He was, if anything, out of place, a man among women, for the atmosphere surrounding Cynthia Gibson was feminine, conspiratorial. I saw that it was the function of the nurse to provide the repartee that he was too sombre to deliver. Yet how he must have loved her! Even now his eyes never left her face. What must one do to inspire such love? Clearly it had nothing to do with superior qualities. Maybe it was the fascination exerted by sheer selfishness. I had never come across this before. All the people I knew, including the Colliers, father and daughters, were good and I had accepted this as the right true order of things. Now, as Cynthia Gibson held out her glass for more champagne, I began to see that there was a quicker, easier way to secure a man’s attention. Clearly it only worked in the case of a man. Wiggy and I were hardly eligible. ‘Darling,’ he warned. ‘You won’t sleep tonight.’
‘And don’t be such an old fusspot,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I don’t just finish the bottle, since these two girls aren’t interested. Where did you say you were going for dinner?’
‘Charlotte Street,’ I said firmly. In fact we were going to an Italian restaurant in Tottenham Court Road.
‘I used to eat out a great deal before I was married,’ she said. ‘In those days I was terribly in demand. The Caprice, it used to be. That was my favourite. Now, of course, I don’t go out at all.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Wiggy. I knew she was entirely sincere.
Cynthia gave a brief bitter smile. ‘Off you go, then. Leave me to Martin’s tender mercies.’ As if on cue he approached the bed noiselessly, removed her champagne glass, and smoothed her brow. The look she gave us was not entirely innocent. Even a trophy husband is better than none, she seemed to imply. There are always errands to be run, services to be performed. And there are gratifications even now that you may not suspect.
We stood up awkwardly. ‘It’s been so nice,’ she said. ‘You’ll come again, won’t you? And next time I’ll show you those photographs. The wedding photographs,’ she reminded us. ‘It was such a pretty day.’
I did not like this but there was nothing I could do about it. And besides I had seen her head fall back in the gesture which was now curiously familiar. I knew that gesture, the sudden vulnerability of the exposed throat. My mother, who had so recently left me, had fallen back in exactly the same way, during her last days in hospital. And my mother had no devoted husband to monitor her every movement, only my poor self. I felt pity for Cynthia Gibson, but also a measure of contempt. I felt she could manage better if she tried. These feelings I now extended to Martin who was ready to usher us out of the door. I realized that apart from making welcoming noises he had not uttered a reasonable sentence all the time we had been there. Wiggy and I had wasted our sweetness on the desert air. And yet there was no doubt that in some fashion we had been necessary.
The dear street! How good it was to breathe a saner air. Even in this adamantine part of town, with all the doctors and the dentists present in spirit if not in the flesh, the evening smelled sweet. Only the shop selling surgical appliances was there to remind one, or rather to remind others, of decrepitude, mortality. We walked along in silence, aware of the fine weather. It was the first real summer evening, an evening for sitting in gardens or outside some café, as I had so frequently done in France. We were still imprinted with the scene we had so recently witnessed. Another’s illness does that to one, makes one aware of one’s own strengths, intact, ready to be used. I loved life, even my life, even Wiggy’s. By the flower stall in Tottenham Court Road men were thinking that it might be in order to buy a peace offering before going out again to the pub. Overnight, it seemed, tulips had given way to peonies, their tight flower-balls an un-English shade of fuchsia. Only that morning I had seen a pouter pigeon strutting across Baker Street, thinner nimbler relations scattering tactfully ahead.
‘Poor thing,’ said Wiggy finally.
‘Terrible,’ I agreed. ‘Yet not a very nice woman,’ I added.
‘Oh, Claire, how can you say that? Just think of her days trapped in that room, with only the nurse for company.’
‘And the husband,’ I reminded her.
‘Yes. He was rather attractive, I thought.’
We both pictured the undoubtedly handsome but rather lifeless figure sitting silently in attendance on a fragile chair in a symbolically dusky corner of the room, as if his place were destined to be in the shadows, lit only by his wife’s exigencies. How he had darted to his feet when she showed signs that tiredness was beginning to overtake her! Yet he had hardly said a word to us when we left.
