The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [232]
Mathematics had a long column of numbers, with words opposite some of them. It took me a few minutes to realize what kinds of numbers they were. They were dates. The first date coincided with my return from Europe, the last was three months or so before Laura’s departure for BellaVista. The words were these:
Avilion, no. No. No. Sunnyside. No. Xanadu, no. No. Queen Mary, no no. New York, no. Avilion. No at first.
Water Nixie, X. “Besotted.”
Toronto again. X.
X. X. X. X.
O.
That was the whole story. Everything was known. It had been there all along, right before my very eyes. How could I have been so blind?
Not Alex Thomas, then. Not ever Alex. Alex belonged, for Laura, in another dimension of space.
Victory comes and goes
After looking through Laura’s notebooks, I put them back into my stocking drawer. Everything was known, but nothing could be proven. That much was clear.
But there’s always more than one way to skin a cat, as Reenie used to say. If you can’t go through, go around.
I waited until after the funeral, and then I waited another week. I didn’t want to act too precipitously. Better to be safe than sorry, Reenie also used to say. A questionable axiom: so often it’s both.
Richard went off on a trip to Ottawa, an important trip to Ottawa. Men in high places might pop the question, he hinted; or if not now, then soon. I told him, and Winifred as well, that I would take this opportunity to go to Port Ticonderoga with Laura’s ashes in their silver-coloured box. I needed to sprinkle these ashes, I said, and to see to the inscription on the monumental Chase family cube. All right and proper.
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Winifred, hoping I’d do just that – if I blamed myself enough, I wouldn’t get around to blaming anyone else. “Some things don’t bear dwelling on.” We dwell on them anyway, though. We can’t help ourselves.
Having seen Richard off on his travels, I gave the help a free evening. I would hold down the fort, I said. I’d been doing more of this lately – I liked being alone in the house, with just Aimee, when she was asleep – so even Mrs. Murgatroyd was not suspicious. When the coast was clear I acted quickly. I’d already done some preliminary, surreptitious packing – my jewel box, my photographs, Perennials for the Rock Garden – and now I did the rest. My clothes, though by no means all of them; some things for Aimee, though by no means all of those either. I got what I could into the steamer trunk, the same one that had once held my trousseau, and into the matching suitcase. The men from the railway arrived to collect the luggage, as I’d arranged. Then, the next day, it was easy for me to go off to Union Station in a taxi with Aimee, each of us with only an overnight case, and none the wiser.
I left a letter for Richard. I said that in view of what he’d done – what I now knew he’d done – I never wanted to see him again. In consideration of his political ambitions I would not request a divorce, although I had ample proof of his scurrilous behaviour in the form of Laura’s notebooks, which – I said untruthfully – were locked away in a safe-deposit box. If he had any ideas about getting his filthy hands on Aimee, I added, he should discard them, because I would then create a very, very large scandal, as I would also do should he fail to meet my financial requests. These were not large: all I wanted was enough money to buy a small house in Port Ticonderoga, and to assure maintenance for Aimee. My own needs I could supply in other ways.
I signed this letter Yours sincerely, and, while licking the envelope flap, wondered whether I’d spelled scurrilous correctly.
Several days before leaving Toronto, I’d sought out Callista Fitzsimmons. She’d given up sculpture, and was now a mural painter. I found her at an insurance company – the head office – where she’d landed a commission. Women’s contributions to the war effort, was the theme –