A Friend from England

by Anita Brookner

  I remember that the weather deteriorated sharply at about this time, as if in sympathy. I awoke every morning to the sound of water gurgling through a broken pipe into a drain blocked with leaves; the sound of that steady surreptitious progress, the thought of the puddle that would inevitably form and into which I would be forced to put my hand, produced all the usual shudders in me. Finally, when it looked as if my little courtyard would flood, I had to ask Robin to do it. All day we sat with the lights on as a grey mist of fine rain blurred the street outside. Customers were few, and those who did come made a mess with their dripping umbrellas. We were constantly mopping the floor, and trying to protect the stock from wet hands and elbows. I was exasperated by all this water which prevented me from going out or feeling well; my eyelids seemed to thicken and my vision to blur, my legs to stiffen and my ankles to swell, as if I were really the victim of a physical affliction, an allergy to the dripping skies which rendered me inactive, incompetent, ineffective. I chose to look on the weather as an element which would put a stop to all social movements; I chose to think of everyone as immobile as myself. In this way I managed to still my conscience over my silence. I knew that my sympathy for Heather should have prompted me to take some action, to proffer some sort of invitation, even if it was refused as mournfully as I expected, but I could think of no way in which I could be helpful to her if the truth lay unexamined between us; I lacked the patience to let her fears subside in my presence. I was always slightly rough with her, as if I could galvanize her in this way, but it was never a success. I lacked gentleness, I supposed; perhaps she was right not to trust me. I felt wretched when I faced up to this truth. I felt as if I had accepted friendship on false pretences. And yet I was not sure that Heather had ever really accepted me as a friend. In some ways I was almost sure that she disliked me. I think she disapproved of me, thought me shallow, too pleased with myself. Although I had never confided in her I rather fancy she knew quite a lot about me, and what she knew did not amuse her. Heather was shrewd, and she kept her own counsel. In many ways she would have made a very responsible adult if fate had allowed her to be one. I knew that I would have to make some sort of gesture sooner or later, if only to relieve my own anxiety and sore feelings on her behalf, but I kept putting it off until the weather improved; this veil of water prevented me from thinking clearly, deprived me of initiative. I was always glad when night fell, releasing me from any obligation to initiate action. I was hardly going to invite them to the theatre now.

  The weather put a stop to all my activities. Every evening I got into bed earlier and earlier. It was as if I were travelling backwards, back into childhood. I slept voraciously and was aware of dreaming copiously, although I always forgot my dreams as soon as I awoke. In any event, these dreams were of no consequence to me or of interest to anyone else. Down this dwindling corridor of reminiscence, as if some shreds of the night were slow to leave me, I saw the two white-clad figures of Heather and Michael dancing at their wedding, I saw Oscar starting up with a cry of alarm, I saw the Colonel laughing with relief. Whatever I saw I did not like. And all this was involuntary, the product of those unconscious hours when I was not aware that I was seeing anything at all. The mornings found me irritable, unsettled. I put off speaking to Robin about the partnership, dithered about completing the purchase of the flat. All that was required of me was a little decisiveness, and yet some kind of sick caution held me back. For a time I was afraid of making any kind of movement. I suppose that I was generally confused about initiating any kind of action. I knew what I should do, in many directions, and yet I could not get myself to do any of it.

