The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner Page A

his time were numerous, and he sometimes had to see a client after work. This hardly mattered; though I was disappointed when we were not able to meet, the call reassured me that the connection was still secure, and I knew that his voice would power me for the rest of the day. I might go to the flat in any case: those afternoons in the garden were now a part of my life, perhaps the part I most treasured. They had an enchantment, a stillness of their own after the adjustments of the morning. They constituted a time in which I was free to contemplate my emerging and authentic self, a self which had been obscured by the years of careful living which I could now see for what they had been: erroneous, fallacious, and with a stifling quality I was ready to condemn unreservedly.
    Mrs Crook settled herself in her chair and prepared to give me her full attention, or rather prepared to let me give my full attention to the honour of this summons. She was eighty years old, an age which I was not inclined to contemplate. Large, slow, and formidable, she was something of a presence in the building. Few people found her sympathetic but all paid her a certain amount of respect, owing largely to her unshakeable conviction of her own importance. She was, like most of her kind, a widow, who probably spent lonely days but was careful to disguise any loneliness she might have felt and to dismiss the activities of others as unimportant. She had travelled widely with the second of her two husbands, and for a time, in the early days of my marriage, had queried me about our holiday arrangements: had we managed to find the hotel she had recommended, and if so had we remembered to give her best wishes to the proprietor? Remarks such as these had furnished what conversation we were obliged to have. My husband thought her admirable, as he did anything of a settled and recognizable nature, but I perceived a curiosity in her that I did little to encourage. My reluctance had been noted. She was not disposed in my favour.
    “ And how are you getting on? ” she now said.
    “ Still going to those classes of yours? ” This was dangerous ground. “ Not that I suppose I should understand a word of them, ” she continued. “ I don't understand much of what is going on these days. The world has changed so much. ”
    I agreed. I recognized this for the rhetorical performance it was likely to be, and prepared to give her twenty minutes at the outside before making my escape.
    “ What has happened to manners? ” she demanded, without waiting for an answer. “ Tradition? Standards? All those dreadful women clamouring to be heard, making fools of themselves. What has happened to morality? ”
    “ I suppose certain changes are inevitable, ” I felt emboldened to reply. “ More women working ... ”
    “ That's another thing. In my day women were looked after by men. I never saw any reason to quarrel with that. My mind was as good as my husbands'. Yet I would never have dreamed of protesting, of arguing with them, of demanding more than my due. ”
    “ I think that women want more than that, ” I said. I was playing into her hands.
    “ And what good will that do them? They will find out too late, when all the men have deserted them. I despair of my sex, ” she said, with a complacent little laugh. “ Not that I have anything in common with this new breed. Women knew how to behave when I was young. Oh, do you take sugar? It's in the kitchen, would you be kind enough ...? You know where it is. ”
    On the kitchen table I saw the pitiable results of her morning's purchases: biscuits, a sponge cake, a small loaf, tea bags, instant coffee, a packet of ham, and a small oozing bag of tomatoes. Not enough there to give one an appetite for life, and yet she seemed vigorous enough, with a monstrous vigour that enabled her to condemn anything of which she did not approve. I could envisage her frugal lunch: a slice of ham and a tomato, washed down with more of the