A Private View (20 page)

Her presence was necessary to displace his anxiety, and also a faint sensation of horror that he had moved so far from his normal moral position. He was a mild man (too mild, he thought), a moderate man, one who observed the courtesies of that undemanding life which he had once so treasured. Now he was attempting recklessness, and the attempt disturbed him. But recklessness has its own momentum, and he could no longer see his way out of it. Besides, it toned him up, he thought, thinking of his agreeable morning, and ignoring his recent sleep. In fact it was necessary to ignore this if he were to regard himself as capable of any kind of enterprise, especially one which comported distance, and constant travel, and an amused forbearance. He banished the thought of how he must have appeared, and would appear, to an unfriendly eye, his hair dishevelled, his body slack, his mouth open. Extreme vigilance would be the price of his hoped-for liberty. Yet part of him knew that age and tiredness would claim him, for he had always been able to recognise the inevitable. But he could fight it, he thought. The image of Putnam, dying, in the ultimate disorder of physical dissolution, came to him, and he resolved, once again, not to wait for that dissolution, which would surely come, but to enjoy what life was vouchsafed to him until that moment. He would be able to foresee that moment, he thought, and if he still had the courage, and if he were not still enamoured of his life, he would take his pills and make an end. And
truth to tell his death could be more efficiently handled by a hotel than if he were to attempt it in his flat, where he would be discovered by Mrs Cardozo. That was not to be envisaged. He had always enjoyed stories of stoic deaths, particularly of Socrates drinking his hemlock while discoursing to his followers. Surely that was a death to be emulated. And might not such a vision strengthen him just when his body was becoming weaker, and when regard would no longer be paid? He saw himself, quite clearly, dying alone, having made his preparations. He would lie down one afternoon, thinking to take a nap, and all at once knowing that he could no longer sustain this immense adventure he had brought upon himself. He could see the sun, always the sun, sinking outside his window: he could see himself disposed in an orderly manner, upon a foreign bed. The vision made him lonely. But he supposed that death was always lonely; that was why people feared it so. Yet his death would not necessarily be lonelier than that of others. In any event there was no outwitting it. And he still had some remnants of decorum, although he seemed entirely to have lost his dignity.

He went into the bathroom and splashed his face with water, brushed his teeth, added a discreet drop of Eau Sauvage. The bathroom was colder than the rest of the flat. He thought perhaps that he needed a cup of tea: he could always make fresh when Katy turned up, as he did not doubt that she would. Indeed her presence now seemed not only inevitable but entirely natural. She would be in the flat, washing her hair, or painting her nails, and when she was sufficiently bored, or when she judged that it was time to return to the attack she would saunter across the landing and ring his bell. He was surprised that this had not already happened, yet glad
that she had not seen him at his disgraceful worst. He made and drank two cups of tea, which warmed him slightly, then went back to the bathroom, and brushed his teeth again. He warned himself against displaying too much eagerness. The mirror showed his features contracted into a slight rictus. He concentrated his efforts on correcting this, smoothed his hair, patted more toilet water into the skin of his neck and the underside of his jaw, then sped to the kitchen to refill the kettle and prepare the tray. He wondered whether to ring the bell of the Dunlops’ flat, but decided against it: it was important to keep the upper hand. But he could not stop himself from crossing the landing to listen for a sound, and when he heard none crept back to his flat in case he should be discovered. At last, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he crossed the hall and rang her bell. The bell echoed into silence: no one came. He retreated once again, and sat in his own silence, faced with the unthinkable possibility that she might have left. At last, perhaps half an hour later, he heard her key turn in the lock of the Dunlops’ door. He rushed into the hall, overwhelmed.

‘Hallo, there,’ he said, sounding, he thought, not too nervous. ‘I was just making a cup of tea. Can I tempt you?’

