Early evening on Saturday. Sunlight bathes the west-facing terrace, and the air is mild. Laura has made her decision. They will eat outside tonight. They will sit down to the main course at half past eight, in just over two hours time. Now begins the most complex and intense phase of the entire operation.
The rolled saddle of lamb, the expensive centerpiece of the meal, is the source of greatest anxiety. As she works away at its preparation, piercing holes, poking in sprigs of rosemary and wedges of garlic, massaging it with olive oil and salt and pepper, she reruns the sums in her head to determine the cooking times. Six pounds at sixteen minutes a pound, ninety-six minutes roasting time, twenty minutes to rest: just under two hours. So it should go into the oven in ten minutes or so. But what are the chances the guests will be in their places ready to eat at eight-thirty? Better the lamb too pink than overcooked. So put it in the oven at 6:40 p.m. and take it out at 8.15 p.m.
Time before that to top and tail the courgettes and slice and toss them in olive oil and butter. Then there’s the baguettes to slice and grill for the taramasalata. And oh God, someone needs to pick some flowers.
She goes out onto the terrace, where Henry is sitting talking with Diana and Roddy.
“I think we can eat outside, don’t you?” she says. “Henry, I’m leaving you to lay the table and deal with drinks. Diana, I don’t suppose you’d like to pick some flowers?”
“I’ve just been telling Henry about Max,” says Diana. “That boy never ceases to amaze me. I’ve always known he was bright and, of course, exceptional, really, but he’s becoming so wise. Yesterday he gave me quite a lecture about taking life more seriously. He’s becoming almost formidable.”
“Maybe he gets that from Roddy,” says Henry.
“From Roddy?” Diana sound surprised. “Roddy isn’t formidable in the least.”
“Why don’t you give everyone a drink?” says Laura to Henry. “And bring me a glass in the kitchen.”
She returns to her vegetable preparations. In her mind she is slotting the various tasks into the time available. Clearly Diana won’t be picking the flowers, so she’ll have to find five minutes for that. Then at some point after the lamb’s in the oven and before it’s time to cook the vegetables she must steal a quarter of an hour to change and make herself presentable. And what is Carrie to eat? She may choose to lurk in her room but she still needs to be fed.
Roddy appears, bringing her a glass of wine.
“I’m an emissary from Henry.”
“Oh, thank you, Roddy. It’s a bit early, I know.”
She drinks gratefully. Then she starts work cutting up the baguettes.
“So when are the other guests coming?” says Roddy.
“In half an hour or so. I asked them to come early while there’s still sun on the terrace.”
“Half an hour!” Roddy sounds shocked. “We haven’t had any time to talk.”
“Yes, I know,” says Laura. “Everything’s been a bit up in the air, what with Carrie’s accident and all the rest of it. And now I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit frantic until we’re all sitting down and eating.”
“Would it bother you if I hang about in the kitchen while you work? I’ve been so looking forward to telling you about—well, you know.”
“Your adventures.”
“Yes. My adventures.”
Roddy is visibly pleased. Laura would far rather be left alone at this point, but she hasn’t got the heart to turn him away.
“I don’t suppose you feel up to picking some flowers for the table, do you?”
“I don’t think I’m much good with flowers,” says Roddy. “I’d pick all the wrong ones.”
“There aren’t any wrong flowers. You just pick ones you like, that you think will go together.”
“But what if you don’t like what I pick? Or Diana. I’m quite sure Diana wouldn’t approve of my choice.”
“Oh, Roddy.”
She meets his uncertain gaze with a smile of sympathy.
“You really are a saint with my sister.”
“Oh, well, Diana and I . . .” He looks out to the terrace where Diana and Henry are talking. “It’s been so long since we’ve been . . .”
His voice trails away into silence. Then before Laura can say something vague and consoling, he starts up again.
“You have to look at these things objectively, don’t you? And objectively speaking, I don’t see that I have all that much to offer Diana these days. I suppose that sounds hard. But you can see how we are together.”
Laura’s heart sinks. It’s worse than she feared. This is not what she needs right now. She reaches for a pair of scissors.
“Roddy, I’m the first to admit that my sister must be impossible to live with, and God knows how you’ve managed it all these years. But this is really going to have to wait for another day, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, of course,” he says. “It just helps to know that you—that you understand.”
“I really do have to go out and pick some flowers.”
To her slight irritation he follows her to the flower borders. She cuts handfuls of alchemilla, laying it in foamy yellow-green heaps in the trug she carries on her arm. She moves briskly, aware of her deadline for the lamb. Roddy trots along behind, talking in a ceaseless semi-coherent stream.
“You get to an age,” he says by the magnolia, “when you realize you’re not living the life you were created to live. Of course I realize that’s something of a presumption. That there is a creator, I mean . . .”
And following Laura to the banks of pink cosmos, “After all, we’re not either of us getting any younger, though I dare hope for at least another thirty years of vigor and good health—”
And by the fringe of the orchard, where the bright blue cornflowers grow, “In one sense we’re all borne along by the stream of life, but in another sense we must act, we must be the authors of our own destiny, when that destiny at last presents itself.”
Laura has only a general idea what Roddy is talking about, and isn’t really paying close attention. He comes at last to a stop, saying, “I think we understand each other pretty well, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, absolutely,” she replies.
It’s almost time to put the saddle of lamb in the oven. She returns to the house with Roddy half a pace behind.
“Talk to Henry, Roddy,” she says as she crosses the terrace where Henry and Diana are sitting with their drinks. “He understands all this so much better than me.”
“All what?” says Henry.
“And don’t forget you’re laying the table, Henry. Roddy can help you.”
By this means she sheds Roddy. She parks the trug of flowers on the table, checks the time once more, and slides the lamb in its roasting tray onto a high rack in the top oven. She makes a mental note to baste the roast in half an hour. Within that time she must trim and arrange the flowers in two vases, tidy the mess in the kitchen and living room, sort out serving dishes—oh, and put out the redcurrant jelly, bought rather than homemade, but you can’t do everything. Then there’s the sliced baguettes to oil and grill for the starter. Might as well take the taramasalata out of the fridge now. Get down a long platter to lay the slices out. And some olives, they’ll go well, the big sweet Spanish olives from Bill’s in Lewes, everyone loves them.
More wine. Now to see to herself.
She runs upstairs and changes into a light cotton summer dress. She brushes her hair and does a little work on her makeup. A bolder red on her lips, some eye shadow, some mascara. Then she picks out a pair of shoes with heels, pretty and rather fragile. She checks her appearance in the long mirror, unconsciously assuming a pose that presents her body to advantage and slightly protruding her lips. From the terrace below comes the sound of voices and the clink of cutlery as Henry puts out knives and forks. She checks her watch. Almost seven o’clock. Still so much to do.
