Altered States

by Anita Brookner

  I was able to give a reasonable impression of getting on with my work, but was interrupted by Brian, who sat down in one of the chairs reserved for clients, stretched out his long legs, and said nothing. I knew him in this mood; it meant that he had access to a number of well-meaning observations but that he judged it delicate to impart them cautiously and without undue weight. I knew what he wanted to say, but I went on writing steadily: this was as much part of the exchange as his apparently inconsequential silence. After a few minutes of this I put down my pen with a sigh and indicated that I was listening.

  ‘I thought you might have married her,’ he said finally.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘I shan’t marry again,’ I said, and knowing these words to be true I felt the onset of my old, my original anguish, as if it had been biding its time until this truth had made itself known to me. Once again the energy, the charm, disappeared from the world, and I was left alone, observing their eclipse.

  ‘You could,’ said Brian slowly. ‘You’re not disqualified. Or no more disqualified than the next man.’

  ‘I lack the talent,’ I told him. ‘Whatever it takes. I lack the conviction. I think I was meant to live alone and stay out of harm’s way.’

  ‘The harm was not yours,’ he said, and I was grateful to him for saying so little. ‘Felicity told me to ask you for dinner,’ he went on. ‘Any evening. Although I think she wants to introduce you to a friend of hers.’ He looked unhappy. ‘You don’t want that, do you?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ‘Unfortunately, as an unmarried man, you’re likely to be commandeered for everyone’s dinner parties. Are you sure you can put up with that?’

  ‘I’ll have to, if that’s the deal. But I’ll go home alone afterwards.’

  ‘Alan …’

  I got up. ‘It’s too soon, Brian. There’s still too much to think about.’

  ‘Not too unhappy?’ he said, getting to his feet.

  ‘Of course I’m unhappy. But it’s quite bearable. Even interesting. I’d like to work it out on my own, for however long that takes. How’s my god-daughter?’

  His expression brightened. ‘That toy rabbit you gave her never leaves her,’ he said. ‘I dare say she’d appreciate another visit. She seems to have taken to you.’

  ‘People do take to me on short acquaintance,’ I said. ‘Though in her case I hope she’ll condescend to put up with me for quite a long time. Now I am going to take you to lunch.’ Our confidences were at an end. ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘Fish, I think, don’t you?’

  ‘Fish it is. And do you know,’ I said with some surprise, ‘I am exceedingly hungry.’

  16

  Jenny’s smile was enraptured, seraphic, the sort of smile that only a man can evoke, although I was now the only man in her life and unlikely to bring her further joy. In my honour she had made up her face and cooked a meal, my main memory of which was a salad soused in vinegar. I thought it might be not too long before she resumed her visits to Selfridges, if she could find a companion to go with her, a condition which might no longer be taken for granted.

  ‘I knew Sarah was fond of me,’ she said. ‘It was Humphrey who came between us. He was jealous! You’ve no idea how difficult he was, Alan.’

  There followed a catalogue of Humphrey’s faults, which I did not want to hear. I thought it sad that this marriage, which had seemed a happy resolution for two lonely people, should have become the object of so much acrimony. Marriage should be a haven, I further thought, not an avowal of unseen complications. My own marriage had been unsatisfactory, yet now I strove to find in it lost harmonies, aware as I was of my neutered state.

  ‘And Mr Taylor?’ I asked, anxious to change the subject.

  ‘He promised me a very good price. He took everything, the watches, the lot. He said I should be quite well off. You’ll look after the money for me, won’t you, Alan?’

  With a sigh I promised her that I would, and suggested a weekly allowance, at which she looked shocked.

  ‘I’d rather have a lump sum,’ she said. ‘Then I can do what I like. I can go away! I can go and stay with Alice!’

