The Birthday Lunch (24 page)

“She beat me,” her uncle said, but he didn’t look unhappy.

“Beginner’s luck,” her mother said

Welland asked if Claudia would like to go for a spin in his convertible before he left town.

Would she? Of course she would. Claudia was too shy to admit that she had never been in a convertible and longed to go for a spin. All she managed was a nod of her head. Welland
held the car door open for her, and they drove up Broad Street and over the railroad tracks. Although her uncle wasn’t driving fast, a breeze lifted Claudia’s long pale hair in a way that made her feel like a movie star and she pretended not to notice two guys in front of the Mercantile gawking at the convertible. She also pretended not to see Jimmy Jones, the conceited ball player who never did settle the bill he had run up at the canteen where Claudia worked during ball games. Her uncle drove to O’Connell Park before turning around and making his leisurely way along Main Street. When he pulled up in front of the house, Claudia was once again impressed that her uncle got out of the car, opened her door and thanked her for her company.

Tanya Adair is waiting at the front desk and the women carry the flowers into the reception room carpeted in tired gold, gilt-framed reproductions on the walls. Directly ahead is the podium and behind it on the far wall, a hillside scene of a shepherd watching over his sheep. Claudia and Trish place a flower arrangement on either side of the podium and another on the small table below. Tanya nods toward the banquet table against the opposite wall where cups and saucers, a coffee and a tea urn are in place. “There is space for a flower arrangement at either end,” she says and suggests the last vase be placed on the small table against the side wall where she has put a guest book in which people can write words of condolence.

“Thank you,” Claudia says. A guest book was not on her list.

Apart from two sofas beneath the picture windows there are no other places for guests to sit and Claudia asks if chairs
can be brought in. Tanya says that apart from the sofas intended for those who absolutely must sit, she recommends chairs be brought in as needed.

“And why is that?”

“In our experience it is better if guests remain standing,” Tanya says. “If there are chairs, especially if alcohol is served, some guests interpret the occasion as a party and linger long after the family has left.”

Claudia says, “But you will be here throughout?”

“Oh yes. I was merely explaining about the chairs.”

“The flowers,” Trish prompts, and Claudia asks Tanya if she can arrange for the flowers to be taken to the hospital, after the cards have been removed. “Of course,” Tanya says. “We’ve done that many times.”

When she sees the red Mustang parked in the driveway, Claudia knows that it was her uncle she and Trish passed on the railway crossing. It has been thirteen years since Welland took Claudia for a spin and six years since she saw him at her grandmother’s funeral in Halifax, but it is only now when she sees the brothers standing side by side in the living room that she notices that both are slope shouldered and the same height. The resemblance ends there: her father’s eyes are bloodshot, his forehead creased, his cheeks sunken; her uncle’s eyes are clear, his forehead smooth, his cheeks firm; he looks ten years younger than her father and Claudia is reminded of her mother’s remark that as a plastic surgeon, Welland’s job was to make women, and occasionally men, look half their age.

After so many years apart, conversation is awkward, even for Hal. It is Welland who keeps it going. He nods toward the silent eight-day clocks on either side of the bay window: the long-case Chippendale in one corner, the long-case John Belling in the other. “I could almost be back in the house on South Park Street,” he says. “All those ticking clocks, none of them quite marking time together.”

“The only one marking time now is the Seth Thomas on the mantelpiece,” Hal says.

“It used to bother me that they never kept the same time, that I never knew which clock was accurate,” Welland says. He looks at Hal. “Did that bother you?”

“No. I used to put myself asleep listening to different pings and chimes. I remember getting up one night and trying to …”

“Dad,” Matt points to his wristwatch. “Kirk Hill.”

Kirk Hill. Hal isn’t ready to go to Kirk Hill, none of them are ready to go to Kirk Hill. “Gird up now thy loins,” Grace used to say as she hurried her sons to the morning church service, leaving Murray behind in his high-backed chair. Hal never understood what
gird up now thy loins
meant, but now he thinks it means prepare yourself for the worst, and there can be nothing worse than seeing Lily lying on the road, and now, the sadness of burying her ashes in the cemetery on Kirk Hill. “Yes,” Hal says, “it is time we gird up our loins.”

