Making Things Better (7 page)

Herz could have wished their relationship were more sustaining, more speculative, rather more like those television interviews in which his opinion was sought on a variety of subjects. He was mollified by the impression that he fulfilled some sort of function for Simmonds, some quasi-parental function, simply by virtue of being older. He was a surrogate elder towards whom Simmonds felt an old-fashioned, almost naïve respect. Herz had little experience of dealing with younger people but understood instinctively that one kept out of their lives as much as possible but was curious and indulgent towards them. Hence the exhaustive questioning on his part—the holiday plans were an example—and Simmonds's equally exhaustive replies. It was a matter of discretion not to talk about oneself. To do so would be to shock Simmonds with the prospect of what awaited him.

It did not, of course, have to turn out that way: he would not make the mistake of supposing that Simmonds resembled himself, or that decline was the common lot, the destiny in which all were united. In that prospect at least there might be a degree of compensation. Instead of which all were cast adrift on their own, could barely signal to one another their knowledge of what was overtaking them. The only resource in such circumstances would be the young, their children, if they were fortunate enough to have them, or, if they were not, those like Simmonds who were kind enough to tolerate their company. Here too circumspection was called for: one painted a picture that would not disturb, gave an edited view of oneself that would prove acceptable. In that way one could pass muster. The confession that fought its way out, the inevitable complaints and regrets, must be stifled so as not to inspire distaste, or more frequently boredom or impatience. The trick was to remain separate and restrained.

‘So when do you leave for Italy?' he queried, picking up his fork.

‘End of next week. If you want anything get in touch with Deakin. He knows all about your affairs.'

‘The will . . .' said Herz. ‘Ostrovski's will. How can I ever forget that? I feel unworthy, ashamed, even.'

‘The money he left you? No need. I benefited too, remember. We were the only legatees. Well, he had no family living.'

‘He referred to you as his nephew.'

‘Nothing like. A second cousin only, and one I hardly knew. He used to blow in from time to time to see my parents.'

‘He did the same to mine.'

‘He was lonely, of course, although he had all those businesses he was juggling. In a way he liked to be unattached, or rather unobserved. Nobody ever knew his real circumstances.'

‘What was his background?'

‘Nothing he was very proud of. Ostrovski wasn't his name, of course.'

‘What was it?'

‘Abramsky. I did some research. He was a self-made man in every sense of the word. Yet he liked to keep up some sort of fiction that he had friends: my parents, your parents. That was all he had. And nobody had much time for him. His manner was fairly off-putting. He looked up to your parents, by the way, thought they were aristocratic.'

‘They weren't,' said Herz.

‘They were to him. You've no one left, I take it?'

‘No one, no. My marriage, as I think you know, ended in divorce.'

‘I won't make that mistake. I've seen too much of it. Helen and I agree on that point. No marriage, no children, no divorce.'

‘I wonder if you're quite right about that.'

Simmonds shrugged, looking suddenly weary. ‘I won't say there hasn't been the odd discussion. But she likes her freedom. Women do these days; they don't seem to suffer. I sometimes wonder if men don't suffer more. But we're together, we have fun.'

‘Fun?'

‘Distractions are easy to find. We travel a lot. And because we're not together the whole time we're always pleased to see each other.' He looked wistful, as if foreseeing a time when he might miss her. But, thought Herz, there would be those distractions. Perhaps eternal restlessness was the answer, just as eternal vigilance was the price of liberty. Rest would not only descend on one too soon; it would be unwelcome when it did.

‘Your generation is quite different from mine,' he smiled. ‘You seem to have everything mapped out.'

‘It's all a matter of communication these days. You need never really be apart: e-mail, mobile phones, and so on.'

‘But I wonder if that really keeps you together. Some things can't be put into words.'

‘Most things can.'

‘I was thinking how the smallest changes are often the most subtle. How one unconsciously reverts to what I suppose were one's origins. Nowadays I find myself eating the sort of food I had at home. And it's not a conscious decision. I do it instinctively.'

‘You want to look after yourself, you know. You're looking a bit thin.'

‘Oh, I'm fine.'

‘You should take a holiday.'

He smiled. ‘I look forward to hearing about yours. Shall I get the bill?'

‘Let me.'

‘With all this money it's the least I can do.'

