Anticipating my move, she positioned herself beside the drink trolley in such a way that she effectively blocked the door. “One small drink for the road can’t hurt.”
I was suddenly weary with the charade, the elaborate meal, the calculated outfit she had worn, the obvious sexual signals, the iron determination to be captivating, and the absolute refusal to decode the messages I was sending out in reply.
“I’ll call you and we’ll have lunch, when wedding plans are more fully under way. May I have my coat, please?”
For just a second her eyes snapped wide open, flashing a look subliminal but clear: “I’ll get you yet, you son of a bitch!” Then pulling on a pleasant expression, like someone dressing in haste, she manufactured a smile. “Of course.”
She led the way to the vestibule. I tugged on my overshoes, pulled on my coat, shook hands, said goodnight, and left.
The limousine, engine idling, waited at the foot of the walk. The chauffeur got out to open my door, and I nodded without speaking. Preoccupied as I was with the information picked up in scraps during the course of the evening, I made no further attempt to engage the driver in conversation as he turned off the crescent and headed down the hill. My vibes told me Lois Fullerton was a woman determined to get her own way. For myself I had no worries. Who can thwart a princess better than a queen? But I knew my sister and her whims of iron, her social graces forged in the Gestapo Charm School, where she had led the class. I could easily imagine Mildred and Lois meeting head-on, like two eighteen-wheelers on a narrow country road. I mistrust instant best friends; they can turn into instant worst enemies at the drop of a zinger.
Mildred is not a dishonest woman. How many times over the years has she used her probity to beat me about the head and shoulders? But a wedding is at best an expensive undertaking. Anyone would be tempted to add on extras, invite a few more guests, make the whole enterprise more up-market, if someone else is picking up the tab. Mother can afford to marry off her granddaughter. But I still did not want to see her taken advantage of, nor to see Mildred swanning through the big day, playing mother of the bride at ten thousand volts, having spared no expense for her darling daughter, and lapping up accolades while Mother signed the cheques.
More precisely, it was I who would be signing the cheques. I had signing authority for Mother’s bank account. Once a month I went for Sunday supper, which truly was potluck, and paid her bills. It had been at the back of my mind for some time now to have Mother grant me a full power of attorney. Then in case of a real emergency I could act without consulting Mildred. Were I to get the power of attorney right away, I would be in a position to prevent my sister from being too lavish with Mother’s money.
The thought of being placed in a discretionary position regarding my sister, of being able to tell her I really didn’t think a certain expense was justified, gave me a little electric jolt of pleasure. At that moment the limousine pulled to a stop in front of my apartment building. Again the chauffeur got out to open my door.
“Thank you,” I said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
He climbed back into the driver’s seat, and the long, black automobile pulled away.
I decided to take the elevator up to my floor. Fortunately it was empty. I let myself into my apartment, turned the deadlock, and attached the safety chain. I used to have the customary fantasies about tall, dark, handsome, and wildly randy burglars. But when I see photographs of the unwashed, unshaven illiterates who get caught pulling off nickel and dime jobs, I realize that agreeable fantasy is yet another victim of age and time.
Hardly had I hung up my coat when the telephone rang. A glance at my watch told me it was after ten, the hour after which only drunks or people in real trouble would dare to call. I picked up the receiver, fully expecting to learn that Mother had taken another nosedive. “Hello?”
There was a pause. Then an unfamiliar male voice spoke. “Chadwick?”
“This is he speaking.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Lois Fullerton.” The tone was muffled, as if the speaker was trying to disguise his voice.
I always treat crank calls as if they were quite routine. “But of course. Now, would you be kind enough to leave your name and number.”
Obviously taken aback the caller hesitated before replying. “You’ve been warned.” The line went dead.
“Just terrific!” I thought to myself. No sooner do I get home after having kept Lois Fullerton at bay with whip and chair than a threatening caller warns me to back off. If only he knew how little he had to worry, whoever the bastard might be. I unknotted my tie. I had been involved with my niece’s wedding for one calendar week, and already I had a strong suspicion that June 13 was not going to be the happiest day of my life.
