The Birthday Lunch (3 page)

Hal whistles. “Italian marble.”

“I know it’s pricey but Reg wants a top-notch kitchen because once we get going we plan to serve evening dinner year round.”

“That should bring in the four-hundred crowd.”

“The four-hundred crowd?”

“That’s what Corrie Spears calls the old money, the people in town who have more than four hundred dollars to spend in a week.”

At the mention of money, Sharon sets her coffee mug aside and taking an envelope from the drawer beneath the telephone, she counts out four one-hundred-dollar bills, cash the bank cannot get its hands on that will pay for tonight’s surprise dinner and the deluxe hotel room Hal has reserved for Lily and himself in Saint John.

Because Lily is not always punctual, Laverne is relieved to hear her running a bath because it means she will be downstairs on time. In high spirits, she pours a glass of chilled Pouilly-Fuissé and toasts the portrait of the Dutch burgomeister on the wall. The likeness (the Van Dyke beard, the balding dome) between the portrait and Lucas Verduyn is remarkable, which is probably why she chose this particular reproduction and she will tell Lucas that in five weeks when she sees him in Amsterdam.

Laverne has never told Lily about her friendship with Jan Pronk and Lucas Verduyn, platonic friendships to be sure and far safer than her crush on Thomas Kimble in Middle Musquodoboit, and years later her crush on Alan Harrington in Sussex. Unwilling to expose her vulnerability and poor judgement, Laverne has not told anyone about these infatuations, not even Lily who has never once confided in Laverne about her marriage. When the sisters left home for good—Laverne for teachers’ college and, three years later, Lily for nursing school—their father expected them to keep their private lives to themselves. Of course Lily has had Hal to confide in while Laverne has no wish to confide in anyone and considers herself stronger on that account.

Laverne finishes the glass of wine and turns her attention to Lily’s birthday present, a painting she hopes her sister will like. It’s a view of the Kennebecasis River Valley as seen from Fox Hill where, before moving to the Old Steadman House, Lily and Hal were renting a derelict farm house. Laverne knows her painting is the work of an amateur, but Lily often admired the view of the river valley and Laverne hopes she will be pleased.

Every year, Laverne faces the challenge of choosing a birthday gift her sister will actually use. Because Lily is a sometime birdwatcher, last year’s birthday gift was a book in which to record bird sightings. Although Lily showed some enthusiasm when she opened the gift, the last time Laverne checked the book there wasn’t a single bird sighting recorded, and if none are recorded by the end of the summer, Laverne will pass the book on to her friend Jessie, who has already put Lily’s unused
flower-drying kit to good use. Laverne cannot abide clutter or waste. If something isn’t being used, she has no qualms about giving it to someone who will put it to use. It isn’t a question of her sister being lazy. Lily does her own housework, tends the flowers in the front garden, makes pickles and jam, works three weeks a year for Dr. O’Donnell when his regular nurse is on vacation, and occasionally volunteers in the library. What irks Laverne is her sister’s independent streak, her stubborn refusal to take up a hobby she has not chosen herself. Even as a little girl Lily was balky and did what she wanted in her own good time. Fortunately this year’s birthday gift does not involve a hobby and will not require Lily to put it to good use; all that will be required of her is to hang the painting on a wall.

Something is wrong with the Impala. For the sixth time Hal turns the ignition key and for the sixth time the only response is a click. During the four years he has owned the car, the ignition has never failed to catch. Frustrated that today of all days the Impala is acting up, Hal keeps turning the ignition key and pumping the gas pedal, not enough to flood the engine but enough to get it to start. No such luck. Climbing out of the car, Hal opens the hood and checks the levels of water and oil and looks for possible loose wires and battery connections. At a loss as to what else he can do, he gets down on his hands and knees and peers beneath the car, looking for signs of leakage, but the gravel is dry.

By now Sharon has the veranda half painted and there is a bull’s eye of sweat on her back. Hal asks if he can use the
telephone. “Sure,” she says, “you know where it is.” For the life of him, Hal cannot remember Joe’s telephone number and asks the operator to dial Northrup’s Garage. When Joe finally comes on the line, he advises Hal to wait fifteen minutes and try again. If the Impala doesn’t start, he should call him back.

