Look At Me Part 4

That was how I came to my realization, and I was amazingly calm about it. I slept badly, that was all. When I say badly, I don't mean that I was restless or agitated. Quite the contrary. I fell into a deep death-like sleep that lasted all the way through until the morning, and when I woke up I would feel quite dazed. I would sit up in bed, trying to readjust to the waking day after what seemed like a total absence, and sometimes, even sitting up in bed, I would drift off again, and feel the heaviness pulling me down. Into these curious, almost amnesiac, states, images would enter, although I could not always remember what they were later in the day. They worried at me, commanding me to remember them. And sometimes they would jump into focus. That was how I saw the rosewood cigarette box again, looking very large. It looked large because I was so small; I was running a child's hand over the slightly irregular, slightly imperfect edge. I was repeating the gesture over and over again. I had nothing else to do, because I was a child and I was waiting for the adults to come back from what was so mysteriously keeping them and to allow me once again into their company.

Nine.

By the time I was ready to visit Miss Morpeth I had composed myself into a facsimile of my former selfbrisk, amusing, sharp, my round birdlike eyes on the lookout for oddities of behaviour that I might eventually use in that droll novel that, some day, I was going to write. I had not come round to this state of affairs without dffficulty. Above all, the thought of reverting to the role of observer rather than partic.i.p.ant filled me with dread and sadness. For although I knew that this was an easy card of ident.i.ty to use in the game of social interchange, I felt it as the seal of death on any more natural hopes I might have entertained. In my role of observer (and I could already see the reviews: *witty', *perceptive', etc.), I should have to prepare myself for a good deal of listening. Without comment, of course. I would somehow be on my honour to extract sly morals from everything, to view the world as a human comedy, to identify connections, to unearth motives. To do everything that I could not manage to do in real life, in fact. I, who found it so diffficult to shed my beady isolation, must in fact never appear to be lonely. I must be the odd one at every gathering, and in order to hide my sense of shame I must pretend to be taking notes. Where I had once thought to say, Look at me, I must now turn the attention of others away from myself. I, who had once wanted to be recognized for reasons other than the ones I was now reconstructing, must forget that I had ever sought that recognition. No good would come of it.

I set out for Miss Morpeth's flat on that Sunday afternoon in a mixed mood of deep exasperation and unpleasant clear-sightedness. The exasperation was merely the ultimate manifestation of my feeling for, or rather against, Miss Morpeth, and the perpetuation of this ridiculous duty for which I had not volunteered. As one sometimes tries harder with people whom one heartily dislikes, if only in order to hide that dislike from the other person and from oneself, I tried exceptionally hard with Miss Morpeth. I sacrificed one Sunday afternoon a month to her, and I answered the same questions every time I saw her. I heard the same observations about Dr Leventhal's ultimate unreliability and what Miss Morpeth had said to the Director when she had been invited to sit on the board which had appointed him. I ate the same cake, which I did not like; I spent the same amount of time in the same frowsty room in which the windows were never opened. I washed up the same cups and saucers at the same moment of the day and waited while Miss Morpeth put them away; I heard the same bolts and chains being secured, in the same order, before I felt free to decamp and run down the stairs. As against all this strain and endurance on my part, I did not see that Miss Morpeth was making much of an effort. She clearly found me unsatisfactory, both as a librarian and as a human being, and her resentment of the duties she had to perform for my benefit, such as making the tea, showed in the very stiffness of her walk and the jerkiness of her speech. Besides, I felt, it was time she went to Australia. Somehow I could not bear to go through that particular conversation again.

The unpleasant clear-sightedness of which I spoke came from my determination to make Miss Morpeth and indeed everyone else - pay for the penalties they exacted from me. If Miss Morpeth was going to bore me stiff, then Miss Morpeth was going to be used as material. I would write Miss Morpeth into my system of things: she would become a *character', and in due course I would, by virtue of this very process, gain the upper hand. As I tramped through the park, turning a hard, bright stare on the few pa.s.sers-by, I was busy writing in my head a deadpan but devastating account of getting Miss Morpeth on to the aeroplane for Melbourne, starting with the purchase of the lightweight luggage, the alerting of Nick (of Nick? I had almost forgotten him), the drive to the airport, with conversation verging on the farcical on both sides (at this point I realized that I would have to go along with them), and then what? I would have to arrange for something unexpected to happen to Miss Morpeth. A romance? Difficult to imagine, given the elastic stocking and the sad green skirt. But if she were to meet someone equally unprepossessing, someone, yes, like Dr Leventhal, I thought I could bring off some kind of rapprochement, since I knew them both so well. The fact that they disliked each other so much in real life would give my authorial tone an extra piquancy. Then, I suppose, having brought them together, I could send them out to a sunny if tentative future together in the Antipodes.

At this point my new sourness curdled in my throat and I had to stop and take a deep breath before I could go on. I found that I could not contemplate the union of two people, even in fiction, without the ground threatening to give way beneath me. Were I to think of two living human beings, ideally matched, and were I to catch sight of them, looking at each other with love, I think I should have died of it. I stood there in the park, on a grey Sunday afternoon, and I fought for control as the tears filled my eyes. That world, in which I was to have no part, how it hurt me! How it reminded me! And how great were the dangers to which I was now exposed, since that defection... But my vision was so blurred that I took a pull at myself and stared steadily through my tears until they disappeared, and remembered that I could, if I so willed it, gain some sort of a position, lending myself to events in order to control them at a later date. It was, in fact, the only tactic left open to me, and I had better start practising it straight away. All in all, I told myself briskly, this visit to Miss Morpeth was an excellent opportunity. And most timely. For on the following evening I was due to dine with the Frasers, and no doubt with James, and my defences were to be impregnable.

