Lewis Percy

by Anita Brookner

  Before getting to Pen, to whom it no longer seemed important to behave with strict honour, as he had once thought necessary, he must go through this ritual of organizing his departure, although he knew perfectly well that he would not go anywhere until he saw her. His anger was now gone, or rather it had been directed to another location: himself and his shameful reticence in the face of Emmy’s desire. Worse, he had not even proved himself to be her friend; he was nothing more than Tissy’s virtuous husband. Emmy would be justified in hating him, he thought. He had failed to give her that sign which would have brought her back to him. He remembered her saying, ‘It’s up to you,’ crude, bleak words, and now for the first time he registered the full import of this. She had been waiting for him, whiling away the time with other lovers, towards whom she would act with varying degrees of resentment, but with whom she would continue the game. He saw great danger ahead, great obstacles to be overcome. He would have to convince her that he was a changed man. For surely he was changed? It was not a question of merit but of recognition. He had grown up, become a fully qualified member of the fallen world. All this must be conveyed to her. Yet before this essential work was done – and he still had a certain amount of trouble with it himself – he had to carry on as if everything were the same, as if he were the same patient, hopeful, faithful character, on whom everyone could rely. In many ways he regretted that character, mourned the death of the essential Lewis Percy. But in the light, the ferocious glare, rather, of his new destiny, he no longer had the time to pay his respects. After the death, the resurrection, or so he hoped. Who could say that there might not yet be some good in him?

  The estate agent, whom he visited on his way to work, was enthusiastic. ‘Britannia Road? No problem. I’ve got television producers queueing up for property in this area. You know how it is, once one moves in the others follow. If you wait here while I make a few calls I can probably set something up for the next few days. Viewing, and so forth. I take it there’s somebody at home? Your wife?’

  ‘There will be somebody there,’ said Lewis. ‘Although it would be better to make appointments for the evening, when I can be there myself.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the young man again.

  ‘And I’m looking for a flat for myself. Somewhere a little closer to town.’

  ‘Ah!’ He tilted the chair back to a normal angle and applied himself to a card index. ‘Flats are a bit short at the moment. The best I can do is put your name on the books and let you know if anything comes in.’

  ‘The only thing is I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have to leave the country shortly, and I’m anxious to get something settled fairly soon.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the man for the third time. His attention span was limited, Lewis thought, as was his vocabulary. He was sorry he had not gone somewhere slightly more grandiose. ‘Just leave it with me. I’m sure something will come in. Canning’s the name. Hugh Canning.’ Lewis felt pretty sure he would not be hearing from him again. As he turned to go Hugh Canning was greeting the next client with an expression of specious pleasure. He no doubt did this all day.

  A delay might present difficulties. Lewis had had a vision of himself, removed to a perfectly bare, perfectly white, perfectly efficient flat, with only his books in place. The flat would of course be empty because he would not be in it, but it would be there, waiting for him, if he ever came back. He saw this failure to settle the matter out of hand as the first setback on a day which could not be other than problematic, but brushed it aside in his desire to get to the library to see Pen. But he found Pen busy with a student and was forced to content himself with leaving a note, suggesting, as they often did, lunch at the usual place, at the usual time. Then he marched to Goldsborough’s office, only to realize that Goldsborough was still in America, and that he would not be able to make his resignation speech until the middle of the following week. Perhaps this was for the best, he thought. He had no desire to embarrass Goldsborough or cast a shadow over his happy tycoonery. He would have to manage somehow. There would be one of those discreet little occasions after the library had closed for the evening, with a couple of bottles of wine, and the secretaries in their best blouses. Goldsborough could say a few words and Lewis could tell them all how happy he had been. And he had been happy once, but that was in a past that now seemed distant, prelapsarian, infantile. He would leave without regrets.

