LAURA LIPPMAN
Don’t Look Back
Copyright
Copyright © Laura Lippman 2010
Laura Lippman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9781847560940
Ebook edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007432486
Version: 2016-02-17
For Dorothy and Bernie
Contents
PART ONE: I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
PART TWO: CARELESS WHISPER
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
PART THREE: IN MY HOUSE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
PART FOUR: WHO’S ZOOMIN’ WHO?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
PART FIVE: HOLIDAY
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
PART SIX: CRAZY FOR YOU
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
PART SEVEN: EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
PART EIGHT: VOICES CARRY
Chapter Forty-Five
PART NINE: EVERY DAY
Chapter Forty-Six
Excerpt from The Innocents
GO-GO
US
Chapter One
READ ON FOR AN EXCLUSIVE SHORT STORY FROM LAURA LIPPMAN
Honour Bar
Femme Fatale
About the Author
Author’s Note
PART ONE
I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE
Chapter One
‘Iso, time for—’
Eliza Benedict paused at the foot of the stairs. Time for what, exactly? All summer long – it was now August – Eliza had been having trouble finding the right words. Not complicated ones, the things required to express strong emotions or abstract concepts, make difficult confessions to loved ones. She groped for the simplest words imaginable, everyday nouns. She was only thirty-eight. What would her mind be like at fifty, at seventy? Yet her own mother was sharp as a tack at the age of seventy-seven.
No, this was clearly a temporary, transitional problem, a consequence of the family’s return to the States after six years in England. Ironic, because Eliza had scrupulously avoided Briticisms while living there; she thought Americans who availed themselves of local slang were pretentious. Yet home again, she couldn’t get such words – lift, lorry, quid, loo – out of her head, her mouth. The result was that she was often tongue-tied, as she was now. Not at a loss for words, as the saying would have it, but overwhelmed with words, weighed down with words, drowning in them.
She started over, projecting her voice up the stairs without actually yelling, a technique in which she took great pride. ‘Iso, time for football camp.’
‘Soccer,’ her daughter replied in a muffled, yet clearly scornful voice, her default tone since turning thirteen seven months ago. There was a series of slamming and banging noises, drawers and doors, and when she spoke again, Iso’s voice