Sunday Best

by Edward O. Phillips

  “And far less conspicuous, especially with a snap-brim fedora. I’ll call you about the party.”

  I telephoned my RSVP to Lois and, in one of those off-the- cuff by-the-ways, mentioned that an old friend, divorced, was coming to Montreal for the weekend of the party. He had telephoned asking me to have dinner Saturday night. Naturally, I had to refuse, but would it be possible –

  Why, of course, Lois had replied before I even had a chance to complete my sentence. By all means bring him along. An extra man is always welcome.

  That bit of lore harks back to another era. Women of my mother’s generation always tried to flesh out a dinner table with an extra man and the unspoken but wicked hint of sex up for grabs. The fact that most “extra” men were as gay as a carousel did not ease the unfortunate truth that extra women were considered a liability. My experience with extra men at parties has not been all that great. They eat more, and certainly drink more, than the other guests. They make passes at the help and sneak off to the furnace room for a quick bit of in and out. They are seldom amusing and frequently bad news. But most people take parties very seriously. They are occasions to network and make contacts, business, social, sexual. The idea that one would go to a party merely to have a good time seems frivolous in the extreme.

  THE ONE IRONCLAD RULE laid down by Fifteen Steps to a Lovelier Wedding was that the prospective bride and groom both be present at the engagement party. As for the other members of the family, they should attend if possible. I fully intended going to Lois’s party; I even had an escort. Whether I would go up to Toronto for the party Mildred planned to throw in three weeks’ time seemed very doubtful. When it comes to engagement parties, once is more than enough, even though one can be reasonably certain there will be nothing to wave, wear, or blow.

  Nothing could have kept my sister away. She was coming down from Toronto, on foot if necessary, to play her part as the not-too-quietly-understated mother of the bride.

  That left Richard and Elizabeth, Jennifer’s brother and sister, head usher and maid of honour respectively. Both were in the middle of academic terms at universities. It seemed unrealistic, to me at least, that they should interrupt their studies twice in one month to fly first to Montreal, then to Toronto, for these parties. Nor did I consider ferrying them back and forth a legitimate wedding expense, as I told Mildred during a terse telephone conversation.

  She called while I was performing the irritating task of trying to fold a fitted sheet into a neat square so it could be stored in an inadequate linen closet. My cleaning woman had been laid low with flu, and I was playing house, not my favourite game. Housework is just that, all work and no pay. Not surprisingly, Mildred wanted Richard and Elizabeth to attend both parties, at Mother’s expense, a suggestion I vetoed at once. We were not running a travel agency.

  Before Mildred had a chance to embrace martyrdom, I made a counter-proposal. Why not have each sibling attend the nearest party? Richard could fly up from New York for Lois’s party, Elizabeth from Indiana for the one in Toronto. The compromise was nonnegotiable, and Mildred accepted with all the charm of a slammed door. She was already sorry she had allowed herself to become involved in these beastly engagement parties. Lois Fullerton had made such an issue of holding the first party, by rights the prerogative of the bride’s family, that Mildred was forced to agree. Either that or tell the silly female off. As I had anticipated, there was trouble in paradise.

  Pouring oil on troubled waters has never been my long suit, to mince a metaphor, but I suggested to Mildred that Lois was less overbearing than enthusiastic. Nobody could fault her for that. Furthermore, anyone who mattered already knew about the wedding, so the party was to be no more than just that, a party and not an official function. Lois was obviously going to a lot of trouble and expense, so why don’t we all just plan to have a good time.

  Not in the least mollified, Mildred muttered something about women with dollar signs where their brains should be, and hung up. I returned to folding my contour sheet, a trick that made Rubik’s cube look easy.

  Possibly one of the surest signs of encroaching age is that one grows more willing to spend money on services than on goods. Far more important than the designer label on the shirt is the nearby laundry who will wash the garment, press out the wrinkles, fold it, and slide it into a polyethylene bag. I have always considered the hotel, where one can rent a room with adjoining bath scrubbed daily by a maid, to be one of mankind’s highest achievements.

