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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

Just to be clear, Jake said, as though he knew my thoughts. This is over now, okay? No three times bollocks, nothing else. You’ve gone too far. He almost laughed there, sending his eyes to the ceiling. My God, Lucy. I could lose my job. Do you understand that? How are we going to pay the fucking rent?

Here it comes, I thought. He was getting up from the sofa. I felt a shiver through my body, something in between total fear and a mild, barely-­there excitement. But: excitement. I filed that away, to be examined later. Is that how my mother felt? He was coming towards me, I was stepping back.

Jake, I—

But he didn’t hit me. He didn’t touch me. He just walked past, into the kitchen, where I heard him turn the kettle on. Just like that: a click, such a normal, everyday gesture. The kettle would boil, and life would go on.

His life would go on. I was the one who had done the worst thing, it was agreed now. My sleep had reduced to half-­hour slivers, places where I could not even reach a dream. Instead, I lay awake, trying to figure out how this had happened. In disbelief, I turned over its stages, its unfolding, its unfathomable narrative. I had become one of those women. The ones I’d read about, who have slipped away from the world, who exist on their own plane of scorn. My hands were no longer my own, I began to suspect. They belonged to someone else. Mrs Stevenson, perhaps. The woman who married Jake, who became a wife and mother, who would never be a real person again.

27

27

The text came in the middle of a routine evening, bath time in progress, Jake sitting beside, his eyes pink and cushioned with bags of fatigue. I noticed the absence where I would usually feel sympathy for him, a desire to touch his face gently, to kiss his eyes. In its place was nothing at first, and then the creeping pale of observation. I saw Jake, in incredible detail, every hair on his head, every pore on his skin. My vision was as clear as the camera on a nature programme; I could zoom as close as I wanted, without moving at all.

I was peeling a pair of Ted’s underpants from the crotch of his joggers when the bleep came, the hopeful sound that so often – in reality – heralded a message from a group I was no longer in touch with, people who had forgotten to remove me from their list. Or: school requests; pleas for homemade cakes, for volunteers, women with time on their hands.

But this was different: unfamiliar numbers, a swirl of colour where a profile picture would have been. A painting.

This is David Holmes. I would like it if we could speak. Could you meet me?