A Quiet Life(101)
‘That’s pretty dangerous brinkmanship, isn’t it?’ Joe was saying, and as Laura tuned into the conversation she realised that they were discussing Russia’s recent testing of nuclear weapons. There was nothing in Edward’s reaction to suggest any connection with what was happening thousands of miles away; he was as controlled, as non-committal, as ever. It was only the strain in her own mind that made her realise how weak his control might be.
‘On whose side?’ Edward said. That was his trick – she remembered first noticing it so long ago – to turn the question into another question, and wait for his interlocutor to elaborate.
As Laura poured the coffee she realised she had left the milk in the kitchen, and she stood up again. When she came back with it, she paused for a moment in the hallway to look at herself in the mirror and check her lipstick. It was a huge, gilt-framed mirror and behind her reflection she could see through the door of the living room, and to Joe sitting there. Something held her there; there is an enticing pull about looking into a scene without the knowledge of those you are watching. He was getting out his cigarettes and offering them to Edward, and Laura heard Edward saying that he couldn’t smoke those American ones, and heard his footsteps as he crossed the room to get his own cigarettes from the mantelpiece. As she watched, she saw Joe pour away his glass of bourbon into the glossy-leaved little palm that stood on the coffee table beside him.
She came back, remembering to smile, into the living room. ‘Sorry to take so long – coffee?’
‘You don’t buy that argument, then?’ Joe was saying in response to something Edward had said.
‘The possession of a weapon implies its use. How can anyone believe that an atomic standoff will make for a safer world?’ said Edward, looking into his glass as he spoke. It was not like him to make such a direct and contentious statement.
‘I guess people here don’t want to see the danger – Truman keeps telling us that it’s the only thing to keep us safe, and people are buying that line.’ In the embassy circle it was quite normal for British people to express anti-American feeling, but it was surprising to Laura that Joe was falling in with that critical tone, and even more surprising that Edward did not seem to think it strange. Was Joe imitating something he had picked up on in Edward, in the hope of getting him to say more?
As Laura drank her coffee, the surreptitious way Joe had poured away his drink replayed itself again and again in her mind. What was it that had brought Joe here tonight? Why was he trying to get Edward so drunk? Was it so that he could take the temperature of his anti-Americanism once and for all? Had he come to suspect him? Was it the crass reference to the revolution that Edward had made drunkenly in a midnight garden? Was it Edward’s desperate struggle with his role as the perfect Cambridge-educated civil servant, now refracted in a different light since Joe had watched the unmasking of Hiss, the perfect Harvard-educated civil servant? Or was it Joe’s desperate hope, finally, to have a real story, a meaningful journey for his own life, that led him to sit here pouring bourbon into Edward’s glass?
Was it, in some way, her own fault? Was it the sudden presence of Mrs Rostov beside her with her identical bag in the doorway of the uptown hairdresser? Was it the memory of Florence on the boat, something Joe had never mentioned since the first time they had met again, the memory of what her influence might have meant for Laura? Was it none of these? Was she going crazy? As Laura sat there, her stomach tense and her hands gripping her cup and saucer, Joe caught her eye and she thought she saw the smile that she had first seen, easy and sensual, in the tourist bar on the Normandie in 1939. Was Joe just wanting to get Edward a little drunk in the hope of spending some of the evening with his wife?
Although Laura was only on the periphery of the conversation, she could not leave the room. They went on for so long, drinking and talking. And although she hinted more than once that it might be time for Joe to leave, it seemed almost as though they were locked into some unbreakable dance, as the hours ticked on. Finally, Laura managed to force an acknowledgement of the late hour, and she made Edward offer to find Joe a taxi on the corner of the street. They went out together, and Laura went thankfully upstairs, and fell asleep as soon as she lay down, exhausted, not even waking when Edward came in. So when she woke to the tinny peal of the little alarm clock in the morning, she was horrified when he turned over and said, in a slurred, drink-tainted voice, ‘Sorry, he’s just on the sofa – couldn’t find a taxi for love or money …’
‘He’s here?’ Laura was shocked into the most sudden wakefulness. ‘Here, now?’
She went out into the corridor. The floorboards were cold under her bare feet, and the little nail that stood out of one of them caught her heel as it had done before. She crept downstairs and saw Joe lying on the sofa, covered with a blanket. Knowledge fell through her, and she went into the study, where the Smith Corona typewriter sat openly on the desk. In the drawer below were the documents she had been typing the previous night, and the drawer was unlocked. She pulled it open. Had she placed the documents like that? She had been in a hurry, forgetful for the first time, casual as she had never been before. How incriminating were they? She saw the top security stamp on them, the numbers, the revelations, and she shut the drawer again, locking it this time, too late, and putting the key into the pocket of her bathrobe. She turned back to the living room. She was almost sure, from the rigidity and self-consciousness of Joe’s body, that he was not asleep, but how could she really be sure?