Visitors

by Anita Brookner

  This approach did not satisfy Mrs May; nor, to be fair, was it offered to her with any conviction, as if her lack of flesh made her an unsuitable patient. In addition she was wary of his physical aspect, which was corpulent and suffused, bathed in a cologne which did not quite cover his hoary breath. She thought of him as an eighteenth century abbé, not the nimble darting aphoristic type, but slack, watchful, corrupt, a kind of informer at court, soon to be swept away with the rest of the ancien règime. He had married well. His wife, a French-woman of good family, was hesitant, bewildered by his lack of sexuality, his devotion to a small circle of old friends, his professional slackness. When forced into attendance at Kitty’s, Hélène Goldmark was regularly and routinely overwhelmed, as if Kitty were still trying to demonstrate prior claims. Hélène, watching her husband succumb to Kitty’s attentions, was too well bred to show contempt. Nevertheless she allowed herself to feel irony for these two flirtatious but mysteriously tragic creatures, so alike in temperament as to seem too closely related. More time was spent with her family in France: the house in Apt, to which the young people had been invited, was technically hers. Monty went there infrequently. Hélène’s relations, some of whom were medical men, made him feel uneasy, whereas his own rare patients never did. If she consulted him, Mrs May knew what the diagnosis would be: ‘Doing too much’, or even, ‘Doing too much, as usual’, and the treatment another prescription. And the pills were too strong, of that there was no doubt, and not really suitable. The solution—and it was timely—was a second opinion, and although this might in itself have unforeseen consequences, it might at the same time be preferable to a further encounter with a man whom, she now realised, she had never really liked.

  Indeed the atmosphere at Kitty’s, too fervent, too disappointed, encouraged the likes of Monty Goldmark (who may even have been genuinely saddened over his lack of intellectual honesty) while discouraging his wife. But Hélène Goldmark had a family of her own to reinforce her; if she fell ill she would make straight for home. It was probably her lack of confidence in him as a doctor which made Monty so resigned and cynical. He did no harm; on the other hand he plainly expected to see no progress. Henry’s account of his courtship had been entirely partisan. ‘Madly in love,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Couldn’t see that she was unsuitable. Quite cold, really And he’s such an affectionate chap. Well, you can see for yourself’. But in Hélène Goldmark Mrs May had simply seen a very conventional woman, never entirely taken in by her suitor’s emotionalism and entirely disillusioned by his short-lived ardour. What was extraordinary, even at this distance, was the strength of Kitty’s trade union, or rather her court, in any event a conjunction of the like-minded. One of the conventions governing those who remained loyal was a willingness to shake heads over the fate of those who did not.

  Those extravagant and disheartened people no longer answered a need, however faint that need had become. Indeed the need was theirs, as were all needs, for love, for comfort, for support, for reassurance. It was in the face of such neediness that others took flight; it was of extreme distaste to the young, who could not altogether be blamed for their refusal to enter into the loving symbiosis that was required of them. Gerald had been the first victim, had been seen as a lifelong partner in commiseration, until he had shown the courage to make the break. The flaw was that the courage had not taken him very far, had not led him into a productive adult way of life. His vague expression at the wedding betokened a refusal to engage with anyone, even a fear of being reabsorbed, as if his mother were a gigantic sea anemone waiting to envelop him. What courage it must have taken to resist her hand on his arm! By the same token the bride and bridegroom had remained suspicious to the end, had escaped intact but not perhaps unaffected … Ann had thought to extract a favour, or favours, unaware that the favour was in fact a bargain, an exchange. She had been visibly irritated by her grandmother’s demands, yet had not known how to deal with them. For Kitty’s needs were stronger than Ann’s refusal to meet them, and she was not sufficiently skilled to turn them aside. Who was?

