Nettle Cobb’s paranoid anxiety

Nettle Cobb’s paranoid anxiety turns the carnival glass lampshade she has acquired into the focus of an escalating siege mentality. Afraid that Wilma Jerzyck will come back, Nettle begins to treat the threat as immediate and inescapable: the lampshade must be protected, her home must be watched, and even a routine workday with Polly Chalmers becomes a choice between duty and danger.

The lampshade and the fear of losing it

Nettle is sitting in her living room with Raider at her feet and the lampshade on her lap when the telephone rings. The time is twenty minutes to eight. Before she answers, she imagines that someone in authority will call to tell her she must give the object back—that it could not rightfully belong among her modest possessions. Her fear is not based on a real demand; it arises from the conviction that something she values is too good to be allowed to remain hers.

The call does not bring an official complaint. Instead, an angry voice accuses her of knowing what she has done. Nettle reacts with alarm, then feels anger as well as fear. The threat connects with a memory of the anger she experienced before killing her abusive husband, making the emotion feel dangerous to her. She clutches the lampshade and promises that Wilma will regret it if she starts anything. The object is at once a prized possession and the thing around which Nettle organizes her defensive response.

Duty set against imagined danger

Raider’s unease reminds Nettle that she is already late for work at Polly’s. She is supposed to vacuum upstairs, and a telephone worker is expected to install new touch-tone phones that will be easier for Polly to use despite her arthritis. Nettle knows she owes Polly more than a day’s labor: Polly wrote the recommendation that helped her leave Juniper Hill for good and co-signed her home loan. Without that support, Nettle believes she would still be living in a rented room across Tin Bridge.

That gratitude does not settle the decision. Nettle fears that Wilma might return while she is away, and she worries that Raider, small though brave, could not protect either her or the lampshade. Her mind feels caught between competing responsibilities: keeping faith with Polly and remaining at home to guard the object. The anxiety makes an ordinary errand seem like an exposure to imminent danger, while the obligation that once gave her a reason to leave now becomes another source of distress.

Vigilance becomes confinement

Nettle’s fear takes the form of repeated checking. After returning home, she checks the doors and then worries that she has not made sure the armoire cupboard is locked. She knows it is locked but remains afraid it is not. She briefly goes inside to see Raider, then shuts and bolts the front door again because Wilma might appear at any time. Even after checking the cupboard, she doubts whether she pulled hard enough to confirm the lock; the telephone rings, and by the time she reaches it the call has stopped.

She finally gives her fear a task: she cannot go to work because she has to stand guard. After speaking with Polly, she looks out through the window and sees that the street is empty for now. She retrieves the lampshade from the locked armoire, and holding it brings her a temporary sense of calm. She washes and dries it carefully, then sits upright through the morning with it in her lap and a butcher knife in her hand. The telephone rings twice more, but she does not answer. Her vigilance does not make the danger disappear; instead, it confines her to the room and shuts out contact with the person she feels indebted to.

Anxiety in the novel’s wider pattern of fear

The episode presents Nettle’s suspicion as a progression from anticipation to defensive action. At first she imagines an authority figure demanding the lampshade; after the hostile call, she focuses her fear on Wilma and treats the possibility of Wilma’s return as a certainty that must govern her choices. The repeated locks, the empty street watched from the window, and the unanswered telephone show how fear narrows her attention to signs of intrusion and makes reassurance short-lived.

Nettle’s anxiety also complicates the idea that remaining home is simply a refusal to work. She recognizes her debt to Polly and knows the practical reason she is expected at the house, yet the perceived threat overrides both. The lampshade’s temporary calming effect and the knife in her hand reveal the contradiction at the center of her response: the possession offers comfort, but protecting it draws her deeper into isolation and readiness for conflict. Her private alarm is part of the wider pattern in which suspicion and resentment turn ordinary objects and relationships into occasions for fear.