Falling Slowly Read online

  Get a grip, he told himself, as the English did. The phrase had convulsed him with mirth when he had first heard it, and he had only to say, gruffly, ‘Get a grip, Michael,’ for his elder brother’s solemn face to relax into a smile. Now it was a reminder to stay alert, to fit in. But in fact he felt more German these days, hankered after German food, roast goose, fish in aspic, a simple supper of smoked meats, pale tea in fragile Japanese cups, like the ones in the cabinet at home. There was little of that on offer in the expensive restaurants he had been used to frequent, and in Monaco, in the hotel in which he had first taken up residence, his stomach had been revolted by the stagy cuisine. Cooking for himself was even more of a problem, and he had had to rely on the local traiteur, had eaten too many dubious pâtés and terrines which he always feared might poison him. This had some bearing on his decision to return to England, although there was no one to cook for him in England now that Addie was in the nursing home. She too had reverted to type, conversed with the other ladies, had her hair done regularly, enjoyed an occasional game of cards. Or so he supposed. His money, fortunately, guaranteed her decent company: decent company, in these matters, did not come cheap. And Michael seemed quite content to live on brown rice and raw apricots, extolled the virtues of his rudimentary diet, which indeed seemed to keep him fit. In summer he walked the streets in an old pair of shorts and an aertex shirt, vowed he had never felt better. Yet he looked like the old man he had turned into, seemed grimly pleased to have grown old so successfully, looked back to the old days, perhaps, only in Addie’s company. Darling Addie, cherished daughter, photographed as a child with ethereal, almost transparent eyes, now probably a reserved matron, on good nodding terms with everyone, much esteemed by the staff … Addie, he thought, would be glad to see him. Most of the visiting had been left to the laconic Michael, while he, Max, had gone on being enthusiastic to strangers. He had been all hilarity, when what he yearned for was a quiet Sunday evening in his old home, with his sister playing the piano, and his mother’s face smooth with contentment.

  He retrieved his luggage and joined the queue for taxis. An unwelcoming time of the year, late winter, and no sign of spring. Briefly, he regretted the sun. Even more unsettling was the fact that he had no home to go to, would have to stay with Michael in his flat off the Bayswater Road. Michael was not known for his sense of comfort, would almost invariably keep the heating switched low, or indeed not switched on at all. In one of Michael’s kitchen cupboards he had once counted ten screwtop jars full of nails, the purpose of which was never revealed. He would make the best of it, of course, would look for something as soon as the agencies opened on the following morning. He half-hoped that there might be an empty flat in Michael’s building, which would save a lot of trouble. This one he would barely furnish; he knew he had no taste, had always relied on Harrods in the past. This flat would have bare white walls and the minimum of furniture, a good table and chairs, a good bed. After all, he did not intend to entertain.

  ‘So,’ Max said heartily, as he put his bags down in Michael’s hallway. ‘Nu?’ he had nearly said, but in fact he only said this to English clients, who thought it quaint. He then stepped forward and embraced his brother, who slowly responded.

  ‘You’ve had lunch?’

  ‘On the plane.’

  ‘Then we’d better get off. Addie knows you’re coming.’

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Cakes. She loves cakes. I take them every day, for her tea.’

  ‘You’re well placed for taxis here,’ he remarked, replacing his signature Tyrolean hat.

  ‘I usually take the bus. It’s only half an hour.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you like.’ For, he remembered, he had also sold his car. ‘I’m quite rich, you know,’ he said sharply.

  ‘Good,’ was the reply. ‘Pity it’s raining. You won’t see the park at its best.’

