Undue Influence by Anita Brookner

last was my own invention). I thought of them as a family of saintly celibates,the flesh subdued by the spirit. Yet there must have been moments of regret, perhaps of curiosity, which would have been instantly repressed. That was why I detected a heavy-heartedness somewhere in the notebooks. I felt disturbed that such a good man should have known unhappiness, or perhaps only stirrings of unhappiness, at the end of his life. ‘Hampstead Pond,’ he wrote. ‘Skein of geese. Winter coming.’
    The temptation to take a walk on my own account was very great. It was now high summer, and the basement, of which I was fond, had come to seem intolerably confining. I took to going out at lunchtime, not to eat—a sandwich would do—so much as to stroll and satisfy my hunger for faces. The city was now filling up with tourists, who reminded me that I could soon be a tourist myself, if I chose to. But there seemed to be no future in this idea, at least not one that I could see. It was on my return from one of these lunchtime excursions that I found a note propped up on my typewriter. ‘We should be very happy to see you both on Saturday, if convenient. Kind regards. M. G. Please forgive note.’
    I informed Wiggy of this. Her enthusiasm seemed to have diminished, as had her sympathy. My own sympathy had never been very active in the first place. I therefore decided to be as pleasant as possible in these strange circumstances. This proved to be a wise decision. ‘It’s my birthday!’ was her greeting to us as we were admitted to the bedroom. This was all but shouted, as a champagne glass was waved in our direction. ‘And my silly husband says I shouldn’t be drinking. I always have champagne on my birthday. What have you brought me?’ she said, as Wiggy withdrew her sketch pad from its plastic bag.
    ‘I thought I’d do a drawing of you.’
    ‘Wiggy is a professional artist,’ I supplied.
    ‘Oh, not now. This is a celebration! Martin, give the girls a glass of champagne. Did he tell you that that silly girl wantedto go off on holiday? The idea! As if either of us could take a holiday! Still, we talked her out of it, didn’t we, darling? Now, what have you two been up to?’
    As usual she did not wait for an answer. Our lame recitals seemed to die on the scented air. They were interrupted from time to time by a repeated, ‘It’s my birthday!’ These threatened to dwindle in conviction but were quickly resuscitated. All we could do was smile and congratulate her all over again. But then that was what she wanted us to do.
    I have always felt slightly embarrassed by birthday celebrations, because the onus is always on the bringer of gifts. We had brought nothing, not even flowers. But even flowers can go wrong, arrive on the wrong day, or find no one in to receive them. I remember my mother telling me of her confusion on going into a shop to order some birthday flowers to be sent to an acquaintance, to be told that her credit card had expired. Although she had her chequebook in her bag she had felt rebuffed. ‘And Janet would have been so disappointed,’ she told me as if the shop had refused to serve her. The incident had seemed so redolent of failure that she was quite surprised when her friend telephoned on the following day to thank her. The uncertainty seemed stronger than the relief. Of course we had not known that Cynthia was celebrating her birthday. What am I saying? We hardly knew Cynthia, who was now reminiscing about birthdays gone by. There had always been parties, she observed. She was the sort of woman who marked all rites of passage in an exceedingly public manner. Two spots of colour burned in her cheeks, yet the atmosphere in the room was glum.
    All at once she stopped in mid-sentence and her face froze in a puzzled expression. ‘Martin?’ she said. He bounded from his corner. ‘I think perhaps …’ he said.
    ‘Yes, of course. We must have tired you, Cynthia. You must rest now and many more happy