They parted on the usual good terms, Herz waiting on the pavement until Simmonds's car drove off. Then he walked to the bus stop, remembering, in spite of himself, Bijou Frank and his first experience of servitude. He smiled. How had she lived, poor Bijou? And when had she died? There had been no notice in the Deaths column of
The
Times,
although there was no reason why there should have been. It had been an obscure life, dignified by a sort of loyalty. That was what he missed, the sort of loyalty observed by people who had little in common but their origins, but who understood each other in a more rooted way than the rootless young could ever understand. He understood it now, almost wished those lost connections back again. He was not trained for freedom, that was the problem, had not been brought up for it. He had done nothing more than glimpse it. The irony was that he now possessed freedom in abundance, but did not quite know how to accommodate it. And it was, it seemed, too late for him to learn.

At the bus stop he was suddenly overcome by a feeling of unreality, so enveloping as to constitute a genuine malaise. He placed a tremulous hand on his heart, and seconds later wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. He stood for a moment, trying to regain his composure, glad that there were no witnesses. He had no memory of the journey home, in a providential taxi. In bed he felt better, ascribed his faintness to the second glass of wine he had imprudently drunk, but slept badly. The morning came as an unusual relief, one that he had barely expected.

7

‘It was like a cloud descending,' he explained to the doctor. ‘Like being enveloped in a cloud, or indeed a cloudy substance. Opaque, you know. I couldn't otherwise explain it, although I had to explain it to myself. The only thing I could think of was Freud's experience on the Acropolis.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Freud reported a feeling of unreality which overtook him when he was visiting the Acropolis. He was alarmed, as well as feeling unwell, although he didn't go into that. Then, being Freud, he worked out an explanation; he was uneasy because he had gone beyond the father. In other words he had achieved a way of life— moneyed, cultivated—which would have been denied to his father. He had overcome his father's constraints. Freud knew that his father would have had no access to the sort of excursion he was taking; therefore he had in a sense betrayed him, outclassed him. The theory is very beautiful, don't you agree? I too have gone beyond my father, who was a hard-working and unhappy man. Do you think I might have experienced something similar?'

‘When did you last have your blood pressure checked?'

‘Oh, some time ago. Your predecessor, Dr Jordan . . . What happened to him, by the way? A young man . . .'

‘He went to Devizes to take over his father-in-law's practice. Couldn't wait to get out of London. The pressures on GPs in London are formidable.'

‘Yes, one hears a lot about that.'

‘I'll just check. Roll up your sleeve, would you?'

On the wall behind the doctor's desk hung an inept watercolour of boats at sunset.

‘Your own work?' he enquired politely.

‘My wife's.'

‘Ah.'

‘Our house is full of them. It's rather high, I'm afraid. Too high. I'll give you something for that.'

He consulted his computer. ‘I see that Dr Jordan prescribed glyceryl trinitrate. Have you used it at all?'

‘Those pills one puts under the tongue? No. I don't use anything. I prefer not to. I think I only saw him once. Dr Jordan, I mean.'

‘They will help you if you have a similar experience again. Silly to ignore the pills. They are there to help you.'

‘Oh, I carry them around with me.' He patted his pocket. ‘But I prefer to know what's happening to me. What, in fact, is happening to me? I'm not really ill.'

‘You are not a young man. Have there been other episodes?'

‘Not really. A little faintness sometimes. I've only consulted a doctor once, I think.'

Again he thought of the German doctor in Baden-Baden, who had literally laid on hands. Herz placed a protective hand over his heart. The doctor did not see the gesture, being occupied with his computer. In that instant Herz determined not to consult him again. He was no doubt quite adequate, but in Herz's opinion did not have the artistic, even the poetic sympathy that would enable him to understand another's malaise. And his malaise lingered, not in any physical sense, but again in the shape of a cloud on his mental horizon. All his life he had been, not robust, but resistant to illness, obliged to spare others the knowledge of his own weaknesses. And there had been weaknesses, but overcoming them so as not to disturb his parents, even his wife, had been his overriding preoccupation. In this way he had built up a certain immunity to physical distress, though conscious all the time that such defences could be breached. So far he had not succumbed to major illnesses, for which he could take no credit, or to minor ones, for which he could. In his experience a good night's sleep would enable him to fight another day, and generally he had been proved correct, but lately he had slept badly and sometimes woke in a panic, his heart knocking. It was at times like these, in the very early morning, that he was grateful that he lived alone, could perform the morning rituals slowly, during which time his heart would settle down. As the day wore on he experienced no further tremors, put such tremors down to a nightmare from which he had not woken, but which had been sufficiently disturbing as to make itself known in the form of an inchoate disturbance, largely of the senses. He told himself that altered perception, such as that occasioned by a nightmare, might have physical reverberations. At the same time he was anxious to capture any information that might have been vouchsafed to him in the course of that forgotten dream.