She looks in on Carrie before heading back downstairs. Carrie is sitting on her bed with her guitar on her lap and a pad of paper and a pen in her hands.
“Yes. Fine.”
“I’m going to make a plate of food for you. You’ll have to eat it in secret.”
Carrie doesn’t even look up. “Thanks, Mum.”
Maggie and Andrew walk over to the Broads from Maggie’s cottage. The Broads’ house looks so substantial, so rooted in the world of tradition and convention, that Maggie hesitates, assailed by doubt, on the gravel before the front door. Suddenly she’s not sure she can do this. Sounds of teenage music come from an open upper window. A glimpse into an unoccupied drawing room shows framed photographs of smiling children on a sideboard. This is family land. All the guests will be in couples.
“Maybe this is a mistake,” she says. “I feel like I’m here under false pretenses. What if they ask us about our plans for the future?”
“People don’t ask people about their plans for the future.”
“They might.”
“Then we say we’re thinking of setting up a commune,” says Andrew unexpectedly.
“A commune?”
“Shared property. Free love.”
Maggie grins at that.
“Seriously, Maggie,” says Andrew, “if it all gets too much we can leave. We could have a code word, and if you say it, I’ll come up with an excuse, and we’ll leave.”
“What sort of code word?”
“Something you wouldn’t normally say in conversation, but not so weird that everyone notices. Like Basingstoke. Or Purley. Rhymes with early, as in Let’s leave early.”
All this is a side of Andrew that has been in hiding in recent weeks. Her confession of uncertainty seems to have liberated him.
“How do you get Purley into a conversation?” she says.
“It doesn’t have to be Purley the place. It can be pearly like in a necklace.”
“Pearly necklace? That’s just odd.”
“It’s got to be odd, or it’ll come up in ordinary conversation. The code word could be girly, but you might say it not as code, and I’d think you wanted to leave, and you wouldn’t.”
“Girly? I never say girly. When does anyone ever say girly?”
“Girly laughter. Girly night out.”
“All right,” she says. “Purley it is.”
Such a ridiculous conversation to be having. She takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. Henry Broad answers the door.
“The lovely Maggie! And you must be Andrew. What terrible neighbors we are. You’ve not been round before, have you? Come in, come in. I blame the Internet.”
He leads them through a big, warm-toned kitchen, where Laura Broad is turning a rack of toast on the hot plate. The air is heady with the aroma of roasting meat. Laura greets Maggie with a kiss. A quick friendly glance at Andrew shows that she at least is following the plot.
“I have to find a moment to talk to you, Andrew,” she says. “I’ve been learning a few things about your uncle’s collection.”
Henry ushers them out onto the terrace, where a thin elegant woman stands with an ugly middle-aged man, quarreling in undertones. As they’re introduced Maggie finds herself actually blushing, not at anything anyone says, but because in the eyes of these strangers they are effectively married already. She wants to say, “No, you don’t understand, we only met on the doorstep.” Or more truthfully, “We’ve come as a couple but we’ve had a rocky week and may be splitting up tomorrow.” Instead she dips her head and smiles and allows the illusion to remain. Everyone here is tidily paired off. Everyone has a home and a life companion. There’s no call to confuse matters.
“Maggie’s job is in conservation,” Henry says.
“Whenever I hear that word I think of jam-making,” says the thin, elegant woman.
Diana takes against the newcomer on sight. Maggie is exactly the kind of woman she finds most tiresome: pretty in a girly sort of way, without sophistication, the sort who grew up in pony clubs and feels at home in Wellington boots. Maggie’s smiling at her in a placatory way because that’s how people behave in the provinces, where they value social cohesion above intellectual stimulus. So instead of smiling back Diana looks away, not to talk to anyone else, but to indicate that she at least won’t be playing the tedious game of nicey-nicey that passes for an entertaining evening out in Sussex.
“You’re thinking of conserves,” says Maggie.
“So I am,” says Diana. “But actually there is a connection. You know when you make jam there’s a vital ingredient that makes the jam set? It’s called pectin. There’s bound to be an equivalent in the conservation of buildings, something you have to add to the process to make it really last. I wonder what it is.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Diana?” says Henry.
“I’m making small talk,” says Diana. “I’m being sociable.”
She can feel without actually looking how the person called Maggie is entirely out of her depth, and this gratifies her. Why should people put so much effort into making each other comfortable? Life begins when you leave your comfort zone. Her talk with Max this morning, just before she left, had just this effect. She still feels a little shaken by it. But she recognizes that Max had the energy and the originality to challenge his own mother’s preconceptions, and Diana applauds that.
“What makes you think your views are superior to Dad’s?” he said. “Has it occurred to you that you might occupy a far smaller mental universe than he does? Has it occurred to you that he’s grappling with the really important questions, and you’ve never asked them because your mind is clogged by triviality?”
Many mothers would have found that quite hurtful, but Diana has always prided herself on the freedom she’s given her children to be themselves. She takes Max’s criticism in the spirit it’s given, not as an attack, but as a sharing of his own evolving outlook. She stays open to new experiences. That’s the difference between the life she leads and the life Laura leads in Sussex. And if that openness exposes her to the occasional sting, then so be it. That’s the price you pay for staying alive. She knows Max is still both her beloved son and her friend. This is what she’s most proud of in her life. Her children are her friends.
“I’m useless at being sociable,” says Roddy. “Diana’s always telling me I have no small talk.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Roddy.”
It really is more than she can bear to have Roddy drooping about the place pandering to other people’s insecurities. If they want to have a shy people’s tea party, let them all move to Cheltenham and do it where it won’t bore the rest of us to death. Then, abruptly, she remembers that Max has offered her a different perspective on Roddy.
“Tell them about your search for God,” she says. “Max has been telling me I’m too trivial. Do you search for God?”
She addresses this to the dull-looking young man in spectacles who has come with the jam woman. She has entirely failed to retain his name.
“No,” he says, “no, I don’t. Do you think I should?”
“Absolutely. You wouldn’t want to be accused of having a mind clogged by triviality, would you?”
“Shut up,” says Roddy.
Diana is startled.
“What did you say, Roddy?”
“I said shut up.”
At this point another couple joins them, and Henry makes introductions and passes round drinks. Diana is bewildered. Did Roddy just tell her to shut up in public?
“Diana. Roddy. This is Liz and Alan.”
