A Quiet Life(63)

‘Mrs Laura, are you all right?’ she said.

‘I’m really not well, Ann – could you do me a favour? I think there are some powders in Toby’s bathroom. Could you get them for me?’

Ann nodded and went out, and to Laura’s relief she was alone with the box again. Again, there was no time to think; however risky the moment was, she knelt and opened it, and slid the papers inside. Ann returned just as she was straightening up.

‘Goodness, I’m still not feeling well. I think I’ll go up again.’

She took the powders from Ann and went upstairs, as quickly as she could, into the bedroom, where Edward was lying in the bed, apparently asleep.

Presumably Giles was getting a last couple of hours’ sleep too before his journey; but she could not rest. The key was still in her pyjama pocket. She sat on the edge of the bed, wondering what on earth to do, when she finally heard movement, followed by the taps running in the bathroom. Going quickly across the hall and into Giles’s room, she put the key on the floor, half hidden by the leg of the chair, as though it had slipped from the table. And then she went back into the bedroom. Her knees seemed almost to give way as she sat down on the bed.

‘Darling,’ she said, leaning over Edward. ‘I think Giles is leaving soon.’

‘Is he?’ Edward groaned. ‘Must get up to say goodbye.’ But he did not move, just lay there, his eyes closed. Laura touched her lips to his smooth shoulder and his hand rose and pulled her to him. With an odd urgency their mouths suddenly found one another; an intense current of need seemed to pin them against one another, so fierce and hard, there was no time for her orgasm to mount and yet she still experienced an intense relief, a melting rush, as his energy was spent.

Dressing quickly, they both went downstairs to say goodbye to Giles. When Laura saw herself in the hall mirror, she felt her exhaustion was written too clearly on her face, the dark shadows under her eyes and the rather clammy pallor of her skin showing that she had not slept. But as she met Giles’s eyes, there was no knowledge or question in his cursory glance.

‘Are you off, Giles?’

‘Just waiting for the chap from the Ministry – they are sending an escort or two with me – absurd really, you know, but it’s in case any spies get on the train. They rather wanted somebody with me overnight – they are paranoid. Makes sense after a fashion, I suppose. Have to do these things the right way.’

Eventually a knock on the door announced the arrival of his escort, a bowler-hatted man who lifted the box into the car.

‘I’ll see you when I get back, then,’ said Giles, shrugging on his overcoat. Laura watched his back, unconcerned, jaunty, as he went down the steps, and felt both sickened and superior. Edward had already turned back into the house.

‘I may be late tonight, endless meetings planned,’ he said, straightening his tie in the hall mirror. Laura wondered at his tone. Was there knowledge in it? She realised that if he did not know, she did not want to tell him, in case he might judge her. But immediately she thought that, she told herself she was being absurd. Who had brought her into this work? Had he not already betrayed his friends over and over? Did he not sit with Giles and Quentin and Alistair day after day, year after year, pretending to be on their side, in their world, and yet selling out everything they believed? Only she, only Stefan, were really in his world. And yet still Laura felt an inchoate fear that her action had gone too far, that by breaking open his friend’s work under his brother’s roof, she had broken bonds that were stronger than she knew, that had been forged over long years of friendship. She would not think of that now. She still had work ahead of her.

Before she left for the bookstore, she transferred the film from the camera to a tiny canister which she pushed into a pocket in her purse created between the lining and the outer leather. She was due to meet Stefan that afternoon, at four o’clock, in a café near to Charing Cross Road. She spent the day stocktaking in a haze of tiredness, always aware of the bag which she had left in a backroom. At last, at half past three, she reminded her boss that it was her early afternoon, and she went half running along the Strand. When she got to Charing Cross, however, she found the street was closed. ‘Time bomb,’ said a man at the barrier. ‘Don’t know where I’ll spend the night if they can’t get the thing.’

‘Don’t know why it took them so long to get started on this one,’ said a woman beside him.

‘There’ve been so many unexploded from last night, streets closed all round the West End today.’

‘They won’t think themselves so clever when our lot go over there. They’ll get a taste of their own medicine then.’

These eddies of bitterness were the same every day. Laura was tired of the impotent chorus, but she stood weakly at the barrier, not knowing what to do next.

‘Nothing to see – pass along now,’ said one of the demolition squad to no one in particular. Laura began to walk away, taking an aimless course as she thought through her options. She had a series of instructions about what to do if a meeting was stalled for any reason. There was the dead-letter drop in Camden Town, and there was the Clerkenwell tobacco shop where she could speak in code to the owner (‘Can you let me know when you will get more Quintero cigars?’) and leave them a number. Then, in theory, she would be contacted. She decided she had to try the drop first. She was desperate to get rid of the film. Although it carried no weight, it felt like a burden. But when she got to Camden Town she wondered why she had wasted her time. It wasn’t that the wall had been destroyed, but there was so much rubble and broken glass, the area had obviously been a target more than once. It seemed absurd that Stefan thought she could risk leaving something precious in the fragile fabric of this breakable city.