Deep Water Read Free Page A

suddenly looked up from the letter. ‘This is splendid! He wants to invite a friend to stay with us during half-term. I’m amazed you’re not pleased.’ He read on for a few seconds. ‘Excellent! This boy’s a budding Robinson Crusoe. He’s built a hut in the woods and invites his pals round for grub. No wonder Leo likes him.’
    Andrea shook her head as if to clear it. ‘Leo has a good friend and didn’t tell us till now, and we should be pleased?’
    Peter reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘It’s a big compliment to us that he wants to bring a friend home.’
    ‘Sweetheart, I don’t want to share Leo. Not on his first visit home.’
    ‘Come on, Andrea. You’ve read the letter. His friend’s dad flies fighters – imagine the life he’s leading – and his mother’s in Kenya. This lad may have to stay at school for half-term if we say no.’
    Andrea raised her hands. ‘You’re right. It was really nice of Leo. Of course I want this boy to come.’
    As golden leaves drifted down around them, they ate their sandwiches. Peter, in his generous way, was simply glad that Leo had found a friend. Impulsively, Andrea kissed her husband. As so often these days, she found herself slipping into her ‘if only’ routine. If only the doctors had never plunged him into despair by saying he wouldn’t walk again; if only she hadn’t felt obliged to visit the Radcliffe Infirmaryday after day for months until drained of every atom of emotion. If only Peter hadn’t needed her so much, while simultaneously detesting his dependence.
    After throwing a few crusts to the ducks on the lake, they headed for the hotel where Peter chose to live. Being near Victoria Station, a prime target for the Luftwaffe, one wing of the hotel had already been compacted to a massive mound of rubble. The place appealed to Peter because few people wanted to stay there. Along an empty upper corridor, unknown to the Admiralty, the hotel’s manager had let him construct an experimental water tank, in which he carried out tests on a model of his floating road away from the eyes of opinionated experts at the navy’s research laboratory.
    Not for the first time, the siren was wailing as Peter and Andrea arrived. As usual, they waited in Peter’s room to see how close the planes came before deciding whether to go down to the basement. Below them in the street people hurried to take shelter.
    ‘Wouldn’t it be rather fun to make love with a raid going on?’ suggested Peter.
    Andrea wanted to agree; this was exactly the kind of remark the old Peter would have made before his illness, if a war had been in progress. But with all her senses attuned to noises off, Andrea knew she would have none to spare for her own body, let alone his. Fear of pain and extinction apart, she would be constantly aware that if they died together Leo would be an orphan.
    That afternoon no bombs fell closer than the City, so they talked while the raid lasted, and then, inthe early evening, after the ‘All Clear’ had sounded, they left the curtains open, and Andrea peeled off her stockings by the glow of burning offices and churches. Thirteen years after their marriage, Peter watched as if witnessing one of the loveliest sights in the world. Because lovemaking still meant so much to him, Andrea often forgot his physical awkwardness , though never the distance between them. For almost a year he had kept from her his terror that she would leave him, and for much of that time had subjected her to anger she had found inexplicable and hurtful.
    After Peter had eased himself off her body, she stared up at the ceiling. Even now, if they could be together more often, perhaps they could be happy again. But how could she expect to get more time? Women friends thought her lucky to see Peter as often as she did. Their husbands were in the army, or at sea, or even in one case in a German prison camp. ‘One has to expect one’s man to be elsewhere ,’ the bursar’s wife had told