Liz answers Henry’s courteous inquiry about her mother by telling the story of her week. She tells it as if it’s a comic anecdote about a maddening but lovable old eccentric.
“Every day she was telling me she didn’t need her carer, she hated her carer, she wanted me to take her carer away. So I took her away. She lasted three days. Now she’s saying to her carer, Never leave me.”
But as she speaks her real attention is on one of the other guests, who she recognized as soon as they came out onto the terrace. It’s the council pixie who made eyes at Alan, and who is making eyes at Alan even now. Alan too has recognized her, and they have begun a conversation. Liz is thrown by this. The encounter feels embarrassing, almost indecent, like meeting your gynecologist at a swingers’ party.
Half picking up on their conversation even while conducting a conversation of her own, Liz gathers that the pixie knows about Alan’s other writer. She’s sympathizing with him over his predicament. How does she know this? Have they had more than one meeting?
“What’s your view on donkeys?” she says to Laura’s brother-in-law.
“I think I can truthfully say,” he answers, “that I have no view whatsoever on donkeys.”
Laura comes out with a plate of something or other on toast, and gives Liz the plate to hold.
“It’s taramasalata,” says Laura. “To keep you going.”
She heads back into the kitchen. Henry refills glasses. Alan remains deep in talk with the pixie. Liz feels old and ugly and incompetent. Laura is a far better cook than she is, and a far better hostess. She catches herself hoping for some social disaster to overtake the evening.
“These are delicious,” says Diana. “Roddy, you’ve already had your share.”
“My point is this,” says Henry. “We’ve all lost confidence in our ability to make artistic judgments.”
“Have you lost your confidence to make artistic judgments?” Liz says to the young man in glasses.
“No,” he says. “I never had any confidence to lose.”
“So what is it you do?”
“I work in IT.”
Liz barely hears him. She’s watching Alan, his face so animated, talking so eagerly, while the pixie smiles up at him.
“I’m so sorry,” she says to the man in spectacles, “I didn’t catch your girlfriend’s name—your partner—”
“Maggie,” he says. “Maggie Dutton.”
“I don’t think she remembers, but we met just a few days ago.”
Alan finds to his surprise that he’s enjoying the evening. Henry is assiduous at refilling his glass, and he’s flattered that Maggie remembers not only what he does for a living, but what has been causing him grief this week. He responds to her friendly interest with a comic tour-de-force on the fate of his poor sheepdog movie, which secretly impresses even himself.
“And best of all,” he concludes, “I get to tell total strangers at dinner parties about Colin Firth and Robert De Niro, neither of whom I have actually met, who are speaking words written by someone else, for which I will get the credit. How sublimely wonderful is that?”
Maggie laughs, visibly enchanted.
“But you do write plays as well,” she says. “Those are your words.”
Liz joins them, carrying a plate of something or other on toast.
“Hi,” she says to Maggie. “I’m Liz.”
“Maggie’s the conservation officer,” Alan says. “She came over the other day.”
“I remember,” says Liz.
Alan sees at once that Liz is going to give Maggie a hard time, and this irritates him. She’s only doing her job. When you meet socially you put all that stuff aside.
“We’re not even going to think about all that,” he says. “This is a social event.”
“I’m sure Maggie is used to it,” says Liz. “Like being an off-duty traffic warden. You must keep meeting people you’ve given parking tickets.”
“Like you keep meeting people you’ve misquoted in print,” says Alan.
Liz gives him a stare. Then she turns to Maggie.
“I’ve been talking to your husband. He tells me he’s in IT.”
“We’re not married,” says Maggie. “He fixes people’s computers.”
Henry comes to refill their glasses.
“Did Laura tell you we went to a Buckingham Palace garden party?” he says. “It was rather wonderful. We came to mock and stayed to pray.”
In the kitchen, Laura has basted the lamb, and moved it to the bottom of the top oven. Serving dishes are in the bottom oven to warm. The carving board is out, the carving knife sharpened. Time to put the potatoes on. A glance through the open door onto the terrace shows her guests, lit by the golden light of the sinking sun, drinking their wine and talking happily.
The water is bubbling in the pan. She lowers the steamer basket over the boiling water, sprinkles salt onto the new potatoes, and covers them with a lid. As she turns round from the stove she sees Roddy standing in the doorway staring at her.
“You’ve changed,” he says.
Roddy is in hell. He doesn’t understand how it happened, but something has come between himself and Laura. The unspoken understanding they had before has gone, to be replaced by something hard and shiny and impenetrable. He feels as if the words he says to her no longer reach her, they’re blown away by some cruel wind. He watches her all the time to see if she feels it too, but she’s in motion, always busy. Roddy hates the dinner party. He hates the people here, with the sole exception of Laura. What are they but noise and interference? A great change is destined for this weekend, and it’s unable to come into being because of this bustle and chatter, this pointless worthless nodding and smiling that has in it no reality, no substance, no love. If he could remove Laura from the party for the shortest time, for half an hour, for ten minutes, if they could walk out across the meadow, down to the river bank, and be silent in each other’s company—then the true Laura would meet his eyes, and he could speak the simple words that he has so far failed to utter.
Roddy blames himself. He knows he has a tendency to ramble. It’s because he’s nervous. Alone, feeling her loving gaze on him, the nervousness will fall away, and his tongue will speak the truth of his heart.
How beautiful she is. How radiant and womanly. Even as she moves out of his reach she becomes more perfect. All he wants in life is to be with her. Others talk of the search for God and have no understanding. Only those who live the true and destined life know God. With Laura I am with God. Without her I am in hell.
“Do you have a moment, Laura?”
“Look at me, Roddy. Do I look as if I have a moment?”
Henry appears by his side and speaks low in his ear.
“Roddy, do me a favor. Rescue Andrew.”
Andrew is the soft-faced young man with glasses. He’s standing talking to Diana, or rather, listening to Diana. Diana is doing that thing she does, talking to someone while her eyes gaze in all other directions, transparently in search of some person or object of more compelling interest.
Bowing his head as if to his own execution, Roddy does as he’s asked.
“Roddy,” says Diana. “You’re behaving very oddly this evening. Are you ill?”
“I expect so,” says Roddy.
“Well, don’t be. It’s such a bore. Andrew and I have been talking about computers. More your kind of thing.”
She goes into the kitchen to bother Laura. Roddy looks wildly at Andrew, overwhelmed with anger at Diana. Why now? Why this evening? Not that there’s anything new. She’s been behaving this way for years. But today was to have been the day of his liberation. He feels like a prisoner whose term has expired, only to find as he is led to the prison gates that a new sentence has been imposed, and he will never be free.
