Altered States

by Anita Brookner

‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘She made a dead set, if you catch my drift. I had nothing to do with it. Not too tactful, with Felicity standing there.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Probably. Anyway I want to assure you that I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘You are drunk.’

  ‘What a stunner, though,’ he said regretfully, as Felicity closed in and led him away to be punished.

  My mother and I were eventually left alone with the crumb-strewn plates and the dirty glasses. My mother wore the defeated look that even the most successful parties can bestow when they finally come to an end. With the departure of the guests a sadness seemed to have settled on the room. The hired waitresses and the barman moved about swiftly, anxious now to be gone, all amiability in abeyance. A cheque was handed over. The door at last shut behind them.

  ‘Have a rest,’ I said, patting my now fragile-seeming mother on the shoulder.

  ‘I’m all right, dear. Yes, I will have a rest, though I’m not tired. What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll walk back to the flat and read the papers. But I’ll tell you what, Mother. I’ll walk back again and take you out to dinner tonight. That way you won’t have to do a thing.’

  Her face brightened. ‘Are you sure, dear? That would be lovely. Just the two of us? You’re sure you don’t want to bring a friend?’

  My mother, it was clear, thought along conservative lines. ‘A friend’ meant a girl-friend, a connection she thought none of her business. But I had no girl-friend at the time, and besides, was not particularly interested in the sort of girl who would have been delighted to spend a quiet evening with my mother. If I wanted anything from a woman it was not docility, though that was what I eventually settled for. I knew myself to be fairly dull, fairly unremarkable, but I wanted my interlude of licence, irresponsibility. Simone and I had been too alike, too close in age and outlook, for our affair to have been anything but sunny, and slightly banal. A certain lightness of touch had been in order: we had never quarrelled, and we had parted without rancour on either side. In retrospect it seemed depthless. I did not exactly want to suffer; I simply wanted to have experienced something significant before I became middle-aged. At the back of my mind, of course, was the image of Sarah’s red hair, her scornful laugh, her small pursed mouth.

  ‘There’s no one,’ I told my mother. ‘Besides, I want to hear all your news.’

  She laughed. ‘You’ll think me quite silly, I know.’

  I kissed her, and promised to come back at seven.

  ‘How you’ve grown,’ she marvelled, and looked at me fondly as I shrugged into my coat. It seemed to take me a long time to get out of the building and into the street.

  Although it was only about two-thirty, London appeared to have settled into a pre-twilight calm. Sloane Street was deserted as I headed towards the park, my usual route back to Wigmore Street when I left my mother’s flat. I had drunk just enough to make me depressed, and I viewed the oddly silent city without indulgence. I saw myself surrounded by old people, my mother, Humphrey, Jenny, and at the same time realised that I would outlive them all. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that there is too short an interval for enjoyment in our lives, and that even mistakes are preferable to a prudent calculation of advantages, a return on our initial investment, such as Brian was about to make. I could have told him that he was acting out of character, but I guessed that he already knew that.

  There is no combination so disastrous as that of a suspectible man and a dysfunctional woman, or of course of such a woman and just such a man. Walking back through the misty park I already knew that Sarah was vain, unreliable, and feckless. In this I was correct. What I did not know—and this was something I never entirely managed to fathom—was the extent of her insouciance, her literal inability to take any matter seriously. I knew that if I fell in love with her I should be embarking on a long and hopeless odyssey of missed appointments, of telephone calls that were never returned, of explanations for absence that were infinitely more mystifying than the truth would have been, of sheer infuriating disappointment. But at the beginning of an affair one does not count the cost. Already I knew that there would be an affair, and that it would not lead to possession. This did not deter me: I had confidence in the strength of my own desires. If I felt anything in the nature of a warning I was brave enough to ignore it, stupid enough to castigate myself for just those dull virtues that turn men imperceptibly into good husbands. If I were to fail with Sarah it could only be because I was not good enough for her.

