Leaving Home

by Anita Brookner

  ‘Until tomorrow, then,’ I said, turning to go.

  ‘Wait a minute. You’ve got dust all over your jacket. Here, let me brush it for you.’ The brush—my brush—was wielded vigorously. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s better.’ She gave me one of her old critical looks. ‘You look tired. Are you all right?’

  I felt, in fact, rather faint, and reminded myself that I had eaten very little that day. ‘I’m fine. Have a good evening.’ It seemed necessary to leave, and I was suddenly anxious to be on my own, even if it meant sitting in that other room, the room of my exile. I could feel my feet dragging as I made my way to the lift. There were different voices to be heard, different scents permeating the corridors. All around me preparations were being made, but I no longer cared. I would go out for a meal and then simply have an early night. I knew that in my case early nights were associated with sorrow, that the mere fact of closing one’s eyes could bring a feeling of dread, but by now I was too tired to care. It was important to husband my strength for the argument that would have to take place on the following day. And yet argument was too strong a word for the friendly discussion, in which it was important not to show anger, not to express surprise, not, in fact, to proclaim and exert one’s rights . . . Once again it seemed perverse, and more than that, uncouth, to refer to matters of ownership, to arrangements which had not been honoured. For what was clear was that Françoise had no intention of giving up the room, and that it was up to me to negotiate my way out of this difficulty with the best grace I could muster.

  I slept so deeply that when I woke it seemed as though a decade had passed and I could view the whole episode with detachment. I was possessed of several unalterable truths, the chief of which was that it is useless to argue with those who are cleverer than oneself, in whom superior strategies are already in place. I also—and this was welcome—saw the beauty of work, of the sort of work I did, in which evidence is sought and verification called for. I was destined by nature to follow that path, and by the same token to do rather less well in the business of real life, for to perceive and point out inconsistencies was, to use Mme Desnoyers’s classification, mal élevé. The first part of my adventure was thus over, and if I were the loser in one sense it might be that the desire for truth was always inconvenient. Françoise would both gain and lose by this; the friendship, maintained on the surface, would be flawed from within. The saving grace was that there need be no call for explanations: in that way a sort of victory had been achieved on both sides. I should, of course, let her have her way. There remained the problem of her mother’s lunch party, which it would be ungracious not to attend. But that could be decided at a later date.

  I got up, dressed, picked up my bag, and went downstairs. It was early, too early to make practical decisions. Another perfect day was on offer, and with the streets still quiet I was in a position to make the best of it. I thought of my flat, as one might think of an alibi, and told myself that that at least was not disputed territory. This reasoning was not entirely satisfactory, but in the interests of truth I should have to accommodate it. And I could be back there this evening, for there was clearly no point in remaining in Paris. The work I had still to do could be undertaken without preliminary warnings of my presence. I could even find another hotel. Unfortunately some of my possessions remained in my old room, and arrangements would have to be made if I were not to forfeit those as well.

  I sat down, much too early, at our original table in the corner of the café, from which I could monitor comings and goings, the life of the street, as I loved to do. Françoise would be late: that too I had foreseen. But in this new mood of enlightenment I saw that this was irrelevant, and in any case the beauty of the day was compensation enough. It was just past eleven-thirty when she arrived, looking harassed, but also vivacious, as if she too had arrived at a certain code of behaviour, whether or not it was entirely convincing. Yet it was with genuine pleasure that we contemplated each other, as if for a few moments at least, our original friendship had suffered no incursions.

  ‘You had a good evening?’ I enquired.

  ‘Marvellous.’ Her expression cleared. Now she was telling the truth. That was the truth on which part of my mind had alighted: sex.

  ‘Someone new?’

  ‘Someone new.’

  Clearly this was classified information. I was wryly amused. Not only had the room been repossessed; it had been repossessed for a specific purpose.

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Naturally, my mother is outside of all this. She has to be.’

