Read Online Lewis Percy by Anita Brookner - Free Book Online Page B

Learn to look beyond the outer covering. Would you like some of those crumpets for tea?’
    They had been passing one of the mild small shops that did duty for a bakery in this unworldly district. Two girls in overalls carelessly swathed uncut loaves in tissue paper and swung bags round by corners, varying this activity with sorties to the window to pick out yellow Bath buns and virulentjam tarts with fingers arched daintily for the purpose.
    ‘Remember, Lewis,’ his mother had said. ‘Never buy cakes unwrapped.’
    ‘I wouldn’t buy this stuff anyway,’ said Lewis, whose standards in these matters remained haughtily and unrealistically Parisian. ‘I could just fancy a strawberry tart,’ he added. ‘Freshly made.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ said his mother, ‘I’m sure you won’t say no to the crumpets. Fortunately, they come in packets.’
    ‘Good afternoon, Hazel,’ she had said to one of the two girls behind the counter. ‘Father feeling better?’
    For she had been the genius of the place, he thought, and had somehow made her peace with its lack of pretension, loving its modesty, its uneventfulness, its quiet afternoons. Little ceremonies – the planting of the hyacinth bulbs in the blue china bowls, the drawing of the curtains in the evenings, the bars of soap slipped between the clean sheets in the linen cupboard – all these had kept her happy, kept her attentive, so that with the help of her reading, and with her pride in her son, she had lived a peaceful widowhood, maintained a dignity for which he was grateful. He had had time to reflect on her life, which he now saw as excellent, and which he hoped would always remain with him, and even, when some time had elapsed, cancel out the memory of her death. He would always see her here, against the background of the Common, or else stepping on her narrow beautifully shod feet into the little bakery, the little grocery, exchanging remarks with the shopkeeper, or the girl assistant. Going home to put on the kettle, to build up the fire for the evening, to water the plants. This was a life, thought Lewis, that would always be part of him, although in his mind he longed impatiently to be somewhere else, to be off to a wider, more sophisticated metropolitan setting, one more in keeping with the adult he hoped he had it in him to be, although adulthood still seemed to him to be a long way away. His boyhood, the last days of which he was sorrowfully living, would remain imprinted with hismother’s quiet habits, whose decency he would always defend.
    His mother’s presence was particularly strong on this day when he returned the library books she would never exchange for others. He mounted the steps, pushed through the swing doors, obediently straightened his tie. Once again he succumbed to suburban peace, aware of a rawness round his heart which responded gratefully to the books, to the readers, to the sunlight through the windows, to the smell of polish. Mr Baker was there, he noticed, doing the crossword in
The Times
, although this was forbidden; at least he was not asleep. Miss Clarke was on duty, in a red dress that brought out her high colour; even the lobes of her ears, tightly clasped by large pearl studs, looked suffused. The other girl, the pale one, was searching through the tickets that went back into the books being returned by a very old lady, who drew each one, trembling, from the depths of a woven brown leather bag. Miss Clarke flashed him her famous smile, the one she used to enslave men and reprimand wrongdoers.
    ‘Mother not with you today?’ she asked. It was the question he had been dreading.
    ‘My mother has died,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought her books back.’
    There was a shocked silence. The pale girl turned round, even paler. Miss Clarke, her hand on her heart, paused in her task.
    ‘Well, this has been quite a shock,’ she said, after a second or two, lowering the hand to pluck a dazzling white handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘This