A Friend from England

by Anita Brookner

  I knew what had put me into this state of mind. The spectacle of illness, with its attendant train of cheerfulness and dread, had laid its chill hand on me. I rehearsed it all: the packing of presumptuous nightgowns into the suitcase, as if those fine materials might remain unsullied by the blood and waste that would certainly issue; the final appointment with the hairdresser, so as to put a good face on things; the arrangement of meals, to be heated through and eaten on a corner of the kitchen table by the one who would leave the dishes, and maybe the food as well, in his haste to return to the hospital; the enormous courage needed to make all those obligatory jokes; the trembling moment when the visitors left, and one was reduced to reading the Get Well cards; the secret descent into fears that must never be shared. I had lived through all this once, and although it seemed ridiculous to transfer this burden of associations to a woman who was merely going to have a small cosmetic operation, I knew that I would not have too easy a time for the next few days. For a moment or two, I felt a return of my old exasperation when I thought of Heather swanning it at the Gritti Palace: why did she have to be spared this ordeal, when she was the obvious person to bear it? My old weariness at the thought of Heather as a protected species, whose feelings, whose very ignorance, had to be safeguarded, gave me back a little of the energy I seemed to have lost throughout the long hours of this day that would not end. Then I reminded myself that Heather’s own ordeal had only just begun, and that it was of such a singular nature that she could not be expected to bear it alone, and that all her champions must be in good order if she were to succeed.

  Above all, I felt a regrettable cynicism. These people, with all their hardships, were so fortunate! Even these hardships came into a special category: a few adjustments to be made, and they would be back on course, with no grievous loss sustained, no vital organ impaired. And suitable arrangements would be made for their protection throughout, holidays scheduled for their recovery. A place in the sun would be waiting. Without a realistic attitude to what was happening to them, sympathy would always be misplaced. The curse of happy families again, looking excitedly after their own, making the outsider feel benighted. But the additional curse of happy families, I reflected, was to fear the loss of one of its members, to be unmanned by every accident that could befall a child or a husband or a mother. The lives of the happily united were not necessarily tranquil. In fact everything was precarious: those who live in solitude need only fear their own mortality.

  And I seemed, once more, to be feeling mine. The shadow of illness darkened my little room, brought to mind all the illnesses I had endured, and, so far, survived, dredged up from the past memories which I had suppressed but which had remained intact and were waiting once more to claim me. The deaths of mothers, of fathers, expunged from my consciousness, made me once more start up in horror. I rushed to the bedroom again, opened my wardrobe, instinctively chose a plain but flattering sweater and skirt, made up my face, prepared to go out. It is something I have to do from time to time. I have my own techniques for dealing with such sieges and fugues as lie in wait for me. I assume that rough good humour that I once prescribed for poor Heather, I force the note. I go out, seek companions, bear them home. I live on the surface, plunging ahead, attached only to the present, with only a wary eye to the future. No bourgeois sentiments for me, no noble passions. The surface, the surface only.

  It was just that somewhere in my mind – for the mind contains everything, the past, as well as all the people one has ever been – I still retained the affections of childhood, and with these affections I encompassed the Livingstones. It was somehow possible for me to feel for them all the trust, all the love, if that is not too sentimental a word, that I had once felt and that may have got lost somewhere along the route I had since travelled. I would play my part. With them I would always play my part. But in order to play my part I might have to create my own form of sustenance. As I pulled the belt of my trench coat tightly around my waist I looked round once more at my little room. It seemed meek, abashed, innocent, as empty rooms with their lights on often do. Although created without love, the room remained my witness. The coffee cup on the table, the Stendhal, still half open, on the arm of the chair, had their own incorruptible life and seemed to reproach me with their gravity. But I had had enough of gravity for one day. The supreme irony, to me, was that in the Livingstones’ little drama I was the one cast as the wise virgin. I laughed, switched off the lights, and went out into the night.

