A Closed Eye

by Anita Brookner

  What perplexed Harriet was the task of guiding such a daughter through life, when she, her mother, was so uncertain. For this reason she wagered everything on Immy’s turbulent nature, hoping that this might lead her forward to a life which would be, in the world’s terms, successful. She suddenly had no use for success of any other kind. Let the meek inherit the earth, if that was what they so desired (yet it seemed out of character): she could see that the really astute contented themselves with the kingdoms of this world.

  She saw Merle and Hughie before they saw her. They were sitting on their little balcony, gazing out to sea. Although she had not told them she was coming, they looked expectant, unoccupied, ready for diversion, any diversion. She waved. ‘Mother! Father!’ All at once they sprang into vivid life, stood up, conferred excitedly, waved back. Bored, she thought; they were monumentally bored with their peaceful existence, their labour-saving retreat. Brighton was not the West End. Whatever local hostelries they frequented were not Ciro’s or the Café de Paris. They probably even missed the war, which to them had been a time of youth, extravagance, and occasional frenzy. Her mother, she saw, was dressed as if for a morning’s shopping in Bond Street, in a navy suit, with a striped silk blouse; her father, by contrast, seemed designed for a day in the country, in cavalry twill trousers, and a greenish tweed jacket. What courage they still possessed, if only to turn themselves out so spectacularly for a day of purposeless inactivity! Humbled, she hastened into the building, noting that the carpet in the entrance needed cleaning, and that the cream stucco of the walls had collected a bloom of grime. The door of the flat was already open, her mother’s arms were spread wide, her father’s delighted face radiated disbelief. ‘Hattie! Is anything wrong? You didn’t tell us you were coming. Is everything all right?’ She embraced them both, presented her mother with the armful of narcissi she had bought outside the station, and said, ‘Let me look at you. Of course everything’s all right. I just felt I wanted to see you. Are you all right?’ Unexpectedly she felt her eyes fill with tears. She was both glad to see them and sorrowful that they could supply no pointers to her adult life. Parents are only good as parents at a certain stage of their children’s lives, she reflected. Merle and Hughie were probably quite admirable when I was a child of ten. I found them companionable then. They were never harsh, or unreasonable, never took themselves very seriously as parents. But when lightweights grow old they are glad to lay aside burdens which threaten to grow too heavy. They abandoned the task quite thankfully when I married. Now we meet on uncertain terms, with little enough to say to each other. And yet there is that tug, that one moment of instinctive joy, that radiant instant of recognition, as if only the three of us belong together, as if there is no room, and never has been, for anyone else.

  She did not doubt that Merle and Hughie recalled with perfect clarity and with unexpected nostalgia that little room behind the shop, and the rain lashing against the windows, and the doughnut on the cracked plate ready for Harriet’s tea. Probably they now, with hindsight, viewed her marriage with the same regret as she herself did, but said nothing, even to each other, antagonized secretly by its lack of beauty. For they themselves were still beautiful, designed for a more beautiful life than the one in which they found themselves becalmed. She saw that they were more stoical, had more depth, than she had ever perceived. They dressed up, they went out, they befriended strangers, they made do with second- or third-rate distractions, and they were entirely loyal to each other, so loyal that they never confessed to disappointment, even in their moments of closeness. They had enormous pride, and their pride was on the whole justified. They did not envy their daughter: they pitied her. They preferred their flat, with its cold white windows and its rakish accoutrements, to Harriet’s solemn house, with its nurseries and its studies, its basement and attic floors. They felt, though this was never acknowledged between them, that they had given her away. Therefore, any gesture that she made towards them, even of the peculiar subdued love which they all felt but kept modestly out of sight, was greeted with incredulity, with joy, as if all their mistakes were cancelled, all their calculations forgotten, and the past resurrected with all its sadness removed: a moment of unity for which they felt unbounded gratitude.

  Hughie insisted on making coffee. ‘But I’ve come to take you out to lunch,’ she told them. ‘I thought we’d go to the Grand.’ ‘Oh, let Daddy do it. Yes, do, darling. And find some of those nice biscuits.’ They sat dazed with pleasure, the pleasure of recognition.