So as I stood in the slightly dingy beige and green hallway of Miss Morpeth's block of flats I performed some sort of surgery on myself and eliminated all feelings save those of mockery and judgment. I registered somewhere, but far away in my mind, that this was a terrible and decisive moment, and that I might never again recover my wholeness. But that wholeness now seemed to me so damaged that it was simply a question of safety, of survival, to protect the ruins, much as certain areas of faulty pavement are cordoned off while workmen heat and melt tar for resurfacing. If I could not ordain what went on below the surface, I would see that what was presented to the public gaze was unmarked. I seemed to have to go through this whole cycle of despair and resolution on an average of once every five minutes, and as I fished Miss Morpeth's Christmas present - an expensive silk scarf - out of my bag, I had to will the weakness away yet again. But by the time I rang the bell I was on the look-out once more, and I was prepared to be deadly.

In my harshness the steps that dragged along the corridor to meet me seemed slower than usual, the hands that unlocked the chains and bolts more torpid. There was even a palpable hesitation before the door was opened, as if the springs that animated Miss Morpeth were wearing out. Determined to chronicle her waning energy with all vigour, I composed my expression into one of smiling ease and found myself gazing at a face I had not seen before. It was certainly Miss Morpeth's face, but so antagonistic that I felt a certain confusion, as if my new initiative, made known to no one but myself, had in fact been taken from me and appropriated by someone else. I was so startled by the sight of Miss Morpeth's face, which had been enlivened with two roughly circular dabs of red on the cheekbones and a crooked smear of red on the lips, and which, tilted upwards, bore a look of weary resolution more suitable, I thought, to my own position than to hers, that I said, instinctively, *Are you all right?'

She said, *Perfectly all right, thank you, Frances', and relented, or so it seemed to me, and opened the door fully, and motioned me to go in. I heard her padding along behind me, although she was usually in front of me, and as the kettle whistled in the kitchen she left me to see to the tea, and for once I had to go and sit down alone in her pale green sitting room, and to wait for her as a child waits for its tea. At that moment it struck me that that was exactly how Miss Morpeth saw me, as a spoilt child, who takes its ease of movement for granted, and who sulks when bored, and who, when released from a tiresome duty, will run away and play all the more strenuously because its energy has been momentarily checked. As Miss Morpeth wheeled in the trolley, I rose to help her, but she said, quite curtly, *There's no need,' and so I sat down again.

That some change had taken place was quite evident, not only from the colour applied haphazardly to Miss Morpeth's face, but from the rough edges to the usually immaculately cut bread and b.u.t.ter and from the fact that the cellophane paper which had wrapped up the Battenberg cake was folded by the side of the plate, waiting to envelop the cake again immediately I had taken my ritual slice. Into an increasingly dense silence I found myself offering items of information for Miss Morpeth's attention. In this way I told her at very great length about the epidemic of *flu and the toll it had taken at the Library. I told her about Dr Leventhal's cold, about Dr Simek's cold, and about the little party we had had, and how Mrs Halloran had enjoyed it rather too much. There was no reaction from Miss Morpeth. Then I told her that Nick had had an article published in a learned journal, to which she said, *Have you brought it?' and I had to confess that I had not. After that there was another silence. Rather desperately I told her about my short story, and this was a measure of my disarray, for I had intended her for the same fate as the fictional Dr Leventhal. Predictably, she was not much interested in this either. I think she regarded it as she might have a child starting to show off .1, in my turn, and no doubt perversely, felt as if she were not pulling her weight in the new mode of existence that I had devised for myself.

It was by now quite dark and conversation had come to a dead halt. In desperation, I said, *I suppose you will be going to Australia shortly after Christmas? You must be longing to get away from this dreary winter. And it must be high summer in Melbourne. I do envy you!'

At this point Miss Morpeth, who had been staring straight in front of her, brought her head round and said, dully, *I'm not going.'

*Oh, but why?' I cried. *You've been looking forward to it for so long. And your niece..

*I can't fly,' she said.

*Oh, but you must,' I urged her. *Everyone is scared. I am myself. Every time. And anyway, there are pills..., She flapped her hand wearily, in order to shut me up. *I can't fly because the doctor says my heart won't stand it. I have left it too late.'

These words frightened me, although Miss Morpeth herself was quite composed, having lived alone with this knowledge and this disappointment, in her pale green room, long before I had arrived on my errand of perverted self-interest. I stared at her and I saw that the colour applied so indifferently to her face covered skin that was more greyish-yellow than I had seen it before, that the loose flesh of her throat was more p.r.o.nounced, and the rope-like blue veins on the backs of her hands darker and more prominent. Then my eyes fell to her ankles, which I saw to be rigid and swollen, and then back to her face, which was drawn. Her eyelids were drooping over her dull eyes; there were purplish marks on her face. Her hand, which was holding the lighter we had given her when she left, was trembling.

*I am so sorry,' I said, slowly. *I didn't know.'

*Why should you?' She flashed me a look of contempt. *We never talked about such things. We always, talked about the Library. And I tried to be interested, because I knew that was what you came for. You meant to be kind, I know.'

*I had no idea..

*Frankly, Frances, I am sick of the Library. I do not care what Dr Leventhal gets up to. I never cared for the man. And as for Nick... Well, he has never been to see me. Nor has his wife. I asked them both to tea more than once, but they were always too busy. Do you imagine I find all this amusing? Ill-mannered people.' She was beginning to shake.

I said, *Oh, I think they are...'

*I know what they are,' she said angrily. *Do you think I don't understand them? I am simply not interesting enough for them to bother about, or that is what they have given me to understand. They look on me as a boring old woman. Nothing to do with them. Nothing,' she repeated, as two tears were suddenly released from the corners of her eyes and fell on to her sand-coloured cardigan.

