The Rules of Engagement (35 page)

When Nigel telephoned, as I had
expected he would, I knew instinctively that this
gravity did not encompass him. That too was a
lesson I had learned from these events. Besides,
I knew that out of principle, he entertained
only robust convictions: one got ill, then one
got better. Doctors were there to help. All of
this spoke of a man who had never been ill in his
life, although I knew that he had a severe
regard for his nerves and his digestion. It
occurred to me to wonder how I was to balance these
two modes, until I realized that I should not
need to. My time would be taken up with Betsy
and the hospital, and in comparison with this and what it
would involve Nigel's company would of
necessity be restricted to the small amount of
attention I could spare him. He would do
occasional duty as a distraction, rather like a play
or a film, an artifice the purpose of which was
to disguise those life events which could not otherwise
be disguised.

“
Do you want me to come over?
”
he said.

“
No, no. I'll probably have an early
night. I'm rather tired.
”

“
How did you find your friend?
”

“
She is rather ill, I'm afraid.
”

“
I'm sorry. The important thing in these
cases is to be positive. Mind over
matter.
”

“
Of course.
”

“
Have you got enough food in the house?
”

“
Food? Oh, yes.
”
There was a pause.
“
Thank you for lunch. Forgive me if I ring
off. I really am rather tired.
”

“
I'll be in touch tomorrow.
”

“
Goodnight, Nigel.
”

Though the sun was still on the walls of the adjacent
buildings I undressed, took a bath, and lay
down in the bed which had seemed so damaged and
corrupted by my dream of the previous night. The
dream had been prophetic, not in its
specificity or its details, but in the fact that
it had frightened me so. My own life now seemed
fragile, subject to the same processes which
only a determined opacity entitles one
to ignore. I moved my arms and legs
tentatively, experimentally, to assure myself that
I was still intact. Intact, certainly, but perhaps
no longer whole. The work that had begun in the dream
—
the spoiling
—
would now continue.

We have it on the highest authority that the meek
shall inherit the earth. But if the meek don't want
it? Betsy, opened up and then closed again, with a
regretful shake of the head by the surgeon, wanted
most definitely to remain in situ, though she
did not know the extent to which she had been invaded and
overtaken. In fact, when I first
visited her, fearfully, after the operation, she was quite
cheerful.
“
I must be getting better,
”
she said.
“
I managed to eat my supper.
”
This seemed
so unlikely to me that I asked to see her
doctor. Mrs Purslow, with whom I had
managed to negotiate a fairly confrontational
relationship, sighed, as if this were an unusual
request. But the young doctor, for whom I was
allowed to wait in yet another small empty
room, was more explicit.

“
There was nothing we could do,
”
he said.
“
Why
did she leave it so long? She must have known that
something was wrong. Who was her GP?
”

I said that I had no idea, that we had not been
in touch before this had happened. There was no point in
telling him, young and smiling as he was, that women
living on their own are obliged to be stoical, or
to assume a stoicism that will do duty in
unalterable circumstances. How could this young man,
who may, for all I knew, have been a husband,
even a father, understand the terror that may prevail
at night, or the despair in the face of another
day? Betsy's life, as far as I knew,
depended on Edmund's visits, but these could not
always be relied upon. He would not, I knew from my
own experience, make plans in advance, would
simply ring up from his car to say that he was on his
way. And I could all too easily imagine
her, sitting in her flat, having reserved her
evening for his visit, and then slowly coming to terms with the
fact that she would have to wait another day, or even
several days, before she saw him again.

And the next day she would resign herself to the same
painful routine of waiting, with little to distract her.
In fact, distractions were to be avoided, her
love affair demanding an exclusivity that anyone
not affected by this particular madness could hardly
comprehend. Easy enough, therefore, in these
circumstances, to ignore any intimations that all
was not well. It was essential only that she should
appear presentable, the outer envelope untouched,
all her resources employed in the task of
maintaining an intimacy which took precedence over
meaner considerations.

I did not attempt to explain that Betsy's
illness was of a quite different order of magnitude,
that it was in a direct line of descent from those
tragic heroines whom she had so admired in a
youth now disappearing into the shadows.
“
Que le
jour recommence, et que le jour
finisse ar Sans que jamais Titus
puisse voir
Bérénice
ar Sans que de
tout le jour ...
”
For she would have
overlooked his occasional impatience to be gone,
to get home, to rejoin familiar surroundings,
perhaps been unaware of his distaste for her flat, to which
she clung as the place where he knew how to find
her. And perhaps
—
though this was difficult to imagine
—
he felt something of her exaltation, recognized the
unusual nature of her feeling for him, however
exasperating he may have found it, or, quite
simply, felt a pity that opened up a part of his
character of which he had not previously been aware, and which
revealed him to himself as vulnerable, as helpless, as
he had managed not to be for all his adult life.

“
I know what has to be done,
”
he had said, but
whatever had to be done would be tantamount to a
decision the gravity of which only he could assess,
and which, characteristically, he intended to keep to himself.

