by Zoe Heller
“There are no lies in there, Sheba. There’s nothing in there that you didn’t tell me yourself.”
She made a strange, guttural noise of exasperation. “You’re mad! How did I never see it before? You’re mad! You really believe this stuff is the truth. You write about things you never saw, people you don’t know.”
“Well, that’s what a writer does, Sheba.”
“Ohhh, you’re a writer now?” She began to laugh. I lunged forward to get at the manuscript, but she danced away again, holding it high above her head.
“Look, Sheba,” I said, “you haven’t read it properly. You can’t get the idea of it from just flicking through it. I’m writing in your defence.”
“What absolute shit!” she exploded. “You’re not defending me. You’re exploiting me, that’s what’s going on here. All this time, you’ve been pretending to be my friend and what you’ve really wanted is, is material …”
“And how do you think it’s been for me?” I said, suddenly angry myself. “Acting as your bloody lady-in-waiting …”
She wasn’t listening, though. “Those awful things you write about my family,” she went on. “About Richard. How much you must hate us! I suppose that’s the spinster’s consolation, isn’t it? Examining the machineries of other people’s marriages and pointing up the flaws.”
“Sheba, how can you say that? I have only ever—”
“Don’t tell me what I can say!” she shrieked. “I’m the Most Hated Woman in Britain! There’s every chance I’m going to end up in prison! I can say whatever I want!” She was staggering about the room now like a crazy person.
“Sheba!” I shouted. “I lost my job because of you! Think about that! I have suffered too, you know. We’re in this together, you and I. If we’re going to get through this, we have to find a way—”
“What?” she snarled. “What is all this ‘you and I’? ‘In this together.’ You’re insane! Richard was right. He always said you were an incubus.”
“I’m sure he did. Richard was always jealous of me—” I broke off, seeing Sheba’s eyes widen with outrage.
When she spoke again, her voice was low and menacing. “You have such delusions of grandeur, don’t you? It’s fascinating. You actually think you’re somebody. Listen. Let me tell you something. You’re nothing. A bitter old virgin from Eastbourne. You aren’t fit to shine Richard’s shoes.”
17
Forty-eight hours have passed since Sheba uttered her last hateful words to me. I left the house soon afterwards, and when I returned, a few hours later, she had gone upstairs, taking the manuscript with her. She has been holed up in her bedroom ever since, refusing to come out, refusing to talk to me or to eat the food that I prepare for her. She emerges only to go to the toilet and to make snacks for herself when she knows I’ve gone to bed. I find her little messes in the kitchen in the morning. Late last night, I was awakened by the sound of her crying—howling, in fact. It went on for hours. I grew so alarmed at one point that I nearly called Richard. She stopped eventually, sometime around dawn, but my nerves this morning are absolutely shattered.
Luckily I have housework to keep me occupied. Eddie will be here in a few days, and I’ve been Hoovering and dusting and washing like a dervish to get the house shipshape in time. I’ve grown to rather love this house, I realise. The time we have spent here has been terribly sad, of course. But terribly intense too and even wonderful in its way. I keep staring at things, willing myself to remember them: the faded blue dressing gown that Sheba is always leaving draped across the sofa; the antique Moroccan tiles in the kitchen; the velvet-clad hangers in the closets. Of course, memory is not really as obedient a faculty as that. You can’t consciously decide what is going to adhere. Certain things may strike you at the time as memorable, but memory only laughs at your presumption. Oh, I’m never going to forget this, you say to yourself when you visit the Sacré-Coeur at sunset. And years later, when you try to summon up an image of the Sacré-Coeur, it’s as cold and abstract as if you’d only ever seen it on a postcard. If anything unlocks the memory of this house for me, years from now, it will be something—some tiny, atmospheric fragment—of which I’m not even aware at the moment. I know this, and yet still I persist in making my little inventory, trying to nail down my recollections: the queer taste of the herbal toothpaste that Eddie’s wife uses; the long finger-shadows that the trees in the street cast on the living room floor in the afternoons; the steamy sweetness of the bathroom after Sheba has been in there.
Mrs. Taylor rang at 10:30, to announce that she is off in two weeks, to stay with friends in France. She’ll be gone for a month, perhaps more. Sheba’s infamy is taking a terrible toll on her, she said. She “can’t bear being in Britain another moment.” Seeing my opportunity, I leaped in. Would it be possible, I asked, for Sheba and me to stay at her place while she was gone? She hated that idea, you could tell. But she’d already admitted that the house was going to be empty, so it was hard for her to say no. She raised all sorts of objections, naturally. Surely there were other, more convenient places for us to stay? Surely Sheba wanted to be near Ben? Surely we wouldn’t be able to handle her temperamental boiler? But, in the end, she had to bite the bullet. As long as we have absolutely no other alternative, she is prepared to let us stay in her house for no longer than a month. I got off the phone awfully pleased with myself.
