Lewis Percy (30 page)

They were all getting older, that was the trouble. There was a lack of expectation in the air they breathed; he himself, with his arduous daily discipline, could see the futility of it all. For nothing got better. The relentless upholding of standards merely reinforced the status quo: crowded and uneventful days leading to empty nights. And that house, with its curious inhabitants, all strangers to him. Even his daughter, whom he loved so dearly, knew it as her home. The thought of Mrs Harper’s house, filled with discordant lives, each of them irregular, made Lewis’s head ache when he thought of it. If he felt sympathy for anyone it was for Mrs Harper, landed with all these incumbents, when she had wanted so much to be free. He had thought her a beauty, a bold-looking woman, when he had first met her. Now she merely looked harassed, old, her fine hands spoiled by all the washing and cooking that had accrued to her. Different meals had to be prepared for everyone, since they all ate at different times. She herself, Lewis suspected, ate next to nothing, but sat down once in a while with a cup of weak tea and a cigarette. She had never been communicative and
was now even less so, but he sometimes thought she would like to present her case to him, as if he were the only sane person she knew. Perhaps he was. But she said nothing, and although he gradually got into the habit of drinking a cup of tea with her after his daughter had been put to bed he resisted the pity that overcame him on these occasions. He noticed the increasing shabbiness of the red drawing-room, with the smell of cooking seeping in from the kitchen and the fine bloom of dust on the cherry-wood table. It was as if all conviction were leaving the house. The cushion on his daughter’s little chair was torn and musty. He tried not to see this, but saw it anyway.

He was at work when Mrs Harper telephoned to say that the doctor had had a heart attack. An ambulance had taken him to St Stephen’s Hospital and he was in Intensive Care, but they had told her not to worry, that this was merely routine. She was going to visit him that evening: would Lewis stay with Jessica until she got back? Tissy would be late home; she was going out straight from work and it seemed a pity to spoil her evening. From the offhand way in which this information was imparted Lewis got the impression that Tissy was going out with a man. This volte-face was so amazing that it occupied his thoughts for the rest of the morning. So much for principle when there was advantage at stake. He had heard Mrs Harper refer to a certain Gilbert Bradshaw, the owner of Lancelot Antiques, and his high opinion of Tissy. Tissy herself had mentioned that she was helping Gilbert with an inventory, or that Gilbert wanted her to accompany him to a sale, but he had thought nothing of it. His wife, in her new guise, had appeared to him so asexual that he had failed to register the connection. But he registered it now. He wondered if Gilbert Bradshaw had been given Mrs Harper’s cake treatment, and also whether Tissy could be persuaded to jettison her new ideology for a second marriage. If so, he would be free. He would be free but he would also lose his daughter. Tissy would lose nothing. She might gain a reputation as
a traitor with her group, but then she would give up the group anyway. He had begun cautiously to devise ways of drawing up some form of legal contract which would ensure him access to, and eventual guardianship of, his daughter, when Mrs Harper telephoned again to say that the doctor had had a second heart attack in the hospital and had died, in some distress, two hours after being admitted. She herself had not been there. She had telephoned the shop, but Tissy was out. Could Lewis call in on his way home, but as early as possible? Her voice was high, frightened. ‘I can’t let Baby see me crying,’ she had said, when he asked her if she was all right. So he went straight away.

She was profoundly shocked; that was clear. He sat her down and made a cup of tea, taking the child on his lap and speaking to her softly. But after a while the child got down and ran to her grandmother, who picked her up and buried her face in the little girl’s fly-away hair. There was not very much that he could say. Mrs Harper had always been silent on the matter of her liaison with the doctor. Lewis did not know whether or not she had loved him, although he supposed that she had. Maybe the doctor had loved her, in his own inglorious way. But why, then, had they not married? What peculiar secrecy, or respectability, had kept them in their detached state when Tissy was there to bring them together? He had never doubted that the doctor was a villain, although he now realized that even this was unfair. He may have been a sick man, defeated, disappointed, ashamed. Who could understand anyone else’s life?

Mrs Harper gave a tremendous, tremulous sigh.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I’m all right, I’m always all right. But that’s half my life gone, Lewis.’

‘You’ve been together a long time, I know.’

‘You should have seen him as a young man,’ she went on, turning the wet ball of her handkerchief in her hands and clenching and unclenching her thumbs. ‘Handsome! All the girls were after him. But he married and then I married,
and when we got back together again it all got complicated. Divorce wasn’t easy in those days. I’ll miss him,’ she said, pressing the handkerchief to her mouth. Her face was red and exhausted. ‘You never liked him, did you?’

‘I should have liked to see you happier,’ he said gently.

‘Well, I’ll never be happy now,’ she said, but even as the tears came she suppressed them, and, taking the child by the hand, led her out into the kitchen.

‘When will Tissy be home?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Tissy. Well, Tissy will have to be home a great deal more in future. Tissy can give up that job of hers and stay here with us. I’m not a young woman, Lewis. I want a bit of peace. I’ve done enough.’ Her shoulders sagged under the weight of her grief, but her hands were steady as she buttered fingers of brown bread for the child. ‘She’ll have to have a boiled egg,’ she said. ‘I haven’t done any shopping today.’

