Lewis Percy

by Anita Brookner

  The summer ended with disconcerting suddenness one evening. Thunder cracked and waves of rain sent Lewis running for cover. Regretfully he closed the doors that led from the drawing-room into the garden. He awoke in the night aware of a new chill in the air. The following morning he put his jacket on again, and turned his gaze reluctantly back to the matter of his life and its difficulties.

  Eventually, a search for bracing certainties led him back to his work and the refreshingly clear-cut – or at least clearly stated – problems of masculine aspiration. Not that he had any definite ambition himself: he saw his path in life as eager and inexpert. Sometimes, in these days of early September, when he awoke in the morning, it was with a feeling of sadness and surprise that this mole-like existence was all he was to be allowed, this permission merely to continue. He put the feeling down to the isolation imposed by the final stages of his dissertation, and the long hours spent in the college library, to which he had returned out of a sudden sense of urgency. A certain trustingness saved him from anything more serious than the mildest form of despair. He made promises to himself that he hoped others might fulfil. Next summer, he thought, not noticing that the weather was still balmy, although the evenings were now dark. Indeed those very evenings, which he promised himself as a reward after a long day’s reading, were in fact a torment to him, for it was then that he became aware that there was nothing in life that was close to his heart. He took to staying in the library until it closed at nine, and eating a sandwich in a coffee bar. That way, all that remained for him to do when he got home was to go to bed and try to summon his courage for another day.

  His work was the only innocent area of his life, for in all other respects he felt guilty of multiple derelictions. He was aware that the house was grimed and dusty, and that his mother’s plants had died. Sometimes he could not be bothered to make his bed. He invited no-one home, although he would have liked to have done so. A notion of hospitality pursued him but remained abstract. When I have finished the footnotes, he promised himself, but he could no longer ignore the fact that they were virtually complete. Anxiety and discomfort kept returning him to the body of the text, which he read with amazement. Had he done so much, thought so clearly, felt so deeply? When had this happened? He was reluctant to let the work go, for what would come after it? He already felt much older than the man who had undertaken the research, as if a naïf and sentimental self, a humble and dedicated self, were slipping away from him, leaving him only with a dull residue. His friend, Penry Douglas, with whom he sometimes ate his evening meal, told him that he was pushing himself too hard.

  ‘Scholarship isn’t a route march, Lewis,’ he would say, lowering his glass coffee-cup and delicately dabbing his upper lip. ‘It isn’t a religion, either.’

  ‘I thought it was,’ Lewis said gloomily. ‘I thought it would fill my life. As it is, there seems to be a lot left over. Life, I mean.’

  ‘Scholarship’, said Penry, ‘is an occupation for gentlemen.’

  ‘All very well you for, Pen. I’m neither a scholar nor a gentleman. I probably won’t ever qualify for either position.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Lewis. You’re perfectly capable of doing what you are doing. The word is that you’re brilliant, you know. Did you know that? But I see what you mean: you’re not having a good time. You come trudging in with your briefcase every morning as if you’ve been turned out of your own house. You ought to be enjoying yourself more, getting more out of what you’re doing. How’s your girlfriend, by the way?’

  But Lewis, having dropped Tissy’s name rather ostentatiously in earlier days, could not now claim to have furthered her acquaintance. He considered Penry Douglas too good a man to be misled, and he rather wished he had never mentioned Tissy at all. He felt in many ways closer to Pen, whom he had known as a student, and who now worked in the library for which he, Lewis, was destined, than he thought he ever could to Tissy Harper and her enigmatic mother. He wondered what impulse of chivalry had ever made him want to rescue her. He believed that he would need to be rescued himself before he could contemplate so quixotic a course. And when he thought of Tissy he felt distress that he had set his sights so low. Only, with the distress went a feeling of constriction round his heart, as if the two of them were identified in some way, as if he felt sorry for them both, seeing them as equally vulnerable, equally endangered. And as if only with someone as undefended as Tissy Harper could he confess to his various feelings of shame and sorrow, and to the loneliness that sent him to bed as soon as he returned home in the evenings and kept him blackly asleep until dawn, when loneliness gave way to fear. How could he explain all this to Penry Douglas, a man of means who lived very comfortably and went to the opera and believed in God? The very real affection Lewis had for Pen he showed quite simply in not burdening him with these womanish sentiments, but in keeping friendship light and graceful, as Pen liked things to be, and not seeking him out as a confidant. The ultimate friend, the secret-sharer, he knew, must be a woman. And yet he also knew that the very act of sharing secrets would bind him and weaken him. Thus while valuing Pen for his optimism and good spirits Lewis kept his innermost thoughts to himself, wondering if they would ever be known, and, if known, accepted and validated.

