Notes on a Scandal: What Was She Thinking?
Zoë Heller
Language: English
Pages: 184
ISBN: 2:00197805
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Now a Major Motion Picture
Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new art teacher at St. George's, befriends her. But even as their relationship develops, so too does another: Sheba has begun an illicit affair with an underage male student. When the scandal turns into a media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend's defense--and ends up revealing not only Sheba's secrets, but also her own.
such. If everything between her and the boy was so simple and aboveboard, why had she never mentioned his visits to Sue? She was feeling guilty about it. She was! Had Sheba pursued this interrogation of herself with any rigor, things might have turned out very differently. But almost as soon as the promising line of enquiry had been opened, she abruptly shut it down. She had not mentioned Connolly to Sue, she told herself, because Sue would have been bound to respond with unnecessary anxiety.
primitive wooden instrument, possibly African, which looked as if it might be rather smelly if one got too close to it. The bookshelves housed a decent but not very inspired collection of fiction, suggesting the strong influence of newspaper “Books of the Year” lists. You could tell there weren’t any real literature lovers in the family. The mantelpiece was a gathering point for household flotsam. A child’s drawing. A hunk of pink Play-Doh. A passport. One elderly-looking banana. There was a
were, yes,” Lila murmured, sheepishly. “I’ve taken legal advice on this, Barbara,” Richard said, “so don’t try it, okay? Frankly, I would have a very good case for denying her any contact with Ben.” “Where is he now?” Sheba asked. “Upstairs, playing,” Richard said. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to look directly at his wife. “You’re punishing her, Richard,” I said. “You can’t really believe she would abscond with Ben …” Richard gave an angry smirk. “There are very few things I consider
rang yesterday to let Sheba know that he and the family will be returning from India in a week. Sheba relayed the news with such glazed-eyed indifference that I was sure I had misheard her. “A week?” I repeated. We have always known that Eddie would be back in June, but I suppose I had been counting on some last-minute reprieve. “Yes,” Sheba said idly. “He wanted to know how the garden was doing. Have you been watering it at all, Barbara?” “Don’t worry about the bloody garden,” I said. “What
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