A Private View

by Anita Brookner

  Of course the reality would almost certainly have been shabbier. Perhaps his best course now would be to reflect on how perfect the fantasy was, simply by virtue of being a fantasy. Put to the test he might not have salvaged the philosophical calm with which he had so complacently endowed himself, might have become tetchy, with the tetchiness of old age, and also with old age’s aches and pains, the stiffness of the joints, the uncertain digestion, the dimming eyesight. In many ways it was better to stay where he had always been, making the best of a job which by most standards was not too bad, with help, however unhelpful, near at hand. That reminded him: he must prepare envelopes for Hipwood and Mrs Cardozo. He had written no Christmas cards, though he had received many. He had not yet bought a present for Louise. But Louise was a matter on which he was not yet ready to think.

  As for love, the strange exasperated feeling he had had for the girl, and which was certainly a form of passion, if only an impure form—that had vanished in the light of this unnerving light. He supposed now that he would never know it, that madness of which the poets wrote. Perhaps his foreknowledge of it, his apprehension of it, his recognition of its properties, would have to be enough, although as a fantasy it had not left him much to sustain him in the life that lay ahead. A fantasy is forward looking: one gains no pleasure from looking back on it. He would be left with his dry memories and his small routines, obliged to make his peace with what remained to him, rather than with what he had promised himself. In that way he would no doubt salvage a little outward dignity, even though his thoughts, which must be kept secret, might disclose another truth.

  In his mind’s eye he saw a figure in a T-shirt and jeans, the sort of figure which might pass unnoticed and unremarked in a crowd of similar figures, striding into, and being almost obliterated by, the willing confusion of an airport. He saw her hitching her holdall onto her shoulder, as they all did, and striding along the walkway into the plane. He saw the plane vibrate with banked energy, saw it take off, saw it dwindle, and then disappear. With that he got stiffly to his feet, put a hand behind him to ease his back, and made his way out into the Bayswater Road.

  There was a café along here somewhere, he remembered, a cheap unpretentious Greek place, which seemed to cater for transients or for tourists too bewildered to search for anything more elaborate. In the summer there were four painted white tables on the pavement, and waiters, all talking loudly to each other, would come out from time to time to remove the thick white cups and sweep the remains of rolls and croissants on to trays. Today a Japanese couple sat impassively eating fried eggs and baked beans in the dim interior, while the coffee machine hissed and the proprietor displayed the lung capacity of a football coach. Bland sat down and ordered tea and toast. Both, when they came, were surprisingly good. He sat for ten minutes or so in the steam and noise. Then, since there was nothing else to be done, either now or in the future, he went home.

  In the flat he retrieved his salad, made a dressing, and cut a couple of slices from his chicken. There was a little cheese left, and the bread was still fresh. He felt extraordinarily hungry, as if he had been fasting for days, or as if this were his first meal after a serious operation. Yet even with the food in his mouth, half masticated, he was doubled up by an excess of grief which left his face contorted and his eyes moist. He forced himself to swallow, but needed a glass of water to calm himself. The rest of the meal went uneaten. He pushed the plate aside, went from the kitchen into the sitting-room, and let himself fall heavily into a chair, appalled at what was happening to him. To engage once more in ordinary life would, he thought, take more courage than he possessed. Yet all those kind people who had sent him Christmas cards, and to whom he was so profoundly indifferent, would no doubt view his condition with concern, were they to witness it, and in the event of an illness or a breakdown, which now seemed probable, would care for him, and visit him, and shelter him if the necessity arose. He owed something of a duty to those people, and to Louise, who, he knew, would be there at his death as she had been present all his life, to whom he had not given a single thought in his current predicament, but who must never know the truth. And at that hypothetical death-bed there would be one notable absence, but it would not be that of Katy, whom he saw as eternally escaping, but of the man he might have been, and who had predeceased him, some time ago, in his sixty-sixth year.

