Visitors

by Anita Brookner

  There were other signs, of course, notably the precautions that had to be observed when addressing them, the sheer difficulty of introducing any information that had nothing to do with their normal concerns. Both claimed to be sensitive, subject to palpitations, attacks of nerves, overwhelming anxiety, justified or justifiable fretfulness. These had to be taken into account before any real conversation could begin. Over the years Mrs May had managed to eclipse herself completely, to engage in an exchange as formal as a Noh play. This was found to be acceptable, as if it were appropriate for her to say so little now that there was no husband to lend weight to her words. Mrs May also knew that it was precisely her widowhood that alienated them, as if it were a fate so terrible that it was not to be contemplated. Outside the married state they would have no further existence, or none that they would recognise. Therefore she played her part, obliterating herself so as not to frighten them. And there was always plenty of information to be received in exchange for her relative silence.

  But now that there was something new to discuss she wished that the formalities could be abridged. ‘He’s no trouble,’ she repeated, endeavouring vainly to return to the matter in hand. At the same time it occurred to her to wonder why Molly could not have given Steve houseroom in her capacious mansion flat. She already knew the answer to that one. If Molly’s domesticity were no longer a refuge from the threat posed by strangers her position would be untenable. To expropriate her from her chosen way of life was a crime Mrs May could not bring herself to commit. Besides, Steve was no trouble, not at present, not to her, although she was not happy at having an alien presence in the house. But this was nothing to do with Steve, predated Steve, and would no doubt survive him. It was a private fear, one which, not quite identified, hovered on the edge of her consciousness. She wrote it off as one of the fusses that had to do with age, although if she were honest it had been with her for longer, since before her marriage, in fact, when she had first, and how gladly, begun the great adventure of living alone. Now it was no longer an adventure; sometimes she doubted whether it ever had been, whether she would not have done better to share with someone, anyone. So that Steve’s presence was both threat and comfort, even justification. But none of this could be expressed.

  She reassured Molly that Kitty was bearing up wonderfully, since that was her function, conceded that there were reasons for concern, and resigned herself to a recital of Kitty’s difficulties, although she had been able to observe these for herself not three days ago. Kitty’s difficulties, which, if confessed, might be genuinely interesting, stemmed from her dislike of her granddaughter and her shame at this discovery. In her scheme of things, not to love a member of one’s own family was tantamount to a sin, yet Mrs May had seen for herself that Ann was not necessarily endearing. Why not leave it at that? She had not much liked Ann herself, but had told herself that the girls appearance was against her: the tight skirt, the untended teeth, the general air of indifference. And in her not unpleasant but undistinguished features Kitty no doubt saw an elusive resemblance to Gerald. Greatly daring, she mentioned this to Molly, who concurred.

  ‘And of course they have nothing in common with David,’ Molly went on. ‘We were there for dinner last night and he insisted on saying grace both before and after the meal. Apparently he does that every time. And Austin longing to light his cigarette. Harold thought it very insensitive. Harold said, “When in Rome.” ’

  ‘Did Harold say that to David?’ Mrs May asked, interested.

  ‘No, he said it on the way home,’ Molly replied. ‘I never thought religion went very well with food; silly of me, no doubt. I say my prayers at night, like everyone else. I expect you do too, Thea.’

  Mrs May made a noise expressing assent, without engaging in the lie direct.

  ‘But he’s quite the opposite,’ Molly went on. ‘It’s Jesus this, Jesus that, as if he knew Him personally.’

  ‘No doubt he thinks he does.’

  ‘I never feel I like to bother God too much: it seems such bad manners. But David speaks as if He’s just got off the telephone. I really worry about Kitty. And Austin is not a well man.’

  Mrs May recognised this ploy as a return to normal: both sisters routinely pleaded the ill health of their husbands as an alibi for their reluctance to perform unpleasant tasks. At the same time she was aware that she was contributing not only to the conversation in a way that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago, but to the situation as a whole. The mere fact of taking in Steve had somehow united them, as her solitary unburdened state had never managed to do. It was clear from Molly’s confidential tone that she thought that the advent of Steve had turned Mrs May into a normal woman, or almost normal, since she seemed curiously free of the symptoms that afflicted every other woman Molly knew. For this reason, picking up on the lingering sympathy in Molly’s voice, she repeated, ‘Oh, he’s no trouble. No trouble at all.’ At this point the bathroom door opened onto a rush of waters, and she was obliged to send her love to Harold and to promise to keep in touch.

  It was almost true that he was no trouble. Apart from his frequent baths, and the loading and unloading of the washing machine, he made no demands on her resources. Indeed she was pleased that he was so clean, although the crumpled clothes that he had unpacked from his other nylon holdall, the one that he had transferred from the Levinsons’, had seemed rather dirty. But he presented himself at the breakfast table every morning in a spotless T-shirt and jeans, his wet hair slicked back; and from showing him where everything was she had progressed to greeting him, to buying a melon and croissants and honey and free-range eggs, to laying these offerings mutely in front of him before retiring to the terrace with her own cup of coffee and a slight feeling of accomplishment. When she returned to the kitchen he was gone, and so was all the food. She suspected that he would eat no lunch, would eat only if food were provided for him, like an infant. How old was he? Surely old enough to be self-sufficient. On the third morning, hearing no sound, and wondering whether he had gone out, she had knocked on the door of his room and looked inside: the room was empty, the bed made, no trace of occupancy apart from the two nylon holdalls stacked in the corner. This presumably meant that he would be gone all day and most of the evening, so that she could enjoy her freedom once more, or so she told herself.

