Past by Tessa Hadley Page A

stiffly upright, with her bird-like evasive glances, she probably seemed to Pilar more like an elderly aunt than a sister. Now she was expressing an almost exaggerated interest in life in Argentina, which Pilar was reluctant to talk about.
    â€” England must seem very parochial to you, after the sheer scale of things over there: the politics and history as well as the landscape.
    â€” My life is here, Pilar said sharply. — I’ve chosen England, I’ve been here ten years, I’m married to an Englishman. People who’ve chosen to come here don’t always want to be looking back.
    Harriet blushed, desolated. — Of course you don’t. I didn’t mean to say you weren’t at home here. It’s your home as much as it’s ours.
    She touched Pilar on her bare shoulder to reassure her, and her veined, freckled hand, its unpainted nails bitten as short as a little girl’s, was amphibian against Pilar’s even-pored brown skin. Pilar accepted the little gesture of obeisance and lifted the heavy teapot, pouring graciously for Harriet first, forgiving her. — Shall I be mother? she said. Assiduously she had set about acquiring these idiomatic English gestures. Yet it was her difference from the Englishwomen Roland knew which attracted him, just as it interested Harriet. He wondered whether mutual incomprehension might not be the most stimulating arrangement in a marriage.
    He was touched that Harriet seemed genuinely to like his wife – though he had made up his mind that it didn’t matter if his sisters didn’t like her. Pilar didn’t have the slippery ambiguity which was Alice’s specialty. Latin women, he thought, were encouraged to develop more conventionally than English ones – consequently their personalities had firmer and more resilient outlines and they appeared more certain of what they wanted. Of course, his sisters were odd partly because of the oddity of what had happened to them in their teens, when their mother died and they had all managed on their own in the house. Harriet had been in charge when she was only seventeen.
    After tea they strolled along the path beside the river. Pilar kicked off her sandals and waded in from a little pebbled strand, squealing and gasping at the cold, trousers rolled up to her knees, sunglasses pushed up onto her hair. — It’s nice, she said. — Come on in! Harriet hesitated on the brink, then joined her. When Pilar staggered in the force of the current, which was strong even though the water hardly came halfway up their calves, she had to grab hold of Harriet’s arm and hang onto her, laughing; Harriet stood steadily, braced to support her. In the rushing noise of the river, they were cut off from Roland. — My life in Argentina is full of complications right now, Pilar said swiftly to Harriet. — Things are going on with my family, horrible things. I’m happy to be far away from it all.
    â€” Have you talked to Roland about it?
    â€” It’s so ugly. He doesn’t need to know. He’s got more important things to think about. Please, don’t say anything to him.
    Harriet was stirred by this unexpected confession. In her work with refugees her sympathetic responsiveness was strained continually to the point of pain, and she was ashamed when she thought how she’d come through her own life more or less unscathed. Her own sufferings she counted as nothing. She reassured Pilar: no, of course she wouldn’t say anything. Gruffly, not wanting to seem greedy for more, she added that if ever Pilar wanted to talk, she’d be pleased to listen. Under the surface of this decency, though, she was dazzled by Pilar’s choosing her to confide in; a breath of drama rose from the fast-flowing water swirling past them.
    Watching from the bank, Roland thought he could imagine what Pilar had been like as a domineering, flirting teenager, with a gang of girlfriends. He took a