  Not so my sister, who considers hotels an invention of the devil. I know I will not have to protect Mother from unjustified hotel bills, for Mildred would almost prefer to sit up all night in the concourse of Central Station than to incinerate money by paying for lodgings.

  Lois Fullerton’s impending party was to cause an exodus from Toronto: Jennifer, Douglas, Mildred, and Charles. My nephew Richard, the head usher, would be, flying in from New York. I knew the idea of anyone staying in a hotel would be anathema to my sister, but I made no attempt to offer a solution.

  I have protected myself by having no facilities whatsoever for putting up guests. My couch does not unfold into a bed, nor is it long enough for anyone to sleep on comfortably, one of the features that occasioned its purchase. When I retired from the arena of one-night stands and meaningful relationships that lasted seventy-two hours, I exchanged my king- sized bed for a regular double and made my bedroom seem twice as large. People who want to crash in a sleeping bag on my living-room floor are unwelcome. I far prefer to put such out-of-town visitors as I have into a hotel and pay the bill, a small price compared to tripping over them in the early hours of the a.m.

  Not surprisingly, Lois came to the rescue, insisting she had heaps of room for the young people. Furthermore, Douglas and Richard, who had yet to meet, could get to know one another. Mildred would stay with Mother. All these bedding-down arrangements took an unnecessary number of phone calls, but at least I would not have a body sleeping in my bathtub.

  All that I have ever wanted from my sister is that she leave me alone. In her case, absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but it does keep the disposition sweeter. Were I the kind of person who allows himself to feel guilt, a vain, self- indulgent emotion that permits one to feel a bathetic responsibility for events over which one has no control, were I to get off on guilt, I might have felt differently about Mildred’s missing her daughter’s engagement party. As anyone who lives in Canada well knows, in the midst of winter we are in flu. Poor dear Mildred was flat on her back.

  She had all the classic symptoms: fluctuating temperature, aches, chills, fever, and a head that did not feel attached to the rest of her body. Only the ministrations of a kindly neighbour enabled Jennifer to leave the patient and get down to Montreal. Sick though she might have been, Mildred was not too sick to telephone and tell me just how sick she really was. I felt she would ultimately recover.

  It was only when I had hung up the phone, after suitable expressions of solicitude, that I realized Mildred’s illness landed me with a major problem, namely, that of getting Mother to the engagement party. Up to now I had considered Mother as Mildred’s responsibility for the evening. But my sister was now hors de combat, and I certainly wasn’t going to saddle Jennifer with her unpredictable grandmother. Although Mother leaves her apartment only when it is absolutely necessary – the doctor, the dentist, the ophthalmologist – she had expressed a determination to attend her granddaughter’s engagement party. My heart plummeted at the thought of Mother turned loose at 15 Mayfair Crescent. Steering myself through that evening would take all my concentration, not to mention having Patrick in tow. Under ordinary circumstances I would have put myself out to accommodate Mother, to pick her up, transport her safely to Lois Fullerton’s house, to keep her under constant surveillance while she made her token appearance, and to whisk her away the second she started to fall apart.

  I also understood that Mother was far more intrigued with the idea of the party than with the gathering itse
lf. It was time for me to carry out the intellectual equivalent of a mugging, and it was with deliberation and premeditation that I reached for the phone.

  “Mother?”

  “Geoffry. How very nice.” I could tell by Mother’s voice that she had just about started on her third vodka of the day.

  “You’ve heard the news about Mildred?”

  “Isn’t it awful. Poor girl. And with Jennifer’s party this weekend. I guess I will just have to attend in Mildred’s place.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Mother. Can you put your hand on your overshoes?”

  There was a pause and a tinkle. “I don’t really know. I suppose so. But why would I need overshoes?”

  “We may have to walk down the hill after the party to find a taxi, or else take the bus. There’s a long-range forecast for a big storm, and getting around will be a problem. If the night is stormy I won’t be driving my car. And be sure to tie a scarf over your wig.”

  “Couldn’t we hire a limousine?”

  “We could, at exhorbitant cost. Probably a good idea, though. We can put your wheelchair in the trunk.”

