Visitors (19 page)

‘No, thank you,’ he said, disappointed. But they were both disappointed, she reflected, turning the hot tap onto the breakfast dishes, disappointed in each other. Because this made her genuinely sad she did not turn round again until she heard the front door close behind him.

She bathed and dressed hurriedly, ashamed of her earlier unpreparedness. Although she was only going to the shops she put on her good linen suit and a superior pair of shoes to the ones she normally wore. Then she sat down suddenly, her
hands idle. She was filled with shame that she had not handled the situation better. What could she tell this young man of love and friendship? The subject was too vast, and she felt herself to be too ignorant, even after a lifetime of what now appeared to her as studious application. And something in her had wanted to win him over, to get behind the defensive smile and the intermittent mockery. For he thought her ridiculous, that was clear. There was no instinctive sympathy between them, and yet she wanted there to be. This was strange: he was hardly appealing, was far too cold for such a young person. In fact the three of them, Ann, David, Steve, made little attempt to come close. That was what was so shocking about them. Yet, despite her wish for harmony, she thought she could understand their reluctance.

David, if anything, was even more enigmatic than Steve, with whom she still wanted to be on good terms. For what reason? His approval was irrelevant to her life, just as David was oddly irrelevant to the matter in hand: his wedding. They seemed furiously passive, that couple, contributing their bad behaviour as evidence of integrity. They objected proudly to the blandishments being offered, thereby making it possible to accept—negligently—the goods and services that had accrued. In this attitude, as in all other matters, Ann was the leader. Ann’s motives were imprecise. Perhaps she wanted to impress the wealthy David that she had family resources of her own. She had by now seen the error of her ways, since David, for all his faults, seemed genuinely unworldly, unlikely to be impressed by evidence of the Levinsons’ wealth, indeed dismayed by it. And what Ann had gained was the burden of family life, the meals, the arguments, the conversation, and above all the propinquity. It was the propinquity that was making her so bad-tempered, dealing with the presence of old
people with whom she was forced to exist at close quarters. A young person’s objections to the old were likely to be overwhelmingly physical, as well as moral. Ann saw Kitty as Kitty never saw herself, stout, highly coloured, overdressed, and beyond that complicated, self-centered, self-important. She was all of those things, of course. But to her granddaughter’s unadorned state she opposed a certain knowledge, that nature must be cajoled, subdued, above all disguised. To Ann, Kitty was artful, with all that that implied to one of her scornful nature.

In fact they were all subject to the scorn of these young people, and it was proving an uncomfortable experience. After fifteen years of more or less peaceful solitude Mrs May was now being called to account, for no particular fault that she could think of, unless it were for not being racier, more complicit. It was not that Steve had overstepped the mark in any way, although he was beginning to show signs of wanting to. The fact that they were doomed to disagree pained her, as if all she had ever wanted was some kind of endorsement that had so far been lacking.

But why did they fail so abysmally, she wondered. Were they too selfish, too set in their ways, or were they simply hurt that these children had no need of them and made this fact so plain? Were they, Ann in particular, only too aware of their age, their uselessness? In that case why did they avail themselves so freely of what was on offer? No doubt the clean linen and the soft beds spelt out a message to them of bourgeois vanity, and they were on the defensive, knowing that they had nothing to give in return except their love, which they withheld. They were determined to move on intact, uncompromised. And that was what they would do, leaving behind a sense of anticlimax, of disappointment. And no doubt long
after they had gone Kitty and Austin would be discussing their visit as if it were a landmark, even a success. In retrospect it would be seen as a success, for the young people would move on, with an agreeable sense of having bestowed their company where it was most needed. They were undoubtedly graceless, yet if time were to prove kind they would become endowed with a grace which they possessed only by virtue of their youth. And those who had been their unwilling hosts would discuss them endlessly, as if they were interesting. In that way they would wrest a sort of success from what was, after all, a fairly routine incompatibility.

She stirred and sighed. She must do two things. She must go out and buy marmalade—and bread and butter, and eggs, and perhaps some apricots: would he like stewed apricots for his breakfast? And she must ring Molly, not because she had anything to say to her but because she had told Steve that she would. With a start she noticed that it was almost half-past ten and that she had idled away half the morning. She dialled the Goodmans’ number. She had always liked Molly, a softer creature than her powerful sister, less intelligent, more approachable. She was likable chiefly because she gave out an engaging aura of contentment, even of happiness. Peacefully married to her plump little estate agent of a husband, she seemed fulfilled in her not very demanding role. Like Kitty she was an excellent housewife, paid attention to her appearance, and, according to Henry, who teased her, was known to spend whole afternoons on her sofa, waiting for visitors, so that she could make a fuss of them. She was tearful and feminine, utterly lacking in curiosity, and possessed of a simplicity which enabled her to breach normal conversational conventions. She found it natural to speak of her feelings in any company, too guileless to expect embarrassment, too guiltless to feel it. The
wide ardent eyes begged indulgence, and normally received it. Her husband, with something of the same simplicity, or as much as a life in the property business had allowed him, protected her, as of right. Mrs May had a vision of them on their annual holiday, sitting on the terrace of their hotel in Bordighera, and homesick for Highgate. And in a week or two they would be there, as they were every year, although this year was different from most. This year, more than ever, they would seek the haven of each other’s presence after the departure of their unbidden guest.

‘Molly? It’s Thea. How are you?’

‘We’re very well, thank you, Thea. And yourself?’

‘Oh, I’m fine. Has my young man shown up yet? He said he was on his way to you.’

She wondered why she used this uncharacteristically arch locution, and concluded that she and Steve were simply not on terms other than the most uneasy intimacy.