  My calculations displeased me. I should use this dinner with my mother to find out more about Sarah. A certain amount of bad faith was inevitable until Sarah and I were established on an equal footing. I also needed telephone numbers. I needed to know about Berthe Rigaud and Angela Milsom, in case they should be required for further information. I was a lawyer, after all, or so I flattered myself; I needed case notes. The man I was to become could have told the man I was then that these preparations are not truly necessary. If they are to become necessary then an obsession is almost certainly lying in wait. I was foolish enough to think that I was strong enough, and cheerful enough by nature, to avoid unhappiness. I was not yet old enough to see that I was in error.

  The flat seemed silent and abandoned, although I had left it only that morning. I picked up the papers and settled down to read, my mind agreeably stimulated by the prospect of a new love affair. In retrospect I can say that I never felt more of a man than I did at that moment, on that silent afternoon, before I was put to the test, before my life began and ended.

  4

  I took Mother to the Berkeley and we had a surprisingly convivial evening. I had not realised how enormously pleased she had been by my invitation. When I saw her in her black dress and the cameo ear-rings my father had given her I resolved to put my intrusive questions out of my mind and to concentrate on her comfort and enjoyment. Her cheeks were a delicate shade of pink; although she normally had a small appetite she finished her sole and drank a glass of wine. A man at a table for one, perhaps a guest in the hotel, glanced at her appreciatively. She did not notice, though I did. Even at my young age I liked women to be cherished. I liked to think of them as needing a modicum of protection, encouragement. I liked them to be modest, grateful for flattery, expert at soliciting kindness. Brought up by such a mother I had not quite learned the crude manners of the age, although I was aware of them. ‘Patronage!’ had snapped the prettiest of our secretaries when I had complimented her on her long shining hair—and this on my first day in the office. She had relented, and even smiled apologetically, and the matter was allowed to drop. I thought that a confident male and a reasonable woman could work things out to their mutual advantage. Even today I do not see why this should not be possible.

  ‘I understand you have a new friend,’ I said to my mother.

  ‘A dear,’ she replied. ‘She has made Humphrey very happy.’

  ‘And they met in Paris? That seems out of character for Humphrey.’

  ‘Apparently she rescued him. He had lost his way and couldn’t remember how to get back to his hotel, so he went into this café, the Deux Magots, I think …’

  ‘Everybody knows it. Even Humphrey must have known it.’

  ‘ … and Jenny was sitting at the next table. He took a chance and asked her if she knew the Hotel Lutetia.’

  ‘She must have thought it was a proposition.’

  ‘Hardly. It would have been quite clear that Humphrey was not the sort of man to invite a woman to a hotel.’

  I could see poor Humphrey, marooned in the brilliant city, aghast at its ferocious conviviality, and missing his clocks and his dusky flat. I could see him, out of sheer desperation, plucking up his courage to ask for directions from this inoffensive-seeming woman at the next table. He would have been emboldened by her smile, as timid as his own, and when she had offered to show him the way, would have eagerly paid for both their coffees and escort
ed her out into the street.

  ‘But that’s what he did,’ said my mother. ‘He invited her to dinner at the Lutetia, and to lunch the following day. And he told her that if she were ever in London to be sure to let him know.’

  ‘Which she did.’

  ‘Oh, very correctly, dear. She wrote to the address he had given her and mentioned that she would be spending a weekend in London, visiting friends.’

  ‘A good touch.’

  ‘And they met, and he took her to tea at the Ritz, and when she said she’d like to see where he lived he showed her the flat, which I think is quite dreadful. But he’s fond of it, and she said she loved it.’

  ‘Also a good touch.’

  ‘But you see, dear, and this is the beauty of the thing, she does love it. You should see how she looks after it, dusting and polishing all the morning. She even cleans behind the radiators.’ My mother looked amazed, as if such a manoeuvre had never occurred to her. ‘All quite understandable, because, you see, she’d been living in a small hotel.’

  ‘Ah! Now I understand. Where you and I would see only beige carpet and brown velvet curtains she saw central heating and constant hot water.’

