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  Since that remote day when she had tripped on an uneven paving stone and fallen, and had been rescued by a passer-by, who was Henry, her life had hardly been her own, and on occasion she had difficulty in recognising it. Therefore she felt a certain familiarity with these latter days; this was the solitude she had always known before and until her marriage. She had been rescued in more senses than one, though, strangely enough, on hot still evenings such as this, she could remember the involuntary surrender of the fall, before the strong hands had restored her balance. Now that they would never hold her again she sought no substitutes, was chary of affectionate gestures, a fact which estranged her even further from the cousins, as did her apparently unsupported status. She had no family, which to Kitty and Molly made her pitiable, even shameful. Yet she was still too loyal to her origins to describe her relief at her escape from home, from the tall narrow house at the far end of the New Kings Road, in which she and her mother and father had passed their harmonious but largely silent days. Conversation was somehow a luxury, confined to Sundays. Thus she had learned nothing except to visit the Public Library: fiction taught her all she knew of life, taught her to interpret the lives of others. And she had not been found wanting: that was also Henry’s gift to her. Even the cousins, once introduced, could not fault her, little knowing that their immaculate carpets and voluptuous sofas provided such a contrast with the serviceable upright furniture and plain curtains of home. She had bought her present flat with the proceeds of the family house after the deaths of her father and her mother. They too had died within weeks of each other, as if their largely coded conversation could only be pursued beyond the grave.

  Her first efforts at furnishing had been awkward; it had taken some time for her to settle on the blue-grey carpet and curtains that had so soothed Henry. And of course there was the outlook onto the garden, to which she paid so much attention these days. She had never really known whether Henry had loved the flat as much as she did. On those visits to the cousins, which could not be avoided, he seemed to reveal an affinity with the amiable husbands who put aside their newspapers to wave a cheerful greeting, leaving the formalities to their wives. Something wistful and pleasure-loving then emanated from him. The coffee, the cake, which appeared as though by magic, were just as magically consumed, as though they were a birthright, as natural as mother’s milk.

  Their life alone together was courteous, deeply considerate. This enabled Mrs May to endure her sparse attractions, which the cousins, so abundant, so fecund, openly deplored. Had she been guilty of weaning Henry away from his family? Perhaps she had; perhaps he had it in him to be just such an amiable husband, comfortably ensconced in just such a soft armchair, served coffee and cake by the sort of mother figure that Mrs May could never be. Yet alone with her he became more of a man; not merely the provider, through a family trust, of an extended network of cousins and nephews, but thoughtful, dignified, mature. He had been the director of a small charity for refugees, from which he took no salary, being satisfactorily financed through investments. There had been factories in Germany when the name was Meyer: as Henry May a native charm, together with his own resources, made him a respected figure in his own world and in hers. She had thought herself his debtor; only now, in old age, and in solitude, did she ever think of herself without reference to Henry.

  This puzzled her. Although lonely she was not unhappy. A day like today, spent watching her neighbours’ children playing in the garden, hardly moving for the duration of the long Sunday afternoon, had not been unduly burdensome. If she saw herself, even in her memory, she did not see the brightness that had been hers as a wife; she saw the lined and ageing woman she had become, as if these lineaments had been waiting to emerge since her features had first been formed. For Henry’s sake she kept up appearances, had her hair done, applied discreet colours to her face, yet when she looked in the mirror, lipstick in hand, she saw a drained countenance, its expression wary, as if at any minute it might undergo disintegration, as if there were no longer any cells to separate the skin from the bone. This was a bad moment every morning. Once she was packaged for the day, in one of her navy-and-white print dresses, she thought no more of this sly transformation. Housework occupied a bare half hour; she was not untidy. Once a fortnight a cleaning firm turned out the flat, during which time she sat politely in the garden. She had got rid of her daily, Olive Gage, who was so devoted to Henry, because she could no longer endure her tearful reminiscences. The cleaners sent by the firm were Vietnamese and silent. This suited her much better. She was aware of herself as a selfish old woman, but she knew that her character, like her appearance, was unlikely to improve, might even deteriorate to the extent of asking other people to be quiet, in a voice now almost rusty from misuse. The only voices she really welcomed were those she heard on the radio, since no response was called for. Yet these days she listened only to the news, and a little music in the evening. She had grown used to her own company, paid it little attention. At the same time she was aware that the world made demands even on one as undemanding as herself.

