The Birthday Lunch

by Joan Clark

  “Don’t read it. There’s an article about the accident on the front page written by a nitwit by the name of Daryl Dexter. He got the facts wrong and it will upset your family to read it.”

  Matt thanks Corrie for the warning and hangs up the telephone, thinking: Can it get any worse?

  He is still at the sink when Claudia, on her way to the clothes dryer, comes into the kitchen. He tells her about Corrie’s call. “Well,” Claudia says, “when you and Dad are out, don’t let him buy a copy of the Kings County Record.”

  “When Dad and I are out?”

  “At breakfast, you told Dad you wanted to see the store.”

  Matt has already forgotten.

  “And I want you to take the ditty box and the ashes to the undertaker’s. Mr. Alyward offered to transfer the ashes and I told him I would do it but I can’t, and neither can Dad. Anyway, Trish and I are going to drive to Fox Hill and pick wildflowers.”

  “Don’t we have enough flowers?”

  “We do. But Trish suggested we take them to the reception where people who sent the flowers can see them. Afterwards the flowers can be taken to the hospital. Mom loved wildflowers and we’re going to pick some for her grave. We want to get everything ready before Welland arrives tonight.”

  “Before you go flower picking, I need a lift to Roachville to pick up the Mazda,” Matt says. “Is it okay with you if I take the Honda and Trish can drive it back?”

  “Sure,” Claudia says. Matt is about to tell his sister that Curtis Parlee and Corrie signed the witness statements that will support the accident insurance claim when Hal comes into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Hey, Dad,” Matt says. “Trish and I are driving to Roachville to pick up the Mazda. Do you want to come along?”

  “Sure,” Hal says. “Why not?”

  Claudia waits until the Honda pulls out of the driveway before telephoning downstairs. She is concerned about her aunt. Laverne has not telephoned or been upstairs since Curtis Parlee came to the house.

  Laverne answers after the second ring. “Auntie,” Claudia says. “Is it convenient for me to come downstairs? I want to tell you about the arrangements tomorrow.”

  “You had better come right away,” Laverne says. “I am expecting Hennie Pronk to arrive any minute now. She asked me to help her unload the kiln.” Hennie Pronk. Hennie’s son, Jan, taught Claudia high school math. His class was always in an uproar because he could not keep order and Claudia considered herself lucky to have squeaked through with a passing mark.

  Laverne waits until she hears Claudia on the stairs before opening the door. Claudia is surprised to see her aunt wearing casual clothing: a cotton shirt and pants, and that her face is made up. Her aunt does not suggest Claudia sit so she stands in the pantry doorway and explains that the family will drive to Kirk Hill at one o’clock tomorrow. Reverend Harrington will meet them at the gravesite and guide them through a brief ceremony. After the ashes are buried, they will drive to Adair’s, and following the reception the family will gather upstairs for dinner. “Dad’s brother is due in tonight so there will be six of us around the table tomorrow,” Claudia says.

  Laverne has never met Hal’s brother but she knows he is a medical doctor somewhere in Florida. “Thank you, Claudia,” she says. “I appreciate you letting me know.”

  “You’re welcome, Auntie.” Formality, Claudia thinks, so much formality is required to conceal the pain of sorrow. “If you need anything …”

  “Yes. If I need anything, I will let you know.”

  Claudia unloads the dryer and stowing the folded towels in the bathroom cupboard, she cleans the toilet and sink and mops the floor. Taking advantage of the empty apartment she mops and dusts the living and dining rooms. When she and her brother were teenagers, he was the tidy one and whenever their mother insisted Claudia tidy her room, Matt would make a smartass remark. Back then he was full of smartass remarks.

  The doorbell rings and Claudia opens the front door and there on the mat is the supper basket but no Sophie, and Claudia carries the still warm meal upstairs and into the kitchen. Lifting the tea towel she takes out the chicken stew and rhubarb pie and places them on the counter beside the stove.

  Hennie and Laverne have finished their meal of sliced ham and hard-boiled eggs, red cabbage and cheese. Later, after the kiln is unloaded, they will have coffee and strudel. Hennie leads the way to the studio and asks Laverne to step into the kiln. Usually it is Hennie who steps into the kiln but today she is willing to allow Laverne to be the first in, the first to hold the warm bowls and vases and pass them up to Hennie who will place them on the wooden shelves. Although it is uneconomical to fire up a half-full kiln, Hennie fired it up last night so that it would be ready for Laverne to help unload today.

