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  She had settled down once more with an audible sigh, but now her heart was thumping, somewhat out of its normal rhythm, and her hand reached out for her pills before she remembered their untoward effect. Somehow she slept, but this time it was as if she had taken everyone’s advice: ‘Why don’t you go away?’ She was shaking off her immobility, packing up as if for a long journey, but angrily, unwillingly, and yet as if she were not coming back. Huge piles of clothes had to be got into several suitcases, for before leaving on this holiday she had to move house. And there was no-one to lend a helping hand or to offer words of advice or consolation. If others knew of her plans they were discussing them out of earshot, among themselves. That was why she was so angry.

  The application of this dream to her actual situation was so easy to understand that she wondered why she had not made it earlier. But she had, she reasoned: she had made it philosophically, tolerantly, with as much amusement as she could muster. And all the time she must have felt angry, betrayed. This was unwelcome news. And there was nothing to be done about it. She might as well get up and prepare her breakfast and begin the day with her usual fortitude. ‘Be a brave soldier,’ her mother had said to her throughout her childhood, when she voiced a complaint. And, ‘Be a brave soldier,’ she had said at the end, her face white on the pillow, her lips tightening with pain. The implication was clear: there were to be no more complaints. And on the whole she had obeyed her mother’s injunction, had made it a point of honour not to weep, just as she made it a point of honour not to be late. But in truth honour belonged to the past, before the demands of society had imposed a measure of concealment, of blandness. Now she merely smiled politely. This perhaps had been the message of her dreams.

  But her anger was also significant, revealing more than her conscious mind would have allowed. To travel back down that particular route would be to engage in fruitless recriminations against the very people who had made her what she was: her friend, her husband, even her mother. Her genuine distaste for this kind of investigation proved salutary: in no time at all she was able to remember them with her customary affection. Awake, it was herself she blamed, for not being more demonstrative, for not voicing her own desires more decisively. But in order to do so she would have had to become a different person, and the very people who loved her, or who professed to love her, would not have appreciated such a show of independence. Perhaps her mother might have understood, but even her mother had thought it best to suppress complaint. It was with a powerful urge to live her life more variously that she finally surfaced. The world and all its blandishments beckoned, while her life, her dull steady life, struck her anew as being of no importance. Her attachments were arrived at all too passively, or were imposed on her, like the tiresome Steve, who was so noticeably absent. She almost admired his indifference to her hospitality, which was no more than he had perhaps come to expect. To take what others provided, without expressing gratitude, suddenly seemed to her the height of enlightened behaviour.

  These speculations conferred a chill. She was cold, physically cold, and it seemed to her that the weather, or what she could see of it on this overcast morning, was distinctly unseasonable, no weather for a wedding, although Kitty and Austin would manage to create an atmosphere of light and heat. It was their great gift, this natural extravagance. That was why they should be appreciated, should not be criticised for their habitual lack of understanding. One should simply avail oneself of their bounty, which was what they desired and expected one to do. And if one could not repay them in kind, so much the better: it was right that one should be in their debt. This was what they were for. No doubt it mattered more in life to be effective than to be polite, obedient, peaceable, all those admirable negative qualities that somehow did not secure affection. She tried to recapture her recent moment of sympathy with those who broke the rules, but on this damp morning sympathy was lacking. On the contrary, she felt wearied by the depredations of others, feared their intrusion, flinched from bolder temperaments by instinct. Somehow she had condemned herself to a life of self-effacement—or maybe others had done that? The Henry of her dream came back to her but she dismissed him, as she had never done in life. She marvelled at the slyness of the sleeping mind: all she had never dared to feel formulated, as it were, during her absence.

  She was aware of various presences, all of them phantasmal. But in the kitchen, very much in the flesh, sat Steve, drinking coffee and reading her discarded Sunday Times. ‘I thought I heard something,’ she said, conscious of her unadorned presence. ‘When did you come in?’

  ‘You must have been asleep. I didn’t leave Cheltenham till after ten, got here about two. Want some coffee? We’re out of marmalade, by the way.’

  ‘I’ll get some later. Yes, we ought to think about food. I’m not cooking for you today, Steve.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll go over to Molly’s.’

  ‘To Mrs Goodman’s.’

  He put up his hands in a propitiatory gesture. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  ‘But seriously, Steve, you ought to have some plans of your own.’

  ‘Why? Do I encroach?’ The tone was camp, inviting her to some craven complicity, and at the same time warning her off.

  ‘Yes, you do rather,’ she said calmly, aware of how unseemly an advocate she must be, in her old dressing gown. ‘If you’re to go off on holiday with Ann and David perhaps it would be best if you took some of your things over to Molly’s, to Mrs Goodman’s, today.’

  ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  ‘I hope I don’t sound unreasonable.’

  ‘You? Unreasonable?’ He looked waggishly shocked. ‘My dear Dorothea, you are reason itself.’

