Visitors

by Anita Brookner

  ‘Have you known her long?’ she asked, coming back with a start to the present.

  ‘David’s my friend,’ he said. ‘We hang out together. When he said he was coming to London I said I’d tag along. He said Ann’s grandma could put me up.’ Annoyance once more flitted across his generally impassive face.

  ‘Ann’s grandfather is not in good health,’ she explained. ‘That’s why you’re here. He needs quiet. And anyway it’s only for a few days.’

  ‘I may stay on for a bit,’ he said. ‘Check out the music scene. I won’t be any trouble. You won’t know I’m here.’

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t be here at all,’ she rallied. ‘I shall be needing the room. A relative may be coming to stay.’

  Mrs May had no relatives, as this young man would undoubtedly discover. I shall invite Susie Fuller, she decided. Susie might be glad of a break in London, although she would be astonished at the invitation.

  ‘I think it best to make things clear at the beginning, don’t you? You’ll be able to look for something else; I should do that as soon as you can. To tell you the truth, Steve, it is not convenient for me to have you here. You’re welcome to stay until you find something else, which I’m sure you will. Perhaps your friend David—whom I haven’t yet met—could help you.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said equably. ‘Mind if I have a quick bath? And you’d better let me have a key. I might be back late tonight.’

  ‘The Levinsons keep early hours, as I do—I doubt if you’ll be late. I’m sure you won’t make a noise. I’ve noticed that you move very quietly. Your key is in your room. Don’t lose it, will you? I shall undoubtedly be in bed, when you come in. Or perhaps not, knowing Kitty and Austin. They will be tired too, as I’m sure you will.’

  His flat level gaze did not leave her face. ‘I might take David out for a few beers,’ he said pleasantly.

  She gazed steadily back at him, confident that Kitty would forbid such an excursion. Oh, how the young must hate us, she thought. We try to stop them doing what they want to do; we forget their unrelenting energy, since we no longer have much energy left to us. And Kitty would have one of her headaches, and would be obliged to rely on Molly, even on herself, would complain—justifiably—at the inconvenience, whereas she would really be complaining about the unfair competition between youth and age. Mrs May could see Kitty, red-faced, furiously attending to her oven, while Ann leaned on the jamb of the kitchen door, supplying monosyllabic answers to questions Kitty directed over her shoulder. And all the while, between them, stood the missing link, the absent Gerald.

  ‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Has Ann been in touch with her father?’

  ‘No idea,’ replied Steve, uninterested. ‘Lives in a commune, doesn’t he?’

  So that rumour was true, not that Kitty had ever confirmed it. Kitty gave it out that Gerald was working as an ecologist. Fortunately few people knew what that meant, apart from prolonged absence. ‘Doing very well,’ she would say, if anyone were imprudent enough to ask. ‘He moves around a lot. We see him when we see him.’ But they had not seen him for an unconfirmed length of time. Austin had gone in search of him at one point, when Henry was still alive. The meeting had been either unsatisfactory or fruitless, was in any event overshadowed by the bad attack of angina that Austin had suffered as a result. Mrs May had a distinct impression of Austin, in his polished shoes, among the bracken and dead leaves, as he made his unsteady way back to his car. This had been so frightening that the visit was never repeated. That Gerald might have caused his father’s death became a possibility; the matter was shrouded in silence. Shortly afterwards Austin had lost heart, had sold his business, and now sat at home, devoting his life to Kitty. Gerald was a closed book, and would remain so until, if ever, he came home. So far he had given no sign that he intended to do so.

  ‘And when is the wedding?’ she asked, pretending an interest she did not feel.

  ‘I reckon some time next week.’

  ‘You’ll be the best man, I suppose.’

  His face darkened, as though she had uttered a threat. ‘David doesn’t want any fuss.’

  ‘In that case I’m afraid he’s in for a disappointment. Ann’s grandmother will certainly want to do things properly. She has very high standards. It will be a register office, I dare say, unless David is religious.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Oh? I didn’t think young people had much time for religion.’

  ‘David’s a religious teacher.’

