A Closed Eye
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
Anita Brookner’s
A CLOSED EYE
“The meaty topics that Brookner … assays—wifehood, motherhood, and lust—are a pleasure to follow.”
—The New Yorker
“Beautifully written … Brookner sweeps the reader up … [but] her best attribute is a finely calibrated understanding of longing trapped in convention.”
—Joseph Olshan, Wall Street Journal
“Arresting … Henry James was fascinated by the theme of innocence and the corrupt or worldly. Anita Brookner has taken the theme for her own … a splendid novel.”
—Detroit Free Press
“Compelling … [Brookner’s] strength has been her honest, usually sympathetic portrayal of a person’s secret thoughts, fears and desires—usually passionately at odds with one’s outward demeanor.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“[Brookner] writes so thrillingly well.… Admirers of her intelligent style, the almost bejeweled talent and alertness to incongruity, will be glad to know that [A Closed Eye] is rooted firmly in the territory she has made her own.”
—The Times (London)
“A master of the telling detail … Brookner’s thoughts on men, women, and social jockeying are always worth hearing.”
—New Woman
“Poignant … witty … Harriet Lytton is one of the most fully realized … of Brookner heroines who try and fail to do the right thing.”
—Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer
“Superbly crafted … a great comic touch. Brookner is one of the major talents that has emerged in the remarkable renaissance of the English novel in recent years. Like Jane Austen, [she] possesses a sense of social satire and a fast, deft art of characterization that is reminiscent of the great 19th-century novelist.… [A Closed Eye] shows us the difficulty that a woman can encounter when she is not free, even when it appears she has everything in life that she could want … exquisite.”
—Newark Star-Ledger
“Lives up to Brookner’s reputation as an astute gleaner of rich detail and a careful student of human nature. The pleasure in reading this book lies in the author’s mastery of her craft.”
—San Diego Union Tribune
“A stunning writer.”
—Edna O’Brien
Anita Brookner
A CLOSED EYE
Anita Brookner has written twelve novels, including Fraud, Brief Lives, Lewis Percy, Latecomers, and The Debut. Winner of the Booker Prize, she is also an international authority on eighteenth-century painting.
ALSO BY ANITA BROOKNER
The Debut
Providence
Look at Me
Hotel du Lac
Family and Friends
The Misalliance
A Friend from England
Latecomers
Lewis Percy
Brief Lives
Fraud
First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, January 1993
Copyright © 1991 by Anita Brookner
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in hardcover by Jonathan Cape, London, in 1991.
First published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1992.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brookner, Anita.
A closed eye / Anita Brookner. — 1st Vintage contemporaries ed.
p. cm. — (Vintage contemporaries)
eISBN: 978-0-307-82627-5
I. Title.
[PR6052.R5816C56 1993]
823′.914—dc20 92-56358
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brookner, Anita.
A closed eye
I. Title.
PR6052.R5875C5 1993
823′.914 C92-095493-6
Author photograph © Jerry Bauer
v3.1
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
She strikes me as a person who is begging off from full knowledge,—who has struck a truce with painful truth, and is trying awhile the experiment of living with closed eyes.
—HENRY JAMES, Madame de Mauves
‘Résidence Cécil,
Rue du Château,
La Tour de Peilz (Vaud),
Suisse.
‘20 August.
‘My dear Lizzie,’ (she wrote),
‘No doubt you will be surprised to hear from me after all this time, and from such a strange place. Not that it is so very strange: indeed, it is extremely civilized, but you probably think of us still, if you think of us at all, in that house in Wellington Square which you once knew so well, though not perhaps in the happiest of circumstances. However, those days are now to be consigned to the past. I have had a great deal of time since then in which to reflect, and although I have reached no very firm conclusions I do know what courage is needed to see one through a life. You, my dear Lizzie, have always had that sort of courage. I was always impressed by you, even when you were a tiny child. But of course one does not say these things to a child.
‘The point of this letter is to ask you whether you would like to spend a little holiday here. I know how hard you work—my own short working life was frivolous in comparison—and the air of this place would do you so much good. There are not many distractions for a girl of your age, but if you like to walk, the countryside is beautiful, and if you like to read, as I remember you always did, there is an excellent bookshop. Come at any time; there is snow in the winter, and the flowers are quite beautiful in the spring. And it is very pretty. I have grown quite fond of the place. I doubt if I shall ever go home now.
‘You see, we came to Switzerland when my husband’s health began to fail. He had enormous faith in the clinic here; one of his colleagues had benefited from similar treatment, swore he was a new man after a month’s stay. There was nothing really wrong with Freddie, but he was old and tired, and of course his heart was broken. In the first instance we only came for advice, but the moment he left Professor Lecoudray’s consulting room he said he felt better. He was not better, but it seemed only decent to help him to maintain that illusion. His final illness lasted six months; we found it convenient to take this rather nice flat, which Freddie liked, on a long lease. We both hated hotels. And there was room in the flat for Freddie’s nurse, Madame Irène. She stayed with me until he died, and still looks in from time to time. A nice woman, a good woman. And I have a very charming neighbour, Monsieur Papineau, so I am not at all lonely.’
