Lady Oracle

by Margaret Atwood

  I burst into tears and shoved my head under the pillow. Then I decided this would have to stop. I couldn't let Arthur go on controlling my life, especially at such a distance. I was someone else now, I was almost someone else. People used to say to me, "You don't look at all like your photographs," and it was true; so with a few adjustments I'd be able to pass him on the street one day and he wouldn't even recognize me. I untangled myself from the sheets - Mr. Vitroni's sheets, thin and carefully mended - went into the bathroom, and ran cold water over a washcloth to deflate my face, noticing just in time the small brown scorpion concealed in the folds. It was hard to get used to these ambushes. If Arthur had been there I would have screamed. As it was I dropped the washcloth on the floor and crushed the scorpion with the tin bottom of a can of cleansing powder, also supplied by Mr. Vitroni. He'd stocked the flat well with products for keeping it clean - soap, toilet disinfectant, scrub brushes - but for cooking there was only a single frying pan and two pots, one minus the handle.

  I shambled out to the kitchen and turned on the burner. I was never any good in the mornings before coffee. I needed something warm in my mouth to make me feel safe; here it was filter coffee and milk from the triangular cardboard container on the windowsill. There was no refrigerator, but the milk wasn't sour yet. I had to boil it anyway, everything had to be boiled.

  I sat at the table with my hot cup, adding another white ring to the varnish, eating a package of rusks and trying to organize my life. One step at a time, I told myself. Luckily I'd brought some felt pens; I would make a list. Hair dye, I wrote at the top in apple green. I would go to Tivoli or perhaps Rome for it, the sooner the better. With my hair dyed there would be nothing linking me to the other side, except my fingerprints. And no one would bother about the fingerprints of a woman pronounced officially dead.

  I wrote Money, and underlined it twice. Money was important. I had enough for about a month, if I was frugal. Realistically I had enough for about two weeks. The black velvet Colosseum had set me back. I hadn't been able to take much out of my bank account, since a large withdrawal the day before my death would've looked funny. If I'd had more time I could have arranged it through my other bank account, the professional one. If there had been anything in the other bank account. Unfortunately I usually transferred most of it to my own as soon as it came in. I wondered who would get the money; Arthur, probably.

  Postcard to Sam, I wrote. I'd bought the postcard already, at the Rome airport. It had a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I printed the agreed-upon message in green block letters:

  HAVING A SUPER TIME. ST. PETER'S IS WONDERFUL. SEE YOU SOON, LOVE, MITZI AND FRED.

  That would tell him I'd arrived safely. If there had been complications, I would have written: WEATHER COOL AND FRED HAS DYSENTERY. THANK GOD FOR ENTEROVIOFORM! LOVE, MITZI AND FRED.

  I decided to mail the postcard first and worry about the money and the hair dye later. I finished my coffee, ate the last rusk, and changed into the second of my new baggy dresses, a white one with gray and mauve lozenges on it. I noticed that my nightgown had a rip halfway down the seam, at thigh level. With no one looking at me, watching for these transgressions, would I become sluttish? Why don't you take better care of yourself, a voice said, don't you want to make something of yourself? Needles and thread, I wrote on my list.

  I wrapped my head up in the scarf with the pink Mounties and put on my dark glasses. It was no longer raining but it was still gray; the glasses would look odd, but I couldn't help it. I walked up the winding cobbled street towards the market square, running the gauntlet of old women who sat every day on the doorsteps of their aggressively historical stone houses, their huge obsolete torsos crammed into black dresses as if in mourning, their legs like bloated sausages encased in wool. They were the same old women that had looked me over on the previous afternoon, the same ones that had been there a year ago and two thousand years ago. They did not vary. Bongiorno, each one said as I ent past, and I nodded at them, smiling and repeating the word. They didn't seem very curious about me. They already knew where I lived, what my car looked like, that I was foreign, and every time I bought something in the square they would know about that also. What else was there to know about a foreigner? The only thing that might bother them was that I lived alone: it wouldn't seem natural to them. But it didn't seem natural to me, either.

