Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [41]
However, I could think of no specific way in which Ainsley’s making use of him as she had planned could damage him irreparably, or even much at all, so I consigned him to whatever tough-minded, horn-rimmed guardian angels he might possess, finished the granular dregs of my coffee, and went to dress. After that I phoned Clara to tell her the news; Ainsley’s reaction had not been very satisfying.
Clara sounded pleased, but her response was ambiguous. “Oh, good,” she said, “Joe will be delighted. He’s been saying lately that it’s about time you settled down.” I was slightly irritated: after all, I wasn’t thirty-five and desperate. She was talking as though I was simply taking a prudent step. But I reflected that people on the outside of a relationship couldn’t be expected to understand it. The rest of the conversation was about her digestive upsets.
As I was washing the breakfast dishes I heard footsteps coming up our stairs. That was another variation of the door-opening gambit employed by the lady down below: she would let people in quietly without announcing them, usually at times of disintegration like Sunday afternoons, doubtless hoping that we’d be caught in some awkward state, with our hair up in curlers or down in wisps, or lolling about in our bathrobes.
“Hi!” a voice said, halfway, up. It was Peter’s. He had already assumed impromptu visiting privileges.
“Oh hi,” I answered, making my voice casual but welcoming. “I was just doing the dishes,” I added inanely as his head emerged from the stairwell. I left the rest of the dishes in the sink and dried my hands on my apron.
He came into the kitchen. “Boy,” he said, “judging from the hangover I had when I woke up, I must’ve been pie-eyed last night. I guess I really tied one on. This morning my mouth tasted like the inside of a tennis shoe.” His tone was half proud, half apologetic.
We scanned each other warily. If there was going to be a retraction from either side, this was the moment for it; the whole thing could be blamed on organic chemistry. But neither of us backed down. Finally Peter grinned at me, a pleased though nervous grin.
I said, solicitously, “Oh that’s too bad. You were drinking quite a lot. Like a cup of coffee?”
“Love one,” he said, and came over and pecked me on the cheek, then collapsed on one of the kitchen chairs. “By the way, sorry I didn’t phone first – I just felt like seeing you.”
“That’s okay,” I said. He did look hungover. He was carelessly dressed, but it’s impossible for Peter to dress with genuine carelessness. This was an arranged carelessness; he was meticulously unshaven, and his socks matched the colour of the paint stains on his sports shirt. I turned on the coffee.
“Well!” he said, just as Ainsley had but with a very different emphasis. He sounded as though he’d just bought a shiny new car. I gave him a tender chrome-plated smile; that is, I meant the smile to express tenderness, but my mouth felt stiff and bright and somehow expensive.
I poured two cups of coffee, got out the milk and sat down in the other kitchen chair. He put one of his hands over mine.
“You know,” he said, “I didn’t think I was intending – what happened last night – at all.” I nodded: I hadn’t thought I was, either.
“I guess I’ve been running away from it.”
I had been, too.
“But I guess you were right about Trigger. And maybe I was intending it, without knowing it. A man’s got to settle down sometime, and I am twenty-six.”
I was seeing him in a new light: he was changing form in the kitchen, turning from a reckless