Pamela took her hand. ‘David joins me,’ she started awkwardly. ‘Oh, hell. You know what I mean. Take care of yourself, Hattie. That’s all I can say.’
She saw them off, waving until the car was out of sight. Then she saw Freddie, on his way home, and waved again. At this sign of returning vitality he brightened, but his moods were now unstable and he was soon inert again. That evening she managed to cook Pamela’s eggs; they ate them carelessly, vacantly, on a corner of the kitchen table, not talking to each other. Even the chairs on which they sat were askew, as if they were both strangers in a public place. There followed the hour they both dreaded, when the silence of the evening came down. Freddie would have liked to watch the news, but his wife’s gaze was so remote that he feared to disturb her. When the doorbell rang she gave a great leap, as if brought forcibly back to life. ‘I’ll go,’ he said. He was anxious to get away from her.
When he came back it was with Lizzie, who strolled in cautiously, her hands in the pockets of her denim jacket. Harriet stared at the sight of one so young, when her other visitors had been her own age, or older. Her resistance she immediately converted into a semblance of her usual good manners.
‘Lizzie!’ she managed to say. ‘How good of you to come. Sit down. I’ll make some coffee.’ She in her turn was anxious to get away, feeling revulsion for this burdensome visitor. When she went back into the drawing-room she was aware that Freddie had been questioning the girl.
‘It wasn’t Julian,’ she heard Lizzie say, and then she immediately started talking about Lizzie’s work, in a high social voice. Freddie looked at her as though she were mad. She did not care. She did not want their interruptions.
Lizzie saw them both in the unshaded light, as separate as if they were political prisoners in the same cell. She saw the birthmark flaring on Harriet’s white face, saw the tremor that agitated Freddie’s hands. Of the two of them he seemed more anxious for her company. Harriet, she thought, had almost entirely removed herself, although she sat there, apparently attentive, but as if she had some trouble hearing what was being said. Imogen’s death was shocking to Lizzie, but not particularly moving. She needed to think about it. This visit was premature; she was not ready for it. There was little she could say, much that she could not.
Harriet kissed her when she stood up to leave. That much she was able to manage. She let Freddie see her out.
‘Good of her to come,’ he said, as they prepared for bed. He sighed. ‘I shan’t be sorry to leave.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It hardly matters where we are now.’ She knew, as she suspected he did, that they would not come back.
‘You’ll leave Miss Wetherby here?’ he asked her.
‘Of course. I must go down to Brighton tomorrow, to say goodbye to my parents.’
It was the last time, she thought, that she would make such a journey. She sat in the tightly shut room with her mother, who was unusually silent. ‘I sent Hughie out,’ she said. ‘This has all been too much for him.’
Harriet realized that her visit was not entirely welcome. I must look a sight, she thought vaguely, aware of the looseness of her dress. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said.
They sat in silence until it was time for her to go. ‘Go before he gets back,’ said her mother.
They stood up, embraced. Merle was shockingly aware of her daughter’s changed appearance.
‘Poor child, poor child,’ she said.
‘But she was a young woman,’ protested Harriet. ‘A beautiful young woman.’
‘No, dear,’ said her mother sadly. ‘I meant you.’
THE WEATHER that year was magnificent. Each morning the scarlet globe of the sun rose calmly above the grey waters of the lake: each evening Harriet strolled down the rue du Château to watch the light fade and the sun finally disappear. Walking back to the Résidence Cécil she wrapped her arms round herself; she now felt permanently cold. Her state of mind reflected a perpetual absence, as if all her emotions had been laid aside, deferred, until she should have the time and the courage to consult and examine them. She dreaded the chill of the evening, dreaded going back to the flat where Freddie awaited her care. She felt pity for him, but knew that the distance between them was now so wide that it could never be bridged. By maintaining a rigid politeness she dealt with his needs. He on the other hand was given to fits of temper, bursts of weeping, as if some essential control were gone. She wondered whether there had been additional damage to his brain, or whether he were merely allowing his growing resentment of her a free rein. He accused her of heartlessness and it was true that she had never shed a tear; rather she had retreated into herself, as if she had become deaf. She prepared their evening meal while Freddie watched television. When the melodramatic tones of the French weather forecaster had subsided she went in to him, helped him up from his chair, then led the way back to the kitchen. They ate in silence. Then he watched more television until he fell asleep, when she would wake him and put him to bed.
