Read Online Providence by Anita Brookner - Free Book Online Page A

is wrong,’ he said, ‘is that I am without the one I love.’
    Kitty sat very still. Her distress for him was almost as great as her distress for herself. The street lamp outside her window blurred for a moment; then, resolutely, she stared at it until it became clear again. ‘That’s all, folks,’ cried an ebullient voice from the radio in Caroline’s flat, followed by an injunction to the audience to take care of itself and be at the same place, same time, next week.
    She turned her head to look at him.
    ‘Won’t you tell me about it?’ she asked, and her voice was just the same as it always was.
    He still sat staring at the floor, his hands knotted, his expression bleak. After a long pause he turned to her and looked at her as if she were a stranger. When he began to speak, it was as if his voice were coming from a long distance, from far back in his skull, as if it were travelling over territories of experience which Kitty had never even glimpsed.
    ‘Tell?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
    ‘Oh, Maurice,’ said Kitty sadly. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
    He smiled at her briefly, then returned his gaze to the floor.
    ‘No, really,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to tell. I never talk about it. I was in love with this girl and we were looking forward to getting married but she discovered that she had a vocation. She’s working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. That’s all.’
    ‘What was her name?’ asked Kitty.
    ‘Lucy. She was called Lucy. I’ve known her all my life. We always loved each other. Our parents were neighbours.’ He broke off, but Kitty sensed that he was now ready to talk.
    ‘Shall I make some more coffee?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes, why not?’
    He followed her into the kitchen, as if unwilling to be left alone. His presence, and the words she had just heard, disturbed her, and she spilled a little water from the kettle. Picking up a dishcloth, he wiped the drops from the floor.
    ‘You’re as bad as Lucy,’ he said. ‘She was the most untidy creature I have ever met.’
    ‘Did you love her very much?’ said Kitty, willing her hands to remain still.
    ‘Yes, of course. Enough to last me for the rest of my life. Shall I take that tray?’
    They sat down again, silent. A burst of urgent music from the next flat signified a change of programme. Then Maurice sighed.
    ‘I know that she prays for me,’ he said. ‘As I pray for her. I know that we shall never be closer than we are now.’ He sighed again. ‘I am so bored without her to talk to,’ he said. ‘We always shared everything. I have no one to talk to now.’
    This time she took him in her arms and held him, and as they sat together in the darkening room she felt her whole heart dissolving in sadness and wonder.
    It was Maurice who disengaged himself, and to her surprise he recovered quite quickly. His smile, vague, pleasant, prohibitive of deeper enquiries, was back in place. He drank his cold coffee and held out his cup for more. Kitty, aware that they were passing a momentous evening, yet fearful of all that she had heard, and uncertain how they could proceed after this, went into the kitchen, her hands unusually agitated. He shouldhave told me this before, she thought. I would have understood all that. But I lacked the information. Quite simply, I lacked the information.
    Returning to the sofa, and to Maurice, with more, unwanted, coffee, she said, ‘And are you still on God’s side?’ She was genuinely curious.
    His smile intensified, became ineffable. ‘Don’t you see? God is on
my
side. He gave me years of happiness and love that can never disappear. I regard myself as married. It is as simple as that.’
    Oh, Maurice, thought Kitty. I shall never know what you feel. The intensity. The purity. I simply want to live with someone so that I can begin my life. I want you, in fact. And you want nobody.
    ‘Maurice,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘I do understand. And please, please, trust me. I am your