‘I’m not quite sure why we were there,’ Wiggy went on.
‘Neither am I. I told you how it came about. But I think we were a bit of a disappointment. I think she felt let down.’
‘But she was excited, you could see that. She had made up her face, done her hair. And that white thing she was wearing looked expensive. The sort of thing you wear when you want to make a good impression. She was like a child, wasn’t she?’
Yet I had been aware of a complicated woman.
‘He’ll want us to go again,’ I warned.
She looked at me. ‘You seem to know him quite well.’
I let this pass. ‘And we’ll probably go, although we shall feel quite inadequate. She was ungracious—even you can see that—and yet I feel we failed her somehow.’
‘I could sketch her,’ said Wiggy thoughtfully. ‘She’d probably like that. She wouldn’t have to talk, or anything.’
‘I doubt if she ever stops.’
‘Oh, Claire.’
‘She wants to show us her wedding photographs.’
‘Well, that’s not so terrible. I don’t mind looking at photographs. And her wedding was no doubt the happiest day of her life.’
I did not particularly want to be involved in a parade of sentimentality. In any event I am allergic to weddings, having attended too many. But Wiggy is a nicer person, more generous, less judgemental. ‘I think the sketch is a better idea,’ I said. ‘Then perhaps we could back out. After all we don’t know her. And she doesn’t know us.’
‘I found her rather touching,’ said Wiggy. ‘And we must disappear tactfully. Perhaps we should leave our telephone numbers. That way they can contact us if anything happens.’
By ‘anything’ she meant death. In which case it would be Martin who kept in touch. Why he should do such a thing was not immediately apparent. But it was true that they were both avid for company. They were friendless: that was what struck one about them. Presumably they had abandoned their former friends (for they must have had some) when illness struck. Or perhaps it was one of those rather terrible relationships in which each fed off the other. Certainly Wiggy and I had been reduced to bit parts. Neither of us had been asked a single question. It was enough that we were there, mute witnesses to Cynthia’s drama. And yet she had accepted our presence as if she had known us for many years. I have observed this phenomenon before: it is a manifestation of overriding self-love. And even so there is something innocent about it. ‘I know you’d be interested in my views,’ seems to be the assumption. One’s own views are thought to be completely subordinate.
‘One more visit, then, with your sketch pad,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to get too involved.’
But I did. There was a certain excitement to be derived from this situation, and it was dangerous. I could not quite define the danger, but it had something to do with Cynthia’s strength and Martin’s weakness. I wanted him to rebel against the role she had chosen for him, to reveal some impatience, some manliness. I felt she had deprived him of that. In an odd way I admired her for it.
We had a pleasant evening. The strange visit, into which we had been almost conscripted, gave us something to talk about. The time when Wiggy felt she had to be tactful with me seemed to be over. Our friendship was renewed. We both appreciated this, and parted once again the easiest of friends.
Six
By Monday I had put the Gibsons out of my mind. I had a more
immediate concern: I had all but finished with St John Collier, and I had to convey this to Muriel, while expressing my eagerness, which was entirely genuine, to do justice to the rest of his life. There was no point in delaying this: I had no desire to spend days in the basement doing nothing. And the lifestyle of the Fifties was beginning to pall. I envisaged something a little more discursive, a little more challenging.
‘There’s his book,’ said Muriel. ‘Or rather the notes for his book. He never finished it. I don’t think he even started it, but he made notes, in proper notebooks. They’re still at the house. If you come home with me this evening you could take them back with you. Keep them here, of course. There might be some extracts that could be used …’
‘His book?’ I asked.
‘It was to be his life’s work,’ she said sadly. ‘But he waited too long. Maybe that is the way with all long-term projects. They keep one company in a reassuring kind of way. And then one day it’s too late. But he talked about it as if it were a going concern. My poor father had few diversions in his life, the shop every day, his two girls at home. My mother had died when Hester was still young. She devoted herself to me and to Father. And as you see we carry on his way of life.’
