Small Ceremonies (19 page)

It strikes me that I might as well continue my pursuit of information regarding Furlong. So after lunch I go to the big downtown library.

Granite pillars, crouched lions, the majestic stone entrance stairs covered with sisal matting and boards for five months of the year (what a strange country we live in!), a foyer imperial with vaulting, echoes, brass plaques, oil portraits, uniformed guards, a ponderous check-out desk and on it, purring and whirring, the latest in photostatic machines. Two librarians, tightly permed, one fat, one thin, stand behind the desk. The card catalogue snakes back and forth in a room of its own; surely I will find something here.

I carry books to a table, check indexes, cross-check references, try various biographical dictionaries and local histories, and conclude after several hours that Furlong had done a remarkable job of obscuring his past. He seems hardly to have existed before 1952 when his first book was published. I do find two passing references to a Rudyard Eberhart in the forties; the surname is misspelled and the geographical location is wrong; they are cryptic notations which I don't really understand but which I nevertheless make note of. I will have to go to the Archives if I am to discover anything more. Another day.

This is the library where Ruthie St. Pierre works, and as I put on my coat and scarf, I think that it would be nice to stop and have a chat with her.

Her office is on the top floor, a tiny glassed-in cubicle in the Translation Department. I climb the stairs and go past a maze of other tiny offices
.

And then I glimpse her through the wall of glass. She is bending over a filing cabinet in the corner and she is wearing a pantsuit of daffodil yellow and platform shoes of prodigious thickness. She finds what she wants, straightens up and turns back to her desk.

And I would have knocked on the glass, I would have gone in and embraced her and told her how much I had missed her all winter (for I
had
missed her) and told her how morose and sullen and seedy Roger is looking and how he doesn't even know where she is living or how she is getting along – but I don't go in because I can see plainly that she is in the seventh, perhaps eighth, and who knows – she is such a tiny girl – maybe even the ninth month of blooming, swelling, flowering pregnancy.

I watch her for a moment to be sure, to be absolutely certain, and then, quickly and quietly, I make my retreat.

 

Afterwards, driving home, I can't understand why I had left her like that. It was a shock, of course, and then too I hadn't wanted to create what for Ruthie might be a painful and embarrassing meeting. Certainly she had gone out of her way to avoid friends all winter.

When I was sick with the flu she had sent a basket of fruit – not ordinary apples and oranges, but wonderful and exotic mangoes, kiwifruit, red bananas, passion fruit, figs and pomegranates, and I had written her a thank-you note, mailing it to the library where she works. Once in the following weeks she had phoned to see if I was better. “I'm fine now, Ruthie,” I had said, “but how are you?”

“Fine, Jude, fine.” (She is the only person in the world who consistently calls me Jude.) “I guess you know that Roger and I have called it quits.”

“Well,” I said uneasily, “yes, and I'm sorry.”

“It's all for the best. Roger's not one for settling down, you know. Look, Jude, I've got to go. The big boss is prowling today. Bye for now. Keep the faith.”

“You too,” I said, not knowing which faith she referred to, but sensing that she had meant: respect my privacy, leave me alone for a while, ask me no questions, hold off, give me time, keep faith in me.

So I hadn't phoned her again, and today I hadn't rushed into the little office. But later I wished I had. She had looked both brave and fragile in her yellow suit, and I had been moved by the gallantry with which she concentrated on her filing cabinet, pencil in hand, and that enormous abdomen bunching up in front of her.

I am late getting home from the library. It is dinner time, and Richard suggests we send out for a pizza.

When it arrives Meredith and Richard and I eat it in the family room, along with glasses of ginger ale. The curtains are pulled and the television is on. It gets late and I should send the children to bed; I should remind them that this is a school night, but I am reluctant to break up our warm, shared drowsiness. Ruthie is far away now, as far away as a character in a story – did I really see her? Furlong Eberhardt seems foreign and trifling – what matters is our essential clutter of warmth and food and noise.

