‘Shall we meet him at a restaurant?’ Laura asked, standing at the bathroom door and brushing her hair, trying to ignore the apprehension in her stomach at his words. ‘Or will he eat at the Ministry?’
‘I’m sure they’ll feed him. If not, we can go over to the restaurant by the station after he gets here.’ Was Edward avoiding her gaze? No, he was always like that now in the mornings, a little tired and anxious. He rinsed his face and went back into the bedroom to dress, saying nothing more. Laura got dressed more slowly once he had left. Even though the conversation with Stefan had been beating in her head for the last fortnight, she still had no idea how she was to fulfil her allotted task, and all day at the bookshop the evening loomed in front of her.
For once Edward was home at a normal time, and the three of them were drinking in the living room when the doorbell rang. The cab driver brought in Giles’s suitcase, while Giles laid down a large black box with an almost tender gesture, and then took off his overcoat.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘They fed us after a fashion at the Ministry, but I could do with something more. Do you have a sandwich?’
‘I’ll go and ask Ann,’ Laura said, going downstairs. When she came back up, the black box was still in the hall. She ran her hand over it. It was large, heavy, locked. As she heard the rise and fall of voices in the living room, she quickly slid a hand into one pocket and then another of Giles’s overcoat, standing so that if someone came out of the living room they would see only her back. Her fingers touched some scrumpled paper in one pocket, a box of matches in another, but no keys. But she already knew that would be the case. Of course the key would be in the breast pocket of his jacket – where else would you keep something so precious? Footsteps behind her made her turn, but it was only Toby, who showed no surprise at seeing her in the hall apparently rehanging the coats.
She followed him back into the living room, and Edward poured her a whisky and soda. Toby had a Scottish friend who was able to keep the brothers supplied with the whisky they loved, and which Laura was becoming used to. Giles was talking about whether there was likely to be a raid that evening.
‘God, I hope not,’ said Toby. ‘If I don’t get some sleep soon I’ll be good for nothing. It’s not the bombs that make that impossible so much as the guns in the park.’
‘Are you a light sleeper?’ Laura said to Giles. She gave her voice the bland tone that he had mocked in the past. He replied with the characteristic garrulousness that she found so irritating.
‘I’d say I was. But in fact once I’m asleep I’m all right. It’s more that I find it hard to fall asleep. My friend Grey – his work’s all in neurology – came up with an interesting finding. Most people, when they close their eyes, their brain waves immediately slow into a more regular pattern – alpha waves, they are called. For most people that’s automatic: you close your eyes, your brain waves calm down, you open your eyes, they go back to being spiky and jumpy again. But a significant minority of people, if you ask them to close their eyes, their brain waves don’t change. They remain just as spiky and jumpy, they are just as engaged as with their eyes open. And I’m one of that small minority—’
‘Is that such a breakthrough?’ Edward broke in, asking whether it wasn’t just a physical observation of something one already knew by experience, that sometimes it was hard to switch off. Giles began to argue immediately, telling Edward that it showed that people aren’t as in control of their minds as they think they are.
‘But does it show that? It doesn’t show that you couldn’t change it if circumstances were different – we’re not just machines, made to work one way only …’
‘Come on, if it’s in the patterns of your brain waves, then that’s it, you can’t just change those.’