When the telephone rang I leapt from my chair, aware of sensations of alarm and bewilderment: how was I, in my extreme state, to behave naturally? The fact that it was a woman’s voice made me slump with disappointment, one hand to my beating heart.
‘Fay? Is that you, Fay? It’s Pearl here, Pearl Chesney.’
‘Hello, Pearl,’ I said evenly. ‘How are you?’
‘Not too badly, dear. Just packing up my bits and pieces. And yourself?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry to ring you like this, but I wondered if you’d been in touch with Julia?’
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve been away for a few days.’ As usual, my absences from home were stretched to fit the time expected of them.
‘Then you haven’t heard the news,’ she went on.
‘What news?’
‘Charlie. A stroke. On Wednesday morning, at the office. They called an ambulance. They managed to get him into the Harley Street Clinic.’
‘I see,’ I said, through numb lips.
‘Do you know how to get there? I expect you’ll want to slip in and see him, won’t you?’
That use of the word ‘slip’ told me that Pearl Chesney knew, and had always known, exactly how matters stood. She was a good woman, unable to judge, probably too experienced to be shocked. The knowledge would have made her own situation delicate. It may even have had something to do with her decision to leave. Or not, as the case might be. In that moment I cared nothing for anyone who was not Charlie.
‘How bad is he?’ I asked.
‘Not too good.’ She sounded uneasy, her breathing hard.
‘When does Julia go to the hospital?’ I asked, for there was no pretence now.
‘Well, she went on the Wednesday, but she says there’s no point because he doesn’t know her. She says she’s waiting for him to come round. She has every hope, she says. Of course, I’ve been keeping her company while all this is going on.’ She paused. ‘I think she said she was going tomorrow.’
‘Did you say he doesn’t know her?’
‘Well, yes, dear, but they’re very confident. It’s wonderful what they can do these days, isn’t it? I expect you’ll want to give Julia a ring. She needs a lot of support at the present time.’
‘How is she?’ I asked.
‘Very brave. She was always brave, marvellous, really. “I can’t let Charlie down,” she says. “I shall be there when he’s ready to see me. I shall always be there.” She’s made a big hit with the nurses. But then Julia knows how to talk to people.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much for letting me know, Pearl. We’ll be in touch.’
‘Or I’ll see you at Julia’s,’ she said. For she thought it inconceivable that I should not be at her side. But I knew that Charlie was going to die, had always known, had seen the message in the white sky, had felt it in the tremor of the nerves. So strongly did I know this that it seemed to me useless even to ask for further news of him. Dully I rang the Harley Street Clinic, but they refused to tell me anything. ‘Are you a relative?’ they asked. ‘Just a friend,’ I said, and put the receiver back before they could say that he was resting comfortably.
TWELVE
‘OF COURSE, it was different in the old days,’ said Julia. ‘When I had staff. Then I could just have a tray sent up.’ A powdery tear, like a very small pearl, made its way down her cheek, leaving no identifiable trace behind.
We were in her ultramarine bedroom, and Julia was in bed, wearing an ultramarine satin nightgown with cream lace insertions. Her hair was more rigidly set than usual and her eyes a little frightened. These were the only signs of her grief, which she experienced as an enormous discomfort. She had talked more about the loss of her former cook and maid than she had about the death of her husband. At least we had no wild outpourings to contend with, although her decision not to get up was slightly worrying. I doubt if she knew what she felt, apart from helplessness. Her feelings were so far from the surface, so deeply buried, that they gave her no information. This conferred an undeniable dignity, for she never lost her composure, or, more accurately, her command. There was, to me, something shocking in the expanse of white shoulder and arms, left on view for visitors: her flesh looked cold, preserved in its marble chill from unwonted surges of the blood, ageless, in its way perfect, remarkable by any standards. I shrank from the intimacy that this seemed to signal, but to Julia it was entirely natural to appear in this manner, as if she were receiving in her dressing-room. I did not want to see her in this way, yet she was apparently set up for the day, in her large cane-headed bed, and would remain there until the last sympathizer had taken his or her leave. The remains of a breakfast—a sticky plate, a cup and saucer—could be seen on one of the bedside tables. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, and no one had quite managed to clear this away; hence the lament for absent staff. The room was very hot; through the window a tiny silver plane was a point of brilliance in a cloudless light blue sky. Pearl Chesney and Maureen sat on either side of the bed, attempting to hold Julia’s hands. There was no reason for them to do so; she was quite calm. But she was fretful, and her eyes kept turning towards the window, the heavy eyelids falling from time to time. I stood at the foot of the bed, forcing myself to look at her.
