A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner Read Free Book Online Page B

diminished, like Mr Rochester, to allow a woman like Tessa any access, and then no doubt a woman like Tessa would ignore him, for conventional women like Tessa also had their cruelties. As it was, his very refusal, his obvious reluctance, had conferred on Tessa a certain depth, even a foreshadowing of tragedy, which did not become her. The very incongruity of Tessa’s passion and her well-brought-up obstinacy made Harriet uncomfortable. She was aware of tension, a tension which was in some perverse fashion attractive. Pity would come later, for pity was what she was supposed to feel, the solidarity of women in such a predicament. But the time at her disposal was too precious. For this hour it was almost permitted—and at the same time it was even a necessity—to contemplate Jack.
    Feeling a pulse beginning to beat in her throat she laiddown her fork, and took a sip of wine. She found herself looking at his hands. Instinctively he raised his head; his gaze was quite dispassionate. It was then that she put up her hand to her face.
    He is only the same as other men, she admonished herself, remembering her husband in the dark and his clumsy hands. Why should it be different? Yet she noted that her thoughts had immediately turned to the act itself, as if any other context were irrelevant—she, who out of fastidiousness, out of shame, even, would never allow herself to speculate on anyone else’s sexual activities, and who could hardly bear to think about her own. But this was a man with whom she would never want to walk or talk, or pass agreeable but unconsidered time: she would want to lead him straight away to a bed, to a secret room, and the odd thing was that in her imagining it was she who led the way, while he, prodigious though he might be, merely followed her. It took no further imagination to see them naked, as if all this were pre-ordained, as if her present life were a superimposition of no importance, which an expert hand had cleanly removed.
    While thinking these thoughts she felt taller, stronger, more armoured against the world than she had ever felt before. She looked at her husband perplexedly, as if he were someone she barely remembered, saw his speckled hand pour the last of the wine into Jack’s glass. He was captivated too, she saw: his initial defensiveness had already dissolved into a kind of admiration, as if the stranger’s grace and force, his careless presence, his indifference, even, exacted their own tribute. So must Freddie have been at school, thought Harriet, clumsy even then, and flattered by the mere existence of beauty. He is such a decent man, she told herself, and he must never know what I feel at this moment, what I felt when Jack Peckham looked up and caught my eye, what I have been feeling ever since he came into the room. She saw Tessatrying to suppress an ominous hiccough, laid her hand on Freddie’s arm, and said, ‘Dear, it’s getting late. Shall we make a move?’ and, turning to the others, said, ‘We are so looking forward to the wedding.’ (Indeed, she was anxious to see what Jack Peckham would look like in a formal suit. She was excited by the idea of his being momentarily subdued.) ‘Tessa, shall I come over to the flat tomorrow and give you a hand?’ She did not much care that her wishes and her remarks were dominating the proceedings. She did not at that moment feel guilty that she had eclipsed her friend, who admittedly was not looking her best, nor was she much impressed that their roles seemed to be reversed. Childhood now seemed far off, irrelevant, discarded. Now, for the first time, she had passed into a different phase of being.
    Later that night cold realization came to her and she felt terrible. Better that she should remain in lifelong ignorance than yield to insights so destructive of her real life, her real husband, who now seemed to her to be definitely altered by her recent perceptions. He was not young for his age: he would get older, and his hands