The Edible Woman (40 page)

“Oh, just falling ice, I expect,” I said. “I’m defrosting the refrigerator.” The coffee smelled done. I set two cups on the table and poured.

“Well, are you eating again?” Duncan asked after a moment of silence.

“As a matter of fact I am,” I said. “I had steak for lunch.” This last remark had been motivated by pride. It still was miraculous to me that I had attempted anything so daring and had succeeded.

“Well, it’s healthier that way,” Duncan said. He looked at me directly for the first time since he had come in. “You look better too. You look jaunty and full of good things. How did you do it?”

“I told you,” I said. “Over the phone.”

“You mean that stuff about Peter trying to destroy you?”

I nodded.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said gravely. “Peter wasn’t trying to destroy you. That’s just something you made up. Actually you were trying to destroy him.”

I had a sinking feeling. “Is that true?” I asked.

“Search your soul,” he said, gazing hypnotically at me from behind his hair. He drank some coffee and paused to give me time, then added, “But the real truth is that it wasn’t Peter at all. It was me. I was trying to destroy you.”

I gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t say that.”

“Okay,” he said, “ever eager to please. Maybe Peter was trying to destroy me, or maybe I was trying to destroy him, or we were both trying to destroy each other, how’s that? What does it matter, you’re back to so-called reality, you’re a consumer.”

“Incidentally,” I said, remembering, “would you like some cake?” I had half the torso and the head left over.

He nodded. I got him a fork and took the remains of the cadaver down from the shelf where I had put it. I unwrapped its cellophane shroud. “It’s mostly the head,” I said.

“I didn’t know you could bake cakes,” he said after the first forkful. “It’s almost as good as Trevor’s.”

“Thank you,” I said modestly. “I like to cook when I have the time.” I sat watching the cake disappear, the smiling pink mouth first, then the nose and then one eye. For a moment there was nothing left of the face but the last green eye; then it too vanished, like a wink. He started devouring the hair.

It gave me a peculiar sense of satisfaction to see him eat as if the work hadn’t been wasted after all – although the cake was absorbed without exclamations of pleasure, even without noticeable expression. I smiled comfortably at him.

He did not smile back; he was concentrating on the business at hand.

He scraped the last chocolate curl up with his fork and pushed away the plate. “Thank you,” he said, licking his lips. “It was delicious.”