  The post office was in the front part of one of the damp historical houses. It contained only a bench, a counter and a bulletin board, with some pictures tacked to it that looked like WANTED posters: surly men, front and side. A couple of policemen, or were they soldiers, were lounging on the bench in their leftover Mussolini uniforms: high stiff boots, leg stripes, sheaves of wheat on the pocket flaps. The back of my neck prickled as I stood at the counter, trying to make the woman understand that I wanted an airmail stamp. All I could think of was Par Avion, wrong language. I flapped my arms like wings, feeling idiotic, she caught on. Behind me the policemen laughed. Surely they would sniff out my passport, which was glowing through the leather sides of my bag like molten iron, like a siren, surely they would ask to see it, question me, notify the authorities.... And what would the authorities do?

  The woman behind the counter took the card in through her slotted window. As soon as Sam got it he could let me know how well we'd succeeded. I went out, followed by the shiny beetle eyes of the policemen.

  It was a good plan, I thought; I was pleased with myself for having arranged it. And suddenly I wanted Arthur to know how clever I'd been. He always thought I was too disorganized to plot my way across the floor and out the door, much less out of the country. I was the one who would charge off to do the shopping with a carefully drawn-up list, many of the items suggested by him, and forget my handbag, come back for it, forget the car keys, drive away, forget the list; or return with two tins of caviar and a box of fancy crackers and a half bottle of champagne, then try to justify these treasures by telling him they were on sale, a lie every time but the first. I would love him to know I'd done something complicated and dangerous without making a single mistake. I'd always wanted to do something he would admire.

  Remembering the caviar made me hungry. I crossed the market square to the main grocery store, where you could get tins and packages, and bought another box of Peek Freans and some cheese and pasta. Outside, near the cafe, there was an ancient vegetable truck; that must have been the horn I'd heard earlier. It was surrounded by plump housewives, in their morning cotton dresses and bare legs, calling their orders and waving their bundles of paper money. The vegetable man was young, with an oiled mane of hair; he stood in the back of the truck, filling baskets and joking with the women. When I walked over he grinned at me and shouted something that made the women laugh and shriek. He offered me a bunch of grapes, wiggling it suggestively, but I wasn't up to it, my vocabulary was too limited; so I went instead to the regular vegetable stand. The produce wasn't as fresh but the man was old and kindly and I could get away with pointing.

  At the butcher's I bought two expensive, paper-thin slices of beef, which I knew would have a pallid taste. It was from yearlings, because no one could afford to pasture a cow for longer than that, and I never did learn to cook it properly, it always came out like vinyl.

  I walked back down the hill, carrying my packages. My red Hertz Rent-A-Car was parked opposite the wrought-iron gate that led to the path. I'd got it at the airport and there was already a scratch on it, from a street in Rome that turned out to be one-way, senso unico. Some of the town's children were clustered around it, drawing pictures in the film of dust that covered it, peeping through the windows almost fearfully, running their hands along the fenders. When they saw me they drew back from the car and huddled, whispering.

  I smiled at them, thinking how charming they looked, with their round brown eyes, alert as a squirrel's; several had blond hair, startling against their olive skin, and I remembered having been told that the barbarians used to come this way, ten or fifteen centuries
ago. That was why all the towns were built on hills.

  "Bongiorno" I said to them. They giggled shyly. I turned in at the gate and crunched down the path. Two dwarfish hens, the color of shredded cardboard, scuttled out of my way. Halfway down I stopped: I was trying to remember whether or not I'd locked the door. Despite my apparent safety, I couldn't afford to get careless or lazy. It was irrational, but I had the feeling that there was someone inside the flat, sitting in the chair by the window, waiting for me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  But there was nobody in the flat. If anything, it was emptier than ever. I cooked lunch without mishap, nothing exploded or boiled over, and ate it at the table. Soon, I thought, I'd be eating in the kitchen, standing up, out of the pots and pans. That was how people got when they lived alone. I felt I should try to establish some sort of routine.

