Undue Influence (28 page)
‘We’re off to our usual gambling hell.’
‘Your bridge club?’
‘Yes. The delights of old age, bridge and the telly. Mark you, old age has something to be said for it. You can ignore all health warnings, for one thing. You can drink, smoke, take pills, eat butter, lie in the sun; it doesn’t matter a damn. My life took on a new meaning when I decided to devote it to idle degeneracy. And do you know, Claire, I didn’t hear a word of criticism. Which proves what I’ve always maintained: it’s the virtuous who get it in the neck.’
‘True.’
‘So you’re off to the South of France?’
‘Well, no, I thought …’
‘Oh, I could tell you a thing or two about the adventures I’ve had, but I don’t want to shock Rosemary.’
Rosemary smiled patiently, having heard it all before.
‘Juan-les-Pins, Cap Ferrat, Antibes—I know them well. I’d take off, just like you, after my first divorce. I went alone, but I didn’t remain alone for long, I can tell you. There was always someone with a yacht, always someone to bring my drinks, someone to stay up all night with, if you take my meaning.’
‘I don’t suppose I …’
‘Oh, make the most of it, why don’t you? You’re young, nice-looking. And you were so good to your mother. You deserve a little fun.’
Mrs Dilnot had, as usual, drunk a few glasses of wine with
her lunch, unlike Rosemary, who was presumably present to make sure that her aunt did not commit any indiscretions that would go down badly in Montagu Mansions. In the mornings Mrs Dilnot was entirely presentable, supporting herself on her stick, her brilliant blouse concealing her imposing bosom. After her regulation excursion to the shops she was more or less invisible for the rest of the day. What she did was no concern of mine or indeed of the rest of the tenants, although the day could not be far off when she would pass out in an inconvenient place, when a rescue mission would have to be mounted, an ambulance called. In hospital, deprived of her usual beverage, and with no one to listen to her reminiscences of the Riviera, she would die. I reckoned she must be the same age as Muriel Collier, and the comparison did Muriel no favours. Interestingly, she looked as ruined as Muriel, which proves that no regime, however hedonistic, protects one from the outrageous depredations of old age. My mother, who had lived an entirely virtuous life, had looked like a girl well into her sixties, but during her last illness her face had collapsed inwards, less from pain than from consciousness that she had wasted the time allotted to her. I had been told that I looked like her, information that contained a warning that only I could appreciate. Mrs Dilnot, in her violently patterned tunics, her trousers, her scarves, and her broad-brimmed hats, was evidently not going gentle into that good night. One could only silently applaud, and resolve to follow her example.
‘Buy some new clothes while you’re away,’ she was saying. ‘You must make the most of your looks while there’s still time. I’m always telling Rosemary the same thing.’ She looked disparagingly at her niece, and shook her head. ‘Not that it’s any use. There’s a man at the club who’s made it quite clear that he’d like to know her better but she takes no notice. I told him he’d have better luck with me.’ She gave a coarse laugh. ‘Well,
we mustn’t keep you. Enjoy yourself, whatever you do. Come along, Rosemary. We might as well start burning the midnight oil.’ This time the laugh was slightly more bitter. ‘When I think,’ I could hear her say, as Rosemary manoeuvred her into the street. ‘Juan-les-Pins. Cap Ferrat. Antibes. Now it’s as much as I can do …’ Fortunately the rest of the declaration was interrupted as the street door closed, though I could hear her loud agitated voice, could imagine the discreetly helping hand under the elbow, before a taxi drew up and bore them away.
I went into the flat and made tea. There was a message from Wiggy on my machine but I did not particularly want to talk to anyone. We frequently telephoned each other and got no answer; it was a way of keeping in touch. Each would register the call and know that the other was at home, ready with a listening ear should it be required. We exchanged little information, but we nevertheless counted on that wordless companionship, which serves us in default of relatives, descendants. Latterly I was conscious of deliberately concealing information from her, but short of making a full confession, which I instinctively rejected, I had precious little to tell. We relied on each other to recount an amusing anecdote or two, to warn of a change of plan. We knew each other’s movements, trusted each other with spare keys, were confident that plants would be watered in our absence. The one disadvantage of this holiday (but there was more than one) was that I should not have Wiggy to talk to at the end of the day. To telephone from Venice or Barcelona was something I should only feel entitled to do in an emergency. But in fact the emergency had already presented itself in the form of that dream which was still clear in my mind, and everyone knows that however vivid and important a dream appears to the dreamer it is of no conceivable interest to anyone else.