“
How long must she stay here?
”
I asked the
doctor.
“
She could come home with me ...
”

“
I'm afraid that would be impractical.
She will need some nursing. And of course we shall
sedate her. I can recommend a hospice, if
that is what you would prefer ...
”

“
No. How much does she know?
”
“
We have said nothing. Eventually she will ask.
But in many ways it is better if she does not
know.
”

“
Can she stay here?
”

“
Yes, of course.
”

“
How long?
”

“
I can't tell you that.
”

I could see that in his way he felt badly, rather
on account of his own performance than for any other
reason. He had been assigned an impossible
task and had done his best to carry it out.
Despite myself I felt sorry for him.

“
Don't worry,
”
I heard myself say.
“
We shall manage.
”

Walking along the neon-lit corridor
to Betsy's room my one feeling was a great
longing for the outer air, with its pollution, its
gases, its microbes, and its other less
visible dangers. I was aware, by the fact of its
very absence, of the heat of the summer's day, of the sun
which only that morning had shone through my windows, of
appetites which could still be satisfied. In this
place the line of distinction between sickness and health
was sharply drawn, not in any symbolic
or minatory way, but in the distant laughter of
young nurses contrasted with the heavy closed doors
behind which their patients waited. I was not exempt from
their necessary feelings of detachment. I dreaded the time
I had to spend sitting by Betsy's bed, all
too conscious of the glorious day from which we were both
excluded. There was little to say. We were both intent
on behaving well, which meant that our conversation was
largely meaningless. We instinctively avoided the
moment when a painful truth might emerge and alert
us to imminent change. Therefore Edmund's name was
never mentioned. Instead we looked to the past
to furnish us with subjects for discussion. Do you ever
hear from so-and-so? What was the name of that girl whose
parents emigrated to Canada, taking her with them?
Do you remember how sorry we felt for her,
thinking Canada a far cry from swinging London?
Do you remember the Sixties? You haven't
changed. You were just as serious then. And just as
pretty.

There was no point in telling Betsy that she had
not changed. What was unchanged was her determined
cheerfulness: she was valiant. I could not bear
to imagine what this cost her, but maybe it was
innate, a genuine virtue, one that qualified
her to inherit the earth. The same went for her
attempts to present a decent appearance, though
this was becoming difficult; her hair was now lank
and thin, and the colours she obstinately applied
to her face looked harsh and irregular. I dared
not deter her from making these efforts, lest she take
that as a sign. She had always been so meticulous
that her physical envelope represented yet
another sign of her stoicism. As my admiration
for her grew I found her situation, and I have
to say, her company, less and less tolerable.
When at last she showed signs of fatigue I
got up to leave, and asked her my usual question:
“
Is there anything you want?
”

She turned her eyes away from the window, and
I saw how large they had become.

“
If you could get a message to the
girls?
”

“
The girls?
”

“
Edmund's girls. They will wonder why I
haven't been in touch. They may not know where I
am. Could you bear to go round to my flat? The
number is on the pad by the phone. I should love
to see the girls. And David.
”
This last was an
exhalation of pure longing.

“
I'll see what I can do. Is there anything
else you want from the flat?
”

“
If you could water the plants. And ring the
girls. Tell them ... Don't tell them
anything. Just give them my love.
”

Her face was turned once more to the window. My
departure was awkward, as it always was. It was
assumed between us that she wanted to sleep, was in
fact on the verge of sleep. This tactic
averted the need for encouraging words, reassurances,
references to the future. For it had been observed
between us that such references were out of place: the past was
such inasmuch as it was over, whereas too many queries
hovered over the present. My departure was an
ungainly scramble, or so it seemed to me.

Only when I was out in the corridor did it
occur to me to wonder if I looked as mad and
dishevelled as I felt, but when I consulted my
mirror I saw that I was much the same as I had
been when I left home, as reluctant then as
now, the sun indifferent, but now even more splendid.
Again as the doors slid closed behind me I
breathed in the normal air as if my life
depended on it, as perhaps it did.

The contrast between the brilliant streets and the
darkness of Betsy's flat was eloquent. I could
not see anyone wanting to return to this place.
To its habitual air of desolation was now added a
film of neglect: dust nestled in the curlicued
legs of her nest of tables, while the parchment
shade of her over-large lamp looked unequal
to the task of filtering light. A faint stale
smell of scent I traced to a bottle of room
freshener which was abandoned on the side of the sink,
together with a cup and saucer which had been washed but not
put away. The plants were quite dead. I took a
duster and wiped various surfaces, but I was
unequal to the task of hoovering. This I would
leave for another day. My dusting seemed to have
effected no great difference to the place, from which I
was anxious to be gone. I dialled the number on
the pad by the telephone and was not surprised when it
was not answered. I went into the bedroom and took a
couple of nightdresses from the bulbous
mahogany chest of drawers. Then I threw
away the air freshener, which would no longer be
needed. My conscience instructed me to try the
telephone again. Again there was no answer.
My own telephone was ringing when I got
home, but stopped as I went to pick it
up. I thought of making tea, and even got as far
as filling the kettle, when the telephone rang
again.

“
Where have you been?
”
said Nigel.
“
I've
tried you two or three times. I tried you ten
minutes ago.
”

“
I've just come in. I was making tea.
”

“
Tea? It's six-thirty.
”

“
As I said, I've just come in.
”

“
Well, never mind that now. There's something I
want to discuss with you. I'll be there in half an
hour.
”