The Debut
Page 16
Twenty-Two
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SHE married Roddy almost as a matter of course, since George was so attached to the idea. She married him without a great deal of emotion, but in recognition of the fact that he had paid her the compliment of asking her to be his wife; what his motives were she could never understand. In fact, Roddy was lonely and, hypochondriacal like his aunt, was given to scares about his health and his future. Ruth’s calm, her unostentatious energy, seemed like strength. Once she nursed him through a bad bout of flu, adding a daily visit to Bayswater to her long list of chores. He was impressed. When he recovered, he rang her up and suggested that they might meet more often. He took to collecting her from the college at the end of the afternoon and driving her home. Sometimes he stayed for a meal, for she had become a very good cook. He felt comfortable in her presence, at ease, relaxed. Eventually, he asked her to marry him. In this he showed sense; it is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.
During the six months of their marriage Ruth felt a great sense of security, which, she was assured by Anthea, is what every woman needs. Her colleagues, she was amused to note, were rather more polite to her than they had been when she was merely a daughter. It seemed easier to live at Oakwood Court from every point of view. Although Mrs. Jacobs would not have objected to their permanent occupation of the Bayswater flat, there was an air of uncertainty about her own arrangements. She was always rumored to be coming back to London, but this never materialized, and eventually her sister Phyllis, a managerial woman, took matters in hand and disposed of the flat and its contents in the space of a fortnight. Roddy didn’t mind; he had found it hard to keep everything laundered and all the machinery maintained, and sometimes he had yearning thoughts about his basement. But he was no good at looking after himself, and he thought that once they had found George a housekeeper he and Ruth could settle down quite comfortably on their own.
At Oakwood Court things were a little brighter. The mere presence of Roddy cheered George up tremendously, and although Roddy still found him tiresome he was quite amicable about watching television with George and brought him home the evening paper and sometimes drove him out in the car at the weekends. Ruth was relieved to see them taking care of each other, for George was as anxious about Roddy’s health as Roddy was himself. Roddy felt protected. Ruth, her mind sifting through the day’s preoccupations, thought that she had been lucky. Roddy, she knew, was an amiable but childish character, but she clung to him in the night when she wakened so inexplicably in terror, with fragments of dream evaporating into the greater unreality of her own life. At these times, she thought in all humility that she was a fortunate woman.
Roddy died, not of an illness as he had feared, but as a result of a motor accident on the Kingston bypass: they never found out what he was doing there. A policeman brought the news to Oakwood Court. Ruth and George were both quite dazed, and for once in their lives talked openly to each other, comforted each other, understood each other. They could not believe that such a thing had happened, that they were both, once again, survivors. They wondered how they had been singled out for such a privilege.
In due course Ruth sold the shop, since there was no prospect of George’s taking it over again. The money was very useful, and they paid a woman to come every day and do the cleaning. George got quite attached to her and was rather surprised when she would not consent to live in. Ruth went back to spending two nights a week at Edith Grove; she had kept the rooms on, for, as she had explained to Roddy, she intended to use them as a study. Her work on Balzac, after hanging fire for a year or two, eventually picked up again and she was able to plan the second volume.
* * *
ONE Saturday, as Ruth was preparing a daube of beef, there was a ring at the doorbell. George shuffled out of the drawing room and stood expectantly in the hall. Their visitor, to their very great surprise, was Mrs. Cutler, in a fun fur coat and high-heeled boots, with several carrier bags on the mat at her feet.
“Long time no see,” she said exuberantly as Ruth murmured a welcome. George, disappointed that it was not Sally, returned to the drawing room. Mrs. Cutler followed him.
“Well, that’s a nice welcome, I must say,” she bellowed (she remembered him as being a bit deaf, and the poor old devil looked years older). “After all this time.”
“Have you come back?” asked George.
Mrs. Cutler uttered a screech of laughter which ended in a cough. “Not bloody likely,” she said, opening a large handbag and extracting a packet of cigarettes. “Leslie won’t let me do a thing in me own place, let alone anybody else’s. No,” she added, inhaling deeply, “I came up for the shopping and I thought I’d look in on you and see if there was a cup of tea going. And I wouldn’t mind spending a penny,” she conceded. She looked at them as if expecting some kind of appreciation.
After she had returned from the bathroom, leaving the door open as usual, and after she had drunk a cup of tea and smoked three cigarettes, she regaled them with stories of life at the Clarence Nursing Home. “Of course,” she said, screwing up her eyes against the smoke, “we’ve made a lot of improvements there. Color telly in the dining room as well as in the lounge. Fluorescent lighting in all the bedrooms. The old dears think the world of us.” Ruth looked at her in her checked miniskirt, her unventilated royal blue angora jersey, her necklace of vaguely ethnic ceramic platelets. She could not do it. The temptation to put George into a nursing home had never been very strong, although Anthea had introduced her to the idea long ago. But George, thought Ruth, had had style; he could not end up like this. She knew what the Clarence would be like: the television on all day, the “residents” encouraged to sit outside in the brisk wind, the food consisting of mince and mashed potatoes and masses and masses of prunes. And Mrs. Cutler or Mrs. Dunlop or whatever she was, passing among them graciously with a kind word (“Never say die!”) and a cigarette somewhere about her person.
George sensed what Ruth was thinking but was too frightened to trust her judgment. His face became flushed and distressed, and Ruth put a hand on his arm. Mrs. Cutler, who knew danger signs when she saw them, hobbled to her feet, collected her carrier bags, and took her leave. At the door, she whispered to Ruth, “You’ve been a good girl,” and added, “but if I were you . . . Well, if you ever want a break—” she winked and nudged Ruth in the ribs—“you know where I am. Keep in touch, anyway. I enjoy a laugh over the old times.” Then she was gone, nippily, down the stairs; Ruth could hear her resounding cough until the doors finally shut behind her.
George stood in the doorway of the drawing room, his face fearful and slightly averted. Ruth took his arm, patted his hand.
“With a bit of luck we shan’t see her again,” she said. “So you needn’t look like that.” She kissed him, then went back to the kitchen and her cooking.
* * *
DR. WEISS returned her lecture notes to their file, plugged in her electric kettle, and made herself a cup of coffee. When her mind had slowly emptied of her conclusion, which, according to habit, she found herself reviewing more critically than when she had delivered it, she opened her mail. This consisted largely of memoranda beginning “It has come to my notice that . . .” or “It has been brought to my attention that . . .” Then she reached for a sheet of paper.
Dear Ned, she wrote, dear Ned, it is so long since we met and I have six more chapters to show you. I am rather pleased with my study of Diane de Maufrigneuse. Will you come to dinner next week or the week after? It will have to be Wednesday or Thursday because the weekends, as you know, are eroded at either end by my father. He is very old now, and since my mother’s death relies on my company rather heavily. And of course you must be busy yourself. Do let me know when we can meet. P.S. The section on Eugénie Grandet has turned out rather longer than expected. Do you think anyone will notice?
About the Author
* * *
ANITA BROOKNER was the author of several novels, including Fraud, Dolly, Brief Lives, Incid
ents in the Rue Laugier, and the Booker Prize winner Hotel du Lac. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she was the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She died in 2016.
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Also by Anita Brookner
Providence
Look at Me
Hotel du Lac
Family and Friends
A Misalliance
A Friend from England
Latecomers
Lewis Percy
Brief Lives
A Closed Eye
Fraud
Dolly
A Private View
Incidents in the Rue Laugier
Altered States
Visitors
Falling Slowly
Undue Influence
The Bay of Angels
Making Things Better
The Rules of Engagement
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Copyright © 1981 by Anita Brookner
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brookner, Anita.
The debut.
I. Title
PR6052.R5875D4 1981 823'.914 80-39772
ISBN 978-1-9821-0751-2 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-9821-0818-2 (ebook)