Free Making Things Better by Anita Brookner

uninteresting. He’ll advise you. I should get in touch with him as soon as possible. He’ll have the flat in Hilltop Road, by the way.’
    â€˜I can’t take this money,’ he had repeated.
    â€˜It’s all perfectly legal, if that’s what you’re worried about. And why not have it now, instead of waiting till I’m dead?’ He grimaced. ‘Why wait?’ he said. ‘Simmonds had the same reaction, couldn’t believe I was doing the decent thing. But I always wanted to do the decent thing. The times were against it; that was the beginning and the end of it. I had to claw my way up, and I don’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it. Only it ends badly, Julius, remember that. You end up looking on, reduced to less than half of what you were. I dare say I shall do as well as I can, out in Marbella. In the sun there’s less need to think. And I want to get rid of the past, just live in the present, or what remains of it.’
    â€˜Are you sure? You might be lonely.’
    â€˜Of course I’ll be lonely. But there’s a loneliness that comes with age anyway. There’s nothing I can do about that. And there’s a sort of club there, all ex-pats, all on their last legs, all making quite a good job of it. It’ll be like going back to school. Absurd!’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Anyway I’ve put you in the picture. You’ve got about a month to sort yourself out. The new owner will dispose of the stock; I’ve given him a few contacts. Wants to open a hairdressing salon, I believe. I didn’t want to go into his plans; I’ve lost interest anyway. I just want my place in the sun, for as long as I’ve got. As I say, take anything you want from here. The two armchairs are quite good. And that little table. Belonged to my mother.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘Don’t let me down, Julius. Do as I wish. That way it won’t all have been in vain.’
    â€˜I don’t know how to thank you,’ he had said wonderingly.
    â€˜No need. I can’t take it with me, can I?’ He wiped his eyes. ‘I suppose this is our last meeting. Get in touch with Simmonds if you need anything. Now get me a cab, there’s a good fellow. Got some packing to do.’
    On the pavement he seemed frail, unlike his former self. The transformation was already under way. ‘Hilltop Road,’ they both told the taxi driver. Then it seemed natural to embrace, as they had never done in the old days, natural for Julius to stand waving, until the cab and Ostrovski were out of sight.
    The suddenness of Ostrovski’s announcement seemed to have obliterated any response. Julius went to his small desk and scrutinized the invoices and accounts, the contents of which he knew by heart. But it was no good; he could make sense of none of it. His working life, it seemed, was over. Not quite what I expected, he had admitted to himself in the course of the afternoon. Yet he had expected nothing, and had been endowed with freedom, a freedom for which he was entirely unprepared. And he was relatively well off, though he would have to check with this Simmonds person that the gift was perfectly regular. He seized the telephone and dialled the familiar Hilltop Road number. The call went unanswered. The next thing to do was to find out the address of Simmonds’s office, and make an appointment to see him. Then he would have to find somewhere to live. The prospect posed even more difficulties; he had never exercised his own wishes in this respect. From Berlin to Hilltop Road to Edgware Road all his homes had been chosen for him. And home was such an emotive concept that he doubted whether he would be able to live up to it, to make a place for himself in a world where people exercised choices. On an impulse he hung the CLOSED sign on the door and went up to the flat. He had grown used to it, in a resigned, almost philosophical sort of way: he had not