reading

1

The woman on the station platform had her back to me. If she had turned round I would have been able to satisfy myself that she was not someone I had once known. Even at this distance of time and place I should have known that other woman anywhere. As it was I could only contemplate this particular back view and once again return my memories to the oubliette to which I had consigned them. I was in any case reluctant to proceed to an identification. The woman on the station platform was smartly but not fashionably dressed, in a sober chestnut-coloured suit and the sort of brown felt hat still favoured by certain middle-aged middle-class women in Germany. I doubted whether this woman was German, although she certainly looked European. This much was attested by her shoes, which again were smart without being fashionable: narrow brown brogues, with a medium heel. I noticed that they were brilliantly polished.

That I was able to contemplate this woman at such length no doubt says something about myself, but I am averse to falsely intelligent summaries, such as seem to be prevalent nowadays, and prefer long moments of reverie and speculation, which seem to me more conducive to satisfactory conclusions. We were the only two people on this particular platform, and I was only there because I had come down to the station to buy the English papers, which usually arrived at about four o’clock. The light was already going: it was a misty dusky afternoon, still quite mild, but with that particular stillness that speaks so eloquently of the decline of the year, and with it all the hopes one had had in the spring, season of false promises. Behind me, in the town, I had left the subdued comfort of the English Tea Rooms: beyond, at the end of the main street, at the foot of the steep path leading up to the hilly suburbs where all the more prosperous villas stood, was the Hotel Eden, and my small and dreadfully quiet room. This was too like a monastic cell to convey any prospect other than that of austere rest, such as might be appreciated by those who had spent the day walking, as I was supposed to have done. Sometimes I managed to coax some whispery music out of the bedside radio; that, if I were particularly tired, was generally distraction enough. But on this quiet afternoon I was bored, and had felt the need of some human presence, or at least of newsprint. If I lingered on this station platform it was because it seemed an appropriate place to be at the end of an uneventful afternoon. And because, for one shocking moment, I had thought the woman with her back to me, with her sensible hat and shoes, might be Sarah Miller, or Sarah de Leuze, as she now presumably was, who had the gift of turning up when least expected. It was part of her ravaging charm to disarm one with her presence when one had thought her lost for ever, only to disappear again when one’s need had turned to the most intense and hopeless longing.

I felt that longing now. That was why I lingered, in the misty half light, in my bulky English clothes: Burberry and tweed cap, woollen socks and walking shoes. I tend to wear everything when I travel, so as not to carry much. With my small bag I can pick up and disappear quite easily. I had nothing much to do with my time, and no one was expecting me, which was why I lingered, a substantial English ghost, haunting the woman in the German hat, until it became borne in on me that she was not at all like Sarah, was older (though Sarah, like myself, would now be middle-aged), was more settled, with a fantastic air of capability conveyed merely by her back.

A housewife, I concluded, although that term is anachronistic these days, or perhaps just a wife, married to one of those silent substantial peaceable men in whom this region abounds. The woman too had an air of peaceable worth about her, and in my fantasy I endowed her not only with an excellent digestion but a good conscience, the one usually contingent upon the other, in no particular order. Then the woman shifted her weight from one ankle to the other, and the way her knees came together reminded me again of Sarah, and her habit of swaying from one foot to the other, a mocking smile on her face, as if enjoying one’s too fervent gaze. If this woman were Sarah I would fold my arms around her, as I had always tried to do, and sometimes succeeded in doing, before she escaped. There was of course no question of my touching this utterly respectable woman, whose face I still had not seen. It was simply that the combination of dull weather and grave silence, the thin white mist that so often descends without warning here and seems to lay delicate fingers on the skin of one’s face, and the benign emptiness of this quiet little town might have emboldened me, not to embark on any crude adventure, but to remember the woman for whom I had been searching, and not only metaphorically, but in pursuit of a mission. That was the fruitless task which I had undertaken in order to pacify a poor sick woman, not quite a relative, on what was too obviously her deathbed.

