Strangers Read online

  ‘I don’t think so. We’re looking after her. You’ll find her keys in her bag. In her locker,’ she prompted. He bent down and retrieved the bag, which he kept with him.

  ‘You don’t want to take that.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ll bring it back later, with the rest of her things.’

  ‘You’re not her husband, you say?’

  ‘No, no. A cousin only.’

  But he suddenly felt much closer. In this helpless gathering he almost felt himself included, waiting to be taken in. This was the reality against which he must exert his remaining strength. As he made his way out, aware of weaknesses not yet identified, a voice pursued him. ‘Can you help me? I need my clothes. I’m expected at home.’

  To be once again in the street felt like the order of release. Air! He wanted air! He felt surrounded by large implacable buildings, in comparison with which his own neighbourhood seemed situated on a gentle alluvial plain. This was nonsense, he knew, simply urban paranoia. But more than that: a curious homesickness, not only for familiar surroundings but for those very certainties on which his life was constructed, for the tedium on which he had come to rely. That tedium was now threatened. He was radically displaced, not only geographically but by what he had witnessed, by the image of that still stern face on the pillow, and by the echoing pleas of that other stranger in the opposite bed. As he had walked to the door he had noticed that she was still brushing her hair. He walked on, breathing steadily, as if his life depended on it, Helena’s bag dangling from his left hand.

  The flat was unchanged, with the same air of gloomy luxury that had half seduced, half repelled him the first time he had seen it. He opened the windows, looked round to see if anything were disturbed, but all seemed to be in order. The copy of Emma was where he had first seen it some two months ago. In the kitchen he washed up a cup and saucer, looked in cupboards, reminded himself to buy a loaf and some fruit, although there was little evidence that she would be capable of eating. The bedroom, which he had never entered, was as he had imagined it, exaggeratedly feminine, almost theatrically so. He took a light dressing-gown from the back of the door, gathered up a box of pink tissues, a toothbrush, a cake of soap, then, after a moment’s hesitation, added a lipstick and a bottle of cologne. The bundle it made was small, but that would make it easier to unpack when she came home. If she came home, which seemed unlikely.

  His task now was to find the caretaker who had been the agent of her removal to hospital. He made his way to the basement, knocked on a few doors, one of which was promptly opened, as if his arrival had been awaited. He began his introductions once again. ‘My name is Sturgis. Paul Sturgis. Mrs Sturgis is my cousin. I believe you were kind enough to call an ambulance, Mr…?’

  ‘Crowther. Gave me a shock, I can tell you. I’ve got a bad heart myself. Doing all right, is she?’

  ‘Difficult to say. I’m just going back there.’

  ‘Only we’ve been a bit worried about her, living alone like that.’

  ‘I believe she had good friends. She mentioned visitors. I suppose I was one myself.’

  ‘I never saw any visitors. The wife looked in once or twice, took her a bottle of milk. Didn’t like to question her. She was a proud woman, difficult to get to know.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. But thank you. I dare say I shall be in and out, so don’t worry if you hear noises.’

  ‘Right. Give her our best wishes.’ The door was promptly closed. This seemed to be a building in which the residents were armed against any intrusion by strangers. He had noticed the other doors, impassive, defying possible enquiries. He closed the windows once again, put the keys in his pocket, retrieved the handbag. Without the keys it weighed substantially less.

  At the hospital he handed over his bundle to a nurse, younger than the one he had spoken to earlier.

  ‘Is there any change?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do? I’ll be back tomorrow, of course.’

  ‘Can you come in the afternoon? Only the doctors do their rounds in the morning.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He lingered by the bed, arrested by a sudden access of feeling, or rather of curiosity. For this last relic of his family he was aware not of the conventional pieties he might have offered in the circumstances but of questions that needed to be answered. The drawn face, the unchanging stillness mocked the attention he was able to offer. What impressed him was a sense that her suffering would never end. ‘Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs.’ When he had first read the line he had dismissed this as poetic licence. Now he was less sure. In comparison with what he saw in front of him, all artistic endeavour seemed futile, an attempt to engage with mortality and to win the contest. There was no choice in the matter: the contest was unequal. Even sorrow was an inadequate response. What he felt was awe, even dread. His poor life was still precious to him, inasmuch as he had arranged it for himself and in that sense had chosen it. He made no move towards the figure in the bed, too impressed to offer some sort of gesture, the touch of a hand. Even thought had to be postponed. He made his way out, raising his hand to a nurse, but she was busy, not too busy, however, to smile. That a young person could smile in the face of such dereliction struck him as miraculous. He gazed at her retreating back, thanking her silently for this evidence of a life still being lived.

  12

  Back in his flat he attempted to take stock. In the face of what he had seen there was no place for Mrs Gardner, whose situation now appeared both trivial and well rehearsed. The question of her belongings was of no significance: contact between them could be minimal and left in abeyance. She would soon be gone, and he would, temporarily at least, be spared her company. This was now seen for what it was, and always had been: a diversion, an affair of chance, with the initial charm of chance but with no deeper meaning. He wished now that they had parted in Venice: he now had graver matters to consider, and the effort of relating to those matters was his, and his alone. The novelty of her company had deceived him into thinking that it was merely company that he wanted. Now he knew that this was an old longing that could not easily be assuaged. They were, and would remain, strangers. But it was the ideal stranger that he sought, and would go on seeking, for close friendship still eluded him.