  “Wheelchair, Geoffry? Why would I want a wheelchair at an engagement party?”

  “There will be a great many people and not much place to hunker down. With your own wheelchair you will be guaranteed a place to sit.”

  “I see.” Pause. Tinkle.

  “You know what these cocktail parties are like, Mother. A bunch of drunks standing around talking at the tops of their voices. But that won’t matter to you, as there won’t be anyone there you know, outside of Jennifer and Richard and me. And we’ll all be pretty tied up with the other guests.”

  “True.” A long pause but no tinkle. I pressed on, ruthlessly.

  “But I wouldn’t worry about being entertained. If I know Lois, she’ll probably have musicians, or at least a pianist. I can wheel you over to the piano and you can listen to the cocktail music.”

  “Cocktail music?” I could hear Mother take a long swallow before she continued. “Do you suppose – I know it’s dreadful of me even to suggest it – but do you suppose it would be really awful of me not to attend?”

  “No, I don’t. You’re all grown up, Mother. In fact, you’re old enough to be my mother. Why should you even remotely consider doing something you don’t want to do? Tell you what. Should you decide you really don’t want to go, I’ll do my best to square it away with Jennifer.”

  “That’s very good of you, dear. Perhaps you should. I don’t really think I would have a very good time.”

  “Whatever you say, Mother. Now, if you hang up right away I just may be able to catch her at home.”

  “Well, if you think it best …”

  I rang off, pitilessly, and called my niece. I blandly suggested that if she wanted her unwilling grandmother at the engagement party, she would have to dress her, groom her, transport her, and make sure she stayed off the sauce prior to departure. I was fighting dirty, and I won. Jennifer didn’t stand a chance.

  “What you might do, ” I temporized; “is stay with your grandmother. Now that Mildred can’t come to Montreal, the guest room will be free. I know Mother would enjoy having you there.”

  “Good idea, Uncle Geoffry. I would prefer to stay with Gran. That way I won’t have to spend the weekend avoiding Mrs. Fullerton’s aura.”

  The plan was for Jennifer, Douglas, and Charles to drive up to Montreal along Highway 401, boring in summer, an endurance test in winter. Hell must surely consist of driving for eternity along the 401, in a car that never needs refilling, with kidneys that never need draining. Richard, who was careful with money, his or anyone else’s, was coming up from New York City by bus, a wise choice, for nothing can shut down an airport faster than a snowstorm. Although I am not frequently given to gestures of male solidarity, I volunteered to take Douglas, Charles, and Richard to lunch on Saturday, a kind of bachelor party for the groom. Unlike the bachelor parties of my youth, however, the groom would not be doused with beer and pushed into the shower fully dressed, all in the name of good clean fun. The lunch party would also serve to get the three young men out from under Lois’s feet on that big and busy day.

  Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the week preceding the party was that I managed to get some work done. On a couple of evenings I stayed late at the office, quietly clearing my desk with the slightly smug feeling that the telephone in my apartment was probably melting down.

  Lois Fullerton’s obvious gratitude that I was taking the houseguests off her hands on the day of the party convinced me that lunch had been one of my better ideas. I would have a chance to see my nephew, whom I liked; I could get to know Douglas away from his mother; and I would be seeing Charles in a situation that would not be charged with what if. Yes, indeed, a pleasant occasion.

  It was only after I had made the reservation that the full implications hit me: a lunch party of three gay men and one on whom the jury was still out. (Aside from what Charles had told me about Douglas, those wedding rings made me very nervous.) But I was both the oldest man and the host. It would be my responsibility to make sure civility did not degenerate into camp and that comedy did not descend into farce.