  The state of the house could no longer be ignored. He tried clearing up at the weekends, but the sensation of being a caretaker, or even his mother’s ghost, frightened him so much that he usually gave up and went out. He was extremely confused as to what was expected of him. One day, tracing the smell in the kitchen to an ancient bottle of milk which had sent up a stalagmite of ice and coated a shelf of the fridge with a thick odorous deposit, it came upon him with the force of a revelation that he needed help. Not spiritual help, which was the sort that Pen always offered him, and not the sort of help that the promise of an eventual marriage held out, but plain practical help in the kitchen, a nebulous someone who would rinse out milk bottles and change beds and generally look after things while he was absent all day at the library. Someone whom he would not necessarily have to know, someone to whom he need have no commitment other than a certain amount of money to be paid each week. The idea that such a person might be available, that help might be forthcoming as soon as he put a card in the newsagent’s window – for he did not doubt that there would be a rush to fill the post – inspired him to the extent of sitting down there and then to write out his requirements and to set out for the shop on the corner, where Mr Fisher, one eye closed against the smoke from his cigarette, scrutinized it and said, ‘My sister-in-law might be able to help you out.’

  ‘Really?’ said Lewis. ‘But I’d want someone local.’

  Mr Fisher removed his cigarette, pinched it out, and laid it carefully on a ledge behind the counter.

  ‘Lives upstairs, doesn’t she? We had to give her the room when her husband left her. My wife’s brother, that is. Can’t say I blame him, between me and you; she’s a bit of a misery. She’s not afraid of work, mind you; anyway, I reckon she needs every penny she can get. We could have let that room for good money, but when it’s your family …’ He made a large noble gesture. ‘Name of Joliffe. Mrs Joliffe. Of course, she’s got the boy, but he’s no trouble. And then you’re out all day, aren’t you?’

  Lewis wondered how Mr Fisher knew this but supposed that he was not entirely invisible, and reflected that his mother had known, and was no doubt known to, everyone in the neighbourhood. The fact that he did not like this man, he told himself, had nothing to do with the case. He had decided that all his feelings were unreliable. And the prospect of a Mrs Joliffe starting right away was enough to dispel any residual feelings of hesitation.

  ‘Could you ask her to come round and see me?’ he said. ‘I’ll be in this evening.’

  ‘Well, Friday night, you know,’ said Mr Fisher. ‘She’s entitled to a bit of relaxation, isn’t she? Tell you what, I’ll send her round first thing tomorrow morning. Then if you sort things out she can start the following week.’


  This negotiation had proved to be mysteriously easy. Lewis set off for the library in a state of excitement, as if he had done something immensely significant. His unaccustomed vigour powered him to seek an interview with Professor Armitage, whom he found clearing his desk, and to announce to him that he had finished his thesis, that he was sending it to the typist, and that as soon as it was typed and bound, he would, with Professor Armitage’s permission, and if possible his blessing, present it to the examiners.

  ‘Excellent, Lewis, excellent. And I think I can promise you a favourable report. Did I mention the university press? Yes, well, something may come of that and I hope it will. Of course, it will soon be out of my hands, but I think my word still carries a little weight. What is your title, by the way?’

  ‘I thought, “The Hero as Archetype”.’

