The Winter Folly by Lulu Taylor Page A

felt guilty seeing Sophie flush and her eyelids flutter with embarrassment. ‘But don’t worry, it was
ages ago.’
    Sophie looked relieved. ‘Well, then, I’ll take you to Boots. It’s the only thing for it.’
    They bought panstick, eye pencil and mascara, powder and a slippery lipstick of frosted pink grease, and then Sophie had insisted on a haircut.
    Now Alexandra looked quite different from the day she and Laurence had arrived, pale and exhausted after their honeymoon. The whole experience in Eastbourne had been traumatic for both of them.
They had attempted several times to manage whatever it was they were supposed to do in bed and it always ended in mortifying failure. Laurence started lingering in the bar after dinner while she
went up to the room alone. She’d only been able to sleep after he’d come in at last as she lay stock still and hardly breathing, listening to him stumble about the room, swearing gently
as he undressed, before falling into bed and a loud, drunken sleep. She was torn between bitter disappointment that she was failing him somehow, and deep relief that they were not going to go
through the humiliation of trying again.
    In their new flat, they shared a bed but they barely touched. When Laurence came home sober and in good time, they went through the same little bedtime ritual. She turned onto her right
shoulder, he onto his left; they murmured a polite goodnight and stayed back to back until morning. But that was happening less and less. He ate in the mess so regularly that she hardly bothered
preparing supper now in the tiny galley kitchen, as more often than not she sat waiting as it turned leathery and unappetising in the oven. She’d know then that he’d come back
drunk.
    Was it so unusual to be like this? She had the vague idea that her parents had been the same: together and yet apart. Real married life wasn’t like the stories of romance; it was about
existing in a civil and separate manner, keeping up appearances at parties and fulfilling obligation in private. That was why she kept the little flat so tidy: she didn’t want Laurence to
think she had failed him in all areas. She wanted to be a good wife, even if she wasn’t yet able to do that thing with him.
    But she knew that they would have to succeed at some point, or what would happen about children?
    Alexandra pulled on a cardigan over her summer dress and went out, nodding a hello to the sentries as she left the barracks. She liked seeing them there: it made her feel safe and protected in
the middle of this big, strange city. At first London had seemed so vast, she’d been utterly overwhelmed and very homesick. But gradually she was getting to know it, and to conjure up the
courage to venture out little distances away from the safety of home. It helped having Hyde Park so close. She crossed the road and went through the iron gate into the park, relishing the sense of
freedom. She didn’t mind this kind of loneliness, when she could wander and explore in peace. Laurence was out most of the time on his mysterious army duties, and housework seemed to take
very little time out of the great stretching days. Despite the social round, there were still these afternoons with nothing to do, when only Alexandra was without children to care for, or shopping
to do, or any of the many activities the other wives were so frantic with. That was when she’d started wandering in the park, which she’d begun to love. It was so huge, a vast expanse
of green that stretched away into wooded copses with the glitter of water and the golden arch of a bridge beyond. It was busy with people, strolling in the sunshine, children running or roller
skating or riding bicycles – it was the holidays now, of course – and tourists with maps probably looking for the Albert Memorial. On the sandy track that ran along the inner circle of
the tarmacked road horses came trotting past ridden by smart young ladies in velvet hats, their