  ‘Exactly! And it is all quite innocent. She’s not an adventuress, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think they still exist, Mother.’

  ‘I think they may be called something else now.’

  ‘But what do we know of her before the advent of Humphrey? If she was living in a hotel she must have been fairly poor.’

  ‘Very poor, I understand. She told me about this quite naturally, without self-pity. Apparently she was an orphan, brought up by an uncle and aunt, who resented her.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘In Warsaw. She was a pretty girl, and talented, whereas her cousins were stupid and spiteful. She could play the piano, and she was good at languages, but the uncle tried to get her a job as a machinist in a clothing factory. So when a friend suggested running away and trying their luck in Paris she didn’t hesitate.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘A young man. Janek. I don’t blame her. I’d have done the same thing myself.’

  ‘So that’s where the poverty came from. And living in a hotel. What did they do?’

  ‘They were enterprising. They got jobs in one of the big cafés. He played the piano and she was a waitress. Then he got tired of it and said he wanted to see the Riviera, so they both went to Nice for a bit and did the same thing there. Then they parted company and she returned to Paris.’

  ‘And were there other friends along the way?’

  ‘Perhaps. Again I don’t blame her. And she doesn’t blame herself. I admire her for that. She makes no apologies for her past, but she doesn’t turn it into a fairy story either. And latterly she was completely respectable. She got a job as an assistant at the Librairie Polonaise, in the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and that’s where she met Humphrey, you see; she was treating herself to a coffee after work at the Deux Magots, and there he was. That’s how they met.’

  ‘Why are her feet so ugly?’

  ‘Oh, that is sad. When she was first in Paris she was very impressed by the glamour of the women, and she saved up for ages for something new to wear. She wanted high-heeled shoes, and one evening Janek presented her with a pair. Only they were too small. She wore them anyway, so as not to hurt him, with the result that her poor feet were pushed out of shape. She may even have broken a couple of bones, with the result that you see. But now at least she can rest: she doesn’t have to be on her feet all the time.’

  ‘And you really enjoy these afternoons out?’

  ‘I do, although I can see that you don’t quite believe me. She’s a very good companion; she’s cheerful and affectionate and undemanding. A very loving person. I can see it’s a novelty for her to have a bit of money to spend. She adores going round the shops, particularly Selfridges, and you know, Alan, it quite amuses me. I rather like being frivolous with her. It’s quite a salutary lesson for me to see her appreciating the good things in life. I’m afraid I’ve taken them too much for granted.’

  ‘And you have afternoon tea.’

  ‘She always insists on treating me, though I’d rather be at home by that time. She enjoys being waited on, you see.’

  What I could see was Jenny’s face shining with pleasure as she contemplated a plate of hotel cakes. I assumed she was greedy, but this may not have been the case. As my mother said, she may simply have enjoyed being waited on, a legitimate pleasure after those early years of waiting on others.

  ‘And are they happy? After all, Humphrey’s a respectable sort of bloke, very little experience of women …’

  ‘They are very happy—you saw that for yourself. She’s grateful to him, she respects him, in fact she idolizes him, and why not? He rescued her from the Librairie Polonaise and the Hôtel du Départ …’

  ‘I’ve passed it. Yes, he rescued her from that all right, though it’s a perfectly reasonable place.’ I forbore to tell my mother that I had once gone there with a girl, between trains. Only an accident of our respective histories had prevented Jenny and myself from coinciding there.

  ‘ … and she says he’s given her a family.’

  ‘What, Sybil and Marjorie? I can’t see those two striking up a friendship.’

  ‘Well, no, not Sybil and Marjorie, though they’ve behaved better than might have been expected. No, she means Sarah.’

  Carefully I balanced the last of my cheese on a corner of biscuit. ‘What about Sarah?’ I said.

