A Closed Eye

by Anita Brookner

  The evening was blue, mild, conducive to dreaming, but with an acid edge to sharpen desire. It was April, traditionally the cruellest month. The soiled petals of almond blossom lay in drifts in gutters; trees opened clenched buds to release tentative leaves. All of this—and the bushes thrusting greenly at her through the railings—was a backdrop to the marvellous electric bustle of the city, the queue outside the cinema, the doors of pubs opening and closing, the slow surge of buses, the clashing trolleys at the entrance to the supermarket. She realized how seldom she was out in the evening, and yet it was the time she loved the best, most of all when she was alone. She drove, with a pleasurable coolness from the open window fanning her cheek. At the same time she longed for summer, for intense heat, when tensions are released, and energies renewed.

  She mounted the stairs at Judd Street calmly, saw, also calmly, that the floor was indeed paved with dirty black and white tiles, but that the door was brown, thickly varnished, with a few blistered bubbles where the job had been hastily finished. Calmly she rang the doorbell. The door opened instantly.

  ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said, almost indifferently. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here. I’ve brought Lizzie’s things.’

  He stood back and ushered her in. ‘You must let me know how much I owe you,’ he said.

  ‘You owe me nothing.’

  She felt that she had made some sort of statement, unconnected with matters of material exchange. At the same time she followed him into the flat, glancing, without much curiosity, at the dingy cream walls, the desk and the typewriter, the terribly large sofa. At the window hung incongruously dainty and expensive curtains, the work, she thought, of some Elspeth Mackinnon or other, an attempt to introduce a feminine touch, a reminder of the donor.

  ‘I like your curtains,’ she said, aware that there was nothing much else to admire.

  He took the bags from her and put them behind him on a chair.

  ‘You won’t forget to give them to her? With my love, of course.’

  ‘With your love,’ he said gravely. She thought he must be laughing at her; there was, perhaps, a hint of amusement in the way he looked at her. At the same time his movements were slow, as if this transaction might be expected to take a long while.

  Her cheeks burned; she had no idea how to behave, for she supposed a seduction was about to take place, or rather a mock seduction, in which she would be cast for the lesser role.

  ‘You find me ridiculous, don’t you?’ Her voice was still calm, but now desolate.

  ‘I find you interesting.’

  ‘Oh, I am not very interesting. I dare say there have to be women like me, but we don’t arouse much interest.’

  ‘You could be mistaken.’

  After that there was a silence.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I had better be getting back. I’m sure you have work to do.’

  ‘I’d rather you stayed,’ he said, moving away from her. His tone was as indifferent as her own.

  ‘I must get back for dinner. My husband will be home.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Walter.’

  ‘Freddie.’

  ‘Freddie,’ he agreed.

  When he kissed her she knew that her whole physical life, the life of the senses, had been dormant until this moment. When they disengaged they looked at each other, in silence.

  ‘Do you do this all the time?’

  ‘Not all the time, no. You could stay, you know.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Possibly because you want to. And because I might want you to.’

  ‘You?’ There was no answer. ‘I have to leave, you see. You do see, don’t you?’

  ‘I should expect nothing less of you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so … so rude,’ she said angrily. They both smiled.

  ‘Goodbye, Jack,’ she said, holding out her hand. He kissed her again. There was no doubt now about her response.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I loathe soulful women, with consciences.’

  ‘Goodbye, Jack,’ she repeated.

  ‘I suppose you want to talk,’ he said. ‘About your conscience. Dear Mrs Lytton. Shall we sit down?’ He gestured towards the sofa.

  He feels it too, she thought. ‘You know my name,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you use it?’

  ‘I could only use it in different circumstances.’

  ‘Then that will never be. I must go. Shall I ever see you again?’

  ‘Only you can say that.’

  ‘And yet I am so uninteresting,’ she marvelled.

  ‘You have managed to make yourself so, certainly.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said for a third time. And then again, ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Lytton,’ he said politely. At the door he kissed her again.

  ‘Ah, Jack.’

  ‘Goodbye. Harriet.’

