The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood Page B

Peter said “Roof, please,” to the white-gloved elevator girl, and we moved smoothly upwards. The Park Plaza is a hotel really, but they have a bar at the top, one of Peter’s favourite places for a quiet drink, which was why I had suggested it to Len. Being up that high gives you a sense of the vertical which is rare in the city. The room itself is well lit, not dark as a drain like many others, and it’s clean. No one ever seems to get offensively drunk there, and you can hear yourself talk: there’s no band or singer. The chairs are comfortable, the décor is reminiscent of the eighteenth century, and the bartenders all know Peter. Ainsley told me once that she had been there when someone threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the wall of the patio outside, but it may have been one of her stories.
    We walked in; there weren’t many people, so I immediately spotted Len, sitting at one of the black-topped tables. We went over and I introduced Peter to him; they shook hands, Peter abruptly, Len affably. The waiter appeared promptly at our table and Peter ordered two more gin-and-tonics.
    “Marian, it’s good to see you!” Len said, leaning across the corner of the table to kiss my cheek; a habit, I reflected, he must have picked up in England, as he never used to do it. He had put on a little weight.
    “And how was England?” I asked him. I wanted him to talk and entertain Peter, who was looking grumpy.
    “All right, I guess; crowded, though. Every time you turn around you bump into somebody from here. It’s getting so you might as well not go there at all, the place is so cluttered up with bloody tourists. I was sorry, though,” he said, turning to Peter, “that I had to leave; I had a good job going for me and some other good things too. But you’ve got to watch these women when they start pursuing you. They’re always after you to
marry
them. You’ve got to hit and run. Get them before they get you and then get out.” He smiled, showing his brilliantly polished white teeth.
    Peter brightened perceptibly. “Marian tells me you’re in television,” he said.
    “Yes,” Len said, examining the squarish nails of his disproportionately large hands; “I haven’t got anything at the moment but I ought to be able to pick up something here. They need people with my experience. News reports. I’d like to see a good commentary programme in this country, I mean a really good one, though god knows how much red tape you have to go through to get anything done around here.”
    Peter relaxed; anyone interested in news reports, he was probably thinking, couldn’t be queer.
    I felt a hand touch my shoulder, and looked around. A young girl I’d never seen before was standing there. I opened my mouth to ask her what she wanted, when Peter said, “Oh. It’s Ainsley. You didn’t tell me she was coming along.” I looked again: it
was
Ainsley.
    “Gosh, Marian,” she said in a breathless semi-whisper, “you didn’t tell me this was a
bar
. I sure hope they don’t ask me for my birth certificate.”
    Len and Peter had risen. I introduced Ainsley to Len, much against my better judgement, and she sat down in the fourth chair. Peter’s face had a puzzled expression. He had met Ainsley before and hadn’t liked her, suspecting her of holding what he called “wishy-washy radical” views because she had favoured him with a theoretical speech about liberating the Id. Politically Peter is conservative. She had offended him too by calling one of his opinions “conventional,” and he had retaliated by calling one of hers “uncivilized.” Right now, I guessed, he could tell she was up to something but was unwilling to rock her boat until he knew what it was. He required evidence.
    The waiter appeared and Len asked Ainsley what she would have. She hesitated, then said timidly, “Oh, could I have just a – just a glass of ginger ale?”
    Len beamed at her. “I knew you had a new roommate, Marian,” he said,