  One afternoon, as we were sitting listlessly in the shop, and Eileen had gone off to do her Christmas shopping, I realized that if trade did not pick up we were going to have a disastrous year. This frightened me, and I recovered a little of my boldness. I asked Robin if he could spare me a moment, and I asked him what he thought of the prospect of having me as a partner. His face brightened, and he said that he assumed that that was what I had always had in mind. I explained that the flat was my first priority, and that I might have to keep him waiting until my affairs had settled down and I could put matters on a regular basis. In fact, that I might have to borrow money from him in order to buy Eileen’s share of the business, and although I expected to pay interest on the loan he might have to wait some time before we were on a proper business footing. He appeared to raise no objection to this, although I felt as if I might be taking advantage of him. I don’t know why I felt this: Oscar had advised me to speak to the bank, but I hated the idea of having to ask the bank for another loan, and I trusted Robin, who had no inconvenient plans for improving his life away from me. In fact he gave in so easily that I insisted on our having a regular arrangement and a formal agreement; some sort of document would have to be drawn up, some sort of calculation made that would leave him feeling happy and leave me feeling a little less adventurous. I could see that this might lead me back to Oscar, a direction I did not particularly want to take, and so I delayed this too, and in doing so merely increased my feeling of unease and of insecurity.

  My attitude towards the flat also underwent a slight change at this time. Surveying it when I went upstairs in the evenings brought no sense of comfort or relief. I began to resent its blank white walls, its curved metal windows. The heating, which I kept on full, in an attempt to defeat the pervading damp, made the air smell dusty and tightened the skin on my face; I began to see that little concrete warren as unlovely, although it had always seemed perfectly satisfactory to me before. I had a vision of myself growing old in that white sitting-room, and I did not like it. Of course, I could refurbish it, make it look a little bit more welcoming, although I was bereft of ideas for making it more lovable. It had always seemed to me quite adequate, mainly because it left me alone, stretched out no feelers of affection or fondness that would retain me there. It was, I saw, a flat to get out of rather than one to stay in. It was a machine for eating and sleeping in, a suitable dwelling for a working woman, whose main interest is in her work. I disliked this version of myself, which seemed to negate my other activities, reduced them to after-hours amusements, whereas I had always thought them pretty central. These mute white walls had been silent witnesses to many encounters; nevertheless, they withheld comment, and their very withholding struck me as unfriendly. ‘Unheimlich’ was the word which came to mind when I stood on the threshhold of my bedroom: I had read it in some psychiatric textbook which I had picked up one day in the shop. ‘Unhomely’ was too mild a translation to convey the effect of alienation that the German original possessed. In a half-hearted way I began to wonder if the effect might be different if I pulled the bed nearer to the window instead of leaving it stranded in the middle of the room. Then I realized that this would involve moving everything else, and that in order to do this I would have to enlist Robin’s help yet again. Something prevented me from asking him for this perfectly reasonable help: I felt faint-hearted about everything, and in the end I left the room exactly as it was.

  With a supreme effort of will I telephoned my landlord and told him that I was ready to purchase, and that if he cared to call in some time during the following week I would be very happy to sign the agreement and hand him the cheque. Having done this, I retreated upstairs again and looked blankly at the flat, as if in wonder that it had ever meant anything to me. The idea of staying here for the rest of my life appalled me. It was while I was contemplating this prospect that I heard Robin’s feet on the stairs, and, turning my head, saw his face through the door which I had left open.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Although you could do with a different colour on the walls.’

  We looked at the sitting-room, which seemed to be awash with the weeping light of the rain spattering the windows, and could think of no improvement that would make it look either bigger or better. I remembered those terrible days of convalescence, in which I had sat here unmoving, unthinking, remembering my
dead parents, and almost unconsciously assuming the pitiful position that my mother had assumed in her last days. The thought filled me with horror now as it had then; in fact all my thoughts were veering towards sadness. I blamed the weather again, unwilling as I was to concede to a general feeling of desolation.

  ‘Buy a few engravings,’ Robin was saying. ‘Or posters, if you’re a bit short. By the way, there’s someone downstairs asking for you. A Mrs Livingstone. No one we know. Doesn’t look like a customer.’

  Dorrie! I flew down the stairs, ridiculously grateful for the interruption. Even if she had somehow come to ask my advice about Heather, advice which I was quite unprepared to give, my spirits lightened at the thought of seeing her without in some way having engineered the meeting. I found her standing in the middle of the shop, looking around with interest and a little awe. She was wearing a smart black satin raincoat, which was stained with damp across the shoulders, and a headscarf printed with a design of horses’ bridles. She had a number of parcels and a dripping umbrella in her hand. There was some undefinable loss of chic in her appearance, which I put down again to the weather. Who could look chic in this rain?

