That afternoon Laura had an appointment at a dressmaker that Monica had recommended. It had taken her a long time to lose the weight she had gained years ago during her pregnancy, but now she had slimmed down, and wanted an old evening dress taken in. She stood there in front of the dressmaker’s big mirror, while the waist of the dress was pulled tight to her body. ‘You’re cold,’ noted the dressmaker. ‘No, it’s warm in here,’ said Laura, trying to control the shake in her arms.
When she returned to the house, she asked Kathy, her voice urgent, if anyone at all had telephoned, but there had been nothing, and no post either. All evening Edward didn’t come home, and Laura sat watching television in a stupor of tension. He came in long after she was in bed, and although he knew she was awake they said nothing to one another.
The next morning, after breakfast, Laura telephoned Ellen. It was routine for them to talk a couple of times a week. But Ellen seemed distracted, her voice a little croaky with a cold. ‘Has Kit got in touch with you?’ she said. ‘He told Tom he wanted to come to Washington, but it all moves so fast with Jewish funerals.’
Laura’s question was immediate, and inarticulate.
‘Kit hasn’t telephoned you? Such an awful accident, Laura, I hope you won’t be too upset. They are still looking for the driver – some kind of hit and run – I can’t understand how it could have happened. Suzanne is absolutely distraught.’
Laura finished the conversation with expressions of horror that were, she thought later, sufficient without being excessive. But then she left the house without thinking, without her coat, only coming to and realising how strange she must look walking like that through the cold streets when she found herself at the banks of the river, the wind whipping at her hair, blurring her vision, her hand pressed over her mouth. Believe me, she found herself muttering into her fingers, believe me. Perhaps she meant, believe me that I am not guilty, that I did not think of this, that I did not ask for this. But who would be listening? And who would ever believe her? And hot on the heels of shock came fear, so that her body was dizzy with the sense of menace she felt from every side: the streets were too loud now, that man walking behind her was a threat, that car passing too slowly was a threat; she felt exposed, panic like glue in her throat and juddering through her chest.
When she came back into the house she went to the drinks cupboard. Straight from the bottle, burning down, meeting her panic like a friend and wrapping its warmth around it – was this how Edward felt about the first gulp of brandy before lunch? Her bowels were churning now and she ran to the lavatory. Once she was finished she washed her hands, over and over again, and then went to the telephone. She called the newspaper and got Suzanne’s telephone number, but found herself, for all her intentions, unable to dial it. She went out again, this time properly dressed in a coat and hat, and found her way, blundering through the grey city, to Monica’s house, and made her telephone Suzanne and give appropriate messages of condolence, and made her telephone Edward and Archie at work to tell them, and got her to get out the brandy bottle and distract Laura with her daughters and her gossip until she had recovered her self-control. Her self-control, which was so much greater than Monica or anyone else would ever have imagined, which she was learning to buckle on again, tightening the armour across her chest and face.