I felt that this person on the platform might hold the key to the mystery, might in some extraordinary way enlighten me as to where Sarah might be, for although I tended to see her everywhere I had not yet laid eyes on her in ways that might be construed as physical, verifiable, even disappointing, as the end of certain stories sometimes turns out to be. This woman in the brown hat, this very real woman, would no doubt have a settled existence and many friends: she could ask questions, might already know a certain amount. The fact that her presence, or rather what I could intuit from her back view, was so compelling, awoke in me the suspicious feeling that if she were not Sarah herself, restored to me in this strange manner after an absence of twenty years, then she might possibly know where Sarah might be. My desire to address her, so that she would turn and show me her face, was negated by my immobility, my inability to move, and by the weight of memory that I allowed to overwhelm me for a brief moment. I felt that even if I managed to open my mouth no sound would come. Besides, the silence of that late afternoon laid a kind of enchantment on the scene which was not unpleasant to me: to break it would have seemed unmannerly. I felt that the woman and I were contained in this enchantment, and that the station of this little town was the setting for some drama that would eventually unfold, and in which we would both be bidden to speak, although our lines had not yet been written.

Then the guard came out and posted the sign for the Geneva train, and within seconds people arrived from nowhere, some of them dragging suitcases on wheels, and I lost sight of the woman who was probably – undoubtedly – not Sarah. When the train disappeared and silence was restored she was nowhere to be seen. In an hour’s time she would be in Geneva, perhaps in an apartment in the rue des Bains – the last address I had for Sarah – drinking a cup of coffee, raising a forkful of cake to her mouth. I stood for a few minutes, feeling heavy in my raincoat, feeling too a regret that nevertheless had something anticipatory about it, a very small dawning of excitement that was less like an ending than a beginning. Then I turned, and with my papers under my arm, began the long and by now chilly walk back to my hotel.

I usually take my holiday late in the year, leaving current matters in the capable hands of my partner, Brian Smith. I am, as ever, beguiled by the prospect of a golden October, trees still full but changing colour, thoughts of the vintage occupying one’s mind. In my politically incorrect way I like to think of smiling inhabitants ready to welcome me. These people would once have been described as peasants, though if peasants still exist they are mostly indoors watching television. What I invariably encounter is this curious sense of withdrawal, this intermittent mist, and the trees here a sullen but darkening green. I do not altogether dislike this, although sometimes I straighten up from unpacking my bag with a sigh, knowing that long walks and the English papers are to be my only distractions. There is no-one who expects me, no-one to whom I might telephone, but I have always been reasonably content with my own company. My mother always commended me for this, taking it to be a sign of character. Her values were old-fashioned, somewhat austere. I can hardly blame her for her reticence over my choice of the woman I was to marry, although she was very kind to my wife. As it turned out her kindness was needed.

I now feel that this interval, which I describe to others as a holiday, is peculiarly suited to one of my temperament, which is stolid, and my history, which is not. I accept the solitude, the routines, as old people do, and although not technically old – fifty-five is not old these days – I begin to anticipate a time when small landmarks, such as my mid-morning coffee at the Grand Café de la Place, and my walk to the station to pick up the English papers, will be appreciated. My old age will come as no surprise to me, and something tells me that I might spend it here, in this little town of Vif – a misnomer, for no place could be more somnolent – on the Franco-Swiss border. I come here every other year in October; it is healthy, and monumentally dull. In the spring I spend a week or ten days at a small cottage I own at Shoreham, on the south coast. I am always glad to get back to London and the office, which casts my plans for later life in a rather illusory light.