  ‘Is he? Where?’

  ‘He teaches sport and religion in a school.’

  ‘What a curious mixture. Well, perhaps not really. Where is this school?’

  ‘Northampton. That’s in Massachusetts.’

  ‘And that’s where you met?’

  ‘I’d been travelling,’ he replied evasively. ‘I was passing through, got to know him, stuck around. You know how it is.’

  She had no response to this. ‘And will Ann be happy with him?’ she asked. She felt that someone, anyone, should put this particular question.

  ‘Should do. He’s a really nice guy. A bit heavy sometimes, you know?’ There was no response to this either.

  ‘And what about you? What do you do?’

  ‘I’m looking around, getting it together. Like I said, I’ve been travelling for about a year. I’m into music.’

  ‘That’s nice. Music must be a very uplifting profession. What sort of music?’

  ‘I play guitar.’

  The guitar had always seemed to her the most specious of instruments, a parasitic offspring of the harp and the harpsichord. Suddenly she longed to be listening to a full orchestra playing something majestic, Schumann or Brahms. She longed to be seated alone in the drawing room, listening to the radio. This she was only able to do when her upstairs neighbour was away, as he was now. The neighbour, a small peppery man who avoided her eyes whenever they met at the entrance, had once sent down a note, complaining. She had felt rebuked, had blushed, the note in her hand. But she had seen him going off in a taxi, his fishing rods propped up by the driver, and in his absence had enjoyed whatever Radio 3 had to offer. She would know when he came back; he always banged his doors. She had not mentioned this, an unruly exchange between neighbours being unthinkable in her quiet respectable building. It was simply now that she was missing her chance, and would continue to do so for as long as this young man was on the premises. She felt a great weariness. Henry would never have let things get this far, she thought. It was true that Henry did not enjoy loud music either. She had only been able to indulge her tastes since his death. And until she met him she had only had reasonable tastes to indulge.

  ‘All right if I have my bath now?’ he enquired patiently.

  ‘Good heavens, is that the time? I had no idea. Yes, you have your bath. I don’t expect we shall see each other again this evening. I get up very early,’ she told him. ‘So I’ll be able to get your breakfast. Then I’m afraid you’ll have to look after yourself. I go out to lunch; I expect you’ll do the same.’ Fleetingly she remembered that she had had no lunch, had had nothing to eat since breakfast. That was no doubt why she had felt so poorly. She rose. Obligingly he got to his feet: a good sign. At the door she said, ‘I’ll see you in the morning then. Give my love to the Levinsons. Tell Mrs Levinson I’ll be in touch.’

  She was aware of backing out of the room, of retreating, the flat no longer her own. Her own room was a haven in which she humbly took refuge. In vain she admonished herself for what she saw as unfriendliness. It is because I never had children, she thought. That is why I appear so unnatural. That is what Kitty knows, and Molly too, though Molly has no children either. But Molly still yearned foolishly over young people, exclaimed over babies, tried to capture their little hands. Useless to tell them that she and Henry had come to terms with this apparent inability, that each had become the other’s child. In his last illness she had washed and changed him but had not otherwise treated him as a baby. The most she had done was ho
ld his hand when she saw that he had a moment of fear. Together they had watched the light change, until the room was in shadow. In that way Henry was spared disappointment, for her attention remained undivided. Maybe he had had regrets. Who did not have regrets at the end of a life, knowing that life was receding daily? Maybe he had longed secretly for children, making it a point of honour not to let her know of this. Disillusion had not soured him, though she could date her own increasing coldness from her own disillusion, which she in turn had kept to herself. Without children one was always lonely, yet she was thought to be merely independent, as if independence were not simply an alibi, and a concealment for one’s losses.

  After a desultory restless evening—the flat surprisingly quiet once he had left—she prepared for bed. Tomorrow she must telephone Kitty and ask to speak to Ann, or the unknown David, to suggest that he and Steve go to an hotel. She would offer to pay, her contribution to the wedding expenses. This seemed to her utterly reasonable. On this suggestion, which she thought she could put quite forcefully, she dozed off. She slept fitfully, kept awake by the need to hear Steve return and lock the front door. And it seemed to her that he never did come back, so that in the morning she crept to the door of the spare room and listened for a sound. There was no sound, only a smell of heated flesh, as if he had been lying in his bedclothes for at least a week.

