Visitors

by Anita Brookner

  Now that she had been a widow for so long, the years of her marriage appeared to her as years of normality, but normality as defined by other people. Alone, as she was now, she considered herself to be vaguely at fault, and was confirmed in this view by the attitude of other women, of whom perhaps Susie Fuller was the first. Yet they had been good friends, and Susie had been at her wedding, one lunch hour, in a register office, the awful news to be revealed to his family at a more propitious venue. So many people had had a proprietory interest in Henry that it was difficult for her at that stage to think of herself as his wife. She had felt more like an aspiring candidate for the position, even when she was sitting with him on the terrace of some luxury hotel and he was asking the waiter to bring champagne. Secretly she would have preferred coffee; the thought had made her slightly homesick. Marriage had meant learning new tastes and habits, and she had applied herself to the task. It was strange no longer to have to deal with Henry’s volatility, his restlessness. The absence from her life of those qualities meant that her condition was once again like that of an unawakened girl, waiting to be breathed into life by the advent of a stranger, someone by definition remote from her own life and all that she had ever known.

  For a moment she contemplated ringing Susie Fuller in Chippenham. Susie had been kind to her after Henry’s death, had unhesitatingly put her dogs into kennels and made herself available. Fortunately her stepdaughter lived in London, so that Mrs May had not felt too badly about telling her when she was overcome by tiredness or by that curious dizziness—the first signs, perhaps, of her current malaise—and Susie had been quick to take the hint. Susie Fuller: once Harkness, later Meredith, and now in widowhood restored to her original status as Susie Fuller, just as Mrs May was again and for ever-more Dorothea Jackson. They had had some good times together when they were young, in the office that Susie was in such a hurry to leave. Being assured of an early marriage, to one or other of her boyfriends, she had taken chances, had eaten forbidden snacks at her desk, had no hesitation in trying on the new clothes she bought in her lunch hour. Mrs May remembered a powder-blue sweater being hastily pulled down, a doughnut hastily swept into the drawer containing office supplies, as the door opened behind her and one of the partners came in to request her services, rather urgently, having had no success on the internal telephone, which Susie had assured him was out of order.

  She had been a pert strawberry blonde, after the fashion of that time, but when Mrs May had last seen her it was her face that was deeply coloured, and the blonde hair had been too vigorously renewed. Her figure had thickened, but she seemed not to notice her fall from her original prettiness. She lived contentedly, exercising her dogs, not minding too much that she was on her own, since she was still convinced of her own desirability. ‘I may take the plunge again,’ she had said to Mrs May, stretching her arms luxuriously. They had talked about the past until they had exhausted it. What was it, after all, but an office friendship? Yet had it not been for Susie she would never have married, certainly not have married Henry, who was her opposite in every way. It was simply that she and Susie had been divided by temperament, by custom, and by expectation. Susie was rarely out of the company of men, still had many friends of the opposite sex. Mrs May did not doubt that she had retained her girlhood habits and outlook. Two husbands had left her comfortably off, so that she met men on her own terms, which she saw as advantageous. One would eventually, even now, be tempted.

  If she rang Susie it would be to hear how her current affair was progressing, for all the world as if they were still young women in the office, with Susie yawning away the afternoon, until the approach of five-thirty sent her into a frenzy of efficiency, so that her work would always be completed, accurate, and delivered to one or another of the partners’ desks with an air of triumph. Don’t think you can get the better of me, this efficiency seemed to say. With a little extra effort I can prove that I am owed another week’s holiday, and you will not dare to contradict me. And during that extra week the office seemed quite dull, and work proceeded lifelessly. ‘Just leave that for Susie,’ Mr Grindley or Mr Parsons would say. ‘When is she due back?’