  ‘You look marvellous, Mother. How do you do it?’

  Her mother preened slightly. ‘We keep up our standards, dear. It’s so important when you get older. My mother—your grandmother, whom you never knew—insisted on that. “No slippers outside the bedroom, Merle. Always think of your husband looking at you.” Of course, after a day in the shop I did give way a bit, didn’t I? But there’s no excuse now. And,’ she added sadly, ‘we have all the time in the world.’

  At that point Hughie came back with a loaded tray. The usual assortment of cups, she saw, a glass plate of biscuits—a profusion of biscuits—and the inevitable buttered toast, which she obediently ate. Her parents sipped coffee, their faces thoughtful with pleasure, a pleasure to be savoured both now and later. Little rituals like this must make up their day, she thought.

  ‘Do you eat properly?’ she asked.

  Her mother eyed her with sudden hauteur, as if she had overstepped the bounds of propriety.

  ‘Of course we do! What a question! As a matter of fact Daddy is very good in the kitchen. He even went to classes this winter.’ She looked at him with love and pride. Harriet noted that the tremor in his hands, which she remembered from childhood, was almost gone, only noticeable in the exaggerated care with which he stacked plates and cups.

  ‘Well,’ said her mother with feigned reluctance, indifference. ‘If we’re going to the Grand I’d better see to my face, I suppose.’

  ‘You look fine, Mother. You don’t need anything.’

  Again that look of hauteur, that slight resumption of formality. Of course, she feared patronage, as if her daughter might so forget herself as to offer advice, refer to a discreet financial arrangement. She was in many ways a superior woman, Harriet thought, and thought so again when her mother reappeared freshly powdered, in an aura of scent. In the background she could hear her father vigorously brushing his jacket.

  The next few hours were very pleasant. Their reception at the Grand was triumphant. ‘Oh, they know us here,’ said Merle. Waiters hovered around them with excessive zeal. Hughie offered little jokes, timidly, as if fearing to offend her. The head waiter came over to see if everything was to their liking. ‘Very nice, thank you, Carlos. By the way, I don’t think you’ve met our daughter, have you? From London.’ Carlos inclined his head graciously. ‘Delighted to meet you, Madam. Everything all right, Sir? Madam?’ ‘We’ll have coffee in the lounge,’ said Merle. They beamed with pride and gratification.

  In the lounge (‘I don’t think you’ve met our daughter’) they all felt that the visit had been an unexpected success. But now they were anxious for her to leave, so that they could savour it to the full. She recognized this, and did not press them. ‘I’ll walk a little,’ she assured them. ‘Don’t come to the station. It’s been a lovely visit. I’ll do this again, shall I? When Immy goes to school I’ll have plenty of time.’ They exchanged a sad look, as if in acknowledgement of time passing. That was the only reference to her other life. Otherwise she did not speak of her daughter, or of her husband. The day, the sunny day, belonged to the three of them. She thought they were in fine form. Nevertheless, she turned and waved until they were out of sight, as if she might never see them again.

  Her mood, when she left them, was curiously diminished. It was as if remembrance of things past had cancelled the earlier excitement. Now she felt only distaste for the feeling of recklessness to which she had only that morning so willingly surrendered. It was as if she would be betraying them
if she acted out of character, and even to fantasize an erotic episode—now vague in her mind, almost irretrievable—was a lapse from everything, notably good taste. Whatever she was or had become was unlikely to change. Evening sun lay beneficently on the back gardens of the suburban houses. Now she longed to be inside one of them, with a clear conscience, preparing for the return of the breadwinner. Quiet ways, simple thoughts, seemed to her utterly desirable. And yet she knew that she had somehow put herself beyond their reach. Freddie, Immy, Miss Wetherby, possibly even Jack, awaited her with varying degrees of impatience or indifference. They appeared unimaginably complicated, as indeed they were. Marriage, the married state, her married state, presented incalculable difficulties. How, then, could she ever have contemplated adultery?

