67 pages • 2 hours read
Ruth WareIn A Dark Dark Wood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 30-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary
Nora finds her way to a taxi and asks the driver if he knows where the Glass House is. Nora only has the £20 that Nina left her, but the driver agrees to take her anyway. Exhausted, Nora falls asleep on the drive. The driveway to the house remains blocked from the main road, so Nora must walk the long way in her flip flops, through the snow and cold. She is very weak, having just left the hospital after her accident, and her feet begin to bleed. She presses on, thinking of James and his last words. She considers that he was trying to ask her why she sent him the text begging him to come to the house.
Nora thinks that Flo must have sent the text: “I think again of her strange intensity, of her huge, explosive, terrifying love for Clare” (289). Nora wonders if Flo thought James was a threat to her relationship with Clare or if she simply wanted to strike out at Nora, Clare’s former best friend. The walk is arduous, and Nora, weak and tired, forces herself forward. She knows that she must discover the truth.
Chapter 31 Summary
Nora is frozen, numb, and so tired that she can’t think when she arrives at the house. It is dark, and there is police warning tape across the door. There is no way to get in the front door, so Nora painfully makes her way around to the back. The door opens, to her disbelief. Nora enters and shuts the door, but it bounces back open. She realizes that there is a piece of tape stuck to the frame. Nora now understands why the door did not lock shut properly on Saturday night and how James was able to enter. Nora considers this as proof that someone set up James. Nora kneels near the stairs and touches the remnants of James’s blood. In the living room, Nora sees the dirty wineglasses and cigarette butts, but someone removed the Ouija board and paper.
At the top of the stairs, Nora pictures how they all stood huddled together that night. Nora forces herself to retrace all the actions that took place after Flo shot James. She unlocks the front door and walks out to the porch, recalling everyone’s movements. Nora remembers noticing Clare’s coat on the railing and pantomimes picking it up. She pictures herself holding something she found in the pocket: “And suddenly, I can remember. I can remember what I was holding in my hand. And I know why it set me to running” (298). Nora remembers that it was a shotgun shell, the missing blank.
The instructor taught them the difference between a blank and a live round at the shooting range. The one Nora found in Clare’s coat was light, obviously a blank. Nora realized in that moment that Clare had substituted the live round into Flo’s aunt’s shotgun, so she instinctively ran after the car when Clare drove off alone with James.
Nora goes back into the house, sits down on the sofa, and reviews her revelation: “Clare substituted the live round. Therefore, Clare killed James” (298). As Nora struggles to understand Clare’s motive, she suddenly remembers that Matt told her James and Clare were having relationship troubles.
Nora also thinks about Flo’s dedication to Clare and the proclamation that Flo would do anything for Clare. Nora imagines that Flo would want to exact revenge on James if planned on leaving Clare at the altar. Flo might have seen Nora as the perfect person to frame for the murder, as Clare’s former best friend who had abandoned her. With these concrete clues, Nora decides whether to wait for the police there or to try and run away again. Exhausted, she falls asleep instead and dreams of James’s voice, saying, “The text…Leo…” (302). Nora wakes to the sound of someone coming in the door and can see a car outside the house.
Chapter 32 Summary
Nora figures the person in the house is either a burglar or the murderer. She would prefer a burglar, but she knows it must be the murderer. Nora has nowhere to run or hide, so she stands to face the person, who is in the shadows. Nora sees the person is blond and says, “Hello, Flo” (306). The person laughs uproariously. At first Nora is confused, but then she sees Clare.
Clare, obviously injured, asks why Nora came back. Clare makes her way painfully to the sofa and sits. Nora can’t make sense of what is going on and asks, “Clare—why?” (306). Clare does not answer and reaches for Nina’s tobacco and rolling papers, still on the table. Nora knows that she should be running away, as Clare is obviously the murderer, but Nora’s brain can’t accept this. She also does not understand how Clare could have sent the first text since she wasn’t at the house yet. Clare offers Nora a cup of tea. Nora automatically accepts.
