Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood [102]
We walk for a while without speaking, not knowing where we’re going, or why. The trees are taller, the tombstones older. There are Celtic crosses now, and the occasional angel.
“How do we get out of here?” says Cordelia, laughing a little.
“If we keep going we’ll hit a road,” I say. “Isn’t that the traffic?”
“I need a ciggie-poo,” Cordelia says. We find a bench and sit down so Cordelia can free her hands for the cigarette, cupping it against the air, lighting it. She isn’t wearing gloves, or a scarf on her head. She has a tiny black and gold lighter.
“Look at all the little dead people houses,” she says.
“Mausoleums,” I say knowingly.
“The Lump-lump Family Mausoleum,” she says, giving the joke one last push.
“They wouldn’t have one,” I say. “Too ritzy.”
“Eaton,” Cordelia reads. “That must be the store, it’s the same lettering. The Eaton’s Catalogues are buried in there.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Catalogue,” I say.
“I wonder if they’re wearing foundation garments,” says Cordelia, inhaling. We’re trying for a return to our hilarity, but it isn’t working. I think of the Eatons, both of them or maybe more, tucked away for storage as if they’re fur coats or gold watches, in their private tomb, which is all the stranger for being shaped like a Greek temple. Where exactly are they, inside there? On biers? In cobwebby stone-lidded coffins, as in the horror comics? I think of their jewels, glinting in the dark—of course they would have jewels—and of their long dry hair. Your hair grows after you’re dead, also your fingernails. I don’t know how I know this.
“Mrs. Eaton is really a vampire, you know,” I say slowly. “She comes out at night. She’s dressed in a long white ballgown. That door creaks open and she comes out.”
“To drink the blood of Lump-lumps out too late,” says Cordelia hopefully, stubbing out her cigarette.
I refuse to laugh. “No, seriously,” I say. “She does. I happen to know.”
Cordelia looks at me nervously. The snow is falling, it’s twilight, there’s nobody here but us. “Yeah?” she says, waiting for the joke.
“Yes,” I say. “We sometimes go together. Because I’m a vampire too.”
“You’re not,” says Cordelia, standing up, brushing off the snow. She’s smiling uncertainly.
“How do you know?” I say. “How do you know?”
“You walk around in the daytime,” Cordelia says.
“That’s not me,” I say. “That’s my twin. You’ve never known, but I’m one of a twins. Identical ones, you can’t tell us apart by looking. Anyway it’s just the sun I have to avoid. On days like this it’s perfectly safe. I have a coffin full of earth where I sleep; it’s down in, down in”—I search for a likely place—“the cellar.”
“You’re being silly,” Cordelia says.
I stand up too. “Silly?” I say. I lower my voice. “I’m just telling you the truth. You’re my friend, I thought it was time you knew. I’m really dead. I’ve been dead for years.”
“You can stop playing that,” says Cordelia sharply. I’m surprised at how much pleasure this gives me, to know she’s so uneasy, to know I have this much power over her.
“Playing what?” I say. “I’m not playing. But you don’t have to worry. I won’t suck any of your blood. You’re my friend.”
“Don’t be a brat,” says Cordelia.
“In a minute,” I say, “we’re going to be locked in.” It strikes both of us that this may be the truth. We run along the roadway, gasping and laughing, and find a large gateway, which is luckily still open. Beyond it is Yonge Street, lined with rush-hour traffic.
Cordelia wants to point out Lump-lump Family cars, but I’m tired of this. I have a denser, more malevolent little triumph to finger: energy has passed between us, and I am stronger.
43
Now I’m in Grade Eleven, and as tall as many other girls, which is not very tall. I have a charcoal-gray pencil skirt that’s hard to walk in despite the kick pleat, and a bat wing sweater, a red one with modulated gray horizontal stripes across it. I have a wide black elastic cinch belt with an imitation