  Professor Armitage pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Your other examiner won’t like that, I’m afraid. Rather a sober-sided fellow, you know. Save your archetypes for the book, if there is one. Gravity should be your watchword for the time being. What about “Studies in behaviour in the nineteenth-century novel in France”? Or the nineteenth-century French novel. Whichever you prefer. Then give your dates. I think that should do. And of course you can always expand it later. You have a good subject there. Now, have you thought any more about what you are going to do in the future? I believe they are still looking for someone to help in the library. Would you like me to have a word with Dr Goldsborough?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Lewis, who could not contemplate breaking so soon with his self-imposed routines. ‘I’d rather wait until this is settled, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘As you wish, as you wish. You have some money to tide you over? Yes? Well, don’t wait too long. We shall meet in due course, Lewis. And I shall always be pleased to hear how you are getting on.’

  To Lewis the major event of the day was not Professor Armitage and his good-natured encouragement but the prospect of meeting Mrs Joliffe on the following morning. When he got home he submitted the house to a rigorous cleaning, sweeping the dust in wide arcs before him. He succeeded in defrosting the fridge, and pressed dirty laundry into two bags which he took to the launderette. The ironing he would leave to her, he thought, although he could have done it himself. But he had found the labour so exceedingly uninteresting that he vowed to pay Mrs Joliffe whatever she asked in return for his freedom. Saturday morning found him up early, breakfast cleared away by eight o’clock. At nine, as if in answer to his wish, the doorbell rang.

  Mrs Joliffe looked like a woman who had suffered multiple privations and had not come out of them too well. Gaunt and watchful, she was nevertheless powerfully made up; auburn hair with dark roots framed a face that reflected disgust with her lot, but sported a variety of colours. One of her legs was hampered by the clasped hands of a small boy of about two and a half, who still bore about his mouth the remains of a hasty breakfast. Their business proved to be mutually advantageous. It was quickly agreed that Mrs Joliffe should come in for three hours every morning, Monday to Friday.

  ‘General duties,’ said Lewis vaguely. ‘Things have got a bit out of hand since I’ve been on my own. Would that be all right, Mrs Joliffe?’

  ‘I reckon so,’ she replied, without enthusiasm. ‘Only I have to bring Barry with me. He’s too young to start school yet. He’s no trouble – if he’s got his toys with him he’ll play for hours. Would it be convenient for me to give him his lunch here? I could do the shopping on the way in and leave you something for the evening, if that’s all right.’

  ‘But that means you’ll be staying longer than three hours,’ said Lewis.

  ‘The longer I’m out of that place the better,’ was the heartfelt reply.

  ‘Well, old chap, what do you say?’ said Lewis, squatting down to meet Barry Joliffe’s gaze. The child looked so sad that he could not bear to deny him a kitchen in which to eat his lunch and a garden to play in. He rather liked the idea of having a child in the house. And the little boy’s bleak expression moved him, as did the thought of his being shut up in one room over the tobacconist’s all day. ‘Would you like to come here, Barry?’ The boy removed from his mouth the corner of a toy truck he had been sucking and nodded.

  ‘Splendid,’ said Lewis. ‘Well, I’ll see you on Monday, Mrs Joliffe.’ He handed her the spare key and they parted on good terms. She was not quite what he had envisaged, Lewis reflected. Not quite the spotless cheerful independent paragon on whom he had set his sights. He supposed that the services of such superior women were hotly contested, and the advantage of Mrs Joliffe was that she lived only five minutes away. And in any case, having made the initial effort he rapidly lost interest in the whole affair.

  Mrs Joliffe turned out to be competent if unenterprising at preserving Lewis’s household from further decay. But the novelty of finding a note on the kitchen table stating ‘Fish pie in oven’ was so overwhelming that Lewis was inclined to overlook Barry’s toys left on the window sill. As the days passed, and as food was always left for him, he closed his mind to the fact that Mrs Joliffe and Barry occupied his house for most of the day. Now that he had surrendered his thesis Lewis found he had little to do and tended to come home earlier. On one occasion he saw Barry’s face staring at him impassively from the window; on another he found Barry sitting in the middle of the drawing-room floor with his favourite toy, an egg cup containing a marble. Once, coming home later than usual, he found the house empty but inadvertently trod on the marble, stumbled across the room, and bumped his head on the mantelpiece. None of this bothered him greatly, although he took to buying small educational items such as picture and drawing books, which he left modestly on the kitchen table. He returned to find them stacked on the window sill, with the truck and other paraphernalia. He told himself that he liked this evidence of occupation. It was when he returned one evening to find the bathroom full of steam that a doubt crossed his mind. But ‘Lamb chop under grill’ enabled him to silence whatever qualms he was beginning to feel, and he decided to ignore the whole business until such time as he might have the energy to think about it.

