The evening around them was alive with the soft alertness of squirrels rustling in the bushes and a blackbird flickering in and out of the trees. The scream of the doorbell broke the peace.
‘God, is that Nick?’ Laura said. ‘How are we going to get rid of him?’
‘He’s coming out with me – not all the way – but to make it look like a jaunt to start with.’
‘Nick? Nick is—?’
‘He’s one of us.’
Shock flooded through Laura. ‘Why did you never tell me before?’
‘He got me into the whole thing.’
Laura could not take in this new information, and as Edward went to answer the door, she went into the kitchen and put the bowl of peas and the bag of empty pods down on the table, next to the absurd cake which had now slid completely over to one side. Nick came in and Laura saw in an instant how the exodus was exciting to him, how he was buoyant with nerves and expectation.
‘I can’t believe this is where you’ve made your nest,’ he was saying with sarcastic relish. ‘A return to my childhood neighbourhood – how sweet.’ So he was the university friend with whom Edward must have walked in the woods, many years ago.
‘You should eat before you go,’ Laura said, going to get out bread, ham and a half-open bottle of wine, ignoring the celebratory champagne in the icebox. Nick immediately helped himself, but Edward went out and upstairs, and Laura followed him. When they reached the bedroom, he put his arms around her; it was impossible for her to know whether there was true communion in that kiss – it was so laden with fear and memory, it hardly existed as a present moment. Edward turned and packed a few things into a small case. He put the radio on, as loudly as he could, and she picked up a small framed photograph that sat on the bedside table. It was a picture of the house that she had taken last summer, when the roses were out on the walls. She opened the back of the frame to take it out, tore it in half and handed one half to him. ‘Give that to Stefan or whoever it is when you know you’re through, to get in touch with me.’ He took it, but he hardly seemed to register it.
‘Stefan suggested it,’ Laura said.
He put it in his pocket. ‘Try not to be alone,’ he said.
‘Mother’s coming next week anyway, remember, to help with the birth.’ At the word ‘birth’, they were unable to bear the conversation and they went downstairs, to find Nick standing in the hall.
‘Look at you and your stiff upper lips,’ he said. In front of him, Laura found it necessary not to cry. They were looking for coats, they were going to the lavatory, they were downing a last half-glass of wine. She went with them to the doorstep, heard Nick swear as he tripped over a stone, and saw the lights of the car disappear down the road, into the damp night.
5
Even now, Laura could not allow herself to feel alone. She had to act precisely in character, in every way, for as long as possible. She had put up with Edward’s absences often enough. Indeed, she knew that the fact that she had always put up with them with such apparent insouciance would be an important building block in the story that she would now create, a story that might be the key to their survival.