*I don't care about them,' she went on, her voice grating, *but I shall never see Angela again,' and her mouth quivered. *She was the one I wanted to see. The rest of you meant nothing to me. Nothing.' She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and applied it to the corners of her mouth. *Nothing,' she repeated.

How odd, I reflected, while searching for something to say, that it should be Miss Morpeth of all people to speak the truth about her feelings, while the rest of us, more fortunate, less impeded, never seemed to find the occasion to do so, or perhaps avoided such occasions lest we should hear something too damaging for our selfesteem to bear. I looked at Miss Morpeth, now tearing angrily at the corner of her handkerchief, her mouth making small gobbling movements, and I saw that maybe the instinct to avoid the truth was a healthy one, for if one were to give way to such a display of naked need how could one ever recover any semblance of adulthood? To have the world see one in such a state of disorder seemed to me at that moment so terrible that I began once again to revise my estimate of human behaviour and to see new virtues in civilized dissimulation. One must, at all events, keep up appearances. And as Miss Morpeth slowly righted herself, and I sat there warily, waiting for it to be safe to leave, I made a vow that I must never draw attention to myself in that way, must never cry my need. Dry-eyed, I wondered how I might divert attention from my emptiness. And at that moment I knew that I must see the Frasers at once, that very evening, for they had the ability to bring these unmanageable emotions down to a level of curiosity, of gratification, that might, even yet, include me.

As Miss Morpeth gave a sigh and tucked her handkerchief away up her sleeve, I stood up, for it was clear that my presence was no longer required, and also that this would be my last visit. Rather shamefaced, I handed over the little parcel containing the scarf that I had bought for her, for I could find no Christmas wishes with which to accompany it. She nodded her head in acknowledgment, then gave a brief and quite mirthless laugh, which rather startled me, but which I understood when she went to the drawer of a tallboy and produced from it a parcel roughly the same shape and consistency as my own and evidently containing the same sort of silk scarf. In our choice of Christmas presents, we had evidently thought of each other in exactly the same way. The thought chilled me to the bone.

I ran down the stairs, to escape the sound of the bolts and chains being secured, and flew out of the fusty hallway into a chilly but dry and slightly hazy night. It was only half-past five, but it felt like bedtime. In my anxiety to reconnect myself with some sort of existence that might allow me a different fate from the one which Miss Morpeth evidently foresaw for me, I stopped a taxi and told the driver to take me to the King's Road.

As I ran up the stairs to the Frasers' flat, I only knew, very imprecisely, that I wanted to be with them, that I wanted their friendship. More than that, I needed their viability, their selfishness - no, that was not it: their self-interest, their appet.i.te; these were natural and desirable qualities, and I must learn to cultivate them. Or, rather, I must learn to acquire them. I must be near these people, I must be like them. They had everything to teach me. And as for James, I must try to be what was acceptable to him. To them. My heart was bursting with all these intentions when I reached their front door.

There was a m.u.f.fled noise of melodramatic American voices, and when the door was opened it was by Nick, his face quite blank, and his attention still held by whatever he had been watching on television.

*f.a.n.n.y,' he said, in belated recognition, as his face momentarily cleared. *Come in. Quickly.'

I sank down on to the sofa, behind Alix and Nick, who had drawn their chairs up to the television. Between them, on a small table, was an extremely large box of chocolates, and their hands dipped into this as if quite detached from their conscious minds. The throbbing American voices were partially obscured for me by the sound of chocolate papers being scrunched and discarded, nuts being bitten into, and the occasional shorthand remark - *Ginger. Do you want it?' - which signified to me a state of enjoyment I could only contemplate. Between their heads, past their rapidly moving jaws, I could see fragments of a film in black and white. A beautiful woman in a strapless evening dress was saying goodbye to someone on the terrace of a building. Her lover's kiss reached me in a mutilated version as Nick swivelled round, handed me something, and said,'Almond cl.u.s.ter.'Then, as he swivelled back again, I could see the beautiful woman, obviously heartbroken, running out of the restaurant or hotel or whatever it was and towards a car with a very long bonnet. The chauffeur, dressed in what looked like a field-marshal's uniform, opened the door and then leaned in to wrap the pa.s.senger in a fur rug. As the car drove away I could see the beautiful woman's face, mirroring several sorrowful emotions, staring out of the window. This was apparently the end of the film, although I very much wanted to know what happened next.

Nick and Alix stirred like sleepers. Nick switched off the set, switched on the light, and pushed his chair back. Alix said, *H'm', and lit a cigarette. Both looked bloated with a sort of Sunday lethargy that never seemed to be available to me. Being with them, and watching their repleteness, was the next best thing to being replete myself.

*What was it about?' I asked, cautiously, for they seemed quite silent with emotion. It was curious how they always reacted to the spectacle of rich people in distress.

*c.r.a.p, really,' said Nick, clearing his throat.

*How can you say that?' Alix protested. *She loved him and she gave him up. That's a pretty serious matter in my book. h.e.l.lo, f.a.n.n.y. You look cold. Shall we have a cup of coffee? Nick? Put the kettle on, darling.'

In her contemplation of that fictional renunciation that she had just witnessed, Alix seemed quite luminous with understanding, with compa.s.sion. I stared at her, wondering what on earth was going on inside her head, what personal feelings and desires were being given their due. What alibi would she have, I wondered. But when I thought back to Miss Morpeth tearing at her handkerchief, with that tiny regressive movement of her fingers, I shuddered inwardly and allowed Alix all the leeway she would have claimed for herself.

