A Fatal Inversion

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Book: A Fatal Inversion Read Free
Author: Ruth Rendell
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and cough to make it audible, for these to be converted into Spanish currency. When his money had been given to him he had to turn around to give way to the next person in the line, there was nothing else to do. With a considerable effort of will he forced himself to lift His head and look ahead, down the long length of the arrivals area, at the milling host of travelers. He began to walk back. The crowd had cleared a little, to swell again no doubt in a minute or two when the planeload arriving from Rome came through. He could make out several dark-skinned people, men and women of African, West Indian, and Indian origin. Adam had not always been a racist, but he was one now. He thought how remarkable it was that these people could afford to travel around Europe.
    “Europe, mark you,” as he had said to Anne when first they got there and in answer to his scathing comment she had suggested that the black people might have been going home or arriving from lands of their own or ancestral origin. “This is Terminal Two,” he said. “You don’t go to Jamaica or Calcutta from here.”
    “I suppose we should be pleased,” she said. “It says something for their living standards.”
    “Hah,” said Adam.
    He started looking for Shiva. His eye lighted on an Indian man who was evidently an airport employee, for he wore overalls and carried some kind of cleaning equipment. Could it have been this man he had previously seen? Or even the sleekly dressed businessman, passing him now, on whose luggage label was the name D. K. Patel? One Indian, Adam thought, looks very much like another. No doubt, to them, one white man looked very like another, but this was an aspect of things Adam felt to be far less significant. The important thing was that it might not have been Shiva he had glimpsed so briefly among the faces of the crowd. It might be that his mind, in general so prudently policed, had been allowed to get a little out of hand, to run amok as a result of the previous night’s dreams, of his anxiety over Abigail, of the sight of that baggage label, and had thus become receptive to fears and fancies. Recognition there had seemed to be on the Indian’s part, but could he, Adam, not have been mistaken there? These people were often ingratiating and a scowl evoked in them a smile of hope, of defensiveness.
    Shiva would not have smiled at him, Adam now thought, for he would surely have been as eager to avoid a meeting as Adam was. They had done different things at Ecalpemos, he and Shiva—indeed all five of them had had different roles to play—but the actions they had taken, the dreadful and irrevocable steps, would have lived equally in the memory of each. Ten years afterward they were not of a sort to raise a smile. And in some ways it might have been said that Shiva had been closer to the heart and core of it, though only in some ways.
    “If I were he,” Adam found himself saying not quite aloud though his lips moved, “I would have gone back to India. Give me half a chance.” He bit his lips to still them. Had Shiva been born here or in Delhi? He could not remember. I won’t think of him or any of them, he said inwardly, silently. I will switch off.
    How could he hope to enjoy his vacation with something like that on his mind? And he intended to enjoy his vacation. Not least among the blessings it would confer was sharing their bedroom with Abigail, whose crib would be (he would see to that) on his side of their bed so that he could keep his eye on her asleep through the long watches of the night. Now he could see Anne standing waiting for him outside the entrance to the departure halls. She had obeyed him and avoided food but, strangely, this made him feel more irritable toward her. She had taken Abigail out of the stroller and was holding her in that fashion which is possible to women because they have well-defined hips and the sight of which therefore angered Adam. Abigail sat on Anne’s right hip with legs astride,

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