Golden Hour (44 page)

Roddy appears, bringing her a glass of wine.

“I'm an emissary from Henry.”

“Oh, thank you, Roddy. It's a bit early, I know.”

She drinks gratefully. Then she starts work cutting up the baguettes.

“So when are the other guests coming?” says Roddy.

“In half an hour or so. I asked them to come early while there's still sun on the terrace.”

“Half an hour!” Roddy sounds shocked. “We haven't had any time to talk.”

“Yes, I know,” says Laura. “Everything's been a bit up in the air, what with Carrie's accident and all the rest of it. And now
I'm afraid I'm going to be a bit frantic until we're all sitting down and eating.”

“Would it bother you if I hang about in the kitchen while you work? I've been so looking forward to telling you about—well, you know.”

“Your adventures.”

“Yes. My adventures.”

Roddy is visibly pleased. Laura would far rather be left alone at this point, but she hasn't got the heart to turn him away.

“I don't suppose you feel up to picking some flowers for the table, do you?”

“I don't think I'm much good with flowers,” says Roddy. “I'd pick all the wrong ones.”

“There aren't any wrong flowers. You just pick ones you like, that you think will go together.”

“But what if you don't like what I pick? Or Diana. I'm quite sure Diana wouldn't approve of my choice.”

“Oh, Roddy.”

She meets his uncertain gaze with a smile of sympathy.

“You really are a saint with my sister.”

“Oh, well, Diana and I . . .” He looks out to the terrace where Diana and Henry are talking. “It's been so long since we've been . . .”

His voice trails away into silence. Then before Laura can say something vague and consoling, he starts up again.

“You have to look at these things objectively, don't you? And objectively speaking, I don't see that I have all that much to offer Diana these days. I suppose that sounds hard. But you can see how we are together.”

Laura's heart sinks. It's worse than she feared. This is not what she needs right now. She reaches for a pair of scissors.

“Roddy, I'm the first to admit that my sister must be impossible
to live with, and God knows how you've managed it all these years. But this is really going to have to wait for another day, I'm afraid.”

“Yes, of course,” he says. “It just helps to know that you—that you understand.”

“I really do have to go out and pick some flowers.”

To her slight irritation he follows her to the flower borders. She cuts handfuls of alchemilla, laying it in foamy yellow-green heaps in the trug she carries on her arm. She moves briskly, aware of her deadline for the lamb. Roddy trots along behind, talking in a ceaseless semi-coherent stream.

“You get to an age,” he says by the magnolia, “when you realize you're not living the life you were created to live. Of course I realize that's something of a presumption. That there is a creator, I mean . . .”

And following Laura to the banks of pink cosmos, “After all, we're not either of us getting any younger, though I dare hope for at least another thirty years of vigor and good health—”

And by the fringe of the orchard, where the bright blue cornflowers grow, “In one sense we're all borne along by the stream of life, but in another sense we must act, we must be the authors of our own destiny, when that destiny at last presents itself.”

Laura has only a general idea what Roddy is talking about, and isn't really paying close attention. He comes at last to a stop, saying, “I think we understand each other pretty well, don't you?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely,” she replies.

It's almost time to put the saddle of lamb in the oven. She returns to the house with Roddy half a pace behind.

“Talk to Henry, Roddy,” she says as she crosses the terrace
where Henry and Diana are sitting with their drinks. “He understands all this so much better than me.”

“All what?” says Henry.

“And don't forget you're laying the table, Henry. Roddy can help you.”

By this means she sheds Roddy. She parks the trug of flowers on the table, checks the time once more, and slides the lamb in its roasting tray onto a high rack in the top oven. She makes a mental note to baste the roast in half an hour. Within that time she must trim and arrange the flowers in two vases, tidy the mess in the kitchen and living room, sort out serving dishes—oh, and put out the redcurrant jelly, bought rather than homemade, but you can't do everything. Then there's the sliced baguettes to oil and grill for the starter. Might as well take the taramasalata out of the fridge now. Get down a long platter to lay the slices out. And some olives, they'll go well, the big sweet Spanish olives from Bill's in Lewes, everyone loves them.

