Occasionally, at this misty season of the year, when the light began to fade at three o’clock, and sometimes earlier, she allowed herself to go home, packed up her books without compunction, knowing that the same steady stream of words would be faithfully present when she returned on the following morning. It was not quite a day’s work, but it would have to do, for the time being at least. Just as she was anxious to leave the flat, she was anxious to get back to it before the evening set in properly. The lightless days, which she found difficult, were followed by nights of a depth which she had almost forgotten. Once she had lit the lamps in the sitting-room and in her bedroom the flat seemed welcoming, as it had not done for a very long time, although she still found the approach to the building in Wilbraham Place unrealistic, unconvincing, unlike the homecomings she envisaged for happier people. Those characters she had seen only in pictures, images of other lives, so superior to her own ruminative progress towards an empty evening. She would make tea, sit demurely, reflectively, as Beatrice must have done. Beyond the windows all was dark. When a light came on in the building on the opposite side of the road she would know that someone else had reached home. This other light was the only sign that distinguished day from the very nights which she found so conducive to the thoughts and memories that she now cherished. This was her dream time, infinitely preferable to those more disconcerting dreams, over which she had no control, and which would sometimes startle her out of the black sleep on which she had almost come to rely.
On one such evening, unsignalled, no different from all the others, she was astonished, and not a little annoyed, when the doorbell rang. She was even more annoyed, when she opened the door, to see Jonathan Eldon, her former husband, whom she had mentally consigned to an earlier life, a life before life, standing there. He looked no different, although his hair was grey. Such was her stupefaction that she could find no words with which to greet him, merely gazed at him uncomprehendingly. He exuded a kind of haphazard prosperity; she was obliged to concede him a certain presence. His bulky overcoat concealed his thinness, which, as far as she could make out, the years had not modified. Otherwise he looked like an aged boy, although he had never been boyish. The grey hair was the only clue to the authentic old man he would eventually become.
‘Hello, Miriam. What are you doing here?’
‘I live here.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know. I came to see Beatrice, actually. I thought she might know where you were.’
‘I’m here. And Jon, Beatrice is dead.’
‘Good God. I am sorry. Heart, was it?’
‘It was an accident.’
‘What a shame. I mean, what a terrible thing. Well, I’ve found you at any rate. Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
Resigned, she led the way into the sitting-room, gave him a drink, wondered how soon she could send him back to Canada. Unless, terrible thought, he had returned to England.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked rudely.
‘Well, I’m back, you see.’ He picked up her book. ‘Henry James. What do you think of Henry James?’
‘Not now, Jon. Tell me about yourself. What brings you back?’
‘I’m doing some work at Imperial College. I’ll be there for a year or two. They may ask me to stay on.’
‘And where are you living?’
‘I’ve rented a place in Gloucester Road. Useful for the College. Not very nice, though.’ He looked round the room. ‘This place hasn’t changed. Neither have you. You’re older, of course. Did you marry again?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I did.’
‘Yes, I remember you were going away with someone. Your lab assistant, I think you said.’
‘Christina, yes.’ His face fell.
‘What happened?’
‘Well, she left me, didn’t she?’
‘For another man?’
‘Another woman, actually. Don’t laugh, Miriam.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, composing herself. ‘I’m sure it was very painful.’
‘It’s always more humiliating for a man, when that happens, though I gather it’s getting quite common. She joined this group, you see. They met every week to denounce male power.’
‘How very old-fashioned of them.’
‘One night she came home and said she was moving in with her friend Linda. I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she said she now felt free to explore her own sexuality, not merely to be an accessory to mine. I didn’t understand. Do you?’
‘No, I don’t. But then I haven’t met Linda.’
‘I’m glad I’ve managed to amuse you at last.’
‘Dreadful of me,’ she said. ‘Unforgivable. Do go on.’
‘Well, I divorced her. She didn’t expect that. But I don’t hang about.’
‘No, you certainly don’t do that,’ she agreed. ‘And are you living alone now?’
‘For the moment,’ he said cautiously. ‘It’s worse for a man, you know. Being left, I mean.’
‘I doubt that. It’s bad for anyone. Everyone.’
‘The thing is, Miriam, can you think of any reason why we shouldn’t get back together again?’
‘I can think of quite a few reasons. We were quite incompatible, as you well know.’
‘I don’t mean sex, if you don’t want it,’ he went on. ‘Though as I remember it that worked rather well.’
‘Yes, I suppose it did.’ Her tone was polite, not particularly friendly.
‘I could move in here. It makes perfect sense, actually. I mean we’re both getting on. You must be what? Fifty?’
‘Forty-nine. Be honest, Jon, the idea had only just occurred to you.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with it?’
‘Quite a lot, as it happens. For instance you haven’t asked me how I feel about it.’
‘Well, go on,’ he said, shrugging himself out of his overcoat. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I’ve been in love,’ she said slowly.