  Mrs May found that she did not miss the young people, not even Steve. With her new old woman’s perceptions she saw them as crude, affectless. She was willing to concede that they felt affronted by their enforced contact with Kitty, with Molly, with herself, but at the same time she saw little evidence of wit or charm. Charm alone would have done, she thought, but they had not mastered the art. Worse, they were unaware that it was recommended. They were of course entirely correct in seeing the necessity of escape: it was just regrettable that their escape was so precipitate, so heartfelt. They were barbarians, but that did not make them unfit objects of desire. And now, as in the aftermath of any unsatisfactory love affair, their would-be patrons felt fatigue, disaffection; even something of the distaste of which they had been the original recipients. What love survived, as it would do in the hearts of Kitty and Molly, would be tinged not just with disappointment but with reluctance. The original wounds had been reopened. Childlessness was once again their portion.

  Mrs May tore herself away from contemplation of this state of affairs and tried to concentrate on her own discoveries, the details of which were fast fading from her memory. Certain constants remained: the sun as opposed to the sunlessness of the dream, harsh vivacity as opposed to well-mannered acquiescence, shamelessness as opposed to supine adherence to a group. She had left it too late: these options should have been taken up much earlier. What was not in doubt was the strength of her refusal to continue in the old ways. The sight of the terrace, with its table and chair, no longer charmed her, nor was she tempted to step out into the garden. The fact that she felt cold might indeed have something to do with the temperature rather than her psychic state; she thought of switching on the heating, and stopped herself as her hand reached put to the radiator. To make herself more comfortable would be to settle down. There would be time enough for that. When I am back, she thought, although until that moment she had not been aware that she was moving away. Matters seemed to be taking shape without her direct intervention. Her behaviour seemed to her imprecise but powerfully influenced, as if her dream life were still in control. This was presumably why worshippers made reference to guardian angels. The dream had revealed the mundane origin of such apparitions, just as it had demystified the world to come, which she now saw as a ragbag of sense impressions and reminiscences. Art came into it somewhere, perhaps merely the memory of a postcard once received. She was glad of this. A life without transcendence seemed to her infinitely preferable to an infinity of promises.

  The weather in the street confirmed her impression that it was colder, or did she merely imagine that the mild sun had a frosty aura? She had come out without any determined action in mind, but turned, as if by instinct, to a house which bore on its railings a brass plate proclaiming, ‘Dr Peter Noble. General Practitioner’. She had visited the house three years ago with a damaged wrist, had been obliged to, since it was on the icy pavement opposite that she had slipped and twisted her arm. The accident made little impression and was soon forgotten: a kind young man had applied a tubular bandage and given her some painkillers. But it was a different young man emerging from the door who immediately said, ‘I’m afraid the surgery’s closed. I’m just going out. I’d advise you to come back at three.’ He hesitated, expecting her to retreat with an apology, as all patients were now supposed to do. Or were they all consumers now?

  ‘This won’t take a minute,’ she said calmly. ‘I only want a repeat prescription. And I can’t come back. I’m going away.’

  It was, surprisingly, he who retreated. In the surgery, in which she noticed a multitude of leaflets with advice on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and a notice which read, ‘Don’t blame the receptionist!’, she handed over her empty bottle and said, ‘I think I need some more of these.’

  ‘What do you take them for?’

  ‘My heart.’

  He shifted his long legs irritably. ‘These are sedatives.
Rather strong ones. Have you a history of heart disease?’

  ‘It beats rather irregularly at times. And I’m not aware of any history.’

  ‘I’d better examine you, though this is rather inconvenient.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it is, but since I am here I should be obliged …’

  As she bared her chest to the cold of the room—for since he had been going out he seemed disinclined to switch on the fire—she looked him over gravely, assessing him as yet another specimen of that unknown race, the young. It was he who seemed embarrassed, by her seventy-year-old frame and its inevitable fall from grace. He was so evidently healthy himself that it was probable that all illness struck him as unusual: he was no doubt more at home with sports injuries, or with the stress of which one heard so much.

  ‘I am not particularly stressed,’ she observed, though he had not asked her.

  ‘Then you are the first person today who isn’t,’ he said. ‘I note a slight arrhythmia. I’ll have to have an ECG, of course. Call back later; my nurse will make an appointment.’

