A Good House (40 page)

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WHEN SHE CAME
in from the garden with Maggie's dark red rose, Josh and Mark were sitting in the living room, looking a bit stiff but nonetheless exquisite in their tuxedos. They were having an early and likely necessary drink with Patrick and Stephanie. Murray and Kate's Toyota had just pulled into the driveway, and Sarah, in a wide-brimmed straw hat and a wonderfully short peach dress, with Jake and Natalie, the cousins nobody knew, following close behind her like goslings, was walking over to the Toyota with her arms flung open. She was laughing, calling out something Daphne couldn't hear. Although he'd had his plane ticket, Rob had not come back with them for the wedding. His job had disappeared out from under him, the result of some multinational cost-saving merger, so he was in Seattle, at an interview set up by an old friend from home, from England. He was scrambling, this was how Sarah had put it to Margaret. When Margaret told Daphne, clearly worried and angry and rattled because there was nothing she could do to help them, she'd been as close to tears as Daphne had ever seen her. “God, there's a lot of costs being saved,” she'd said. “Every new day, wherever you turn, costs being saved.”

Margaret and Bill were sitting out on the wraparound porch in the wobbly, many-times-repainted Muskoka chairs. Through the big living-room window, Daphne watched her father reach over to take Margaret's hand, looking for comfort against the onslaught of his family. They had just yesterday had word that his brother Gerry, Uncle Gerry, had died after a long stay in hospital in Windsor, and that Aunt Eileen was not in good shape at all, so there was that, too, to think about today, and the funeral to attend on Monday. And another funeral on Tuesday, at least for Margaret and Bill.

Charles Taylor, who had become an old man, had also died, some time in the last week. He'd been missing for a few days and finally some kids had found him under the railroad bridge two miles past the golf course, beyond Livingston's gully, drowned in Stonebrook Creek. It had never been a particularly hard crossing under that bridge but it was thought that Charles had lost his footing on some mossy rocks and gone down hard. On hearing this sad bit of news, Bill had told Margaret he only hoped Charles had knocked himself out cold before he had to suffer the insult of drowning. Margaret did not tell Bill or anyone else that she believed the tarnished silver whistle she'd found in the turned garden soil that May afternoon must surely have belonged to Charles at some time, or that its presence in their garden was a mystery she sometimes pondered.

Until very recently, Margaret had been determined to resist what she considered to be the too-easy solution of drugs to control Bill's moods, but she'd told Daphne she would give him a little something extra with his lunch today, to keep him steady. She'd said it was going to be a long day for Bill and he wouldn't want to do anything to spoil it for Maggie.

At five after three, after all the wedding guests had been seated on fold-up chairs in the backyard and just before it was time for Patrick to join Daphne and Maggie, to offer Maggie his arm and escort her down the aisle to the recently built arbour, to the minister, to Jill and Mark, to Josh, he walked over to Murray, who was sitting near the front with Kate and Stephanie, and pulled him up out of his chair. Murray hesitated, understandably, and looked a bit worried but this did not prompt Patrick to explain himself. “Just come,” he said.

Then he looked down through the rows for Andy, who had been late arriving because she'd had to drive in to London for Meg and when she'd got to the home Meg wasn't dressed because she thought maybe she didn't want to come. Andy had been watching Patrick, had watched Murray stand up from his chair and head for the back. She was waiting, ready to understand what Patrick wanted to happen, ready to catch his eye if it came her way. When he found her, she nodded and got up quickly, grabbing Sarah on her way to the back.

Maggie had been watching Patrick too, anxious for him to come to stand beside her. Someone had given the signal. The processional music had already started. Jill had gone down the aisle, she was already up there, and Stephen, with his Lab, Sailor, sitting at strict attention beside him, had started his video camera. People would be wondering what the hell was going on.

And then she got it. When Patrick moved in beside her offering his arm, and Murray and Andy and Sarah gathered in close behind them, she looked straight ahead down the aisle and muttered, “It
would
have to be a cast of thousands. Silly me.” She patted Patrick's back. “Anyone else would likely be surprised,” she said. She took his arm because what else was there to do?

