BooksBarbecue
Back The Harpy Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. The Harpy
  2. Also by Megan Hunter
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. The Harpy
  8. Part I
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. 14
  23. 15
  24. 16
  25. 17
  26. 18
  27. Part II
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. Part III
  36. 26
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. 38
  49. 39
  50. Part IV
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. Back Cover

We’re not doing that this year, are we? Jake had said, when I’d brought it up casually one breakfast time, the garden winter-­bare behind us, a weak, egg-­white sun beginning to break through the clouds.

Why not? I’d replied, daring him to answer in front of the boys, to break their absorption in bowls of cereal, their thick morning breathing. Jake said nothing, his eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. Every morning, he staggered from the living room in boxers and a T-­shirt, waving cheerily to the children as though it was normal.

I had tried not to think of last year’s party. Or I had thought of it, deliberately, until the thought made me feel I was coiling inside, twisting like a swinging rope. Vanessa and David Holmes, both of them in elegant, timeless clothes, hovering by the tree like the elder statesmen of the party, at least ten years older than everyone else. David’s message on my voicemail – left unanswered and whole, deleted automatically after seven days – had only just left my mind, and now there was this to remember. The awkward, last-­minute invitation – Jake’d sent Vanessa a text, he told me – the obviousness of their difference from the rest of our guests.

They had seemed to find it quaint, the colourful paper cups, napkins instead of plates, people dropping food all over the carpet. One of the neighbours was wearing his cycling clothes. Another had brought a breastfeeding toddler who pulled up her mother’s shirt whenever she felt like it, wrapping her body around, arranging the small strawberry of her mouth into position.

I had seen Vanessa’s eyes moving over all of this: she had the quiet amusement of someone who is past certain things, has grown above them, like a tall tree. Perhaps, I thought, after all of her generation are dead, there will be no more like her, people who are able to look at everything so calmly, as though, just outside the door or ten thousand miles away, there isn’t a tornado just beginning, roaring into life.

~

Nobody thinks they will become that woman until it happens. They walk down the street, knowing it will never be them.

They have no idea how it is: like the turning of a foot on a crack in the pavement, the slip of an ankle from the kerb, a falling, a single instant, the briefest action, changing it all.

~

20

20