The previous evening's occurrence had alarmed him sufficiently to arrange to see the doctor, but now that he had done so he decided that the incident was at an end. This consultation had disappointed him—the computer, the watercolour, the curious air of distraction that coloured the doctor's attention—displeased him to the extent of inspiring a certain anger. This was unusual: he was not given to anger. But he felt his politeness threatening to desert him. He would have appreciated more of a dialogue, was conscious of demanding more than he was likely to receive, recognized this as part of his unavailing desire for closeness, intimacy. His Freudian comparison had fallen on deaf ears, yet to him it was a matter of some significance. If he could ascribe the weakness of the previous evening to some profound metaphysical cause he would feel sufficiently heartened to carry on the struggle. If, however, it proved to be some sort of physical mishap he was on shakier ground. For all his faith in remote as opposed to immediate causes he knew that the mind cannot always outwit the body, and that the body that one took for granted could at any moment reveal itself as fragile, and worse, treacherous. He preferred to consider the knocking of his heart to be caused by anger at what he thought a dull-witted performance, regretted once again the grave seniority of the German doctor—so long ago!—even regretted his previous fortitude, which now threatened to desert him. He did not want to die, still less did he want to succumb to illness, yet that was the condition of seeking help. And the help that was available was to his mind inadequate. Above all he was conscious of boring this man, of wasting his time, not merely by presenting routine symptoms, common, he supposed, to all old people, but by seeking to interest him in speculations of a no doubt discredited nature. Freud was old hat now: young people, especially young doctors, had no time for him. He turned his anger on himself, felt confused, foolish, prepared to leave, aware that the interview was over, that the computer was even now spewing out a prescription, that he was in alien territory, where only the verifiably physical was important, and all theory could be ignored.

‘I want you to take a blood-pressure pill every day, and to come back in a couple of weeks' time. People of your age should take blood pressure seriously.'

‘You think that's all it was, then?'

‘At this stage I can't say. You seem fit enough.'

But how could he know? As an investigation this left much to be desired. Above all it had proved to be strangely tedious. He tried to imagine the doctor at home, with the watercolour-painting wife, and the requisite images failed him.

‘I expect you will be going on holiday?' he asked, in a last effort to establish some kind of mutuality, on the doctor's terms, if necessary.

‘I've had a couple of weeks. I prefer to go away in the winter. Get away from all the winter ailments.' He laughed conspiratorially.

At once Herz understood this man. He was simply not cut out to be a doctor, loathed medicine, loathed the care he was obliged to take, even loathed himself for this kind of emotional failure. This would account for his morose attitude, his preference for the computer over the living body, his all too palpable conscientiousness.

‘A medical family?' he enquired, testing his theory.

‘Yes. Clever of you to guess that. It was assumed that I would carry on where my father left off.'

‘Difficult to disappoint him, I suppose?'

‘Oh, yes.' In his voice Herz heard a lifetime of thwarted wishes.

‘It is indeed difficult to fight one's family's expectations.'

And you would rather be doing something else, anything else, he thought. You would have preferred your freedom, and you were denied it. You made a good enough job of necessity. You minister to the sick in your own way. But in fact it is hardly ministering. Nor is it art. And surely medicine is the highest of the arts? What Claude and Turner cannot tell us is in your hands. It is a priestly task. And a man of true discernment would have turned down his wife's watercolour, though this might have provoked marital disharmony.

‘Keep the other pills by you,' said the doctor. ‘Place one under your tongue if you experience any more discomfort.'

He stood up with an air of relief, handed over the prescription. ‘My nurse will check your blood pressure. Just pop in in a couple of weeks' time.'

Herz put the paper in his pocket. He would take the pills, or rather give them a try. In the interests of science he would have his blood pressure checked by the nurse. After that he rather thought he would do no more, would prefer to rely on his ancient knowledge of himself in order to confront whatever ordeals might have been prepared for him.

‘I suppose Freud is completely out of date now,' he queried, as he reached the door.