3.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, OR SO I REMEMBER READING when I was a student. Judging by the apparent knowledge of many in prominent government positions, whose IQ seems to be their weight divided by two, I find that statement open to question. Nevertheless, I decided to learn something more about Lois Fullerton, mother of the groom and possibly lethal dinner companion.
The person who immediately sprang to mind was Audrey Crawford, from whom I had learned of the wedding in the first place. Audrey is a woman whose hobby, pursued with almost votive calling, is to know about the people in our community. Her mind is a vast reservoir of genealogical tables, like those in the back pages of high school history books listing the kings and queens of Great Britain, their wives, children, in-laws. If anyone could fill me in on Lois Fullerton, it had to be Audrey.
I telephoned to suggest lunch; it really had been so long.
“Oh, Geoffry, I’d love to, but I really ought to say no. I’m on a diet.”
“Even people on diets have to eat, unless you are fasting. Lunch does not necessarily have to be a double portion of lasagna followed by Black Forest cake.”
“You’re right, you know. But you must promise faithfully not to let me backslide.”
“Scout’s honour. Salad and tea and Melba toast, followed by a slab of cherry cheesecake.”
She squealed as if she had just been goosed. “You’re really awful. Now I have to decide what to wear.”
“How about a hair shirt, cut on the bias naturally, and the cowrie-shell necklace you picked up in Antigua. Come by my office around noon.”
I hung up. Audrey is a professional dieter, at least in conversation. Plump girls really should be taught at an early age that if they indulge themselves in the luxury of four children they will have to practise girth control.
I took Audrey to a restaurant where I had taken to eating lunch at least twice a week, mainly, I suspect, because it was not decorated in grey with grey tablecloths and pink napkins. Nor did it have a salad bar. Audrey was fresh from the hairdresser, each hair a filament of epoxy resin. Under the sheared beaver she wore the basic little black nothing wool dress with enough gold chains to set up shop. Audrey is a good-looking, middle-aged, slightly overweight matron of medium height who daydreams of being a six-foot-one Las Vegas showgirl.
She declined the iced tea, because it was made with a mix containing sugar, and settled instead for a sweet vermouth, while I played games with white wine and club soda.
“I had dinner with Lois Fullerton last Friday night,” I began as Audrey tore open the breadsticks, but only after lifting the butter to my side of the table. “It seems odd I have never run into her before. She is certainly a woman one notices.”
“She certainly is, the way one notices the arches in front of McDonald’s, or a mobile home parked in the driveway.”
The dark-eyed and very humpy waiter put down a plate of bite-sized pizzas, compliments of the house. As the principal ingredient appeared to be tomato paste, heartburn to go, I found them easy to refuse.
“I really shouldn’t …” began Audrey as her hand, pulled by an invisible force, moved towards the plate.
“One also notices the S
un Life Building or a Bentley at the beach,” I added, nudging my lunch guest towards the tale I could see she was not reluctant to begin. Urged on by a second vermouth, Audrey told me about Lois Fullerton. If there was a bias to her story, it was that of one middle-aged blonde talking about another middle-aged blonde, whose waist may be smaller and whose income larger.
I learned that my first impression of Lois had been correct; she was indeed a self-made woman, the finished product a result of considerable trial and frequent error. She had been born in Magog, a small town close to 150 kilometres southeast of Montreal, the only daughter of British immigrant parents who worked in the textile mill. “You’d need a bushel basket to pick up the dropped h’s,” was Audrey’s observation.
Lois Fullerton, nee Dalton, knew there was more to life than Magog; as far as she was concerned the yellow brick road led to Montreal. She finished high school and left town, having somehow managed to scrape together enough money to get herself into the city, where she enrolled in O’Sullivan’s Business College to train as a secretary. She lived at the YWCA because it was cheap and respectable, and worked part time as a waitress at Murray’s.