  ‘And her plans are still intact?’

  She looked troubled. Her mother was the one factor she was unable to dispose of.

  I did not ask what those plans were. She had always been adept at improvisation, whereas her mother was the complete opposite. They were alike only in their obduracy.

  ‘My mother talks of living in Paris again. She was born here, you know. She thinks it would be good to return. She is still quite young, fifty-nine, and she would like to go out more. It is not good for her to be stuck in the country. Not fair, really.’

  ‘But the house?’

  ‘That will come to me, of course.’

  If she married that man in the tight blazer, if he and his fearful mother, in exchange for money, were allowed to take over, if the two adversaries could agree on the price of a flat in Paris, if Françoise could agree to live under the surveillance of a mother-in-law as exacting as her own mother: these were imponderables which it would be unkind to disturb.

  ‘I look forward to your mother’s party,’ I said. ‘Incidentally, I shall need my room for that weekend. If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course. I shall probably be at home, helping out.’ She sighed.

  ‘And is this to announce your engagement?’

  ‘No!’ That was instinctive. But we both knew that that was understood.

  ‘What will you do today?’ I asked, anxious to spare her discomfort.

  ‘I shall see my friend again. We are meeting for lunch.’ She looked at her watch, then at mine, to check the time. ‘I mustn’t be late. I’m sorry we have so little time together. Perhaps if you come back . . . Well, of course you will. What time do you leave?’

  ‘I can take the next train out. I should be home by this evening.’

  I noticed that I had referred to the flat as home, quite naturally. This was an advance. And I had better set about making it entirely habitable. When the darker days and longer nights set in I might even be glad to be there.

  We both stood up to leave. ‘My friend is American,’ she said, with a smile that was the nearest thing to transparency that I had ever perceived in her. She was in love, that much was clear. I smiled back. We embraced with genuine affection. I stood for a moment and watched her retreating figure. When she reached the corner she looked back and raised her hand. It was as if some tie united her to me, to earlier days before friendship became blurred. My feeling was one of relief that I had said and done nothing to alter the behaviour we had agreed upon.

  I picked up my bag and walked to the Métro. As if by a law stronger than chance a train was waiting for me at the Gare du Nord. As I had foreseen—but without calculation—I should be home by evening.

  13

  ‘I HAVE A MORAL PROBLEM,’ I SAID TO PHILIP HUDSON, after placing a glass of wine on a small table beside his chair.

  ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘I want to know how far one should indulge one’s friends.’

  ‘We’re urged to go the extra mile. Or so says some American president or other, cribbing from the gospels, as ever: go with him twain. One tries to be sympathetic, of course. I don’t know about indulgence. A male friend?’

  ‘No, a woman. One with a very strong will.’

  ‘If she has a very strong will she is in no need of your indulgence.’

  ‘I suppose not. I may have to get used to this idea. Would you like a smoked salmon sandwich?’

  ‘I should, yes.’<
br />
  ‘Are you eating out tonight?’

  ‘No. A couple of sandwiches will be fine. I’ll look in at the hospital, to see a patient.’

  This was his second visit to me in three weeks and already it seemed entirely natural. I had a wistful desire for company which was alleviated, partly, by his presence. By now attuned to his opportunistic eating habits, I found it agreeable to do some respectable shopping so that I could always offer him something. I did not go so far as to provide the makings of a meal, but smoked fish, cheeses, fruit in season could be produced without effort and would not betray undue thought on my part. Indeed the very point of the foresight was the shopping itself. I had found it depressing to accumulate additions to the flat, simply on my own behalf, although I now had the money to do so. A letter from Rob, expressing an exasperation with me that was all too familiar, contained the news that my mother’s income from investments would now come to me, and that if I needed any advice I could reach him at the flat. This I had no intention of doing, but the money enabled me to buy a new bed, new linen, a small table, and some cups and plates, on one of which I now arranged several smoked salmon sandwiches and an apple.

