The Photograph by Penelope Lively Page A

gone down the sluice, it seems. She sees neatly restored ruins, a mosaic pavement, a glassed and labeled fragment of Roman cement on which is the paw print of a Roman dog. She sees a grassy bank, the surrounding woodland. She sees Kath walking towards them in a car park, Mary Packard and her companion behind: evidently they all met up at this place. The arrangement, and its reason, are gone. But can be surmised: Kath’s phone call—“Listen, Mary and I have this plan. . . . Yes, yes, tomorrow as ever is . . . Of course you can drop everything, both of you, bring Oliver too. . . .” And now a picnic comes floating up: Nick is rummaging in the coolbag, he looks up at her, he says, “Is there any fruit, sweetie?” Mary Packard and Kath lean over the railing that surrounds the mosaic, laughing at something. Mary Packard’s man is so irretrievably consigned to the sluice that Elaine cannot supply him with features or a name; he is just a lurking presence. But Mary Packard is loud and clear: Kath’s longtime friend, the crony, the soul mate, the abiding element amidst the ebb and flow of Kath’s associates. Short curly hair, emphatic manner, a potter by occupation.
    Glyn is trying to sort out the years, but to no great effect. He could do with pen and paper, but that would hardly be appropriate just now. What was he doing in ’87 or ’88? Which was the year he was up in the north for much of the summer—did this take place then? More accurate dating will be necessary. And there is a sense in which Elaine has failed him. She did not know, which removes the biting thought that he was the sole innocent, that all around were wise to what was up, and tacitly pitying, or jeering. She did not know, but others may have done. Oliver, patently. He will see to Oliver all in good time. For now, first things first.
    “You think ’87 or ’88?”
    Elaine puts down her coffee cup. She is silent, staring at the table. She is considering the query, it would seem.
    But no. “Does it matter?” she says.
    “It does to me.”
    She shrugs. “Sometime then.”
    “Can’t you be more precise?”
    “No.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake, Elaine—”
    “And don’t snap at me.”
    He is contrite. “I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry. Look, I’m not snapping at you, I’m snapping at . . . at what apparently happened.”
    “Retrospective snapping will get you nowhere,” says Elaine. And furthermore, she thinks, let’s be clear about this—we don’t have a common cause, you and I. All right, we’ve both been wrong-footed, we’re both outraged, but that is the beginning and the end of it. Whatever comes next is a personal matter, for each of us.
    “Why Nick, one asks?” Glyn’s contrition has evaporated; this is speculation with a note of insistence.
    “Why indeed?”
    “And if Nick, who else?”
    “Is this wise?” says Elaine.
    “Is what wise?”
    “Questions.”
    “Possibly not. But what else can I do?”
    She meets his eye. “Nothing?”
    “I am not a do-nothing man. I am conditioned to ask questions. Will you do nothing?”
    She inclines her head. No answer.
    “I’m sorry you had to know this,” says Glyn.
    “I didn’t have to know it, strictly speaking.”
    This takes effect. There is compunction, but also defiance. “Right. OK. You’ve got a point there. But you might well have done the same.”
    “And you had to know if I knew.”
    Does this mean he is exonerated? No way of telling. He is evasive, now. “Whatever . . . Here we are. There it is.”
    “There it was,” says Elaine.
    “A fine distinction, to my mind. If a distinction at all.”
    She considers, apparently concedes the point. “Perhaps. But asking questions won’t change that. Could even make it more so.”
    “So be it,” says Glyn.
    Determination, or perversity? There is a pause, both of them possibly weighing this up.
    Elaine steps in. “I suppose there is one question that springs to mind.”
    Glyn waits, wary; something in her tone has him on