Golden Hour (45 page)

“What's your view on donkeys?” she says to Laura's brother-in-law.

“I think I can truthfully say,” he answers, “that I have no view whatsoever on donkeys.”

Laura comes out with a plate of something or other on toast, and gives Liz the plate to hold.

“It's taramasalata,” says Laura. “To keep you going.”

She heads back into the kitchen. Henry refills glasses. Alan remains deep in talk with the pixie. Liz feels old and ugly and incompetent. Laura is a far better cook than she is, and a far better hostess. She catches herself hoping for some social disaster to overtake the evening.

“These are
delicious
,” says Diana. “Roddy, you've already had your share.”

“My point is this,” says Henry. “We've all lost confidence in our ability to make artistic judgments.”

“Have you lost your confidence to make artistic judgments?” Liz says to the young man in glasses.

“No,” he says. “I never had any confidence to lose.”

“So what is it you do?”

“I work in IT.”

Liz barely hears him. She's watching Alan, his face so animated, talking so eagerly, while the pixie smiles up at him.

“I'm so sorry,” she says to the man in spectacles, “I didn't catch your girlfriend's name—your partner—”

“Maggie,” he says. “Maggie Dutton.”

“I don't think she remembers, but we met just a few days ago.”

Alan finds to his surprise that he's enjoying the evening. Henry is assiduous at refilling his glass, and he's flattered that Maggie remembers not only what he does for a living, but what has been causing him grief this week. He responds to her friendly interest with a comic tour-de-force on the fate of his poor sheepdog movie, which secretly impresses even himself.

“And best of all,” he concludes, “I get to tell total strangers at dinner parties about Colin Firth and Robert De Niro, neither of whom I have actually met, who are speaking words written by someone else, for which I will get the credit. How sublimely wonderful is that?”

Maggie laughs, visibly enchanted.

“But you do write plays as well,” she says. “Those are your words.”

Liz joins them, carrying a plate of something or other on toast.

“Hi,” she says to Maggie. “I'm Liz.”

“Maggie's the conservation officer,” Alan says. “She came over the other day.”

“I remember,” says Liz.

Alan sees at once that Liz is going to give Maggie a hard time, and this irritates him. She's only doing her job. When you meet socially you put all that stuff aside.

“We're not even going to think about all that,” he says. “This is a social event.”

“I'm sure Maggie is used to it,” says Liz. “Like being an off-duty traffic warden. You must keep meeting people you've given parking tickets.”

“Like you keep meeting people you've misquoted in print,” says Alan.

Liz gives him a stare. Then she turns to Maggie.

“I've been talking to your husband. He tells me he's in IT.”

“We're not married,” says Maggie. “He fixes people's computers.”

Henry comes to refill their glasses.

“Did Laura tell you we went to a Buckingham Palace garden party?” he says. “It was rather wonderful. We came to mock and stayed to pray.”

In the kitchen, Laura has basted the lamb, and moved it to the bottom of the top oven. Serving dishes are in the bottom oven to warm. The carving board is out, the carving knife sharpened. Time to put the potatoes on. A glance through the open door onto the terrace shows her guests, lit by the golden light of the sinking sun, drinking their wine and talking happily.

The water is bubbling in the pan. She lowers the steamer basket over the boiling water, sprinkles salt onto the new potatoes, and covers them with a lid. As she turns round from the stove she sees Roddy standing in the doorway staring at her.

“You've changed,” he says.

Roddy is in hell. He doesn't understand how it happened, but something has come between himself and Laura. The unspoken understanding they had before has gone, to be replaced by something hard and shiny and impenetrable. He feels as if the words he says to her no longer reach her, they're blown away by some cruel wind. He watches her all the time to see if she feels it too, but she's in motion, always busy. Roddy hates the dinner party. He hates the people here, with the sole exception of Laura. What are they but noise and interference? A great change is destined for this weekend, and it's unable to come into being because of this bustle and chatter, this pointless worthless nodding and smiling that has in it no reality, no substance, no love. If he could remove Laura from the party for the shortest time, for half an hour, for ten minutes, if they could walk out across the meadow, down to the river bank, and be silent in each other's company—then the true Laura would meet his eyes, and he could speak the simple words that he has so far failed to utter.

