The Needle's Eye by Margaret Drabble Read Free Book Online Page A

situation, that he was waiting to offer, politely, as she had always known he would. And when the others had all gone, there he still was, looking anxious and obliging. ‘Are you sure you won’t have another drink?’ she said to Rose, thinking that perhaps after all she might detain these two for a little while, but Rose shook her head and smiled and said that no, she really ought to be going, she didn’t like to be out too late because one of the children was always waking in the night and she ought to be there in case. And Simon, hearing this, said, let me drive you
home, and Rose said of course not, she would get a taxi, and Simon said that it would be no trouble, and Rose said that it was miles and miles away, but she was looking so tired that it was clear that at the next offer she would accept, as indeed she did. So she had to relinquish them, though they stayed for a few moments to talk to Nick, who had come upstairs again from seeing the others off at the door: and then they departed together, as she had arranged, and left her feeling obscurely cheated.
    She went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, as she was dying of thirst – perhaps everyone had been dying of thirst, perhaps that was why they had all gone home, to get themselves from their own taps the drinks of water which she had not thought of offering. And as she stood there, gazing into the debris in the sink, a wave of panic filled her: so pointless it was, such an evening, such a stupid life she led, such stupid frivolous aspirations, and they had all gone away and left her, her part was finished, she would drop from their minds as casually as a leaf from a tree, as naturally unregretted, having played her part, having fulfilled her role, she would drop from their minds as from this story, having accomplished nothing, set nothing in motion – or if something had been set in motion, how terrifying, how alarming, she was not able to cope with consequences, she did not like to think that anything would happen, nor that nothing would happen. What was it for, she asked herself, as she rinsed out the clean watery glass, what was it for, and why would she do it again the week after next?
    In the car, driving northward, Simon wondered silently to himself if he should make conversation. She looked tired, this woman, perhaps she did not want to talk. Perhaps, on the other hand, she did. How could one possibly tell? It would not have crossed his mind to resolve the problem by speaking because he himself preferred to speak, by maintaining silence because he himself preferred silence. He had never known such elementary simplicity, it was so alien to him that he could not even conceive of it in others, though he had from time to time, with faint astonishment, observed its existence. He imagined to himself, in his embarrassment, that her mind must
too be occupied embarrassingly with the same preoccupation, and he hated the proximity of two anxious people in so small a space. So that when, finally, after five minutes or so, she spoke, the sound of her voice took him aback no less than her words. She sounded as though she had been thinking, not of something or anything to say, but of how to say exactly what she now came out with. With deliberation she said, as though she had been working on it in those five minutes:
    ‘You’re a lawyer, you said? A barrister?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    She sighed, heavily, and then said, ‘What I need is a lawyer.’
    ‘I don’t suppose I’d be able to help you,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose industrial law would be of much use to you.’
    ‘Not exactly,’ she said, vaguely, pursuing her own thoughts. ‘No, not exactly.’ And then she said, recklessly, horribly, as though throwing herself off a height, or upon his stony mercy, ‘I had a letter today from my solicitor. About the children. My husband says he wants them back. And another one from him, half an hour later. He says he’s going to make them