Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [39]
I went to the refrigerator and got out the tomato juice. “Hi,” I said to Ainsley’s back. I was wondering whether I could face an egg.
She turned around. “Well,” she said.
“Did you get home okay?” I asked. “That was quite a storm.” I poured myself a large glassful of tomato juice and drank it blood-thirstily.
“Of course,” she said. “I made him call a taxi. I got home just before the storm broke and had a cigarette and a double scotch and went straight to bed; god, I was absolutely exhausted. Just sitting still like that takes a lot out of you, and then after you’d gone I didn’t know how I was going to get away. It was like escaping from a giant squid, but I did it, mostly by acting dumb and scared. That’s very necessary at this stage, you know.”
I looked into the saucepan that was sitting, still hot, on one of the burners. “You through with the egg water?” I switched the stove on.
“Well, what about you? I was quite worried, I thought maybe you were really drunk or something; if you don’t mind my saying so you were behaving like a real idiot.”
“We got engaged,” I said, a little reluctantly. I knew she would disapprove. I manoeuvred the egg into the saucepan; it cracked immediately. It was straight out of the refrigerator and too cold.
Ainsley lifted her barely nubile eyebrows; she didn’t seem surprised. “Well, if I were you I’d get married in the States, it’ll be so much easier to get a divorce when you need one. I mean, you don’t really know him, do you? But at least,” she continued more cheerfully, “Peter will soon be making enough money so you can live separately when you have a baby, even if you don’t get a divorce. But I hope you aren’t getting married right away. I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”
“Subconsciously,” I said, “I probably wanted to marry Peter all along.” That silenced her. It was like invoking a deity.
I inspected my egg, which was sending out a white semi-congealed feeler like an exploring oyster. It’s probably done, I thought, and fished it out. I turned on the coffee and cleared a space for myself on the oilcloth. Now I could see what Ainsley was busy with. She had taken the calendar down from the kitchen wall – it had a picture of a little girl in an old-fashioned dress sitting on a swing with a basket of cherries and a white puppy – I get one every year from a third cousin who runs a service station back home – and was making cryptic marks on it with a pencil.
“What’re you doing?” I asked. I whacked my egg against the side of my dish and got my thumb stuck in it. It wasn’t done after all. I poured it into the dish and stirred it up.
“I’m figuring out my strategy,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Really Ainsley, I don’t see how you can be so cold-blooded about it,” I said, eyeing the black numbers in their ordered rows.
“But I need a father for my child!” Her tone implied I was trying to snatch bread from the mouths of all the world’s widows and orphans, incarnate for the moment in her.
“Okay, granted, but why Len? I mean it could get complicated with him, after all he is my friend and he’s had a bad time lately; I wouldn’t want to see him upset. Aren’t there lots of others around?”
“Not right now; or at least nobody who’s such a good specimen,” she said reasonably, “and I’d sort of like the baby in the spring. I’d like a spring baby; or early summer. That means he can have his birthday parties outside in the back yard instead of in the house, it’ll be less noisy.…”
“Have you investigated his ancestors?” I asked acidly, spooning up the last strand of egg.
“Oh yes,” said Ainsley with enthusiasm, “we had a short conversation just before he