Read Online Family and Friends by Anita Brookner - Free Book Online

Alfred is going to Paris,’ she says, ‘I am going with him.’ ‘Good idea,’ agrees Frederick. ‘Paris is very charming at this time of the year. You are all making a fuss about nothing. I will stay here and keep Mama company.’ None of them acknowledges this remark.
    Stern but in full control, Alfred stands at the window the following morning, waiting for the car to come round. Mimi is a little delayed; as usual, before any sort of a journey, she feels unwell. She does, in fact, need all the forces at her command in order to accomplish this mission, although she does not quite know what she is going to do. One thing is certain: Betty is to be brought home. If nothing is said – and it would be better if nothing were said – then the implications of this desertion need not haunt her, and somehow they will all get over it. The unmentionable act, the image of which Mimi finds constantly in her mind, will have been, if not avoided, then certainly not consummated. That is all she can hope for now, and she begins to see, sadly, that this must be enough. She begins, in the way of all those who are born to lose, to imagine her way past this terrible damage andto try and regain favour in Frank Cariani’s eyes. She will, she thinks, have a cheerful but honest explanation with him; no reproaches, of course, merely an indication of how she herself feels. Being a decent fellow, Frank will then compare the conduct of the two sisters in his mind and be won over by Mimi’s honesty. Mimi thinks that this is how hearts are won, not believing for a moment that Betty’s is the surer way. Behind this belief lies an unbearable vision of the world’s duplicity that must not come to full realization.
    On the train they say little to each other, although Alfred is considerate towards his sister. He knows that she will have a bad crossing. He himself is filled with a rising tide of distaste for this adventure, although he still derives a certain comfort from his displacement of Frederick. He is young enough to take pride in his manliness, and in the feeling of his grateful mother’s arms about him as she embraced him for the last time. He does not ask himself why Betty has chosen to disappear. He attributes this escapade to her basic instability, and he realizes, with a coldness which could be unrelenting, that she has exchanged an innocent sojourn in the company of Nettie for this grubby escapade in an unfamiliar hotel in Paris. His distaste, which is tempered in England by the knowledge of Frederick’s loss of favour (for Alfred has always been jealous of him), swells almost out of control by the time they are in France. Jolting down the corridor of the French train, in an effort to buy a cup of coffee for the woebegone Mimi, Alfred is accosted by a rough-looking individual with a tray round his neck, and is forced to purchase a bottle of some nameless cordial for a very high price. While he picks up his change and tries to work out the tip, the individual becomes restless.
‘Alors, Monsieur,’
he upbraids Alfred.
‘C’est pour aujourd’hui ou pour demain?’
There is a further muffled altercationas Alfred attempts to squeeze past him; he stumbles a little and the man with the tray is not displeased.
    This tiny incident puts Alfred off balance and when he is once again seated next to Mimi and the overhead wires and cables of the track seem to rush together as if anxious to reach the journey’s end, he surveys his sister’s pale face and suffering expression and tells her rather sharply to tidy herself up. Alfred is in fact in an agony of discomfort, feeling himself to be disregarded and unknown; although his French is excellent it is the French of Victor Hugo and it has not been of much use to him so far. And there is the business of the hotels to be sorted out – he imagines that they will have to get on the trail as soon as they arrive – and he is very hungry and they have brought too much luggage. Seeing him momentarily