Free Atonement by Ian McEwan

compliance that she felt beyond reproach. One moment, Briony was giving patient instructions to Jackson, then she paused, and frowned, as if about to correct herself, and then she was gone. There was no pivotal moment of creative difference, no storming or flouncing out. She turned away, and simply drifted out, as though on her way to the lavatory. The others waited, unaware that the whole project was at an end. The twins thought they had been trying hard, and Jackson in particular, feeling he was still in disgrace in the Tallis household, thought he might begin to rehabilitate himself by pleasing Briony.
    While they waited, the boys played football with a wooden brick and their sister gazed out the window, humming softlyto herself. After an immeasurable period of time, she went out into the corridor and along to the end where there was an open door to an unused bedroom. From here she had a view of the driveway and the lake across which lay a column of shimmering phosphorescence, white hot from the fierce late afternoon heat. Against this column she could just make out Briony beyond the island temple, standing right by the water’s edge. In fact, she may even have been standing in the water – against such light it was difficult to tell. She did not look as if she was about to come back. On her way out of the room, Lola noticed by the bed a masculine-looking suitcase of tan leather and heavy straps and faded steamer labels. It reminded her vaguely of her father, and she paused by it, and caught the faint sooty scent of a railway carriage. She put her thumb against one of the locks and slid it. The polished metal was cool, and her touch left little patches of shrinking condensation. The clasp startled her as it sprang up with a loud chunky sound. She pushed it back and hurried from the room.
    There followed more formless time for the cousins. Lola sent the twins down to see if the pool was free – they felt uneasy being there when adults were present. The twins returned to report that Cecilia was there with two other grown-ups, but by now Lola was not in the nursery. She was in her tiny bedroom, arranging her hair in front of a hand mirror propped against the window-sill. The boys lay on her narrow bed, and tickled each other, and wrestled, and made loud howling noises. She could not be bothered to send them to their own room. Now there was no play, and the pool was not available, unstructured time oppressed them. Homesickness fell upon them when Pierrot said he was hungry – dinner was hours away, and it would not be proper to go down now and ask for food. Besides, the boys would not go in the kitchen because they were terrified of Betty whom they had seen on the stairs grimly carrying red rubber sheets towards their room.
    A little later the three found themselves back in the nursery which, apart from the bedrooms, was the only room they felt they had a right to be in. The scuffed blue brick was where they had left it, and everything was as before.
    They stood about and Jackson said, ‘I don’t like it here.’
    The simplicity of the remark unhinged his brother who went by a wall and found something of interest in the skirting board which he worried with the tip of his shoe.
    Lola put her arm across his shoulder and said, ‘It’s all right. We’ll be going home soon.’ Her arm was much thinner and lighter than his mother’s and Pierrot began to sob, but quietly, still mindful of being in a strange house where politeness was all.
    Jackson was tearful too, but he was still capable of speech. ‘It won’t be soon. You’re just saying that. We can’t go home anyway…’ He paused to gather his courage. ‘It’s a divorce!’
    Pierrot and Lola froze. The word had never been used in front of the children, and never uttered by them. The soft consonants suggested an unthinkable obscenity, the sibilant ending whispered the family’s shame. Jackson