  Those were the halcyon days of office work, before secretaries were known as personal assistants, with computer skills and an awareness of unfair restrictions, before hurt feelings led to industrial tribunals, before a compliment was perceived as sexual harassment, days when girls were free, outside of office hours, to enjoy their money and their liberty. Mrs May remembered her own liberty as a time of considerable anxiety, for she had just bought her flat with the proceeds of the sale of her parents’ house, and was timidly appalled at her audacity in doing so. Her thoughts were never far from the amount of money she seemed to be spending; even now she wondered nervously about money, though she had no reason to do so. What she remembered mostly was the joy of those Saturday afternoons in various antique markets. She had had good if austere taste, and today the flat was just as she had once envisaged it, in those far off days when she had found the round dining table and the ladder-back chairs and the Victorian mirror, which the dealer had told her was Louis-Philippe, though she knew that he was wrong. Nothing had spoiled her pleasure in the flat until now. Now she found it empty, dim, though the Vietnamese kept it in pristine order. When Susie Fuller had given her an Indian rug as a wedding present she had thanked her and put it away in a cupboard, where it remained. Remembering it now, she thought it might do for Steve’s room, by his bed. It might as well stay there, for the two or three days until his departure. For now she did not want him to come back.

  How could she, a more or less dignified old lady, have thought that she would be fit company for a young man? The wish had been father to the thought, the wish to be driven to the park, to see the occasional yellow leaf fall silently through the windless air. What, after all, would they have talked about? She could hardly espouse his interests, nor would he have cared about hers. She would have lent a complaisant ear; she would have played her part. Only he had not played his, or rather had forgotten that he had a part to play. In all honesty she could not blame him. Only the rain had stopped, and an enticingly fresh smell was making its way through her windows. She shivered. Better to forget, as he had, to retreat into her earlier silence, to treat him as the stranger he still was. Yet even as a stranger he satisfied her hunger for something young. Something young is best, she thought; even armoured Kitty feels that. Although Kitty was not comfortable with her granddaughter, she felt impelled to cherish her, to buy her unsuitable clothes, to argue with her, to be hurt by her, to attempt—fruitlessly—to awaken some love, some response, some return. To get it right for once, and for perhaps the first and last time.

  For had it not gone wrong, disastrously wrong? Had the cherished son aroused the same spirit of contention in Kitty, so that her demands and reproaches had put paid to any love he might once have had for her? He had fled, sacrificing the father with whom he may have had more in common. And Kitty, all wide-eyed bewilderment and bitter tears, seeing nothing amiss in her voluptuous hunger for affection, and having no-one appropriate to blame, had lived with a nebulous moral discomfort, a sense of wrong having been done, ever since. There was an innocence in this attitude, the sort of innocence best forsworn. With this Mrs May could sympathise: to surrender any sort of innocence is to abandon part of oneself. She had seen Kitty in this most familiar of situations, her proud stare challenging anyone to say that she was wrong, yet at the back of her eyes, and in her unguarded mouth, lurked the knowledge that something was wrong, very wrong, and yet somehow no-one would tell her what it was.

  And in the meantime, in limbo, there were those standards to be kept up, the famous white-gold hair to be burnished, the dressmaker to be visited, the Spanish girl to be supervised. And standards had been kept up, remarkably so. It was just that when Mrs May had caught sight of her that day, walking slowly, arm in arm with her sister, outside Selfridges, the truth had come to light: she was lonely. Few friends came to that
house, and when they came they were overwhelmed. In the absence of friends, family had to be relied upon, and that meant Molly and Harold. Molly, with the same blessed or cursed innocence, pitied her sister, respected her for her nervous disposition, but had learned from experience never to refer to the absent Gerald. To do so was to court hauteur. Hence Mrs May’s invaluable but invisible function, for she could be quite openly pitied, without fear of reprisal. She did not grudge Molly or even Kitty the pity they felt for her: was she not more schooled in stoicism than either? For she was not innocent, though she once had been. But in those distant days of her real innocence she would have been of no use to Kitty, who would not even have noticed her. The very real gulf between them had been bridged by her own acquiescence, her own complicity: she had a function, which was to make Kitty feel better about herself, about her standards, though these were never satisfactorily defined. She was a subject of idle conversation, and her duty was to stay symbolically apart, so that any differences of character were to be laid at her door, and her patient attention ascribed to native dullness. ‘I can’t think what she does with herself all day,’ Kitty might say to Molly, having never made the slightest attempt to find out.