  IN THE MIRROR she saw a pale face sharpened by anxiety, eyes wide, as if shocked, mouth painted a dark red, a mass of beautifully cut dark hair. If she turned her face to the side and scrutinized her right profile—the short nose and high brow gave it an austere and scholarly outline—the birthmark on her left jaw was not visible. She knotted a silk scarf loosely inside the collar of her suede jacket, took gloves and keys, as if to leave, and then turned back for another look in the mirror. This time she thought she looked impossibly serious. Oh, why so sad? She was simply going to drop the carrier bags outside the flat in Judd Street; she was not going to do more than ring the bell, and, after a few desultory remarks, leave. The task before her seemed immensely difficult, which was perhaps why her breath came and went with such an effort, why the distance between Wellington Square and Judd Street seemed immense, and why she lingered in the dark hall, although it was a matter of urgency to perform this task, after which she would be safe.

  Her reluctance to leave the house was so severe that it amounted to a kind of dread. She knew, without knowing exactly what she knew, that she faced the greatest challenge of her life, that she was in danger, not of succumbing to Jack—even supposing that he wanted her, or had ever wanted her—but of succumbing to self-knowledge, which she had now successfully kept at bay for half a lifetime. And now it was here, exposing her in all her venality. Technically innocent, as she had always been—but only technically—she strove, in the dark hall, her gloves clutched in her hand, for a memory of times when she had known herself to be candid, transparent, and could summon up nothing more substantial than a picture of herself on her way home from the bookshop in Cork Street. Sometimes she had stopped for a cup of coffee, eager to prolong the adventure of independence; sometimes she had opened the novel that was always in her bag. Sometimes she read, in the bright café; outside, the peaceful home-going crowds, the fading daylight, a rising evening excitement. At home, she knew, this peace would be lost. Therefore the journey was a respite, one she thought she was allowed. After that all would be spoiled.

  And what shabbiness, what uncertainty since then! Lying at Freddie’s side, alternately amused and repelled by his touch, silently conjuring up a lover who did not have a name, and in the daytime hiding that unawakened body in expensive clothes, and being gentle and gracious to friends who were ruthless enough or sensible enough to have discovered life for themselves, and who saw through her disguise with casual cruelty, and pitied her. Thus everything had been false, everything except the birth of her daughter, which had freed her momentarily from frightened acquiescence, made her calm and strong, and a little more selfish, but not quite enough. Thus are lives lost, through what must be despair at knowing oneself too weak to deal with the dangers, the choices. And only the memory of those few brief moments of permitted freedom, in a café in New Burlington Street, a book on the table in front of her, with the clear conscience of one who had done a good day’s work—only that memory now appeared to be free from any kind of adult stain. The image was almost virginal, or at least pre-pubertal, for virginity had never been truly surrendered. The heaviness which she now felt, turning her gloves in her hand, loosening the scarf at her throat, as if she were oppressed, must also date from those days, when she had known, instinctively, that her path must be one of obedience, because obedience was the discipline in which she excelled. And was there not also an adolescent fear, prolonged well beyond the age of adolescence? And how could she, having at last seen all this in perspective, ever live with it again?

  She wanted to leave the house before Freddie returned, for to compare Freddie with Jack in the space of an hour seemed to her too cruel, both to Freddie and to herself. She wrote a note: ‘Gone round to Judd Street with Lizzie’s things. Back in time for dinner.’ She realized that she could have gone earlier, when there was less chance of seeing Jack. Or was there more? She had no idea of how he spent his working day, whether he went to an office, or whether he still came back to the flat in the evenings. Maybe he simply went off to Windsor and Elspeth Mackinnon. It was all, somehow, irrelevant. What mattered more was that she should once again have the freedom of the evening, that moment when the street lights came on, and the workers lined up at the bus stops, virtuous, tired, and harmless after their honest day, with the prospect of home to comfort them. What mattered now, and perhaps for the first time, was not to be part of that population, which she could never now rejoin, but to leave home, simply to leave home, and to go out into the night with ardour and desire, no matter how impure those qualities were.

