Authors: Anita Brookner
‘Il est condamné, Madame,’
he had said, indicating the soiled floor.
‘Voyez-vous, les sphincters se relâchent.’
She had either not understood him or had taken no notice. She had entreated him to get Simon back to bed, where she would look after him. Mindful that the Thibaudets were to catch their plane the following afternoon, she had thanked the doctor, assuring him that after a night’s sleep Simon would be recovered. Look, she had said, he is almost asleep already. Thibaudet had shaken his head and had told himself that she would be more rational in the morning. He would look in again before they left for the airport, for he knew what had to be done. He had told her to sleep if she could; in any event he would be there when she awoke.
Mme Delgado, arriving to dust the bedroom, gave a shriek of horror when she saw the dead man in the bed, with my mother lying faithfully beside him. She ran downstairs to find the doctor already approaching. He already knew what she had to tell him.
Then the telephone calls began. The body was removed, the smeared sheets bundled up, my mother, with some difficulty, placed in a chair. She did not appear to understand what had happened. There was no possibility of leaving her alone in the house. Thibaudet, with an anxious glance at his watch, arranged to have her transferred to his clinic in Nice, where she would be under the supervision of a colleague, Dr Balbi. He called me in London to say that this had already been done, gave me the address of the clinic, and said that he would be back in three weeks’ time. I was to stay as calm as possible. He had discussed my mother’s strange torpor with Dr Balbi, and they had decided to put her into a deep sleep, from which she would awake in a few days’ time. Until then it would be unwise to attempt to disturb her, but I would of course want to be at hand. Dr Balbi was an excellent man, and the chief nurse, Marie-Caroline, would be in her room at all times.
‘Simon is dead, then,’ I said slowly.
He sighed.
‘Un ami de toujours.’
Before leaving London, I in my turn made telephone calls, one to Dr Blackburn, asking him not to send me further work, and one to
The Times
, asking them to print a brief notice in the Deaths column. I caught the next plane to Nice, rigid with shock. My main imperative was to get to my mother. In Nice I took a taxi to the clinic and was directed to her room. I was met at the door by a nurse, presumably Marie-Caroline, who said I might look in, but no more. In the bed I saw a motionless figure attached to a drip. I was told that there were to be no visitors for the foreseeable future, but that I should telephone every evening. She promised to give me a full report, smiled, and told me not to be alarmed: they had had significant successes with this type of cure. If I could telephone the following morning I might be able to speak to Dr Balbi. In any event by the end of the week she was sure that my mother would be able to speak to me herself.
I took another taxi back to the house, then went down the hill to Mme Delgado’s
pavillon
. She was relieved to see me, as she had no intention of working any longer at Les Mouettes. After twenty years, she said, wiping away a tear. But the shock had been too great. In her quiet way she had been devoted to Simon,
‘un brave homme,’
she repeated. She seemed to care less about my mother, or was perhaps relieved to learn that she was in the clinic. They would take care of her there, she assured me. Since the clinic was something of a luxury, to which she herself could not have aspired, she assumed that all cures there were guaranteed. There was no resentment in this, but on the other hand only a routine kind of sympathy. Sleep cures were for the rich, was the implication, and for foreigners who could afford them. She herself had always lived simply. I took the hint, and gave her money for her wages. Then we shook hands, and she saw me to the door. When I turned round to wave goodbye the door was already shut.
In a way I was relieved that death had dealt with Simon swiftly, if not cleanly. I had foreseen a long decline, after which I imagined that my mother would return to London, leaving Les Mouettes as a holiday house to which she would return two or three times a year. Or perhaps not. The house had never really suited her, was too eccentric, too formal, and always too hot in the summer months. Her great adventure, for that no doubt was how she saw her marriage, had involved too many changes for a person of her settled temperament. I had always known her as cautious, even timid, certainly prudent. A life of luxury, as she laughingly described it, was not quite to her taste. Hence, I supposed, her desire to wander in the afternoons, in search of a place she might call her own. She had never found such a place, had returned to her duties, trying to persuade herself that she was still the modest housewife she had been ever since her first marriage. No word of complaint had ever reached my ears. Yet as I settled down uneasily in my old room I could see that my own present discomfort was as nothing to what she must have felt at the sight of the uncompromising white building, with its air of pride, of artifice, even of arrogance. There were no hidden corners, no shadowy alcoves: everything was blatantly modern, or rather
‘moderne’
, in a style which disconcerted her. I myself had appreciated it, but then I had always been a visitor, free to leave when I so wished. My mother was a captive, and like all captives yearned for liberty.
