Strangers Read online

  After that he had given up on the idea of marriage, the only state he was able to envisage, apparently disqualified by this disabling characteristic which was invisible to himself but glaringly obvious to others, to women in particular. He had filled his life with his work at the bank, where no one seemed to think him anomalous and where his undemanding steadiness was, if anything, an advantage. Colleagues, many of whom were congenial, had filled his days, making his return every evening to the flat less onerous than it was to become in the days of unwanted leisure. He did not even regret his early ambition to study art, although the Camberwell Art School was temptingly near at hand. His father had steered him away from its dangerous attractions and had put him in the local bank, which he saw as a prolongation of his undistinguished schooldays, not knowing that he had choices. In time he had graduated to a bigger branch in Victoria Street, where he spent the rest of his working life, subsiding into a sort of acquiescence which left his intimate dissatisfaction untouched. He had risen, modestly, to a position that ensured him a comfortable income, had invested wisely, and, long after the death of his parents, had bought his flat, and prepared to live what he thought of as a proper life. Occasionally, as he added cups and saucers, or a bedside table, or a comfortable armchair, he thought it odd that there was no one to share these activities, but looked forward to the day when he would no longer be alone. He had acquired girlfriends, for his hawkish looks promised a favourable outcome to each entanglement, and fell in love regularly, though never entirely wholeheartedly, longing for something more extreme, more transforming, than evenings at the theatre, dinners in restaurants, and visits to his flat which temporary company did little to enhance, until the day, or rather the night, when he was told of his failing, a character assassination that seemed to promise a lifetime of loneliness. The woman delivering the verdict had grown more and more angry, although he was the one who stood accused, and had eventually stormed out of the flat as if suffering from an insult. Slowly he had put the room to rights, and then, when there was nothing more to be done, had resigned himself to the following day. But he had changed his mind, had gone out into the deserted streets, and walked, glad of the darkness, feeling his bewilderment turn to shame, and grateful to have no witnesses.

  After this spectacular and, it seemed, defining reproach he felt he had only two options. One was to cultivate the life of the mind. He had always been a great reader, and had found consolation in books. He joined the London Library, visited museums and art galleries, attended lectures at the Royal Geographical Society, where he met other regulars, at whom he smiled pleasantly, careful not to appear too eager to further their acquaintance. Even this activity was circumscribed. His fault, he had come to realize, was not only niceness but the wrong kind of desire: he brought with him an eagerness from which others shrank. Therefore he directed his attention towards such thoughts and appreciations which, though held in common, could be enjoyed in private. But this did not altogether satisfy him. Art, he felt, let him down. For great paintings he felt only respect. Museum spaces beckoned him in, even welcomed him, but then left him on his own. Religious subjects, in particular, left him desolate, while mythologies stirred him to dissatisfaction. Only in the shrewd eyes of a portrait did he find a certain resonance, and comfort only in the sight of fellow ruminants, immured in similar silence. A couple of tourists, planted in front of a picture and discussing it loudly and with animation, offended him, as if a vow of silence should be universally respected. Such visits took on the aspect of a duty, an obligation, although he was aware that a residue of acknowledgement, and of reference, was left. He persevered, and in time came to appreciate the exercise for its own sake. It did little to assuage his feeling of failure, maybe even exacerbated it. But, like fidelity, the habit became part of his nature, and he knew he would pursue it to the end.

  He briefly considered the option of displacement, but finally dismissed it. Holidays were fine, but one had to return home, and he was not in a position to move abroad. His flat was unsatisfactory in many ways. The kitchen was too small, but he rarely cooked, preferring to pick up food from the Italian delicatessen near his office. There was that unhappy bedroom, once clamorous with denunciation, now lethally silent. But he knew that his dissatisfaction had less to do with the flat than with his own overwhelming need for sympathy, for consolation, which he carried over from his earliest memories of familial disharmony, from the lack of a warmth that was not physical, though that too had applied. And he had had his retirement to think of, when he would need landmarks in the long exile that would follow. In the event retirement was wished upon him earlier than anticipated. The arrival of a dynamic newcomer, some twenty years his junior, with ideas for new working practices, did much to discourage him from standing his ground. True to his nature he made a dignified departure, saving any rancour for his own private thoughts. He was, after all, well housed, well set up, and guiltily well off, though he was careful not to make this apparent. And he had his pride, which would not allow him to remonstrate. More than one of his colleagues regretted his departure: there had been a flurry of lunches, of meetings for drinks, until these had fallen off and finally all but ceased. He was careful not to ask how his successor was faring, and was, for this reason, thought to be happy with the situation. He found it easier, as time went on, to keep his own counsel, and in so doing earned a measure of self-respect. A slight edge crept into his judgements: he would indulge in exasperation, as others might confess to a mild addiction, and allow himself a more critical eye than he had formerly brought to bear on friends and acquaintances, sometimes taking an exquisite pleasure in perceiving flaws or inconsistencies that he had previously accepted without demur.