It is just that when I am here, with nothing at all likely to happen, I feel incapable of leaving, as if under some sort of sedative. And although the place has little to offer except tranquillity, this tranquillity has become fraught with consequences, owing to the burden placed on me, and which I was only half minded to discharge. Old Mrs Miller, with her strangely changing name and identity, had been lying on the sofa, when I had last been to see her, her ugly feet protruding from under the shawl she had taken to wearing in the house. ‘Find Sarah for me,’ she had said, and her eyes were still trustful. I assured her that I would try, knowing that the whole thing was an impossibility. I had nothing to go on apart from two addresses on a piece of squared paper: the pencil was faded and the paper limp from much folding. One address, the one in Paris, I already knew about; the other, in the rue des Bains, in Geneva, is almost certainly unreliable.

I have my own reasons for searching for Sarah, reasons I am careful not to admit to, even to myself. Grand passions are no longer the order of the day; divorce has replaced fidelity in the gardens of the West. I am not even sure that my memory of her is exact, for I frequently winced at her cruelty until I learned to laugh at it. What is needed, I tell myself, is a certain pragmatism. I shall not find her, but I shall have been in her vicinity, and the impression I shall take away from my quest will be precisely this dullness, this inconclusiveness, the peace of this little town, an apt comment on my inadequacy, but not a harsh one. Maybe all lifelong searches end like this, I tell myself, as I begin the steep climb back to my hotel, and the only verdict on all my activities, on my life, in fact, is consistent with the remote kindliness of the slowly and inexorably descending night.

2

My name is Alan Sherwood and I am a solicitor, as were my father and grandfather before me. By a pleasing coincidence my partner Brian Smith is the grandson of the original Smith: we are thus the true inheritors of the firm of Sherwood Smith, founded nearly one hundred years ago. We have our offices in Gloucester Place and we pride ourselves on our effectiveness, although the premises are not imposing and by no means extensive. There is one office apiece for each of us, while our clerk, Telfer, who is into Eastern religions, has to share a rather pleasant room overlooking the back garden with Mrs Roche, who is more of a hostess than a secretary and who knows more about the business than any of us (or so we tell her). Mrs Roche in her turn commands – and that is the right word – the services of Amanda, Julie and Anne and their computers; they share an adjacent room, also overlooking the garden, and have charge of the coffee machine. Brian and I, soberly dressed in dark suits and white shirts, look out onto Gloucester Place and its curiously bleak Georgian façades. In all the years afforded me for a study of this particular architectural style I cannot view it as anything better than town planning of the cheapest kind, guaranteed to confer a deadly uniformity on the urban landscape. Gower Street is another example. I am a Victorian myself, or better still an Edwardian. In my opinion Lutyens should be our national architect and afforded all the respect normally given to Christopher Wren. He too has his boring moments.

Brian is my oldest friend. We have known each other all our lives, were at school and university together, although our paths diverged for a time after we came down. Brian went to Hong Kong to stay with an uncle, a prominent lawyer there, while I spent five guilty but hedonistic years in Paris, supposedly studying international law but in fact doing very little. My memories of Paris in those years are not of Sartre and Camus but of the nightclubs to which I took my French girlfriend Simone. We went to the Rose Rouge, the Vieux Colombier, the Cabane Cubaine, and believed for a time that we need never grow up. But family pressure extended itself imperceptibly, and when I received news from home that my father was ill I said goodbye to Simone and left Paris, never willingly to return. I had been happy there, but I knew that this particular form of happiness could not be sustained. I also knew that once I reached home – and it was always home – I should become what I was always meant to be, a respectable member of the middle class, affectionate towards my mother, reliable in an emergency, but unsentimental. Emotional clients think me too severe; I tend to say nothing and watch them impassively while they reach for their handkerchiefs. Oddly enough this does not put them off. The women tend to come to me, the men to Brian. ‘You appeal to the masochists,’ Brian says. ‘The sadists know I am one of them.’ Actually he has a kind heart, as he has shown me over the years.