  I’m going away, you see. If you could just give me a mild palliative, until I get back …’

  ‘When might that be?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  He looked at her narrowly. ‘I can give you something to put under your tongue if you have an episode. I take it there have been one or two?’

  ‘Just a little breathlessness. That would be most kind. And perhaps a mild sedative?’

  ‘It doesn’t do to get into the habit of such things.’

  ‘At my age there can’t be much harm.’

  He was already writing the prescription, his stomach rumbling. She thought that had she come earlier he might have proved more recalcitrant.

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ she thought to ask.

  He looked up, but not directly at her. ‘No more than anything else,’ he said. And then revised his remark. ‘No more dangerous than crossing the road.’

  It was what they said to people of her age. She understood that they were both glad that this particular consultation was so briefly concluded.

  ‘Of course this is irregular,’ he said, straightening up. ‘I should want the results of tests …’

  ‘I do understand. But as I am going away … And you must be very busy. I won’t delay you any further.’

  ‘I like to get in a game of squash,’ he explained. ‘Even medicine is stressful these days. And you say you don’t suffer from it. Extraordinary.’

  He accompanied her to the door. ‘Come and see me after your holiday,’ he said. ‘Where are you off to? Spain? Majorca?’

  ‘South Africa,’ she said at a venture.

  ‘Oh, right. Well, take care, Mrs … Mrs May?’

  ‘Dorothea May, yes. And thank you so much, doctor.’ For it hardly mattered what his name was, ‘doctor’ being a generic mode of address. The whole exchange had taken fifteen minutes.

  The doctors of her youth had been grave, attentive, sympathetic, certainly less informed than the present generation. For all his faults Monty had been of that number, so resolutely on the side of the patient that he was almost a patient himself. Whereas this young man, even now loping rapidly down the road, would hand her over to the hospital. She had no intention of allowing this. She would take her chance, accept whatever was in store for her. And if she weakened, and found herself in need of just that missing sympathy, she might put through a call to Monty after all. As he had proved in Henry’s case, he knew how to take care of a death. And naturally he would inform the others. That too had to be taken into account.

  By the end of the afternoon she was surprised how much had happened, none of it willed. And now began the difficult part, the hours to be filled. She took up her book, but Maigret, Lucas, and Lapointe had lost their power to divert her. And she felt idle, sitting in her peaceful room while others worked, though no doubt hard-pressed workers would envy her her leisure. Had she been more active, less reclusive, she would have gone out into the streets to lose herself in some sort of company, have made the pretext of buying an evening paper an opportunity to chat to the newsagent, but she rejected such stratagems, seeing them for what they were. It had been decreed that she was to be solitary, and somehow she had always known this. Once she had left her parents’ house all friendships had seemed provisional; even marriage had not changed that. Yet now, when she was most truly alone, she felt the need to reach out to such friends of her youth who were still alive. She sat down at her desk, and wrote, ‘Dear Susie, I thought I would not wait until Christmas to give you my news. I may be going away for a while. I have no particular destination in mind, but I think it is time to’—Here she broke off; time to do what? ‘… time to see more of the world before it is too late. I will let you know where I end up. If you ever think of joining me do let me know. It would be great fun. And you were always such good company. Do you remember how you virtually ran that office? And how you encouraged Henry? I have a lot to thank you for. Do let me know if you would like a break, and if so where we might meet. I feel quite nostalgic these days about the past, when we were young. With best wishes and love to you, as always, Dorothea.’

  She did not write, ‘Dear Susie, I have a heart condition which may kill me.’ Such news was not for long-lost friends, or were they merely acquaintances? At this distance it was difficult to tell. She sealed her envelope and stamped it; now she had a reason for going out. She walked swiftly in the direction opposite to the one she had taken that morning, in case she encountered the doctor and prompted second thoughts. There was no hesitation in her steps, none of the awkwardness she had noticed on that previous awful Sunday, but the motor now was fear, fear of the decisions to be taken. These seemed ineluctable, though there was no-one to reproach her should she stay quietly and secretly at home. Indeed that was where most people expected to find her, should they come looking. But if, as was likely, no-one should come looking, how could she bear to sit in her flat, undiscovered, for ever?

