Although Joe had not, as far as Laura knew, been observant, the funeral was held two days later, as soon as the body was released, in a synagogue at the edge of the city. There she sat with the other women, in a gallery of the panelled room, looking down on the men who were weaving some kind of rhythmic process of memory and repetition that would mean something to the others there, but not to her. Laura was distant from it all, but intensely aware, in the way one might be in a dream, of Suzanne at the end of the row, and how her legs seemed restless, she kept tapping her foot or crossing her ankles. For a moment Laura felt as if she were in Suzanne’s skin and realised how unbearable her physical life had become to her, how she was only keeping herself in the room by a huge effort of will. The service had already begun when Laura saw Edward come in, unfamiliar in one of the head coverings that he must have been given at the entrance, and sit down tentatively, as if he was unsure of his movements, at the edge of a bench at the side of the men’s section.
As they walked out to the cemetery, she found herself looking again and again at Edward. There comes a time in a marriage when you stop seeing the man you are living with, and for many months now Laura had not looked straight at him. But suddenly, in that dark moment, when she would have given anything to have been able to walk away from him, and from herself, and all the horror that their relationship seemed capable of creating, Laura looked at him afresh. Was it pity that stirred in her, as she saw how lonely he looked there among those men who were all bound up in a shared ritual about which he and she knew nothing? Once they had been so sure that they were creating a new heaven on earth. And now, how uncertain he looked as he passed a hand over his mouth and listened to the men around him, but did not join their conversation. As the earth spattered down on the coffin in its newly dug trench, she saw him walk away from the mourners, back to work, alone.
Laura was told that the crowd were to go back to a relative’s apartment, not far from the synagogue, and when she got there she found the room held a dozen or so elderly Jewish men and women, and various trays of food. She sat with Suzanne for a while, their knees almost touching on the overstuffed sofa, listening to reminiscences, and at one point Laura found herself telling an old aunt of his about meeting him on the Normandie before the war. ‘He loved his work,’ Laura said, ‘being a journalist. He believed that he could tell the truth.’ The aunt nodded. ‘He was a good boy,’ she said, ‘a good, good boy.’
Even now, sitting here on the balcony and looking out over a lake in the long evening, this is the memory that flattens the horizon, that shuts down the light. You can excuse yourself, Laura tells herself, over and over again as the memories rise. Remember, you had no idea, you planned nothing, you asked for nothing except safety. They did it all. You did nothing.
There are always excuses.
Air
1950–1953
1
‘You haven’t changed,’ Sybil said to Laura. ‘Except you look so – American.’
Laura only realised as she stepped into the London house how incongruous she might look now, over-perfumed, over-made up and, as she shrugged off her coat, over-dressed in one of the boldly coloured bouclé dresses that all the Washington wives had been wearing that season. Edward hung back as they came in, and Laura began to talk, telling Sybil that she hadn’t changed one bit herself. In a way of course that was true. You can see the kernel of someone’s face and personality even when they have solidified. There had always been such a density to Sybil’s body and now she seemed even heavier, not fat, but solid and unsmiling, her square jaw and prominent nose more dominant with that new chignon taking her blonde hair up and back.
‘Just like the old days,’ Laura was saying, as if the thought gave her pleasure, turning from Sybil to Toby where he was standing in the doorway of the living room. And he too was planted, but the solidity seemed borne of uncertainty, as if he needed a moment to regroup as he took in the change in his brother. He nodded at Edward. ‘Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell.’
Edward nodded back, saying that he was on the mend, and Laura suggested that they should go upstairs and wash, the flight had been so tiring. They were not in their old room, Sybil was explaining, because that was the nursery now. They were further up. And how were the children? Laura asked, injecting eagerness into her voice. They were having supper with Nanny, Sybil told her, but Laura could see them afterwards. Women’s voices, going up the stairs, while the two brothers remained silent, following them. On the landing stood a familiar figure. ‘Ann!’ said Laura, moving forwards, remembering the intimacy they had known during the war.