  The morning passed slowly, uneventfully, and with a beguiling normality. Lewis found it so soothing that he almost abandoned thoughts of departure and a new life. Like a man in a trance he raised his eyes every few minutes to the clock: every catalogue card took on the lustre of a reliquary. That this life would altogether come to an end was a fact which until now had not convinced him: somehow he had thought he would always return and that his place would be kept for him, his desk waiting, so that he, the prodigal son, could be painlessly reabsorbed into a routine which mere folly had led him to desert. The uncertain volatility that had greeted his earlier moments, when he had known so precisely what to do, gave way to an excruciating tenderness, so that he was moved by the most insignificant sights, a student’s head bent over a book, a secretary placing a memo on Pen’s desk, an assistant taking the slips out of the request box, hieratic motions and movements performed in an atmosphere of heavenly calm. Shafts of sun poured through dusty windows on to wood the colour of toffee. It was very quiet: examinations were in progress and there were few readers left. The library was a great wooden ship, manned by a skeleton crew. Overhead the timbers shivered as Arthur Tooth shelved books in the gallery. He would outlast them all, Lewis reflected, not for the first time. This was the sort of remark one heard several times a year: ‘You’ll outlast us all, Arthur,’ spoken in hearty and slightly exasperated tones, usually at the end of a particularly irritating conversation with him. Although the weather was hot Arthur wore his usual three-piece suit. At lunchtime he would place his hat precisely on his head, take his umbrella and march off to his club. After lunch, when he had had a couple of peppermints to dispel the odour of claret he would sink into a doze at the back of the library, which lasted until Hilary brought him a cup of tea at four o’clock. This would restore him to normal spirits, and he would spend his remaining hour polishing the desks. Nobody seemed to find this strange, although he had frequently to displace the books requested by readers in his pursuit of ideal symmetry. The remarks addressed to him in the course of a day’s work were of a ritual nature: ‘Good morning, Arthur,’ or ‘Good evening, Arthur,’ or, more usually, ‘Not now, Arthur.’ To Lewis he had once represented the shape of things to come, a prospect which now filled him with terror.

  At lunch, pushing aside his untasted quiche, he came straight to the point.

  ‘Pen,’ he said. ‘Can you get Emmy to ring me? You see, I want to marry her.’

  Pen raised his eyes from a perfunctory salad. ‘This place gets worse,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be sorry to go. My dear old thing, you know there’s nothing I’d like better. But I ought to tell you she’s living with someone at the moment. Emmy’s a problem to me,’ he went on. ‘I wouldn’t normally talk about this sort of thing but she gives cause for concern. She’s not always at home, for one thing: I don’t know where she is half the time.’

  ‘She was at home this morning,’ said Lewis. ‘But I couldn’t speak to her. There was someone else there.’

  ‘Well, that’s Emmy. That’s what she’s like. I wish to God someone would take her in hand. I wish to God it could be you. But don’t raise your hopes too high, Lewis. I’ll tell her to get in touch with you – but that’s by the by. You’ll be doing that yourself. You’re divorcing Tissy, then? And staying on here?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Lewis. ‘I’m going to America. And as for Tissy I’m seeing her this evening. I’ll ask her to divorce me. She can have the house. I’m looking for a flat.’

  ‘You could have George’s flat,’ said Pen. ‘He’s already moved half his stuff out. We can use my house when we come up
to London. My God, what a lot of news. Brilliant, Lewis. I hated to think of you here for ever, though it didn’t seem fair to say so. Was it that American, the one who was looking for you the other day? Bearing gifts?’

  ‘Bearing the offer of a visiting professorship,’ said Lewis. ‘I’ll be leaving at the end of the month. For Paris – the American has lent me his flat. I begin to feel the weight of the inevitable. Will we ever meet again, Pen? Where is George’s flat, by the way?’

  ‘St Petersburgh Place. Why don’t you give him a ring? He’d be delighted to show it to you. Of course we’ll meet again – you’ll come down and stay with us. I’m really terribly glad, Lewis.’

  ‘And if I marry Emmy …’

  ‘Oh, well, Emmy. Don’t bank on her, old thing. She’s been a bad girl, I’m afraid. There’s someone who wants to marry her now, as a matter of fact. Frankly, I’d rather not interfere. It would be a great relief to us all to see her settled.’