  EIGHT

  THAT night I slept like a stone. When I awoke I sensed that the rains and mists of previous days had disappeared, to be replaced by the first frosts of winter. It was the end of November: our busy time was just beginning. There would be four weeks of frantic activity followed by flat calm after the New Year when everybody spent their money at the sales. This was when I usually went away, although this year I was going to be too much out of pocket to manage it. I had a little emergency money put by for such occasions, but at the moment I was unwilling to risk spending it: if things went smoothly, and we had a good Christmas, I would go away at Easter. Some caution, and not only over the money, warned me to be on hand, in case I were needed. Or maybe I was getting tired of my way of travelling. I found myself unwilling to take up the burden of providing my friends with amusing anecdotes, largely, I must confess, to persuade them that I was still, as it were, in credit. My friends were rather of the competitive variety, spreading an aura of successful propaganda around their every activity. I suppose most women are like this; at least most of the women I know seem to be. At the heart of their energetic performances – and such women are not always soothing to be with – lies the desire to persuade others of their great talents in the game of love, their allure, their knowledge, their expertise. Stunning ripostes are theirs, famous scenes are staged, advances are scorned or rejected, new lovers assumed as of right. Circe-like, such women turn men into swine. I do it myself: it is the best protection. It is also rather boring, but the only alternative seems to be something incredibly demanding, for which I am unprepared and for which in any case I do not have the time. And of course yet another alternative is the fate undergone by poor Heather, a pompous and futile marriage, no love, and a lot of embarrassment.

  In spite of her current fiasco, Heather had a sort of obstinate decency, I thought. She had never offended anyone, to my knowledge, nor was she likely to. Certainly she had never offended me, never scored points, never dropped hints or made indelicate enquiries. Such discretion is rare in a woman, certainly among the women I knew and who counted as my friends. Throughout the weeks preceding Heather’s marriage, when gifts and acquisitions seemed to be raining down on her from heaven, she had never shown off. Dancing industriously at her own wedding, she had noted my arrival, waved her hand, pointed to a table, and mimicked that she would join me later, when the music stopped. I thought that was very nice of her, considering that we had never had anything in common, nor could we be said to be friends in any real sense of the word. Caution seemed to be her watchword, although it had let her down pretty badly, and her mildness of manner precluded any act of aggression on her part. It was only that it was difficult to get very interested in her, just as it seemed difficult for her to get interested in anyone else. Yet in the long run I did not doubt that she possessed some kind of strength. How this would manifest itself I did not know, but no doubt occasions would arise: they always do. Maybe her absence at this time was a sign of strength, although I thought that she should have picked up enough hints from her mother to put off this particular visit to Milan, and certainly her weekend in Venice. Even in this I saw something of that fixity of purpose that led me to suppose that she had her own best interests at heart.

  When I reached the London Clinic shortly after six that evening it was to find Dorrie in bed, in a prim white nightgown, and her two sisters seated accusingly at her side. Faith in the powers of doctors ran high in that family, and the general feeling seemed to be that Dorrie should have had r
egular check-ups in order to ascertain that she was all right. Her current malaise, they seemed to assert, was entirely her own fault. She had brought it on herself with the fatigue of the wedding preparations and the constant provisioning of Heather’s flat. When she protested that she felt perfectly well they made scornful and exasperated noises. Certainly she looked well enough to me, although she did have the victimized look of anyone seen in bed when others are fully dressed and going about their normal business. She was in a small room, already well furnished with flowers and baskets of fruit. All the lights were on, which seemed to me fatiguing, as did the conversation. Dorrie was called upon to answer many questions, and to allay many fears. The anxiety of Janet and Rosemary, discharged with magnificent lack of tact, brought forth all her powers of submission. She assured them, as they should have been assuring her, that it was only a matter of a few days’ rest, and then the tiny operation: of course they had to do certain tests, she said, but that was simply a matter of routine. And the rest would certainly do her good. On this, fortunately, they seemed to agree. They were also firm believers in the efficacy of rest, would lie supine every afternoon, before getting up with a sigh and agitating themselves with renewed vigour. I judged this as good a moment as any to make my presence known.

