Sunday Best

by Edward O. Phillips

  Charles raised his hands to make a cross of his forefingers. “Out damned spot! And that doesn’t look like seltzer to me.”

  I assumed my best mock-Hungarian accent. “‘I never drink – wine.’ But I suppose you’re far too young to remember Bela Lugosi.”

  “Any relation to Bela Bartok?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Charles dropped his voice. “I have a guilty secret. But to you I’ll tell. Maybe we can find a quiet moment during dinner. I should warn you. As soon as Jennifer gets here there’s going to be an Ave Maria hour. I overheard Lois on the phone. You know, toasts and speeches, the blushing bride and till death do us part.”

  “Mierda! All that prenuptial cant?”

  “The works.” He began to move away with the drink he had ordered for someone else. “Remember, we must confer.”

  Things were beginning to look up. I had not initially held out high hopes for this party, but I hadn’t even finished my second drink and already I had a secret rendezvous. On top of which, Patrick was snooping about and trying to uncover the identity of my anonymous nemesis.

  A flurry of activity in the front hall announced the arrival of Jennifer, flushed with the cold, beads of moisture dotting her hair. I thought she looked quite lovely, an impression somewhat modified when she shed her coat and boots to reveal the déjà vu long black skirt topped by a white blouse with ruffles cascading down the front under a tailored plaid jacket. Perhaps I should have been relieved that her hair had not been brilliantined into spikes, nor her fingernails painted green, but she did bring to mind a tourist brochure for the Edinburgh Festival. To watch Lois ripple out of the dining room to greet the guest of honour, her future daughter-in-law, was to see the two extremities of Europe come together as if in pantomime.

  Temporarily overwhelmed by the number of strangers, most of them my age, Jennifer crossed to say hello to me, the reassuring, familiar face.

  “Uncle Geoffry.”

  “Niece and bride.” We embraced briefly. “You look as though you came straight from the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. What’s the tartan?”

  “I don’t know, I’m afraid. The jacket was a present from Mother.”

  “I see.” It was a relief to know that Jennifer had not voluntarily lifted that garment off the rack and asked the sales woman to wrap it up. And it bore Mildred’s unmistakable stamp, good, sensible clothing untouched by fashion.

  With a proprietary smile, Lois came to usurp Jennifer and lead her away to be introduced. I could almost have felt sorry for my niece. Her engagement party had turned out to be no more than a gathering of Lois Fullerton’s friends, those people to whom Lois owed hospitality or whom she wanted to cultivate. The few friends of Douglas’s age group who had been invited clustered in a small, tight circle in a far corner of the library, same race, different tribe. Not surprisingly, Richard had joined the younger group. He glanced at me across the room and smiled a greeting. I hoped he did not regret having come all the way from New York for this party, in this weather. I would, if I were he.

  All other engagement parties I have attended are soon infected by wedding fever, a highly contagious, ultimately harmless affliction that knocks out the antibodies of irony and cynicism and allows the virus of happily-ever-after to invade the system. The visible symptoms are a glazed, sappy expression and a marked tendency to ask any single man how much longer he is going to postpone getting married. This party, however, had been successfully inoculated. It seemed more like a gathering to celebrate a merger, one between two corporations rather than two people. Granted, the noise level had begun to rise, the guests sounding not unlike a National Geographic special on seabird colonies; but that could be blamed on alcohol, not merriment. An air of solemnity hung over the occasion. Men in suits clustered in knots, talking in that humourless way men do when dragged unwillingly to parties by determined wives.

  The men had taken over the library, the wives by now having congregated in the drawing room. More animated than the men, they too clustered in groups, standing about in those careless attitudes calculated to show off their clothes. I studied them without seeming to, struck by the way they all looked more or less the same: lightened hair, good bones, crepey chins, gaunt figures, all walking endorsements for strict diet, fitness classes, facials, three weeks south in February, and the occasional lover.