She dropped the key in her bag, turned slowly, and surveyed him from a distance, as if she could not properly concentrate on his presence. She was wearing the orange suit and was fairly heavily made up. Her hieratic look was in place, and he had no doubt that her speech would be disdainful. This was what he was up against, her gift of removal, of closure, as if she suspected him of unseemly curiosity, or as if he were someone whom she could hardly remember, someone whose interest in her life and her movements was
quite out of place. She no longer sought his approval, no longer attempted to stimulate his curiosity. Some interval had taken place, some intrusion of an alien life into the life which he had flattered himself he knew so well. She seemed unwilling even to answer him, let alone to enter his flat. He thought it a pity that her actual words were so at variance with her appearance; had she remained silent she would have subjugated many a stronger man, and a younger man, than he had the good fortune to be.

He felt weak, excitable, as if his entire future rested on this one encounter, or the exchange that was bound to take place. He cautioned himself to stay silent, as silent as she was, but the urgency of the task was almost unbearable. He had, literally, to subdue another’s will, something he had never done in his life. His entire
raison d’être
had been respect for others: never in his life had he acted on a rebellious impulse, never responded to criticism (though there had been little enough of that, or maybe he had been unaware of it), never attempted to enforce his own point of view, his own methods, his own beliefs. His life had been soft-spoken, and he supposed that this was the way in which he had become so dull. As a schemer he was untrained. All he had to go on was the extreme restlessness of his present state, which surely indicated that the time had come to be decisive. His desire to be urbane, amused, had evaporated. Somehow the power had passed from him. In that same instant he saw that she was the stronger.

In that split second he had time to admire her gleaming mouth, her suffused cheeks. She looked more adult, more her presumed age. She looked preoccupied, or rather as if something pleasurable had recently taken place. He felt her arm brush against him as he stood aside to let her enter,
smelled her scent, which today was slightly altered by something earthier, as if she had been in the presence of someone smoking a cigar.

‘You look as if you’ve been out,’ he said jovially. ‘Anywhere exciting?’

‘Yes, well, I do go out occasionally,’ she replied. She wandered round the room, lingering over his appointments, testing the weight of the curtains. Once again he felt a healthy touch of irritation. This would save him, he thought. At the same time he was extremely curious as to where she had been. It was proving more difficult than he had anticipated to attract her attention. While he fussed with the cups and saucers she stood with her back to him, gazing out of the window into the early dark.

‘Do come and sit down, Katy. I’m afraid it’s not very warm in here. Something’s gone wrong with the heating.’

‘I’m not cold,’ she said absently.

He tried again. ‘I rang your bell earlier. You must have been out for a good part of the day.’

‘I went out to lunch,’ she said.

‘With your friends?’

‘With a friend. This really nice guy I met. Someone who might be able to help me set up my business.’

His heart sank. ‘How very fortunate,’ he managed to say.

‘Well, not exactly. He can’t put up the money. But he can introduce me to some people who might be able to. The main thing is that he seemed to believe in what I want to do.’

‘And you still want to do it?’

‘Well, of course. How else am I going to look after myself? If it’s set up correctly the place could be a goldmine.’

He reflected that this was quite possibly true, and
conceded that she was merely being sensible in contemplating her long-term security. Ah, but he was going to take care of that! Yet it seemed important not to unveil his plans for her all at once. In any event she seemed preoccupied, was not playing the part that he had written for her.

‘The big problem is having to find premises,’ she continued. ‘When you work from home it’s important to have a good address. I did think of going into partnership in a clinic, but now I realise it’s a flat I want.’ The remark hung in the air.

‘Have you heard from the Dunlops?’ he asked eventually.

‘No. No, I haven’t. Why, should I have?’

‘I rather thought they might be on their way home.’

‘Nothing to do with me.’

He stared at her. ‘But you’re still in the flat! How are you going to explain …?’

‘I don’t have to explain anything, do I? I should have thought you were the one who had to do the explaining.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, after all, you gave me the keys, didn’t you? I couldn’t have got in without them, could I?’

Thunderstruck, he gazed into her pleasant smile. She was sure of herself today, having undergone one of her lightning transformations. The tones were normal, friendly, above all reasonable. There was no hint of effort.

