Then they start to talk about Peter. Winifred says they have broken up. Laura does not tell Winifred what she saw in Pesaro, but as they sit there the image of Amy, the attitude of sexual abandonment, the sleeping woman in flower, is there in Laura’s head. She cannot imagine how to mention that to Winifred, however, and she says nothing, although she feels the pulse between her own legs as she remembers it. Then, without being asked, Winifred says something about Amy, about how she was planning to come to Geneva in the autumn, but that she, Winifred, has told her she will find the city too dull. There is a dismissiveness in Winifred’s voice and Laura realises she has packed that experience away with the summer. Looking at Winifred there, so confident and contained in the sunlight, she thinks that perhaps this is the secret to Winifred’s happiness; that she can pack each thing into its proper place, she can retain boundaries at each point of contact, can go on learning and growing, without losing herself in pursuit of a grander dream.
When Winifred wants to know about Laura’s relationship with Archie, Laura finds it easy enough to talk about that. She remembers when Winifred first asked her about Edward, and how it all seemed too sacred for words, but this is so different. Winifred teases her a little, and says she can see that Archie is her type, by which she means that he reminds her of Edward. Yes, he is tall, and fair … Laura cannot see other similarities, but she is happy for Winifred to tease her. There are other, much more pressing things to think about now.
Although she is longing to be alone with her thoughts, when she leaves Winifred and drives back down to the city, Laura does not think directly about what has happened. She cannot. Everything has shifted, and yet she cannot see what the new direction is to be.
As she and her mother pack that evening, Laura can hardly hear what she is saying. She is moving in a dream now, and the next day, as they drive to the train station, she finds herself nearly colliding with a stationary car. Archie is there to meet them at Annecy station, and drive them to an old-fashioned family hotel in Talloires. Yes, it is a pretty place, as Archie said it would be; yes, it is perfect for families at the end of the season. Archie is polite to Mother, friendly, more talkative with her than Edward ever was; they all seem to get on so well, like a little family. Laura wonders how he can shift so easily from the hedonist she saw in Pesaro to this civilised chatter. It does not seem fake, he is just easily influenced by those around him, she thinks. She watches his pleasure in Rosa; it is not false, he does remember his own daughters, and enjoys having her there. Before supper they swim in Lake Annecy, and Rosa enjoys his physical strength, sitting on his shoulders as he swims, fast, across the cold fresh water.
But dinner flags. Again, Laura is distracted, wanting to be alone, and finds her control slipping, her attention wandering. To excuse her manner, she says she is listening out for a cry from Rosa from the room above them, that she is not sure that she would be able to hear her. She goes and checks the room a couple of times, which annoys Mother, who thinks she is being too fussy. When they go up to bed, Laura sees Archie’s hopeful smile, but she ignores it. She does not go to him. She wants to be with her memories tonight. She wants to pleasure herself, and that night she does. Just at the moment of orgasm, a face she has not seen for so long, a young woman’s face, is in her mind, and the body she glimpsed only once, in the cabin of a dark ship, in all its innocent nakedness, springs into her thoughts. For a moment, she feels a pang of longing, not just for the girl’s body, but for what she might say if she could see her now, words that could touch and tangle, as well as hands and legs. But the thought fades, and she sleeps.
The next day her mood changes. After breakfast, she asks her mother to take Rosa down to the swings at the lakeside and says she must go into the town to buy something. The way she says ‘something’, she can see that Mother thinks it is sanitary protection or contraception; something that nobody wants to talk about. This is why you can tell big lies, she thinks to herself, because people are so eager to keep all the small lies hidden. She is walking along, smoking, thinking these pointless thoughts, when suddenly she ducks into a café and asks for a brandy. She is beginning to see what is at stake. Silence has been her friend for two long years; there is absolutely nobody in the whole world that she can talk to about what has happened. But now she begins to see the magnitude of what she is facing.