Eleven o'clock. The news comes on. More Watergate, more Belfast, another provincial land scandal, and then, to wind up the news, a lighter item. Dr. Martin Gill is introduced. Unbelievably his face spreads across the screen.

There is not a sound from us. The three of us; Meredith and Richard and I, do not speak; we do not even move; we are frozen into place.

The interviewer explains that Dr. Gill has startled both the art and the literary world by creating – he consults his notes – a graphic presentation of
Paradise Lost
(a famous seventeenth century poem, he explains to all of us out in TV land). Presented today at a national symposium on literature, it was a tremendous sensation. Two art galleries have already made impressive bids for the tapestries. “Is that true, Professor Gill?” the interviewer asks.

The camera goes back to Martin. “Yes, it does appear to be true,” he says with engaging modesty.

The interviewer continues with a long information-packed question, “In that case, it would seem that this work of yours, quite apart from the interest in connection with the poem, has an intrinsic, that is, a beauty of its own.”

“I am really quite overwhelmed by the response,” Martin says, his slow, slow smile beaming out across the country. Beautiful. It is a highly individual smile, both provocative and sensual – I've never noticed that before.

The two faces fade, giving way to sports and weather, and the children and I slowly turn to look at each other. Richard and Meredith are staring at me and their mouths hang open with awe. And so, I perceive, does mine.

And then we leap and dance around the room; singing, shouting, laughing, hugging each other. We order another pizza, a large special combination. Friends phone to ask if we've seen Martin, and we phone Martin several times at his hotel and finally, at two o'clock in the morning, we reach him and talk and talk and then dizzy, crazy, mad with happiness we go stunned to bed.

 

In the morning there are three things for me to read. First the Toronto newspaper – a write-up on Martin and a picture of him posing in front of the weavings. I peer intently at the tapestry but, as in most newsphotos, it is smeary and porous and not very effective. Martin though, with his nice white teeth open in a smile, comes out very well.

 

PROFESSOR WEDS ART TO LITERATURE

 

English professor Martin Gill delighted his colleagues at the Renaissance Society yesterday with a change from the usual staid academic papers. His presentation was a pictorial representation of
Paradise Lost,
Milton's famous epic masterpiece. Using the techniques of tapestry making, Dr. Gill, a distinguished scholar, used different colors to represent the themes in the poem, and produced not only a visual commentary on the piece, but a stunning work of abstract art. Three art galleries, including the National Gallery, have placed bids for the work.
The idea was intended as a teaching aid, Dr. Gill explained. “The poem is so complex and so enormous that often the student of Literature loses the total Miltonic pattern."
Dr. Gill is the son of Professor Enos Gill of McGill University, author
of Two Times a Nation.
His wife is Judith Gill, the biographer. About the future Dr. Gill denies that he will divorce literature for art. “It's only been a temporary romance,” he said to reporters with a chuckle. “I wouldn't trust my luck twice.”

 

Next I read a note from Furlong. I had been expecting this, knowing that once he realized he had tipped his hand, he would make haste to smooth over the traces.

 

My dear Judith,
     I'm sure you regret as much as I our little misunderstanding the other night. I must say I was more than usually rattled by your startling lunge at my throat, and I'm afraid I lost what the youth of today would call my cool. No doubt I babbled like a complete looney. As soon as I realized what it was that concerned you – I refer to your mistaken impression that I had appropriated your plot for
Graven Images
– I came to my senses, and can only hope that you came to yours as well. Judith, my pet, we have been good friends for too long to allow this misunderstanding to come between us. The truth is, I value your friendship and, yes, I admit it, perhaps I did get a new slant from your aborted novel, but as I explained to you, writers are no more than scavengers and assemblers of lies.
You have done me a good turn; perhaps I may be able to do the same for you one day.

Fondly,

FURLONG

Last of all I read an airletter from England. At first, seeing the bright blue paper and feeling the familiar featherweight paper, I thought that Anita Spalding had finally come through. But no, it is addressed to us, to Dr. and Mrs. Martin Gill.

