Strangers

by Anita Brookner

  ‘You said there was an odd-job man.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t like him in the house when I’m not there. I don’t know how far I can trust him.’

  ‘Surely, in an emergency… But you’re probably imagining the whole thing.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I distinctly remember being in a hurry – I forget why – and anxious to get away. I was wondering…’ she looked away, ‘if you could pop down there for me? I know it’s a lot to ask. There’d be nothing to do when you got there, just to double-lock the garden door, although you could stay if you wanted to. No, on second thoughts, wait till I’m back there. I always intended to invite you.’

  ‘You did mention it. But this hardly seems sensible. Anyway, how could I get in?’

  ‘I’d give you a set of keys, of course. You could hang on to them until I see you again. Or you could post them back. That was the arrangement when we lent the house to friends. Richard kept a stack of registered envelopes which he handed out. He was very security conscious. And you always liked to go to France, didn’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t been for some time.’

  ‘Well, now’s your chance. Do say you will, Paul. It would relieve my mind. Here.’ She opened the drawer of a small table and took out a set of keys. ‘Do go, Paul. I wouldn’t trust anyone else. And I obviously can’t go myself. It’s quite easy to find. The house, I mean. You fly to Nice and take a bus to Saint-Paul. Or a taxi, of course. Though if you take a taxi ask him to wait: they’re not too easy to find. I imagine you won’t want to linger. Just make sure you lock all the doors when you leave.’

  He hesitated. He could raise no objection to her plan, apart from the fact that it was her plan and not his. But he was not in principle averse to the idea. He would have little to do once his inspection was completed. And he would be free to stay, if not in Saint-Paul then in Nice, which he knew well. He looked at the card she had given him, along with the keys: 121 bis rue Grande. But already he was thinking of Nice. With a sudden ache he remembered taking his coffee in the Place Masséna, the dazzling light, the sense of purpose. In that wide space, under those skies, one could not help but feel free, domestic associations left far behind. And then one could stay in an hotel, rediscover the delights of sheer rootlessness. Somewhere, he thought, was the ideal hotel, one that he would recognize from his fantasies. What he would do when he found it was unclear, but as a fantasy it was no less plausible than the marriage he had concocted for himself, on no other basis than his desire for change. He felt ashamed of this made-up life, contrasted it with the realities of the present, with Sarah’s impatient face, and with the envelope in his hand.

  ‘So what do you say? Or rather, how soon can you go? I am rather anxious, Paul. And I don’t suppose you’re busy.’

  ‘Why don’t you suppose that? Though in fact you’re right. I rather like to plan my visits, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go tomorrow if necessary.’

  ‘It would relieve my mind.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll give you a call. Either from France, or more probably when I’m back.’

  ‘And post the keys once you’ve locked up.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll leave you now. You’ll take care, I hope.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Why do you make such a fuss over everything?’

  ‘You know, Sarah, we might be an old married couple.’

  ‘You mean, I sound like a nagging wife.’

  ‘You do, rather. Come to think of it you always did.’

  They both laughed. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘But do go soon. And ring me.’

  There never was, surely, such a late spring. He walked through streets indistinguishable from those he had walked through all winter. A sharp wind threatened the early blossom: he walked through a scurry of pink petals, some already stuck to the damp pavement. He noted how cleverly they had side-stepped the important issues: how they would cope when they were really old, really infirm, when her house stood empty in perpetuity and he could no longer travel at her or indeed his behest. Perhaps this was the true legacy of her illness, the fear that she might be left unaccompanied in a hostile world. He would play his part as long as he could, would try to allay fears which he shared. The past now seemed too distant to be relevant. Time was accelerating, and in the light of the present the past seemed overlaid by a sense of failure. He did not doubt that she was aware of this. She had always been intensely practical: that ringing laugh, those commanding tones were not mere mannerisms but the outcome of legitimate expectations. Now there were no more expectations. Even women who were accustomed to success would know that at some point the line had been drawn. And he was hardly the man to disabuse her. For all his reassurances he was in no position to redress the balance.

