Kate leaned forward and pushed a note through the glass screen in the taxi. How astonishing it was, how pleasurable, to be going back to work. She got out of the cab and stood for a moment on the pavement, her face tilted towards the sky. Married, she said to herself, pregnant, working. Go, girl.
In the coffee shop after the read-through, Lazlo said he was starving.
‘I was so nervous—’
‘It didn’t show’.
‘I kept thinking, this isn’t how I’m going to play it, this is wrong. I made him far more petulant than I want him to be. I don’t want to sound so sorry for myself. Would you like a bagel?’
‘I’ll get you a bagel,’ Edie said.
‘No, really, I asked you to have a coffee with me’.
‘And I am your mother,’ Edie said. ‘Don’t forget that’.
He regarded her. He said soberly, ‘I thought you were wonderful’.
Edie’s chin went up a little.
‘Not really. Don’t forget I’ve been doing this since you were in your pram’. ‘I don’t think so’.
She took her wallet out of her bag.
‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-four’.
She looked satisfied.
‘I’ve been doing this since you were in your pram.
What kind of bagel?’
‘Toasted, please. Would two bagels be out of the question?’
‘Certainly not. And cream cheese?’ ‘How did you know?’ ‘Mother stuff,’ Edie said.
She threaded her way between the small metal tables to the counter. Behind it, a huge mirror reflected the room and she could see that Lazlo was watching her and that he looked as her children had looked after school examinations in subjects they were good at, exhilarated and exhausted. He was going, she thought, to be a good Osvald, just the right blend of intensity and youthful spirit, frightened enough to arouse sympathy, self-absorbed enough to be maddening. As for her – well, there was a lot to think about in Mrs Alving and most of it about lies. Watching Lazlo in the glass made her consider how rich it was going to be making those lies form the central core of violent maternal protectiveness in the way she played Mrs Alving. She could see, from where she was, how hungry Lazlo was. She could see he was watching her in admiration, certainly, but also he was watching because she would be returning to him with a tray of coffee and bagels, and something in the simplicity of that, the neediness of that, made her heart rejoice.
She went back to their table and put the tray down. ‘Can I ask you something?’ Lazlo said.
‘Yes’.
‘I want you to be honest—’
‘Oh, I am excellent at that,’ Edie said, unloading the tray, putting the bagels down in front of him. ‘I have a diploma in honest. Ask my family’.
He picked up a knife.
‘Your family—’
‘One husband. Three children, two of them older than you are’. ‘I don’t believe it—’
‘True’. She turned and put the empty tray down on a nearby table. ‘What do you want to ask?’
‘Will I—’ He stopped. ‘Will you what?’
‘Will I be any good?’
It was rather nice, Vivien thought, lying in the bath with a mug of valerian tea balanced on the edge, to think of Rosa settling down in her spare room. The room had been made up, of course, as it always was, in obedience to the dictates of Vivien and Edie’s childhoods, where whole areas of the house had been consecrated to this mythical creature called the visitor, who would expect exaggerated standards of perfection and formality were he or she ever to put in an appearance. There had not only been a front room smelling of furniture polish, but a spare bedroom upstairs that looked as if it belonged in a provincial hotel, with two beds shrouded in green candlewick covers and a wardrobe empty of everything except extra blankets and a clatter of hangers. Edie’s reaction to this arrangement had been to make sure her family lived abundantly in every corner of her house; Vivien’s, to emulate her mother. Rosa, in Vivien’s spare room, would find books and tissues and lamps with functioning bulbs. And if she chose, climbing into a bed where the sheets matched the pillowcases, to make comparisons, that was no affair of Vivien’s.
When Rosa had telephoned and asked to come and see her, Vivien had said of course, come to supper. Then she had suggested coming on Sunday and added, ‘Why don’t you stay the night?’
Rosa had hesitated.
‘Would that be all right?’
‘Of course. Wouldn’t you rather stay than trail back into Central London afterwards?’
‘Staying,’ Rosa said, ‘would actually be very wonderful’.
Vivien didn’t think Rosa looked very well. She had made an effort – clean hair, ironed shirt – but there was a kind of lustre missing, the kind that was turned up full wattage when you were in love but could equally be dimmed down according to varying degrees of distress, until it was almost extinguished.
It became plain, as supper progressed, and Vivien began to think that a single bottle of wine was looking both meagre and unhelpful, that Rosa’s current state of distress had been advancing upon her for several years. First there was the affair with Josh, and then the ending of the affair and subsequent derailment of prudence and capability, and now unemployment and debt.
‘Probably,’ Rosa said, eating grapes with the absent-mindedness of being already full, ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this’.
‘Why not? I’m your aunt—’
‘I mean, I shouldn’t be telling anyone. In a grown-up world, I should be sorting it. I should be waking up one morning full of resolve and vow to clear my life of clutter and make a list of priorities. I shouldn’t be wandering about like some hopeless animal that’s escaped from its field and can’t find the way back in’.
Vivien got up to make coffee.
‘Nice image’.
‘But not nice situation’.
‘No’. She reached up for the cafetière from a high shelf. She said, ‘Did you think of going back home?’
There was a pause and then Rosa said reluctantly,
‘I tried’.
Vivien turned round.
‘I can’t believe your mother turned you down—’
‘No—’ ‘Well, then’.
‘Dad did,’ Rosa said. ‘But nobody knows that but Ben. You’re not to say’. Vivien smiled at her.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it’. She spooned coffee into the cafetière. She said carefully, ‘Your mother couldn’t think why you chose to go and live with friends. Couldn’t understand it. Why you didn’t go home’.
‘Well,’ Rosa said, ‘I can’t, now’.
‘Can’t you?’
‘I can’t go whining to Mum after Dad said what he did’.
‘Which,’ Vivien said, switching on the kettle, ‘I can imagine. Men always want their wives to see them first. Except,’ she added lightly, ‘mine’.
Rosa looked up.
‘Perhaps that’s why you still like him’. Vivien came back to the table and sat down. ‘More wine?’
‘Yes, but no,’ Rosa said. ‘I’m selling bargain breaks to Lanzarote tomorrow’.
‘Nothing wrong with that. I sell a lot of books I wouldn’t read myself’. She picked up a fork and drew a line with it across her place mat. She said, ‘You’ll get another job’.
‘I hope so’.
‘It’s much easier to find a job if you’ve already got one’.