  With a supreme effort he got to his feet, irritated, despite himself, by the chilliness of the flat. He tidied the kitchen, went to his writing-table, and put a not inconsiderable sum of money, together with a suitable greeting, into an envelope for Hipwood. The realisation that it was nearly Christmas made him reflect on his social duties: he would have to buy and send cards, although it was too late now for presents. He could send flowers, perhaps. Louise presented a problem. He had never failed her before. Some excuse must be made, some reason given. He repulsed the idea of an invented illness, although he reckoned that he was so nearly ill that this might be near the truth. With his last ounce of moral strength he took a stand against the desire to let everything go, all feelings, all loyalties, all respect and care for himself. He forced himself once more to envisage buying a ticket to some distant place, but knew in the same instant that he could not stand the experience on his own, while that imaginary companion was still so present in his mind. He would have to stay where he was, and as he was, going through the motions of a normal existence until some lightening of the spirit took place, in the same mysterious, almost magical fashion that his own brief and so illusory metamorphosis had taken place. He would have to wait for this, and in the meantime comport himself with as much dignity as possible. Nothing became a man of his age, he knew in spite of himself, so much as a certain degree of dignity.

  He put on his overcoat and the soft black hat he had been in the habit of wearing to the office, seized his envelope, and went downstairs to the front desk. Hipwood emerged from his cubby-hole, and laid a proprietorial hand on the base of his Christmas tree.

  ‘Compliments of the season, Mr Hipwood,’ said Bland, handing over his envelope.

  ‘Much obliged, sir,’ replied Hipwood. Usually, Bland reflected, he was more forthcoming.

  ‘And I wonder if I might ask you a favour?’ Bland went on.

  Ask away, said Hipwood’s expression, which had not changed from a certain mournful placidity.

  Bland laid a further twenty-pound note on the desk. ‘My heating doesn’t appear to be working,’ he said. ‘Would you be very kind and take a look at it? I don’t much like the idea of spending Christmas in a cold flat.’

  ‘You won’t be going away then, sir?’

  ‘No. I shan’t be going away.’

  ‘Leave it with me, sir. Sometimes the thermostat needs a little adjustment.’

  ‘If you need to go into the flat you have your keys,’ said Bland. This proof of confidence, he felt, was as much as he could summon in his own defence. Besides, he knew that Hipwood was longing to get into the flat, which in his imagination was the scene of recent lechery and licentiousness. He took it upon himself, as a guardian of public morals, to keep an eye open for possible derangement. Not that he ever found it, but, as he let it be known, he had his suspicions. To these Bland had formerly been obliged to lend an ear. ‘Third floor, sir,’ Hipwood would say, out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Have you heard anything out of the way? Only they had a visitor last night, and I have my suspicions.’ The tenant, whether male or female, was always referred to as ‘they’. Bland knew that Hipwood suspected all the highly respectable retired men and elderly women who occupied this building of harbouring discreditable secrets. Like many solitaries he had a disorderly imagination. Bland, who was in possession of just such a discreditable secret, saw himself performing a symbolic act in bidding Hipwood search his flat. Even now it occurred to him to wonder if any evidence of his infatuation remained. Then he reflected that all the evidence was in his head, and was likely to remain there, and bidding Hipwood a pleasant good afternoon he went out
into the icy street.

  His intention was to walk to the National Gallery or the National Portrait Gallery, to buy his Christmas cards, and to spend the evening virtuously addressing them, ready to be posted the following morning, or even that night if he had the energy to go out again. He set out in a ruminative spirit, without his usual energy, but the afternoon was so fine, so calm, so depopulated, under the same cloudless sky, that he found himself increasing his pace, responding to those dear streets which had kept him company since his first arrival in London. He had spent his first feverish weeks exploring, before returning exhausted each evening to the small hotel in Earls Court where he had lived before being directed to Radnor Place, and hence to liberty. He had arrived in London with money from the sale of his parents’ house in his pocket, and this had protected him from the worst excesses of his innocence. He had learned slowly but thoroughly, setting himself to examine every neighbourhood in turn, playing with the voluptuous decision, which it would one day be his to make, of where to live, or, as he thought of it then, where to make his home. That home had proved elusive, or perhaps it was that none of his homes seemed to be the right one. Some living presence was eternally missing, yet at the same time he was prevented from introducing one. In this way Louise had escaped him, having seen his caution for what it was. And now, in the austere comfort of his present flat, undeniably expensive, undeniably his, he still felt himself to be a visitor, uncertain of his welcome, and not entirely at home.