  After lunch I counted my money, some in cash, some in traveler's checks. There was less than I'd thought, as always; I'd have to get down to business and earn some more. I went over to the bureau, pulled open the underwear drawer, and dug among the contents, wondering what had inspired me to buy a pair of red bikini briefs with Sunday embroidered on them in black. It was the Royal Porcupine, of course; among other things, he was an underwear freak. It had been part of a Weekend Set; I had Friday and Saturday too, all bilingual. I took them out of the cellophane package and the Royal Porcupine said, "Put on Sunday/Dimanche"; he liked creating images of virtue violated. I did. "Dynamite," said the Royal Porcupine. "Now turn around." He prowled towards me and we ended up in a lustful tangle on his mattress. There was a flesh-colored brassiere too, with a front closing. For lovers only, the ad said, so I bought it to go with my lover. I was a sucker for ads, especially those that promised happiness.

  I'd brought this incriminating underwear with me because I was afraid Arthur would discover it after my death and realize he'd never seen it before. During my life he never would have looked into that particular drawer; he shied away from underwear, he liked to think his mind was on higher things, which, to give him credit, it was, most of the time. So I used my underwear drawer as a hiding place, and from force of habit I was still doing this.

  I took out Fraser Buchanan's black notebook. Under it, at the bottom, wrapped in a slip, was the manuscript I'd been working on at the time of my death.

  Charlotte stood in the room where he had left her, her hands still unconsciously clasping the casket of jewels. A fire was crackling in the spacious fireplace, its reflections gleaming warmly on the marble family crests that adorned the richly carved mantel, yet she felt quite cold. At the same time, her cheeks were burning. She could still see the curl of his lip, the tilt of the cynical eyebrows in that dark but compelling face, his hard mouth, thin-lipped and rapacious.... She remembered the way his eyes had moved over her, appraising the curves of her firm young body, which were only partially concealed by her cheap, badly fitting black crepe dress. She had sufficient experience with the nobility to know how they looked upon women like herself, who through no fault of their own were forced to earn their own livings. He would be no different from the rest. Her breasts moved tumultuously beneath the black crepe as she thought of the humiliations she had suffered. Liars and hypocrites, all of them! Already she had begun to hate him.

  She would finish resetting the emeralds and leave Redmond Grange as quickly as possible. There was menace lurking somewhere in the vast house, she could almost smell it. She remembered the puzzling words of the coachman, Tom, as he handed her none too graciously out of the coach. "Don't go near the maze, Miss, is my advice to you," he had said. He was a sinister, ratlike man with bad teeth and a furtive manner.

  "What maze?" Charlotte had asked.

  "You'll find out soon enough," he had replied with a snigger. "Many a young girl afore you has come to grief in the maze." But he had refused to explain further.

  From outside the French windows came a trail of silvery laughter, a woman's voice.... At this hour, and in November, who could be walking on the terrace? Charlotte shivered, remembering those other footsteps she had heard in the same place the night before; but when she had looked down onto the terrace from her bedroom window, she could see nothing but moonlight and the shadows of the shrubberies moving in the wind.

  She went towards the door, intending to mount the stairs to her own small room, which was on the same floor as the maids' quarters. That was how highly Redmond valued her, she thought with scorn. She might as well have been a governess, one step above a parlor maid or a cook but definitely not a lady. Yet she was as well-bred as he was, if the truth were known.

  Outside the drawing-room door Charlotte paused in amazement. At the foot of the stairs, blocking her way, stood a tall woman in a sable traveling cloak. The hood was thrown back, revealing flame-red hair; the bodice of her scarlet dress was cut low, displaying the swell of her white breasts. It was evident that the skill of Bond Street's most fashionable and expensive dressmakers had been lavished on her costume; yet beneath this veneer of civilized sophistication, her body moved with the sensuousness of a predatory animal. She was ravishingly beautiful.