  From the bus London looked mournful, as he remembered it from Sundays past. This homecoming was not as he had pictured it. He was tired, irritable; he wanted a hot bath. The bus itself was crowded, the passengers brooding and morose. He had not wanted this excursion. He had wanted a welcome of sorts, as he was used to being welcomed by those who had formerly solicited his company, his bustling competence. Now at last he knew that those days would never come again, that he was just another old man whom nobody knew. He had until now avoided such reflections. Even Monaco had served his purpose in this, since the life he had lived there was factitious, almost without importance. Now, in his damp overcoat and his jaunty hat, he came face to face with the facts of age, of anonymity. He had few friends who were not convinced of their own importance, and in any case what would he say to them? He would sound querulous, plaintive; they would be shocked, would shake their heads when he left, would think him sadly diminished, as indeed he was. His memories faded in the light of this new reality, new to him, at any rate, though not to Michael, who was looking out of the window as if the scene were of more than passing interest. But Michael had always managed without company, lived stoically, no longer looked to life for romance, if indeed he ever had. Max became aware of a vast difference between them, whereas on the plane he had had an overwhelming image of closeness. And Addie might not have forgiven him for his long absence, might, out of pique, treat him like a stranger, when what he wanted was to be admitted once again to her devotion. He was uneasily aware of outsider status, the rich absent brother whose money paid for her comforts but whose life went on elsewhere, in a place which held no interest for her. Her reality now was one room, her company that of strangers. He might even be forced to accept these conditions for himself one day. And no doubt Michael would visit him, and bring him little treats, but with a look of scepticism on his face, as if the long absent brother had hardly deserved them.

  The nursing-home was reassuring, or would have been if not for an underlying smell of age and – dare he think it? – incontinence. The first thing he noticed about Addie was that she looked exactly like his mother. The second thing he noticed was that she did not rise from her chair to greet him. As he leaned over her to kiss her he noticed gratefully that she smelt only of scent. He cursed himself for having brought no offering; he should have filled a bag at the airport. She looked presentable, even decorative, except that the dress she wore was of viscose, for easy cleaning. On the back of the door hung an ugly pink dressing-gown, quite uncharacteristic of her fastidious taste. Visited in her flat in Edgware Road he had always found her lovingly pleased to see him. Now, however, she seemed more interested in Michael’s box of cakes.

  He was puzzled by her apparent indifference, had thought she would understand why he had wanted to spend his retirement in the sun. But apparently he was not to be forgiven, and they were not to reminisce about the old days. He wondered if she were losing her memory, if she were in fact ill, turned away for a moment, his face convulsed with shock. Her decision to enter the nursing-home had originally seemed a matter of convenience pure and simple; she knew one or two of the women there, and the upkeep of the flat had become too much for her after her elderly maid had retired. He had thought this rational, sensible at the time. Now he was not so sure. What if she had detected a hidden menace and had said nothing of it to him? He had gladly disbursed monies, had been relieved that she would be cared for, had not suspected that there was anything amiss. But she had still not moved from her chair, had expressed no interest in him. He was appalled at this dereliction, searched her face for a clue to her feelings, but she was placid, almost tranquil. She held the box of cakes in her hands, waited for Michael to ring the bell for tea …

  But she was only seventy-three, he reasoned; there was no need for this surrender. He should have insisted that she stay in the flat, should have found staff for her, nurses, if necessary. This was what he was good at, the deploying of services, arrangements. Despite himself he felt a twinge of resentment. Was this how they thought of him, as one whose money would ease their difficulties? It was true that the
y had never asked him for anything, but then they had never needed to; he thought ahead for them. Just as he had telephoned his mother two or three times a day when he was a young man, to discover what she needed, he had anticipated other needs, had carried over that faculty into his professional life. He thought of his busy office, of the telephones ringing, of his own good humour, of the secretaries spoiling him, and then with a wrench faced the reality of this room, of the ugly pink dressing-gown hanging on the back of the door (it should have been in the bathroom, he realized, as it would have been at home), and of the sight of Addie complacently eating her way through Michael’s cakes, a crumb at the side of her mouth. When her head drooped forward he ran to the bell, alarmed. A nurse appeared, the first person in uniform he had seen. ‘She’s a little tired today,’ said the nurse cheerfully, removing the box from Addie’s hands. ‘Say goodbye now, dear.’ Addie roused herself, smiled dreamily. ‘Max!’ she said. ‘Give me a kiss.’ As if he had just come in.

