The Debut

by Anita Brookner

  “Mother,” said Ruth, with tremendous cheerfulness and in the loud voice you use with the deranged or disabled. “Do you feel well enough to go to Molly’s? What about a couple of days in Brighton, until this nonsense blows over?”

  Helen turned her head very slowly until she faced her daughter. Her eyes, skillfully ringed with blue shadow, gleamed with dull amusement. She had remembered to blend the dark pink makeup into her temples and her throat. She looked aquiline but unsuitable, with an expression like a lizard. Ruth had never seen her so still. Her loose clothes hid her extreme thinness.

  “Well enough? That is neither here nor there. You may remember I appeared in Ring Round the Moon with a broken ankle.”

  So Ruth rang up Molly who, to her eternal credit and to the credit of the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, laughed gaily and said, “What a fuss, but come by all means.” She would expect them around teatime.

  “Sooner,” said Helen, in her strange deep voice.

  “Sooner,” echoed Ruth helplessly.

  “As soon as you like,” said Molly, and replaced the receiver with fingers now shiny and swollen with arthritis.

  Nineteen

  * * *

  MRS. JACOBS took one look at George’s odd patchy pallor and telephoned Roddy, who was supposed to be having his day off, to come in and look after the shop. She was taking George to Bayswater. Apart from her worry about his condition, she could not run the risk of being telephoned by Helen, and she doubted that Helen would find her in the directory under her late husband’s name, although she was uneasily aware that George might have discussed her with his wife in the days when she was a stranger trying to buy the business. Well, she could not think of everything.

  Roddy grumbled—the boy was really becoming impossible—but turned up half an hour later in his slightly shiny dark blue suit, his blue shirt and stiff white collar, his abundant fair hair brushed down with water, a small razor cut marring the pink smoothness of his plump face. He was heartily fed up with his aunt’s changes of mind, with what he considered to be her senile passion, and above all with George, who called him “old fellow” and preached the virtues of staying in the book trade while demonstrating what little virtue it still held for him. Like most young people, Roddy hated hypocrites, and did not allow for the fact that he was growing into one himself.

  It was therefore with no sense of the incongruous that he ushered his aunt off the premises, patted her arm (for he had his expectations to consider) and even stuck his head in through the window of the car to wish them well. As if we were going on holiday, thought Mrs. Jacobs, rather resentfully. George drove off. Roddy mentally washed his hands of the pair of them, went back into the shop, rang up his girlfriend to come over and keep him company, and then settled down to the New Statesman.

  George was silent, concentrating on the driving. He felt very hot and his eyes were not too good; sometimes he saw a double image of the Bayswater Road. He had little idea of what he was going to do, but he had no intention of going home until Ruth had arrived. He would perhaps have a talk with her, explain that he was going away for a while, and return to the Bayswater flat to be cared for by Mrs. Jacobs. The sad thing was that he did not know how much blame to take for last night’s debacle. He had not been technically unfaithful to Helen. He did not intend to leave her for good. He just wished he could get rid of the sight of Helen in his mind’s eye, bent double and moaning in an unaccustomed chair while the silent but not inactive television screen flickered with a program which he might otherwise have found quite interesting.

  “She brought it on herself” said Mrs. Jacobs, as if divining his thoughts. “She was no wife to you.”

  George agreed, nodding his head, but found that this action disturbed his vision even more. He longed for Sally’s flat, where nothing bad could happen. And even it it did, she would take care of it. Maybe he could get her to ring Oakwood Court later and speak to Ruth. Maybe he need not go home at all until everything had blown over. Maybe not even then. With these thoughts in mind he abandoned the situation. Sally was quite right: he had done enough.

  “After all I’ve done for her,” he began to murmur. “Bringing her meals in bed. Doing all the housekeeping. Is that a life for a man?”

  Mrs. Jacobs felt the beneficial shift from sadness to anger and egged him on.