  ‘There’s always someone who wants to marry her, isn’t there? There was the last time I saw her.’

  ‘It’s the same one. She’s led him an awful dance, and of course it’s made him that much keener. He’s quite a bit older than she is; ideal, really. She says she doesn’t love him, but in point of fact he’d do very well. He knows my parents, you see. Actually, we’re all in favour.’ Pen’s smile, so well-known, was as agreeable as ever.

  Lewis felt disheartened to have discovered a flaw in this friendship. When it came down to it, he reflected, like stuck to like: he was up against acres and privileges. It was the man who had to bring a dowry in such a suit and he had nothing to show for himself except his impeccable suburban background. He realized that he had been gently discouraged, and felt shocked and saddened. These emotions grew and deepened. He was being handed George’s flat as a consolation prize.

  He did little work that afternoon. He would take the flat sight unseen, he thought: it hardly mattered now. There was, after all, no reason for him to remain in London; indeed, the thought of staying on chilled him. The Englishness to which he had assumed he was heir suddenly seemed to exclude him. Seen down the funnel of his impending departure, his acquaintance seemed to dwindle, his affections to falter. His silent farewell to his daughter – ‘Wait for me! Wait for me!’ – was, he now saw, a cry of loneliness as much as anything else, as if so simple-hearted was he that he could only be comfortable in the company of a child. He blamed himself slowly for his credulity. The world was, after all, a cold place. He had always known this, but his naïveté or simplemindedness had shielded him from the knowledge. Staring at his hands he determined to leave as soon as possible, before the end of the month. He was now surplus to everyone’s requirements. He would meet the Millinships in Paris, staying in an hotel until they went south. He supposed he would get down to some work, although he felt too slow, too discouraged, too futile. Work now would be as illusory a resource as perhaps it had always been.

  He was in a mood of desolate calm when he saw Tissy, later that day. The little girl was in bed with a slight cold, for which he was almost relieved; he would have broken down if he had seen her. Tissy received him ceremoniously, her full skirts spread out, her hands folded in her lap like a Victorian child. Her eyes were modestly lowered but he saw that she was now wearing make-up, which gave her fragile beauty a certain brightness, almost a boldness. The lowered eyelids were a greyish-blue and fringed with black lashes, a becoming effect of which she was no doubt aware. Her expression was, as usual, virtuous, as if he were still at fault. She made no attempt to welcome him, apart from a murmured ‘Lewis’, in a voice that was almost faint, as if he were having his way with her against her will. He felt momentarily sorry for Gilbert Bradshaw, but this was lost in a wave of regret that swept over him, not only for his marriage, but for the whole of his life.

  Calmly, desolately, he said, ‘Well, Tissy, this is the parting of the ways.’

  She was deprived of her usual weapons by this simple statement of fact. He saw that in the absence of reproaches she had little to say. But then he had not married her for her loquacity but for her very silences, her household piety. He had thought them to be two of a kind, as perhaps they were. Perhaps she was the only equal he would ever know, since the way towards a second marriage was, he now saw, subtly barred.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said gently. ‘Did you ever love me? Don’t be frightened, Tissy. I know you’ll marry again. But did you ever love me?’

  There was a silence. He imagined her to be disconcerted by the very reasonableness of his tone. Finally, ‘I was very fond of you,’ she said.

  Oh, fond, he thought. It told him everything. He was shocked at how little there was to say. So many shocks in one day. He wanted to lay his head in her lap, and say, ‘I’m leaving home, Tissy. Do you know what that means, you who have never left home, have never had to? I’m going away. Don’t you want to know where I’m going? I wish you could hold me in your thoughts, just for a while. Sometimes I want to stay here, with nothing changed, and yet in my heart I know I must go. And it’s time to go, not because I have to, but because nobody wants me to stay. Look after my child. You cannot imagine what agony it is for me to say that. You see, I don’t know when I shall see her again, if ever. It feels so final now, what I am doing, as if I shall never come back, never find the energy, the desire, never survive another departure. Tissy, I feel sick at heart. Tell me that you love me, or if not that, which is not true, tell me that you once loved me, even if that was not true either. Tissy, be kind. I can’t say I still love you, because I’m not sure if I do. I just know that I regret you. You know, I think I miss you already. That’s why I can’t say goodbye. I’m too afraid of my own tears.’

