Cut and Thirst

by Margaret Atwood

“We could just push them out of windows,” says Leonie. “Oh, I don’t think so,” says Chrissy. “Everyone would say it was Russians.” “So much the better,” says Myrna. “It would deflect suspicion from us.”

Or Leonie is drinking G and Ts. Chrissy has a white wine spritzer. Myrna, a diet cola because she can’t permit any brain fog during these gatherings, she’d let the others talk her into things, such as murdering eight men, or is it nine?

Myrna sometimes wonders, uncharitably, why Leonie doesn’t just get on with it: you can’t endlessly be dying, there’s a sell-by date; sooner or later you have to actually die.

“We have to make it look like accidents,” says Leonie. “I’m having another G and T.”

It eases one’s path through the tangled woods of life to be adorable, though there is of course a downside: men think you’re a pushover.

“We want them to feel the hoofbeats of doom approaching. They should be made to suffer from the terror of anticipation.” “Hoofbeats of doom?” Chrissy looks even more startled. “You know. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” says Myrna,

People are always misusing “apocalypse,” she is tempted to add. It doesn’t mean “catastrophe,” it means— “Why aren’t there any horsewomen of the apocalypse?” Chrissy asks.

“No wonder people were afraid of old women, back in the witch-barbecue days,” says Myrna. “They’ve spent a lifetime festering.”

Hahaha

“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold,” says Myrna. “Fern would say it’s a dish best not eaten at all,” says Chrissy, a little sadly.

“It’s eating her up, that’s obvious. Even though she says it’s all in the past and she’s moved on.” “Which is so untrue,” says Chrissy. “There is no past. Or at least, not until you deal with stuff.”

Once a revenge got wound up and let loose, it had to be seen through to the end. Revenges could be inherited, they could be passed along, and this revenge had been passed along from Fern to the three of them.

OMG

the target—Fern—had been shell-shocked, initially disbelieving, then tearfully pitiful. “What have I done to deserve this?” she’d wail.

all in the hopes that their own attempts at what is now called “creative writing” (ludicrously, in Myrna’s opinion, because what could be less creative than most of this word sludge?)

Chrissy had been just before she left for daring to teach ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, that disgusting, incestuous Jacobean bloodbath with such a demeaning word in the title? How could she have been so tone-deaf? So anti-woman? Not a good look!

“I suggested Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw. The one that got turned into a musical. My Fair Lady. Then they’d have some sort of movie to watch. They like that.” “Isn’t that an example of misogyny, too?” Myrna asked. “Oh yes! And classism!

Loool

“The Festival of the Supreme Being. Bucket of lizards!

“It’s an old debate. Should art be good art, or art that’s good for you? Once the question gets raised, next thing you know they’re banning books in libraries.” “Exactly,” said Leonie.

“Congratulations! So it hasn’t stopped you!” Myrna says, trying not to look at Fern’s no longer agile hands. How had she typed? “I used voice to text,” says Fern, mind-reading. “I couldn’t have done a whole novel otherwise.” It’s called Slander, she tells Myrna,

“Are you worried about . . .” She pauses. She shouldn’t have started that sentence. “About what?” “You know. Them,” says Myrna. “The boys. Not that they’re exactly boys any longer.” Fern laughs a little. “Oh yes. Them. The Old Boys. With the last two novels I didn’t hear much from them. A couple of lukewarm attempts, but nothing like their big campaign. A couple of them—four, actually—have apologized. They said they realize that what they did must have caused me pain. They said The Humph put them up to it.”

“Jason, William, Deepak, and one of the Stephens.” Chrissy puts Xs beside three of the names with a pale-pink highlighter. “Which of the Stephens?” she asks. “I couldn’t ask without arousing suspicion,” says Myrna, who in actual fact simply forgot.

Toxic mushrooms—how would they insinuate such mushrooms into the victim’s kitchen? Their respect for murderers is increasing: not so easy, this murdering business.

“I really enjoyed that fight! The cut and thirst!” “Cut and thirst?” says Myrna.

“I like that,” says Leonie. “First you murder someone and then you need a drink. I’m having another, join me?” “Just half,” says Chrissy. “I meant cut and thrust. Of course.”

“I’ll just turn up at his place,” says Chrissy. “Offer sex. Say I’ve relented after all these years. Tell him the brownies have hash in them, which would be a good thing anyway—let’s do that! He’ll absolutely let me in.” “Do you intend to actually, you know, go through with it?” asks Leonie. “I mean the sex part.” “Heavens no! If he was stinky then, he’ll be twice that now!

Leonie’s husband, Alan, who has severe dementia and is in a care home. “The same,” says Leonie. “Actually, worse. He thinks I’m someone else.”

Cal is barricaded inside the house, wanting nothing to do with this. Women are too devious, he says.

“Karma’s a bitch,” says Leonie, “except sometimes it gets the wrong address.”

“And I was whatchamacallit with my own petard, whatever that is.”

petard was a little bomb or firecracker; ‘petard’ comes from the French verb ‘to fart.’”