The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [180]
“What’s wrong?” said Laura. “Don’t you feel well?”
That May we crossed to England on the Berengeria, then returned to New York on the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary. The Queen was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner ever built, or that’s what was written in all the brochures. It was an epoch-making event, said Richard.
Winifred came with us. Also Laura. Such a voyage would do her a lot of good, said Richard: she’d been looking pinched and weedy, she’d been at loose ends ever since her abrupt departure from school. The trip would be an education for her, of the kind a girl like her could really use. Anyway, we could scarcely leave her behind.
The public couldn’t get enough of the Queen Mary. It was described and photographed within an inch of its life, and decorated that way too, with strip lighting and plastic laminates and fluted columns and maple burr – costly veneers everywhere. But it wallowed like a pig, and the second-class deck overlooked the first-class one, so you couldn’t walk about there without a railing-full of impecunious gawkers checking you over.
I was seasick the first day out, but after that I was fine. There was a lot of dancing. I knew how to dance by then; well enough, but not too well. (Never do anything too well, said Winifred, it shows you’re trying.) I danced with men other than Richard – men he knew through his business, men he’d introduce me to. Take care of Iris for me, he would say to these men, smiling, patting them on the arm. Sometimes he would dance with other women, the wives of the men he knew. Sometimes he would go out to have a cigarette or take a turn around the deck, or that’s what he’d say he was doing. I thought instead that he was sulking, or brooding. I’d lose track of him for an hour at a time. Then he’d be back, sitting at our table, watching me dance well enough, and I’d wonder how long he’d been there.
He was disgruntled, I decided, because this trip wasn’t working out for him the way he’d planned. He couldn’t get dinner reservations he wanted at the Verandah Grill, he wasn’t meeting the people he’d wanted to meet. He was a big potato on his own stomping ground, but on the Queen Mary he was a very small potato indeed. Winifred was a small potato too: her sprightliness was wasted. More than once I saw her cut dead, by women she’d sidled up to. Then she’d slink back to what she called “our crowd,” hoping no one had noticed.
Laura did not dance. She didn’t know how, she had no interest in it; anyway she was too young. After dinner she’d shut herself up in her cabin; she said she was reading. On the third day of the voyage, at breakfast, her eyes were swollen and red.
At mid-morning I went looking for her. I found her in a deck chair with a plaid rug pulled up to her neck, listlessly watching a game of quoits. I sat down next to her. A brawny young woman strode by with seven dogs, each on its own leash; she was wearing shorts despite the chilliness of the weather, and had tanned brown legs.
“I could get a job like that,” said Laura.
“A job like what?”
“Walking dogs,” she said. “Other people’s dogs. I like dogs.”
“You wouldn’t like the owners.”
“I wouldn’t be walking the owners.” She had her sunglasses on, but was shivering.
“Is anything the matter?” I said.
“No.”
“You look cold. I think you’re coming down with something.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. Don’t fuss.”
“Naturally I’m concerned.”
“You don’t have to be. I’m sixteen. I can tell if I’m ill.”
“I promised Father I’d take care of you,” I said stiffly. “And Mother too.”
“Stupid of you.”
“No doubt. But I was young, I didn’t know any better. That’s what young is.”
Laura took off her sunglasses, but she didn’t look at me. “Other people’s promises aren’t my fault,” she said. “Father fobbed me off on you. He never did know what to do with me – with us. But he’s dead now, they’re both dead, so it’s all right. I absolve you. You’re off the hook.”
“Laura, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she said. “But every time I just want to think