  In these days of her solitude her own history reclaimed her, her life before Henry and her life since. She saw an intimate connection between the two, as if Henry had been an improbable interlude for which nothing had prepared her. On the contrary: his company, his presence had been a source of surprise as well as pleasure. It was in fact when she saw him buttressed by Rose, by Rose’s housekeeper, who always greeted her kindly, by Kitty and Molly and their husbands, that the breathtaking realisation struck her: these people are my relations. For her youth had been a long apprenticeship, her parents too busy, too abstracted, too conscious of each other, to satisfy any longings she might have had for gossip, for fantasy, such as she was to encounter in Kitty’s and Molly’s drawing rooms. Her youth had been an affair of studious long walks, trying to appreciate the wonders of nature in the dusty shrubs of her dull suburb; as soon as she was old enough she took the bus to Kensington Gardens and walked round Hyde Park. This excursion usually occurred on a Sunday afternoon, when her parents settled down for their customary nap; her absence was tolerated unquestioningly, and on her return there would be a proper tea, with cake, as if the day had some significance after all. Now, her days once more unaccompanied, she remembered those timid celebrations (for that was what they were) with a sense of recognition that surprised her. Between the Public Library and her long walks she had preserved her youth in innocence, unaware of either happiness or unhappiness, unmarked by anguish or rebellion.

  She had been thirty-nine when she married Henry, still shaken by the death of her mother and hardly prepared for change. Yet she had acceded calmly to Henry’s surprising fervour, though it rather embarrassed her now to think of it. She was a born spinster, as the cousins shrewdly perceived; at roughly the same age as herself, or a little older, they were looking forward to further festivities, were in the throes of planning them, so that no time would be lost. She had sat with her cup of tea and listened to their news; it was as if they were showing her what she could never be. She intuited that they were severely put out by this union. Henry, having returned to the bosom of his family after his unhappy first marriage, was once again to leave them, and to leave them for this thin plain woman who compared so unfavourably with the petulant Joy. She had endured their baffled annoyance, until their better natures reasserted themselves. They made amends by giving her the names of their dressmakers, suggesting lunch in town. Yet they were kind women, if easily put out, and because they judged her to have passed some test of conformity, or obedience, because Henry appeared contented, because Rose was not neglected, they admitted her to their company, while privately expressing astonishment at the fact that she lived in Fulham. They saw immense difficulties in the way of visiting—Hampstead and Highgate were so distant!—and had to be brought over by car by complaisant husbands whom they contradicted, uneasy away from their familiar surroundings.

  She had made them welcome. The fact that Henry had
married her gave her confidence, and her fledgling dinner parties were surprisingly convivial. In addition to the cousins and their husbands they had invited Monty Goldmark and his wife, Hélène, so that the conversation was animated and she could slip out of the room into the kitchen without being noticed. Reabsorbed once more into his family, Henry expanded: old anecdotes were repeated, ancient relatives recalled. She could hear them laughing as she prepared the coffee. The dinners having proved a success—almost an initiation—efforts at hospitality were somewhat relaxed. They kept in touch, even after Henry’s death, and if their plaintive voices arrived at her from a distance both geographical and metaphorical, she was still moderately pleased to hear from them. She did not know that they thought her eccentric, that they had to overcome a mild uneasiness before they spoke to her. They thought that she could never understand them, in which they were mistaken; they thought that she could never, now even less than formerly, become one of them, in which they were correct. At the funeral, after Henry’s death, Molly had tearfully clasped Mrs May’s light frame to her capacious bosom. She was as shocked by Mrs May’s unyielding thinness as Mrs May had been by Molly’s abundant flesh. Now that it was accepted that they should remain apart, contact was easier. They were no longer critical of each other, having jettisoned many of their prejudices along with their combative middle age. In their seventies—Mrs May the youngest of the three—they understood each other much better. If the cousins telephoned one another to marvel at Mrs May’s oddness, it was in order to revive an old pleasurable subject, as others might read, or indeed write, a novel. Mrs May was calmly pleased to provide them with such a diversion.