  And for himself the future held little more than the grim routines that had always sustained him, together with the hope that they would sustain him to the end. Then it would be time to rely on the kindness of strangers, and the hope that this would prove more than a fond illusion. For this reason if for no other he welcomed the prospect of a diversion, tiresome though it might turn out to be. He would do the minimum, check the doors, and leave, seek his reward in the sun. For surely he could rely on the sun? In such longed-for benefits he would place his trust, having little to invest elsewhere.

  He reached home just as the clouds disgorged a shower. He discarded his unread newspaper. He checked his currency, booked a return flight to Nice. Despite the odd flare of nostalgia, he foresaw difficulties in such a precipitate departure. As a tourist he might have welcomed the excursion, but he was tired, his legacy of bad nights suddenly an unconscionable weight. He packed a small bag, skirting his way round Mrs Gardner’s bags, which now had the appearance of a permanent fixture. Out of curiosity he undid them, something he had not done before. The larger of the two held a towelling bathrobe and a pair of high-heeled boots, the smaller a radio with a dead battery and two pairs of shoes. What she did with her clothes he had no idea, maybe left them at her husband’s house as a gage of her return. He imagined her belongings stashed away safely in other people’s houses, much as she might have put them into storage. It was as good a way as any of keeping them under her control, and, as he had had time to find out, she was indifferent to any inconvenience this might cause. She had at least left him her mobile number, but he did not particularly want her to know that his flat would be empty. Nevertheless he made the call. There was no reply. But yet again he could not prevent himself from smiling. That was the way to leave, with nothing of value left behind. It was a lesson that he might do well to learn.

  25

  The house was in a small cul-de-sac off the rue Grande. Contrary to what he expected it was an ugly yellow villa with blue railings and a large integral garage. One half of the roof was flat, the other a rakish diagonal. He recognized its origins in the brutalist architecture of the 1930s, no doubt a prime example of Art Deco, and therefore classé, protected from being in any way altered or modified.

  The interior was no more welcoming. Stiff blinds, which he did not disturb, obscured what light there was. A long passage led from the front to the rear of the house, where a glass door admitted a little more light. This door, the one in question, he supposed, was securely locked. He tested it with the keys he had been given, opened and shut it, and locked it again. After that he decided that his mission was completed.

  Repelled by the house’s angularity he felt no desire to linger, was in fact anxious to find the taxi which was parked some way away. It was already evening; he was aware of crowds sitting on terraces. He supposed he might have stayed, found a hotel room nearby, taken his time about returning. Instead he told the driver to take him back to Nice, where he would be obliged to spend the night. Yet even Nice was less to his taste than he remembered it, noisier, more crowded, the hotels full. He was forced to spend more money than he had bargained for, in one of the larger hotels, where he felt lamentably out of place. He spent the rest of the evening in his room, willing the time to pas
s until he could leave. Home seemed incredibly distant, unreachable. There was nothing here to detain him. Clearly the expected transformation had not materialized. He slept badly, distracted by the murmur of conversation from an adjoiining room, the squeal of a trolley delivering someone’s room service. He was up at first light, roused a night porter to pay his bill, and left with an audible sigh of relief. This was not it, not it at all. The illusion had, once again, proved superior to the reality.

  A flight to London had just left. By now he was febrile, took the next flight to Paris, was determined to travel the rest of the way by train. This had been a wasted journey, and a disappointing one, failing to deliver the expected rush of feeling, or even the dull satisfaction of a task successfully carried out. The house had been inimical, totally different from the picturesque cottage orné he had led himself to expect. Art Deco had always struck him as unfriendly, an artificial style, suitable for Bright Young Things, a setting only for cocktail parties. He supposed that the house was valuable, but doubted that it could ever inspire affection. Yet Sarah seemed to cherish it, having wrested it away from her mother-in-law in a skirmish which now seemed prehistoric. There was an untold story here of wrangled-over succession which made it seem even less attractive. He revised his long-held belief that some families were happier or more harmonious than others. It seemed that only in the blessed state of infancy was one unquestioningly accepting. After that it was a matter of adjustment, or simply of transferring one’s expectations, trying to find another home for them, but always conscious of being somehow disinherited.

  Paris was reassuring, more accommodating than Nice, and strangely quieter. Here the associations were more pleasant. He had first come here as a school leaver, on his first adult holiday. He had been allowed this brief licence by his parents on condition that he was accompanied by his friend Tom Williamson, and that he did not drink anything. In fact it was Tom who got drunk, and this incidentally caused him to reflect that he would rather have been not necessarily with someone else, for he was fond of Tom, but perhaps with a girl, who would have been gentler company. This conviction had carried on into true adulthood. He was happier with women than with men, looking for that combination of respect and pleasure that he instinctively sought. And sometimes found, though too rarely to assume a longing it was now time to forgo.

  Almost amused, he made his way to the rue Madame, where he and Tom had been supposed to share a room in the apartment of an elderly widow. This had been arranged by his father through a contact at the bank. They had decided immediately that this was unsuitable and had decamped to a nearby hotel, thus occasioning massive disfavour at home. It was a rite of passage that had served them both well, though they lost sight of each other when Tom went on to study medicine and he became a wage earner. But the holiday remained significant, a promise of what was to come. And Paris remained welcoming, though he was disappointed to note that their original hotel had been refurbished. This, if anything, signified the end of youthful naïveté, though it was strange how awkwardly this persisted. One continued to hope, however misplaced that hope might be. He supposed he might now go home, was conscious of his bag, and the keys in his pocket, but not quite ready to confront his all too familiar flat. Instead he crossed the street to a café for coffee, then went back and booked a room. ‘Pour combien de temps?’ asked the woman at the desk. ‘Une nuit seulement,’ he replied.

  He was tired now, his legs significantly weaker. The idea of a long walk, always his routine when he was in Paris, repelled him. In the mirror of his room he noted his drawn face, the features sombre, devoid of his habitual mild smile. And there were other signs that he might not have been aware of, his parched-looking skin, his thinning hair. The evidence was all too clear: he could undertake no more excursions. He lay down on the bed, let himself drift off into sleep, not without a sense of nightmare. But this was standard now, and the pull of sleep was too strong to be resisted. He knew he had urgent business to see to, should telephone Sarah and book a ticket to London. He even wondered whether he had really locked those doors, felt for the keys on the bedside table, assured himself that they were where he had left them. Sleep over-took him once more, and he slept with his arm slipping to the floor, no longer sure of where he was, or where he would be when he awoke.

  Two hours later he emerged from a dreamless trance, feeling oddly free of his usual anxiety. He deduced that his troubles were caused by simple fatigue, and without hesitation removed his clothes and got into the bed. Again he slept, almost at once, surfacing from time to time, but untroubled by the alien sounds of the hotel going about its business. This was a welcome departure from his silent nights at home, in which the absence of sound was more disturbing than any interference. He felt unusually comforted by the sounds of doors opening and closing, by a woman’s laughter, a man’s reassuring rumble. Though far removed from his usual hermetic surroundings, he drifted gratefully into a different kind of relaxation, one in which he could be sure that if necessary others would supply his needs. In one particularly lucid interval he recognized that this was what he had always envisaged, the hotel merely a symbol of a temporary and therefore realistic existence. The idea, then, had not been planted in his consciousness without reason. He had time to marvel at this process, which underlay his usual fantasizing, being less intended, more convincing, and even devoid of his own volition. Having overcome any objections or prevarications his conscious mind might have devised for him, he slept again, to be awakened by the bright light of a fine morning. He reckoned he had slept for nearly nine hours.

  He bathed, dressed, asked for a café complet, which was delivered promptly by a sour-faced maid. With her lack of salutation the real world renewed its demands. Traffic started up in the street, the working day already under way. He put through a call to London, was surprised to be answered by an angry voice. He looked at his watch: seven-thirty, clearly too early for civilized discussion. Yet the light called to him, and in the light the room looked shabbier than it had done the previous day. He was free to leave, but at the same time unwilling to go home. The voice in his ear suggested that he was at fault, that Sarah, being woken from sleep, was even less amenable than he remembered. He cleared his throat, downed the rest of his coffee.