Roddy blames himself. He knows he has a tendency to ramble. It's because he's nervous. Alone, feeling her loving gaze on him,
the nervousness will fall away, and his tongue will speak the truth of his heart.

How beautiful she is. How radiant and womanly. Even as she moves out of his reach she becomes more perfect. All he wants in life is to be with her. Others talk of the search for God and have no understanding. Only those who live the true and destined life know God. With Laura I am with God. Without her I am in hell.

“Do you have a moment, Laura?”

“Look at me, Roddy. Do I look as if I have a moment?”

Henry appears by his side and speaks low in his ear.

“Roddy, do me a favor. Rescue Andrew.”

Andrew is the soft-faced young man with glasses. He's standing talking to Diana, or rather, listening to Diana. Diana is doing that thing she does, talking to someone while her eyes gaze in all other directions, transparently in search of some person or object of more compelling interest.

Bowing his head as if to his own execution, Roddy does as he's asked.

“Roddy,” says Diana. “You're behaving very oddly this evening. Are you ill?”

“I expect so,” says Roddy.

“Well, don't be. It's such a bore. Andrew and I have been talking about computers. More your kind of thing.”

She goes into the kitchen to bother Laura. Roddy looks wildly at Andrew, overwhelmed with anger at Diana. Why now? Why this evening? Not that there's anything new. She's been behaving this way for years. But today was to have been the day of his liberation. He feels like a prisoner whose term has expired, only to find as he is led to the prison gates that a new sentence has been imposed, and he will never be free.

“We weren't exactly talking about computers,” says Andrew.
“We were talking about why some people seem to have a blind spot about computers.”

“You work with computers, do you?”

“Yes,” says Andrew. “I fix computer problems. Though of course it's very rarely the computer that's at fault, it's the user. So you could say I fix people.”

“You fix people?”

Dimly, through the haze of pain and anger, Roddy is aware that this is interesting. At any other time he could take pleasure in pursuing the insight. But through the open kitchen door he can see Laura at work in the kitchen, and Diana leaning against the table, where he should be, saying empty nothings to her, when he could be changing lives.

“I suppose that sounds a bit pompous,” says Andrew. “But you know what I mean.”

Maggie joins them, slipping one hand through Andrew's arm.

“Has Andrew told you?” she says. “We're thinking of setting up a commune.”

“Really?” says Roddy.

“Shared property and free love,” says Maggie.

“She's teasing you,” says Andrew.

“Oh, right,” says Roddy. “I never get it when people make jokes. Diana says you have to ring a bell for me.”

“I'm only partly teasing,” says Maggie. “There isn't nearly enough love in the world. We could set it up in Basingstoke.”

“Why Basingstoke?” says Roddy.

“Because it's near Purley.”

“How near?” says Andrew.

“Quite near,” says Maggie. “But we're not there yet.”

Maggie is already a little drunk. Henry is so good at refilling the glasses that without noticing it she must have drunk half a
bottle or more already. The encounter with Alan has thrown her off-balance, but it has also sharpened her senses. Those first impressions have not deceived her. This is a powerfully attractive man. She can't keep her eyes off him. All the while they were talking she was longing to touch him. For some reason this quiet man with the lined, weary face and the mass of soft brown hair has aroused her sexual desire. It's not anything he says or does. It's just what he is. She's had to walk away from him, afraid she if she remains close for any longer she'll start undoing his trousers and saying, “Let's fuck.”

He himself seems to be oblivious to her response, but his wife is more than aware. Maggie can't blame her, but what can you do? Her conversation has been entirely innocent, she has no designs on Alan, she's walked away from him, hasn't she? But she can feel him still, behind her, by the terrace table. Her back feels him and tingles. Her bum tingles.