Brian is a livelier character than I am, and is unfaithful to his wife Felicity with a variety of women, usually in the lunch hour. I have had to cover for him several times, particularly when Felicity telephones. She supposes me to have her interests at heart, since I was best man at their wedding: in fact I like her enormously, though I have come to dread her voice on the telephone. For decency’s sake I have to make conversation with her, while expressing surprise that she does not know that Brian will be out of the office for a good part of the day. Surely you remember him mentioning it, I say. In this way I avoid telling a direct lie, justifying my squeamishness on the grounds that Brian has the stronger claim on my friendship. I do not approve of his behaviour but I tolerate it. Brian has proved a powerful ally in the past. I have to remember that it was Brian who broke the news to me of my daughter’s death. One does not forget these things.

We both hold the treacherous view that men are superior to women in the areas of love and work, since we appear to derive more pleasure from these activities than we are supposed to. Although our natures and temperaments are quite different, Brian and I share moments of levity in the office at the expense of plaintive women suing for alimony and other hard luck cases. We also derive enormous pleasure from the appearance of our secretaries, all of whom are nevertheless protected by us: we view their innocence as part of our responsibility, and even Brian respects this. He would not dream of offering them more than an appreciative compliment. They in their turn are devoted to him, and are more at ease with him than they are with me. They seem to sense something not quite straightforward in my sternness, and they are not wrong. The even landscape of my life became quite jagged for a time, and my equilibrium suffered for some time after that. It is not that they are frightened of me, rather that they are more at home with Brian and his affectionate and meaningless compliments. It is as if they sense that a compliment from me might have an undesirable weight. They are right. My conduct towards them is entirely proper, and I am not particularly interested in any one of them beyond their performance in the office. This confers on them a degree of immunity which they welcome. In this and other ways they negate my threat as a man, although they are clever enough to perceive this threat. It is as if they know that, left to myself, I could become a lonely fanatic. I believe that, apart from my mother, these excellent girls are the only ones to penetrate my disguise.

But is it a disguise? I neither parade nor deny the fact that I suffered a grievous blow while still fairly young, and that I do not appear to be taking any steps to restoring my life to any sort of normality. This is what disconcerts them. They know that my wife died after only eleven months of marriage, and that our baby was stillborn. They know that I live alone in my flat in Wigmore Street and am quite kind to elderly acquaintances. They suppose my heart to be broken, although I give no sign of this, and they must surely be disarmed by the occasional bark of laughter that has been heard to issue from my office. This worries them, as well it might. They are more comfortable with my Robespierre-like impassivity as I wait patiently but without indulgence for female clients to put away their handkerchiefs. They have no access to my secret life, which is not one of licence, or sexual excess (would that it were!), but rather of emotional aberration. I have been in love, and was once in love for a very long time, but I claim no indulgence for these facts. I persuade myself that nobody knows about my love for Sarah, not even Brian, but this is unlikely. Brian has always been supremely tactful; even at the height of my madness he had the grace to keep his comments to a minimum. Men are better at this than women. Perhaps it is an example of the sort of affection between men that women rarely understand.

Although solitary by nature I should welcome a large family, the sort of panoply of odd relatives that surrounded me in childhood. Mad old ladies have never frightened me, although I have not had much success with younger ones. The first love of my life was my mother, a delightful woman by any standards, not merely my own. She was my father’s second wife, the first, always referred to as ‘poor Mary’, having died abruptly of a wasp sting to which she proved allergic. My mother was a friend of her daughters; her subsequent marriage to their father, many years older, was regarded as a scandal by the daughters, Sybil and Marjorie, and my mother was never truly forgiven, though relations of a kind were resumed some years later. The girls, as they were invariably known, seemed mysteriously older than my mother, although only a few years separated them, a consequence perhaps of the dreadful dignity they assumed whenever my mother tried to revive the friendship. But as they were incompetent they often had recourse to her counsel, particularly in later life, when my mother was a widow, a fact which seemed to mollify them.

