Undue Influence

by Anita Brookner

  I had not considered this in any depth before. I did so now. Perhaps it was the silence of the flat that encouraged these thoughts, but the fact was that I longed to feature in another’s plans, even if I had to manoeuvre my way into them. My own independence had been fashioned in response to the neediness of others, of my parents, who, for their respective reasons, desired always to know where I was, where I was going, when I would be back. I had accepted this all my life, together with an awareness that I might have to have recourse to concealment. I had been conscious always of their wish that I remain at home, at hand. My contact with the Gibsons had brought to mind the tedium of those similarly burdened. And yet the life I had fashioned for myself was inventive, certainly, but not fulfilling. I saw that now. That was why Martin, who was allowed out on sufferance in the daytime, inspired in me such a depth of fellow feeling. I recognized that this was not the only explanation for what threatened to become an idée fixe. But it did seem to be that what I had to do was to point out the parallels in our lives in order to awaken him out of his self-absorption, to make him see that further depths of understanding could be reached.

  Part of me knew that this was excessively sentimental, and, what was worse, out of character. All the hard work I had put in to myself over the years was threatened. I had thought that I had won a victory over those softer feelings that undermine one and which deserve to be repressed: loyalties which were once in order but which no longer obtained, pity for those unresolved conflicts which would now never know any resolution. I had refused to be enrolled among the defeated, to know the hapless resignation which my mother so dutifully disguised. Gradually I had hardened, always seeking out the easy solution, the easy compensation. This I had considered worthy work; now I was not so sure. I had eliminated certain responses, notably that of genuine understanding, even of the sort of compassion that I despised, and this may have been more noticeable than I was able to appreciate. I had become as self-centred in my way as Martin was in his, and no doubt for good enough reasons. What was now both untimely and inconvenient was my new desire to break this pattern, and even, dangerously enough, to become fallible, vulnerable, appealing even in my weakness. Cynthia had been all of these things, which I had seen as unsatisfactory. Now they seemed merely sensible. Anything demanding hardness, boldness, courage I thought I could manage. I even took a measure of satisfaction from my ability to put these qualities to the test. I had made myself into the sort of independent character that qualified me for inclusion among today’s women. I knew the opprobrium that is visited on those who do not make the grade, spinsters like Muriel and Hester who come to a tragic end. What sort of end is reserved for determined women like myself is never mentioned, as if women of my type can be relied upon to save their own lives, or at least make a decent job of trying to. Yet we too will be subject to change, to shock, when the verdict is unfavourable, when we are shown the X-rays after the final diagnosis. Then no doubt the virtues of dependency will manifest themselves, and it will be too late to cultivate the softness that might have brought them into being.

  I spent the afternoon in the Wallace Collection, listening to my footsteps on the shining floors. I saw little, but merely noticed a remote excellence. This was a place of virtue, perhaps the only virtue I should ever know. My mood was sad. The incident in Selfridges still puzzled me, as if my contact with others had been abruptly terminated. That night I slept badly, though I was not troubled by dreams. Perhaps I was not sufficiently asleep for dreams to occur. I got up very early, made tea, read an old copy of the New Statesman until the arrival of the post. There was a card. ‘I will be with you on the 15th. Regards, M. G.’

  Seventeen

  ‘Wonderful countryside round there,’ he was saying. ‘And the sunsets! We would sit on the terrace until it was quite dark. And we were out all day, of course.’

  ‘It sounds marvellous,’ I supplied.

  ‘It was rather. Extraordinarily kind of those people.’

  ‘Was it a big party?’

  ‘We were eight. One or two people I hadn’t seen in years. And they had cars, so we could get out and about.’

  ‘No wonder you look so well.’

  He did look well. He looked tanned, which was not surprising, but there was a new readiness in his movements which spoke of freedom, as if he had drawn a line under past events and relegated them to history, his history. Cynthia, in her dim bedroom, was now a creature of memory, on whom he was not inclined to dwell.

  ‘Do you know that part of the world at all?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’

  ‘You should go. Cortona itself is a fascinating place. But it is the surroundings which constitute the real Italy.’

  ‘Good weather?’

  ‘Oh, yes, marvellous weather.’

  ‘And you’ll go again?’

  ‘Yes, at Christmas. We’ve all been convened for Christmas.’ He laughed modestly. ‘Not that I want to wear out my welcome.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t do that.’

