Undue Influence (27 page)

Every day that elusive sun stood lower in the sky, in the brief interval before it disappeared altogether. Every day the trees in the park appeared more immobile, solid blocks of dark green, as if they were not subject to change, despite the evidence of leaves fallen onto the ground beneath them. The summer was over, and as if to demonstrate the fact familiar faces began to reappear in my neighbourhood. I thought that I should tell some of these people that I was going away, knocked on a few doors in Montagu Mansions, and announced my imminent departure. This information was more or less kindly received, although as I was habitually out all day there was a slight air of surprise that told me that my absence would not be remarked upon. This exercise was undertaken mainly to convince myself. I went about my preparations as if for the benefit of a whole army of observers. I collected foreign currency of all denominations—who knew where that phantom train would be taking me?—and half-heartedly put a few garments aside to take to the cleaners. I was not concerned with my appearance. I knew that in that foreign city, wherever it turned out to be, I should pass unnoticed. I did not really wish it otherwise, for this was a calculated absence, undertaken merely in relation to a convincing return. What plans I made were for
that return, rather than for days in which I should wander among crowds like an ordinary holidaymaker, not even sightseeing, but attaching myself to any group of people who seemed to know where they were going.

None of this mattered, for it was being done for a purpose. Fixed firmly in my mind was the notion that this was necessary apprenticeship for a kind of reinstatement. I could do nothing with the time at my disposal, but in the darker days to come I should somehow have recovered a sense of purpose, of busyness, and above all of pleasure. I calculated that within a few months—or weeks if I were particularly fortunate—I should have secured my old job. This did not seem impossible. Rather more problematic was the question of Martin, from whom I had not heard. I accepted this: I knew somehow that the pattern had been set, that he would recognize my overtures as coming from myself alone, leaving him utterly free of calculation. His conscience demanded this, whereas my own conscience was troubled only slightly by the conviction that such precautions were totally unnecessary, were in fact aberrant, and that affection (I used that word even to myself) had no need of such artifice but should spring from a natural desire for company, for conversation, and finally for closeness. I put it no higher than that, not even to myself.

But one night I had a disquieting dream. I was in a wide street which I could not identify. Some paces in front of me was Martin, but a Martin whom I did not know, Martin as a much younger man, with dishevelled hair and a livelier step. I could see him quite clearly: he wore an open-necked shirt, which was out of character, and he appeared to be skipping along and humming to himself. I managed to catch up with him and put my hand on his arm; he shook it off, but I took no notice. I was trying to engage him in some sort of colloquy.
Do you remember so-an-so? I said, but he looked at me as if I were a stranger, before taking off again, with that curiously insouciant step. He soon outdistanced me but I kept him within my sights, so that we both made our discordant way down that broad street, Martin ahead, myself following vainly behind. From time to time I flung out a question, but received no response. I was as impressed as if he were some exotic stranger whose presence I had been appointed to monitor; he meanwhile appeared to be in genuine ignorance of the fact that I was in the vicinity, as he made his curiously youthful way along the edge of the pavement, like a boy playing a game. A wind ruffled both his hair and his shirt but left my own hair untouched, as if I had no corporeal body, or at least not one like his. We were both invisible to other passers-by, from which I concluded that this was indeed a dream. Yet when I finally awoke it was in a state of some agitation, as if I could still see that untroubled skipping figure in front of me, his fair looks quite familiar and unmistakable, but somehow translated into a past to which I had no access, as if he were a boy again, while I had grown older, older than the age I was now, in the present, and obliged to keep a watch on him and to work out the enormous conundrum of his good humour, as revealed by his carelessness, a physical carelessness which in fact was against his nature, and his self-absorption, so great that it prevented him from responding to my overtures.