  They said nothing on the way home, until he broke the silence. ‘Is she ill?’ he asked fearfully.

  ‘Alzheimer’s,’ replied Michael. ‘Nothing to be done. But you saw for yourself, she’s quite happy. She’s in the best place.’

  ‘She hardly knew me.’

  ‘Well, she hasn’t seen you for some time, has she?’

  The reproach – but it was hardly a reproach – hung in the air. What has happened to my life, thought Max; how has it ended so quickly, so abruptly? Tomorrow he must look for a flat as soon as possible, must move into an hotel if necessary. But he no longer had the panache, the self-sufficiency for hotel living; he saw himself walking the streets until such time as he could decently go back to his room. Michael might even be hurt, although, being Michael, would say nothing. Yet his feelings too must be taken into account. Apparently he had given offence by leaving, and yet it had seemed the appropriate thing to do. And stylish; he owed it to himself to continue to behave with style. He had always pictured himself with a vast audience of admirers. Perhaps it was the audience that was missing? Without witnesses how would he continue to be Max?

  For their dinner, in deference to his brother’s gourmet tastes, Michael produced a dish of pasta with a little cheese grated over it. Max ate it humbly. His one anxiety was to have done with this terrible day, to lie in bed, returned to his own imaginings. Those fragile Japanese cups in the china cabinet, the statue of Beethoven, the Casino gardens … The bedroom was chilly but tiredness soon overcame him. Tomorrow he would put everything right: was he not good at that? The flat first of all; in his own four walls everything would seem more normal. A home, he realized, had been in his thoughts all along. He had merely been mistaken in thinking of the homes he had lost. The future was what mattered now, while he still had some hold on it.

  On impulse, the following day, after Michael had gone to his club to play bridge, Max picked up the receiver, made a few calls, was momentarily restored to his laughing joking self. Then he made the call he had been intending to make all along.

  ‘Beatrice? It’s Max here. How are you? Are you at home this evening? I’ll look in, shall I? No, no, nothing to eat. Just a chat about old times. Until this evening, then. Goodbye, dear.’

  9

  ‘Darling,’ she said experimentally, but he was asleep and did not hear.

  After a minute she was glad of this. She was afraid of being thought intemperate. On the way to Bryanston Square she had picked up a bunch of anemones, as an adjunct to the asparagus quiche she had bought earlier. This had seemed to her inadequate, unappetizing, and would have to be eaten cold as there was no time or opportunity to prepare the meal properly. With a nagging sense of haste she wished she could for once have dispensed with these arrangements. When she presented the flowers, with a carefully mock affectionate gesture, he had raised an eyebrow, smiled quizzically, and said, ‘I don’t think we have any vases here.’ The flowers lay on the kitchen table, together with the food. She knew that they would still be there when she left.

  This gesture had been totally out of character, and therefore unwelcome. She knew, or rather was aware, that to be acceptable she had to obey certain rules, to stay within certain limits. And yet she wanted to endow him in some way, to let him know that he had shown her a life she had never known, in comparison with which the restrictions of their affair had no importance. The formality into which she had learned to retreat now seemed to her regrettable, no longer in order. Yet that was the moral stance she had taken all her life, an essential protection against alarm, in a life which until now had delivered few treats. But this was where common sense broke down. In default of that moral stance she had, she thought, little to offer. If he continued to appreciate her it was because she withheld so much, and into that category came endearments as well as judgements. She was aware of vast inadequacies, but on her side, not on his. He had only to mention his family of brothers and close cousins, usually in the context of something hilarious they had said or done, some journey one of them had made, some celebration that had taken place, for her to feel sad that it was not possible for her to respond appropriately, for she had no one whose words or actions gave her own a certain weightiness. Not for the first time she felt discomfort on behalf of the poor remnants of her own past. Her parents she no longer considered with anything other than a tired irony. What was much worse was that Beatrice, whom she loved, was beginning to resemble their mother, not only physically, in certain gestures, but in her refusal to regulate her own disappointments. Obstinately sitting in the flat all day, more or less idle, Beatrice seemed determined to let time pass without incident, whereas Miriam knew that this danger above all was to be avoided.

