The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey

Author:Margot Livesey [Livesey, Margot]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780061451522
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

BACK AT THE HOUSE ABIGAIL WAS WANDERING THE KITCHEN IN her nightgown, a confection of white cotton she had bought in a vintage clothing shop. Dara remembered her holding up the gown in front of a mirror and claiming that it was waiting to be stained with the blood of a virgin. Now she saw that the gown was indeed stained; brown splotches, probably coffee, patterned one sleeve.

“Where were you?” Abigail asked, holding a cafetiere. “I thought you were still in bed.”

“I went for a walk by the canal. A tall, dark stranger fell at my feet.” She described the encounter, mentioning her sketching and the house where she had left the man but not his good looks or taciturnity.

“Like Jane Eyre,” said Abigail. “Remember how she’s sitting on a stile when she hears a horse clattering over the ice and Rochester falls at her feet.”

“That’s right. He even had a dog like Rochester.”

Dara was delighted by the comparison but, before she could reflect on it further, Abigail was asking if she wanted porridge or scrambled eggs. Knowing that the day would hold several substantial meals, she chose the former. One of Abigail’s more annoying attributes was her ability to eat astonishing amounts with no visible result. “I have the metabolism of a bird,” she claimed. Whereas Dara, to her chagrin and against her principles, often found herself making complicated calculations of food versus exercise versus happiness.

When the porridge and coffee were on the table, Abigail volunteered that Sean was finally moving his possessions to London the following week. They had borrowed a van to bring them down from Oxford.

“And what about his wife?” said Dara.

“She’s got herself a boyfriend. A vet with dogs, kids, well, one kid, the works. So now he can stop worrying that she’ll put her head in the oven if he leaves.”

“Was that ever a possibility?” Dara paused, coffee cup suspended. The picture she had formed of Sean’s wife, via Abigail, was of some desiccated academic too involved in literature to pay attention to human passions.

“Who knows?” said Abigail between bites of porridge. “I don’t mean to sound heartless. I mean, who does ever know that sort of thing about another person. Or even oneself. Sometimes people say they want to kill themselves to make sure you understand they’re unhappy. Sometimes they mean it.” She licked her spoon thoughtfully. “Of course I was worried but it wasn’t easy to know what was going on. Sean was all over the place those last few weeks.”

Dara had been nodding—at the center she and her colleagues often debated the threats of their more despairing clients—but still she bristled a little at Abigail’s last comment. “It’s not easy to end a marriage,” she said. “Poor Sean.”

“Poor me,” said Abigail, putting her hand on her chest in melodramatic fashion. “I’ve passionately wanted this since the first night we spent together, and I’ve done everything I could to make him want it too. Toward the end I felt like I did when I was looking after my father.

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