‘Completely. Goodbye, Mr Herz. Take care.'

Out in the sunny street he felt less exasperated, although a lingering consciousness of disappointment remained. He remembered having noted a small public garden off Paddington Street, the only amenity in this district other than the too distant park. He would sit on a bench and think things through, in company with other old men, and old ladies too, perhaps. The weather had proved surprisingly stable: after a lacklustre spring the warm days shaded off only gradually into breathtaking evenings, although the darkness came earlier now that it was August. Now it was difficult to ignore the scattering of fallen leaves or reports of drought in the newspapers, impossible though it was for anyone to wish for rain. It was enough to issue out each morning into sunshine to dispel thoughts of what was to come. Of the coming winter he refused to think. He sank heavily onto a wooden seat, the paper crackling in his pocket. He would take it to the friendly chemist whose advice he had always found reassuring. For the moment it was enough to sit with the other old men, and the old lady reading the
Daily Mail,
with whom he felt solidarity. He would perhaps exchange a few remarks with them sooner or later, about the weather, naturally: he would not make the mistake of discussing Freud, or related matters. That had been a mistake. He felt confused, wondered if others noticed, blamed himself for advancing into alien territory, for revealing an undue curiosity. But how to live without it? After years of dutiful obedience, of deferment to the will of others, he saw this timid examination of ideas as a permitted emancipation. He no longer had to make things better for everyone; that was his conclusion. He could read, speculate, entertain impious thoughts. He could reach conclusions that would have seemed unwise in the days of his obedience, for it had been obedience rather than servitude, and therein lay a certain residual sweetness. He was not sorry that it had come to an end, but the contrast between his life as a worker and this disturbing freedom was hard to assimilate, to manage.

He would, as always, have liked to discuss the matter, in the interests of genuine enquiry, with one or other of his elderly companions in the sun, and regretted, as always, that the thing was impossible. He would be looked on as an outsider, and worse, someone whose eagerness to make friends revealed him as no more than an ageing schoolboy. Yet if he had had the courage to break through that invisible barrier how enriching the revelations might be! But it seemed to be agreed, in this small space, that the utmost privacy should be observed. Indeed the faces he saw were stern, none relaxing into the half-smile of reminiscence. The silence being observed reminded him of chess players, or rather those he had noted, through a similar confusion, in a café in Nyon, as he was about to board his train, after his so polite meeting with Fanny and her mother at the Beau Rivage. He realized that the sadness and humiliation he had felt on that occasion had prepared him for a lifetime of the same, of repeated episodes of defeat. That was the essence of his sentimental education.

Yet what he felt now, sitting in the sun, was more like a new frustration, based on little more than an inability to talk things over, or rather a prohibition against such an exchange. He was accustomed to spending time on his own, was not exactly lonely, but was aware of an absence of ideas, such as might have been the currency between like-minded people. And surely those around him were in the same category as himself? Perhaps it was the absence of a proper meeting place, a café, for example, such as would have been found near a similar public garden in any continental town. He felt suddenly hungry, looked around him, saw only a pub, which was not to his taste. He had never liked pouring cold liquid into his stomach, as younger men seemed to do. With a sigh he got up, decided to eat lunch at an Italian restaurant in George Street, thought it too far to walk, settled for a sandwich and a glass of wine. He would buy an evening paper and return to his seat in the afternoon, spend the day there, in fact. He did not want to go home.

The memory of the previous evening's disturbance had faded until it was almost acceptable. That it had been an occult manifestation, a message from the unconscious, Herz had no doubt. It was the doctor who had sought a routine explanation and in so doing had removed the air of mystery that had proved such a rich source of associations in the past. The doctor could not, in the end, explain it any more satisfactorily than could Herz himself, had somewhat ostentatiously stuck to his brief, had advised taking the pills. But Herz knew that behind his life, the life he lived now, in Chiltern Street, in Paddington Street, in this garden, stretched unexamined territory, most of it compounded not only of his own mistakes, but of the mistakes of others. What if Fanny had consented to marry him? How would they have lived? On his salary? Impossible. He too would like to have lived at the Beau Rivage, thinking such a place a dignified representation of his life as an exile. His malaise had been a reminder of that condition: useless to ascribe it to any other cause. And short of consulting a specialist in these matters there was no way in which this extremely interesting phenomenon—interesting to him— could be elucidated.