‘You never thought of doing something different?’
‘Well, there was the shop, you see. We knew he was going to leave it to us.’ She sighed. ‘And in the end we did what he wanted us to do. Girls did in those days. It’s only when you’re old, Claire, that you see how unjust this was. He didn’t want us to marry, though Hester was a beauty. You may not think so now …’
‘Oh, but one can see that,’ I protested, for Hester, and indeed Muriel, still impressed, despite the hearing-aid and the stick. What was appealing about Hester was her smiling eagerness, without thought of reward or reciprocity. She would appear every day with freshly-made rock cakes in a greaseproof bag and appreciate our comments, as if they were not regularly offered. Muriel was more circumspect; she was the breadwinner, after all; she was obliged to be businesslike. Though she appeared to pay it only minimal attention she kept the shop going, I had no idea what her overheads were. In any event the house in Marchmont Street was theirs. St John Collier had done that much for them, but I thought it sad that they had never moved out.
I was also surprised that they lived, and always had lived, in Bloomsbury. To judge from St John Collier’s philosophy I had imagined them to be denizens of some leafy suburb or garden city. But I suppose that what was once an accident of geography had hardened over the years to a conviction that he was part of a ‘set’, an authentic Bloomsburian. That there was room for such people I did not doubt; not everyone had Virginia Woolf’s capacity, though whether she ever noticed him when they passed in the street, as they must have done on occasions, would have been highly unlikely. He, of course, would have raised his hat, lifted his stick, given a pleasant smile of recognition. I thought even more kindly of him, ploughing his simple furrow with unshaken belief in his own observations. He would have taken it badly when she died.
But by that time, in the blessed aftermath of war, he would have felt a timid hope that he too would be acknowledged as a venerable local character. Whether or not this was ever the case would not now be known. But I am sure that he had a very wide constituency of like-minded people. Simple people satisfied with a reassuring message of goodness and hope. All over the country women (and they would have been predominantly women) would open their magazines and read his page with obedient smiles. The nature articles, though more rigorous in style, might have appealed to men. They did not much appeal to me. But I too had been avid for his advice, which seemed to belong to a lost age of contentment. We were more divisive now, more fragmented. To begin with, we all worked. St John Collier’s readers were largely passive. There was another illustration which I treasured, that of a woman sitting in an elephantine armchair, her ankles neatly crossed. She is reading by the light of a standard lamp with a fringed shade. Perhaps she is reading St John Collier’s page. In any event she looks at peace with the world.
‘His book?’ I prompted, for Muriel had gone off into a reverie. It took her a second or two to focus on me. She is old, I thought with a tremor, but it was impossible to feel pity. Pity is for the weak, the incompetent, the unsuccessful: Muriel was none of these things. She had been in her way a pioneer, a liberated woman. If she had regrets they did not show. She rarely smiled, but that was all of a piece with her austerity of manner. I think she was fond of me. I think they both were. I fitted in. I did not work ungraciously; I did not have a Walkman clamped to my ears; I did not make excuses to leave early. Hester was gratified by my appetite for her cakes. Muriel was gratified by my enthusiasm for her sister’s contribution. Neither Muriel, Hester, nor of course myself thought to entertain one another at home. This would have raised unwelcome questions of status, of familiarity. And I think we all sensed that home was a private affair, not open to the scrutiny of strangers.
‘It was to be called Walks with Myself,’ she answered me. ‘Like all men of his generation he was a great walker. Not like today, Claire, although I’m glad to know that you walk to and from work. Every Sunday—and it had to be Sunday, the only day the shop was shut—he would take his stick and go out after an early lunch, or sometimes a late breakfast.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Nowhere very spectacular. He would explore different areas of London, Putney, Kennington, Southwark. Bloomsbury, of course, he knew by heart. And then he’d come home after four or five hours and we’d have tea. High tea, it was called in those days. Ham and salad and fruit cake. And he’d sit back quite tired and absolutely satisfied, although I doubt if he’d spoken to anyone the entire time he was out.’
