Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner

made his mark, an excellent adviser, patient and always interested. There had been a wistfulness there too, thought Lewis, who steeled himself to be ruthless. He saw, regretfully, that he must say goodbye to his earlier innocence if he were ever to make his mark in the world. If he failed in this task, innocence – his mother’s innocence – would overcome him, and then where would he be?
    ‘You’ll go on with your work, I hope, Lewis?’ Professor Armitage, Lewis saw with despair, was easing himself out of his coat. ‘Of course, I shan’t be at the college after June, but you will have the thing well set up by then. And I dare say Dr McCann will look after you if you want any help. I don’t think I’m being indiscreet in saying that the university press is always interested in new work. You would have to revise and expand, of course, but that would be a matter for the future. You’ll keep in touch, Lewis? I’ve enjoyed your work.’
    Fatal humility, thought Lewis. Yes, he would keep intouch, but not too frequently. Men like Armitage were obsolete, all but saintly, and thus uncomfortable. He too had enjoyed the work, but, being young, had thought it entirely his own. Besides, it was the company of women that he craved. He did not see, in this moment of discomfort and disarray, how Professor Armitage could minister to him. Of the two barren lives he was forced to prefer his own. Yet how did that help him?
    ‘Have you enough to live on?’ pursued Professor Armitage.
    Lewis said that he had no idea.
    ‘Well, that is certainly very important. And you will want a job. You might find something in the library to tide you over. That friend of yours works there, doesn’t he? If you like the idea I might be able to use a little influence.’
    It was to be all libraries, Lewis thought.
    ‘I wonder if I might ask you for a cup of tea, Lewis? It is rather a long way from Muswell Hill. Several buses, you know, and I am not so young as I was.’
    It was seven o’clock before he left, after having persuaded Lewis to light the fire again. Even then he seemed reluctant to go. But Lewis was now impatient to telephone the Avenue Kléber, and paid scant attention to Professor Armitage’s kind assurances. He regarded the library suggestion as something to fall back on in a case of extreme need, something to be avoided for as long as possible. He felt now that only an investment in his own future could obliterate the grief he felt silently gathering in the corners of the room. He stood at the door, watching Professor Armitage beat his slow retreat, seeing him as a blank silhouette outlined against the fuzzy halo of a street lamp. Only when the sound of his heels had faded and the suburban street was quiet again did he go inside.
    The return to Paris he now saw as a desperate act, one perhaps that would not repay him. And yet it was the thing he had to do. He craved the sedative of routine, and here, at home, routine had been cancelled and he did not knowhow to re-establish it. The untidy grate stared him in the face, ashes scattered over the hearth; the room already had a pall of dust, and in the kitchen the larder was almost empty again. He would go simply because it was impossible for him to stay. He would finish his work – that went without saying – but that was not his primary purpose. What he craved was a return to his earlier self, before sadness had come into his life. Perhaps he would never come home again. He saw himself, an ageing child, living out a bachelor existence in a room in Paris: eventually he would assume the lineaments of a Frenchman, with a trenchcoat and a briefcase and rimless glasses. He would go home in the evenings to Mme Doche and the women. Nothing about this was ideal, he knew, and most of it was illusory, but if he stayed here loneliness would overpower him. He did not like the direction his thoughts were taking. He did not like his situation. And yet he knew that decisions would have to be made,