Strangers Page 18

  He made his way down a populous street, where a market appeared to be taking place. This was, or seemed to be, a wealthy district: of the legendary turbulence of the outer suburbs there was no sign or suspicion. The spectacle was absorbing. He envied those who lived within reach of such plenty, such easy exchange. His present displacement was oddly satisfying, so that what was in reality lack of purpose was no longer a burden. He put this down to the benign weather, the absence of cloud, but in fact it had more to do with this street, the feeling of being off-centre, away from the nominal heart of Paris. He wondered if he might stay here rather than in the rue Madame. It would be a matter of half an hour, merely, to retrieve his bag. He looked around for an hotel, and saw one. It seemed, from the outside, pleasant enough. But this was not it, not it at all. Another solution must be found. Only if that solution escaped him would he admit defeat.

  He was tiring once again. He left this entirely congenial place and wandered without direction, almost reconciled to the knowledge of his impermanence. He found himself in a small quiet street, the rue Berton, he noted. On a discreet grey façade he saw a small plaque: Pension Franklin. At that moment the door opened and a pleasant middle-aged woman emerged, wished him ‘Bonjour’, and hurried away. He pushed open the door into a silent lobby, looked around, waited for someone to appear. This, he thought, might be acceptable. For a week, for a month, maybe for longer.

  ‘Vous désirez une chambre?’ enquired a voice. He came out of his reverie to find himself addressed by a man of his own age, formally dressed, and carrying a newspaper, a man not unlike himself on a good day. This must be the manager, or perhaps the owner, though there was no hint of any commerce involved.

  ‘Une chambre? Oui, peut-être. Mais je dois partir ce soir. Je vous téléphonerai de Londres.’

  ‘Comme vous voulez.’

  He hesitated. ‘La nuit porte conseil,’ said the man, handing him a card. And indeed the previous night, that night without dreams, had delivered something of a verdict. In the absence of any other he accepted this as a sign.

  26

  Home, as Philip Larkin memorably observed, is so sad. It stays as it was left. He looked round his flat, at the books he would never read again, mute testimonies to former enthusiasms. A tap dripped in the kitchen. He would have to do something about that, which meant his usual polite pleas to the caretaker, who was always doing something somewhere else, and to whom he would have to deploy his usual interested enquiries, masking his request behind a show of interest in the man’s activities. There were books, more books to be taken back to the London Library, laundry to be dealt with, supplies of a sort to be bought, the newspapers, which he had forgotten to cancel, to be disposed of. And Sarah’s keys to be returned: that was his most pressing obligation, the one he was most eager to discharge. The image of that yellow house, mutely inhospitable, obstinately silent, repelled him even more than it had done when he had locked the door behind him. It spoke of activities which he had no desire to investigate, had a history which excluded him entirely. He felt retrospectively annoyed that he had allowed himself to be pressed into service. More so than at any other time, perhaps, he deplored his own disposition, his loyalties, even his desire for friendship. But if he were to move, to act on his wager, that desire might be renewed.

  He found Sarah in the position in which he had left her, apparently immobile in her ugly red room. He was aware of a change in her appearance, put it down to the fact that her hair was less cared for than usual, that the grey was now dominant. She saw him looking at her, gave a weary smile, put her hand to her head.

  ‘I couldn’t quite face the hairdresser,’ she said. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘I could take you, if you want to make an appointment.’

  ‘All those women chattering. I don’t think so.’

  ‘At least let me take you out for coffee. You should get some air.’

  She glanced out of the window. ‘Not very tempting, is it? It looks like rain.’

  It was indeed grey, warm but humid. The weather forecaster, to whom he had listened before leaving the flat, was indomitably cheerful, though promising heavy showers. Soldier on, seemed to be the message.

  ‘You didn’t feel like staying, then?’

  ‘No, though I may go back. Oh, let me give you the keys.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Back to Paris. I need a break, Sarah. And there’s nothing to keep me here. Unless you…’

  ‘I thought of going away myself. We travelled so much in the past. In the old days, I nearly said.’

  ‘I’m afraid the old days are really over now.’

  ‘There’s only my sister-in-law left. Richard’s sister, Mary. Very limited woman. We kept in touch, more or less. So I gave her a ring. I’m going to stay with her for a bit.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Near Chichester. Not that I’m looking forward to it. But I need more help, Paul. More care. And she was always very sociable. Dinner parties, and so on. I shan’t be alone. That’s what I can no longer stand.’

  ‘How long will you stay there?’

  ‘No idea. Until we get tired of each other, I suppose. I was never one for much female company. But when you get older you miss it, if only for purposes of comparison. I dare say it’s different for a man.’

  ‘Why should it be? Life gets lonelier; that’s the truth of the matter. In fact that adds to the disappointment. I suppose most lives end in disappointment.’

