Small Ceremonies (20 page)

WHERE –
62 Beaver Place

WHEN –
April 30th, 8:00

Judith and Martin Gill

We are going to have a party. Or, as my mother would say, we are going to entertain. Not that entertaining was something she ever did. Only something she would like to have done. She would love to entertain, she always said, if only the slip covers were finished, if only the lampshade was replaced, if only Bert – our father and her husband – would fix the cracked piece of tiling in the bathroom. She would entertain if she had more room, if the children were older and off her hands, if chicken weren't so expensive, if her nerves didn't act up when she got over-tired.

But she never did. Only her sister and a few close relatives and neighbors ever sipped coffee at our kitchen table. Mrs. Christianson, Loretta Bruce who lived across the street in a bungalow identical to ours, which my mother always said needed some imagination as well as some spit and polish, a Mrs. McAbee; timid women, all of them, who flattered our mother on her “taste,” who asked, when they had finished their Nescafé, well, what have you been doing to the house lately? Then she would lead them into the living room, or bedroom or whatever, and point out the new needlepoint cushion or the magazine rack with its felt appliqué, and they would chorus again how clever she was. Poor swindled souls, believing that women expressed their personalities through their houses. A waste. But maybe they really thought differently.

The buffet supper was Martin's idea. “We have to do something with him,” he said when he read John Spalding's letter. “Besides we haven't had a party since December.”

I make up a list of people. About thirty seems right. Nancy and Paul Krantz, the Parks and the Beerbalms from the neighborhood. And some university people. Furlong? I can't decide what to do with him, first thinking that nothing could persuade me to have him, the traitor, the thief, the liar. But it is unthinkable, on the other hand, to exclude him. Besides, I might have a chance to ask him a few searching questions. But then, I argue, why should I invite him, especially after that self-serving note he sent me in which he cast me in the role of a crazy woman who lunged and who took easy neurotic offence, and himself as the worldly artist, just self-depreciating enough to admit to minor dishonesties. Swine. But I had to invite him. For one thing, Mrs. Eberhardt must be invited, for I could depend on her to draw out John Spalding, should he turn out to be someone who needed drawing out.

And what about Ruthie? Should I invite her? She would probably refuse, but just what if she didn't? I decided to consult Roger, so I phoned him at his office.

“Roger,” I said, “we're having a party. Martin and I. In a couple of weeks.”

“Terrific.”

“John Spalding is coming from England. Remember hearing about him?”

“Sure. Your old landlord.”

“Right. Well, I'm writing invitations and I wonder if – well – I'd like to invite Ruthie, of course, but I don't want to put either of you on the spot.”

“Ruthie,” he mused.

“Just tell me what you think, Roger. Shall I ask her or not?”

A pause. And then he said, “Sure. I suppose we can't avoid each other forever. Not in a city this size.”

“Okay then,” I said. “Ruthie's on the list. I'll have to send this to her at the library I suppose. Or have you discovered where she's living?”

Another pause. Longer this time. “Well, yes. I guess I do know where she's living.”

“Really? Where?”

“This may sound odd, Judith, but it seems she is staying at the Eberhardts' apartment.”

I am surprised. Very surprised. “At Furlong's? Ruthie is staying at Furlong's?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I'm sure.”

“How'd you find out?”

“Well,” he paused again, “the truth is – I guess I should come right out with it – the truth is I followed her home one night. From the library.”

“And she went to Furlong's?”

“Yes. Amazing isn't it. I couldn't believe it at first, so the next night I followed her again. Same time. Same place.”

Cunningly I asked, “How did she look, Roger? I mean – is she okay?”

“Fine, as far as I could, tell, fine. It was fairly dark, of course. I'd love to say she was thin and pinched and lonely looking, but actually she looked quite okay. I think she's even put on some weight.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And, of course, when I thought it over, it isn't all that extraordinary you know. Her staying there. They were always good to both of us, both Furlong and his mother. Sort of adopted us. And God knows she's safe enough with Furlong. As you well know.”

