‘It was after this friend of yours died that he broke down?’
As Lvov asked her a few questions about Edward’s relationship with Joe, she realised that, just like Winifred, he was assuming that sexual secrets were driving Edward’s horrors. She wished she could confront that assumption, pull it out and destroy it, but she knew that to do so she would need another narrative to override it, and that narrative had to remain dark. She continued to talk about how important it was that Edward became fit enough to work and that he tackled his drinking. As she spoke, she realised how she must appear: an American girl who put all her faith in clean living and hard work. She stumbled, and tried to make it sound as though the obsession with work came from Edward. ‘The Foreign Office is his life. But … he needs to be reassured … that he doesn’t have to do everything perfectly. He overworks terribly, you know, he feels every failure – of diplomacy – on his shoulders.’
‘And I have to report back on him to the Foreign Office, do I?’
‘Well, yes, that’s what I understand. But the thing is … if anything damaging … tell me, Mr Lvov – about confidentiality.’
‘I can report to the Foreign Office if necessary about his suitability to work … not about other issues. My job is not to investigate crimes.’ And then he went on talking about what he could do, how he could explore the motivation for addiction, for unhappiness, but Laura was not really listening. She was wondering whether he could understand a crime that was not an overload of private longing. Would he find it inexplicable, or merely uninteresting, that a man might be driven by a political rather than a sexual dream?
Then he was asking for more details of Edward’s breakdown and Laura explained to him that the drinking had been going on for so long, nothing remarkable in that, everyone drank in Washington, the long evenings were fuelled by drink, but it was as though, after Joe died, Edward had lost the brakes, and sometimes, once or twice, the drunkenness had spiralled into violence. Laura said a little about one night when she had been called by the police and heard that Edward and a young man had been fighting on the steps of a Washington hotel. The young man was a mild, intellectual type from the State Department; how he and Edward could have come to blows she still did not understand. Perhaps, she said to Lvov without conviction, it had merely been lost footing, one falling against another while going drunkenly downstairs.
‘And you, what about the effects on you, tell me …’
That question came as a shock, and Laura shifted in her chair. ‘It was so hard – it’s so—’ She came to a halt, and Lvov allowed a silence to settle.
Ever since the day when she had alerted Alex to her fears, Laura had felt unanchored, the waters around her too unpredictable. She had never spoken even to Edward about what she had done; and sometimes she was filled with a nebulous hope that if it was never said, it had not happened. Perhaps Joe had never known about their secrets, perhaps his death had been an accident, perhaps she could breathe freely again. And then she would wake again to a morning when all the breath was crushed out of her by guilt. Was it that rocking of guilt and hope that left Edward so unmoored?
As those thoughts ran through her, she felt as though she was about to speak. How seductive were the promises of the psychoanalyst, she saw now – here, all would be confidential; here, nothing would leave the room; here, maybe she could lay down the armour for an instant. ‘I’ve always known he is under strain – but it was …’ But as she began, a sensation almost like falling came over her and she realised why the room felt familiar to her.
With a rush, an old memory was coming back, taking her in its grip: there had been a room, not this one, but similar, a room made for listening. And filled with a similar presence, a doctor she was supposed to talk to, to tell why she was being so difficult, why she would not eat. She was thirteen, fourteen maybe, in Stairbridge, the sounds through the windows were the sounds of Main Street in summer 1934, and the secret she was about to tell was so great she would not tell it, she would never tell it, it had to remain in the place where the lies were kept, where the violence was hidden. Offered a chance to break it open, she did then as she would do now, rising and shaking her head, saying she must go, that she was fine, but now she was in control, she was an adult, she was promising Lvov that Edward would be in touch shortly, she could shift off the danger and free herself from the terrible temptation of honesty by walking away and into Marylebone High Street, walking away from the possibility of opening the door to where all the secrets lay, and there was that little leather shop she had heard about across the street which sold the softest pumps … she went in, tried on a pair, saw herself in the mirror, well dressed, quiet, unremarkable.
She was wearing the same outfit, a grey dress with white collar, that she had worn when she had gone to see Edward’s superior at the embassy in Washington. That had been the day after Edward had lost control. The day when she knew something had to be done, when Edward realised she had hidden the drink in the house, when he had started to smash up the kitchen and the living room, looking for it, when she had tried to hold him back and fallen against a coffee table. This grey dress with its high neck and long sleeves had been useful to hide the long bruise on her upper arm; in it she looked respectable and well kempt, despite the hopelessness in her face.
Edward’s superior was one Robin Muir. He was a silver-haired, tall man with a withered left arm, who had become embarrassed when Laura had allowed herself to cry in front of him – a few tears, a tremble in her voice, as she said that she thought Edward was pushing himself over the edge. He had agreed with her, it was time to get him home. He had murmured with an attempt at reassurance that it was only because he was such a good worker that he was finding it all such a strain. She nodded, as she remembered how Edward Last had once been Halifax’s golden boy, Inverchapel’s right-hand man, Oliver Franks’ trusted confidant. ‘I think three ambassadors have rather relied on your husband. He probably has felt the responsibility too much. I’m sure you have too. It must have been difficult for you both.’
