To her embarrassment, Laura realised that she didn’t have ice put out in the living room, and she had to go down and get Kathy to bring some up. The doorbell rang again, but it was Joe and Suzanne. Again, Laura tried to laugh when she told them that Edward and the guest of honour hadn’t arrived yet. She noticed that Suzanne, like Monica, had dressed carefully; both of them were in black evening dresses, and Monica was wearing the big pearl earrings she only wore occasionally. That made her anxiety increase, as she imagined them getting ready, full of expectation, zipping up their best dresses and lipsticking their mouths, setting out with high hopes of a good evening. Thank God that Monica and Joe were so talkative, since they seemed happy to start swapping anecdotes and laughing at one another immediately. But as time wore on, even they seemed strained, without their host. ‘They must have completely lost track of the time – or maybe there was some emergency,’ Laura said after nine. ‘But, you know, the dinner will be ruined unless we eat now. Shall we go and sit down?’
The dinner was pretty much ruined, after having been in a low oven for an hour. Laura could hardly meet Kathy’s eyes as she served it. They ate the dry fish and the soft, sodden vegetables, and Laura asked Joe to pour the wine, which he did with a generous hand. As they munched their way through the under-sweetened dessert, a silence fell and finally Laura heard Edward’s step heavy in the hall. There he was in the doorway with Nick, but any relief Laura felt on seeing him was cancelled out by the state he was in. If he wasn’t actually swaying on his feet, he was only remaining upright by great effort of will, and he quickly slumped into one of the free seats.
‘Nick – everyone – this is Nick – this is everyone …’ he muttered and picked up an empty glass.
‘So glad to meet you all,’ said Nick, smiling, shrugging off his coat.
Laura stood up. ‘Let me take that, Nick. This is Joe – and Suzanne …’ She introduced everybody, took Nick’s coat out of the room and then came back to pile some cold food onto each of their plates.
‘We’ve really finished eating,’ she said. ‘But don’t let us stop you. How was your trip over, Nick?’
He was just as she remembered him: his clothes slightly wrinkled and even dirty, as though he had slept in them, but still with the invulnerable manner of the group, still entirely confident despite the discomfort of everyone else in the room.
‘Well, you know, the usual kind of boat experience; our dear Miss Austen had it so well – enough of rears and vices – isn’t it wonderful to think how the mind of the virgin of Hampshire would run on sodomy, and now I’ve come here to make amends. But we got sidetracked, you know – in a most amusing bar not far from here, where I think, I’m not sure but I think, we were the only white faces in the room.’
Laura felt all the listeners grappling with what he was saying. No one would really be shocked, she thought, but no one would be comfortable with Nick’s obvious desire to shock them – and nobody would know how to respond. Only Edward seemed oblivious to everything that Nick was saying, and was ignoring the food in favour of his glass of wine.
‘Well, if you don’t want to eat, shall we go into the living room for coffee? The rest of us have been sitting here long enough.’
At least as they went through, the pattern of the guests reformed. Now Laura was sitting between Monica and Suzanne on the sofa, and she recognised their obvious wish to help salvage the evening, as Monica started telling Suzanne some pointless but amusing anecdote about her daughters. As conversation filled the room, Laura wondered if some pleasure, some little hope of civilised interaction, might now take over.
‘I never thanked you for those lovely pictures you sent over,’ Monica said at one point to Laura. ‘You know that Laura does such good photographs – do show them to Suzanne.’
‘I’m sure she won’t be—’
‘I’d love to see them,’ said Suzanne, as she had to, so that Laura felt it would be gauche of her to refuse. She went to get a big folder that lay on the table under the window, where she had put some of her favourite recent prints – oddly, they were all of mothers and daughters, of Ellen and Janet, and Monica and her girls. Suzanne looked at them with what seemed like more than the appearance of appreciation.
‘You are good, aren’t you? Look at the light in her hair. Not easy, capturing a child’s expression like that. Have you ever thought of doing it professionally?’
‘Laura just likes to photograph for fun,’ Edward said. ‘She likes watching people.’
Laura felt that there was some kind of antagonism in his voice, and yet what did he have to be antagonistic about? The feminine circle had become porous to the men again, and Nick started to tell another smutty anecdote in a voice so loud that the women had to listen too.
‘I’m off home,’ Monica said as it was finishing, standing up. ‘I am sorry but I have to be up early with the girls tomorrow.’ It was rare for Monica to break up a gathering – she was usually one of the last to leave. Laura felt the evening must have curdled beyond repair if she was going.
‘Do you just have girls?’ Nick asked her, with a look of innocence.
‘Yes, two daughters.’
‘But little boys must love you so much. You are just the kind of woman that we were all in love with at school, weren’t we, Edward?’
‘Am I?’ Laura could see that Monica was flattered. Maybe she would stay, maybe she would enjoy the charm that Nick could turn on if he wanted to please.
‘Yes, look, let me do you a sketch.’