Hal calls home to let Lily know he is having car trouble and will be late picking her up. The telephone rings seven, eight times but Lily doesn’t answer. Hal makes himself wait another ten minutes before telephoning again. Still no answer. He told Lily he would pick her up at 12:30 and it is now 12:25. Twice he told her the time. What he didn’t tell her, because Lily will not be told, was to wait for him upstairs. His wife marches to her own tune and if she wants to go downstairs, she will go downstairs. And that is where she is, having a birthday lunch with her sister downstairs even though last night, after Lily had gone to bed, Hal made it clear to Laverne that Lily would be unavailable because he was treating her to a birthday lunch at Adair’s. Wouldn’t you know, Hal thinks, once again his sister-in-law has had her way.

Last night Hal and Lily were watching the CBC news in the living room when Laverne appeared. Regular as clockwork, she comes upstairs on Sunday nights to watch the television news, claiming her usual place at the end of the sofa close to Lily’s patchwork rocker. Lily and Hal did not acknowledge Laverne’s presence as a somber Peter Mansbridge read the announcement that Terry Fox had died earlier that morning at 4:35 a.m., a month short of his twenty-third birthday. The nurse who was at his bedside at the Royal Columbian Hospital in British Columbia reported that Terry’s death was peaceful.
There was a clip of Terry on the highway, shoulders back as he hopped from the prosthesis onto his good leg, his face etched with determination and pain. “What a shame,” Hal said. He felt the overwhelming urge to cry.

“Please, Hal,” Lily said; she never liked him talking over the television. Apparently, Laverne was allowed to talk. She looked at Lily and said, “Weren’t we fortunate to see Terry run?”

“Indeed we were,” Lily said. “He was so brave, limping mile after mile on the highway. The pain in the stump must have been excruciating.”

Hal turned to his wife. “Where was this?”

“Near Norton. Sis thought we should drive that far to avoid the traffic.” Lily spoke in the offhand way she used to avoid an altercation.

“You never told me you saw him,” Hal said in an aggrieved, little-boy voice.

“You weren’t around.”

Hal was about to say that if Lily had telephoned him at the store and told him about the run, they could have both seen Terry Fox when Laverne butted in. “Lily,” she said, “do you remember the rude truck driver who kept shouting at me to pull over?”

“I didn’t notice the truck driver,” Lily said. “I was probably admiring Terry’s gorgeous hair that he kept in spite of all the chemotherapy.”

Terry’s gorgeous hair. Why didn’t Lily pay attention to the fact that the truck driver was shouting at Laverne to pull over because her Volkswagen was holding up traffic?

“He was a brave boy,” Laverne said.

“Terry Fox was a man,” Hal said, and while Peter Mansbridge moved on to an explosion in Iran that had killed seventy-two people, Hal escaped to the kitchen and poured himself a rum and Coke. Returning to the living room, he heard Laverne talking about tomorrow’s birthday lunch. Hal asked, “What birthday lunch?”

“The birthday lunch I am having downstairs for Lily.”

“Am I invited?” It pained Hal that although he and Lily owned the house along with Laverne, he had never once been asked downstairs. Of course Laverne did not answer his question and now Peter Mansbridge was talking about President Reagan’s press conference, the first since the assassination attempt. Hal nursed the rum and Coke and waited for the weather report. His sister-in-law seldom stayed for the weather report and soon he would have his wife to himself.

Perversely, Laverne sat through the entire weather report and when she left the living room, Hal followed her through the dining room and into the kitchen as far as the back-stairs door. He had something important to say to Laverne, something he had been intending to say as soon as an opportunity arose. Because he and Laverne were rarely alone, opportunities to speak to her privately were few and far between. Bolstered by Dutch courage, Hal wanted to tell Laverne in the nicest possible way that he did not want her driving his wife anywhere, that the likely reason the truck driver had shouted at her while she was trying to see Terry Fox was because her erratic driving was holding up traffic. He wouldn’t go as far as telling Laverne that she was a nervous driver and no one was safe in a car when she was behind the wheel. Instead, he would
tell Laverne that if Lily needed a lift anywhere, she was to telephone him and if for some reason he was unable to drive her, Lily was to call a taxi.

