The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Author:Julian Barnes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780307957337
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-04T10:00:00+00:00

A week or so passed, and Brother Jack’s name was there in my inbox again. “Here’s Veronica’s email, but don’t let on you got it from me. Hell to pay and all that. Remember the 3 wise monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That’s my motto, anyway. Blue skies, view of Sydney Harbour Bridge, almost. Ah, here comes my rickshaw. Regards, John F.”

I was surprised. I’d expected him to be unhelpful. But what did I know of him or his life? Only what I’d extrapolated from memories of a bad weekend long before. I’d always assumed that birth and education had given him an advantage over me that he’d effortlessly maintained until the present day. I remembered Adrian saying that he’d read about Jack in some undergraduate magazine but didn’t expect to meet him (but nor had he expected to go out with Veronica). And then he’d added, in a different, harsher tone, “I hate the way the English have of not being serious about being serious.” I never knew—because stupidly I never asked—what that had been based on.

They say time finds you out, don’t they? Maybe time had found out Brother Jack and punished him for his lack of seriousness. And now I began to elaborate a different life for Veronica’s brother, one in which his student years glowed in his memory as filled with happiness and hope—indeed, as the one period when his life had briefly achieved that sense of harmony we all aspire to. I imagined Jack, after graduation, being nepotistically placed into one of those large multinational companies. I imagined him doing well enough to begin with and then, almost imperceptibly, not so well. A clubbable fellow with decent manners, but lacking the edge required in a changing world. Those cheery sign-offs, in letter and conversation, came after a while to appear not sophisticated but inept. And though he wasn’t exactly given the push, the suggestion of early retirement combined with occasional bits of ad hoc work was clear enough. He could be a kind of roving honorary consul, a backup for the local man in big cities, a troubleshooter in smaller ones. So he remade his life, and found some plausible way to present himself as a success. “View of Sydney Harbour Bridge, almost.” I imagined him taking his laptop to café terraces with Wi-Fi, because frankly that felt less depressing than working from the room of a hotel with fewer stars than he’d been previously used to.

I’ve no idea if this is how big firms work, but I’d found a way of thinking about Brother Jack which brought no discomfort. I’d even managed to dislodge him from that mansion overlooking the golf course. Not that I would go so far as to feel sorry for him. And—this was the point—not that I owed him anything either.

“Dear Veronica,” I began. “Your brother has very kindly given me your email address . . .”

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