Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood [77]
It’s recess. Miss Lumley patrols the playground with her brass bell, her face clamped against the cold, minding her own business. I’m still just as afraid of her, although she’s no longer my teacher. Chains of girls careen past, chanting We don’t stop for anybody. Other girls promenade more sedately, arms linked two by two. They look at me curiously, then away. It’s like the people in cars, on the highway, who slow down and look out the window when there’s a car accident by the side of the road. They slow down but they don’t stop. They know when there’s trouble, they know when to keep out of it.
I’m standing a little out from the wall. I put my head back and stare up into the gray sky and hold my breath. I’m making myself dizzy. I can see a stack of plates as it sways, begin to topple over, into a silent explosion of china shards. The sky closes to a pinpoint and a wave of dry leaves sweeps over my head. Then I can see my own body lying on the ground, just lying there. I can see the girls pointing and gathering, I can see Miss Lumley stalking over, bending with difficulty to look at me. But I’m seeing all this from above, as if I’m in the air, somewhere near the GIRLS sign over the door, looking down like a bird.
I come to with Miss Lumley’s face looming inches away from me, scowling more than ever, as if I’ve made a mess, with a ring of girls around her jostling for a better look.
There’s blood, I’ve cut my forehead. I am taken off to the nurse’s office. The nurse wipes off the blood and sticks a wad of gauze onto me with a Band-Aid. The sight of my own blood on the wet white washcloth is deeply satisfying to me.
Cordelia is subdued: blood is impressive, even more impressive than vomit. She and Grace are solicitous on the way home, linking their arms through mine, asking me how I feel. This kind of attention from them makes me tremulous. I’m afraid I will cry, great sopping tears of reconciliation. But I’m far too wary for that by now.
The next time Cordelia tells me to stand against the wall I faint again. Now I can do it almost whenever I want to. I hold my breath and hear the rustling noise and see the blackness and then I slip sideways, out of my body, and I’m somewhere else. But I can’t always watch from above, like the first time. Sometimes there’s just black.
I begin to be known as the girl who faints.
“She’s doing it on purpose,” Cordelia says. “Go ahead, let’s see you faint. Come on. Faint.” But now, when she tells me to, I can’t.
I begin to spend time outside my body without falling over. At these times I feel blurred, as if there are two of me, one superimposed on the other, but imperfectly. There’s an edge of transparency, and beside it a rim of solid flesh that’s without feeling, like a scar. I can see what’s happening, I can hear what’s being said to me, but I don’t have to pay any attention. My eyes are open but I’m not there. I’m off to the side.
PART
SEVEN
OUR LADY OF
PERPETUAL
HELP
33
I walk west from Simpsons, still looking for something to eat. Finally I buy a slice of take-out pizza and devour it en route, with my fingers, folding it in two and gnawing. When I’m with Ben I eat at regular times because he does, I eat regular things, but when I’m alone I indulge in junk food and scavenging, my old, singular ways. It’s bad for me, but I need to remember what bad for me is like. I could begin to take Ben for granted, with his ties and haircuts and grapefruits for breakfast. It makes me appreciate him more.
Back at the studio I call him, counting the hours backward to the coast. But there’s only my own voice on the message, followed by the beep, the Dominion Observatory Official Time Signal, ushering in the future. Love you, I say, so he can hear it later. Then I remember: by now he’s in Mexico, he won’t be back