The Birthday Lunch (25 page)

“That’s because she was cremated.”

“If I knew there’d be no body,” the other sister says, “I wouldn’t have come.”

• • •

“Our mother was young in spirit and full of life. I remember when my sister and I were kids, on a hot day Mom would run through the sprinkler with us. And on weekends when our family went to the beach she would help us build sand castles and let us bury her in the sand. Mom was fun. But she was also strict. Strict but fair. Because Dad’s job took him away, discipline usually fell to Mom and when my pals and I smashed Granny Quinn’s apples against her front steps, Mom not only made us clean up the mess, she made us weed Granny’s garden and rake up her leaves …”

At last a ripple of laughter and Matt waits for it to subside. “And when I tied my little sister to the bed and pretended to torture her, Mom tied me to the bed for an hour …”

• • •

“I think tying him to the bed was going too far. Don’t you?”

“Pipe down, Millie, other people don’t want to hear what you think.”

“Remind me. When did she die?”

“The day after Terry Fox died.”

“Terry Fox. Now there was a fine young man.”

• • •

“The winter Claudia and I were stuck home with the chicken pox and bored silly, Mom made a picnic but we had to traipse around the house, upstairs and down carrying the basket
before we were allowed to spread the blanket on the living room floor and have our picnic.

Mom was a private person. She liked people but she didn’t always need them around. She wasn’t a gossip and could be trusted to keep a secret. She was loyal and true and Claudia and I were fortunate that she was our mother.”

• • •

“Like I told you, Millie, I was on my veranda when Lily was killed. I watched her get out of her sister’s car and cross the street to the Creamery to buy ice cream.”

“The newspaper says she came in contact with the truck box. Did she run in front of the truck?”

“Don’t be foolish. Of course Lily didn’t run in front of the truck. You should know by now that you can’t believe everything you read in the
Kings County Record
. Think about the damage the truck did to your planter. It’s as plain as day that the driver was speeding.”

• • •

“That man with the drum belly and the mane of white hair,” the older sister says. “Have you ever seen him before?”

“Never. He might be a motel guest who wandered in for a glass of sherry.”

“Shocking. Serving sherry on Sunday. At a funeral no less.”

“It’s not a funeral.”

“Shush, the daughter is about to speak.”

• • •

“Like my brother, I was fortunate to have a good mom, a great mom.” Claudia’s voice quavers. “This is hard,” she says, “really hard.” She feels a squeezing in her chest, but she keeps going. “Our family moved often and knowing I was a shy kid, as soon as we were settled in, Mom would invite strange little girls over to our house to make puppets from socks that needed darning. Mom hated darning and there were lots of socks waiting to be darned. I remember Mom making a puppet theatre from an orange crate. The theatre had a string of Christmas lights and although Mom also hated sewing, she made red velvet curtains. Not all moms looked forward to Halloween, but my mom did and one Halloween she answered the door dressed as a witch and frightened the little kids.” There are chuckles and Claudia pauses before struggling on. “Mom was a reader. Sometimes she read in the living room and sometimes she read in bed. She read everything she could lay her hands on: mail-order books, second-hand books, library books. She read novels and short stories and poetry and if she particularly admired what she was reading, she would scribble a remark in the margin. I’m going to read from
Poems for Study
, a textbook of mine Mom kept in the bookcase beside the bed. The poem is ‘Song’ by Christina Rossetti, and beside it Mom had scribbled,
Perfect
.

Claudia steps aside and Matt, returning to the podium, says “On behalf of my family, I would like to thank you again for joining us today to honour the life of Lily Anne McNab. We appreciate you being here and wish you well.”

• • •

The older sister turns to the younger sister. “Is that all?”

“What do you mean, is that all?”

“I was expecting more.”

“More of what?”

“More about the deceased.”

“Like the son said, she was a private person.”