  None of this was of much interest to me. Our exchanges were not half so fascinating as the conversation I was having with him in my head. Listen, Martin, I was saying. Let me tell you about yourself. He would have brightened: every man likes to hear about himself. You are a very attractive man, I should have said, but you are not a whole human being. You lack empathy. There is no feminine side to your nature that would enable you to understand women. Women seem to you totally unreasonable. From time to time you allow yourself to surrender to them, but you give the impression that you surrender against your will. The way to capture you is to torment you, as Cynthia did. Unreasonable demands seem to you to be part of a woman’s nature. Once you are miserably in chains you feel that you are doing all a man can do in the way of love and devotion. And to do you justice you play your part honourably. It does not occur to you to do more. In the act of love you behave like a man, and yet you express subtle reservations of which I think you are aware. These you accommodate by holding up your behaviour to the scrutiny of some terrifying tribunal, as if you will be excused if only you remind that tribunal how very noble your standards really are. And you are wordless afterwards, as if absorbed in the task of making your way back into a state of grace. You offer a great deal and withhold a great deal at the same time. You offer your attributes, your looks, your grace, even your social position. Women succumb eagerly, and are in turn baffled by your withdrawal into a sort of solitude. Everything you say—are saying—is of an extreme banality. You offered more information about yourself when you were legally tied. You find it more comfortable to operate under restraint. When Cynthia was alive you were dutiful, which pleased that same tribunal. I will not ask you how you feel, because you would not tell me. Your masochism, or perhaps it would be kinder to call it your impermeability, supplied your psychic needs. You were doing your duty; that was enough. The more overbearing the demands, the greater the spiritual satisfaction.

  Now let me tell you what a woman wants. It may surprise you to know that you have never supplied this. Cynthia made the demands and you submitted, perhaps because it was time for you to do so. A woman wants more than that, wants ardour, an erotic eagerness that goes beyond the physical. The desire and pursuit of the whole. And also an unmasking, so that it will become possible to meet on every level. They call it commitment these days, but that sounds too legalistic. A woman does not want to be left alone to calculate her chances. All those clichés about waiting by the telephone are unfortunately true. There is perhaps an atavistic desire in women to be mastered, taken over, or at least to arouse some passion, if that is what passion is, if that is what you felt, or indeed feel, for you are here now. It was left to Cynthia, and no doubt to others, to enact the other half of the equation. I was always aware that there were satisfactions to be gleaned in pursuing this path, even though it is not really in a woman’s nature to do so.

  What I am saying is politically incorrect in the highest degree. I should be expelled from any women�
�s co-operative for even thinking it. Your apparent virginity is your strongest suit. The more untouched a man appears to be the stronger the temptation to touch him, not only physically but emotionally. You no doubt hoped to find a woman as inviolate as yourself, but I’m afraid that is no longer on the cards. You may once have envisaged an angelic union, but even you are not proof against experience. Cynthia acted simply, in accordance with her delighted curiosity. A kind of arrest took place; you shook your head ruefully and submitted. But you were not always comfortable until you were brought into line by your sense of duty. Imprisoned, you gave more of yourself. That has now come to an end: you are free. That is why I am hearing so much about the Italian countryside and the sunsets. You know why you are here, but something in your make-up refuses to acknowledge this.

  If I were to love you I should be utterly defeated. Whatever you suspected—but we are not talking about feelings here—you would be careful to treat me as the merest acquaintance. If and when the danger were past, if you were to remarry, say, you might allow your reticence to subside: as virtual strangers once more we might become friends. You would feel no compunction in not caring for me, in not asking if I needed more than the very little you are prepared to give, or rather to lend, for however long it suited you. And I think that this arrangement does suit you for the moment; after all, I have asked for nothing, and you are therefore quite safe. It might also surprise you to know that when you are with me I feel lonely. Are we not two civilized grown-ups? Perhaps only one of us is civilized, and I can’t yet decided which of us it is. You dismiss my complicity as unwomanly, not quite up to your cloudy standards. This gives you permission to be quite ruthless, in a way that once surprised me, but no longer does. No doubt you see me as a fallen creature: as I say, my transactions are simple. What I perhaps understand, as you do not, is that it is your behaviour that is aberrant rather than mine. I meant you to become a man once more, and succeeded. But because you were not interested in understanding me, as I have tried to understand you, I am left with the feeling that I have comprehensively failed, simply by allowing you to succeed on your terms, within the very narrow parameters you have unilaterally allowed yourself to observe.

  Naturally I said none of this. I had the wit to observe that it could not, perhaps should not be said. I offered him more lemon tart, which he ate in a deliberately refined manner which effectively detached him from my presence. For some reason I kept my gaze lowered to the table: to look at him seemed indelicate. When I was sufficiently in command of myself I suggested lightly that we move into the other room. Here I looked out of the window, as if searching for some mythical evening star, which in any event could not be seen through the cloud, although that cloud was not suffused, even slightly red, as though preparing itself for that brief episode of sunlight which would manifest itself early on the following morning. I wanted to be out in the evening air, under that timidly optimistic sky, before the darkness took hold. It was no kind of a sunset, unlike those convivial sunsets he had experienced in Italy, but it seemed more realistic, indecisive like myself, troubled by indistinct currents of acceptance and denial. It was the time of day when I reconciled myself to nothing further happening. If I took a walk, which I sometimes did, it was to prepare myself for the night, to put the day behind me, to participate in that general slowing down in which I could imagine the weariness of others, their desire to be at home. I willed myself to share this, as if there were some communality in observing the onset of the hours of rest. So strong was my wish to be alone that I even stood at the window, looking out, until the scrape of a match told me that Martin was lighting a cigarette, and that the main business of the night was still to come. Still jaunty from his recent holiday he seemed more at ease than I had ever known him to be, but in a way that excluded me, as I was now excluding him. The atmosphere in the room took on a certain tension. We both knew that he would stay, that he was not even in a hurry to leave, but that his mind was not on the matter in hand. And outside the window the bands of cloud seemed lit from below, shading from rose to a dark grey, as if anything could be expected in the way of weather, either some sun, as it was meant to appear, or a thorough drenching of rain, as was more likely.

