The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [51]
He added that all portions of the country have suffered their setbacks and Chase Industries currently faces a scale down of its operations due to reduced demand. He said he would make every attempt to keep factories running but may soon be under the necessity, of either layoffs or part hours and wages.
We can only applaud Captain Chase’s efforts, a man who holds to his word, unlike the strikebreaking and lockout tactics in centres such as Winnipeg and Montreal, which has kept Port Ticonderoga a law-abiding town and clear of the scenes of Union riots, brutal violence and Communist-inspired blood-shed which have marred other cities with considerable destruction of property and injury as well as loss of life.
The Blind Assassin: The chenille spread
Is this where you’re living? she says. She twists the gloves in her hands, as if they’re wet and she’s wringing them out.
This is where I’m staying, he says. It’s a different thing.
The house is one of a row, all red brick darkened by grime, narrow and tall, with steeply angled roofs. There’s an oblong of dusty grass in front, a few parched weeds growing beside the walk. A brown paper bag torn open.
Four steps up to the porch. Lace curtains dangle in the front window. He takes out his key.
She glances back over her shoulder as she steps inside. Don’t worry, he says, nobody’s watching. This is my friend’s place anyway. I’m here today and gone tomorrow.
You have a lot of friends, she says.
Not a lot, he says. You don’t need many if there’s no rotten apples.
There’s a vestibule with a row of brass hooks for coats, a worn linoleum floor in a pattern of brown-and-yellow squares, an inner door with a frosted glass panel bearing a design of herons or cranes. Birds with long legs bending their graceful snake-necks among the reeds and lilies, left over from an earlier age: gaslight. He opens the door with a second key and they step into the dim inner hallway; he flicks on the light switch. Overhead, a fixture with three pink glass blossoms, two of the bulbs missing.
Don’t look so dismayed, darling, he says. None of it will rub off on you. Just don’t touch anything.
Oh, it might, she says with a small breathless laugh. I have to touch you. You’ll rub off.
He pulls the glass door shut behind them. Another door on the left, varnished and dark: she imagines a censorious ear pressed against it from the inside, a creaking, as if of weight shifting from foot to foot. Some malevolent grey-haired crone – wouldn’t that match the lace curtains? A long battered flight of stairs goes up, with carpeting treads nailed on and a gap-toothed banister. The wallpaper is a trellis design, with grapevines and roses entwined, pink once, now the light brown of milky tea. He puts his arms carefully around her, brushes his lips over the side of her neck, her throat; not the mouth. She shivers.
I’m easy to get rid of afterwards, he says, whispering. You can just go home and take a shower.
Don’t say that, she says, whispering also. You’re making fun. You never believe I mean it.
You mean it enough for this, he says. She slides her arm around his waist and they go up the stairs a little clumsily, a little heavily; their bodies slow them down. Halfway up there’s a round window of coloured glass: through the cobalt blue of the sky, the grapes in dime-store purple, the headache red of the flowers, light falls, staining their faces. On the second-floor landing he kisses her again, this time harder, sliding her skirt up her silky legs as far as the tops of her stockings, fingering the little hard rubber nipples there, pressing her up against the wall. She always wears a girdle: getting her out of it is like peeling the skin off a seal.
Her hat tumbles off, her arms are around his neck, her head and body arched backwards as if someone’s pulling down on her hair. Her hair itself has come unpinned,