The Birthday Lunch

by Joan Clark

  Claudia opens the door to her parents’ bedroom. She has two hours to make up the bed and tidy the room before Matt and Trish return from the airport. Last night when she was looking for her uncle’s phone number, she was careful not to look around and marched straight to her father’s dresser. This time, uncertain where to begin, she hovers in the doorway. The bed. She will begin with the bed. Claudia picks up Lily’s nightgown, yanks the sheets free, shakes the pillowcases loose and stuffs the bundle of laundry into the washer at the top of the back stairs. While the cycle runs through, she tidies the bedroom, picking up the empty coffee mug, the face-down book, the crumpled wrapping paper, the birthday card. She looks around for the blue silk outfit but it is nowhere in sight and she knows her mother was wearing it when she died. Claudia will never be able to forget the fact that her mother died wearing her birthday present, a fact that brings a flood of tears. How slippery grief is, how easily you can stumble over something inconsequential and be sucked into the quicksand of sorrow.

  Claudia carries the empty coffee mug and the crumpled paper to the kitchen. Back in the bedroom, she picks up Lily’s slippers and adds them to the pile of shoes on the closet floor. Then she turns her attention to the bookcase beside the bed where books are shelved out of order, The Book of Eve, Who Do You Think You Are? and Flowers for Hitler on one side of an early edition of Middlemarch and on the other side, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Happenstance and Claudia’s high school textbook, Poems for Study. Even now Claudia takes the time to place Middlemarch in the bookcase on the opposite wall where her grandfather’s antiquarian books are shelved, all the while scolding herself. What a prig she was to avoid bringing friends home from school because she didn’t want them to see her mother in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon, eating an apple or a banana and reading instead of being in the kitchen baking or ironing. It wasn’t normal, it wasn’t what other mothers did.

  A further embarrassment was her mother’s lack of respect for the virginal page, her habit of marking up books. Lily seldom marked up trashy books—they weren’t worth the bother, but any book she admired had notations and underlinings throughout, occasionally in ink, which made the return of her library books awkward. When, as a teenager, Claudia worked at the library desk on Saturdays, she was mortified at the prospect of a reader bringing a defaced book to the desk to complain about her mother’s scribblings. The mortification was misplaced: no one complained on Claudia’s shift and if they had complained, the librarian, Frances Upham, would have brushed off their complaints. Frances enjoyed reading Lily McNab’s notations, unsullied by literary theory and pretension.

  Claudia mops and dusts the bedroom before checking on her father. Dallas is over but the television is still on and Hal is asleep, his mouth open, his head tipped back. Claudia is reminded of a house she passes during her evening walks, the house with a large picture window, a blue television screen, an elderly woman asleep in a rocking chair.

  At Arlene’s urging, Alan Harrington is finally paying Laverne Pritchard a home visit. Alan is Arlene’s second husband. Gordon, her first husband, and Alan had been friends since boyhood and after Gordon died of cancer three years earlier, it was Alan who consoled his widow. Gordon’s last ministry was on Prince Edward Island and Arlene understands that in small communities like Sussex, parishioners expect home visits. A home visit need not be long, Arlene told Alan, it is your presence and your concern parishioners want.

  Parking the Plymouth beside Laverne’s Volkswagen, Alan knocks on her door. No answer. It is not yet eight o’clock but perhaps Laverne has already gone to bed and he decides to knock again, though not loud enough to waken her if she is asleep. Already he is telling himself that if she doesn’t answer, he will slip a note beneath her door. Alan is reaching into a pocket for the notepad when he hears someone moving inside, and presently the door opens and there is Laverne Pritchard looking not at all like the carefully groomed woman who used to attend his church. This woman is wearing a faded dressing gown; her hair is untidy, her face ravaged by grief.

  “I am sorry if I woke you, Laverne,” Alan says.

  “You didn’t wake me,” she says.

  Alan resists the urge to offer a comforting embrace. Instead he says, “I know you and Lily were close.”

  “Yes. There were just the two of us and now she is gone.” Again the bleak, grieving face and the impulse to hold her. Alan asks if he might come in.