As Nick brought in the coffee, I watched him un.o.btrusively, taking quick oblique glances, wondering how in the world he fitted into this scheme of things. My earlier understanding of him, as an embodiment of that ideal and fearless male principle, roaming the earth, mentally exacting or enacting his droit de seigneur, had undergone some sort of modification. Nick now seemed to me to be more pa.s.sive, his strength subsumed into that of his wife. Certainly his att.i.tude towards my supposed physical innocence had been paternalistic, even voyeuristic, perhaps, exciting enough to add an edge to my more general pleasure at that time,- now lost, alas... His att.i.tude towards James had always been quite calm, as if, having introduced him into the household, brought him into the circle of his friends, he might now take a rest from active intervention and simply watch the results. I had noticed that although he made the greater effort to charm at the beginning of an acquaintance, he was quite content to leave the rest to Alix. After the initial moves had been made, he was almost absentminded. What his present position was I simply could not comprehend. Perhaps this ideal couple was so superhuman in its arrangements and its understandings that whatever had taken place would have been beyond my comprehension in any event. I envied them. I felt once more my emptiness, my fear, but mentally I saluted them. Simply for doing what they wanted to do. Whatever that was. Whomever they used. I wanted to be like them. When I felt otherwise, I remembered the silk scarf in its Christmas paper, a present from Miss Morpeth, and, pondering the dread significance of our exchange of gifts, I resolved to go forward, no matter what the consequences might be.

But there were to be no consequences today, that was clear. They were both becalmed by the tremendous emotional experience of seeing that woman in her strapless evening dress driving away from the man she loved, and they sipped their coffee almost wordlessly, still contemplating the blank screen. Then Alix said, *H'm', again, and pushed back her chair.

I tried to put myself into the same mood, or what I imagined would be an acceptable mood.

*Where's James?' I asked brightly. *Still with his Mama? Poor James.'

*Actually, Honor Anstey is an extremely nice woman,' said Alix. *Extremely nice. I'm devoted to her. Yes, he's staying there to dinner.'

I felt a pang on hearing that James had introduced his mother to Alix. I had never met her. Yet Alix was already devoted to her, or claimed to be. I contemplated her range of possibilities, and then my own. I felt some old determination returning, although everything that I had learned that day had been discouraging. Perhaps that was what stiffened me. If, as I thought, Alix had had her way - and I shied away from imagining precisely what that was - then why should it not be my turn to have mine? And I thought of the house at Plaxtol, waiting for us.

*Nick!' cried Alix suddenly. *How could you?' She indicated the box of chocolates, now three-quarters empty and surrounded by screwed-up wrappings. *How could you let me eat all those horrible fattening things?'

He looked at her and smiled, the smile of the hunter who has also eaten well.

*How could you?' she went on. *You know I'm trying to lose weight.' She stood up, releasing a few fragments of cellophane, which fell silently from her skirt on to the littered carpet, and placed her hands round her waist. *I must have put on pounds. How could you, Nick?' She walked over to his chair and gazed down at him. He, his legs splayed, gazed up at her, at her pouting face, her mock anger, and he smiled his lazy smile.

*Nick,' I said timidly, *I think you ought to give Miss Morpeth a ring. She's not at all well. She can't go to Australia because there's something wrong with her heart. I think she'll be alone at Christmas. She's fed up with me so I can't do anything. Perhaps if you could find time to telephone her?'

*Jesus,' murmured Alix under her breath.

*Darling, darling,' protested Nick, laughing, *don't worry. I'm not going to ask her round here.'

He stood up and faced me, his arm round Alix's waist. *All right, f.a.n.n.y. I'll do something or other. Thanks for bringing the message.'

Clearly, and for the second time that afternoon, this was my cue to leave.

I was confused and disheartened. I moved towards the door, bulky in my coat, for I had not taken it off, and thought of the hands at Alix's waist. *See you tomorrow, then,' I said, again very brightly. They smiled and said, *Yes, yes', as if paying no attention. The dinner the following evening had lost all significance for them, for they were deep in their haste to be alone.

As the door shut behind me I stood on the stairs for a minute or two, unwilling to leave. Then the thought that they might find me still there, and that they might think I was listening, sent me rapidly and stealthily down the stairs, as if I were in fact guilty of eavesdropping. It did not occur to me that I was behaving or thinking oddly. All I knew was that the resolution I had felt earlier that afternoon had undergone some sort of fragmentation, and that I was now in a state of disarray so very nearly like an illness that I began to wonder if I would last long enough to bring matters into some sort of resolution. I began to feel as if my very substance were threatened; I felt the strength of other people's wills about to break my own in pieces. Perhaps if I had gone straight home after seeing Miss Morpeth I would have been all right. I would have repaired myself somehow or other; I would have exercised my autonomy again. I might even have started to write that story in which she was to figure with Dr Leventhal. But, as though by instinct, I had flown to seek the antidote for that distressing experience, for this is what people do in real life. Or so I thought. And all I had found was that I was more incapacitated by the spectacle of normal happiness, no, not even that, of normal satisfaction, than by that of loss, of despair, and of acceptance. For there is something repellent in the spectacle of another's naked misery; it does not encourage friendship. One runs away from it.

And yet there is a special loneliness that comes from contemplating the opposite, particularly when it is so carelessly displayed to one. I walked across the park in the darkness, frightened less of the emptiness around me than of the emptiness within. Edgware Road was deserted, except for a few disconsolate Indians at one of the supermarkets. The nurses' uniforms looked spectral in the unfriendly light. I wondered what on earth I was going to do until I went to bed, and then I realized that, if I wanted to, I could go to bed straight away. Certainly that odd heaviness, as of sleep, was already upon me. When I got to the flat I called out to Nancy that I didn't want any supper, took off my coat, and went into my bedroom. It seemed very quiet. After a few minutes I heard the shuffle of Nancy's slippers along the corridor; the door opened, and then I felt her rough shiny little hand on my forehead, as I had so often felt it in my childhood. *I'm all right, Nan,' I said, as I had always said then. I sensed rather than heard her go away again. I was so tired that I could barely wait to undress. Then I fell into bed and slept.

