The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [116]
After the ceremony Reenie was there, in respectable blue and a feather. She hugged me tightly, and said, “If only your mother was here.” What did she mean? To applaud, or to call a halt to the proceedings? From her tone of voice, it could have been either. She cried then, I didn’t. People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible. But I was beyond such childishness; I was breathing the high bleak air of disillusionment, or thought I was.
There was champagne, of course. There must have been: Winifred would not have omitted it. Others ate. Speeches were made, of which I remember nothing. Did we dance? I believe so. I didn’t know how to dance, but I found myself on the dance floor, so some sort of stumbling-around must have occurred.
Then I changed into my going-away outfit. It was a two-piece suit, a light spring wool in pale green, with a demure hat to match. It cost a mint, said Winifred. I stood poised for departure, on the steps (what steps? The steps have vanished from memory), and threw my bouquet towards Laura. She didn’t catch it. She stood there in her seashell-pink outfit, staring at me coldly, hands gripped together in front of her as if to restrain herself, and one of the bridesmaids – some Griffen cousin or other – grabbed it and made off with it greedily, as if it were food.
My father by that time had disappeared. Just as well, because when last seen he’d been rigid with drink. I expect he’d gone to finish the job.
Then Richard took me by the elbow and steered me towards the getaway car. No one was supposed to know our destination, which was assumed to be somewhere out of town – some secluded, romantic inn. In fact we were driven around the block to the side entrance of the Royal York Hotel, where we’d just had the wedding reception, and smuggled up in the elevator. Richard said that since we were taking the train to New York the next morning and Union Station was just across the street, why go out of our way?
About my bridal night, or rather my bridal afternoon – the sun was not yet set and the room was bathed, as they say, in a rosy glow, because Richard did not pull the curtains – I will tell very little. I didn’t know what to expect; my only informant had been Reenie, who had led me to believe that whatever would happen would be unpleasant and most likely painful, and in this I was not deceived. She’d also implied that this disagreeable event or sensation would be nothing out of the ordinary – all women went through it, or all who got married – so I shouldn’t make a fuss. Grin and bear it had been her words. She’d said there would be some blood, and there was. (But she hadn’t said why. That part was a complete surprise.)
I did not yet know that my lack of enjoyment – my distaste, my suffering even – would be considered normal and even desirable by my husband. He was one of those men who felt that if a woman did not experience sexual pleasure this was all to the good, because then she would not be liable to wander off seeking it elsewhere. Perhaps such attitudes were common, at that period of time. Or perhaps not. I have no way of knowing.
Richard had arranged for a bottle of champagne to be sent up, at what he’d anticipated would be the proper moment. Also our dinners. I hobbled to the bathroom and locked myself in while the waiter was setting everything out, on a portable table with a white linen tablecloth. I was wearing the outfit Winifred had thought appropriate for the occasion, which was a nightgown of satin in a shade of salmon pink, with a delicate lace trim of cobweb grey. I tried to clean myself up with a washcloth, then wondered what should be done with this: the red on it was so visible, as if I’d had a nosebleed. In the end I put it into the wastepaper basket and hoped the hotel maid would think it had fallen in there by mistake.
Then I sprayed myself with Liù, a scent I found frail and wan. It was named, I had by this time discovered, after a girl in an opera – a slave girl,