Providence

by Anita Brookner

  It was, they agreed, an incredible summer. It was also a particularly poignant evening, and after they had eaten their scrambled eggs, Kitty suggested a walk by the river. But Caroline declined, and seemed to want to talk about people whom Kitty did not know, people who had been in Caroline’s ‘set’, as she called it, when her fortunes had been at their highest. Kitty listened politely, her mind absent. I shall see him the day after tomorrow, she thought. And then after that I can telephone him about Saturday, to see if there’s anything he wants me to do. It seems absurd to feel so shy of him, but I am only like this when we are apart. Paris seems such a long time ago. If only we could go back there, this summer. In the car, this time. I should like him to show me France. There is nothing I can show him; he cannot be expected to be interested in what I know. I wish Caroline would go. I am longing to get this stuff off my face.

  Caroline, becoming more discontented by the minute, left eventually on a rather mournful trailing note, and within seconds the sound of the late, news bulletin was seeping through the wall. Minutes later she knocked at Kitty’s door. ‘I forgot to wish you luck,’ she said. ‘But you’ll be all right. I’ll look in and see how you’re getting on.’ In which case, thought Kitty, there is every reason for my being out for most of tomorrow. If she tries to do my face again, I may go mad. I shall simply have to sit in the garden. Oh, I am fed up with sitting in gardens by myself. I want it to be different now. I don’t want to be alone any more.

  She tidied the kitchen, then went into her bedroom, which still showed signs of Caroline’s efforts. She smoothed the counterpane, and put the bottles that Caroline had forgotten to take away with her on one side. On an impulse she slipped on the dress again and tried to look at herself dispassionately in the glass. She saw a graceful figure but one that did not seem quite right; it was too formal, perhaps, too self-conscious. It was what Louise would have described as well-groomed, with all that that implies of deliberate presentation. Then she realized what had worried her ever since she had got the dress home and examined herself in her own flat, in her own room. I look as I looked at Jean-Claude’s wedding.

  He had married a noisy little dark girl called Christiane and Louise had sent Kitty over to represent the family. There had been a very pretty ceremony in the bride’s village church and in the afternoon there had been a gigantic meal that had lasted until five o’clock. A rather grandly placed cousin had lent her house and they had all sat down at a long table on the lawn and had drunk champagne with every one of the numerous courses. She was amused and a little wistful, particularly when Jean-Claude, whom she thought had forgotten her, raised his glass to her, the visitor from England, and of course she had had to respond. You next, they chorused, the old greedy aunts, the small philosophical uncles, you next. When you put away those books it will be your turn. Soon, soon. And she had smiled and shaken her head, and they had poured out more champagne.

  And when they had finished the enormous meal and when the light was beginning to fade, and a little wind had sprung up, flapping the corners of the damask tablecloth, they had gone into the house and had started to dance, the heavy aunts and shrivelled uncles, Christiane in her white dress, noisier and more vivid than ever, and eventually Jean-Claude had asked her to dance and had held her almost as he had once held her, his breath warm on her hair. But she was a little shy of him now, for he seemed such a reformed character, so smart, so promising, that it was difficult to remember the hotel room with the slice of ham curling up in the greasy paper and the rickety table by the window. For now he was a professional man and a married man; he had a career ahead of him and he was about to take up his abode in a maison de caractère which his wife’s parents had bought for them in the suburbs. She hardly knew what to say to him and was silent. But when the dance ended, he had kissed her lightly and said, ‘You should always wear that colour. Yellow is your colour. And ask me to your wedding soon. I hope you will be as happy as I am today.’

  As the evening grew dim, and the aunts and the uncles lingered in chairs around the edges of the room sipping coffee and asking about Louise, Kitty had tried to tell them that she and Vadim were quite well and still devoted, but she knew with a pang how much they had missed coming and how they dared not look forward to another wedding like this – dared not because it no longer seemed possible. The aunts and the uncles had nodded, not needing her words, for they had assessed the situation and the neat graceful girl so different from themselves. They had packed up boxes of petits fours for her to take home, and had given her a bottle of champagne and told her to tell them to drink the bride’s health, and they would drink hers. And the evening had ended a little sadly, with great fatigue, and it had turned chill, but as she left in somebody’s car, she had heard the sound of the accordion still playing in the empty lighted room.