What I myself felt was as indistinguishable as Julia’s grief. Where she was plaintive, helpless, I was simply conscious of an enormous disorder, a chaos in my thoughts, which were dominated by fragments of popular songs and the remnants of terrible dreams. The previous night I had dreamt of returning home to find the place flooded: sodden books floated in pools of water, tiles had fallen from the walls into cracked and ruined baths and basins, shelves sagged and buckled. The blotched and discoloured walls were being surveyed by a team of impassive men who had got there before I had, may even have been there all the time. I was mysteriously absent, returning to this place only when the damage was irreversible. To rebuild and redecorate would take months, yet the men, who became increasingly indifferent, could not even give me a date when they might start, seemed unwilling, reluctant to take it on. To begin with I did not recognize the damaged rooms as belonging to the flat in Drayton Gardens, which gave me a sense of relief, until I saw that it was my parents’ house in Camberwell Grove that had undergone such an assault, such a letting in of alien waters. My grief at this revelation was immeasurable. In panic I had woken to find that only an hour had passed since I had turned out my light. The whole night stretched before me, and although I slept voraciously no sleep was devoid of its succession of bizarre and disruptive images.
Awake, I hardly knew how to think or feel. What was clear to me was that I must defer to Julia, whose loss was greater than mine, not only in the eyes of anyone who might know the story but even to myself. There is no appropriate attitude for a bereaved mistress, although she is spared the Job’s comforters who attend the wife. The best thing she can do, or if not the best then certainly the most expedient, is to turn into one such comforter herself, aware of the hypocrisy involved, finding some relief in the savage alienation she feels. Rage is better than grief, especially where no atonement is possible. Seeing Julia stranded in her large bed made me profoundly thankful that my passage through her life was of so little interest to her. Infidelity seemed too ponderous a word to use of Charlie’s behaviour now: diversion seemed more accurate. He had been discreet, practised. In any event his feelings had died with him; there was no evidence left, apart from the insistent refrains in my head. ‘Just A-Wearying for You’, an appallingly wistful song which had always moved me, now erupted into all my thoughts, so that I almost had to turn my head to listen to it. This made me seem absent, and I failed to produce the correct condolences and reassurances.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Julia remarked, surveying me from under her eyelids.
‘I’m sorry, Julia. I simply don’t know what to say.’
This was nothing more nor less than the truth, but it sounded crude. I was afflicted with a ter
rible weariness, which was intensified by the sight of Julia in bed. It occurred to me that she was old, however ageless she seemed, and that what had originally been a matter of choice was now one of necessity. I doubted whether she would ever leave the house again. Maureen was there, of course, and there seemed to be no further talk of Pearl Chesney leaving London. These two were acting as official mourners, were flushed and anxious and ready with all the futile phrases one utters on such occasions. Only Julia and I were dry-eyed.
‘I shall be next,’ said Julia. ‘I can’t tell you how I look forward to it.’
‘In the meantime,’ I told her, ‘I very much hope you intend to get out of that bed.’
‘I may. And on the other hand I may not.’
‘Come along, Julia. Get up, have your bath, get dressed, and eat some lunch. I’ve brought enough food for a couple of days. It’s all over, Julia, there’s nothing more to be done. Try to take up your life again. After all,’ I said roughly, hating myself, ‘you wouldn’t have wanted him to linger, incapacitated as he was. This way is cleaner.’
She turned her head slowly towards me, as though I were some sort of secondary audience, a matinée audience, perhaps.
‘If you’ve got nothing better to say or do,’ she said, ‘you might change those books.’ Most of her requests were framed in this way. ‘You might throw those flowers away.’ ‘You might pull that curtain.’ ‘You might fill my glass.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘But if you want anything to eat you’ll have to get up. And if you drink instead of eating, your arthritis will get far worse. I’m not scaremongering. I’m telling you the truth. If you stay in bed you’ll soon become too stiff to move. And, as you say, you no longer have staff to wait on you.’ Whereas if she got up she could manage with Maureen and Mrs Chesney, who, I had no doubt, would be there to the end.
