Read La's Orchestra Saves the World for Free Online

her—she did not wish to live in the physical space that her ruined marriage had occupied, and had turned her back on that. Now that the reality was upon her, she thought of ways in which what she had done might seem less extreme. Suffolk was not the end of the world, nor was London the world’s centre, no matter that a good number of its inhabitants thought just that. The village, in fact, was only eighty miles from London—a coupleof hours on the train and then not much more than twenty minutes in a car along these winding lanes. In three hours she could be back in town meeting her friends for lunch in some hotel, playing bridge; she could be back on the tennis court; it was not as if she had gone to Australia. But it might have been, as she stood there at the doorway, the taxi-driver helpfully bringing her suitcases down the path.
    “The Stones never came here very much,” he said, huffing from the exertion of carrying La’s heavy luggage. “Only once or twice, I think, after the old lady died. So how long are you going to be staying?”
    How long was she going to be staying? Forever? Until she was seventy, or even beyond? She would be seventy in 1981, but she could imagine neither being that age nor what the world would be like in 1981. “I’m going to live here,” she said quietly. “Permanently.”
    The driver put down a case and extracted a handkerchief from his pocket. “You’ll be needing my services then,” he said. “Getting you to the station. Into Bury. That sort of thing. I’m always available.”
    “Thank you. But I think I shall buy a car.” She had not thought about it before this, but it was obvious now that this was what she would have to do. She would buy a small car—one of those open-topped ones that looked such fun in the summer, but that could be battened down for the winter.
    “A car? I can sell you a car,” said the driver. “I have the local garage, you see. I have reliable cars for sale.”
    “Thank you.”
    “So what sort do you want?”
    “An open-topped one.”
    The driver smiled. “I have just the car for you. Just the job. I’ll bring her round.”
    She wondered whether this was the way things were done in the country. She had not asked about the colour, which was more important to her than any mechanical detail. But it seemed reasonable enough; she was going to live here, among these people, and she should give them such custom as she could. There would be other local tradesmen, no doubt, who would see her as a new customer; a butcher, grocers, fishmongers; a roofer perhaps to attend to the tiles. It was very quiet, she thought, and there would not be much doing by way of commerce.
    The driver went off for the last of her suitcases and brought them back to her. She reached for her purse to pay him, but he laid a hand on her forearm. “No, that won’t be necessary. Not if we’re going to be doing business together.”
    “That would never happen in London,” she said, laughing. She was touched by his gesture.
    “Never been there,” said the driver. “No need for me to put up with their unfriendly ways.”
    La, momentarily taken aback, glanced at him, and then looked away. Of course there were people in the country who had never been to London; she should not be surprisedby that. But where, she wondered, did his world end? At Newmarket? Or Cambridge perhaps?
    “I’ve been to Ipswich,” he said, as if he had guessed the question that had taken shape in her mind. “And Norwich, once.”
    “You don’t need to go to London,” she said quickly. “I’m pleased to be away from it, as you can see.”
    If he had taken offence, it did not show. “London’s all right for them that wants to live on top of one another,” he said. “But if you like a bit of sky …”—he pointed up—“then Suffolk’s your place.”
    She fumbled with the key that her father-in-law had given her.
    “Rain,” said the driver, taking the key from her. “Rain gets into a lock