Double Talk (5 page)

Uncharacteristically, her mother begins to cry. Violet can't ever remember seeing her cry more than a few crocodile tears before, and notices — to her horror — that they weep in the same way: silently at first, the only indication being a slight up and down movement of the shoulders. Violet begins to panic. Later she tells Brian that she might have caved in on the spot had not her father — always a bit of a snoop — entered the kitchen at a fast hobble, his lumbago obviously acting up again.

“Goddamn it, Violet, do you always have to be such a selfish pipsqueak? What's wrong with you? What the hell is the matter with you?”

She turns and glares at him. His hands are straight down by his sides, fists clenched. His forehead is one massive frown, a landslide that half buries his eyebrows. His eyes bulge. His mouth hangs open a little, his bottom lip dangling ever so slightly. More a polyp than a lip, Violet thinks, and tries not to imagine what it would be like to have to kiss it. She feels instant sympathy for her mother.

“Can't you see that your mother just wants to be involved? Is it too much to ask that you accommodate her just this once?”

With consummate skill he taps into the familial well of guilt. Violet feels ashamed. But that is soon overwhelmed by an anger that draws on years of resentment: years of having to watch him eat, chewing with his mouth open (he only did this at home, never when they were out); years of having to watch him walk around at the cabin in his long johns, and worse, squatting in his long johns when he built the fire, his little ball-sac clearly outlined in waffle weave; and how can she forget the way he teased her about her fly-bite boobs when she was a teen; the way he always smelled of whiskey in the morning, even when her friends were over; the way he always rushed out to buy the latest household gadget on the market so he could show it off to friends and neighbours — and all of it just a pretext for his blowhard talk.

“You know there are plenty of kids out there who would love to have had your opportunities …”

He reels off his indictments in his best Upper Canada College accent, his vowels drawled, the final syllable of each line dragged out. Violet thinks he is pretty convincing. Not many people would know that he grew up impoverished on a farm near Duncan. She knows that if it had not been for the war, he probably would never have escaped his origins. He would not have gone on to become a front-page lawyer. Violet believes all public reputations are a sham.

The same old bluffer, she thinks. His face is red, as if he has been drinking. A hank of grey hair, yellowed from years of smoking, hangs down across his forehead. Stripped of his expensive suits, she knows he would not look out of place salting a tray of draft beer at the Legion. Violet guesses what's coming next and decides not to wait for it.

“Oh here we go again with the I-grew-up-so-poor story. You're like that Monty Python sketch — we lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road. Boo-hoo. Poor you. But it's not funny, Dad. And it doesn't give you the right to put us through what you've put us through. It doesn't give you the right to bully us. God, do you have any idea what it was like growing up in this house? Do you? Having to put up with your moods. Walking on eggshells because
you
had a big case coming up. Because
you
had a hangover. Give me a break.”

Always the favourite daughter, the one who can speak her mind and get away with it, Violet assumes her bile will stop him in his tracks. So she can hardly believe it when he grips her arms and backs her slowly up against the fridge door. She hears the rattle of condiment jars and the slosh of water inside the gallon plastic jug. The thought that she has finally gone too far is establishing itself in direct proportion to the increasing pain in her upper arms. This is not violence, she thinks. His face close to hers, she notices that his eyes, once described as steely grey in
Macleans
, are now the colour of slush. His nose and cheeks are filigreed with purple and red-wine coloured capillaries. His trademark satin cravat has billowed up under his neck like a mating bullfrog's vocal sack. Bluffer, she thinks, staring back at him with all the hatred she can muster. She will not admit to being afraid.

“Dad, you're hurting me.”

“Harold. Please. That's enough,” her mother says, approaching slowly from behind and touching him gently on the shoulder. “Harold, please.”

He squeezes harder for a second, then, relinquishing his grip, turns and walks out of the kitchen.