‘Yes, Ann is still here – housekeeper now,’ Sybil said, going on up the stairs, as Ann stepped aside from Laura as if it would be bad form for them to acknowledge one another as friends. ‘We thought we’d have a quiet evening tonight, but tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to rest, everyone – Winifred, Alistair …’
And Giles? Laura was careful to sound happy about the plans. Yes, Giles would be there too, it would be dinner at the Savoy, it would be a celebration.
A celebration. Laura thanked Sybil and closed the door on her and Toby, leaving her with Edward in this unfamiliar room up in the eaves.
‘Here we are again,’ Edward said. In the early days of their love, how she had revelled in his silences. They had suggested they had little need for words. But now his laconic statements were painful; unsaid thoughts pushed against them. She stood at the window, looking down through the watery new glass onto the square that had been given back to ornamental shrubs, taking off her gloves, finger by finger.
‘Do you want to go down for supper?’ was all she said.
‘Yes, of course, can’t keep Toby waiting. I wouldn’t mind a bath.’
‘You go first, I’ll wait.’ We can at least be polite, Laura was always reminding herself.
The room they were in was rather shabby, as if put together from a go-round of other rooms – a too-big bedstead, a too-small wardrobe, curtains that did not quite meet in the middle of the window. But the ground floor of Sybil’s house had recovered its comfortable face, and was carpeted and well lit. The living room was now a surprisingly acid green rather than the previous turquoise, so that the old oil paintings looked out of place on the walls. As the evening dragged on, Laura realised that Sybil and Toby were reconstructing a life precisely modelled on their own parents’ and grandparents’ lives. The children had already been put to bed by their nanny, their dinner was four courses and served in the dining room where the portrait of Sybil’s mother had been restored to its pre-war place, and Sybil took Laura into the living room for a ‘little chat’ before the men joined them.
The chat, Laura was glad to discover, was not going to be about their husbands. The change in Edward and their ignominious return from Washington would not be discussed, and neither would Toby’s evident loss of direction now that he had lost his parliamentary seat. Laura could tell his heart was not in his new life as he crumbled a bread roll, talking of the biography he was working on, how the London Library was so helpful. So the two women sitting in the acid-green living room did not talk about the men as they tried to feel their way into some kind of ease. They talked about Mrs Last, and how unwell she had been ever since she had given up Sutton Court, and about Winifred, and how she had still not married, and Laura asked Sybil for all the details of her children and asked if she could photograph them one day. ‘It’s my little hobby,’ she said in a dismissive tone. ‘One has to have something,’ Sybil said, bracingly.
When they drove over to the Savoy for dinner the following evening, the city fell dimly on either side of them. Even in this, London’s richest neighbourhood, so many holes still gaped, so many façades were still filthy, paving stones still uneven. But then the lobby of the hotel opened before them, polished and coloured, as though private wealth could overcome public squalor with a single confident gesture.
The four of them were earlier than the others, but there were the first martinis to be
drunk in a bar where waiters fluttered and a pianist played an unfamiliar song. Here, in public, Sybil retreated into that formal manner that Laura remembered from the past. Now she read it differently, as self-consciousness rather than as a judgement on her, on Laura, but that didn’t make it easier to break through. Winifred’s arrival brought a new tension with it; Laura knew how curious she always was, and began at once to forestall her, asking her questions as they went through to the restaurant. She knew that Winifred had moved on from the Ministry of Food, but was unsure what she was doing now; her letters had become sporadic recently. That was because she had been so busy, Winifred apologised, and now she was moving on again. ‘It’s annoying that I’ll be off so soon after you’re back …’ Yes, out of London – out of England, in fact; off to Geneva and the United Nations outfit.
