A Friend from England Read online

  Perhaps I had pitched it too high, I thought, as my spirits slowly returned in those few moments of quiet after I had locked up. Perhaps I should have spoken more gently. But by the same token, perhaps something had sunk in. One could not always temper the wind to the shorn lamb. And perhaps shorn lambs were not there to be eternally preserved in their unknowingness. Perhaps they too must take their chance in the great game. No protection, after all, was guaranteed for life. And if, in her very slowness, Heather had not reacted to my diatribe, that same slowness might ensure that in due course she would think about what I had said. It would not matter much if her opinion of me declined somewhat. I had the impression that she had never taken me entirely seriously. In which case there was no real shame attached to what had taken place. I had remained in character and so had she. I could not on that account join her in her fantasies, nor would I be expected to. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not have acted otherwise. My spirits rapidly returning to normal, I put the kettle on. I remembered that I had not eaten any lunch.

  There was no need for me to go to the hospital: one more visit, when Dorrie was convalescent, would see the matter concluded. One more telephone call was required of me that day and then I would relinquish the field, leaving them all to work out Heather’s destiny. I dialled the number of the Clinic and asked for Mrs Livingstone.

  ‘Who’s calling, please?’

  ‘Rachel Kennedy.’

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  ‘Why, no,’ I said, in some surprise. This was the first time I had encountered such formalities. ‘Just a friend.’

  ‘Mrs Livingstone is not too well. Her husband and daughter are with her. She is not allowed any other visitors.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ I interrupted. ‘Has she had her operation?’

  ‘The operation was successful, but she has a slight temperature. Perhaps you could call tomorrow.’ The telephone was put down before I had a chance to say any more.

  I sat down slowly. The kettle boiled, and I got up and turned off the gas. Then I put on my coat, picked up my bag, and left the flat.

  It was raining steadily now. I seemed to know, even at that stage, that I would not be returning home that evening. My heart was beating strongly and I wanted to walk in order to defuse my sense of alarm, but a taxi seethed along beside me and I stopped it. Waves of water seemed to part under its wheels, and the street lights had frayed whitish edges. Submerged in the taxi’s dark little cave I watched the meter, not because I thought I might not have enough money on me but because it was the only thing I could see clearly. Rain spattered diagonally on the windows and we were held up interminably at Marble Arch. Then the traffic all seemed to disappear and soon we were proceeding, much too inexorably, it seemed to me, up the dark defile of Wimpole Street.

  At the Clinic, on Dorrie’s floor, it was so silent that I seemed to hear the hum of the strip lighting. There was an oxygen cylinder outside her door. I knocked softly, and because there was no response I went in. In an instantaneous impression, the affair of a split second, I saw Dorrie under a film of plastic, her hair plastered to the sides of her face. She looked as if she were drowning.

  ‘No, no,’ said Oscar, half rising from the bed. ‘Don’t come in.’

  I retreated to the passage, putting the door between myself and that dreadful image. In that same split second I had seen Heather, sitting, in her black garments, her head bowed, holding her mother’s hand. In the half hour or so that I spent outside I seemed to see Oscar rising continually from the bed, his face grey, his arm flung out in warning, or in remonstrance. I felt returned to childhood, when my mother was ill, sensing momentous happenings behind a terrible door. It was shockingly quiet. I stayed there, leaning against the wall, until I heard footsteps. Two doctors were coming down the corridor, and simultaneously, from the lift, Janet and Rosemary appeared. They looked a hundred years old as they clung to each other for comfort.

  The door opened again, and I heard, ‘Try her with the mask.’ One of the doctors came out and summoned a porter to wheel in the oxygen cylinder. There was a brief flurry of activity, and Janet and Rosemary went into the room. In the instant before the door swung to again I saw Oscar holding the mask to Dorrie’s face. She bent forward into it as if to vomit.

