Altered States

by Anita Brookner

  Oddly enough this did not depress me. Nor was I depressed throughout the whole of the next two weeks. I waited expectantly, but in a sort of dream; if nothing happened it simply meant that the delicious moment of contact was still in the future, something to look forward to. By the third week my mood changed, became more bleak. If nothing happened it was because nothing would happen. There was no contact. There never would be.

  On the Wednesday of the fourth week I got back from lunching with a client to find Sarah in the room shared by Telfer and Mrs Roche. There was a pungent smell of nail polish in the air: she was painting her nails. Avoiding Mrs Roche’s eye I invited her into my office. She picked up her bottle, and with her fingers spread wide wriggled past me through the door. I smelt a heavy scent, something by Guerlain, I thought, and the waxy, more aromatic odour of her hair. I was worried that I might be too confused to speak. However, when I did I was entirely in character.

  ‘How can I be of help?’ I said.

  Even then I could probably see that it was hopeless. I seemed to have to exert phenomenal psychological pressure, along the order of mesmerism, to induce her to meet my eye, since she was intent on her nails, testing them to see if they were dry, and when they were, examining them carefully, turning her hands this way and that. I wondered why she could not have completed this task at home, before she came out, but that was to misunderstand Sarah from the start. I had known her intermittently, as a distant relative, all my life, but not in the intuitive fashion to which I now had access. I could see that time and occasion would mean nothing to her: whatever she wanted to do she would do, regardless of where she was, or who was with her. And she would be so intent on what she did that reproaches would either be useless or out of order. This was one of her versions of her mother’s fabled oddness, though in contrast to Sybil’s eager anticipation of old age and decrepitude Sarah would live entirely in an eternal present. Her main characteristic was the kind of primal innocence enjoyed by children, except that allied to this innocence—of time, of her effect on others—was an extremely alert sense of her own importance. The psychopathology of this combination was unusual. Since that meeting in my office I have seen her enter a room full of people and fail to greet any of them, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later they would drift over to her and greet her of their own volition, drawn by her infinitely magnetic presence. By the same token she would sometimes laugh in solemn company, for example if an extremely serious matter were under discussion, simply because too little attention was being paid to her. She was not stupid, not by any means. She knew herself to be unusual and desirable, and most of the time she would be restless and bored. She probably expected the world to attend to her needs, which would not fail to be quite specific. And, more important, she would be deficient in the ability to link cause and effect, or to think in any but the most immediate terms.

  Naturally I could confirm nothing of this at the time, though I think I sensed it. While Sarah was examining her nails I felt that intimation of longing and frustration that results from an inability, almost an incapacity, to capture the attention of someone who has suddenly assumed a vital and overwhelming importance. I waited patiently, my gaze no doubt beamed on her like a searchlight, until she finally decided that her nails were in a satisfactory condition. Then she rearranged her heavy mane of hair, opened her bag, and removed a piece of paper.

  ‘I need a lease,’ she explained, or failed to explain, handing over the paper, on which was scrawled the name of another solicitor, one whom I had met in the course of business. ‘I’ve sold the house and bought this flat.’

  ‘Your mother was agreeable to this?’

  She shrugged. ‘Haven’t the faintest. I couldn’t go on living out there, could I? Anyway, I need to be in town. This’ll do for the time being.’

  ‘And where is this flat? I presume you’ve already exchanged contracts? And sold the house?’

  ‘Of course. I don’t waste time. I never waste time.’

  This statement, coming from one who thought it acceptable to waste others’ time, should also have given me pause, yet at that moment, and indeed afterwards, I had to admire the sheer consistency of her extremely inconsistent nature. She was unpredictable, yet she could also be relied upon to be unpredictable. In this way she need never take the blame, particularly for those unexplained absences which were her stock in trade. The effect was of an endlessly delayed climax, and I use the image advisedly, for it was this particular characteristic that made her so fascinating to men. This too I could see at the time; time was also to prove me correct. When bored, as she obviously was now, her looks would fade, as if a light had gone out. One would then be on one’s mettle to amuse her, to spoil her, and, yes, I must repeat this, to capture her attention. She was a woman destined to beguile men, yet most of them would leave her indifferent. She had the imperviousness of an alien, while all the time trailing evidence of her powers of seduction, which were considerable. I was not in the least surprised when the door of my office opened and Brian came in, intrigued no doubt by Mrs Roche’s indignant comments.

