Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner Read Free Book Online

endlessly, with the tears drying to a glaze on his cheeks, his face tightening with the heat which he could not feel. Not daring to go upstairs, past his mother’s open door, waiting until it was dark, and late, before forcing himself to bed, leaving the fire to smoulder and to burn the house down if necessary: he half wished that it might be so.
    When hunger had finally driven him to the kitchen he had found only some biscuits and a tin of soup, yet he had notbeen aware that the household arrangements were breaking down. Clearly there had been moments when the weight of the future had been too much for his mother to contemplate. His cousin, coming upon him as he stood in the kitchen, the tin of soup in one hand, tears coursing down his face, had been kind but also severe. ‘Be thankful it was over quickly,’ he had said. ‘Be thankful she didn’t suffer like your father. She was never the same after Uncle Jack’s death; nursing him like that – for months – left a permanent mark on her.’ But Lewis, who did not remember his father, had not been aware that his mother was lonely. And if she had lived for him, Lewis, what was wrong with that? He would have lived for her if she had stayed with him a little longer.
    So bereft was he in those two days that his eyes never left his cousin’s face, accepting his authority in everything, realizing that at thirty-seven Andrew was a man, likely to know how to pay bills, buy food, and even arrange funerals. He half heard his cousin explain that the house now belonged to him, and that he should get someone in to look at the wiring. Andrew had, after all, known Lewis’s father, John Percy, the quantity surveyor, had been all of nineteen when John Percy had died. They were both orphans. Now Andrew had only horrible Susan for company, with her virtuous full skirts, and her small incurving teeth, and her colourless nail polish. Not even a nice woman to cheer him up, thought Lewis, feeling a pang of sympathy for his cousin who had had to be a man perhaps before he was ready, and who had married the ungenerous Susan because that was what men did. He was probably too decent even to acknowledge his disappointment, and had had to get over his dismay at having no family, no context other than work, and only self-effacing Aunt Grace Percy as a relative, with her absent-minded and all but hidden affections. Only Lewis had had access to those affections; therefore he was able briefly to pity his cousin for being so disadvantaged.
    Feeling this pity he was glad to accept instructions from Andrew. He attended the funeral because he was told to;left to himself he would have stayed hidden in the house. His mind was vague, unfocused. It was as if Andrew had dispensed him from all initiative, even the initiative of thinking appropriate thoughts – his feelings he intended to keep to himself. And he was glad to see Andrew sitting in his chair, as if in so doing he were actively substituting for Lewis. It was only Susan to whom he objected.
    ‘You might as well stay in the house.’ said Andrew. ‘It is your home. But stop lighting these big fires, Lewis; you’ll burn the place down. Get yourself one of these new electric heaters. You only need it in the evening, after all.’
    ‘Have you asked Lewis how he’s to earn his living?’ asked Susan, not deigning or not managing to ask Lewis himself. Obliquity was another of her usages; direct engagement was not willingly conferred.
    ‘Yes, we must think about that,’ said Andrew, lighting his pipe. Again Lewis felt a pang of pity. The pipe went with the obstinately soft moustache, went with the office, went with Susan. ‘You’ve wasted enough time, Lewis. What are your plans?’
    ‘I haven’t any,’ he had been forced to reply. ‘I’ve got my grant until June. Then I thought I’d try the British Council.’
    But when the letter had come from the British Council, on the morning after his mother’s death, he had thrown it on the