Somehow, as I bathed and dressed, I knew that this lack of response had a cause, and that cause was even more worrying than the dream itself. I saw that his preoccupation occluded my presence altogether. Even my hand on his arm had had no weight; he did not so much shrug it off as cause it to disappear, and my questions met with no response because he quite naturally could not hear them. My conscious mind furnished
the dream with more detail, as if it contained evidence that I had only to examine in order to arrive at a full explanation. Thus to the open-necked shirt and disordered hair were added grey flannel trousers and brown leather sandals, such as schoolboys used to wear, so that I knew that this was a genuine survival of his younger self. I had seen no signs of this in the straitlaced and immaculately presented person I thought I knew, but I recognized this younger self as somehow authentic. As was his deafness to my questions. This I did recognize as coming within the realm of fact, although in real life my questions had been anodyne enough, if not particularly well received. My final impression was that Martin in the dream had proved untouchable, since his thoughts eluded me, were in fact his own, jealously guarded, and therefore unknowable.

But this explanation did not fully convince me, since the figure in the dream had had a vague smile of pleasure on his lips, so that whatever took place in his untouchable head had to do with anticipation rather than with recollection. I had no reason for arriving at this conclusion. It was simply that, throughout the morning, I remembered my hand being shrugged from his arm, and my feeling of surprise that this was so easily accomplished, not so much from a lack of scruple or delicacy, as entirely naturally, as one might brush a hair from one’s face. There was no human importunity in that gesture of mine, nor was there any motive behind his rejection of it. And indeed the whole dream had been so brief, resolving itself into an image of disconnected progress along a street which was unknown to me, that I had no clue as to its final significance. And yet when I had woken I had moved my head uneasily from side to side on my pillow, as if to eradicate it. It proved difficult to dislodge. Yet in the daytime, with the assistance of that brief shaft of sunlight, I castigated myself. If I were
now to become superstitious, in addition to all my other preoccupations, I was in a bad way. The hour and a half it somehow took to book my ticket put paid to this. Reality, it seemed, still had enough power to put fantasy to flight. A woman trod heavily on my foot as I was leaving the travel agency. On that sort of reality one could always rely.

The letter that I wrote to Martin was brief, airy, and nonspecific. It merely stated that I should be away for a few days, but that I hoped to see him before I left. For a few moments this letter seemed to resolve various problems: it set the seal on my departure, and it signified a forthcoming meeting with Martin, not the boyish contented Martin of the dream but the fearfully divided man whose mentality now began to trouble me. I should almost have preferred him to have the characteristics of the early dreamed figure, although I knew that this was impossible, and that the earlier Martin would not have known me anyway. Posting the letter gave me an access of energy, as if I could now start anticipating a future which would bring him once again into my orbit.

I had planned to leave on the Wednesday of the following week. If I had heard nothing by Saturday I should overcome my reluctance and telephone him. There was no good reason why I had not done this before, apart from my suspicion that he would do his best to avoid anything like direct confrontation, that he was a man who was at a disadvantage when interrupted, and that he genuinely disliked the privacy of his home being disturbed. With this last I could sympathize: the flat was only truly mine when it was silent and preferably empty, ready to receive me when I returned in the early evening and maintaining its own mysterious integrity while I was absent. Also it seemed entirely in keeping that this cautious and exploratory approach should suit both of us, for I
had become more tentative since knowing him, while he would, for reasons of his own, prefer to exert control in the matter of accepting or refusing an invitation. It occurred to me to wonder whether his other friends—those Fosters, for example—observed such restrictions. I rather thought not. He had come to them with a clean record, whereas his association with me was unwise. At least that was how he saw it; I found such behaviour absurd. I was unhappy that my calculations outran his, that was all. I had hoped that we might meet at the weekend, spend time as other people spent time, although I was not quite clear on this point. I might have envisaged a holiday together had I not foreseen the utter impossibility of this ever taking place. I castigated my imagination for misleading me, as it sometimes did. My mind, like most people’s minds, was a mixture of instinct, information, and ignorance, all entirely characteristic. And in addition there was that intriguing area of detritus that came to the fore in sleep. Such dreams as I had, and I had very few, proved surprisingly difficult to dislodge, though this did not persuade me that they were in any way meaningful. I marvelled rather at the images than at what they signified. I myself had only a shadow existence in these dreams, whereas those of whom I was dreaming were endowed with an alarming distinction, as if enjoying another life of which I knew nothing but on which I had somehow gained an unnerving insight. Thus the characters who people one’s dreams are revealed as strangers, and strangers, moreover, who have no interest in oneself, even though one is the agent behind all their movements. In the act of dreaming it is impossible to consider oneself the prime mover. More often one is the victim of circumstance, unsuitably dressed, missing the train, enrolled in the wrong examination, vainly requesting help that is not forthcoming, whereas those who make a randorn
appearance seem to enjoy a more substantial existence. I tried in vain to repeat my dream but was not able to do so. Again reality proved too strong: I had received no answer to my letter and I had not made my telephone call. I told myself that the following day, Sunday, would be more propitious, since time is different, more permissive, on a Sunday. Perhaps I was even enjoying the anticipation. In any event I held back.

But when I eventually made the call and still received no answer I told myself that he was away for the weekend, probably in Dorset, and set out once more for the park. This was to be a valedictory occasion since I should not care to repeat it in the colder days to come, in which other, more superior activities might be adumbrated. This had one unforeseen advantage: it turned England into a foreign country which I should soon leave in search for other heartlands. In fact I paid little attention to what I saw, merely noting the preponderance of decorous Asian families, and the curious effect of silence from the unmoving trees standing sentinel over the seats on which few people took their ease. A light rain came on halfway through the afternoon and I retraced my steps thankfully, for I had had enough of the tired grass and the stony paths. My ability to envisage other lives had more or less deserted me, vanquished perhaps by what seemed the stronger reality of my disturbing dream. At least I had registered it as disturbing, whereas in fact it was merely dreamlike. On waking I had instinctively and uneasily moved my head from side to side, before abruptly turning over as if in search of further sleep. No sleep had come, and I had remained uncomfortably wakeful for the rest of the night. Only the act of writing the letter had provided some relief, and I could see that letter now, on the mat in Weymouth Street, where there was no one to pick it up, open it, and read it.

In an instant, and without any warning, came the conviction that I could not, should not, contact him again, that it was not in my gift to solicit his company but merely his to grant it from time to time. My letter was explicit enough: he could respond to it or not as he decided fit. This caused me some confusion, but also a better recognition of the circumstances. I had somehow failed to make the transition from acquaintance to familiar, and further eagerness on my part would be counterproductive. I did not know myself in this new manifestation, but recognized it as appropriate. Want is not always met; only an empty Sunday afternoon intensifies one’s own emptiness, as busier more ordinary days do not. I was eager now to leave in order to come back and start again. The intervening time seemed utterly devoid of interest. Cultural pursuits must now fill my brief horizon, and if I paid them little attention, as I knew I should, I should nevertheless appreciate them for furnishing information which I might yet put to advantage. In this way I could provide the sort of conversation best indicated in the circumstances, with no reference to more personal inclinations, and, even if I were given a further opportunity, no leading questions.

As I went up the steps of Montagu Mansions loud jocose laughter heralded the downward approach of Mrs Dilnot, one of the neighbours whom I had warned of my impending departure. She was one of my favourites, a tall commanding elderly woman with a face enlivened by various carelessly applied colours. She was accompanied by her niece who usually put in an appearance on a Sunday, largely to monitor and report on Mrs Dilnot’s progress into an increasingly eccentric old age.

‘Ah, Claire, there you are. Not gone yet?’

‘No, I go on Wednesday.’

‘You know Rosemary, don’t you? My sister’s girl.’

The girl in question was probably in her late fifties, with grey hair and a pleasant lined face. If I were not mistaken she viewed her Sunday attendance as less of a chore than a stimulant. Mrs Dilnot was uninhibited, verging on the outrageous, a woman who had seen off three husbands to whom she made no reference.