Undue Influence (22 page)

That afternoon was one of the strangest I had ever spent. The flat was filled with a hazy milky light that was unfamiliar to me. I could hear distant traffic sounds from Baker Street, but otherwise I was conscious of being alone and undisturbed. There were no telephone messages. This disappointed me, though I had not expected any. My main priority was to get in touch with Martin, but even this proved difficult. I might have been trying to make an appointment with a doctor or a dentist, with whom one is on cordial but inhibited terms. I
stared at the paper, then pushed it aside and lit a cigarette. This too was a departure from the norm. In the end I wrote, ‘Dear Martin. I have left the shop and will be spending the rest of the month at home, so you can contact me here. I shall probably go away in the early autumn.’ (In fact I had decided none of this; the idea had only just occurred to me.) ‘Naturally I hope to see you before then. I am longing to hear about Italy. Perhaps you will come to dinner on the 15th. You should be back by then, but if not give me a call when you have read this. It seems very odd not going to work, and I wonder if I shall ever get used to it. On the other hand I shall be glad of a chance to make further plans. Let me know if the 15th is all right. If not, do suggest another date.’ I thought this sounded reasonably well-balanced, though it might have been strategically better not to write at all. But I was tired of all that: I only wanted to see him again. I hesitated over the ending, and finally just signed my name. Then I sealed and stamped it and posted it straight away. That meant that I could expect a letter. I thought this was preferable to not expecting one.

At six o’clock I picked up the briefcase to which I had consigned St John Collier’s papers and set out for Marchmont Street. I realized that I had never encountered workers heading for home: I was used to being one of their number. Those last weeks in the shop seemed like a lost haven of calm and safety. Now that I was out in the world again I did not quite know how to deal with it. My situation was fairly grave for I had found the ideal job and lost it. This occasioned a few thoughts on chance and serendipity. After all the job had been secured without difficulty, and through it I had met Martin. Cynthia I now consigned to the past, hoping that Martin would eventually do the same. I could help him to do this.

Muriel answered the door, looking tired and flustered. It was
all too evident that I had come at an inconvenient time. ‘Come in, Claire,’ she said. ‘We were just eating. Hester,’ she called. ‘It’s Claire.’

Hester was seated at the table, a meagre plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. It was obvious that a vast change had taken place. Her mouth, which was moist from the eggs, was open, almost sagging. Her chest seemed concave, or was it that the bodice of her dress looked empty, as if there were no one inside it?

‘Claire,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Claire.’

‘Sit down, Claire,’ said Muriel. ‘You don’t mind if we finish this, do you? I’ll make some tea in a minute. Or coffee. You prefer coffee, don’t you?’

‘Don’t bother,’ I told her. ‘I shan’t stop.’ I came to bring you these.’ I handed over the briefcase. ‘And to tell you I’ve left the shop.’

‘I rather thought you would. You are an independent person. As I am. It was all taken out of my hands, you know. Once I’d lent Geoffrey the keys—lent, as I thought, not given—I realized that I should have made a few conditions. When he came back to return them he said that he might as well hang on to them, in order to get another set cut. I thought nothing of it. Then I realized that as he would have two sets of keys he would naturally give one to Peter. Which he evidently did. I realized my mistake only after he left. Then he telephoned later in the evening to say that they’d be starting on the work as soon as possible. The work! As if there were anything to do! Everything was left in order.’ The handkerchief was brought out again. ‘So it was a virtual takeover.’

I nodded. ‘They were there when I got in this morning. Moving books around.’

‘I didn’t expect Geoffrey to be so ruthless.’

‘Maybe it was Peter …’

‘Oh, no. It was Geoffrey. His mind was always very acute. He always knew what he wanted.’

Or did not want. Neither of us said anything.

‘So when are you moving?’

‘He’s buying the house, of course. He said it was to spare me any further worry. I confess I was quite pleased when he made the offer. Now I’m not so sure. I acquiesced because it seemed simpler to fall in with his plans. Hester! Leave that food, if you don’t want it. In any case it must be quite cold by now. You can watch television for half an hour. Claire will come and say goodbye to you when she leaves.’

Slowly Hester negotiated her way from behind the table, looked at the napkin in her hand, then dropped it. We both watched her snail’s progress out of the room. ‘I’ll just switch on the television for her,’ said Muriel. ‘She’ll fall asleep as soon as she sits down.’ She smiled painfully. ‘Don’t look so concerned, Claire. It’s what happens to old people.’

Left alone I could hear only Muriel’s voice, and then a burst of canned laughter. That sounded even more sinister than Hester’s silence. When Muriel came back I realized that I no longer knew what to say. I was anxious to leave, even more anxious not to let this show, though it was clearly what she wanted.

‘You see how things are, Claire,’ she said. ‘There was nothing else I could do.’

‘If I can help …’ I suggested.

‘You’ve been very good, Claire. You could have been quite angry with me.’

‘Oh, no, I could never be that.’ There was a pause. ‘Do keep in touch.’

‘Oh, I will.’ We both knew that this was untrue. ‘I’ll tell Hester that you said goodbye. I’m afraid she must have dozed off.’

‘Of course. Goodbye, Muriel. I hope it all …’ All what? Goes
well? How could it? They were finished, that was manifest. And they had done so well! Such spotless lives, shipwrecked at the last, when they had not expected it! Even Muriel had now given in, or rather given up. Applause erupted from the television. ‘Don’t see me out, Muriel. You must be rather tired.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am tired. Thank you, Claire. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye,’ I said. But she had already turned away.

