A Closed Eye Read online

  ‘That blue suits you,’ said Dawn stoutly.

  ‘Not too much?’ she queried. ‘I don’t want to look overdressed. Mary was always very chic. Although Tessa always managed to look better, as if she’d taken no trouble, as if she didn’t need to bother.’

  Many worried glances were cast in the mirror before she took her gloves and opened the door. On an impulse she went back and left the gloves behind. Gloves were what matrons wore.

  But the others looked older too, she saw with surprise. Seated at the table they eyed each other comprehensively and without indulgence. Mary was exquisite, certainly, although with a certain air of contrivance now, but Pamela’s life in the country had given her a harsh flush. Tessa, by contrast, was pale, thin, abstracted and hectic by turns. Their husbands, Harriet noted, they referred to unselfconsciously, with a certain indifference, as if they had written them off. Could have done better, they seemed to imply. Mary, composedly, admitted to having a lover.

  ‘But how do you manage?’ asked Pamela, who seemed affronted, not by the fact of Mary’s having a lover so much as by the fact that, stuck on the farm, she found so little opportunity for having one herself.

  ‘One can always manage if one wants to,’ replied Mary, winking at Tessa. ‘Anyway, be faithful to a man? Why should I? Why should any woman?’

  This is exactly what Freddie was afraid of, thought Harriet, laying down her fork. She had a moment of lucidity, seeing them not as glamorous friends she had once envied but as harder and more practised than herself. Perhaps they are right, she thought, in a moment of exceptional discouragement. I cannot claim to be any better. I have often been bored by Freddie, although I have never done what seems to be the norm today. Perhaps the opportunity has simply never presented itself.

  ‘How’s Jack?’ she asked, one thought leading to another.

  ‘He’s in London, actually,’ said Tessa, who was not eating much either. ‘He’s at Judd Street. In fact I sent him off there. I’ve had some sort of bug. I didn’t think he’d like to see me throwing up all the time.’

  ‘Not pregnant, I hope?’ queried Pamela.

  Tessa smiled. ‘Not much chance of that, is there?’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘I mean he’s hardly ever around, is he?’ She yawned convulsively, and pushed her plate away. ‘Excuse me for a minute, would you? I feel a bit queasy.’

  There was a moment’s silence after she had disappeared.

  ‘Is she all right?’ asked Harriet, appealing to the other two. ‘She doesn’t look it. I noticed it when she came in.’

  ‘I thought you saw her all the time?’

  ‘Well, no, not now that Lizzie’s old enough to go home by herself. I haven’t seen her for two or three weeks, as a matter of fact. But I’m sure she’d have told me if there were anything wrong.’ She felt alarmed and at fault, as if her function, which she had once assumed so gladly, was to protect Tessa, who suddenly appeared to be without protection, almost fragile.

  ‘She’ll be okay, she’s as tough as a horse. I’m going to have some of that apple tart, and blow the diet. Hattie? Come on, don’t look so glum. I adore that suit, by the way.’

  Tessa, looking pale, came back, sat down, and averted her eyes from the abandoned plates. She was a bad, greyish colour. Something is wrong, thought Harriet, with a stab of fear. Aloud she said, ‘Do you want to go home? I’ll take you, shall I? You probably ought to be in bed.’

  The others looked up enquiringly. This was not how their lunches usually progressed.

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ said Tessa, forcing a smile. ‘I’m so sorry. Too silly. Lovely to see you both.’ Tears stood in her eyes. Harriet, with a feeling of distress which she knew or thought was quite disproportionate, guided her through the restaurant, a hand under her arm. Out in the air Tessa swayed a little. ‘I’ve been awfully sick,’ she said fretfully.

  ‘Can you walk? The air might do you good. Take it slowly. It’s not far.’

  They walked slowly, heads down, along the road, which seemed endless, full of hooting cars and women with prams and shopping bags.

  ‘I must have eaten something,’ Tessa claimed, in the same fretful, almost querulous tone.

  Strange, thought Harriet. I have never known her like this. Or has she altered and I not noticed it? In Beaufort Street, reached after a largely wordless, and to Harriet endless interval, in the course of which Tessa had bumped against her, as if no longer capable of steering her own course, she took charge of the key and inserted it thankfully into the door of the flat. ‘Home at last,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, God,’ cried Tessa, in naked panic, and ran for the bathroom.