  He is impertinent, she thought, vaguely frightened. She moved to the stove to pour herself some coffee, aware of him, not moving, behind her.

  ‘And how were your parents?’ she asked, sitting down at the table as if this were an ordinary morning.

  ‘Bizarre, as usual.’

  ‘But very pleased to see you, I’m sure.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘How did you spend the day?’

  ‘Crashed out. Did the family lunch bit. My sister and her husband came over for tea, by which time I’d had enough.’

  ‘Yet you didn’t leave until ten.’

  ‘They had to give me the benefit of their advice, didn’t they? That took a couple of hours.’

  ‘They must be worried about you.’

  ‘I don’t see why. I’m not worried about them.’

  ‘But they haven’t seen you for quite some time …’

  ‘I rang them once or twice from David’s place. They just don’t accept that we’ve nothing in common. I feel more at home when I’m away from them. That’s what they don’t understand.’

  ‘And do you? Understand, that is?’

  ‘Look, Dorothea, I just want to get on with my life.’

  ‘Of course you do. I suppose all I’m trying to say is that it gets harder as you go on. That’s why it’s not wise to get rid of too many people. You seem to rely on David and Ann rather a lot, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t want to criticise your friendship, Steve. I just want to warn you that friendship does not automatically mean love and support. Friends do not always have your welfare at heart. That’s what your family is there for.’

  ‘Or not, in my case.’

  But she was no longer interested in him, being transported back in time to the old house, to her quiet parents and their total acceptance of her. It was the last occasion on which she was conscious of security, the real thing, not the poor substitute she cultivated in these straitened times. She wondered if she were unnatural in thinking so much of her parents and so little of her husband, until she reflected that she was old, that she was allowed to think as she pleased, that perhaps all women thought in these terms towards the end of their lives, that perhaps time itself was circular, returning her to the beginning. Perhaps it had not eve
n been as idyllic as she remembered it: she had felt symbiosis rather than extravagant love. They had not been a demonstrative family, and she had had few conversations of any depth with her father. He had died first, in the street, of a massive heart attack, while her mother, at home, waiting to pour his tea, wondered what was keeping him. In some ways it was an acceptable death, causing no embarrassment, unlike her poor mother’s face on the hospital pillow. A brave woman, following her own advice. Henry had not been brave, though suffering from the same illness. Why should he be? His was not a reticent nature. Even at the very end his expression had been one of bafflement, as if some injustice had been done, as if he should have been spared this final indignity, as if, for a man with his natural flair, this death was altogether too plebeian.

  There was one more death to come, her own. That should be instructive, she thought wryly. But there will be no witnesses, no attendants. Maybe that was the message of that last dream, the packing up. Those dreams were not about other people. Those dreams were about herself, and they were terminal.

  ‘I’m off, then,’ said Steve, offended by her sudden indifference.

  ‘What? Of course, you’re going to see David.’

  ‘I’ll probably eat there,’ he warned her, offering her a chance to make amends.

  ‘Yes, I think that would be best. Tell Molly—’

  ‘Mrs Goodman.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll ring her later. I imagine there are things we ought to discuss, about the wedding, and so on. You’ll all be going to Paris later that same day, I take it?’

  ‘I’m leaving that side of things to David.’

  ‘Remember what I said about friendship, Steve. David will have a wife to look after.’

  ‘I get on all right with Ann.’

  ‘You must do. You’ve known her how long?’

  ‘About a year.’

  ‘Well, I should just think of the whole thing as a holiday, an extravaganza, if you like.’

  ‘We’ll work something out.’

  She had annoyed him, she knew. But then she was unlikely to do anything else in her present guise, old, unkempt, unlovely. Her fantasy of being driven round Richmond Park now appeared to her as no more than that: a fantasy, and an unambitious fantasy at that. Just as well it had remained one, she thought. At some point there might have been some show of antagonism, the same antagonism as was palpable across the kitchen table. She got up abruptly, scraping her chair back. Moral discomfort invariably made her physically clumsy. Presumably his parents had given him some money. Nevertheless she asked, ‘Was there anything else you wanted? Besides the marmalade, I mean?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said, disappointed. But they were both disappointed, she reflected, turning the hot tap onto the breakfast dishes, disappointed in each other. Because this made her genuinely sad she did not turn round again until she heard the front door close behind him.

  She bathed and dressed hurriedly, ashamed of her earlier unpreparedness. Although she was only going to the shops she put on her good linen suit and a superior pair of shoes to the ones she normally wore. Then she sat down suddenly, her hands idle. She was filled with shame that she had not handled the situation better. What could she tell this young man of love and friendship? The subject was too vast, and she felt herself to be too ignorant, even after a lifetime of what now appeared to her as studious application. And something in her had wanted to win him over, to get behind the defensive smile and the intermittent mockery. For he thought her ridiculous, that was clear. There was no instinctive sympathy between them, and yet she wanted there to be. This was strange: he was hardly appealing, was far too cold for such a young person. In fact the three of them, Ann, David, Steve, made little attempt to come close. That was what was so shocking about them. Yet, despite her wish for harmony, she thought she could understand their reluctance.