  Not to be included was awful to me, and yet I knew that I had no part in this except as a witness. My part, perhaps the hardest, was to wait, alone, without news, and without the right to interfere. So I waited, which was all I could do, leaning against the wall in the corridor, sometimes walking to the end, my steps silent on the rubber floor, the humming lights my only companions. At some point Janet and Rosemary came out, in tears, and I thought it must all be over; it appeared, however, that there was a brief lull, that Dorrie was now dozing. But the outlook was grave, and they would not leave. They would not have left anyway: the problem would have been to keep them away. When a nurse appeared with a trolley full of instruments they sprang forward in alarm.

  ‘What is happening?’ cried Rosemary hoarsely. ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Mr Hill may want to perform a tracheotomy,’ was the reply, and once more the door closed.

  We stayed there all night, although night and day were one under those lights, in that silence. When the nurse came out with the trolley, she was followed by a man who had to be Mr Hill. He held up his hands, as if to ward off our questions. ‘She is very ill,’ he said flatly. ‘But she is breathing more easily. Nothing more can be done tonight. You might as well go home.’

  Suddenly I felt faint and I knew that I must get out into the air. I kissed the sisters, who embraced me fervently in return. We clasped hands, as if reluctant to part. Then I was out in the mournful street, still dark, still wet, and utterly unpeopled. I remember ploughing my way through the deserted city like a sleepwalker, and when I got home I either fell into a real sleep or passed out: a sudden descent into blackness. When I woke up it was beginning to be day but all my lights were still on. I felt quite numb but I had recovered a little energy. I remembered to make a hot drink before I started back to the Clinic.

  Incredibly, I saw a maid going into Dorrie’s room with a cup of tea. I thought this insensitive, to say the least, until I saw the smile on her face when she emerged. ‘You can go in,’ she said. ‘But don’t stay. Amazing, isn’t it.’ I went in. Dorrie lay back on mountainous pillows, sipping from a cup held to her lips by Oscar.

  ‘Rachel,’ she said. Her voice was a harsh whisper. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You had a bad night,’ I said. ‘But it’s over now. How do you feel?’

  ‘Tired.’ She turned her great eyes to me. ‘Were you here?’

  ‘Oscar and Heather were with you,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I know.’ She smiled beatifically. ‘I’m so lucky.’ Then she drifted into sleep.

  All wrongs were righted; nothing was irretrievable. I left them there and walked back to the shop in a state of extraordinary lightness. It was seven-thirty: the traffic was already building up. I had a bath, made something to eat, and went down to open the shop.

  In the days that followed it seemed as if all the unpleasantness had been a dream. Drawn back to that room in spite of myself, I was present at the joyful reunions, of sister with sister, with brothers-in-law, with nieces. Oscar and Heather were there all the time, their extreme fatigue apparent not in their faces, which were polite masks, but in their inability to say anything. I marvelled at their supreme tact; not for a moment did Dorrie know how ill she had been. As time passed, and she returned to normal, her nerves unaffected by that night when she had come so near to death and of which she had no memory, it seemed as though a general tide of euphoria were sweeping her on to full health. The room filled up once more with flowers: bottles of champagne were produced, toasts were drunk, laughter was heard. Eagerly, the sisters watched her appetite, which soon became surprisingly good. Every meal eaten was a cause for congratulation. It was just that occasionally, when she w
ould lay down her spoon, she would look round obediently, perhaps a little puzzled, and then she would catch my eye and smile. For some reason I felt like a murderer. I saw then that any infraction of the liberty of such simple people would be a form of assault. I saw then that I might have hurt Heather; not hurt her feelings, exactly, but damaged her innocence. I would have to put this right somehow, but at the same time I would have to convince her that her defection could not now take place. My part in all her plans seemed to be a nasty one, but, surely, having seen what she had seen, and having endured what she had endured, she could not now leave her mother to face her life without her, when, with her, she had managed to overcome the last enemy.