My one fear was that she should declare herself incapable of further movement. That, however, was my only fear. Julia no longer terrified me. I felt for her pity and repugnance, as someone who had darkened my life and was now a victim herself. My condolences were inadequate because I was now seeing the two of them, Julia and Charlie, as despoilers, rich and idle, and more expert than I could ever be. And of the two of them perhaps Charlie was the more to blame. He was younger than Julia by a few years, had no doubt made discreet arrangements, of which I was one. I doubted the value of his feeling now; it seemed to me of lesser significance than his discretion, of which I was assured. It even occurred to me that he had thought of me in the same dismissive terms as Julia was inclined to use, but I cancelled the thought. There had been feeling there, but there was no clue to it now. I should have to live with its absence for as long as I remembered him. It had disappeared, along with his fine smile, his air of ease. That air had misled me into confusing it with intention.
Yet below the rage and the hopelessness that I now felt was a certainty (or was it a hope?) that my own feelings were not affected. I preferred to examine them later, alone, not even to consider them in company, in any company at all. I knew they would not stand the light of day. What I wanted more than anything in the world at that moment was to get out of Julia’s bedroom. I really wanted never to have to face her again, but I knew that this would be impossible. I should have to be very brave in order to contend with this, and to deal with it justly and competently, without undue favour or guilt. Again I felt engaged in something that was too difficult for me. In the absence of comfort I longed to be alone, if only to listen to the songs playing in my head.
I think I truly believed her to be a terrible or at best a tiresome woman, so what was my difficulty? Why was I, at that moment, planning to buy out-of-season asparagus and raspberries in order to tempt her appetite? What was the nature of the peculiar obligation she cast on me, almost without any exertion on her part? Why did she make everyone feel responsible, not just myself, but Maureen and Mrs Chesney, who had almost abandoned whatever plans they might have had for their own lives in order to attend to Julia? Why was it impossible to enter her presence without a full quota of compliments, almost as if she were the object of some religious cult? Why did she, without doing anything for anyone, inspire such devotion, while humbler, clumsier people like myself seemed doomed to do without?
I did not envy her her power and never had: indeed it seemed to me monstrous, particularly as her mind was so undistinguished. It was the force of her character that was so overwhelming. She was the still centre of a web of pointless intrigue, of disobliging gossip, yet should one’s attention falter for just a minute she would divine the reason why. She was a loss to the stage, no doubt of that. Her pauses, her irony, her nervelessness gave her full command, while her inflection gave her utterances a scurrility of which she seemed innocently unaware. Yet over and above all this—and I truly believe she had no heart—she was a solitary figure, too beautiful and too unready for the ways of this coarse world. Hence her willingness to cast blame and doubt on everything, good intentions included, as if she could not quite tell what was good from what was bad, and therefore decided that there was no good anywhere. A prize for any man, though one who might weary him in the end, would remain a cult object throughout the most humdrum circumstances, and require worship at all times. She had uncommon strength, never caught cold, never tired unduly, yet employed nursery terms for her habits and functions, as if Nanny were still in attendance. I never saw her drunk, yet frequently heard her belch. ‘That’s better,’ she would say, with evident pleasure. She had tales to tell of being taken short in various expensive or exotic places; never once did shame or confusion enter her voice. Rather, she felt a schoolgirl’s zest for the sort of dilemma which normally only schoolgirls faced, but which Julia welcomed as normal throughout her adult life. Constipation was a well-aired topic, followed by wind. She seemed to feel a certain fondness for both, took vast quantities of patent medicines, washed down with whisky, yet never had a headache, barely suffered from the heat or the cold, but claimed to suffer from everything else. ‘Don’t speak of it,’ she would say. ‘I’m a martyr to it. The pain kept me awake all night.’ She deplored exclusivity on the part of anyone else. I once heard her rebuke Maureen, who had intemperately turned her ankle. ‘If you only knew the pain I suffered in my hands,’ I heard her say, ‘you’d keep quiet about that ankle of yours. Anyway it was sheer clumsiness on your part.’