  Susie Fuller retreated into the past: her task now was to ring Kitty. She glanced at her watch: just after eleven. She dialled the familiar number, wondering which formula to adopt. Too much sympathy would be out of order, an affection of exhaustion unconvincing. Yet she felt some sympathy, and she was exhausted. At the same time she knew that neither excuse would do. She had been discourteous, or if not discourteous, remiss, and this would have been noted, would have roused unfavourable comment, as well it might. With a sigh she prepared to play both cards. The fact that they were authentic would not, she knew, help her in the least.

  ‘Austin? Good morning. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’

  ‘Oh, Thea.’

  His voice was flat, toneless. This was a bad sign. He was normally a civilised if absent-minded man to whom she had in the past enjoyed talking. His own enthusiasms were hedged with a saving scepticism; quite possibly he had obtained an accurate reading of his wife’s temperament at their first meeting. But Kitty had been beautiful …

  ‘I’ve been terribly remiss, Austin,’ she went on, leaping into the breach. ‘I spent so much time reminding Steve to ring Kitty to thank her for that wonderful meal that I must have forgotten to thank her myself. What must she think of me?’

  ‘Not like you, Thea.’

  She was a little surprised. ‘To tell the truth, Austin, I find having Steve in the flat terribly distracting. He’s quite pleasant, of course, but I find the young very disconcerting. They seem to have no commitments. Yet he’s not here today, and the flat feels quite empty. I believe Ann and David are out too? You must be quite relieved …’

  She trailed off. This was tricky. Austin might not know of the plan to locate Gerald. Alternatively, Austin might know and not wish Mrs May to know. That was the more likely explanation. Although she had been present at the original altercation, the ranks would now have closed. In time, win or lose, they would have their explanations ready, but at this painful juncture they must be left alone to entertain both their hopes and their deepest fears.

  ‘I hope Kitty will understand …’

  ‘I don’t want her upset.’

  Greatly daring, and enjoying a brief flush of annoyance, she said, ‘I’m sure there’s no need.’

  She heard a sigh. ‘No, you’re quite right. All our nerves are on edge. Kitty’s had a terrible headache. The girl upsets her, Thea.’

  ‘I did think her rather contentious, I must say.’

  ‘And the saddest thing of all is that Kitty was all prepared to love her, which says a lot for Kitty, you must admit. After all, we thought her mother was gravely at fault, abandoning Gerald, just when he needed support.’

  ‘Yes, I do understand.’

  ‘And underneath it all she does love her, although Ann drives her mad. Everything about her: her untidiness, to look no further than that. You should see her room.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine.’

  ‘It’s just that when she’s not here, like now, Kitty feels forlorn. She misses her.’

  ‘And you?’

  Again the long sigh. ‘Oh, I’m a lost cause. I don’t care much for the girl and I wish she’d just get married and go away. I’ve said as much to Kitty, but that upset her too.’

  ‘What will you do today, Austin? You both need a break. You should take advantage of the fact that you’re on your own again.’

  ‘Today? Molly has asked us to lunch. Might as well get out of the flat for a bit. Might take a turn on the Heath later.’

  ‘You’ll give Kitty my message? My thanks and apologies?’

  ‘She’s in the bath. Do you want her to ring you?’

  ‘Oh, no. Besides, I’m going out. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.’

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ he said, but his heart was not in it.

  They had both lacked the energy for their exchange, and perhaps their fundamental politeness towards each other had in some way been undermined. This was disheartening. And Kitty was annoyed with her; at least she had avoided talking to her. And why had she said that she was going out? Some inconvenient moral sense meant that she would now have to go out in order to prove that she had not told a lie. She would be reduced to taking a walk in the damp air. Not that Kitty would ring back; Kitty was offended. Then she remembered that Kitty had other things on her mind and had probably forgotten her altogether. At least there was food in the house. She would go out and buy the Sunday Times, although she had not yet so much as glanced through the Telegraph. All would be put back in order. Yet, like Austin, she gave a sigh at the prospect.

  ‘Late today,’ said the newsagent.

  ‘Yes, I overslept. Strange how it puts one out. I thought I’d get some air.’

  He was not interested. ‘Clearing up nicely,’ he observed, and turned to another customer.

