The Rules of Engagement

by Anita Brookner

  The image of the hospital bed, which had come out of nowhere, was impossible to dismiss. I knew that this applied to Betsy and yet I felt the anguish of the situation as though it were a very real threat to myself. I saw the dependency, the acceptance that illness brings with it, and the loneliness. I had always been perfectly healthy; there was no reason for me to experience this horror. It was a horror that I had first encountered as a child, when my grandfather was dying: I associated the figure in the bed with the miasma of sickness, the dense tainted atmosphere in the room, the impotent scrabbling of his weak hand. I had cried, protested, been sent out to play. But play was incompatible with what I had seen, although I could hardly have understood it. It was then that I understood the notion of damage, which persisted until I managed to give it a name. Naming it, however, merely increased its power.

  It was perhaps significant, perhaps not, that I had another dream at this time, again connected with electricity. In the dream I had tried to switch on the light in the bathroom, only to see and to feel coils of wire dripping from the socket, down the walls to the floor. This was repeated in all the other rooms. I told myself calmly that an electrician must be called, but before I could do so the door was pushed open to admit two women whom I did not know. They appeared to know me, very well, so well that they made themselves entirely at home, at one point lying down on my bed. They chatted between themselves as if they were in a public place. One produced a bottle of hand lotion which she passed to the other; they shared it carelessly, so that it spilled onto the coverlet, soiling it. I knew that I should find traces of this same glutinous substance on the chairs, the table, the carpets throughout the flat. The two women, absorbed in their conversation, paid no attention to me. And there was no help for it: that was the point. I struggled out of this dream, or nightmare, with a sense of horror so great that I did something I had never done before. I telephoned Nigel, who must have sensed my distress, for he promised to come over. It was five o’clock in the morning. By six he was with me.

  He was of immense value to me at that moment, although he did not quite understand why I should be so frightened. My nightmare he was inclined to dismiss as a little woman’s nervous imagination, but I think it pleased him to see me as timorous, fallible, anxious for his opinion and his reassurance. My woeful appearance seemed to have called forth some extinct manliness, so that he took charge, made tea, and informed me that we should spend the day in the park, Holland Park, and eat lunch there. I knew that we were both behaving out of character, he so strong, I so weak, and yet it was a relief to us both to indulge these alternative characteristics, to give in to a rarely glimpsed temptation to be other than we were. We both knew that a return to normal was inevitable, that it was necessary but not entirely welcome. I pleased him further by worrying that I was taking him away from his work, and it was at this point that normality began once more to intrude, for he confessed that there was little work for him to do, that perhaps there never had been, at which point his bleakness threatened to overtake my own. I was not willing to pity either of us—pity was too dangerous—so I showered and dressed and made breakfast, relying on these reassuring activities to put us both to rights. The sun was already at full strength: we had passed the longest day. The fear of summer’s decline convinced us that we must take advantage of this light, this heat. We set out for the park before nine.

  There, sitting on a bench, we had our first real conversation. He wondered why I had been so frightened by what was only a dream, and I tried to explain my concept of damage, and how it had been revived by news of Betsy’s illness. Were we very close, he asked. No, but we had grown up together, I replied, and then began to do what I had not intended to do, to reminisce about the past. It all came out: Bourne Street, Pimlico Road, our earliest urban landscape, then school, and our easy unthinking association which ended when I went to Paris, leaving Betsy to deal with her aunt’s demise on her own. When she succeeded me in Paris we lost touch, until she appeared at my wedding, hopeful, even joyous, as I had not been. I broke off my account at this point: I still wanted to prolong the ceremony of innocence. But I could hardly convey what this meant to me, and how sadly I had grown away from it. He questioned me astutely as we sat there in the sun, but there was nothing more I was able or willing to add. My feeling that a part of life had already come to an end was too strong, and the knowledge that I had not particularly valued that part too sad.

  ‘And this is the friend you are worried about?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. I then surprised myself by saying, ‘I suppose we have been shadowing each other all our lives. And now she is ill and I must face up to all the implications. I think she must want me with her at this time.’ I managed not to say, ‘Despite our knowledge of each other.’