  Harriet waited outside the door, listening to the terrible sounds. A doctor, she thought; I must get a doctor. But when Tessa emerged she was calmer, very pale, very quiet, almost sad, distant.

  ‘I don’t need a doctor,’ she said. ‘I’m all right now. Only if you could have Lizzie tonight? I’d rather like to be on my own.’

  ‘But you can’t …’

  ‘Yes, I can. I must.’

  They looked at each other, as if what had taken place were too shameful, too distressing to be shared, or to be admitted to normal conversation, as if it must somehow be contained. They both sat in the room which continued to look careless, uninhabited. They said nothing. After a while Harriet took Tessa’s hand and held it. Perhaps five minutes passed, perhaps ten. ‘I’m all right now,’ said Tessa finally. ‘You’d better go. Tell Lizzie … Tell her I’m going out. Tell her I’m fine.’ She gazed at the window, tears again in her eyes. ‘Tell her I’m absolutely fine,’ she said. ‘She can come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Should I ring Jack?’ asked Harriet, knowing the answer.

  ‘No, no, I’m all right. I’ll go to bed. You go, Hattie. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  ‘She’s not going to sleep in my room, is she?’ asked Immy, with an exaggerated expression of distaste.

  ‘Of course she is. Don’t be so rude. I hope you’re not going to let Miss Wetherby hear you talking like that.’

  She had already let Dawn’s basement to a Miss Wetherby, an elderly, placid, slightly deaf woman who had been a nanny at a foreign embassy. Although past retiring age she had consented to perform supervisory duties when necessary in return for a token rent, which she could well afford on her pension. She appeared to be satisfied with the arrangement, although it was a little difficult to be sure of this. Miss Wetherby had a certain authority, which showed in her absolute failure to return winning or placatory smiles. When introduced to Imogen she had produced nothing more than a judicious look and a dry outstretched hand. Yet she was kindly, and without pretension: Harriet, paying a visit to the basement to see if Miss Wetherby had everything she needed, had found herself in a world of stored knitting patterns, tea cosies, and plastic watering cans. ‘So lovely to have a home of my own after all those years abroad,’ she murmured; contrary to most deaf people she spoke very softly. ‘I hope you won’t mind babysitting for us,’ Harriet had said. ‘It’s only until she goes away to school next year. And then in the school holidays, of course.’ Miss Wetherby inclined her good ear, which gave her the air of a medium. ‘I’m sure you’ll get along,’ Harriet had added. She did not see how anyone could fail to get along with so mild a person as Miss Wetherby. Yet the mildness was deceptive. Imogen was slightly afraid of her, until she found out that she could say things without Miss Wetherby overhearing them. ‘I was just saying what a lovely day it was,’ she would explain, when Miss Wetherby’s face turned in her direction. Miss Wetherby, choosing to appear deceived, held Imogen in check by allowing an unfavourable verdict to be implied in her attitudes and movements: criticism was immanent, never voiced. The level eyes, the pale conventual face, the unhurried, slightly arthritic walk, although easily imitated, nevertheless exacted a certain respect.

  ‘Which yoghourt would you like, Lizzie? Pineapple or apricot?’

  For it seemed important to let the poor child have some sort of
a choice, although she was so stoical that it was hard ever to detect disappointment. She had not asked where her mother was, but seemed to accept whatever conditions were decreed for her by others. Why was she so remote? There had been no major dereliction: her parents were unusual, but not delinquent. Was it that she needed more love than anyone had yet given her, and was too proud ever to demand it? In which case the road ahead of her was bleak, for few people gave too much affection, or more than they could spare from their closely guarded hoard, and the child had no pretty ways, of the sort that attract the indulgence of others. Her gaze was now normal, and indeed had become strangely uncompromising, not unlike Miss Wetherby’s, but she was a pale little creature, thin, colourless, scrupulous, but not forthcoming. Her responses were obedient, no more. She seemed to be harbouring thoughts beyond her years. Her attitude to Imogen was now one of wariness; what had earlier seemed almost like contempt was circumscribed by caution. She accepted the fact that she must endure her company (for Immy would be the only person she knew when they went away to school, an event she anticipated with horror) while giving the impression that she was reserving her opinion. Harriet she submitted to, without a great deal of emotion. The one person she really liked was Miss Wetherby.