  She walked through streets fragrant after rain, the deserted streets of a near-suburban Sunday. There was a certain fragile charm in her surroundings, but also a certain pathos. They were empty of incident, but also of human activity, signs of life. She seemed to have been appointed guardian of this emptiness, a role to which Sundays had accustomed her, and which on the whole she bore uncomplainingly. But it was not an heroic role. Was there not an individual in classical plays who was given the unenviable task of spouting the sort of common sense to which nobody listened? He was usually the hero’s friend, even his best friend; she had always thought Horatio a much better person than Hamlet, whom she disliked intensely. Most women did, she believed. All those complaints … And inconsolable, despite everybody’s best efforts, and credited throughout with the noblest of intentions. Prestigious, of course, though he had not been altogether courteous to his father. Utterly tiresome if encountered in real life, but in tragedy all is forgiven. Look at Lear. Aware, belatedly, that she may have been talking to herself, she greeted a neighbour with brilliant cheeriness.

  ‘Just reminding myself to buy some milk,’ she explained. ‘Quite pleasant now, isn’t it? Keeping well? Yes, fine, thank you. Couldn’t be better.’

  And yet the day, as it wound its slow way towards evening, proved to be quite acceptable, neither better nor worse than any other Sunday, and peaceful, as Sundays were supposed to be. Very soon her disappointment was forgotten, and she was even rather glad that the excursion had not taken place. Walking back from the shops she had noticed a new tentativeness in her steps, which she attributed to tiredness, not wishing to attribute it to anything else. Physical decline was not to be contemplated, although it would come, whether she thought of it or not. Back in the flat she felt quite herself again. Nevertheless she looked forward to the time when she could go to bed, as she did more and more these days. They said that the old needed less sleep; what they did not say was that the desire for sleep was incremental.

  In bed at last (and it had aft
er all been a long day), it occurred to her that at some time in the future it might be pleasant to renounce her habit of rigorous early rising, to lie back on the pillows and while away a good part of the morning. At the end of this particular road, she knew, lay the ultimate refusal to get up at all, which was why temptation must be fought at all cost. Yet she was always early for everything, a tiresome habit which irritated those who felt more comfortable with lateness. The amount of time she had at her disposal made it difficult for her to be late for anything, even for her own breakfast. And she suspected that even if she were to waste time she would still find a way to be entirely punctual, to the intense annoyance of those who had never mastered the art. For it was an art, less to do with courtesy than with modesty. Only grander personalities could afford to assume that others would wait.

  And in the morning she felt uncertain, no longer obedient to her normal promptings. It had been a bad night, that she recognised. After a day which, though idle, had been filled with disconcerting reflections, she had gone to bed early and had slept almost at once, only to wake intermittently from a sequence of dreams which had flowed past her as if they had been projected on a cinema screen. In one of them Susie Fuller, wearing a rather cumbersome tweed suit, had been glimpsed in the doorway of their former office, and when hailed, in an access of fervent friendship which was uncharacteristic of either of them, had said, ‘I’m just off to South America. Why don’t you go away, Dorothea?’

  In the dream Mrs May had experienced confusion: did Susie mean to dismiss her, or was she merely recommending her to take a holiday? Surely the latter, for in another dream, or possibly the same one, there was Henry, in his soft brown hat. ‘I’m going to Kitty’s,’ he said. ‘She’s been through hard times. It’s a pity you can’t come with me. I expect it’s the difference in our backgrounds.’ She had awoken with a sense of horror on hearing those words again, although she knew that she had been dreaming. But she also knew that she had been badly affected by Henry’s original remark, even if she had deliberately misinterpreted it. Somehow, with the shadow of the dream upon her, she wondered whether this was in fact the case, whether they had both tacitly agreed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what had in fact been revealing. She had felt foolish at the time, disarmed, unable to defend herself. How did one defend one’s birthright? She had never known, had never had to know. She said nothing, careful even then not to offend Henry by pointing out his tactlessness. In the dream she was convinced that he had committed a fault, that he was in fact guilty of extreme indelicacy. Alarm had woken her; only the return to consciousness persuaded her once again that it no longer mattered.