  ‘Sarah? It’s Paul.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘I do now. I’m sorry if I woke you. It’s a fine day here.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In Paris. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. But all’s well.’

  ‘Did you lock up?’

  ‘Of course I locked up. That’s what I was there for. But in fact the door was safely locked anyway. I had nothing to do there, so I came back to Paris.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you. That’s one worry off my mind.’

  ‘I don’t intend to make a habit of this, Sarah. You’ll have to make other arrangements if you can’t manage on your own. With the caretaker, or whatever he is. There was no sign of him, incidentally. No sign of anyone, come to that. I was quite glad to get away. Why on earth are you so attached to the place?’

  ‘Well, it belonged to Richard, or rather to his family, as I told you. His mother handed it over when we married.’

  ‘Why don’t you sell it? I thought it hideous, if you really want to know. And I don’t doubt you’d get a good price for it.’

  ‘I can’t go into that now, though the idea had occurred to me. Perhaps we could discuss it. Or you could advise me.’

  ‘I just have advised you.’

  ‘All right, all right. You wouldn’t like to buy it yourself?’

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘Well, you always used to say you wouldn’t mind retiring to France.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  ‘No reason. Sarah, I’ll give you a ring when I get back to London. Tomorrow or the next day. I’m rather anxious to go out at the moment.’ A pause. ‘You’re all right?’
/>   ‘More or less.’

  ‘The ankle?’

  ‘A bit better. It was sprained, you know.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He did not want to dwell on infirmities, not in the clear grey light, the light he always considered native to Paris, at the window. ‘I’ll see you soon. Take care of yourself.’

  He broke off with a sensation of deliverance, though the deliverance was short-lived. Her voice brought back to him all those unwilling associations usually subsumed under the heading ‘home’. Had he still had a desk to go to he would have scrutinized the matter, put it on paper, and filed it away. This was no longer possible. But by the same token there was no one to call him to account. He was to all intents and purposes a free man, but a man for whom freedom was not entirely comfortable.

  Refreshed by this exchange of views, and by the fact that he had managed to state his position in the teeth of her suggestions, he went down to the desk, and told the concierge, ‘Je reste encore une nuit.’ This surprised him no less than his firmness on the telephone, as did his suspicion that Sarah, having conceived the idea on the spur of the moment, might raise the matter of his buying the house when she next saw him. Even if he could afford to pay for the house the idea was ludicrous. The house was not merely a relic but isolated. And it was her idea, rather than his. He shook his head, not without a smile. This was how she had always been.

  He walked down to the river, under a brightening sky, crossed the Cour du Louvre to Palais Royal, and sat down at an outdoor café. It was still early, and his walk had stimulated his appetite. Freed from his normal routine he was able to invent himself, a gift he thought he had lost. He nodded to a man at the next table who nodded back. Affability, not much practised in England, was still current in France. He did not mistake this holiday mood for any more decisive change, but was disposed to make the most of it for the space of a day, or even two days. He decided to give the Louvre a miss, which he thought he was now entitled to do. No one seemed to take him to account for this improvised existence. London was far away, indistinct. The distance he had recently covered had, after all, fulfilled some sort of function, though he was too canny to misinterpret this. He crossed the bridge, putting the Louvre definitively behind him, and on impulse caught a bus, not knowing or caring where it took him. Within minutes, it seemed, it reached what appeared to be a terminus, in a wide street apparently within reach of a large green space: the Bois, he assumed. He could go to the Musée Marmottan, but decided against it, much as he had turned his back on the Louvre. Works of art belonged in a different category to his present condition. His inclination was to stay in the pleasant streets until sheer tiredness forced him to return to the hotel in the rue Madame, which was in no sense the hotel of his fantasies. Maybe no hotel could live up to that image. But even less than the ideal hotel did his flat represent an agreeable alternative. That life of making do, of making the best of a comfortable but uncomforting existence, could no longer be sustained. He supposed that he would go back to it eventually, but seen from here it registered as a last resort, rather like a hospital, or rather in the same category as a hospital, a place to die. And with a returning chill he confronted the always unacceptable truth, that there would be no one there at the end.