“We weren’t exactly talking about computers,” says Andrew. “We were talking about why some people seem to have a blind spot about computers.”
“You work with computers, do you?”
“Yes,” says Andrew. “I fix computer problems. Though of course it’s very rarely the computer that’s at fault, it’s the user. So you could say I fix people.”
“You fix people?”
Dimly, through the haze of pain and anger, Roddy is aware that this is interesting. At any other time he could take pleasure in pursuing the insight. But through the open kitchen door he can see Laura at work in the kitchen, and Diana leaning against the table, where he should be, saying empty nothings to her, when he could be changing lives.
“I suppose that sounds a bit pompous,” says Andrew. “But you know what I mean.”
Maggie joins them, slipping one hand through Andrew’s arm.
“Has Andrew told you?” she says. “We’re thinking of setting up a commune.”
“Really?” says Roddy.
“Shared property and free love,” says Maggie.
“She’s teasing you,” says Andrew.
“Oh, right,” says Roddy. “I never get it when people make jokes. Diana says you have to ring a bell for me.”
“I’m only partly teasing,” says Maggie. “There isn’t nearly enough love in the world. We could set it up in Basingstoke.”
“Why Basingstoke?” says Roddy.
“Because it’s near Purley.”
“How near?” says Andrew.
“Quite near,” says Maggie. “But we’re not there yet.”
Maggie is already a little drunk. Henry is so good at refilling the glasses that without noticing it she must have drunk half a bottle or more already. The encounter with Alan has thrown her off-balance, but it has also sharpened her senses. Those first impressions have not deceived her. This is a powerfully attractive man. She can’t keep her eyes off him. All the while they were talking she was longing to touch him. For some reason this quiet man with the lined, weary face and the mass of soft brown hair has aroused her sexual desire. It’s not anything he says or does. It’s just what he is. She’s had to walk away from him, afraid she if she remains close for any longer she’ll start undoing his trousers and saying, “Let’s fuck.”
He himself seems to be oblivious to her response, but his wife is more than aware. Maggie can’t blame her, but what can you do? Her conversation has been entirely innocent, she has no designs on Alan, she’s walked away from him, hasn’t she? But she can feel him still, behind her, by the terrace table. Her back feels him and tingles. Her bum tingles.
She pulls a little tighter on Andrew’s arm. Maybe they should leave. There’s no one here she has any desire to talk to except him. But Laura has been so kind to her, and it would be so rude to walk out. Also if they left early, would she tell Andrew the reason? You can’t say something like that, can you? You can’t tell your boyfriend you’re wetting your knickers for another man. So you don’t tell him. You bury it, and you behave yourself. And then what?
“Free love is an interesting concept,” Roddy says. “People think it means orgies, but you could argue it means true love. In that there’s no true love without freedom.”
“What about married people?” says Maggie. “They’re not free. Does that mean you can’t be married and have true love?”
“It might mean that,” says Roddy, his eyes gleaming. “It might indeed.”
“There, you see, Andrew,” says Maggie. “It’s your A and B and X and Y.”
“It’s a theory I was trying out on Maggie,” Andrew explains to Roddy. “The intense phase of love rarely lasts.”
“But it does,” says Roddy with sudden earnestness. “With the right person it not only lasts, it grows deeper and stronger with every year that goes by.”
“You’re a lucky man,” says Maggie.
How strange people are. This ugly man and his sharp-tongued wife have clearly found a way to make marriage work. She wants to ask him their secret. It can’t be sex, surely? But you never know. In the privacy of the bedroom perhaps they call each other baby names and do things to each other with their fingers that excite them both to ecstasy.
Henry stands gazing at the teak terrace table, now laid, made pretty with two vases of pink cosmos and blue cornflowers, and three red candles in glass wind-shields. He’s puzzling over where to seat his guests. He’ll put himself at the head, as host, and Laura on the far right corner where she likes to go, so she has easy access to the kitchen. Andrew on her left, so she can talk to him about books. That means Andrew had better have Liz on his left and Alan opposite, which puts Roddy at the other end of the table, with Maggie on his right. Henry mentally surveys the arrangement. It means he gets Diana, but he can cope with that, and at least she’s as far from Roddy as it’s possible to get on a table for eight.
Have I brought up enough wine? Red for the main course, eight people, four bottles should be enough, surely? The white has been disappearing faster than expected. Still light on the terrace, that sweet gentle light of summer evenings. Too soon to light the candles.
The moon is rising, almost a full moon but not quite, a squeezed disc low over the rim of the Downs. Barely a breeze. What a summer it’s been so far. A summer to be grateful for. A day to be grateful for. A day that is now slowly, beautifully, ending.
He looks back at the house, its windows glowing in the twilight. He sees Laura at work in the kitchen, reaching for the oven gloves that hang over the rail of the Aga. Things have their places. Little by little, the tools you need for daily living discover and occupy their rightful niches, as if the house is a garment that is tailored to fit over time. The gap between the dishwasher and the sink becomes a slot for trays. The Deruta bowl on the dresser holds string, glue, Sellotape, drawing pins. Rarely used serving dishes and big vases are stored in the cupboard under the stairs. Laura’s nightdress and his own bathrobe hang on hooks above the bedroom radiator so they’re warm for wearing at night. These arrangements are all unremarkable, obvious perhaps, but each one represents a decision they have made over the years. So a house grows in familiarity and rightness, just as a person does; just as a marriage does.
Roddy enters the kitchen with a determined stride and takes Laura’s wrist in his hand.
“Come with me,” he says.
Laura has the oven gloves in her hands. She’s about to take the lamb out of the oven. She’s so surprised by Roddy’s manner that she doesn’t resist.
He leads her into the hall, which is not overlooked from the terrace. Keeping tight hold of her wrist, he fixes her with his eyes, revealing there the turmoil of his spirit. Laura understands that this is all about his troubled marriage, and she wants to be sympathetic, but he has chosen the worst possible moment.
“Please, Roddy—”
“You know what this is about.”
“Later, Roddy.”
“I just need one word. One word, Laura.”
She pulls at her hand, but he only holds it tighter.
“Look, Roddy, I really will listen, but not now. The lamb has to come out of the oven—”
“The lamb!” His face darkens and his voice rises. “I don’t give a fuck about the lamb!”
The obscenity releases Laura’s last qualms of conscience. She snaps her wrist out of his grasp.
“You’re drunk, Roddy. Go and stick your head in cold water.”
His face crumples.
“I’m not drunk,” he says.
“Then go back to the others and behave yourself.”
