Plot Synopsis (continued)
Ashamed and confused, Laura breathlessly runs from
the apartment in the driving rain down the city street. She realizes
her obligation to phone her husband and manufacture a devious excuse
for missing dinner. [The film rejoins Laura - with her voice-over]:
I ran until I couldn't run any longer. I leaned against
a lamp post to try and get my breath. I was in one of those side
roads that lead out of the high street. I know it was stupid to
run but I couldn't help myself. I felt so utterly humiliated and
defeated and so dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed. After a minute
or two, I pulled myself together. I walked on in the direction
of the station. It was still raining but not very much. I suddenly
realized that I couldn't go home, not until I got myself more under
control and had a little time to think. Then I thought of you waiting
at home and the dinner being spoilt. So I went into the high street
and found a tobacconist and telephoned to you. Do you remember?
Laura: ...Everything's perfectly all right, but I shan't be home
to dinner. I'm with Miss Lewis. Miss Lewis, dear. You know, the
librarian I told you about at Boots...Well, I met her in the high
street a little while ago in a terrible state. Her mother's been
taken ill and I promised to stay with her until the doctor comes...
It's awfully easy to lie when you know you're trusted implicitly.
So very easy and so very degrading. I started walking without much
purpose. I turned out of the high street almost immediately. I
was terrified that I might run into Alec. I was pretty certain
that he would come after me to the station. I walked for a long
while. Finally, I found myself at the War Memorial, you know, it's
right at the other side of the town. It had stopped raining altogether,
and I felt stifflingly hot, so I sat down on one of the seats.
Fleeing from her humiliation and shame - and from the
apartment, Laura ends up in a small square. From a high, wide-angle
shot, she is shown as a tiny figure approaching a bench, overshadowed
by a large dark, disapproving public statue - a War Memorial monument
to her left in the foreground. The statue (with phallic elements)
'witnesses' her inner state of mind, looming down over her and her
recent sinful, scandalous behavior. Soon, a policeman approaches
- a symbol of social order and law-abiding enforcement, and she feels
guilt ("I felt like a criminal"):
There was nobody about and I lit a cigarette. I know
how you disapprove of women smoking in the street. I do too really,
but I wanted to calm my nerves and I thought it might help. I sat
there for ages, I don't know how long. Then I noticed a policeman
walking up and down a little way off. He was looking at me rather
suspiciously. Presently, he came up to me. Bobbie/Policeman (Richard
Thomas): Feeling all right, Miss?
Laura: Yes, thank you.
Bobbie: Waiting for someone?
Laura: No. No, I'm not waiting for anyone.
Bobbie: Don't go and catch cold now. The damp might be setting about
on seats.
Laura: I'm going now anyhow. I've got to catch a train.
Bobbie: Are you sure you feel quite all right?
Laura: Quite thank you. Good night.
Bobbie: Good night, Miss. I walked away, trying to look casual, knowing
that he was watching me. I felt like a criminal. I walked rather
quickly back in the direction of the high street. I got to the station
fifteen minutes before the last train to Ketchworth. And then I realized
that I'd been wandering about for over three hours, but it didn't
seem to be any time at all.
Laura requests a glass of brandy and a piece of paper
and an envelope from the attendant at the tea room bar, just as the
establishment is about to close. While pondering what to write, Alec
finds her there with a worried look on his face:
Alec: Darling, I've been looking for you everywhere.
Laura: Please go away. Please don't...Please go away.
Alec: I've watched every train. I can't leave you like this...You're
being dreadfully cruel. It was just an accident that he came back.
He doesn't know who you are. He never even saw you.
Laura: I suppose he laughed, didn't he?...
Alec: He didn't speak of you. We spoke of some nameless creature
who has no reality at all.
Laura: Well, why didn't you tell him who I was? Why didn't you say
we were cheap and low, not cowards...
Alec: Stop it, Laura. Pull yourself together.
Laura: But it's true, isn't it? It's true.
Alec: It's nothing of the sort. We know we really love each other.
That's true. That's all that really matters.
Laura: It isn't all that really matters. Other things matter too.
Self-respect matters and decency. I can't go on any longer.
Alec: Could you really say goodbye? Never see me again?
Laura: Yes, if you'd help me.
Alec: I love you, Laura. I shall love you always until the end of
my life. I can't look at you now cause I know something. I know that
this is the beginning of the end. Not the end of my loving you but
the end of our being together. But not quite yet, darling. Please.