Little was said between them. They had become strangers to one another, each retaining some impression of a former part to be played. Of the two of them Harriet was the more proficient, although in reality she was a sleep-walker. Her duties were now automatic, and were automatically carried out: the marketing in the early morning, the preparation of lunch, and then Freddie’s afternoon rest, when she sat trying to read, although the book was frequently laid aside. Monsieur Papineau usually joined them for a cup of tea, yet the balance of their friendship had very slightly shifted. Harriet sensed that he was fearful now of her polite reserve, as if the terrible reality of what had happened had estranged him. He felt for her, but could not express his feelings, which were confused. The tragedy had impinged upon his own comfortable nostalgia; his stories of life in London, nights at the opera, Sundays taking his governess, Missy, to tea at the Hyde Park Hotel, fell on deaf ears. His own dead love, that same Missy, had died in her late seventies, when Monsieur Papineau was already a mature man; how could this death be compared with the other? And his love for Missy, which was real enough, had in it something of the love of a boy for an older woman. It was as a boy that Monsieur Papineau had grown old; beneath the polished manners were the innocence and eagerness of childhood, but also its revulsions. Harriet now seemed to him cold. He preferred the company of Freddie, with whom he was able to shake his head over Harriet’s tearless state. He even felt a slight thrill of disloyalty when Freddie told him that Harriet had always been an unfeeling woman. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you,’ said Freddie, with heavy emphasis. Monsieur Papineau felt horror and fascination. Freddie’s decline put him more within Monsieur Papineau’s reach. Together they played the occasional game of chess, while Harriet put on a sweater and walked down by the lake.
And Monsieur Papineau was indispensable when Freddie felt unwell. ‘Allons-y, avançons,’ he would call out gaily as he guided the bent figure into the bedroom. This gaiety was well within his capabilities, for he liked the sensation of virtue, was in fact enlivened by it. What he could not tolerate was Harriet’s remoteness, which made him uneasy. He had no resource against the encroachment of fear: it made him fretful, uncomfortable. He admired Harriet, felt affection for her, but these days she inspired a melancholy which was unwelcome. On Freddie’s better days he took him out in the car. That way he could honestly feel that he was helping them both. At such times he greeted the return of his habitual good conscience with relief, as if it were an old friend. On Sundays he went to church. It was important to him to behave decently. Therefore he devoted himself to Freddie, leaving Harriet to the solitude she now seemed to crave.
Freddie’s treatment became intermittent, and then finally ceased, when, by common consent, he was recognized to be too frail to benefit from further visits to the clinic. Instead, one of his nurses, Irène, was seconded to the Résidence Cécil to look after him, a fact for which Harriet was profoundly grateful. Irène was given the spare room, the small white room which had been left untouched
by the interior decorator, who had deemed it appropriate, in its unadorned state, for the servant who would occupy it. The presence of this unsmiling, even severe woman relieved Harriet, although she no longer looked for the pleasures of company. Nevertheless, to see Irène’s head bent over her sewing by the light of one of the elaborate lamps gave her a timid feeling of normality partially restored.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind being here?’ she asked.
Irène snorted. ‘It’s what I trained for. What do you think I do there, most of the time? Pedicures, for rich women! At least this is serious.’ She meant sérieux, respectable. She forbore to add that she needed the extra money, merely telling Harriet that her daughter was expecting again. She sighed, then held up the beautiful nightdress she was stitching for Harriet’s approval.
‘How ill is he?’ asked Harriet.
‘He is being well looked after,’ temporized the nurse. ‘Don’t worry. He is not suffering.’
