Free Look at Me by Anita Brookner

occasional boredom. Since I had long ago cast myself in the role of an observer, always with my writing in mind, I observed, but always with little shocks of either pleasure or disappointment. I observed their areas of tolerance and intolerance, their favours offered and just as abruptly withdrawn. I found myself striving to capture their attention, their good will. I knew that I could lose all this quite easily, simply because I was so predictable, so consistent. So bourgeois, as Alix would say, not troubling to hide from me the fact that this was the supreme condemnation. I see no harm in the bourgeois way of life, myself. I like regularity of behaviour and courtesy of manner and due attention paid to the existence of other people. I like an ordered life and discretion and reliability. And honesty. And a sense of honour. But I am aware that all these things have little currency where matters of love and friendship are concerned, and that an attractive shamelessness is a good passport to social success. Much better value, as Alix agreed, when I once said some of this to her.
    And yet they had a sort of regard for me, or perhaps it was a tolerance, an acquired taste, a novelty. They cast me in the role of their apprentice, and as such they looked after me. They would never, for example, allow me to take a taxi, when we left the restaurant; they always insisted on driving me home. Alix would question me persistently about my love affairs, my income, my desires, and I would answer her in all simplicity. And yet I would see her turn with evident relief to the roaring ritual insults she exchanged with Maria. Maria, in her way, was a critic. Maria sharpened her up. And when Alix had a fight on her hands, an intrigue, a speculation, she was released from the cold grey boredom, in which ambiance I so clearly belonged.
    They soon became an addiction, to which I gave myself,aware that it was precarious but also aware that it was more fruitful than my regular orderly life, with its bourgeois preoccupations, that it yielded more company, more excitement, than I could hope to find on my own. Sometimes it left me a little sad, and the images would resurface, and the images would be of a resignation and of a patience with which I had always been impatient. I would exchange the burden of my memories and of Nancy and Dr Constantine and Dr Simek and all the other doctors that I looked at every day (Goya’s Dr Arrieta would come into my mind) for the haphazard and impromptu and exciting company of the Frasers, for their restlessness and their cruelty and their kindness. I took, as they say, the rough with the smooth. I could no longer think of life without them.
    As for Maria, I found her oddly restful. She was pleasant to me in an offhand but perfectly polite manner and accepted me, always with a formal handshake, before turning her attention to Nick and Alix, with whom she shared the same callous and unselfconscious jokes. I regarded her as an adjunct to their life which I did not resent, and which did not even interest me very profoundly. I got on with my dinner, handing them over to her in my mind; their quarrels and teasing raged over my head while I gathered strength for further study. And of course I wrote it all down.
    The restaurant was always crowded, always full of noise and smoke. Voices rose, jokes were shared between tables, new arrivals greeted with mockery or acclaim. Everybody knew each other or about each other. An indecent sort of honesty prevailed and I soon knew the secrets of every couple or threesome; I discounted these as irrelevant to my enquiry and let the provocative comments go past me. I was a little surprised at their lack of reserve, and at Alix’s persistent questioning. But they seemed to find it normal, and perhaps it was. Certainlythey seemed to enjoy it. It had the liberating and unsettling effect of one of those encounter groups, in which people are encouraged to criticize each other, or confess, and from