  ‘Rachel,’ said Dorrie delightedly. ‘How lovely of you to come. You remember the girls, don’t you?’

  The girls seemed equally appreciative, and murmured with pleasure, getting up and rearranging the chairs round the bed. That was what so endeared them all to me: their lovely welcome. I bent down to kiss her, and smelled her honeysuckle scent, mingled with clean bedclothes. She had made up her face carefully, I noted; the girls, too, were dressed ambitiously, as if to outweigh the terrors they too obviously felt. I seemed to be the only one present prepared to take this little episode philosophically, although I did wish that Heather were present, if only to free me for more pressing duties at the shop. It looked as if I would have to stand in for her until such time as she chose to return. Again I felt something of the old exasperation, although this was clearly not the moment to entertain any feelings of my own. In any event it seemed to be generally acknowledged that my stolidity, my stoicism, if you like, and my position, far removed from their more intimate concerns, would stand them in good stead, were precisely what was needed in the atmosphere of hospitals, particularly as the atmosphere was, in the present case, so nervously enjoyed. A place was found for me between the two sisters, and, as I laid my little bunch of anemones on the counterpane, they exclaimed once again at my thoughtfulness, my appropriateness. I think that they were relieved to have me there.

  ‘Well, Dorrie,’ I said, as carelessly as possible. ‘When do they attend to your ear? You will look like Van Gogh, you know. You had better take up painting.’

  ‘She used to do lovely watercolours before she was married,’ said Janet. ‘Such a pity to let that talent go to waste.’

  ‘Oh, once I was married I had more important things to do,’ laughed Dorrie. ‘And I was never all that good. I used to paint flowers,’ she told me. ‘Mother had a rose garden, and I tried to paint them all.’

  ‘I’ve still got two.’ This was Rosemary, her face softened in reminiscence. ‘They’re in Sarah’s old room. Wasted in there, now that I come to think of it. Nobody uses it now. But they look so pretty, on either side of the window. I’ve got Mother’s tallboy in there too. I think I’ll take the bed out and make it into a little sitting-room. What do you think, Dorrie? I don’t know why I haven’t done it before. After all, she’s not likely to come home again, is she?’

  A general sadness over the departure of daughters seemed likely to invade the little room. I hastily picked up the menu which was lying on the bedside table.

  ‘Duck à l’orange,’ I mused wonderingly. ‘Sole Parisienne. Does anybody eat all this?’

  ‘Oh, yes, dear,’ said Rosemary, with authority. ‘People with broken legs.’

  ‘What have you ordered?’ I asked Dorrie.

  She closed her eyes momentarily, as if faint at the thought of food. ‘Vegetable soup,’ she said. ‘And an omelette. I thought something light for this evening.’

  It was at that moment that the thought occurred to me that she might be really ill. That Dorrie should feel repugnance at the idea of food, she who so endlessly devised it, made me think about her condition rather more seriously than I had hitherto. The fear that so obviously lurked in the minds of her sisters was once more palpable in the hot little room. Yet there were no outward signs of agitation, of concern. No nurse came in, there was as yet no chart at the foot of the bed, no equipment to remind one of the presence of surgeons, of doctors. It was just an ordinary little room, with a bed, a few chairs, and a rather unhelpfully strong light which shone directly on Dorrie’s face. While Rosemary was unpacking a small offering of smoked salmon, I stole a look at Dorrie’s ear. The lobe was red, but not distended: I could see no obvious lump. Perhaps there was a hard white speck in the surrounding red, but certainly nothing to distort the general shape. And anyway, I thought, if they had to do anything extensive, surely she would be in a hospital rather than in this oppressively silent place, where patients were stowed away behind doors whose cards proclaimed, ‘The Hon. Mrs X., Mr Y.’, and where the menus were so luxurious. Yet I began to long for the presence of Oscar, who must surely know more about what was going on than any of us here.

