Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [34]
‘You, I expect, have come here to finish a book,’ he said pleasantly.
Her face clouded. ‘That is quite right,’ she said. And poured herself another glass of wine.
He affected not to notice this. ‘Well, I am rather fond of the place. I came here once with my wife. And as I was at the conference in Geneva, and in no rush to get back, I thought I’d see if it were still the same. The weather was good, so I stayed on a little.’
‘This conference,’ she said. ‘Forgive me, but I don’t know what it was about.’
‘Electronics. I have a rather sizeable electronics firm which is doing surprisingly well. In fact, it almost runs itself, thanks to my excellent second in command. I spend less and less time there, although I remain responsible for everything that goes on. But this way I can spend a good deal of time on my farm, and that is what I really prefer to do.’
‘Where …?’
‘Near Marlborough.’
‘And your wife,’ she ventured. ‘Did she not come with you?’
He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. ‘My wife left me three years ago,’ he said. ‘She ran away with a man ten years her junior, and despite everyone’s predictions she is still radiantly happy.’
‘Happy,’ said Edith lingeringly. ‘Howmarvellous! Oh, I’m so sorry. That was a tactless thing to say. You must think me very stupid.’ She sighed. ‘I am rather stupid, I fear. Out of phase with the world. People divide writers into two categories,’ she went on, deeply embarrassed by his silence. ‘Those who are preternaturally wise, and those who are preternaturally naive, as if they had no real experience to go on. I belong in the latter category,’ she added, flushing at the truth of what she said. ‘Like the Wild Boy of the Aveyron.’ Her voice trailed away.
‘Now you are looking unhappy,’ he observed, after a short silence, during which he allowed her flush to deepen.
‘Well, I think I am rather unhappy,’ she said. ‘And it does so disappoint me.’
‘Do you think a lot about being happy?’ he asked.
‘I think about it all the time.’
‘Then, if I may say so, you are wrong to do so. I dare say you are in love,’ he said, punishing her for her earlier carelessness. Suddenly there was an antagonism between them, as he intended, for antagonism blunts despair. Edith raised eyes brilliant with anger, only to meet his implacable profile. He was apparently inspecting a butterfly, which had perched, fluttering, on the rim of one of the boxed geranium plants that marked the restaurant’s modest perimeter.
‘It is a great mistake,’ he resumed, after a pause, ‘to confuse happiness with one particular situation, one particular person. Since I freed myself from all that I have discovered the secret of contentment.’
‘Pray tell me what it is,’ she said, in a dry tone. ‘I have always wanted to know.’
‘It is simply this. Without a huge emotional investment, one can do whatever one pleases. One can take decisions, change one’s mind, alter one’s plans. There is none of the anxiety of waiting to see if that one other person has everything she desires, if she is discontented, upset, restless, bored. One can be as pleasant or as ruthless as one wants. If one is prepared to do the one thing one is drilled out of doing from earliest childhood – simply please oneself – there is no reason why one should ever be unhappy again.’
‘Or, perhaps, entirely happy.’
‘Edith, you are a romantic,’ he said with a smile. ‘I may call you Edith, I hope?’
She nodded. ‘But why must I be called a romantic just because I don’t see things the same way as you do?’
‘Because you are misled by what you would like to believe. Haven’t you learned that there is no such thing as complete harmony between two people, however much they profess to love one another? Haven’t you realized how much time and speculation are wasted, how much endless mythological agonizing goes on, simply