She led her class and graduated summa cum shorthand, or whatever it was they awarded secretaries. (Audrey Crawford had graduated from McGill with a degree in art history. She can tell a poster from a painting by running her fingers over the surface.) With her excellent references, Lois Dalton went right into the stenographer’s pool of a large insurance company, where James Fullerton happened to be senior vicepresident.
“She managed to – catch his eye – one might say,” added Audrey, her pauses bubbling with malice. As she paused in her story to pop two more tiny pizzas, I could not help thinking that the striking woman Lois Fullerton had become must have been truly radiant twenty-five years ago. Small wonder she had caught the eye and the fancy of James Fullerton.
As if doing penance for the pizza, Audrey chose the salad entree. Having polished off the breadsticks, she broke a crusty roll onto her side plate, then, with only a faint tremor of hesitation, reached for the butter, to which she helped herself liberally. Heartened, she continued her chronicle.
It was not long before Lois was living in a nice little apartment in a building that James Fullerton happened to own. There was a problem, however; James Fullerton already had a wife.
“I know for a fact they slept in separate rooms,” said Audrey with a look that suggested her own conjugal life scorched the sheets. And the first Mrs. Fullerton was unlikely to be dislodged, for her father was president of the company where James Fullerton worked. Lois was at liberty to – accommodate her boss, but there stood little chance of her marrying him. That was, until the first wife died, of a ruptured something. Audrey wasn’t certain what.
The real certainty was that James Fullerton, now a widower, vice-president of a large corporation, due to inherit pots of money from the first wife, had become eligible. Whether or not he was available did not matter. He had become a catch, and more than one post-deb entertained fantasies of being chatelaine of 15 Mayfair Crescent.
That was, until Lois played her trump card. After three years of being one of Montreal’s best-known secrets, and having successfully taken the necessary precautions, Lois suddenly found herself pregnant.
Audrey Crawford paused while the waiter sprinkled grated cheese over the cannelloni she knew she shouldn’t even consider but had ordered anyway. I had to admit it looked a lot more tempting than the cuisses de grenouille, breaded Q-Tips, that I had been served. Lois Dalton had James Fullerton over not one barrel but two. First of all, he had been raised “to do the right thing.” It had also become common knowledge how badly he wanted children, more specifically a son. He was even prepared to adopt, but the first Mrs. Fullerton wouldn’t hear of it. One seldom knew the father of an illegitimate child; he could be a thief or a murderer or worse. One simply could not take the chance. Consequently, when James Fullerton learned that his beloved Lo-lo – here Audrey rolled her eyes to the ceiling, while I indulged in an uncharitable chuckle – was carrying his child, well, the rest of the competition might just as well pack up their kits and go home.
“I have it on good authority,” Audrey said, leaning towards me as if she were about to whisper a secret message, “that he used to tiptoe up behind her, clap his hands over her eyes, and say, ‘Guess who?’ “
“Please,” I said, “not while I’m eating.”
At a shotgun wedding it is usually the bride’s family who have their finger on the trigger. Lois was hustled into marriage so quickly she barely had time to buy a dress, no more than a couturier flour sack, for the pregnancy had really begun to show. The result of this same pregnancy was a son, christened Douglas James, now twenty-two years old and engaged to marry my niece.
Here Audrey paused for a sip or two of white wine, which she drank with the guilty gusto of a reformed smoker sneaking a cigarette. Having nibbled her way through a second well- buttered roll, she made a show of refusing the table d’hôte house cake in favour of a self-denying fruit salad. From the way she leaned forward slightly I could tell there was more to come.
Douglas was still a baby when James Fullerton and his sailboat parted company during a summer storm on Lake Memphremagog. Friends dined out on the terrible tragedy until the following Christmas. The young and beautiful Lois was now a wealthy widow. I noticed Audrey’s observation that Lois had been beautiful, but the compliment was soon undercut by what followed. Lois Fullerton became a merry widow, the merriest.