  For old time’s sake he walked down George Street, down Baker Street, into Oxford Street, and then, just inside the park, to Hyde Park Corner. He had walked this way many times in the past and remembered how he had felt his heart expand with the grandeur of it all. Now it was no longer a novelty, nor did it feel so grand. Yet it was still his favourite. There were more triumphant cities, Paris, Rome, Vienna, even New York. All were more naturally festive, yet none felt like the centre of the universe as London did. Paris could be traversed on foot, or at least could have been when he was young; Rome was too cynical, Vienna too secretive. On his first visit, newly emancipated, and wide-eyed with wonder, it had seemed to him that London was one vast government building, the occupants of which went about their daily task of policing the known world. Or so it had been once. Now it was a city in decline. The dignity of the place was almost gone, yet these days he felt he understood it better. It was, like himself, secular. He gave little thought and no attention to the churches of London, which he had once conscientiously researched, but saved his acts of obeisance for the Houses of Parliament, nineteenth-century masterpiece, emblematic of the national confidence, pragmatic, sober, yet given over to Gothic pride. For a provincial like himself the sight of the building was enough to restore his spirits on a grey day.

  In Trafalgar Square he became aware of crowds. For most of the day he had felt entirely alone, not seeing, or not hearing, the people who dreamily filled the Sunday streets. Forced to move more slowly now, he sought in vain a known face above the heads of the crowd, which seemed compact, murmuring. He was able to admire the light. The icy sun had now faded, but in doing so had imparted a pinkish flush to the white stone of the National Gallery. In their last hour of liberty, before the darkness sent them home, people seemed becalmed, humbled, obedient, content to drift in company along the thronged but strangely silent street. It was enough to saunter, shoulders almost touching, the warmth of strange bodies almost palpable through overcoats, one’s sense of self almost in abeyance.

  He bought his cards, then, suddenly tired, took a cab back to Kendal Street. After the cold and the rapidly fading light he was almost glad to get home. The flat seemed strangely welcoming. He put his hand on the radiator and withdrew it smartly: blazing hot. So Hipwood had been successful. One might even say that Hipwood had been morally successful. If this had been a morality play Hipwood would be seen as having saved the day. Moral considerations aside, however, there was no doubt that the flat was newly comfortable. He made tea and drank it gratefully, yet in the act of eating a biscuit his face contracted once more with grief. It seemed that the solitary act of eating revealed to him once again the vast areas of solitude which he now inhabited. He deduced from this that he might be wise to spend his time alone, at least until he had regained some mastery of himself, for to display such an involuntary rictus in company—the sort to which an infant is subject—would be more than he could tolerate. Work might be a palliative, but he had none. Companionship would have helped, but he had precious little of that either. His world was, temporarily, quite empty. And there was the routine of Christmas to be got through. Tomorrow he must think about food. In the meantime there were gestures of acknowledgment to be made to the outside world. He spent the evening writing and stamping a number of cards: he was astonished that he knew so many people, to whom he sent his best, even his fondest wishes. Somehow it was not possible to send a card to Louise. A loving message would have been necessary, and he did not think he could manage one, not because Louise was not lovable but because he himself was as devoid of love as if he had been eviscerated. Certainly he felt depleted, as if by surgery. And his mind was empty now, under the influence of what he recognised as extreme fatigue. He left his pile of cards, stamped and ready to be posted the following morning, and, with scarcely the strength left to remove his clothes, went to bed. At some point in the middle of the night he became just conscious enough to remember that he had failed to telephone Louise.

