Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [119]
“Hi,” Ainsley said breathlessly. “Sorry I’m later than I thought but I got this urge to start packing.…”
Marian hurried her into the bedroom, hoping that Len hadn’t seen her. She noted in passing that he was still fully enclosed.
“Ainsley,” she said when they were alone with the coats, “Len’s here and I’m afraid he’s drunk.”
Ainsley unswathed herself. She looked magnificent. She was dressed in a shade of green that bordered on turquoise, with eyelids and shoes to match; her hair coiled and shone, swirled around her head. Her skin glowed, irradiated with many hormones; her stomach was not yet noticeably bulbous.
She studied herself in the mirror before answering. “Well?” she said calmly, widening her eyes. “Really Marian, it doesn’t matter to me in the least. After that talk this afternoon I’m sure we know where we stand and we can both behave like mature adults. There’s nothing he could say now that could disturb me.”
“But,” said Marian, “he seems quite upset; that’s what Clara says. Apparently he’s gone to stay at their place. I saw him when he came in, he looks terrible; so I hope you won’t say anything that could disturb him.”
“There’s no reason at all,” Ainsley said lightly, “why I should even talk to him.”
In the living room the soap-men on their side of the invisible fence were becoming quite boisterous. They gave forth bursts of laughter: one of them was telling dirty jokes. The women’s voices too were rising in pitch and volume, soaring in strident competitive descants over the baritone and bass. When Ainsley appeared, there was a general surge towards her: some of the soap-men predictably deserted their side and came to be introduced, and the corresponding wives, ever alert, rose from the sofa and took rapid steps to head them off at the pass. Ainsley smiled vacantly.
Marian went into the kitchen to get a drink for Ainsley and another one for herself. The previous order of the kitchen, the neat rows of glasses and bottles, had disintegrated in the process of the evening. The sink was full of melting ice cubes and shreds of food, people never seemed to know what to do with their olive pits, and the pieces of a broken glass; bottles were standing, empty and partially empty, on the counters and the table and the top of the refrigerator; and something unidentifiable had been spilled on the floor. But there were still some clean glasses. Marian filled one for Ainsley.
As she was going out of the kitchen she heard voices in the bedroom.
“You’re even handsomer than you sound on the phone.” It was Lucy’s voice.
Marian glanced into the bedroom. Lucy was in there, gazing up at Peter from under her silver lids. He was standing with a camera in his hand grinning boyishly, though somewhat foolishly, down at her. So Lucy had abandoned the siege of Leonard. She must have realized it was futile, she had always been more astute about those things than the other two. But how touching of her to try instead for Peter; pathetic, actually. After all Peter was off the market almost as definitely as if he was already married.
Marian smiled to herself and retreated, but not before Peter had spotted her and called, waving the camera, his face guiltily over-cheerful. “Hi honey, the party’s really going! Almost picture time!” Lucy turned her head towards the doorway, smiling, her eyelids raising themselves like window shades.
“Here’s your drink, Ainsley,” Marian said, breaking through the circle of soap-men to hand it.
“Thanks,” said Ainsley. She took it with a certain abstraction that Marian sensed as a danger signal. She followed the direction of Ainsley’s gaze. Len was staring across the room towards them, his mouth slightly open. Millie and Emmy were still tenaciously holding him at bay. Millie had moved round to the front, blocking as much space with her wide skirt as possible and Emmy was sidestepping back and forth like a basketball guard; but one of the flanks was unprotected. Marian looked back in time to see Ainsley smile: an inviting smile.
There was a knock on