him to stricture her, the discourtesy, he knew, would have shamed him for life. They came from an earlier age, when a suitable pathway had to be negotiated through thickets of unexpressed frustration: they were bound by that code. Yet he had a need to repeat those urgent words when they were face-to-face. It would be like a summit conference in a peaceful scenic setting, at the end of which they would have to issue a communiqué. The outcome would be inconclusive (here the analogy with a summit conference seemed apposite) but they would have made the necessary effort. He was even ready for a confrontation, and for the opportunity at last to stir her into some recognition of equality. He might even find in her that audience he had periodically desired: yes, that was it, for was she not the only person to whom he did not have to introduce himself, to set up an artificial preamble to a notional subject on which he might express notional opinions? And would she, might she find this acceptable, even diverting? Behind her complaints he had detected acute boredom, the boredom of a woman used to attention, and now condemned to live without it. Neither need lose face, for this would supply them with a much-needed stimulus, so that eventually their talk might stray into other regions, take in subjects other than themselves. The matters they thought they were meeting to discuss might be exhausted so much earlier than either of them had anticipated, for their position had been made clear in their letters, hers uncensored, his so prudent. Such prudence would soon be unnecessary. Once they were seated next to each other, and communing without difficulty, their separation would be forgotten, or, if not forgotten, irrelevant. Their years apart would be seen as a long parenthesis in an enduring relationship, one in which they both had a renewed interest.

  ‘Sophie,’ he said, when the telephone rang. ‘Tell Matthew he can have the flat. For a month, initially. Then I’ll let him know whether or not I’ve decided to sell. I don’t think there’s anything more to establish at this stage. I seem to have made up my mind quite easily. Strange, that. I thought it would be more difficult.’

  18

  Permission had been sought, and granted, for Matthew Henderson to move in certain of his possessions. Herz’s sitting-room now housed a computer, a video recorder, two large speakers, and a couple of squash racquets. Since there seemed little room for him in which to pursue his ordinary occupations he took once more to leaving the building in the early morning, anxious to avoid his new tenant, who chose that time to deposit another discreet but bulky object outside his door. Once he returned to find a suitcase on the landing, which, with only a brief sigh, he transferred to his bedroom. He made no overt objection to this, preferred not to be present when the act of appropriation took place. Soon, he knew, sounds would reach him from Sophie’s flat, and he thought it only tactful to make himself scarce. They would be gone by the time he returned, and then he would eat his breakfast, saving his newspaper to read in the public garden. This behaviour, fitting for a resort or some other temporary mode of existence, meant that a long day was at his disposal, most of it lived out of doors. But the weather was fine, and he took a restrained pleasure in his early mornings, though he knew that it was easier to leave the flat as a free man than to return to find it partly taken over, the stealthy progress in train even as he paced the known and familiar streets.

  With a keen but indulgent eye he surveyed the landscape, seeing it now as benign, neutral, offering no comment on his solitary progress, absorbing all eccentricities—men gasping for breath on their morning run, old ladies looking on protectively as dogs relieved themselves in the gutter— and regretting only that he could not intercept the odd passer-by and engage in a little light conversation. This would be meaningless, he knew, but similar to those remarks exchanged in the shops, comments on the weather infused with a good will more noticeable at this hour than at any other. With his decision to leave he seemed to have moved into a wider frame of reference, one in which the company of strangers was entirely acceptable, and salutations of the vaguest kind
the agreed method of communication. With this mutual anonymity, as if each observed some code in which a correct distance was recommended, came an absence of pressure to explain oneself or one’s presence, and with it that freedom from history that was what holidays promised but rarely delivered. The sheer lack of intimacy, noticeable but not threatening, induced a mood of some strangeness, as if the self were being dispersed into the mild air, leaving only the senses in place, to admire, to appreciate, to enjoy, and for this brief interval to function without impairment.

  This might later break down, the capacity of the observer to absent himself from the scene being limited. At this point Herz would return to the flat, already weightier, as if recently reintroduced into the earth’s atmosphere. This was the less welcome aspect of the exercise, presaging a day in which only an effort would do to reinstate that early insouciance. If he were untimely enough to encounter either Matthew or Sophie, or usually both, on the stairs, he would raise a friendly hand, smile, and move on, anxious not to disturb their easy progress into the life of a normal day. He was dependent on them to animate the house, which might otherwise have lapsed into an empty silence. This they did by way of signs—a window being pushed up, a remark called from one room to another, a burst of music from a radio, abruptly lowered, as if not to disturb him. They were, it seemed, aware of his presence, which he sought to make as elusive as possible. He in his turn was aware of theirs, as he had never been before, attentive to their comings and goings, and always to their footsteps on the stairs. Sometimes he saw them retreating down the street on their way to work. In this guise, formally dressed, professionally alert, they were all animation, their alternative selves, the personae they kept in readiness for the outside world, as briskly on display as if there were no hiatus between the life they lived together and those hours in which they were separate beings. At such times, watching them dwindle into the distance, he felt the onset of a slight panic, and with it a sense of estrangement or of advanced juvenility, wondering, like the exile from real life he knew himself to be, what it must be like to have entitlements in the realms of love and work. Such speculations were, he knew, invalid, and applicable only to his own powerlessness to create a context in which he might function efficiently and to some purpose. Any busyness he exhibited was for the sake of others, who might otherwise feel sufficiently obliged to enquire after his health, or whether he was going on holiday. His efforts were particularly successful in avoiding conversation with the young couple, whose impermeability he was anxious to preserve. He hoped that they would read into his formal smile and his upraised hand whole areas of activity of which they knew nothing and in which he was furiously engaged.