‘Yes, it’s rather different in America, isn’t it? So big – a native of one city feels quite out of place in another …’ Lady Halifax went on talking, and her female chorus backed her with a twitter of sentences about how different every American city is, but how if you are born in one part of England all of it is your home.
At lunch Laura was seated between two men of about Edward’s age. One of them, Archie Platt, turned to her with immediate good manners. He was fairish and tall. It was only really his poor skin, which was reddening and pimpled, which made him unattractive.
‘So, the wife of the golden boy joins us at last!’ Laura knew she should be pleased to hear Edward described that way, although she wondered whether there wasn’t a hint of mockery in Archie’s voice. ‘Last can do no wrong, you know. Not just with his backhand, either. Tell me, Last, how did you manage to write that report last week when we weren’t even allowed notebooks in the meeting? It was so top secret,’ he said, turning back to Laura, ‘that the Americans said we couldn’t write anything in the room, but Last seemed to recall every detail. I must say I was still struggling to tell one American from another.’
Although Archie’s praise was lavish, Laura felt a particular kind of English game at work, which she had got to know in London. It was that game in which it was subtly suggested that it was bad form for the person being praised to be trying so hard to succeed, and that the one who was praising was in fact holding the power, even as he seemed to be putting himself down, by showing that he didn’t have to make such efforts. She was pleased when Archie’s wife Monica joined the conversation and moved it on, asking Laura what she was planning to do in Washington and whether she was going to get involved in charity work. Her horsey face, brightly made up, was smiling, but Laura had to say that she didn’t have any plans, and then was afraid that she might have sounded rude. ‘Do please find something for me to do,’ she said.
‘Gosh, you’ll be able to take your choice, then – it’s all funds for the wounded with me, and all displaced children if you go with Veronica. Stick with me, our supporters are much more fun,’ she said.
Laura nodded, but after a while she heard Edward mentioning to Lady Halifax that she had recently suffered a bereavement. ‘My condolences, Mrs Last,’ her fluting voice came down the table. Laura wondered why Edward, who was usually so private, had put her misery on show. After that she made even less effort to join the conversation, and sat there turning over her food with a fork, feeling like a black crow among the chattering English flocks.
When they got home, late in the afternoon, a silence fell between them. Edward walked towards the drinks cabinet. Laura asked if he really needed another drink, and wondered at the shrewish tone that seemed to have come into her voice. He put down the bottle of whisky.
‘How would you like to spend the evening?’ The words could have been interpreted as an olive branch, but Laura was in a stubborn mood after what she had sensed was her social failure at lunch, and she failed to take it, shaking her head.
‘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.’