Since then, various hitches in my brilliant plan have occurred to me. For one thing, I’m not sure if the terms of Sheba’s bail will allow her to travel so far. And, even if they do, Sheba may refuse to let me go with her. I have been trying to prepare myself for this possibility, but the thought is intolerable. How will Sheba ever manage on her own? Who will do the shopping and cook her meals? Who will make sure she showers every day? I’m not sure I can bear it if I have to go back to being on my own again.
18
The crisis is over. Sheba and I have reconciled. What an exhausting day it has been! This morning at about nine, Sheba came out from her room and went to the attic. I took the opportunity, while she was tramping around up there, to slip into her room and retrieve my manuscript.
Much as I had feared, her room was in a dreadful condition. Every available surface was littered with crumpled pieces of paper, bits of clay, and dirty clothes. A half-eaten tin of baked beans was sitting in the middle of the floor. Sheba had left the window open throughout last night’s rain, and the carpet near the window was sopping. I found the manuscript soon enough. She’d left it lying on her desk. I was just beginning to gather it up when I caught sight of a clay model parked on the floor at the end of the bed. This was the secret sculpture that Sheba had been working on: the mother and child. It was much larger than I had anticipated—almost three foot in height. It looked impressive, I thought. Then I walked around to inspect it from the front, and my stomach seemed to turn over.
The cross-legged “mother” figure had been fashioned in Sheba’s image. She had long, skinny limbs, heavy, romantic eyelashes, a slightly crooked nose. Even her hair replicated Sheba’s messy bun. As for the hideous, pink boy-man spilling fatly across her lap—he was a crude but unmistakable likeness of Connolly. I daresay that even a person unfamiliar with the circumstances to which it alluded would have sensed something unwholesome about the sculpture. For me, it was an utterly obscene object.
I did not hear Sheba returning from the attic until she was directly behind me. “What are you doing in here?” a voice exclaimed, and I swung around to find Sheba in her nightdress. Her hair was hanging loose. There was an unpleasant musty odour about her.
“I … I was looking at your sculpture,” I protested stupidly. I was afraid.
“Get out! Get out!” she screamed. We stared at each other and, for a moment, I thought that she was going to attack me. Then, quite suddenly, she sat down—or rather collapsed—on the floor. “What is going to become of me, Barbara?” she sobbed. “What is going to become of me?”
“Oh, poor Sheba,” I said. I kn
elt down and put my arms around her. Her hair was sticking in clumps to her wet face.
“Get out,” she muttered halfheartedly.
“Sheba, please,” I said, “come on. Stand up.” She kept sitting for a few minutes, and then she allowed me to help her up.
We stood holding each other. When I judged that she was capable of standing without my support, I let her go. We gazed at the sculpture together.
“You know it can’t stay,” I said.
“Oh?” she said. Her tone was dreamily neutral.
I picked up the manuscript from the desk. Then I bent down and heaved the sculpture into my arms. “I’ll take care of this,” I said as I carried it from the room.
Downstairs in the kitchen, I sat the sculpture down on the table and hid the manuscript in one of the cupboards. Next, I got out the toolbox from under the sink. Eddie’s tools are terribly expensive and grand. I was nearly seduced by a hand-carved mallet with an ivory handle. But I settled in the end for a small, steel axe. (Less beauty, more power.) I opened the French doors and carried the sculpture out into the garden. It was one of those overcast mornings with a grumbling, mauve-coloured sky. The garden was looking wonderfully jungly and lush. I went back inside to fetch the axe and some old newspaper.
The sculpture wasn’t nearly as tough or as dense as I had expected. I missed it with my first swing but, as soon as I actually made my target, I crushed the boy’s torso straight off. Tiny splinters of clay flew through the air. One large shard landed in Eddie’s compost heap. I glanced up at one point and saw Sheba watching me from her window, a solemn Victorian wraith. I waved cheerfully, and then I went on. With my second blow I took the top of the boy’s head off cleanly, like an egg. Within five minutes, there was nothing left but Sheba’s crossed legs and a small, jagged remnant of her abdomen.
Somewhere, far across London, thunder began to growl. I gathered up as many of the smashed pieces as I could, wrapped them in the newspaper, and took them inside just as it began to rain. Sheba had come downstairs now. She was standing in the kitchen. “Is there anything else I should know about?” I asked her.
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
She was silent.
I stuffed the newspaper in the bin, and then I ran back upstairs to her room. She must have had an idea of what was going on because she gave no sign of surprise when I returned with her handbag. She watched me intently as I fished the photographs out from the bottom. When I fetched the kitchen scissors, she did begin to cry a little, but even then it was more in resignation than in protest.