Laura was impressed. Not only by the understated confidence with which Winifred talked about one job and another, but by her whole presence. No longer did she seem to be trying to fit herself into a template of her mother’s idea of femininity, bursting out of it uncontrollably from time to time. Now she had taken possession of her own personality. Her hair was cut quite short, in a style Laura would never have recommended to anyone, but which made her head and shoulders look so energetic next to Laura and Sybil with their stiffly waved hair. And her dress – sleeveless, almost straight, unlike the other women’s wide skirts – gave her a different, more dynamic profile: her arms were strong against its plain lines.
As soon as Winifred began to ask Laura questions in return, Laura turned the conversation to Aunt Dee and what she thought of Winifred’s prospective move to Europe. It was not surprising to hear that she found it quite unbearable, all of a piece with Winifred’s inability to find a husband. ‘As for Giles …’ Winifred said, and Laura realised she was curious to see him. ‘You know he was chucked out of the Air Ministry. The poor thing is out in some odd medical place in Bristol now.’ There seemed to be a note of pity in Winifred’s voice. That was new. Hadn’t she always rather looked up to her brother, even when she had been angry or irritated by him?
And just then Giles came in with Alistair. Giles with an unexpected little beard, rather messy-looking, but Alistair apparently unchanged, his sharp blue gaze taking everyone in. Their gestures were as expansive, their voices as loud as ever, and as everyone was seated the energy rose; there were greetings and explanations, menus were opened, wine was ordered. But soon the group seemed to splinter. Sybil had become even more unbending, and was looking at Giles with a tight face as he recounted some anecdote about his new workplace – where they were researching brain waves, Laura understood him to say, in frogs and monkeys as well as people. There was a fragile edge to his confidence now, as though he had to exaggerate his words to believe them himself.
Meanwhile Alistair was talking sotto voce to Edward, asking him what he thought of his new novel, a thinly disguised autobiography. Edward had been holding it on the journey back, but Laura guessed from his diffident responses to Alistair that he had not read it, or had not liked it. Toby, on Laura’s right, had sunk into silence and Laura felt she had to try to rouse him by asking him more about the children. Nobody seemed comfortable in their conversations, and Winifred was observing Edward, Laura realised. Laura was quick to jump in to talk when the shutter came down over his face and he lost the thread of the conversation, but as the evening wore on Winifred’s glances towards him were frequent.
After the plates of the main course were cleared, Winifred stood up. ‘Come on,’ she said, touching Laura’s shoulder. Thinking she was just going to the bathroom, Laura stood up with her and left the room. Once they were out of the restaurant, however, Winifred took Laura’s arm in a tight grip and led her through to the bar. ‘Two martinis,’ she said to the barman and then turned to Laura. ‘So, what is up with Edward?’
There was a line that Laura had already used a lot, and she used it now, without a pause. ‘He’s had a breakdown. It all stemmed from overwork – it’s just been the most fearful strain. You know he hasn’t stopped working for all these years; we’ve hardly had a holiday. They put too much responsibility on him in Washington. No wonder he had a crack-up.’
The drinks came, and Laura took refuge in hers, fishing out the olive and putting it unwanted into her mouth, where it sat, salty and inedible.
‘What sort of crack-up – mad?’
Laura swallowed down the olive and took a sip of the cocktail. Too weak and not cold enough. What could she say about the weeks after Hiss’s sentence and Joe’s funeral, Edward’s days of torpor and sudden breaks into crazed energy, her desperate attempts to stop him drinking? Better to say nothing. At least other people could still believe in their marriage. So she glossed over it, telling Winifred that she had asked the embassy herself for sick leave for Edward so that he could come home and rest.
‘And they agreed?’
‘Had to, really – he’s been so wonderful over the years. They don’t want to lose him. They say he has to get treatment; they’ve recommended a psychiatrist …’ Laura could not go on. This was her new fear, blotting out the rest. What would happen if Edward did go to a psychiatrist? What might he say? How would he manage, to talk without talking, to try to be frank without ever letting slip a word? She tried to smile, but her face seemed tight. ‘You know, I don’t know how a psychiatrist will help – I’m not sure of that kind of thing …’
To her surprise, Winifred began to give quick advice. ‘Don’t let them send him to any old quack, send him to Lvov – you remember him? He’ll understand.’
