She remained mysterious in that she made no reference to a family apart from the one she had known at work. Thus she appeared to have no antecedents, and we occasionally wondered what we should do if she were in any trouble; our own resources seemed to us too meagre to be deployed in this matter, and the people downstairs in the café would be no help since they had been the losers in the matter of the bicycle. I got to know her quite well: she was sometimes to be seen in Wiggy’s kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup of tea. If I had not been there I am quite sure that she would have produced a pack of cards and told our fortunes, but even she had some misgivings about the propriety of doing this, although she maintained that she was protected by the hand of fate. This did seem to be the case; in any event she remained undiscouraged by the uncertainty of the time in front of her, and was not subject to changes of mood. As far as we knew she was always the same, out in all weathers, off to the public library or to some street market to buy her vegetables—naturally she was a vegetarian—or knocking a little bashfully on Wiggy’s door to offer her a guide to the Lake District. She had if anything become bolder of late; she was thinking of tackling Holland and Belgium. We suspected that she collected all this literature in order to plan journeys she would never make; on the other hand there was the Souvenir de Quimper to show that she did travel quite far afield. She seemed indefatigable. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks pink. Her short rough grey hair, the only pointer to her age, which must have been about sixty-five, was offset by the odd stylishness of her habitual uniform of blue jeans and pullover. It was a comfort to Wiggy to know she was there, above her head, listening to The Archers. She was someone on whom one could rely.
But evidently she was not, for Wiggy, infinitely distressed, told me that she had been found dead in bed one morning by the woman who cleaned the common parts of the building and who had keys to both their flats. It was the usual story: this woman, who was vigilant, had noticed a strange smell, had gone in, had discovered Eileen, had looked for a note or an empty pill bottle, had found neither, but had called the police anyway. Wiggy, returning from buying her newspapers, had had the horrifying experience of encountering the ambulance men with the body on the stairs. She became quite efficient after the initial shock; she too looked for a note or a pill bottle but also found nothing. It was then that the somehow incredible fact that Eileen had died of natural causes struck her, and this was corroborated by the inquest. Eileen had simply gone to bed one night and died, as obediently as she had lived. The police found that she had a sister in Cambridge. This sister now arrived to claim Eileen’s possessions. She offered Wiggy Eileen’s bicycle, but Wiggy declined. Nobody else could be found to take it, and it remained in the passage. Although this was something of a nuisance Wiggy could not bring herself to dispose of it. The pedals tended to snag our tights; we got used to this. Not doing anything about it seemed to be the only tribute we could pay.
For we were stunned by the fact that she had died alone, of a heart attack, it appeared, without crying out, without making a sound. A woman had lain dying above Wiggy’s head and she had not known. Just as any death frightens one we were forced into unwelcome speculations. What if it had been Wiggy, now alone in the building? What if it had been me, in friendless Montagu Mansions? It seemed to us suddenly that we only had each other on whom to call, and that after our deaths few people would be notified. Uneasily we contemplated our prospective demise, and even more so our unpartnered lives. We were young and healthy, we assured each other—but Eileen, to all intents and purposes, had been healthy too. Old, of course, but not that old. Fearfully we speculated about her last hours, minutes. She would have known, I thought: I am sure there is always a warning. And suppose there had been other warnings, which she had faced down, convinced that she was armed by fate?
It must be a terrible thing to die alone, an even worse one to know that you will have to do so. Soldiers in battle have each other, but who will provide comfort in the stretches of the night for one who has had to make a virtue of self-sufficiency? Wiggy and I were entirely preoccupied with this matter. And Eileen had been the acme of common sense; she would certainly not have made as much of it as we were now doing. She represented a certain domesticity, or perhaps just a certain domestic busyness that would otherwise have been lacking, with her cards and her brochures and her reminiscences of life in the shop—but even these were curtailed, as if she had put a distance between her younger days and the time she was now obliged to live out. If there was sometimes a look of preoccupation in her eyes she was strong enough to dismiss whatever thoughts may have momentarily crossed her mind. She seemed entirely viable, armed against misfortune or disappointment. And yet she had died, and died alone.
Wiggy and I had exhausted the subject. I now wanted to discuss it with someone else, preferably Martin, whom I now sat facing across the table of an expensive restaurant. At least I assumed it was expensive: it was certainly not to my taste. It was the sort of formal meaningless place that gets written about, largely on account of the people who can be seen there. The owner, who is clearly some sort of character, greets them all by Christian name, and time is wasted in pleasantries before one is presented with a menu. Even Martin was addressed by name, and a lowered voice assured him of their condolences, both those of the staff and of the patron, who wore, I noticed, an engraved signet ring, before, in a lighter tone, inquiring if he could bring us an apéritif.
I had not wanted this. I had invited Martin for a meal, only to be told that, on the contrary, I must dine with him. I did not want to ‘dine’; to me the meal was, or should have been, a preliminary, and this one seemed scheduled to last rather a long time. I did not like the look of the food on offer or the loud laughter of the party at the next table. I must have been the youngest person there. I thought with some feeling of our dinners, Wiggy’s and mine, on Saturday evenings, and realized with a pang that I should now have to be the one to console her, as she had once consoled me. In fact we were both in need of consolation, a fact which was entirely out of context in this noisy fashionable place. Nevertheless I wanted to make my feelings known. I thought it about time that they were taken into account.
