Dedicated to her late partner, these reflections on marriage, mortality and many-tentacled aliens show Atwood’s mastery of the short form
Most of the characters in Margaret Atwood’s latest book are old, or heading that way, and their stories unwrap what TS Eliot called the gifts reserved for age. There are chips and fragments of lives, full of sass and sadness. The book is in three parts: a miscellaneous collection of stories is sandwiched between sections called Tig and Nell and Nell and Tig. The Nell and Tig stories tell the tale of a long and loving marriage, and what comes after. (The book is dedicated to Atwood’s partner, Graeme Gibson, who died in 2019.)
When we meet Nell and Tig they are on a first aid course: they need a certificate to give talks on a cruise ship. The guests on the cruise ship, they reflect, will be “older than Nell and Tig. Truly ancient. Such people can be expected to topple over at any minute, and then it will be certificates to the rescue.” Not that Nell and Tig expect to be of any use in such a crisis. The story – told, as we discover, in long retrospect – is really about their companionable, conspiratorial laughter at the foibles of their instructor; and their reflections on the danger that we live with and, when we’re young, ignore.
One day a rich person of high status, who was a Sir and a thing called a Duke, came riding by on a – came riding by, on a – If you have enough legs you don’t have to do this riding by, but Sir had only two legs, like the rest of you […] the Duke scooped her up onto his … I’m sorry, we don’t have a word for that so the translation device is no help. Onto his snack. Why are you all laughing? What do you think snacks do before they become snacks?