• • •

Leonard Goldie steps aside to allow the waitress to make her way past the lineup of those who have not yet spoken to the family huddled together in front of the podium. Tempting though it is to introduce himself to Claudia’s aunt, Leonard stands to one side listening to the words of comfort strung together like prayer beads.

A terrible shock for your family. Sudden death is hard because you don
’
t see it coming. A slow death is hard too but at least it
’
s expected … I will miss your mother coming into the store … Whenever I went to see Dr. O
’
Donnell, I hoped Lily would be the one to take my blood pressure and weigh me in. She had a calming way about her and never rushed me through like someone else I could mention … Poor Hal—he
’
ll will be lost without her … And what will Laverne do
?
She doted on Lily … They say she walked in front of the truck, why would she do such a thing …

Leonard waves away a plate of finger sandwiches and places the empty sherry glass on the table. He hears a voice at his elbow asking if he is a friend of the family and turning he sees the minister and beside him a thin, flat-chested woman Leonard assumes is his wife. “No, I was a friend of the deceased,” Leonard says and before the reverend can engage him in conversation, he excuses himself. It is essential that he slip away before the gathering thins out and the family heads for home.

On this quiet summer Sunday only one vehicle lags behind Leonard as he crosses the railway tracks and turns onto Church Avenue. Cruising past the driveway where he dropped off Claudia, he makes another right turn onto Oxford Street and
another onto Lowell Avenue where he finds space to park in front of a white bungalow whose property backs onto the McNab’s house. The bungalow curtains are drawn, a sign that the occupants are not at home and Leonard slips through the back garden unobserved. Finding his way between the shrubbery and trees behind the garage, he comes face to face with a green Volkswagen. Directly opposite the car is a large window and beside it a door Leonard assumes is the entrance to the rooms Claudia described when they stood together in front of de Hooch’s masterpiece in the Rijksmuseum, the rooms Claudia has refused to help him see, which is why he has no choice but to take on the challenge of seeing them on his own. Leonard approaches the door on the chance that it is unlocked; unlocked doors are common in small towns and he rarely locks his own. He is in luck, the door is unlocked and he enters the aunt’s apartment. Closing the door behind him, he observes the dark ceiling beams and the tiled floors typical of a seventeenth-century Dutch house, but he is not yet impressed because apart from the ceiling beams and the tiled floors, there is little resemblance to de Hooch’s masterpiece. Nevertheless, now that he is here he will take a closer look.

To his left is a pedestrian bedroom with a bathroom attached; to his right beneath the side window is a plank table, two wooden chairs and a bench, none of which attract his interest. But the cornered wall directly ahead looks promising and the plain wooden doors on either side of the wall are in no way typical of doors of this day and age. Leonard opens the door to the left of the cornered wall and is rewarded by the sight of a low cubed window and a staved barrel, a ceramic
drip dish below the spigot. Opening the door to the right of the cornered wall, he is again rewarded by the sight of a burgomeister, a seventeenth-century chair and an amber casement window he would have seen if he had approached the house from the front. Leonard hadn’t quite believed Claudia, but it appears she remembered the characteristics of the Dutch Masters well enough to compare de Hooch’s masterpiece to her aunt’s apartment. Who would have guessed that the ordinary seeming woman Leonard observed a half hour ago was capable of such careful planning and precision, not to mention attention to detail. An unmarried high school teacher, Claudia said. A lonely, private woman, Leonard thinks, whose secret pleasure is these rooms. How cleverly Claudia’s aunt has concealed the necessities of daily life so that when the pantry and kitchen doors are opened just so, they are out of sight and the light coming from the window behind him is unobstructed, allowing it to separate on either side of the cornered wall and vanish through the kitchen and pantry windows. Claudia missed the
trompe l’oeil
, as would anyone who has not adjusted the doors just so, or sat on the bench below the side window, where Leonard is sitting now. It is from this bench that he photographs the rooms that will be the basis of his next lecture on Art Appreciation.

