Strangers

by Anita Brookner

  ‘Where would you like him to drop you?’

  ‘Oh, your place. I’ve left my bag there.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Suddenly he felt overwhelmingly tired. He wanted only to be at home, alone, surrounded by familiar associations. He wanted her, simply, to be gone. The corridor of his flat seemed longer than usual. He went ahead of her, switching on lights.

  ‘You’ve got everything?’ he asked. ‘Your scarf?’

  ‘Thank you for the tea,’ she said. ‘You must let me do the same some time. Or do you want to…?’ She indicated the bed. ‘I could stay if you like.’

  ‘My dear girl. Vicky. I am seventy-two, almost seventy-three. And you are what? Twenty years my junior. You deserve better, much better. But thank you for the compliment.’

  At the time of saying this he felt little more than surprise. Gratification came later, when he was alone again. It meant little, he knew: this was current behaviour, at least he believed it was. He hoped he had not been ungracious. The truth was that such an offer precluded desire, at least for the moment. But, as he had found in the past, his refusal might lead to future antagonism. So easy an offer did not merit so principled a refusal. As the evening wore on, his feeling of gratification receded, giving way to familiar anxieties. How were they to meet again? Had he put them both at a disadvantage? Lying in bed, waiting for sleep, he wondered if she would now dismiss him from her thoughts, relegate him to the realm of insignificant encounters. He found himself uncomfortably aware that he might have offended her. He had, in the past, wanted to be kind, and, as ever, had supplied the wrong sort of kindness.

  10

  He had wanted to spare her the sight of an ageing body, foreseeing all too clearly the distaste that she would not quite be able to disguise. There was a great deal of discussion in the media on care of the elderly, but only the elderly could – but would not – reveal their own distress at what was happening to them. It was a matter of pride not to acknowledge the damage they were forced to undergo and to witness for themselves. He was briefly glad that he had no children whose lives might be overshadowed, even ruined, by attendance on him. Nor had he mistaken Mrs Gardner for some sort of daughter: she was too unlike him for that. She was, he had to admit, self-centred, incurious, whereas he sought information, some sort of connection, in every chance encounter. If the results of his approach had been disappointing he assumed that the approach was at fault, that he had been too effusive, had given offence in some way that he could not correct. But beyond this fault lay the greater fault of his decline, or what he supposed was his decline, his surrender of hope. Whereas she had probably thought of her offer as merely friendly, a way of thanking him for a well-meant if tedious afternoon, he knew, with the insight that age and experience had bestowed, that her true feeling would be one of pity, and that that pity would cancel her debt. So far he had been able to treat her as a simple acquaintance, met in odd circumstances far from home. It was true that she was showing signs of wanting from him something she no doubt wanted from everyone: help, the sort of help that does not content itself with advice. She wanted an audience, and he, as ever, had been willing to provide one. But he knew that his own need must be disguised, for to reveal it in all its sadness would be to lose any value he might still possess.

  What he wanted from her was not so very different: not an audience – never that – but some sort of acknowledgement that he too had a life and a history, even if that was of no interest to her. He would have liked to be gently questioned, without in any way being judged. He would have liked to convey to her (or to anyone) the substance of those curious reminiscences that kept him company at night, while at the same time knowing that people of her age dealt in facts, not impressions, and tended to dismiss memories as undistinguished as his own. To one who had travelled as widely and impulsively as she had, a life lived purely in the mind, as he seemed to have lived his own, would seem not only without interest but bizarre, unnatural. And it was not his place to tell her how this situation had come about. His mind would then appear as unattractive as his body. He supposed that he should credit her with some feeling for having made her suggestion, yet her gesture towards the bed had had a utilitarian element, like that of a waiter indicating a vacant table. He had been touched, but also displeased, as if this commerce had no place in his life, which was, he supposed, that of a disappointed romantic. Strange how a simple gesture could convey so many associations. That would have been one of the things he would have liked to discuss. But there was no hope of that now.

  A short interval would be necessary before they could meet again without embarrassment. When some ten days had passed without a telephone call from her he assumed that she was angry, or, more likely, totally indifferent. He would have called her had he taken her number, or that of the absent friend, but this too he had failed to do. He supposed that he must now leave matters to chance, or to her own initiative, but found himself more than usually attentive to the surrounding streets, as if she might be seen at any moment. He remembered that at some point she had mentioned going to New York and consulting a lawyer friend there, and although he had dismissed this as idle talk he now began to wonder if she had taken off, as she seemed prone to do, without prior warning.

