That evening, Kit drove off to the station to pick up Joe. Tom had planned a cookout on the shore, and brought together his usual group of holidaymakers – half a dozen couples and a few of their older children who were excited to be out so late. The day had been hot, and for once the heat seemed to be lasting into the evening, as Tom and his friends built a fire of driftwood on the edge of the pebbles for the barbecue and set up the drinks on a trestle table.
‘Suzanne isn’t with you?’ Laura said, when she saw Joe alone, standing near to Kit.
‘She finds this crowd a bit stifling, to be honest. Says they remind her too much of her own family.’
‘Really? I thought she was—’
‘She’s Jewish, yes, her mother is, but her dad comes from a good Washington family. She seems to have got the worst of both worlds: her mother thinks she shouldn’t be working at all and her father wishes she had done something more rarefied than journalism. They certainly don’t think I’m the right man for their princess.’
Laura made sure to look interested, although her mind was running on other things. Where had Edward got to? And should she have brought down a sweater for later on? But Joe was now completely caught up in their conversation; he had never lost that ability to throw himself wholeheartedly into social interaction. He turned away from those around them so that nobody else could hear what he said, and looked at Laura intently as he spoke. ‘I just don’t know. I think she’s a great girl, obviously she’s swell, bright and beautiful and all that, but I’m thinking of going off to Europe again.’
Laura could not see why Europe would be the pull for him, but when she asked why he just shook his head impatiently.
‘I don’t seem to be making my mark here.’ As they talked, they moved away from the others and started walking down to where the waves came up over the pebbles. Laura kicked off her cork-soled sandals and he bent to take his shoes off too, when they reached the edge of the water. ‘I feel like I keep missing the boat. Truth be told, I’m angry with myself. Years ago Kit told me to get in touch with a man he knew who knew some stuff about Reds in government. I didn’t follow it up – did you see the papers today?’
Laura had not, but she knew with a dull certainty what he was talking about.
‘This Carswell just went in front of the committee and blew the roof off it – the names he’s named … to think I could have been in on that story – hey, Kit!’ Joe shouted behind him, to where Kit was standing with a young man who had a house further down the coast. ‘Did you see Carswell’s testimony today?’
Kit shook his head, and said it was crazy, that nobody could take it seriously. The young man next to him agreed.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The man they’ve named at the Carnegie Endowment, I think I knew him at Harvard. This Red-baiting is getting out of hand now, you’ve got to wonder where it’s going to end. They’re going after everyone: they picked up one of the girls in my office the other day for investigation. Sure, she’s in the union – since when was it an offence to be in the union?’
‘They’ve probably got it in for the man at the Carnegie because he’s cleverer than they will ever be,’ Kit said. ‘You’re not falling for this, are you, Joe?’
Joe turned away. ‘Let’s get our feet wet,’ he said to Laura, and they went down to where their toes were nudged by the waves.
‘It’s not hard to see why Suzanne finds this crowd stifling,’ he said as they stood there, and he started to imitate the way that the young man had spoken, his high voice and dismissive tone. ‘I think I knew him at Harvard. My days, he can’t be a traitor, I think my mother knows his mother; my word, he’s not a spy, I got drunk with him last year, he’s quite a pal, you know.’ Laura went on smiling into the distance as Joe berated Kit and Tom and their friends for being so blind to the threats that might be growing for their generous, liberal instincts.
As soon as she could, she asked him why he was thinking of going travelling. ‘I’m older than you think,’ Joe said, though in fact Laura had little idea how old he was, ‘and what have I done all my life? I thought I’d get some serious writing done one day, get on to some real stories, and what is there to show for all these years? I haven’t even looked at these things that are going on now. It’s all going on in Washington now – and where am I? On the outside, that’s where – I’m always on the outside.’
Laura asked him in a light voice what he thought any of them on that beach had done.
‘But it’s different for men, you know – if we’re not doing something, it’s tough, really tough to feel satisfied.’
It’s funny how men assume it’s so different for women, Laura thought. ‘I didn’t think my life would turn out quite like this either,’ she said. Perhaps Joe thought she was referring to her lost baby; at any rate he fell silent and Laura tried to move the conversation on. ‘It all felt different in the war, didn’t it? I can’t believe that was three years ago. It feels like another world.’
‘There was so much at stake then.’ Joe sounded as if he regretted that they were no longer at war. They had walked quite far up the beach, and they turned and looked back at the group of people. Laura saw them from the perspective Joe had just described: self-satisfied liberals, sheltered from the world, unable to see the new threats that were gathering for them. But where was she in this picture? Her real existence did not register in anyone’s scheme. It was as though she herself had become a blot, a negative patch in a coloured film. Only when Edward or their handler, Alex, looked at her did her true colours show; and she wanted Edward to look up, to see her even at this distance. There he was, but he was sitting on a rock, his gaze turned out to sea.
