If anything she was more numb, more clear-sighted. She thought nothing could touch her or hurt her again. Is this what it’s like to be ill, she wondered, what they mean by a breakdown? She remembered newspaper stories of a battered wife who had killed her husband. After years of putting up with bruises and beatings she had planned, quite calmly, to stab him. The judge had been unusually sympathetic and had found her guilty only of manslaughter. The defendant was not in her right mind when the crime was committed, he said. The women had been battered not only by fists but by an excess of emotion. Her calm was unnatural, a reaction, an illness. That’s what’s happened to me, Ruth thought, a touch melodramatically. I’ve been emotionally battered too. At breakfast Meg tried to fuss over her. The night before Ruth would have welcomed the comfort but today she could not stand it. She was not even sure the concern was genuine. ‘Leave me alone!’ she said, too sharply, so Meg looked at her oddly as if she thought her daughter might be ill or mad too.
