Surfacing by Margaret Atwood Page B

inaccessible; he probably hasn’t even got my letter yet. Mineral rights, that’s what he explores, for one of the big international companies, a prospector; but I can’t believe in that, nothing he’s done since we grew up is real to me.
    “I like it here,” David says. No sound from the others. “Let’s stay on for a while, a week, it’d be great.”
    “Don’t you have that seminar?” Anna says dubiously. “Man and his Electricity Environment, or something?”
    “Electrifying. That’s not till August.”
    “I don’t think we should,” Anna says.
    “How come you never want us to do anything I want to do?” David says, and there’s a pause. Then he says “What d’you think?” and Joe says “Okay by me.”
    “Great,” says David, “we’ll do some more fishing.”
    I sit down on the bed. They might have asked me first, it’s my house. Though maybe they’re waiting till I come out, they’ll ask then. If I say I don’t want to they can’t very well stay; but what reason can I give? I can’t tell them about my father, betray him; anyway they might think I was making it up. There’s my work, but they know I have it with me. I could leave by myself with Evans but I’d only get as far as the village: it’s David’s car, I’d have to steal the keys, and also, I remind myself, I never learned to drive.
    Anna makes a last feeble attempt. “I’ll run out of cigarettes.”
    “Do you good,” David says cheerfully, “filthy habit. Get you back into shape.” He’s older than we are, he’s over thirty, he’s beginning to worry about that; every now and then he hits himself in the stomach and says “Flab.”
    “I’ll get crabby,” Anna says, but David only laughs and says “Try it.”
    I could tell them there isn’t enough food. But they’d spot that as a lie, there’s the garden and the rows of cans on the shelves, corned beef, Spam, baked beans, chicken, powdered milk, everything.
    I go to the room door, open it. “You’ll have to pay Evans the five anyway,” I say.
    For a moment they’re startled, they realize I’ve overheard. Then David says “No sweat.” He gives me a quick look, triumphant and appraising, as though he’s just won something: not a war but a lottery.
    When Evans turns up at the appointed time David and Joe go down to the dock to arrange things with him. I warned them not to say anything about the fish: if they do, this part of the lake will be swarming with Americans, they have an uncanny way of passing the word, like ants about sugar, or lobsters. After a few minutes I hear the boat starting again and accelerating and diminishing, he’s gone.
    I’ve avoided Evans and the explanation and negotiations by going up to the outhouse and latching myself in. That was where I went when there was something I didn’t want to do, like weeding the garden. It’s the new outhouse, the old one got used up. This one is built of logs; my brother and I made the hole for it, he dug with the shovel and I hauled the sand up in a pail. Once a porcupine fell in, they like to chew axe handles and toilet seats.
    In the city I never hid in bathrooms; I didn’t like them, they were too hard and white. The only city place I can remember hiding is behind opened doors at birthday parties. I despised them, the pew-purple velvet dresses with antimacassar lace collars and the presents, voices going Oooo with envy when they were opened, and the pointless games, finding a thimble or memorizing clutter on a tray. There were only two things you could be, a winner or a loser; the mothers tried to rig it so everyone got a prize, but they couldn’t figure out what to do about me since I wouldn’t play. At first I ran away, but after that my mother said I had to go, I had to learn to be polite; “civilized,” she called it. So I watched from behind the door. When I finally joined in a game of Musical Chairs I was welcomed with triumph, like a religious convert or a political defector.
    Some