And out in the garden was now her own little room, her darkroom. To her, it had become the heart of the house. Whenever she went up to town for lunch with Sybil or Monica, or to the theatre or a concert with Edward, coming back to Patsfield it was always the darkroom that seemed to be pulling her home. She had no illusions about her talent for photography; it was not great, but she had the enthusiast’s ability to stick with it, to take advice, to practise, to do something that was just good enough to make it worthwhile.
She went on photographing mainly children, and the narrowness of her subject matter bore fruit, since that was the one area where other women were prepared to pay her to do a good job. In April she had completed a session with Monica’s daughters, who were now twelve and ten. It had been hard to stop Monica disrupting the afternoon with her importunate need to talk, so instead Laura had told her she would have lunch with her the following week in town. When the day came, she found herself reluctant to leave the house and the garden, there was so much to do in it and she found herself moving through her chores slowly these days.
They met in the Royal Academy; the stated intention was to look at the exhibition, but after they had eaten their chicken salad and lemon cake they walked instead into the Ritz bar and ordered a couple of martinis, while Monica smoked and cried and went on talking interminably. She had decided to leave Archie. She was taking the children. In Washington, she could pretend she didn’t like the place, but now she was home she realised that it was all about Archie. He smothered her. He bored her. She was getting old – she was still young. He hadn’t even cared when she had had an affair. ‘I think he is missing a vital part; he doesn’t seem to be able to talk about it.’
Laura listened, and tried to say the right things, reflecting Monica’s desires back to herself and helping her to muffle her fears. But what she was thinking about were Monica’s daughters; how uneasy they had seemed on the day that she had photographed them. The onlookers to unhappy lives, as she had been, as Ellen had been, as they all were. Could one ever break away from that mould? When she mentioned them, however, she could see that Monica thought she was being critical, so she just told her how beautiful they were, how the photographs had come out so well.
On the train back to Patsfield, Laura found a newspaper on the seat next to her. Death sentences for the Rosenbergs; the news fell like a dark bar across the day. Yes, the court had agreed that Ethel Rosenberg had typed up the information her husband had brought her about nuclear weapons, and yes, their judge had said their crime was worse than murder. ‘By your betrayal, you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.’ Laura let the newspaper drop to the floor. She would not think about that.
Instead, she found her mind turning to the contact sheets she had printed out the previous day. As soon as she was through the door she went to the darkroom, and started to make a bigger print of one of the most successful images, which showed Barbara, twelve years old, in a pose that hinted at the woman she would become. Laura was intrigued by the picture; it wasn’t beautiful, but it worked. Barbara looked self-sufficient, her eyes levelling with the viewer, a grown-up glance that was at odds with her childish cheeks and mouth. It was the face of a haughty survivor rather than a child, and Laura felt pleased as she pegged it out to dry and walked back up to the house. As she went into the kitchen she became aware of the dragging heaviness in her hips. At nearly eight months pregnant, such a long day was a strain. She was glad to sit down now, in the quiet.
So it did not bother her that Edward was late for dinner, although it was odd that he did not telephone. He had had to work late a lot recently, as the brutish standoff in Korea continued. She ate by herself, and then sat on the sofa, manicuring her nails, which were weak and splitting – was that the pregnancy, or the chemicals she was using in the darkroom? – and listening to the radio. As dusk fell, it seemed odder to her that Edward had not telephoned, and she began to doze, listening to a radio programme about Chopin. She snapped out of the doze as soon she heard Edward’s key in the door, but was confused, sitting up on the sofa – for a moment she thought she was in the old house in Georgetown – and then she came to properly and got up, going into the hall.