(Such lies, she thought.)
‘Dear Lizzie, I am rather rich. There is no inoffensive way of saying this, but your holiday would be entirely at my expense. In addition to getting you away from London, I should like to spoil you a little. When we last met I thought you were looking very pale and thin (but you were always thin, even as a baby), and yet you seemed hardy. You singularly failed to take after your father, and you did not even look very much like your mother, altho
ugh of course she was also fair, much fairer as a girl, when I knew her, than after you were born. Her hair seemed to darken then; it often happens. She was my dearest friend. My more serious purpose in wanting to see you is to tell you what I remember of her. You were only a child when she died. How long ago it seems! We were dear, dear friends. I still miss her.
‘You would be entirely free to come and go as you pleased here. If you wanted to spend an evening at home with me I could tell you about those early days, when your mother and I were girls. It is important that you should think of her as a strong healthy woman, and not as you remember her. You see, I know you a little. I know the shock you had, and I don’t want it to have had a permanent effect.
‘You are young, and you have your future before you. Dear Lizzie, don’t let an impression of sadness dim your love of life, which is too precious to be wasted. I have always felt that you had it in you to be something remarkable, and I should like, if I may, to help you towards whatever you see as your goal.
‘So, all I need is a telephone call or a postcard to say when you are coming. I will send your air ticket (Geneva, terribly quick) and await you here with the most eager anticipation. Forgive this long letter: letter-writing is the exile’s main occupation. Dear Lizzie, do come soon.
‘There is just one thing I ought to say before we meet. One name must never be mentioned. I know that you, who were always so sensitive, will understand.
‘With love, as always,
‘Your old friend Harriet (Lytton).’
SHE ADDRESSED her letter to Miss Elizabeth Peckham, 59 Judd Street Mansions, Judd Street, London WC1, Grande Bretagne, and thought about Lizzie finding it when she returned home in the evening from her job at the Staveley Press, where she worked as a picture researcher. She thought about the flat, which she had visited twice. The first occasion had been entirely memorable; the second, inevitably, less so. She had been oddly anxious about the girl, who seemed so cold, so self-contained. The pretext for that second visit (but was it already four years ago?) was the return of a cardigan, which had somehow found its way to the house in Wellington Square; it had been kept in a carrier bag, until, in the great clearing up that had taken place, she had made her way to Judd Street in the darkening evening, through the rush-hour crowds, in the chance of finding Lizzie at home.
The building, Lizzie’s home now, had been gloomy, badly lit, with a black and white tiled floor and a huge caged lift. Once inside the flat she had had an impression of dimness, although lamps were lit, one with its shade turned up to give a better light. Lizzie must have got up from her desk to open the door; on the blotter was an empty carton of low-fat yoghourt. An open volume of Vuillard reproductions lay on a depressing brown sofa. The girl had been polite, as if not really surprised at seeing her, although she could not have been expected. She was always polite, or rather patient, as if waiting to get on with her own thoughts, willing to put up with distractions, but not willing to prolong them. Everyone knew that Lizzie was clever. ‘Have you thought of what you want to do later?’ Freddie had asked her when she was a silent adolescent. ‘I’m going to write,’ said the girl unhesitatingly. ‘But not straight away, not until I’m old.’ ‘How old?’ Harriet had persisted. ‘Forty,’ was the answer. Freddie, behind a newspaper, had laughed; he was already over seventy. But Harriet had taken her seriously. ‘You will have to travel, I suppose, and have lots of interesting experiences.’ ‘Oh, no,’ Lizzie had said. ‘It will all come out of my head.’ That was all that she would say. Prudently, she would divulge no more of her plans. In any case she seemed to be guarding her self-imposed designs, was already wedded to austerity and self-management. She gave the impression that no one would understand what she already understood so well herself.
Helpless, and not helped by any normal social noises, Harriet had glanced round the pitiless room, large, cold, dominated by the desk. A very small electric fire remained unlit. Lizzie had been wearing a sweater and jeans: Harriet had supposed that she changed into them when she came home, but in fact Lizzie had worn them to work like everyone else.
‘Is there anything you need, Lizzie?’ she had asked. ‘You see, we are going away for a while. I thought I should let you know.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lizzie politely.
‘I don’t like to think of you so much on your own. Of course, you have your work, I do see that. And you must have many friends.’
‘Friends? Yes, I suppose so. But my work keeps me quite busy.’
‘And you are still in touch with Elspeth, of course?’
