So Much for That. Lionel Shriver

       Copyright

      The Borough Press

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      The Place

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

      Copyright © Lionel Shriver 2010

      Lionel Shriver 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, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

      Source ISBN: 9780007578061

      Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007351886

      Version: 2015-01-22

       Dedication

      To Paul. In loss, liberation.

      Time is money.

      —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

      Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748

       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

       Epigraph

      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

       acknowledgments

       about the book

       Praise for So Much for That

       About the Author

       Also by Lionel Shriver

       About the Publisher

       chapter one

      Shepherd Armstrong Knacker

      Merrill Lynch Account Number 934-23F917

      December 01, 2004 – December 31, 2004

      Net Portfolio Value: $731,778.56

      What do you pack for the rest of your life?

      On research trips – he and Glynis had never called them “vacations” – Shep had always packed too much, covering for every contingency: rain gear, a sweater on the off chance that the weather in Puerto Escondido was unseasonably cold. In the face of infinite contingencies, his impulse was to take nothing.

      There was no rational reason to be creeping these halls stealthily like a thief come to burgle his own home – padding heel to toe on the floorboards, flinching when they creaked. He had double-checked that Glynis was out through early evening (for an “appointment”; it bothered him that she did not say with whom or where). Calling on a weak pretense of asking about dinner plans when their son hadn’t eaten a proper meal with his parents for the last year, he had confirmed that Zach was safely installed at a friend’s overnight. Shep was alone in the house. He needn’t keep jumping when the heat came on. He needn’t reach tremulously into the top dresser drawer for his boxers as if any time now his wrist would be seized and he’d be read the Miranda.

      Except that Shep was a burglar, after a fashion. Perhaps the sort that any American household most feared. He had arrived home from work a little earlier than usual in order to steal himself.

      The swag bag of his large black Samsonite was unzipped on the bed, lying agape as it had for less drastic departures year after year. So far it contained: one comb.

      He forced himself through the paces of collecting a travel shampoo, his shaving kit, even if he was doubtful that in The Afterlife he would continue to shave. But the electric toothbrush presented a quandary. The island had electricity, surely it did, but he’d neglected to discover whether their plugs were flat American two-prongs, bulky British three-prongs, or the slender European kind, wide-set and round. He wasn’t dead sure either whether the local current was 220 or 110. Sloppy; these were just the sorts of practical details that on earlier research forays they’d been rigorous about jotting down. But then, they’d lately grown less systematic, especially Glynis, who’d sometimes slipped on more recent journeys abroad and used the word vacation. A tell, and there had been several.

      Resistant at first to the Oral B’s jarring cranial buzz, at length Shep had come to relish the slick of his teeth once the tedium was complete. As with all technological advances, it felt unnatural to go backward, to resume the fitful scrub of splayed nylon on a plastic stick. But what if Glynis went to the bathroom when she came home and noticed that his blue-ringed toothbrush was missing, while hers, with the red ring, still sat on the sink? Best she didn’t begin this of all evenings with perplexity or suspicion. He could always take Zach’s – he’d never heard the kid use it – but Shep couldn’t see swiping his own son’s toothbrush. (Shep had