Laura soon found herself moving away from them and around the edges of the room. It wasn’t much of a party, really; it was just a crowd of people and a lot of cheap, warm wine in a room at the top of Alistair’s publishers’ office. The book they were celebrating was a short biography of a nineteenth-century writer, which Alistair had attacked in a style, Laura understood from Edward, that some critics found shocking and others found refreshing. There were shabby elderly writers and shabby younger writers at the party, and also a number of the confident, loud people – not necessarily more elegant, but if they were shabby it felt like an affectation rather than a necessity – of the sort she remembered from Sybil’s dance. Among them Laura saw nobody she knew until, to her relief, she found Winifred sitting in a window seat next to a man who was rolling a cigarette, and went and sat on her other side.
Winifred made room for Laura with alacrity, and started asking her whom she had been speaking to. ‘Was Alistair a bit offish with you? I think these men are always funny with each other’s girlfriends – it’s all a bit Darcy and Bingley.’ Laura did not really know what she was talking about, but they both looked across the room to where Alistair and Edward and Nick were standing close to one another. ‘Although do you think they really love each other as much as they say they do? The things they sometimes say about each other … about Giles, of course, there is no question. I can’t believe how much Alistair misses him.’
Thinking back, Laura realised that Edward, too, had spoken more about Giles to her than about any of his other friends. ‘Yes, Alistair loves him so much,’ Winifred went on, ‘sometimes I think he is only with me because I remind him of Giles.’
‘This is interesting,’ said the man on the other side of Winifred, his heavy accent – was it German? – making his words sound particularly emphatic. ‘This transference from brother to sister, I have a case just like this right now. With my patient, I think it may have something to do with the pattern of intimacy laid down early at these boarding schools. These English boys are never allowed the natural Oedipal development, being thrown out of the family so young.’
‘I love the way you always have an explanation for everything,’ Winifred said to him, and Laura noted her amiable, almost flirtatious tone. It made her feel rather on the outside of this conversation too, and as she looked back into the party she saw Quentin and his girlfriend Nina entering and steering towards Edward, Alistair and Nick. As they did so, Edward looked across the room, and Laura saw, or thought she saw, a summons in his gaze. She stood up.
As she came back to that group of men who were at the centre of the crowd, Laura felt shy. Who was she to think that she could break into this conversation, in which Nick now had his arm draped across Alistair’s shoulders, and Quentin was lighting Edward’s cigarette? All the energy of the men seemed directed towards one another.
Edward made room for her in the space, stepping to one side so that she could join the ring, although nobody spoke to her. She tried to join in the conversations, greeting Quentin and Nina, asking Quentin how things were going in the forces, and complimenting him on his newly slender physique. She was struck by the joking tone with which Quentin replied, telling some absurd story about his deluded major whose false memories of the Great War were a source of great mirth in the regiment. But before he had finished his story, Nina broke in, asking where on earth the drinks were. Alistair called to a young man in a loud voice, and soon wine was being sloshed into glasses, and Quentin was free to resume. The burble of men’s voices continued and Laura was content to sip her drink. But Nina remained sullen, watching Quentin with her cold blue stare.
‘Come on,’ she said suddenly in an aside to him that everyone could hear, ‘the others are at the Café Royal.’
Quentin seemed embarrassed as he turned to her, and she laid a hand on his arm. Laura expected them to leave, but instead he went with her to the side of the room, where they seemed to be having an argument. Laura caught a little of it, when Quentin’s placatory tone seemed to break and he said loudly that he only had two days in London. Nina left alone, and Quentin rejoined the group.
‘Here you are, my duck,’ Nick was saying, putting his arm around Quentin. ‘I must tell you I heard something about that major of yours – but this definitely is not for the ladies …’ He looked at Laura and Winifred, who had now joined them, and Laura stepped backwards, feeling dismissed, but Winifred looked at him and lifted her chin.