She hurries back to the kitchen and opens the oven door. Hot air and the smells of the joint engulf her. She draws out the saddle of lamb on its roasting pan and transfers it to the bottom simmering oven, leaving it there with the oven door ajar to rest. Has she left it too long? With lamb two or three minutes can make all the difference.
What’s wrong with Roddy? He’s having some sort of breakdown, evidently. Laura realizes she’ll have to have a proper talk with him, but it can wait till tomorrow. Time now to put on the carrots and sauté the courgettes. Then there’s the gravy to make, from the juices in the roasting pan. Then Henry can carve.
Andrew takes Maggie to the end of the terrace to show her the moon rising between the trees. Here he can speak to her in private.
“Look,” he says, “if you want to go I can fake an emergency call on my phone and we can just go.”
“But I’m having a wonderful time,” says Maggie. “Aren’t you having a wonderful time?”
Her eyes dart about as she speaks and she moves her feet as if dancing to some music in her head.
“No, not really,” he says.
“Well, you should, Andrew. These are lovely people, and they’re our neighbors, so you should make more effort.”
She performs a little pirouette in the twilight.
“And it’s such a lovely evening.”
“You’re not usually like this,” he says.
“Aren’t I? Well, we can’t be usual all the time.”
He can’t tell if she’s drunk or just playing at being drunk. All he can see is that whatever it is that’s happening to her does not include him.
“Come on,” she says, drawing him back to the others. “We mustn’t be antisocial.”
They join Alan and Liz and Diana.
“Have you seen the moon?” Maggie says. “I think it might be a full moon.”
“Couple of days to go,” says Alan.
“Are you sure? Do you know about things like that? Are you one of those people who knows things?”
“Just don’t ask him what day it is,” says Liz. “Or where he put his reading glasses.”
“Oh, I have the answer to that,” says Diana. “You buy lots of pairs, and scatter them round the house. The average German owns six pairs.”
“Andrew never loses his,” says Maggie, “because they’re always on his face.”
Henry summons his guests to the table and assigns them their places.
“Roddy, you’re at the other end. Why don’t you give everyone a glass of red? It’s a nice Rioja. Well, I hope it’s nice. Maggie, you go there, by Roddy. Liz, you’re by me.”
Laura brings out dishes of vegetables. She displays the saddle of lamb before it’s carved.
“I just hope I haven’t overdone it.”
Roddy fills glasses as the others take their seats. Henry takes the lamb back into the kitchen to carve. Diana, finding herself facing Liz, does her conversational duty.
“You live in the village too, do you?” she says.
“No,” says Liz. “We’re about four miles away.”
Laura says, “Liz’s daughter Alice goes out with Jack.”
“Oh, yes,” says Diana, remembering. “You write for the Telegraph. Didn’t I read something the other day about men and women being friends, or not being friends, or something?”
“Yes, that was me,” says Liz.
“Why can’t men and women be friends?” says Maggie. “I’ve got lots of men who are friends.”
“Because of sex,” says Alan.
“Friends can have sex,” says Maggie.
“Doesn’t that change friendship?” says Laura. “I thought it did.”
“Of course it does,” says Diana. “If you’re having sex, you’re not friends, you’re lovers.”
“But friends can have sex,” insists Maggie, “and still just be friends. It’s not as if they have to get married. I mean, they can, but that’s a whole other thing. They may just want to carry on being friends.”
“Doesn’t happen,” says Alan. “Sex is rocket fuel. Once you start, you’re airborne. You have to keep flying, or you fall to earth.”
“Keep flying?” says Maggie, holding out her glass, already empty, for Roddy to refill. “Flying where? Flying to marriage?”
“Could be,” says Alan.
“And what then? Is marriage still flying?”
The married ones all laugh at that, except for Roddy. He sits at the end of the table in silence. Henry appears with plates of lamb.
“Oh, Lord,” says Laura. “It is a little overdone.”
“It isn’t overdone at all,” says Liz. “Mine’s a perfect pink.”
“I don’t know how you can say that,” says Diana. “I can’t see a thing.”
They all fall to helping themselves to the vegetables, and the gravy, and the mint sauce, and the redcurrant jelly. Henry, now at the table too, sees that everyone’s glasses are topped up. Then he lifts the cylinders and lights the three red candles. The flames burn steady and strong shielded by the glass. All at once the evening changes. The sky is still light, but here round the table on the terrace the candlelight draws them together into its flattering glow.
Liz says to Maggie, “So I take it you’ve not been married yet?”
“That’s a strange way to put it,” says Alan. “As if all marriages exist in the past.”
“No, not yet,” says Maggie. “I’m up for any tips.”
“Tips about how,” says Liz, “or tips about who?”
“Have we got any tips, Henry?” says Laura. “We’re the longest married here.”
“As it happens,” says Henry, “today is the twenty-seventh anniversary of the day I proposed to Laura.”
“Bravo!” says Alan. “We should drink to that.”
“We will. I mean to propose a toast, after we’ve eaten.”
“You’re not going to make a speech, are you, Henry?”
Laura smiles at him down the table, through the blur of candlelight.
“Well, here’s what I want to know,” says Maggie. “Does falling in love make a good marriage? Or is it nothing to do with it?”
“Nothing,” says Diana.
“Everything,” says Liz.
“Falling in love,” says Diana, speaking a little fast, blinking her eyes, “happens over and over. If you got married every time you fell in love you’d spend your life in a wedding dress.”
“This is new, Diana,” says Henry. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”
“I’m helplessly romantic,” says Diana. “I fall in love with every pretty boy who gives me a smile. Doesn’t everybody? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“That’s not falling in love,” says Liz. “Falling in love is something that takes you over completely.”
At the other end of the table Laura starts talking to Andrew about his inheritance.
“You know it’s my field,” she says. “If you’re thinking of selling, don’t just accept the first offer you get. That collection is very special. It could go for as much as a hundred thousand.”
“Good God!” exclaims Andrew.
Maggie, who sits opposite Laura, wants to be part of the conversation about love. She leans across Alan, one hand on his arm, to question Liz.
“That’s what I want to know about,” she says. “I mean, I do know about it. But I want to know if falling in love is what leads to a successful marriage.”
“Have we got a successful marriage?” Liz says to Alan.
“Ten years and counting,” says Alan. “Not bad.”
“How long have you and Roddy been married, Diana?” says Henry.
“Twenty-four years,” says Diana. “That’s right, isn’t it, Roddy?”
Roddy nods, but does not speak. He’s drinking steadily, and his eyes gaze before him at nothing.
“This is terrific, Laura,” says Alan, tapping his plate with his fork. “Best lamb I’ve ever had.”