  This memory now came back to her with vivid force and she wondered how she could have mislaid it. Louise and Vadim had nodded over her account of the wedding and had brooded over the photographs that had been sent: many taken of the bride and groom, one of Christiane in her white dress, looking back commandingly over her shoulder, and one of the whole family standing, with glasses upraised, behind the long table with the damask tablecloth. Ah, they breathed. And they had nibbled the petits fours and said, no, they would keep the champagne. For another occasion, they said. And they had all wondered, separately, and silently, when that would be.

  But since Kitty had met Maurice she had formed her own idea of what a wedding should be like, and realized that the charming afternoon in France with the heavy aunts and the neat uncles would not be repeated. And uneasy thoughts of suitability had come into her mind; she could not get rid of them. They were the people who remembered her mother (although there had been no means of getting them to that wedding) and one or two of them had shed a tear even after this long time as they thought of her sad death. And Kitty had felt softened and yet ashamed as she watched the tears slipping down the red faces, past the blurred mouths, and watched the thick, ringed fingers smearing the robust make-up with dignified handkerchiefs. Her own wedding she had never dared to think of, unless … unless she could reproduce that occasion more perfectly, could persuade the same grand cousin to donate the same grand house, to place another long table on the same summer lawn, and so to delight her bridegroom with the strangeness and charm of the occasion that all barriers would be forgotten and national inhibitions would be overcome. But it now seemed to her that she herself had become a different person from the girl she had been on that occasion, that she had been concentrating too long on something that was no longer appropriate to that former time, that she was now less innocent, more strained, more ardent, and that the aunts and the uncles, were they to see her this evening, were they to know how she had passed her Sunday, sitting in a dark little cottage in the middle of England, would have shaken their heads in dismay, would have pursed their lips, would have written to Louise demanding an explanation. It is not her fault, thought Kitty, standing still in her bedroom. It is not her fault at all. It is mine.

  For she had embraced what she thought of as her father’s tradition, although she had never known him and had no real idea of what he stood for. She had made the young soldier in the faded photograph her image of England just as she had made Maurice her ideal of England. And that image and that ideal had none of the solidity of the red faces and the accordion and artful Christiane with her white veil and her carefully arranged train and the soulful face looking over her shoulder as the village photographer had instructed. And she had schooled herself not to remember Jean-Claude’s breath on her hair and his wish for her to be as happy as he was on that day, and had substituted for it an admiration for carelessness, a more powerful because understated charm, and a file of lecture notes which she had had too much time to amass. And as she put the dress away she thought, but I decided all this the day I met him and I cannot go back now, for there is nothing to go back to. I will wait and hope. Beauty for ashes. I must wait and hope. Fo
r everyone turns into something else, and I can do it too.

  In her cool bed, in the silent night, she was calm and very tired. She thought of her strange weekend and of the even stranger week that lay ahead. There is no power on earth, she thought, that can keep me from what I love. And it is really quite appropriate and even rather amusing that I have to give this lecture, so that I am launched into the life that I shall have to live, and shall learn to live, with Professor Redmile and Pauline and all the others instead of the uncles and the aunts. And there will be no music, no champagne, no dancing, but the world instead, and books, and cathedrals, and I shall learn and shall send them postcards. To show that I have not forgotten them. But I have already left them behind. Their way is not my way. My way is not their way.

  And as she drifted into sleep she envisaged a life of very great fullness and happiness, teaching, learning, taking notes, taking note; she saw herself calm, and pleasant, and controlled, and suitable. The landscape of Gloucestershire opened out to her once more, and she saw that Pauline and Mrs Bentley inhabited it perfectly. And she remembered the day she had had tea in the garden of The Manor and saw that it would be perfectly possible to live her life in this mode, if she were to be given the chance. And as her breathing became steadier and she turned on her side to sleep, she felt quite safe in her resolve and her ambition, and the week to come appeared quite possible, and she thought with love and pity of Jean-Claude dancing with his bride and his toast to her in the champagne that had become warm in the sun and his breath on her hair, and at last she slept.

