Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [53]
“Just fine,” Marian said. She and Peter had decided she shouldn’t tell them at the office quite yet. She had been holding out therefore, day after day, but now the question caught her desire to announce off-guard, and she couldn’t resist. They might as well know there’s hope in the world yet, she rationalized. “I have something to tell you all,” she said, “but it isn’t to go any further just now.” She waited until the three pairs of eyes had transferred their attention from the plates to her, then said, “We’re engaged.”
She smiled glowingly at them, watching the expression in their eyes change from expectation to dismay. Lucy dropped her fork and gasped, “No!” adding, “how wonderful!” Millie said, “Oh. Jolly good.” Emmy hurriedly took another pill.
Then there were flurried questions, which Marian dealt with calmly, doling out the information like candies to small children: one at a time, and not too much: it might make them sick. The triumphant elation she had assumed would follow the announcement, for her at least, was only momentary. As soon as the surprise effect had worn off, the conversation became as remote and impersonal, on both sides, as the razor-blade questionnaires: enquiries about the wedding, the future apartment, the possible china and glassware, what would be bought and worn.
Lucy asked finally, “I always thought he was the confirmed bachelor type, that’s what you said. How on earth did you ever catch him?”
Marian looked away from the suddenly pathetic too-eager faces poised to snatch at her answer, down at the knives and forks on the plates. “I honestly don’t know,” she said, trying to convey a becoming bridal modesty. She really didn’t know. She was sorry now that she had told them, dangled the effect in front of them that way without being able to offer them a reproducible cause.
Peter phoned almost as soon as they got back to the office. Lucy handed the phone to Marian with a whispered “It’s the man!”, a little awed by the presence of an actual prospective groom at the other end of the line. Marian felt through the air the tensing of three pairs of ear-muscles, the swivelling of three blonde heads, as she spoke into the phone.
Peter’s voice was terse. “Hi honey how are you? Listen, I really can’t make it tonight. A case came up suddenly, something big, and I’ve just got to do some work on it.”
He sounded as though he was accusing her of trying to interfere with his work, and she resented this. She hadn’t even been expecting to see him in mid-week like that until he’d called the day before and asked her to have dinner; since then she’d been looking forward to it. She said rather sharply, “That’s all right, darling. But it would be nice if we could get these things straight before the last minute.”
“I told you it came up suddenly,” he said with irritation.
“Well you needn’t bite my head off.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, exasperated. “You know I’d much rather see you, of course, only you’ve got to understand.…” The rest of the conversation was a tangle of retractions and conciliations. Well, we have to learn to compromise, Marian thought, and we might as well begin working at it now. She concluded, “Tomorrow then?”
“Look darling,” he said, “I really don’t know. It’ll really all depend, you know how these things are, I’ll let you know, okay?”
When Marian had said good-bye sweetly for the benefit of her audience and had put down the phone she felt exhausted. She must watch how she spoke to Peter, she would have to handle him more carefully, there was evidently a good deal of pressure on him at his office.… “I wonder if I’m getting anaemia?” she said to herself as she turned back to the typewriter.
After she had finished the razor-blade questionnaire and had begun to work on a different one, the instructions for a product test of a new dehydrated dog food, the phone rang again. It was Joe Bates. She had been half-expecting the call. She greeted Joe with false enthusiasm: she