Latecomers

by Anita Brookner

  At least, that was true of his own case, which, once more, was beginning to worry him, to absorb him, to obtrude into the more reassuring aspects of everyday living. His dreams, since the incident with Toto, were also becoming more bizarre, more frightening. Recently, for example, he had had a dream about his dentist. (He was aware, from his discussions with the analyst, that his mouth was a focus of anxiety for him.) In his dream he had found the normally rather vain and meticulous Mr Gilmour seated with his feet up on his desk, reading the Daily Mirror and eating a coarse and overfilled sandwich. With shreds of ham and lettuce dribbling on to his obviously second-hand suit, Mr Gilmour, whose face now had a dusky and inflamed look, invited Fibich to take his place in the dentist’s chair. He then opened the door of the surgery and invited a few of his friends in to watch the ensuing operation. Fibich himself was the helpless and gagged recipient of unwarranted attention, in a setting which had mysteriously become vast and shadowy, panoramic. On waking he recognized this setting as Courbet’s Atelier, in which the painter, dead centre, is surrounded by a disparate crowd of poets, writers, gamekeepers, and crinolined society women, at the same time posturing and self-absorbed. Fibich, in Courbet’s place, was not performing before an admiring crowd, as the painter was presumably doing, but was a victim on whom some dental indignity was about to be perpetrated. There was no help to be sought from the onlookers, most of whom had peevish abstracted expressions that boded no good. He had awoken from his dream in a state of panic and had gone into the bathroom to check if his teeth were still present or whether they had somehow been removed, without his knowledge, in the course of the night.

  For these many reasons – the obstreperousness of his son, the sadness of his wife, and his own bad dreams – Fibich was glad of this respite, this account of a normal seeming day, this appropriate reaction of physical tiredness, caused by nothing more problematic than a walk round the shops in the reassuring company of Yvette. Christine, who was exaggerating the amusing nature of the enterprise in order to lift the heaviness from Fibich’s face, was in fact watching him narrowly. Although her motives were entirely altruistic she despised herself. So, as a hapless girl, she had tried to divert her father and to draw to herself some of his mysteriously absent attention. In those days her efforts had met with no success. Mr Hardy had not been much of a father. Indeed he seemed to take a certain pride in his lack of interest in his only child, as if begetting her had been an act of munificence to which, out of sheer modesty, he wished no further reference to be made. His perception of the world had not extended much beyond his own needs, which were simple but unlimited. Christine’s desire to captivate him was, as he saw it, misplaced. On many occasions he had sent her back, disconcerted, to her room, and settled down for a sleep. She had known her efforts to be inappropriate, unbecoming, yet she was still compelled to perform, to try to make life agreeable for those too nerveless to make life agreeable for themselves. Or for her.

  She knew that something momentous had happened in her married life, and she knew that it had happened to Fibich and not to herself. What she thought of quite coldly as Toto’s cruelty to Marianne would not be so easily objectified by Fibich. She envied Yvette Hartmann, whose child had flown the nest in entirely honourable circumstances. Toto could not decently be got rid of, yet she wished that he would go. She saw him clinging on to them, an incubus that would drain the remaining energy from them in later years. Sometimes, when she felt a little more optimistic – in the early morning, or when the sun unexpectedly shone – she would reason with herself, ‘After all, he only kissed her.’ Whether or not something more had taken place (and that she was never to find out) she also knew that Toto had inflicted some damage on Marianne, and that the damage was in the nature of an appropriation, or rather a misappropriation, the motive power behind which was sheer levity, speculation, curiosity, a sort of childish impulse to knock down another boy’s sandcastle or to steal his ball. The girl, Christine knew, meant nothing to him. By the same token, she also knew that the slightly prudish Marianne, who moved much too slowly for her mother’s liking, would inspire in a man like Toto exactly the blend of dislike, mockery and amusement to make his advances to her inevitable. And even if they were to let the matter rest – for Marianne, she knew, would effectively be silent on the matter, and Toto almost certainly would either genuinely forget it or decently, masculinely, bury it, that being his code in such matters – Christine knew that in some monstrous and mysterious way she had given birth to a man who hated women. And as she was the first woman he had ever known, she must in some way be responsible for this. The thought chilled her and made her a colder woman than she should have been.

