A Closed Eye

by Anita Brookner

  Harriet feared that she had somehow lost her daughter’s love, and blamed herself for it, as if she knew herself to be too dull and uninteresting to be attractive to a girl like Imogen. If she had had that secret life which she had promised herself, she thought the girl would have looked on her with more respect. But she had not had it. Instead she was rewarded by Freddie and his rejuvenated advances, abortive as they were. She could not help but feel that the only tactful thing to do was go away, taking her unregenerate husband with her, so that her daughter should not be contaminated by the sight, the nearness of such disgrace, which somehow, she knew, Imogen sensed and condemned.

  She could not blame her. Both she and Freddie were graceless now, as if he had passed the affliction on to her, jovially recruiting her in his own deterioration. In between his newly confident gestures and Monsieur Papineau’s reminiscences she felt amazed, astounded, as if this fate were worse than any infidelity could have been. And yet she had brought it on herself, was alone to blame, and all that she could do now was to protect Imogen from any suspicion of what her life had become, although she thought she knew that Imogen had sensed it and was properly disgusted.

  She was allowed into Imogen’s domain on a Saturday morning, for a cup of coffee, in return for general services. Such moments were precious to her, although Immy never said much. A week’s confusion awaited her loving hands: Imogen’s immaculate appearance was not reflected in the disorder of garments lying over the backs of chairs, the tights and stockings soaking in a basinful of water, the muddle of underwear, all of it expensive, in the laundry basket. Once the washing machine was in operation she was awarded her treat, her cup of coffee, although this was somehow a disappointment, always short of what she desired. She longed to give advice, but what advice could she usefully give, apart from timid and anodyne suggestions that too much coffee dulled the complexion. But Immy’s complexion was faultless, always had been. There were the recommendations to lock up properly, to eat sensibly, that she invariably made before going away, but these were routine, and no notice was taken of them. Then, on her last Saturday before her renewed exile, she cast around desperately for something to detain her, and, folding the clothes taken from the washing machine, said, ‘Oh, how silly. I forgot that cardigan. Have I seen it before? Navy is not generally your colour.’

  Immy flushed, that very faint flush of hers, which proceeded from annoyance rather than embarrassment, and snatched the cardigan, which smelt damp, away from her.

  ‘It’s Lizzie’s. I borrowed it.’

  ‘Oh, have you seen Lizzie? I’m so glad. Well, you’d better get it back to her. No,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ll take it back myself. I’ll go to Judd Street myself. Will she be there if I go one evening?’

  Imogen shrugged. ‘No idea. I shouldn’t think she goes out much. She’s got this job now, walked straight into it when she came down. Something to do with publishing.’

  ‘How clever of her. She was always a sensible girl. I’m so glad you’ve kept in touch, darling.’

  ‘Actually, that cardigan could be thrown away,’ said Imogen. ‘She said it was an old one.’

  ‘It’s certainly not something you’d normally wear,’ agreed her mother. ‘And it smells musty. Oh well, poor Lizzie. Does she like living in Judd Street?’

  ‘Couldn’t say.’

  The telephone ended the conversation: Imogen’s face was immediately absorbed, remote, though she answered in monosyllables. Harriet waited, with a look of not waiting on her face, until Imogen waggled her fingers at her, and she was reluctantly forced to get up and make for the door. She blew a kiss, was rewarded with another waggle of the fingers, and went down the stairs.

  Very well, she thought. I will go to Judd Street and see Lizzie. I will find out from her where her father is: after all, the query is quite in order. She is not to know of my interest; she will not be involved. I shall comb my hair and put on lipstick as if at any minute I might run into Jack, for who knows? If he is not there now he will be there one day, as I shall. For now it was important to her to make contact before she was taken away to that silent room, with the parrot-green sofa and the volumes of Voltaire, before she had to undergo Freddie’s advances and Monsieur Papineau’s family photographs: she must go to where Jack had been, and might be again.

