Dolly (29 page)

It is a little hard for me to sustain my life without recognising the pull of old dependencies, old passivities. More than once it has occurred to me that it might be pleasant simply to watch the world from my window, the book fallen from my lap, and to note the slow movement of the hours until the darkness falls and the evening begins. This condition is linked in my mind with the idea of service, for at some point in this reverie I rouse myself to welcome others into my house and into my life, children of my own, and eventually their father. But either history or destiny or perhaps biology has forced me in the opposite direction, and I spend my days not at a window but at a desk, reviewing publications which occasionally strike me as exorbitant, but exorbitant in the sense of over-stimulated, suspicious, combative, characteristics sometimes notable in psychological profiles of the insane. Who really benefits from studies in re-reading gender in 1950s melodrama, or women’s revolutionary fiction in Depression America? Is there any chance that a feminist theory of the state will ever be taken seriously? Must we campaign for surrogate motherhood? Or review the legal
representation of lesbians in cases of discrimination by employers?

These works pour out from university presses, and are produced by the most excellent of women, many of whom have welcomed me with great cordiality. I appreciate them for their fervour and their courage. And yet a doubt creeps in. I do not want to fight. I want, rather, to explore the world without prejudice, and to be allowed a measure of lenity in my dealings with that world. Sometimes I even long to take the coward’s way out and to live my life without benefit of any sort of agenda, relying simply on the kindness of others, whom I would reward, equally simply, with a more convivial version of myself.

It is at times like these, when I am particularly engrossed in this fantasy, that I hear a voice, somewhere off-stage, encouraging me in my shameful, perhaps even wistful broodings. This voice directs me to the real business of life, and offers advice on how to obtain success in that business. And the advice is the same that I have been hearing for as long as I can remember, and would be anathema to my so gallant American friends. What would they say, what would they think, if I proposed another model to them, one which I myself have rejected, but which in these enlightened times has all the attractions of archaism and futility, perhaps of something else? That so persistent voice opens doors on to older simpler longings, regrettable, no doubt, even deplorable. The voice is misguided, and yet it never falters, so that one is obliged to take note. Its lesson is deeply subversive, and serves to rally me once more to the side of my American correspondents, but not without a sigh. The burden of progress
is taken up once again, with all its necessary paraphernalia, until the ghostly voice dwindles, and all that is left is a simple echo, fervent, but now almost disembodied, gaining in strength when I am at my weakest. Charm, Jane, charm!

When John has collected me from the airport, has taken me back to the flat, and has left me there with the unread letters and the unpacked bags, the telephone will ring, and it will be Dolly. This will not surprise me: she rings all the time now, and has probably continued to do so while I have been away. The details of my life are hazy to her: she claims not to remember why I have been away, but sees my absences as an interruption to the dialogue which we now sustain. ‘Jane, Jane,’ she will say. ‘Are you coming over?’ And when I say that I am rather tired she will not be very disappointed, for she will explain, not without a certain pride, that she is expecting a few of her friends, although she is very anxious for me to meet them.

Her tone will be buoyant, for these days Dolly is almost happy. She loves her new flat, which is warm and light, and she has furnished it with a few well-chosen modern pieces. Like a girl, or like a young bride, she delights in showing it off, and has made herself known to her neighbours, Mrs Foster, Mrs Williamson, and Miss Salter, the ladies whom she once greeted in the no-man’s-land of the street. In due course she will ask them if they play bridge; so far they have only been invited to tea. In due course she will go to the
pâtisserie
in Swiss Cottage and buy delicacies for a more elaborate entertainment, after which, before leaving, her friends will be offered a thimbleful of the sweet liqueurs she prefers, cherry or apricot brandy. They will think this daringly foreign
of her, for she will have given them an appealing version of her life story, her early years in Paris, her life in Brussels, her marriage into a satisfyingly stolid family (here
‘chère Mère’
will be transformed yet again into ‘dear Toni’). A discreet tear might be shed over the tragic disappearance from the scene of Hugo, and the ladies will sympathise, for two of them are widows, and the unmarried Miss Salter is known to approve of worthy sentiments. Of her later years and its stratagems there will be not a word. She will be accepted for what she has become, a blameless woman, perhaps a little eager, perhaps a little given to flattery, but really so touching and interesting, a real addition to their little circle.

She may get tired of this; perhaps she will. Perhaps she will at last be ready for stronger sensations than these so English friends can provide; perhaps she will long for an evening visitor. That visitor will be missing, and his absence will be her one source of pain, and the one element connecting her to the person she once was. But for the time being she is contented, perhaps more contented than it is in her nature to be. She will, if she feels a slight tremor of restlessness or of disappointment, get on the telephone to me, and ask me to come over, or rather not ask but expect, whether it is early in the day or rather late. Sometimes, when I sense that she is on the verge of distress or frustration, I tell her to expect me in half an hour. When she opens the door to me her old look of wistful anticipation—‘Love me! Save me!’—is directed at myself, and I feel unworthy of it.

These days she dresses discreetly, in the sort of garment from John Lewis once worn by my erstwhile colleagues Margaret and Wendy. She takes an odd delight in surveying the
viscose racks, and selecting the brightest colours, the boldest patterns. When she greets me wearing one of these dresses I get a slight shock, for they are so out of character. And they seem to change her into something she should not really be, a suburban housewife. But she is genuinely pleased to see me, and does not seem to notice her changed appearance. Sometimes the belt of her dress hangs loose: she does not notice this either.

My feminist friends would not recognise the woman I become in Dolly’s presence, nor could I explain to them the great revelation to which she made me a party, and for which I am indebted. My recent visit to her, just before I left for America, was banal, neither more nor less significant than other visits. But I realised then that love was unpredictable, that it could not be relied upon to find a worthy object, that it might attach itself to someone for whom one has felt distaste, even detestation, that it is possible to experience an ache in the heart because the face that responds to one’s own circumspect smile is eager, trusting. When I turned to go, on that particular evening, the evening of my revelation, Dolly stood at the window and waved to me, continuing to wave until I was nearly out of sight. I knew that she would turn away from the window into an empty room, an empty evening, an empty life. Yet I think she was unaware of the implications of this emptiness. She would simply look forward to the next human contact, perhaps to my next visit. ‘My niece’, she calls me. ‘My niece is coming today’, I heard her tell a neighbour. There is no betraying such innocent assumptions. She will grow old: already she has a look of age, or rather of elderly girlhood. She will grow old, and I will make
my way more frequently to her little flat, looking in the cupboards to see whether she has enough food, finally bringing the food myself. I shall not move in with her; I am too selfish for that. But I shall follow the adventure through to the end, I hope with honour, and even after she is gone I shall continue to see her at the window, waving to me ardently, as if I were her best beloved.