Good Bones - Margaret Atwood [3]
— There was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out, who –
— I don’t think it’s nice to make fun of people’s appearances. Plus, you’re encouraging anorexia.
— I wasn’t making fun! I was just describing –
— Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was.
— What colour?
—You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I’m telling you right now, I’ve had enough of white. Dominant culture this, dominant culture that –
— I don’t know what colour.
— Well, it would probably be your colour, wouldn’t it?
— But this isn’t about me! It’s about this girl –
— Everything is about you.
— Sounds to me like you don’t want to hear this story at all.
— Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help.
— There was once a girl of indeterminate descent, as average-looking as she was good, who lived with her wicked –
— Another thing. Good and wicked. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgemental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?
— There was once a girl, as average-looking as she was well-adjusted, who lived with her stepmother, who was not a very open and loving person because she herself had been abused in childhood.
— Better. But I am so tired of negative female images! And stepmothers – they always get it in the neck! Change it to stepfather, why don’t you? That would make more sense anyway, considering the bad behaviour you’re about to describe. And throw in some whips and chains. We all know what those twisted, repressed, middle-aged men are like –
—Hey, just a minute! I’m a middle-aged –
— Stuff it, Mister Nosy Parker. Nobody asked you to stick in your oar, or whatever you want to call that thing. This is between the two of us. Go on.
— There was once a girl –
— How old was she?
— I don’t know. She was young.
— This ends with a marriage, right?
— Well, not to blow the plot, but – yes.
— Then you can scratch the condescending paternalistic terminology. It’s woman, pal. Woman.
— There was once –
— What’s this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now.
—There –
—So?
— So, what?
—So, why not here?
Unpopular Gals
1.
Everyone gets a turn, and now it’s mine. Or so they used to tell us in kindergarten. It’s not really true. Some get more turns than others, and I’ve never had a turn, not one! I hardly know how to say I, or mine; I’ve been she, her, that one, for so long.
I haven’t even been given a name; I was always just the ugly sister; put the stress on ugly. The one the other mothers looked at, then looked away from and shook their heads gently. Their voices lowered or ceased altogether when I came into the room, in my pretty dresses, my face leaden and scowling. They tried to think of something to say that would redeem the situation – Well, she’s certainly strong – but they knew it was useless. So did I.
You think I didn’t hate their pity, their forced kindness? And knowing that no matter what I did, how virtuous I was, or hardworking, I would never be beautiful. Not like her, the one who merely had to sit there to be adored. You wonder why I stabbed the blue eyes of my dolls with pins and pulled their hair out until they were bald? Life isn’t fair. Why should I be?
As for the prince, you think I didn’t love him? I loved him more than she did; I loved him more than anything. Enough to cut off my foot. Enough to murder. Of course I disguised myself in heavy veils, to take her place at the altar. Of course I threw her out the window and pulled the sheets up over my head and pretended to be her. Who wouldn’t, in my position?
But all my love ever came to was a bad end. Red-hot shoes, barrels studded with nails. That’s what it feels like, unrequited love.
She had a baby, too. I was never allowed.
Everything you ever wanted, I wanted also.
2.
A libel action, that’s what I’m thinking. Put an end to this nonsense. Just because I’m old and live alone and can’t see very well, they accuse me