A Closed Eye (17 page)

All this time, she realized, she had been waiting for the
moment when Jack would call. This was how she had remained so alarmingly calm. He would get in touch with her. She had only to wait for him.

‘Well, I’d like to know,’ the voice went on in her ear. ‘It’s time we got something settled.’

‘It might be a good idea,’ she conceded. ‘But it’s Jack’s decision. And Lizzie’s, of course. She must be allowed to choose.’

Pamela snorted. ‘How much choice does she have?’

‘That’s what I don’t know. Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch. As soon as I hear something.’

I am a bad friend, a bad wife, possibly a bad woman, she thought. My loyalties would vanish in an instant if there were sufficient advantage to be had, and by advantage I mean emotional advantage. Were it not for my Immy I might go away from here, from this pompous house, which is in every sense too big for me, and from Freddie, whom I would leave almost without regret. Why this sudden enlightenment? With Tessa’s death part of my life finished, the part connected with early days, early memories, my unwitting struggle for a position of safety, my desire to compensate my parents for
their
struggle, and to set them free. And this is not madness but the sobriety of middle age talking. If Immy did not exist (my life, my joy) I might be tempted to go in search of that empty room, with the single shaft of sunlight across the undisturbed bed: I should stay there all day, and in the evening my window would bloom with mysterious light. I should know no one, merely pass my days dreaming. Yet the fact that in my thoughts the room is always empty must be significant. If my life is an empty room I must fill it before it is too late.

Jack appeared, suddenly, one evening as they were finishing dinner.

‘Your servant let me in,’ he said.

‘I doubt if Miss Wetherby thinks of herself as a servant,’ said
Harriet. ‘And we should never dare to imagine such a thing. She is by way of being a nanny, although she is too deaf to be entirely effective. Fortunately, my daughter gets on with her …’

‘Jack doesn’t want to hear about Miss Wetherby,’ said Freddie. ‘By the way, did you ever find out her name?’

‘Her name is Jean,’ said Harriet. ‘Jean Aileen, as it happens. Why on earth did you want to know that?’

‘We are so sorry for what has happened,’ said Freddie to Jack. ‘My dear fellow, there are no words on these occasions.’

‘Don’t speak of it,’ she interrupted. ‘I cannot bear it yet. And Jack will have heard it all before, from so many people. What can I offer you, Jack? A drink? Coffee?’

Freddie, who thought his wife uncharacteristically voluble, suggested that Jack might not have eaten.

‘Of course! What can I be thinking of? We had cold chicken and salad, Jack. And apple pie. Would that do?’

He considered this. ‘I should like a chicken sandwich,’ he said. ‘
And
apple pie. I am actually on my way to Paris. I can catch a later plane.’

‘When will you be back?’ she asked.

‘Early next week, depending on how this interview goes.’

‘What have you decided about the little girl?’ asked Freddie, watching the white teeth sink into the bread.

‘She’s staying with my friend Elspeth Mackinnon,’ he said briefly. ‘I think it a good idea to leave her with Elspeth. A competent woman,’ he alleged, as if no more need be said.

‘Who is Elspeth?’ asked Harriet, as vivaciously as she could manage. ‘We saw her at the … You introduced us. Where does she live? Does Lizzie …? I mean, will Lizzie be happy with her?’

‘Elspeth is my assistant, my secretary, whatever you like to call her. She arranges my work, types my stuff. She has a largish house near Windsor. There is plenty of room for
Lizzie. And I can see her there, of course, whenever I want to.’

‘What will happen to Judd Street? Will you give up your flat?’ she asked, with sinking heart. She realized that plans had already been made, may have been long established.

‘Oh, I shall keep the flat. I bought it years ago. Lizzie can have it when she’s older, if she decides to work in London. This pie is excellent, by the way.’

She sat down slowly. ‘Does this mean that we shan’t see Lizzie again?’

‘I dare say Elspeth will bring her to town in the holidays, for clothes and so on. I want her to have a fresh start. I want her to get away from all the old associations.’

‘Poor Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Does she know she is being forced to make a fresh start? A fresh start sounds rather gruesome to me. Is she not to remember us at all?’

‘Don’t be so morbid,’ said Freddie. ‘I think Jack is right. A fresh start is what the girl needs. After all, she’s going to school next year.’

‘This year,’ she corrected him.

‘Already?’ He looked startled.

‘The children are leaving home,’ she told him sadly. ‘I somehow never foresaw it. Did you?’