  “Of course,” Laverne says, but does not suggest he sit and so Alan stands inside the open doorway, which casts a green shadow on the opposite wall. Uncertain whether to stay or go, he says, “Do you want to talk about the accident because if you do …”

  “I don’t want to talk about the accident.”

  “I understand. It must have been a terrible shock.”

  Alan waits for Laverne’s answer but none is forthcoming and he asks if he can be of help. Again no answer. Casting around for something to say, Alan nods toward the painting leaning against the wall to the right of the kitchen and asks if that is the painting she was working on when they met at Fox Hill soon after he accepted the ministry of St. Paul’s United Church.

  “Yes,” she says but does not explain why it took her so long to finish the painting.

  “You’ve done a fine job.” Oil paintings are not Alan’s preference but at least he has found something encouraging to say before he leaves. “If there is anything I can do to help, anything …”

  “Thank you, Alan,” Laverne says. Closing the door behind him, she goes back to bed.

  As she lies beneath the covers, Laverne thinks about the times when she looked for ways to detain Alan Harrington: wearing her best clothes every Sunday morning; sitting in the middle of the tenth row where Alan could not fail to see her; positioning herself at the end of the line after the service so that she would be the last to shake his hand and there would be more time for conversation. But that was before she saw Alan in the Plymouth with Lily.

  A mild Saturday in early September and Laverne was standing at the casement window drinking a cup of tea. The window was open and she was thinking how pleasant it was to have this corner of the house all to herself, her private view of the cherry tree and the herb garden; how satisfying to have the dictées marked, next week’s lessons planned and one of Ivy’s dinners to look forward to that evening. While she was drinking the last of her tea, Laverne saw the familiar Plymouth van turn into the driveway. Setting aside the cup, she hurried to the bathroom to freshen her lipstick and brush her hair. When she returned to the window, she realized she needn’t have hurried because Alan was so engrossed in talking to someone that he hadn’t moved from the van. Laverne strained to see who was sitting in the passenger seat. It was a woman, a dark-haired woman. When the woman turned sideways Laverne realized it was Lily. What was Lily doing inside Alan’s van at three o’clock in the afternoon when she was usually napping or reading upstairs? And what was Alan saying that was so amusing that Lily and he were both laughing? Laverne could not bear watching their merriment and was closing the window when she saw Alan lean sideways and kiss Lily on the cheek. Alan had never once kissed Laverne on the cheek but now he was kissing Lily. How dare he kiss Lily! And why was Lily allowing the kiss? She was a married woman! She was a mother and a grandmother! In a huff of rage, Laverne plunked herself on the chair beneath the portrait of the burgomeister, one hand gripping the other as she resolved what she would and would not do: she would not telephone her sister and she would not watch the nightly television news upstairs; she would not go upstairs at all, not even to use the washer and dryer; instead she would launder her clothes in the bathroom sink and hang them to dry on the shower rail. Once these resolutions were made, Laverne washed the floors and cleaned the tiny stove and tiny fridge. By the time she was finished, she had decided that as long as Alan Harrington was the minister, she would not attend St. Paul’s United Church.

  For six weeks Laverne stuck to her resolutions: she did not telephone Lily or go up
the back stairs or darken the door of St. Paul’s United Church. Instead she kept herself busy on the weekends helping Hennie Pronk prepare for a craft exhibit. And she continued giving her Vietnamese student extra lessons in the Phams’ apartment. Xuan’s French was far better than Laverne’s but English remained a struggle for him.

  An early skiff of snow had fallen when out of the blue Lily telephoned on a Sunday and invited Laverne upstairs for tea. She had taken a batch of raisin buns from the oven and opened a jar of homemade strawberry jam. “Just the two of us,” Lily said. “Hal is attending an estate auction in Hampton.”

  “An estate auction on Sunday?

  “It happens.”

  Lily had gone to some trouble, serving tea from a tray in the living room, using the china cups and saucers her nursing friends had given her at her wedding shower. Absent was Laverne’s wedding present to Lily and Hal, the Sevres teapot she had bought in France.