  “There was no need for you to have done any of it,” she said. “You’re her husband, not a lady-in-waiting.”

  “All that stuff from Fortnum and Mason’s,” George continued, as they went up in the lift. “And she never even bothered to get out of bed. I even took her away on holiday. Apparently that was wrong too.”

  Mrs. Jacobs put her key into the lock.

  “I’ve never said anything, as you know,” she began, as a prelude to saying it all now, “but you’ve been a fool. Some women take advantage. Once they’re married, and they’ve got a good husband, they think they can do what they like. And if they take him for granted—” she paused significantly—“they just don’t bother any more.”

  George moved into the warm sitting room, his head aching. He wanted to tell Sally that it had not always been like that. That he and Helen had been married for a long time, that they had a child, that that made a difference. But how do you say this to a childless woman without hurting her? He also wanted to say that Helen was brave and honest, or had been. Maybe she still was. He wanted to tell her that he had been reminded, by Helen’s reeling last night as from a blow to the heart, while the television mumbled on unheeded, that his wife still loved him. He wanted to say it but he knew that he could not.

  Sally was in the kitchen, filling the kettle. Sally felt that most crises could be palliated by the administration of food or drink. But after that he must make up his mind to go home. She could not compromise herself by having him permanently in the flat. Supposing she were cited in a divorce case? Her sister would never forgive her. No, it would not do. She had herself to think of. And anyway, it was the daughter’s responsibility. She would have a word with her later.

  George sank heavily into a chair and thought about Helen. Sally he could now barely remember. He thought of Helen as he had first known her, how he had waited for her shamelessly at the stage door. He thought of their courtship and their many honeymoons, for they had liked to think of themselves as perpetual lovers. He remembered how they had groaned when they had discovered that Helen was pregnant, and of all the fuss she had made, wanting to get rid of the baby. He remembered his mother’s stern face when she overheard some of this exchange. She had entered Helen’s bedroom, minatory in her black dress with the small white dots and the dull cut-steel brooch at the collar, and had extracted from her a promise that she would behave herself like a responsible married woman. They had been as ashamed as a couple of children, and Helen had had her baby. A funny little thing, with Helen’s red hair, but none of her looks. Mrs. Weiss eventually took over the functions of a nurse. George could remember the large slow woman with the little child huddled on her lap: Mrs. Weiss was telling her a story, very quietly because she was ashamed of her strong accent. George and Helen had been left remarkably free. George thought again of his mother, and of all those meals she had invented for him. He saw himself sitting at the dining-room table while she buttered a poppy-seed roll for him before he went away to school, to university, to work. He remembered her hands, swollen and shiny with immersion into many bowls of cold water; he remembered her impassive face red with the steam escaping from saucepans as she lifted the lids. At home she had had servants, but he had never heard her complain. He remembered her at his bedside when he was ill, sitting sometimes all through the night.

  George slept. When Mrs. Jacobs came in with the tray and a prepared speech, she was unable to rouse him. She sat down and drank her own coffee quietly, trying not to feel uneasy. It was when he began a harsh steady snoring that she panicked and shook him. He did not respond. Then she shrieked and rang for an ambulance and rang for Roddy who, to his eternal credit
, was there before the ambulance and went with them to the hospital.

  “A mild stroke,” said the doctor, half an hour later. “He’ll be home in a few days. We get them moving very quickly. Are you his wife and son?”

  Mrs. Jacobs said no, they were only acquaintances really, and that he lived with his family at Oakwood Court. Yes, it would really be better if the hospital took charge now and let the family know; she and her nephew had no wish to be involved. And they had had a shock, as it was, and what with her nerves being so bad . . .

  The doctor patted her arm. “You did splendidly,” he said. “I wish there were more people about like you.” Then he shook Roddy’s hand and vanished down the corridor, his white coat flapping. Roddy and Mrs. Jacobs looked at each other, partners in crime. At least, that was what it felt like.

