The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [110]
What I was experiencing was dread, but it was not dread of Richard as such. It was as if the illuminated dome of the Royal York Hotel had been wrenched off and I was being stared at by a malign presence located somewhere above the black spangled empty surface of the sky. It was God, looking down with his blank, ironic searchlight of an eye. He was observing me; he was observing my predicament; he was observing my failure to believe in him. There was no floor to my room: I was suspended in the air, about to plummet. My fall would be endless – endlessly down.
Such dismal feelings however do not often persist in the clear light of morning, when you are young.
The Arcadian Court
Outside the window, in the darkened yard, there’s snow. That kissing sound against the glass. It will melt off because it’s only November, but still it’s a foretaste. I don’t know why I find it so exciting. I know what’s coming: slush, darkness, flu, black ice, wind, salt stains on boots. But still there’s a sense of anticipation: you tense for the combat. Winter is something you can go out into, confront, then foil by retreating back indoors. Still, I wish this house had a fireplace.
The house I lived in with Richard had a fireplace. It had four fireplaces. There was one in our bedroom, as I recall. Flames licking on flesh.
I unroll the sleeves of my sweater, pull the cuffs down over my hands. Like those fingerless gloves they used to wear – greengrocers, people like that – for working in the cold. It’s been a warm autumn so far, but I can’t let myself be lulled into carelessness. I should get the furnace serviced. Dig out the flannel nightgown. Lay in some tinned baked beans, some candles, some matches. An ice storm like last winter’s could shut down everything, and then you’re left with no electricity and an unworkable toilet, and no drinking water except what you can melt.
The garden has nothing in it but dead leaves and brittle stalks and a few diehard chrysanthemums. The sun is losing altitude; it’s dark early now. I write at the kitchen table, indoors. I miss the sound of the rapids. Sometimes there’s wind, blowing through the leafless branches, which is much the same although less dependable.
The week after the engagement had taken place I was packed off to have lunch with Richard’s sister,Winifred Griffen Prior. The invitation had come from her, but it was Richard who had packed me off really, I felt. I may have been wrong about that, because Winifred pulled a lot of strings, and may have pulled Richard’s on this occasion. Most likely it was the two of them together.
The lunch was to take place in the Arcadian Court. This was where the ladies lunched, up at the top of Simpsons department store, on Queen Street – a high, wide space, said to be “Byzantine” in design (which meant it had archways and potted palms), done in lilac and silver, with streamlined contours for the lighting fixtures and the chairs. A balcony ran around it halfway up, with wrought-iron railings; that was for men only, for businessmen. They could sit up there and look down on the ladies, feathered and twittering, as if in an aviary.
I’d worn my best daytime outfit, the only possible outfit I had for such an occasion: a navy-blue suit with a pleated skirt, a white blouse with a bow at the neck, a navy-blue hat like a boater. This ensemble made me look like a schoolgirl, or a Salvation Army canvasser. I won’t even mention my shoes; even now the thought of them is too discouraging. I kept my pristine engagement ring folded into my cotton-gloved fist, aware that, worn with clothes like mine, it must look like a rhinestone, or else like something I’d stolen.
The maître d’ glanced at me as if surely I was in the wrong place, or at least the wrong entrance – was I wanting a job? I did look down-at-heels, and too young to be having a ladies’ lunch. But then I gave Winifred’s name and it was all right, because Winifred absolutely lived