Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman

Or maybe – and the thought was chilling – he had intended it as an expression of my personality. A new corridor of possibilities extended itself before me: did he really think of me as a lavatory fixture? What kind of a girl did he think I was?

He was twining his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck. “I bet you’d look great in a kimono,” he whispered. He bit my shoulder, and I recognized this as a signal for irresponsible gaiety: Peter doesn’t usually bite.

I bit his shoulder in return, then, making sure the shower lever was still up, I reached out my right foot – I have agile feet – and turned on the COLD tap.

By eight-thirty we were on our way to meet Len. Peter’s mood, whatever it had been, had changed to one which I hadn’t yet interpreted, so I didn’t attempt conversation as we drove along. Peter kept his eyes on the road, turning corners too quickly and muttering under his breath at the other drivers. He hadn’t fastened his seat belt.

He had not been pleased at first when I told him about the arrangements I’d made with Len, even when I said, “I’m sure you’ll like him.”

“Who is he?” he had asked suspiciously. If it wasn’t Peter I would have suspected jealousy. Peter isn’t the jealous type.

“He’s an old friend,” I said, “from college. He’s just got back from England; I think he’s a T. V. producer or something.” I knew Len wasn’t that high on the scale, but Peter is impressed by people’s jobs. Since I had intended Len as a distraction for Peter I wanted the evening to be pleasant.

“Oh,” said Peter, “one of those arts-crafts types. Probably queer.” We were sitting at the kitchen table, eating frozen peas and smoked meat, the kind you boil for three minutes in the plastic packages. Peter had decided against going out for dinner.

“Oh no,” I said, eager to defend Len, “quite the opposite.”

Peter pushed his plate away. “Why can’t you ever cook anything?” he said petulantly.

I was hurt: I considered this unfair. I like to cook, but I had been deliberately refraining at Peter’s for fear he would feel threatened. Besides, he had always liked smoked meat before, and it was perfectly nourishing. I was about to make a sharp comment, but repressed it. Peter after all was suffering. Instead I asked, “How was the wedding?”

Peter groaned, leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and gazed inscrutably at the far wall. Then he got up and poured himself another gin-and-tonic. He tried pacing up and down in the kitchen, but it was too narrow, so he sat down again.

“God,” he said, “poor Trigger. He looked terrible. How could he let himself be taken in like that?” He continued in a disjointed monologue in which Trigger was made to sound like the last of the Mohicans, noble and free, the last of the dinosaurs, destroyed by fate and lesser species, and the last of the dodos, too dumb to get away. Then he attacked the bride, accusing her of being predatory and malicious and of sucking poor Trigger into the domestic void (making me picture her as a vacuum-cleaner), and finally ground to a halt with several funereal predictions about his own solitary future. By solitary he meant without other single men.

I swallowed the last of my frozen peas. I had heard this speech twice before, or something like it, and I knew there was nothing I could say. If I agreed with him it would only intensify his depression, and if I disagreed he would suspect me of siding with the bride. The first time I had been cheerful and maxim-like, and had attempted consolation. “Well, it’s done now,” I had said, “and maybe it’ll turn out to be a good thing in the end. After all, it isn’t as though she’s robbing the cradle. Isn’t he twenty-six?”

“ I’m twenty-six,” Peter had said moodily.

So this time I said nothing, remarking to myself that it was a good thing Peter had got this speech over with early in the evening. I got up and dished him out some ice-cream, which he took as a sympathetic gesture, putting his arm round my waist and giving me a gloomy hug.

“God, Marian,” he said, “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t understand. Most women wouldn’t, but you’re so sensible.”

I leaned against him, stroking his hair while he ate his ice-cream.

We left the car in one of the usual places, on a side street behind the Park Plaza. As we started to walk along I put my hand through Peter’s arm and he smiled down at me abstractedly. I smiled back at him – I was glad he was out of the teeth-gritting mood he had been in while driving – and he brought his other hand over and placed it on top of mine. I was going to bring my other hand up and place it on top of his, but I thought if I did then mine would be on top and he’d have to take his arm out from underneath so he’d have another hand to put on top of the heap, like those games at recess. I squeezed his arm affectionately instead.

We reached the Park Plaza and Peter opened the plate-glass door for me as he always does. Peter is scrupulous about things like that; he opens car doors too. Sometimes I expect him to click his heels.

While we waited for the elevator I watched our double image in the floor-to-ceiling mirror by the elevator doors. Peter was wearing one of his more subdued costumes, a brownish-green summer suit whose cut emphasized the functional spareness of his body. All his accessories matched.

“I wonder if Len’s up there yet,” I said to him, keeping an eye on myself and talking to him in the mirror. I was thinking I was just about the right height for him.

The elevator came and Peter said “Roof, please,” to the white-gloved elevator girl, and we moved smoothly upwards. The Park Plaza is a hotel really, but they have a bar at the top, one of Peter’s favourite places for a quiet drink, which was why I had suggested it to Len. Being up that high gives you a sense of the vertical which is rare in the city. The room itself is well lit, not dark as a drain like many others, and it’s clean. No one ever seems to get offensively drunk there, and you can hear yourself talk: there’s no band or singer. The chairs are comfortable, the décor is reminiscent of the eighteenth century, and the bartenders all know Peter. Ainsley told me once that she had been there when someone threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the wall of the patio outside, but it may have been one of her stories.

We walked in; there weren’t many people, so I immediately spotted Len, sitting at one of the black-topped tables. We went over and I introduced Peter to him; they shook hands, Peter abruptly, Len affably. The waiter appeared promptly at our table and Peter ordered two more gin-and-tonics.

“Marian, it’s good to see you!” Len said, leaning across the corner of the table to kiss my cheek; a habit, I reflected, he must have picked up in England, as he never used to do it. He had put on a little weight.

“And how was England?” I asked him. I wanted him to talk and entertain Peter, who was looking grumpy.

“All right, I guess; crowded, though. Every time you turn around you bump into somebody from here. It’s getting so you might as well not go there at all, the place is so cluttered up with bloody tourists. I was sorry, though,” he said, turning to Peter, “that I had to leave; I had a good job going for me and some other good things too. But you’ve got to watch these women when they start pursuing you. They’re always after you to marry them. You’ve got to hit and run. Get them before they get you and then get out.” He smiled, showing his brilliantly polished white teeth.

Peter brightened perceptibly. “Marian tells me you’re in television,” he said.

“Yes,” Len said, examining the squarish nails of his disproportionately large hands; “I haven’t got anything at the moment but I ought to be able to pick up something here. They need people with my experience. News reports. I’d like to see a good commentary programme in this country, I mean a really good one, though god knows how much red tape you have to go through to get anything done around here.”