Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner Page A

and that now was the time to make them. In so doing he would grow up, grow older, something that he had singularly failed so far to do. He must move immediately if he were not to lose the power of moving altogether.
    On the telephone Mme Doche sounded distant, cautious. Mme Roussel was unwell, she explained, was, she feared, going downhill very fast. And she was unwilling to let rooms again, would not want the responsibility. She had not liked those two girls – did Lewis remember them? – and had thought they had made themselves too much at home. She did not want that problem any more, could not in fact even contemplate it. Of course if Lewis were coming to Paris it would be nice to see him. Mme Doche did not see many people these days. But Lewis would understand if she were not free.
    ‘And Cynthia?’ Lewis asked. ‘And Roberta?’
    ‘Those girls?’ said Mme Doche in some surprise. Both gone. They left shortly after Lewis himself had done. And now there was nobody in the apartment except Mme Roussel and herself. It got lonely sometimes. If anything happened toMme Roussel – there was a tactful sound at this point – she, Mme Doche, would go home to Brittany. Did Lewis know Nantes? A fine town, and more sympathetic than Paris.
    Lewis, encouraged by her growing assurance – her voice seemed to have taken on a new resonance when talking about her plans, although still dipping cautiously at the end of her sentences – promised to telephone when he arrived in Paris, although he was a little disconcerted that she had not invited him to stay in the Avenue Kléber. But if there were illness there he would rather not witness it: his memories were still too raw. Besides, eight months had passed since he had left, and in the summer evenings of the remainder of his stay the winter atmosphere of the salon had been difficult to recapture. He himself, while living through his last days in Paris, had deserted the apartment and had wandered about the city in the brilliant evening light. And now perhaps it was too late, all dark and dim and spoiled by recent events. Something told him that it was a mistake to go back, but his desire for certainty and for the time before things had gone wrong forced him to return to the only set of associations that were still secure. From the depths of his experience he longed to recapture what he thought of as the transparency of that time. By transparency he meant a whole complex of contingencies – his work, his earlier ardour, his singlemindedness, his simple and almost forgotten wish for wholeness. Transparency – or desire – would banish sadness, embarrassment, a sense of failure.
Laissez-moi ma vie idéale
 … On a more practical level, his work demanded that he revisit the scene, or so he thought. What else could he do? There was no possibility of existence for him with things as they were.
    On the following day, Sunday, he made an effort and cleaned the house. He thought of telephoning his cousin, but told himself that Sunday was a day for domesticity, and that Andrew would not welcome an intrusion. Or rather that Andrew might, but that Susan would not. By the evening the house was cleared of his mother’s relics. He openedthe door of her room, stood inside for a moment, then decided to leave it as it was. He paused only to collect her library books, sober tales of love and loyalty that reflected the moods of women as he wished to consider them. He had often read her books himself, was acquainted with her tastes, which, half-smiling, he acknowledged to be his own. He removed a nail-file from between the pages of
The Song of the Ark
, which the pale girl at the library had put aside for them, with assurances that his mother would love it. A beautiful story, the girl had said: it had made her cry. Lewis supposed that this girl must now be informed of his mother’s death. Or perhaps he could just post the books back. He did not think he could stand the words normally offered on these