Free The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner Page A

afternoon.
    After clearing away the lunch she had been toying with from the kitchen table I went and surveyed Digby in the drawing-room, suppressing a wish (but registering one) that he would remove himself if he wished to doze unobserved and not do so in such a public space. My father had had the same unattractive habit, which he pursued as a deliberate strategy in order to defy my mother's angry remonstrances. It was his defence against her, and although clearly willed, it was also genuine. He seemed able to plummet into unconsciousness at a moment's notice, and this had soured the atmosphere at home and reconciled me to the various changes in my situation. Now, by an exquisite irony, I seemed to have been returned to my origins, the only difference being that my father's place had been taken by my husband. I did not think that men should behave like this, was annoyed with Digby for being too somnolent to wish my mother a sufficiently ceremonious goodbye, although I had sensed her reluctance to engage with him for longer than was necessary. She had seemed to want to confine herself to women's talk, largely in order to share what I now understood as her fear of the future. The woman with whom she lived, and whose contributions covered the villa's expenses, could not be counted upon to care for her. They had met on a cruise and had formalized their plan to retire to the sun without giving the matter much thought. Indeed my mother, who had not previously been known for her appreciation of female company, was no doubt regretting the arrangement but was unable to dismantle it. She may even have been looking to Digby as the man of the family who would know how to extricate her, cancel the friend, sell the villa, or, if not, advise her how to proceed and in a more general sense what to do.
    Her need of support, in the broadest sense of the word, had not been met by any helpful suggestion on my part. I was embarrassed for her and by her; the hand that went repeatedly to her face served only to emphasize her altered looks. And I was embarrassed for and by Digby who had clearly not wished his afternoon to be disturbed, claiming a right to the peaceful enjoyment of his home in what he viewed as his holiday. Again the thought of Edmund's holiday intruded, not only with the inducements and embellishments that I was used to reading in the travel brochures that I had loyally brought home, thinking that by doing so I was demonstrating an enthusiasm that I knew to be acceptable, but with a clear and piercing vision of Edmund himself, enjoying the sort of intimacy to which I should never be admitted. There was nothing to be done about this, and at that moment I knew the situation to be unalterable, even irreparable. I took a book at random from off the shelves and prepared to sacrifice the afternoon to Digby's so-called holiday and to respecting his wishes. He liked to have me sitting near him, so that he could reach out and take my hand. In this way we were both appeased, for I was newly aware at such times of his goodness of heart. I lowered my expectations to meet his own, and in so doing achieved a measure of virtue. The book I had taken at random, or so I thought, was unfortunately Madame Bovary, and the evidence of Emma's adultery seemed out of place. I closed it quietly and put it aside, exerting myself, as I often did, to observing everything in the room, as if to reassure myself of its validity. Digby took my hand and asked me whether I wanted to go out; I told him that I was perfectly happy for the moment but that we might take a walk later, perhaps eat in one of the local restaurants. I thought he mumbled rather, but put that down to his recent sleep: fortunately we had both eaten earlier, before my mother's inconvenient arrival, on which I now looked back with a sense of displacement. This, as always, I looked to Digby to disperse. But it seemed to me that his own face had become a mirror image of my mother's, with the same slight