Lost by Lucy Wadham

Author:Lucy Wadham [Lucy Wadham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571317356
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Liliane sat quietly beside Babette as she drove into Massaccio for the demonstration. It was due to begin at six. Babette always marched: for the fun of it more than from any deep conviction. When Liliane had told her she would come, Babette could hardly contain her excitement. She now kept glancing sideways at her as though she were afraid Liliane might change her mind and jump out of the car.

Liliane knew that what she was about to do would make her life lastingly difficult. But she was deeply affected by the disappearance of the woman’s child. She believed it might be what was making her sick and she felt the need to do something, make some gesture that would take her, if only for a moment, out of her marriage. Walking through Massaccio with the Women’s Peace Movement would be seen by everyone as an act of rebellion against Coco. He referred to them, even in public, as ‘the harpies’.

They were behind a tractor that was moving, high-haunched and imperious, down the steep stretch of road that led to the main drag into town. Babette sounded her horn twice. When he passed the lay-by she gave him a long blast.

‘Bastard,’ she said under her breath.

At last the road straightened out and she overtook him in the wrong gear, making the engine scream, but she sat facing straight ahead of her, her enormous breasts resting on the steering wheel. Liliane glanced up as they passed. A young man with black curly hair and an imbecile’s grin bounced behind the wheel.

Liliane looked at Babette’s hands on the steering wheel. The fingers were swollen and chapped from washing-up.

As she pulled out on to the main road Babette smiled at Liliane, her big tattered smile. She was wearing the lovely headscarf with sunflowers on it and she had put on some lipstick.

‘You all right?’

‘I’m sick. It won’t let up.’

‘It’s the violence. Women have a sixth sense. When things get this bad we feel it physically. I can’t sleep; you feel sick.’

In Massaccio they drove straight into a traffic jam at the port. The sound of horns mingled with the sound of sirens. Babette crossed herself.

‘Can you smell burning?’

Liliane nodded, too nauseous to speak. Babette leaned out of her window and hailed a policewoman in a short-sleeved shirt and white gloves who was standing on the pavement surveying the chaos with expert detachment.

‘What’s happening?’ Babette’s voice was shrill above the noise. The policewoman stepped towards her, cupping her ear with her hand. ‘What’s going on? Why all the traffic?’

‘There’s a demonstration.’

‘I know. We’re trying to get there. Why the sirens?’

The policewoman turned her head away and squinted into the sun for a moment. She was wearing a pair of inappropriately large gold hoops in her ears.

‘There’s been another bomb.’

She stepped back as Babette prepared to ask her next question and began gesticulating aggressively at the stationary cars in a sudden galvanic fit. Babette edged forward.

‘What is all the fuss about?’ she complained. ‘I mean, it’s not as if it’s rare, is it? You would have thought they’d be used to it by now.

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