Ten.

What I had forgotten, in my concentration on the evening, was that Monday was the last day that the Library was open before the Christmas break, that it would, in fact, close down at twelve noon, and with it the entire Inst.i.tute.

The morning was spent doing the filing, which had rather got left on one side. Mrs Halloran fought a losing battle over the piles of material she insisted on keeping around her like an entrenchment, and then, when I took it away from her, reached into her bag and produced a bottle of ginger wine and a packet of chocolate biscuits. Becoming rather animated, she seized our Mickey Mouse mugs, splashed the wine into them, and handed them round. Olivia, to do her credit, drank with an expression of calm enjoyment; one of her unexpected accomplishments is that she can eat and drink anything. I was not so lucky, but I made a great show of sipping and exclaiming with pleasure. I must have rather overdone it, because I found Mrs Halloran's eye fixed on me with an expression of extreme scepticism. After that I could hardly complain that she had left a small mess of crumbs all over a rather revolting engraving of a scene from Moliere's Malade Imaginaire, which showed a couple of doctors in shovel hats wielding a syringe the size of a Bofors gun.

The major event of the morning was the arrival of Dr Simek with two bunches of anemones, one for Olivia and one for myself. Mrs Halloran was delighted to see him and presented him with the rest of the ginger wine, of which only about an inch remained, poured into a small gla.s.s vase which Miss Morpeth had formerly used for holding pencils. Murmuring, *Most kind', Dr Simek raised the vase in a papery hand, threw back his head, and drained it in one unhesitating movement. He then inclined his head, placed the vase on the table, advanced towards Mrs Halloran, took her hand and kissed it. Not to be outdone, she rose and folded him in her arms, kissed him on both cheeks, and sank back in her chair, tilting the empty bottle, and then, having ascertained that it was indeed empty, tossing it towards the metal wastepaper basket. Alerted by the clang, Dr Leventhal appeared in the doorway, and, sizing up the situation, said, *I think we can begin to be on our way. We look forward to seeing you both in the New Year.'

*All the best, girls,' cried Mrs Halloran in desolate tones. The fight seemed to have gone out of her with Dr Leventhal's announcement. I imagined Christmas in a small South Kensington hotel: the tiny tree, the paper hats, the microwaved turkey portions, and the enormous takings at the bar. Olivia and I looked at each other and she nodded to me. Reaching into the drawer of my desk I took out the two Metropolitan Museum diaries, which she had sent for and I had wrapped, and gave them to our visitors. Neither, as I could see, would have the slightest use for a diary, but the pictures were nice. Dr Leventhal had already been presented with the most expensive calendar I could find; the reproductions were of Audubon birds, which Olivia said could hardly be faulted, although last year's, which had shown enlargements of John Speed maps, had fallen rather flat. Everyone professed to be delighted: Dr Simek inclined his head, and Mrs Halloran became emotional, which was what we dreaded, although we did not see that she could manage it over a diary. *All you wish yourselves, girls,' she proclaimed, with renewed ardour, stowing the diary into her raffia bag, which clinked. *All the best, Joe.' As we a.s.sisted her into her cape, it occurred to me to wonder whether she was addressing Dr Simek or Dr Leventhal, both of whom are called Joseph. Dr Leventhal solved this by retreating into his room, leaving Dr Simek to escort Mrs Halloran from the building. *How about a First Noel, girls?' she shouted from the door. Then, taking Dr Simek's arm, she gave us a lewd wink, and swept him from the room.

It is extraordinary how everyone a.s.sumes us to be totally inexperienced. It must be the way we look.

I went home to Bryanston Square with Olivia and stayed to lunch. I had altogether too much time to waste before the evening and was unwilling to waste much of it on my own. As everybody was out, we had beans on toast and a couple of apples; then we took our coffee into their tobacco brown drawing room, where the windows were always kept tightly shut and the curtains smelt of cigars, and sat down, one at each end of the sofa. We were both creatures of habit, and this interruption of our daily routine was not altogether welcome. *We can do anything we like,' I reminded her. *We can watch daytime television if we want to.' But in fact we didn't want to. Olivia, who was tired, said she would go to bed and read for an hour or two, and I decided to walk home and try to do the same. Shades of our childhood, when we always had to rest before a party... I sought her advice on what to wear that evening, and she thought my grey dress with the white collar would be about right It is a rather prim dress, but it has a small waist and a full skirt, and it does quite suit me. She reminded me that I was to go there on Boxing Day as usual, and asked if I would like David to pick me up in the car. With her habitual delicacy she did not refer to Christmas Day itself, having retained from an earlier conversation the fact that I had other plans. Nor did she refer to the house at Plaxtol, although at some point she would be forced to ask me when I intended to go, so that she could tell the woman in the village who cleaned for them to let me have the spare key.