As Laura walked back to Sybil’s house, her mind was clouded. But she held onto the main thing: Lvov would see Edward, he had promised secrecy, and even if he did not understand what he was promising to be secret about, it was the best she could do. A quick glass of brandy, she thought, and then I’ll feel better, but she stopped the thought. She must stay in control. It frightened her that twice recently she had been tempted to tell someone about things that must never be told. But had she really been tempted? Letting herself into the hall, taking off her hat, she wondered. Maybe she had just been testing herself, building the walls again. Building them higher.
Going into the living room, she found Edward looking through a book. He seemed to be writing notes on it, absorbed. When he heard her, he looked up and for the first time in a while there seemed to be a smile on his face. He had changed, as everyone had noticed; his face had slackened and yellowed, his demeanour had lost that characteristic certainty. But when energy returned to him, as now, the change was not so obvious. ‘Take a look,’ he said, crossing over to the window. Laura was unsure what she was meant to be looking at. The street was wide and bright, there was nobody there, just a woman with a dog, walking slowly. ‘I mean the motor,’ Edward said, pointing out a blue Austin parked outside. ‘Bought it off Alistair – he didn’t want it any more. Come on, we’re going out for the day, London’s too stifling.’
Sliding into the passenger seat next to Edward, Laura wished she had had time to change her grey dress, which was already sticky under the arms. ‘There must have been an accident,’ Edward said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as they sat in a long traffic jam in Bressenden Place. But as they left the city behind, Laura wound down her window and felt the breeze. English spring, later, more tentative, more promising, than spring in Washington, had got into its stride while she hadn’t been looking. All through the edges of south London were ribbons of new housing, but eventually a green patchwork of fields a
nd low hills, drenched in sunlight, asserted itself. The silence between them solidified during the drive, until finally Edward slowed down in a village: a wide green, a pond dappled with light, a few rows of well-kept houses, a pub. ‘This is the spot,’ he said, parking.
As she got out, Laura asked how he knew the place. It was odd to think that he had come here before the war, before they had met, and yet had remembered it. An old university friend had lived nearby, he explained. ‘Will you be warm enough here?’ Here was a garden behind the pub, with wooden tables worn grey and grass going to seed around them. That politeness, he relied on it as she did, covering up the hopelessness between them with the careful give and take of civilised conversation. As he went into the pub to get drinks, a rather mangy cat wound itself around Laura’s legs. She pushed it away, thinking it looked as if it had fleas, and it sloped through the grass as if it did not care, over to another table. Edward came out with a lemonade for himself and a gin and tonic for her, and a menu. She never knew what to choose at places like this, so she let him decide. Although the pie with a thick brown gravy looked unappetising, it was hot and savoury. They soon exhausted talk of the pie, the pub and the cat, which had returned and was pushing its head against Edward’s leg.
After they had eaten, they lit cigarettes and looked out over the almost too picturesque scene, and Laura was wondering whether she should start to talk about Lvov when Edward spoke. ‘I know you want to move out of Sybil’s.’ She had raised this already with him, since the retreat back to being guests in that house made her feel as though she was trying to relive something long gone, but she was unprepared when he said that he was thinking that they should move right out of the city, into a village like this. As soon as he said it, she could see why he suggested it. As far as she knew, their handlers had not been in touch. Perhaps they would not be in touch. Perhaps the precious Virgil and Pigeon were both too tainted now. Perhaps this could be the chance for a new start. A quiet life.
She did not know what to say. She stalled, asking if he was serious. ‘We don’t have to decide now,’ he said, getting up, and then suggested that they should go for a walk. They went to the bar to pay, and then Edward took her through the village, onto a footpath he seemed to remember on the other side of the green, which soon ran uphill into a wood. Bluebells lay in electric puddles among the trees, and cow parsley brushed their legs. The richness of the flowers and the birdsong, rising up from all sides, took Laura backwards, to those days she remembered when she had felt drunk with the lavishness of spring, when Edward’s body had gathered up the sunshine and brought it into hers. Now, emerging from the wood and seeing the grassy slopes glistening as if they had been washed, it was like looking at everything through the wrong end of binoculars. She could appreciate it. She could say, what a lovely spring day. She could say, how warm it is in the sunshine. But she knew they were not celebrants with the song of the thrushes. She knew they were just onlookers at the spring glory.
They sat for a while on Edward’s coat, on the side of the path. London was a distant smudge to the north, and in front of them the downs rolled airily. ‘Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,’ Edward quoted.
‘You know so much poetry.’ Laura realised that her tone sounded dismissive, and she looked at him, trying to smile. So he had thoughts for the future, a future that still included her. She did not even know herself whether that was what she wanted, but if he was serious he must know that he would also have to start the therapy that the Foreign Office had insisted upon. She started to tell him about Lvov, about how Giles had gone to him, how he was discreet, a friend of Winifred’s … Edward seemed nonplussed at the thought of her going to talk to a therapist for him, but then he changed and there was something like gratitude in his tone. Talking directly about the situation was like plunging their hands into something dirty, and they withdrew as quickly as they could. But not before Edward had said, in a stilted voice, how sorry he was, he was determined to stop drinking.