More wine. Now to see to herself.

She runs upstairs and changes into a light cotton summer dress. She brushes her hair and does a little work on her makeup. A bolder red on her lips, some eye shadow, some mascara. Then she picks out a pair of shoes with heels, pretty and rather fragile. She checks her appearance in the long mirror, unconsciously assuming a pose that presents her body to advantage and slightly protruding her lips. From the terrace below comes the sound of voices and the clink of cutlery as Henry puts out knives and forks. She checks her watch. Almost seven o'clock. Still so much to do.

She looks in on Carrie before heading back downstairs. Carrie is sitting on her bed with her guitar on her lap and a pad of paper and a pen in her hands.

“You okay?”

“Yes. Fine.”

“I'm going to make a plate of food for you. You'll have to eat it in secret.”

Carrie doesn't even look up. “Thanks, Mum.”

Maggie and Andrew walk over to the Broads from Maggie's cottage. The Broads' house looks so substantial, so rooted in the world of tradition and convention, that Maggie hesitates, assailed by doubt, on the gravel before the front door. Suddenly she's not sure she can do this. Sounds of teenage music come from an open upper window. A glimpse into an unoccupied drawing room shows framed photographs of smiling children on a sideboard. This is family land. All the guests will be in couples.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” she says. “I feel like I'm here under false pretenses. What if they ask us about our plans for the future?”

“People don't ask people about their plans for the future.”

“They might.”

“Then we say we're thinking of setting up a commune,” says Andrew unexpectedly.

“A commune?”

“Shared property. Free love.”

Maggie grins at that.

“Seriously, Maggie,” says Andrew, “if it all gets too much we can leave. We could have a code word, and if you say it, I'll come up with an excuse, and we'll leave.”

“What sort of code word?”

“Something you wouldn't normally say in conversation, but not so weird that everyone notices. Like Basingstoke. Or Purley. Rhymes with
early
, as in Let's leave early.”

All this is a side of Andrew that has been in hiding in recent
weeks. Her confession of uncertainty seems to have liberated him.

“How do you get Purley into a conversation?” she says.

“It doesn't have to be Purley the place. It can be pearly like in a necklace.”

“Pearly necklace? That's just odd.”

“It's got to be odd, or it'll come up in ordinary conversation. The code word could be
girly
, but you might say it not as code, and I'd think you wanted to leave, and you wouldn't.”

“Girly? I never say girly. When does anyone ever say girly?”

“Girly laughter. Girly night out.”

“All right,” she says. “Purley it is.”

Such a ridiculous conversation to be having. She takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. Henry Broad answers the door.

“The lovely Maggie! And you must be Andrew. What terrible neighbors we are. You've not been round before, have you? Come in, come in. I blame the Internet.”

He leads them through a big, warm-toned kitchen, where Laura Broad is turning a rack of toast on the hot plate. The air is heady with the aroma of roasting meat. Laura greets Maggie with a kiss. A quick friendly glance at Andrew shows that she at least is following the plot.

“I have to find a moment to talk to you, Andrew,” she says. “I've been learning a few things about your uncle's collection.”

Henry ushers them out onto the terrace, where a thin elegant woman stands with an ugly middle-aged man, quarreling in undertones. As they're introduced Maggie finds herself actually blushing, not at anything anyone says, but because in the eyes of these strangers they are effectively married already. She wants to say, “No, you don't understand, we only met on the doorstep.” Or more truthfully, “We've come as a couple but we've had a rocky week and may be splitting up tomorrow.” Instead she dips
her head and smiles and allows the illusion to remain. Everyone here is tidily paired off. Everyone has a home and a life companion. There's no call to confuse matters.

“Maggie's job is in conservation,” Henry says.

