A Quiet Life(84)

‘I don’t know – I don’t know.’

‘This isn’t my city either, you know,’ he said.

Laura couldn’t agree. The people at the embassy were part of the group, and just as in London she was beginning to recognise that she would never be at home in it.

‘Shall we go and see a film?’ Edward asked.

‘You hate American movies, you’ve told me so.’

‘We can go and see one if you want.’

‘The night we heard,’ she said, ‘you told me you had a message for me. You never told me what it was.’

‘I thought this wasn’t the time. When you’re ready, they want you to go and visit the Botanical Gardens on Tuesday morning, any Tuesday at eleven.’

So all the wheels had gone on turning. ‘This Tuesday is fine,’ she said, and took the glass that Edward held out. ‘Let’s go see that movie.’

Out on F Street there was a rush of energy: too many people, government secretaries, young soldiers desperate for demobilisation, all drunk with the promise of Saturday night, striding in and out of the bars that were brilliant with neon. Laura had forgotten that a city could be like this; all the unquenched lights, the arrogant voices, the unbroken streets. Cinema after cinema had ‘standing room only’ signs, until at last they found one that showed second runs. Edward slept during the movie, but Laura could lose herself for a while in the satisfying dance of a thriller which suggested that people’s secrets are always knowable and explicable. Still, her mood did not lift and when they made love that night, for the first time ever she lost the rhythm of their desire. Their hands, their mouths, their bodies moved against one another, but the energy seemed mechanical. She found herself startlingly apart from Edward even as he came to the crescendo, and as he withdrew her eyes filled with tears. It seemed so wrong that they had gone through the motions without finding one another.

Who goes to the Botanical Gardens in the rain? When Laura saw the wet streets on Tuesday morning she wondered if she should wait for another week, but she remembered how she had always been Stefan’s good girl, clever Pigeon, and that drove her on. She put on a raincoat she had brought from London and found an umbrella. Out of habit she took a circuitous route, studying the map carefully before she left so that she could double back on herself once or twice, but there was nobody looking at her through those sheets of rain. Entering the gardens, she was about to walk around the sodden park and then, realising that such behaviour would be conspicuously odd, she went into the huge conservatory. Here, in her raincoat and scarf, the warmth became oppressive. She was going back towards the entrance when she became aware of someone walking a little more quickly behind her, and she stopped as if admiring the lavish display. Sure enough, the stranger, a short man with an umbrella that he was holding away from his body, came closer. They exchanged the passwords that Laura had been given in London in a half-whisper and went on walking. ‘It’s too quiet here,’ he said, ‘follow me,’ and they went up to the platform in the next room where the drumming of the rain on the roof provided some cover to their words.

Because they were both standing with heads averted, and he was wearing a hat and trench coat, Laura could hardly see him. She turned to get a good look so that she would recognise him at future meetings, and he shook his head and muttered to her not to show such interest.

‘Just in case I—’

‘We won’t be meeting again. I know you worked in England, but it’s too risky here to have you working too. I’ve been asked to thank you.’

‘So this is it?’

‘This is it.’ He was about to move off.

‘Wait – what if there is an emergency? In London I had a code.’

‘You must work through your—’

‘I mean, if he can’t—’

‘Then keep silent. This is a hard place to work. If I have to get in touch with you for any reason, the same password, the name Alex, here at this time.’

There were footsteps on the iron staircase below them, and Laura moved away from him. When she looked back, he was gone. Although she thought she had come reluctantly to this meeting, Laura was surprised at the shock of disappointment she felt after his departure, as she walked on through the hot, damp room. It was as though a thread that bound this Laura here to the Laura she had built up in London over the last few years had been cut. What would now give direction to her days?

She put up her umbrella as she left the park, and started walking back through the driving rain. This time she took a direct route back. Her shoes and stockings were already soaking, and as she walked she became more and more disheartened. She felt that she moved too slowly among these huge lines of brick and stone. Even when she got to the smaller streets near to the apartment, she felt lost in the grid of the city where nobody cared where she was or what she did.

The apartment was empty. Of course it was. Edward left early each morning and then there was only ever Laura herself to put on the radio, to turn it off again, to lie on the sofa and then plump the cushions, to scatter crumbs and wipe them up. She cut herself a sandwich and sat in the sterile kitchen, eating it. When the telephone rang, it sounded loud in the emptiness. Laura had to ask the caller’s name a couple of times before she remembered who Monica was, and why she was asking her to come to a coffee morning the following week to plan a dinner for the charity she supported.