  ‘Hello!’ he said. ‘How nice to see you again! Alan looking after you, is he?’

  To my despair she brightened, but, I reasoned, only because something was happening, as opposed to the nothing signified by my steady attention.

  ‘I’ve bought this flat,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Paddington Street.’

  ‘That’s quite near where I live,’ I said. ‘In Wigmore Street. We shall almost be neighbours.’ I wanted to ask her out to dinner, but I was not going to do so with Brian in the room. What a pity we had all had lunch, I reflected, otherwise Brian would certainly have extended his usual invitation.

  ‘If you could just take care of it for me,’ she said, suddenly switching her gaze to mine. I watched her, fascinated, as she warmed into luminous life, having decided that she had ignored me sufficiently for my own good. She moistened her lips, and seemed to will brightness into her eyes and colour into her cheeks. The effect was dazzling, and also unsettling, indications of a volatility which she nevertheless had under perfect control. She was like the weather in a mountain region, like the weather in this little town of Vif, a heavy mist descending out of nowhere, a fitful sun giving way to soaking rain.

  ‘I’ll take care of it, of course,’ I said. ‘Was there anything else? I’ll need a telephone number.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ She searched in her large handbag for her diary, found the number and read it out. I wrote it down. Brian, I could see, was committing it to memory.

  ‘And I’ll be giving a little house-warming party,’ she said. ‘Some weekend or other. If you’d like to come?’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ I said. ‘I’ll telephone you.’

  ‘Am I invited too?’ asked Brian. I had never seen him so clumsy.

  ‘Of course. Bring Pamela.’

  ‘Pamela?’

  ‘Your girl-friend.’

  ‘You mean Felicity.’

  ‘Sure. Felicity.’

  At the mention of Felicity’s name Brian looked unhappy, as well he might, I reflected. On Fridays and Saturdays Brian and Felicity were usually out of London, staying with one or other set of parents, or, in season, shooting on one of the estates of Felicity’s many uncles. There was no possibility that he could get out of these arrangements: he was making an advantageous marriage, and he had to think of the consequences. And yet I knew that at some point he would contrive to have an affair with Sarah, of which he would say nothing. It would be one of those brief affairs of which he had the secret, and she would amuse herself with him, until she decided to turn her attention to somebody else. And then, if he were lucky, and if she had left him intact, he would do the same.

  My own domestic economy was simplicity itself compared with Brian’s. I had only my mother, at this moment no doubt making her way to Selfridges with Jenny, and my own empty flat. I was therefore in a position to give all my attention to Sarah, which is what I did. I do not blame
myself for this, nor do I blame Sarah for her part in the affair. She was not completely indifferent to me, nor was she completely untrustworthy. Perhaps what I saw from the outset was simply incompatibility. I tell myself that there have been worse cases. And yet, although my own case was so unremarkable, I very nearly did not survive it.

  5

  I never read love stories. If I read modern fiction at all I tend to go for thrillers of the most traditional kind, perhaps because they satisfy my sense of justice. Angela, my wife, read a lot, but in the same selective fashion, preferring up-market sagas of village life in which every mild imbroglio is satisfactorily sorted out. These novels, I suppose, flattered her somewhat exaggerated sense of her own gentility. Like Lady Stavely, in Orley Farm, my mother’s favourite novel, ‘She liked to see nice-dressed and nice-mannered people about her, preferring those whose fathers and mothers were nice before them.’ On these grounds alone my mother and I qualified, though I flatter myself that Angela never knew how distant I was in my mind and feelings from that niceness she so treasured. Poor girl, she was moderate in all things, except one. In that way she ensured that she would never be forgotten.

