A Friend from England (22 page)

My mission, however, was to enquire after Dorrie’s health, and to find out what had happened to Heather and her romance. If, as I hoped, the idea had quietly subsided and she were back in the fold there would be nothing more for me to do, for I could hardly add to what I had already said, nor could I even allude to it. Perhaps we could all be as we had been before, a little circle which I was occasionally permitted to join. Perhaps we could again be that nest of gentlefolk, the idea of which had once so beguiled me. The idea, in fact, rather than the reality, for reality is neither static nor shapely: reality is for the most part inconvenient. The real part of this acquaintanceship had held up a mirror in which I saw myself: forlorn, uncherished,
unaccompanied. For all I knew this was the way I was seen not merely by myself but by the Livingstones as well. Various discomforts – the monotonous falling water, the vision of myself as a poor orphan, and my recent outburst, perhaps, above all, my recent outburst – kept me from enquiring after Dorrie’s health until well into January.

When I finally made the call it was answered by Dorrie, who sounded delighted to hear from me.

‘We wondered what had happened to you, dear. Of course we know how tired you must be after Christmas and we didn’t like to bother you.’

‘It’s lovely to hear your voice, Dorrie. How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m getting along splendidly, dear. And they’re all making such a fuss of me. Anyone would think I’d been really ill.’ She laughed doubtfully. ‘And I’m not allowed to do a thing.’

Her voice had recovered its vigour, with perhaps a slightly breathy overtone which I put down to the temporary wound in her throat.

‘Rachel?’ she went on. ‘We’d love to see you, dear. Are you by any chance free tomorrow afternoon? I’ve told the girls to go out for the day. They’ve been so good, here all the time. But I’ve put my foot down. And it would be such a lovely chance to have a really good talk with you. I know Oscar would love to see you.’

‘How is he?’ I asked.

‘Just fine, bless him. Can we expect you tomorrow, then? The usual time. You know the way, dear.’

Although her greeting had been so warm my reluctance strangely persisted. Perhaps because by now I knew too much, because, in fact, I knew more than any of them, I felt an instinctive desire to avoid that lovely talk that Dorrie had promised me. There was too much that I would not be entitled to say. I felt poisoned by my knowledge: this was perhaps my equivalent of original
sin. Although the rain had died down to a fine drizzle I stopped the first taxi I saw coming and settled down in the back for what might well be an afternoon of great difficulty, in which dissimulation must be my lot, and further discomfort its inevitable accompaniment.

The house, as I stood outside it, seemed smaller than I had remembered, and the garden less immaculate: one drowned rose hung limply from its stem. When Oscar opened the door to me, and smiled at me as he had always done, I felt reassured, but as I followed him into the drawing-room I was aware of a miasma of forgotten meals, or of the hasty housekeeping of the sisters in an alien kitchen. I was aware of the much breathed air of convalescence, the contagion of the flesh thrusting its persistent memory forward into a time in which it might be thought to be irrelevant. I found myself nervous of what I might see, but Dorrie, seated in her usual chair (but in it, not on the edge of it as hitherto) greeted me delightedly and with conviction. She looked astonishingly well. Her hair had been done in a new and flattering way to hide the mutilated earlobe, and it made her look younger. She wore a skirt and cardigan of dark blue raw silk, and into the opening of the inevitable print blouse she had tucked a silk scarf to hide the tiny wound in her throat. She looked, if anything, better than I had seen her for a long time. Her honeysuckle scent floated on the waves of warmth emanating from the radiators, which were, as always, turned up to their highest register. Bowls and vases of flowers added their exudations to the heady atmosphere.

I had always thought her a pretty woman, and here, in her natural setting, she appeared to her best advantage. There were few signs of age about her beyond a slight blurring of the outlines of face and figure. The upper part of the body was still fine, but the waist was beginning to sink into the saddle of the hips, which would eventually give her an appearance of shortness
and plumpness, although she was in fact very neatly made. I noticed the legs in that passive elderly position again, the ankles crossed, the knees splayed slightly outwards. But the face was still that of a good-looking youngish woman. Perhaps there was a pad of flesh under the chin, perhaps there were lines describing a parenthesis around the mouth, but the eyebrows were not yet untidy and they arched magnificently above the mild blue eyes. That expression, described so long ago, was still familiar to me. It quested, in an unhurried way, and appeared to be looking, above a crowd of heads, for a well-loved face. Where? Where? it appeared to be saying. I remembered Oscar’s eternal question: ‘Where’s your mother?’ But she was here, beside us both, looking well and happy, and there was no need to seek any further.