Daphne did not turn around. She was thinking. This is good enough, this is more than good enough. But Patrick wasn't finished. In the instant before they would have started to move forward down the aisle, he frowned and pulled his arm away and stepped back behind Murray, whispering loudly that he had to fix his damned cummerbund again, Jesus, he hated cummerbunds. Murray quickly moved to help him, to lift his jacket and check the hooks, but Patrick shoved him off, pushed him forward. “Go,” he said.

When Murray moved in close to offer Maggie his own bent, available arm, Daphne did turn around. If she could make Patrick meet her eyes, she would not even have to speak, she would not have to ask him if he couldn't please just cease and desist, please, for once in his manipulating life, couldn't he just stop the manoeuvres. But he would not meet her eyes. Of course he wouldn't.

She started them off. Patrick and Andy and Sarah followed, Andy comprehending, finally, and nearly blind with tears.

When they got to the arbour, no one but the minister and Josh could see Maggie because she was so surrounded and those were the words she whispered to Josh before their vows began. “God, look at me. I'm surrounded.”

But they left her to him soon enough. They split off, took their separate places in Daphne's backyard to listen attentively as Maggie and Josh made their many promises.

The Presbyterian women had been signed on to do the buffet, which they'd decided to serve on long tables in the side yard, and as soon as the ceremony was over they started to pour out the kitchen door with covered platters of food. The wedding party was going to use this time for photographs and while they waited the guests were expected to more or less take care of each other, to find someone to engage in conversation and to help themselves to canapés and punch, both kinds. The little kids, some of whom were Patrick's grandchildren, some of whom were Andy's, moved together through the crowd in spinning, dressed-up clusters, the girls holding hands and swinging their hands together in quick friendship, the boys following along, kicking at the grass, sometimes jumping in front of the girls to entertain them with clumsy taunts.

Bill shouldered his way up to the head of the line for punch and as soon as someone poured him two cups of it, he got away from Margaret and moved determinedly past the people he should have talked to until he found Patrick. He handed Patrick his punch and told him that he wanted everyone to go up to the Town Hall steps for a picture. Because it would be gone soon.

“You know the bastards are tearing the Town Hall down,” he told Patrick, pulling on his sleeve, fidgeting. “When the boys in Toronto are finished there aren't going to be any more towns, just one big stretched-out mess. Those assholes think we'll all be happy as clams to live in one big stretched-out mess.” He paused to give Patrick a chance to join him in his rage. “A city,” he said. “That's what they think they're going to call us.”

Patrick knew that the province in its wisdom had recently decided that amalgamation was the way to go. To save money, five separate towns much like this one would soon be joined at the hip so that all the administration, which the government proudly and loudly described as suspiciously expensive, could be handled in one central place, which was not here.

Of course it cost something to keep a building like the Town Hall running, heat in the winter, maintenance, insurance. And not surprisingly it needed substantial structural repair. Margaret had told Patrick that some of the guts, the dance floor upstairs and a few of the ceiling beams, had rotted almost right through. But now that it was going to be more or less useless there seemed no point in sinking good money into it. She told him those in favour said either nothing lasts forever or progress sometimes hurts and those opposed were mute, made impotent, because it was their money the government was wanting to save and how could any sane person argue with that? In one of their last motions, the town council had apparently decided that after the building was levelled and gone the lot could be used for a skateboard park, with maybe a ramp or two, to keep the high-flying baggy pants kids off the streets.

“Get everyone organized,” Bill said, spilling some of his punch on Patrick's just recently purchased one-size-larger tux, then pulling a crumpled handkerchief from his back pocket to blot it up. “We can be up there and get this thing done in no time.”

Patrick left Bill with Stephanie and Kate to go and look for Daphne. He found her on the front porch steps, heading for one of the cars. She wouldn't look at him and she didn't stop walking. “When this is over,” she said, “you and I are going to have ourselves a little talk.”