“Auntie can come with Trish and me in the Honda,” Claudia says. She looks at her father. “We’ll follow you because you know where the plot is.”

“The bottom of the hill,” Hal says, “the left-hand corner.”

——

While Lester Alyward was burying the dead behind the Episcopalian Church in Sussex Vale, the Presbyterians were burying the dead in the field of wild hay surrounding the kirk. The kirk and the field have long since given way to a school and a subdivision, but the cemetery remains, an Elysium presence presiding over the town. From the top of the hill mourners can look across roof and tree tops to the ancient Appalachian hills; or they can look behind them, at the land sloping down to marshland, where the wayward creeks merge with the Kennebacasis on its way to join the mighty Saint John River on its final journey to the sea.

Leonard Goldie is at the bottom of Kirk Hill, on a slope not fifty feet from the grave where the burial will take place. Earlier, when he followed the road looping through the cemetery uphill and down, looking for an open grave, he only spotted one, and it is directly across from him on the other side of a dirt road, a mound of freshly dug earth and beside it, a shovel. The recently trimmed hedge bordering this corner of the graveyard is low enough for Leonard to see over, if he were standing, but he is not standing, he is crouching beneath the drooping branches of a large cedar tree, where he will not be easily seen. Curiosity has brought Leonard here. He could have driven straight to the motel, but is impatient to see the aunt who, according to Claudia, has transformed her apartment into de Hooch’s most famous painting, an intriguing reversal of subject and art.

Ten, fifteen minutes pass before Leonard wonders if he might be mistaken about the whereabouts of the grave. He is about to give up and look for the motel when he spots a black
car entering the graveyard, Claudia’s Honda following close behind. Leonard watches the cars proceed slowly uphill. Why are the cars proceeding uphill? Is the burial to take place at an open grave Leonard somehow missed? The cavalcade of two disappears from sight and Leonard stands up and considers whether or not to return to the Jeep parked below him, on the edge of the playing field. But here comes the cavalcade following the loop downhill toward him. Leonard ducks and waits until both cars park on the grass alongside the road before risking a look.

Raising his head, he sees the Honda doors open. Claudia emerges wearing the knee-length black dress Leonard packed, her pale hair braided and coiled the way he likes. Another young woman emerges, a stunningly tall, slim redhead also wearing a knee-length black dress and high heels. The passenger door opens and another redhead emerges but this woman is older and shorter and wearing a black suit, white blouse and sensible shoes. By no means is she a beautiful woman but she is the reason Leonard is here. Now that he has identified the aunt, Leonard turns his attention to the men. Although they are about sixty feet away, judging by size and height, the two men standing side by side are obviously brothers, which means the third man must be Claudia’s brother. Altogether a family of six, the same number gathered around his own mother’s grave: Leonard and Ruth, their three daughters and Uncle Rupert on Hilda’s side. No one present from the Goldie side—Niles deserted Hilda soon after Leonard was born.

Claudia’s family is waiting for someone; otherwise they would be making their way to the grave. Fortunately Claudia
has not taken her eyes off the road although even if she did, chances are she wouldn’t see Leonard concealed beneath the cedar tree. Would it matter if Claudia saw him? Yes, it would matter because she and Leonard have agreed their affair can continue only if neither of them meddles in the other’s family, and Leonard is about to meddle in his lover’s family.

Several minutes pass before a blue Plymouth parks behind Claudia’s car and Leonard watches a tall man wearing a black suit and a clerical collar emerge. The family waits for the clergyman and altogether the band of seven make their slow, somber way to the grave, the women holding loose bouquets of wildflowers, one of the men—it can only be Claudia’s father—carrying a wooden box.

By the time the family have arranged themselves in a half circle around the grave, Leonard is making his way to the Jeep. He knows that if he is to make a quick getaway from the reception, he will need to find an unobstructed parking place at the motel.