And yet there was one huge question in the air. Where was Heather and where would she be in the future? When would she come back to them, and how would they find her? This matter lay untouched as we exchanged our compliments and pleasantries, as the tea was made and brought in, as Oscar handed me a cup and a plate, and Dorrie protested at the smallness of my appetite. My appetite had in fact died on me as soon as I had entered the house. And it was not Dorrie, all animation and pleasure, who retained my attention: it was Oscar. Immaculate and benign as ever, there was a thoughtfulness, a scruple, a pursing of the lips, a holding apart, even as he joined in our conversation. I could see it was an effort for him to concentrate on the banalities that were being offered and which were clearly a preliminary to what was to follow, the main business of the day. I sensed more reserve in him than usual, although he had always kept his own counsel. I felt he was mounting a watch, and was, behind his placid exterior, alert for misconstructions, for evasions of the truth – for the truth must now be faced – but also
for hurt and injury. It would fall to his lot to recognize the truth but also to mediate it, lest it fall too heavily on the one who had already been weakened.

What remained incredible to me was that Heather, a girl as dull as her name, should have gathered about her such an aura of fatality. But perhaps it was only I who felt this; perhaps I was beginning to find a symbolism in her undistinguished adventure and the light it was shedding on my own life. Its effect on me had already been disproportionate. After all, she was not really my concern. But she had startled me into a recognition of our differences, had made me uneasy in a way which I did not fully understand, had driven me to a pitch of opposition which had something murderous about it. And throughout all these convolutions of mood she had barely appeared, and when she had, there was not one word of her sparse discourse that could be construed as having any intention or flavour. What was happening was happening almost by inadvertence, which made it all the more frightening. It was as if Heather had already removed herself, but had in doing so affected all who knew her.

But perhaps I was the only one so affected. Her parents sat there, thoughtfully drinking tea, as if nothing could ever disrupt the tenor of lives so established, so comfortable. Outside the leaded windows of the warm and scented room a drowned world vaguely materialized, for the vapour in the atmosphere lingered and the wet pavements evaporated only slowly in the grey air. As the light of that uncertain day faded, it seemed as if it might pass altogether without a single word of any significance being exchanged. The Livingstones were discussing whether or not to go to Spain, or rather when to go: reasons for going or not going were put forward, but this seemed to me a theoretical exercise for I saw no sign in their settled carefulness that they would ever leave that room. I felt that there was
something ritualistic about this discussion, as if it were being aired purely
pour la forme
. I also felt that there was something collusive about it, as if my own presence, my potential contribution, were being held off. They were, without properly realizing what they were about, on the defensive. Finally, unable to tolerate the tension they had unconsciously set up, I asked, ‘How is Heather?’

Dorrie cleared her throat. ‘She’s very well, dear. You’ve heard her news, I suppose?’

‘Her news?’

‘Yes. She’s going to get married again. We’re very pleased for her.’

‘I see,’ I said slowly. I was determined to say very little, knowing that I had already said too much.

‘Yes, to Chiara’s brother. It’s all very romantic. Apparently it was love at first sight.’ Dorrie looked at me brightly. Something of our discussion had obviously reached her.

‘It won’t be like last time,’ she went on, with a gesture of dismissal. ‘I’m afraid Michael was too young to be a proper husband. I blame myself for encouraging him. And, you know, Oscar never really took to him.’

I looked at Oscar, whose face was set in lines of melancholy dignity. It was his other expression, the one I always thought of as peculiarly his. Oh, why so sad? I had once thought. But now it was as if he had always known that he was to sustain a loss for which nothing could compensate.

‘When will she leave?’ I asked, watching him carefully.

‘Oh, she’s already gone, dear. Didn’t she let you know? I expect she was in too great a hurry. She had such a lot to do before she left.’

There was a pause. ‘You’ll miss her,’ I said.

It was Oscar who answered. He sighed. ‘Yes, we’ll miss her. But you see, Rachel, she must have her chance.’

‘Her chance?’

‘Her chance to be as happy as we have been.’

He moved across to Dorrie and took her hand. They faced me as if facing some sort of tribunal.