Not quite yet.
Laura: Very well. Not quite yet.
Alec: I know what you feel about this evening. I mean about the sordidness
of it. I know about the strain of our different lives - our lives
apart from each other. The feeling of guilt and doing wrong is too
strong, isn't it? Too great a price to pay for the happiness we have
together. I know all this because it's the same for me too.
Laura: You can look at me now. I'm all right.
Alec: Let's be very careful. Let's prepare ourselves. A sudden break
now, however brave and admirable will be too cruel. We can't do such
violence to our hearts and minds.
Laura: Very well.
As the bell for Laura's train rings, Alec announces
his family's anticipated departure to Johannesburg, South Africa
where he will join a medical clinic. It is a gentlemanly, responsible
gesture to resolve the dilemma of their relationship, and it signals
the coming end of their short-lived romance and the "only way
out" to end their pain:
Alec: I'm going away...
Laura: I see...
Alec: ...but not quite yet.
Laura: Please, not quite yet. (The leave the tea room and walk together
toward the station platform.)
Alec: I want you to promise me something.
Laura: What is it?
Alec: Promise me that however unhappy you are and however much you
think things over that you'll meet me again next Thursday.
Laura: Where?
Alec: Outside the hospital at 12:30.
Laura: All right, I promise.
Alec: I've got to talk to you. I've got to explain.
Laura: About going away?
Alec: Yes.
Laura: Where will you go? Where can you go? You can't give up your
practice.
Alec: I've had a job offered me. I wasn't going to tell you. I wasn't
going to take it, but I know now it's the only way out.
Laura: Where?
Alec: A long way away - Johannesburg.
Laura (startled): Oh Alec.
Alec: My brother's out there. They're opening a new hospital and
they want me to...It's a fine opportunity, really. I'll take Madeleine
and the boys. It's been torturing me, the necessity of making a decision
one way or the other. I haven't told anybody. Not even Madeleine.
I couldn't bear the thought of leaving you. But now I see it's got
to happen soon anyway. It's almost happening already.
Stunned, Laura sits down as the news has a delayed
impact upon her and begins to sink in.
Laura: How soon will you go?
Alec: Almost immediately, in about two weeks time.
Laura: Quite near, isn't it?
Alec: Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to turn down the offer?
Laura: Oh don't be foolish, Alec.
Alec: I'll do whatever you say.
Laura (crying): That's unkind of you, my darling.
Train Announcement: The train for Ketchworth is now arriving at platform
three.
In a well-remembered image, Laura is led to the train
in Alec's arm. She steps in the car, turns, and leans out the window.
Alec: You're not angry with me are you?
Laura: No, I'm not angry. I don't think I'm anything really. I just
feel tired.
Alec: Forgive me.
Laura: Forgive you for what?
Alec: For everything. For meeting you in the first place. For taking
a piece of grit out of your eye. For loving you. For bringing you
so much misery.
Laura: I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me.
Alec: Thursday.
In a memorable scene on their last day together, their
seventh and final Thursday meeting, they finish with another ride
into the country, and a second visit to the stone bridge.
All that was a week ago. It's hardly credible that
it should be so short a time. Today was our last day together.
Our very last together in all our lives. I met him outside the
hospital as I had promised at 12:30. At 12:30 this morning. That
was only this morning. We drove into the country again, but this
time he hired a car. I lit cigarettes for him now and then as we
went along. We didn't talk much. I felt numbed and hardly alive
at all. We had lunch in a village pub. Afterwards, we went to the
same bridge over the stream, the bridge that we'd been to before.
Those last few hours went by so quickly. As we walked through the
station, I remembered thinking: 'This is the last time with Alec.
I shall see all this again, but without Alec.' I tried not to think
of it, not to let it spoil our last moments together.
They share a final cup of tea and a brief and painful
parting to end their clandestine affair. The tea room scene is played
out a second time, but this time from the perspective of Laura's
subjective memory. Their final meeting is all the more poignant,
as it marks the beginning (and end) of the narrative - and the end
of their affair. They sit at a table - the camera closely centered
on them as they have their last intimate conversation together:
Alec: Are you all right, darling?
Laura: Yes, I'm all right.
Alec: I wish I could think of something to say.
Laura: It doesn't matter, not saying anything, I mean.
Alec: I'll miss my train and wait and see you into yours.
Laura: No, please don't. I'll come over with you to your platform.