Someone had brought a wind-up gramophone, and a few couples had begun to dance on the flat sand. Joe and she walked back to the group in silence and then, without warning, Joe caught her hand and put one arm around her waist, to dance with her. That kind of physical shock is unpredictable. It had been so long. She felt the warmth of his skin, smelt his cigarette-tainted breath and the grassy tang of his cologne against his sweat. The music changed, became slower, and Joe seemed aware of her physical response; his hand moved on her back and brought her closer to him. The certainty of her enjoyment: it had been there nine years ago, it was here again. There was something dangerous in that, and Laura realised she had to break away. She sat down with the others and tried to join in the conversations that were eddying around her.
For a while she gossiped with Ellen and a couple of the other women. Ellen and Tom had now found a house that they wanted to buy, further up the coast, and she and the other women were discussing it in detail; what renovation it needed, how far it was from the station, whether the garden was too small, whether it would be good to start on a side addition immediately or wait until they had spent some time there. Although Laura wasn’t at her best in such conversations, never having had a house of her own, she was willing to play her part. ‘You must do the addition,’ she said to Ellen, in the ingratiating tone that she felt was expected of her, ‘otherwise how can Edward and I come to stay with you in the summers? I won’t forgive you if you don’t.’
‘It is a nice house,’ Ellen said in a self-satisfied voice. ‘And it’s near enough to the club – we can all go there for dinner rather than having these kind of scratch parties.’
‘But Ellen, it’s such fun when Tom does this.’
‘It’s such a bother, though, with the children too. They took ages to settle tonight.’
Laura went over to the table to get another drink. As she did so, she tuned in to the conversation the men were having around her, and she realised to her dismay that they were still talking about the revelations at the committee hearings the previous day.
‘This Carswell is obviously completely paranoid, off his head. I hear he made his friend walk behind him into the committee in case some Reds took potshots at him to silence him,’ Kit was saying, and Tom was agreeing with him, saying that the people he was naming were just old New
Dealers. ‘It’s pretty disgusting to see journalists throwing dirt all over them, they’re patriots too.’
‘I’m not saying they are evil,’ Joe conceded. ‘I bet most of them were just naïve – I know the committee is going too far a lot of the time – but he is talking about people who could have sold serious secrets.’
‘That’s right,’ said another voice, a female voice, one of the women who had been talking up to now only about house additions and children. Then she said something more about how there was bound to be another war soon and they had to protect their way of life. That was not the way that Tom and Kit’s friends usually talked, and Laura felt the discomfort in the air, but the woman went on burbling about the prospect of a war to come, and nobody challenged her.
‘Where’s the whisky?’ That was Edward’s voice, slurred, in the darkness.
‘Here,’ said Kit, ‘No, wait, over there – mind out!’ Edward had stumbled onto his foot.
Edward mumbled his apologies, and Laura heard a young woman behind her whisper to her husband, ‘Never get between a drunk and his drink.’
The party went on and on. From the outside, one might have thought that this would have been one of those summer evenings that fulfilled all the expectations of the season: the stars, the dancing, the driftwood fire that flamed with sudden spurts. But Laura was constantly aware, like the dull throb of a headache that will not go away, of Edward sitting there drunk on the dunes, replying to questions in a slipshod, uninterested way. As the night wore on, Joe sat down next to her. Laura asked him for a cigarette and bent to the flame of his lighter. She asked him where he was thinking of going in Europe, wanting to turn the conversation onto lighter subjects, but his answer returned to dark places.
‘Berlin would be pretty interesting – or maybe I’ll go further afield. We need to know more about what’s happening in China.’
Laura asked what Suzanne thought about him going away.
‘Well, she’d like to go too. She’s trying to get a reporting position, get off the home page.’
Laura was not surprised, but Joe’s next remark was unexpected, when he said that they were looking for more photographers on the paper and Suzanne had said that he should mention it to Laura, in case she was interested. Laura brushed it off, saying that she was not looking for work and Joe said that was what he had thought, he knew she was busy with the things that embassy wives did.
‘I’m not that busy – is there any more gin?’
Joe called out to Tom, asking where the liquor had gone.
‘You know, I think we’ve drunk the lot.’
‘No drink left?’ Edward staggered to his feet. ‘How are we going to get through to dawn with no more drink? Is it naïve, or evil, to start a party with not enough gin?’
Joe laughed. ‘Edward, tomorrow I’m going to challenge you not to drink for a week.’
‘Tomorrow I’m going to challenge you to stop flirting with my wife.’
There was a pause in which Laura could feel people shying away from what he had said, and then Joe tried to fill the silence, telling Edward that he mustn’t be surprised if people flirted with Laura. Edward mumbled something, and then took a step forward, tripped and lurched over onto his face.
For a moment there was silence, and then all was scurrying, embarrassing motion as Joe and Kit came to his aid, pulling him upright again. ‘Come on, Edward,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s get you back to the house.’
Laura got up, offering to help, and she and Joe half dragged, half supported Edward through the dunes and along the stone path in the dusky lawn back up to the house. All the way he was breathing hard, and suddenly he said, ‘You’re not such a bad man really, Joe, but come the revolution you’ll be up against the wall, and I’ll be sorry – Laura will be sorry too, you know – sorry,’ and then he stopped and vomited, and then they went on again. Joe pulled and pushed him up the stairs to the bedroom and together they laid him on the bed. Laura took his shoes off. He was asleep already. When Laura thanked Joe, her voice sounded shakier than she expected.