“Roger. This is sort of a personal question and you don't have to answer if you don't want to.”

“What is it, Judith?”

“Why is it you and Ruthie never got married?”

“I had a feeling you were going to ask that. Well, the answer is that Ruthie never wanted to get tied down.”

“That's funny.”

“Why?”

“Because she once said the same thing about you. That you didn't want to get tied down.”

“I suppose we both spouted a lot of nonsense.”

“Do you suppose things would have worked out if you had been married?”

“I suppose. I mean, it makes it a little more difficult to split if you've got all that legal mess.”

“Is it really over then, Roger? With you and Ruthie? Not that it's any of my business.”

“I'd hate to think so. I think she just needs time on her own. To sort things out. Get her head together.”

I had been sympathetic to this point, but suddenly I was enraged. “Damn it, Roger. Damn it, damn it.”

He sounded alarmed. “Judith, what have I said?”

“All that blather about getting heads together.”

“It's just an expression. It means –

“I know what it means. But it's so – so impossibly puerile. Do you think anyone ever gets it all sorted out? Gets it all tidied up, purged out, all the odds and ends stowed away on the right shelves? Do you really believe that, Roger?”

“Sometimes you need time. How can you think in a thicket?”

“That thicket happens to be a form of protection. It's thinking in a vacuum that's unreal.”

“Judith, I just don't know,” he sighed. “I just don't know anymore.”

“Look, Roger, I think I'll just send this invitation to Ruthie's office. I don't want her to know that I know where she's staying if it's such a big mystery.”

“Good idea.”

“She probably won't come anyway.”

“Probably not,” he said dolefully.

I am putting the finishing touches on Susanna Moodie. In the mornings I go over the chapters one by one, trying to look at her objectively. Does she live, breathe, take definite shape? Is the vein of personality strong enough to bridge the episodes? The disturbing change in personality: it bothers me. Dare I suggest hormone imbalance? Psychological scarring? It's unwise to do more than suggest. I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, as the critics will be quick to point out. But I do have a feeling about her. I wonder though, have I conveyed that feeling?

Aside from her two books about life in Canada, Susanna Moodie wrote a string of trashy novels, potboilers really, limp-wristed romances containing such melodramatics as last minute rescues at the gallows and death-bed conversions and always, unfailingly, oceans and oceans of tears. She was desperate for money, of course, so she wrote quickly and she wrote for a popular audience, the Harlequin nurse stories of her day.

But one of the books she wrote has been invaluable to me. It is a novel entitled
Flora Lindsay
or
Episodes in an Eventful Life.
Astonishingly, it is Susanna's own story, or at least an idealized picture of it, an autobiography in fictional form. The heroine, Flora, is like Susanna married to a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. Like Susanna, Flora and her husband (also named John) emigrate to Canada. Even the ship they sail on bears the same name, the
Anne.
Like Susanna, Flora has a baby daughter and, like her again, she has employed an unwed mother as a nurse for her child.

Thus, by watching Flora, I am able to see Susanna as a young woman. But, of course, it isn't really Susanna; it's only a projection, a view of herself. Flora is refined, virtuous, bright, lively, humorous; her only fault is an occasional pout when her husband places some sort of restraint on her. Did Susanna really see herself that way?

How do I view myself? – large, loose, baroque. Compulsively garrulous, hugely tactless, given to blurts, heavy foot in heavy mouth. Fearsome with energy, Brobdingnagian voice, everything of such vastness that my photographs always surprise me by their relatively normal proportions – ah, but that's only my public self. And Martin, does he view himself – now flushed with victory from the Renaissance Society – as a cocky counterculture academic? Does he carry a newsreel in his head with himself as maverick star, a composed and witty generalist who nimbly leaps from discipline to discipline; who proved his wife wrong about the whole concept of poetry portrayed in wool, but resists saying I told you so? Just smiles at her his slow and knowing smile and thinks his secret thoughts, maybe wondering how he would look with long hair and that ultimate obscenity on middle-aged men, beads?

