The Rules of Engagement (31 page)

When the door closed behind him I found that I
too was a little disturbed. The flat was redolent with the
trace of another person. That was what disturbed
me. I even regretted my normally inviolate
bed. It was when I finally settled, in the dark,
on my own again, that I allowed my mind to wander
freely. And what came back to me, in that
semi-conscious state, was nothing more significant
than the memory of certain streets, or certain
odd townscapes once visited, and,
intermittently, the image of a bright garden to which I
no longer had access.

Nigel overwhelmed me with kindly suggestions
as to how I might improve my life, which he
saw as lacking in one important dimension, that of
duty, stern daughter of the voice of God. Not that
God came into it, I was relieved to see: this was
sheer conscience, an uneasy suspicion that I was
lacking in moral purpose. This was entirely
true, but I could not quite bring myself to acquaint him
with my fundamental nature, let alone my
history. He urged me to find work, although I
did manage to convince him that I was completely
unskilled. This, however, was no barrier to his
ingenuity. I could do voluntary work, he
suggested, at the local hospital's League of
Friends. I responded that I should rather read than
walk round with a tea trolley, cheering up
patients with good-natured questions about their
families. This, I could see, shocked him; had
he been a woman of some means, as I was, this
was the sort of thing he might have done himself. Or
I could in some way interest myself in the
lives of his students, with well-placed comments,
or even invitations, on those Sunday walks which
continued well into the summer. He saw us engaging
in some form of supervision which would benefit both
parties. I had been able to observe the benefit
to him, but also to divine the students' unwillingness
to participate in this form of missionary activity.
He might have seen this for himself, for he made no
further attempt to pursue this particular line of
argument. Or I could hire out my culinary
skills once again and provide dinner parties for the
sort of people he was convinced I knew. I pointed
out that if I did this I could no longer cook
dinner on the evenings when he indicated willingness
to join me. Lunches, then, he said; there were,
he was sure, firms who would be glad to have something
served in the staff dining-room. I pointed out, as
tactfully as I could, that he knew as little about this
business world as I did. He at last conceded that
this was an impractical suggestion, but did not
entirely relinquish the idea. He seemed
determined to launch me on a new way of life,
one of service, though after a time he came
to accept that it was perhaps preferable that I should always be
on the end of a telephone should he want to reach
me.

This he did fairly often, and then at last
regularly. I came to rely on his telephone
calls on the occasions when I did not see him.
I sensed that he wished to be left entirely
free, and that this freedom to do as he pleased was my
only possible gift to him. I had always enjoyed
the sensation of a man's freedom, as if it were
appropriate that a woman should to a certain
extent refrain from taking the initiative. This, of
course, was not in keeping with the new raised
consciousness of women, but I was correct in
supposing that it suited him very well. He was an
old-fashioned character, rather like one of those upright heroes
in my favourite nineteenth-century novels, the
ones whose virility resides in their strength of
purpose. I had never stopped to wonder whether this
was an adequate endowment: now I did. The
better part of our relationship was one of
solidarity; our affection was fraternal. It
comforted me to be in bed at night, alone, and to know
that he would telephone to assure himself that I was
all right, that I was completely well, not wailing
and gnashing my teeth, as he supposed I might
be doing out of disappointment at his absence.

His absence, in fact, caused me no great
distress, although his company was pleasant and
undemanding. It was too undemanding for my tastes,
which remained lawless. I should have been happier if
he had been more inventive, more singular, more urgent.
I schooled myself to accept him as he was, always
with the knowledge that I had known what I was doing when I had
sought him out. For that was how I thought of it, although the
facts were slightly different. The slight but
persistent boredom that I felt in his presence was
the price I had to pay, for those late-night
telephone calls, for the knowledge that there was someone to whom
I could apply in any difficulty. That was his
gift to me, and that was the other part of the bargain.
My gift to him was slightly different. My
house, though not my life, was open to him. He could
choose to drop in, to visit, and not go home
whenever he wanted to. When he sat in
Digby's chair and recounted his day I could see
that he was comfortable, even happy. His anecdotes
were always about other people, whom I did not know; he was
a solitary who had the grace to occupy himself with
other lives. His brief burst of truth-telling,
on the occasion of our first real encounter, had served
the purpose he had intended for it: his life
story, as it were, had been offered, had been
accepted without criticism, and now need never be
re-examined. I never found out whether he had been
seeing an analyst, for the moment for that kind of
explanation had passed, and I sensed that it was an
immense relief to him not to have to discuss it. As far
as he was concerned I was a friend, his friend, even his
particular friend. My chief virtue was that I never
queried the exact nature of this friendship.