  Hollow phrases rang in my head, for I was not required to say much in that room where only compliments and euphemisms were in order. In comparison I seemed to appear to myself as a creature of blunt brute instincts, put into the world in order to point out the facts of the emperor’s new clothes: a necessary function but hardly a popular one. And yet I could not reconcile myself to merely being a silent Greek chorus: I was perfectly willing to supply the commentary, but I wanted to have some effect on the action. Unlike the others in that room, I found it enormously difficult to pretend that nothing had happened. These are the facts, I wanted to say; death comes swiftly. And it usually comes too soon, while mourning is endless. Very few can negotiate a stay of execution. The gathering of rosebuds may be recommended, but this is largely a peacetime occupation: for those who have received the warning graver considerations must obtain. I felt like that watchman in the Bible, who is supposed to blow a trumpet when danger approaches, knowing all the time that it is easy to ignore the sound, particularly when it is inconvenient, or when pleasurable expectations are aroused. It is the fate of the watchman not to be heard, but unless he does his job he has no other justification.

  I wondered how to negotiate Heather’s recall to order, which somehow had to be mingled with an apology and an excuse that I perhaps had learned too much of the world and she too little. This seemed to me imperative: I did not want any lack of consideration to lie on my conscience, but at the same time I knew that her mother would really die without her, and perhaps her father too, but die of a broken heart, that heart they had in common where Heather was concerned. I did not at the time think that any of this was melodramatic. Looking back much later I came to see it as something from the pages of a nineteenth-century novel, yet such was the power of these people, so untouched were they by the wickedness of the world, that one was drawn into their triumphs and their tragedies as if by a superior force. I suppose that they made me conscious of the loss of my own innocence, and for that reason I tried to behave well, for good behaviour was what distinguished them, and perhaps distinguished them from me. For that reason I did not want Heather to indulge in the sort of activities in which I might have caught myself. It became imperative for me to secure her continuance in the only role for which she seemed best fitted, and for which she had no doubt been born.

  When we heard that Dorrie could go home in a few days’ time, it became a matter of urgency for me to take Heather on one side. I did not relish my task, but I saw opportunities diminishing once we were no longer brought together at Dorrie’s bedside. Throughout the ordeal Heather had preserved her almost abstract politeness, had welcomed me as a visitor, even sometimes as a friend, although she was so restrained that it was difficult to tell what she really felt. It was noticeable, at least it was noticeable by me, that she made no attempt to take me aside in order to justify herself. There was no hint of a consciousness of recidivism in her behaviour. But then, I told myself, her behaviour had never given anything away, and she was too superior to drop hints. This superiority did impress me as genuine. All amiability, but an amiability which committed her to nothing, and to no one person as opposed to another, she was a tribute to her parents’ upbringing, and also to her own strength of character.

  When I finally managed to get her to myself and to propose a cup of coffee, she assented as if we had parted on the best of terms. In fact it was I who felt vaguely culpable. We walked decorously to that same café in Marylebone High Street where I had lately sat with her aunts, and I watched her anxiously as she ate two cakes with an apparently unaffected appetite. Her nervous equilibrium seemed proof against any contingency.

  ‘Heather,’ I said. ‘I wanted to tell you how marvellous I think you’ve been.’

  ‘Oh, no, not really,’ she replied. ‘I did what I had to. But it’s nice of you to say so. And nice of you to come so regularly. I know it has meant a lot to Mummy.’

  ‘It was wonderful that you managed to be here,’ I said. ‘What would have happened if you had been away doesn’t bear thinking about.’ There was a pause, during which she touched the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin. ‘You won’t be going away now, I suppose?’ I said, for this was what I was there to say.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ll still be going. Not for a couple of weeks, of course. Not until she’s properly better.’

  ‘But Heather, this is a little precipitate. She’s been very ill, you know. She may need you.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve understood me, Rachel. Of course she may need me. She may always need me. But I can’t always be here.’

  Wearily, I prepared to go all through it again. My arguments sounded stale even to me. Yet, as if to spare me, and I did at the time think that she was being remarkably forbearing, she said, ‘Don’t trouble yourself. I know what I am going to do. I always have.’