  ‘Rachel, dear,’ she said, her face brightening, as I went forward to embrace her. ‘I hope you don’t mind my calling in like this. I met the girls for lunch, and then I went to the flat to leave one or two things, and I was on my way home, and I thought I’d stop off and see you. It’s been such a long time. And I dare say you don’t want to come and see us now that Heather’s no longer at home. We wondered how you were.’

  ‘But Dorrie,’ I said. ‘You know I always love to see you. And I was going to telephone Oscar about some business he was kind enough to advise me on.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ she laughed. ‘And this is where you work? It’s lovely, Rachel. You have done well, dear.’

  ‘You must come upstairs and have some tea,’ I said firmly, ‘and take off those wet things. I’ll put the kettle on. Just follow me up.’

  ‘I was hoping you would say that,’ she confessed. And, apologetically, ‘I brought a few cakes.’ She handed over a white cardboard box. ‘I hope I did the right thing.’

  ‘Rachel,’ she whispered, behind me on the stairs. ‘That young man looks very nice. He was charming to me. Is that your partner?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s Robin. We get on very well.’

  ‘I’m so happy for you, dear.’

  ‘Oh, Dorrie,’ I laughed. ‘We’re business partners, nothing else. We’ve known each other for years. In fact, our fathers knew each other, on paper, at least. Both our fathers were booksellers, you know.’

  ‘I expect they’d be very proud of you,’ she said. ‘And this is where you live? It’s very pretty, dear. So nice and light.’

  I switched on as many lights as I possessed, and, although it was very warm, the fire as well. I did not see how she could possibly like this room, so different from her own. But she told me that when she and Oscar were first married they had lived in just such a little flat, and had only gradually saved up to buy the house in Wimbledon. All the additions had come later. And she told me that they had been very happy in their white flat, that it did her good to see something so like it. She did so hope that I would be as happy as they had been. Seeing the flat was, she thought, an omen. She was sure I was going to be happy.

  Knowing the direction of Dorrie’s thoughts I said nothing, but helped her to remove her raincoat, which I took into the kitchen to dry. She kept her headscarf on, saying, ‘No, dear, my hair’s such a mess.’ I opened the box of cakes and put them on the prettiest dish I could find; then, with the tea in front of us, I began to like my flat rather better, to see it in a kindlier light.

  The cakes were predictably delicious, but I noticed that Dorrie’s fork merely broke hers up and played with the pieces. She drank her tea thankfully, but her lips trembled slightly. I looked at her. Surely Oscar could not have told her what I already knew? Surely he could not have found the words to enlighten her?

  ‘Dorrie,’ I said, carefully. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  She started slightly, then abandoned her fork, and pushed her plate away.

  ‘Why, no, dear,’ she said. ‘I expect I just miss Heather a bit. She’s in Milan, you know, at the collections. And then Oscar said something about her having a weekend in Venice with her friend Chiara. Chiara lives in Venice, or comes from Venice: I don’t exactly know which. Oscar is treating them both to a weekend at the Gritti. They will both be so tired. I think it’s a lovely idea.’ But her hand trembled slightly and she put down her cup.

  ‘The fact is,’ she went on, ‘I’m quite glad to know that she’s away. I’m going to get myself tidied up, while she’s taking a break. Just a couple of days in the Clinic. And it will all be over by the time she gets back.’

  I felt cold. ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ I asked, in as lively a tone as I could manage.

  ‘Just this silly little lump.’ She untied the headscarf and proffered an inflamed earlobe. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. But Oscar fusses so. And it’s no good to me where it is, is it? So Oscar insisted on the London Clinic and I go in tomorrow afternoon.’

  She sat back and laughed a little shakily.