The girls were devoted to each other. Marjorie, who was lame and walked with a stick when I knew her, was presumably unrecognisable as the once dashing redhead she had been as a girl, when she owned and ran a dress shop in Dover Street. The day when she could no longer afford the overheads, and when ‘Marjorie’ ceased to exist, was the saddest day of her life. She declined slowly after that; her limp became more pronounced and she spent lonely days at home, earning a living from her now somewhat dated skills as a dressmaker. Gradually she became more and more dependent on her sister Sybil. When I knew her she already looked old: her make-up was craggy and her hair dyed the colour of Mansion Polish. I rather liked her, as did my mother.

The chief eccentricity of these two sisters was the fact that barely into middle life they made active plans for their old age. These plans were quite concrete: they were to take a flat, on which they had already put down a deposit, in one of those converted country houses that turn themselves into retirement homes for old people with money. They frequently visited this place, which was near the Dorset coast, not far from Bournemouth, to see that their investment was in order. This despite the fact that Sybil was a married woman with a small daughter, Sarah. Somehow married life was expected to take second place to this plan of a lifetime, a fact apparently accepted by Sybil’s husband, Bertram Miller. ‘I expect you’ll go first, anyway,’ Sybil frequently assured her husband. Obligingly he did, slipping down silently behind the counter of the old-established jeweller’s shop in High Holborn which he ran with his brother Humphrey.

Sybil was not much put out by this: she saw it as divine confirmation of her plans. With the demise of her husband she was able to make a home for her sister in their house in Parsons Green. As time went on the two women became closer to each other, viewing my mother with suspicion, although frequently telephoning her to ask her to mediate in some quarrel or other, or to go with them to Sarah’s school to ask why Sarah was doing so badly and was so disruptive, hurling other girls’ hats to the ground and stamping on them before the morning bell had stopped ringing. My mother’s calm and authority worked wonders on more than one of these occasions, but she had her reservations about Sarah, whom she thought privately even more odd than her mother and aunt put together.

The connection did not stop with Bertram Miller’s death. His brother Humphrey, a melancholy bachelor in his late fifties, was inconsolable: tears often misted his eyes as he sold engagement rings to young couples in High Holborn. The young couples, thinking the tears were for them, pronounced him terribly sweet as they left with their purchases, whereas in fact he was simply lonely. For years the two brothers had run a successful business in wordless harmony. When Bertram married, Humphrey moved out of the family home and bought himself a flat behind Marble Arch, in a fusty, somnolent solid building which suited him very well. He saw his brother every day, so felt that nothing had really happened to alter their relationship. When Bertram died he aged considerably. His heart was no longer in the business, which was itself in decline, owing to extensive building works on either side, old-established premises like their own being knocked down to make way for smart new offices. He would have declined with it, had it not been for the sisters, his sisters-in-law, who came driving in every Sunday from Parsons Green, the back of the car packed with casseroles, pies, roast chickens, Marjorie’s special cake, and various other provisions which they calculated would take him through the week until their next visit. The girl Sarah occasionally accompanied them. Humphrey Miller was fond of her, as only a childless man of outstanding simplicity could be. She was always richer by a ten pound note when they left.

I arrived home from a friend’s house one Saturday afternoon to find some kind of conclave taking place in my mother’s drawing-room. That the occasion was significant was advertised by the fact that although Sybil was formally dressed, as she always was, in her heather mixture coat and skirt and trilby hat, her face and neck were deeply flushed. Both she and Marjorie were silent, though clearly longing to impart something of moment.

‘Have you eaten?’ asked my mother, her usual greeting.

I assured her that I had.

‘I think we should like some more tea,’ she went on. ‘The girls are rather upset.’

‘What do you think of this, then, Alan?’ said Sybil, who could wait no longer. ‘Humphrey’s getting married!’