‘How long?’ pursued Harriet.
‘Who can say?’
With Freddie gone, she thought, they would all leave, Irène, Monsieur Papineau. She would be left alone, with no further duties. There would be a relief in the cessation of her normal activities, although she was tired when she contemplated the duty of living the rest of her life. It did not occur to her to end it by violent means; she rather thought that she would let it slip away. Yet even this idea was curiously repugnant to her. Her heart still beat strongly, her eyes still saw the sun going down into the lake, her legs still carried her effortlessly on her morning walk. What she craved was not so much death as silence. These days the flat seemed crowded, overpopulated, with Freddie and Monsieur Papineau in the bedroom and herself and Irène in the drawing-room. The smell of Irène’s carnation scent bothered her, until she got used to it. And all the encroachments—Irène’s sewing basket, Monsieur Papineau’s chess board—she regarded with something like bewilderment until she shrugged her shoulders and accepted them. But she was not at home. That was her principal feeling. She was not at home anywhere. She might have come to terms with her present surroundings if she had been left alone, but there were three strangers to contend with, for Freddie was now more comfortable with Irène and Monsieur Papineau than he was with her. She did not actively imagine how life would be when he died, did not in fact believe that he would die, for he cheered up in company, and seemed relatively comfortable. Only with Harriet was he largely wordless. At night they settled down for sleep in the big bed, earlier and earlier. Sometimes his hand felt for her breast, then fell away. ‘No good, no good,’ he would groan, and shed a tear. She waited, in silence, until he fell asleep. These times were the most difficult, for try as she might she could think of nothing to say to him.
He got better, was livelier, even went out in the car one day with Monsieur Papineau, although he had to be helped up the stairs when he returned. He had a bad night after that, and on the following morning half fell as she took him through to the kitchen for breakfast. She noticed that he ate carelessly, could not locate his plate, let his coffee drip down his chin. ‘Freddie,’ she warned. ‘Wipe your mouth.’ In reply he put his head down on the table and began to sob. ‘Irène, Irène,’ she cried. The nurse came running in, took one look at Freddie’s face, with the smear of butter on the forehead, and said, ‘Ah.’ Together they lifted him from his chair, and took him back to the bedroom. He said nothing while they put him to bed, eventually lay back on the pillows, a final tear drying on his cheek. They sat with him all day. At five o’clock Monsieur Papineau put his head round the door, saw them at the bedside, and exchanged nods with the nurse. Harriet was aware of his frightened face slowly disappearing, of the door slowly shutting. An hour later Freddie fell asleep, peacefully, it seemed. Harriet and Irène withdrew to the kitchen, ate swiftly, smoked a cigarette.
‘What will happen now?’ asked Harriet.
‘Ma pauvre petite dame, only one thing can happen.’
‘Then I must be with him,’ she said.
‘Freddie,’ she said, into his sleeping ear. ‘Forgive me. Forgive me for not loving you, as a wife should love a husband. Forgive me for disappointing you, for not coming up to expectations. You are a good man; the faults were all mine.’
She took his hand. ‘Freddie, can you hear me? Don’t be afraid. I will never leave you. I never left you, did I? We managed, somehow. But then it all changed, didn’t it? After that there was nothing more to say. How could we even pretend that we were the same people? If I have seemed unsympathetic it was not because I didn’t feel for you; it was because I had run out of emotional disguises. The truth of the matter is that we gave up in different ways. You managed to grieve for her, while I have not yet started. I perceive everything as a distraction from the main business of my life now, which is trying to recapture Imogen. Even your illness is a distraction, because when I am attending to you I am trying to see her face, which is puzzlingly out of reach. I know that it will come back to me one day, but in the meantime I am hemmed in by circumstance. I need a great absence. I even need your absence, although my life will be strange without you. What shall I do when you are no longer there? And yet I know that I will manage, just as I know that you will be glad to shed this body which torments you. Perhaps death is not the punishment I always thought it must be. Simply one must greet it when it comes, so that there is no time for fear. I can’t join you yet. But I shall stay with you until then.’
