In an interview Margaret Atwood called character, Kat (Kath, Kathy) from her short story, "Hairball", a femme fatale. It's not hard to see why, Kat is a character who reinvents herself to (ruthlessly) take advantage of any situation. When she is diagnosed with an ovarian cyst, it must be removed. It turns out to be a benign tumor the size of a grapefruit. Kat named it The Hairball and kept it in a jar of formaldehyde on her mantelpiece. (Possible spoilers to follow).
"The hair in it was red--long strands of it wound round and round inside, like a ball of wet wool gone berserk or like the guck you pull out of a clogged bathroom-sink drain. There were little bones in it too, or fragments of bone; bird bones, the bones of a sparrow crushed by a car. There was a scattering of nails, toe or finger. There were five perfectly formed teeth."
I find this disturbing. Is it even possible? Kat takes it all in stride. "It certainly makes an impression". Her married lover, who also happens to be her boss finds it all disturbing, too. Ger (Gerry, Gerald--she helped reinvent him, too) tells her she goes too far. "That's why you hired me, isn't it?" she says. Kat is a fashion photographer who stretches the limits. She's managed to raise herself from the lowest rung to the highest in her business. But it all seems to take its toll. The further she's gone, the less of her (starting with her name) there seems to be until at the end she is nameless.
There's only emptiness on that highest rung. It cost her two abortions ("she learned to say she didn't want children anyway") and a failed relationship (though what was it to begin with anyway). Finally Ger delivers the final blow. She's being replaced...by him. The creature she's given life to has taken control.
"There are other jobs. There are other men, or that's the theory. Still, something's been ripped out of her. How could this have happened to her? When knives are slated for backs, she's always done the stabbing. Any headed her way she's seen coming in time, and thwarted. Maybe she's losing her edge."
Maybe she is. She's lost something anyway. Maybe too many things. And the Hairball. What is it exactly. Was it the start of a child? Perhaps a thwarted child with Gerald? Or maybe it is her undeveloped twin? Whatever it is, it is a product of her. It's as if she's given birth to it.
"Hairball speaks to her, without words. It is irreducible, it has the texture of reality, it is not an image. What it tells her is everything she's never wanted to hear about herself. This is new knowledge, dark and precious and necessary. It cuts."
Freaky. The ending is perfect, which I won't spoil by giving away. I will say I will never look at a box of chocolate truffles in exactly the same way again. So what does all this mean? More than I can go into in this short post (it's Sunday and I'm lazy). No doubt essays could be written about it. Women's place in society. What a woman must do to compete in a man's world. What a woman needs to give up, and what it will cost her in order to succeed. What she's left with when all is said and done. Margaret Atwood's writing is amazing. This is another story from Wilderness Tips, which I am very slowly working my way through. And as for Kat, or K. or actually has she lost her identity entirely at the end, I'm not sure exactly where she now stands. Must think on that one. Highly recommended story!