  I did not think this an entirely good idea, though it was hardly my place to say so. Mother and Aubrey had a wide circle of friends, with whom they played bridge and went to the races. Insipid as I found these pastimes they seemed to provide my mother with a pleasant and agreeable life, for which I was thankful. A visit from Jenny, talkative and insistent as she now was, would be unwelcome as well as untimely. If she had visions of herself accompanying my mother on her excursions, these would hardly accord with what Aubrey had in mind. He had proved mildly autocratic in his love for my mother, would fidget if she were out of his sight for any length of time. Besides, he had had enough of Jenny at the funeral, when she had been relatively wordless; I did not think he would be better disposed now that she had recovered her previous high spirits. And confessions of marital discord would be as little to his taste as they were to mine.

  ‘You know they’re coming home for Christmas?’

  ‘Oh, I shall go before then.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the spring? The weather …’

  ‘But I can go again in the spring. It will be nice for Alice to see her old friends. It must be lonely for her, cut off like that. I know what it’s like.’

  This insensitivity, I reflected, was the voice of true innocence, the innocence of the child who sees the world exclusively from its own point of view. There was no way in which I could disabuse her of this innocence, and the assumptions it engendered, although these seemed to be disastrous, as did her happy confidence that I would look after her financial affairs. There was equally no way in which I could delegate this task to someone else. Quite simply, there was no one else. My mother and I had been reduced to players in Jenny’s drama, or psychodrama, willing to do her bidding or to fit in with her plans. I have noticed this characteristic before in those whom life has initially deprived of pleasure, either through poverty, or deprivation, or simply through lack of moral dignity. One hesitates to urge on them the same degree of cynicism that one employs on one’s own behalf. One is uncomfortably aware of their losses, in painful contrast to what one perceives as one’s own gains. Throughout this conversation over Jenny’s dinner-table there had not been one enquiry into my own or indeed my mother’s health or well-being. I found this disheartening. Jenny, in autobiographical mode, as an entertaining foreigner who had introduced a welcome note of strangeness into our reduced family circle, had been wholly welcome. As a dependent widow, her original neediness brought into new prominence, she would once more be alert to one’s own entirely natural indifference. I remembered, with a twinge of discomfort, the time when I had virtually dismissed her from my flat, and hoped that Mother, or rather Aubrey, would have the grace to spare her a second dismissal.

  ‘You know that Mother’s selling Cadogan Gate?’ I said, in a desire to change the subject, although I did not really want to discuss this, let alone with Jenny. Mother’s decision had saddened me, although it was perfectly sensible for her to move into Aubrey’s flat on the floor above. Even this they would only use as a pied-à-terre, since they spent most of the year in France. Even more uncomfortable, from my point of view, was the fact that Mother intended to settle the money from the sale on me, with Aubrey’s total and rather surprising approval. He was a wealthy man, I reasoned, and my mother’s needs had always been taken care of, but I did not see what I should do with the considerable sum of money that would accrue to me, apart from setting up a trust fund for Brian’s children, which I should have done in any case, though with slightly more modest resources.

  ‘Why not keep the money?’ I had said, in the course of one of our weekly telephone calls. ‘Buy Aubrey a race horse, or something.’

  ‘It was your home, darling. I remember you going up the road to Hill House when you were a little boy. It’s o
nly right that you should have it.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Then say nothing. It’s all decided. Aubrey sends love.’

  ‘Any other news?’ I asked hastily, unwilling to let her go.

  ‘Well, yes, I had a letter from Sybil. It seems that Marjorie is on the way out, poor soul. Sybil promised to let me know.’ She sighed. ‘That means another funeral. It’s so hard to think of death here in the sun.’ From which I inferred that there would be no visit of condolence, merely an exchange of letters. No blame would attach to this. Sybil, for all her eccentricity, had a tacit understanding of the difficult fact that age dissolves certain friendships, even the curious relationship that had brought our two families together. Both acknowledged that little now remained of that original connection apart from a memory that had softened but also grown tenuous with time. Whereas Jenny, who was now raggedly peeling a tangerine, was watching me avidly to see if my attention were in danger of wandering.

  ‘Of course Alice will be very well off,’ she said. ‘But then she always was, wasn’t she?’

  I glanced at my watch, gave an ostentatious start, and said, ‘Good heavens! I had no idea … You must excuse me, Jenny. I’ve a briefcase full of papers to be gone through before tomorrow.’