What really irked Audrey Crawford was not that Lois Fullerton had lovers, but the expediency with which she took them on. The first was a notary who helped wind up her late husband’s estate. The second was a real estate agent who advised her against selling Mayfair Crescent. The third had been an investment counsellor who steered her portfolio into high-yield order. And so it went: a salesman for Ford Motors who got her a buy on a Lincoln, a roofing contractor when the hugely expensive copper sheeting on the roof needed replacing, an interior decorator (think of that!) when she did over Mayfair Crescent and got rid of the first Mrs. Fullerton’s chintzes and cretonnes.
“Do you suppose the decorator advised her on the bedroom?” I inquired over the double espresso I had ordered to help jolt me through the afternoon.
“Oh, you saw it, did you? Don’t tell me …”
“No, Audrey, I did not.” (Audrey Crawford has a vested interest in believing me straight.) “I merely went upstairs for a numero uno, as we say in sunny Italy.”
“She claims she did that room all by herself, and I believe her. Period whoredom, the white period.”
“Charity, Audrey.”
“Even you have to admit it is a manicurist’s daydream of high glamour. And white is so unflattering to skin. At her age she should surround herself in pink, or pale beige.”
The idea of Lois Fullerton’s bedroom in pink was enough to unsettle my lunch. I signalled for the check.
“Do you happen to know – I don’t see why you should – if she was ever mixed up with someone, shall we say, unsuitable, dangerous perhaps?”
“I couldn’t be certain. But when you’ve had that amount of turnover you’re bound to come up with a bad apple or two.” Audrey glanced at her watch. “Have to dash. I’m meeting Muriel Walsh at the museum; we’re going to do prints and drawings. And I’m sure you have to get back to the office.”
In the street we paused to say our goodbyes.
“You appear to know a great deal about Lois Fullerton. You must have been good friends at some point.”
“Indeed not! Never could stand the woman.” Audrey aimed a moist kiss at my mouth; she tasted of freshly applied lipstick. “Thanks for lunch, pet. We must do it again soon. Next time on me.”
I watched her retreating figure with amusement. She knew more about Lois Fullerton, a woman she obviously does not like, than I knew about my own sister. Perhaps that was just as well. Moreover, Audrey Crawford is not without clout in the city. She
is Miss Volunteer Committee, with her picture in the paper at least once a month. Face it; most people are more interested in other people’s sex lives than in what they do or think, and Audrey knows who is looking at what ceiling. Maybe it is time to rewrite the old saw and admit that gossip is power.
That afternoon after work I decided to swing by Mother’s apartment. Things having been busy at the office, I had not been to see her for over a week. I made a treaty with my conscience and bought her a pound of pricey chocolates, the kind that go straight to the thighs. Candy is not an imaginative gift, but buying things for someone who seldom goes out is tough. Mother already has more soap and handkerchiefs than a department store. I suppose Mother shouldn’t eat candy, but nor should she begin drinking at noon and smoking the second she opens her eyes in the morning. But I am not my mother’s keeper. I do not consider it my disagreeable duty to scold her about the two principal pleasures left to her, namely vodka and cigarettes.
Mother lives in an apartment building that boasts a security guard as an advertising blandishment. Old high school dropouts do not fade away; they become security guards. After several years of seeing me come and go with some frequency, the afternoon guard has come to realize that I do not rape and pillage and set fire to. There is a tradeoff, however. Instead of being formally introduced and given permission to proceed as though I were attending a reception at Government House, I now have to pause for a short conversation that limps along on crutches.
“Afternoon, Mr. Chadwick.” Small eyes set close together in an egg-shaped head squeezed themselves into a smile.
“Afternoon, Sam.”
“So what do you think of the boys up there in Ottawa?”
I avoid thinking of them whenever possible, but some sort of hearty male-bonding reply was required. “They seem to be aiming at the sky and shooting themselves in the feet.”
He nodded his head in ponderous agreement. “I’m a fishin’ man myself. Think they’ll ever get around to clearin’ up the acid rain?”
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