  There was no doubt that she was a vigorous cleaner, although she did not seem to be very clean herself. Surprisingly, she appeared to like the work, and applied herself spasmodically to what she was doing, although as far as he could see there was absolutely no method in it. Days of energy would be followed by intervals of torpor, when she apparently limited herself to the washing-up. But it was good to see the polish restored to Grace Percy’s fine round Victorian table, and her silver tea service gleaming once more. This emboldened him to invite Pen over one Saturday. They would have tea, he said, and go to a film.

  ‘I like this house, Lewis,’ said Pen, pulling a dark green handkerchief from his sleeve and honking into it. ‘A good size, marvellous stuff in it. All late Victorian; such a relief after this modern rubbish. Terrific crewel work on those footstools. But look here, there’s a scratch on this table. Do you see? That’s very bad news. What have you been putting on it?’

  ‘Barry must have been playing with his truck,’ said Lewis glumly. He hated to see his mother’s belongings so treated. He had never accepted the fact that they now belonged to him, and the thought made him sad. But the idea of coming home to an empty house after so blessed an interval dismayed him even further. Pen, however, was a householder who took a pride in his job.

  ‘And there is his truck,’ he said. ‘And his ball. And his stuffed – what is it? Dog? Are you sure you couldn’t get somebody better, Lewis? A regular house-keeper, for instance? This house is too good to be left to mercenaries.’

  ‘I suppose it is a good house,’ said Lewis. ‘It belonged to my grandfather. He was a dairyman in Fulham. He bought this place when it was new. Everything here belonged to him originally. Then my grandmother lived here and eventually my father. My mother took to it and refused to change a thing. I like it here. But then I’ve always lived here.’ Stealing quietly into his mind came the image of h
is mother, head on one side, with her book, by the fire. But he was not yet able to bear such images, and, starting up, poured Pen more tea.

  ‘Don’t let the house go under,’ said Pen. ‘Get someone else. Or better still, get married. Why don’t you do that? Lots of people do. Not me, of course, but you could. And then there’d be no argument.’

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Joliffe might want to stay on,’ said Lewis.

  ‘A woman can deal with that sort of thing better than a man. Can’t you get a woman to live with you? It’s done all the time, I understand. After all, we’re living in the 1960s. And frankly, you need a bit of looking after. That jacket, Lewis … You’d better let me take you to my tailor. You’re not strapped for cash, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got plenty of money,’ said Lewis.

  He did not resent Pen’s advice, but once he was left alone again, with the prospect of Sunday to get through (the Tate again, he supposed), his thoughts turned with some reluctance to Tissy Harper. He had behaved very badly, he reflected uncomfortably, in not going back to see her again, as he had promised, at the Public Library. To tell the truth, he had felt a certain distaste for all those women’s novels with which he had comforted himself, and was at present immersed in The Eustace Diamonds. But that was not the point. What was needed was not an excuse but a reason. He had had no reason to seek out Tissy Harper again because he had managed to bury the part of him that ached to be consoled, sought out, preferred, in the more masculine excitement of finishing his work. And because he had become aware of the discrepancy between his work, so exalted in tone, and that awful red room, between the part of him that consorted with words and the inarticulate communication that passed wordlessly between Tissy and her mother, and that fearful doctor. He knew that he was destined to seek his home in language. But he also knew in his heart that he could not remain forever without a companion. Some restlessness in him – and maybe it was this feeling that he mistook for loneliness – informed him that the day would come when he would renounce everything and begin in earnest his real life, his true life, the life that at present somehow escaped him. He smiled as the thought came into his head. People did not seek their fortune any more, or at least not outside the covers of a book. And yet he thought that in time he might do so, although he knew that the hour was not yet come. Not yet, he thought; not yet. For to take that step he must be on his own, unencumbered. And that was what he could not quite bear to contemplate. First he must be understood, accepted. Later he might seek his freedom.