‘He’s gone out with David and Harold. They’ve gone to the health food shop, although I’ve got salmon steaks for lunch. Will he eat salmon, do you think? Only David and Harold will only want a salad, so that will be salmon for Steve and myself …’

‘Don’t spoil him, Molly. He won’t want to leave.’

‘Frankly, Thea, we shall miss David. He’s been so good to Harold, seeing that he takes exercise, and so on. And Harold says they have such interesting discussions.’

‘What about?’

‘Oh, I didn’t ask, dear. Religion, I suppose. Funny, because Harold’s never been particularly inclined that way.’

‘You’re not too tired? With all the extra work?’

‘Oh, no, not at all.’ There was a brief silence. ‘Of course, it’s not the same as if he were our own, but he is part of the family,
isn’t he? Harold minded more than I did, our not having children. Well, I minded, of course I minded, but I didn’t want him to see me grieving. No regrets, I said to him. And when I see him with David, I know he minds …’

‘Don’t upset yourself, Molly.’

‘No, no, it’s nothing,’ she sighed. ‘It’s just that Harold will miss him when he goes.’

‘We’re all a bit unsettled, I suppose.’

‘It’s Kitty I worry about. She’s overdoing it, as usual.’

Mrs May sighed too. There was a very brief pause while she hunted for words of concern and reassurance.

‘If you could just give her a ring, Thea? She looks up to you, you know. “Thea has inner strength,” she says. If you could prevail on her not to make herself ill …’

‘Was there anything in particular?’ she enquired. ‘Has anything happened?’

‘She’s very disappointed in Ann, between ourselves.’ Molly’s voice was lowered as she uttered what was to her a recently discovered fact.

‘We must remember that they’ll all be gone by the end of the week.’

‘If you could just have a word with Kitty, then. I don’t want it to end badly. And don’t worry about Steve. He’ll be fine with us.’

Mrs May replaced the receiver thoughtfully. So her energies were to be invoked once again for the task of appeasing Kitty. Yet here she was, dressed and ready to go out, and it seemed suddenly that only a trip to the local shops would free her mind from pondering these twisted alliances. A pleasant normal activity—and how blessedly normal it seemed!—would restore the illusion that her life was her own, if only by virtue of old age. Old age should be a time of great and significant
self-indulgence, she thought: otherwise it is too bitter. At the same time she wondered how she would put up with her daily routine once all the visitors had gone, and the task of talking about them—of reconstructing them, in fact—was not yet fully engaged.

She was halfway out of the door when the telephone rang.

‘Kitty here.’

‘Good morning, Kitty. How are you?’

Was it her imagination that Kitty’s breathing sounded more laboured, bringing her splendidly upholstered form most vividly to mind?

‘I need your help, Thea. Could you possibly come over?’

‘What’s wrong? Is it Austin?’

‘No, it’s not Austin. It’s Ann. She won’t get out of bed.’

‘Is she ill?’

‘She says she doesn’t want to get married. She won’t talk to me; just pulls the covers over her face. I’m afraid we had a silly argument. Do you think you could have a word with her?’

This was new. Kitty frequently had arguments, but not, according to her, silly ones.

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘Thank you, Thea. We’ll expect you for tea.’

‘Well, Ann,’ she said, closing the door of the bedroom behind her. ‘We haven’t had much of a chance to talk, have we?’

She glanced round the room unhurriedly, and in doing so caught the momentary gleam of an eyeball from the motionless figure in the bed. Sleep was not easily simulated, she thought; there was always something tense in the impersonation that was absent from the natural condition. She thought of her own bed, in her own quiet room, and wished she were back there. Her heart had behaved uncomfortably in the taxi and she rather wondered whether she had the energy to convert this recalcitrant girl to a course of action in which she could see no merit. Kitty’s peace of mind, of course, must be restored, but for the moment she was more interested in her own. She thought of home most lovingly, as it had been before the arrival of Steve; she saw herself moving through her shadowy rooms undisturbed, as though she were her own ghost. And this room, in which she was most reluctantly seated, beside a crumpled bed, was too bright, too eager, too obviously Gerald’s room, kept pristine in case he should decide to come home and behave as if he had never been away,
which was Kitty’s obvious wish. Austin, she knew, was more philosophical: Austin did his duty, although publicly he might deride the fact that he did so. What he had against David was the ostentatious nature of his goodness, an affront to one of his sly and sorrowful nature. Austin knew that all was vanity, whereas David appeared to be convinced that salvation was available to those of a sunny disposition. They were aspirational, the young, she reflected; what a pity it was that they must be disillusioned.

But she was here to deal with a crisis, and she must be sympathetic, although it was difficult to feel much sympathy for the figure in the bed, her hair flattened, her cheek creased by the pillow. She was with Kitty in this, perhaps by virtue of her age. Older women felt an instinctive impatience when the young squandered their endowment. She sat up straighter, smoothing her linen skirt. ‘Won’t you talk to me?’ she said. ‘I have come rather a long way to see you, and I don’t suppose we shall meet again. I remember you as a little girl, you know. You were unhappy even then. I remember your dark eyes repudiating everyone and everything. I had hoped you were happier now that you are going to be married …’

The figure reared up in the bed. ‘I don’t want to get married.’

‘But why not? It’s very pleasant. On the whole I enjoyed it, although I didn’t marry until I was quite old.’

There was no answer. ‘What do you want to do?’ she enquired in her mildest tone.

‘I want to go home.’

‘And where is home?’

‘America.’

‘But I thought you were going back anyway, after you are married.’

‘I want to go
home
. I don’t want to be here, with all this fuss, all this
furniture
.’