A Quiet Life(60)
‘Nothing coming over yet,’ said Edward. ‘Shall we have a drink?’
‘I think I’ll go down,’ said Laura. It wasn’t so much that she was tired, but conversations with Giles never seemed to go well for her. Giles made as if to do the same, but Edward was reluctant.
‘It’s further east, still – it usually is,’ he said. ‘Come on, have a whisky before we turn in.’
Laura went down into the basement. Edward had left the door to the living room ajar – it opened into the ground-floor hall, so that his and Giles’s voices travelled quite clearly down the basement stairs. She could hear them as if they had been in the kitchen with her. At first their conversation drifted. They were talking about Aldous Huxley’s new novel, which Giles liked and Edward thought was tosh, and about the levelling effect that the war seemed to be having on accents in London, which Edward thought was rather a good thing and Giles thought a pity. Laura realised again as she heard them talk that it was a while since she and Edward had had a serious conversation of any kind. She thought of getting up and closing the door, but there was an odd pleasure in lying there, hearing them talk when they thought nobody was listening.
‘I’ll be back again in two weeks, if that’s all right,’ Giles was saying. ‘We’re getting everything ready …’ He paused, and then, oddly, told Edward not to talk about what he was saying to Alistair. ‘If he writes about it or mentions it in the wrong place there will be hell to pay.’
‘Is that fair to Alistair? Is he untrustworthy?’
‘It’s still all about himself, and how he wants to be in the know. Don’t you remember when he blabbed to Rogers Minor about us smoking by the Lower Pond? Just because he wanted to show off. But that’s how it all got back to the Head.’
Laura could hear Edward’s half-laugh, as he told Giles that it was absurd to hold that fifteen-year-old schoolboy contretemps against Alistair now.
‘I don’t know that he’s grown up as much as all that. Whereas you – you are a changed character, aren’t you? I used to think you were on a mission to change the world. Well, maybe you’re right – maybe we all have to turn our idealism into pragmatism. I never thought I’d be working all hours trying to find someone to manufacture these new magnetrons. Things should move faster than this in wartime. You know what it’s like working with bureaucrats. But the Foreign Office’s still keeping you happy?’
Footsteps, as Edward presumably crossed to the sideboard to refill their drinks. ‘Laura keeps me happy.’
‘Well, that must be love … an American girl with nothing in her head except movie plots and fashion tips … sorry, Edward, I know she’s my cousin.’
‘Come on, Giles, that was beneath you.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’ A pause. ‘Forget it, can’t you?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Anyway, I’ll be back in a fortnight.’
‘Anything in particular?’
‘It’s pretty exciting.’ Giles’s tone was conciliatory now. He began to tell Edward about his work, explaining that he was going to America to join the mission that was taking the latest research findings ‘right to the top. Even this magnetron. If the Americans can throw their research energy into this new stuff we’ve got going, we could start driving ahead. I’m not going alone, of course, but it’s pretty good – I’m putting together the package, even if old Penrose will take over a lot of the talking once we’re there.’
‘Good God, is it safe to cross?’
Giles said that if they got attacked, they would dump the black box at sea. Laura, who was lying with her eyes shut, saw a sudden image, like a scene in a movie, of a boat plunging on a foam-patterned ocean, Giles heaving a great box overboard, a hero of science. Was that how he saw himself? Giles was still talking about how that was one of the big fears, Germany getting at their new work through captured equipment. ‘Every time we lose a plane, we wonder if they are going to have the wits to work it out. But we have to go – if there’s even half a chance it will help. It’s the dream, cracking the night-fighting – the new stuff gives us a hope of being able to do that. But I don’t think we can do it alone.’
Edward then said something rather muffled, about whether the Americans would give anything in return. Giles’s clearer voice resumed, saying that they could only hope, that they had to try to break the stalemate or the war could go on for years. ‘Doing some more research with us won’t put them in danger. Even those cowardly sods should be up to that. It’s sickening isn’t it, them and the Russians, sitting it out while we get the brunt.’
Laura turned in her bed. She was used to the scorn that everyone in London expressed about America. ‘Cowardly sods’ was one of the milder phrases they used. She knew that it should mean nothing to her; Toby had once told her, meaning to be kind, that she could consider herself English now she was married, while Edward had once commented that it was good their secret commitment to an international cause meant they had left the pettiness of nationalism behind. Yet the criticism of America still seemed to have a personal thrust, and made her quail a little before she gathered herself to reject it. There was a longer pause, and then Edward said he might turn in. There seemed to be no bombs falling, however, and Giles asked him if he fancied a game of chess first. Quiet fell, punctuated only by their comments on the moves.