  Twenty

  * * *

  THE winter had not been kind to Molly Edwards. On the south coast the winds had blown keenly, and when they died down, a mist rolled in from the sea and made her long to have the winds back again. She ached now and had been forced to go to a doctor, although of course she did not believe in them.

  “You have arthritis,” he said bluntly. “I can give you some pills to help with the pain.”

  Molly drew the line at that and said no. She had left her principles far enough behind as it was.

  “In that case,” said the doctor, “I can only advise you to move away from here and go somewhere warmer and more sheltered.”

  Molly had shut up her beach chalet and removed her electric kettle. It was not only her shoulder now, it was her knee and her fingers that pained her. She thought she might wait to see if the summer brought an improvement, and if not, well, she need not live through another winter. No one would miss her. She did not even have a dog.

  It was a long winter, sitting in her flat, which she had never liked. She found it difficult to do a lot for herself but her lodger was very kind and brought back her shopping from the health-food store every Saturday morning. He was a student at Brighton Polytechnic, and would be leaving in the summer, so there was no need to worry about him. But the days were endless and she felt uneasy until he returned in the evenings, and sometimes she waited for him late into the night. She sat in her drawing room in the beige moquette chair, trying to read. But her attention wandered—the wind made such a noise—and she gave up. She was not a hysterical woman and she did not dwell on the past. But when she saw the dull stunted hedge outside her window quivering under the impact of the sea wind, she thought of other, kindlier places that she had known. And of her husband, a little. No children. That had been her eternal regret, but no one had ever known. She had kept so cheerful that she took them all in. Even now, when she ordered her supplies that the student would later carry home for her, the people at the health-food store assured her that she was marvelous, that she cheered them all up. She walked with a stick these days, and as she maneuvered her way out of the shop, she did not see them shaking their heads behind her back.

  It was teeming with a persistent rain on the morning that Ruth rang up, and Molly had been feeling so unwell that she was relieved and delighted by the diversion. She was sorry to hear of Helen’s illness, but Helen, she knew, was a tough girl, and she did not take it too seriously. And little Ruth had always been so sensible; she had not seen her for years, although the girl always had nice things to say when they talked on the telephone. None of her mother’s spirit, of course. More like her grandmother, a very conventional woman.

  She was grunting slightly with pain as she got the dining-room table shut and shoved it against the wall. It took her the rest of the morning to shift the chairs back with her good knee. Then she had a rest and spoke to herself sternly, reminding herself that pain does not exist. After this she was able to push the narrow divans into the center of the room. She did not bother with a bedside table. The lamp with the parchment shade was not too much trouble, but she knew she could not make up the beds. She would have to ask Ruth, although it did seem such a shame when she had had no guests for ages. She would have liked to put flowers in the room, but she simply could not move. And there was precious little food. Perhaps Ruth would be able to go to the shops when she had installed her mother. In the meantime Molly could give an uninterrupted ear to everything that Helen had to tell her, and she did not doubt that there was a story behind her visit. Most of Helen’s little illnesses, in the past, had had an ulterior motive. And she usually got her way in the end. Molly smiled reminiscently. It would be like old times, pulling Helen together again, talking to her like an older sister. She hobbled out and put the front door on the latch, in case her hands seized up later and she could not let them in. Then she sat down in her chair by the window and waited for them to come to her.