  Except that this was somehow impossible. To begin with she slept badly, unwilling to relinquish consciousness before she had heard him come in and lock the front door. She had to resist the impulse to get up and check that he had secured the chain, until she reflected that it hardly mattered if he had failed to do so since she was no longer alone in the flat. There was the rather worrying fact that they hardly communicated, that despite her readiness to be addressed he had nothing to say to her. From this she deduced that he found her too old to be of interest, felt, if anything, a certain contempt for her grey hair and freckled hands, answered only monosyllabically to her ‘Good morning,’ and when asked what he planned to do on any particular day, would reply, ‘Look around.’

  ‘Where will you do that?’ she enquired.

  ‘Soho, I suppose.’

  ‘Why not get out and about a bit more?’ she had asked.

  ‘I haven’t got a car, have I?’ and the familiar spasm of annoyance crossed his neat features, as if constrained by the poor hospitality he was receiving.

  Yet she had hardly minded this, feeling sympathy for his smooth face, his moody mouth, his habitually bare feet. Once he had gone out the only evidence of his presence was the heavy smell of his sleep in the bedroom, as if symbolising his discontent. This in turn reminded Mrs May of her father, and her first acquaintance with an odour other than her own. She found this remote association inhospitable, and was newly aware of how prolonged her immaturity had been. Even now she was not quite sure that it had come to an end. A normal woman, she thought, a woman who had brought up a family, would know how to deal with this young man, would not tiptoe round him, laying little offerings on his breakfast
table, would rouse him, interrogate him, send him out to do the shopping, generally jolly him along. But she was too shy, and anyway there was no shopping that she could not manage herself. She must remember to cancel the Vietnamese cleaners; once Steve had gone they could put in extra time. She suspected that he did not yet know that he was going to Paris, would be affronted to learn that he was to move on. This was Austin’s master stroke, but Mrs May wondered whether he had considered the possibility that Steve might come back, that they might all come back, having had a taste of London life at its most comfortable, instead of returning to Massachusetts, where Gerald’s erstwhile wife Clare lived with her new partner and his children, and where David did his teaching in one of the area schools and Ann relieved the mothers of his charges with herbal tinctures and reassurance. She thought she might leave that outcome to Austin. If they left, of course, as was likely—for what young person would voluntarily keep company with the old?—they would be on their own again. Even Kitty and Austin would feel bereft, object as they may. And Kitty would have fits of tears, and Molly would confide her worries on the telephone, and gradually Mrs May, with no physical complaints to speak of, would drop out, and all would-be as before in this empty month of the year, with people still away, and even the traffic in the streets becalmed.

  Above all he was no trouble because he relieved her of the obligation to take a summer holiday. This had been an annual problem since Henry’s death, had indeed been registered even earlier than that. She had a memory of herself standing forlorn at the school gates on the last day of the summer term, saying goodbye to her friends, all of whom seemed to be going off on expeditions to relatives in the country, such as she had read about in her favourite books. And later, when she was kept at home by ailing parents, the endless month of August was an affair of careful walks and daily visits to the Public Library, until it was time to go home again to read the books she had collected. Matters had eased somewhat when she was on her own and had her salary to herself. Those were the days of careful cultural visits to Paris and Florence and Vienna, but truth to tell they were little more than a repetition of her solitary walks, with the addition of overwhelming scenery and exhausting monuments.

  In the Duomo in Florence she had found herself edging closer to a group of English tourists and their guide, if only for a moment’s familiarity and relaxation. And when that moment had passed she had gone out, somewhat refreshed, into the blazing sunshine, and not long after had been accosted by a man who grew vituperative when she ignored him and followed her back to her hotel. Unsuitable encounters seemed to blossom in the most unlikely places, in austere cathedral cities, or on buses between remote sites of historical interest. Men similarly obliged to take a solitary holiday attempted further acquaintance; all proposed dinner. One, a representative for a champagne firm, grew insistent. Always, smilingly, she declined, not quite knowing her reasons for doing so. It was all quite innocent, and yet she felt disheartened by the vista of loneliness such encounters seemed to evoke. Yet it was not she who was lonely. The men, particularly the divorced father who had revealed his plight in the course of a journey by bus between Blois and Chambord, had seemed idle, shamefaced. This was not the kind of company she sought, and she intuited that they too were disappointed. She bore her own disappointment stoically; she was not, it seemed, a cowardly woman. She supposed that her expectations, though immense, were too simple, and also too hidden, to allow her to make casual friends.