I slept badly. I had not eaten, and I had given most of my money to Mme Delgado. This would be a problem. With great reluctance I searched Simon’s dressing-room and found a cache of notes, current household expenses, I imagined. I looked for, but did not find, an address book on his desk. This left me perplexed. If there were no private papers I did not know how I was to proceed. I should have to postpone all inquiries until my mother woke up and was able to tell me what to do. It did not occur to me, at that stage, that she might not know either.
I was not familiar with the life of the body, except my own, did not know how it could betray, implode, or alternatively be put into a deep sleep and survive. In dreams my mother always appeared intact, upright, smiling gently. I could not identify her with that silent figure in the bed. Her condition appeared to me anomalous, for I had never previously seen her asleep. I knew that accidents could happen, and accidents were, of course, in the gift of the gods, my old enemies. Marie-Caroline continued to meet me at the door of my mother’s room, barring access, refusing me entry. My questions were met with the politest of refusals to acknowledge that anything might be wrong. I was told that I should have to see Dr Balbi, who, unfortunately, was at a conference in Marseilles. He was expected back any day now; if I cared to wait he would surely see me. She indicated a chair in the corridor, and repeated that there was no need to worry. These cases looked alarming but were in fact routine. She smiled again, and shut the door quietly but firmly in my face.
I spent a day in the corridor, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. This was the third day of our ordeal, which I had been told might last for another four or five. I had no desire to go back to the house, was quite happy to sit and wait and listen. Several times footsteps approached, but they belonged to nurses bearing piles of towels. Once or twice a woman in a dressing-gown, supporting herself on a stick, and accompanied by yet another nurse, would make her way slowly in my direction, would steady herself, then thankfully retreat, the nurse’s hand under her elbow, their voices falsely cheerful. The sheer weight of encouragement needed in order to survive this process depressed me: there was no one to whom I might have recourse, no one who could help me. With the Thibaudets away I was even deprived of information. I missed them acutely; in particular I missed Armelle, who had thought to post me their telephone number in America. I would not use it, I told myself, except in an emergency. What that emergency might be I refused to think.
I rose unhesitatingly at the appearance of a dapper man with polished hair and twinkling shoes who conducted me to his office on an upper floor. Seated behind his desk he looked like the sort of doctor who attended conferences rather than one who looked after patients. I was numb with waiting, could not rouse myself to ask the questions which any novice should have been able to command. I sat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk and waited for him to tell me what I wanted to know. In all this ordeal I had managed to remain calm, or maybe I too was in shock. Events had moved so swiftly, and I had left London in such a hurry that I had lost my bearings. It seemed to me vital to endure until this particular episode was concluded. I was grateful that my mother had been removed from the house to this quiet place, grateful to Marie-Caroline, to Dr Balbi, to whom I failed to put a single question.
‘Your mother is quite safe with us,’ he assured me in excellent English. ‘We are very well known. I dare say this is all quite strange to you.’
I cleared my throat and acknowledged that it was. The atmosphere was dangerously sympathetic. To my shame I burst into tears.
‘Please do not cry. It will not help your mother if you break down. She will need a great deal of support when she wakes up.’
‘When will that be?’
He looked dubious. ‘The cure itself might last for five or six days, during which she will be fed artificially. Then, of course, she will need to be rehabilitated. We will keep her here for a minimum of three weeks.’
‘When will she be able to talk to me?’
‘Very soon. The time no doubt seems long to you.’
I bent my head. The tears flowed again.
