Margaret Atwood - Stone Mattress - Nine Tales

“Does that go for the characters too?” says the Klingon.

“Well, yes,” she says, “but I sometimes take parts of them from here and there and put them together.”

“Like Mr. Potato Head,” says the Borg Queen.

“Mr. Potato Head?” says Constance. She looks bewildered. “I don’t have anyone of that name in Alphinland!”

“It’s a toy for children,” says the Borg Queen. “You stick different eyes and noses onto a potato.”

“Oh,” says Constance. “That was after my time. Of being a child,” she adds.

The Klingon fills the pause. “There’s a big bunch of villains in Alphinland! Do you get those from real life too?” He chuckles. “Lots to choose from!”

“Oh yes,” says Constance. “Especially the villains.”

“So for instance,” says the Borg Queen, “Milzreth of the Red Hand is someone we might meet walking along the street?”

Constance does the thrown-back-head laugh again; it sets Gavin’s teeth on edge. Someone needs to tell her not to open her mouth so wide; it’s no longer becoming; you can see that she has a couple of back teeth missing. “Oh my goodness, I hope not!” she says. “Not in that outfit. But I did base Milzreth on a man in real life.” She stares pensively out of the screen, right into the eyes of Gavin.

“Maybe some old boyfriend?” says the Klingon.

“Oh, no,” says Constance. “More like a politician. Milzreth is very political. But I did put one of my old boyfriends into Alphinland. He’s in there right now. Only you can’t see him.”

“Go on, tell us,” says the Borg Queen, smiling fit to kill.

Constance turns coy. “It’s a secret,” she says. She looks behind her, fearfully, as if she suspects there’s a spy. “I can’t tell you where he is. I wouldn’t want to disturb, you know. The balance. That would be very dangerous for us all!”

Is this getting out of hand? Is she, perhaps, a little crazy? The Borg Queen must think so because she’s cutting this off right now. “It’s been such a privilege, such an honour, thank you so much!” she says. “Boys and girls, a big hand for C. W. Starr!” There’s applause. Constance looks bewildered. The Klingon takes her arm.

His golden Constance. She’s gone astray. She’s lost. Lost and wandering.

Blackout.

“Wasn’t that great? She’s so amazing,” says Naveena. “So, I thought maybe you could give me some idea. . I mean, she practically said she wrote you into Alphinland, and it would be really a big thing for me — for my work — if I could figure out which character. I’ve narrowed it down to six, I’ve made a list with their different features and their special powers and their symbols and coats of arms. I think you must be the Thomas the Rhymer character because he’s the only poet in the series. Though maybe he’s more of a prophet — he has the second sight as his special power.”

“Thomas the what?” says Gavin coldly.

“The Rhymer,” says Naveena, faltering. “He’s in a ballad, it’s well known. You can find it in Childe. The one that was stolen away by the queen of Fairyland, and rode through red blood to the knee, and wasn’t seen on earth for seven years, and then when he came back he was called True Thomas because he could foretell the future. Only that isn’t his name in the series, of course: he’s Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye.”

“Do I look like someone with a crystal eye?” says Gavin, straight-faced. He’s going to make her sweat.

“No, but. .”

“Definitely not me,” says Gavin. “Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye is Al Purdy.” This is the most delectable lie he can think of. Big Al with his poems about carpentry and working in a dried blood factory, being stolen away by the queen of Fairyland! If only Naveena will put that into her thesis he will be forever grateful to her. She’ll work the dried blood into it, she’ll make it all fit. He keeps his mouth still: he must not laugh.

“How do you know it’s Al Purdy?” says Reynolds suspiciously. “Gavvy’s a liar, you do realize that,” she says to Naveena. “He falsifies his own biography. He thinks it’s funny.”

Gavin bypasses her. “Constance told me herself. How else?” he says. “She often discussed her characters with me.”

“But Kluvosz of the Crystal Eye didn’t come into the series until Book Three,” says Naveena. “ The Wraith Returns . That was way after. . I mean, there aren’t any documents, and you didn’t know Constance any more by then.”

“We used to meet secretly,” he says. “For years and years. In nightclub washrooms. It was a fatal attraction. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

“You never told me about that,” says Reynolds.

“Baby,” he says. “There’s so much I never told you.” She doesn’t believe a word of this, but she can’t prove he’s fabricating.

“That would change everything,” says Naveena. “I’d have to rewrite. . I’d have to rethink my central premise. This is so. . so crucial! But if you aren’t Kluvosz, who are you?”

“Who, indeed?” he says. “I often wonder. Maybe I’m not in Alphinland at all. Maybe Constance blotted me out.”

“She told me you were in it,” says Naveena. “In an email, just a month ago.”

“She’s going scatty,” says Reynolds. “You can tell from that video, and it was shot even before her husband died. She’s mixed everything up, she probably can’t even. .”

Naveena bypasses Reynolds, leans forward, widening her eyes at Gavin, dropping her voice to an intimate almost-whisper. “She said you were hidden . Like a treasure, isn’t that romantic? Like those pictures where you have to find the faces in the trees — that’s how she put it.” She wants to jig and amble, she wants to lisp, she wants to suck the last slurp of essence out of his almost-voided cranium. Avaunt, wanton!

“Sorry,” he says. “I can’t help you. I’ve never read any of that crap.” False: he has read it. Much of it. It’s only confirmed his opinion. Not only was Constance a bad poet, back when she was trying to be one, but she’s a terrible prose writer as well. Alphinland : the title says it all. Aphidland would be even more accurate.

“Excuse me?” says Naveena. “I don’t think that’s a very respectful way of. . that’s an elitist. .”

“Can’t you find a better use for your time than trying to decipher that turgid puddle of frog spawn?” he says. “A fine specimen of womanhood like you going to waste, your cute butt withering on the vine. Getting any?”

“Excuse me?” says Naveena, again. It’s evidently her fail-safe: the plea that she be excused.

“Any scratch for your itch. Any humpety-hump. Any sex,” says Gavin. Reynolds digs him in the ribs with her elbow, hard, but he ignores her. “There must be some jolly thriving wooer who’s putting it to you. Much better a good healthy fuck for a beautiful girl like you than wasting your eyesight footnoting that drivel. Don’t tell me you’re a virgin! That would be preposterous!”

“Gavin!” says Reynolds. “You can’t talk to women like that any more! It isn’t. .”

“I’m not sure my private life is your concern,” says Naveena stiffly. Her lower lip is quivering, so maybe he’s hit it right. But he won’t let her off.

“You have no scruples about delving into mine,” he says. “My private life! Reading my journal, rummaging in my papers, sniffing around my. . my ex-girlfriend. It’s indecent! Constance is my private life. Private! I don’t suppose you ever thought about that!”

“Gavin, you sold those papers,” says Reynolds. “So now it’s public.”

“Bullshit!” says Gavin. “You sold them, you double-crossing bitch!”