I wavered between clear-sightedness and confusion, aware of many things I did not claim to know. I had not gone to the funeral, which had been in Hampshire, where his sister lived. I did not know that he had a sister. ‘Catherine and I have never got on,’ said Julia, as if that explained everything. There was to be a memorial service: I should not go to that either. I was conscious of the tangled nature of human affections, as if, after childhood, nothing could be deemed pure. I was devoid of blame, but also of pity. For our own good, it seemed to me, we had better be discreet about our feelings, our sufferings. I did not wish to know the nature of Julia’s pain—for pain was what she claimed, no doubt truthfully. Her hands were undoubtedly giving her trouble and these seemed to be her main concern. We were all used to this, but I knew that for once she was understating the case. Lying there in her courtesan’s nightgown, she seemed quite satisfied that she was playing her part, yet from time to time the great eyes were turned absently towards the window. I nodded, almost grimly, as I registered a state of grief. I supposed that I was in the same state myself. Yet I could walk out into the sun and know that I was free. This freedom appalled me, but I knew that it was mine. In dying, Charlie had removed an impediment. I could go away, book a cruise, sail round the world. All this was dreadful to me, but true. I was a rich woman, with no one on my conscience. My only responsibility was Vinnie.
For Vinnie lived! Eighty-eight and almost senseless, she no longer spoke, hardly ate, never left her bed. I had had to install a housekeeper during the day, though Sandra was still there for the nights. Fortunately these were quiet; indeed sleeping and waking were almost
undifferentiated. When I went to see her the small clouded eyes opened and stared at me accusingly. I was to blame, it seemed. I was to blame for everything, for Owen’s death, for her own decrepitude. All this was far from my thoughts, yet so insistently with me. My visits gave her no pleasure, but if I stayed away she was agitated. ‘She missed you yesterday,’ Mrs Arnold, the housekeeper, would say. ‘We wondered what had happened to you.’ I was terrified that she would leave, and so I continued to go round, with my basket full of food, which was much appreciated by Mrs Arnold. She was a woman of a certain age, with a badly mended broken hip, glad to sit down all day, to read or listen to the radio. When she moved it was with a painful lurching gait that hurt one to watch. Yet she had to work, for her husband was retired and some years older than herself. I paid her well. She smiled kindly at me, sighed at the end of the day, rolled up her knitting, and left reluctantly. Yet it was an irksome, wearisome job of work, and although Vinnie was now light as a doll it was not easy for Mrs Arnold to lift her. Vinnie herself seemed to me faintly unclean, as she had always done. I thought her better off in her own bed, however dubious, than in a home, though that too would have to come. Fortunately, there was enough money to take care of her for the rest of her life.
It occurred to me to wonder how far worthy actions compensated for a lack of true virtue. I had always wanted to be good, yet had turned out to be flawed. Julia, though impossible, was somehow uncompromised. I could almost have wished for these positions to be reversed. Throughout my—what was it? association? affair?—with Charlie I had felt conscious of being in a false position, yet had been stimulated, amused by the very unexpected turn events had taken. Women feel this dangerous amusement when a lover approaches: it eases the way forward into an emotion which is not amusing at all, which is in fact melancholy, uncertain, nearly always uncomfortable. Periodical attempts are made to cancel everything, turn the page, resume a measure of good conscience, although innocence is always out of reach. Respectability is as much as can be hoped for; there is no woman so respectable as the one who has rediscovered virtue. In this spirit, and profoundly tired, I sought to make amends. I turned away almost irritably from my own feelings, aware that once I was alone, a kind of longing would descend on me, for that presence which had been so intermittently mine, and for that reason so heightened. At times it had seemed to me that men and women who lived together enjoyed a lesser intimacy than the one I stole; the very flatness of Julia’s conversation, her malice, the regressive nature of her references to the body I took as proof of boredom. Now I was not sure, and the revelation was unwelcome. It bothered me to see the accoutrements of that bedroom in which an ordinary life could be lived, cigarettes smoked, the events of the day discussed, books picked up or discarded, pills taken, idle speculations entertained, and lights eventually put out. No haste, no compulsion. Haste and compulsion are what make a woman guilty, no less—perhaps more—than a man.
Brief Lives Page 15
