A Quiet Life(42)

It was a few days before she heard from Edward again. Should this have worried her? For a time she could not imagine worrying ever again. At night, on waking, or at odd moments stepping off a bus or wrapping a book for a customer, the wealth of pleasure she had been given suddenly recurred to her and she felt her senses sway and her stomach clench. She relived that night so often that she hardly noticed the hours and days passing. But even so it was a relief when she came back to the flat one evening and saw that Cissie had written Edward’s name and a telephone number on the pad that they used for messages. When she rang him they arranged to meet that Sunday, at a public house he knew. She knew it too, as it happened to be in Highgate, near to her aunt’s house; she had seen it once on a walk with Winifred.

That it was another fine spring day was an unnecessary boon. The pub was dark, and they sat in an alcove, eating something that Laura hardly noticed. Edward drank beer, and then brandy, and this time Laura enjoyed the feeling of drinking at lunchtime, the shuddery warmth engendered by the glasses of wine that Edward ordered for her. After lunch they walked out onto the Heath, where they sat on a bench looking out over a small hill and artificial lake below them. The crocuses scattered all over the green lawn, and the child suddenly running by with a red kite, his mother calling after him – images danced past Laura’s eyes. Greatly daring, she touched the side of her hand to Edward’s, and he took her hand, crushing it in his, and lifted it to his lips, inhaling the scent of her skin, closing his eyes. She closed her eyes for a moment too, and when she opened them he was looking at her, still holding her hand.

‘Here we are,’ she said. Or did he say it? They were both smiling.

‘At last,’ he said. ‘Now I might find out who Laura is, this mystery.’

It was extraordinary to her, that he saw her as a mystery, that he wanted to know about her.

‘Come on, it’s time.’ He turned properly to her, hitching one knee up on the bench and hooking that foot under the other leg, putting his right arm along the bench and touching her shoulder with his hand. It was a gesture both open and controlling. ‘Tell me. Here you are, with your decidedly revolutionary political views, but looking like a debutante at a tea party …’

She was shocked. He had noticed, had been thinking about everything she had said to him that she thought had gone unnoticed or been misunderstood. She was so used to being the dullest person in the room that this caused a strange shift in her sense of herself. He was still talking.

‘There wasn’t anyone else at Sybil’s party that night that could have told me about the struggle on two fronts – not that you did tell me. You clammed up right away, which said more than anything. What did you feel about the struggle on two fronts, then? Why were things less clear in November? Do you think the war is an imperialist escapade, or aren’t you sure?’

Laura felt as though the breath was being squeezed out of her. What was behind this forensic questioning? And then she realised that in fact it was a relief. She didn’t have to hide or pretend any more. For the first time, she could tell someone, and so she did. She told him about Florence, about the protest she had seen when she first came to London, the pamphlets she had read, the speeches she had heard. He listened and then asked her how open she had been about what she was doing. ‘I didn’t tell my aunt and Winifred,’ she confessed. ‘It seems silly, doesn’t it – but I thought they would never understand.’

Edward nodded, as though this made absolute sense to him. ‘And you – are you a Party member? Do they know you, does the Party know you?’ His pressure on this point seemed strange. Again she remembered Florence, intent on warning her, her high, energetic voice telling her that she might always be under surveillance. So she was under surveillance, was she? This irreproachable civil servant was a government informer, spying on radical elements?

‘You tell me first,’ she said. She said the words without any particular forethought, but when he reacted so quickly, pulling back from her with such shock in his eyes, she pushed on in a way that was more intuitive than rational. ‘Tell me – go on – your secret is safe with me.’

‘My secret.’

She had not expected him to react like this, turning away from her and leaning forwards, putting his hands on his knees. She spoke again, thinking from his reaction that her guess must be right, he must be trawling for information. However terrible that truth was, she wanted to clear the air between them. ‘You can tell me—’

But she broke off from what she was about to say, as he suddenly stood up. Pulling her hand, he was dragging her down the gravel path and towards the artificial lake, down to where the trees grew thick and there were no walkers, further on, off the path. He was pulling her still, too quickly, between the trees, she was stumbling as she walked, the brambles snagging at her stockings. Then he stopped, and held her by the shoulders. ‘To tell you – my God, it would be …’ And then he did tell her.

Of course she had had no idea. How could she? Nobody could ever have guessed. It was only a misunderstanding that had made him think that she had an inkling of the way he lived. The secret was so much larger than anyone would have imagined. It was almost beyond Laura’s comprehension, even when he spelled it out. At first she was unable to judge it. She judged him, however, as he finished telling her. He looked exhausted and stood there lighting a cigarette, smoothing back the blond hair that was always falling across his forehead. As he put the cigarette to his mouth, Laura saw his lips tremble. She reached out her hand, took the cigarette away and kissed his trembling mouth.