  Today’s bounty is for the tourist trade: the small bowls and pitchers, mugs and vases, egg cups and toothpick holders that tourists buy as souvenirs. Hennie does not sell her work from home. Too many interruptions, too many people banging on her door at all hours of the day. So much better to box up her beauties, as Henrik called them, and send them to the shops in St. Andrews, Shediac and Saint John. Using the old Ford, Hennie delivers the boxes intended for Cozy Corner on Main Street herself.

  Hennie makes a point of telling her students that after sixty years of making pottery, opening the kiln still excites her because it always brings surprises that only heat and the bounty of the earth can produce. Hennie has always used minerals to make the colours: copper carbonate for turquoise blue, zinc oxide for red, celadon for green, cobalt for deep blue, manganese to pock and crater the clay. She has seen the shoddy work in the shops, the glazes made from cat litter and talcum powder. Hennie’s prices are high but there is none of this cheating. Those who buy her work know they are buying the work of an artist.

  Laverne cradles each piece before passing it up to Hennie. When she passes up a small earthenware pitcher with a cobalt blue glaze, Laverne exclaims, “Why, this is a miniature of the pitcher you made for me!”

  “Since I made yours, I’ve made a dozen or more of those pitchers for the tourists,” Hennie says.

  When Laverne returned from Holland last summer, she described the pitcher she had seen in de Hooch’s painting and asked Hennie if she could make a replica. Hennie assured her she could make one, that such pitchers were as common as clay pipes in the seventeenth century. Hennie had seen Laverne’s apartment and recognized the tiled floors, the amber window, the portrait of the burgomeister and she was sad that her friend had tried to copy a painting, that she was so lonely she had to borrow the rooms Pieter de Hooch painted. Laverne’s loneliness is peculiar but Hennie knows that loneliness is different for everybody. Her own loneliness is why she keeps working: if she does not keep working she fears she will die in a madhouse like Pieter de Hooch.

  When the kiln is empty and Hennie’s treasures are stowed on the shelves, she tells Laverne she may choose a small piece for herself. Hennie rarely gives away a piece, she will not be able to support herself if she gives away her treasures. But she has not forgotten Laverne’s kindness to herself and Jan after Henrik died and life as they knew it had come to an end. When Hennie took to her bed and refused to go outside, Laverne insisted that on weekdays she and Hennie take short walks to the post office, the bank and the drugstore, short walks that helped Hennie grow strong.

  “Are you sure you want to give me one?” Laverne says.

  “Yes.”

  Laverne picks up one piece after another and finally chooses a pale green vase.

  “Celadon,” Hennie says, “is restful and calm.”

  “Thank you, Hennie. I will keep it beside my bed.”

  Matt and Hal cross the stone bridge: the ditty box on Hal’s knee. They pass O’Connell Park where kids are jumping and splashing in the Kiwanis Pool. Hal hears the lifeguard’s shrill whistle, the shrieks and whoops of laughter, happy sounds he would rather not hear. Since Lily’s death there has been a wall of glass between him and people he does not kno
w: he sees them on the other side of the glass, but finds no pleasure in knowing they are enjoying themselves.

  Clive Alyward is waiting in the driveway. In half an hour he must attend Polly Virtue’s funeral at St. Paul’s United Church where Polly was organist for fifty-odd years. Clive told Hal’s son that he would be here until 2:15. It is now 2:20 and if the son does not appear within five minutes, Clive will leave; he would wait ten minutes for the daughter but for the rude son, five minutes.

  At 2:25 Clive sees the rental car turn into the driveway and there is Hal sitting beside the son. Clive approaches the passenger side of the car. “It is good to see you, Hal,” he says. Under the circumstances, some clients would be offended by this cordial greeting but not Hal McNab. Clive nods toward the wooden box balanced on Hal’s knees. “I assume that is the container.”

  “It is.”

  The son leans across the seat “We thought we would leave the container and ashes with you and pick them up later.”

  “That will not be possible,” Clive says, meaning inconvenient. “Now is convenient.”

