Read Online Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue - Free Book Online

help her set one up?
    Maria leaned out of her corner of the fractured circle and tucked the apple behind a chair leg. She had nothing to report, and if she had, she wouldn’t know the right words. Perhaps if she kept her face attentive, like in history class with old Sister Michael, no one would notice her. The debate heated up over the issue of abortion information in the Students’ Union handbook, when Pat, her braids scattering, started referring to knock-kneed liberals and a red-haired Belfaster said that personally, when she called herself a feminist, that didn’t mean she was into killing unborn babies.
    Ten minutes later they had grudgingly agreed to disagree, and the others shifted the talk to relationships and how arrogant men (in general but of course not inevitably) were. Maria noticed Ruth drawing her knees up under her chin and listening in silence to an English woman’s saga of bad communication and good sex. She considered the small, dark-curled head, sunk into the billows of a cream jumper. Maybe Ruth was too dedicated to her studies for any of that?
    A porter put his greying head in the door to comment thatthey’d have to be out in five minutes, girls, this room was booked for the Archeologists’ Cheese ‘n’ Wine.
    “Got to run,” said Pat, deftly reversing her wheelchair down a zigzag aisle between desks.
    The flame-haired woman from the North turned back into the circle and surveyed it impatiently. “Maria. What does all this say to you?”
    “Well,” she began, then trailed off. A ring of benevolent faces angled toward her. “I wouldn’t like to generalise.”
    “But isn’t your own experience all you’ve got to go on?” asked a pale woman, pushing strands of hair behind her ears.
    “I haven’t had much. Of that kind of experience that would be relevant.”
    She was saved by the Northerner who broke in warmly: “Isn’t all experience relevant, Maria? I think the group should value the special insights of celibacy. In fact, why don’t we make that our discussion topic for next week?”
    Shivering at the bus stop, Maria and Ruth kept quoting “the special insights of celibacy” in a Belfast accent and relapsing into mirth.
    “I made such a fool of myself.”
    “You did not, celibacy’s very trendy,” said Ruth.
    “I just can’t stand having to talk and everybody watching me.”
    Ruth leaned out into the wind, looking for any sign of a bus in the darkness. “Don’t worry, it’s always like that for the first few sessions. After a few good bust-ups, people relax.”
    She chewed her lip. “But I’m not sure I want to label myself a feminist or an anything.”
    “Grand.” Ruth yawned, leaning her head against the bus shelter. “All you have to be for this group is a woman. We don’t frisk for your opinions at the door.”
    “But what’s so wonderful about women?” It sounded more sullen than Maria meant; that was her cold nose talking.But now that she’d said it, she had to go on. “I mean, we’re not actually sisters, we don’t really know each other even,” she stumbled. “Why would it be any different if a few guys were let in to speak for themselves?”
    “Listen, I’ve worked in mixed groups. Take my word for it, they’re a waste of time.”
    The hint of condescension set Maria’s teeth on edge. Would the bloody bus ever come? “I just don’t see what’s so wrong with men that we have to sit around whining about them.”
    “Is that what it sounds like?” Ruth’s glance was puzzled.
    She was too far in to retreat. “I suppose I just don’t have a problem with men as such.”
    “Well, bully for you.”
    Her throat hurt. “All I meant was—”
    The eyes turned on her looked black in the shadow of the bus shelter. “Of course you wouldn’t see anything wrong with the little dotes, Maria, if you haven’t been raped, denied a job, or battered by one yet.”
    “Neither have you.” Had she? Stupid, stupid thing to say.
    The answer was reluctant.