  ‘How is Oscar?’ I asked.

  ‘He’ll be here in a moment, dear.’ Dorrie smiled, as if the thought of her husband annihilated all anxiety. ‘He just went out to get a new battery for my little radio.’

  Poor Oscar, I thought, doomed forever to seek out electricians in hostile territory. There was a rattle of wheels in the corridor, and the door opened to reveal a maid with a supper tray. Immediately Janet and Rosemary got up, one to arrange pillows, the other to supervise the placing of the bed table. There was even an attempt, unbearable to my eyes, to raise Dorrie in the bed, as if she were incapable of doing so herself. So must they have played with dolls in their far-off childhood, and in turn with their baby sister, busying themselves with these important tasks that they had seen so often performed by adults. I think that they would even have spooned the soup into her mouth if she had let them. I could see that she would have to drink every drop, while they waited, their faces sharpened by anxiety, their eyes soft with love, to see if, while they so waited, her appetite had returned.

  I was glad to note that this little rite of passage was successfully negotiated. The soup, and half of the omelette, were eaten, although the hand that played with the bread roll merely picked it to pieces, and the mouth trembled slightly. But who would not be nervous here, I asked myself, my foot in a spasm of cramp, my back to a radiator. And I doubted if she had been away from home for many years, certainly never to sleep in a strange bed, and alone. If she trembled, it was surely with fear of the night to come. Women of such simplicity, and here I included her sisters, were always unarmed before the prospect of solitude, frequently expressed their alarm at noises in the night, were suspicious of strangers on their street, on their territory. It was left to my generation, and Heather’s, of course, to exert an imperviousness to risk or danger that was perhaps not entirely felt. Women have come a long way, of course: we can all be left alone at night now. But sometimes it seems a high price to pay. We can also open the door cheerfully to strangers at any hour, deal with obscene telephone calls, and mend fuses. It has never occurred to me to wish that someone else would do the locking up, leaving me free to water the plants or make a last hot drink. It has never occurred to me because I do all these things as a matter of course. But Dorrie and her sisters still belonged to the protected variety, safe to express fear, anxiety, distress. Dorrie, I could see, although the youngest, was the strongest of the three. She was so used to absorbing the objections of others that she never thought of voicing any of her own, and was perhaps the better off for that reason, was certainly easier to live with. And perhap
s she would come through this ordeal better than they would. Of course, I know one reads these terrible stories that anxiety stored is nefarious, that one should shout, scream, throw things at walls, ‘express one’s emotions’ (when? where?) in order to avoid certain conditions that I refused to think about. After all, I was in line for them myself.

  Oscar came in as Rosemary was trying to tempt Dorrie with the smoked salmon. ‘You take it, Rachel,’ she said in a disappointed voice. ‘Eat it for supper. Have you got some brown bread at home?’ That was another thing I liked about them, their concern for my next meal. Oscar bent over the bed and kissed Dorrie on the lips. She looked up at him as if all her fears had been laid to rest. ‘It’s all right, girls,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with her now. And here’s Rachel. Nice to see you, dear.’ He always noticed me, made me feel wanted. But it seemed to be the signal for us to leave, and the way that Dorrie clung to his hand made it obvious that they wanted to be alone together. They still had the air of a devoted, no, of an enamoured couple. That kiss on the lips had been fervent, exclusive of the rest of us. We rose from our chairs, as if in discretion, as if not to witness their communion. Kisses were planted on the forehead of a now placid Dorrie, scarves and gloves gathered, chairs placed back against the wall. Oscar had succeeded in turning that cruel light away from the bed and stood waiting for us to leave. The room now looked intimate, habitable. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow,’ Janet said, subdued now with the implications of the separation to come. ‘I’ll be with Rose this evening, if you want anything.’ ‘We’ll ring you later to say goodnight,’ Rosemary said, mouthing to me behind Janet’s back, ‘She worries so. Better to put her mind at rest.’ I waited politely outside the door, so that they could worry in concert for a few more minutes.