Anita Brookner - Undue Influence  

Acclaim for
ANITA BROOKNER

Brookners novels are models of psychological observation that remind us of the myriad glances, asides, and gestures that indicate so much we usually miss or dismiss.

The Christian Science Monitor

One of the very few contemporary authors whose novels deserve to live on well into the next century.

The Washington Post Book World

Brookners control over the material is absolute.

Jane Smiley

In Undue Influence, the novelist has created in Martin Gibson a discerning, right-on portrait of the masochistic male. Of Miss Brookners novels Ive read, this one may have given me the most pleasure.

The Washington Times

If Henry James were around, the only writer he would be reading with complete approval would be Anita Brookner.

The New York Times Book Review

Brookner is a writer of great skill and precision. Passages of brilliant writing abound, hard-won insights that startle us with Brookners clarity and succinct intelligence.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

It is my conviction that everyone is profoundly eccentric. Those people I pass on my way to work every morning almost certainly harbour unimaginable fantasies. Nor are my neighbours entirely to be trusted. Once my mother and I were disturbed by the sounds of a ferocious altercation coming from the flat above ours in Montagu Mansions, yet the following day we were able to address our usual greeting to the stately widow who lived there and who was visited, as far as we knew, only by her son, an economist at the Department of Trade and Industry. Shortly afterwards she informed my mother that she was going to live with her son in Maida Vale. This was somehow understood to be a sensible arrangement, arrived at in a mature manner, although to judge from that epochal argument it seemed less than reasonable. She was in the habit of looking in on my mother, who rarely left the flat. Poor boy, his marriage did not work out, she said, with a lovely show of tolerance, but my mother reported the gleam of victory in her fine eyes. She had promised to keep in touch after she moved, but my mother died and the widow failed to put in an appearance. I dismissed this as normal behaviour, and was able to do so because by that time I had come to realize that most people are entirely inconsistent and that one is advised to treat them gently, keeping ones scepticism to oneself. Not to let it show is a desideratum of civilized behaviour.

My other conviction is that everything is connected. That widow in the upstairs flat, whom I knew only slightly, I immediately identified as the mother of the man I observed drinking his coffee in the caf in Marylebone Lane where I occasionally stop on my way to the shop, for no better reason than that he had a cowed and submissive look which could have been caused by nagging from more than one quarter. A scenario immediately suggested itself: the wife and the mother at odds, the mother waging ceaseless and not very subtle war against the wife and finally bearing her son away in triumph, like the warrior she was. To the victor the spoils. This man in the caf, with his fair bent head, his meek neck, looked like one of those Christians bound to be thrown to the lions. And his mother would have been accustomed to thinking of herself as her sons accredited girlfriend, his companion on holidays, his escort on social occasions. This sort of mother never forgives this sort of son for indulging in sexual activity, and should he marry, which in many cases he does in order to get away from his mother, will act as if she has received a mortal blow from which she may not recover. Her performance, which will be carefully calibrated, will necessitate anxious telephone calls from the son; she in her turn will have no hesitation in calling him at his place of work, sometimes in tears over an implied snub from the wife by whom she purports to be baffled. But Im his mother! she might say, in the face of certain objections to her frequent visits, so that relations would be broken off and the son would have to visit his mother surreptitiously on his way home. Finally there would be a demonstration of the wifes unworthiness, like the one my mother and I had overheard, and the die would be cast: mother and son would live together as if no marriage had taken place. The man drinking his coffee in Marylebone Lane wore a clean shirt every day and had neatly combed hair, like a schoolboy. I imagined his mother inspecting him before he left home. A wife would be too busy.

Naturally it is likely that none of this was true. This man in the caf might be unattached, and our widow in the flat above entirely innocent. Except that she gave out an aura of unfulfilled sexuality that led one to reflect on the penalties of widowhood, and the troubled legacy to childrenalthough as far as I know she only had the one son. Apart from this there was nothing in her demeanour that was unseemly, or rather there was nothing else in her demeanour that was unseemly. But she seemed unusually combative, as if a campaign were in progress. My mother was the only woman she did not view as an antagonist, largely because my mother was so polite. She knew that the widowMrs Hildrethfelt sorry for her, was mildly amused by this, but was good-hearted enough to play her part. Playing her part involved venturing no opinions. And I think she admired the womans gusto, imperfectly concealed by a worldliness that was acquired rather than innate. Her eyes would roam round our plain living-room, with its oak furnitureeven a settle!its large blurred green carpet on the hardwood floor, its densely patterned curtains, the volumes of Ruskin in the bookcase, as if William Morris were still alive, and she would condemn it out of hand, reflecting complacently on her own swagged and cushioned apartment, on which my mother had reported with perhaps justified satisfaction.

We never saw the son, which enabled me to identify him with the stranger in the caf. But the curious fact is that I saw Mrs Hildreth again long after these imaginary events had taken place. I saw her from the back, lingering outside Selfridges, and I noticed how much older she seemed, her neck bent in that characteristic elderly stoop, although her hair was as carefully burnished as it had always been, and her ankles were still slim above the obstinately high heels. She had not given in. On the other hand she looked idle, absent, and she was in the original neighbourhood.

Mrs Hildreth? I said. Do you remember me?

Her eyes, when they focused on me, seemed slightly strained, as if her sight were failing.

Its Claire, isnt it? she said finally.

Yes, its me. How are you?

Oh, still out and about, you know. She gave a poor smile.

Still in Maida Vale?

Yes, although the flat is too big for me now. My son married again, you know. Im on my own now.

Come to think of it I had not seen the man in the caf for some time. Married again! Then the story was over. Except that it never is, is it? Mrs Hildreths alteration was now explained, as was her withdrawn expression. She stood as if expecting me to tell her what to do next. Clearly she was now without occupation, one more old lady submitting to the inevitable shipwreck.