I spent the following day, Monday, discarding various clothes
I knew I should never wear again. I wondered how on earth I had ever thought myself presentable. In the shop my appearance had hardly mattered. In any case book buyers are usually short-sighted. Now I compared myself with those elegant women, or perhaps one elegant woman, in Italy, and felt ashamed. And I had hoped to make an impression simply by being myself! I dispatched naïveté forever, consigning it to a prelapsarian time before doubt had set in. There was of course no letter, no telephone message. I told myself that the weekend in Dorset had been prolonged. Despite myself I could not entirely banish a feeling of extreme scepticism. Such mental activity as I allowed myself was suitable only to the simple-minded; in fact I had embroiled myself in something that stretched my calculations at the limit. Somewhere I had failed to find the key to a personality which was not mysterious in itself, but merely contained the complexities of which everyone is formed. I was still fearful of making contact, even walked stealthily about the flat, so as not to miss the ringing of the telephone. Part of me knew that I should not be disturbed. I even felt a relief that I should soon be on my way, free of this tension that would not cease to mount.
On the Tuesday evening, my bag packed, my newly empty cupboards mute witnesses to my departure, I phoned Wiggy to say goodbye. A mild exhilaration had replaced my earlier perplexity. The past weekend now appeared strange to me, as if I had suffered a passing illness, with all the disordered thinking that illness brings in its wake.
‘You’ve got everything?’ said Wiggy. ‘What time are you off?’
‘The nine o’clock Eurostar, then lunch at the Brasserie du Nord, then the métro to the Gare de Lyon, and then who knows?’
‘Sounds all right. I don’t know that I’d do it, though. You’ve got more courage than I have.’
I thought it would take more courage to stay at home, but said nothing.
‘Take care of yourself. Is there anything you want me to do in the flat while you’re away?’
‘No, nothing. Any other news? Anything I should know about while I’m off message?’
‘I can’t think of anything. Oh, yes, this will amuse you. I saw that man Gibson in Selfridges Food Hall yesterday. He was with that nurse, you know, the one with the teeth.’
‘Sue.’
‘I must say he’s made a remarkably quick recovery. He looked positively cheerful. So did she. I was surprised that he remembered me. Us, I should say. “Give our love to Claire,” she said. They even reminded me of the telephone number, although he added that they might be leaving the flat, were thinking of moving out a little way. “Not that we’re in any hurry,” he said. Claire? Are you there?’
‘Must go,’ I said. ‘Things to do. I’ll ring when I get back.’
The burning blush that crept all over me was for my own stupidity, not emotional this time so much as intellectual. This was one connection I had failed to make. It was the greatest failure of my life and no future success could ever obliterate it. When the heat in my face and throat subsided and I could bear to get up from my chair, I walked to the window and looked out. I must have stood there for some time, because when I turned round the room was in darkness. I had no conscious thoughts. All I knew was that now, as never before, I should find it easy to leave.
ANITA BROOKNER
Undue Influence
Anita Brookner is the author of nineteen finely crafted novels, including
Falling Slowly, Visitors
, and
Hotel du Lac
, which won the Booker Prize. An international authority on eighteenth-century painting, she became the first female Slade Professor at Cambridge University. She lives in London.
Also by
ANITA BROOKNER
A Start in Life
Providence
Look at Me
Hotel du Lac
Family and Friends
A Misalliance
A Friend from England
Latecomers
Leuns Percy
Brief Lives
A Closed Eye
Fraud
Dolly
A Private View
Incidents in the Rue Laugier
Altered States
Visitors
Falling Slowly
Copyright © 1999 by Anita Brookner
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., NewYork.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged
the Random House edition as follows:
Brookner, Anita.
Undue influence: a novel / Anita Brookner.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PR5052.R5816U54 2000
823’.914—dc21 99-36282
Vintage eISBN: 978-0-307-49236-4
Author photograph © Jerry Bauer
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