‘I see her sometimes,’ said the girl indifferently.
‘And your father is still in America? Washington, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, dear.’ She paused. She had the feeling that Lizzie was waiting for her to leave. ‘I hope you are eating properly,’ she said. ‘Nutrition is so important at your age.’
‘I have lunch,’ said Lizzie. ‘I don’t want much in the evening.’ She registered politeness, even resignation, but remained standing.
‘Then I will let you get on with your work,’ said Harriet, as much to let the girl out of an impasse which she had no means of negotiating, as to admit defeat to herself. Perhaps Lizzie was unused to company, she thought. But she had always been reticent.
‘Goodbye then, dear. I will be in touch when we return.’
‘Goodbye. Thank you for bringing the cardigan.’
‘I was always Harriet to you in the old days. Do you remember?’
‘Of course,’ said Lizzie, turning to the door.
Out in the street Harriet had thought of the peculiar anxiety surrounding the girl, anxiety which she did nothing to disseminate, as if it were her protection, wariness her weapon. Pale, slight, she seemed as childlike now as she had done eight years earlier, when she was fourteen, when the conversation about her future profession had taken place. Harriet supposed that she had forgotten all about it, but this was not the case.
But Lizzie Peckham’s decision was intact. Harriet Lytton’s visit had not affected her one way or the other, apart from an underlying annoyance, although she rather wished she had got rid of the empty yoghourt carton, and made a resolution to do so in future as soon as she had finished her supper. Otherwise she felt no misgivings about herself, although she was aware that other people found her difficult. This did not upset her. She accepted herself totally.
Harriet, in the street, was thinking along similar lines. I suppose I have become difficult to get along with, she mused. Living so long with my thoughts has made me awkward, unmanageable. I may have been intrusive, asking all those questions. Politeness was her own armour, against the world, but also against what was within herself. She would be grateful, for once, to get home, and once home, to get away. This darkness usually found her standing at the window, looking out on to the dimly lit street, until she turned with a sigh to Freddie and the task of tempting him to eat. Food was always on her mind: another anxiety.
And now, in the Résidence Cécil, when all that could have happened had already happened, she turned again from the window, where, unknown to herself, she stood each evening to catch the last glimpse of animation in the little street, the room behind her warm, bright, empty, waiting for a presence which she herself could not bestow. She thought about dinner, but felt a distaste for the meal she had no wish to eat. I could walk round to the Beau Rivage, she thought, as she so often did. Yet once in the flat she found it difficult to leave—and knew that when the time came she would heat some milk and go to bed. Evenings were very long.
On an impulse she moved to the telephone.
‘Joseph? Je vous dérange? Venez boire un verre.’
‘En anglais, Harriet, en anglais.’
‘Your English is perfect, as you know. It is my French that needs improving. You are quite heartless, Joseph.’
She could hear his eager steps on the stairs while she was still tidying her hair. This was quite unnecessary, she knew, for Monsieur Pap
ineau did not find her attractive, although he seemed to delight in her company. They were indeed both past the age of romance: indeed, romance had not been much in evidence in her own life at any time. And Monsieur Papineau—Joseph—was the very antithesis of romance, although his approach to life was comprehensively amorous. Monsieur Papineau, quite simply, loved. A man of serenity, naïve, hopeful, childlike, he relished what the day brought him as only the very innocent can afford to do. His delightful rotundities spoke of the care which he devoted to his diet; Harriet saw him every morning, with his string bag, alert in the entrance, sniffing the air appreciatively, before stepping forth to begin the day’s consultations with shopkeepers. Sometimes he devised a treat for himself, lunch in one of the fine restaurants in Geneva, or perhaps a day going round the shops in Lausanne. He was pleasantly wealthy, or at least she supposed he was, and passionately Anglophile. On Saturdays he would go to the station bookstall in Geneva and buy up the English magazines: Vogue, Country Life, The Economist. He had been at Oxford, had held a post at the Swiss Embassy in London, but remained, after a lifetime of presumably honourable activity, like a boy, pre-sexual. He dressed floridly, in coloured waistcoats, with a silk handkerchief cascading from his breast pocket. Harriet, from her window in the morning, could see the top of his tartan cap, or the voluminous beret he wore when it was damp.
He had been marvellous when Freddie was ill. ‘Allons-y, avançons,’ he had joked, supporting the bent figure as it crept up the stairs. He had had more patience with Freddie than Harriet had had herself, regarded an afternoon spent in Freddie’s largely wordless company as a treat in itself, just one of the many that filled his pleasant days. She remained drily grateful to him for his ministrations, yet aware that he could never share her own dark thoughts.
He beamed at her in the open doorway.
‘Ah.’ She sniffed. ‘Monsieur Rochas?’
‘No,’ he said happily. ‘Gentleman, de Givenchy.’