She pulls “a Violet,” as it's known in her family. She packs her bag and leaves without saying goodbye. She is still angry when she arrives back in St. John's a day later. She finds Brian sitting in the dark, playing solitaire on the computer.

“I take it that it didn't go too well.”

“How could you know that?”

“Only because your mother has called six times since lunch.” He sounds annoyed. “She really wants you to call her back.”

Violet feels like she might explode at Brian, but manages to keep it in check. She has no right to be angry with him.

“Vi. Call your mother.”

Violet doesn't answer.

“Vi?”

“All right, already!”

A week later, having ignored daily phone messages from her mother, and two days after she and Brian had agreed on their guerrilla wedding plans, Violet picks up the phone and calls: “Mom?”

“I'm so sorry, Violet.”

“Mom?” Violet is expecting to have to defend herself. She is expecting her mother to begin by asking her to listen: if you can listen without interrupting, dear. When setting out to settle a dispute, her mother will usually lay out in great detail the pieces of her argument before either pronouncing victory or agreeing to disagree. She never begins with an apology. And she never admits to being wrong.

“Violet, dear, it was never my wish to take over your wedding. I'm afraid I got a little bit carried away. You know how it is when the wheels are in motion. You know how I love to plan. Your Aunt Louise always used to say I should have made it my career. Not having had the chance to plan your sister's wedding, I guess I was hoping against hope. I should have known you would want to make your own arrangements. Ever since you were a little girl you've had your own way of doing things. I knew that, but I thought maybe I could persuade you. But that was a mistake.”

She pauses, as if trying to get her emotions under control. Violet can hear a faint clacking sound like her mother is nibbling on the arm of her reading glasses.

“That was just my pride talking. I want you to know, dear, that I take full responsibility for what happened. And before you say anything, just let me say that I am not going to apologise for your father. Even though I feel to blame for what happened between you and him that day — if I hadn't made such a fuss. You know what he's like. My knight in tarnished armour.”

“What did you call him?”

“Oh, it doesn't matter, Violet. He's so deeply embarassed. I won't apologise for him because—”

“Did you say
my knight in tarnished armour
?”

“Because he wants to do that himself, when we come to the wedding.”

Violet is speechless.

“He'll be shattered if you say you don't want him to come.”

Violet's sceptical nature now feels the full weight of her mother's assault. Her mother is not yet pleading, but Violet has the strong impression that any resistance on her part might tip her in that direction.

“I want you and Dad to come to the wedding, Mom,” she says, in monotone.

“Of course you do, dear. I knew you did. I'm just so sorry it had to come to this. I've made such a mess of things.”

“Mom, it's okay, really it is.”

“No, Violet, it's not okay. Let me finish. I don't know how I could have allowed so much distance to come between us. You have to understand that in a marriage you sometimes have to go against your better judgement.”

Violet recognizes once again her mother's legendary ability to play both sides, while always coming out on the winning side — the art of the powerless.

“I want us to be close again, Violet.”

Violet wants to ask when they had last been close. She wonders what has happened in the days between her getaway and her picking up the phone to call her mother. She imagines a big scene in which, like Dorothy pulling back the curtain to reveal the wizard, her mother at long last calls her father's bluff. Part of that unmasking would have been her mother grasping the role she had played in supporting her husband over the years.

Her mother finishes with a flourish. She says she understands that Brian's immigration issues have pushed up the date of their wedding, but what she really wants to know, has to know, is that her daughter is marrying for love.

“You have to marry for love,” she says.

Violet thinks she may laugh. At the same time she is relieved. This is the mother she knows. Beneath her sincerity lies insincerity, and below that again sincerity and below that again insincerity, and so on.

Still, in the weeks following, Violet keeps coming back to this conversation, to her mother's closing words: “You have to marry for love.”

As performances go, Violet decides, it ranks with one of her mother's best. Through an act of contrition she persuades Violet to suspend her judgement. A stroke of genius, Violet thinks, because it allows both of them to indulge the thought that they can grow. It fools them into thinking that they still hold within themselves the possibility of change.