  Had I read literature, steeped myself in fantasy instead of the law, I should have been better prepared for the condition in which I found myself after Sarah’s visit to the office. I should have known that being in love means knowing no respite. I should have viewed my daily telephone calls to Paddington Street with resignation, or even with indulgence. They were never answered, except at one remove. ‘Hi, this is Sarah and I’m not here right now. Leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’ Strange how many people affect an American accent and locution on these machines. Soon I took to strolling up to Paddington Street after work; it was not far from the office after all. I was extremely lonely at this time, yet found it impossible to contact any of my friends. If they were trying to contact me I was unaware of the fact, since I was out of the flat most of the time. My evenings had come to take on a strange pattern. After a hasty meal I would walk up Baker Street to Paddington Street, to see if there were a light in any of the windows. Since I did not at that stage know which of the flats was Sarah’s this was a particularly pointless exercise. Yet I came to rely on that furtive evening walk as part of the day’s activities. If it did nothing else it prepared me for sleep.

  The invitation to the house-warming had not materialised, and my fruitless telephone calls did nothing to elucidate the matter. I could of course simply turn up at her door in the course of one of my evening patrols, but I shrank from so obvious a solution to the problem. Three years at Oxford and nearly four in Paris should have alerted me to the notion of courtly love, but I rather think that even if I had been acquainted with it, had grown up believing in minstrels and troubadours, I should not have recognised my own behaviour, which had more in common with the Middle Ages, or even the Dark Ages, than with the twentieth century.

  My mother, who never telephoned me at the office, managed to get hold of me one evening. Her call exasperated me, as I was just about to leave the flat, but I love my mother, and I detected a note of anxiety in her voice which was uncharacteristic. I shrugged my coat off again and settled down to listen to her, my eye on the clock, as if there were little time left to me before I was due to leave.

  ‘Alan? Are you all right, dear? I’ve had some trouble getting hold of you.’

  ’Of course I’m all right, Mother. You can always reach me at the office, you know. I’m out rather a lot in the evenings at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you’re having a good time, dear. But actually this might be a matter you need to deal with officially. I’ve had a rather disquieting letter from Sybil. She seems to think that you were instrumental in selling her house.’

  ‘Did you remind her that I am not an estate agent?’

  ‘She has, as you know, only the vaguest idea of what you do. She seems to be rather more confused than she was, although she was never exactly lucid.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with the sale of the house, Mother. Sarah sold it. Doesn’t Sybil speak to her own daughter?’

  ‘It appears that she has trouble getting through to her.’ In this I was prepared to sympathise. ‘She said that the only time she managed to speak to her Sarah told her that you had organised the lease of the new flat.’

  ‘So I did. Perfectly routine piece of business. That was the first I knew of her selling the house, or rather having sold the house.’

  ‘Sybil says she shouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘But she did. None of this has anything to do with me.’

  I could hear my mother’s hesitation at the other end of the line. ‘Don’t you think you should have asked her about this, dear? Of course it’s none of my business, and of course I don’t appreciate the legal niceties, but I do see that Sybil has a point …’

  ‘I simply negotiated the lease on Sarah’s new flat. I didn’t ask her about the sale of the house because at that stage it was no longer relevant. The conveyancing was perfectly straightforward: there was no mortgage, nothing to delay the matter. I saw no reason to refuse to act …’

  ‘That seems a little precipitate, if you’ll forgive my saying so, darling.’

  ‘Mother, I do this sort of thing all the time. I’m not responsible for all my clients’ actions. I don’t ask them to unburden themselves, search their hearts, unearth their motives. I don’t ask them what sort of terms they are on with their mothers. Anyway, why didn’t Sybil think to enquire before all this happened?’

  ‘You know Sybil. She can’t cope with change. She can’t even anticipate it. She obviously thought that Sarah would go on living in the house, probably as a married woman. She had no idea …’

  ‘What has this got to do with me?’