‘You have somewhere to stay in the meantime?’
‘Their house. My mother’s house, or rather my stepfather’s. Simon . . . ’
I could no longer speak. The pathos and the ugliness of Simon’s death oppressed me now as it had not done when I had heard of it on the telephone. This was not a death that could feature in a sentimental anecdote. In England I should have known what to do. Here I contented myself with the fact that I had not seen the body. The excellent Thibaudet had arranged for it to be cremated; I had given it no further thought. In my mind I saw him lying on a marble floor in perpetuity, the evidence of his mortality only too visible, his poor body rendering up its substance as it can do only when every control is lost.
‘Ah, yes, Les Mouettes. A fascinating example. You are interested in architecture?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘not particularly.’
‘I am a great admirer of the period, which I believe will one day come back into favour. Indeed, I have made something of a hobby of photographing such buildings, and now have quite an archive. One or two colleagues have expressed an interest, have suggested a lecture on the subject. I am considering it. You will continue to live there?’
‘I live in London,’ I said.
‘I meant your mother.’
I supposed she would continue to live there, for the time being at least, but I did not see her there in the long term. I imagined that she would come home, for she always referred to England as home. This matter would have to be settled sooner or later, and perhaps sooner rather than later, for she would not necessarily want to stay in a house which held such horrifying memories. Dr Balbi may have seen something of my calculations. His sharp eyes had not left my face.
‘There is no need for you to worry about costs for the time being,’ he said. It was his way of reminding me that eventually a bill would be presented. I had no idea how large this would be, or whether my mother had any money with her. I had none. I should have to go back to London to clear my account, and my mother’s too, if that were possible. If I left the following day I could be back by the weekend to resume my vigil.
I said something of this to Dr Balbi. Did I detect some slight relief in the alacrity with which he stood up and guided me to the door? When I got to know him better I was not entirely surprised at his occasional lapses. He had risen from the ranks by sheer assiduity, had acquired his polished manners along the way, together with his interest in period artefacts. At that stage I was pathetically grateful to him simply for having put in an appearance. My own lamentable performance would have to be improved at subsequent meetings.
I told him that I should be absent for two or three days, which he accepted as entirely reasonable. I may have said something about the bank. He patted my arm and told me not to worry. It was unlikely that my mother would be completely awake when I returned, but her progress would be monitored with extreme care. He could vouch for the vigilance of Marie-Caroline, and for the night nurse, Marie-Ange. Even at night my mother’s sleep would not be natural. It was true that she was a healthy woman, and that no harm could come to her in this place. But the whole of Nice was now inimical to me. I longed to be back in my ugly flat, with its reassuring noises, the water in the pipes, the barking of Mr Taft’s dog. Once my mother had recovered I would stay with her at the house until she was well enough to make her own plans. She was not old; her life was not in danger. I reassured myself in this way as I made my way down the stairs. I told Marie-Caroline that I should be back at the end of the week. Smiling, she put down her magazine, and permitted me to approach the bed. My mother looked deathly pale, her lips bloodless. She seemed stern, even judgemental. I placed a light kiss on the hand that was not connected to the drip.
Back at the house I poured some wine into a mustard glass and drank it off to give myself courage. I regretted my earlier tears: nothing less than grim determination would see me through. Yet I felt immeasurably sad, the weight of Simon’s death more palpable as my eye encountered the objects of which he had been fond. These were not imposing, but like all relics made their own mute statement: his paper knife, his ashtray, unused since he had given up smoking, the spare key to the terrace. In his dressing-room I should find his clothes, his brushes, his shoe-trees, which I should leave untouched. My mother would no doubt want to see them when the time came for her to make the house her own again. Except that it had never been her own; in an odd way I had settled into it more happily than she had done. When I had my first sight of it, so white and uncompromising in the brilliant light, it had signified the beginning of an adventure, the door closed on my childhood, and I had willingly exchanged loyalty to our shadowy home for this alluring strangeness, into which were built all manner of references: the sea, the beach, the holidays which need never end.