  Lily asked how things were going at school. Laverne told her how much she enjoyed seeing the fresh faces of her rural students who had been up early to do the chores. Laverne has always preferred rural students, who in her experience are unspoiled and used to hard work. She told Lily that motivating spoiled town students continued to be a challenge. “How rewarding it is to tutor my Vietnamese student,” Laverne said. “He is a bright boy and bound for university.” The mention of Xuan Pham was deliberate, providing Laverne with an opportunity to introduce Alan Harrington into the conversation.

  “Hal told me about the church sponsoring the family of boat people,” Lily said. “Good for Alan for persuading the congregation to take that on.”

  Laverne said, “By the way, have you seen Alan since the afternoon he and I were painting by the river while you went for a swim?”

  “Not lately,” Lily said. She offered Laverne a raisin bun.

  “I know you have seen him since you met at Fox Hill.”

  Lily frowned. “Really? Where and when was that?”

  “In the driveway six weeks ago. You were sitting beside Alan in his van.”

  “Where else would I sit?” Lily said in that annoying, offhand way she sometimes used. “Yes, I remember now. I was leaving the library and he offered me a lift.”

  “Alan is a kind man,” Laverne said.

  “Yes. He’s done a great deal for the boat people.”

  Lily’s guilelessness was so convincing that Laverne began to question what she had seen through the kitchen window. She remembered seeing Alan kiss Lily on the cheek—that much was certain. But she had not seen Lily return the kiss.

  “I suppose you know Alan is getting married,” Lily said. “In the spring, I believe Hal said.”

  Laverne’s teacup rattled in its saucer.

  “You didn’t know.”

  Laverne dipped her chin.

  “According to Hal, he’s marrying the widow of a friend.”

  Laverne quieted the teacup with one hand while Lily took the other. “I’m sorry, Sis. I didn’t realize how fond you were of him.”

  Stripped of her defences, Laverne fled downstairs. The news of Alan Harrington’s marriage dashed the hope, faint though it was, that some day their friendship would develop into something serious and enduring. Worse still was that her sister had opened the door to the private place where Laverne stored matters of the heart and having seen what was inside, would feel sorry for her. Laverne could not bear anyone, especially her married sister, feeling sorry for her. For that reason she had never told Lily how downcast she had been when Alan failed to show up in the meadow a third time for what Laverne had come to think of as a painting rendezvous.

  Laverne had never told Lily that before she had introduced her to Hal at Petite Riviere, Hal and Laverne occasionally played singles on the Bridgewater tennis courts. These games were never prearranged and depended on whoever happened to show up at the courts. Athletic and handsome in his tennis whites, Hal was cocky enough to expect he would win, and he usually did. After one of these games, Laverne invited him to join her at Rissers Beach for a staff cornboil and he accepted. Laverne waited for an hour in the Rissers Beach parking lot for Hal to show up but he never did. Weeks later when she saw him again on the tennis courts, he offered neither an excuse nor an apology and they never played singles again.

  Laverne’s reticence about sharing disappointments and matters of the heart may have had something to do with the fact that before she left home for normal school, her father took her aside and said, “From now on, you solve your own problems. Don’t bring your troubles home to me.” Stung by what Laverne thought was her father’s rejection, it was years before she concluded that Lou’s edict was a clumsy attempt to help her stand on her own two feet.

  Before she left home for nursing school, Lou issued the same edict to his younger daughter. He needn’t have bothered. When it came to troubles, Lily was private and pragmatic. She did not tell her father or her sister that she had broken off her engagement to the Boston doctor because she had caught him two-timing her with his office receptionist. And after she married Hal, she did not complain about the financial difficulties, or the ups and downs of married life. What was the point? No marriage was perfect. Besides, who understood the vagaries of love?

  Matt stares out the airport window watching the eighteen-seat turboprop emerge from the clouds, taxi down the runway and come to a stop. The metal staircase is wheeled to the plane, the door opens and Trish is the first to disembark. Tall and slim, a thick red braid halfway down her back, she strides across the tarmac toward Matt. A hug and a lingering kiss, then the first question: “How are the kids?”