“Whenever I hear that word I think of jam-making,” says the thin, elegant woman.

Diana takes against the newcomer on sight. Maggie is exactly the kind of woman she finds most tiresome: pretty in a girly sort of way, without sophistication, the sort who grew up in pony clubs and feels at home in Wellington boots. Maggie's smiling at her in a placatory way because that's how people behave in the provinces, where they value social cohesion above intellectual stimulus. So instead of smiling back Diana looks away, not to talk to anyone else, but to indicate that she at least won't be playing the tedious game of nicey-nicey that passes for an entertaining evening out in Sussex.

“You're thinking of conserves,” says Maggie.

“So I am,” says Diana. “But actually there is a connection. You know when you make jam there's a vital ingredient that makes the jam set? It's called pectin. There's bound to be an equivalent in the conservation of buildings, something you have to add to the process to make it really last. I wonder what it is.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Diana?” says Henry.

“I'm making small talk,” says Diana. “I'm being sociable.”

She can feel without actually looking how the person called Maggie is entirely out of her depth, and this gratifies her. Why should people put so much effort into making each other comfortable? Life begins when you leave your comfort zone. Her talk with Max this morning, just before she left, had just this effect. She still feels a little shaken by it. But she recognizes
that Max had the energy and the originality to challenge his own mother's preconceptions, and Diana applauds that.

“What makes you think your views are superior to Dad's?” he said. “Has it occurred to you that you might occupy a far smaller mental universe than he does? Has it occurred to you that he's grappling with the really important questions, and you've never asked them because your mind is clogged by triviality?”

Many mothers would have found that quite hurtful, but Diana has always prided herself on the freedom she's given her children to be themselves. She takes Max's criticism in the spirit it's given, not as an attack, but as a sharing of his own evolving outlook. She stays open to new experiences. That's the difference between the life she leads and the life Laura leads in Sussex. And if that openness exposes her to the occasional sting, then so be it. That's the price you pay for staying alive. She knows Max is still both her beloved son and her friend. This is what she's most proud of in her life. Her children are her friends.

“I'm useless at being sociable,” says Roddy. “Diana's always telling me I have no small talk.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Roddy.”

It really is more than she can bear to have Roddy drooping about the place pandering to other people's insecurities. If they want to have a shy people's tea party, let them all move to Cheltenham and do it where it won't bore the rest of us to death. Then, abruptly, she remembers that Max has offered her a different perspective on Roddy.

“Tell them about your search for God,” she says. “Max has been telling me I'm too trivial. Do you search for God?”

She addresses this to the dull-looking young man in spectacles who has come with the jam woman. She has entirely failed to retain his name.

“No,” he says, “no, I don't. Do you think I should?”

“Absolutely. You wouldn't want to be accused of having a mind clogged by triviality, would you?”

“Shut up,” says Roddy.

Diana is startled.

“What did you say, Roddy?”

“I said shut up.”

At this point another couple joins them, and Henry makes introductions and passes round drinks. Diana is bewildered. Did Roddy just tell her to shut up in public?

“Diana. Roddy. This is Liz and Alan.”

Liz answers Henry's courteous inquiry about her mother by telling the story of her week. She tells it as if it's a comic anecdote about a maddening but lovable old eccentric.

“Every day she was telling me she didn't need her carer, she hated her carer, she wanted me to take her carer away. So I took her away. She lasted three days. Now she's saying to her carer, Never leave me.”

But as she speaks her real attention is on one of the other guests, who she recognized as soon as they came out onto the terrace. It's the council pixie who made eyes at Alan, and who is making eyes at Alan even now. Alan too has recognized her, and they have begun a conversation. Liz is thrown by this. The encounter feels embarrassing, almost indecent, like meeting your gynecologist at a swingers' party.

Half picking up on their conversation even while conducting a conversation of her own, Liz gathers that the pixie knows about Alan's other writer. She's sympathizing with him over his predicament. How does she know this? Have they had more than one meeting?