  The son gets out from behind the wheel, opens the trunk and hands Clive the cardboard box. “I will bring the container,” Hal says and follows Clive up the steps to the office. Clive sets the ashes on the desk and takes the container from Hal. “I’ve never seen a box like this,” he says.

  “It’s a ditty box,” Hal says. “Sailors in the merchant marines used to keep their personal items inside them. That’s why it has a key.” Hal turns the key and opens the box. “I sanded and oiled the wood and lined the inside.”

  “A beautiful job,” Clive says. In all his years of undertaking, he has never seen a more elegant container for the deceased. “The transfer will only take a few minutes,” he says. “Why don’t you and your son sit on the front veranda where there are comfortable chairs?” In the summer, Clive will sometimes sit on the wicker settee behind the ivy where he cannot be seen by passersby. It was there that he finished reading A Judgement in Stone. Clive expects the son to remain inside the car, but the young man is not so angry and contrary today and joins his father on the front veranda.

  Fifteen minutes later, the ditty box is stowed on the floor of the rental, which is parked in the driveway of Better Old Than New. Matt follows his father through the front door. Hal opens the red velvet drapes and light pours into the showroom. Matt is impressed.

  “Quite the place you have here, Dad,” he says.

  Hal points to the cranberry-glass chandelier above Matt’s head. “That belonged to my mother.”

  “Grandmother Grace,” Matt says. When their family lived in Dartmouth they used to drive across Macdonald Bridge on Sundays and have noon dinner with his father’s parents. Matt was fond of his grandmother but not of his grandfather. “I liked Grandmother Grace,” he says, “but I was afraid of Murray.”

  “So was I,” Hal says.

  Matt follows the scarlet runner to the back wall. “What’s behind that curtain?” he says.

  “The stairs to Ernie Thompson’s apartment.”

  “He lives here?”

  “Ernie’s dead but when he owned the store he lived upstairs.”

  Matt strolls around. “Two more long-case clocks,” he says.

  “I have four altogether: these two here and two at home, but none of them work,” Hal says. “The parts are expensive and have to be installed by a clockmaker.”

  Nodding toward the cherry wood étagère and the fruitwood armoire, both in prime condition, Matt asks what price Hal is charging.

  “The cherry wood is twelve hundred and the armoire a thousand.”

  “That’s low,” Matt says. “You could make three times that in Calgary.”

  “Well, I am not in Calgary and I know the market here. You set prices right or you won’t be able to sell.”

  “Have you sold any big pieces?”

  “I sold a corner cupboard,” Hal says and before Matt can ask the price, Hal explains that for the time being he is relying on items that tourists can take away in their cars: mirrors, chairs, washstands, end tables, boxes, hooked mats, wall hangings.

  Matt checks the prices on some of the smaller items: a marble top washstand, $550; a rocking cradle, $600; a red-haired doll on skis, $275.

  “That’s a Mary Hoyer doll I picked up at an estate auction,” Hal says. “They don’t make dolls like her anymore.”

  The doll would be perfect for Jenny who is learning to ski: the red hair, the red ski outfit, the skis and poles. Matt knows that if he tells his father Jenny would like the doll, Hal will give it to him. He cannot afford to give it to him but he will give it to him. When Matt and Trish moved in together, Hal showed up at their Halifax apartment with an electric frying pan, a toaster, a kettle and a coffee percolator. If Trish had not insisted that Matt choose one, his father would have given them all four.

  “Are there many customers who try to beat you down?”

  “A few.” Hal points to the tasteful sign: Prices Non-negotiable. “I had that printed after a customer bought your great-grandmother Harriet’s desk for half what it was worth.”

  “You should put a sign on the Trans-Canada Highway.”

  “I know,” Hal says, “and I will when the money isn’t so tight.”

  Matt doesn’t mention the witness statements signed by Curtis Parlee and Corrie Spears, but before he and Trish leave, he will tell his father that they are being sent to the insurance company on his behalf.

  Claudia leads the way down the tractor path, the same path she and her mother walked many times when they wanted what Lily called a quick dip in the river. Trish has had the presence of mind to bring a pair of scissors and a basket that she holds while Claudia snips the flowers: purple phlox along the embankment; daisies, buttercups and asters edging the meadow. Trish asks if the farmer minds them picking flowers on his land.