But Martin was being flattered by a waiter who stood by expectantly while he tasted the wine. Evidently this waiter remembered Cynthia, who had always struck him, if he might say so, as a perfect English beauty. Martin, his cheeks slightly flushed, agreed. The wine was pronounced satisfactory, and I was urged to try the spinach roulade and the gratin de poisson. I disliked this sort of show-off food, and anyway my thoughts were not on what I was eating. To be honest, and rather to my surprise, they were less on Martin than on Eileen Bateman, and on Wiggy, who would be obliged to spend this Saturday evening on her own. But I had apparently brought this tête-à-tête into being and I was bound to make the most of it, since, judging by what I now felt, there would not be another. I had lost interest in whatever Martin might have to offer. Rather, I was discouraged by the fact that he did not understand that some sort of signal should be given, some reciprocity established. Not that there was any awkwardness between us. The fact that I was rather silent probably suited him. His cheeks remained flushed. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
‘You look better,’ I said.
‘One or two people have been in touch.’ He blotted his mouth and smiled modestly ‘From the old days, you know. Jack and Angela Foster. They read about it in the paper. They said that if I wanted to get away from things for a while they would always lend me their cottage in Dorset. Extraordinarily kind of them, don’t you think?’
‘And will you take them up on it?’
‘They also have a house in Italy,’ he went on. ‘Near Cortona. They offered me hospitality there as well. Cynthia and I went there once, overnight. Charming place. We planned to go again, but then …’ He sighed and drank more wine.
I am not in the business of urging people to go on holiday. This was evidently to be my role for the evening, but in fact it made me rath
er angry. I put ‘hospitality’ in the same category as ‘dining’; both struck me as unutterably pretentious. And I thought of Eileen Bateman planning to cycle through the Low Countries, her valiant legs pedalling through morose villages, and I knew that I was on her side. I had thought anyone would be, or should be, but apparently matters were to be conducted with more ceremony. The thought of introducing Eileen into the conversation now seemed ludicrous, and yet that was what I had wanted to do. Listen, I wanted to say, death can happen to anyone, at any time. It is always sad, but sometimes it is shocking, and now I am shocked and disorientated. What do you say to that? How much do you notice? He seemed to be eating heartily, which I thought both a good and a bad sign. He was evidently restored. But he was, as ever, incurious.
‘Yes, we had very happy memories of that place,’ he went on. ‘The weather, the wine, the dinner on the terrace …’
‘I thought you only stayed overnight.’
‘Long enough to promise to go back. But it was not to be.’ He shook his head and applied himself to his plate, which appeared to contain an entire horse’s hoof but was probably something en croûte. Stealthily I pushed my food to one side and concentrated on the wine. I was feeling extraordinarily unhappy. It was clear that for all my sympathy, no, my pity for him I had nothing to set in the balance. My lonely wanderings did not stand comparison with evenings on the terrace. I was not apologetic about my holidays, or indeed my way of life, which I had chosen, but I was aware that it or they did not make for entertaining conversational exchange. Indeed the idea of exchange was what was noticeably absent, leaving a new area of awareness active in my mind. I was able to address myself to this, if only briefly, because Martin was now embarking on another discourse, about another holiday, this time in Saas-Fee which, unfortunately, hadn’t suited Cynthia so well. She was a luxurious creature, it appeared, was only happy in the sun, within reach of a very expensive hotel. They seemed to me to have lived a life consisting entirely of distractions, made possible by endless free time and a great deal of money. I found it unreal, and rather worse than unreal, uninteresting. I wondered whether I had been invited in order to listen to him reminisce, which he viewed as some sort of necessary activity, and one that would ensure my comparative silence. Silence and receptivity. It occurred to me that he might be slightly nervous. That was why he had chosen this glamorous restaurant, which was so crowded that I could hardly hear what he was saying. He took the fact of my leaning forward as evidence of my passionate desire to hear more.
‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you taking a holiday now,’ I said.
His face fell. ‘But it wouldn’t be the same,’ he said. ‘Not on my own. Not without Cynthia.’
‘Well, how will you occupy your time?’ I asked, rather rudely, particularly as I almost had to shout.
‘That’s the thing,’ he said, his face brightening. ‘There’s a piece of work I might tackle. Of course I’m very rusty. But a former colleague of mine wrote when he heard about Cynthia and suggested that I go back to the German Romantics.’
‘Good idea,’ I supplied.
‘Don’t you like your papaya ice cream?’
‘It’s delicious, but I think I’d just like some coffee.’
I was longing for a cigarette, although I rarely smoked. I wanted to add my contribution to the pall of odours that hung just above our heads. These were predominantly meaty, fishy: I felt as if I had tasted everybody else’s meal. This evening was a palpable failure. Anyone could see that. Anyone but Martin, that is. An unlimited opportunity to talk was making him reckless, that and the surprise of being remembered by friends from a former life. He looked years younger, altogether impressive. A woman at the next table stole a glance at him, but fortunately he did not notice.
