Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner Page B

occasions, although he was aware that the sympathy of strangers was often more kindly meant than the sympathy of relatives, of his relatives, at least, and that strangers offered different perspectives onto the lives of the dead, remembered a gesture, a word, that they offered to the bereaved, and that such offerings were sweet.
    On the Monday he went to the bank and saw the manager. ‘You should be quite comfortable,’ said Mr Harvey. ‘The portfolio is very conservative and will bring in a small but regular income, as it did your mother. You don’t want to diversify, I take it?’
    ‘How much would I have if I sold everything?’ Lewis asked.
    ‘Between twenty and twenty-five thousand,’ was the answer. ‘But I cannot advise …’
    ‘Please sell everything,’ said Lewis, ‘and put the money in my account.’
    He booked a ticket on the Night Ferry for the same evening, returned home to pack a few clothes, and went straight to Victoria, where he sat for several hours in the Golden Arrow bar, rising only to buy food. As soon as it was dark he picked up his bag and moved to Platform 1, anxious to be gone, watching indifferently as passengers slowly accumulated, fur coats over their arms, heavy bags consignedto porters’ trolleys. Doubting his ability to endure the burden of a sleepless night he had booked a wagon-lit. The thought of the money relieved him enormously; he resolved to go to a comfortable hotel. He remembered seeing such a place in the rue Clément-Marot, on one of his cheese-buying expeditions. He remembered that the bright windows had cheered him, promising pleasure, insouciance. He determined to go there.
    He awoke to a dark morning, and an impression of cruel lights dashing through the chink in the blind. He washed and dressed quickly and went in search of coffee. Seated in the restaurant car he felt a sense of anticipation, noting the subtle changes in smells, in sounds. He returned to stand at the window of his compartment, avid now for the sights of France. He was the first person to leave the train.
    They gave him a small but adequate room at the Hôtel Roosevelt, one, no doubt, reserved for unaccompanied visitors. He felt disastrously unaccompanied. He unpacked quickly, anxious to be in the street, afflicted with restlessness, and also with anxiety. Suddenly there was nothing to do. He wandered down to the Place de l’Alma, in search of the street market, but it was the wrong day for it. A pale sun broke on the whitish façades of the buildings, and he walked for a long while in a westerly direction. He thought of making for the Bois, but purposelessness overcame him, and he turned back. He caught a bus to the Bibliothèque Nationale, presented his reader’s ticket, and sat down at one of the desks. He consulted the notebook he always kept in his pocket, and looked up one or two titles in the catalogue. This, it appeared, was to be the extent of his work, on this occasion, at least.
    He must have changed, he thought, in the months that had elapsed since he had last sat in this room. He was no longer content with things as they were, with small pleasures, small perspectives. The thought frightened him, for there seemed to be nothing to put in the place of those perspectives, which, however limited, had always been reassuring. Hegot up hurriedly, and out of sheer habit, walked round the Palais-Royal garden, and bought himself a sandwich in a familiar café. It now seemed a matter of urgency that he should proceed directly to the Avenue Kléber. He supposed that he should telephone first, but he knew that Mme Doche would be at home. She only went out once a day, he remembered, to do her shopping. She was bound to be in.
    He felt a little easier out on the street, walked the length of the Champs-Elysées, dogged only by a fatigue that was more mental than physical. The Avenue Kléber, when he reached it, stretched out endlessly: he suddenly doubted whether he could go much further. He stood for a