She pulls a little tighter on Andrew's arm. Maybe they should leave. There's no one here she has any desire to talk to except
him
. But Laura has been so kind to her, and it would be so rude to walk out. Also if they left early, would she tell Andrew the reason? You can't say something like that, can you? You can't tell your boyfriend you're wetting your knickers for another man. So you don't tell him. You bury it, and you behave yourself. And then what?

“Free love is an interesting concept,” Roddy says. “People think it means orgies, but you could argue it means true love. In that there's no true love without freedom.”

“What about married people?” says Maggie. “They're not free. Does that mean you can't be married and have true love?”

“It might mean that,” says Roddy, his eyes gleaming. “It might indeed.”

“There, you see, Andrew,” says Maggie. “It's your A and B and X and Y.”

“It's a theory I was trying out on Maggie,” Andrew explains to Roddy. “The intense phase of love rarely lasts.”

“But it does,” says Roddy with sudden earnestness. “With the right person it not only lasts, it grows deeper and stronger with every year that goes by.”

“You're a lucky man,” says Maggie.

How strange people are. This ugly man and his sharp-tongued wife have clearly found a way to make marriage work. She wants to ask him their secret. It can't be sex, surely? But you never know. In the privacy of the bedroom perhaps they call each other baby names and do things to each other with their fingers that excite them both to ecstasy.

Henry stands gazing at the teak terrace table, now laid, made pretty with two vases of pink cosmos and blue cornflowers, and three red candles in glass wind-shields. He's puzzling over where to seat his guests. He'll put himself at the head, as host, and Laura on the far right corner where she likes to go, so she has easy access to the kitchen. Andrew on her left, so she can talk to him about books. That means Andrew had better have Liz on his left and Alan opposite, which puts Roddy at the other end of the table, with Maggie on his right. Henry mentally surveys the arrangement. It means he gets Diana, but he can cope with that, and at least she's as far from Roddy as it's possible to get on a table for eight.

Have I brought up enough wine? Red for the main course, eight people, four bottles should be enough, surely? The white has been disappearing faster than expected. Still light on the terrace, that sweet gentle light of summer evenings. Too soon to light the candles.

The moon is rising, almost a full moon but not quite, a squeezed disc low over the rim of the Downs. Barely a breeze. What a summer it's been so far. A summer to be grateful for. A day to be grateful for. A day that is now slowly, beautifully, ending.

He looks back at the house, its windows glowing in the twilight. He sees Laura at work in the kitchen, reaching for the oven gloves that hang over the rail of the Aga. Things have their places. Little by little, the tools you need for daily living discover and occupy their rightful niches, as if the house is a garment that is tailored to fit over time. The gap between the dishwasher and the sink becomes a slot for trays. The Deruta bowl on the dresser holds string, glue, Sellotape, drawing pins. Rarely used serving dishes and big vases are stored in the cupboard under the stairs. Laura's nightdress and his own bathrobe hang on hooks above the bedroom radiator so they're warm for wearing at night. These arrangements are all unremarkable, obvious perhaps, but each one represents a decision they have made over the years. So a house grows in familiarity and rightness, just as a person does; just as a marriage does.

Roddy enters the kitchen with a determined stride and takes Laura's wrist in his hand.

“Come with me,” he says.

Laura has the oven gloves in her hands. She's about to take the lamb out of the oven. She's so surprised by Roddy's manner that she doesn't resist.

He leads her into the hall, which is not overlooked from the terrace. Keeping tight hold of her wrist, he fixes her with his eyes, revealing there the turmoil of his spirit. Laura understands that this is all about his troubled marriage, and she wants to be sympathetic, but he has chosen the worst possible moment.

“Laura,” he says.

“Please, Roddy—”

“You know what this is about.”

“Later, Roddy.”

“I just need one word. One word, Laura.”

She pulls at her hand, but he only holds it tighter.

“Look, Roddy, I really will listen, but not now. The lamb has to come out of the oven—”