The Bay of Angels by Anita Brookner

Author:Anita Brookner [Brookner, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-04-18T07:50:55+00:00

“Your mother had a slight episode last night,” he said. “This was successfully controlled, but we shall keep her under close observation for a day or two.”

“A slight episode of what?”

“Her heart is not strong. There may have been one or two episodes in the past.”

“You mean she had a heart attack?”

“No, no. An irregular beat, nothing more.” He looked at me more carefully. “You did not know of this?”

“I knew simply that she liked to live quietly.”

“She will have had some awareness of her condition. Did she not consult a doctor in England?”

“I have no idea.”

I assumed that it was possible. I knew little of my mother’s daily life, and of her recent life in France nothing at all. Yet it seemed logical that her extreme passivity was an act of self-protection, and her quietness an attempt to palliate any form of aggression from her body. I doubted whether Simon had known any of this, for she would have wished to protect him as well as herself. That protection extended even to me; her silence was the safeguard of my liberty. Now I saw her as the vulnerable creature she had always been, vulnerable not through loneliness, though that is vulnerability enough, but through an awareness of her own fragility. The only sign of delicacy was her rest in the afternoons. But then women of her kind did rest, in shadowy bedrooms, whereas women of my generation, instructed to assume their independence and to enjoy it, took little rest and despised those who did. Ladylike behaviour had long been renounced in favour of a more militant stance; we were at the cutting edge, fighting for equality. We had no time to rest from our labours, for we owed it both to ourselves and to others of our kind to carry on the fight.

Suddenly I felt very tired of the struggle. My mother had chosen her way of life, one that was certainly anachronistic, and had taken full responsibility for it. I saw her as an heroic figure, isolated, certainly, but with resources of her own which I had not suspected.

“Is she very ill?”‘ I asked fearfully.

“No, no. Hearts can recover quite successfully with the correct regime. But she will require care. Please do not cry. She has you, though you are young, and it may seem a little unfair …”

“Yes, it is unfair, but I will do what I have to. My mother is innocent …”

He smiled. “Ah, yes, the innocent place an unfair burden on the rest of us. I know how you must feel. I too had the care of my mother. I loved her dearly, but she took away all my hopes.”

“Yet, here you are, a doctor …”

“That was her wish for me. Not mine, not originally. But she made so many sacrifices for me, and would have made more.”

“You rewarded her.”

“Yes, I did. It was important for me to do so. You have found somewhere to live?”

“For myself, yes. A room which I quite like,

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