It is two months later, the afternoon of the wedding ceremony. Violet stands arm-in-arm with her Armani-clad father at the entrance to the crumbling concrete bunker at Fort Amherst. Elements of that phone conversation with her mother are still with her. For the first time, it strikes Violet that her mother might have been nothing but sincere.

She lays a hand on the back of her father's hand, steals a glance at him. He looks so handsome, so elegant, she thinks. He has been a perfect gentleman since his arrival the day before: charming everyone with his praise of the city, asking to be taken to visit various sites — the Basilica, the Battery, Cape Spear. Violet can see he has done his homework. He is first out with his crocodile-skin wallet and gold card every time a bill comes around. He waxes eloquent about the beauty of the landscape, so much so that he almost persuades her. Violet acts as though she has forgotten that it is always possible to see the city's scabby winter self — its true self — beneath the summer foliage and blooms.

Starting down the stone steps, her father gives her arm a gentle squeeze, inadvertently reminding her of the bruise that resulted from their last encounter, a bruise that had subsequently turned every colour of shame. She is thankful he has not tried to apologise.

Drifting up through the stairwell comes the gentle lilting of The Waterboys' “A Man is in Love,” the sound of the ocean booming gently behind it. The Waterboys is Brian's choice, not hers. She would have chosen something by Joni Mitchell.

She has to remind herself it's her wedding day.

Her chin almost rests on the neckline of her dress as she navigates the steps. Her wedding dress is a saffron-coloured lace mini she bought on Commercial Drive. With each step, she feels the frill of tiny jade beads lift and fall on her thighs. Her shaved legs show slight razor burn where they disappear into her emerald-green Doc Martens boots. She is glad she decided against wearing a hat: hats don't suit her — her neck is too short. “I like a woman with a good head on her shoulders,” Keppie used to tease. Instead of a hat, she wears baby's breath in her hair and carries a small posy of pansies and marigolds.

She descends the stairwell with her well-coiffed and powdered father. It is an extremely hot day; the weather man has called for afternoon temperatures in excess of thirty degrees. Who could have guessed it of the old fog capital of the western world? She is worried that they will be uncomfortable all crammed together in such close quarters, but her fears prove unfounded. The concrete bunker, embedded in the rock of the Southside Hills, acts like a natural root cellar, keeping the air cool. She worries also that it will smell. The abandoned defence complex has long been a favourite hangout for druggy teens and students on the beer. But she detects only the waft of incense mixed with a powerful after-shave that she guesses belongs to Geoff. She will find out later that Keppie and some friends power-washed the whole place the night before. She will also find out that Keppie asked her father to pay the rental bill.

She feels disbelief and amazement as she rounds the corner and enters the bunker's main chamber. Light pours in from the Narrows, making the back-drop of diagonally stratified Signal Hill red rock look vivid, almost alive. The sea sparkles. In the middle distance, gulls follow an offshore supply boat that powers towards the open sea. A man standing on her deck raises his arm and waves.

Everyone is there: Wallace and Geoff and the posse, all wearing white tuxes with lime-green cummerbunds that make them look like refugees from a Paddy's Day parade; Nancy, beaming at Violet and looking voluptuous in a navy-blue halter-top dress, white piping down both sides; Keppie, in what appears to be one of Wallace's maroon Adidas track suits; Devlin and Amy, both austere in business suits; some of the party gang from the 117 Patrick Street Collective, all of them looking suitably dishevelled; Violet's boss, Igor, from the restaurant; her older sister Eva, and her older brother David. Violet squeals — she had no idea they were coming. Behind them stands her mother, heroic in a white gown that falls from her throat to her ankles. Her hair is scraped back into a bun, and she wears heavy gold hoop earrings. She's so retro-1970s, Violet thinks, she's back in fashion.