I'd rather...Do you think we shall ever see each other again?
Alec: I don't know. Not for years, anyway.
Laura: The children will all be grown up. I wonder if they never
meet and know each other.
Alec: Couldn't I write you, just once in a while?
Laura: No, Alec please. You know we promised.
Alec (confessing): Oh, my dear. I do love you so very much. I love
you with all my heart and soul.
Laura: I want to die. If only I could die.
Alec: If you die, you'd forget me. I want to be remembered.
Laura: Yes, I know, I do too.
Alec: We've still got a few minutes.
At this moment, they are disrupted by Dolly's loud
voice, interrupting their conversation. The camera is focused on
Laura's face (her face is the only thing illuminated in the frame).
Her voice-over monologue of her inner thoughts reflects her annoyance
and disturbance with Dolly:
It was cruel of fate to be against us right up to
the very last minute. Dolly Messiter. Poor, well-meaning, irritating
Dolly Messiter crashing into those last few precious minutes we
had together. She chattered and fussed but I didn't hear what she
said. I felt dazed and bewildered. Alec behaved so beautifully,
with such perfect politeness. No one could have guessed what he
was really feeling. And then...[the departure bell for Alec's train
rings]
Laura: Here's your train.
Alec: Yes, I know.
Dolly: Oh, aren't you coming with us?
Alec: No, I go in the opposite direction. My practice is in Churley.
Dolly: Oh, I see.
Alec: I'm a general practitioner at the moment.
Laura: Dr. Harvey's going out to Africa next week.
Dolly: Oh, how thrilling.
Train Announcer: The train now arriving at platform four is the 5:40
for Churley...
Alec: I must go. Goodbye. (He rises and shakes hands with Dolly and
then rests his hand lightly on Laura's right shoulder for a moment.)
I felt the touch of his hand on my shoulder for a
moment. And then he walked away, away out of my life forever. Dolly
still went on talking, but I wasn't listening to her. I was listening
to the sound of his train starting. And it did.
The camera again focuses on Laura's illuminated face
as she listens to the sound of his departing train.
I said to myself: 'He didn't go. At the last minute
his courage failed him; he couldn't have gone. Any minute now,
he'll come back into the refreshment room pretending he's forgotten
something.' I prayed for him to do that, just so that I could see
him again, for an instant. (Pause) But the minutes went by...[the
departure bell for the express train rings]
Dolly again asks for chocolate and walks away from
the table. As the roaring sound of the approaching express train
increases in volume, the camera tilts to the right, causing the horizontal
image to slowly move counter-clockwise. Laura's despairing mind causes
her to literally jump up abruptly from the table and rush outside
the tea room to the rail platform - still at a tilted angle. Her
internal state is externalized and stylized as disorienting and unbalanced.
In one of the film's most memorable sequences, at the edge of the
platform as the train screeches through, the wind blows back her
hair and the light from the passing cars flickers and pounds across
her tortured face. Her face displays wide-eyed despair and defeat
as the lights beat out the rhythm of the clattering of the train's
wheels. Anguished by Alec's departure, she contemplates suicide by
throwing herself under the passing train, but she doesn't go through
with her mad, self-destructive urge. She lacks the courage to do
so. When the express train has completely passed through the station,
the camera moves back to a horizontal, untilted position.
I meant to do it, Fred, I really meant to do it.
I stood there trembling right on the edge, but I couldn't. I wasn't
brave enough. I should like to be able to say that it was the thought
of you and the children that prevented me but it wasn't. I had
no thoughts at all, only an overwhelming desire not to feel anything
ever again. Not to be unhappy anymore. I turned. I went back into
the refreshment room. That's when I nearly fainted.
In the final scene following their parting after such
a brief encounter, her flashback ends as the film jumps from her
standing at the doorway of the tea room, to a view of her seated
in her armchair in her home - stuck back in her predictable and humdrum
middle-class existence and routine. Dazed, disoriented, defeated
(?) and jarred by memories of her passionate love affair, she is
in the company of Fred - her unemotional husband. It is quite possible
that he is aware of how close he'd come to losing her when he kneels
beside her and asks:
Fred: Laura?
Laura: Yes, dear.
Fred: Whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?
Laura: No.
Fred: Is there anything I can do to help?
Laura: Yes, Fred, you always have.
Fred: You've been a long way away.
Laura: Yes.
Fred: Thank you for coming back to me. (Laura weeps in Fred's arms.)
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