Prologue

       Geneva, 1953

      How slowly the light dies on these interminable summer evenings. Laura is so keen for each day to finish that she pulls dinner earlier every night. She hurries Rosa through her bath. ‘Rub a dub dub!’ she sings with some impatience as she towels her daughter’s hair. Rosa looks up, her flawless mouth half open, her dark eyes serene. ‘Dub dub,’ she repeats in a serious tone. Her hair is still damp, sticking up in spikes, as Laura settles her into her lap with a bottle of warm milk beside them.

      The potatoes are already bubbling in their pan, the glass of cold vermouth is already poured and waiting at Laura’s elbow, the way to Rosa’s bedtime seems clear; but then the child suddenly pushes away the half-full bottle of milk and slides to the ground. ‘Open, open,’ she says, standing at the door that leads to the balcony. Laura fights her impatience as she lifts and encourages her – ‘Come on, my sweetheart, for Mama’ – to come back and finish her drink. ‘Nearly supper!’ she calls out to her own mother as Rosa finally drains it. Mother is reading some magazine on the sofa, still mapping the world of new autumn modes that will never be bought and new destinations that will never be seen.

      Rosa is still saying ‘More!’ hopefully as Laura carries her up the awkward ladder staircase to her attic room. For a two-year-old, every evening comes too suddenly to an end. She is never in a hurry for the day to close. Laura lays her down in her cot with a solitary white rabbit for company. ‘More’: that was Rosa’s first word. My life is all run out, Laura thinks, stooping over the cot, but nothing is ever enough for you. Her daughter burrows into the mattress, face-down, a chubby starfish. Struck with unexpected guilt at wanting to hurry her into unconsciousness, Laura whispers, ‘Lullaby?’ But Rosa is gone suddenly into sleep, that enviable sleep that ebbs and flows over her with unpredictable tides.

      Then Laura is back downstairs again, standing in the kitchen in front of the stove. As she downs half of her second glass of vermouth, she prods at the potatoes, cuts some tomatoes roughly, slides slices of ham onto two blue plates, and that’s it. That’s supper. Her mother’s glance moves to the drink as she comes into the room. She doesn’t say anything, but in almost unconscious reaction Laura lifts the glass and finishes it as her mother sits down and waits to be served.

      ‘Potatoes, Mother?’

      ‘Just two, thank you – now, what time is it that you want to leave this weekend?’

      They have been over this a dozen times, and Laura pauses before she answers. ‘It’s this Friday, we can get a train just after three. It’s quite an easy journey, really. Wine?’

      ‘No, not for me, not tonight. And he has booked the hotel, has he, this – Archie?’

      ‘That’s right. He said it would be quiet at the end of the season, but still fun. He’s got daughters himself, but doesn’t see much of them – I think he misses that side of things, family life.’

      Laura goes on talking, reassuring her mother that the weekend will be easy, that Rosa will enjoy it, that all three of them, grandmother, mother and daughter, might have a good time. Laura’s voice is calm, yes, and measured too, until her mother breaks in again. ‘Have you remembered to tell the consulate where we’re going?’