  What she loved about Simon was his pleasure, his natural effervescence. After a life of minimal satisfactions she discovered, marvelling, that it was possible to be confident, expectant, at ease. Or rather that it was possible for Simon to be all of these things. If one is unaware of fatality it is possible to delight in happy accidents. That was her status, and it suited him perfectly. She supposed that she was an ideal mistress, tactfully present, just as tactfully absent; she also knew that the condition of a mistress was somehow subject to deterioration, that there came a time when reproaches would be aired, or an unseemly curiosity would surface. She was tormented by thoughts of what she did not, could not know: his life away from her. His work she did not take seriously, for it posed no threat. It was his leisure that was so markedly different from her own. Indeed she hardly had any leisure these days; when not at the Library she was involved in a semblance of domesticity, devising light meals that could be easily transported and eaten hastily after they had repaired their disorder. She was naturally fastidious, and a brief shower seemed inadequate preparation for an afternoon of sober study.

  Except that sober study was hardly the order of the day, had been overtaken by an inordinate restlessness which applied to almost everything, and, by extension, to everyone, including, sometimes, Simon himself. When a stranger had greeted her in St James’s Square and had looked puzzled when his greeting was not immediately registered, it had taken her several seconds to realize that it was the man in the park, Rivers, who was both smiling and frowning at her. Ashamed, she had turned back to him and apologized, had smiled herself, had blamed her absent-mindedness. ‘Work, you know,’ she had offered as an excuse, but it was not true. However untrue, she knew that he would accept it, simply because he lived in a normal world with a normal timetable, in which work was the principal interest of the day. She had detected no waywardness in his pleasant features, nothing to suggest a life bounded by one particular and wholly significant other. In this she measured their incompatibility, without ever knowing a thing about him other than his name.

  She was conscious of his eyes on her back, shrugged off his attention irritably, almost ran up the stairs to the Reading Room. Quite simply no other man could compare; there was no room in her life for more than one person. She was in no doubt that this situation was extremely danger
ous. She accepted the fact that she was marked for life, and at the same time deplored such insights, tried to work up some criticism of Simon’s insouciance, his acceptance of her extremely careful planning – of which he knew nothing, she reminded herself – of the restrictions under which she was obliged to manoeuvre. If he loved her it was because she fitted in with his arrangements; if he loved her it was because she pressed his face against her throat when he felt rueful, out of favour. She knew that these moments were authentic, that in such a charmed life they would feel unbearable. Nothing would have prepared him for regret, bewilderment; his sunny nature was its own defence. She also knew never to speak of such matters, to let the moment pass, and when she judged that it had passed to be as practical and as noncommittal as ever, to vanish, always tactfully, to the bathroom, and to repair to the kitchen to prepare her offering. How sad these moments seemed, when the rules of good behaviour had once more to be observed! Nor did she crave expressions of sentiment, of attachment. She was aware that her feelings ran higher than his own, and therefore must be masked. To offend his sense of ease would be fatal, yet sometimes, in the course of a sleepless night, she would be aware of a whole repertory of hurt feelings, of which she was ashamed. There was no possible reason for him to feel guilty, or for her to feel resentful. What they enjoyed belonged to that category that was not susceptible to argument, to rationalization. This was the very negation of a love affair such as the world approves and which conducts its business beneath indulgent eyes; this was not the sort of affair that leads to an honourable estate. Rather it was its opposite: essentially lawless. Even if she knew him only in one circumstance her knowledge of that circumstance was total. In this she knew she could not be deceived.