  I find that this excuse is usually accepted by women, rather less so by men. In fact I had promised to look in on a woman I had come to know, a rather charming divorcée named Cecily Barclay. We had no designs on each other, but often found it comforting to exchange news at the end of the day, or even simply to watch television. She was an agreeable woman, attractive, quietly spoken, deliberately calm. She worked as a psychotherapist, and although I had no need of her professional skills, it was comforting to know that if needed they could be easily obtained. In fact that day was a long way off: I judged it a point of good manners to keep my sadnesses to myself. Besides, I was not ill, nor was I in a state of conflict; I merely had a memory, even a long memory, and I found its contents so intriguing that I viewed with distaste any invitation to present them for examination. I preferred to view Cecily merely as a companion, even if that meant keeping her at arm’s length. I planned to take her down to the cottage at the weekend. She was an excellent walker, and we both needed exercise. My tactic was not unknown to her, but she respected it. As for her, she found it useful to have a man as escort and occasional protector. We both knew that any intensification of our relationship would be fiercely resisted.

  ‘You’ll come back, Alan? Or will you want me to come to the office?’

  ‘No, no, that won’t be necessary. I’ll be in touch. Goodnight, Jenny.’

  ‘You’ve been a good son,’ she said, in a new appraising tone. ‘Why couldn’t I have had a son? Or a daughter?’

  That this observation might be painful to me was clearly not to be taken into consideration, nor, I think, was she remotely aware that she was being disobliging. I gave her a rather stiff kiss, and left the flat with relief, my footsteps increasing in impatience as I negotiated the endless corridors, as if trapped in an ante-room to old age, and trapped under false pretences. I was too ruffled to visit Cecily, whom I would telephone in the morning: I wanted no invitation to unburden myself, which would have been natural in the circumstances. I had learned to be patient with these surges of irritation which overcame me from time to time. This was easy enough in the office, where my taciturn manner was taken for granted, infinitely less easy with those who encroached on my attention when my attention was not available. I had my own technique for dealing with this: the closed face, the glance at the watch, the affectation of busyness, and, once free, the long walk. Thus no one was harmed or hurt, or so I assured myself. In fact I myself was hurt that I had contrived to banish comfort from my life, that I could not simply ask for a measure of solicitude. But that would mean exaggerating my condition, which, less than ever now that I was older, was visible to the average indifferent observer. The truth of it was that I was not merely older: I had become set in my ways, the fierce guardian of my own peace of mind, brooking no interference. I wanted no one’s help, yet at the same time I was aware that never to ask for help frequently means to forfeit sympathy.

  Three weeks later Mother telephoned, ostensibly to tell me that Marjorie had died, but also to report on Jenny’s visit, which, I gathered, had been something of a trial. She had arrived for a long stay with a heavy suitcase containing a full trousseau of resort wear, and Mother could only offer the mildest of excuses that the spare room was not available for longer. ‘People do love to descend on one for Christmas,’ she had said, to which Jenny had sharply observed that she had been told (by me, unfortunately) that Christmas was to be spent in London. ‘Boxing Day only,’ replied my hapless Mother, though this was the truth. ‘We shall give our usual little party, at which of course we shall hope to see you.’ This news was taken rather badly. ‘Then I shall be on my own at Christmas,’ Jenny had said, to which my mother was forced to issue another invitation, this time to visit Cagnes in the spring.

  ‘Quite honestly, Alan, it was very difficult. She was always a chatterbox, but now she’s worse. And there seems to be a certain animus behind her chatter that wasn’t there before. Am I being uncharitable?’

  ‘No. I’ve noticed it.’

  ‘I thought the best thing to do was to keep her out of Aubrey’s way. That meant we had to go out all the time: shops and cafés, and more cafés, and then more shops. And she’s developed a habit of clinging on to my arm, which I’m simply not used to. Of course she’s getting old: we both are. It’s just unfortunate that I’ve grown to love my quiet life here with Aubrey. We’re very selfish, I know. I used to think that Aubrey was selfish before I knew him better. Now I see the point of a well-ordered life, and if that means a circumscribed life—and it does—I can’t see that as a failing. Old people should learn to keep to themselves.’

