Incidents in the Rue Laugier (27 page)

‘You’d better go after her,’ said Polly Harrison to her son.

‘Why? She’s fine. She’s only got a bit of a headache. Why don’t you sit down, Mother? You’re looking very flushed.’

His attitude to his wife at this time was one of helpless yearning, knowing himself to be incapable of piercing her armour of loneliness. One part of him rejoiced to see her so dependent on him, felt an uneasy pang of desire as he watched her drooping head, which straightened immediately when she felt his eyes on her. He made love to her ferociously these days, but the response he sought was not physical but emotional. Physically, she responded uncomplainingly, even with pleasure, but she said nothing, and he knew that her response was automatic, engendered only by nearness, and the dark, and the sleeping state from which he had roused her. He was rougher than he intended to be, longing for a cry, an endearment, a loving hand. But although, over the years, he had undoubtedly
made her his wife, he felt that she remained distant, and that that distance was consciously or unconsciously maintained. None of his dissatisfaction was of the same order as his mother’s: his own disappointments were more primitive, more secret, could be traced back to the rue Laugier and all that had transpired there. Nor did he ever stoop so low as to accuse her of seeing Tyler, in some fantasy concocted by himself and dependent for its strength on the fact that it too was a closely guarded secret. Indeed Tyler seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Sometimes, when the afternoons at the shop were particularly quiet, and Cook was out collecting review copies, Edward contemplated telephoning Tyler’s advertising agency and suggesting a drink, only to draw back at the last minute. One day, a Friday, he actually made the call, to be told that Tyler worked in the New York office and had done so for the past two years. Was there any prospect of his coming back to London, he asked. They thought not; in any event he could be contacted direct on such and such a number. He made a note of it, then put the envelope on which the number was written into a drawer. Although he did not destroy it, he knew that he would never use it. He had learned what he had wanted to learn, that there were no meetings between Tyler and his wife. This was to him a source of both reassurance and regret.

In public, as they always were outside the bedroom, they behaved well. They entertained far more frequently than before, many of Edward’s customers having become valued friends. Max and Nelly Kroll still came once a month, and now it was their turn to provide the chocolates and the candies to which they felt that all children were entitled. Maud, with her quiet ways and her high standards, was appreciated in this circle. She served excellent meals, and she was, despite her illness, or supposed illness (for they could see no trace of it), a beautiful
woman. Her calm eyes looked across the candle flames at her husband with every appearance of deference; she intercepted his wordless questions gracefully, turned the conversation when it needed turning, overlooked no aspect of the fine and unobtrusive management which made these evenings such a success. Only Edward knew how dreadfully they tired her, as if she had undergone some form of necessary sacrifice. In the bedroom she would unclasp her pearls as if she were already in a dream, and would sit on the bed unprotesting while he loosened her dress. She would sink into sleep as readily as she had always done, and when he woke her in the night would adapt her body easily to his. At such moments he dreaded to hear her sigh. But her sighs were only for the daytime.

She accepted her strange condition, which threatened to become permanent, as an accurate reflection of her state of mind, which she saw as one of endless rumination, quite divorced from any thought of action. For this reason there were few outward manifestations of an abnormal state, no tears, no tantrums, no untoward appetites, only an immense fatigue, which she disguised with a half smile, thinking any allusion to it vulgar and unnecessary. She managed the formal part of her life successfully, so that none of Edward’s business friends suspected her of anything more grave than a constitutional delicacy. If her mother had doubts about a hereditary illness she was strongminded enough to keep them to herself, encouraged by the fact that Maud had never until now suffered any alteration in her health. With Eve in the background the household ran successfully: the little girl went to school, made friends, was encouraged to invite them home, and did so. It was not thought unusual to be given tea by the nanny. Since there was little for Eve to do as the child grew older, Maud encouraged her to begin a fashion course, and afternoons would be spent in the calm of an otherwise empty flat, an
emptiness which Maud, reclining on her sofa, did little to disturb.

Maffy grew used to her mother’s quietness, less so to her father’s love, which she sensed was both diffident and excessive. By the time Eve left, regretfully, she was largely able to take care of herself. She had inherited her mother’s sense of order, was tidy, calm, and studious, although in looks she resembled her father, with her father’s dark hair and slender build, and only her steady gaze unnervingly like her mother’s. At the age of ten she was judged competent to spend her holidays alone at Eastbourne, although they telephoned her anxiously every evening to see whether she was happy. They were both relieved and puzzled by what they judged to be her stoicism, not realising that she felt nothing more potent than boredom. She was driven every morning to Bibi’s house and instructed to play with Bibi’s son William, aged three. She did not dislike William, or Bibi, or Polly Harrison, but she found them rather restricting. She looked forward to spending future holidays in Dijon with her other grandmother, whom her parents had taken her to visit, in Nadine’s new flat in the rue Alphonse Ballu. Both the move and the family visit were an unexpected success. Nadine’s former taciturnity had yielded to her new-found status as a family member: once she had satisfied herself that Maud was not physically ill, that Edward was prosperous, and that her granddaughter was apparently fond of her, she surrendered to an unusual sense of well-being.

At fourteen, at fifteen, Maffy thought it entirely natural to sit in the garden of the Château d’Eau with her grandmother, who passed her sections of the newspaper when she had finished with them and congratulated her on her French accent. On the way home there would be cakes in a tea-room. Grandmotherly status had restored Nadine to her former dignity. Her hair was now grey, her face innocent of the colours with
which she had formerly enlivened it, and the gaze which fell on Maffy was attentive, no more, or so she liked to think. When she saw Maffy off on the train at the end of her summer holiday she felt a pain in her heart which was not merely organic (although there had been warnings, which she chose to ignore). She mentioned to Edward, with whom she was now on excellent terms, that it might be convenient for Maffy to go to university in Dijon.