  That left his final resource: contact with strangers, at which he was extremely proficient. These were the people to whom he was obliged to consign his fate; that was, in truth, the only option, the only one left to him. Fortunately there was no shortage of strangers; in fact everyone was a stranger. He gravitated towards the most humble of these: the cheerful Australian girl who cut his hair, the woman at the dry-cleaners who told him about her grandson, the Asian assistants at the supermarket. It did not surprise him that these were women, for women were the lost element in his life. Nor did it surprise him that he felt most comfortable with the fact that these were humble employees (though everyone seemed prosperous now). His own background was humble; his father had been a bank clerk, and had thus laid the foundations for his own more illustrious career. His mother had stayed discontentedly at home, in the gaunt house in Camberwell Grove, mourning the absence of her more successful relations, few of whom bothered to visit her.

  Sometimes he was amused to realize how that dreary house figured so prominently in his own dreams and reflections. He could trace, without any effort, every cupboard, every door; his bed he remembered as the most welcoming he had ever slept in… In the same way he remembered friends whom he had otherwise forgotten, friends made in the unthinking days of childhood, and now completely untraceable. All that purposeful striving that had brought him to his present position he dismissed as irrelevant: he had followed an upward path and was left strangely tired by the ascent. Only his mother had seen that he might not be happy, but that was because she was not happy herself. She lacked company, notably the company of her own family, and a milieu which she saw as superior. Family gatherings were non-existent; only exceptional occasions, such as weddings, brought them together. And it was at such a wedding that he had met his cousin Roland’s new wife, Helena, who was thus both a stranger and not a stranger. Like his mother he appreciated the occasion; more instinctive feelings hardly came into it. That was how the matter had stood for many years.

  Socially unaware, as he had been then, he had been impressed by the waitresses speeding about the room in which the reception was held and had assumed that the bride was rich. In fact, as he was to come to learn, she was adept at acquiring help, and was to remain so. His cousin Roland seemed delighted with his choice, h
is bride slightly less so, as if merely acknowledging her due as a desirable woman. This characteristic had made his mother thoughtful, and the return to Camberwell Grove had been unusually silent. Never had their house appeared more joyless. ‘You might write them a note, thanking them,’ said his mother. His father merely scowled, feeling irked by the occasion, the parade of affluence. There had been little further contact, one or two invitations which his mother accepted eagerly, though it meant a journey across London and an uncomfortable evening of criticism from his father. Gradually the invitations ceased, and the next gathering was after Roland’s funeral, which even his father attended. That was how the association had started, back in the days of what he thought of as real life, everything since appearing illusory. Again, feelings were neither here nor there. What was there, and indeed what was left, was a vague history, if only of years that had passed, and in which everything had a place, his house, his mother, himself.

  3

  Everything was cyclical. Reading this in Proust he had not quite believed it. Now he knew it to be true.

  Every night now he put himself to sleep by mentally wandering through his old house, mounting the shadowy stairs to the even more shadowy bedrooms where a terrible silence seemed to reign, by day as well as by night. Sometimes there would come back to him a familiar detail, the creak of a wardrobe door, or the position of a water glass on his bedside table. Brought back to the reality of the present he would be momentarily surprised that he had ever disliked, even hated, that house, had longed to put it behind him, together with the melancholy that clung to its walls. He had thought it a fine thing, something of an achievement, to sell it and purchase this flat, as if to signal his emancipation from the past. Now he found that the past was not so easily dismissed, and almost welcomed its reappearance, seeing the present for the poor thing it had turned out to be.

  For the present held its own dangers. Every time he listened to the news it was to learn of ever more disastrous mistakes. The other day, calling in at his bank with a query, he had run into an old colleague, with bad news of his own. Had he heard that Jenkins had suffered a stroke? And Babcock: Alzheimer’s! Terrible! His wife was at her wits’ end. He had sympathized, thinking uneasily of his own fluttering heart, his sudden onslaughts of fatigue, his occasional lapses of memory. He had sent his best wishes to whomever might remember him, and made as prompt an exit as decency allowed. The past then took on a welcome familiarity, something of his own, that could not be taken away from him until all the rest went. He searched his emotional landscape and discovered, much to his surprise, that all latter-day disappointments and humiliations paled into insignificance compared with that intimacy of association. Then it seemed to him a terrible thing to live without witnesses, as if he had failed to make good the inevitable deficiencies of both past and present, had never created a family of his own, so that he was haunted by a feeling of invisibility, as if he were a mere spectator of his own, his only life, with no one to identify him, let alone with him, in the barren circumstances of the here and now.