I did not altogether want to leave her, although I knew that she really wanted to sleep, so I trailed rather reluctantly to the door and prepared to begin my long afternoon alone. It was quiet in their flat and somnolence seemed to be gathering in the darkening air. In fact it is always somnolent in their flat, which is only brought to life by the disruptive presence of Olivia's mother, with her bags and satchels full of minute papers, agenda, and memoranda. She is the sort of woman who never bothers to take her coat off because she always intends to go out again immediately, and she is in the habit of continuing a conversation she has been having with someone else, as if a.s.suming that her husband and children will tune in with the expected responses. She is genuinely bewildered when they declare that they don't know what she is talking about. They love her deeply and tolerate her not at all; she has become used to being told to close the door behind her, or tidy up her things. *Come on, Ma,' David calls, *get fell in.' On Sundays, the only day she is at home for lunch, she looks beamingly around for approval, for she has not only taken off her coat, she has tidied her desk, swept the papers from the sofa, and is prepared to listen as well as being listened to. Those Sunday afternoons, which I have occasionally spent with the Benedicts, are a revelation to me of family happiness. They all talk, which always strikes me as faintly amazing, until the heat of the fire and the peace of the afternoon becalms them, and the conversation dwindles to murmurs. I have seen them all sitting together with their books, each taking sustenance from a different story, but most potently together. Olivia's father eventually makes the tea, and after that Olivia's mother gives a sigh of pleasure and sadness, and says, *I always forget how much I enjoy Sundays. What a lovely day this has been.' Within half an hour they hear her on the telephone to colleagues - long complicated conversations - and the week has already begun.

I love her because once, only once, during those last days, she took my face between her two hands, and said, *Whatever happens - and it will happen, Frances - you will never be alone as long as we are here.' Then she patted my cheek, seized her briefcase, and sailed off to a meeting. She regarded my presence in their home as entirely normal, and probably wished, as my mother had done, that I would marry David so that I could be there all the time. This was a matter to which I had given little thought, not because I disliked David, who was quiet and like his father, but because there seemed to me to be no urgency about it. I had the comfortable feeling that David would wait for me to make up my mind; there would be no pressure, no official courtship, simply a gentle, eventual enquiry. I had forgotten him recently and I felt a little guilty; he was too sensible a man to be hurt by me, but I should have liked to have contributed something positive to their family at Christmas. It was just that my mind was too full of my recent adventure and its sad and bewildering development to respond to this thought. As I remembered James I sighed a little and knew that I could not make my contribution either this year or even the next. I knew, ineluctably, that I would always want to know what was happening to James, how he was, where he was, what he was doing. If this was love, it had come not when we were together, but had made itself known most officiously when we were apart. And it had shattered my former unity, made me plan and scheme and try to manipulate events, turned me into a watcher, an outsider. Yet I was still intermittently resolved; I still seized on any reason to make a fight for it; I refused to concede defeat. Simply, I wished that it could have come about another way. I would have wished it to be more straightforward. I would have wished there to be no dissimulation, no mystification, no... damage. I would have liked to have met James's mother, and for him to have met the Benedicts, at home. I would have liked straightforwardness, spontaneity, approval. Above all, approval, the good wishes of friends. I would have liked to be the daughter of the house once more.

At the door I turned to Olivia and said, *Are you quite sure the grey dress isn't too plain?' She said that it fitted me perfectly and that I might as well settle for something in which I was comfortable instead of spending the entire afternoon trying on things and discarding them. I nodded, but my smile must have been half-hearted, for at this point she became very decisive and severe. *Climb every mountain, girls,' she cried, in a pa.s.sable imitation of Mrs Halloran, *Dream the impossible dream', after which we looked at each other, and I said, *That's it, then', and she said, *Right', and I went off feeling a little relieved.

I walked home, trying to spin out the afternoon. Christmas was in three days' time, on the Thursday, but most people seemed to have stopped work already. I always hated this cessation of work and the empty streets and the desolation of Christmas. I hated the madness of the people in the supermarkets, buying half a dozen loaves of bread, and the aftermath of office parties, with girls hanging on to each other on the pavements, giggling, and hitching up the straps of their evening sandals. I hated men roaring outside pubs; I hated cars driving away with crates from off-licences; I hated the shop windows, especially in the Edgware Road, where extreme cynicism expressed itself in placing a sprig of mistletoe in the corsage of the same wax nurse, wearing the same white nylon overall and cap that she had worn for the last six months, or where identical tired garlands of coloured bulbs winked on and off in the window of the Asian take-away and the television rental company. Above all, I hated the launderette. On Christmas Day Nancy served a full Christmas dinner, which we ate together in the dining room. When we had watched the Queen, it was time for her to go to her room and rest until much later in the afternoon, when she would join me for tea and Christmas cake. While she was resting I would go out for some much needed air, for on that particular day of the year I found my surroundings oppressive, and it was on one of those walks, when it was so quiet that I could hear the sound of my own heels ringing out on the pavement, that I pa.s.sed the launderette., and saw inside the steamy window three men and one woman, quite well-dressed, reduced to spending their day like this, and finding what company the desperation of others afforded them. I never wanted to see that again.

We had had only two Christmases alone together, Nancy and I. One was immediately after my mother died and we ignored it, both too aware of her bedroom, the door closed for ever, the bed still stripped, and eternal emptiness within. Last year we had managed a little better, and it was really quite peaceful until I went for that walk. I saw, through lighted windows, all sorts of noisy jubilation, in which I wished most strenuously to join, and then, at the end of my walk, I saw that launderette with its hopeless and respectable inmates. The day was ruined. I could not wait for Nancy to retire to her television, and I even went to my mother's bathroom cabinet and took two of her sleeping pills from the bottle. I did not need them; I simply wanted to kill the day. And then I wanted to get through Boxing Day and get it all over and done with, and after that to get back to work and not ever have to think about Christmas again.

This year, of course, had promised to be different. It was in the late spring of the present year that I had become friendly with the Frasers and eaten so many dinners with them that I had succeeded in breaking out of the straitjacket that Nancy's expectations seemed to impose on me. And after the summer holiday, at Plaxtol, I had returned to the Library and the Frasers together. At the time of the year when Christmas is the next thing to look forward to had begun my knowledge of James. Or perhaps my lack of knowledge.

