The Rules of Engagement (15 page)

I did not call the doctor. I understood
what was taking place. I wanted to keep him with
me.

We laid him on the bed. This was the signal for
Miss Thompson to leave. The kindness of
strangers, I had time to reflect. I wrestled
with his clothes, wrapped him in his bathrobe, and
pulled the covers over him. At some point, much
later in the night, I undressed and got into bed
beside him. He seemed to know that I was there, although I
doubt if he knew exactly who I was. I
took his hand, but it was not his good hand, and it slipped
from my grasp. He slept, a
stertorous breath informing me that he was still alive.
That grew quieter in the course of the night, and I
thought he slept almost naturally. When it became
light again I examined his face, to see if there
had been any further alteration. But it was beginning
to relax, to become more recognizable. I had a
moment of hope, but when I spoke his name he
appeared not to hear me. I spoke his name
repeatedly through the course of the day, but there was no
response. I knew what I had to do.

I washed his face, combed his hair, took up
my position by his bed. At some point I must have
unplugged the telephone, but I had no memory
of having done this. Again I took the heavy hand in
mine and held it. I did not speak, since he
could no longer speak. The day progressed, without
my participation. I retained enough awareness to see that
it was a fine day, a beautiful day, like the one that
had preceded it, yet I was anxious for it to be
over. It seemed as if the night were more
appropriate for a vigil. And so it proved.

Once again I lay down beside him. This went on for
two more days and nights. I tried, on the
following morning, to spoon some yoghurt into his
sloping mouth, but it ran down his chin and I was
indignant for him. On the third day I felt
faint and went into the kitchen to make some tea. When
I went back to him I saw that he had died. I
felt a sadness so pure, so untainted by immediate
concerns, that it was as if I had joined him in his
new condition, and that this would be my inheritance, not
only in my waking hours but for the rest of my
life.

In the days that followed it seemed as though I were
fighting death myself. I had letters to write, yet
my handwriting wandered about on the page, no longer
obedient to my intentions. I saw this as an omen,
prelude to a larger disintegration that might already be
under way. When I looked in the mirror my
reflection showed a creature with dull eyes and a
pursed mouth. I was hungry for sleep yet was
unwilling to enter the bedroom. I had stripped the
bed but not yet remade it. I spent the nights in
an armchair and thought I might do so until such
time as I was able to behave normally. I trusted in
the natural order of things to restore something like
instinct and appetite. I had no idea
how long this process would take.

And yet I behaved efficiently, or
efficiently enough, felt a moment of relief after
the undertaker's men
—
subdued tactful creatures
—
had left, felt able to refuse the sedatives
the doctor offered me. Miss Thompson, also
tactful, said she would contact Digby's business
associates as soon as I gave her a date
for the funeral. More difficult were the neighbours,
acquaintances who felt obliged to express
extreme shock and sorrow, as if doing all this
on my behalf. They were perhaps disconcerted by my
apparent lack of emotion and strove to compensate for
my deficiency. Mrs Crook in particular
seemed eager to keep me company, now that we were
both widows, and I was obliged to listen to her own
reminiscences for one whole afternoon, a helpless
prisoner in my own flat. As soon as I
felt able to do so I mimed exhaustion and excused
myself, saw her back to her door, washed the
teacups, ate a banana, and prepared for the main
business of the day, which was to walk. This I could only
do at night or in the very early morning, when there were
no witnesses and pure anonymity could be taken for
granted.

I discovered this resource on the night after
Digby's death. I may have had a genuine
physical longing for fresh air, but what I
really wanted was an illusion of liberty, of
freedom from the immense amount of labour that
confronted me, not in learning to live without
Digby, for that I knew I could manage, but in
composing a life in which there would be no limits, no
demands on my time or my attention, no duties
from which I could make a legitimate escape. This
was easier to contemplate in the dark than in
ordinary daylight, and besides, I was no longer
tired. My walks were long but uninteresting. One
night I walked in a straight line along Old
Brompton Road to Knightsbridge, to Hyde
Park Corner, along Piccadilly, through St
James's, and back along the Mall, Ebury
Street, Pimlico, Royal Hospital
Road, and then, in a taxi, to Melton Court.
Another night took me along the river, though
I was careful to go nowhere near the Fairlies'
house. I had put their names on the list I
gave to Miss Thompson; they would be informed
along with all the others. I had no wish to see
them, to see anyone. When Betsy
telephoned about our proposed lunch I told
her the news briefly, and heard her faltering
expressions of sadness for me with gratitude, but
without much sadness in my response. My own
sadness was not an issue. I had told so many people
that I was able to manage that I felt obliged to be
tougher than I was expected to be. My own
expectations were as shadowy as those obscure,
silent wanderings, passing from the light of one
lamppost to the next, barely aware of other
wanderers, who I assumed to have much the same
preoccupations as myself, grateful to be among
strangers.

For it was not quite grief, this feeling of
displacement. It was rather more like a period of
transition, an initiation into a different life,
one without instructions. I should have to invent a life
that others would see as normal, but which would in fact
be profoundly, essentially different. If I
thought of Edmund, as I did, it was because I knew
that sex is the antidote to death, and also because I was
newly aware of the domesticity of others now that my
own had disappeared. In the early morning, almost before
daylight, I peered into the windows of basement
kitchens, saw tables with checked tablecloths,
place settings, or, alternatively, blinds and
shutters which excluded me and my kind. I was not
yet ready to confront the knowledge that Edmund, in his
household, was catered for as easily as I had
perhaps catered for my husband, that his life was
normal, more normal perhaps than his indulgences.
My stolen glances into other people's houses, sometimes
symbolically frustrated by curtains, could not
help but encounter the solidarity of those not yet
obliged to confront my solitude.