After the photographs were cut up, I went to her and took her very gently in my arms. Sheba’s body is so slender these days, one feels one could almost crush it. “Come on,” I said. “It’s all right.” She began to cry more energetically. Great, shuddering sobs. But I kept holding her and speaking softly, and presently, she quietened down.
“What’s going to become of me?” she asked again. “What’s going to become of me?”
“You’re going to be all right, darling,” I said, stroking her hair. “Barbara’s here.” I felt her droop, as if in surrender.
We stood in the kitchen, rocking very slightly back and forth, for a long while. Then I sat her down and I made us some lunch. Fried eggs and bacon. Mugs of strong tea. Cosy food for a grey day. She must have been starving, because she gobbled it all up like a navvy and then demanded seconds. Darling girl. Darling, darling Sheba. I made her take a nap after lunch, and when she got up, half an hour ago, she was in much better shape. The rain had stopped by then, and she wanted to go for a walk. I let her go alone. I daresay she’ll be all right by herself. She seems quite steady and calm after her rest. And she knows by now not to go too far without me.
ALSO BY ZOE HELLER
Everything You Know
Acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic for What Was She Thinking?
“Deft, multivalent characterizations.”
—Lisa Levy, Newsday
“Wicked and wonderful social satire.”
—Glamour
“It takes a special sort of talent to make love seem really creepy … . An outstanding book, mature, brilliantly understated, and blackly funny … it demands to be read at a sitting … . A comedy of manners, a thriller of sorts, a study of betrayal and attachment: [What Was She Thinking?] is all these.”
—The Daily Telegraph (London)
“[With a] queasy, heart-breaking kick … [Narrator Barbara’s] mendacity is … refined, wonderfully entertaining, and deeply (which is to say tragically) unconscious.”
James Marcus, The Atlantic Monthly
“Sinister and surprising … here is a highlight in the year’s fiction.”
—Daily Express (London)
“Compelling … a portrait that remains indelible. Watch for her next, whatever it may be.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Insightful, piercing … The novel builds to a stunning ending … . Both a penetrating character study and a sharp examination of voyeurism, Heller’s novel is utterly brilliant.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Sly, witty.”
—Harper’s Bazaar
“Delectable.”
—W magazine
“An inspired tale of two women, one seen through the other’s eyes, with the viewer revealing more of herself than she ever suspects. From the first sentence to the last, the story and the writing of it have a thrilling intensity that holds the reader’s rapt attention.”
—Paula Fox
“Deliciously sinister.”
—Daily Mail (London)
“The most gripping novel of the year. You leave this extraordinary book utterly shaken, with new knowledge of the human heart. Heller writes with a precision that stirs the blood and an uncommon insight into the darker sides of love.”
—Nuala O’Faolain
“Heller’s clear-eyed depiction of Sheba and Barbara’s complex friendship is both refreshing and funny.”
—Radar magazine
“As much about self-knowledge and denial as it is about the affair itself. Above all, it is a cautionary tale about choosing your enemies at least as carefully as your friends and lovers.”
—Kate Bevan, Financial Times (London)
“Highly addictive … a funny, unnerving, acutely intelligent novel of psychological suspense.”
—Adam Begley, The Observer (New York)
“Creepy complexity … [What Was She Thinking?] reads like a nose through someone else’s bathroom cabinet: full of guilty insights and delicious snobbery. It will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has loved the wrong person, betrayed a friend, or ever been lonely.”
—The Independent (London)
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Juliet Annan, Jennifer Barth, Jonathan Burnham, Gill Coleridge, Lucy Heller, Mary Parvin, Margaret Ratner, Colin Robinson, Mark Rosenthal, Claudia Shear, Roger Thornham, and Amanda Urban. Thank you also to Larry Konner, without whose advice, morale boostings, and all round menschlichkeit this book would never have got written.
WHAT WAS SHE THINKING. Copyright © 2003 by Zoë Heller. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.
www.picadorusa.com
First published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company
eISBN 9781429932875
First eBook Edition : June 2011
Picador® is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by Henry Holt and Company under license from Pan Books Limited.
For information on Picador Reading Group Guides, as well as ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at St. Martin’s Press.
Phone: 1-800-221-7945 extension 763
Fax: 212-677-7456
E-mail: [email protected]
&nbs
p; Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heller, Zoë.
What was she thinking? : notes on a scandal / Zoë Heller.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-42199-0
EAN 978-0312-42199-1
1. Women teachers-Fiction. 2. Female friendship-Fiction. 3. Teacher-student relationships-Fiction. 4. Loneliness-Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.E483 W48 2003
823’.914-dc21
2002038809
First Picador Edition: June 2004