I was disheartened by the fact that he was entirely at home in this place, and furthermore in places where a certain opacity of behaviour was the norm—restaurants, luxury hotels, sojourns in other people’s houses. There would be little room for spontaneity, for direct exchange, even for a kind of honesty. Everybody would be good-humoured, insincere, subject to flattery, like the assiduity of the patron who was now wandering from table to table offering and receiving compliments. Money would have schooled these people, and the others, no doubt, those friends from the past, in the sort of behaviour one exhibited in public, and it would have been money, rather than anything so vulgar as class. Money creates acceptance of manners, of unanimity of taste, which would be for the best of everything. It struck me that all the people in this restaurant looked rather alike, wore the same clothes, had the same air of good living, of high expectations. In this gathering only Martin manifested any appearance of refinement. He was markedly at ease, as I had never seen him before. I looked at my watch, which was not gold. It, like the rest of me, signalled my difference. I was young, well-dressed, and reasonably attractive, but I was out of place. This was not remarked upon because glances were exchanged to the right or left of me or above my head. Attention was focused on Martin, who had recovered a sort of worldliness. He had the right patina. I did not.
‘What was Cynthia’s background?’ I inquired, anxious to define this matter.
‘Oh … manufacturing,’ he replied.
‘What did they manufacture?’
‘They were very well off. Factories, you know.’
‘And what did these factories manufacture?’
‘Some kind of hair preparation, I believe. I don’t know the details.’
‘And your background?’
‘The church. My father was a minister. My stepfather was in shipping.’
‘Hence the boat trip.’
‘Oh, well, that was his hobby. I suppose he was decent enough. But we saw little of him, or indeed of Cynthia’s parents. They went to live in Malta. Strange choice.’
‘So you were very much on your own?’
‘But that was how we liked it.’
‘Yes, I see.’
Despite the wine I had drunk I was stone cold sober, Martin slightly less so. This if anything enhanced his appearance. I could no longer hide from myself that he was an extraordinarily desirable man. But I did not want him like this. I wanted him on my territory, on my terms. I told myself that this was all I wanted, but it was not quite true. It was all I wanted for the moment. I had no other ambitions, or so I told myself. I did not want, had not ever wanted, what is smugly defined as a long-term relationship. I had other appetites, other plans. What these were I did not know, but my way seemed preferable to his, for all the memories that had been served up to me so unstintingly throughout the evening. And this was not simple male display—see how happy I have been!—but a genuinely sexless monologue, such as a child might offer after a party, an outing. That irked me. But I was also dejected on my own account. I had failed to make an impression.
Getting out of the restaurant proved to be as lengthy as getting in had been. Every transaction, paying the bill, collecting his umbrella, provoked new congratulatory remarks. ‘We shall be seeing more of you, I hope,’ said the owner, rather unnecessarily, I thought. Martin seemed refreshed by these bizarre attentions.
‘Do you know that man?’ I asked, when we were safely on the pavement.
‘Slightly. His family comes from Norfolk.’
I was anxious to get home, back to reality, grateful for the taxi that had presented itself. I had been out of my depth. This surprised me; the situation had not come up to expectations and I felt that this was my fault. I blamed the setting, with which I was unfamiliar. But really I blamed us both. Martin’s relentless nostalgia had excluded me, but I was the more at fault. My usual directness had failed me, which made me all the more determined to retrieve it.
‘That was lovely,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘You must come to me next time.’
He took my hand, then, greatly daring, gave me a peck on the cheek.
‘Goodnight, Claire. And thank you once again. For everything.’
When I got home I phoned Wig
gy, to see how she was getting on. She sounded mournful, as mournful as I felt.
‘I keep expecting Eileen to come down with her cards and read my fortune,’ she said.
‘Just as well she couldn’t read her own.’
‘Maybe she did. Who knows?’
‘I’ve just had dinner with Martin,’ I told her. ‘It was awful.’
‘He’s not your type, Claire.’
‘I know.’ There was a pause. ‘Actually I haven’t got a type.’
‘I should let it go if I were you.’
There was another pause. ‘You’re not too lonely?’
‘Me? Not really. We might do something tomorrow. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
‘Good idea. Sleep well.’
‘You too.’
What was it about the flat that reassured me? The plain furniture, my very bedroom, put an end to my misgivings. I too could impose, if the circumstances were favourable. And despite the evening’s experience I knew that time was on my side.
Twelve
The streets emptied and then filled again with strangers. It was summer, and yet it was not summer: the weather consistently failed to come up to expectations. I took to leaving home very early, much too early, so as to have the city to myself. Besides, the sun shone briefly every morning, between six and seven, before clouding over into the inevitable humid dullness. Sometimes I got to the shop before the cleaner had left. I made her a cup of tea, then locked up again and went round to the café for breakfast. The day then stretched before me endlessly. By the time I opened up, at half-past nine, I felt as though I had already done a day’s work.
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