Dear Dr. and Mrs. Gill,
     First of all let me thank you for your very kind Christmas card. I apologize for the silence from this end. I will be passing quite near you in a month's time, and if it is not too terribly inconvenient, might I call on you? I will be in New York for a few days conferring with my publisher (I am about to have a novel published) and there is an item of some urgency which I am anxious to discuss with you. In addition, I am most desirous of making your acquaintance. Please do not go to any trouble for me. I shall be in the city only two nights (I have already secured hotel accommodation) and I should be distraught if my sudden appearance were in any way to inconvenience you.

I remain,

Your obedient servant,

JOHN SPALDING

P.S. We have had a nasty winter compounded by strikes and fuel shortages, not to mention my own distressing personal affairs. I trust all is well with you and your family.
JS

I wake early
one morning. Something is amiss. A wet smell. What is it? I sniff, and instead of the usual hot metal smell of the furnace, I smell something different.

And I hear something. Water running. Someone has left a tap on all night. “Martin,” I say. “Are you awake?”

“No,” he says crossly. “It's only six-thirty.”

“What's that sound, Martin?”

“I can't hear anything.”

“Listen. It's water dripping. Can you hear it?”

He listens for a minute. “I think it's just the snow melting,” he says. “It's the snow on the roof.”

I listen again. It
is
the snow; it's running off the roof in rivulets. It's pouring through the downspout.

And that explains the funny smell. It's the grey-scented, rare and delicate-as-a-thread smell of the melt. Spring.

At last.

Hurriedly I write a letter to John Spalding.

Dear John,
(I use his first name, availing myself of the North American right to be familiar.)
     We were delighted to get your letter and look forward to seeing you at the end of the month. Are you sure you wouldn't like to change your plans and stay with us? We have plenty of room and would enjoy having you. Martin and I are anxious to know if you are bringing your wife and daughter. All of us, and especially Richard, of course, would love to meet them. If this note reaches you before you leave England, do drop us a line and let us know.
     Our congratulations to you on the publication of your novel. We look forward to hearing more about it.

Sincerely,

JUDITH GILL

(And then because no letter to or from Britain seems complete without a reference to the weather, I add –)
P.S. We have had a long winter and lots of snow, but spring is on the way now, and by the time you arrive the last of the snow will be gone.

JUDITH

In a week I had a reply.

Dear Judith,
(Aha, familiarity is contagious.)
     Thank you for your kind offer of a bed which I accept with gratitude. As for my wife, she and I have recently separated. Isabel has returned to Cyprus and has taken Anita with her. I supposed – wrongly I see – that Anita had written to your son about the chain of events. But then she has not even written to me very regularly. All this is rather upsetting to her, no doubt. Her mother has attached herself to a rogue of a gigolo, a cretinous beach ornament, and Anita has no doubt seen more of the unsavory world in the last month than is good for her. The whole subject is exceedingly painful to me at the moment; thus, perhaps it is for the best that you know before I come.
     There are daffodils blooming all over Birmingham. Truly glorious.

Best wishes,

JOHN SPALDING

Isabel Spalding gone off with gigolo! I picture him, heavy with grease, cunningly light-fingered and handsome. And her, pale and sluttish in a bikini. Poor Anita.

I hasten to tell Richard about what has happened in far-off Cyprus. For although the correspondence may be ended, it is better for him to know that there is, at least, an explanation; he has not been rejected; he has not accidentally written something offensive, he has not been the victim of a love that was unrequited.

I explained to him how traumatic a sudden shift in geography can be to a child, not to mention the catastrophic splintering of a family. He nods; he can understand that. Later she may feel like writing, I tell him. Yes, he says, perhaps. I gaze at him, trying to think of something further to comfort him, but he dashes away saying, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Does he mean it? He has survived this long.

BUFFET SUPPER