  ‘Actually I feel the same way.’

  ‘But you’re young, darling.’ There was a pause, in which neither of us referred to events in my life. ‘We’re so looking forward to seeing you. We’re driving dear, so there’s no need to meet us, although Aubrey appreciated the offer. You’ll write to Sybil, won’t you?’

  In fact my letter to Sybil crossed with one from her, which was surprisingly brave and sensible. She had been with Marjorie when she died, which she said was a great comfort to them both. ‘But now I am alone, and you of all people, Alan, will know what that means.’ I was touched by that, though by this time I was no more alone than most people. What she meant was that we were both bereaved, but was too dignified to say so. She reverted to her usual style in the following paragraph: Marjorie had been given a humanist funeral but Sybil intended to get in touch with her on the other side, through the agency of a medium with whom they had both been friendly. ‘Of course this is forbidden in the Bible, as you know, but I am not of a superstitious turn of mind. My sister and I were very close, closer than I have ever been to my daughter, from whom I have not even had the courtesy of a letter.’

  Neither had I, and her memory was beginning to fade. If I imagined her (but this was difficult) I imagined her resentful at my act of appropriation. Perhaps it was Sybil’s letter that brought to mind the fact of Sarah’s wilfulness, although I had always found her frighteningly self-possessed. Her present silence, now more than several weeks old, signified that she had nothing more to say to me, and although I knew her address from the will, an address which Humphrey had jealously kept to himself, I did not write. What could I say? I could hardly tell her that her inheritance looked more dingy every time I saw it, that the dead bulbs in the chandelier had not been replaced, that Jenny tended to live in her bedroom, perhaps in memory of the way she had lived in the Hôtel de Départ, and that this bedroom now emitted a musty odour which permeated the rest of the flat. I did not tell her this: I could imagine her shrug of contempt, which was very nearly mine. If I visited Jenny it was to prevent her from coming to the office, yet these visits were an ordeal
. She had got it into her head that my mother was unhappy with Aubrey, that Aubrey was a monster who had destroyed the friendship she had always had with my mother, and that she owed it to my mother to compensate her for this unfortunate relationship by visiting her as often as possible. Fortunately she was also absent-minded, and was not clever enough to check my excuses, some of them not even excuses, that my mother and Aubrey had friends to stay, or were planning a cruise to the Greek Islands with yet other friends. She would grow sharp-featured on hearing of these alternative attractions to which my mother had succumbed, but then her face would relax into melancholy, as if yet another door were closed to her.

  As time went on Jenny began to complain of indigence. As far as I could judge this was not justified, although she had spent freely on new clothes, for which no one could blame her. She had been under the initial impression that her money was inexhaustible, as if it were Danaë’s golden shower. That had now come to an end, and she affected extreme poverty, creeping about the flat with her shawl round her shoulders. Her face would brighten when I told her that her funds, supplemented as a matter of course by my own, were sufficient to enable her to live comfortably, and she would respond by planning another trip to my mother. This had now become something of a problem, but one which my mother, out of the goodness of her heart, did not see fit to avoid. Twice a year Jenny would arrive in Cagnes, and spend most of the week or the fortnight unpacking and packing her clothes, only too ready to take offence at Aubrey’s restrained welcome. Since these visits taxed my mother inordinately, to say nothing of Aubrey, I took my own holidays not at Cagnes but at Vif, to whose slumbrous peace I returned with something like affection. The place had been good to me, and Monsieur Pach offered me the sort of unsurprised welcome which I found acceptable. These visits soon became habitual, so that my presence there was taken for granted. I did a certain amount of business for clients in Hong Kong, so that visits to the Far East also became habitual. All in all my time was well occupied. I knew a calm in Vif which I did not know anywhere else except at the cottage, and if this calm verged on melancholy, I accepted that as well. As my mother had observed, all those years ago, I had never been afraid of my own company.