A Quiet Life(81)
‘I know, I’ve been so tired too. I think it is coming away from the war.’
‘That reminds me,’ Edward said, ‘I’ve got a message for you. It’s not Stefan, it’s—’
‘I don’t want to hear it tonight,’ Laura said. ‘Tell me tomorrow.’ It wasn’t that she had given up on the work, but something in her wanted to hold onto the mood of their love-making, the rinsed, voluptuous summer mood, for a few more hours.
But it was pointless for her to wish for pleasure, because the telephone that was now ringing in the hall was ringing for Mother, with news of Father’s death. The summer’s promise was already withdrawn.
What a horrible fraud Laura felt, sitting with Ellen and Mother through the long night in the first rush of their grief. The beat of guilt rather than sadness drummed through her. Why had she not gone straight to Stairbridge when they arrived, rather than following Edward to Washington and then coming out to the coast to see Ellen? Why had she not realised that it was not Father’s laziness that prevented him from coming to join Mother here? Why had she not come home years ago, to see if she could salvage some kind of relationship from the years of disappointment and misunderstanding? What kind of daughter had she been? She could say little of all this to the others, of course, because when she began to speak of her guilt, she could see in their eyes that they agreed she had done wrong.
The next day they began to prepare for the journey back to Stairbridge. Tom was all busyness, arranging to come with them, and telling Kit to close up the house, as they would not be back that summer. Laura went upstairs to pack her few things, the couple of new cotton dresses, the white sandals, the paperbacks she had bought for the summer. Edward was sitting on the bed as she packed, and she came over to him, letting him hold her, but she could not relax into his arms. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You go back to Washington. I know you can’t get time off work. I’ll let you know when the funeral will be and you can come for the day.’
‘Is that all right?’ he asked, but there was relief in his voice.
2
The church was not empty. Custom and expectation cover up a man’s worst failures, and although Laura had little awareness of her father’s friends or the sporadic work he had done here and there, designing renovations for houses on the cheap, he had left enough of a trail through ordinary society for a number of people to be sitting with them the following Wednesday for his funeral.
Edward was not beside her; he had been called back to London, absurdly, for a huge conference of European leaders. He was skimming the skies with Halifax on an aeroplane while she was grounded in Stairbridge, trying to recognise familiar faces in the small group of people who came back to their childhood home for drinks after the funeral. Hands clutched hers, voices asked her about her husband. She found herself standing with two elderly men who, she thought, had once done building work to her father’s designs. Their conversation stuttered to a stop, and then she found that the two men were talking, instead, about the bombs. They could not find it in their hearts to be sorry about the deaths in Japan; one had a son who had been standing by to go across. Oh, it was kill or die, the other said, and then they realised how inappropriate their conversation might sound to Laura, and stopped. She smiled at them, and walked on.
The house itself was looking so much better than she remembered. Grandfather’s legacy had been put to good use here. Laura did not like Mother’s taste, but at least the veneer cabinets with their spindly legs and the yellow sofas were shiny and new, and there was clean decking at the back door and lilies in green vases on the mantelpieces. But even now there was a smell she remembered – what was it? Maybe the scent of the brewery blowing from the west of the town or rotting food from the trash outside the kitchen door, something bitter that the perfume of the lilies could not cover.
There was a photograph album out on the tables. Laura did not want to look at it, but at one point Ellen passed it to her, and she saw herself standing next to Father on the front steps in a forgotten green dress. Before Grandfather’s legacy had transformed her life, it had been her only party dress, and even that had been passed down from Ellen. ‘Look at you, so young,’ Mother said. She said it in a longing voice, as if they were looking at a picture of happiness. But the picture … the picture. Laura put it down.
She had forgotten that evening – no, you never forget, but you bury it deep – the night of her high school dance, how she had longed not to be the symbol of social failure. At least a boy was taking her to it, even if it was only Walt Eaves. She could not stand his flat-footed walk and the way he talked down to Cristel, their coloured maid, but at least he had asked her, it was a chance. The evening had been horrible enough – when he kissed her it was like being choked, and she had pushed him away and said, let’s go in, Father will be waiting. And he was, but as soon as they came in she saw it, she smelt it, the drink, the stumbling, and Father came too close to her, and asked what she had been up to – it was as if she had to be shamed. She would not follow the memory, down the path where Walt had looked at her with pity in his stupid eyes. Her shame – she would not allow it. How could they grieve, she thought, looking at Ellen and Mother mouthing their platitudes? The perfect fa?ade of drinking their tea and telling half-hearted stories about Father’s favourite books would keep all the memories hidden in the dark. But the stain was spreading now in Laura’s mind, and she felt her hand shake as she picked up her cup of tea: she could not swallow it and had to put it down.