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I have just reread the book as a refresher - one of the benefits of its being short! A few thoughts that have arisen from doing this with knowledge of the arc of the story:
- The first encounter between the two women took place at Irene's table "just in front of a long window whose gently moving curtains suggested a cool breeze." I hadn't remembered that when I came to the ending in front of another long window.
- I was impressed by the painfully honest and realistic portrayal of Irene. She was very judgemental and very quick to take offence. She was clearly very manipulative, wanting to organise the lives of her husband and sons. "... never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way an by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so." She wasn't prepared to confront and deal with realities but preferred to smooth them over and pretend they weren't there. This applied to trying to have her sons protected from the ugliness and violence of racism, and to her own actions and thoughts. She was an interesting choice to have as the centre of the story.
- The climactic scene: on rereading, I now think that Irene did push, or at least offbalance Clare. It also seemed to be premeditated, with the opening of the window, and the earlier thought to herself about Clare's death being a solution to her problem. She wasn't to know that Bellew would turn up and make a scene, but she was preparing a possible way of getting rid of Clare permanently by an apparent accident. "Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below." And in the same way, she would extinguish the spark of Clare's life, though she told herself it was an accident.
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