Lewis Percy

by Anita Brookner

  He was not much interested in babies, but the various reversals he had undergone filled him with both longing and pity for his own child, whom he found asleep in a crib at the foot of Tissy’s bed. A perfectly ordinary baby, as far as he could see, although he was alarmed at the sight of its fragile head, in which a pulse seemed to be beating. He touched a tiny hand, which obligingly retracted. He would have liked to pick her up, but did not trust himself not to display too much sadness in doing so, and therefore resisted the temptation. Tissy, blank-faced with fatigue, and also with astonishment at what she had undergone, lay back on several pillows and held her mother’s hand. The doctor, his hat and coat piled untidily on the radiator, sat in the only other chair, eating grapes. For once they seemed faintly uneasy in Lewis’s presence. He did not intend to embarrass them for long. He only wanted to see his child, his daughter, and, no doubt, to say goodbye to her until she was ten years old.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t she?’ said a nurse, who had come in to settle Tissy for the night. ‘What are you going to call her?’

  Lewis wanted to call her Grace, after his mother, but thought, on reflection, that his mother had no place in this alliance. He tried to think of a heroine in literature, under whose protection he could place her, so to speak. Dorothea Brooke, perhaps?

  ‘I thought Jessica,’ said Tissy, speaking for the first time.

  He was surprised. Yes, why not? The name pleased him.

  ‘And mother’s name as a second name.’

  ‘Thea? he asked.

  ‘Dorothea,’ said Mrs Harper, wiping her normally wintry eyes.

  So it was meant, then. And she was Jessica Dorothea Percy, and he registered her name the following day.

  He could not, of course, resist going back to see her. He told himself that he would have been the same with a kitten, a puppy, or simply anyone else’s baby. It was their smallness that was so beguiling, he would have said, but he knew it was more than that. At least, that may have been a part of it, but at the heart there was a helpless love, a love that was truly helpless, for he did not see how he could impose himself on this baby, when his role was to be largely absent, a visitor rather than a guide. He hardened his heart against the little hands, the limp legs, and he was glad to find the baby asleep, so that he did not have to meet its large incurious blue eyes. He doubted whether he could have sustained the encounter. Tissy, in all this time, said as little as possible. He found her unchanged. She looked totally at home in her hospital bed, seemed indifferent to his comings and goings, but kept a fierce maternal eye on him when he hovered too closely over the crib. The following evening he found her with the baby in her arms, held awkwardly, as a child holds a new doll. It appeared that she loved her. Whatever misgivings she may have had about her role as a wife had left her when she became a mother. For was this not the ultimate proof that she was a woman, grown up, free from tutelage at last? With this act, Lewis thought, she had accomplished something that had always been in doubt: her own late entry into maturity. He was forced to admire her, while at the same time realizing that she would never come back to him. For all the awkwardness of her gestures, the timidity of her utterances, she was now someone to be reckoned with. If she did not always answer him when he spoke to her it was because she did not want to. Even her mother deferred to her now. She had put on a considerable amount of weight, and her face had coarsened; she no longer paid much attention to her hair, which had grown longer and looked slightly neglected. He hardly recognized her as the shy girl whom he had followed from the library so long ago.

  They had been married for nearly ten years, he realized. He was too married to be anything else now. Like an education in a foreign language, this would never leave him. He could be either married or divorced, but nothing else. He could not, in the appalling euphemism of the day, have ‘relationships’. He was doomed, obsolete, a relic of a forgotten species. Whatever sad fate was to be his lot, he could do nothing to change his condition.

  What had befallen him now took on the dimensions of a tragedy. When Tissy left the hospital – and she seemed reluctant to do so, as if she too were unwilling to face the rest of her life – he felt as if his baby were being taken away from him. He knew that he could not be a frequent visitor to the house in Britannia Road, for he was not wanted there, nor did he want to be there, a suppliant faced with a barrier of indifference. At the same time he knew that he was sinking into an indifference of his own, one of vast dimensions, almost life-threatening in its totality. Once again his evening meal was eaten on a tablecloth of newsprint. The windows of his house needed cleaning, and his shirts, reluctantly washed by Mrs Joliffe and ironed by her for an extra consideration, were not as he would have wished them to be. Her trace was noticeable in the house, now that she was no longer supervised by Tissy: a plate broken, a vase chipped, polish stickily applied to a table and leaving traces – all attested a further lack of care. And even Mrs Joliffe threatened to leave him. The newsagent’s which had belonged to her brother-in-law had been taken over by an Indian lady in a sari and turned into a flourishing business: Barry, now a schoolboy, delivered the morning papers. If Lewis were bold enough to request Mrs Joliffe to clean the cooker or wash the bathroom floor, matters to which she was no longer willing to turn her attention, she would let drop, ‘Shamila’s after me to work in the shop. I’m thinking it over. After all, there’s not much to do here, is there? Now that you’re on your own.’ So far she had made no decision, nor did he think she would. But it added an irritation, an anxiety to his homecoming, which was already unpleasant enough, and he was careful to leave early in the mornings, before she arrived.