‘I’m not talking about love.’
‘No, you’re not, are you? I am. That’s the difference between us. I’ve known both kinds of love, the kind based on desire and the kind based on esteem. Both are incomparable. Nothing comes after. Nothing could.’
‘And did they love you, these men?’
‘Neither said so, certainly. But yes, I think they did.’
Suddenly she knew this to be true, and the clouds in her mind dispersed. What she had felt had been shared, in one way or another, had even been anticipated. The spark had not landed on stony ground. Indeed that ground had never been stony, and once again felt fertile, with movement under the earth, as if spring were breaking through.
‘So you see, Jon, an arrangement such as the one you suggest would simply not do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for both of us. But as for myself I’m better off alone.’
‘Contemplating your lost loves? I take it they’re both in the past?’
‘Oh, yes. And yes, I shall probably contemplate them, as you say, for the rest of my life.’
‘You’ve been reading too much. That was always your trouble.’
‘My trouble is that neither of these characters came out of a book. There were no happy endings.’
‘Well, why not be practical? We know each other. We lived together for five years. Doesn’t that count for something?’
‘Of course it does.’ Astonishingly little, she thought.
‘So you’re going to spend the rest of your life sitting here alone, like patient Griselda …’
‘Oh, but I’m not waiting for anything. Or for anyone. I just know what I have to do. What I want to do.’
‘I can see that you’re lonely without Beatrice.’
‘I should be lonely anyway. I’ve always been lonely. Beatrice was lonely too. But loneliness can be acceptable, you know. Even companionable.’
‘And what am I to do?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell you that. How could I? I no longer try to arrange peopl
e according to my own ideas. People do what they must. You’ll settle down to your work, I suppose, and you’ll become absorbed in it. Don’t underestimate the importance of work. I’ve sometimes been guilty of that.’
‘I think I know the importance of work.’
‘Of course you do. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why we shouldn’t have married. Neither of us understood what the other was doing. Or understood each other, come to that.’
‘Why did you marry me, then?’
‘Because I’d known you a long time, and because I wanted to be married. There, that’s an honest confession. It doesn’t do me much credit, I know. I thought I should be happier if I were married. I thought you would be too. But I didn’t love you, any more than you loved me. Why did you marry me?’
‘For the same reasons, I suppose. I was contented enough, but I knew the difference. I loved my wife; Christina, I mean. I dare say I’ll fall in love again.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because I find life rather dull on my own.’
‘You’ve always been restless. You were with me.’
‘I found you rather annoying. So silent, so disapproving. You never seemed to back me up. Never wanted a discussion.’
‘The sort of discussions you wanted belong in a university seminar, on a chosen subject. I simply don’t have any views on the things you were so interested in, world historical figures you seemed to have come to rather late, if you’ll forgive my saying so. No, Jon, we couldn’t live together again, not ever. I’ve become even more silent, you see. I’d drive you mad. And it’s not just you. I want to live alone now. I’ve a great deal to think about.’
‘So you’re saying it’s not on, then.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, yes.’
‘You won’t find anyone else, you know. You’re still quite a nice-looking woman, but most men want something a bit livelier.’
‘You mean, you do.’
‘Well, possibly.’
‘I understand. I’m sorry, Jon. I think it better if you don’t come here again. This is the sort of conversation that one only has once. Don’t you agree?’
‘Do you want me to keep in touch?’
‘Of course. It’s a terrible thing to lose a friend at my age. At our age,’ she corrected herself. ‘It seems such a wilful thing to do, so artificial, even after an argument. Telephone me from time to time, let me know how you’re getting on. Ring me on Sundays. Sunday is always a long day. I’ll be glad to talk to you. But it’s possibly better if we don’t meet.’
‘You were always hard, Miriam.’
‘There you are, then. Not the right person for you to live with.’
‘These men of yours …’
‘I don’t intend to talk about them.’
‘They’re both in the past, I take it?’
‘Yes, both in the past. But still very present.’
She saw the faces of Simon and of Tom Rivers quite distinctly, as if both were dead and had appeared to her in a dream. That Tom was dead she did not doubt, and Simon living, yet now they seemed to have come together in some mysterious conjunction, as if she were the link between them. She understood then that she had had meaning for both of them, and was glad of it. There were to be no more inequalities, no more inadequacies: praise and blame were irrelevant. The stories were not unfinished. On the contrary: they were still potent, like books so important that one read them over and over again. Simon was now as legendary as Tom Rivers; she saw his lethal grace as a quality she could never bring herself to condemn, almost smiled with indulgence as she remembered him. Tom she saw as a sacrifice on the part of the gods, jealous as always. Both assumed hieratical status in her eyes, and she knew that she would always see them as she had seen them in life, untouched by age or discouragement. For that reason she was somehow their guardian, for ever in possession of their unaltered selves.
