Lewis Percy (37 page)

Oh, fond, he thought. It told him everything. He was shocked at how little there was to say. So many shocks in one day. He wanted to lay his head in her lap, and say, ‘I’m leaving home, Tissy. Do you know what that means, you who have never left home, have never had to? I’m going away. Don’t you want to know where I’m going? I wish you could hold me in your thoughts, just for a while. Sometimes I want to stay here, with nothing changed, and yet in my heart I know I must go. And it’s time to go, not because I have to, but because nobody wants me to stay. Look after my child. You cannot imagine what agony it is for me to say that. You see, I don’t know when I shall see her again, if ever. It feels so final now, what I am doing, as if I shall never come back, never find the energy, the desire, never survive another departure. Tissy, I feel sick at heart. Tell me that you love me, or if not that, which is not true, tell me that you once loved me, even if that was not true either. Tissy, be kind. I can’t say I still love you, because I’m not sure if I do. I just know that I regret you. You know, I think I miss you already. That’s why I can’t say goodbye. I’m too afraid of my own tears.’

Instead, he handed her the piece of paper bearing the name of his solicitor, which she took with her usual expression of maidenliness. She seemed to him to be acting entirely in character. Only her moment of liberation had been
uncharacteristic, yet even that had served her well. She was more resolute as a result of it.

He kissed her cool cheek, held her hand for a moment. He tried, and failed, to wish her well, to say something tender and final, to finish the matter with honour. A character in a book would have regarded this renunciation as a great moment, whereas he needed all his strength simply to get out of the house. He was aware of Mrs Harper standing silently in the doorway; she had evidently thought to mark the moment as well. ‘Goodbye, Thea,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Goodbye, Lewis,’ she replied. ‘Have you left your address? In case we need you for anything?’ No divorce, he thought, kissing her as well, could have been more final.

He telephoned Emmy’s flat when he got home, but only heard the answering machine. He told himself that it was just as well: he would only make himself ridiculous, more ridiculous than he already was. He had not realized his disadvantages until he had had lunch with Pen. No doubt she had written him off as a nobody, a simpleton who could not rise to the challenge of making love to her. He could hear the scornful epithets, as if she were discussing him with Pen:
petit bourgeois
would be the least of them. No doubt he had been an object of derision without knowing it. He blushed in the darkness of his room as he thought of Pen and George Cheveley being treated to an imitation of him, with all his scruples mocked and ridiculed. He longed in that instant to get away and to leave them all behind, to vanish completely. He would have left on the instant had he had enough money in his wallet, but in an unusually crowded day he had found no time to go to the bank.

He slept badly, his mind intent on matters of the past which he had consistently misinterpreted. Leaving home, he thought. This is my only resource and I must do it like a man. But he was glad to get up, to bathe and dress, and go to the library. He could not bear the house in the early morning and escaped to eat his breakfast in a coffee bar near the college. He embraced the library, its silences, its sighs, its shining
desks and its green lamps, as if he were a monk and this his monastery, or rather as if he were a monk due to leave the monastery to undertake a perilous mission among strangers. Loving-kindness must be his watchword, he thought, still intent on behaving well. Yet he was afflicted with a coldness of the spirit which had him staring at his hands, his pen idle, his index cards forgotten.

Goldsborough would be, if anything, relieved at his departure, since he could now replace him with two or even three recent graduates for the same money. Nevertheless, when Lewis told him that he was going, Goldsborough had the decency to look solemn and even sorrowful, whipping off his glasses to reveal naked childish eyes. They looked at each other in silence. Goldsborough had always been a softie, Lewis thought: trifles made him happy. In that he was innocence itself. ‘Do you want a party?’ asked Goldsborough, replacing his glasses.

‘No, thank you, Arnold,’ said Lewis hastily. ‘What I should like would be to leave straight away. At the end of this week. I don’t think there’s much that I could usefully be doing. Not if the computers will soon be here.’

‘All right, Lewis. It might be best. Better to take on new staff at this juncture, I mean.’

‘Goodbye, Arnold,’ said Lewis, holding out his hand. ‘You’ve always been very kind.’

But, ‘I hate goodbyes, Lewis,’ said Goldsborough, his glasses steaming up. ‘Good luck. Don’t forget us, will you? All the best.’

So it was Goldsborough, of all people, who would miss him, he thought, walking back to his desk. But the coldness of his spirit remained, although he knew he should be moved. He did a rapid calculation and decided that he would leave at the end of the following week. He could not think of anyone who should know this. In the lunch-hour, he went to a travel agent and bought a ticket for Paris. Pen was absent on a couple of days’ leave. For the sake of their old friendship, which now seemed flawed, he would leave a word on Pen’s
desk, giving notice of his flight number. Perhaps he, and even George, would come to see him off. He did not know how he would manage to go if his departure were not a matter of record.

His coldness enabled him to attend to the formalities of his removal, to discard some books, to pack up others to be shipped to America, to buy new shirts and socks, to have his hair cut, to water the garden for the last time. He felt so estranged that it did not occur to him to say goodbye to anyone: he felt invisible. Yet he performed quite competently in addressing the many small tasks that filled his days, days that were quite empty of human company once he had left the library. On his last evening he sat in the garden until it was dark, watching his roses glimmer and smelling their scent. His bags were in the hall, the taxi ordered for the following morning. A new sympathy told him that this was exactly how patients facing surgery must feel once the preparations were completed and the nurse had left them alone for the night. He even wondered if it were worth it to go to bed and try to sleep, since the silence of the garden suited his condition better than the confined space of his bedroom ever could. In the end he went indoors, gave himself a nightcap, mounted the stairs, and undressed. But sleep did not come, as it had not come for many nights now.

In the end it was a relief to leave. Even the airport was a relief, since everyone there was in the same situation. Every face was strained, anxious. He was now perfectly calm, resigned: the surgeon’s knife had been sharpened, the instruments were lying ready. All he had to do was mount the operating table. Now, if ever, was the moment to behave like a hero, to summon up ineffable resources. But he was tired of such fantasies, and when his flight was called he straightened up immediately, picked up his bag, anxious to get it over and done with. Turning round for his last look at England, he saw Emmy, plunging through the crowd, necklaces flying, laughing, swearing, apologizing, and waving her boarding pass in her upheld hand.

Widely known for her best-selling novels such as
Hotel du Lac
,
Family and Friends
, and
Latecomers
, Anita Brookner is also an international authority on eighteenth-century art and has written
Watteau
,
The Genius of the Future
,
Greuze
, and
Jacques-Louis David
. Her most recent novel is
Brief Lives
.