  But later that night she burned in fires.

  FOURTEEN

  The night had been so extremely disturbing that when she struggled out of the brief sleep that had finally overtaken her and sat up in bed preparing to face a day in which nothing awaited her but yet another revision of her manuscript, Kitty felt suddenly vanquished and in need of help.

  The sun was already high and hot and the weather forecast, which she could hear on Caroline’s radio, confirmed that it would be another exceptional day; drivers were warned to take care on overheated and melting tarmac. Kitty Maule tried and failed to finish her cup of coffee, ate an apple instead, took a long cool bath and put on an old cotton frock. It was then that she remembered the clairvoyant.

  She stood still, arrested, in the middle of the room, her hands clenched in the pockets of her skirt, wondering if she should say anything to Caroline. But then she knew that she must be very silent about this, and, unconsciously, as she turned towards the door, she willed herself to be noiseless and hardly released her breath until she was out of the building.

  Despising herself, yet impelled through the streets, she wondered if the woman would be able to see her and was unable to face the possibility that she might not, that she might even be away. But she found the cat still on the windowsill of the small house with the bottle green door and when she rang the bell it was answered immediately by Madame Eva, dressed in a flowered overall, looking mildly through her glasses, with a duster in her hand.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ she said. ‘Were you wanting a reading?’

  Kitty nodded, incapable of speech.

  The woman hesitated. ‘I was just going out to do me shopping. In this heat you don’t feel like doing it later in the day.’ She looked at Kitty more sharply. ‘Lots of tension round you, isn’t there?’ She shoved the duster into the pocket of her overall, then beckoned Kitty to come in. ‘I’ll just make meself a coffee,’ she said. ‘Go in, dear. You know the way.’

  Kitty sank with relief into the soft dirty cushions of the sagging armchair and gazed at the motes of dust she had dislodged as they swirled in the morning sun. Now that she was here she felt no inclination to move for the rest of the day. Her fatigue and her dismay were suddenly in abeyance, although her heart was beating rather strongly, and her hands, she noticed, were trembling. The cat, which had padded in silently behind her took up its place on a small table by the window and yawned from time to time. Madame Eva, treading heavily, came in with a cup of coffee and sat down in a creaking basket chair opposite Kitty. For a moment or two they said nothing, although between sips which she heard rather than saw Kitty was aware that the woman was appraising her.

  ‘You’re looking ever so well,’ she said finally. ‘Been in the country? You’re a striking girl,’ she added, wiping her mouth with a folded pale green tissue. ‘Unusual. Mind you don’t undervalue yourself, now.’

  Kitty smiled at her with gratitude. I shall get the truth again, she thought. I got it last time. Although I cannot now remember the details.

  With her usual sigh, the woman reached into the bag by the side of her chair and produced the crystal ball, which she polished with a large silk handkerchief. She seemed less impassive, more uncomfortable in the heat than she had the last time. Kitty remembered what a strain she had said the work was causing her, and glanced instinctively at the pyramid of hair, which was immaculate. Madame Eva shifted in her chair, then bent forward and cupped her hands round Kitty’s and was silent once again.

  ‘You have been thinking about weddings lately,’ she said.

  Kitty started, looked up, then looked down again as she felt the hands pressing hers more firmly.

  ‘Oh, yes, you’ve been thinking about weddings. Somewhere in the country?’

  Kitty nodded, but said nothing. The woman sighed again and moved about in her chair.

  ‘I see a room with a lot of people. You’re there in front of them. I don’t know what this means.’

  ‘I do,’ murmured Kitty, her eyes half closed now in some kind of drowsy anticipation of what she knew she was going to hear.