‘I’ll be on my way, then,’ said her former husband. She saw that like all mortal characters he was marked by the passage of time. The grey hair sat oddly above the long eager face, still eager even after her punishing remarks. But his overcoat seemed too big for him. That was what she now saw.
‘How is your health?’ she asked, although she had never known him to be ill.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, surprised. ‘I’m always fine. Until now, that is.’
‘We’re both going the same way, Jon. I’m not getting any younger either. You’ll telephone me?’ she asked, placing a hand on his arm.
‘I might,’ he said. ‘I haven’t exactly been welcomed home, have I?’
‘No, and I feel badly about that. But what I had to say had to be said at once. You do see that, don’t you? In time we’ll be able to talk about something else.’ She doubted this, knew that he would return to the subject if she let him. She had no intention of allowing this, felt unmoved. His practicality repelled her. She could never countenance the sort of arrangement he had in mind, thought up on the spur of the moment, to accommodate his own sudden feeling of displacement.
‘Let me know how you are,’ she called after him, understanding him all too well.
‘Actually,’ he said, turning round on the stairs, ‘I always found you very difficult to get along with.’
‘There you are, then.’ But she had to allow him the last word.
When she could be quite sure that he had gone – for she knew that he was quite capable of coming back and arguing his case all over again – she took their glasses through to the kitchen, tidied the sitting-room, and saw that it was eight o’clock. There was no reason why she should not go to bed. As she had told Jon, and had newly realized, she had plenty to think about, and no one was likely to disturb her again that evening. Nevertheless she must put a stop to this habit: she was not old and infirm. She resolved that this would be the last evening of her reclusion, her last long night.
She thought that she had fallen asleep at once, but woke again after a few hours. During those unknown hours she had had a marvellous dream, which came back to her in vivid colour, the colour of a summer morning. In the dream she had been travelling by train to an unknown destination. She thought that the train was headed for the coast, but was quite content not to be sure. The man in the seat beside her was heavily asleep, his head on her shoulder. The fact that she did not know him did not make her feel uncomfortable. At some point all the passengers – for this was some sort of tour – were issued with a light lunch, consisting of a biscuit and a glass of Armagnac. The sleeping man woke up abruptly, rubbed his eyes, and said, ‘I’d forgotten you were there.’ She merely laughed agreeably: she seemed to be in excellent spirits, enjoying the excursion. When the train stopped she left the others behind, but she could still see groups of them, in the distance, and somehow in front of her. They were mostly elderly women, in modest hats and plastic mackintoshes, although the weather was exceedingly fine, and there was no hint of rain. The resort, or whatever it was, stretched before her in a vast panorama, apparently empty; this was unusual, as she was given to understand that this was still the holiday season, somewhere in the region of late September or early October. She was aware of newly washed sands, flocks of seagulls, and everywhere the radiant light. She debouched on to a broad esplanade, of vaguely octagonal shape, with white railings, against which several people were leaning. Prominent among them were three old women, looking concerned and unhappy. She herself, wearing a light blue suit which she did in fact possess, advanced joyfully towards them, breathing in the brilliant air.
At this point she woke, with a feeling of extreme gratification, as if she had recently returned from a successful journey. She must have fallen asleep again shortly afterwards, but the strange thing was that the dream recurred, or perhaps only seemed to. At several instances she could see that octagonal esplanade, a platform or promontory, as it now seemed to her, could see the worried ladies with their old-fashioned hats and their glistening shrouds of plastic, could see her own untrammelled advance, the white bi
rds wheeling above her head. She thought that she had never tasted such freedom, never enjoyed such weightlessness, but did not seek to understand the reason. Were they all dead? But no, the man in the train had woken up. Were they all then sleepers, glad to be released from their painful waking lives? She could not answer that, but thought that something more benign had been intended.
When she had woken again properly it was not to light but to darkness, the darkness of a winter morning. She groped for the radio and switched it on. ‘Three hours,’ announced the usual grave tones, a little before her usual hour for waking. All seemed to be in order. She would make her tea, take it back to bed, until the shipping forecast released her into the day’s activity. A blessed pause ensued. ‘Ronaldsway,’ she heard. That meant the bulletin was nearly over. ‘And finally Mallin Head,’ said the careful voice. ‘Falling very slowly.’ How pleasant these people seem, she thought, opening the curtains onto silence. All at once the thought occurred to her: she would give up the room in the Avenue des Ternes, which belonged to a past which was now remote. She could go to Paris for the day, as she had done before. Maybe that was the meaning of the train in her dream; certainly she had stepped lightly, easily. Once more she saw the figure of Tom, in his pale suit, so paradoxically at home in that anxious place, all low ceilings, and, in the cafeteria, sugar spilled by nervous fingers, saw him stride off, away from her. He had not thought about her in those last moments, but she knew that he might have done so, before the end. She repaid him now, with love and gratitude, even though she knew he would not come back.
Falling Slowly Page 22