  I was happy to do this, indeed more than happy, not because I felt it natural to do so, but because the experience of providing for myself alone contained a faint foreknowledge of what it would be like to grow old in this way. The settled circumstances into which I had retreated would, I knew, begin to irk me with their suggestion of permanence, unalterability. I missed the freedom of the hotel, the proximity of the busy street, the random nature of temporary living, which was in so many ways like a holiday. Even Françoise’s incursions began to seem charmingly bohemian as I looked back on them from my rather dark flat, although no one here could displace or dispossess me. This acquisition of property made me feel older, or, rather, old. Every towel, every saucepan seemed to act as witness to my solitary condition, and this was paradoxical since I had always accepted this condition as perfectly normal, even sensible. It was a parody of a new life, one for which I had no profound need. I even took against my new possessions; the very plate I was holding was exonerated only by virtue of the fact that it contained food for someone other than myself. I was almost in a hurry to hand it over, to see another’s appetite in action, and thereby free myself from the tyranny of my own arrangements. I did not question this. Whether it were a need for company or something more complicated, I welcomed the opportunity to act on another’s behalf. And yet I knew and accepted that the life I had chosen was the only one I could manage, and though I looked towards a future which contained nothing more sinister than boredom I was also quite clear about its safety, however anodyne and irritating that might turn out to be.

  ‘You’re not nervous, living here alone?’ he asked. ‘Ah, delicious. Thank you.’

  ‘Nervous? I have never been nervous. But restless, certainly. I think it’s not natural to live alone. I go out as much as I can. Oh, I don’t mean that I go to parties, entertainments of that kind. I mean I leave the flat in the morning as if I were going to work. That’s what I really like, feeling at one with all the people who are really going to work, even if I’m only going to a reference library. Then I almost automatically leave at the same time as the other workers, the real ones. And I prefer to eat out, although I’ve got a perfectly good kitchen. Nothing elaborate. Sitting in a café suits me better than sitting at home. Would you like coffee?’

  ‘Perhaps another glass of that wine.’

  I was longing to ask him how he managed, whether his heart had been broken by his wife’s defection, whether he longed for company, but had the sense to restrain myself. It would be impertinent for a woman of my age to put such questions to someone so much older—but how old was he? I had thought him to be in his fifties, but now I saw that this was an impression conveyed by his heavy build and his frequent silences. I revised it downwards to his late forties. The fact that he behaved like a man from whom youth has fled without leaving a vestige behind was neither here nor there. Youth had not done me much good either. And yet my longings were those of an adolescent: to be taken care of, to be nurtured, to be loved. All this I managed to conceal, as one should. It is an error to confess such needs. Nor is it entirely beneficial to perceive the existence of such needs in others. Needs are too personal, too intimate, and the fact that they may be shared does little to dignify them. So that Philip Hudson’s needs, and indeed my own, remained safely out of sight.

  ‘How long will you stay at the hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Not more than half an hour.’

  ‘And then will you walk back to York Street?’

  ‘I expect so. Unless you’d like me to come back here?’

  I must have blushed. With confusion, but also with pleasure. ‘Another time,’ I managed to say. ‘I mean that.’

  He smiled. ‘At least that’s settled. What will you do for the rest of the evening?’

  ‘I don’t know. Read, sit in a café. Or read and sit in a café. Actually I think I might walk a bit. Oh, don’t worry. I’ll leave you at the hospital. I think I’m rather homesick. And yet I am home; how strange. Perhaps it’s a feeling that can descend on one at any time.’

  ‘You think too much. Health is what matters, freedom from disease.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. Is that why you went into medicine?’

  ‘I had a sister of whom I was very fond. She died young. I may have thought I could have helped her if I’d known rather more. Anyway I enjoy what I do.’

  I knew that that was as much as I should get in the way of a shared confidence. His life could hardly have been immune from soul-searching, but this was not a process to which I had access. I rather liked his taciturnity. It was what I had liked about Michael.