“I get it from Richards,” says Laura. “He’s a proper butcher.”
“Roddy,” says Diana, “what are you doing down there? Are you going into the silence? Because if you are, please come out again.”
“There’s more lamb,” says Henry, “if anyone wants it.”
“I can see I’ll never get an answer to my question,” says Maggie. “I expect there isn’t an answer. Don’t you have an answer?” She addresses this to Alan, by her side. “You’re the one who knows things.”
“I’ve forgotten the question,” says Alan.
“Maggie wants to know if she should follow her heart,” says Liz. “Assuming her heart is giving her directions.”
“Of course you should follow your heart,” says Alan, looking directly at Maggie. “Anything else is half-hearted. Who wants to go around with half a heart?”
Maggie holds his gaze for a moment, then she blushes and looks away.
So the first course passes, and the sun sets, and all are agreed that on such a beautiful evening as this, in a summer like this, England’s the only place in the world to be.
Then Henry goes round with the Rioja, charging the glasses.
“This is for my toast,” he says.
He goes back to his end of the table and remains standing, glass in hand.
“Laura doesn’t approve of speeches at dinner,” he says, “so this isn’t a speech. It’s just me saying this and that. Actually it’s really me saying thank you. Thanking has to be done in public, doesn’t it? Otherwise it doesn’t count. I want to say thank you for this summer. We’ve been stay-at-homes here in Sussex, Laura and I, and haven’t we been rewarded?”
“Who are you thanking for the summer, Henry?” says Diana.
“Oh, the powers that be, I suppose. Who I must also thank for keeping Carrie safe in her car accident. And for returning Laura’s lost ring.”
Laura holds up her left hand to show the ruby ring.
“There’s something else, too. It so happens that this week it’s been made clear to me that my professional career is effectively at an end.”
“No, Henry!” cries Laura. “You know that’s not true.”
“Of course I shall go on working,” says Henry, “but careers are meant to career, don’t you think? They have momentum. And then one day the momentum runs out, and you know that in a while you’ll roll gently to a stop. When you see that time coming, you face a choice. You can fight it, or you can let it go. I know Roddy has been having similar thoughts recently.”
“Yes,” says Roddy, his voice a low groan.
“This is all getting a little funereal, Henry,” says Diana. “Some of us aren’t ready to die quite yet.”
“Nor am I, Diana. Quite the reverse. That’s what I mean when I say this is me saying thank you. You see, the person I’m really thanking is Laura. Twenty-seven years ago today I wrote on a paper napkin, Will you marry me? And she ticked the box marked Yes. Out of that moment has grown—well, everything, really. This home, this family, thanks to Laura. My daily happiness, thanks to Laura. This excellent dinner, thanks to Laura. So you see, it doesn’t matter about my career. I’m learning the virtue of humility. I don’t want to live any more in a world where people envy and fear each other. I want to live in a world where people treat each other with kindness.”
He looks round their faces, silent in the candlelight.
“There, now. I’ve confused you by turning serious.”
But his eyes are on Laura, who is gazing at him with a queer smile on her face, biting her lower lip, blinking her eyes.
Henry raises his glass high and says, very quietly in the evening hush, “This is for Laura, on our not very important anniversary. With all my love, till the day I die.”
He puts the glass to his lips. The others are not sure whether to clap or to echo the toast or just to drink, and attempt a confusion of all three. Only Roddy does not move or speak. He too has been watching Laura’s face. Her skin smoothed by the soft candlelight, her eyes bright with unshed tears, she radiates beauty, but not for him.
“Thank you, Henry,” she says. “How very unexpected.”
Afraid she’s about to cry, she jumps up from her seat.
“I think I’d better get the summer pudding.”
As soon as she’s left the table the others all start talking at once, as if anxious to break the spell.
Liz says, “I wish I’d been recording you, Henry. That was so sweet.”
Alan says, “You’re right, of course. This ambition thing puts a curse on everything one does.”
Maggie says, looking at Alan, “It’s just what you said. It’s following your heart.”
Henry takes up the fourth bottle of Rioja and refills glasses. Roddy stands up and mumbles that he needs to have a pee. Diana holds Henry by the arm, as if to tug him down from a too-risky flight of fancy.
“Even so, Henry, admit it,” she says. “You and Laura bicker as much as anyone. I’ve heard you.”
“Actually we’re on the point of splitting up,” says Henry. “I only said all that to put you off the scent.”
“Splitting up!”
“Very sad. After twenty-seven years.”
“Oh, you’re joking. That’s a rotten joke, Henry. You have to be careful what you say, or it may come true.”
Laura comes out with the summer pudding on a large white dish.
“It came out of the basin perfectly,” she says. “You can all admire it while I get the bowls and the cream.”
She sets the glistening pink and purple mound down before Henry’s place. He is the one who will serve it.
“I just love summer pudding,” says Alan.
“Me too,” says Maggie.
“There’s a way of making it with sponge cake and whipped cream,” says Diana, “that’s an absolute revelation. Do you remember, Roddy? I made it when we had Peter and Rebecca round.” Then, realizing Roddy has not yet returned, “Roddy is a serious pudding man.”
Laura reappears with a stack of pink-and-white bowls, a jug of cream, and a triangular-shaped slicer.
“That’s for you to cut it up with, Henry.”
Her hand resting on the back of his neck, stroking the short hairs there. Henry starts to slice. He cuts into the soft crust and the dark purple juice runs out.
In his absence, and on Diana’s instructions, Roddy is given a large slice of the pudding. The cream jug makes the round of the table. Alan takes so much cream the pudding in his bowl disappears.
“Oh, Alan,” says Liz. “What a pig you are.”
Maggie too pours herself a liberal helping of cream.
Alan, noticing this, says with a smile, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Then, to the rest of the company, in apology, “Blake, not me.”
“We don’t have puddings like this in Purley,” says Maggie.
“I know Purley,” says Henry. “Purley is basically a traffic jam.”
“Don’t say that, Henry,” says Laura. “Maggie probably grew up in Purley.”
“No,” says Maggie. “I’ve never been there in my life, and I don’t see any reason why I ever should go there. If you go to Purley you leave too early.”
The others laugh at this without understanding it, because it has the sound of a joke.
“What’s happened to Roddy?” says Laura.
“He went to the loo.”
“He’s been very quiet during dinner,” says Henry. “I hope he’s all right.”
“Why don’t you go and see, Henry? Tell him his pudding’s waiting.”
Henry gets up and goes into the house.
“My God, this is heaven,” says Alan, meaning the pudding. “I would get so fat if I was married to you, Laura.”