  Outside, in the street, without knowing how she had got down the stairs, she put her hand to her burning cheek. The mark on her jaw, to which she had not given a thought, was now forgotten, obliterated. She sat in the car, watching the clock tick away the minutes. Finally she drove off, back to Wellington Square, and Freddie. She knew that she would never see Jack again, and yet felt strangely fulfilled. So that is what it is all about, she thought. They were right, those others. At the same time she was amused, tolerant, as if now permitted to see the world in a different light, as one of the successful, the secret, the admitted. Admitted to what? To that place at the centre, which all seek to reach. She was less uninteresting to herself now. Whatever life had to offer her, or rather to deny her, she could meet it on equal terms. She loved him, of course, and had always done so, but, fearful and correct, had hidden from the truth. And by running away from him she had preserved him in her mind, where he belonged, where no one could discover him. Regret would come later, in the years ahead. In her imagination he would always be there, and they would accomplish those acts, so many of them, which she had refused to limit to one isolated opportunity, hurried and probably spoiled, which was what she had been offered. For the moment it was enough. She thought her refusal had probably been wise. She was not yet sorry for it.

  There was no one she could tell about this. The only person she could have confided in was Tessa, and the impossibility of this, on every conceivable level of reality, jolted her at last into shame, crimsoned her cheeks, brought tears to her eyes. Love had brought her to a state of perfidy, which was what she had always feared. This abortive passion, this adventure, which would have endeared her to her friends, been the passport to their affections, enabled her at last to meet them on equal terms, must remain hidden, shameful. The curious fact was that she herself felt no shame, although she was overwhelmingly aware that she had fallen from openness into concealment. In this situation she felt the onset of a belated sense of the world’s realities. And also a stricken irradiated bemused wonder, as at the ending of one state of consciousness and the beginning of another. Her husband, her friends, even her daughter, now appeared to her at one remove, as if she had known them in another life. Estranged, absorbed, she felt as yet no sense of infidelity to her husband. What pain she felt was for Tessa, all unknowing, in the grave. She saw once more that rapt and lonely profile on the pillow, in the hospital bed. And Lizzie, she thought, wincing. The crime is all against Lizzie, no one else. Too many crimes had been committed against her already. She saw the lonely trudging little figure, burdened with too much reflection, and now out of her reach in Elspeth Mackinnon’s house in Windsor. Living, forced to live, with her father’s mistress. She supposed that Jack and this woman would marry, eventually, after a discreet interval. But this thought, and the thought of Lizzie, so reduced her own part in Jack’s life that she preferred to dwell on it no further. And she was late, very late, and Freddie would be waiting.

  She smelt cigarette smoke as she went up the stairs to the drawing-room. It was unlike him to smoke before dinner: he must be hungry and exasperated. She glanced at her watch: eight-fifteen, and they usually ate at
seven-thirty.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you. I took Lizzie’s things round to Judd Street. I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. Dinner won’t take a minute. It’s cold salmon. Unless you’d like some soup? Watercress soup?’

  She was aware that she was overdoing her solicitude, was conscious of a rather specious animation. But how was she to behave? How did one behave in such a situation? They were not sufficiently friendly to discuss intimate matters, and she thought that even in the most sophisticated circles one did not discuss one’s potential adultery with one’s husband. All she could achieve in the circumstances was a hostessy flutter. This she despised, but could not hit on a natural attitude. She longed to go up to her bedroom. She had applied more lipstick in the car, but had a suspicion that she had applied it unevenly.

  ‘You’ve laddered your stocking,’ he observed. ‘And your hair is untidy. No, don’t go up now: I’m extremely hungry, and anyway I want to talk to you.’

  She sat opposite him with lowered eyes, every inch a hypocrite. So this was what love in middle age led to, she thought: was it worth it? She doubted, in that instant, whether she possessed the strength, the will, to go on with it, and then reflected that there was nothing to go on with, no continuation, no arrangement to meet Jack again, no real desire to calculate how much was possible. He was to remain in the realm of secrets, where he would be safe from prying eyes. She would guard her secret, and if the resulting insincerity was the price she had to pay then she would pay it. Maybe I am taking it all too seriously, she thought, suddenly tired. Her head ached with tension; she longed to go to bed.