‘I know what you’ve had to put up with,’ he said. Laura was not sure that he did know. But now she wanted to change the conversation, so she smiled at him, saying that he didn’t have to give up alcohol and move to the country and go into therapy all at once. That sounded a little overwhelming, she said in a light voice. He matched her lighter tone, but still insisted that it was time for a new start.
‘As long as we can still have a martini before supper,’ Laura said, smiling.
‘A few glasses of wine during …’
‘And a whisky after.’
‘No, seriously, Laura. I do mean it.’
‘But how would we manage living here if they give you back a job?’
‘It’s easy enough from Whitehall. You get the train from Victoria to Oxted. Doesn’t take long at all. You’ll be able to go up and down to town whenever you like.’
Laura could not bear to throw his tentative plan back in his face, so she lifted her hand and rested it on his arm, turning him towards her, and kissed him. During the kiss she felt the movement of his mouth, and the taste of the meat from lunch still on his lips. She drew back, and pulled at a windflower on the grass beside her, crushing it between her fingers. He stood up, and they started to walk back down the hill; the sun was already beginning to feel less warm.
3
That first evening when they were alone in the new house Laura found her uncertainty dissipated in the rush of organising the move. All day she had been busy supervising deliveries, making up beds, shaking out cushions. The house’s demeanour was coy; it sat back from the road to the village down its own little unmade drive, a dark approach lined with rhododendrons and laurels. But upstairs you could see the airy hills where they had walked on their first visit, while the living room and the kitchen next to it had big French windows that led into a walled garden. As the day wore on, she was going in and out of those rooms with the doors open, so that the scent of the garden blew into the house.
After dinner Laura got out her notepaper and a pen, and scribbled letters to Mother and Ellen, to Monica and to Suzanne. She told all of them that they could come and stay if they wanted; she told them about the garden; how close they were to London; how it had been quite easy to find somewhere because other people, the estate agent said, preferred the new developments closer to town; how they had bought much of the furniture with the house, but some of it was rather awful …
As she wrote, Edward sat reading. He had had his first session with Lvov that day, and he seemed amused rather than threatened by it. As she wrote, he came out from time to time with little aperçus about psychotherapy and the unconscious. Once she had finished her letters, she made them tea and they drank it sitting opposite one another on the old sofas. They must look so settled, Laura thought.
She had left the window open in the big bedroom, and as she went in she saw there were moths caught in the lampshade. She turned off the light and stood there in the dark, waiting for them to fly out. Edward came in and began to undress. They did not embrace, but the large, high iron bedstead made up with the new linen that Sybil had given her as a housewarming present was comforting in the darkness.
Almost immediately, the house itself insisted on a new rhythm to their lives. Edward’s was still mainly based in London: Monday and Thursday he attended sessions with Lvov, and afterwards he would have lunch with Toby and go to the London Library, while every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday he played tennis at a club in Hyde Park before getting the train back to Surrey. It was Laura whom the house held close: she had to find clothes in the heathery hues that women wore here; to learn to drive so that she could go up and down to the station, to the shops; to choose new cushion covers and curtains; to find a gardener and get a book about borders so that she could learn the names of the flowers she saw in other gardens and wanted to see blooming in her own; to find someone to come in daily and help with the cleaning.
One day Edward was called up to the Foreign Office for a meeting, and she was to join him afterwa
rds at Sybil’s for tea before they went back to Surrey together. When Laura had telephoned Sybil to arrange this, she had asked if she could come early and take some photographs of her and her children. She told Edward she thought she could give Sybil some prints as a thank you for taking them in on their return from Washington. But really it was a selfish request; she was missing the shock of satisfaction she had found in the past when the contact sheets were returned from the developer, and there among all the ordinary or muddied images were, suddenly, the sharp contrast and the memorable expression, the recreation of the chaotic world in an ordered arrangement, and the pleasure that gave her.
Laura photographed the twins, George and Alice, on their own and flanking Sybil on one of her wide sofas in the living room, which was filled with oblique light. But she couldn’t get into her stride. Sybil’s self-consciousness was so off-putting, and George had a way of bouncing up just as the shutter was about to click, so that she was sure he would be blurred and that Alice would be looking towards him.
‘Why don’t you all come down to Patsfield for lunch soon?’ she said, as she was packing the camera away. ‘I could try again then, if these don’t turn out too well.’
At that moment Ann came in with the tea. As before, her manner suggested that she hardly knew Laura, that she’d forgotten the long nights they’d shared in the stifling kitchen during the war. ‘Mr Edward is coming in,’ she told her as she set the table. As Sybil went out to find Toby in his study, Edward came in and Laura looked at him with a question in her expression.
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