  She knew that she would never again have a clear conscience. Innocence would no longer protect her from her thoughts. She saw herself putting the plastic bags down on to what she saw as the cracked black and white tiles of the floor of the Judd Street building, saw her hand reach out to a brass bell push, saw a green-painted door slowly open, saw herself hand in the bags, and retreat. Intact, and guilty. For the invasion of her mind by uncensored thoughts and unwelcome images was total; her mind, she knew, would remain subject to those thoughts and images for a very long time, until the slow death of the body released her from their dominance. She knew that she had always been guilty of not loving her husband, but had somehow not considered her lack of love to be a grave error or a culpable fault; now she saw how absent-mindedly she had given her affection, and how insulting this behaviour must have seemed. The first intimation of guilt had been to wonder—but idly—whether Freddie had had a mistress, and to sympathize with his imagined need. Now they were locked together for the rest of their lives, and her bad faith must be her punishment. For she saw, drearily, that there was to be no going back, or forward. The revelation of that moment coincided with the beginnings of a headache, which she could ill afford.

  She bestirred herself, went down to the basement, where Miss Wetherby and Imogen were watching television. It was cosy down there: she would have liked to linger. Imogen sat on the floor, on several shabby cushions, in front of Miss Wetherby’s brown velvet sofa. The curtains were comfortingly drawn, although it was not yet dark, and the lights were low.

  ‘We’ve had our tea, Mother,’ said Miss Wetherby, who only addressed Harriet in this manner in Imogen’s presence. Harriet suspected far more conspiratorial exchanges between the two of them when she was not there, something far more idle and natural than she was ever permitted. It occurred to her that Miss Wetherby was a little uneasy with her, just as she was occasionally uneasy with Miss Wetherby. And how to avoid being addressed as ‘Mother’? When she encountered Miss Wetherby at the top of the stairs, or at the front door, the woman seemed quite composed and dignified, yet it was clear that she found Imogen an easier conversational proposition. Or perhaps the child was more genuinely lovable, crude, and, yes, it must be said, cruel as she was. She had the careless cruelty of the natural beauty, of those favoured by fortune. Already she had outdistanced them, had a sureness denied to either of her parents. Only with Miss Wetherby did she behave like a child, consent to be treated like a child. After initial hostility she now took Miss Wetherby for granted, someone with whom no pretence was necessary. And there were deplorable indulgences, Harriet knew, orgies of crisps, toast, thickly buttered bread, terrible unhealthy foods that she was not
allowed upstairs. Imogen was not greatly interested in these treats, and was certainly not interested in the fact that her presence permitted Miss Wetherby to recreate the atmosphere of a nursery which she had long outgrown. She liked Miss Wetherby’s television, which was larger than the one her parents had; she liked being silently handed a Mars Bar while she was watching; she knew she could, and would, stop visiting Miss Wetherby the minute she found something more interesting to do.

  ‘I’m going out for half an hour,’ said Harriet. ‘Will you see that she gets to bed? She can stay up and say hello to her father, and then she must go to bed. But of course I shall be back by then. I just thought … In case I am delayed. But there’s no reason why I should be.’

  She found herself addressing their rigid profiles, and felt irritation.

  ‘An apple would be better for you, Immy, than that chocolate. You’ll get spots, and then you’ll be the first to complain. You can watch this programme, and then I’d like you both to come upstairs. Miss Wetherby can give you your bath. I want you in bed by the time I come home.’

  She later thought that if Immy had asked her where she was going she would have accomplished her errand in all simplicity, have come home, greeted Freddie, kissed her daughter, all with a semblance of ease. But Immy was indifferent, uninterested, did not remove her eyes from the screen. ‘She does love this programme,’ said Miss Wetherby, by way of an excuse. ‘It’s her favourite.’

  ‘I’ll see you later, then,’ said Harriet, heavy-hearted, all her indecisions restored.

  On the way out she felt a ladder springing in her stocking, which seemed to seal her fate. No one would want her now, she who was never less than immaculate. She suppressed a desire to run upstairs again and change, walked steadily out of the front door, realized she had completely forgotten the carrier bags with Lizzie’s things, the very pretext for her visit, saw that time was getting on, and that Freddie would soon be home, rushed back into the hall, and finally sat in the car, her heart beating uncomfortably fast. If it was to be like this the battle was lost even before it had been engaged.