  ‘So I’ve decided to leave in the summer,’ Freddie was saying. ‘Thirty-five years—not a bad record with the same group. I could stay on, but I think they secretly think I’m a bit too old.’

  ‘You’ll miss the office,’ she said, alarmed.

  ‘I’m getting on, Harriet. I’ve earned my time off. Of course, it’ll take a bit of getting used to. But there’s golf. And I thought we might travel a bit, when Imogen goes to school. I may go back as a consultant, if I find the time hangs heavy, but I doubt it. My seat on the board won’t change; there’ll be the usual meetings. But I want a break, and now’s the time to take one, or make one, or whatever one does with a break.’

  He got up, went to a side table, and poured himself a glass of brandy. He lifted the decanter with an enquiring gesture, but she shook her head, conscious of her headache.

  ‘And I’ve invited George Godfrey to dinner. You might ring Muriel in the morning.’

  The Godfreys, whom she disliked, without exactly knowing why. Was it their appearance? He was corpulent, red-faced, overripe, carrying his stomach complacently before him, sitting down to a meal with barely disguised pleasure. And his wife, similarly ill-defined about the waist, dignified above it, with her diamond earrings and her iron-grey curls, all spreading knees and support stockings below. They were in their seventies, rather grand, invited everywhere. They were in fact a mild-mannered couple, devoted to the opera, but they went out so much that everything they said was of a public nature. He offered a stream of anecdotes; she was largely silent, except for the isolated discreet remark, endorsing whatever it was that her husband was proclaiming on her behalf. Freddie’s friends: the husband was a business associate. She felt a weariness at the prospect, as if entertaining these two old people put her automatically into their camp. She knew that Freddie felt at home with them, felt comfortable with that age group, liked the illusion of himself as a comparative youngster in their midst. But Harriet, watching George Godfrey wiping his rather large mouth, watching his wife’s thin lips closing primly over a cheese biscuit, felt as if she were being buried alive. On previous occasions she had made Immy an excuse, had left the table briefly, and hurried up the stairs, for a respite. But now Immy was too old, and she herself must behave like a respectable, even an ageing, matron.

  ‘I thought we might join them on a cruise next winter,’ she heard Freddie saying.

  ‘I’d rather the two of us were on our own,’ she replied prudently, at which he brightened, and looked at her with interest.

  ‘Don’t drink any more,’ she begged, getting up to clear the table. He caught at her hand as she took his plate. ‘Freddie,’ she warned. ‘You’ll make me drop something.’ She was aware of a nasty and factitious flirtatiousness in her manner, when what she felt was a sudden blind panic. To be with him in that bedroom, to smell the brandy on his breath, to watch him undress, was, she thought, more than she could tolerate. It would be the surest sign of divine punishment if the evening were to end like this.

  ‘I’m going up in a minute,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got a terrible headache. Don’t disturb me when you come to bed—I’m going to take a sleeping pill.’

  ‘You won’t need one if I come up with you.’

  He used sex as a threat, always had, as if the anticipation of pleasure had to make her shrink with fear. He liked to dominate in these circumstances, although he was too timid to put his desires into action. He enjoyed seeing her discomfiture, not suspecting that it was embarrassment. She wondered how she could have stood him for so long. And yet he was very kind, she thought, with a sinking heart.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, standing in the middle of the bedroom. ‘I really have got a terrible head. I think I must call it a day, Freddie.’

  ‘I have just the thing for headaches,’ he said, taking off his jacket. ‘Come here. Let me show you.’

  She smelled his breath, felt his weight, turned her head stiffly aside, her mouth smeared with his saliva. A tear trickled on to the pillow. There were no words for the thoughts in her head, and no ear into which she could speak them. She felt a loneliness beyond measure, and before sleep descended, thought, I have no friends.

  From a distance she heard Freddie say, ‘You’re not much good at this, are you?’

