The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [76]
The room had high ceilings and had been painted a lemon yellow. Ornately carved moldings were shiny with glossy white paint. At the front, the curved windows had long gauzy curtains on French rods. Several low chairs of wrought iron, cushioned with oversized white pillows, had been placed around a carved wooden cocktail table, reminding Kathryn of Arab rooms. Over the mantle, behind the woman’s head, was a massive gold mirror, which reflected Kathryn’s image in the doorway, so that, in essence, Kathryn and Muire Boland stood in the same frame. On the mantle was a photograph in marquetry, a pinkish-gold glass vase, a bronze figure. On either side of the bow window were tall bookcases. A carpet of muted grays and greens lay underfoot. The effect was of light and air, despite the grand architecture of the house, despite the dark of the weather.
Kathryn had to sit. She put a hand on a wooden chair just inside the doorway. She sat heavily, as though her legs had suddenly given out.
She felt old, older than the woman in front of her, who was nearly her own age. It was the baby, Kathryn thought, that somehow testified to the newness of love, certainly to the relative proximity of sex. Or the jeans in contrast to Kathryn’s dark suit. Or the way Kathryn found herself sitting, her pocketbook primly in her lap.
Beneath her coat, her right leg spasmed, as though she had just climbed a mountain.
The baby began to fret, uttering small impatient cries. Muire Boland bent to pick up a rubber pacifier from the cocktail table, put the nipple end in her own mouth, sucked it several times, and then put it into the baby’s mouth. The boy wore navy corduroy overalls and a striped T-shirt. The dark-haired woman had full, even lips and wore no lipstick.
Moving her eyes away from the woman with the baby, Kathryn caught sight of the photograph on the mantle. When the picture came into focus, she started, nearly rose from her seat. The photograph was of Jack, she could see that even across the room. Unmistakable now from where she sat. Cradling an infant, a newborn. His other hand ruffling the deep curls of another child, the girl who was in the room with them. In the picture, the girl had a solemn face. The trio appeared to be on a beach. Jack was smiling broadly.
Visceral evidence of another life. Although Kathryn had needed no proof.
“You’re wearing a ring,” Kathryn said almost involuntarily. Muire fingered the gold band with her thumb.
“You’re married?” Kathryn asked, disbelieving.
“I was.”
Kathryn was confused for a moment, until she understood the meaning of the past tense.
Muire shifted the baby to her other hip.
“When?” Kathryn asked.
“Four and a half years ago.”
The woman hardly moved her mouth when she spoke. The consonants and vowels rolled from her tongue with a distinctive melodic lilt. Irish, then.
“We were married in the Catholic Church,” Muire volunteered. Kathryn felt herself backing away from this information, as if from a blow.
“And you knew . . . ?” she asked.
“About you? Yes, of course.”
As though that were understood. That the dark-haired woman had known everything. Whereas Kathryn had not.
Kathryn put down her pocketbook, shook her arms free of her coat. The flat was overheated, and Kathryn was sweating profusely. She could feel the perspiration under her hair, at the back of her neck.
“What’s his name?” Kathryn asked, meaning the baby. She was astonished at her own politeness even as she asked the question.
“Dermot,” Muire said. “For my brother.”
The woman bent her head suddenly, kissed the baby’s pate. “How old is he?” Kathryn asked.
“Five months. Today.”
And Kathryn thought at once, as who would not, that Jack might have been there, in that flat, to share the small milestone.
The baby, pacified, appeared now to be falling asleep. Despite the revelations of the last several minutes, despite the unnatural relationship between herself and the baby (despite the very fact of the child’s existence at all), Kathryn felt an urge, akin to sexual, to hold the