Making Things Better (17 page)

‘And your own plans, Bernard?' he enquired.

‘Oh, I suppose we shall go away at some point. Next month, perhaps.'

‘You and Helen?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're still living at home, then?'

‘Oh, yes.' His expression was moody.

‘And your other friend?'

‘Well, she's at home too. Her husband's in Singapore on business. We could have seen each other, if Helen hadn't insisted on our being together all the time. As it is I don't see her nearly enough. Don't look at me like that, Julius. I see from your expression that you don't approve. As I remember you came down rather hard on me the last time we met.'

‘Yes, I regretted that. It's just that I live more or less out of the world these days. How do you see your future?'

‘I don't see it at all, that's the problem.'

‘Well, I can sympathize there. The future is a problem for me too.'

‘It need not be. I'll need an address for you, of course, and a telephone number. And I'll need to know your dates.'

‘Dates?'

‘For when you intend to return.'

‘So you see me returning, then?'

‘Almost certainly. I'm sorry, Julius. I shouldn't be discussing my own troubles with you.'

‘I asked, you remember.'

‘It's just that you were always such a good listener.'

So were you, Julius thought. Those benign meetings in the past, their shared experiences, were somehow too at an end. He felt the familiar discomfort, felt his breath getting shorter. ‘Shall we go?' he suggested. ‘You must be tired after your day's work.'

Simmonds looked up. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit pale.'

‘I'm fine.' He paid the bill with as much composure as he could muster. ‘Don't wait, Bernard. I'll take my time here.'

‘If you're sure.'

They parted with mutual expressions of regard in which genuine affection and a slight feeling of discontent played equal parts. Herz sat quietly until his breathing returned to normal.

‘Will there be anything else, sir?'

‘If you could just get me a cab.'

The elderly waiter guided him to the door, a hand under his elbow to steady him. ‘We haven't seen the lady for some time,' he said. ‘Such a pleasant person.'

‘My wife? Yes, a very pleasant person.' He handed over a five pound note. ‘Thank you.'

The night, or what he could see of it, was unusually serene. There were no sounds in Chiltern Street to disturb him. Sophie's windows were dark. He was aware of his awkwardness as he scrambled onto the pavement. This was now a humiliation to which he had become accustomed, together with many others. There was a flaw in the divine system, he reflected: the body, and its own inexorable processes. He longed only for bed. Yet the night hours, which usually consoled him, would on this occasion fail in their duty. He might ask the doctor for a sedative, since that was surely allowed. He made a note in his desk diary to book an appointment. I am going away on holiday, he would say, glumly aware that this was the truth. So kind of you to fit me in.

‘Mr Herz,' said the doctor. ‘An admirer of Freud, if I remember correctly.'

‘Less so these days, perhaps. But I do agree with him about dreams. That they are about desire. Or the lack of it,' he said, reminded not quite comfortably of his most recent interpretation.

‘Quite so. Just roll up your sleeve, would you?'

Herz sat obediently, his pale arm across the doctor's desk. From a distant room he could hear the high encouraging voice of the practice nurse, which reminded him of Josie. He noted that the watercolour he had so disliked had been replaced by a reproduction of Van Gogh's
Sunflowers,
as also supplied to his dentist's waiting-room. ‘I wonder you don't have something more relevant,' he said. ‘
The
Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp,
for example. That would give you an opportunity to mention the enormous technological improvements made since Rembrandt's time, the scanners, the keyhole surgery, the pills. It was about the pills that I came, as a matter of fact. I am going away, you see.'

‘Just give me a moment,' said the doctor, rewinding the cuff round Herz's arm.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry.'

‘It's very high. Have you been taking your medication?'

‘Well, not recently, perhaps.'

‘You need to take it every day.'

‘Oh, I will, I will. And if you could let me have some more of Dr Jordan's pills. I don't use them, but being away . . .'

‘Have you been experiencing discomfort?'

‘Just occasionally. A slight breathlessness, nothing more.'