‘She wasn’t happy, Rachel,’ said Dorrie. ‘She said nothing to me, but I knew. And she’s always been such a good girl. When she explained to us how she wanted to live, we understood. Didn’t we, Oscar? We wouldn’t want her to stay here just on our account. After all, we won’t always be here.’ She smiled sadly. ‘And we’d rather know that she had had this chance. I didn’t like to think of her growing older and not knowing what true love was.’

‘But how do you know …?’ I began, in spite of myself.

‘We saw her face,’ Dorrie said simply. ‘We knew.’

So had they known during those nights at the opera, when the heroine, transformed, came forward to sing her aria. Simple intimations, to be ignored by those of us who had seen it all before and who in any case knew the ending, but incontrovertible proof for those of a more trusting disposition. I looked at them in despair. They were both sad now, but noble and resigned, as if the emotions of the theatre had invaded their ordinary, their so ordinary lives. It was what I had been summoned to hear, of course. And yet it did not convince me. This romanticism of theirs was a little too prepared, too official, as if assumed for the occasion. They were not subtle people and I did not doubt for a moment that they believed what they had said. But nothing had broken through their rationalizations, nothing to persuade me that Heather’s decision had been completely internalized. They had accepted it, but more had happened than they would ever let me know. In fact I sensed that they wanted to deflect any comments or questions that I might care to put. I think they were afraid of what I might say.

‘Well, I must be getting back.’ I busied myself as one does to announce imminent departure. ‘You’ll let me know how to get in touch with her when you have an address.’ An absurd remark, I reflected: they must already have an address. But I did not want to give the impression that I was intruding, or had any intention of intruding, into what was clearly a family affair.

‘Of course, dear. Oscar, wrap that fruit cake in foil for Rachel to take home.’

When he was out of the room, she leaned forward and whispered, ‘He’s a little upset, it’s only natural. But he’ll get over it. We’re both of one mind.’ She was looking paler, and lines of tiredness had appeared in her face. ‘Oscar,’ she said, as he reappeared, a greaseproof paper parcel in one hand. ‘Tell Rachel she’s to go on just as before. To come and see us just as she always used to.’ She gripped my arm painfully. ‘We shall rely on you, you know. I dare say we shall miss her.’ She burst into tears, searching blindly for a handkerchief and turning her face away.

Oscar’s arms were round her. ‘All right, darling, all right. She’s over-tired,’ he said to me.

‘Yes, of course,’ I replied. ‘I’ll leave you now. I’ll telephone tomorrow. Don’t cry, Dorrie,’ I said, kneeling in front of her. ‘It will be all right.’

Her hand reached out and stroked my face. ‘If only I could see her again,’ she whispered. ‘If only she were here.’

With strange stiff movements I got to my feet. I knew now why I had come, what everything that had gone before had been leading up to. Oh, why so sad? For there was never any doubt that I would play my subordinate part to the end. I would not come here again, that was clear. The divisions between us were too real to be glossed over. But there was one more thing I had to do.

‘If you like,’ I said, ‘I will go and see her. Bring her
back for a visit. Would you like that?’

Dorrie’s drowned face looked up at me. ‘Would you?’ she said, still whispering. ‘Would you go there?’

‘Why not?’ I replied cheerfully. ‘I was going to Italy anyway. We’re very quiet in the shop at this time of year. I usually take my holiday about now. I’ll go and have a look round, if you like. Get a clearer picture. And then she can come home with me. She’ll probably be glad of the break.’

I left quickly after that, wishing to spare myself the exclamations of gratitude that I knew would come my way. I remember Dorrie’s sudden pacification, the restoration of a little colour to her face, the falling back in the chair as if exhausted. When she kissed me, her wet cheek lay on mine for a long time. I remember Oscar standing at the door of the house to wave me goodbye: I was aware of him standing there, but I only turned once to raise my hand in farewell. I drifted through the chill streets as if dreaming, barely noticing the dark and the loneliness. It had been a disrupted day, a day when I had broken with my Spartan working habits, only to be immersed in the troubled waters of a family drama. I ached with longing for the structure of a normal day, with all the intrigues and adventures confined within the covers of books, and all the books arranged alphabetically by author. Yet I felt no compulsion to get back to the shop. The effect of the afternoon had been to cut me off from reality, so that it seemed to me as if the rest of my life lay before me quite empty, quite aimless, and my only task or mission was to retrieve Heather from her hiding place and bring her safely home again.