  It was the note of condescension in her voice that made me angry. I tried once more. ‘It’s not just your mother. Your father is exhausted. He can’t bear all this by himself. He is not a young man. And you really should be here for him, you know. How could they possibly manage without you?’ I thought it better not to dwell on the real reason for her decision, but I could not refrain from asking her how long she had known this Marco. If it was a brief acquaintance, then my arguments would have a certain weight; if not, then I would have to think again.

  ‘How long have you known him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, not long,’ she said. ‘In fact I only met him last month.’

  I stared at her. ‘And you’re prepared to risk your whole future, and everybody else’s, on someone you hardly know?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And live with his mother? Incidentally, why can’t your friend Chiara support her?’

  ‘Well, you see, Chiara is getting married.’ She drained the last of her coffee.

  Oh, these weddings, I thought. They are all in love with them. As soon as one marries, the next one has to: it is an affair of honour. And all weddings must be well aspected: it is the rule. This attitude seemed to me to be so benighted that I seriously thought of saying my piece all over again. But something in her face, something of her mother’s expression, stopped me. And she must be very tired, I thought. She probably isn’t very rational at the moment. I was tired myself, and Christmas loomed, which, at the shop, meant total exhaustion. She certainly wouldn’t leave before Christmas. I would have time to try again.

  TEN

  THE pre-Christmas rush passed in a blur of hard work, late nights and strained nerves. We had a good season but were all overtired by the end of it. We said a final goodbye to Eileen, who promised to help out on a part-time basis if either of us wanted to go away on holiday; then Robin went off to his sister in the country, leaving me alone in the shop on Christmas Eve. The atmosphere was mildly frenzied, and then suddenly, at about five o’clock, it went dead. Streets cleared, traffic dwindled, and only the supermarkets were doing any business. I stayed open until six, then thankfully locked up and went upstairs. I would not see Robin again until he came back for stocktaking at the end of the month.

  I slept a good deal over the holiday, waking only in time to have a bath, get dressed, and go out in the evening. I found myself enjoying this half-way existence, devoted only to sleep and amusement. So must certain women have lived in days gone by, I ref
lected, before it was decreed that hard work was to be their portion. I am not against work; I have worked hard all my life. But I found this courtesan’s deportment rather agreeable, and it seemed to me that if I had the choice, and the money, of course, I might choose not to work so hard, or rather not to choose work as my vocation. I thought to myself that if I gave it another ten years, I might well decide not to buy the shop myself but to sell my share to Robin, and just decamp, disappear, lie in the sun somewhere, out of touch, out of reach. This plan, which had so far only been a fantasy, began to take on the lineaments of reality. I could see myself putting up the sign saying CLOSED on the door and slipping away, never to reappear.

  I did not think that anyone would miss me, nor would I leave very much behind in the way of commitments. I could abandon the flat without regret, much as one leaves an hotel room at the end of a holiday. All I would need would be a ticket to the sun. After all, the beauty of my kind of life is that it can be lived anywhere. Whatever it lacks in acquisitions it makes up for in variety, in volatility, in independence. Not everyone can deal with this. Among my women friends I have noticed one or two wilting under the strain, however brave and resolute they are in pursuit of their own form of fulfilment, the kind we are told to value these days. These are the ones who would secretly have been happier sitting at home listening to Woman’s Hour, but instead are to be found on the city streets early in the morning, tapping their way along the pavement in the sort of high-heeled shoes that are supposed to go with attainment, on their way to another day with the computer, or the Stock Exchange prices, or an important presentation, or a client to be exhaustively entertained. And after a day of this they get to meet their friends in a wine bar, where, over a bottle of Frascati, they decide where to go for the evening. Their talk resembles the after-hours conversation of men. ‘What a day I’ve had!’ they cry to each other. ‘I’m exhausted! You have no idea how the market is behaving at the moment. I’ve had New York on the line all day.’ Bravely they will decide to eat out, although waiters still dislike women diners on their own: they are thought to be a dubious advertisement, spreading the contagion of bad luck around them, not qualifying for the full treatment. Waiters also dislike the plastic swathe of dry cleaning left in the cloakroom, but this has had to be picked up in the lunch hour, otherwise there can be no power dressing for the following day.