Susanna wrote
Flora Lindsay
when she was a middle-aged woman, and she had by that time suffered repeated trials, many births, several deaths, unbearable homesickness and alienation, not to mention a searing lack of intellectual nourishment. Looking back, she may have viewed that early life, that time of high expectations, and simple married love as a period of comfort and happiness, seeing herself as the nimble and graceful heroine, not the prudish, rather shallow and condescending woman she more than likely was. She was so shrewd about her fellow Canadians that she enraged them, but nevertheless seemed to have had little real understanding of herself. Is it any wonder then, I ask myself as I send the manuscript off to a typist – is it any wonder that I don't understand her?

“Why hello, Mrs. Gill.”

“Judith! Long time no see.”

“What can we do for you today, Mrs. Gill?”

They know me at the Public Archives. I've spent hours and hours in these shiny corridors working on my biographical research, exploring filing cabinets, puffing out envelopes, and going through the contents, sometimes finding what I need, but just as often not. And always I am astonished at the sheer volume of trivia which is being watched over.

The librarians guard their treasures diligently, and they are unfailingly kind in their willingness to spend an hour, sometimes two or three, finding the origin of a single fact. But today I don't need any help. I am quite sure I can find what I want.

Name and year: Furlong Eberhardt (possibly Rudyard Eberhart). As for dates, I work backwards from the present.

It takes longer than I think. A clue, tantalizing, leads nowhere, and I spend an hour in a cul-de-sac; just when I think I'm finding my way out, the reference turns out to apply to someone else. I press my hands to my head. Exhaustion. What am I doing here?

In the cafeteria I have a bowl of soup and a sandwich, and later in the afternoon I get lucky. One reference leads to another; I skip from drawer to drawer, putting the pieces together. And they fit, they fit! I have it. Or almost. I'll have to check at the Immigration Department, but I know what they'll say. I am already positive.

It's this: Furlong Eberhardt, Canadian prairie novelist, the man who is said to embody the ethos of the nation, is an American!

I want to hug the fact, to chew on it, to pull it out when I choose so I can admire its shiny ironic contours and ponder the wonderful, dark, moist, hilarious secrecy of it.

Rudyard Eberhart, born Maple Bluffs, Iowa, only son of Elizabeth Eberhart, widow.
Eligible for draft in 1949 (Korean War), left Maple Bluffs the day notice was delivered.
Landed immigrant status (with mother) in Saskatchewan. Attended U. of Sask., was once written up in local paper as grand loser (shortest fish) in a fishing competition. Began writing short stories under the name of Red Eberhart. Gradual shift to Eberhardt spelling, finalized with publication of first novel, 1952.
Christened Furlong by a kindly critic, after which he travelled from strength to strength until arrival at present eminence.

Ah, Furlong, you crafty devil.

I could not remember being so wonderfully amused by anything in all my life. My throat pricked continuously with wanting to laugh, and for the first few days it was all I could do to keep the corners of my mouth from turning up at inappropriate moments, so amused was I by the spectacle of Furlong Eberhardt who, with scarcely a break in stride, traded Maple Bluffs for the, Maple Leaf; marvelous!

But in my delight I recognized something which was faintly hysterical, something suspiciously akin to relief. What had I expected to find? That Furlong had his novels written for him by a West Coast syndicate? That he might be guilty of a crime more heinous (murder? blackmail?) than mere trifling with the facts of his private life? That something unbearably sordid had poisoned his previous existence? Yes, I had been badly frightened; I admitted it to myself.

Poor Furlong. I could see it all: how he had – I recalled his own words – got into it innocently enough and then was unable to extricate himself, taking a free ride on the band wagon of nationalism and unable to jump off. Well, don't worry, Furlong, I won't betray you now.

Poor Furlong, so eager to be accepted, to be loved.

Poor Furlong, suffering in miserable and ageing secrecy.

Poor Furlong. Dear Furlong.

“Martin,” I whisper after the lights are out, “what do you think of John Spalding?”

Pause. “He seems okay,” Martin says. “Not quite the nut I expected.”