‘I had better examine you.'

The cold stethoscope was applied to his chest, to his back. He willed his poor unguarded heart into obedience.

‘There is an irregularity. I'd like you to have a further investigation.'

‘When I come back, certainly. Only, you see, I leave tomorrow.'

‘Well, it would take some time to make an appointment. How long will you be away?'

‘I'm not sure.'

‘It doesn't do to neglect these things.'

But Herz knew that his heart was in some ways his ally, would prolong his life no longer than was necessary. His own endurance would see to the rest.

‘Come and see me when you return. Avoid stress, that goes without saying. Perhaps it would be better if it did go without saying. Stress is unavoidable. Well, enjoy your holiday.'

‘Oh, I will, I will.' Scot-free, he said to himself; no more questions than I expected. He thanked the doctor profusely, made a clumsy exit, aware that he was being watched. He had exhibited signs of morbidity, and had thus proved himself not to be a time-waster. But he longed for the outside world, as he had never longed for it before. To be on the street was to be delivered from the watchful detective he now knew the doctor to be. But this was always going to be difficult, he reminded himself. And at least he had his prescription. He felt as if he had been identified as a fraud, his cover blown. As it had been. He had escaped, but only just. The next time would be more difficult.

The sun was high as he left the surgery, though he knew it would soon decline into a beautiful greenish dusk. He was in no hurry to reach home. He lingered in the street for as long as he could, gazed unseeing into shop windows that he passed every day, was unable to fend off sad thoughts as the light faded. In the supermarket he bought his frugal supplies, smiling at the children, at the mothers, at the hovering manager. Few smiled back, too intent on the meals to be prepared, the business to be transacted before the day's end. The people he encountered in the mornings were more forthcoming. But then they were mostly old, and, like himself, had little else to do.

In the flat he made tea, disinclined to watch the news programme. At this juncture the outside world had little to say to him; his head could only encompass thoughts of his immediate dilemma. Even this bored him. He would have welcomed an opportunity to discuss it with someone on a purely human basis. Bernard Simmonds had been disapproving, had, though too polite to express his frank opinion, regarded Herz as woefully impractical, and worse, reprehensible, since he had not asked for advice at the appropriate time. There had been exasperation in the way he had expedited his food, had not asked permission before he lit his cigarette. Herz felt cast into the role that had been assigned to him. That another, and that other a friend, saw him as inept was a further cause for sadness. He drank his tea slowly, conscious of his slightly shaking hands. When his doorbell rang he reacted with a shock, would have expressed alarm were he not too schooled to do so. When he opened the door to Sophie his heart was still beating heavily. If he behaved like this when disturbed by a simple interruption how would he fare on a journey which would be all noise, all confusion?

‘Come in, come in,' he said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?'

‘That'd be nice.'

He watched her as she sat, politely drinking her tea. There were changes that were perhaps visible only to himself, used as he was to dwelling on her. Her hair had worked its way loose from its knot; a strand lay against her cheek. Her lips had lost that adventitious colour that had so enlivened them, and looked dry. From time to time she chewed the inside of her mouth.

‘You're tired,' he said gently. He was filled with a protective love for her.

‘Yes, well, plenty to do. I came about the flat.'

‘Yes, I imagined you had. I thought Matthew was still in New York.'

‘He rang me last night. He wondered if you had come to any decision.'

‘We agreed that nothing would be decided until he got back. He said he was away for a month.'

‘Only he's getting a bit anxious. Well, very anxious.'

‘I wonder he doesn't move in with you.'

‘No room. And he wants his own place. You can understand that.'

‘Will he be ringing you again?'

‘I suppose so.' She looked dejected, made an effort to sit up straight, as no doubt instructed long ago, and placed her teacup on the table.

‘You're fond of him?' asked Herz, still gently, so as not to offend her.

‘You could say that.'

‘And he of you?'

‘Maybe. I know he has a girlfriend in the States. They were engaged once, he told me, but she broke it off. They still see each other.'