Winifred said that as if there was something she understood, something that she knew and Laura knew. And at that moment Laura felt that there might be, like an oasis ahead of her, the prospect of laying down, just for a while, the dragging burden of secrecy. She looked at Winifred, longing and afraid. ‘But is he really trustworthy – it has to be someone who can help him get back to work, not just embark on some, you know, trawl through any troubles …’
‘He will understand. Look, I’ll tell you a secret,’ said Winifred. ‘You’ll have to swear not to tell a soul, though.’
Laura nodded, as another gulp of her martini hit her throat.
‘Giles went to him. You see, the reason why Giles doesn’t work for the government any more is that they got nervous about his – well, his chequered love life. Oh, let’s not pretend. They didn’t like him fucking all the boys. There was a young man who was determined to make trouble. We only managed to stop a prosecution by the skin of our teeth. Lvov got him out of a tight corner – told his bosses at the Air Ministry he was tackling his perversions. I don’t know if he was or he wasn’t, but Lvov backed him up. He had to leave in the end, but at least nothing went public.’
Laura realised, with a slow dawning, that Winifred thought that Edward had overstepped the mark in the way that Giles had. Did Winifred think – did she really think, that Edward also …? Laura’s mind closed down on this absurd suggestion and she did as she had always done when she felt she had lost control of the situation, she mimicked Winifred’s own thoughts and voice, saying in a high tone, ‘It’s important that Edward gets back to work. It’s important that nothing – nothing that would bother the Foreign Office …’
And Winifred, apparently sure that they were both talking about the same thing, agreed. ‘Exactly. It’s pretty awful the way that these boys have to toe the line not just at work, but even, you know, in their private life. Lvov understands that, he won’t say anything that will put Edward in bad odour with Whitehall.’
‘It’s worth thinking about.’
‘I’ll give you his number. You could go and talk to him first, if you think that would be best. Now drink up, tell me how you have been doing.’
After their drinks they went back to the others, and Sybil looked reproving; they had been absent for too long. But the men had not noticed; there were quite enough anecdotes about old acquaintances to sustain them without the women’s conversation. Although to
Laura the energy of the evening seemed already to have dispersed, Giles was talking about where they would go after dinner. Apparently the Ace had closed down ages ago, but he knew somewhere just like it, he told them.
‘I have to go back,’ said Sybil, frowning at Toby so that he motioned for the bill.
‘Let’s go on,’ said Edward, pushing away his glass. Laura picked up her purse. She knew she had to go with him, though she didn’t know if she could bear to listen to many more of Alistair’s descriptions of a hilarious prank a writer friend of his had played on some pompous critic, or Giles’s complaints about how some chap at the Maudsley had got all his ideas on delta waves from Giles’s own paper on the subject. But there was no stepping off for her now, so she got up with apparent alacrity and accepted her coat from the waiter, and went along at Edward’s elbow to one basement club and then another, and even after Winifred had gone home and the clubs were empty apart from a handful of sodden men, she stayed with him and Alistair and Giles, and at the end of the evening she got him into a taxi, and she and the driver dragged him out of it and up Sybil’s steps.
2
Lvov’s room, book-lined and carpeted, was screened from the noise and bustle of Marylebone High Street. For an instant, walking in, Laura felt a familiarity with it, but she could not place why. Perhaps it bore a resemblance to Toby’s study in Chester Square. Lvov himself was unchanged, and had a reassuring air of finding everything completely unsurprising. It was as though he had expected her one day to walk into his consulting room and tell him about her husband’s crack-up. So she talked just a little more frankly than she had with Winifred, although still all the things that could not be said were loud in her head, so loud that sometimes she lost the thread of what she was saying.
A Quiet Life Page 33