he’d shrugged then, uncertain, and had a sip of wine—‘well, it might just upset them, and for what?’ Laurel wasn’t so sure. Certainly, there were easier stories to tell; it was a lot to cope with, especially for someone like Rose. But at the same time, Laurel had been thinking a lot lately about secrets, about how difficult they were to keep, and the habit they had of lurking quietly beneath the surface before sneaking all of a sudden through a crack in their keeper’s resolve. She supposed she’d just have to wait a while and see how things turned out.
Gerry glanced up at her now and smiled, nodding from where he’d perched near Ma’s head that she should start the song. Laurel slid the record out of its paper sheath and put it on the player, setting the needle on the outer rim. The swell of the piano opening filled the room’s silent pockets and Laurel sat back on the other end of the sofa, laying her hand on her mother’s feet and closing her eyes.
Suddenly, she was nine years old again. It was 1954 and a summer’s night. Laurel was wearing a nightie with short sleeves and the window above her bed was open in the hopes of luring in the night’s cool breeze. Her head was on the pillow, long straight hair splayed out behind her like a fan, and her feet were resting on the sill. Mummy and Daddy had friends over for dinner and Laurel had been lying in the dark like that for hours, listening to the gentle tides of conversation and laughter that rose sometimes over the mumbled sighs of her sleeping sisters. Periodically the scent of tobacco smoke drifted up the stairs and through the open door; glasses chinked together in the dining room, and Laurel basked in the knowledge that the adult world was warm and light and spinning still beyond her bedroom walls.
After a time there came the sound of chairs scraping back beneath the table and footsteps in the hall and Laurel could imagine the men shaking hands, and the women kissing one another’s cheeks as they said, ‘Goodbye,’ and, ‘Oh! What a lovely night,’ and made promises to do it all again. Car doors clunked, engines purred down the moonlit driveway; and finally, silence and stillness returned to Greenacres.
Laurel waited for her parents’ footsteps on the stairs as they went to bed, but they didn’t come and she teetered on the rim of sleep, unable quite to release herself and fall. And then, through the floorboards, a woman’s laugh, cool and quenching, like a drink of water when you’re thirsty, and Laurel was wide-awake. She sat up and listened as there came more laughter, Daddy’s this time, followed quickly by the sound of something heavy being moved. Laurel wasn’t supposed to get up this late at night, not unless she was ill or desperate to use the toilet or woken by a bad dream, but she couldn’t just close her eyes and go to sleep, not now. Something was happening downstairs and she needed to know what it was. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but little girls usually fared much better.
She slid out of bed and tiptoed along the carpeted corridor, nightie fluttering against her bare knees. Quiet as a mouse, she sneaked down the stairs, pausing on the landing when she heard music, faint strains coming from behind the sitting-room door. Laurel hurried the rest of the way down and knelt as carefully as she could, pressing first one hand and then her eye hard against the door. She blinked against the keyhole and then drew breath. Daddy’s armchair had been moved back into the corner, leaving a large clear space in the centre of the room and he and Mummy were standing together on the rug, their bodies clasped together in an embrace. Daddy’s hand was large and firm against Mummy’s back, and his cheek rested against hers as they swayed in time to the music. His eyes were closed and the look on his face made Laurel swallow and her cheeks heat. It was almost as if he were in pain, and yet somehow the opposite of that, too. He was Daddy, and yet he wasn’t, and to see him that way made Laurel feel uncertain and even a little envious, which she couldn’t understand at all.
The music kicked into a faster rhythm and her parents’ bodies drew apart as Laurel watched. They were