‘I shouldn't let that worry you. Nobody starts with a clean slate. It would be nice to think so, I know.' He thought back to that shock of recognition he had witnessed, wondered how the directness, the unavoidability of that moment had deteriorated into considerations of loyalty, of sentiment, all the baggage that had somehow obscured the earlier truth. He wanted to tell her that it was absurd to squander such moments, so rare in themselves, on notions left over from some catechism of the past. He had no doubt that there had been the usual discussions, the laying of cards on the table, the enquiry into both past and present relationships. And with every frank confession would come increased anxiety, such as was affecting Sophie now. It was apparent that she was more anxious than her lover, whose splendour might have armoured him against the suspicion that there were others in the field. Herz marvelled once again at the strain of obtuseness to be found in every classical hero, whose noble looks are left to profess his superiority to the world. In the theatre that was quite in order. In life that unawareness would provide grounds for suspicion.

Sophie was alert to her own misgivings, though perhaps not in a position to quantify them. The ease with which the young man had gone to New York, without acting on the moment, or perhaps without acknowledging the strength of this new tie, forged in a single encounter, would have acted against him, have opened the door to doubt. Sophie's pale mouth, her normally inexpressive eyes wide open as suspicions crowded in, indicated unhappiness. Her normal obduracy would have served her better, Herz thought. He could not say this, and in any case wondered if the same rules applied today as had applied in his youth. He was not there to give advice, was in any event thought incapable of giving advice, rendered insensible by age, with only a dim memory of former feelings. He could have told her, but would not, of the permanence of such feelings, of the longing for love that persisted beyond the canonical age, of those other appetites which made their inconvenient voices heard until death put an end to all feeling, all appetite. It would in any case have made no sense to her to hear this. She was young enough to be enormously sophisticated about relationships, as they called them these days, yet at the same time unused to this particular test. All this he wanted to say to her, knowing that she would regard it as presumptuous, would have bridled, would have retreated into the iciness he had provoked on one unfortunate occasion about which he preferred not to think. He tried to adopt an air of benevolence, but failed. The situation was too serious for that, too serious for Sophie to have estimated his own courage, his own forbearance.

‘You must be guided by your feelings,' he said instead. ‘If you waste your time in worry, which is probably needless in your case, you will lose something precious.'

What he did not say was already enshrined in any number of clichés, all of them to hand. It offended him to think of her sitting by the telephone like any other woman, she who had so much scorn at her disposal. Rather more powerful was his need to tell her of the multiple disappointments of those who stopped to evaluate their feelings, who wanted to be fair to others, who took a false pride in their sensitivity. Act only on the moment, he wanted to tell her; consult only your own wishes. The rest is poetry, and has no place in love.

‘I should enjoy your friendship, without worrying your head about previous attachments,' he said. ‘I'm sure it will be fine. Just don't waste too much time thinking. If you do you may spend the rest of your life regretting a lost moment. And you know it never pays to hang back in these matters. If you do you may find yourself truly unhappy.' He heard his voice break, hastily cleared his throat, manufactured a cough. ‘Tell Matt,' he said, ‘that I'll have an answer for him when he comes home. That's what we agreed, after all. Now, are you all right? No more worries?' But here he had gone too far, had overstepped the mark, and was punished with a guarded look from her once more closed face. ‘Shall I make some more tea?' he enquired gaily. ‘Or are you in a hurry to go out?'

‘I'd better go,' she said. ‘What shall I tell Matt if he rings?'

‘What I've just told you. I'll let you know as soon as I can. Keep in touch, Sophie. Oh, and have a pleasant evening.'

When it was properly dark he tried to telephone Josie, thinking they might exchange some message that would see them both through the night, but there was no answer. He tried again later, listened with painful concentration, as if it were a message in itself, as the telephone rang endlessly through an empty house, and would, he imagined, ring without response for as long as his efforts to reach out continued.