A Quiet Life(78)

But from their first meeting Tom had been opaque to Laura. She had learned something from Ellen’s letters during the war about his background, his connection to those envied Bellinghams, and about how he had been excused military service due to a heart murmur. Those facts had led Laura to invest him with some aura of glamour or delicacy; his actual presence, red-faced and inarticulate, was puzzling, as was his attitude to Ellen. He seemed not to notice her complaints, but treated her with a kind of casual dismissiveness.

After a while they stood up to go into dinner and Laura felt the drink weighing down her movements, but when she sat down she asked Tom if she could have a beer along with him. She said it in a light tone, as though she simply wanted to try what he was drinking, but in fact she felt thirsty for the cold bubbles. She did not see how she could get through evening after evening here, already she could feel a needling pain rising up through her shoulders, which were hunched up to her neck as if to protect herself. She looked at Ellen, and saw that her mouth was folded together as if she too was struggling for composure. But then Laura felt rebuked when Ellen caught her eye and smiled, and said something about how wonderful it was that they were all back together again.

‘All except Father,’ said Laura.

‘Yes, things aren’t really very good with him,’ Mother said, but then she was distracted, or chose to be distracted, by the plate that the maid, Ora, was passing her. ‘Not so much for me, and no sauce – my stomach can’t take such rich food, Ellen.’

‘You don’t have to watch your figure, Mother,’ Laura said. Her mother shook her head.

‘You know it isn’t that, Laura, but …’

But yes, God forbid that you should ever relax, Laura thought, drinking the beer Tom had brought her and taking the rejected plate for herself. Already, Ellen was into her usual complaints about how much work this summer was creating for her. Tom’s brother was to arrive that evening; he had been wounded – a shattered wrist – in the Pacific, Tom was explaining, although both Laura and Mother already knew the story. His month’s convalescence leave had just started, and the hope was that he would not have to return to service, that demobilisation would overtake the end of his stay. Ellen was wondering if he would mind that dark room at the end of the corridor, and Laura was saying in a small voice that maybe it would be easier if she went into a hotel. Tom talked over them, enthusiastic about the possibility of more people in the house. He wanted to get the tennis courts rolled. It was a pity the garden here had become such a mess; he remembered it from years back, it had been a great place then.

Laura remembered the garden at Sutton Court, and started to tell them about it – the long formal hedges and the rose garden all turned over to vegetables for the war, the meadow given to grazing. She realised almost as soon as she started speaking that it was as though she was telling a fairy tale, something childish, about a distant and uninteresting land. She had noticed this reaction time and again whenever she started to say something about England and the war. It was natural, she told herself – why would her family want to hear about the wartime deprivations she had known; as if America had not made its sacrifices, was not still making its sacrifices? She stayed almost silent for the rest of the meal, and as they went into the living room she realised that her back was damp with sweat, even in her cotton dress.

In the living room the windows had been left open, and moths were blundering around the lamps. Ellen exclaimed in irritation, pulling the blinds down over the windows and flapping a magazine at the insects. Laura had quite forgotten about Tom’s brother, and when they heard a taxi drawing up, for a moment she thought it could be Edward after all, and she went out to the door with Tom. There was a tangle of roses by the door, and as she brushed past them their scent seemed almost wet, it was so refreshing in the night air.

‘God, this is a nice spot, Tom – just like the old days.’ Kit was at first glance rather like Tom, the same fairish, freckly colouring. But there was grace in his manner as he threw the butt of the cigarette he was smoking onto the gravel and advanced into the house with what was almost a dancer’s posture, his feet turned out.

Once in the living room and furnished with a cold beer and another cigarette, Kit was the centre of attention, as Ellen and Tom began to quiz him about his health and his plans after demobilisation. His wrist, he said, was completely recovered. It was his left hand anyway, and as good as new now. As he talked in a rather diffident way about how he was thinking of going into journalism, Laura realised that the attention bothered him. She sympathised with his obvious shyness and wondered what he had been living through; it was much harder to imagine him in active service than it was to imagine Tom there – particularly dressed as he was tonight, in a pale lavender shirt and cream pants. Now he was talking about a friend of his who was also eager for demobilisation, a man called Joe, who had been a newspaper man until he had enlisted, who was planning to go back into it, probably in Washington; it sounded like a good life – Kit was thinking of something like that.

Laura found her mind travelling back to the Joe she had known, with his anecdotes about reporting and travelling, and without thinking she said, ‘I met a journalist called Joe,’ and although Ellen obviously thought she was interrupting the conversation, Kit turned to her and they started discussing the journalists they knew until they realised it was the same man, one Joe Segal, and that the strange vagaries of fate had led them to know him at different times, on different boats, six years apart from one another. Laura thought little of it in the moment, simply smiling and nodding, exclaiming about the coincidence.