I wanted this year to be different, I wanted it to be decisive. However nebulous the events of the past two months, and however little I understood them, I wanted a resolution, and a resolution in my favour. And I wanted that friendship back and with it the expectation of more. I wanted it all to come out right; I wanted to see myself in mirrors, in windows, as I had seen myself in the photograph that Nick had taken that day we had all driven down to Bray. I wanted a future for myself that would be totally unlike the past, and I wanted that future to include not only James but Nick and Alix as well. I wanted there to be four of us again, but within that four I wanted the two of us to be regarded as a couple. This did not seem to me to be too much to expect. I had harmed no one; I had not protested. I had not reproached, said anything drastic or irreparable. What had happened, I told myself, was that I had become a little tired and over-sensitive to nuances of behaviour that might not even be intended. But that would change. I had only to take a pull at myself and be tactful and light-hearted (yes, light-hearted; that was essential) and a these misunderstandings would lift like morning mists at the beginning of a perfect day.

Bathed, and neat in my grey dress, I went over to the mirror to see how I looked. I looked... odd. I looked, in fact, rather chic but rather plain: not a hair out of place (it rarely was), round eyes watchful. My appearance, which I had accepted ever since I decided that I could only get by on style, no longer pleased me. I looked, I thought, like some beady Victorian child. I moved to the cupboard to search for something more interesting to wear and when I glanced back I saw a more flattering side of myself in the gla.s.s, a small waist, a long back, a full and flattering skirt. And it was getting late, so I took a deep breath and tried to look more interesting, and willed my face into a softer, less critical expression.

I no longer liked that room, in which things had gone so wrong. I picked up a nail file and smoothed out a rough nail and tried to be rational about it, but I found myself trembling and the nail file skidded. There was, I told myself, no need to stay in that room; there were, after all, three other bedrooms. Nancy pottered in with some clean sheets, and, on an impulse, I said, *Don't change the bed, Nancy. I think I might move to one of the other rooms. I'll decide tomorrow.' Tomorrow would be a day of decisions. And before she could start worrying about this, I took my coat, kissed her goodnight, and left the flat.

In the streets it was office party fall-out time: groups of girls hanging on to each other and collapsing with mirth, flushed young trainee managers banding together to exchange boasts and resist further onslaughts from their secretaries. I threaded my way cautiously between these knots of people, who were straying all over the pavement, and then I was past the main crowds and under Marble Arch, and at last in the park. The weather had turned mild again, as it so often does just before Christmas, and there was rain in the air. It was the sort of weather that encourages one to walk miles, and I wondered if I should be accompanied home, through the park, later that evening. I did not think beyond this, but far away beneath my reserve and my careful monitoring of my expression, there was the most agitated hope.

In the course of this walk, which I knew so well, my thoughts became clearer and less worrying. I decided that whatever had happened - and I still did not know or understand what had happened - I would behave as if everything were normal, regular, above board. I tried to take some comfort from the fact that I had given no indication of hurt, had uttered no words of blame, had made no confession to anyone. I must, I thought, simply hope against hope that the serious business of my life would be proof against those strange events that had appeared to turn it off course. I made all sorts of sensible resolutions: I would be cheerful and good-hearted and straightforward, and if, at any point, I became aware of what I suspected to be mischief, then I would quite naturally question it, ask for an explanation. I had been too subtle, I thought. I had tried to deal with this on my own, without looking to others for the truth. I had judged it a matter of pride to behave as if nothing were amiss. I had probably been insufferably smug; no wonder my friends had thought me tedious and disappointing. I determined to change all that. By the time I had come out into the lights of Knightsbridge, I was smiling, firm in my new resolve.

I knew that I had to be light-hearted, and I brightened my smile before I had even rung the Frasers' doorbell. The door was in fact open. *In here,' shouted Alix. *In the bedroom.' Still smiling, I went into the bedroom to find Nick and James in conclave, standing behind Alix, all of them facing the gla.s.s of her dressing table. *I think definitely up,' said James, referring to the perennial question of her hair. As I had bought her some antique tortoisesh.e.l.l combs for Christmas, I echoed his approval. She, turning her head from side to side, and smoothing the wisps at the back of her neck, arched her back, and said, *H'm. What do you think, Nick?' I saw that she was wearing a very tight black jersey dress, cut low at the front, and I said, *Goodness, how smart you look!' But she was still turning her head critically from side to side and there did not seem to be any way of securing anyone's attention until this scrutiny had run its natural course. James and Nick were as grave as if they were discussing a serious case, and their rigid frontality, their three faces staring into the gla.s.s, left me peering uncomfortably behind them, addressing their backs. *You know what I think, darling,' murmured Nick, and after a minute's pause, she suddenly pulled out the pins and released her hair. *You're right,' she said. *It never suited me,' and James and I chorused eagerly, *Oh, but it did.'

*No, no,' she said, brushing and brushing away. *My husband is always right.' And she smiled up at him and gave her throaty giggle. By that very action she seemed to be alluding to areas of intimacy, while at the same time reaffirming the exclusive bond she had with her husband.

I had always known that Alix had unusual abilities, but I had never seen them in action until this moment. With one tiny concession, on a matter of inconsiderable importance, she had succeeded in annihilating the thought of transgression in our minds and had reestablished the image of Nick and herself as the perfect couple. And yet I could see from the way that James was following her with his eyes that in spite of this little performance, or indeed because of it, he still sought her approval. She looked older, more powerful, in her tight black dress; the curves of her figure seemed more opulent than usual, reducing my dwindling confidence still further. Blameless and understated in my grey dress, I could capture no one's eye. Look at me, I urged silently. Look at me.