  She knew that, unlike herself, Fibich felt for the boy a palpitating, almost a maternal love. It struck her as a further anomaly that their roles should be reversed in this way, that it should be left to her to be objective and authoritarian, while he, the father, reserved the right to be anxious and helpless. She knew that the injury to Fibich would take some time to surface, bound up as it was with his sense of loss, already so overwhelming, that would be preparing its travail in his always overloaded dreams. This grotesque state of affairs, which saw her entertaining her husband in order that he should not brood ineffectually about his son, managed to reduce for her the small but genuine pleasure she had taken in having spent her day in the always reassuring company of Yvette, to whom no thought deeper than her own well-being ever seemed to occur. The knowledge that she had also, to a limited yet ascertainable extent, been responsible for keeping Yvette happy lay on her retrospectively like a weight. She dreamed, increasingly, of flight.

  The following day, she thought, while allowing Fibich for once to make the coffee, she must write to Toto, asking him about his plans for the future, for she saw there was to be no future for any of them until definite plans had been made for Toto. Once he was taken care of, theoretically by somebody or something else, she could persuade Fibich to travel more: with his native anxieties still rampant, Fibich was timorous about leaving home. They had been happy once and could be again, she reasoned. She was aware that she was not a good mother, or rather not good enough for the overwhelming creature that Toto had turned out to be, and that an onlooker might accuse her of trying too hard and too soon to loosen the knot that had once tied her to her son. This knowledge afflicted her with a deep sorrow, in comparison with which her other sorrows were mere indulgences.

  There should, she thought, be a middle way, one which would allow her some interior freedom while still making room for maternal or wifely solicitude. For solicitude, she realized, was still to be her portion. Whether there was another mode she did not know, for her closest model, Yvette, seemed to her too airy a mother, a mother who too often knew best, leaving too unexamined the nature of her child’s fate. Yet that airiness became her, and Marianne might even now have been provided for, largely through her mother’s intervention, in the best possible manner. Myers, the accessorized husband, was steady if dull: no further shocks would be inflicted on that unprepared girl. Whereas, for Toto, she could foresee endless liaisons, mostly of an unsatisfactory nature, with fervent beginnings and unfinished endings, and all taking place in the flat from which, emotionally, she had begun to detach herself. The best thing would be for him to get a job (but even that now seemed unlikely: the Comus he had produced at Oxford had inspired in him thoughts of a life in the theatre) and for him to find a flat somewhere, with Fibich’s help, where they could keep an eye on him but not be brought into daily contact with his abrasive personality. She saw discussions about Toto’s future stretching on into infinity, lasting for the rest of the life that she and Fibich might have left to them. At the same time she saw the sun or the fire of her imaginings. Somehow the two must be brought together, and it would be left to her, with an immense effort, to make this come about. Her genuine physical tiredness faded into insignificance in comparison with the great weight of obligation she felt settle on her shoulders.

  The next
day she sat down determinedly at her writing-desk. ‘My dearest boy’, she wrote, for he had been that once and in a corner of her mind, the corner in which everything worked out for the unhoped for best, he still was. ‘My dearest boy, you will soon have finished at Oxford, and Daddy and I were wondering if you had had further thoughts about your future. The theatre is such an overcrowded profession, as you must already know, and such an unsettled one. We wondered if it might not be a good idea for you to apply to the BBC? There is an excellent drama section there, for which you would be ideally suited. We should, of course, help you for as long as you needed time to find your feet, but you must be wanting to strike out on your own, particularly as by now you have got used to being away from home. Have you a friend at Oxford with the same ideas as yourself? Daddy and I would be delighted if the two of you were to decide to share a flat, and that could easily be arranged. We want to see you settled. Of course, that is what all parents want, and I know how irritating it must sound to you. But now is the time to make some decisions, or at least to think about making them. Life is so much easier when you have something interesting to do all day and a nice place to come home to in the evenings, a place where you could entertain your friends. Of course you can do that here, but Daddy and I like to live quietly, as you know, and we should hate to cramp your style. Will you promise to think about this and to let us know fairly soon what it is you want to do?