  ‘Must you?’

  ‘That’s why I thought I’d go back to Paris for a bit. A change of scene. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in my flat. In fact I’ve taken against it.’

  ‘About time too.’

  ‘I know you never liked it. It meant so much to me when I first bought it, promised all sorts of freedoms. But in fact freedom is rather like silence: one can have too much of it. Do come out, Sarah. I find this room rather oppressive.’

  ‘The car is coming for me at half-past ten.’

  ‘Whose car?’

  ‘The car I ordered, of course.’

  ‘You mean you’re going today? This morning?’

  ‘No reason to stay here. Thank you for the keys, though you could have posted them.’

  ‘When will I see you again?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ll ring you.’

  ‘But I may not be here.’

  They looked at each other in astonishment. The same idea occurred to both of them simultaneously. To be out of touch was a grave risk. Behind this desire for change lay the need to make plans, to make arrangements. Sarah, more practical than himself, had had less hesitation that he had shown, with his airy notion of exile. He had hoped to discuss this with Sarah, had hoped for some kind of comment, perhaps some measure of regret. In fact this had been forestalled by news of her own departure. This he had not bargained for.

  ‘We were getting used to each other again.’

  ‘Yes. That frightened me. I didn’t want that.’

  ‘Very flattering.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take offence. It’s just that the idea of doing it all over again, all the same arguments, the same reasons… I can’t go back to the beginning, Paul. I can’t be young again. I can’t give in to weakness, make a habit of you, as I once did.’ They were both silent. ‘Not that you’d want me now.’

  ‘I still want you in my life.’

  ‘There’s no need to look like that. I’ll be back. I have no doubt Mary will throw me out when she feels like it. We were never all that close. But she was amusing. Not your type. And you’ll be back.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘From Paris. Though what you think you’ll be doing there I can’t imagine.’

  ‘I just had this vision of another way of life. Making it new. Foolish, I dare say. But as you’ve remarked, there’s nothing to keep me here.’

  ‘No, that’s what I said about me.’

  They smiled again.

  ‘Promise me you’ll come back.’

  ‘Oh
, I dare say I’ll come home in the end. As you will.’

  ‘You’re sure you won’t come out? Now, I mean. This room is almost as bad as my flat.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it. No, as I said, the car is coming at ten-thirty.’

  ‘You got as far as ordering the car? Without waiting to tell me?’

  ‘I left a message on your machine. Didn’t you check it? I’ll let you know when I’m back. Now, I’m afraid I’m going to let you go, Paul. I’ll see you when I see you. Don’t linger. You never did know when to leave.’

  He walked thoughtfully, impressed by the simultaneity of their thinking. Surely that signified some connection, a resolve, a fear that they were not ready to confide to each other. They had assured one another that they would be back, but there was no guarantee of that. If Fate or nature were to be kind they would come together again. But Fate is rarely kind, and nature never. ‘La nuit porte conseil,’ the man had said. But no advice had been forthcoming. Sarah, he knew, would make herself unaccommodating; there would soon be friction in that house in Chichester, but maybe that very friction would restore her self-belief, would prove to her that her character was intact. As for himself he had no such resource. His vision of his life in Paris had now dwindled almost to invisibility. And yet he knew that he could not stay here, in this grey city, surrounded by dire pronouncements, and those streets he once so conscientiously explored. Many of his former colleagues, he knew, had bought houses in France, in Spain, looking forward to a life in the sun, far from everything that was too familiar, too stale. The same desire for a better life, or at least for a different life, probably visited everyone once satisfied with what had been worked for, the same longing for some sort of reward, the same defiance, the same claim to more life. That was one of the dubious endowments of ageing, a conviction that one’s desires had not been met, that there was in fact no reward, and that the way ahead was simply one of endurance. One or two of them had sold up and come home, not quite willing to give their reasons. As for the rest they had removed themselves from the picture and were thus doubly lost to view.

  In the flat he collected the books from his bedside table, inevitably stubbing his toe on Mrs Gardner’s luggage, now, he assumed, a permanent fixture. Eventually he would get rid of it, put it into storage somewhere, or leave it where it was. He had no further feeling for his flat, would have been profoundly grateful to be supplied with an alternative. He even had a brief moment of nostalgia for that old house, his first home, no happier in truth than the flat in which he had spent so many years, but now in hindsight bigger, weightier, more complex geographically than his present reduced space, the views from the windows more satisfying. But he knew that if he were to go back he would find a very ordinary setting, a largish house, certainly, but one in which he could no longer see himself. Only the power of dreams would deliver more to him than had already existed so long ago that he might still have been the age he was then, with a child’s perception of size, miraculously recaptured under the influence of the night. It was daylight that restored life to its true proportions, and the life he rediscovered on waking had proved deceptive.