To myself, of course, I did. Had I been
brave enough to admit it I should have acknowledged the
stupefying nature of such irreproachability.
Yet, miraculously, I managed to keep my
impatience in check. It was enough, or almost enough,
to shop for food with some enthusiasm, to devise a
meal that would tempt him, to make him welcome.
For I too had been lonely, though well enough
equipped to deal with loneliness. There was genuine
pleasure in knowing that my evenings would be occupied,
and by a man who was becoming less and less of a
stranger, but that was how I had felt at the outset
of my marriage. I did not, could not, envisage
another marriage: the idea oppressed me, although
an outside observer might have concluded that this
stately friendship could end in nothing less
than marriage. That was not within my sights, although
on certain evenings it might seem as though it had
already taken place. We ate, we cleared away
—
he now knew where everything was kept
—
we watched
television together. Like the solitaries that we
remained we were fascinated by the alliances, the
domestic arrangements of the characters in the soap
operas. His attitude towards these imaginary people
was severely critical: they were stupid, or, more
often, workshy. I could see that he was well on the
way to becoming a testy old man, and I on the
way to becoming one of those humorously tolerant
women whose presence I had always found so
soporific, largely on account of that very
tolerance. Take a lover, I would urge
silently, when stopped by one of these women in the
shops or in the street (for now I seemed to know quite
a few people, or perhaps they knew me), or, as one
of my er
st
while Parisian acquaintances would
recommend, in stronger terms,
“
Faites de
la gymnastique, ou faites-vous
baiser.
”
There was a certain mean pleasure in
knowing myself to be on the right side of orthodoxy,
to be entitled to a certain smugness, to be able
to accept as normal this strange entitlement to which
I was still not accustomed. We understood enough about each
other to enable us to avoid disharmony, and if this was not
quite enough for me I could see that it pleased Nigel.
Indeed his satisfaction at the way things had
turned out was almost palpable. He seemed both
younger and older than I was, younger in his lack of
worldliness, older in his unvaryingly courteous
demeanour in all circumstances. There were times when
I longed to torment him, to goad him into some form of
spontaneity, to inspire in him some rude
initiative, but these times were becoming increasingly
rare. I was almost a reformed character. Nigel, of
course, had always been one.

When the telephone rang I said,
“
That can't
be you; you're already here.
”
He loved that kind of
remark, with its implications of assurance, of
continuity. We had been leaning on the
window-sill, gazing out at the brilliant evening,
struck by the bea
uty of the summer season. Reluc
tantly we turned back into the comparative
dimness of the unlit room.
“
You sit down,
”
I said.
“
I'll tell them to ring back.
”

“
Hello,
”
said Betsy.
“
How are you?
”

I had forgotten all about her, willingly. I
had thought it better to leave our
fractured friendship alone rather than go through the tedious
motions of reviving it.

“
I'm fine,
”
I said.
“
And you?
”

“
Well, not so good, actually.
”
Her tone was
merry, but with an undertone of distraction.

Nigel mimed a query. He was not used
to having his presence disturbed. My success in
making him feel at home had, perhaps, been a little
too complete. I put my hand over the
mouthpiece.
“
We're out of wine,
”
I said.
“
Could you bear to go out and get a bottle?
White. We're having fish.
”

I heard his steps on the stairs and removed
my hand.
“
Betsy? What's wrong?
”

“
Oh, nothing really. It's just that I'm going
into hospital tomorrow, and I thought I'd better let
you know.
”

“
Are you ill?
”

“
No, I don't suppose I am. It's
just for tests. Isn't that what they always say?
”
The merriment had left her voice, in which I
now detected tiredness.

“
What's wrong?
”

“
I've been having a little discomfort. I
expect it's nothing really. I'll only be in a
few days.
”

“
I'll come and see you. Where will you be?
”

She mentioned a name that meant nothing to me.
“
It's a small private hospital somewhere
across the river.
”

“
Why private? Wouldn't you be better off
on the NHS? They have the resources ...
”

“
Edmund insisted.
”
Her pride was
unmistakable.

“
So Edmund knows about this?
”

“
Naturally. The thing is, they want the name of
my next of kin. Well, as you know, I have no
next of kin.
”
She laughed.
“
I wondered if
you'd mind if I gave your name? I'm sure they
won't bother you. As I say, it's only for a
few days. And you can see that I can't give
Edmund's name.
”

“
In your place I think I might have
done.
”