  We certainly had an impressive cast. If not a true queen, I can certainly be a grand duchess when the occasion demands. Richard was our visiting princess. (You don’t have to be either Jewish or female to be a princess.) Charles would play the lady’s maid, the wenchy kind whose breasts are always billowing over her fichu. And Douglas was the naive young man from the provinces who falls into the clutches of these three harpies. For parallels one would have to turn to French comedy more than English, Marivaux perhaps, Beaumarchais, even Alfred de Musset. Then again, we were just four men meeting for a pleasant lunch. I would unobtrusively make certain that all the hairpins remained in place.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, AFTER WAKING from my nap and before showering, I made tea, a little jolt of caffeine to get the motor turning over. I had about an hour before Patrick came to pick me up and drive me to the party in his car. I had followed his suggestion and moved my own car from its customary parking spot downstairs, just in case my unknown admirer decided to play more tricks on my hapless Cadillac. I drove over to Mother’s apartment building and left the automobile in the parking space she rents for guests.

  To my mild astonishment, lunch had turned out to be pleasant and civilized. I took my guests to a Swiss restaurant whose food is outstanding. Granted, the cowbells and alpenhorns take a bit of getting used to, as do the Franz Lehar waitresses in dirndls. I could see Charles giving the restaurant the once-over, his gaze resting on the bar, which reproduced the facade of a Swiss chalet. He happened to catch my eye, then made such a dumb show of trying not to smile that I burst out laughing, to the puzzled amazement of Douglas and Richard.

  I had not seen my nephew in over a year. Preparing an advanced degree at the Juilliard School of Music is no easy undertaking, and he worked hard. Initially, like most young musicians, he had wanted a career in performing; music is written to be heard, after all. I had suggested that rock concerts can easily sell out hockey arenas, but harpsichord recitals seldom play to a full house. With an advanced degree from a respected institution he would have more options. He could teach, full time if recitals dried up.

  I would also like to think that at a critical point in his life I gave him some sound advice. The burden of my message was that he accept his sexual orientation without turning it into an issue. This conference had taken place during that simpler age before AIDS began to grab headlines from acid rain. Sexual politics had turned shrill and strident. Nelly little numbers in skin-tight jeans and T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up to the shoulder confronted men in three-piece suits and hair parted on the side. The gay libbers screamed in uncivil fashion for civil liberties, as they stamped their sneakers and tossed their blow-dried curls in an orgy of Them and Us. The slightest hint that they simply shut up and accommodate themselves to a heter
osexual society in which they were a minority group met with outraged cries. They lusted for confrontation; they demanded obedience. But haven’t we always known that when you scratch a fairy a fascist bleeds through?

  I had not wanted my nephew to fall into this unattractive pattern. And, I was pleased to see, he had not. He was a serious young man, but that quality was due in part to the harpsichord. Musical instruments whose strings are plucked – the harpsichord, guitar, harp – tend to be solemn, as opposed to those whose strings are bowed. What is jollier than a cello? Richard had inherited the best genes from both parents and, perhaps unfairly, was by far the best looking of Mildred’s three children. Tall, well built, broad of forehead and straight of nose, he had the intensity that springs from serving in the temple of music. There was a time when I found that kind of intensity in a man quite sexy. Now it wears me out.

  Douglas Fullerton was, as I had initially suspected, an airhead, or, to use an expression borrowed from my father, a bit of a lightweight. I also suspected his lack of weight sprang not from a limited intelligence but from a lack of direction. My own prejudices leak through, but I have always thought that going to graduate school to study English is not unlike attending a world-renowned cooking school in order to learn how to eat. At grade school one learns to read and write, add and subtract. At college one applies these skills to learning about the history of our civilization. At university one learns a profession. Only those who have the true vocation of scholarship should pursue doctoral degrees in literature, history, philosophy. A Ph.D. is not a degree for amateurs. I suppose what bothered me about Douglas was his lack of vocation; he had read a lot of books, but he was not a scholar.

  Of the young men around the table I felt most comfortable with Charles, the man of intelligence with no pretensions to intellect. I’d wager that as a child he learned to tell the time and tie his shoelaces without the help of adults. He knew enough to take shelter when it rained. I felt certain he was deft with tools and understood electrical wiring. In comparison with the other two tall, conventionally handsome young men, whose prototypes looked at you from the pages of glossy fashion magazines, Charles seemed solid and square. His centre of gravity was low; his feet rested firmly on the floor.