He stayed until Tissy came in. He could see from the way the excitement dropped from her face that she had had a good time and was now in for a bad one. It occurred to him that Mrs Harper might save her own life – and that of the child – by sacrificing Tissy’s, and that Mr Bradshaw, or Gilbert, might soon be a thing of the past. The conversation, or argument, that would not take place until he had left hung heavily in the air. On the pretext of arranging the funeral, which Mrs Harper wanted to take place as soon as possible, he said goodbye, promising to look in on the following day. He just had time to notice Tissy’s shoulders rounding into the docile posture that he recognized from the time when he had first known her. After so many shining possibilities it seemed that her resolve was not strong enough to withstand her mother’s directives. Or was it? He wondered, with genuine curiosity, whether she would manage to get her own way this time. His sympathies for once were entirely with Mrs Harper, whose tired eyes were no longer beautiful and who saw the new determination in her daughter’s face with the distaste she would have felt for a lewd display in her own drawing-room.

14

‘You won’t have to do that much longer, Lewis,’ said Goldsborough. ‘Once we’ve installed the computers,’ he added.

‘What will I be doing, then?’ asked Lewis, who had learned not to take Goldsborough’s enthusiasms too seriously. He noticed that Goldsborough had acquired a new persona since taking up his latest career. He now appeared both brash and deft, speedy, purposeful, unreliable, like a character in a television commercial. This impression was assisted by the serious grey suit, which was in turn enlivened by one of the Brooks Brothers shirts in which Goldsborough had invested on his recent trip to New York. The installation of the computers had revealed a new world to his always receptive mind: the world of the professional fund-raiser. He had seized hold of, and welcomed, the fact that everyone was willing to put money into computers, particularly in libraries, so that information could be beamed from one institution to another. Goldsborough now thought in terms of the global village. Whole bibliographies flashed before his eyes, summoned up on screens to which scholars like himself would soon have access. And he had always felt his place to be among the lavish spenders: he was a profligate at heart, with an innocent love of extravagance that referred back to a meagre wartime childhood. He had learned to incorporate early experience into objective study, had an
excellent degree in anthropology, but still yearned for a bit of a party. Conscientious though he was in his duties as librarian, Goldsborough had a hankering for the sort of activity that libraries do not normally accommodate. The grave impersonal friendliness of grant-giving bodies excited his eagerness to please, while the sums involved moved him almost to tears. He felt like Columbus, on one knee before Isabella the Catholic. Making his bid for this mysteriously available money Goldsborough saw the various strands of his life’s work knitting themselves together. As an anthropologist he welcomed shift and change; as a librarian he simply welcomed funds. Besides, he was enjoying himself. To enjoy oneself in a good cause is a virtuous feeling quite unlike any other, and Goldsborough would have sacrificed many pleasures for this privilege. As it was, no sacrifice was involved; everything added up to immeasurable increase.

‘We shall have to take on extra staff,’ he said happily. ‘I thought of giving you Morton and Quiney. Generally speaking I foresee quite a shake-up. Arthur will have to go, of course, and perhaps one or two others. The library is going to be a place for the young, Lewis. We’ll be running courses in computer technology – all you have to do is familiarize yourself with the process. It’s a little technical, but that’s what’s so exciting. The language, Lewis, is entirely new. Think of it as meta-language. I find it fascinating,’ he went on unnecessarily. ‘I’ll let you know more about it when I come back from L.A. In the meantime just carry on as usual.’

Just as a matter of interest, Arnold, what will happen to the index?’

‘But my dear fellow!’ exclaimed Goldsborough. ‘This will be the index’s finest hour! The index will henceforth be immortal. The index, Lewis, will be transformed into a permanent record. By you,’ he added.

‘You mean,’ said Lewis slowly, ‘that I transfer the index? That I key it in, or whatever one does, right from the beginning? In other words, that I start doing it all over
again? This will create years of backlog, Arnold. Unless someone else does what I’m doing now. Is that how you see it?’

‘This is unlike you, Lewis. Surely you can see the advantage of all this? Those index cards could have got damaged, burnt, even.’

‘There is a microfilm, of course. What happened to microfilm, by the way? It was all the rage about ten years ago.’

‘Superseded by the computer,’ said Goldsborough triumphantly.

‘This is all going to be very expensive, isn’t it? With the extra staff and everything?’

‘I can’t go into that now, Lewis. Let me assure you that if you know where to look the money can be found. Several big companies are interested. We shall be competing with the major institutions, but I have the matter in hand. I shall rely on you to keep an eye on things here while I am in the States. I reckon to go over two or three times a year while our plans are being regularized. Cheer up, Lewis,’ he urged robustly. ‘Your job will be quite secure, you know. Unless, of course, you feel you’d like a change. I shan’t want any dragging of the feet over this. Librarianship is about to become a whole new ball game. Younger people will be involved. We need new thinking at the interface, Lewis. Younger people will take to it like ducks to water: besides, they’ll be easier to train. So let me know if you don’t like the work. Think of it as an exciting new venture; that’s what I’m doing. That’s the attitude. I’ve been in touch with the psychology department. They run a very interesting course on meeting challenges. I’ve had one or two quite worthwhile sessions with them. Perhaps you ought to do the same, Lewis. I’ve noticed you’re getting very set in your ways.’

‘I believe he’s right,’ said Lewis to Pen over lunch. This now took place in a wine bar instead of a pub, as before; they ate slices of quiche and salad, and drank a couple of glasses of rosé. This seemed to be the approved diet of the contemporary man, although it left Lewis hungry. He was, however,
so used to feeling hungry, that he was more or less resigned to the condition lasting out his lifetime, and possibly continuing beyond it. The one thing that put him off ideas of an after-life was its immateriality. This was a frivolous attitude, of which he was ashamed, but he was ashamed of so much these days, and there seemed to be no solution to any of it. Nevertheless, he hoped he was not going to develop one of those gourmet appetites that are simply an excuse for over-indulgence. He hoped he was never going to be found extolling a hill village in Provence for the quality of its mushrooms, or remembering a particularly amusing bottle of
Pinot noir
when he could remember practically nothing else.