“Thanks,” says Liz.
“Oh, this is only for special occasions,” says Laura. “Usually I can’t be bothered to do puddings.”
A trill of high birdsong sounds from a nearby tree, invisible in the darkness.
“Is that a nightingale?” says Alan.
No one knows.
“Aren’t we useless?” says Alan. “We live in the countryside, but we know nothing about birdsong.”
“I don’t live in the countryside,” says Diana.
Henry comes out.
“I can’t find him,” he says. “He’s not in the downstairs loo.”
“Maybe he’s gone to lie down.”
“No, I’ve looked. He’s nowhere in the house.”
“Nowhere in the house?” says Diana. “He must be.”
She goes into the house and can be heard calling him in shrill tones. “Roddy! Roddy!” Then she returns, arms spread in bewilderment.
“Where can he be?”
“He hasn’t gone off to get something in the car?” says Liz.
“No. The car’s there.”
“I suppose he’s taken himself off for a walk,” says Laura. “He’s been in an odd mood all evening.”
“A walk?” says Diana, her voice rising. “At night? Where would you walk to?”
“I don’t know. To the river, maybe.”
“To the river?”
A moment of silence. Diana turns to Henry. All at once her face looks pale and lined.
“He’s not having some sort of breakdown, is he?”
“No,” says Henry. “No, of course not. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll get a torch and go out to have a look for him.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Alan.
Diana has started to tremble.
“He was drinking rather a lot,” she says. “He has been in an odd mood all evening.”
Henry and Alan cross the dry meadows in the moonlight. There’s no need for the torch. To start with Henry calls out every few minutes. “Roddy! Roddy!” Then they make their way in silence. The lights of Lewes glow amber in the distance. A cool night wind on their faces.
“You don’t think he’d do anything silly,” says Alan.
“No,” says Henry. “But something’s not right with him. He was going on earlier about how this is the river where Virginia Woolf drowned herself.”
“Bloody hell.”
Ahead a strip of water glints in the moonlight.
“Actually,” says Henry, “it’s not the same river here, it’s a tributary called Glynde Reach.”
“Is it deep?”
“Deep enough.”
They tramp on over the close-grazed grass. The ground is hard beneath their feet. Too many weeks without rain.
“Roddy!” calls Henry. “Roddy!”
No answer.
“He’s probably sleeping it off under a hedge,” says Alan.
“Hell of a lot of hedges,” says Henry.
He turns on the torch and rakes the land all round them, more to feel he’s doing something than in the expectation of any result.
“Your speech at dinner,” says Alan. “It was wonderful.”
“Too much information, I expect.”
“No. These things need saying.”
Now they’ve reached the river. It runs bright and straight between deep banks. Henry flashes the beam of his torch over the water’s surface, but there’s nothing to be seen. They make their way along the river bank, following the water’s flow. Ahead, the raised line of the railway embankment.
“How far do we go?” says Alan.
“This’ll do,” says Henry, turning round. “If he’s thrown himself in the river he’ll be halfway to Newhaven by now.”
“But he wouldn’t do that,” says Alan.
“No,” says Henry. “Of course not.”
He flashes his torch round the fields once more.
“Roddy!” he calls. “Roddy!”
They tramp back along the way they’ve come, no longer expecting to find him. And then, suddenly, there he is. He’s crouched by the river’s side, sitting on the grass of the bank, his legs in the water up to his knees. He’s hunkered down, both hands wrapped over his head, as if to protect himself from some imagined storm.
“Roddy! You bloody idiot!”
Henry’s rough anger gives away his relief. Roddy looks up, his eyes confused, not recognizing them.
“Get your feet out of the water, you chump!”
He does as he’s told. As he straightens up they see he’s clutching something that has been resting in his lap. He totters slightly as he rises to his feet, and it falls to the grass. Henry gives him his hand for support. Alan picks up the fallen object, and holds it out in the moonlight. It’s a box of Fudge’s Florentines.
“Come on, now. Pull on me.”
Henry gets Roddy up the bank and onto the level ground.
“Are you all right, old chap?”
Roddy nods.
“I’ll tell you what. You’ve ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes.”
Roddy doesn’t look up or speak, but he allows them to lead him back toward the village.
“So what’s our story?” says Henry. “You were pissed and decided to go for a paddle in the river?”
Roddy says something, but too low and indistinct for the others to catch.
“My fault,” says Henry. “Sloshing out too much wine. Typical host anxiety, I’m afraid.”
“Not drunk,” says Roddy.
“Best to say you are,” says Henry. “Better to be drunk than to be off your head.”
“Stick my head in cold water,” says Roddy.
“You do that.”
Roddy comes to a stop and looks round in panic.
“Here they are,” says Alan, giving him the box.
Roddy takes the box and hugs it to his chest. They tramp on over the night field in silence. As they approach the lights of the village Roddy says with a tremor in his voice, “Don’t let them make a fuss, will you?”
“No fuss,” says Henry. “We need to get you straight to bed.”
But the other members of the party are looking out for them, and seeing them approach they come to meet them. Diana has put on Wellington boots that are too big for her, but careless of her dignity she comes running, floundering.
“Roddy!” she cries. “Roddy! Thank God!”
She wraps him in her arms and clings to him, now openly sobbing.
“Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!”
Laura and Maggie have come too.
“He’s fine,” says Henry. “Drunk too much. Needed to cool off.”
Henry and Laura move away from Roddy and Diana, not wanting to intrude on the unexpected spectacle of Diana’s disintegration. Alan and Maggie move off in another direction, for the same reason.
Henry and Laura are the first to return to the house, where they’re quick to reassure Liz and Andrew. Then a few moments later Diana appears, clasping Roddy tightly by one arm, and without a word to anyone leads him up the stairs to their bedroom.
Alan and Maggie, following behind, pass from the strong moonlight of the open field into the black night of the copse of trees bordering the lane. Maggie reaches out her arm and draws Alan close. She presses her body against his, feels in the blackness for his face, finds his lips with her lips. She kisses him fiercely, straining her whole body to reach him, wanting to touch all of him. He returns her kiss, but only for a moment. Then his hands are gently detaching her, and he’s drawing away from her.
They come out of the trees and cross the narrow lane into the gravel drive of the Broads’ house. Neither of them speaks a word. Maggie enters the kitchen first, and there’s Andrew waiting for her. Laura is making coffee for them all.
“Roddy’s gone up,” she says. “Diana’s with him.”
“We should go soon,” says Liz to Alan. “It’s not fair on Bridget to stay out too late.”
