While there was little in her life that wasn’t personal, nevertheless the term shamed her. She disliked underselling the drama of her turbulent heart. Jean creased her pencilled eyebrows with puzzlement.
‘I promise I’ll make it up to you,’ swore Agnes impetuously. She released Jean’s hand, which had been lying limply in her own for some time. ‘I’ll settle down, I promise! Just give me a month and I’ll show you. Please!’ She fixed her with martyred eyes. ‘Please.’
Having always nurtured a secret belief that she had been born in the wrong century, and would have been far better employed in one where she could have spent her days on a chaise-longue scheming how to ensnare a wealthy husband, Agnes had disdained the modern world of work in the hope of better things. Such a perspective, subverted though it was, sat uncomfortably alongside the egalitarian flavour of her political beliefs. In private moments she reasoned that her idiosyncratic personality would not conform to iron-cast office hierarchies; and while she was haunted by the idea that she might not be normal, she religiously avoided any activity which might serve to make her more so.
Working late on Friday brought upon her a plethora of new sensations, not all of them pleasant. On the evening in question she expended as much effort on quelling her emotional uprisings as on any extraneous proof-reading. Her whole being seemed to revolt against the engagement of her mind with anything which did not directly concern it; but as she took the bus home through the night-time city, she caught a glimpse of a small but comforting interface. The truth was that she felt rather better. Indeed, she felt almost virtuous. She settled back wearily into her seat, meditating upon the integrity of labour.
The days in which he had not called had accumulated like dust on a mantelpiece. She had raked through the ashes in the hope of uncovering something the flame of his rejection had spared. The truth, in the end, was that with no one around any longer to take responsibility for wasting her time, even she could not bear the thought of doing it for herself.
Chapter Eighteen
AGNES started walking home from work at night. It was a long way from Finchley Central, and the money saved did not justify the expenditure of effort involved. This new practice was, however, not part of a plan for economic stringency. It was more of an extension of the secret life of solitude Agnes had lately felt herself to be living.
The first time she had attempted the strenuous hike through the congested hills and vales of north London, it had not been through choice. She had arrived at the bus stop to find her purse empty of change, and with the uncertain logic of such trying moments had decided she could as easily walk the three or four arduous miles homes as the two hundred yards up the high street to the nearest bank. It had taken her over an hour, and she had arrived weary but exhilarated, to find the house dark and silent. The others had apparently gone to bed, and as she made a solitary cup of tea in the kitchen and carried it upstairs she realised this state of affairs was rather pleasant. The part of the day in which one had to field questions and explain oneself now seemed to her the most arduous. She drifted around her darkened room for a while like an intruder, touching things. The next morning she got up early and left for work before the others were awake.
Agnes had never been one for being alone. She had always felt herself becoming blurred around the edges after an hour or two and had gone to seek more stimulating company. Now she began rather to enjoy the sensation of encroaching invisibility. It became something of a challenge. How long could she go without calling on her friends for support? Would they worry, wondering what had happened to her? Would she become mysterious and desirable with absence, returning to find herself somehow nicer, her life enhanced? In the old days the house had been her nerve-centre, for as well as providing the solaces of friendship it had been a hub of news: phone calls, letters, unexpected callers, all of the things which pumped her heart like a life-support machine emanated from home. The fact that now she dreaded its quiet telephone and reminders of bills unpaid did to some extent facilitate her protracted absences.
She walked down into East Finchley, under the railway bridge, and on towards Highgate. The winter darkness was sharp and clear, but the streetlamp turned the sky a muddy brown. Her feet pounded on the pavement. Her breath came out in misty dragonish puffs. The rhythm was almost mechanical. She liked the way her mind emptied of nebulous worrying thoughts when she was walking, and housed instead a set of honed perceptions. She had little experience of such intentness.
As she approached Highgate she stopped at one of the garish late-night garages, which hummed and glowed incongruously by the roadside like spaceships, to buy some chocolate. Normally Agnes would never have eaten such a thing, let alone in the street, but her midnight perambulations had begun to lend her a certain immunity to the common gaze. Initially she had been troubled by the stares of occasional passers-by on the lonely pavements, especially the men, who looked at her first as if wondering what she was doing out alone so late at night, and then away, perhaps frightened of the implications, already seeing themselves accused. She wondered if they sensed her fear of them and were ashamed. Later, when habit had dissolved her fear of strangers, she thought it was they who were afraid. She knew how she must look: peripatetic, unwanted, a mad glint in her eye. It was almost enjoyable.
She passed through Highgate village and began to walk down the long hill to Archway. Buses lit up like moving blocks of flats whooshed past her. A car sped by, its horn blaring, arms waving from the windows like streamers. Her heart pounded with surprise. A film of sweat sprang up beneath her clothes. She took out her bar of chocolate and began to unwrap it with shaking hands. Only a moment before she had felt immune, her identity a faint question mark over her head. Now she wondered what on earth she was doing at this sordid roundabout, when it was so late and cold that any normal person would have longed to be home. Suddenly she too longed to be home. A delayed flame of pain shot through her, illuminating her in the darkness. She tried to cross the road and was met with a barrage of horns.
Finally she reached the Holloway Road. She took a piece of chocolate and put it in her mouth just as a man walked past her on the pavement.
‘You’ll get fat,’ he said. His face was concerned.
‘Just — just piss off!’ Agnes shrieked as she hurried away.
By the time she reached Drayton Park she was almost running. She crammed more chocolate in her mouth, but her breath seemed unfortunately to collide with it on its way out and she began to choke.
‘Hey!’ someone shouted from across the road. ‘Hey, you!’
She quickened her pace with terror. She could hear footsteps behind her.
‘Good God, Agnes,’ said Merlin, overtaking her and then stopping in her path. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I–I don’t know,’ replied she between coughs and gasps. ‘Someone was shouting. I was scared.’
‘Oh, that was me. I was only joking. Hey, you’ve got chocolate all over your mouth.’
They walked back to Elwood Street. Agnes wiped her mouth surreptitiously on her sleeve.
‘Do you fancy a drink?’ said Merlin when they got in. ‘We could go to that pub on the Blackstock Road. We could have a chat.’
It was a long time, Agnes realised, since she had been out. She went upstairs to change into other clothes. She wondered what Merlin wanted to talk to her about.