‘So he was going to describe all these various places? It sounds a marvellous idea.’
‘I think there was going to be a great deal of description, certainly. He never told us much. But one Sunday I remember there was a heavy frost and we didn’t want him to go out. But he did and saw some skaters on a pond somewhere. Dulwich, I think it was. He told us about that. I think what he wanted to do was to offer reflections. His book was to be a companion for the solitary walker.’
‘I wish he’d written it.’
‘Yes, poor Father. But those walks were his freedom, his only freedom. His life was very limited without my mother. That was why we never left him.’ She smiled sadly.
I imagined the two girls, upright then as now, whiling away their Sunday afternoons, preparing the high tea, waiting for the wanderer to return. They too must have been lonely. But I should never know that, for their code forbade confidences. Muriel had never spoken so much as she had on this particular occasion.
‘I’ll give you his notebooks,’ she went on. Though I doubt if they’re very coherent. Perhaps a few descriptive fragments …’
‘I think that would be lovely,’ I said.
‘I’ll bring the notebooks in with me tomorrow. Unless you’d like to come home with me,’ she said doubtfully, clearly regretting her earlier invitation. It seemed to me that she wanted no one, not even myself, as witness to their way of life. I thought of Sunday preparations in that narrow kitchen (for it would be narrow, like the rest of the house), water dripping from an ancient tap into an enamel bowl, massive brass burners lit under an equally massive kettle.
‘If you’re sure you don’t want any help,’ I said.
‘No, no. Ah, there’s Hester. Open the door, would you, Claire. She never could manage it.’
There was nothing for me to do, but she did not suggest that I go home. I had no desire to go home. Our flat, now my flat, depressed me, though, like the Collier girls, I should stay there because that’s what my father would have wanted. He had made a great show of telling me that my home would always be secure. I had not been grateful at the time, though I suppose I was grateful now. I had never seen myself as a householder, rather a solitary walker, in the manner of St John Collier. I felt entirely sympathetic towards his boo
k. Walks with Myself was an admirable title. I took the project to my heart, reflecting once again how goodness clings to some lives and not to others. Those girls, Muriel and Hester, handsome in their youth, as their ruined looks testified even today, would have been dutiful, uncomplaining. They would have felt a closeness on those Sunday evenings, which would seem tame, risible, to any daughter today. And that would have been the climax of their week, that their abiding impression of intimacy. I did not quite feel sorry for them. Nor, of course, did I envy them. My own life seemed irregular by comparison. There was a freedom there that was not always comfortable. Boundaries keep people out; mine served only to keep me in. I shrugged. My life was my own. I needed no instruction.
It was their contentment that baffled me. Either that or their containment. My mind kept returning all that evening to the Colliers and their world. I was unenthusiastic about a further walk. I supposed I should start walking properly when I had reached St John Collier’s instructions on the matter. This occasioned a certain reluctance: I was not yet ready to be drafted into the Collier camp. I was not like the girls, as I was beginning to think of them. I was free, certainly, but that freedom was ironic, not quite the real thing. I was free because nothing was required of me. I was therefore superfluous. This I knew to be true, but the truth was so unwelcome that I seized my purse and my keys and went out to the all-night supermarket. In the late evening this always seems to be populated by solitaries, people who look drained by the strip lighting. This is one more instance of deregulation: shopping at night. The shoppers would avoid each other’s eyes, though I read that such places are settings for romance. We are embarrassed in case anyone should think that this is our reason for picking up half a dozen eggs and a small granary loaf. This is what most people seem to buy, and our purchases look puny. This is one further reason for embarrassment, this proof of the exiguous nature of our domestic arrangements. On my way home I saw something even more shameful: a pair of men’s shoes abandoned in the gutter. They were not even particularly worn, evidence of exasperation rather than poverty. Their owner must have gone home defiantly in stockinged feet. One sees such sights in the city, particularly in the growing dusk, yet one never learns the story behind them. Even my capacity for invention balked at the shoes, which were so clearly not connected to anything. Or anyone. Strange how one received intimations of solitude at this time of day.
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