  ‘You’re a sensible woman, Thea,’ said Austin, lying concave in his armchair. ‘What do you make of all this? Ann rings up a week ago, tells Kitty she’s getting married, says she wants to get married in London—putting Kitty to a lot of trouble, incidentally—announces her arrival for next Sunday, and then the three of them turn up like nomads nearly a week early. No consideration. Kitty’s all ready to organise a champagne buffet when Ann says she doesn’t want any fuss. If she didn’t want any fuss she should have seen to it that her young man stayed somewhere else, and that that friend of his …’

  ‘I’ve had an idea about that, Austin.’

  ‘They only wanted to share a room, you know, Ann and David. Kitty put a stop to that. “But Grandma, this is a mature relationship,” she said. “Not in this house,” I told her. Poor Kitty. She wants to feel happy, but she can’t. She wants it so much, Thea. She’s shed tears at night, when she thinks I’m asleep. She thinks of Gerald all the time. Whereas I know I’ve lost him, that’s the difference. After I had that little attack you might have thought he’d make some enquiries, wouldn’t you? Not a bit of it.’

  ‘Will he be coming to the wedding?’

  ‘Of course not. For one thing we can’t get in touch with him. For another he might have moved on. His lot occasionally take to the road. No, I’ve lost him, that’s the beginning and the end of it. And he was such a beautiful boy, Thea, so brilliant, so loving. I don’t know what went wrong. I torture myself, sitting here. Of course, I should never have retired—that was Kitty’s doing. But to tell you the truth I lost heart after that little attack, particularly when Gerald failed to enquire …’

  ‘How are you now?’ she managed to interpose, mainly to get him off the painful subject of Gerald. She could see how he was. He presented a caved-in appearance, with a collapsed-looking chest and an expansive stomach, and she remembered him as a handsome upright man, an excellent dancer and a surprisingly strong swimmer. She and Henry had spent a holiday at the Levinsons’ house at Freshwater, and had been so happy that she had never wanted to go back. To walk those cliff paths again with no-one holding her arm or her waist was not to be borne.

  ‘Not too bad’ was the cautious reply. ‘Of course I keep my pills to hand.’ He indicated a small onyx box on the table beside him. ‘This wedding I could have done without, mind you. Not that it affects me emotionally. I’m just paying for it. But to tell you the truth, Thea, I don’t like these young people very much. Ann is a complete stranger to us. Kitty can’t understand her, and I could tell she had hopes. But she doesn’t look like us, doesn’t even speak the same language.’

  ‘What does she do?’ asked Mrs May.

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses. No? Homeopathy,’ he brought out triumphantly.

  ‘I understand it’s what they call a sunrise industry.’

  ‘There are a million therapists out there, Thea, and not one of them can cure our broken hearts, Kitty’s and mine.’

  ‘And David? What does he do?’

  ‘He’s a teacher of some sort, in what I suspect is some kind of religious establishment. “I think of myself as bearer of the Christian message,” he told me. I told him not to expect much of a response in Hampstead, in that case. A moron. And she’s completely taken him in hand, orders him about, tells him off. Kitty is bewildered.’

  ‘Maybe he’s turning the other cheek,’ Mrs May said, and was happy to see that she had brought a smile to his lips. Seizing the moment as propitious, she introduced the subject of Steve.

  ‘I really can’t have him in the flat, Austin.’

  ‘No reason why he should be there, as I pointed out to him over dinner last night. He’s got a perfectly good family in Cheltenham, as I managed to ascertain. Father’s some kind of civil servant. But this Steve dropped out, joined what he called a rock band. I doubt if he’s got an ounce of talent. What’s more he doesn’t appear to have any means of support. David paid for him to come over. He was wandering all over America, had been for the last year. It was his lucky day when he met David, who is quite well off, apparently. David, for some reason, saw him as a kindred spirit. Of course the person we need now is Henry. He’d sort them out. Dear boy, we all miss him. It must be so sad for you.’ He looked at her affectionately. ‘You look well, though. Too thin, of course. You were always too thin.’