I saw Edmund now as he was, a family
man, to use the quaint expression, a man
supported by all the systems that have to be in place
if life is to proceed normally. A knowledge of the
rules to be obeyed, together with a consciousness of
having in due course obeyed them, had brought about
a sense of safety from which it might become necessary
to escape. That was where I fitted in, and I saw
my tenure as limited. Perhaps I was unduly
pessimistic, perhaps I had a general sense of
endings, but now I also saw how little emotion this
sort of affair could contain if it had to remain
pleasurable. Hence no empathy, no curiosity,
none of the conversations I was able to fantasize on
my own and which had no place in Britten
Street. No place anywhere, for intimacy would
be reserved for home. A sort of loyalty would
thus be maintained which would give a man like Edmund
a consciousness of behaving correctly, for any
real infidelity would involve an exchange of
feeling. If no feeling other than the purely
creaturely were experienced then no real
transgression could be seen to have occurred. It
came to me, in the course of one early morning
walk, that only worldly respectability, of the
sort enjoyed by Edmund and his kind, could act as a
bulwark against the qualms of conscience and the
reproaches of the just.

It was perhaps an added unfairness
—
a purely
social unfairness
—
that it was my position that was
impossible rather than his. I should be conspicuous
now, no longer shielded by my husband. I should be
subjected to scrutiny, as the lonely always are, a
subject of speculation for those very people who had
expressed sympathy on my behalf. I no
longer thought of disappearing to Paris; the thought of
greater isolation intimidated me. The only
protection would be another man, not the kind of man
to whom my thoughts all too naturally turned, but
someone mild, respectable, well thought of
—
rather like
my husband, in fact. I should be warmly accepted
back into the mainstream so long as the idea of
passion were rigorously absent. What I
desired would not be relevant. I should be
re-admitted if I exhibited all those marls
of benign normality
—
holidays, dinner parties
—
that are the province of the maintained and the
protected, of whom no questions are asked. If I
were to exhibit an unseemly solitariness I should
fail a number of tests and be condemned
to perpetual marginality. On my own I should have
to live without a mask. Men would leave me alone,
for any appeal to them would be ambiguous. Even
Edmund would find me awkward, as if he feared
encroachment, as if I were making some kind of
appeal. We were not friends, as I now saw. We
had no common ground, and apart from what took
place in the flat in Britten Street, no
real intimacy. From his own intimacy I could
expect nothing; Constance had disliked me even before
she had any reason to do so, and I had always been
a little frightened of her without quite knowing why. Now every
kind of custom or politeness barred me from her
presence. It was not the company of women that I
craved; I needed something stronger, more
cynical, more brutal. Only a sustained
scrutiny of the facts would help me to ignore those
glimpses of other lives afforded me on my
dawn walks, of a table set for more than one
place, of a vase of flowers on a windowsill,
of a child's toy abandoned by a chair.

“
How will you live now?
”
asked my mother on the
telephone from Spain. We had agreed that she would
not attend the funeral but would come later, for a
proper visit, as she put it.
“
Of course,
you'll have the flat,
”
she went on, without waiting
for an answer.
“
And enough to live on, I
presume. Did Digby leave much?
”

“
I have no idea.
”
This was true.
“
I
haven't seen a lawyer yet. I suppose that
takes place after the funeral.
”

“
It's not easy,
”
she said.
“
Even with
money, although money helps. When your father and I
split up I felt a certain relief. And of
course it wasn't a sudden decision. We'd
been back and forth for years. And we weren't
happy. were you happy, would you say?
”
Again she
did not wait for an answer.
“
Happy enough,
I suppose. And we'd always looked after you. A
charmed life, really.
”

“
Yes, I was lucky.
”

“
Yet when the relief wore off I felt rather
exposed. That's why I went away so much. It
took courage, I can tell you, but I managed
it. I met new people, although I never got to know
them. That was how I met Judy, the girl I
share with. I call her a girl but we're really
two old women. When I look at her I see
myself, and I don't like it. Oh, we get on
all right, I suppose, but I can't help
feeling that women aren't meant to live together. But
what can I do? I'm no good on my own; I
need company. You're not like me. You were always
happy enough on your own, even as a little girl. Of
course you'll feel it now. I should marry again,
if you get the chance. Even today, in this liberated
age, married women have more prestige. Or you could
always take a lodger.
”

At first I thought she meant a lover, until
I realized that there was no love left in her
make-up either for herself or for anyone else. This
demonstrated to me the extreme dislocation of my
own family life. I did not wish my parents
back
—
my fear was that my mother would suggest moving in
with me
—
but I should have welcomed the
opportunity of moving in with someone else's
family. There was no family I knew who could
perform this function for me. Nor was I willing
to take on my mother. My father had sent a letter, to which
I should eventually have to reply. I had no wish
to see him either. Nor had his present wife any
wish to see me. My mother's disaffection had
apparently been handed on to her. Either that, or he
had the knack of marrying the wrong sort of
woman. I felt immensely distanced from both of
them. What I did notice, unwillingly, was
my mother's increasing solipsism. She seemed more
anxious to talk about her own plight than of mine.
I took this to be emblematic of my new reduced
status. Either that or she was succumbing to the distress
of advancing age, which was not yet my affair.