Look at Me Read Online Free

in my solitude and hidden by it, physically obscured by it, rendered invisible, in fact, writing is my way of piping up. Of reminding people that I am here. And when I have ordered my characters, plundered my store of images, removed from them all the sadness that I might feel in myself, then I can switch on that currentthat allows me to write so easily, once I get started, and to make people laugh. That, it seems, is what they like to do. And if I manage this well enough and beguile all the dons and the critics, they will fail to register my real message, which is a simple one. If my looks and my manner were of greater assistance to me I could deliver this message in person. ‘Look at me,’ I would say. ‘Look at me.’ But since I am on my own in this matter, I must use subterfuge and guile, and with a bit of luck and good management this particular message will never be deciphered, and my reasons for delivering it in this manner remain obscure.

Two
    These odd feelings of isolation may have something to do with my immediate environment, which is, I suppose, anachronistic. Maida Vale is a very strange neighbourhood, I always think, full of huge blocks of flats which in their turn seem to be full of small elderly people. Very few of these people seem to be about in the streets, which are always deserted, and those who venture out for a spot of shopping wear enormous fur coats and have dogs and sticks. When I come home in the evenings I see no one, although I can smell enticing cooking smells behind the closed double doors on each landing. I imagine dinner parties being prepared; I imagine hostesses with silver hair and small diamond earrings leaning heavily forward to light candles on walnut tables. Their guests will probably have travelled no farther than next door or the floor below, but they will have dressed up for the occasion, the ladies in old but good black chiffon dresses, the gentlemen in velvet jackets and bow ties. They will all be in slight physical distress, appropriate to their age, but they will be very gallant and good-humoured, and they will exclaim in delight at the strength of the sherry in the consommé,and compliment their hostess profusely. These excellent people attend lectures at the Victoria and Albert Museum and occasionally team up to go to the National Theatre, which they do not enjoy. ‘My dear, I found it difficult to
breathe
,’ they will say to each other. They usually make up a four for bridge, or sometimes two fours, and there will be a cup of tea for the ladies and a whisky and soda for the gentlemen at eleven-thirty. They will kiss each other affectionately as they leave, and insist, ‘You must come to us next time.’ I don’t know any of these people, of course. I can simply smell their food, which is very good. Various ladies sent flowers when my mother died, but after I had written to thank them I threw away the cards. I am aware of a nod and a smile from behind a door, should it happen to be open when I pass, but as I am out all day, and as they apparently play bridge all night, or at least until eleven-thirty, there is hardly much chance for us to meet. Besides, they are all so much older than I am.
    I am very much aware that this is a building for old people, with its red stair carpet and the heavy lift with the iron gates and the polished brass letter boxes and the small corpulent porter. The residents belong to that class and generation which was never told to lower its voice, so that cries of ‘Phyllis! My dear!’ ring out from floor to floor until the door shuts behind the fur-coated visitor. I have seen small grandchildren appear at Christmas, in coats with velvet collars; they are excessively well-behaved and hold their mother’s hands. Their cheeks are quite flushed when they re-emerge, either from the Christmas cake so proudly produced (‘Your great-grandmother’s recipe, my darlings!’) or at the prospect of opening the crackling parcels which they cradle in