Without doubt, I am very much better. I have put away the past, a zone that I regret ever entering. I enjoy the special ease that comes from no longer depending on anyone else, however well-intentioned.
Above all, I am no longer dependent on myself. I feel no obligation to that person who fed and groomed me, who provided me with expensive clothes, who drove me about in his motor-car, who furnished my mind with intelligent books and exposed me to interesting films and art exhibitions. Wanting none of these, I owe that person, myself, no debts. I am free at last to think only of the essential elements of existence — the visual continuum around me, and the play of air and light. The house begins to resemble an advanced mathematical surface, a three-dimensional chessboard. The pieces have yet to be placed, but I feel them forming in my mind.
A policeman is approaching the house. A uniformed constable, he has stepped from a patrol car parked by the gate. He looks up at the roof, watched by an elderly couple who seem to have summoned him.
Confused, I debate whether to answer the doorbell. My arms and shirt are streaked with soot from the fireplace.
‘Mr Ballantyrie -?’ A rather naïve young constable is looking me up and down. ‘Are you the householder?’
‘Can I help you, officer?’ I assume the convincing pose of a law-abiding suburbanite, interrupted in that act of lay worship, do-it-yourself.
‘We’ve had reports of a break-in, sir. Your upstairs windows have been open all night — for two or three nights, your neighbours say. They thought you might be away.’
‘A break-in?’ This throws me. ‘No, I’ve been here. In fact, I’m not planning to go out at all. I’m cleaning the chimneys, officer, getting rid of all that old soot and dust.’
‘Fair enough…’ He hesitates before leaving, nose roving about for some irregularity he has sniffed, like a dog convinced of a hidden treat. He is certain that in some reprehensible way I am exploiting the suburban norms, like a wife-beater or child-molester.
I wait until he drives away, disappearing into that over-worked hologram called reality. Afterwards I lean against the door, exhausted by this false alarm. The effort of smiling at the officer reminds me of the interior distance I have travelled in the past week. But I must be careful, and hide behind those faades of conventional behaviour that I intend to subvert.
I close the windows that face the street, and then step with relief into the open bedrooms above the garden. The walls form sections of huge box-antennae tuned to the light. I think of the concrete inclines of the old racing track at Brooklands, and the giant chambers excavated from the bauxite cliffs at Les Baux, where Margaret first began to distance herself from me.
Of course a break-in has occurred, of a very special kind.
A month has passed, a period of many advances and a few setbacks. Resting in the kitchen beside the empty refrigerator, I eat the last of the anchovies and take stock of myself. I have embarked on a long internal migration, following a route partly inscribed within my head and partly within this house, which is a far more complex structure than I realised. I have a sense that there are more rooms than there appear to be at first sight. There is a richness of interior space of which I was totally unaware during the seven years I spent here with Margaret. Light floods everything, expanding the dimensions of walls and ceiling. These quiet streets were built on the site of the old Croydon aerodrome, and it is almost as if the perspectives of the former grass runways have returned to haunt these neat suburban lawns and the minds of those who tend them.
All this excitement has led me to neglect my rationing system. Scarcely anything is left in the pantry — a box of sugar cubes, a tube of tomato paste, and a few shrivelled asparagus tips. I lick my fingers and run them round the bottom of the empty bread bin. Already I find myself wishing that I had fully provisioned myself before embarking on this expedition. But everything I have achieved, the huge sense of freedom, of opened doors and of other doors yet to be opened, were contingent on my acting upon that decision of a moment.
Even so, I have to be careful not to give the game away. I maintain a reasonably kempt appearance, wave from the upstairs windows at Mrs Johnson and gesture apologetically at the overgrown lawn. She understands — I have been abandoned by my wife, condemned to the despair of a womanless world. I am hungry all the time, kept going by not much more than cups of sweetened tea. My weight has plunged; I have lost some fifteen pounds and feel permanently lightheaded.
Meanwhile, the outside world continues to bombard me with its irrelevant messages — junk mail, give-away newspapers, and a barrage of letters from Dr Barnes and the personnel department at the bank. They burn with heavy, solemn flames, and I assume that I have been sacked. Brenda called to see me three days ago, still puzzled by my cheerful demeanour. She told me that she had been reassigned, and that my office has been cleared of its files and furniture.
The letter-slot rattles. From the doormat I pick up two leaflets and a plastic envelope, a free sample of a new brand of chocolate. I rip it from the packing, and sink my teeth into the rubbery core, unable to control the saliva that swamps my mouth. I am so overwhelmed by the taste of food that I fail to hear the door-bell chiming. When I open the door I find a smartly dressed woman in tweed suit and hat, presumably some solicitor’s wife working as a volunteer almoner for the local hospital.
‘Yes? Can I -?’ With an effort I recognise her, as I lick the last of the chocolate from my teeth. ‘Margaret…?’
‘Of course.’ She shakes her head, as if this trivial social gaffe explains everything about me. ‘Who on earth did you think I was? Are you all right, Geoffrey?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’ve been very busy. What are you looking for?’ A frightening prospect crosses my mind. ‘You don’t want to come back…?’
‘Good heavens, no. Dr Barnes telephoned me. He said that you’d resigned. I’m surprised.’
‘No, I decided to leave. I’m working on a private project. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
‘I know.’ Her eyes search the hall and kitchen, convinced that something has changed. ‘By the way, I’ve paid the electricity bill, but this is the last time.’
‘Fair enough. Well, I must get back to work.’
‘Good.’ She is clearly surprised by my self-sufficiency. ‘You’ve lost weight. It suits you.’
The house relaxes its protective hold on me. When Margaret has gone I reflect on how quickly I have forgotten her. There are no tugs of old affection. I have changed, my senses tuned to all the wave-lengths of the invisible. Margaret has remained in a more limited world, one of a huge cast of repertory players in that everlasting provincial melodrama called ordinary life.
Eager to erase her memory, I set off upstairs, and open the windows to enjoy the full play of afternoon sun. The west-facing rooms above the garden have become giant observatories. The dust cloaks everything with a mescalin haze of violet light, photons backing up as they strike the surface of window-sill and dressing-table. Margaret has taken many pieces of furniture with her, leaving unexpected gaps and intervals, as if this is a reversed spatial universe, the template of the one we occupied together. I can almost sit down in her absent William Morris chair, nearly see myself reflected in the missing art deco mirror whose chromium rim has left a halo on the bathroom wall.
A curious discovery — the rooms are larger. At first I thought that this was an illusion brought about by the sparse furnishings, but the house has always been bigger than I realised. My eyes now see everything as it is, uncluttered by the paraphernalia of conventional life, as in those few precious moments when one returns from holiday and sees one’s home in its true light.