The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [84]
“The robe,” she said. “The blue silk robe. In your closet.” Kathryn heard a quick intake of breath, but the face gave nothing away.
“It came after he died,” Muire said. “It was my Christmas present.”
“I thought it might be,” Kathryn said.
She reached out and put her hand on the doorknob, as if reaching out for a life ring.
“You should go home,” Muire said as Kathryn stepped outside into the rain, and Kathryn thought it an odd and presumptuous command.
“It was worse for me,” Muire said, and Kathryn turned, drawn by the slightly plaintive note, a rent in the cool facade.
“I knew about you,” Muire Boland said. “You never had to know about me.”
IT WAS POSSIBLE SHE WAS CRYING. LATER, SHE WOULD not be able to say when it had started. She had forgotten her umbrella, and the rain soaked her hair, glued it to her head. It ran down her neck, her back, the front of her blouse. She was too exhausted to put her collar up or to wind her scarf around her neck. Passersby raised their umbrellas, glanced at her and then at each other. She breathed through her open mouth.
She had no destination, no idea where she was walking. Coherent thoughts refused to form or to take shape. She remembered the name of the hotel, but she did not want to go there, did not want to be inside with other people. Did not want to be alone in a room.
Briefly, she considered a movie theater as a refuge.
She stepped off a curb and, by habit, looked the wrong way. A taxi squealed. Kathryn stood still, expecting the driver to lean out the window and yell at her. Instead, he waited patiently for her to cross the road.
She knew that she wasn’t well and grew nervous, afraid that she might inadvertently walk into a construction hole, might step off a curb again, might be hit by a red bus. She slipped into a telephone booth to put herself momentarily into a safe box. She appreciated being out of the wet, the dryness of the phone booth. She took her coat off and wiped her face with the lining, but the gesture reminded her of something she did not want to think about. A headache claimed her, twisted at the back of her neck, and she wondered if she had any Advil in her pocketbook.
A man stood impatiently outside the phone box, then tapped on the glass. He needed to use the phone, he mouthed. Kathryn put her coat back on and went out again into the rain. She walked along a busy street that seemed as if it might go on forever. Traffic made sprays of water on the sidewalks, hissed along the street. Heads bent against the rain, people passed beside her. Without a hat or umbrella, she had trouble seeing clearly. She thought about finding a department store, buying an umbrella, possibly a raincoat.
At a corner, she saw two men in overcoats laughing. They held black umbrellas and brown leather briefcases. They went inside a doorway. There was a glow behind the door, frosted glass, the sound of communal laughter. It was dark already, night now, and it might be safer to go inside.
Inside the pub, the scent of wet wool rose to her nostrils. She liked the warmth of this interior space. The glasses of the man just in front of her steamed, and he laughed with his companion. A man behind the bar handed her a towel. Someone else had used it before her; it was damp and limp and smelled of aftershave. She toweled her hair as she would do after a shower, and she saw that men were staring at her. They had pints of ale in front of them, which made her thirsty. The men parted slowly, gave her a stool. Across the bar, two women in nearly identical blue suits were chatting animatedly. Everyone was talking to someone else. It could have been a party, except that the people here seemed happier than they normally did at parties.
When the bartender took the towel from her, she pointed to a tap. The ale was bronze colored when it came. Light sparkled from polished surfaces, and men had cigarettes. At the ceiling there was a blue haze of smoke.
She was thirsty and drank the ale like water. She felt it burn in her stomach, which was pleasant. She slipped her shoes, squishy with