Leonard will begin the lecture by projecting a reproduction of de Hooch’s painting on the screen and after directing the class to pay close attention to the painting, he will project the enlarged photograph of the aunt’s rooms on the screen. Allowing time for students to observe the photographs closely, he will tell them that the rooms are presently occupied, a
disclosure that will provoke curiosity, possibly wonder. After pointing out the similarities between the painting and the photograph—the careful placement of doors and windows, the checkerboard floors—Leonard will state the obvious: that the photographed rooms are a case of life imitating art whereas de Hooch’s painting is a case of art imitating life, a reversal Leonard will use to woo his students into taking a serious interest in the Dutch Masters: their use of colour and space and most importantly, their use of light. He will encourage students to examine the sources of light in de Hooch’s painting: the careful placement of windows as well as the window behind the artist that serves as the entrance to the painting, drawing the eye into the large room toward the kitchen and pantry windows. “Vanishing points that trick the eye,” Leonard will say, “tricks of light that serve the artist’s way of seeing his world.”

Energized and excited, Leonard intends to outline the fall lectures as soon as he is back in his study. Although he prides himself on being a talented, some would say gifted teacher, Leonard is wary of repeating himself. One of the pitfalls of academe is falling into a rut, which is why he seizes every opportunity to keep himself youthful.

Leonard Goldie is a half hour from Sackville when the family arrives back at the Old Steadman House, exhausted and relieved. It has been a long week and now that the burial and reception are over, maybe for a little while they will be able to relax without sliding into the quicksand of sorrow. They are in no mood to contemplate what will happen after today. Or to discuss the
accident. What’s done is done and they are a small family and must be pleasant and support one another, at least for tonight. “Be civil to your aunt,” Trish whispered this morning before Matt got out of bed. Determined not to upset his family, Matt will be more than civil, he will be accommodating.

Claudia opens the porch windows and a breeze sweeps through the apartment. What a relief to be home, to feel the dread ease away, the fear that she would break down at the gravesite, the dread that only a handful of people would show up at the reception, that she would stumble over the poem, that Leonard would somehow embarrass her, but Leonard kept his distance and is now on his way to Sackville.

The dining-room table is already set with Grace McNab’s lace tablecloth, the Wedgwood china and sterling silver Lily rarely used. The silverware and the salt and pepper shakers have been polished by the energetic Trish who also ironed the napkins. Laverne follows Trish into the kitchen and asks if she can help. “Thank you, Laverne,” Trish says carefully. “Maybe you could pick a small bouquet of flowers for the dining-room table.”

“Very well. I will pick some pansies and bachelor buttons from my garden.” Watching Trish turn on the oven and remove the roast from the fridge, Laverne asks if she would like her to pick some herbs.

“Do you have rosemary and basil?”

“I do. How much do you want?”

“Quite a bit of both. And then could you make a salad layering the basil alternately with sliced tomatoes and bocconcini cheese?”

“I certainly could,” Laverne says. At last she has something useful to do. And how fortunate Matt is to have such a capable, pleasant wife, moreover, a wife who is a fine cook. Downstairs Laverne fetches the garden shears and is on her way outside when she chides herself for once again forgetting to lock the side door. After she has finished snipping the flowers and the herbs, she writes a note,
Lock the Door
, and tapes it to the door. Posting the note on the door is the first of many attempts Laverne will make to re-establish order in her life.

Hal lies on the porch sofa, forearm concealing his grief while he clings to the gratitude that overwhelmed him during the reception, the outpouring of friendship and support. So many people came to express their condolences and to honour Lily on a fine summer Sunday when they could have gone to the lake or the beach. When he said as much to Claudia as they were leaving the reception, she told him that people also came to pay their respects to him, which was comforting to hear. Lulled by the soothing breeze and the murmuring voices of his family, Hal sleeps but not for long. Too soon a hand on his shoulder is nudging him awake. “Dad,” Matt says. “It’s time for champagne.”