  ‘You have been such a surprise to us, with talents we never dreamed of, and we long for you to have a happy life. Parents, alas, cannot always arrange this for their children. That is why we urge you to do something that will ensure you a proper place in the scheme of things, and not let those precious gifts be squandered.

  ‘We are both well and think about you so much. Don’t work too hard. I know that Finals will be a strain but at the same time I know that they are worth taking seriously. Write and tell us, dear, what you are thinking and feeling, and we shall do our best to help you on your way.’

  Wondering how to finish this letter without being too insistent, her attention was attracted by a shadow moving rhythmically across the window: the edge of a ladder propped against the outer sill informed her of the monthly visit of Mr Crickmay, the window cleaner. Presently a round red face appeared in her field of vision. A hand waved: she waved back and made drinking motions with an imaginary cup, holding an imaginary saucer in her raised left hand. Mr Crickmay mimed delight, as he always did, and she got up thankfully to go to the kitchen and arrange cups and plates on a tray.

  Mr Crickmay stood, a heraldic figure, with ladder in one hand and bucket in the other. He always declined to sit down, and would cautiously consign the ladder to a corner while he drank his cup of tea. She welcomed his visits: he was an elderly man with a weak chest and she thought perhaps that he should not be out in all weathers, his hands permanently in water. But he was self-employed and admirably independent. Since the death of his wife he had buckled to, taken cookery lessons at night school, and was now an apparently contented man, busy all day, as she had just enjoined Toto to be, although well past the age of retirement. He was a good window cleaner, and an uncomplaining one; no weather ever put him out. In addition, he had developed into something of a gourmet cook, and she liked to find out from him how he was looking after himself. Today, however, he seemed to move more heavily than usual, to make an uncharacteristically clumsy movement with the ladder, which would have fallen had he not caught it.

  ‘I have sad news for you, Madam,’ he said, refusing a biscuit, but taking a long draught of his tea. ‘My little dog passed away.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Crickmay,’ said Christine. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘Yes, poor Gyp is no more. Old age, you see. He just seemed to know his time had come. I bought him some nice steak, and braised it, so it wouldn’t hurt his mouth, but he turned away from it. I tried to put some in his mouth, but he just let it drop. Then I took him up to the Common, to give him a bit of air, but he wouldn’t move. In the end we had to go to the vet. Miss Bannister, a very nice lady. She gave him an injection. I held him until he passed over.’

  In his small very blue eyes two tears formed with difficulty. He brought out a large red and white handkerchief and unselfconsciously wiped them away.

  ‘I am so sorry, Mr Crickmay,’ said Christine, genuinely distressed. ‘I know he was company for you.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, Madam. The company. I used to have him in the van with me all day. And when we got home I’d get his lead and he’d be waiting for me at the door to take him up on the Common. Well, naturally, I miss him.’

  ‘Will you get another dog, do you think?’ asked Christine, passing him another cup of tea.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t have another after Gyp. What I thought I’d do is take up a hobby. My friend suggested fishing.’

  ‘Your friend from Brighton?’ For he went off at weekends to stay with a family: he had been in the Navy with the husband, and had kept in close touch since the end of the war.

  ‘Yes. He said he’d take me fishing to see how I liked it. Of course,’ he said sadly, ‘my time’s my own now.’

  ‘I hope we’re not going to lose you, Mr Crickmay.’

  ‘Oh, no, Madam. Work keeps me going. And I’ve got my little flat. No, it’ll be weekends. That way I won’t grieve too much.’

  ‘I made those chicken wings in lemon sauce that you told me about,’ said Christine. ‘My husband thought they were delicious.’

  He brightened. ‘And they come up nice on a bed of rice,’ he said. ‘Did you serve them with rice?’