  Present considerations were too serious. Helena, a woman for whom he had little true feeling, as presumably she had for him, had effected a radical change in his thinking. With her demise he would be left without any vestige of family, however illusory that had proved to be. By virtue of bringing him face to face with death she had somehow cancelled the past, so that only the future remained. He would no more sentimentalize past attachments, no longer trace the memory of the old house: a line had come to be drawn between past and present, or rather between past and whatever time remained to him. That that time would be grave he had no doubt: without attachments he would have to face it alone. Those strangers in whom he had put his trust might turn away, indifferent to his plight, and he would have only his own thoughts for company. And those thoughts, as he had intuited behind the mask of Helena’s face, would be terrible.

  According to the caretaker she had had few visitors. So that her accounts of her activities, her numerous and solicitous friends, may have been a fiction, as he had half suspected at the time. But the fiction may have served her well, allowing her a certain pride in her own resolute demeanour. In the need to keep up appearances they were as one, and yet at unguarded moments the truth would prevail. The locking of the door behind him had always sounded hasty, as if she could not wait to let down her guard. He was impressed and disturbed by this life lived according to stoic imperatives. Others, if there were others, would be equally impressed but for that very reason would not seek out her company. She had never worked, merely assisted her husband in some vague clerical capacity, and was thus deprived of colleagues, unlike himself. He had got on well with fellow members of the bank, had enjoyed lunches and invita
tions at Christmas, but these associates had moved on, had moved out, and gradually the invitations dwindled, and now he was not anxious to reactivate them. He had no children to boast of, and perhaps asked too many questions. Now he had lost contact, a state of affairs for which he blamed himself. But as to Helena, losing contact implied a deeper meaning.

  On the following morning, after an uneasy night, he made his way back to the hospital. At the entrance to the ward he was met by yet another nurse, one whom he had not seen before, who said, ‘I’m sorry. She passed away half an hour ago. We didn’t have time to contact you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s no surprise, really. She was practically pulseless last night. Do you want to see her?’

  The stark face on the pillow gave away no secrets, was in effect no different to the face he had observed on the previous day. He had witnessed other deaths – his father, his mother – but this one affected him differently. When his parents had died he had been a middle-aged man. Now he was old, and presumably the next death would be his own. He felt momentarily faint, and was aware of the nurse at his side.

  ‘If you’d like to sit down for a few minutes?’

  ‘No, no, thank you.’

  ‘I take it you’ll make the necessary arrangements?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Her address book must be in her bag, which was in his flat. That at least was his excuse for his precipitate departure. Only in the street could he recover himself. He managed to tell the nurse that he would be in touch and made his way out of the hospital, back into the blessed air, the sight of passers-by, of shops, buses, newspapers, and all the business of daily life. This was where he belonged, he told himself, and must resolutely belong. Even his own arrangements were now precious to him. There was a café nearby, and he went in and ordered coffee. But the business of eating and drinking did not proceed as normal: there was a persistent dryness in his mouth and throat which he could not ignore. After half an hour, his coffee untouched, he paid and left. He sensed a growing detachment from the everyday scene he had welcomed earlier. He must harden his heart, he told himself. That was the only way to survive.

  For the rest of the morning he stood at the window of his flat watching two workmen unloading a van and moving several bulky objects into an empty house across the street. He had imagined an alternative life going on in that house whose lights were on in the very early morning. Now there must be a new tenant whose belongings were being installed. What he watched was not the possible arrival of the new tenant but the workmen, whose unreflecting activity impressed him as a sign of real life, of a truthfulness that he was now, and only now, in a position to appreciate. Effortlessly they carried those boxes and indeterminate packages into the lighted entrance to the building, bending and straightening unthinkingly, unaware of the good fortune of a morning’s dull work. He stood transfixed, following every movement, trying to appropriate something of their activity for himself. Never had he so longed to be humbly employed, to be told what to do. That was the essence of it: his own obedience being put to some good and painless use. The men, or what he could see of them, were not particularly young, were heavily built, but efficient. Soon the van was emptied, the street door to the building closed. The spectacle was over. With a sigh he moved away from the window and took up Helena’s bag, his reluctant fingers searching for and finding her address book. He knew what he had to do, regretting, as always, that there was no one to tell him how to proceed. This was a useless regret which no longer surprised him, but was no less unwelcome, probably more so, for that very reason.