  On the following day, Monday, he met Mrs Cardozo at the front door, and asked her, as a very great favour, if she would mind cleaning the Dunlops’ flat. She was immediately indignant. ‘I only work for you, George. I don’t work for others.’ The point at which she had decided to address him as George was now lost in the mists of antiquity. She would always be Mrs Cardozo to him, although he would have liked to call her by her name, which was Fidelia, and which he thought beautiful.

  ‘I’ll have coffee waiting for you when you’ve finished,’ he assured her. ‘And I want you to have this. Merry Christmas. Just change the sheets and towels,’ he added, ‘and generally tidy up. There’s no need to do anything in here today,’ he said, all but propelling her disapproving back across the landing. ‘Open the windows,’ he called after her. Then he shut his own door quickly, in order to forestall further protests.

  He took the opportunity of her temporary absence to do his shopping. ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Hipwood pleasantly in the lobby. ‘Heating all right?’

  ‘Excellent, thank you. Good morning, Moira.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Lydiard distantly. They were no longer friends, it seemed. He had failed to keep in touch, and he would, he knew, continue to do so. He could not bring himself to discuss Katy’s departure with her, could not summon the impartial tone with which it would be imperative to mention the matter, on which she would no doubt have very decided views. He doubted whether he would exchange more than the most conventional greeting with her ever again.

  The strange sun of yesterday had disappeared. The weather was grey, misty, piercingly cold. He posted his cards and made a few desultory purchases. He still could not turn his mind to everyday sustenance. Back in the flat he stood for a moment at the window, patting the scalding radiator. When Mrs Cardozo had gone he lunched on bread and cheese and a glass of wine, and then attempted to settle down with Mauriac, whose mournful steady tone he found comforting. At some point in the afternoon he darted over to the Dunlops’ flat and switched on the heating.

  Tuesday was even colder. He forced himself to turn his mind to everyday affairs, had lunch at the club, and bought an ample stock of provisions on his way home. He did not expect to leave the flat until after Christmas. A strange calm descended on him, and he spent the afternoon sitting in his dusky room, idle to outward appearance, not bothering to switch on the lights even when it was quite dark. In fact he was absorbed in thought, passing his life in review, and even finally managing to think of Katy with an absence of blame which was not quite, not
yet, indulgence. When the doorbell rang he got up like a sleepwalker, still in the dark, to answer it. Tim Dunlop stood on the landing, holding a small box of chocolates and a Christmas card.

  ‘Just to say thank you for everything,’ he said.

  ‘There was no need …’

  ‘You’ve been awfully kind. The place looks much tidier than when we left.’

  ‘I sent Mrs Cardozo over. I hope you don’t mind.’ He thought this truth preferable to any other.

  ‘Mind! We’re delighted!’ He lingered awkwardly, anxious to get home.

  ‘You had a good holiday?’

  ‘Oh, splendid, thanks. And you’ve been all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘Going away for Christmas?’

  ‘No. No, I shall stay here.’

  ‘You won’t be lonely?’

  ‘Lonely? Oh, no. What I need,’ he said, with a thrill of longing that almost brought tears to his eyes, like a cough, a sneeze, some irrepressible physical commotion, ‘is a bit of a rest.’

  ‘You’ve been overdoing it, I expect.’

  ‘That must be it,’ he said gratefully. ‘Yes, once or twice I’ve felt myself getting a bit near the edge.’

  ‘Yes, well, if you need anything …’

  But he needed nothing. A rest, perhaps, one of those long sleeps that brought such illuminating dreams. And time to reflect, as a man of his age should reflect, quietly, patiently, even humorously.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said, and shut the door onto Dunlop’s retreating back. He went into the kitchen, opened the larder, and stared unseeingly at the contents. Then he went into the bedroom and turned down the bed. I have had my adventure, he thought. Now I must live my life as I have always lived it. What was it that I lacked? Courage, or the necessary folly, that grain de folie that the French talk about? Automatically he switched on the radio for the shipping forecast, and switched it off again when the telephone rang.