  He could not help feeling that her absence, or at least her silence, was in some way attributable to himself, that he had failed to respond to what she had decided was an appropriate gesture. It had not occurred to her that his need was for company, or at the very least for conversation. He remembered with some amusement, and some affection, how she had consumed, with an abstract expression, so much of the food on offer, looking straight ahead, as if quite divorced from the process of digestion. And he was left with other questions, other unexplained characteristics: her indifference to her family, if it still existed. But did it still exist? This was one of the matters he would have liked to investigate. Only the knowledge that questions asked of strangers, as he had so many times sought and failed to do, were somehow out of bounds. This was not how matters were dealt with in fiction. There he had thrilled to the sort of full disclosure that the characters claimed as of right. Or perhaps the author did. But life, as he had discovered, was not like a novel. Or perhaps he had mistaken fiction for truth, or, more likely, mistaken truth for a more thrilling, more authentic form of fiction.

  Never had the streets appeared duller, more uniform. There was a sheen of rain on the pavements, and in the damp air a promise of more rain to come. He wondered, not for the first time, how to use the day. He went through his usual procedure: the newsagent, the supermarket, the post office, all the while keeping a lookout for a familiar figure, with or without the bag of possessions that seemed to accompany her everywhere. When at last he thought he saw her he had immediately to correct his impression, for it was someone else, a much younger woman, seen only from the back. He wondered at this, blamed the bad light, yet even now was anxious to explore the nature of what he perceived as unfinished business. He had slept badly, but without those reminiscent explorations that usually preceded sleep, so that he was in some way doubly bereft of company. This was something of a relief, the one a consequence of the other, so that he was in some mysterious way indebted to her.

  And yet he did not much like her. This was the bedrock of what he thought of as fascination, the fascination of a character encountered in a book. He regretted the questions he had not asked, but had respected her preoccupations as belonging to a quasi-fictional ‘Vicky Gardner’, who in the fullness of time would be explained to him. This, he was forced to conclude, was the extent of his attraction to her. Nothing could be less sensual, less sexual. He was interested only in the unfolding of the story, for he had no doubt that it was a story worth pursuing. That she would look askance at any such interest was clear to him. It was perhaps fortunate that he had remained so discreet.

  When he did at last see her, quite by accident, it was across the street, near the tube station. She was not alone, was with a woman f
riend – at least he assumed she was with a friend for she was talking animatedly. He raised his arm, much as he had raised it that first time, outside Florian’s, and after a moment, looking startled, she raised her own in return. He felt reprieved; now at last they might resume their acquaintance. He saw her return to her conversation with her friend, who seemed to be listening attentively, and stood for a moment looking at their retreating backs before going on his way, grateful that he had betrayed no undue attention. Just that raised arm, that gesture, so obstinately involuntary: the gesture that encapsulated their curious relationship, and which proved, and remained, symbolic.

  The paucity of his contacts meant that information could come from no other source. But that in a way was satisfactory: the story must unfold naturally if they were to remain author and character. If he had any gift it was for private cerebration: why else did he strive to make sense of the persistence of totally unimportant memories? Because he had so few calls on his time or indeed his attention, he supposed. He was without illusions on this score, and the knowledge had in some way protected him against embarrassment, indiscretion. He was aware that he aroused little interest, and that when he asked relative strangers how they were, really wanting to know, their replies were tinged with forbearance, as if he were applying the wrong sort of code. At least he had not made that mistake, he reflected. She had been all too willing to tell him of her dilemma, so much so that he had little to do in order to elicit information. And he did appreciate the drama of her situation, albeit vaguely. It was what she was not disclosing that interested him more.

  He was not entirely surprised when she telephoned that same evening, as if he had merely served to jog her memory.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ she said.

  ‘How nice to hear from you. Would you like to come over for a drink?’

  ‘No time. I just thought I’d let people know that I’m off to the States.’

  ‘Oh, yes? For a visit?’

  ‘I may stay longer. I’ve got friends there who can put me up.’

  ‘I hope you’ll look in before you go…’

  ‘Well, I may have to. I’ll be homeless as of next week. I wondered if I might ask a favour?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could I leave a couple of things at your place? I can’t take it all with me: I’m travelling light. Nothing too bulky, just a small bag. Only the friend I was staying with is a bit of a control freak, and I don’t want any hassle.’

  ‘By all means.’ This, it occurred to him, was the usual pattern of her arrangements. ‘How do you want to…?’

  ‘I’ll ring you some time before I leave. Then, perhaps, I could come over.’

  ‘How long do you plan to be away?’

  ‘No idea. It depends how things go.’

  ‘You’ll leave me an address, or at least a telephone number in case I need to get in touch with you? In case I go away.’

  He had spoken on the spur of the moment. He had no idea why he had said what he had said. Yet the moment he had spoken a great longing opened up in him for space, away from this small hot flat, away from the tedium of his daily life. She had put the idea into his head, and he was grateful to her for having done so.

  ‘Where will you be, then? Only if I need to get my things…’

  ‘You’ll be coming back? I will of course telephone you if you’ll leave me a number.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother. I’ll ring you.’

  ‘I hope you will. When do you want to leave your bag? I take it you mean the bag you had with you the other day?’

  ‘Yes, as I say, nothing too bulky. I’ll drop it in some time, probably at the weekend. I’ll let you know. Must dash now: things to do, people to see, you know how it is.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll wait to hear from you.’