  AFTER THAT the dark days started, culminating in that darkest day of all, from which there never was, and never would be, any remission. In her psychic vision, the uncorrupted, unalterable vision that finally makes sense of the past, she saw them all as condemned from that time on. But this conviction was gradual, perhaps resisted. With the memory of Jack still fresh in her mind she was for a short time able to shrug off all annoyances. In the light of Jack Freddie dwindled into a person of no importance. She felt extravagant, ebullient, desirous of another life. But that other life, she was later to reflect, was not the life of a mature woman, let alone of a woman obsessed by a man, but the life of a girl, even a rather silly girl, one who was light on her feet, and read fashion magazines, and wore inexpensive clothes, and had no ties. She had no idea how this feckless image had taken hold of her, for she had never been feckless, and rather despised those who were. It was just that the image of a girl, stepping lightly down the street on her way to work, without encumbrances, seemed to her so attractive that she returned to it with pleasure throughout the day, as she did her conscientious shopping, and took Freddie’s heavy suit to the cleaners, and waited in for the plumber.

  Outside, in the mild air, women like herself, growing a little tired as time went by, pursued a life so devoid of frivolity that she wondered how they—and she—could bear it. She felt herself on the brink of an indiscretion which she perceived as merely mischievous, as if she were indeed that young girl, who did not have to think of matters like constancy and fidelity. All she had to do, she thought, was to pick up the telephone, or get into the car, and she could have her heart’s desire, for that was what it was. She toyed with this delicious possibility for perhaps two or even three days. And yet she made no move, seeing herself as that unencumbered girl, for whom there were as yet no decisions to be made, stepping lightly through her world, favoured by the indulgent glances of her elders.

  Later, much later, she thought that she must have been imagining Immy’s life rather than her own. Yet she could not deny a certain beguiling hopefulness in her imaginings which had nothing
to do with her daughter. For Immy was an aristocrat, straight-nosed, straight-backed, largely unconfiding. Her early flirtatiousness had entirely disappeared; she was self-contained, extraordinarily so for a child of nine. She appeared to find her parents uninteresting, for which neither of them blamed her; she was too beautiful for them to feel anything but humility in her presence. She left the table as soon as she could, running up to her bedroom to practise her recorder. Miss Wetherby she now found too old and too dull, much to Miss Wetherby’s disappointment. But Miss Wetherby was experienced with children, experienced enough to let Immy go. In the face of Miss Wetherby’s resumed impassivity Harriet persuaded Freddie to relax his ban on having a dog in the house, albeit in the basement. Soon Rex, a small wire-haired terrier, accompanied Miss Wetherby on her surprisingly active walks round Battersea Park. Imogen remained unimpressed by the dog, and unattracted by it. She was developing a kind of scorn for her surroundings. ‘Growing up,’ said Freddie, who no longer kissed her anywhere but on the top of her glossy black head. They felt a little apologetic when she was with them, aware of a timidity to which she was a stranger. So the light feckless girl of Harriet’s imagination was not her daughter, who sometimes seemed quite angry, but herself, her embryonic self, who might have existed in another life, but who had got married and settled down.

  This fantasy, these ephemeral feelings, receded gradually like a tide on a silent beach, leaving behind a cold residue which was equally tenacious, for it enveloped her for the rest of her life. She thought at first that the weather might have something to do with it. From greenness, promise, mild days, and soft skies it veered to frost at night, and a colourless mist which lasted until midday. Nor did these mists hold the promise of fine weather: they persisted keenly, damply, covering the sun with a grey haze, subduing bird-song. She began to doubt the existence of spring in this prolongation of winter, although the lilac and the may were in bloom and the chestnut candles had turned from green to white. ‘It will all be wasted,’ she thought. ‘It is no longer relevant.’ In this new damp greyness she began to doubt the memory of that evening in Judd Street, probably the most significant of her life. She had exhausted it with reflection; it no longer yielded anything when she summoned it up. Then she knew that it had been inadequate, that it had no status as an amorous encounter. No doubt it had been a form of politeness, the sort of compliment that a cynic like Jack might pay to a prude like herself. She blushed with shame, although she knew that if he were to make the slightest sign she would go to him. But she was not brave enough, or perhaps not foolish enough, to make the first move.