  But those timid walks round Hyde Park, those bus rides, how they came back to her! It was as if no time had passed between the ages of sixteen and seventy, except that she no longer had the energy or the stamina for such walks. The newsagent in the early morning, the Italian café at lunchtime were as much as she could encompass these days, though she regretted her passivity. In her mind she strode out, even on these hot days, remembering the healthy tiredness of times gone by. That was all over now, yet the memory of her training in solitude had stood her in good stead. It may even have been a rehearsal for the ultimate solitude, which would be revealed to her in due course. For the moment she was unencumbered, almost ready to depart. Only the memory of her first meeting with Henry was allowed to intrude into her present becalmed state.

  ‘These paving stones are a disgrace,’ he had said, helping her to her feet. ‘I shall write to the Council.’

  He had insisted on walking her back to the office and delivering her into the kind hands of Susie Fuller, her fellow secretary.

  ‘May,’ he had said, holding her by the elbow. ‘Henry May.’

  ‘Jackson,’ she had said. ‘Dorothea Jackson.’

  ‘Really, Thea,’ Susie Fuller had remarked, after he had left. ‘I sometimes wonder whether you should be out alone.’

  That was the day when everyone was good to her. He had come back at five-thirty to see whether she had recovered from her fall, and had invited Susie and herself out for coffee. He was so beautifully considerate that they had had no thought of refusing.

  ‘Lovely manners,’ Susie had whispered, as they had gone to collect their coats. And he had demonstrated those lovely manners by making no distinction between them, although interested only in Dorothea—but this she had learned later. And the rest had followed quite naturally, as if they had both willed the same outcome. Fifteen years of harmony had followed, and if she was puzzled that they had not changed her, had in fact left her as they found her, so that Henry was a memory only, she bore the absence uncomplainingly, and was more at home with those phantom Sundays before the advent of Henry, seeing quite clearly the leaves falling in the park, and turning her steps quite contentedly towards home.

  It was still very hot. The light had almost faded, signalling the last hours of liberty before the working week began again. She would make coffee, she decided, take a cool bath. Then the night could begin, and if she were lucky unexpected images would surface. She could be young again, the only reasonable wish at her age. Once she had distinctly recaptured the appearance of a dress she had worn when she was fourteen. She might see her parents, no longer ailing, as they had been so often in their lives, but smiling their placid smiles as they offered her tea and cake. She was not disconcerted by this process, did not confound it with the onset of senility. Rather it was her pastime since Henry had left her. His memory was evanescent now, as evanescent as she was herself, yet somehow she must pursue her course to the end, whatever that would be.

  When the telephone rang, a little later than usual, she noticed that it was almost dark.

  ‘Good evening, Kitty,’ she said. ‘And how are you this week? And Austin? Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Perhaps the hot weather doesn’t agree with him. Yes, very hot today.’

  There followed the ritual medical bulletins, the news of married friends and familiars, and a reminder, yet again, that they would be going away for three weeks in ten days’ time. This took just over seven minutes. At the end, like an orchestral conductor embarking confidently on the final bars, she said, ‘Yes, I’m perfectly fine, dear. My love to you both. Until next week. Goodbye.’

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder; prolonged absence makes the heart grow cold. In these latter days Mrs May was at ease only with strangers, to whom she appeared affable, released from the anxiety that something—anything—might be required of her. When she ate her lunch at the Italian café she was always gratified to see the owner’s old father sitting by himself at a far table, with a carafe of wine in front of him. They understood each other perfectly. To the owner, Giorgio, certain questions had to be put: his health, the health of his wife, Paola, the health of his two daughters, and of course of the little grandson. She was then allowed to eat her pasta salad in silence. To the owner’s father she waved a hand on entering; he briefly semaphored back. She knew that it had broken his heart to give up the restaurant when he was no longer as quick on his feet as he once had been. He was the first to notice that he had reached the age when retirement was not simply a matter of discretion but of necessity.