  ‘And you’re not telling Heather?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, no, there’s no need to worry her. She’s been a little nervous lately. And truth to tell, Rachel, I wondered whether there might not be a baby on the way.’ She laughed again, this time with pleasure. ‘Of course, that would make us all very happy. The Colonel too, I’m sure.’ She lowered her eyelids and tried to eat a fragment of cake, but failed. ‘You won’t tell her I told you, will you, Rachel? She hasn’t discussed anything with me yet. Oscar says I’m romancing, but I think I’m right.’

  I struggled to disguise the horror I felt and I must have succeeded, for she said, ‘I can see you’re not surprised. I think she’ll make a good mother, don’t you, Rachel? And Michael will be such fun as a father. I sometimes think he’s such a boy himself. But I mustn’t keep you.’ She retied the headscarf. I could think of nothing to say.

  ‘I’ll come and see you, shall I?’ My voice sounded strange to me, but evidently perfectly all right to Dorrie.

  ‘Well, there’s no need, of course, dear. But it would be lovely. You know, we think of you as almost a daughter. And you’re so sensible. I’m sure Heather’s lucky to have you as a friend.’

  When she left, after many protestations that I was not to put myself out, that it had been lovely to see me and my flat, and that she was so glad that everything was going so well for me, I sat down heavily. I must have sat for some time, in the darkening room, for I had instinctively turned off the lights after she had left; the next thing I knew was a knock on the door, which was Robin, come to tell me that he was locking up.

  ‘Nice woman, that,’ he said. ‘You okay? You look a bit pale.’

  I said that I was fine, and that he should come in late the following day: I would take care of things in the morning, but I might be gone in the afternoon. Eileen’s presence tended to be fitful, when she had gifts for her family to buy. Neither Robin nor I had any family to speak of, although he had once mentioned a married sister in Shropshire, with whom he did not get on too well. There was no problem about our attendance.

  I spent a terrible evening. My mind veered away from the Livingstones and their problems, although I knew that those problems would reclaim me, would require my most urgent consideration, once I came out of this peculiar trance that had overtaken me. For a time I paced round the room, coming to rest occasionally at the window, my hands patting the too-hot radiator, staring drearily out at the fuzzed haloes of the street lamps. Thinking I might feel differently once I had shed my daytime persona, I went into my bedroom and changed my clothes. Then, haplessly, I drifted back into the sitting-room, and sat down in my usual chair. I was not hungry, which was just as well, as I had forgotten to buy any food. I picked up a book from the pile on the table at my elbow, an
d read, ‘Lacking more serious occupations since 1814, I write, as one might smoke a cigar after dinner, in order to pass the time.’ I put the book down again, disheartened by this dandyish attitude, so impossibly urbane as to be permanently beyond my reach. The empty evening disturbed me, and I wished that I had urged Robin to keep me company: I could always have scrambled some eggs. My life seemed to me to be insubstantial, my company and presence marginal. In the morning, I knew, I would have to face up to being all these things, to hold myself in readiness as a good friend, as a support, as a comforter, an utterer of sturdy and bracing clichés. I would have to substitute myself for the absent Heather, but only in such a way as not to usurp her importance, her uniqueness. And then, when poor Heather came back from her unrealistic holiday, I would have to indicate to her that she must lay aside her own burden for the time being and allay her mother’s fears, while at the same time disabusing her mother of any fond fantasy that might be present in her mind. And, whether I liked it or not, I would have to engage Oscar in some close business discussion, to do with my growing involvement with my little shop. Suddenly I wished it were all mine, that both Eileen and Robin were gone, and that in the complete silence left to me I might remain undisturbed. And then, I thought, one day, when they had all returned to their proper preoccupations, I would make my decision, pack my bags, hang a sign saying CLOSED on the door, and simply disappear. I would not be missed. Dorrie might say, ‘What’s become of Rachel? We never hear from her these days,’ but in time even she would no longer ask.