  ‘She loves the girl. She told me that Sarah was the daughter she never had. And the worst of it is that Sarah can’t stand her. Humphrey is quite a wealthy man, you know, and Sarah is his favourite niece, his only niece, in fact. Before his marriage Sarah stood to inherit a decent sum of money. Not that she’s a poor girl; she has her own father’s share from the sale of the business. Humphrey has been more than fair. And I’m sure he’s made provision for her, even now.’

  ‘Is it just the money?’

  ‘No.’ My mother sighed. ‘She’s an odd girl, irresponsible, quite spiteful sometimes. Of course Sybil was always odd. But Sarah seems unconcerned about hurting others. She was rude to Jenny when they first met, and she never returns her telephone calls. And poor Jenny telephones her all the time. She asked for your number, by the way.’

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘No, Sarah.’

  ‘You gave it to her?’

  ‘I gave her the office number. I hope that was all right?’

  I swallowed my disappointment. ‘Of course. She may want my advice. She said she was thinking of selling the house.’

  ‘The house is not hers to sell. But perhaps she’s discussed this with Sybil. Although I’m sure Sybil would have consulted me—you know how she is.’

  ‘As far as you know she’s still in Parsons Green?’

  I could not bring myself to ask my mother further questions. If there were to be anything between Sarah and myself it would be better if my mother knew nothing about it. Again, this stealth should have been a warning to me.

  ‘As far as I know, though I believe she spends a lot of time with that friend of hers in Paris. Berthe. You met her.’

  ‘She doesn’t work, then, Sarah?’

  ‘She sometimes cooks for private dinner parties. She’s quite a good cook, I understand. But no, I don’t think she has a regular job. Not like you, dear, not now. How are you enjoying it?’

  We discussed the office, as I knew she wanted to, until, with a happy sigh, she said, ‘This has been a lovely evening. Thank you so much, Alan. You’re a good son. I’ve always wanted to tell you that, and now I have. I must be tipsy.’ She laughed, she who had never been tipsy in her life.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ I said.

  ‘Are you going to walk back?’

  ‘Yes, I rather like the park at night. It’s only just after ten-thirty, not late.’

  ‘Be careful dear.’ If her look was particularly searching
I was unaware of it, for I had already turned away.

  In those days I would walk across the park quite late, sometimes just before it shut, at midnight. On this particular evening I strode out as if I were being pursued, although it was a fine evening, clearer than the day had been, all those hours ago, before my decision had been revealed to me. I am ashamed to say that I allowed myself this romantic thought, though I am hardly romantic by nature, being of a philosophical and, I like to think, stoical disposition. I had persuaded myself that the time for levity was past: in this I was right. Having acquired something of a hereditary position I thought it incumbent on me to behave in a fairly grave manner. Yet on this particular evening I could hardly wait to get home to make that crucial telephone call, the one needed to set things in train. Everything depended on it. Once the connection was made I could take care of the rest.

  In the flat I threw my coat onto a chair and looked up Bertram Miller in the directory. When I dialled my fingers were actually shaking. ‘The number you require is no longer available,’ sang a voice. ‘The number you require is no longer …’ I dialled Directory Enquiries. ‘Bertram Miller,’ I said firmly. ‘Fifty-eight Bredwardine Road.’ There was silence. I was about to replace the receiver and try again when another voice said, ‘That number is now ex-Directory.’

  ‘I’m an old friend,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ve just got back from abroad.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to give out ex-Directory numbers. Do you require another service?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  I went to bed, but not to sleep. By the morning I had that somewhat haggard brightness that is the legacy of a sleepless night. In the office I told the girls that if a Miss Miller telephoned she was to be put straight through. After all, she had my number, I reasoned: she must have wanted it for a purpose. Then, unable to work, I told the girls that I was going out for half an hour, that I would ring back anyone who left a number, but that I had to have a number. They must have thought I was behaving oddly: they always took messages correctly, and never failed to note down contact numbers. I walked back to Wigmore Street and to a coffee bar where I sometimes had breakfast. I remembered that I had eaten nothing that morning. After tea and toast I suddenly felt tired, as if I might pass out. I roused myself and ran back to the office. There were no messages.