  He set out for the London Library thinking of Sarah. ‘I need more help,’ she had said. ‘I need more care.’ He groaned at the implication of these remarks, hoped sincerely that she would recover some of her old combativeness. He did not think of himself as any kind of solution, knew in fact that she would once again include him among her disappointments, and that he too would recognize her as one of his. But what he had said was true: he still wanted her in his life. They would remain antagonists, but perhaps that was no bad thing, perhaps that was the mode that would keep them both functioning as they had at the beginning. And perhaps that antagonism would be their weapon against helplessness, or dependency. He had discovered, somewhat to his surprise, that in her presently reduced company he had become more of a man. That was the accomplishment he would bring home from France. Had she not been slightly impressed by his announcement that he was leaving just as she was claiming the right to leave first?

  He glanced at his watch, another habit that had always irritated her. She would be gone by now and he would have to wait for a telephone call to tell him she was back. Although he would soon be gone himself it was her return that would restore the natural order. If that day came, when he himself were returned, a new man, he would betray no yearning, no anxiety, as he had done so many times in the past. They would meet again almost casually, and thus invent a new friendship. This was an ideal he knew that nothing would change. The only permitted change was the landscape, and on this point his thinking remained fixed. He would go to Paris, if only to prove himself as good as his word. It was all a question of style.

  And if neither of them came back? If Sarah’s impatience and his own solitude reasserted themselves, so that the old incompatibility surfaced, if, conceivably, they found a kind of contentment in new surroundings, what then? But the idea had to be tested, for stasis was not to be borne. That was the challenge they now faced, and he granted them both a certain courage in taking such a step.

  He returned his books, bought a couple of shirts, and had his hair cut. ‘Shan’t be seeing you again,’ said his usual hairdresser.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Going back to Australia.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Any particular reason?’

  ‘Homesick, I guess. And I’ve done what I set out to do, seen Europe. I’ll be quite glad to go, really. What do they say? Time to move on.’

  ‘Yes, they do say that rather a lot. I may move on myself.’

  But she was not interested, had already removed herself from the scene. Even at a young age she felt the melancholy of departure. He handed over a larger tip than usual, and received a hug in return.

  ‘You’ve been great,’ she said.

  ‘Come back and see us some time. And good luck.’

  They were both moved, more by the force that seemed to be directing them than by their own decisions. It was then that he knew that he must move swiftly, though still wishing that he had some reason to stay. But finally it was his flat that tilted the balance. He could always come back, he reassured himself. But even coming back to the same surroundings would be preferable to never leaving them.

  27

  He took a valedictory walk through the neighbourhood, making a careful note of what he would leave behind. This amounted to very little: the same actions, performed at the same time, on similar days. Memory was now porous; little survived of the past to sustain him, and what did survive was infused with regret. But this regret too was valedictory, something to be renounced, as one abandons a lost cause. It was to other agencies that he now entrusted what remained of his life. Like a man at the dawn of time he put his faith in the return of the sun, the benign and vivifying light that would eventually bring fruition. He thought back to that market in Paris, the energy of those exchanges. He would observe, but not entirely as an outsider. He would find a way to absorb some of that energy and to partake of it, so that in time it might lend a sense of purpose to whatever came next.

  But in fact this was an inconclusive exercise, for habit proved stronger than he had anticipated. Habit had sustained him through times of raging disappointment no less than through dull routine. All in all he found the latter more acceptable. That, he had decided, was all over. At the hairdresser’s he had been surprised to note that his hair, so long grey, was now white. He seemed to have aged, exponentially, in the last few days, as if reaching this so quixotic decision to uproot himself had in fact marked the approaching end of a life, not only his own, as it was now, but the life that had sustained him for so long.

  The unavoidable fact was that there was little time left. Sarah had felt the same, but her nature had permitted her to ignore the fact, to fashion some sort of reprieve, if only a disputatious one with a putative relative. As for himself he had no such connection. That had always been the problem. His diary, once full, was now empty. He had been to all the wed
dings, heard about all the children, attended several funerals, and now, it seemed, was the only survivor. Even the thought of returning to this place, which he had not yet left, seemed implausible. Yet what was the alternative? He would decline but not too rapidly: his excellent health would see him through, but he would derive no pleasure from the fact of his survival. And the default mode was to go into some sort of care, which was not even to be considered. Surely an hotel was preferable. And if the Pension Franklin proved a disappointment there were other hotels, further south, that might revive that earlier fantasy. But in fact it was the memory of that market, that commerce, as if life were a practical and pleasurable certainty, that had inspired him, had made him yearn to be part of it, to embrace it with the same vivacity that had set the fantasy in motion, had indeed brought it into existence. This was the obverse of all fears, the assurance that life was still a possession to be treasured, and that its possession was unalienably his.