  Instead, he handed her the piece of paper bearing the name of his solicitor, which she took with her usual expression of maidenliness. She seemed to him to be acting entirely in character. Only her moment of liberation had been uncharacteristic, yet even that had served her well. She was more resolute as a result of it.

  He kissed her cool cheek, held her hand for a moment. He tried, and failed, to wish her well, to say something tender and final, to finish the matter with honour. A character in a book would have regarded this renunciation as a great moment, whereas he needed all his strength simply to get out of the house. He was aware of Mrs Harper standing silently in the doorway; she had evidently thought to mark the moment as well. ‘Goodbye, Thea,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Goodbye, Lewis,’ she replied. ‘Have you left your address? In case we need you for anything?’ No divorce, he thought, kissing her as well, could have been more final.

  He telephoned Emmy’s flat when he got home, but only heard the answering machine. He told himself that it was just as well: he would only make himself ridiculous, more ridiculous than he already was. He had not realized his disadvantages until he had had lunch with Pen. No doubt she had written him off as a nobody, a simpleton who could not rise to the challenge of making love to her. He could hear the scornful epithets, as if she were discussing him with Pen: petit bourgeois would be the least of them. No doubt he had been an object of derision without knowing it. He blushed in the darkness of his room as he thought of Pen and George Cheveley being treated to an imitation of him, with all his scruples mocked and ridiculed. He longed in that instant to get away and to leave them all behind, to vanish completely. He would have left on the instant had he had enough money in his wallet, but in an unusually crowded day he had found no time to go to the bank.

  He slept badly, his mind intent on matters of the past which he had consistently misinterpreted. Leaving home, he thought. This is my only resource and I must do it like a man. But he was glad to get up, to bathe and dress, and go to the library. He could not bear the house in the early morning and escaped to eat his breakfast in a coffee bar near the college. He embraced the library, its silences, its sighs, its shining desks and its green lamps, as if he were a monk and this his monastery, or rather as if he were a monk due to leave the monastery to undertake a pe
rilous mission among strangers. Loving-kindness must be his watchword, he thought, still intent on behaving well. Yet he was afflicted with a coldness of the spirit which had him staring at his hands, his pen idle, his index cards forgotten.

  Goldsborough would be, if anything, relieved at his departure, since he could now replace him with two or even three recent graduates for the same money. Nevertheless, when Lewis told him that he was going, Goldsborough had the decency to look solemn and even sorrowful, whipping off his glasses to reveal naked childish eyes. They looked at each other in silence. Goldsborough had always been a softie, Lewis thought: trifles made him happy. In that he was innocence itself. ‘Do you want a party?’ asked Goldsborough, replacing his glasses.

  ‘No, thank you, Arnold,’ said Lewis hastily. ‘What I should like would be to leave straight away. At the end of this week. I don’t think there’s much that I could usefully be doing. Not if the computers will soon be here.’

  ‘All right, Lewis. It might be best. Better to take on new staff at this juncture, I mean.’

  ‘Goodbye, Arnold,’ said Lewis, holding out his hand. ‘You’ve always been very kind.’

  But, ‘I hate goodbyes, Lewis,’ said Goldsborough, his glasses steaming up. ‘Good luck. Don’t forget us, will you? All the best.’

  So it was Goldsborough, of all people, who would miss him, he thought, walking back to his desk. But the coldness of his spirit remained, although he knew he should be moved. He did a rapid calculation and decided that he would leave at the end of the following week. He could not think of anyone who should know this. In the lunch-hour, he went to a travel agent and bought a ticket for Paris. Pen was absent on a couple of days’ leave. For the sake of their old friendship, which now seemed flawed, he would leave a word on Pen’s desk, giving notice of his flight number. Perhaps he, and even George, would come to see him off. He did not know how he would manage to go if his departure were not a matter of record.