  “They’re fine, Matt, just fine,” Trish says. She spends most of her waking hours with the kids and does not want to talk about them now, but Matt can never hear enough about the kids. Trish obliges with their son’s latest attempt at running away, leaving out the fact that when she caught up with Dougie, he was standing beside the swift moving creek.

  Matt lifts the familiar red suitcase from the conveyer belt and says, “Wow, it’s heavy. What have you got inside?”

  “Wake food: cherries and dark chocolate,” Trish says. Black Forest cake is one of her specialties. Working from home, Trish supplies the Bavarian Restaurant in Bragg Creek with Black Forest cake and a variety of pastries.

  “Cake for the wake,” Matt says. “Who told you about the family wake?”

  “Your sister.”

  Matt rescues the second suitcase and carries both suitcases outside. As they walk to the parking lot, Trish says, “I told Claudia to leave the meals up to me.” Matt leans sideways and kisses her ear.

  Trish and Matt met at the Banff Springs Hotel where they both had summer jobs: Matt as a waiter, Trish as a pastry chef. He was in law school and she was a recent graduate from a culinary college program in Calgary. By July they were sleeping together in her bed and by September they were living in a two-room apartment in Halifax. When they could afford it, they spent weekends in Sussex with Lily and Hal in the rented house on George Street. From the beginning Trish was fond of Matt’s mother and appreciated the fact that unlike her own mother, Lily was a live-and-let-live person who, unless asked, never gave advice. Also, unlike Trish’s mother, Lily was a good listener. Trish is also fond of Hal who, like her own father, is a gregarious talker she has learned to tune out. After she and Matt married and moved West, Trish missed Lily and Hal, who she did not think of in-laws but as friends. She and Matt bought the Bragg Creek house and were caught up in work, kids and Trish’s extended family. When their first born, Jenny, was a baby, Matt and Trish brought her to Fox Hill for her first Christmas but they have never brought Dougie back east. You always think there will be time for another summer, another holiday.

  Trish says, “We should send Hal and Claudia plane tickets so they can spend Christmas with us. Your aunt too if she wants.” Trish hasn’t seen Laverne since the wedding in Halifax and asks how she is.

  “Who knows or cares how Laverne is?” Matt says.

  �
�What brought that on?”

  Matt shrugs. “Why would I care about someone who betrayed my mother?”

  “Your aunt betrayed your mother?”

  “This morning Laverne was having breakfast upstairs with us when Curtis Parlee, the truck driver who killed Mom, showed up at the house to apologize. Laverne interfered and said that she had seen the accident, that Mom had walked in front of the truck, which is an outright lie. She said the accident wasn’t Curtis’s fault. Curtis was going twice the speed limit and couldn’t stop but she said it wasn’t his fault. ‘Curt,’ Laverne called him. He had been a student of hers.”

  “She may have been suffering from shock.”

  “All of us are in shock,” Matt says. “This afternoon I went to see Larry McIntyre, you remember Larry …”

  “Of course.”

  “I asked him to help file an accident insurance claim.”

  “Isn’t it too soon to file?”

  “It’s never too soon. Dad needs the money and it will take months for the claim to work its way through the system and I wanted to get it going before I leave. Larry’s secretary typed up the witness statements and tomorrow I will get them signed.” Matt reaches for Trish’s hand. “Now that you’re here, I won’t feel like I’m leaving everything to Claudia. She’s the one who has been keeping everything on track.”

  The low cloud cover has brought an early dark, which is why neither Matt nor Trish see the moose standing on the pavement until they are five or six cars lengths away. Matt has seen moose before on this wooded stretch of road but only during rutting season, not at this time of year. Weak-eyed and befuddled, the young male stands about fifty feet ahead of their car. Matt dims the headlights and waits him out. A truck approaches from the opposite direction and comes to a stop close enough for the moose to see its dark shape. Even so the moose is unwilling to leave the pavement and stands, ears twitching until there are six vehicles behind Matt’s rental. Fortunately, none of the drivers sound their horns or try to pass.