A Quiet Life(114)

On the train back to Patsfield, Laura found a newspaper on the seat next to her. Death sentences for the Rosenbergs; the news fell like a dark bar across the day. Yes, the court had agreed that Ethel Rosenberg had typed up the information her husband had brought her about nuclear weapons, and yes, their judge had said their crime was worse than murder. ‘By your betrayal, you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.’ Laura let the newspaper drop to the floor. She would not think about that.

Instead, she found her mind turning to the contact sheets she had printed out the previous day. As soon as she was through the door she went to the darkroom, and started to make a bigger print of one of the most successful images, which showed Barbara, twelve years old, in a pose that hinted at the woman she would become. Laura was intrigued by the picture; it wasn’t beautiful, but it worked. Barbara looked self-sufficient, her eyes levelling with the viewer, a grown-up glance that was at odds with her childish cheeks and mouth. It was the face of a haughty survivor rather than a child, and Laura felt pleased as she pegged it out to dry and walked back up to the house. As she went into the kitchen she became aware of the dragging heaviness in her hips. At nearly eight months pregnant, such a long day was a strain. She was glad to sit down now, in the quiet.

So it did not bother her that Edward was late for dinner, although it was odd that he did not telephone. He had had to work late a lot recently, as the brutish standoff in Korea continued. She ate by herself, and then sat on the sofa, manicuring her nails, which were weak and splitting – was that the pregnancy, or the chemicals she was using in the darkroom? – and listening to the radio. As dusk fell, it seemed odder to her that Edward had not telephoned, and she began to doze, listening to a radio programme about Chopin. She snapped out of the doze as soon she heard Edward’s key in the door, but was confused, sitting up on the sofa – for a moment she thought she was in the old house in Georgetown – and then she came to properly and got up, going into the hall.

It fell on her like a blow – the staggering gait, the sour breath, the clumsy movements – everything she thought was behind him. She went up to him and pushed him, her hands on his shoulders, not knowing what she was doing.

‘Why? Why can’t you stop?’ she was saying, pointlessly, angrily, but instead of coming in, he put his arms around her there in the hall and drew her out with him, back out into the front garden. It was freezing cold for April, with a damp fog in the air. Laura resisted. It was too cold, she was tired. He was maddening. Was it the Rosenbergs’ death sentence that had tripped him over the edge? Was it the threat of atomic destruction in Korea? She could not bear it. He had to learn to survive in the world as it was. He gripped her arm fiercely and pulled her to the gate, she went draggingly along, and then he put his mouth close to her ear. She still could not understand what was behind the violence of his movements – and then she realised: he was afraid to speak in the house.

‘They know.’

He was drunk, he was whispering, but nothing could hide the force of what he was saying. That they had known since the new year. No, they did not know for sure, but they suspected. She shuddered with the cold, and clung to him as he went on speaking. ‘It was when Archie said something in a meeting that made no sense to me that I realised – I’ve been pushed out of the loop. I’m not getting the blue folders any more. They’ve downgraded my security clearance. I thought I’d get to the bottom of that, brazen it out somehow if they knew about some leak. But this lunchtime, there was a tail on me. Every time I left the office he was there; I zigzagged around Green Park a few times, thought I’d lost him when I went into the Reform after work, but he was still there when I came out. They trailed me to the station. No one at this end – they’d stick out a mile in the village – but maybe they’re listening …’ They turned to look at the house, which loomed up over them in the darkness.

So it comes back, the fear that dazzles your mind, that grips your stomach. Laura was back again in the medium she had lived in for so long in Washington. Terror makes your breath shallow, it makes your jaw clench, the sweat break under your arms. Stupid, she thought to herself, stupid to think you could live a different life, stupid to think you could nurture shoots of revived love all the way to their fruit. Stupid. She leant against Edward.

‘Stefan says we might have to run,’ he said. Laura’s hands were on her belly, and Edward’s hands went round them. It was only just over a month to go. ‘I know we can’t.’

‘You must go, if it comes to it.’

‘I can’t go without you.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ They went back into the house, and she wondered, as they re-entered and Edward began to take off his coat, whether she had put him in danger by withdrawing from the work. If he had been meeting Stefan day in, day out, passing documents, picking them up again, how much more obvious had he become? He was not as drunk as he had seemed at first, and they went through to the kitchen where Laura made cocoa and they drank it like children, with a box of cookies between them, munching and sipping. There was nothing on the radio so late. Laura told Edward about Monica. He already knew from Archie. It was sad, he said. Laura said she was thinking of the children, and Edward nodded. At last they went to bed, and lay the way they did now, with Edward’s front against her back, so that her belly was not in their way.