  ‘Do sit down,’ I said. ‘I’ll make some coffee in a moment.’

  ‘Thank you. That was a delicious meal.’

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’ My voice was as lifeless as if I were playing the part of a polite hostess in a bad play, and not playing it very well. ‘You must tell me more,’ I said, moving back towards the kitchen. ‘I shan’t be long.’

  In the kitchen I noticed that my hands were shaking slightly, and it was with an effort that I reminded myself that I had not uttered those indiscreet remarks which would have utterly condemned me. Indeed I was behaving as he wanted me to behave, that is to say self-effacingly, betraying no resolute or challenging inclinations, enabling him to convince himself that he was not obliged to say or do anything that might sully the uncommitted evening. That it would end in the usual manner, safely in the dark, we both knew. What was required of me was that I should not allude to this. It did occur to me that he seemed more relaxed than usual; he was not offering any paternal advice, as he had once promised to do, was not even taking the trouble to furnish the silencç that had inexplicably descended on me. I could hear him walking about the room, examining the books, as if he were in command of any situation that might arise. This new confidence puzzled me. I wished that I could feel the same. I wished that I could find the words to put us both at our ease, for although he seemed comfortable enough I was not. Again it was as I had thought earlier. Either he had no notion of what was required of him, or, if he had, had decided—quite equably—that he was under no obligation to me, or indeed to anyone else.

  The smell of coffee restored me somewhat, and I drank mine gratefully and far too quickly, scalding my mouth. I almost wished that he would leave, or rather that I could disguise my general disappointment with the whole evening. The subject of Italy had been thoroughly exhausted, and there arose in my mind a memory of the tympanum of Autun cathedral, a photograph of which my mother had pasted in her album. The photograph was not very good: there had been a blanket of cloud even then. But my mother had been delighted. This almost pious memory was thoroughly out of place. Nevertheless I heard myself saying, ‘I was thinking of taking a holiday myself.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he replied. ‘It refreshes the mind, you know. I myself feel quite different.’

  ‘You certainly seem different.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes. Less burdened. Less sad.’

  ‘I’ve come to some important decisions. The first, of course, is to get back to work. Everyone seems to be in favour of this …’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Well, Claire, this may be difficult for you to understand.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I intend to live more … lightly.’

  ‘You mean more selfishly.’

  ‘If you care to put it that way.’

  ‘A wise decision,’ I said. ‘Although it doesn’t always work when the going gets heavy. When true emotion breaks through.’

  ‘In my case true emotion died with Cynthia. I could never entertain those feelings again. Nor do I want to. No, the way ahead is through lightness. Seizing the moment.’

  As he was now. This oblique reference to his presence here, in my company, was supposed to put an end to my inquiries.

  ‘You’ll marry again, of course.’

  ‘I don’t rule it out,’ he said judiciously. ‘I’ll consider the possibility. It’s not good to live alone.’

  ‘I know. I live alone.’

  ‘It’s different for you. You’re young. You’ll find someone.’

  ‘Maybe I have.’ This, I knew, would not please him. As it did not.

  I was acutely unhappy. An antipathy seemed to have sprung up between us which I had done nothing to provoke. Perhaps I provoked it simply by being my
self. This is the hardest thing to bear: the knowledge that one has been found wanting, because one is simply one kind of person and not another. He would continue to visit me for as long as it suited him; from time to time I would receive a postcard in his tiny, almost furtive writing, or worse, I should have to write a letter, in an airy fashion, filled with routine observations, manufacturing news in which I now knew he would not be interested. Yet I could see that he would be the one to keep his comments light and neutral, that we should never have a decent conversation—for what we were engaged in was not a conversation; it was a statement of intent. He was moving about the room as if newly energized, as if some secret enthusiasm were being entertained. I wondered briefly if he was thinking of a member of that Italian house party. That would make sense: a woman friend of the host’s, or rather of the hostess, detailed off to cultivate him, to sympathize. She would have been intrigued, as most women would be intrigued, by his appearance, his sensitivity. I saw now that this must have happened. And she would have had the wit, which I no longer had, to treat him with comradely effervescence, since that was what he wanted, so that they would have parted on excellent terms, promising to meet from time to time, with no obligations on either side. That was why he had so enjoyed his holiday. Eulogies to the sunset and the delights of Cortona were neither here nor there, though I did not doubt that they had enhanced the pleasure.

  ‘Tell me what you look for in a woman,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I’m no judge of women. I’ve always had a certain amount of difficulty with women. Until I met Cynthia, that is. She seemed to me so entirely feminine.’

  ‘But she can’t have been the first woman you knew. There must have been others.’