  Then he said a kind thing. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ To the hospital, to the bedside, to the duties that devolve on a person designated as the next of kin.

  He prevailed upon me to eat lunch, on a day that seemed stranger than any other. Then he put me in a taxi and stood waving until I was out of sight.

  But as the taxi sped away my mood of grateful appreciation declined, and I became hard again, as I knew I might have to be. Tearful empathy was not what would be needed, nor were misgivings and reminiscences. Also I perceived the gratification that my momentary weakness had bestowed on Nigel, for whose conscientious support I now felt a certain impatience. It would seem that in the absence of passion I could feel little except fear. That was the singular gift of passion: it eradicated fear. Now I felt fear, but only for myself: the real thing. I feared the night to come and the dreams it might bring. I feared what I had already perceived, my transformation into the kind of feeble needy woman whom a man like Nigel might think appropriate. I feared a collapse of the nerves that might precipitate me into troubles I had so far only glimpsed. I feared a loss of authenticity which would leave me at the mercy of others, my own vestigial strengths quite gone. Therefore I willed myself to think of Edmund and how I might get in touch with him again.

  Yet I was forced to acknowledge that my brief foray into the unconscious, or wherever it was that dreams were manufactured, had done me a disservice, turning me into a younger, frightened person, or worse, an older sicker one, and that Nigel was somehow associated with this process, through no fault of his own, and possibly none of mine. He had been competent, considerate, yet there had been something in his behaviour that distanced me from the man whose measure I thought I had taken. There had been a touch of complacency as he had sought to calm my fears, and the arm that he had laid on my shoulders had been that of a nurse or a guardian, or even a parent: sexless. As we had walked through the summer flowerbeds the arm had grown heavier and I had wanted to shrug it off, but could not do so without causing offence. If we were to continue together I should have to get used to this uxorious possessiveness, and yet his kind action was that of a clumsy man whom I knew I could never meet on his own terms. His gesture—the arm around my shoulders—went with a certain elaborate patience as he listened to my account of that dream of intrusion, of soiling, as if such matters were unknown to him. I had done my best to turn him into a sort of companion with whom I might spend a major part of my life, yet always with an unacknowledged reservation, namely that he was a stranger and likely to remain one. This at last was the breakthrough into an unwelcome truth: I could no longer tolerate him, any more than I could feel comfortable with his heavy arm shackling me to his side. I had done my best to turn myself into another person, the sort of woman who would not puzzle him, who would be anxious for his welfare, good-tempered in all circumstances, content with what he chose to tell me about himself, and keeping mute about my own true nature. And I had done this quite successfully, leading him perhaps towards a conclusion which he accepted too readily. I had not been aware of the strain, yet now I felt fatigue at the prospect of continuing along this road. Edmund’s reappearance had done much to accelerate this process, yet Edmund was not to blame.
It was Nigel who was to blame, for his very virtues of leniency and conformity—conformity to a stereotype which was perhaps inauthentic in both our cases, out of character. I knew nothing about him except what he chose to tell me. The same was true in my case. The inevitability of marriage loomed frighteningly large. I had had one such marriage, and had known the restrictions it had placed on me, but my true nature had won out, and I could not risk this happening again. For I remained convinced that Nigel was a good man, as Digby had been, and that with him I might lead a dull life and a more or less contented one. He would be proof against further bad dreams, and yet to indulge in the very indulgence I might call forth would seem a sin against all forms of creative energy. For a woman to put such primitive forces aside meant, I knew, a diminution of all her faculties, so that a dryness would ensue, a loss of some sort, a complaisant and complacent acceptance of what had been more or less willingly entered into but should have been seen from the outset as the danger it was.

