A Friend from England by Anita Brookner Page A

matter how hard I tried to banish it, that something was missing. On the surface all was well. Dorrie, now addressed by the Colonel as ‘Dora, my dear’, was in a state of such happiness that her eyes frequently had a sheen of tears. The aunts too had smiles of pleasure on their faces, and instinctively turned to their husbands, perhaps laying a hand on a sleeve, or enquiring, with renewed and unconscious tenderness, if they agreed or disagreed with some proposal or other, while the uncles, eased into pleasure by this cessation of restlessness in their wives, responded with more than their usual smiling acquiescence. Even silly Ann, who, I believe, was tolerated but not much liked, failed to give offence, although she kept putting forward tactless questions about the wedding, and this was clearly too big and important a subject to be broached by anyone who was not of the blood, so to speak. Oscar’s mouth had relaxed into a smile, and so had his brother’s; as they habitually sat side by side, the resemblance was very noticeable. And the atmosphere was decidedly festive, for the married cousins were coming on later to join the party with their husbands, and there were bottles of champagne on ice in the kitchen and tinysmoked salmon canapés already prepared. I understood that Oscar and Dorrie and the Colonel were going out for a late supper somewhere, while Heather and Michael would be going back to Heather’s flat to decide which of her belongings and appointments would be needed for their new home. For of course this was to be the occasion for more lavish spending, perhaps the very occasion for which the money had been valued in the first place.
    No, what struck me as discordant in this atmosphere of rejoicing was the empty place at the heart of it. I could not, with all the goodwill I was able to summon, see that these two loved each other. I could, of course, see that Heather was capable of, would indeed grow into, a sort of matronly calm, but I thought this impression, which was quite forceful, was rather premature, and I worried that her Gioconda-like smile was a little too placid, a little too immovable. My acquaintance with her (and despite Michael’s fervid assurances it was an acquaintance rather than a friendship) had proved her to be uninflammable, but surely she should have been expressing something else beyond her usual detachment, her politeness, her innocence? Surely she should at the very least have been less innocent by now?
    The trouble, of course, was her fiancé. I could see that this Michael, this child-husband, was not the sort of man to rouse a woman from the slumbers of virginity, least of all a placid and slow-moving woman like Heather. The impression of ardour that he gave out was to my eyes unconvincing. It occurred to me that he literally did not know what he was undertaking but was if anything responding to his father’s needs rather than to his own. I could see that the Colonel’s anxiety, expressed in this fast-talking desire to make everyone change place, was in reality for his son, and although there was something heartening about this it also made me uneasy. Why should this anxiety, which seemed tome more maternal than paternal, make itself felt so strongly? Why did the Colonel’s eyes never leave his son, or rather why did they return to him after every compliment paid to either Heather or Dorrie? And why did Oscar’s eyes never leave him either, when his only child, his much-loved daughter, sat mildly by her mother, having already consigned her future to this man who was not quite grown-up and yet at the same time not quite a real boy, with his golden hair and his blazer and his expensive watch and his adoring father?
    I also thought the festive atmosphere a little too Dickensian in its cheerfulness and surprised myself by longing to bring a note of realism into the proceedings. ‘Do you know what you are doing?’ I wanted to say. ‘Do you know what it’s all about?’ For the