‘Don’t take it too much to heart – everyone can let off steam now and again,’ Joe said. ‘I’m more than tipsy myself tonight. He’ll feel like hell in the morning, though – we all will.’
Not quite knowing what she was doing, Laura touched his arm. There was a shudder of warmth in the touch. Did it come from Edward’s assumption, or had it been there all along, had it been there for nine years? No, that was ridiculous. Joe did not react at first, and then he put his hand on Laura’s wrist, moving his fingers on the skin of her inside arm. For a moment Laura was lost in the heat of the sensation, and possibility flamed, a path never taken opened before her, and then they both, as if by mutual consent, turned away from one another. When he was gone, Laura pulled off her dress and lay there on the bed, next to her unconscious husband. The breeze from the sea came in through the open window and moved over her naked body.
6
In the warmth of the hairdressers, Gervase’s fingers were dry on the nape of Laura’s neck as he put in the curlers. ‘You are going out tonight?’ he asked, looking at her in the mirror.
‘No, not tonight – just wanted to look nice for my husband.’
‘He’s a lucky man,’ Gervase said automatically. Laura saw Mrs Rostov come in. She had left the bag, as she always did, on the floor in the waiting area, and she saw Mrs Rostov sit down next to it. ‘We’re ready for you now, Madam,’ said one of the assistants, but Mrs Rostov shook her head. ‘Wait one minute, bring me a cup of tea, I’m tired out.’ As she waited, she put her bag down next to Laura’s, and then stood up holding the other bag. They were so accustomed to the exchange now, but always it was an effort for Laura to keep her eyes on her magazine or her reflection rather than following Mrs Rostov’s movements with her gaze.
Gervase set the big bubble dryer, and she looked at her magazine. The words danced up and down in front of her eyes; she was tired. Edward had been out all night, coming home reeking of drink just before dawn. When she heard his step in the room, she had asked him where he had been. ‘Getting away from it all,’ he had said, and rolled onto the floor and fallen asleep there in his clothes. When the alarm went off a couple of hours later, Laura had to rouse him and push him to take a shower, to wash away the smell of stale spirits. Going into the bathroom after him, she noted that he had missed the lavatory when he had urinated, and balling up a wad of toilet paper she had wiped the floor.
‘This can’t go on forever, you know,’ she had said to him over breakfast, looking into his bloodshot eyes, ‘you’re killing yourself with drink.’
‘It won’t go on forever, though, will it? Did you see his sentence?’
Laura knew that Edward was referring to Alger Hiss, whose trial had ended the day before, but she couldn’t let him dwell on it. The thought that any of their handlers might also turn out to be a turncoat was too destabilising. It was better not to talk about it.
‘He did it for his children, for his God,’ said Edward, holding one hand with the other, to stop them trembling.
‘Who?’
‘The man who betrayed him. He said that even though communism will win in the end, it’s better to die on the losing side than to live under the spiritual night of communism. Do you think Alex ever thinks that?’
‘Of course he doesn’t, he’s Russian himself, isn’t he?’
‘Is he? He sounds American to me.’
Laura knew it was time to end the conversation. She told him to pull himself together, that he was late for work. He mumbled something about how he was indeed late, for the important discussions about better ways to kill one another. ‘I mustn’t miss them, they could be useful.’
‘You know it is useful; I know it is. Here are the papers from the day before yesterday.’ Laura was putting the copies into the black bag and brushing her hair as she spoke.
‘Look at you, so clean and sure,’ said Edward, and moved towards her to give her a kiss before he went. It was a w
hile since they had embraced, and she put one hand on his cheek and stroked it. How dry the skin felt now, how bitter it smelled, the skin of a sleepless alcoholic. Laura remembered it now, under her fingers as she sat in the hairdresser, and, looking into her face in the mirror, she lifted her hand to touch her own face. In the mirror she caught Mrs Rostov’s gaze very briefly, but did not engage.
Gervase was distracted by another customer and slow to come and comb Laura out. When he was finished, her hair looked shiny and set, at odds with the tired, sad look on her face. She remembered when she was younger wondering why older women went to such lengths to dye and dress their hair, since when it was most beautifully done it only threw into sharp relief their faded faces. She stood putting on her camel-hair coat before she left the salon; the air was fresh after the thick heat of the hairdresser. On the sidewalk she saw a familiar face. ‘Joe! What are you doing round here?’
As Joe greeted her, Laura felt a sudden rush of self-consciousness when she remembered that night at Portstone, but that was long ago now. Ever since that evening, way back last summer, they had hardly met, only in passing at big parties.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she muttered. Standing there, she was blocking the doorway, and someone had stumbled against her. It was Mrs Rostov, tying a silk scarf over those aubergine curls. They nodded at one another – just the slightest, the most casual nod – and she walked over to a waiting car.
A Quiet Life Page 31