  ‘And your young man?’ he asked, echoing my thoughts.

  ‘He was not in Paris, where I expected to find him. I dare say we’ll make contact sooner or later. I’ll have to go back in any case. I left my raincoat there, a pair of shoes, that sort of thing. At the end of September, probably. I have an invitation I can’t get out of.’

  My homesickness may have been for a way of life that was no longer sustainable. I was now condemned to adulthood: nothing could have prevented that from happening. Anything less would be an evasion of responsibility. And yet those graceful unemployable students I had met in Paris, so poetic in their artist’s garb, so accessible in their liberal attitude to time and place, had seemed entirely viable: no trace of homesickness there. But of course they were home; they were part of the culture, the last gasp of the Romantic Movement. And they were loved for their emblematic status. I had seen many a noncommittal café owner pour one or other of them—it hardly mattered which—a free glass of wine. They paid with their charm, which was entirely genuine; in return they were cherished for their unspoiled aspirations. They also had the saving grace of knowing their role, of shouldering their inheritance, and if in time they acquired a certain cynicism they managed to make that equally attractive.

  The difference between these archetypes and this man now walking beside me could not have been greater: it was the difference between a tenor and a bass. My present companion was responsible, respectable, a man of substance, not only physically but emotionally as well: grown-up. Part of his gravitas derived from his consistency, and yet part of me longed for the emotional range, however superficial, of that other species, and of those I had left behind, together with my own eagerness, my own spontaneity. If I were to please now I should have to be circumspect, as he was. I wondered if I had said too much, been too introspective. This was not the mode in this country to which I had returned and where I was now in exile. Perhaps there was a balance to be struck between the two. Perhaps what I really wanted was my old room back, but this line of thinking led to Françoise, and I was no longer sure that I wanted to attend her mother’s lunch party. Getting out of it, however, might prove difficult, since I had been invited some weeks in advance. But I had over a month in wh
ich to work this out, and the evening was too fine to be spoiled with such considerations, and I could spare little attention for this matter, although it would, in time, acquire a certain urgency.

  The evening was indeed so beautiful that mere conversation seemed otiose. Even very young people, intent on their own activities, drifted, idled, as if nostalgic for the summer that was already on the wane. It was late July, a poignant moment in the year’s evolution. The sky was already darkening, although the light had nothing about it that was threatening. But everyone seemed possessed of the knowledge that high summer would only return after an achingly long interval, and regret was in the air. I found myself invaded by the strange concern that gripped me every night as I awaited the onset of sleep, in comparison with which waking was a relief. It was eight o’clock, too early to say goodbye to the day. Even this walk had something valedictory about it. Yet there was a crowd outside the cinema, waiting for the evening to renew itself; restaurants were embarking on their busiest time. Philip Hudson, perhaps succumbing to one of his periodic trances, said nothing, which seemed appropriate. I did not look forward to returning to the flat, to see the empty wine glass, the crumb-strewn plate, evidence of his departure. There was no sentiment in this, though perhaps something more subtle, an apprehension of a solitude that was no longer appropriate.

  ‘You didn’t eat your apple,’ I said. It was a beautiful apple, though I did not know its name. I could imagine its texture as a corrective to the salmon.

  ‘It’s in my pocket. I’ll eat it later.’

  We stopped and faced each other. ‘Don’t linger,’ he said. ‘Thank you for a pleasant evening.’

  I held out my hand. ‘I shall probably stay here until September. And you? Will you go away?’

  ‘No. I don’t take holidays.’

  ‘You said you had a house in Winchelsea. . . .’

  ‘It’s rented out. I hardly use it. Mark was fond of it when he was young. He rarely goes there now.’

  ‘What a shame.’ This sounded falsely polite. ‘Good night, then.’ I turned away, feeling a little uncomfortable. I did not look back.