  Yet he could not keep away. Every day he sat at his table, with his carafe of wine, simply in order to watch the customers, to note if a regular were absent. No-one paid much attention to him; in his careful suit he might have been a normal diner. But Mrs May felt for him. She knew, because he had once told her, that when he went home, at about half-past three, he would see no-one until the following lunchtime. After he had taken note of the fact that she had finished her meal he would come over to her and shake her hand. ‘Everything all right?’ he would enquire. The larger question remained unanswered. She would invite him to sit down but he preferred to stand, his body curved in a waiter’s deferential stoop. ‘And you?’ she would ask. He would shrug, as if the evidence were there to see, in his sparse grey hair, his carefully trimmed grey moustache. He had grown stout, stiff, yet he still had the suave manners of the professional restaurateur. ‘Changes,’ he would sigh, indicating a young man talking on a mobile phone. ‘Changes all round.’ It was at this point that she laid her money on top of her bill, as if to forestall a confession that would have pained them both. ‘Until tomorrow, Mario,’ she would say, and, shaking his hand once again, would get up to leave.

  This exchange satisfied them both, each aware without need of explanation of the other’s frailty. Mrs May was not a robust woman but she thought of herself as durable and on a good day still was. She was simply and on the whole uncomplainingly conscious that at her age something unpleasant was to be expected. That was how she thought of her inevitable decline: as something unpleasant that could no longer be avoided. With her odd attacks of breathlessness she was almost at home. They had been with her for some little while, and she had even gone so far as to consult Monty Goldmark, Henry’s doctor, and, she supposed, her doctor now, although she never visited him. To visit him would be to ac
knowledge that something was wrong, that something stood in the way of that easy friendship that had served him so well in Henry’s case. There had been a single consultation. As if conscious of his status as a sometime friend, he had made light of her studiedly careless explanation, had merely taken her pulse and felt her throat, and had then filled out a prescription for some kind of sedative, which she took only rarely. ‘You are a sensitive plant, Dorothea,’ he had said. ‘Anxiety is all that is wrong with you. No wonder, after losing Henry. Such a dear boy. Appetite all right?’

  She was grateful to him for dismissing her complaint (although it was hardly a complaint at all), grateful to him for maintaining an approach more social than medical, although it did occur to her that it might be sensible to consult a cardiologist. This matter occasionally preoccupied her, more so when she felt out of sorts, but the prospect of a visit to Harley Street was enough to frighten her into precisely the attack of breathlessness she so feared. In time she no longer dreaded the attacks; rather she congratulated herself on having nothing further to do with doctors. The attacks were infrequent, and if she were at home when they occurred could be controlled, if she sat quietly in her bedroom, without recourse to the pills. The pills were on her bedside table; they kept vigil there. That was their function. She preferred to rely on her own inner resources, which must be considerable, although she had never noticed them. Henry had told her that he had married her precisely because he admired her inner resources. At the time she had not thought this much of a compliment. She was enough of a woman to wish to be thought attractive, but enough of a realist to know that her modest looks would pass unnoticed in even the most indulgent company. It was a curious fact that she was no worse-looking now than she had been in middle age. It was only when she raised a liver-spotted hand to quell her fluttering heart that she noticed that she had grown old, and was then obliged to summon up what inner strengths she possessed. Yet, knowing how much these strengths would have to exert themselves, she still sometimes wished that she could do without them, could throw herself on the bounty of others, could simply charge a doctor with the task of making her better, could sit back irresponsibly and wait for the miraculous cure, the miraculous gratification. She was obliged to exert her will in most of the circumstances that others took for granted. Only the most placid routines stood between herself and exhaustion.