  All this I registered as the taxi proceeded through a landscape that was unfamiliar to me; once past Lambeth Palace I had no idea where I was, or how I should get back. My unease increased with the knowledge that I should shortly have to confront a situation even more unpleasant than my own. And then, in a wide calm street, I came to the heart of the matter. I knew, without needing to be told, what was wrong with Betsy, what those tests would disclose. I knew this, and I imagined that she did. For I think one always knows when one is threatened. That she was no stranger to this feeling, from as far back as she could remember, might, if she, or nature were benignly inclined, make acceptance easier. I saw now, in that blank street, how valiantly she had opposed her fate, which was essentially that of someone denied the protection that enables one to confront the inordinate difficulties that must be confronted if one is ever to achieve a fugitive maturity. Without it one is an orphan, as Betsy had been in reality. I thought back painfully to the ease with which I had taken this for granted, as a given: I had parents—most people had parents—but she had only her faded aunt with whom she lived in a house too big for them, a substantial property which even in those early days was being eyed by speculators. I remembered the evenings the two of them had spent at the cinema, and the epics and extravaganzas they were both perhaps too innocent fully to understand. I saw her in Paris, in Mme Lemonnier’s awful kitchen, still making the best of things. I saw the extent of her love affairs, and their all too obvious limitations: as far as I knew there had been only two, both of which had succeeded in denying her essential nature, that of a loving simple girl, an all-too-willing victim. The absurd Daniel de Saint-Jorre, to whose assumed name she still obstinately clung, had perhaps done no lasting damage; at least she no longer mentioned him. Edmund was another matter. He had become vulnerable to her orphaned state, and though this had made her happy, or at least triumphant, it had turned him against himself, against his own instincts, had created an unwelcome disturbance in his life, gone to the very roots of his family. I could see, with dread, that he was ready to consign her to her fate, and that if ever I were to see him again we should both know the extent of our defection, his and mine. Recovery from this situation, if it ever came about, was less than assured. One came back to the same conclusion: damage. This aura was as palpable as whatever the doctors might uncover. When the taxi drew up I realized that all three of us knew this. With these considerations in mind Nigel receded into the background, dwindled, was almost forgotten.

  What united us, Betsy and I, in this strangest of pairings, was the fact that neither of us had children, and that we had therefore failed the one essential test that all women feel obliged to pass. Even celibates measure their success or failure by this standard, and those who remain childless throughout their lives wonder what faculty has been lacking to bring this about. Yet neither of us had been maternal in our outlook, although Betsy gazed fondly on any children she encountered. She was, perhaps, too busy being her own child, the child she had to nurture in the absence of anyone else able or willing to do so. As for myself, I saw any potential children as an impediment to my freedom, for at the back of my mind I kept in readiness a plan of flight from circumstances I could no longer tolerate. (This I might need to activate again.) Now I saw our childlessness as an indictment, a reproach to what had been our folly. In this assumption I included us both; we had seen ourselves always as lovers, whereas sensible persons, or perhaps those with a greater understanding of the world, make their peace with existing circumstances, and know joy and pleasure with the sort of acceptance afforded by a settled state, in which there is no need of concealment. For that concealment I now felt an immense distaste. Only very young romantic girls thrill to the idea of a secret lover. And we had chosen, she and I, to stay within the limits of this exalted and fragile condition. While there might have been a son, a daughter, at Betsy’s bedside, there would now only be myself, a poor substitute. That agreement between us never to discuss this matter, or even to think of it, was yet another indication of our lack of true progress. Quite simply, we had not grown up; worse, we had not perhaps known this until now. For nature is insidious and undeniable, and in the presence of a threat, as we now were, makes evident what may have been clear to others, if not to ourselves.

  And yet there was no sense of tragedy discernible in the hospital, which was light, bright, and surprisingly quiet, the patients neatly stowed away behind their private doors. I found Betsy sitting up in bed, her eyes expectant. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. She was noticeably thinner in the face than when I had last seen her, but otherwise there was little change, although her elaborate nightdress registered the beating of her heart against its thin folds. I realized with some embarrassment that I had come empty-handed, and resolved in that instant to do all I could to make her comfortable. Neither of us had much taste for the roles we had to play; all the more reason, therefore, to play them to perfection.