  Unless I am at a party heavily populated by people I would enjoy talking to at some point or other, I do my best to remain a moving target, never standing in any one place for long. That way I can more easily avoid those aggressively friendly people who strike up conversations, usually beginning with “so.” So what brings you here tonight? So what do you do for a living? Once having placed a foot firmly in the door of your attention, this congenial soul will go on to give you an encapsulated version of his curriculum vitae.

  There are other pitfalls at parties, for instance people who expect to be recognized even though thirty years have passed since you last spoke.

  “Chadwick, Geoff Chadwick,” said an unfamiliar voice, just as I was about to enter the library. I turned to confront a tall, bald, heavy-set man who looked as though his weekend hobby was a quart of bourbon smuggled in from Vermont. Beside him a short, elaborately coiffed woman teetered on Minnie Mouse pumps. He grabbed my hand as if it were a bargain at a rummage sale.

  No matter how hard I pressed the buttons, I could retrieve nothing from my memory bank. I smiled a big empty smile and allowed the handshake to play itself out, buying time by the diversion of physical activity. But I was to be thrown no life preserver.

  “Come on, Geoff, I can’t have changed that much.”

  Only ex-tricks or people who have known me since college days call me Geoff. Having dismissed the first possibility, I jumped backwards about thirty years. Like a police illustrator who translates verbal descriptions into portraits, I mentally redrew the figure, subtracting weight, pruning chins, adding hair. But the remaining portrait was too generalized to be of any help.

  “Still not a clue, eh, guy?” He laughed, a shade too heartily.

  I decided to follow Mother’s advice and take the bear by the horns. “Are we going to play twenty questions, or are you going to ‘fess up?” (Never apologize; never explain.)

  “Victor, Victor McPherson. We were in first-year law school together at McGill. Then I transferred to Osgoode Hall. This is my wife, Carol.”

  “How do you do, Carol,” I said, offering her my hand. She took it as though I had a wad of chewing gum stuck to my palm.

  “Of course I remember you now,” I continued, smiling disarmingly at Victor. “I find, though, with encroaching age, I have difficulty recalling people out of context. No doubt the condition will get worse before it gets better. Have you returned to Montreal to live, or did you come down for the party?”

  As I spoke, glibly, to camouflage my memory lapse, I managed to summon up a dim recollection of a student, tall and graceful, whose soft brown hair fell in waves over his forehead and whose eyes had not retreated into pouches. Kind of humpy, if I remember correctly, though the ghost of remembered desire was soon exorcised by the florid presence now confronting me.

  “Are you still in law?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I got out. Went into business for myself. Window coverings, shades, Venetian blinds. You may have seen our slogan: Our Love Is Blinds.”

  “Of course!” I lied. “Never realized it was you. Will you be coming to the wedding? I have to be there. The bride is my niece and I’m giving her away.”

  “Then you must be Mildred Carson’s brother, Mr. Chadwick,” said Carol. “Her husband was a cousin of mine, actually a second cousin, on my mother’s side.” She sounded like a woman born in Ontario trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t.

  I looked at her in frank astonishment. So what’s with this Mr. Chadwick bullshit? The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Nor dignity to the dumpy. “I think we might move on to a first-name basis, do
n’t you?”

  She smiled one of those tight little smiles, which made her mouth look like a contracting sphincter. But now that we were on a first-name basis, what could I possibly find to say to this woman who, in spite of black brocade and hair lacquered into complete submission, looked incomplete without a shopping bag?

  I was saved by the bell. In truth, I had only half believed Charles when he spoke darkly of a ceremony with toasts and speeches. I thought we might raise a glass of champagne to the bride after dessert. But no. There stood Lois at the foot of the staircase energetically ringing the silver dinner bell she used to summon the maid. Whatever the reason for commanding our attention, her timing was perfect.

  “I think we are being summoned,” I observed, and ducked over to the bar for a quick, comforting refill, a sort of liquid security blanket.

  The wives obeyed the summons at once. Whether from curiosity, a wish for diversion, or simple female solidarity, they made their way out of the drawing room and into the front hall to face the staircase. Showtime at the Palace. Strike up the band. Send in the clowns.

