Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [42]
“And now things are settled I feel I’m going to be much happier. A fellow can’t keep running around indefinitely. It’ll be a lot better in the long run for my practice too, the clients like to know you’ve got a wife; people get suspicious of a single man after a certain age, they start thinking you’re a queer or something.” He paused, then continued, “And there’s one thing about you, Marian, I know I can always depend on you. Most women are pretty scatterbrained but you’re such a sensible girl. You may not have known this but I’ve always thought that’s the first thing to look for when it comes to choosing a wife.”
I didn’t feel very sensible. I lowered my eyes modestly and fixed them upon a toast crumb that had eluded me when I wiped the table. I wasn’t sure what to say – “You’re very sensible too” didn’t seem appropriate.
“I’m very happy too,” I said. “Let’s take our coffee into the living room.”
He followed me in; we set our cups on the round coffee table and sat down on the chesterfield.
“I like this room,” he said, glancing over it. “It’s so homey.” He put his arm around my shoulders, and we sat in what I hoped was a blissful silence. We were awkward with each other. We no longer had the assumptions, the tracks and paths of our former relationship to guide us. Until we’d established the new assumptions we wouldn’t know quite what to do or say.
Peter chuckled to himself.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“Oh, not much. When I went out to get the car I found three shrubs caught underneath it; so I just took a drive past that lawn. We made a neat little hole in their hedge.” He was still pleased with himself about that.
“You big silly idiot,” I said fondly. I could feel the stirrings of the proprietary instinct. So this object, then, belonged to me. I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“When do you want to get married?” he asked, almost gruffly.
My first impulse was to answer, with the evasive flippancy I’d always used before when he’d asked me serious questions about myself, “What about Groundhog Day?” But instead I heard a soft flannelly voice I barely recognized, saying, “I’d rather have you decide that. I’d rather leave the big decisions up to you.” I was astounded at myself. I’d never said anything remotely like that to him before. The funny thing was I really meant it.
11
Peter left early. He said he needed to get some more sleep and he advised me to do the same. However I wasn’t at all tired. I was filled with a nervous energy which refused to dissipate itself in the restless forages I made through the apartment. This afternoon held that special quality of mournful emptiness I’ve connected with late Sunday afternoons ever since childhood: the feeling of having nothing to do.
I finished the dishes, sorted the knives and forks and spoons into their compartments in the kitchen drawer, though I knew they wouldn’t stay put for long, scanned the magazines in the living room for the seventh time, my attention snagging briefly but with new significance on such titles as “ADOPTION: YES OR NO?,” “YOU’RE IN LOVE – IS IT REAL?A TWENTY-QUESTION quiz,” and “HONEYMOON TENSIONS,” and fiddled with the controls of the toaster, which had been burning things. When the telephone rang I jumped for it eagerly: it was a wrong number. I suppose I could have talked with Ainsley, who was still in her bedroom; but somehow I didn’t think it would be much help. I wanted to do something that could be finished, accomplished, though I didn’t know what. Finally I resolved to spend the evening at the laundromat.
We do not, of course, use the lady down below’s laundry facilities. If she has any. She never allows anything as plebeian as washing to desecrate the well-kept expanse of her back lawn. Maybe it’s that she and the child just never get their clothes dirty; perhaps they have an invisible plastic coating. Neither of us has been in her cellar or even heard her acknowledge the