  On the following Monday she left the house at six. She hesitated as to whether or not she should take the car, but felt such a renewal of energy that before she knew it she had left the car behind and swung on to a bus. It was a damp mild evening with an indeterminate sky, the beginning of a spring that would not declare itself. All day she had longed for the sun; now she longed for it to be dark, as if darkness were more conducive to her secrecy. Only in the unlovely street did she feel a touch of fear. It was deserted, silent, all the normal passers-by gone home, and now real darkness, or rather dimness, discoloration, was coming down, signalling that the day was over, and that different activities would now be expected to take place. Her hand to her throat, she entered the building, took the wheezing lift, stood before Jack’s door, and rang the bell.

  The door opened on to Lizzie’s inscrutable face. In a great wave of disappointment, but somehow still buoyed up by the fact that she was in this place, Harriet greeted her, was allowed in, saw distractedly how plain the room was, how brown, how cold, felt momentarily sorry for the girl, who had presumably been eating her supper, if that yoghourt carton was her supper, in these disheartening surroundings.

  ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you, Lizzie,’ she said.

  ‘I was working,’ was the uncompromising answer.

  Harriet saw, with a sharpening of her attention, the volume of Vuillard reproductions, the intense checked and striped material of Vuillard’s mother’s dress.

  ‘So clever of you to get that job, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘You must come and tell us all about it sometime.’

  But Lizzie was no longer in a mood to be patronized. Her present independence was hard won, and less enjoyable than she had foreseen. She had tried to harden herself, with some success. It was difficult for her to deal with feelings, her own and other people’s. Eagerness, avidity made her shudder. She was more than ever determined to keep this foolish woman at bay.

  ‘I brought your cardigan,’ said Harriet helplessly. ‘The one you so kindly lent to Immy.’

  ‘You needn’t have bothered.’

  ‘It’s no bother.’ She wondered why the girl was so unresponsive, as if she were annoyed at the visitor, or maybe just indifferent, as she always had been.

  ‘You’re keeping well, Lizzie?’

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  ‘Quite happy here? You still keep in touch with Elspeth?’

  ‘I see her from time to time.’

  ‘And your father?’ Her voice was light. ‘Still in Washington?’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was all. She supposed she had got the answer she had come for, and yet she was oddly disconcerted by Lizzie’s face, which she saw as stern and unforgiving, as if all were known to her. But that was ridiculous: the girl was practically a stranger these days. Nevertheless, she felt chilled, crestfallen. The cardigan had been thrown on to a chair, in a corner, although Lizzie was always so neat. The whole encounter had been odd. Out in the street she shivered, saw a taxi, which she hailed as if it were a lifeboat and she wrecked at sea. Huddled in the back (and now it was quite dark) she felt she had come near to making a fool of herself, and had a sense of danger. For once she would be glad to get home, just as she would be glad to leave that home in a few days’ time. It seemed only realistic now to see her life as a series of escapes, which she must somehow, expressionlessly, manage.

  In the same fretful damp they took the taxi, the plane, the other taxi, and came to rest in the absolute silence of the Résidence Cécil. As usual, Monsieur Papineau, hearing their steps on the stairs, came up with the milk, on his face the same look of fearful joy at the resumption of the conversation which had been interrupted by their last
departure. Now that they were regular visitors, practically residents, he had lost something of his original authority, looked to them more to repair the loneliness which sprang into relief only when company was available, and captive. Freddie more or less ignored him, looked on him as a sort of concierge: with a sigh Harriet set to to make good the omission. Without him she would have felt desperate, although she now had to endure family reminiscences. Yet she knew that on the following morning he would drive Freddie to the clinic and return to walk her along the lake, urging her to activity, to exercise, or, alternatively, to relaxation, as if he had only her good at heart. She settled down to a month of this, desired only to be left alone, to sit in the silent room and will herself to peace. Her life, though intolerable, was calm, prosperous. All she had to do was endure it. She took up her book and persevered. At night, with relief, she plunged into sleep, all the more precious when Freddie was not there. She woke each morning with surprise, as if she had not expected to do so.

