Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [120]
She opened the door and found herself confronting Trevor’s puzzled face. The other two were behind him, and an unfamiliar figure, probably female, in a baggy Harris-tweed coat, sunglasses and long black stockings. “Is this the right number?” Trevor asked. “A Mr. Peter Wollander?” He evidently did not recognize her.
Marian blenched inwardly; she had forgotten all about them. Oh well, there was so much noise and chaos in there anyway that Peter might not even notice them.
“Oh, I’m so glad you could come,” she said. “Do come in. By the way, I’m Marian.”
“Oh, hahaha, of course,” shrilled Trevor. “How stupid of me! I didn’t recognize you, my dear you look elegant, you should really wear red more often.”
Trevor and Fish and the other one passed by her into the room, but Duncan remained outside. He took hold of her arm, tugged her into the hall, and closed the door behind her.
He stood for a moment peering silently at her from under his hair, examining every new detail. “You didn’t tell me it was a masquerade,” he said at last. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”
Marian let her shoulders sag with despair. So she didn’t look absolutely marvellous after all. “You’ve just never seen me dressed up before,” she said weakly.
Duncan began to snicker. “I like the earrings best,” he said, “where did you dredge them up?”
“Oh stop that,” she said with a trace of petulance, “and come inside and have a drink.” He was very irritating. What did he expect her to wear, sackcloth and ashes? She opened the door.
The sound of talking and music and laughter swelled into the corridor. Then there was a bright flash of light, and a loud voice cried triumphantly “Aha! Caught you in the act!”
“That’s Peter,” Marian said, “he must be taking pictures.”
Duncan stepped back. “I don’t think I want to go in there,” he said.
“But you have to. You have to meet Peter, I’d like you to really.” It was suddenly very important that he come with her.
“No no,” he said, “I can’t. It would be a bad thing, I can tell. One of us would be sure to evaporate, it would probably be me; anyway it’s too loud in there, I couldn’t take it.”
“Please,” she said. She was reaching for his arm, but already he was turning, almost running back down the corridor.
“Where are you going?” she called after him plaintively.
“To the laundromat!” he called back. “Good-bye, have a nice marriage,” he added. She caught a last glimpse of his twisted smile as he rounded the corner. She could hear his footsteps retreating down the stairs.
For an instant she wanted to run after him, to go with him: surely she could not face the crowded room again. But, “I have to,” she said to herself. She walked back through the doorway.
The first thing she encountered was Fischer Smythe’s broad woolly back. He was wearing an aggressively casual striped turtleneck sweater. Trevor, standing beside him, was immaculately suited, shirted and tied. They were both talking to the creature in the black stockings: something about death symbols. She sidestepped the group deftly, not wanting to be forced to account for Duncan’s disappearance.
She discovered that she was standing behind Ainsley, and realized after a minute that Leonard Slank was on the other side of that rounded blue-green form. She couldn’t see his face, Ainsley’s hair was in the way, but she recognized his arm and the hand holding the beer stein: freshly filled, she noted. Ainsley was saying something to him in a low urgent voice.
She heard his slurred answer: “NO, dammit! You’ll never get me.…”
“Alright then.” Before Marian realized what Ainsley was doing she had raised her hand and brought it down, hard, smashing her glass against the floor. Marian jumped back.
At the sound of shattering glass the conversation stopped as though its plug had been pulled out, and Ainsley said into the silence that was filled, incongruously, only by the soft sighing of violins, “Len and I have a marvellous announcement to make.” She hesitated for effect, her eyes glittering. “We’re