Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Or, to put it another way. Someone once said that his favourite times in history were when things were collapsing, because that meant something new was being born. Does this make any sense if we apply it to our individual lives? To die when something new is being born – even if that something new is our very own self? Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints, so does adulthood. So does life. Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Imagine someone, late at night, a bit drunk, writing a letter to an old girlfriend. He addresses the envelope, puts on a stamp, finds his coat, walks to the postbox, shoves the letter into it, walks home and goes to bed. Most likely, he wouldn’t do all that last bit, would he? He’d leave the letter out for posting in the morning. And then, quite possibly, have second thoughts. So there’s a lot to be said for email, for its spontaneity, immediacy, truth to feeling, even its gaffes. My thinking – if that isn’t too grand a word for it – went like this: why take Margaret’s word for it? – she wasn’t even there, and can only have her prejudices. So I sent an email to Veronica. I headed it ‘Question’, and asked her this: ‘Do you think I was in love with you back then?’ I signed it with my initial and hit Send before I could change my mind.

The last thing I expected was a reply the next morning. This time she hadn’t deleted my subject heading. Her reply read: ‘If you need to ask the question, then the answer is no. V.’

It perhaps says something of my state of mind that I found this response normal, indeed encouraging.

It perhaps says something else that my reaction was to ring up Margaret and tell her of the exchange. There was a silence, then my ex-wife said quietly, ‘Tony, you’re on your own now.’

You can put it another way, of course; you always can. So, for example, there is the question of contempt, and our response to it. Brother Jack gives me a supercilious wink, and forty years later I use what charm I have – no, let’s not exaggerate: I use a certain false politeness – to get information out of him. And then, instantly, I betray him. My contempt in exchange for your contempt. Even if, as I now admit, what he actually felt towards me back then might have been just an amused lack of interest. Here comes my sister’s latest – well, there was one before him, and there’ll doubtless be another along soon. No need to examine this passing specimen too closely. But I – I – felt it as contempt at the time, remembered it as such, and delivered the feeling back.

And maybe with Veronica I was trying to do something more: not return her contempt, but overcome it. You can see the attraction of this. Because rereading that letter of mine, feeling its harshness and aggression, came as a profound and intimate shock. If she hadn’t felt contempt for me before, she’d have been bound to after Adrian showed her my words. And bound also to carry that resentment down the years, and use it to justify withholding, even destroying, Adrian’s diary.

I was saying, confidently, how the chief characteristic of remorse is that nothing can be done about it: that the time has passed for apology or amends. But what if I’m wrong? What if by some means remorse can be made to flow backwards, can be transmuted into simple guilt, then apologised for, and then forgiven? What if you can prove you weren’t the bad guy she took you for, and she is willing to accept your proof?

Or perhaps my motive came from a totally opposite direction, and wasn’t about the past but the future. Like most people, I have superstitions attached to the taking of a journey. We may know that flying is statistically safer than walking to the corner shop. Even so, before going away I do things like pay bills, clear off correspondence, phone someone close.

‘Susie, I’m off tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I know, Dad. You told me.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, just to say goodbye.’

‘Sorry, Dad, the kids were making a noise. What was that?’

‘Oh, nothing, give them my love.’

You’re doing it for yourself, of course. You’re wanting to leave that final memory, and make it a pleasant one. You want to be well thought of – in case your plane turns out to be the one that’s less safe than walking to the corner shop.

And if this is how we behave before a five-night winter break in Mallorca, then why should there not be a broader process at work towards the end of life, as that final journey – the motorised trundle through the crematorium’s curtains – approaches? Don’t think ill of me, remember me well. Tell people you were fond of me, that you loved me, that I wasn’t a bad guy. Even if, perhaps, none of this was the case.

I opened an old photo album and looked at the picture she’d asked me to take in Trafalgar Square. ‘One with your friends.’ Alex and Colin are putting on rather exaggerated this-is-for-the-historical-record faces, Adrian looks normally serious, while Veronica – as I had never before noticed – is turning slightly in towards him. Not looking up at him, but equally not looking at the camera. In other words, not looking at me. I’d got jealous that day. I’d wanted to introduce her to my friends, wanted her to like them, and them to like her, though of course not more than any of them liked me. Which might have been a juvenile, as well as an unrealistic, expectation. So when she kept asking Adrian questions, I got petulant; and when, later, in the hotel bar, Adrian had slagged off Brother Jack and his chums, I felt better immediately.

I briefly considered tracking down Alex and Colin. I imagined asking for their memories and their corroboration. But they were hardly central to the story; I didn’t expect their memories to be better than mine. And what if their corroboration proved the opposite of helpful? Actually, Tony, I suppose it won’t do any harm to speak the truth after all these years, but Adrian was always very cutting about you behind your back. Oh, how interesting. Yes, we both noticed that. He said you weren’t either as nice or as clever as you thought you were. I see; anything else? Yes, he said the way you made it obvious that you considered yourself his closest friend – closer, anyway, than the two of us – was absurd and incomprehensible. Right, is that all? Not quite: anyone could see that what’s-her-name was stringing you along until something better turned up. Didn’t you notice the way she was flirting with Adrian that day we all met? The two of us were pretty shocked by it. She practically had her tongue in his ear.

No, they wouldn’t be any help. And Mrs Ford was dead. And Brother Jack was off the scene. The only possible witness, the only corroborator, was Veronica.

I said I wanted to get under her skin, didn’t I? It’s an odd expression, and one that always makes me think of Margaret’s way of roasting a chicken. She’d gently loosen the skin from the breast and thighs, then slip butter and herbs underneath. Tarragon, probably. Perhaps some garlic as well, I’m not sure. I’ve never tried it myself, then or since; my fingers are too clumsy, and I imagine them ripping the skin.

Margaret told me of a French way of doing this which is even fancier. They put slices of black truffle under the skin – and do you know what they call it? Chicken in Half-Mourning. I suppose the recipe dates from the time people used to wear nothing but black for a few months, grey for another few months, and only slowly return to the colours of life. Full-, Half-, Quarter-Mourning. I don’t know if those were the terms, but I know the gradations of dress were fully tabulated. Nowadays, how long do people wear mourning? Half a day in most cases – just long enough for the funeral or cremation and the drinks afterwards.