  ‘You can watch television for half an hour after you’ve had your tea,’ said Harriet. She did not normally allow this, but found herself unable to cope with them, slightly unwell. I must have the same thing that Tessa has, she thought. This effectively neutralized the more serious suspicion that Tessa was ill, and not only ill but in the grip of some strange withdrawal, which she could not penetrate. Why that withdrawal, which was almost silent? For a malaise which, however unpleasant, was surely routine, the sort of thing from which one had suffered as a child, and which returned as an odd reminder in later life? Was it because of the recalcitrant, the ever-troublesome Jack? Of course, she is upset; Jack has upset her, as usual. And a touch of food poisoning, no doubt; she was never very careful about what she ate. And the state of that flat … But I wish there were someone with her. This thought tormented her until she remembered that Jack was, after all, in town, as were her other friends. There was no need to think of herself as indispensable. She would go round in the morning. Or perhaps she would telephone first. Ridiculous to feel this apprehension. Nevertheless, when Freddie came home she embraced him ardently, surprising him. His eye dwelt on her appreciatively, as they sat over dinner. Oh no, that was not what I meant at all, she thought. Or did I? I no longer know: that is what I have come to. In Freddie’s arms she trembled slightly, for many obscure reasons, and then fell, with deep gratitude, and almost as great perplexity, into sleep and dreaming.

  ON WAKING, these cold mornings, she had a cowering feeling of dismay, as if she had been ordered into a life not of her choosing. Nothing in the pattern of the day before her warranted such dread anticipation. Immy was well, and had apparently accepted Miss Wetherby, of whom she was still the slightest bit afraid: Freddie was well, but morose these days, only permitting himself an occasional smile, and not always in response to one of her own. It occurred to her to wonder whether he might have a mistress somewhere. She would not have blamed him. She knew that she had not turned out to be entirely satisfactory. She envisaged a plump smiling woman, rather dyed about the hair, with a maternal bosom and swelling hips, given to fussy dressing and floral scents, an Edwardian sort of woman, not averse to a slap on the buttocks and other, similar, gestures. Just why the fastidious Freddie should have to do with such a woman, if she existed, she would not have been able to say; she only knew that she had failed to encompass his anxieties, being too harassed, or too self-questioning herself. She had no idea what Freddie did with his day. She only knew that he liked to lunch, alone, at his club, perhaps joining a friend afterwards for a moment’s conversation. She supposed that the vulgar friendly woman of her imagination could be fitted in some time after lunch, as a digestif, after which he would be both relieved and gloomy, in the manner of well-meaning adulterous husbands, unable to take the thing lightly, yet determined not to take it at all seriously. She felt no animus against Freddie for this imaginary liaison—if it existed—but rather a certain guilt on her own behalf, not for alienating Freddie, but in fact for having always kept him at a distance, where she felt most comfortable with him, her own thoughts and sentiments—dissatisfactions, too—inviolate, and, she hoped, not perceived.

  For if Freddie had a mistress, which was extremely unlikely, given his utterly predictable behaviour, the clumsiness of his occasional ardour, the lost look she sometimes saw in his eyes, the general prudence of his utterances, she would be the last person to accuse him. She knew that he thought her half-hearted, caring more for the child than she had ever done for himself, proud of and exasperated by the house and by her general respectability, tempted, perhaps unconsciously, by a freedom she had never known. Docile no longer, practical and competent, rather, preoccupied with the child and its well-being, only half attentive to himself. She knew this to be true, whether it had entered Freddie’s mind or not. She felt the temptation of resentment hovering over him, although she was technically innocent. Why disaffection had entered her house she did not entirely know, but put it down to his acknowledgement of her complete lack of marital desire. She now found his overtures alarming, and sad. It was as if the birth of her daughter had restored her to virginity. Pinned down by his heavy body, she found herself gasping for air, and afterwards, when she was allowed to sleep, felt nothing but loneliness. After a rest, which always seemed too brief, she would stir awake with that sense of haplessness, even panic, as if the night had been impossibly short, too short to contain all the reflections she had reserved for those silent hours, in the hope of arriving at some resolution.