  She glared at Charlotte, her green eyes gleaming in the light from the silver candelabrum, decorated with cupids and festoons of grapes, which she was holding in her left hand. "Who are you and what are you doing in this house?" she demanded in an imperious voice. Before Charlotte could answer, the woman's glance fell upon the casket she was carrying. "My jewels!" she cried. She struck Charlotte across the face with her gloved hand.

  "Softly, Felicia," said Redmond's voice. He emerged from the shadows. "I had intended the restoration of your jewels as a surprise, to welcome you home. But it is I who am surprised, as you have come before expected." He laughed, a dry, mocking laugh.

  The woman called Felicia turned to him, her smoldering eyes possessive, her provocative smile revealing small white teeth of a perfect uniformity. Redmond lifted her gloved hand gallantly to his lips.

  Eight pages were missing, the first eight pages. For a moment I thought I'd left them behind, in the apartment, where Arthur would be sure to find them. But I couldn't have done that, I couldn't have been that sloppy. Fraser Buchanan must've taken them, slipped them up his jacket sleeve, folded them and stuffed them into a pocket when he was in the bedroom, before I could get to him. I had his black notebook though, and my hostage was better.

  It wouldn't be too difficult to reconstruct the opening pages. Charlotte would round the curve of the spacious lime-tree-bordered driveway in the Redmond carriage, the second-best one, which had been sent to the station to fetch her. She'd be clutching her inadequate shawl around her, worrying about the shabbiness of her clothes and her battered trunk in the boot: would the servants sneer? Then she would glimpse the Grange itself, with its feminine bulk and its masculine turrets and its air of pervasive evil. She'd be ushered by a contemptuous butler into the Library, where, after keeping her waiting in an inconsiderate manner, the master of the house would interview her. He would express surprise that the jewel restorers had sent a woman, and would imply that she wasn't up to the job. She would answer him firmly, even a little defiantly. He would notice the challenge in her lustrous blue eyes, and remark that she was perhaps a little too independent for her own good.

  "In my position, Sir," she would reply with a tinge of bitterness, "one is forced to be independent." Charlotte of course was an orphan. Her father had been the younger son of a noble house, disowned by his family for marrying her mother, a sweet-natured woman who danced in an Opera-house. Charlotte's parents had died in a smallpox epidemic. She herself had escaped with only a few pockmarks, which lent piquancy to her expression. She was brought up by her uncle, her mother's brother, who was rich but a miser, and who'd forced her to learn her present trade before he'd perished of yellow fever. He'd left her nothing, he'd always hated her, and her father's noble family would have nothing to do with her. She wished Redmond to know that she was not in his house, in his power, by choice but from necessity. Ever
yone had to eat.

  I'd need a working title. The Lord of Redmond Grange, I thought, or, better still, Terror at Redmond Grange. Terror was one of my specialties; that and historical detail. Or perhaps something with the word Love in it: love was a big seller. For years I'd been trying to get love and terror into the same title, but it was difficult. Love and Terror at Redmond Grange would be far too long, and it sounded too much like The Bobbsey Twins at Sunset Beach. My Love Was Terror ... too Mickey Spillane. Stalked by Love, that would do in a pinch.

  I'd also need a typewriter. I touch-typed everything; it was faster, and in my business speed was important. I was a good typist; at my high school typing was regarded as a female secondary sex characteristic, like breasts. Perhaps I could buy a secondhand typewriter in Rome. Then I could fill in the opening pages, write another eight or nine chapters, and send them to Hermes Books with a covering letter explaining that I'd moved to Italy on account of my health. They'd never seen me, they knew me only by my other name. They thought I was a middle-aged ex-librarian, overweight and shy. Practically a recluse, in fact, and allergic to dust, wool, fish, cigarette smoke and alcohol, as I'd explained to them when declining lunches. I'd always tried to keep my two names and identities as separate as possible.

  Arthur never found out that I wrote Costume Gothics. At first I worked on them only when he was out. Later I would go into the bedroom, close the door, and tell him I was studying for some university extension course or other: Chinese Pottery, Comparative Religion, courses I never managed to complete for the simple reason that I never really took them.