‘It will be quieter, certainly.’

‘I think it so hard on children,’ she went on, collecting dirty plates. ‘There is so much for them to learn. And all that school, day after day. What if they are homesick? Will there be anyone to care for them?’

‘Don’t be so absurd, Harriet. Of course there will.’

‘I enjoyed school,’ said Jack, rolling a cigarette. ‘I can’t see that it did me any harm.’

‘Has Elspeth children of her own?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Then how can she look after Lizzie?’

‘Lizzie will only be there in the holidays. Elspeth has a large family. Her mother has a place in Scotland. It will be a different life for her. A better one, I hope.’

‘Well, of course, we hope so too,’ said Freddie, glancing sharply at his wife. ‘She can always visit us when she’s in town.’

‘Will I see her before she goes? To Elspeth, I mean?’

‘She’s already there,’ he said mildly. ‘We took her back there after the funeral. I came by this evening to ask if you would mind packing some clothes for her.’

‘She had better have new ones,’ Harriet said. ‘I can’t … I can’t go to the flat just yet. I’ll buy her some new clothes. And she left one or two things here. I’ll bring them round next week. Round to Judd Street, I mean. When will you be back?’

‘I’m sure Jack wouldn’t mind picking them up,’ said Freddie.

‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ she assured them both. ‘I’m only sorry I shan’t see her.’ She was appalled at herself, mentioning the child in the same breath as arranging an assignation, if that was what it was. If Jack were a man of conscience, she thought, as he undoubtedly is not, even he would be slightly disconcerted. And if Freddie had any imagination, which he has not, he would be indignant. And if I were a decent woman I should feel ashamed, disgusted. As I am. And poor Lizzie, in all this. I shall buy her some decent clothes, as if I were buying them for Immy, and I shall simply leave them outside his door. There will be no need for me to see him at all.

‘When will you be back from Paris?’ she asked.

‘Wednesday, at the latest.’

‘Very well,’ she said calmly. She said nothing more.

Later she was to wonder how they had all behaved so normally, while thoughts of insurrection came so near the surface. At that stage it was almost a dream, not yet an intention.
She wanted only a meeting, some sort of exchange. She only wanted to know him, she thought. And Freddie sat there, unsuspecting. But what was there to suspect? Only a desire, that duty should have stifled, might yet vanquish, an unjustified desire for that one interview … It did not matter to her that he was completely indifferent. If the opportunity arose she would know how to deal with that. And of course, none of it need take place, she told herself. It is just that I should like something of my own, some memory that is entirely mine. She thought in terms of a conversation, one of those significant conversations that change everything. In the world’s terms quite harmless. In terms of her own continued existence, almost a necessity.

A
S
IF
in collusion with her curious mood—which was one of daring, but a daring entirely unconnected with the idea of damage—the weather turned seductively mild, damp, sunny, profuse, spring-like. Drops of water sparkled on grass which was sprinkled with the pink strewn blossoms of cherry and prunus; magnolias, with their waxy purple and white buds, opened fatly on branches that were still black. Sometimes, in the late afternoon, a sudden sun chased a rainbow through dense grey clouds, and an unnatural Pre-Raphaelite intensity and radiance enveloped the evening landscape, before all the colours gradually dimmed, and she realized, with regret, that she must turn her thoughts homewards (though she had only been standing at the window) and resume her domestic duties.

She had two days like this, a Wednesday and a Thursday. On the Friday she thought she might go to Brighton, for she was restless, and the wider horizon of the sea beckoned: she wanted to walk until she was exhausted, for there could be no sensible thinking until this unforgiving energy was somehow converted to peaceful purposes. This is the best time, she thought, before any undertaking is possible; love is sometimes wasted on those who act on it. Like this, one has both ardour and innocence, and it is difficult to say which is the more
precious. She only knew that she was bathed in a sort of gratitude, so that she looked at the jewel-like grass and the thick mauve fingers of the magnolia buds as if she had never seen anything of such splendour before in her dreamlike existence. All losses seemed cancelled: Tessa, Lizzie. The future, beyond the following Wednesday, was indistinct. On returning from taking Imogen to school, a task for which she suddenly volunteered, she met Miss Wetherby, prudently emerging from her basement into the sunny air. Miss Wetherby wore a raincoat and a hat shaped like a modified turban: she carried a shopping bag and turned her good ear to Harriet by way of greeting.

