A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter
Prologue
Geneva, 1953
How slowly the light dies on these interminable summer evenings. Laura is so keen for each day to finish that she pulls dinner earlier every night. She hurries Rosa through her bath. ‘Rub a dub dub!’ she sings with some impatience as she towels her daughter’s hair. Rosa looks up, her flawless mouth half open, her dark eyes serene. ‘Dub dub,’ she repeats in a serious tone. Her hair is still damp, sticking up in spikes, as Laura settles her into her lap with a bottle of warm milk beside them.
The potatoes are already bubbling in their pan, the glass of cold vermouth is already poured and waiting at Laura’s elbow, the way to Rosa’s bedtime seems clear; but then the child suddenly pushes away the half-full bottle of milk and slides to the ground. ‘Open, open,’ she says, standing at the door that leads to the balcony. Laura fights her impatience as she lifts and encourages her – ‘Come on, my sweetheart, for Mama’ – to come back and finish her drink. ‘Nearly supper!’ she calls out to her own mother as Rosa finally drains it. Mother is reading some magazine on the sofa, still mapping the world of new autumn modes that will never be bought and new destinations that will never be seen.
Rosa is still saying ‘More!’ hopefully as Laura carries her up the awkward ladder staircase to her attic room. For a two-year-old, every evening comes too suddenly to an end. She is never in a hurry for the day to close. Laura lays her down in her cot with a solitary white rabbit for company. ‘More’: that was Rosa’s first word. My life is all run out, Laura thinks, stooping over the cot, but nothing is ever enough for you. Her daughter burrows into the mattress, face-down, a chubby starfish. Struck with unexpected guilt at wanting to hurry her into unconsciousness, Laura whispers, ‘Lullaby?’ But Rosa is gone suddenly into sleep, that enviable sleep that ebbs and flows over her with unpredictable tides.
Then Laura is back downstairs again, standing in the kitchen in front of the stove. As she downs half of her second glass of vermouth, she prods at the potatoes, cuts some tomatoes roughly, slides slices of ham onto two blue plates, and that’s it. That’s supper. Her mother’s glance moves to the drink as she comes into the room. She doesn’t say anything, but in almost unconscious reaction Laura lifts the glass and finishes it as her mother sits down and waits to be served.
‘Potatoes, Mother?’
‘Just two, thank you – now, what time is it that you want to leave this weekend?’
They have been over this a dozen times, and Laura pauses before she answers. ‘It’s this Friday, we can get a train just after three. It’s quite an easy journey, really. Wine?’
‘No, not for me, not tonight. And he has booked the hotel, has he, this – Archie?’
‘That’s right. He said it would be quiet at the end of the season, but still fun. He’s got daughters himself, but doesn’t see much of them – I think he misses that side of things, family life.’
Laura goes on talking, reassuring her mother that the weekend will be easy, that Rosa will enjoy it, that all three of them, grandmother, mother and daughter, might have a good time. Laura’s voice is calm, yes, and measured too, until her mother breaks in again. ‘Have you remembered to tell the consulate where we’re going?’
‘Of course I have!’ There is something too emphatic in the response, and her fork falls with a clatter to her plate. As the women’s gazes meet, Laura tries to shift the tension in the room. ‘If another trip feels too much,’ she says, ‘you know you could stay here without me. Or you could always go back to Boston.’
Mother pushes at some tomato on her plate with her fork. ‘Would you like me to go?’
There is no answer to that. Yes, Laura thinks, I would like you to go; I would like not to have any need for you to be here. But her mother’s presence is essential. The idea of being quite alone with Rosa in this fragmented world, wandering around Europe, uncertain of her welcome from friends and acquaintances, seems impossible to her now. As soon as her mother mentions leaving, the reasons why they are both here, joined together in their uncomfortable little ménage à trois, are present in the room again. Laura is back in the days immediately after Edward left, the telephone ringing and ringing in the hall, the black Austin car parked in the driveway, the cameras popping as she drew back the curtains. But when she speaks again, her voice is light.
‘Why would I want you to go?’ There is even the suggestion of a laugh in her words, as though her mother is being ridiculous. ‘I think Talloires will be lovely this time of year. And you should see how much Rosa enjoys swimming now. Did I tell you what she said today? I was looking for a fresh towel and I took out the blue one that I used in Pesaro, and she said, ‘Like on holiday, I all sandy …’
What, Laura thinks, would we talk about, day in, day out, if we didn’t have Rosa, her life forcing itself up, like a tree cracking paving stones, between the hard, dulled edges of our misfortunes? As usual, the two women talk about Rosa’s new words, Rosa’s little habits, as they fork up their supper. Eventually Laura picks up the plates and carries them to the sink. In theory the nanny, Aurore, is meant to tidy the kitchen in the morning, but in practice, Laura puts away the evening meal. She hates catching Aurore’s disdainful look as she picks up the detritus from their pathetic suppers.