  As he had done, he realized, for all the intervening days.

  11

  He was anxious now to be finished with this woman, who was, after all, a stranger, though not a stranger of the kind he envisaged – benign, efficient, professional – but someone whose presence was curiously unenlightening and in whom he was no longer inclined to take an interest. Indeed he remembered his passing inclination as misguided, rather more akin to hope than to love. And now he was forced to wait for her call (for she had still not left him her number) and to give house room to her effects, until such time as she chose to retrieve them. Her sojourn in New York would be open-ended, as all her arrangements appeared to be. Years at the bank had accustomed him to the precision of figures, had left him with a fondness for dates and times. His whole day was predicated on a kind of internalized timetable, devised by himself, unknown to all, but of singular importance in structuring the day. Without adherence to this structure he felt he might deteriorate into a more dangerous condition than his habitual melancholia, might realize that there was no need to go out, might even go back to bed and let the day take care of itself. That way, he knew, lay madness. Yet he had met people quite at ease with this regime, quite content to ‘relax’, to ‘chill out’, as they said: his cheerful hairdresser was one such. When he asked (for he always asked) how she planned to spend the weekend, he would elicit no more than a prospect of empty hours, which she seemed to view as the ultimate good. He supposed that she was able to contemplate this by virtue of a disposition which allowed neither doubt nor fear. Mrs Gardner too was of that number and therefore incompatible with one such as himself. This unwelcome assessment seemed to draw a line through his recent interest in her, which, though promising, had turned out to be misconceived. When she telephoned he would tell her that it would be inconvenient for him to house her belongings in his flat. He might be going away, he would repeat, and once again the prospect of escape presented itself as a real possibility. Yet he knew himself too well to set about making it real, looking, as always, for the sort of companion who would ignore his hesitations, and thus strengthen him for the foreseeable future. Until the end, he told himself, but dared not admit the thought to full consciousness.

  He slept badly, was glad to bathe and dress, even to eat breakfast. When the telephone rang he answered resignedly but with a vestige of that hard-won resistance that had crept up on him, apparently when he was asleep, and to which he normally had little access.

  ‘Mr Sturgis? Paul Sturgis?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘We have your wife here. Mrs Helen Sturgis?’

  ‘Helena. To whom am I speaking?’

  ‘Oh, sorry. This is the Royal Free Hospital.’ The voice seemed to come from a background of confusion, of female chatter. At one point it said, to someone else presumably, ‘In a minute. I’m busy.’ There was a muted protest. ‘Well, hang on a bit longer. As I say, your wife was brought in a couple of days ago.’

  ‘She is not my wife. A distant relative only.’

  ‘She has you down as her next of kin.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Apparently a heart attack. We’re monitoring her closely.’ The moaning started up again. ‘When I’m not busy, I told you.’

  ‘Who brought her in?’

  ‘The caretaker. Apparently she was able to contact him. He called an ambulance.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Well, rather poorly, I’m afraid.’ The voice was raised. ‘In a minute, I said.’

  ‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Has she had any visitors?’

  ‘No. So if you could come?’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  ‘My name’s Janet. We’ll see you in a little while, then.’ The voice was raised again. ‘I said I was coming, didn’t I?’

  He put on his coat, picked up an umbrella, then put it down again. This was no time for encumbrances. In the street he was engulfed by an early morning crowd, which he never normally witnessed. Young people going to work, he supposed, all in competition for taxis. To his surprise he secured one, simply by stepping in front of a stocky young man with a briefcase who had already rais
ed his hand. ‘Do you mind?’ he was asked angrily. He climbed inside and sat down. His mouth was dry. For possibly the first time in years he failed to register the weather, aware only that it was still dark.

  The hospital struck him as disproportionately enormous, like the burial mound of an ancient civilization. Strip-lit corridors of immense length delivered him to a small ward in which he could not distinguish a familiar face. All seemed to him to be alike, wearing the same mask of bewilderment. Only one woman was sitting up, carefully brushing her hair. ‘Nurse, nurse, can you help me?’

  ‘In a minute. Hang in there.’

  Still brushing her hair the woman addressed him. ‘Can you help me? I need my clothes. I’m expected at home.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to find someone to help you…’

  ‘She’s not going anywhere,’ said a passing nurse. ‘And you shouldn’t be here. Can you wait outside?’

  ‘Are you Janet? I was telephoned by someone called Janet. My name is Sturgis. Paul Sturgis.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Over here.’

  She led him to a bed occupied by a version of the woman he had once known, her immaculate hair flattened, her flickering eyelid still.

  ‘Helen? You’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘Her name is Helena. She won’t answer to Helen.’

  ‘There’s no need to be aggressive, Paul.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Well, as I said, we’re keeping an eye on her. She was very agitated when she was brought in. She’s calmed down a bit. If you could bring a couple of things for her? Washing things, you know. Perhaps a dressing-gown. Tissues.’

  ‘Can she be moved to a private room?’