  David, if anything, was even more enigmatic than Steve, with whom she still wanted to be on good terms. For what reason? His approval was irrelevant to her life, just as David was oddly irrelevant to the matter in hand: his wedding. They seemed furiously passive, that couple, contributing their bad behaviour as evidence of integrity. They objected proudly to the blandishments being offered, thereby making it possible to accept—negligently—the goods and services that had accrued. In this attitude, as in all other matters, Ann was the leader. Ann’s motives were imprecise. Perhaps she wanted to impress the wealthy David that she had family resources of her own. She had by now seen the error of her ways, since David, for all his faults, seemed genuinely unworldly, unlikely to be impressed by evidence of the Levinsons’ wealth, indeed dismayed by it. And what Ann had gained was the burden of family life, the meals, the arguments, the conversation, and above all the propinquity. It was the propinquity that was making her so bad-tempered, dealing with the presence of old people with whom she was forced to exist at close quarters. A young person’s objections to the old were likely to be overwhelmingly physical, as well as moral. Ann saw Kitty as Kitty never saw herself, stout, highly coloured, overdressed, and beyond that complicated, self-centered, self-important. She was all of those things, of course. But to her granddaughter’s unadorned state she opposed a certain knowledge, that nature must be cajoled, subdued, above all disguised. To Ann, Kitty was artful, with all that that implied to one of her scornful nature.

  In fact they were all subject to the scorn of these young people, and it was proving an uncomfortable experience. After fifteen years of more or less peaceful solitude Mrs May was now being called to account, for no particular fault that she could think of, unless it were for not being racier, more complicit. It was not that Steve had overstepped the mark in any way, although he was beginning to show signs of wanting to. The fact that they were doomed to disagree pained her, as if all she had ever wanted was some kind of endorsement that had so far been lacking.

  But why did they fail so abysmally, she wondered. Were they too selfish, too set in their ways, or were they simply hurt that these children had no need of them and made this fact so plain? Were they, Ann in particular, only too aware of their age, their uselessness? In that case why did they avail themselves so freely of what was on offer? No doubt the clean linen and the soft beds spelt out a message to them of bourgeois vanity, and they were on the defensive, knowing that they had nothing to give in return except their love, which they withheld. They were determined to move on intact, uncompromised. And that was what they would do, leaving behind a sense of anticlimax, of disappointment. And no doubt long after they had gone Kitty and Austin would be discussing their visit as if it were a landmark, even a success. In retrospect it would be seen as a success, for the young people would move on, with an agreeable sense of having bestowed their company where it was most needed. They were undoubtedly graceless, yet if time were to prove kind they would become endowed with a grace which they possessed only by virtue of their youth. And those who had been their unwilling hosts would discuss them endlessly, as if they were interesting. In that way they would wrest a sort of success from what was, after all, a fairly routine incompatibility.

  She stirred and sighed. She must do two things. She must go out and buy marmalade—and bread and butter, and eggs, and perhaps some apricots: would he like stewed apricots for his breakfast? And she must ring Molly, not because she had anything to say to her but because she had told Steve that she would. With a start she noticed that it was almost half-past ten and that she had idled away half the morning. She dialled the Goodmans’ number. She had always liked Molly, a softer creature than her powerful sister, less intelligent, more approachable. She was likable chiefly because she gave out an engaging aura of contentment, even of happiness. Peacefully married to her plump little estate agent of a husband, she seemed fulfilled in her not very demanding role. Like Kitty she was an excellent housewife, paid attention to her appearance, and, according to Henry, who teased her, was known to spend whole afternoons on her sofa, waiting for visitors, so that she could make a fuss of them. She was tearful a
nd feminine, utterly lacking in curiosity, and possessed of a simplicity which enabled her to breach normal conversational conventions. She found it natural to speak of her feelings in any company, too guileless to expect embarrassment, too guiltless to feel it. The wide ardent eyes begged indulgence, and normally received it. Her husband, with something of the same simplicity, or as much as a life in the property business had allowed him, protected her, as of right. Mrs May had a vision of them on their annual holiday, sitting on the terrace of their hotel in Bordighera, and homesick for Highgate. And in a week or two they would be there, as they were every year, although this year was different from most. This year, more than ever, they would seek the haven of each other’s presence after the departure of their unbidden guest.

  ‘Molly? It’s Thea. How are you?’

  ‘We’re very well, thank you, Thea. And yourself?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. Has my young man shown up yet? He said he was on his way to you.’

  She wondered why she used this uncharacteristically arch locution, and concluded that she and Steve were simply not on terms other than the most uneasy intimacy.