‘I couldn’t bear to lose her for so long,’ he confessed. But he did agree to letting her spend part of her year off with her grandmother.

‘I only suggest it because good French is such an advantage,’ said Nadine negligently.

Edward smiled. He had seen that noble face crumple when, as a small child, Maffy had fallen over and hurt herself. He did not begrudge Nadine her hunger, knowing how admirably she would always control it. And Maffy was no longer a small child, could return affection in such a way as to appease her grandmother’s unknowable heart. Cautiously he began to consider whether his fears had not been exaggerated. His feelings were quite another matter. These, he knew, would never fall quite within the recognised boundaries. This knowledge too he managed to keep to himself.

S
O, SEAMLESSLY, THEIR LIVES CONTINUED, AT LEAST TO A
less than observant eye. Maud’s strange languor gradually improved. Edward, meanwhile, kept concealed certain changes taking place in himself. He did this out of a love fast threatening to turn to helplessness. He set himself the task of holding on until his daughter was old enough to leave home, by which time Maud and he would cling together, their frailties combined, with a sense of duties discharged. Privately, each had a warning of endings. Maud, still intermittently weakened by lassitude, sought and sometimes found solace in her books, her ordered empty life, although she would start up as if in fear when the silence of the afternoon threatened to overwhelm her, would go to the window to see if she could catch a glimpse of an absent sun, would will her daughter away from this sad place and out into the world and another life. She had no fears for her, knew that their communion was close, but
longed to set her free. So might her own mother once have felt, she reflected, but to reflect on her own case was unwise: better by far to rejoice in Maffy’s untroubled passage through adolescence, her wholly agreeable acceptance of adulthood. She had never expected to feel so confident, so detached, in the presence of so great a love. The experience was so astonishing to her that it merited all her spare moments of reflection. She tried to restrain her expressions of that love, and was successful: she saw where Edward blundered, and felt sorry for him. She had always felt sorry for him. This too was not a matter on which it was wise to reflect. She valued him, appreciated him, and even loved him, though not, she knew, in any way that would make him happy. She had reached an accommodation with her feelings, was not anxious to examine them, deliberately kept them out of sight. Her one success, she thought, was her daughter, their daughter. As for her husband, she hoped that she was mistaken in her perception of him as unhappy. She thought he seemed angry, despairing; Maffy’s forthcoming absence would leave him desolate. He was if anything desolate already. There was a desolation in him which she could not reach. She wondered when it had begun to overtake him, wondered whether to blame herself, thought on the whole that this was not appropriate.

‘Are you comfortable, Edward? You are frowning.’

‘I’m fine, fine,’ he would say, his eyes preoccupied. ‘Where’s Maffy?’

‘At Sophie’s house. She won’t be late.’

‘I don’t want her to be late.’

‘You will have to get used to it. Don’t worry,’ she would say, more and more often. ‘It will be all right. She will only be in Dijon.’

‘And then at Cambridge.’

‘Did you think you could keep her here for ever?’

‘I wanted to.’

‘Come, Edward.’

‘Oh, I know. I think I’ll go out for a walk. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve got a bit of a headache.’

‘I don’t mind, of course not.’ She was bewildered. ‘Won’t you take something for it?’

‘I just need some air. It’s too hot in here.’

‘Then open a window.’

‘Leave it, Maud. I shan’t be long. You go to bed. Yes, that’s it. You go to bed.’

She watched with anxious eyes as he wound his scarf round his throat and jerked his arms into his raincoat. She thought his movements hasty, exaggerated. She put a hand on his arm.

‘She will love us more if we let her go,’ she said. ‘Whatever you feel—and I feel—is irrelevant, irrelevant to her, that is. You must not grieve for her, Edward. She’ll come back, but only if you let her go …’

He pulled his arm away. ‘Goodnight, Maud.’

She heard the front door shut, felt the first whisper of alarm. Then she slowly put the room to rights and went to bed. Thus she was not aware of his strange behaviour in the street, his uncertain walk, his shaking of his head as if to clear his vision, his hands clasping and unclasping in his pockets. She stayed awake until he returned, which was late. She heard him listen outside Maffy’s door, then come to bed.

‘She came home half an hour ago,’ she reassured him. ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Goodnight, then, Edward.’

‘What? Oh, goodnight, Maud.’

In the dark he put up no resistance to what he thought of despairingly as his night thoughts. He loved his daughter as extravagantly as he loved his wife, and with, he knew, the same
lack of success. The impossibility of being loved as he had hoped, as he had dreamed of being loved, began to play on his mind. Sleep deserted him; his headaches increased. He accepted that his daughter was as undemonstrative as her mother, whom she so closely resembled; what he could not accept was the fact that she felt for him only a steady affection, and not the rapture that he longed to inspire. If he searched his mind and his memory, as he so often did these days, when he felt so strange, he discovered yet again those images which seemed to have accompanied him for as long as he could remember. First among these was an impression of light and heat; then came a garden; then a spray of droplets iridescent in the summer sun. In the background was always the loved figure of his sister as a baby, and his urge to cherish and protect her. But now that his sister was older, she was somehow less lovable. She had married rather late, and had immediately taken on the caretaking properties of advanced wifemanship. ‘I’m afraid my husband can’t eat anything fried,’ she might say, or ‘Tim! I’ve warned you about going out without a jacket,’ as if her husband, a moderately successful dentist, were incapable of thinking or answering for himself. It occurred to him now that the reason why he went to the Louvre every day, during that fateful sojourn in Paris, was to gaze at the Egyptian brother and sister, small, rigid, smiling through eternity, in the glass case that everyone passed by on their way to the Winged Victory. Those two small tense but contented figures, married to each other, appeared to have no fear of this world, or the next.