Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [13]
Arthur picked his way over the grass towards us, lifting his bare feet high with every step. The grass must have been ticklish. His diaper was loose, suspended as though by willpower alone below the bulge of his stomach with its protruding navel. His face was puckered in a serious frown.
Joe returned carrying a tray. “I stuck her in the laundry basket,” he said. “She’s playing with the clothespins.”
Arthur had reached us and stood beside his mother’s chair, still frowning, and Clara said to him, “Why have you got that funny look, you little demon?” She reached down behind him and felt his diaper. “I should have known,” she sighed, “he was so quiet. Husband, your son has shat again. I don’t know where, it isn’t in his diaper.”
Joe handed round the drinks, then knelt and said to Arthur firmly but kindly, “Show Daddy where you put it.” Arthur gazed up at him, not sure whether to whimper or smile. Finally he stalked portentously to the side of the garden, where he squatted down near a clump of dusty red chrysanthemums and stared with concentration at a patch of ground.
“That’s a good boy,” Joe said, and went back into the house.
“He’s a real nature-child, he just loves to shit in the garden,” Clara said to us. “He thinks he’s a fertility-god. If we didn’t clean it up this place would be one big manure field. I don’t know what he’s going to do when it snows.” She closed her eyes. “We’ve been trying to toilet-train him, though according to some of the books it’s too early, and we got him one of those plastic potties. He hasn’t the least idea what it’s for; he goes around wearing it on his head. I guess he thinks it’s a crash helmet.”
We watched, sipping our beer, as Joe crossed the garden and returned with a folded piece of newspaper. “After this one I’m going on the pill,” said Clara.
When Joe had finally finished cooking the dinner we went into the house and ate it, seated around the heavy table in the dining room. The baby had been fed and exiled to the carriage on the front porch, but Arthur sat in a high chair, where he evaded with spastic contortions of his body the spoonfuls of food Clara poked in the direction of his mouth. Dinner was wizened meat balls and noodles from a noodle mix, with lettuce. For dessert we had something I recognized.
“This is that new canned rice pudding; it saves a lot of time,” Clara said defensively. “It’s not too bad with cream, and Arthur loves it.”
“Yes,” I said. “Pretty soon they’ll be having Orange and Caramel too.”
“Oh?” Clara deftly intercepted a long drool of pudding and returned it to Arthur’s mouth.
Ainsley got out a cigarette and held it for Joe to light. “Tell me,” she said to him, “do you know this friend of theirs – Leonard Slank? They’re being so mysterious about him.”
Joe had been up and down all during the meal, taking off the plates and tending things in the kitchen. He looked dizzy. “Oh yes, I remember him,” he said, “though he’s really a friend of Clara’s.” He finished his pudding quickly and asked Clara whether she needed any help, but she didn’t hear him. Arthur had just thrown his bowl on the floor.
“But what do you think of him?” Ainsley asked, as though appealing to his superior intelligence.
Joe stared at the wall, thinking. He didn’t like giving negative judgments, I knew, but I also knew he wasn’t fond of Len. “He’s not ethical,” he said at last. Joe is an Instructor in Philosophy.
“Oh, that’s not quite fair,” I said. Len had never been unethical towards me.
Joe frowned at me. He doesn’t know Ainsley very well, and tends anyway to think of all unmarried girls as easily victimized and needing protection. He had several times volunteered fatherly advice to me, and now he emphasized his point. “He’s not someone to get … mixed up with,” he said sternly. Ainsley gave a short laugh and blew out smoke, unperturbed.
“That reminds me,” I said, “you’d better give me his phone number.”
After dinner we went to sit in the littered