I thought nothing of it. Indeed I could hardly bring Humphrey to mind, although he had been present, along with the girls, at various Christmas gatherings, mainly the drinks parties my parents used to give on Boxing Day, when my father was alive. If I thought of him at all it was with a mixture of amusement and distaste. The amusement was caused by Humphrey’s solemn and often lachrymose unworldliness. Although young at the time of these encounters, I recognised and appreciated true blamelessness, which nevertheless disturbed me. My distaste, also occasioned by my youth, was for his collapsed appearance, the narrow chest, the burgeoning stomach, the trousers which nearly reached his armpits. I felt sympathy for his prospective wife, forced to contemplate this disgrace every day, and – but this was unimaginable – every night as well.

‘A foreigner,’ said Marjorie bitterly. It now occurred to me that she had had hopes in this direction herself.

‘It was the holiday that brought it on,’ said Sybil. ‘That was your idea, Alice.’ Your bright idea was what she meant.

‘It wasn’t a bad idea,’ my mother observed. ‘Humphrey’s not old but he’s developed elderly ways. He sits in that flat all day with nothing to do when he could be enjoying the sun somewhere. He’s comfortably off, he’s reasonably healthy. But he’s becoming morbid. And timid. I suggested Hyères, if you remember. He’d have been perfectly safe there. I can’t think why he went to Paris …’

‘If he wanted a holiday he could have come on the Sea Princess with us,’ said Sybil, flushing more deeply. This project for a winter cruise, discussed many times, was never likely to be realised; indeed its main attraction was that it need never be undertaken. All three of them, Humphrey, Sybil and Marjorie, were disinclined to move. Should an uncharacteristic fit of restlessness seize them, and the booking actually be made, they would no doubt stay on board the ship as it travelled round the world and never get off it, leaving the world to take care of itself.

‘Of course we shan’t stay around to meet her.’ This was Marjorie.

‘You must, dear. What can you possibly have against the poor woman? As far as I can see this sets you free. You’ve both been so good to him, but it must have seemed a bit of a tie, sometimes, giving up every Sunday. And all that cooking …’

At this they both bridled. ‘I hope we’ve never counted the cost, Alice, if that’s what you’re implying.’

‘No, of course not. Oh dear, I didn’t mean to offend you, please don’t think that. You’ve both been quite marvellous, perfect friends to a lonely man. But now he’s lonely no longer. That leaves you free. Or freer,’ she added, surveying their faces in vain for a response.

‘There’ll be changes, certainly,’ said Sybil. ‘For one thing we’ll be moving down to the Hall.’

‘That place in Dorset? But you’re both too young to go into retirement. And what will you do with the house?’

‘Sarah will live there. It can be her home until she gets married. If she ever does.’ This was accompanied by a sigh of a different order, a careworn spontaneous sigh.

‘How can you say that? Sarah’s young, she hasn’t started her life yet. When does she leave Oxford?’

‘She’s left. What she got up to as a student I don’t know. I’m glad Alan was there to keep an eye on her. Not that she mentioned you, Alan. But then she never tells me about her friends.’

It was useless to remind them that five years had passed since I was up at Oxford. The details of my life were hazy to them, and they expressed no more than a conventional interest, which was usually compromised by incorrect information. There was no point in enlightening them. I think they were frightened of young men, if not of all men. This attitude must have deepened during the period of Sybil’s widowhood. Nowadays the girls looked to each other for reassurance, and would continue to do so once both they and Humphrey were off the map. They were a married couple, in all but sex. I could not see that they would be much of a help to Sarah, whom I vaguely remembered throwing a tantrum at a children’s party I had once attended. When she had found out that the beautiful yellow birthday cake was to be eaten politely by all the six-year-olds present she had appropriated several portions and would not relinquish them. Attempts to bring her to order had been countered with looks of scorn. A lot of cake ended up on the floor, I remembered. No doubt the same scorn was now levelled at her parent.

‘I can’t do anything with her,’ Sybil went on, in a ruminative voice. ‘She’s not like us at all. We’re peaceful people; we please ourselves, we’re quite contented with our own company. I know she can’t wait to see the back of us.’

‘Looks down her nose,’ Marjorie put in. It was clear that she disliked the girl.