  A child ran towards her, cheeks aflame. To be able to run like that again! ‘Bobby, Bobby,’ called his mother. ‘Wait for me. Don’t cross the road.’ He looked back, laughing, and then ran on again. The mother smiled her excuses and hastened her step. But Mrs May silently willed the child forward, as if his unbroken stride, his flaring colour, were a portent, and when the dull sky briefly brightened she thought how fitting it was that speed and light should be celebrated, and the long evening kept at bay.

  ‘Kitty? It’s Thea. How are you?’

  ‘Thea.’ The tone was distant.

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, I hope?’

  ‘No, no. There’s nothing much to disturb us now that everything’s over.’

  ‘I hope you’ve managed to rest a bit. Will you go away now?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Thea, I don’t feel much like going away.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

  ‘I’m not easy in my mind. I’m worried about Austin.’

  ‘Is he unwell?’

  ‘He thinks I don’t notice, but I know him. I heard him get up in the night. In the morning he said he was fine, but I’m not so sure. He’s pining. And so am I, to be honest. I miss the children. The flat seems so quiet. She looked lovely, didn’t she?’

  ‘She looked very good, yes. It was a great success.’

  ‘Yes, I think it was. It’s just that it’s all left us rather down, you know?’

  Here the voice broke, as it was bound to do. Kitty’s tears, never far from the surface, did not despise the use of the telephone to relay their message.

  ‘Is it Austin you’re worried about?’

  ‘Well, of course. But I don’t want him to see I’m upset. Let’s talk about something else. How are you? I expect you’re quite pleased to have the flat to yourself again?’

  ‘I’ve hardly had time to notice. I should have thought I’d be relieved, but now I find it rather empty.’

  To her surprise, as she said these words she knew them
to be true. Steve, whom she had hardly liked, and whom she liked even less in retrospect, had obliged her to live in the present and to combat her tendency to introspection. It was true that he had agitated her, that every day she had to convince herself that there was no harm in him, that she had lain awake for the sound of his key in the door, but in fact the agitation had had a tonic effect. Even her dreams had benefited, revealing to her past anomalies, delivering true verdicts, restoring to her lost names and faces. Even the warnings of ill health had been without foundation, or so she cared to think; the knowledge that there was a doctor at the end of the street gave her new confidence. Not that she would ever call him, she told herself; she would manage on her own. Or hoped she would.

  And then there were the plans to turn herself into a quite different person, a cranky old woman with bare legs and a formidable tongue, living in a stone house somewhere in the south. Surely Steve was in some part responsible for this upheaval in her thinking? At the same time she knew that she could not bear for him to come back, that there was a danger in leaving the flat empty for any length of time. Resourceful as he was, he would soon find a way of getting in. And once in he would be excessively difficult to dislodge. All this passed rapidly through her mind as she listened to Kitty composing herself. At least she imagined the deployment of the snowy handkerchief, having witnessed this scene many times. The heartache, she reflected, was genuine. Or maybe it was a form of homesickness. This was not entirely paradoxical. Although exile was distant by two generations, the family had always seemed in need of a security that was not quite within its grasp. Even Henry had felt this. She saw suddenly that her value to Henry was as a safe haven, not simply from the bruising effects of his divorce, but from uneasiness, from a lack of weight, from the menace of underlying tears. Kitty’s tears had merely served to emphasise this occasional piercing bewilderment, as if to ask, ‘Where am I?’ And all relationships, which were intended to serve as ballast, revealed their essential fragility at unexpected moments, so that Kitty, and Henry, and even Austin, chose to stay close to home, cocooned in stifling physical comfort, ingesting frequent meals, loving anxiously, easily disappointed, fearing abandonment or dispossession.