They drink their coffee and talk in subdued voices, because although no one has questioned the cover story, they all saw how Roddy’s legs were half-soaked.
Then Liz and Alan leave.
“So what was going on there?” says Liz as she drives out onto the main road.
“God alone knows,” says Alan.
“She was all over you. I couldn’t believe it.”
“She was drunk.”
“Were you drunk too?”
“Oh, come on, Liz. What was I supposed to do?”
“You could have stopped smirking at her, for a start.”
“Was I smirking?”
“Yes, you were smirking.”
“Oh, God. I don’t know,” says Alan. “I suppose I’m not very used to that sort of situation. I mean, you’ve got to admit it was all coming from her. Christ alone knows why.”
“She fancied you. Is that so surprising?”
They drive in silence for a few minutes.
Then Alan says, “Maybe she’ll give us our planning permission now.”
“You might have to fuck her for it.”
“That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?”
“I’ll have to think about that,” says Liz. “It’s a tough one.”
Now Alan too is smiling in the dark of the car.
“What happened with Roddy?” says Liz.
“We found him with his feet in the river. I think he had some half-assed plan to drown himself.”
“Poor bugger. Wouldn’t you, with a wife like that?”
“I don’t know. People are infinitely mysterious. She was all over him when he came back.”
Turning off the Offham Road into the lanes, the river valley lies before them in the moonlight, calm and still.
“Didn’t you love Henry’s speech?” says Alan.
“I was jealous,” says Liz.
“I’ll make you a speech like that,” says Alan. “But it has to be in public. That’s what makes it count.”
“What will you say?”
“All the things Henry said. How loving you is all I really care about. But I’ll leave out the bit about humility, and put in a bit about how you’re a wonderful fuck.”
“In public?”
“I may use euphemisms.”
“So you don’t want to run away with the pixie?”
“No. I want to run away with you.”
“Well, you don’t have to run far.”
“How about tonight?” he says. “Are you still on for our date?”
“I may fall asleep,” she says. “Henry never stopped filling my glass.”
“Is it okay if I fuck you while you’re asleep?”
“Yes, it’s okay.”
His hand strokes her thigh, feeling her bare leg under her skirt.
“I may wake up,” she says.
Walking back through the night village, Maggie expects Andrew to speak, but he says nothing. After a little while she says, “I suppose I should say sorry.”
“Quite an evening,” he says.
“I kept on saying Purley. You were supposed to make an excuse so we could leave.”
“I didn’t want to,” he says.
He doesn’t sound angry, or hurt. Just far away.
“You weren’t having a good time,” she says. “I could see you weren’t.”
“No. I wasn’t having a good time.”
“I drank far too much.”
Then, because he doesn’t say anything, she says, “I kissed him. Out in the lane, when they came back from finding Roddy.”
He doesn’t say anything to that either. If he’s surprised, he’s not showing it.
“Actually I don’t know why I did it,” she says.
“I expect you wanted to find out,” he says.
“Find out what?”
“If there’s someone out there who’s better.”
How can he be so reasonable? It makes her jumpy.
“Don’t you mind?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I couldn’t stop you.” Then after a pause, “I didn’t want to. I wanted you to go as far as you could.”
“Why?”
“So you’d find out.”
“I didn’t find anything out,” she says. “He acted like I hadn’t done it. I expect he thought I was too pissed to know what I was doing.”
They walk on in silence. Through the half-open windows of a house they see the flicker of a television, hear the muffled excitement of a match commentator and the muffled roar of a crowd. In the lane ahead a fox lopes out into the moonlight, turns to stare at them, lopes into darkness.
All at once Maggie feels desolate. Here in the cool summer night, walking beside Andrew but not touching, she feels as if she’s lost in space. She wants him to reach out and take her hand. She remembers how Henry said to Laura, “With all my love, till the day I die.”
“So I suppose you can’t wait to get away from me,” she says.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“After my little exhibition this evening.”
She needs him to say more, so she keeps on raising the stakes, probing for the breaking point.
“I suppose you hate me,” she says.
“Not really.”
“What, then?”
He doesn’t speak.
“Please,” she says.
“What is it you want from me, Maggie?”
Now at last she can hear the hurt in him, and something that was clutched tight inside her begins to let go.
“I don’t want you to hate me,” she says.
“I don’t hate you.”
“I know how badly I’ve behaved tonight. I don’t really know why I did it. I think maybe I wanted to push things, you know, to the edge. Or over the edge. So that then there’d be no decision to make after all.”
“Because I’d walk away.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t know why you don’t hate me.”
“Well,” he says slowly. “I was watching you this evening, and maybe I’ve got this wrong, but I thought, this is all an act. She’s not having a good time. She’s putting on an act. It’s like you were saying to me, Look, I’m not a nice person at all. If you want to go on being with me, this is what you get. You think you love me, but can you love this?”
She can’t speak. Such a strange muddle inside, of relief and fear.
“But it’s not about can and can’t,” he says, as if he reads her thoughts. “I just do.”
“Love me?” she says.
“Yes.”
“Oh, sweetheart. I don’t deserve it.”
“You know what, Maggie? You have to let other people make their own mistakes. I’ll decide what I want and what I don’t want. And you have to do the same. If you want me to go, all you have to do is tell me, and I’ll go.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Maggie says.
So there it is: her decision after all.
They’ve stopped in the lane and he’s looking at her, but it’s too dark to see his face.
“At dinner this evening,” he says, “I was watching you, I felt you were just so unhappy. I wanted to put my arms round you, like you do with a child who’s had a bad dream. I wanted to hug you and say, It’s only a dream.”
“You should have done.”
“Should I?”
“You could do it now,” she says.
So he wraps his arms round her, as if the night is cold and he’s undertaken to warm her. They stay like this for some time, silent, holding each other close.
Henry and Laura clear away the dinner party together.
“You go on up,” says Henry. “I’ll turn out the lights and lock up.”
When he comes upstairs he finds Laura sitting on the top step, near the door to Carrie’s room. She motions to him to stay silent and sit down beside him.
Through the closed door he hears Carrie’s sweet light voice singing to herself, to the accompaniment of occasional chords on her guitar.
“You told me there’s no future
Only now, now, now
But then one day you left me
And it’s now, now, now . . .”
Laura takes Henry’s hand in hers. She moves his fingers so that they feel her ring. Then she raises his hand to her lips and kisses it. Light falls from the half-open bathroom door across the worn landing carpet. They listen to Carrie’s song.
“So now I know the future
Is the time when you have gone
And I’m living in the future
And it’s lonely in the future
On my own . . .
On my own . . .”