‘Anyway, I owe it to Marjorie,’ Sybil went on. ‘She doesn’t complain, although I know her leg’s getting worse. Sarah will have to learn to look after herself.’

‘Well, of course she will,’ said my mother. ‘She’s young, she’s impulsive, she’s very pretty. Young people should enjoy themselves. That’s what youth is for.’

She sighed. I knew that she was thinking of her dead husband, than whom she had been so much younger.

‘I’m sure we can count on you, Alice.’ This, again, was Marjorie, now clearly anxious to relinquish Sarah and any responsibilities she might have incurred. If she could not have Humphrey she would have Sybil. It occurred to me, as it no doubt occurred to my mother, that the two were perfectly suited, and that their old age, so eagerly anticipated, would probably be benign. That, however, was in the future, and at this distance it seemed unlikely that they could be dissuaded from their project, even by my mother, whose attitude to them had been exemplary. She knew that they distrusted her; she also knew that they relied on her superior intelligence, a fact which they resented. Their visits were onerous but dramatic occasions, since there was so much repressed fury in the air. My mother felt an obligation towards them, though they felt none towards her. ‘Ignore them,’ I had once told her. ‘Or tell them to get lost. They’ve got each other, after all. You’ve only got me, you poor old thing.’ And yet a curious connection persisted, as if they had all issued from the same family, as in a sense they had.

My mother smiled at me lovingly. ‘Are you sure you’re not hungry?’ she said, and I knew that she was grateful for my unspoken support. Being a tactful woman, and mindful of my own youth, she did not present her frequently bruised feelings time after time in order to hear my reassuring words, but I knew that she would not be altogether sorry when the girls departed for Dorset. Indeed, I did not see why they should enter our lives again.

‘You’re not going!’ protested my mother, trying to keep the relief out of her voice. ‘Alan, Marjorie’s stick.’

‘We don’t want to get caught in the rush-hour, do we?’ It sounded like a reproach, as perhaps it was. ‘Where are my gloves?’

‘Down the side of your chair,’ I said. ‘And it’s Saturday.’

‘All right, Alan, thank you very much. You’ll be glad to see the back of us, I dare say.’

‘You must come to see us again very soon,’ my mother put in swiftly. ‘Are you planning any sort of reception for Humphrey and his, well, his bride?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Then perhaps I will invite them to a little party. You too, of course. Do we know anything about her?’

‘Not a thing,’ said Marjorie triumphantly.

‘I see,’ said my mother. ‘A foreigner, you said. And he met her in Paris. Is she French?’

‘She may be,’ said Sybil. She was prepared to go no further.

‘And has she got a name?’ asked my mother, her patience beginning to wear thin.

‘Edwige.’ This was offered reluctantly.

‘But that is French. She must be French.’

‘Not quite, Alice,’ put in Marjorie. ‘Edwige is not her real name. Her real name is Jadwiga. Polish, you see.’ She pronounced this as if it were the ultimate proof of the bride’s unworthiness. ‘Not quite what we’re used to, Humphrey least of all. Still, we shan’t wait around to see them make a mess of things. You’ll be in touch, Alice?’

They always said this, as if anxious for my mother’s company. Maybe they were. She was a sensitive and friendly woman, and she was always kind. I understood the sisters’ desire to keep in contact, though I was in no doubt that they voiced pointed and enjoyable criticisms once they were alone. But my mother’s other friends loved and trusted her, as I did. Although widowed young, she had given me a pain-free childhood, and had never visited her sadness onto me. I suspected that her gift of the flat in Wigmore Street on my twenty-first birthday had been in the nature of a bribe, although I did not resent this. She wanted me to go into the firm and to follow in my father’s footsteps: that was her way of keeping faith with him. I am sure she never looked at another man. Such simple attitudes were my inheritance. It was to be some time before I betrayed them.

NOVELS BY ANITA BROOKNER

Anita Brookner

ALTERED STATES

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

ALTERED STATES

THE BEGINNING

1

2