  He found himself with an enormous amount of time on his hands, for he woke at four or five, and frequently got up and had his bath before six. It seemed to him that he had to wait a long time before the newspaper arrived at seven, and then he would have the leisure to read most of it before setting off to work at eight. He felt apologetic about this, as if he had not managed the calculation correctly, knowing that others did better, to the extent of complaining of too much to do, of not enough time to relax. He never relaxed now. He was in a state of permanent vigilance. When not thinking about himself he thought of his daughter. He dared not see her for fear that she would utterly unman him. He merely telephoned every day at lunchtime, to ask how she was. Sometimes he spoke to Tissy, sometimes to Mrs Harper. To his surprise Tissy seemed quite amiable. Amiable but distant. Such solicitude as she demonstrated was that of a social worker.

  ‘Getting on all right, are you?’ she might ask, in a light tone that precluded any response, let alone the register of hopelessness that he would have felt bound to offer, but never did. Because her lack of interest was so apparent he did not tell her that he was falling apart, that buttons had come off his shirts, that he could not find the laundry list, that there were too many empty bottles in the dustbin. If he mentioned any domestic matter, she would simply say, ‘Well, now you know what a woman has to do each day.’ So he would change the subject and ask about the baby. ‘She’s fine,’ Tissy would say, as if mildly surprised by his interest. From which he deduced that she either hated him implacably or had forgotten her connection with him altogether. Probably the latter, he thought.

  He noticed that the warmer weather had arrived, found the laundry list, and took all his shirts to the cleaner’s, asking for them to be repaired. They seemed not to find this request excessive, which cheered him slightly. On his way to the library he breathed the scents of hawthorn and early lilac. His demeanour was that of an invalid, false confidence, enormous goodwill fading without warning to an intimate knowledge of mortal weakness. He knew, and strove against the knowledge, that some fundamental damage had been done. Yet he did not quite go under. However much he foundered in the evenings he regulated himself the following day. This took care, allowing no time for distractions. He had not gone away at Easter, as Pen had advised him to. He had stayed in the house, thinking of the baby. It had done him no good, no good at al
l. And now there was a Bank Holiday to cope with, and suddenly he could not face it. On an impulse, and because he was ashamed of what he was becoming, he booked a ticket for Paris.

  What he had intended was a sentimental pilgrimage, although the thought of the past, his past, did not cheer him. The ardent studies of those early days had led to nothing. His book had received one complimentary notice, in the Times Literary Supplement, and that was all. His own copies, still swathed in their original brown wrapping paper, remained at the back of a cupboard. As far as he could see, his ideas, once so eagerly charted, were utterly ignored. And all the frugality that had gone into the writing of the book: how could he bear to remember it? Or to realize that now, on the verge of middle age, and with the addition of undoubted material comforts, he was living in a manner so restricted that he might still be that boy with his briefcase and his notes, his inconvenient appetite, and his love of female company? He repressed a sigh as he thought of the itinerary before him, already vowed to disillusionment. He would retrace his steps, he supposed, try to pick up old habits. This, he already knew, was an infallible recipe for disappointment, but he did not see how else he could fill his days. If time were a problem in London, where he had work to do, how much more taxing it would be in Paris, where he had no obligations and few friends.

  Yet when he reached his hotel, in the rue Jacob, and looked round his room, which was muted and hazy, with faded blue paper on the walls, his anguish fell away from him, and he knew that he had made the right decision. In that moment of recognition he also knew that he could outwit time by ignoring its demands. Instinctively, although it was early afternoon, and a mild sun was trying to emerge, he removed the blue coverlet from the bed, lay down, and slept. He awoke some two hours later, with a sensation of refreshment that was new to him. He bathed, dressed carefully, and went out into the street. He found a café that was neither smart nor popular, ordered a glass of wine, and sat peaceably until a short walk took him to a small restaurant, with few customers, where he ate a simple meal. When he saw the sky darkening to a deeper blue he paid his bill and left. The rue Jacob was silent as he made his way back to the hotel. That night, despite the rest he had taken in the afternoon, he slipped easily into unconsciousness, and woke, just as easily, on the morning of the following day.

  He set out without a single plan or direction in mind, merely registering the fact that the weather was mild, milky, damp, and the streets newly washed. He was anonymous: Paris did not know him, nor, he discovered, did he know Paris. In that instant, walking down the rue Jacob, he decided to jettison his past and to abandon whatever dreams of continuity he might have had. In the soft air he felt himself becoming invisible, accountable to no one. This, for some reason, failed to frighten him, although he was aware that the irresponsibility towards which he was tending might, at more secure moments in his life, have been perceived as a danger. He felt weightless, impalpable, and suddenly free. This curious condition filled him with a momentary rapture: he would not even let the memory of recent months come to the surface, and if he thought of his life at all it was with distaste, an objective distaste in strict contrast to the oceans of morbidity in which he had recently almost drowned. With an expression of cautious wonder on his face he began to walk, not caring much where his steps led him as long as his progress was unplanned, without the known palliatives of library and notebook. He would, he decided, stay here for a while and try to discover whether this blessed state, which had awaited him on his first morning in Paris, was an aberration, the first sign of a breakdown, or, as he felt it to be, an announcement, a preview, of a state of perfect health.