  Was everyone of his age in the same quandary? He would have liked to discuss this with a sympathetic listener, someone with the same length of experience, the same references. An old schoolfriend would have been ideal, but in moving away he had lost touch. That was the worst of it: losing touch. And he had no brothers or sisters, no other relatives, which was an anomaly in itself. His only cousin, Roland, of whom he had been fond, had died young, leaving the widow with whom he kept scrupulously in touch. He made it his business to cultivate her, although she refused him access to her own life, and denied the reality of his own. It was the old dilemma: how was one to be known? He hoped in time to win her over, so that they might talk through such matters, such experiences. This, he was forced to recognize, was his need, not hers. She had created a web of familiars to people her apparent solitude. All he could do, in the face of her adamantine self-regard, was to lapse into amusement at such tactics. If she were determined to keep him at arms’ length, he would bring into play his secret weapon, that edge of exasperation which had helped him, over the years, to criticize others almost as severely as he criticized himself.

  And there was something ritualistic about that pilgrimage across London on silent Sunday afternoons that eased his permanent sense of obligation, though this was something he had fashioned for himself. It was a formality, and he was nothing if not formal. Also he was distressed by the obstinate lack of fondness between them: hers he could understand, while his own seemed graceless. Despite his assiduity they remained strangers to one another. She tolerated him, whereas he sought to please her. Without success. He thought she owed it to herself to discourage him, as she had no doubt discouraged men in the past. Perhaps his role was to remind her of her former self, although he had no knowledge of this. At Roland’s funeral she had had a moment of weakness or faintness, and he had put out a hand to steady her. That had been their only physical contact. Nevertheless he continued to visit her every five or six weeks, though this was as much for his sake as for hers.

  Less than her former life he was fascinated by the life she had made for herself as a widow. But he also took a stealthy pleasure in her domestic surroundings, her luxurious appointments. Her sizeable flat was filled with sizeable furniture; her kitchen, he knew, was almost big enough for a family. He particularly liked the small television on which she could watch the morning news while eating her breakfast at a proper table. Her bedroom, into which he had never penetrated, and never would, he imagined as a bower of self-indulgence, a tribute to her femininity, which seemed to flourish even without the presence of a man. Despite her age she seemed to behave like a thoroughly contemporary woman, regarding men as indispensable for providing certain advantages, and vengeful in her opinions if these were not forthcoming. He felt sorry for men in this unequal struggle. Women today, he thought, were as indignant as suffragettes, but their indignation had nothing to do with a desire for equality, rather the opposite. They wanted preferential treatment and were ungenerous if this was not forthcoming. They had acquired the upper hand and had learned how to play it.

  Seated opposite each other on two massive sofas, the tea tray on a small table between them, they embarked on their ritual conversation.

  ‘Well, Paul?’

  ‘Well, Helena? How are you?’

  She gave her usual deprecating smile. ‘You know me – I never talk about myself.’

  ‘Your friends? Your bridge club?’

  ‘Well, that’s rather fallen by the wayside, I’m afraid. I don’t always get a lift, and I don’t like being out on my own. I’m always looking over my shoulder. As you know, I’m a very vulnerable person.’

  They both were, he reflected. At their age accidents could happen, were even likely. He studied her, saw that her usual immaculate appearance was a little altered, her lipstick a little crooked.

  ‘But I’ve joined a book club!’ she announced. ‘A few neighbours – we go to each other’s houses. And of course I get a lift there and back.’

  ‘What a good idea. What are you reading?’

  ‘One of Jane Austen’s. Emma, I think. The book’s over there. It’s quite amusing. Do you get much time for reading? I sometimes wish I had more. But with my various activities…’

  ‘Of course, you must be busy.’

  ‘Oh, busy. Yes, I’m very busy.’

  There was a slight pause. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dreaming about our old house. You never came there, I think.’

  ‘I can’t remember. It was quite a journey, wasn’t it? And after Roland died I sold the car. He never liked me to drive myself. And before that, a long time ago, in fact, Daddy always saw to it that there was someone to drive me. As you know, before my marriage we lived abroad. The house in Spain, you know. That’s where I took up bridge. Everybody played there. And then we travelled quite a bit. It was a good life.’

  There was to be no answer to his questions. Some men, he thought, appr
eciated this sort of behaviour: his cousin had, obviously. It would offer no challenge to masculine pride, might even have flattered it. And there were the compensations: the high standard of care. Roland would have been soothed by the fine housekeeping, the attention paid to his comfort. He himself was almost persuaded that such a bargain, such an arrangement, could be justified. But it was light years away from the real thing. It was the sort of marriage that no romantic worth his salt could contemplate. There would be consolation in the prospect, but little sincerity. The absence, or loss, of sincerity might in the long run prove too high a price to pay.

  Briefly he was reminded of his first time away from home, to escape the Blitz. He had been small, terrified, an unwilling guest in other people’s houses. The image that remained with him was not of the discomfort, though that had been considerable, but of the impenetrable nature of the conversation. This was how it seemed to him now, as if he were constrained for all time to overhear a discourse in which he was to have no part.