And indeed it seemed as if there were only the three of them present, and as I followed them down the stairs, I felt, in a curious way, outcla.s.sed. I was still smiling brightly, but all to myself; the three of them seemed to move as a unit, all tall, all handsome, physically linked. I did not permit myself any judgment, but I could feel rage and terror gathering, and I had to exert myself to keep these emotions at bay. This made me very silent, but as no one addressed a question or even a remark to me, my silence was not noticed. Or perhaps there was a tacit agreement not to notice me at all. In this way, still smiling, but as alert and wary as an animal, I sat down with them at their favourite table.

Maria was already there, looking equally dressed up in satin trousers and a white ruffled shirt. She sauntered, almost swaggered, through the crowded s.p.a.ce, and clapped Alix on the back. *Wretch!' she shouted. *You said you'd telephone this afternoon,'and soon they were arguing strenuously about who had said what. I had always found Maria a slight embarra.s.sment: her low hoa.r.s.e voice and her haughty physical presence had made me feel uneasy in some non-specific way. But she had always been very kind, and if I regarded her perpetual sparring with Alix as a sort of bad manners, I recognized that they shared a boldness which I simply could not match. My appeal, I had thought complacently, when I was happy, was precisely that I never overstepped the bounds, never caused social anxiety. I still thought that, even now.

While we ate I found myself trying to place remarks and failing, reduced to exclamations of *Really!', *Oh, I'm sure you did'. Even these did not manage to meet their mark. As on that occasion with James, I somehow failed to catch the drift of what was being said. There seemed to be an argument, which was half serious, half joking, between Alix and Maria and the two men looked on enthralled. As all this referred to something that had taken place when I was not there, I could neither join in nor understand what it was about, and my smiling exclamations appeared ridiculous even to myself I became quite silent. I looked at James and saw that he was enjoying himself; his face was highly coloured, and although he was seated next to me he was half turned away, as if to face Maria. The thought that he could not even bear to look at me was so terrible that it did not occur to me that he was being very impolite. And anyway, what sort of a half-baked, old-fashioned notion was impoliteness in the midst of this avid crowd, their eyes glistening with mockery and pleasure, their extraordinary conversation now so allusive that I felt a touch of nightmare, as if this could not possibly be happening except in a bad dream?

Maria clapped Nick on the back, and said, or rather shouted, *How do you deal with this b.i.t.c.h?'

*You be nice to me,' Alix countered. *Everyone has to be nice to me this evening.'

*Why?' I asked, really for something to say.

She sighed dramatically, laid her head on one side, lowered her eyelids, and whispered sadly, *Because I've come down in the world.'

They collapsed with laughter, and James and Nick chorused, *She's come down in the world', and they both leaned forward and kissed her. Nick kept his arm round her, and she looked at him, her eyes alight. *Ho, ho,' said Maria. *Christmas has started. But not here, please,' she cried, flinging out an arm.'You are embarra.s.sing f.a.n.n.y.' And they all laughed again. And I, of course, smiled.

At other tables people were turning round, grinning, shaking their heads in amused indulgence at these antics. It was very hot and there was an atmosphere of excitement. Alix lit a cigarette. *Not yet, not yet,' cried Maria. *Not before the pudding', at which point a waiter approached our table with a huge, towering concoction largely composed, as far as I could see, of whipped cream. There was a roar of delight, and Maria seized a spoon and doled out large portions on to our plates. The sight of the yellow and white ma.s.s gave me a momentary pang of nausea, but the others were exclaiming with delight, and soon the sweet liquefying mixture was being attacked, devoured. *More, more,' shouted Maria, piling spoonfuls on to my plate, and ignoring my protest. *More, more', and she bent over James, who was laughing, and said, *More, darling. I want you to be good and strong tonight. More.'

I stared down at the yellow custard on my plate and willed my shock not to show. And when I raised my head, it was to look calmly and even smilingly at Alix and Nick. Who were, of course, watching me. I said, *It was delicious but I really couldn't eat any more.' Then I turned my head and looked at Maria, who was flushed and laughing. Then, when I could trust myself, I looked at James. His eyes were fixed on Maria and his face was foolish with desire.

*H'm,' said Alix, who appeared to be slightly cheated of the *interesting' situation she had foreseen or even contrived: I should never know. I should never refer to it again. I was aware that if I made some sort of a scene, they might have warmed to me in sympathy. The trouble with good manners is that people are persuaded that you are all right, require no protection, are perfectly capable of looking after yourself. And some people take your impa.s.sivity as a calculated insult, as Alix seemed to be doing now. Still I smiled.

The faces before me seemed to me to be flushed, venial, corrupt, gorged with sweet food and drink, presaging danger. Smoke wreathed through the hot air, and flakes of ash fell on to the unheeded plates. Alix stubbed out her cigarette in the remains of her yellow custard and smeared red over her wide mouth. Nick encircled her with his arm. I did not dare to look at James. It was very hot, and I knew that I must get out soon, but that I must not betray my haste.

*H'm,' said Alix again. *I suppose we'd better go.' I took out my purse and, smilingly, insisted on paying the bill. It was, in any case, the last meal I should ever eat here. *I suppose we'd better leave these two together,' said Alix. Still I smiled.

*What are you doing for Christmas, f.a.n.n.y?' she asked.

Very calmly, because I was now in such a state of terror that it seemed as if nothing could get worse, I said, *I suppose I shall go to Olivia.'

*Rather you than me,' she said.

*I don't understand,' I queried, with a polite, upward turn of my head.

*Well.,. can't be much fun, can it?'

*Why?' I asked.