  “Mr. McKnight?” Claudia says. “He doesn’t mind. When my parents lived up there …” Claudia nods to the house at the top of the hill, “he told my mother to pick whatever weeds she wanted.”

  Trish points to the silky fronds at her feet. “Snip those, will you?”

  “What are they?”

  “Squirrels’ tails. When I worked in Banff I used to pick them for my bedroom. They’re like ferns.”

  Banff. Claudia asks Trish if she and Matt were living together in Banff. A bold question but Trish doesn’t mind. She laughs. “Not right away. Before we met I had been living with a ski bum and your brother with a divorcee, but after Matt and I met, that all changed.”

  Claudia did not know about the divorcee.

  Trish asks Claudia if she is with somebody.

  “Not with exactly. He’s more than twice my age and one of these days I intend to break it off,” Claudia says.

  On the way back to town, they pass wild roses growing beside the road. “Stop!” Trish says and Claudia pulls the Honda onto the shoulder. Oblivious of the thorns, Trish snips clusters of roses and hands them to Claudia. “Cut more!” Claudia says. “I want to give some to Sophie Power.”

  They are approaching Roachville when Trish says, “I almost forgot: We have to stop at Dominion to pick up the crown pork roast I ordered. And apples, I need apples.”

  “I hope my brother remembers to pick up the dry cleaning and the wine.”

  “He’ll remember,” Trish says, “Matt never forgets the wine.”

  ——

  Sophie Power is in the kitchen making cinnamon buns for the after church coffee hour when she hears the doorbell. Passing through the front room, she picks up a whiff of the newspaper she burnt this morning, the newspaper that will set tongues wagging. Sophie opens the door and there stands Lily’s daughter. “Hello Mrs. Power,” Claudia says, “I brought you some wild roses.”

  “Wild roses. Oh my, when I lived on the farm, I used to grow roses,” Sophie says, thinking of the roses that grew outside her kitchen window.

  While Claudia tells her neighbour that the family appreciates the m
eals she has given them, Sophie stares at the scuff marks on her sneakers, but she looks up when Claudia asks if she will join the family for supper one day soon. Sophie is about to refuse when she remembers her daughter’s lecture about learning to receive as well as to give. “Thank you, Claudia,” Sophie says, “I look forward to that.”

  The McNabs have finished Sophie’s chicken stew along with a bottle of wine and any minute now are expecting to hear from Welland. Matt opens a second bottle and they continue sitting in the kitchen where a soothing breeze slides through the open window and the glowing circle of Hal’s cigarette bobs up and down in the fading light. “Welland should have arrived at Adair’s by now,” Hal says.

  “Maybe he is waiting for a moose to get off the road,” Trish says, but nobody laughs.

  “Instead of calling he might have decided to come straight here,” Claudia says. “He did say he wanted to see us tonight?”

  Matt hasn’t seen Welland since those Sunday dinners on South Park Street when he was a boy. He asks his father what his uncle is like.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you close?”

  “No. We had nothing in common except our parents.” Hal butts out the cigarette and lights another. “Father favoured my brother because he was the smart one and always brought home a perfect report card. I was ashamed to bring home my report card and when I told Father I threw mine away, he took off his belt and thrashed my backside.”

  “Was Welland ever thrashed?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why was Grandfather so brutish and cruel?”

  “Mother blamed it on Father’s having served as a medical officer with Strathcona’s Horse in the Boer War. She told me that when he returned from the war, he was not the gentle man she had agreed to marry.”

  Hal is not in the mood to tell the story of how Welland was so smart he skipped a grade, which meant that Hal had to endure the embarrassment of being in the same grade as his clever brother. One afternoon when the teacher had to attend a meeting, Welland was called upon to take over the class. As soon as Welland stood at Mr. Sinclair’s desk, Hal became the class clown, cracking jokes, making faces whenever Welland wrote something on the blackboard. Hal was counting on the fact that his classmates liked him better than they liked his brother and kept the ruckus going until Welland began to stutter. By the time Mr. Sinclair returned, Welland had retreated to his seat and the class was in an uproar. To his credit, Welland never told Mr. Sinclair, or their parents, that he had been humiliated by Hal and the brothers finished the term avoiding one another.