  ‘I did,’ Christine affirmed. ‘They were a great success.’

  ‘Sometimes I grate a little lemon into the rice,’ he went on. ‘Quite exotic. Well, Madam, I mustn’t waste your time. I’ve got Mrs Humphries still to do.’

  ‘Don’t despair, Mr Crickmay,’ said Christine, a hand on his arm.

  He grinned bravely. ‘Never! There’s so much going on, isn’t there? And so many people worse off. I always keep my fingers crossed for another bit of luck like Gyp. I keep them crossed for you too, Madam. If you don’t mind my saying so.’

  She was absurdly touched. He stood there, a bulky elderly man in blue dungarees and an old green cardigan. Valiant, a war hero; standing waist-deep in icy waters, pulling his mate to safety. Honest and simple, as people no longer seemed to be. And thus fatally removed from her own complicated projections.

  But he moved unsteadily to the door and she feared for him on the ladder.

  ‘Not too tired, Mr Crickmay?’

  ‘No, no, Madam. Mrs Humphries is my last.’

  ‘What will you eat tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought lamb cutlets forestière,’ he said. ‘With rice, instead of potatoes. Got to watch my weight.’ He patted his expansive stomach.

  ‘What a good idea. I might do those myself.’

  They discussed ways of bringing these to perfection, until finally he stood outside the door.

  ‘Never give up, Mr Crickmay.’

  ‘Never, Madam. That’s what I say to myself every morning. You never know what’s round the corner. Nice seeing you, as always, Madam. And that was a lovely cup of tea.’

  They shook hands, as they always did, and then Christine was alone again.

  The brilliance of the windows faded as the late darkening sky of spring turned the room steadily into dusk. Christine moved nervously back into the drawing-room, striking her hands together as she compared Mr Crickmay’s honest unmediated sadness with her own. We don’t get out enough, she thought. We should see more people. In the early days of their married life they had been very convivial, spending many evenings together, at the opera, the ballet, concerts on Sunday afternoon, little late supper parties. When the children had come along these activities had fallen into abeyance and had never been renewed. She supposed that given a little energy she might start them up again, but she thought not. These days they seemed to be confined to their homes, half hoping that the children might co
me back, half glad of the respite of their absence, modest now, retiring, a little timorous despite themselves, glad of the excuse to watch television and not go out into the dark night, glad of the comforts of their bedrooms and the solace of early sleep. This will not do, thought Christine: we are not old yet. We are too comfortable, that is the trouble: we have settled down, given up. Thinking of the many inducements to giving up that she might find in her own life, she felt a moment of repugnance for this slothfulness, as if an endless old age were being prepared, and she herself, unresisting, were being rendered old in order to accommodate her husband. I shall give a dinner party, she thought. I shall give a party for Marianne and her husband. That friend of hers, Belinda, can come. And that poor young man from Fibich’s office. For she felt discomfort, and always had, at the thought of Goodman, with his radiant pleading eyes, so incongruously framed in dense black lashes, the eyes of a houri, overshadowing an otherwise nondescript face permanently set in lines of propitiation. What damage had been done to Goodman Christine had no way of knowing, yet there was no mistaking its trace. Perhaps that was the quality that embarrassed Fibich. There was no doubting Goodman’s efficiency and loyalty: he was an excellent company secretary. It was simply that one could never praise him sufficiently to relieve his anxiety. That anxiety was present in his ardour to please, an ardour always in excess of his actual duties, which he performed with ease. An atmosphere of effort surrounded him: he imparted a sense of strain. He seemed early to have vowed himself to nothing less than supreme excellence, in the teeth of who knew what private misgivings. He lived with his mother, to whom he was devoted. Christine doubted that he would ever marry. And the circumstances of life with mother had affected his social skills: he praised and thanked continuously. Nevertheless, she thought, he will be asked. And that friend of Marianne’s, who keeps getting engaged and unengaged all the time – for Belinda, surprisingly, was still on the loose – might perhaps be persuaded to take him in hand.