Sixteen

I had a problem: how to deal with the time at my disposal. Ordinary time is spent working, but I had no work, and therefore this was not ordinary time. Exceptional weather—a heat wave, say—would have made such leisure acceptable by others, but this summer was not conforming to normal standards. It remained dull, except for that promising show of sunlight in the early morning which soon faded behind cloud, so that the effect was always of a slight mist or even of impending rain. I still left the flat purposefully, as if I had engagements, appointments, only to return an hour or two later, at a time when the ladies of the neighbourhood, some of them from Montagu Mansions, emerged with their wheeled baskets to do their shopping. They expressed no surprise at seeing me, or perhaps they were too polite to inquire what I was doing at home. They may have assumed that I was on holiday, or sorting out my mother’s affairs. In a sense I was doing both, but I should have made a bad job of explaining this. I felt in a sense illegitimate, even shameful, though I had committed no fault. Yet I could not have stood up to the kindly interrogation that these women would not deny themselves, no matter how it would have been received. I knew that excuses had been made for me when I had been constrained by my parents’ poor
health, even more when my mother began her long slow descent into illness. Now I began to see even that illness as a way of occupying time. I was healthy: I had no use for this. But I saw that despair, which my mother must have felt, can eat up the hours, with all the little routines one devises to distract one. I did not feel despair, only a slow bewilderment, with which I suppose despair is associated.

I went to the bank and discovered that I had been left nine thousand pounds which was in a reserve account accumulating interest. This money seemed not only unreal but somehow unavailable, as if it did nothing to fulfil my everyday needs. Those had been served by my own personal salary, which seemed to me infinitely more respectable. There was, however, in that unreal account, an assurance that I could continue as I was until some other form of work presented itself. At the back of my mind I suspected that in a month or two I should go back to the shop, ostensibly to see how Peter was getting on, and if I were desperate enough, which I reckoned I should be by then, would ask if he needed any help, offering to cover for him at the weekends, if necessary, or at any other time. This should not be too difficult, although the prospect was humiliating. But I, who had always sidestepped humiliation, now began to make its acquaintance. And in the coming winter (for personal disorientation always makes one dread the winter) I should be glad of some occupation, however much of a comedown it represented. And the shop was in a sense my true home, now that the empty flat seemed so alien. Brought to this pass I made an inventory of my advantages: solvency, for the time being, headed my list. I was perfectly entitled to waste a few days, at least until I saw Wiggy again. And Martin, who had not replied to my letter. When I thought of him in Italy I grew both indignant and wistful, but
there was nothing I could do to prevent him from enjoying his liberty, of which I told myself I was a part. It was just that my surroundings were the opposite of picturesque: Baker Street, at all times of day, is noisy and clogged with traffic, and I could not summon the energy to go far afield. In fact a lethargy was beginning to envelop me. At least I still got up very early and began vigorously enough to prepare my day. It was just that the preparations seemed to peter out at about nine o’clock, by which time that early sun had disappeared, so that the time in front of me stretched out endlessly, as if both the day and I were under a cloud.

I felt older, as if I had recently qualified for adult concerns. I shopped conscientiously, thus gaining the tacit approval of the other shoppers, my neighbours, who smiled kindly when they saw me with my basket over my arm. If I were not very careful I should become one of them, and spend days like theirs. I had no idea what they did with themselves, but I could dimly foresee hours spent on trivial pastimes, on telephone calls, on library books, on family visits. None of these were available to me: I became newly aware of my isolated position. What had seemed like my own liberty was now an illusion of sorts; perhaps it always had been. Liberty is defined by constraints, and when these are removed liberty is always a little disappointing. It does not coincide with freedom, which is what everyone craves; rather it is a guarantee of a certain social position, which I did in fact enjoy. I was a householder; I had money in the bank. What I lacked was a consciousness of my own entitlements, which I took to be an endowment conferred by liberty. I should have preferred a wild surge of possibilities, of desires, no doubt anarchic, which would have convinced me that I was free. I could not understand how, if I were free, I was not free to envisage an alternative to the life
I was living. I seemed to be in abeyance until that alternative presented itself. In that way I was not free, was in fact subject to circumstance. I was too wary to examine this, knowing that danger lay in that direction. My enemy was fantasy. The rest I could just about deal with.

On one of my shopping expeditions I caught sight of Sue on the opposite side of the street, just going into Selfridges. I hesitated, then went in search of her. I did not particularly want to see her, but I was in need of conversation, however anodyne. Out of uniform she looked healthy and banal, as I had always seen her. It was the white coat that lent her distinction.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Do you remember me?’

She looked doubtful, standing there with two mangoes in her hands. The doubt was absolutely genuine, although it seemed exaggerated. She was in a hurry, I told myself, with my new lack of confidence: she was due at the hospital, had bought these two mangoes for a patient perhaps.

‘We met at the Gibsons,’ I reminded her. ‘I was so sorry for them both. I’m sure you were the most marvellous help.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. Her tone of voice did not encourage further reminiscence. In fact her previous boldness seemed to have vanished, as if she too were under the same edict of dullness as I was myself.

‘What are you doing now?’ I asked. ‘Still private nursing?’

‘No, I’m at the hospital. I’ve been seconded.’

‘And do you prefer it?’ I persisted. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got time for coffee? I’m on holiday,’ I explained. ‘I shan’t be going away just yet, though. What about you?’

I was having to make extraordinary efforts to detain her. She volunteered nothing, still seemed anxious to move on. Yet she examined me with a curiosity which I assumed was purely professional. I wondered if she could detect some hidden morbidity
of which I was not yet aware, but my face obviously revealed nothing. She seemed uneasy, as if she would rather not have seen me, as if I had interrupted her day, much as I had hoped that someone would interrupt mine. Yet she was not grateful for this interruption, as I should have been. This puzzled me, and finally made me a little indignant: surely this girl had no right to make me feel an intruder? She had not replied to my suggestion of a cup of coffee, but looked down at the mangoes as if they might answer for her.