One night they were eating dinner alone together, after Rosa had been put to bed and Aurore had gone to her room, and Laura found herself watching Archie as he ate and talked. He must be ten years older than her, but he seemed younger; his skin was still bad and his eyes were rather bloodshot, but his body was rather like Edward’s in outline, with broad shoulders and long limbs.
There was eagerness in his expression as he noticed her watching him. When they walked down to the end of the garden to smoke and look at the ocean, she allowed him to kiss her. She felt distant from him at first, too conscious of each aspect of his touch, the fingers in her hair, the tongue pushing at her teeth, and then suddenly she broke, almost madly straining towards him, desperate to lose control, to feel again, not to be always on guard, grappling at his shoulders, opening her mouth wide and opening her thighs as she stood there. He stumbled back, and she realised she had been too ravenous in her response, and she laughed, brushing down her skirt, saying she had drunk too much. He laughed too, and lit a cigarette, and she smoked one as they walked back to the table.
As they came near to the house, she heard the sharp cry of Rosa, rising out of sleep. She went upstairs and settled her to sleep again, feeling the damp curls of her hair, kissing the soft curve of her cheek. This, she realised, was the only touch she had known in these two years, a touch that was as careful and controlled as holding a glass vase. She went back into the living room where Archie was sitting with a glass of grappa, and went towards him. She wanted to go into the lost world of sensuality, and that night she experienced sex in a way she had never done before. It had little to do with Archie and his personality; his body was pleasing and warm against hers, but her body was the centre of her experience, and by the end she felt that she was riding Archie’s body to a destination that was hers alone, the torrent of her orgasm was all that she was seeking.
Transition
August 1953
When they re-enter the apartment in the late afternoon in August, it feels close and musty. Laura pulls back the shutters with a bang. She asked the cleaning lady to leave milk and bread and fruit for them, but obviously she has forgotten. There is that puddle of water under the icebox again. Laura is tired, she wants to rest, but she has to let Aurore go home. She knows that Aurore is not pleased about the holiday; she found the group too decadent and too drunk, the weather too hot. Laura feels guilty as she pays her what she owes her, plus a little extra, and tells her to go and have a rest.
Laura takes Rosa with her and goes to the local shop, and then down to the public garden along the street with a ball, and encourages Rosa to kick it, trying to make her use up her energy so she will not resist going to bed tonight. It all seems to be working well and Laura feels that the two of them, mother and daughter, are a happy addition to the other families in the park, and then disaster strikes: Rosa screams – a bee has stung her hand. Laura gathers her up and takes her, weeping, up the street and up all the flights of stairs to the apartment. It is hard carrying her and the shopping up all that way. Cold water, kisses, cream – nothing seems to help, and when Mother comes in tired from her journey, Laura feels almost embarrassed to be here in her dark flat with her crying daughter.
Maybe that is why Laura is more dismissive than she should be when her mother says something that evening about how Ellen and Tom were talking about why Laura should move back to America to get her divorce. ‘So I can come and be pitied by them forever?’
‘You’ve always been so hard on her,’ Mother said. ‘And on me. Ellen said once, it’s almost as if you hate us.’
Those words are too shockingly honest, and Laura feels the blood beat up in her face as she insists that she is sorry, she did not mean to sound nasty. She is grateful to them both for all they have done for her, all they are doing for her. Mother seems to accept the apology, and to move on, but afterwards, when Laura is lying awake in her bed, she hears her mother’s words in her head and she realises what fidelity it has taken for Mother to stay with her, Laura, through these years, even though she knows Laura does not really want her. She does not like to give this fidelity its name, but she knows now it is love. It shames her. For the first time in her life, she thinks of the journey her mother has made, the moment when she left her family to go off with the man she adored, the slow disintegration of her dreams, how that relationship curdled into misery, and her dogged, thankless loyalty to her indifferent daughters. To her dismay, Laura sees in it an echo of her own life, but the light it casts on her own journey is not a kind one, and she turns in bed, banging at her pillow.