  She longed for a companion, but a companion who would know her instantly, whose face would light up with recognition, who would deliver her from her isolation without a word of explanation being necessary. That was why Henry’s two warm hands, raising her to her feet after she had fallen in St James Street, had been just such a magical encounter, after which there was no need to plan or even to think, for matters had been conducted without much volition on her part, so that all she had to do was to follow the way indicated, and for the first time since infancy allow herself to be cared for.

  With Henry it had all been so different, yet Henry was in part responsible for the fact that she was now so very much on her own. With marriage she had abandoned, or perhaps relinquished, most of her friends, as if it were now her turn to say goodbye at the school gates. Even Susie Fuller, latterly Meredith, was only remembered at Christmas, and she had been a really good friend, although given to uncomfortably searching questions. ‘Good holiday?’ she would ask, on the return from Chartres, or the Loire. ‘Meet any men?’ On hearing Dorothea’s polite negative she would click her tongue in exasperation, and for the rest of the morning explode from time to time in a temperamental display that had nothing to do with her own settled expectations, as if she feared something dangerously virginal by contamination. These little outbursts saddened them both, to such an extent that she had been more than willing to listen when Susie Fuller pleaded Henry’s cause, on the basis of no more than a single meeting. But that was how other women behaved, she supposed; they took a chance, went ahead, disdained aleatory information. When, on that first evening, Susie had elicited from Henry that he was living with his twin sister, she had earmarked him triumphantly for her equally backward friend. Dorothea had listened to her urgings, knowing that they were largely unnecessary. And something in her quiet nature had flared up and made her behave like other women, women who affected mystery when questioned about their lives but who longed to have their secrets revealed.

  And so she had married, and, as she put it privately to herself, joined the ranks. And where was Susie now? A widow, like herself, living in Chippenham, whose accounts of her grandchildren were scrawled on a sentimental Christmas card every year. They met rarely, a fact for which Mrs May continued to blame herself. Those days of complicity were gone, but she felt that to bury memories constituted conduct unbecoming, now more than ever. In old age she had somehow returned to her girlhood, and longed to reassure herself with the sight of remembered faces. But those remembered faces were obscured, not only by the years that had intervened but by their owners’ fatalism, so that Mrs May was equally likely to think, Susie Fuller? That girl I used to work with? A perfect dear. I must get in touch. But of course did not.

  With Henry, for the first time in her life, she had looked forward to holidays. Because he travelled a great deal for his work—America, Israel—he was unambitious, wanted only peace and quiet and good walking conditions. Every winter they spent two weeks in Nice, as his grandparents had done: she could still see Henry, with his copy of Nice-Matin, sitting in a café waiting to be served breakfast, while she walked on a little further to buy a copy of yesterday’s Times. The companionability of those mornings appeared to her now as a dream from which she had since woken. In the spring or the autumn they might go to Ireland or Switzerland, but as time went on, and Rose’s condition became more dependent on Henry’s presence, they had not gone away at all. She had willingly made that sacrifice, and when they walked home after their Sunday visits, and sometimes walked as far as the park, she remembered her timid, resolute excursions as an adolescent, and marvelled that the wheel had come full circle, but that she was now no longer alone. Then he had died, quite quickly, in that room that was not their room, the room into which she never went. When he died, with a look of ruminative puzzlement on his face, she had gone to the mirror and seen an identical expression on her own. The rest was a long apprenticeship that had not yet reached a conclusion.

  Holidays since Henry’s death were therefore a major problem, for she was now alone again, restored to a condition which she had found problematic from the very first. Friends had urged her to go away, as friends always will, and for five consecutive years she had obeyed them, had gone to mild, expensive watering places—Vichy, Divonne—had read her book in public parks and gardens, had conscientiously dressed for dinner, and had eaten dinner alone. It was on those holidays that she had learned to cultivate sleep, which was now such a magnificent resource. It was with gratitude that she had laid down the burden of the day
in those hotel rooms, reluctantly had opened her eyes on the following morning, instinctively making plans to return home. To do so was a defeat, but it was a defeat she had lived with ever since, so that the whole of August was spent in the same manner: coffee on the terrace, lunch at the café, the long afternoon spent reading. ‘I’m quite happy,’ she would say, if anyone asked her. ‘My travelling days are over. I appreciate my home now.’ Since something in her expression forbade further questions she was usually able to get away with what was, after all, the truth. Soon she was no longer asked whether she had any plans for the summer. That was when she was most acutely aware of defeat.

  So that to be able to reply, ‘I have a young friend staying with me,’ as if it were the most natural thing in the world, was a very welcome alternative. But she had to reflect that it was no sort of summer for a young person, even if that young person were as uncommunicative as Steve. Apart from his non-existent conversation his body language made him seem unapproachable. He had gone out that morning wearing a T-shirt inscribed with the words, ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’. He tended merely to lift a shoulder in response to her increasingly anodyne remarks. As far as she knew his activities were entirely innocent. He jogged in the morning—in her mind she followed him wistfully round the park—and sometimes returned to the flat to spend a silent hour in his room. He left again before lunch, presumably to go over to the Levinsons’ where he would stay until after dinner. He was as neat and as anonymous as a midshipman, or a young recruit, treating her home as if it were just another billet. She knew no more about him after three days than she had done when he first arrived.