  ‘I’m coming to that. If you’re satisfied that there is nothing for which you feel in the slightest bit responsible there’s no need to worry. Although with Sarah I should have advised caution. She was never reliable: always the quick and easy answer to everything. Or no answer at all. And she never got on with her mother. In a way it’s just as well that the girls moved down to that place of theirs—I believe that in every other respect they’re quite happy—because there would have been trouble with Sarah sooner or later. But it was a little callous of her, don’t you think?’

  ‘Are you sure she didn’t tell Sybil she was selling the house?’

  ‘She may have done.’ My mother brightened as this thought took hold. ‘In fact she probably did. But you know Sybil when she thinks she has a grudge. Remember how she reacted when Humphrey married.’

  By this time I was kicking moodily at the chair leg. ‘I still don’t see where I come into it.’

  ‘I’m afraid Sybil has got it into her head that you engineered the whole thing.’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘So I told her. But she said she intended to write you a stiff letter. I know you’ll know how to deal with that; I just thought I ought to warn you. She won’t do anything, of course: in fact she’s always been rather frightened of you. Big men frighten her—she’s that sort of woman. Thankfully few of them survive. It’s interesting how times have changed …’

  ‘Mother, I’ll deal with it, I promise you. It’s just that I was on my way out …’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Alan. Of course I’m being a nuisance. When will I see you?’

  ‘I’ll try and come over on Sunday. It’s just that my evenings are rather taken up at the moment.’

  There was a pause. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked finally, a question I usually avoided. I did not want to know about my mother’s life, which I saw as empty, wistful. I had longed for her to remarry, so as to ease the burden of her solitariness onto shoulders other than mine. And there was a claimant, a thoroughly respectable bachelor who lived a floor above her in Cadogan Gate and who continued faithfully to escort her to the theatre even when she had turned down his proposal.

  ‘But why don’t you accept?’ I pro
tested when she told me. ‘You could have been a wife instead of a widow.’ For I imagined widows indulging in ceaseless sentimental tears, whereas all the widows I know now lead aerobics classes. She had smiled, and said something that terrified me. ‘ “Was it not her position in life to be his mother?” ’ ‘What?’ I said. ‘What are you saying? Of course you’re my mother, but that’s not a position …’

  ‘I was quoting, dear. Lady Mason says that in Orley Farm, I love it, as you know.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Reading.’

  ‘Not Orley Farm again? You must know it off by heart.’

  ‘The Claverings. I’d forgotten how it ended. Just write Sybil a gentle but firm letter, dear. But once she gets hold of an idea … Come to lunch on Sunday if you can. Are you eating?’

  ‘Of course. I have lunch with Brian or a client most days. And I have breakfast in this coffee bar down the road. I don’t need much in the evenings. Are you eating?’

  ‘Rather too much. Jenny sees to that.’

  ‘I’ll see you on Sunday, Mother. I’ve got to go now.’

  ‘Good-night, dear. Until Sunday. And I’m sure you’ll know what to say to Sybil. God bless.’

  I walked to the window and looked out. It was a fine evening in late autumn, my favourite season of the year. There are a few pedestrians at my end of Wigmore Street once the office workers and the dental nurses have gone home: the music lovers at the Wigmore Hall do not make themselves felt until much later. At the back of my mind I was aware of overstepping some sort of mark, and I was unsure whether this was professional or moral. As I said, I was unversed in the idea of love, and the theories surrounding it. I think I knew that it was subversive, even at that stage, before I had been completely overtaken. But when I speak about being overtaken is this not simply to exonerate myself, as if I were a passive instrument—not even an agent—at the mercy of powerful and indifferent forces? The one lesson I learnt from the whole affair was that one is responsible not only for what one does but for what is done to one. But I think I also knew relief that at last I had the ideal pretext for contacting Sarah, instead of waiting for her notional party. There was no reason, apart from the inability to get through to her on the telephone, why I should not simply have invited her to dinner. I did not do this because I was not ready for her. I was still at that stage which I now recognise as adolescent. I wanted to move straight from my imaginings into a full-blooded affair. With an affair I knew I should be on safe ground. I did not want to have dinner with her, to get to know her. I already knew her, or what I wanted to know of her. Besides, I was afraid of a refusal.