  Not so with the men, who stood immobilized as though they had put down roots. Nor could I really blame them. Who would willingly distance himself from the bar and interrupt the dank pleasure of thumping the government in order to stand cheek to jowl listening to the bride-and-groom party line? But they had not reckoned with our Lois. Realizing that they had collectively ignored the bell, Lois marched into the library and rounded them up, a cowperson riding herd on a gaggle of maverick steers. Making noises not unlike those of penned cattle, the men shuffled, awkwardly and reluctantly, into the front hall to take up positions behind the women.

  Meanwhile, the hired maids circulated with trays of champagne cocktails, a drink that brings to mind the songs of Cole Porter, the drawings of Peter Arno, the clothes of Chanel. As most of the guests were already holding a drink, and several a cigarette as well, the champagne cocktails posed difficulties. There were mutterings, stubbings, shifting of handbags as the staff, politely but firmly, waited for each guest to take a glass.

  After escaping from the McPhersons, I had gone to stand by the door to the vestibule, as far from the stage as it was possible to get. The large entrance hall made a natural amphitheatre, with all eyes on Lois, who stood on the third step, flanked by Jennifer and Douglas standing on the first. From my vantage point Lois’s gown became a robe. I am certain that Mrs. Siddons, Eleonora Duse, Minnie Maddern Fiske could not have commanded an audience with half the ease of our hostess. For a moment I was almost relieved that Mildred wasn’t here. The evening would probably have ended with a body, that of the hostess, on the library floor.

  A small commotion began in the vestibule behind me. I heard the front door shut, followed by the sound of people removing boots in muted whispers. The inside door opened on silent hinges, and I found myself once more looking into the obsidian eyes of the chauffeur, who had obviously ferried the latecomers to the party. For just an instant that well-remembered look of intense malevolence distorted his remarkable features, but this time I was ready. My eyes bored back into his. Anybody who spent as much of his salad days cruising as I did knows how to apply an eyelock.

  We would probably still be standing there playing chicken had not the late-arriving couple crossed between us to tiptoe into the hall with those gestures of exaggerated self-effacement that are one hundred percent guaranteed to draw attention. I moved aside to make room. Their punishment for arriving late was to endure Lois’s little ceremony without a drink, not even a champagne cocktail.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?” began Lois, her vowels as smooth as ball bearings. “It is now an open secret that this party is for Jennifer” – here Lois extended an arm, the hand following gracefully behind in a gesture bringing to mind the Swan Queen – “and Douglas.” Out went the second hand to turn her arms into parentheses enclosing the hugely self-conscious young couple. “But I am merely the mother of the groom. Like it or not, this is a man’s world. Consequently, it is not for me to make the congratulatory speech and offer the toast. For that I must turn to a male member of our wedding party. And I now call on Geoffry Chadwick, uncle of the bride, who will be giving her away. Geoffry, if you please?”

  Had I been sporting a Florida tan I am certain I would have gone pale beneath it. Another cute little Lois manoeuvre. All my good humour, every vestige of single malt euphoria I had been cultivating, went up in smoke, leaving me almost shaking with anger. I may not be as bad as Sir William Van Horne, reputedly reduced to near silence at the prospect of making a speech, but I truly detest being the centre of attention. It is one thing to address a board of directors, the bare presentation of facts, quite another to improvise on a subject where the cliches are so solidly built in that one can stand on them.

  But I was trapped. All heads had turned in my direction; an expectant hush had fallen; even a path had cleared itself to the foot of the staircase. Short of setting my tie on fire or bolting through the front door into the blizzard, I had nowhere to go but forward. As I reached the bottom step I tried to replicate the dirty look the chauffeur had just laid on me, but pale blue eyes convey irony, not dislike. Besides, Lois was far too busy being hostess of the year to see me as anything more than a spear carrier. We exchanged places, I mounting two steps, she descending graciously to ground level. With my natural height, I towered above the crowd, Simeon Stylites on top of his pillar. In a small gesture of defiance, I refused the proferred champagne cocktail and clung to my scotch.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I began in tribute to my high school English teacher, who taught the class always to address the audience first, “you see before you a man who has all the inner calm of a heroin addict looking for his last needle in a haystack. Not only am I unaccustomed to public speaking, I am terrified of it. Furthermore, asking me to toast the engaged couple is not unlike asking Scrooge to trim the Christmas tree.”

