The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [96]
Kathryn had never even thought to suspect; she’d never smelled a trace of another woman, never found a smear of lipstick on the shoulder of a shirt. Even sexually, she’d never guessed. She’d assumed the falling off she and Jack had experienced was simply the normal course of events with a couple who’d been married for a decade.
She rolled down her window so that she could breathe the air — a curiously heady mix of sea salt and chlorophyll. The land around her, she realized suddenly, was extraordinary. The texture of the landscape — its rich green hues, its density — gave a feeling of solidity she’d not felt in London. The confluence of ocean and rocky coast, albeit wilder than her own New England shore, struck a responsive chord. She breathed evenly and deeply for the first time since Muire Boland had appeared at the hotel dining-room door.
She entered a village, and would have passed through but for a sight she’d seen before: Only the old fisherman was missing. She slowed the car and stopped. She sat parked along a common ringed by shops and homes. She could see where the cameraman must have stood, where the reporter with the dark hair and umbrella had conducted her interview in front of the hotel. The building was white and smooth and clean. She saw the sign above the door: Malin Hotel.
She thought she should get a room for the night. Her flight back to London didn’t leave until the morning. Maybe she ought to get something to eat as well.
It was several minutes before her eyes adjusted enough so that she could make out the scuffed mahogany of the traditional bar. She noted the scarlet drapes, the stools with beige vinyl tops, the dreariness of the room alleviated only somewhat by a fire at one end. Along the walls were banquettes and low tables and perhaps half a dozen people playing cards or reading or drinking beer.
Kathryn sat at the bar and ordered a cup of tea. Almost immediately, a woman with blond sculpted hair claimed the stool next to hers. Kathryn turned her head away and examined the signs above the register. Too late, she understood that the people in the bar were reporters.
The woman’s face was reflected in the mirror behind the bottles. She was flawlessly made up and looked distinctly American. Their eyes met.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the woman asked, speaking quietly. Kathryn realized immediately that the hushed voice was because the blond didn’t want anyone else in the bar to know that Kathryn was there.
“No, thank you,” Kathryn said.
The woman gave her name, the call letters of her network. “We sit in the bar here,” she explained. “The relatives sit in the lounge. Occasionally a husband or a father will wander in here and order a drink, but in terms of conversation, we’ve pretty much exhausted each other. We’re all bored. I’m sorry if that sounds callous.”
“I imagine even a plane crash can grow tedious,” Kathryn said. The bartender set down Kathryn’s tea, and the journalist ordered a half pint of Smithwick’s. “I recognized you from the photographs,” the reporter said. “I’m sorry for all that you’ve had to go through.”
“Thank you,” Kathryn said.
“Most of the bigger networks and news organizations will keep someone in place until the salvage operation is abandoned,” the woman said.
Kathryn made her tea strong and sweet and stirred it to release the heat.
“Do you mind if I ask why you’re here?” the journalist inquired.
Kathryn took a tentative sip. “I don’t mind,” she said. “But I can’t give you an answer. I don’t know why I’m here myself.”
She thought about her rage and the gravitational pull, about the newfound knowledge of the morning. About how easy it would be to offer to the blond all she had learned. How excited the reporter would be to have what would undoubtedly be the biggest story of the entire investigation, even bigger than