The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [182]
How did Laura do it? Not by opposing him, not any longer: by this time she avoided clashing with him head-on. She did it by stepping back, and turning away, and throwing him off balance. He was always lunging in her direction, always grabbing, always grabbing air.
What he wanted was her approval, her admiration even. Or simply her gratitude. Something like that. With some other young girl he might have tried presents – a pearl necklace, a cashmere sweater – things that sixteen-year-olds were supposed to long for. But he knew better than to foist anything of this sort on Laura.
Blood from a stone, I thought. He’ll never figure her out. And she doesn’t have a price, because there’s nothing he has that she wants. In any contest of wills, with anyone at all, I was still betting on Laura. In her own way she was stubborn as a pig.
I did think she’d jump at the chance to spend some time at Avilion – she’d been so reluctant to leave it – but when the plan was mentioned, she seemed indifferent. She was unwilling to give Richard credit for anything, or this was my reading. “At least we’ll see Reenie,” was all she said.
“I regret to say that Reenie is no longer in our employ,” said Richard. “She was asked to leave.”
When was that? A while ago. A month, several months? Richard was vague. It was a question, he said, of Reenie’s husband, who had been drinking too much. Therefore the repairs to the house had not been carried out in what any reasonable person would consider a timely and satisfactory manner, and Richard did not see any point in paying out good money for laziness, and for what could only be termed insubordination.
“He didn’t want her here at the same time as us,” said Laura. “He knew she’d take sides.”
We were wandering around on the main floor of Avilion. The house itself appeared to have dwindled in size; the furniture was covered with dust cloths, or what was left of the furniture – some of the bulkier, darker pieces had been removed, on Richard’s orders I suppose. I could imagine Winifred saying that nobody should be expected to live with a sideboard festooned with such chunky, unconvincing wooden grapes. The leather-bound books were still in the library, but I had a feeling that they might not be there much longer. The portraits of the prime ministers with Grandfather Benjamin had been deleted: someone – Richard, no doubt – must finally have noticed their pastel faces.
Avilion had once had an air of stability that amounted to intransigence – a large, dumpy boulder plunked down in the middle of the stream of time, refusing to be moved for anybody – but now it was dogeared, apologetic, as if it were about to collapse in on itself. It no longer had the courage of its own pretensions.
So demoralizing, said Winifred, how dusty everything was, and there were mice in the kitchen, she’d seen the droppings, and silverfish as well. But the Murgatroyds were arriving later that day, by train, along with a couple of other, newer servants who’d been added to our entourage, and then everything would soon be shipshape, except of course (she said with a laugh) the ship itself, by which she meant the Water Nixie. Richard was down in the boathouse right now, looking her over. She was supposed to have been scraped down and repainted under the supervision of Reenie and Ron Hincks, but this was yet another thing that had not taken place. Winifred failed to see what Richard wanted with that old tub – if Richard really longed to sail, he should scuttle that old dinosaur of a boat and buy a new one.
“I suppose he thinks it has sentimental value,” I said. “For us, I mean. Laura and me.”
“And does it?” said Winifred, with that amused smile of hers.
“No,” said Laura. “Why would it? Father never took us sailing in it. Only Callie Fitzsimmons.” We were in the dining room; at least the long table was still there. I wondered what decision Richard, or rather Winifred, would make about Tristan and Iseult and their glassy, outmoded romance.
“Callie Fitzsimmons came to