The dustiness of Miss Wetherby, her preparedness for rain, impressed Harriet as being emblematic of that age when nothing more than the daily round can be imagined, when desire is not even a memory. The idea made her feel boisterous, hilarious. Not for me, she thought, not for me. ‘Shall I do your shopping for you?’ she asked, unable to bear the sight of Miss Wetherby on this glorious day. ‘I’m going out myself.’ Miss Wetherby’s pale lips moved, as they often did before words were allowed to escape from them. ‘I like to get out,’ she said. ‘But I should get out more often if I had a little dog.’ This hint had been dropped on more than one occasion. ‘If she had a dog she’d be out all the time,’ Freddie had said. ‘Just when we might need her. And anyway, I don’t want a dog in the house.’

Freddie could thus legitimately be blamed for Miss Wetherby’s unpartnered state, yet in some ways, Harriet reflected, she was the ideal dog owner, placid, regular, uncommunicative. Was it not unkind to deprive her of what might be a natural companion? These days she walked with a stick, although she was apparently quite healthy in other respects. She was getting old; her usefulness was diminishing. Yet the very fact of her age gave her a claim to greater indulgence. Harriet
began to see that she could never be dislodged from the basement she loved so much. After consultation with Freddie she had suppressed the rent. ‘We are in
your
debt,’ she had said. ‘And Freddie insists on your having a salary.’ Miss Wetherby had been delighted. And Imogen seemed to get on with her, the two of them enjoying a comfortable mutual independence. Apart from her ghostly air of contentment it was difficult to know exactly what Miss Wetherby thought. Harriet always felt humble, and a little uneasy, in her company.

Today, however, she was in a generous mood. ‘Perhaps when Immy goes to school,’ she smiled. ‘We could talk about the dog then. I’ll have another word with my husband.’ Miss Wetherby’s pale lips moved, prior to another pronouncement. ‘If you would,’ she eventually said. ‘You see, I shall miss the child so much.’ Harriet felt ashamed: she had not taken this factor into account. ‘You shall have a dog,’ she promised rashly. ‘As long as you keep it downstairs.’ Miss Wetherby smiled, her unexpectedly fine teeth glistening in the sun. ‘We shall both miss her,’ she said. ‘I dread the day. But you have all been very kind.’ She really does love Immy, thought Harriet. How could I refuse her anything?

With Imogen away, how would life be? Her thoughts were reckless, unfocused, as thoughts of liberty always are. The idea of a future which might consist of personal gratification seemed audacious beyond the bounds of belief. For one brought up in the ways of docility, as she had been, such thoughts had not previously presented themselves: unawakened, she had had no quarrel with her own peace of mind, although tacitly recognizing its limitations. Now she felt reborn, simply from the power of her own expectation. This had very little to do with Jack himself, although without him the transition might never have taken place. She simply knew that for once she was acting on her own volition, and the sensation was almost fulfilment in itself. For what could Jack
add to this? Jack dwindled in importance; his own thoughts were as nothing to her. She had read an answering calculation in his eye, nothing more. In a sense she was willing to make do with that, for anything more might add weight, depth, to something so delightfully immaterial that she experienced it rather like a degree of painless intoxication. And part of her wished to retain the status of an honest woman, or at least, she thought, in a moment of true honesty, of an honest dissimulator. To have all she had
and
this would be almost enough, she reckoned. To have anything more would put her in the wrong. This wrong was a nebulous condition, unexamined. Freddie would be wronged, undoubtedly. But when she thought of Freddie it was only in terms of the most disagreeable aspects of Freddie, his restrictions, his suspicions, his stoutness, the horn of his fingernails. In comparison with Freddie she felt scandalously young. No, to be in the wrong would have to do with her daughter, whom she might never yearningly contemplate, with the same degree of love, again. Love would have become subterfuge. To be diminished in Immy’s eyes, even if Immy never knew anything about any imagined misdemeanours, would be something from which her mother might not recover. Therefore the mood alone, the amorous mood, would have to suffice. There remained the question of the visit to Judd Street, a now almost unwelcome reminder of present realities. I shall leave the bags outside the door, she thought, or simply hand them in. There will be no need—or time—for anything more. And as if in repentance she bought Lizzie three Viyella dresses, two pairs of jeans, some cream-coloured tights, and a red jacket. Shoes made her hesitate; she was unsure of the size. Elspeth can buy her the shoes, she thought.