‘You mean, they don’t know you’re here? That you didn’t see them in New York?’

‘I might have done.’ She wandered over to the bookshelves, pulled out a couple of volumes, and stood leafing through them. Immediately he realised that if the Dunlops had consented to her staying they would have contacted
him, at least left a message on his machine. He was utterly, crassly, at fault. How to explain to the Dunlops? But any explanation would be worthless. The important thing was to get away as soon as possible, and to take her with him.

‘What do you do with yourself all day, George?’ she queried, removing books from the shelves and replacing them rather carelessly.

His eyes on what she was doing, he replied automatically, ‘I read a lot.’

‘Here?’

‘Here or in the study.’

She turned to him and smiled broadly. ‘
What
a lot of wasted space,’ she said. ‘Well, I must be going. Thank you for tea.’ Her tone now was mildly condescending.

He could not help it. ‘Have you thought about my suggestion?’ he asked.

‘What suggestion was that?’

‘Rome. For Christmas.’

‘Well, that rather depends.’

‘Depends on what?’

‘On whether I can get my business set up first. Whether I can find a base, and start planning.’

She circled the room once more, looking about her with a speculative air. Leisurely steps took her to the door. With a swirl of orange skirt she turned to face him, and lifted up her hand in a mock salute.

‘Byee,’ she said.

After she had gone, leaving the smell of her scent in the now freezing room, he sat down dumbly, trying to think of what he would say to the Dunlops. They would never forgive him, of course. He would have to move. He felt the
creeping sadness again, as he contemplated being forced out of his home. It was against his nature to abandon anything. He could perhaps face this if he were not alone. And there was still a chance, he told himself. For although she would take everything and give nothing, he still had the upper hand.

Some time in the night he awoke from a dream in which he had lost a set of keys and was locked out of his flat. I lack company, he thought, and saw Putnam’s face, as it had looked on the day before he died. What am I doing? The question was so unanswerable that he broached his secret store of pills, took two, and lay rigid, waiting for sleep, which eventually came, heavily, at dawn. For the first time in weeks the reassuring tones of the shipping forecast fell on deaf ears.

H
E WAITED FOR HER NOW WITH JOY AND PAIN
. For two days there was no sight of her, nor did he hear her go out and come in. It occurred to him to wonder what she did with her time, since she had so little to occupy her, and no picture presented itself to him other than that of totally absorbed preoccupation. He had thought that women no longer lived like this: according to the propaganda they were all juggling at least two jobs, while effortlessly satisfying their husbands at the same time. Whereas Katy seemed to do nothing except wash her hair and paint her nails, like an old-fashioned courtesan. He supposed that one should include her intense scheming as something of a professional attribute: he did not discount this, but rather respected it, since his own projects involved a certain amount of concentration, and events had
proved to him how extremely tiring such concentration could prove to be. Behind his door he listened hard, not quite having the courage to ring her bell. What he wanted, what he most imperatively desired, was for her to come to him, in a spirit of submission, just as in that proposed flight to Rome the details hardly mattered. Only her assent was important. He realised, hazily, that Christmas was nearly upon them, and that he might have difficulty in booking a flight. That hardly mattered either. The whole enterprise was to partake of magic: he would appropriate a plane and an empty hotel, his will alone achieving the impossible. And if not Rome, somewhere else would do. All that mattered was his overwhelming wish, and her acquiescence.

He slept badly, waking several times in the night. He heard the news at two
A.M
. and again at four. One night, on perhaps the third day of her absence, he heard steps on the stairs, and thought that the Dunlops had returned. This prospect so horrified him that he got out of bed and crept to the door. He heard the voices of a man and a woman, but could not distinguish what was being said: there was a sound of laughter, which was abruptly hushed, and a certain amount of fumbling with the key. If the Dunlops had in fact returned they appeared to have got slightly drunk on the plane, in which case they might be expected to come to their senses the following morning and discover that they were not alone in the flat. He foresaw an altercation, a banishment, in which case he would be more than ready to shelter the intruder, although that was not in his plan.