The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [83]
“Hello,” said Laura. “Where did you go off to? This is my sister Iris, this is Alex.”
“Mister . . .?” I said. How had Laura got on a first-name basis so quickly?
“Alex Thomas,” said the young man. He was polite but cautious. He scrambled to his feet and reached out his hand, and I took it. Then I found myself sitting down beside them. It seemed the best thing to do, in order to protect Laura.
“You’re from out of town, Mr. Thomas?”
“Yes. I’m visiting people here.” He sounded like what Reenie would call a nice young man, meaning not poor. But not rich either.
“He’s a friend of Callie’s,” said Laura. “She was just here, she introduced us. He came on the same train with her.” She was explaining a little too much.
“Did you meet Richard Griffen?” I said to Laura. “He was with Father. The one who’s coming to dinner?”
“Richard Griffen, the sweatshop tycoon?” said the young man.
“Alex – Mr. Thomas knows about ancient Egypt,” said Laura. “He was telling me about hieroglyphs.” She looked at him. I’d never seen her look at anyone else in quite the same way. Startled, dazzled? Hard to put a name to such a look.
“That sounds interesting,” I said. I could hear my voice pronouncing interesting in that sneering way people have. I needed some way of telling this Alex Thomas that Laura was only fourteen, but I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make her angry.
Alex Thomas produced a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket – Craven A’s, as I recall. He tapped one out for himself. I was a little surprised that he smoked ready-mades – it didn’t go with his shirt. Packaged cigarettes were a luxury: the factory workers rolled their own, some with one hand.
“Thank you, I will,”I said. I’d only smoked a few cigarettes before, and those on the sly, filched from the silver box of them kept on top of the piano. He looked hard at me, which I suppose was what I’d wanted, then offered the package. He lit a match with his thumb, held it for me.
“You shouldn’t do that,” said Laura. “You could set yourself on fire.”
Elwood Murray appeared before us, upright and jaunty again. The front of his shirt was still damp and splashed with pink, from where the women with the wet handkerchiefs had tried to get out the blood; the insides of his nostrils were ringed in dark red.
“Hello, Mr. Murray,” said Laura. “Are you all right?”
“Some of the boys got a little carried away,” said Elwood Murray, as if shyly revealing that he’d won some sort of a prize. “It was all in good fun. May I?”Then he took our picture with his flash camera. He always said May I before taking a picture for the paper but he never waited for the answer. Alex Thomas raised his hand as if to fend him off.
“I know these two lovely ladies, of course,” Elwood Murray said to him, “but your name is?”
Reenie was suddenly there. Her hat was askew, and she was red in the face and breathless. “Your father’s been looking all over for you,” she said.
I knew this to be untrue. Nevertheless Laura and I had to get up from the shade of the tree and brush our skirts down and go with her, like ducklings being herded.
Alex Thomas waved us goodbye. It was a sardonic wave, or so I thought.
“Don’t you know any better?” Reenie said. “Sprawled on the grass with Lord knows who. And for heaven’s sakes, Iris, throw away that cigarette, you’re not a tramp. What if your father sees you?”
“Father smokes like a furnace,” I said, in what I hoped was an insolent tone.
“That’s different,” said Reenie.
“Mr. Thomas,” said Laura. “Mr. Alex Thomas. He is a student of divinity. Or he was until recently,” she added scrupulously. “He lost his faith. His conscience would not let him continue.”
Alex Thomas’s conscience had evidently