So many years, she thought. Turning to him in the bed, she said again, ‘Don’t be afraid.’
They thought he must have died in the night, or in the very early morning. They thought that Harriet must have been asleep when it happened. When she awoke it was to a great silence. She looked at him, saw that he was colourless, felt his cheek. For a few minutes she lay there beside him. Then she got up, still anxious not to disturb him, bathed and dressed. In the kitchen she put water on to boil, as she always had done. When the coffee was made she took a cup in to the nurse, and announced that Freddie was dead. The sun was rising on to another perfect day. She noted this while Irène was making the necessary telephone calls. Then, as she was no longer needed, she walked out and went down to the lake. She sat there, in the beneficent heat, until she judged that she might be needed again. When she rose from her seat her only thought was that now at last she could be alone with Imogen.
Monsieur Papineau wept. He wept throughout the funeral, then, with a great sigh, cheered up again. When Harriet clasped his hands and kissed him in gratitude for being so good a friend he assured her that he would not abandon her. She in her turn assured him that she was all right, that he must not feel that he had to keep her company: he did not see that she craved solitude. Together with the nurse she cleared the bedroom, arranged for Freddie’s things to go to the Red Cross. Then she helped Irène to pack up, stripped Irène’s bed, and remade it with pristine white sheets. ‘You could have a guest,’ said Irène. ‘You could have someone to stay.’ But she knew no one, although she did not say so.
Shortly the weather broke, and rain fell steadily. For days she stayed in the flat, in a state of latency. She thought that she ought to go back to London, knew that she should, but was somehow incapable of summoning the energy to buy her ticket. Gradually the light went, and the days shortened. The lake was now grey from morning to night, and a chill wind blew. In the spring, she thought vaguely. I shall go in the spring. Go home, she corrected herself. But it was no longer home to her.
As the winter closed in she forced herself to go out, to buy food, although she felt no desire to eat. Sometimes Monsieur Papineau came up and had tea with her, partially reassured by her calm demeanour. When the days lightened again it was he who wondered aloud when she would go home, saw her reluctance, did not insist. She was grateful to him for his tact. Throughout the following summer he took her out for walks; sometimes they lunched together. ‘Your parents?’ he questioned. ‘I telephone them every week,’ she answered. ‘They seem to be all right. But I should see
to Miss Wetherby. She is alone too now.’ In the end, on a fine September day, it was he who went with her to the travel agent, took her to the station, saw her on to the train. At the airport in Geneva she was surprised to see so many people. She had seen hardly anyone for nearly a year.
England seemed strange, a foreign country. As always, when coming back, the house confused her. When she put her unfamiliar key into the unfamiliar lock the dog started to bark, and she almost turned round and left again. Miss Wetherby’s anxious face, appearing at the top of her stairs, forced her to behave normally.
‘Mrs Lytton! But I didn’t know you were coming! I would have got some food in!’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I can go out again later.’
‘Let me make you a cup of tea, at least.’
‘Yes, I should like a cup of tea. I’ll come down to you, shall I? I must just take a look upstairs.’
In the drawing-room Miss Wetherby had put dust sheets over the sofa and chairs. Otherwise all was in order. Harriet climbed the stairs to Immy’s flat, knowing that this was why she had really come, but, opening the door, was defeated by the silence of the place. She thought she could smell scent, but how was this possible, after two years? Or was it three? She tried hard to remember, but encountered a blank in her mind. It must be three years. The scent came from a cake of lavender soap in the bathroom. She opened the windows, let the evening breeze blow through, then shut them again and went down to Miss Wetherby.
Tea restored her, but now she felt frightened, as if opening Immy’s door had opened doors which she had so far succeeded in keeping closed.
‘There is no cake,’ fretted Miss Wetherby. ‘If I had known you were coming … Perhaps a little toast?’
She smiled. ‘My father always used to make me toast for tea,’ she said.
A Closed Eye Page 24
