The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [68]
Kathryn glanced around at the office, at its metallic blandness, its masculine aesthetic. She would not allow herself to believe that Jack had been having an affair. How could she, when she had seen firsthand what happened when a sensational story was woven around only a few facts, as had happened with the press when the CVR tape was leaked?
She picked up the telephone and dialed the first number. A man answered, and he sounded as though she had woken him. She quickly calculated the time in London — nine-forty in the morning. She asked if Muire was there.
The man coughed into the phone like a heavy smoker. “Who’s it you’re wanting?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard the question correctly.
“Muire Boland,” she said.
“No Muire Bolands here,” the man said confidently. “Sorry,” Kathryn said and hung up the phone.
She crossed out the first number and tried the second. No response. She tried the third number. A man answered in a crisp, businesslike voice.
“Michael Boland here,” he said, as if expecting a particular call. “Sorry,” Kathryn said. “Wrong number.”
She crossed out the third number. She tried the fourth number. A woman answered the phone. “Hello?” the woman said.
“Hello,” Kathryn said. “I’m looking for a Muire Boland.” The silence at the other end of the line was so complete Kathryn could hear the faint echo of someone else’s transatlantic conversation.
“Hello?” Kathryn tried again.
The woman hung up. Kathryn sat with the dead receiver to her ear. She picked up the pencil to cross out the fourth number, but then she hesitated.
She called the fifth number instead. Then the sixth. Then the seventh. When she had finished, she looked at her list. On it, she had a man who didn’t know a Muire; an unanswered number; a Michael Boland, businessman; a woman who didn’t speak; another unanswered number; a message on an answering machine in an almost unintelligible accent saying that Kate and Murray hoped she would leave a number; a teenage girl who didn’t know a Muire but said her mother’s name was Mary.
She tried the fourth number again.
“Hello?” the same woman said.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Kathryn said quickly, before the other woman could hang up. “But I’m trying to locate a Muire Boland.”
Eerily, there was a similar silence to the first. Something was in the background. Music? A dishwasher? And then Kathryn heard a small sound from the back of the woman’s throat, like the beginning of a word that might be spoken. Followed by another silence, shorter this time.
“There’s no Muire here,” the voice said finally.
Kathryn thought there might have been a delay between her thoughts and her voice, because by the time she opened her mouth to speak, the line had gone dead.
When Robert found her in the morning, she was sitting at the table in the front room. The sun had come up, and the snow outside the windows was so blisteringly bright Robert had to squint to look at her. In the glare, she could see every line and pore on his face.
“It’s bright in here,” he said, turning his head away. “Sometimes you need sunglasses in this room,” she said. “Jack used to wear them.”
She watched as Robert tucked in his shirt.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said. “And you?”
“Great.”
She could see that he had slept in his clothes. He had probably been too exhausted to get undressed, she thought.
Adjusting to the light, Robert seemed to see her face more clearly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Kathryn sat forward in the chair.
“I’m going to London,” she said.
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t hesitate at all. “I’m going with you,” he said.
THE TABLECLOTHS LIE SPREAD ACROSS THE FIELD, a giant’s patchwork quilt. Knots of families sit on the cloths with paper plates or real silverware, iced tea in plastic ther-moses. Small children run along the grassy pathways, sometimes through the middle of another family’s lunch. Kathryn opens the picnic basket, an old pie basket of Julia’s, and takes out grapes and Terra Chips, pita bread and hummus, a wedge of Brie and a small rectangle of something smelly. Stilton,