  He walked. As if he had been delivered from a serious illness he noticed every detail of the passing scene, cherishing above all those that pertained to ordinary living: a shopkeeper arranging apples on a stall, or an elderly woman buying bread. Even the sight of small children emerging from a kindergarten at midday did not upset him. He drifted, without any feeling of fatigue, until he felt that it was time to eat, and then stopped wherever he happened to be and ordered a meal. He was not really conscious of time passing, but was aware that his state of remission must be consolidated before real life reclaimed him. Beyond this he did not care to think. He felt that all he could do, in this new dry marvellous state in which he found himself, was to reject all forms of sentimentality, and merely confine himself to conjuring systems out of the air, systems which made provision for the future while leaving him almost untouched, his emotions restored to him for other purposes, other uses. He was marvellously aware that he was not being taken to task, for any crimes committed or not committed. Unknown to him, the expression on his face conveyed thankfulness, even contentment.

  He explored different districts, the 4th, the 13th, the 20th, sat in obscure churches, not all of them of architectural interest or importance, examined the Music Room in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, and stood happily at counters with paint-splashed workmen in the rue Quincampoix and the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. He spent an afternoon in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, with its orreries, its pendulums, and its solemn whirring clocks. He took the bus to Ville d’Avray and walked to Sèvres. He walked lightly, his hands free. Only towards the end of his stay did he glance at newspapers, but with a certain absent-mindedness. By the end of ten days, having not uttered more than a few words since his arrival, he felt completely at peace. As he took his leave of the blue room he felt a stab of the old melancholy, as if he knew the world would soon be with him again. Yet some act of repossession had taken place, some essential work of repair. When the plane landed at Heathrow he said goodbye to the pretty woman who had sat next to him and made his way to the taxi rank. He was aware that he had undergone some sort of cure, and the knowledge that this was within his grasp cheered him immeasurably.

  13

  His daughter: a pale, silent, delicate child, much as her mother must have been, a child with an unreasonable desire to be good. Dressed elaborately in smocks and white stockings, hair ribbons and patent leather shoes, she seemed conscious of the burden of being her grandmother’s pride and joy. For she was Mrs Harper’s child rather than Tissy’s. When Lewis rang the bell of the house in Britannia Road, and Mrs Harper – never Tissy – opened the door, the child would hide behind her, fearful of this stranger, not, Lewis thought, because he was a stranger, but because he was a man. A natural prejudice against men was in the air she breathed. She seemed to know, even at two years old, that a man might spoil her dress, ruffle her hair, insist on disturbing exercise. When Lewis eventually succeeded in coaxing her out from behind the bulk of Mrs Harper, she looked uncertain, kept a hand on her grandmother’s skirt. He hated to bribe her with toys, but could not resist bringing her a doll now and again, telling himself that when she was old enough he would furnish her with an entire library. The doll called Mildred never left her: she held it in both arms, much as Tissy had once held her, but without an expression of excitement or pleasure. Holding the doll carefully, she seemed weighed down with responsibility and maternal anxiety.

  Lewis’s heart ached for her. He could see loneliness there, sadness, fear. He tried to draw her to him: she came, reluctantly. He took her out on Sunday mornings, to the park, to feed the ducks and the geese, but she hated their noise, their squabbling and flapping, and he could see that after half an hour she was anxious to get home. She was only happy sitting in her little chair in the red drawing-room, or walking with Mrs Harper to the shops. She seemed to prefer the company of her grandmother, or, more surprisingly, of the doctor, whose deteriorating bloodshot face she allowed to nestle her own. She was well looked after, Lewis could see, although the atmosphere around her was elderly. The doctor, in particular, was now in poor health and relying more and more on the comforts Mrs Harper could provide, without, however, doing so in any way that would endanger his independence.

  Lewis knew that it was bad for the child to be brought up by these defeated people, but he could see that his daughter had something i
nnately pitiful about her. This he ascribed to some melancholy native gene emanating from himself, for he had forgotten the days when he was happy. He could not in all conscience indict Tissy, although he was surprised at the off-handedness of her mothering. Once Jessica had outgrown her status as a baby, Tissy had more or less relinquished her, and had pursued other, rather less tangible, but presumably more rewarding, interests. When he caught a fleeting glimpse of her these days he found her extremely disconcerting, almost a stranger. Compared with the assiduity she had shown in her early days as a wife, the limits of her concern were very soon reached. Lewis put this down to her recent indoctrination, which had freed her from the restrictions under which she had previously laboured. When she was not at her job with Lancelot Antiques, she was at her group, or with her new friends, Kate and Fran. He rarely saw her for more than a few minutes at a time.