He is in luck: beside Adair’s Motel is a narrow lane and Leonard backs the Jeep close but not too close to the fence. Beside the lane, directly behind the motel, is a wide swath of lawn stretching to the opposite fence. Leonard appraises the scene: the spindly trees, the fountain of faux marble: water trickling from the mouths of cherubs into a basin. He is disappointed that there is nothing worth drawing … but wait! Sitting on a faux-marble bench on his side of the fountain is a silver-haired woman, her back toward Leonard, her head tilted forward as if she is sleeping. Outside the confines of a hospital or a nursing home, it is difficult to come across an old person
in repose and he will take this opportunity to draw this woman’s back. Having made countless drawings of the human back, Claudia’s among them, Leonard has decided that the human back is more subtle and challenging to draw than the front, even if the subject is clothed as this woman is in white silk that shows the arc of the shoulder blades folded like wings beneath the cloth.

Leonard takes out his drawing case, director’s chair and the battered Tilley that his youngest daughter, Clarissa, refers to as his safari hat. Unfolding the chair in the shady space behind the Jeep, he unpacks sketchbook and pencils and in a few deft strokes has captured the tilted head and arched neck, the sloping shoulders beneath the silk. The woman sleeps on unaware that beneath Leonard’s hand she is taking another form.

The parking lot is full and Claudia and Matt pull into the spaces set aside for the family. Tanya is waiting for them in the lobby and they follow her along the corridor to the reception room where the people of the town—friends, acquaintances, strangers—have gathered. With Claudia beside him, Hal stands in the doorway listening to the drone of voices, the clink of china and glass. Uncertain what to do, he waits until the voices subside. An awkward silence falls on the room as Eldon Buchanan comes forward and takes Hal’s hand. “A terrible loss, Hal. My heart goes out to you,” Eldon says. Eldon and Hal often do not see eye to eye on Kiwanis matters but when faced with a sudden death, a difference of opinion is of little account. Eldon is followed by other Kiwanians, Clive Alyward among
them, and one by one they offer Hal the inadequate words of condolence. Waiting her turn behind the Kiwanians is the silver-haired woman wearing a white silk blouse. “I don’t know if you remember me, Mr. McNab,” she says. “I’m Edith, Ernie Thompson’s sister. As you know Ernie’s death was unexpected and I know how hard it is to bear a sudden death.” Hal didn’t know Ernie’s death was sudden but he thanks Edith for coming and one by one he thanks the friends and acquaintances waiting in line: Joe and Frank Northrup, Mr. Franzin and his wife, Carl Reidle and his wife, Donald and Frances Upham, Sophie and Carol Power, Sharon and Reg Huntley, Squank and Margot O’Donnell, Larry and Karen McIntyre.

Across the room, Laverne has her own friends and acquaintances and with Hennie Pronk at her side she accepts the condolences of Xuan Pham and his mother, Lan; Walter and Teresa Coombs; Mavis and Terry Thorne; Ivy Dooder; and Jessie Gyles who has come all the way from Grand Manan. Corrie Spears and Millie Keirstead do not join either line; instead they occupy one of the two sofas. The other sofa is occupied by elderly sisters wearing flowery dresses, hats and gloves. Millie asks if Corrie knows who the elderly women are. “No, I’ve never laid eyes on them before,” Corrie says. In fact there are at least seven people in the room she doesn’t know including the man standing beside Matthew and his wife. Although she doesn’t know the man, it’s easy to see that he is Hal’s brother.

“Dad, we have to move on,” Claudia whispers and steers her father toward the podium where the rest of the family form a ragged line.

Matt places his circled notes on the podium. Having made dozens of presentations in boardrooms, Matt is a confident speaker but not today; today his confidence has deserted him and he clasps his hands together to keep them from trembling. “Good afternoon,” he says and waits for the whispers to subside. A hush descends on the gathering and Matt pushes on. “On behalf of my family, I want to thank you for joining us today to celebrate of the life of Lily Anne McNab who died earlier this week on her fifty-eighth birthday. For those of you who may not know, Mom and her sister, Laverne Pritchard, were born in Barrie, Ontario, and lived there until their father was transferred to the Royal Bank in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. After training as a nurse at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, Mom undertook further training in Boston at the Massachusetts General Hospital before returning to Nova Scotia. Not long after, she met my father and following a brief courtship they married in Bridgewater. My sister Claudia and I were born there. Later our family moved to Dartmouth where we lived until moving to Sussex twenty years ago …”

• • •

“Twenty years! Why, they’re newcomers!” one sister whispers to the other.

“I notice there’s no body laid out.”