A Friend from England by Anita Brookner

other, as if they really knew that one of them would die first. What would happen then? Would Heather be up to the task of comforting and sustaining? Would anyone? Who could be a parent to those parents when the time came, when that Biblical day arrived and the silver chord, the golden bowl, revealed their essential fragility? Love, which they had never lacked, surrounded them like a haze of sunlight; they were not made for the dark, as some of us are. Love had made them vulnerable, only able to seek and find each other. And was this condition, which I saw as inherently painful, the reason why their daughter had deliberately chosen its opposite, thus permitting herself to rest secure in the knowledge that she would never suffer abandonment, dereliction, infidelity, bereavement? I had always thought her shrewd, and I saw her now as very much her father’s daughter. Where’s your mother? I heard, or seemed to hear, Oscar’s question, which meant so much more than it was designed to mean, as if he feared that the object of his love were eternally about to disappear, as if he might then embark on some mythic quest to bring her back. Thus Heather, saving all her strength in this unrealistic and insignificant marriage of hers, might at last find herself calledupon to play her part, having perfected herself in secret for this purpose. For I knew for a fact that Dorrie would die first.
    An unpleasant thing happened around that time. I was sitting in my flat one evening, wondering whether to go out or stay in, when the telephone rang. Most of my friends were out of town and I did not recognize the voice, which sounded brisk and sporty.
    ‘Rachel? Hallo, my dear. Just wondered how you were.’
    ‘I’m sorry. Who is this?’
    There was a sort of chuckle at the other end. ‘Come on, now. You can’t have forgotten me already.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘Who is this?’
    Another chuckle. ‘A friend of yours. Or rather someone who would like to be a friend. You look like a girl who could be a very good friend.’
    A terrible realization came upon me. ‘Is that Colonel Sandberg?’
    The voice became brisker. ‘Got it in one. How about meeting me for a drink? The Churchill suit you? Half an hour?’
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again, rather carefully. ‘I was just going out. So sorry. Goodbye.’
    I put down the telephone, picked up my bag, and went out for a very long walk. I didn’t get back until it was quite dark. After that, I made a habit of being out in the evenings – I knew he wouldn’t telephone in the daytime – thus giving him time to cast his nets elsewhere. The fact that it would be difficult or unwise to face him for a bit was an additional reason for staying away from the young Sandbergs for a little while. The situation was becoming overburdened with restrictions.
    I took to walking, therefore, in those late summer evenings. I was disgusted, not in any puritanical or moralistic sense, but because I felt that my life wasperhaps a little adrift. If someone as horrible as the Colonel had found me out, then I had to know that something was wrong. And yet I would defend myself. It seemed to me that I conducted my life on rather enlightened principles; that is to say, I imposed certain restraints on my feelings, kept a very open mind, rather despised those conventions that are supposed to bring security, and passed lightly on whenever I saw trouble coming. I had resolved at a very early stage never to be reduced to any form of emotional beggary, never to plead, never to impose guilt, and never to consider the world well lost for love. I think of myself as a plain dealer and I am rather proud of the honesty of my transactions. After all, I have had to make my way in the world, and I could only do so by being clear-eyed and self-reliant. I forbid myself to remember that it has not always been easy, and I never, ever, blame my parents: that sort of thing is so old hat. I pass lightly through life, without