  ‘Success,’ said the woman suddenly and focused her eyes sharply on Kitty. ‘Terrific success. No need to worry.’ She removed one hand and wiped her mouth again with the green tissue which she replaced in the pocket of her overall.

  ‘And after?’ ventured Kitty in a timid voice.

  The woman sighed again. ‘You’ve got a lot of admirers,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re quite surrounded.’

  This meant nothing to Kitty, who determined to ignore it.

  The woman shifted again, clearly uncomfortable in the heat. ‘Did you know you were going to become rather important?’ she said. ‘There are people around you. You won’t be alone. You’ve been alone rather a lot, haven’t you?’

  Kitty nodded.

  ‘That’s over,’ the medium said. ‘That’s over now. You won’t be isolated in the same way again. You’ll be very secure, very established.’ She bent further over the cupped hands. ‘Very respectable,’ she added.

  Kitty’s heart beat more strongly and she looked with gratitude at Madame Eva. She saw that the woman was in some distress from the heat, that moisture had formed on her upper lip, that her heavy body was uneasy in its casing of flowered nylon. Yet the hands that enclosed hers were dry and strong and she was amazed at the firmness of the control they exercised over her, willing her to remain sunk in the dirty armchair, although, quite suddenly, she was ready to leave. She would go back to the flat and make herself a decent breakfast, and clear up properly, and take advantage of the sun and read something sensible. She began to feel ashamed of the impulse that had brought her to this room.

  She felt her hands turned over and, glancing down, saw the woman examining the palms.

  ‘You’re a little bit psychic yourself,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Well, I sometimes get odd feelings that I don’t understand. But then everybody does, surely?’

  ‘Yes, to a certain extent.’ She hesitated and then let Kitty’s hands drop. ‘Was there anything you wanted to ask me, dear?’

  ‘You said you saw a wedding,’ Kitty said diffidently. ‘Will it take place soon?’

  The pale green tissue was plied once again. ‘Oh yes,’ said the medium. ‘Definitely a wedding.’ She seemed abstracted, sighed again, and plucked another coloured tissue from the box at her side. ‘Good luck, dear. All the best. Same terms as bef
ore. Your friend all right, is she?’

  ‘I think she gets a bit lonely,’ said Kitty, handing over the money.

  ‘I daresay she does. Won’t be long now, though. Well, dear, all the best.’

  She saw her to the door; the cat bounded out past her and disappeared down the street. They looked after it, admiring its agility in this great heat. At mid morning it was advisable to seek the shade; instinctively Kitty and Madame Eva put up a hand to their eyes.

  ‘Too hot for me,’ sighed the woman. ‘I don’t feel much like going out, to tell you the truth. I’ll make do with what I’ve got.’

  ‘What was it you wanted?’ asked Kitty. ‘I could get it for you. I rather like this weather.’

  Madame Eva looked at her and smiled. ‘I only want a loaf,’ she said. ‘And a couple of tins of sardines. One for me, one for him. And a few tomatoes. I’ve got all the rest. Are you sure? It would save me going out. Take my purse then, love. No hurry. I’ll be in all day.’

  Kitty took some money from the purse and put it in her own. She turned into the melting street, hesitated, then went into a café and ordered a substantial breakfast. This she ate with great pleasure, and, feeling invigorated by the food and the heat, left a large tip and determined to do some serious shopping when she got Madame Eva’s supplies. She was no longer very much aware of the time for she was going over in her mind the concepts of respectability, success, and a wedding that had been handed out to her, and a general sense of euphoria seemed to have overtaken her, making her feel at one with the summer sunshine and the odd leisure of this interim day.

  She did the shopping and made her way back to the medium’s house, but when she rang the bell there was no answer. She rang it again, puzzled, for the woman had said she was not going out. She stepped back into the street and scanned the upstairs windows. There was no sound. Then the door of the neighbouring house opened a little and a large calm blonde head appeared, and shortly after it a stocky body dressed in trousers and a bright blue cotton blouse. ‘Were you wanting Mrs Cartwright?’ asked the neighbour.