  He searched the Yellow Pages, found an undertaker who would accept his instructions, stipulated that whatever ceremony they would arrange be the simplest possible. He confirmed that he preferred (the undertaker’s word) cremation to burial. He then put a simple notice in The Times, and hoped that Helena’s erstwhile friends, who had definitely existed, since their names were in her address book, might or might not see this, and that he was duty bound to inform at least one or two, who would could thus inform the others. When this was done he would consider his obligations discharged. The matter of attendance at the funeral could be settled, or rather expedited, as soon as the funeral directors got back to him. For the time being he did not want to talk to anyone. He moved back to the window, anxious for another glimpse – of something outside himself, but the street was empty. He realized with some disquiet that it was mid-afternoon, that he had not noticed the passage of time, that he had not eaten, and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

  When the doorbell rang he was startled, almost deciding not to answer it, but the habit of obedience was too strong. On the threshold stood Mrs Gardner, with a heavy coat over her arm and a bag at her feet. The bag, he saw, was much larger than the one she had originally carried.

  ‘It’s me again,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You very kindly agreed to give house room to one or two of my things.’

  ‘You’re off to New York?’

  ‘Oh, tea! I’m dying for a cup of tea.’

  ‘Do sit down. Though I must warn you I’m rather busy. I have to arrange a funeral.’

  ‘Poor you. I hate that sort of thing.’ She shuddered. For the first time he noticed a flicker of genuine fear in her eyes. ‘Anyone close?’

  ‘No. A distant relative.’

  ‘Oh, well. These things happen. Still, I’m sorry. Shall I put these things in the bedroom?’

  ‘Vicky, I have to know how long you’ll be gone. I may be out, or away…’

  ‘That’s what I don’t know at the moment. I’ll keep in touch, of course.’

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Any minute now. I thought I’d better drop these things off before it gets too complicated.’

  ‘Won’t you want that coat? It will be cold in New York.’

  ‘It’s too heavy. And, as I say, I like to travel light.’

  He sighed. ‘Leave those things in the hall. I’ll find a place for them later. The porter might have some room…’

  ‘Oh, I’d rather you looked after them. There’s quite a lot of good stuff in the bag.’

  ‘Do you know where you’ll be staying? If I need to get in touch. A telephone number would be useful.’

  ‘Well, a friend will be putting me up. Don’t worry. I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘Your mobile?’

  ‘Something wrong with it. I’ll ring you when I get to New York.’

  He sat back, defeated. ‘What do you plan to do there?’

  ‘Look up old contacts, for a start. See if there’s a chance of working there.’

  ‘So you plan quite a long stay?’

  ‘It’s all up in the air.’ She scrutinized him. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘Well, I’d rather like to know…’

  She smiled warmly. ‘It’s nice of you to be so concerned. But I’m used to looking after myself. Is there any more of that tea? Then I must rush.’

  He had to admit that he was impressed. She was impregnable. How had she developed such self-sufficiency? Not once had she asked him the odd question. But that was her way, and he saw that it had protected her throughout a lifetime of ad hoc arrangements. After several meetings he still knew nothing about her. Her imperatives were quite alien to him: he did not understand her cast of characters, the mysterious husband, the nameless friends. Surely it was normal to divulge more information? In her position he would have been anxious to present some sort of guarantee of good behaviour. But that was not her way. He hoped she would be as good as her word and leave as soon as possible. When she showed no sign of this, he stood up. ‘You must forgive me, Vicky. I have a lot to sort out, and it’s going to take some time. I hope your trip is successful. I shall look forward to hearing about it. You’ll be in touch?’

  He hoped she would do no such thing. Again, this was unlikely. Once more he found her amusing, and by the same token disturbing. The contrast between her bright face and Helena’s mask on the pillow was too strik
ing. Of the two there was no contest. He would take pleasure – obviously – in the living over the dead. But as far as loyalty was concerned his duty lay in the opposite direction. He laid a hand on her arm, gently steering her to the door. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I hope it all goes well. But I’m sure it will.’

  ‘Yes, I think so too. Thanks for the tea.’

  When he shut the door behind her he shook his head in admiration. She had lightened the mood, for which he was grateful. He almost laughed when he stumbled over the bag, which she had left in the doorway to the bedroom. It was at least a sign that she would return, in her own time, obviously. And he would hear from her when she decided that that was in order, for she still had not left him a telephone number. He knew that his irritation would grow. He knew, decisively, that he did not like her. He knew that he could never love her. But she was an object lesson in how to proceed, and since that was his main uncertainty he thought her an acquaintance of rare value.

  13

  The formalities completed, he chose to consider the matter closed. A letter from Helena’s solicitor informed him that she had left him her flat and the sum of ten thousand pounds. Other bequests had been to the caretaker, her cleaning lady, and to two people who he assumed to be her friends. Putting aside the matter of the flat for further consideration, he acknowledged that he was now more than comfortably off. He was touched and troubled by this bequest. He hoped that those Sunday afternoon visits had been of some comfort to her, but was not convinced of this. Apart from their tenuous connection they had nothing in common, were in fact two solitaries who saw themselves reflected in each other’s eyes. ‘Keep in touch,’ they said to each other. This they had done, but without hope of intimacy.

  One strange effect of these events was the cessation of his nightly reminiscences, his usual prelude to sleep. He realized that what he had so assiduously brought to mind – his hand on the banister, his seat at the kitchen table – was little more than a collection of sense impressions retained from childhood. These he now thankfully relinquished.