  Each day she underwent a peaceful eclipse, becalmed by her walk along the lake shore, by Monsieur Papineau’s conversation, to which she listened with half an ear. His role in her life was now indispensable: without him she might have sat all day. Instead, they walked. ‘Our constitutional, Harriet,’ he would say, presenting himself at the door with a beaming face. They lunched together, walked again in the deep calm of the afternoon. Then she gave him a cup of tea, assured him that she had things to do, saw him go down the stairs with the slight look of disappointment that she knew so well, and settled down with her book. Her life was so healthy that she thought she must last for a hundred years. As the light faded she stood at the window, watching the few cars of the evening speeding away to their unknown destinations. Time passed in this way, each day like the last. When Freddie came home she was surprised to see that three, nearly four weeks had gone by in this fashion.

  One day the nurse, Irène, called on her way home: Professor Lecoudray would like to see Freddie in a month’s time, instead of the usual three.

  ‘He’s not worse, is he?’ asked Harriet, alarmed.

  The woman shrugged. ‘His blood pressure is bad. One must remember his age.’

  She looked curiously round the room.

  ‘Et vous? Vous avez tout ce qu’il vous faut? Vous n’avez besoin de rien?’

  They spoke in both French and English. Thanks to her reading Harriet was now fluent. But she deduced that she was an object of pity, and that the visit was for her benefit more than for Freddie’s.

  She no longer desired to be at home, felt in fact as if home were a fiction, less real than the fictions she read. Yet she packed up, locked up, said goodbye to Monsieur Papineau, told him that she would see him in a month’s time.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, momentarily alert. Then his gaze slid off into the distance, and his usual smile took its place.

  The journey home was tinged with staleness, anticlimax. Of the two of them only Freddie was alert: she viewed his high colour and his good spirits with equal misgivings. Arriving in London she was aware of the chary light, the low-banked clouds, the endless stream of cars. After her silent month she felt jolted by the noise, almost frightened. Her heart beat faster than usual; in her mouth she tasted blood. She was relieved when the taxi drew up in Wellington Square, yet the same heavy-heartedness made her stumble on the steps. What is wrong with me? she thought. I do not usually react like this. She dragged the suitcases into the hall, dropped the keys into her bag, and straightened up, alert, aware that something was out of joint.

  ‘Harriet, I’ve told you, I won’t have that dog in the house. What is it doing here?’

  ‘It must have got out,’ she said. ‘Or Miss Wetherby had something to do up here.’ But she hurried into the drawing-room, where the barking had come from, to find Miss Wetherby seated in Freddie’s chair, her hand on the dog’s collar, trying to restrain him.

  ‘Miss Wetherby! Are you all right? Has there been a break-in? There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

  Miss Wetherby, with an obvious effort, stood up and came forward.

  ‘Mrs Lytton, Mr Lytton, I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’

  ‘Imogen,’ said Harriet, turning sick and faint.

  ‘You must be very brave …’

  ‘Where is she? Where is my daughter?’

  Miss Wetherby shook her head at Freddie. ‘The police came round last night,’ she said, in a low voice, as if Harriet must not hear. ‘A car accident. One of those open cars. She was killed instantly.’

  ‘Where is she?’ cried Harriet.

  Miss Wetherby shook her head again. The policeman had told her that Imogen’s body had been badly damaged. This she had decided to keep to herself, although the decision weighed on her: both looked so dreadfully ill, and she feared a heart attack, a collapse of some kind, which she would not be able to endure. She took an anxious look at Freddie, whose high colour had faded to nothing. She longed to get downstairs, to her own bed. She felt sick, tired out; she had vomited the night before, after the policeman had gone, but she knew that for them the ordeal was just beginning.

  ‘Harriet!’ cried Freddie, clutching at his heart.

  She looked up from the drooping thoughtful position into which she had fallen, on the chair which Miss Wetherby had helped her to. She gazed at him in silence for a few seconds, before reaching for the telephone and dialling the doctor’s number. ‘My husband is unwell,’ she remembered saying, and then blackness came down, and all she could hear, very faintly, was the dog barking again, in alarm, as Miss Wetherby stumbled forward to catch her.