  ‘I didn’t bring anything,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what you would want.’

  ‘Nothing, really. A spare nightdress, if you have one. It seems I have to be in here longer than I thought. I’m to have an operation.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps you could find out. By the way, I’m Miss Newton here.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Stripped of my title.’

  ‘I’ll sort it out.’ There was a brief silence. ‘When is this operation to take place?’

  ‘I don’t know. They say they want to feed me up first. I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘I think it’s rather encouraging, their wanting to build you up.’

  ‘Yes.’ Again a brief pause. ‘What’s it like out?’

  ‘Well, it was a beautiful morning. Real summer. Now it’s clouding over a bit.’

  ‘Is it hot? I feel hot.’

  ‘It’s warm, certainly. There may be rain later. I had lunch in Holland Park. It was pleasant. We’ll go there if you like. When you’re better.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Real summer,’ I persisted. ‘And still plenty of it left.’

  She lay back on the pillows. ‘I don’t know why I’m so tired,’ she said.

  ‘You have a rest. Sleep if you can. I’ll come back tomorrow. I know the way now. It’s no problem.’ Her eyelids drooped. ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ I said. ‘Leave it to me.’

  In the corridor I saw the brief flash of a nurse’s uniform as she turned the corner.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I called. ‘Could I have a word? Are you looking after my friend?’

  ‘Betsy? That’s what she told us to call her. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything. To begin with I’m not authorized, and to go on with, I don’t know. If you’d like to ask at the desk they may be able to tell you.’

  ‘She’s to have an operation, I gather. Do you know what it’s for?’

  ‘You’d have to speak to Mr Harvey. The surgeon. He won’t be in until Friday. That’s when he operates. As I say, if you’d like to speak to them at the desk, they may be able
to tell you more.’

  I followed her to a sort of waiting area which was empty. Just as I was resigning myself to one of the seats a plump dark woman appeared from a doorway I had not noticed. I knew that I must ask questions, knew that I did not want to hear the answers. ‘Wetherall,’ I said. ‘Elizabeth Wetherall. I’d like to know more about Betsy Newton. I’m her next of kin.’

  ‘You’d have to ask Mr Harvey. She’s scheduled for Friday. Visit whenever you want to, of course. There are no restrictions.’

  ‘You have my telephone number? You can call me at any time.’

  She scanned a list. ‘Wetherall. Here it is; I have it. Of course you can ring here. My name is Purslow. If you ask for me . . .’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Actually I’ll probably be here every day.’

  ‘That’s fine. Oh, just one question. To whom should the account be sent?’

  ‘I’ll take care of that. You have my address.’

  ‘Thank you. I think that’s all for the moment. If you’d like to check with me? I’m here every weekday. There’ll be somebody else over the weekend. Just as good.’ She smiled firmly. I was dismissed.

  As the doors slid closed behind me I felt a huge relief, almost gratitude. After the sanitized coolness of the hospital, the murky air of the street struck me as beautiful. I had no desire to go home, only to escape. I walked in the direction of what I thought must be the centre of town: eventually, after passing buildings which seemed devoid of people or activity, I found a bus stop, boarded a bus with an unfamiliar number, and was eventually carried back to recognizable surroundings. Only then did I feel delivered from the threat that had enveloped myself as well as Betsy. Yet I knew that I should have to return on the following day, and on the days after that, to join the nervous visitors with their flowers and their small treats, although I had not been aware of any. The hospital seemed to enclose only Betsy and myself: even the nurse, even Mrs Purslow, seemed like an actor, a supporting character, while the shadowy Mr Harvey was merely a menace on the horizon. Once inside the flat the feeling of menace increased, became so strong that I knew that no subterfuge would be possible. The cheerfulness, even the false cheer that was to be recommended in these circumstances, would, I suspected, be beyond me. The irritable sympathy for Betsy that had accompanied me all my life had been changed, by a process which it did not occur to me to question, into a gravity which imposed its own laws of behaviour.