“Just a minute there, Sis.” Hal rarely called Laverne “Sis” and did so now to soften what he needed to say. Wanting to get it over with, he knew that the sooner he said it, the better. Annoyed that Hal had followed her into the kitchen, Laverne stopped, one hand on the doorknob and asked what he wanted.

“I want to ask a favour.”

In Laverne’s experience, whenever her brother-in-law asked for a favour, it usually involved money. In a tired, here-we-go-again voice, she asked, “And what favour is that?”

It might have been the sigh. Or the what-next tone of Laverne’s voice, as if Hal was a dullard standing beside the teacher’s desk, as he had so often done as a schoolboy. Or it could have been a childish need to get back at his sister-in-law for not including him in tomorrow’s birthday lunch. But Hal did not say a word about not wanting Laverne to drive his wife anywhere. He did not say that if he was unavailable, Lily was to call a taxi. What he said was that he would appreciate it if Laverne could see her way clear to helping him with the roofing bill.

Laverne could have ignored Hal’s request, opened the door and proceeded downstairs to her apartment without saying a word. But neither fury nor disgust would allow it. Turning from the door, she looked at the florid face of the man leaning toward her and said, “You know very well that I have already paid my half of the roofing bill.”

“I know you have,” Hal said, “and I am merely asking for a
temporary loan until I have matters settled at the bank. You receive regular paycheques and have money to spare whereas my income depends on sales that in my business go up and down. To bring in customers I have to advertise, which is costly.”

“In spite of what you may think, Harold,” Laverne said, “I do not have money to spare.”

Having come this far, Hal was determined to have his say about the benefits teachers enjoyed. “But you were paid for June and will be paid for July and August,” he said, “which is why you can afford to travel to Europe every summer.” It rankled Hal that teachers were paid during summer holidays and received a pension besides.

And it rankled Laverne that from time to time she had to put up with the slurs her brother-in-law makes against teachers. Hal was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and, according to Lily, received the bulk of his mother’s estate, and here he was trying to mooch off her hard-earned savings. In the calmest possible tone, Laverne said, “What I do with my salary is none of your business, and I will not lend you a penny.”

“And you have no business coming upstairs whenever it suits you,” Hal said, and waved her downstairs. By the time Laverne was on the bottom stair, Hal had locked the door. He waited a few minutes—no more than three—before dialling Laverne’s number. Hal did not expect her to answer and later, much later, when he came around to thinking it over, he was disappointed that she did. Perhaps Laverne had been expecting him to apologize, but Hal had no intention of apologizing; his sister-in-law never apologized, so why should he? Hal told Laverne that she would have to cancel tomorrow’s lunch with
Lily. “My wife is having lunch with me,” he said, and hanging up the telephone, he turned off the kitchen lights and waited in the dark until he heard Lily on her way to the bathroom. By now Hal was ashamed of himself and on the off chance that Lily might ask if something was wrong, he stayed where he was. He heard the toilet flush, footsteps in the hall, and still he waited. Only when he was sure Lily had set the book aside and fallen asleep, did he make his way to bed.

Mindful of staying out of Sharon’s way, Hal passes the time on the back veranda, considering whether or not he should make Sharon an offer to build lawn chairs. Hal has made dozens of lawn chairs, solid chairs that never come apart. He has two patterns in his head and once the wood is cut, can build a chair in less than two hours. He can also make birdhouses and there are bound to be birds in the woods behind the rail fence that guests would enjoy watching. Hal pictures three birdhouses along the fence and a dozen lawn chairs: two groups of three near the fence and a group of six around a fire pit. Hal has never built a fire pit but Bill Colpitts builds them and he will pass along the business to Bill.

Hal glances at his watch: only five more minutes to go but he forces himself to wait, frowning at the thought that once again Laverne has had her way. When she lived in the trailer at Sussex Corner, Hal was able to tolerate her rudeness but with both of them living under the same roof, her rudeness is impossible to ignore. Hal is a generous man but it irks him that on Wednesday nights Laverne has supper upstairs with Lily and
him yet has never once invited him downstairs for a meal. What irks him even more is that although he agreed that the renovation expenses for her apartment could be included in the mortgage, he has never been invited to see what he has helped pay for. Whenever he complains to Lily about the unfairness of the situation, she tells him that Laverne’s apartment is so dreary and strange it would upset him to see it.