“Fine,” he said.

“It wasn't your decision to make,” she said. “It was mine.”

“Fine,” he said.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she asked. “Did you think it would go unnoticed?”

“Most of the people watching thought it was a simple screw-up,” he said. “And that's what I was counting on.” He stopped following her. “I do know people.”

He knew too that he should have gone straight to Maggie with Bill's request but he asked anyway. Hearing the request, Daphne was able to remember where she was, she was able to let the other go, temporarily. She turned to tell Patrick that she found herself in a difficult spot, that she wasn't sure the photographer would have time. She said he was a friend of Josh's parents, they had arranged for the pictures, and unbeknownst to her the plan appeared to be to use the time between the ceremony and the reception to go over to Stonebrook Park. The photographer had come early enough to spend a half hour driving around town trying to find some place suitable and he had decided they should go over to the park to take advantage of the footbridge and the water and, of course, the rocks. “They want picturesque,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It's their call.”

When Patrick reported back, Bill poured the last of his punch on the grass at his feet. “I would have paid for the pictures.” He was beside himself. “Why didn't someone ask me to pay for the God damned pictures?”

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THE DANCE WAS
at the arena, because it was close and because Daphne had said there was no good reason to ask people to drive back into the city. Maggie's friends, who were staying out at the golf course motel, had spent the earliest part of the hot afternoon decorating the hall, drinking Long Island Iced Tea and filling each other in on their lives as they draped steamers from one side of the room to the other and covered the walls with clusters of white balloons and oversized satin bows. Krissy and Carol had helped the florist, who was the granddaughter of the late Archie Stutt, bring in all the centrepieces, the sweetheart roses and the mums and daisies, and Margaret had set up her old bridge table just inside the door and covered it with one of Sylvia's mother's embroidered cloths to hold a display of pictures: Maggie at about six months settled securely in Bill's arms, looking up confidently into his face, Maggie and Jill swinging hard on park swings somewhere, Maggie off to her first day of school when they still lived in the city, and another picture of her as an older student, looking embarrassed and annoyed to be holding a plaque for second prize in public speaking. Maggie almost as she was now, posed on the diving board of the Stewarts' pool like a pin-up girl, rudely shaving her legs.

A deejay friend of Jill's boyfriend Ryan, Crank, they called him, took care of the music and it wasn't half bad. He was young but he was very good at gauging exactly this kind of crowd and he had something in his repertoire of CDs for nearly everyone who wanted to dance. Jill had told Daphne that given enough to drink, Crank would do a really funny Elvis impersonation, an ironic impersonation, and Daphne had told Jill that she would leave it in her hands then, making damned sure Crank did not get enough to drink.

Maggie and Josh had started things off. They were obviously uncomfortable with everyone staring at them, watching to see them do the thing newlyweds were supposed to do, whatever that might be. As soon as she decently could, Maggie whispered something in Josh's ear and stepped away from him. She found Patrick and Josh got his mother and soon the newly formed couples broke off again, and again, collecting more dancers, filling the floor.

When Bill heard the first bars of what he considered to be a legitimate waltz, he bowed low to Margaret and guided her in among the others. He was astonishingly smooth for a man in his eighties, smooth as butter.

Daphne moved from table to table alone to talk to the guests and to thank them. Maggie and Josh had opened many of the gifts and people had been thoughtful in the choices, and generous. After she'd finished her rounds, as she was making her way back to her table, she noticed Patrick walking across the floor toward her. He was going to ask her to dance, and what could be more normal, more civilized? Of course he would be counting on her not to make a scene in front of all these people, “a public spectacle of yourself,” as Grandma Ferguson used to call it, which, when Daphne was a girl, had never failed to make her extremely curious about private spectacles. She had imagined these going on behind closed doors all over town, muted and bound by walls and unwitnessed, but still, as the word itself suggested, spectacular, still something to be part of.