  She smiled back at him, grateful for the kindness. ‘I want this Steve to go away,’ she said. ‘In fact I’ll pay for both the boys to stay in an hotel. But for a limited period only.’

  ‘Excellent idea. I’ll put it to them this evening. No doubt Steve will want to dine here—again. Kitty was cooking all the afternoon. In this heat! And she’s not a young woman, Thea. We’re none of us young. The young shouldn’t expect us to put up with them.’

  ‘The world has moved on since our day. We no longer set the standards.’

  ‘Too right,’ he said gloomily. ‘Where’s Kitty? I know she’s been longing to see you.’

  Not knowing how to respond to this politesse, Mrs May put her faith in the arrival of Kitty, which could surely not be long delayed. She was well aware that gargantuan preparations were in train. ‘What meads, what kvasses were brewed, what pies were baked at Oblomovka!’ To her surprise she was almost enjoying herself. Kitty’s tense telephone call, as if she were under duress, had been welcome, since she had no intention of staying in the flat waiting for Steve either to go out or to come in again. He had been with her for two days and it felt like a lifetime. The taxi ride to Hampstead had been in the nature of a novelty, and through the windows she had renewed acquaintance with the parks. She almost wished the journey had gone on for longer, but in these dog days of late summer, with so many people still away, the roads had been quite clear. And then the Levinsons’ flat was very soothing, with its silk shades pulled half way down against the strong sun, and the faint smells of beeswax and carnations from the many small tables. And Austin had always been courtly: Henry had been fond of him, and he had seemed so genuinely glad to see her. She was sure that she could trust him to get rid of Steve, and indeed of Ann and David, whom he clearly disliked.

  ‘If you could just mention my suggestion of an hotel this evening …’

  ‘Aha! At last! Where have you been, darling? Thea’s had to put up with me for the last half-hour. Not that I haven’t enjoyed our chat.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Thea, dear,’ said Kitty, exhausted but immaculate in a tightly fitting silk print.

  ‘Kitty, what a marvellous dress.’

  ‘Hardy Amies. It is good, isn’t it? This is Ann. Where is she? Ann? This is Thea, Henry’s wife. I don’t expect you remember her.’<
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  ‘But I remember you,’ said Mrs May, seeing in the large dark-haired young woman the clumsy recalcitrant child she had once been. ‘How are you, Ann? And I see that congratulations are in order.’ She referred to the sizeable emerald ring on the equally sizeable hand.

  ‘This?’ Ann laughed, revealing two slightly crooked incisors. ‘Grandma gave me this. She thinks I’m not doing things properly.’

  ‘Tea,’ said Kitty, avoiding Austin’s severe look. ‘I’ve laid it in the dining room. I thought it would be easier. That way if the boys come in they can have it on their own. We won’t wait.’

  Mrs May followed Ann’s broad back and legs across the room, feeling overdressed in her linen suit, which she had thought rather smart. She noted the slightly creased minidress, the skirt too tight. Not what Kitty would have wanted, she reflected.

  ‘Sit down, everyone,’ ordered Kitty, somewhat reassured by the evidence of what she thought suitable as an accompaniment to a cup of afternoon tea. Tea cakes were piled in a silver chafing dish, a banana loaf and two Victoria sponges, silver knives beside them, waited to be destroyed, and a pyramid of coconut tarts was placed to the right of the silver tea and coffee pots. ‘I didn’t make any sandwiches,’ said Kitty apologetically. ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with us today, Thea.’

  ‘Magnificent as always, Kitty. But how are you? And when is the wedding?’

  Kitty flashed an exasperated look at her granddaughter. ‘Next Wednesday, if I can get the caterers in time. I’ve been on the phone all morning.’

  ‘Relax, Grandma. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘We have certain standards in this family, Ann, even if you seem unaware of them.’