Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Her attitude towards me, now that I looked at it, had been consistent – not just in recent months, but over however many years. She had found me wanting, had preferred Adrian, and always considered these judgements correct. This was, I now realised, self-evident in every way, philosophical or other. But, without understanding my own motives, I had wanted to prove to her, even at this late stage, that she had got me wrong. Or rather, that her initial view of me – when we were learning one another’s hearts and bodies, when she approved of some of my books and records, when she liked me enough to take me home – had been correct. I thought I could overcome contempt and turn remorse back into guilt, then be forgiven. I had been tempted, somehow, by the notion that we could excise most of our separate existences, could cut and splice the magnetic tape on which our lives are recorded, go back to that fork in the path and take the road less travelled, or rather not travelled at all. Instead, I had just left common sense behind. Old fool, I said to myself. And there’s no fool like an old fool: that’s what my long-dead mother used to mutter when reading stories in the papers about older men falling for younger women, and throwing up their marriages for a simpering smile, hair that came out of a bottle, and a taut pair of tits. Not that she would have put it like that. And I couldn’t even offer the excuse of cliché, that I was just doing what other men of my age banally did. No, I was an odder old fool, grafting pathetic hopes of affection on to the least likely recipient in the world.

That next week was one of the loneliest of my life. There seemed nothing left to look forward to. I was alone with two voices speaking clearly in my head: Margaret’s saying, ‘Tony, you’re on your own now,’ and Veronica’s saying, ‘You just don’t get it… You never did, and you never will.’ And knowing that Margaret wouldn’t crow if I rang up – knowing that she would happily agree to another of our little lunches, and we could go on exactly as before – made me feel all the lonelier. Who was it said that the longer we live, the less we understand?

Still, as I tend to repeat, I have some instinct for survival, for self-preservation. And believing you have such an instinct is almost as good as actually having it, because it means you act in the same way. So after a while, I rallied. I knew I must go back to how I had been before this silly, senile fantasy took hold of me. I must attend to my affairs, whatever they might be, apart from tidying up my flat and running the library at the local hospital. Oh yes, and I could concentrate again on getting back my stuff.

‘Dear Jack,’ I wrote. ‘Wonder if you could give me a spot more help with Veronica. Afraid I’m finding her just as mystifying as in the old days. Well, do we ever learn? Anyway, the ice flow hasn’t melted with regard to my old pal’s diary that your mother left me in her will. Any further advice about that? Also, another slight puzzle. I had quite a jolly lunch with V in town the other week. Then she asked me up the Northern line one afternoon. It seems she wanted to show me some care-in-the-community folk, then got cross when she’d done so. Can you shed any light on this one? Trust all’s fine with you. Regards, Tony W.’

I hoped the bonhomie didn’t ring as false to him as it did to me. Then I wrote to Mr Gunnell, asking him to act for me in the matter of Mrs Ford’s will. I told him – in confidence – that my recent dealings with the legator’s daughter had suggested a certain instability, and I now thought it best that a fellow professional write to Mrs Marriott and request a speedy resolution of the issue.

I allowed myself a private nostalgic farewell. I thought of Veronica dancing, hair all over her face. I thought of her announcing to her family, ‘I’m going to walk Tony to his room,’ whispering to me that I was to sleep the sleep of the wicked, and my promptly wanking into the little basin before she was even downstairs again. I thought of my inner wrist looking shiny, of my shirt sleeve furled to the elbow.

Mr Gunnell wrote to say that he would do as I instructed. Brother Jack never replied.

I’d noticed – well, I would – that parking restrictions only applied between the hours of ten and midday. Probably to discourage commuters from driving this far into town, dumping their cars for the day, and carrying on in by Tube. So I decided to take my car this time: a VW Polo whose tyres would last a lot longer than Veronica’s. After a purgatorial hour or so on the North Circular, I found myself in position, parked where we had been before, facing up the slight incline of a suburban street, with the late-afternoon sun catching the dust on a privet hedge. Bands of schoolchildren were on their way home, boys with shirts out of their trousers, girls with provocatively high skirts; many on mobile phones, some eating, a few smoking. When I’d been at school we were told that as long as you were in the uniform you had to behave in a way that reflected well on the institution. So no eating or drinking in the street; while anyone caught smoking would be beaten. Nor was fraternisation with the opposite sex allowed: the girls’ school linked to ours and quartered nearby used to let its pupils out fifteen minutes before the boys were freed, giving them time to get well clear of their predatory and priapic male counterparts. I sat there remembering all this, registering the differences, without coming to any conclusions. I neither applauded nor disapproved. I was indifferent; I had suspended my right to thoughts and judgements. All I cared about was why I had been brought to this street a couple of weeks previously. So I sat with my window down and waited.

After two hours or so, I gave up. I came back the next day, and the next, without success. Then I drove to the street with the pub and the shop, and parked outside. I waited, went into the shop and bought a few things, waited some more, drove home. I had absolutely no sense of wasting my time: rather, it was the opposite way round – that this was what my time was now for. And in any case the shop turned out to be pretty useful. It was one of those places which spans the range from delicatessen to hardware store. Over this period I bought vegetables and dishwasher powder, sliced meats and loo paper; I used the cash machine and stocked up on booze. After the first few days they started calling me ‘mate’.

I thought at one point of contacting the borough’s social-services department and asking if they had a care-in-the-community home which sheltered a man all covered in badges; but doubted this would get me anywhere. I would baulk at their first question: why do you want to know? I didn’t know why I wanted to know. But as I say, I had no sense of urgency. It was like not pressing on the brain to summon a memory. If I didn’t press on – what? – time, then something, perhaps even a solution, might come to the surface.

And in due course I remembered words I’d overheard. ‘No, Ken, no pub today. Friday night’s pub night.’ So the following Friday I drove over and sat with a newspaper in the William IV. It was one of those pubs gentrified by economic pressure. There was a food menu with chargrilled this and that, a telly quietly emitting the BBC News Channel, and blackboards everywhere: one advertising the weekly quiz night, another the monthly book club, a third the upcoming TV sports fixtures, while a fourth bore an epigrammatic thought for the day, no doubt transcribed from some corporate book of wit and wisdom. I slowly drank halves while doing the crossword, but nobody came.

The second Friday, I thought: I may as well have my supper here, so ordered chargrilled hake with handcut chips and a large glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc. It wasn’t bad at all. Then, on the third Friday, just as I was forking my penne with gorgonzola and walnut sauce, in walked the lopsided man and the chap with the moustache. They took their seats familiarly at a table, whereupon the barman, clearly used to their requirements, brought each of them a half of bitter, which they proceeded to sip meditatively. They didn’t look around, let alone seek to make eye contact; and in return, no one took any notice of them. After about twenty minutes a motherly black woman came in, went up to the bar, paid, and gently escorted the two men away. I merely observed and waited. Time was on my side, yes it was. Songs do occasionally tell the truth.