  It was not resolution of conflict that she sought: there was no conflict. Simply some pointer to the way ahead, as if she had an exceptionally difficult problem to solve. Then she would get up and have her bath and dress, and the feeling would disperse. And once she had prepared the breakfast (missing Dawn on these occasions) and tried to subdue Immy in order to give Freddie a bit of peace, and usually failing, she was quite glad when they both left and she was really alone. Now that Dawn was gone, Freddie sometimes took Immy to school in his car; at other times Miss Wetherby officiated. Lizzie made her way independently, sometimes driven by Tessa, sometimes trudging on her own. They saw less of Lizzie these days. She was capable of going straight home on her own, and she preferred to. For a child of eight she was oddly mature.

  My daughter is all I desire, thought Harriet, resting in the early afternoon, and yet somehow I desire more. For in this brief hour, on her sofa, she freed her imagination from its usual restraints and thought of another life, other lives. Lives lived in perpetual sunshine, not this meagre light, and, yes, that was it, just two of them. But here imagination let her down, for although she knew it was not Freddie at her side, she could not quite see her companion, or rather could not formulate him, since she was free to make him up. He bore a resemblance to Jack Peckham, but this was fortuitous, since the Jack Peckham character, the ruthless faceless lover, had been present in her thoughts before the real Jack Peckham had ever been encountered. She thought it strange that an obedient woman like herself should have fantasies of such strangeness and such intensity, yet she also knew that with such a partner she would no longer be obedient, but powerful, irresistible, even. And all in that sunshine, somewhere far away, just the two of them, with no relatives, no friends, and no need of either. In these moods, in the half doze of early afternoon, she disposed of her present life, and substituted for it the life of the imagination, for which nothing in her experience or her reading had prepared her. Outwardly calm, but inwardly amazed at herself, she would rise, and see to her face, and go downstairs to prepare Immy’s tea. Sometimes, very occasionally, Lizzie would turn up, without explanations. Harriet would scrutinize the child’s face, to see if Jack were present there. Fortunately, there was no trace. This was a relief to her. I
t is not Jack I want, she thought. It is someone like Jack, but someone of my very own. That way there would be no guilt. For guilt she could not endure.

  ‘How is Mummy?’ she asked Lizzie, on one of the occasions when the child was present. ‘I haven’t seen her lately. And she seems to be out whenever I telephone.’

  Lizzie observed her usual pause when directly addressed.

  ‘All right,’ she said finally.

  ‘Can I wear your pearls?’ interjected Immy.

  ‘No, of course you can’t. Besides, I am wearing them.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re old. You’re too old to wear them.’

  A beautiful child, more precious than life itself, Harriet reflected. But occasionally taxing.

  ‘Perhaps Mummy and Daddy would like to come to dinner while Daddy is in London?’ she went on. ‘You could stay overnight, in Immy’s room. Would you like that?’

  Lizzie maintained a prudent silence.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Immy rudely.

  The invitation was accepted, with some surprise, and—or did she imagine it—with a hint of something like amusement. Harriet found herself excited and daunted. To have Jack Peckham under her roof brought her dangerously near to fantasy, yet what could be more sedate, more bourgeois than an intimate dinner party in Wellington Square? On reflection, she decided against inviting any of Freddie’s colleagues, sedate bourgeois persons like themselves, and although civilized and knowledgeable, elderly. She did not dare risk boring Jack. It occurred to her, while she was dressing, that Tessa knew something of her fascination with Jack, although she had always been careful, she thought, to hide it away, to reserve it for her most private moments. Slowly, as this sank in, she felt herself blush, put up her hand to shield her face. Then she resolutely turned to herself in the mirror, saw the mark on her jaw brilliantly infused with colour, and realized that she was a middle-aged woman, never very exciting, now positively dull, an old friend, and, she hoped, a good friend, worthy enough to take care of the children, to serve up a decent daube of beef, to observe (yes, that surely was permitted), but to observe in a spirit of detachment, as befitted an old friend, one who still valued the ties of friendship (overvalued them, perhaps) and would comport herself with dignity to the very end. The end of what, she wondered, then heard the doorbell ring, and hurried down the stairs.