  * * *

  HELEN’S face, thin and stern; her strange deep voice; her restless hands gripping the unfashionable black leather bag; her improbable denim cap. These images haunted Ruth as she spread the thin worn sheets over the narrow divans and put a new bulb in the lamp, and, later, went out into the relentless rain to buy, with what little English money she had left, something to make into a sandwich for Helen and Molly. She herself would be unable to eat. The journey had not been too bad. Helen had been very quiet and had not even smoked much. She had not read or talked. Ruth was a little hurt that her mother should ignore her to such an extent but she was too relieved to find Helen alive—and in a strange way in command—to experience real cause for complaint. But she felt benighted with traveling and untidiness. A moral disorder seemed to have overtaken them all and was immediately translated into physical distress. Ruth had put their nightclothes into a suitcase without care, jumbling up her own spotless cotton with her mother’s dingy silk; she tried to take her mother by the arm and at the same time shield her from the rain; it could not be done. Rain dripped from her hair, which had lost its shape; the hem of her coat was sodden. And they had brought no other clothes with them. Perhaps, she thought, I will telephone Mrs. Cutler this evening and find out what is happening. Basically she did not care to know what was happening but it seemed to be her job to find out. She sighed a shuddering sigh, turned into Molly’s street, and unlocked the door with the unfamiliar key.

  As she unpacked the quarter pound of ham and the butter and the tomatoes and the small white loaf, she could hear her mother’s strange new voice from the drawing room. Helen did not seem to be set on any particular narrative, but erupted in odd craggy irrelevancies, which were interrupted by the more comforting burden of Molly’s reassurance. Molly soothed, but could not reach Helen. Molly, far from enjoying Helen’s company, was alarmed by her behavior. Helen sat as if visiting briefly, her cap in place, her bag still clutched in her hands. Like a refugee, thought Molly. Helen had not even wanted to rest on her bed, although, from what Molly understood, she had been bedridden until she came away. She did not smoke, she did not demand a drink, although she had a cup of tea, which Molly made with the electric kettle from the chalet, now plugged into the lamp behind her chair. From time to time Helen uttered a short sardonic laugh; Molly could not really say what was amusing her. She was relieved when she heard the door close behind Ruth and hobbled out into the kitchen to talk to her. It took her nearly three minutes to get out of her chair, for the effort of moving the furniture was beginning to have its effect.

  Ruth, now gray with misery, explained that her parents had had some sort of argument, that her father had not even stayed at home to meet her, and that her mother refused to sleep under the same roof with him. Molly gave a comforting laugh. “I’ve heard that one before,” she said. “When they were first married I heard it quite a lot. Helen was always a spirited girl, and George sometimes put his foot in it. Don’t worry, Ruth; it will all blow over.”

  Ruth sighed. “They’re not newly married now. I can’t nurse them through this. It’s about time they behaved like adults.” Ruth still believed that adults adhered to a superior standard of behavior.

  Molly, who was in
some pain, suggested that they all have an early night and discuss it again in the morning. Ruth agreed. They ate their sandwiches in relative silence. Ruth unpacked their suitcase and turned down her mother’s bed. Helen seemed to have no strength or will left; she sat down abruptly on the edge of her divan and said, “You will have to undress me, I’m afraid.” She held out her arms like a child. Molly, hovering in the doorway, encouraged Ruth with nods, although her expression was thoughtful. She herself would have liked a little help with her stockings but was too shy to ask.

  With horror Ruth took off her mother’s clothes, which were barely warm and smelled of old scent. She tried not to look at the shrunken breasts, the bony elbows and knees, the slumped and shameful pelvis. She put the shoes, the jacket, the blouse, and the trousers on one side. She removed the denim cap and slipped over Helen’s head a nightdress of crêpe de chine trimmed with lace in a color which Helen had always called orchid pink: “my color.” She brushed her mother’s long hair and tied it back with a piece of ribbon. Helen put up a slow hand and removed the ribbon. “I always wear my hair loose at night,” she said.

  When the telephone rang, Ruth darted out of the room, glad to be delivered from the spectacle she had just witnessed. She felt a sudden wave of fury, which she directed against all painters of martyrdoms and depositions. “About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters,” said Auden. But they were. Frequently. Death was usually heroic, old age serene and wise. And, of course, the element of time, that was what was missing. Duration. How many more nights would she have to undress her mother, only to dress her again in the morning? Would she soon have to wash her, to bathe her, to feed her? Was there any way in which this could be avoided?