Clare hobbles to the kitchen and returns with two mugs of tea. Clare takes a packet from her pocket and breaks open two capsules into her tea, which Nora guesses are painkillers. Nora drinks her own tea, which tastes awful. Nora hates tea, but the heat of it feels good, so she drinks more. Nora then asks Clare why she is there, and how she got there. Clare replies that she had the keys to Flo’s car and then turns the question on Nora. Nora says that she came back to remember what happened. Clare asks if she remembers, and Nora replies that she does: She remembers finding the shotgun shell in Clare’s coat.
Clare shakes her head, and Nora becomes angry, telling Clare that she knows it was her coat. Clare answers that she overheard the nurses say that Nora could not remember what happened. Clare continues, “You don’t remember what happened in the forest, do you? In the car?” (309). Nora asks what she is talking about. Clare tells Nora that she grabbed the steering wheel, saying that she couldn’t live without James and never got over his breakup text, so Nora tried to drive them off the road.
Nora feels a wave of shock roll over her. She flashes on a memory of struggling with Clare in the car, digging her nails into Clare’s skin. Clare says, “I saw you, Lee. You had your hand on the barrel of the gun. You nudged it towards James” (309). Nora shakes her head, denying that this is true. She asks Clare why she has not told this to the police, if it’s true. Clare asks how Nora knows that she has not already.
Nora fights to gather her thoughts and rebuff Clare’s distortion of the events. Nora’s head hurts, and there’s a bad taste in her mouth that will not go away as she drinks more tea. Nora pictures James dying in her arms and hears his voice as he gasps “Leo.” Suddenly, Nora has a revelation. She thinks to herself: “I know what James was saying. What he was trying to say. […] I know what happened. And I know why James had to die” (312).
Chapters 30-32 Analysis
In these chapters, Nora struggles through snow and cold to get back to the Glass House, the scene of the hen weekend, to jog her memory. She knows that she must remember the last moments so that she can defend herself against the accusation that she conspired to murder James. Going through all the possibilities again, Nora analyzes the reasons that Flo may have wanted to murder James. The themes of obsession and friendship intertwine as Nora thinks about how obsessed Flo is with Clare and how deeply Flo needs to remain Clare’s best friend: “Is it possible that she thought she might lose Clare to James?” (289).
To try and remember all the details of that night, Nora goes through the motions of reenacting each event that took place before, during, and after the shooting. She opens the front door and pantomimes her actions after Clare drove away. Nora pretends to pick up Clare’s coat from the porch railing: “I’m shivering, but I’m trying as hard as I can to remember back to that night, to the shape of something small and round in the pocket” (298). This physical act makes her remember that she found the blank shotgun shell in the coat. Since she thinks that Clare could not be the murderer, Nora believes that this proves Flo’s guilt. The pieces seem to fall together, pointing to Flo:
What would she do to the man who was planning to leave her best friend at the altar? And who better to take the fall than the bad ex-friend who’d stolen Clare’s rightful property and then walked away for ten long years? (300).
This theory falls apart when Clare shows up at the house, indicating that Clare must be the culprit, which makes no sense to Nora. Clare offers Nora a cup of tea, which she accepts, even though she hates tea: “‘Thanks,’ I say, still in this strange, dreamlike state. Clare is the killer. But she can’t be. I can’t seem to think what to do—and so I take refuge in these strange, automatic social responses” (307). As Nora grapples with the reality of Clare’s guilt, she relies on social norms to help guide her through the tense situation.
Clare uses psychological manipulation on Nora, trying to convince her that Nora is the murderer. Nora knows she isn’t, but Clare’s words twist her thoughts up so badly that she feels confused and disoriented: “I feel weak with horror. I take a long gulp of tea, my teeth chattering at the edge of the mug, and I try to think, try to gather the strands of all this together” (309). Amid her confusion, Nora thinks back again to how James tried to tell her something after Flo shot him. He gasped, “Text … text, Leo …” (312). The use of her private nickname triggers her memory and enables her to understand why Clare killed James.
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