  There followed a period of semi-consciousness, prolonged by the doctor’s sedatives, so that for several days she was not completely sure where she was. She remembered someone telling her that Immy was dead, although she only intermittently believed this. At her side Freddie sighed and groaned and wept all the tears she was unable to shed. She ardently wished that he would go away; she needed all her concentration for the task in hand, which was to endure, to stay alive, when death was all she craved. She was dry-eyed, dry-mouthed. Miss Wetherby brought cups of tea, which she sometimes drank. When Freddie at last got up she fell asleep immediately. It was only the condition of the crumpled bed, where she had lain for six days, that finally goaded her to some kind of activity. With a deep sigh she pulled off her nightdress and saw that some wasting had taken place, some loss of substance. It will not be long, she thought gratefully. Bathed and dressed, she felt alarmingly light-headed. Carefully she made her way down to the drawing-room; carefully she sat down. There was nothing to be done. She sat all day, waiting for thoughts of Immy to come back to her, to battle their way, as they must do, through the confusion in her mind. Inclining her head she appeared to be listening for that elusive voice. But nothing came through, and only the remnants of her usual discipline kept her in her chair, that and the knowledge that Freddie was out somewhere and was perhaps unwell. Left to herself she would have gone back to bed.

  Every day she made her way down to the drawing-room and sat politely in her chair. People came and went; many she did not recognize. She was aware of her parents, their shocked concern, her father’s uninhibited weeping. The sight of him, as always, made her resolute. She got up, went down into the kitchen, made coffee, found cake and biscuits. Her father ate gratefully, the tears drying on his face. Her mother, suddenly old, smoked, eased a throbbing vein in her leg, took aspirins from her bag. It was only by resuming some sort of control (but she had at no point felt out of control: that was the curious thing) that she could persuade them to leave.

  Freddie wept from time to time, Miss Wetherby, exhausted, asked if she might visit her sister in Somerset. ‘Just for a week,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘There is nothing more to do here.’

  After a fortnight, with the house silent and empty, she sat in her chair, and by succumbing to a half-sleep succeeded in seeing Immy’s face as it had been when she was sixteen or seventeen. ‘Ah,’ she breathe
d, nodding in gratitude, as if after a visitation. It was then that she realized that all she had to do was wait for this to happen again. She knew that sometimes Immy might be too far away to come to her, but she was prepared to wait. She would spend the rest of her life, what was left of it, waiting, and then she would go to join her. There was only the matter of Freddie to be settled. It hardly mattered now which of them went first. She had sent him off to his club, seeing with pity his bowed shoulders, his shrivelled neck. She felt for him, but could not console him. There was no consolation.

  All the time she remained calm, so that he frequently accused her of being unfeeling. Only once did she falter, when, one silent afternoon, the doorbell rang, and she had answered it: on the doorstep Mary and Pamela, looking awkward, pale, embarrassed, as they had done when they were girls at school, taken to task for some misdemeanour. They stood close together, as if in fear. She saw Pamela’s hair, greying now, her reddened complexion, was aware of Mary’s scent, their outstretched hands. She leaned her head against the jamb of the door until the tears were under control, then embraced them both.

  ‘And you’ve come so far,’ she said. ‘You will never know …’ But gratitude was too affecting, so she hastened down to the kitchen, and busied herself. They followed slowly.

  ‘I’ve brought some eggs,’ said Pamela. ‘From the farm.’

  ‘Here’s a cake,’ said Mary. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t make it. Harrods. Give me a knife, Hattie, we’ll eat it now. You’re terribly thin.’

  ‘How did you know?’ she finally asked them.

  ‘We saw it in The Times,’ said Mary.

  ‘How strange,’ she said. ‘Freddie must have put it in. I’ve hardly known where he was these past few days. I made him go out this afternoon. He’s not well, you know. He’ll be so sorry to have missed you. The girls, he used to call you. And Tessa, of course. It has all been a heartbreak, hasn’t it?’

  Mary exchanged a look with Pamela. ‘We’d better go,’ she said. ‘We only came to bring you our love. Any time you want a break away from here you’re always welcome, you know.’