A Quiet Life(126)
‘But surely Toby and Sybil – and Mrs Last—?’
Laura had to confess that she had become unwelcome there, and Winifred shifted in her chair as though the thought made her uncomfortable. ‘God, they would prefer to be living in the last century, wouldn’t they?’
‘You remember telling me I should think of getting a job?’ Laura said.
‘Not the ideal circumstances now in which to look.’
Winifred’s directness was refreshing. But it was true; as the wife of the missing diplomat, and with a small child, how would she work? And if she couldn’t, who would support her? She would have to sit down with Mother and Aunt Dee, she realised, and talk them through the situation and find out exactly what Toby would contribute. It would take a lot of direct, aggressive honesty about money. The thought was exhausting. Instead she asked Winifred about her work, and about Peter, who had got her this job and whom Laura still had not met.
‘You’ll be surprised when you meet him, everyone is. He’s much too young for me, is the truth. People keep saying, he’s not what we expected, he isn’t your usual type, but what they mean is, how did anyone as old and cynical as you snare someone so young and fresh? Not that I have snared him. In fact – he’s been talking about marriage, but I’m not so sure.’
Laura asked why. At first Winifred was vague, and then she talked more about her work, about how she enjoyed the sense of building something for the future at the United Nations. ‘I’m someone there – not someone powerful, but someone … reliable. I’m not quite sure – I know it’s an odd thing to say – that I want to stop that. If I married Peter, you know, he could be posted somewhere else tomorrow.’
Up until just recently Laura would have found Winifred’s view strange, but now she saw how she had built a life that rose directly from her own personality. At work, with Peter, with her family – people took her for what she was. Laura wondered what that would feel like. She could only hold herself together by a great effort of will; she was always aware of the mask she had to wear, but there was Winifred unafraid of the judgement of others. Admiration stirred in her.
And it was Winifred who made the move to Geneva possible. By the time the month in St-Gervais came to an end, Laura and her mother had had the conversation about money, looked through the bank statements and bills, and recognised that the mortgage on Patsfield was unsustainable. Once that had been understood, Mother wanted Laura to come back to the States at once – to live in Boston, near to Ellen. Mother had given up the old house in Stairbridge and now lived in Ellen’s neighbourhood, in a little apartment. Why shouldn’t Laura find something nearby? She could stay with Ellen until she found the right place. Laura knew that would be impossible for her. She had to be in Europe. She had to be where Stefan could reach her. Even if he had been put off so far by the circling reporters, or the fear that MI5 had set a tail – though she had not been aware of one – it would not be much longer. The contact might be made at any time. So she told Mother that the move to the States would have to wait for a while. She said that the Foreign Office would not allow it yet. That was true, after all; that was what Valance had said.
It was Winifred who suggested that at least the press were better in Switzerland than in England, and it would be nice to have Laura near to her. She found an apartment that was being vacated by someone who was leaving the United Nations. The view from the front was endless, filled with circling swifts and the changing clouds, out over the rooftops, the lake and the mountains, even if the back rooms were dark. What’s more, the family who was leaving had a nanny, Aurore (awfully competent, said Winifred), who would be looking for a job. Laura talked by telephone a few times with Valance and his assistant. They agreed that she could stay in Geneva for the time being, but that any further travel would have to be agreed with the British consulate.
She went back to Patsfield just to pack up the house, leaving Mother and Rosa in Geneva. She had asked Helen to meet her there, but as soon as she saw her she felt it was a mistake. Helen asked her questions about Rosa, about Geneva, the new apartment, but Laura could hardly speak to her. Everything here is corroded now, she thought, I can trust nobody. All day they packed personal belongings into boxes, wrote on them the address of the new apartment, with that sense of unease between them. Edward had books about Russian art, Russian music, a couple of volumes of Marx, all of Tolstoy’s novels in a beautiful set. Laura felt Helen’s gaze on them as she put them in a box of things to be given away. At the end of the day Helen rose. ‘Good luck, Mrs Last,’ she said, brushing down her skirt. Laura could not meet her eyes.
But when Helen was gone, the past crowded in instead. All the things that she had planned to do and never done; the piano she had not bought, the sofas she had not recovered. All the things she had done: the pretty curtains, the tea table that would now belong to the buyer, a local doctor. How neglected the garden looked with summer at an end, the grass yellowing and overgrown, peonies toppling into it. She opened the door to her beloved darkroom. Soon it would be a garden shed again. She gathered up the photographic paper stacked in a corner and carried it through to the bins. It was silly to dwell on what might have been, she said to herself as she pushed it down on the other rubbish.
8
Winter bites hard in Geneva. In the frozen days Laura felt that she was waking up to the new reality of her life. One January morning a man in a grey trilby started following her around the fruit market near to their apartment, and Laura allowed herself to catch his eye, willing him to speak one of the usual passwords or mention Edward or Stefan. When he suggested to her that she should join him for a drink, she realised that her eager manner had made him assume she was an easy pick-up. Irritation pulsed through her as she climbed the long flights of stairs back to the apartment.