  I could see a few mouths almost relax into smiles.

  “The easy way out would be to turn off my mind and let the wedding cliches take over: the blushing bride, the handsome groom, hand in hand down the road of life, all that Ken and Barbie cant which is so egregious and phoney. Let me rather use some of these cliches as a point of departure. It has been observed, more than once, that familiarity breeds contempt. My experience has been that familiarity breeds, or used to. Nowadays, thanks to the pill, the stork arrives by invitation only. I refer of course to the pill the bride takes, not the one she sleeps with.”

  There was a faint, almost inaudible ripple of laughter. (We bombed in New Haven.)

  “Another, less elegant, cliche concerns the Niagara Falls honeymoon and the bride finding the falls a disappointment by association. But today the honeymoon comes early in the relationship, often on the first date. With that hurdle out of the way the couple is at liberty to examine those values which will make living together for a lifetime even remotely possible.

  “The last cliche I would like to dispose of is the one that says: Marriage is not a word, it’s a sentence. That might have been true in our parents’ day, when married people simply resigned themselves to a third-rate situation and operated around it. Not any longer. It is comforting to imagine relationships will last. Most of the time they don’t, and it is a sign of progress that couples who separate no longer have to wear a scarlet ‘D’ for divorce sewn to the front of their blouse or shirt. The time will no doubt come when the father of the bride or the best man will raise his glass and drink to this, the first of many happy marriages.”

  Another faint murmur of laughter. (I’ll have to do some more work on this act before I take it to Vegas.)

  “What I propose, therefore, is to toast Jennifer and Douglas, not as the happy couple, but as autonomous beings who have chosen to live their lives together. May these lives be stimulating, useful, and productive. Should they be fortunate enough to discover these directions, then happiness will come as a by-product.


  “Ladies and gentlemen, to Jennifer and Douglas.”

  I drained my glass, kissed Jennifer lightly on the mouth, shook hands with Douglas, and elbowed my way back to the bar. All the time I was wondering how I could get my hands on some of Lois’s hair or nail clippings for the voodoo dolly I intended to make the second I got home. I had a set of shish kebab skewers, another failed present from Mildred, which for the first time I could put to good use.

  14.

  NOW THAT THE HAPPY COUPLE had been toasted, Lois climbed two steps to announce that if anyone felt like eating there was food in the dining room. Many of us were not in the least interested in dinner, appetites having been blunted by an unobtrusive but steady stream of platters and trays handed around: tiny sandwiches, shorn of crusts, endless smoked salmon, cheese twists, and crudites to be dipped in low-cal mustard-flavoured sauce. Hot hors d’oeuvres arrived, almost too warm to pick up: pigs in blankets, mini pizzas, toy quiches, diminutive portions of deep-fried chicken, and, yes, chicken livers wrapped in bacon. The breast pocket of my jacket bristled with discarded toothpicks.

  Most men my age would rather drink than eat, especially when the liquor is free. The male half of the party returned to the library with the slow but inexorable flow of a large glacier. Those still young enough to eat from hunger rather than habit fell upon the foodstuffs, followed by several of the nondrinking wives, who picked at the sumptuous buffet as though it were tainted. I could see Lois was a tireless organizer. Not simply content to provide food and drink and then let the guests entertain themselves, she manipulated and reorganized, moving people around in groups, breaking into conversational circles to make introductions, insisting the diners try some of this, a little of that. She had turned 15 Mayfair Crescent into an adult daycare centre. If only someone would drag her downstairs and chain her to the furnace.