The Birthday Lunch

Home > Literature > The Birthday Lunch > Page 22
The Birthday Lunch Page 22

by Joan Clark


  Laverne is annoyed that their tenant was told about Hal’s move before she was told. “Why didn’t you wait until I returned from Holland before renting your apartment?”

  “I needed the rental income and I have a dog, a golden Lab. I didn’t think you’d want a large dog on the premises.” Hal is already attached to Jock and will take him along when he spends Christmas in Bragg Creek. It was Claudia who gave him the dog and Matt who sent him the airplane ticket to fly to Alberta.

  Laverne does not reply. It is true that she wouldn’t have wanted a large dog on the premises, but she wouldn’t have objected to a small dog.

  “I haven’t seen you driving the Volkswagen,” Hal says.

  Laverne hasn’t driven the Volkswagen since Lily died, knowing she will be reminded that her sister got out of the car and never came back. And there is the recurring nightmare Laverne has of being trapped in the crosswalk herself, the truck rumbling toward her while she, paralyzed by fear, is unable to move. “I am selling my car,” she says.

  Thunder barrels overhead and glancing at the sky, Laverne sees swollen clouds riding the wind. If only Hal would leave now so that she can finish potting the herbs before the rain comes crashing down, but he stands there fumbling inside his trouser pockets. Be patient, Laverne says to herself, in the inner voice she uses with slower students. She looks at the ravaged face of the man leaning over her like an uprooted tree and asks, “How are you, Hal?”

  “How do you think I am? Why do you care?”

  Laverne hears the bitterness in his voice and she watches as he pulls out his trouser pocket linings. He looks like a halfwit standing there with the linings flopping down like rabbit ears, but she waits until he has shoved the linings inside his trouser pockets and stoops to pick up something from the driveway.

  Now that he has the gold earring in his hand, Hal isn’t sure what he will say, and to avoid saying too much he decides to set Laverne straight about the truck driver. “You were wrong about Curtis Parlee,” he says. “He was speeding and you should not have told him the accident wasn’t his fault.”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” Laverne says. “It was a collision.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Collision is a more complicated word than accident, especially in French,” Laverne says, but does not explain that in French collision can mean une bagarre, a quarrel.

  “It doesn’t matter what the word means,” Hal says. “What matters is that you never liked me.”

  “And you never liked me.”

  “I don’t dislike you.” Even now Hal is unwilling to admit disliking Laverne because admitting dislike would diminish his generosity, which he steadfastly refuses to do.

  Laverne knows that Hal is waiting for her to say something kind, something that will release him from this conversation, but she cannot think what she can say that will not ignite the bully in him. The problem with Hal is that he has never learned that bullying reveals vulnerability, a contradiction Laverne has often observed in boys and girls in school corridors and playgrounds. If only Hal had more distance, more self-control. Lily had far more of both and without her, Hal is adrift. “You were right to move. We should never have lived in the same house,” Laverne finally says. “It was a mistake.” This acknowledgement is all she is able to concede and picking up the spade, she returns to the task of potting the herbs.

  Hal stands, oblivious to the rain dripping off his nose and sluicing his cheeks, and he thinks about his children and his grandchildren; his brother who has been urging him to visit Vero Beach. He thinks about Laverne who, without Lily, has no family and he feels what Laverne would not want him to feel, which is pity. But pity will not prevent him from returning the gold earring. Hal does not want Laverne to say anything to him about the earring. What he wants is that she admit to herself that she put water in his gas tank. “I have something to give you,” Hal says, “something that belongs to you.”

  Laverne lifts a clump of soil into a pot and without looking up, she asks, “And what is that?”

  “You’ll see when you put out your hand.”

  Laverne stands but Hal still cannot see the face hidden beneath the coolie hat. He doesn’t know if she will ignore him or oblige him, but after a moment’s hesitation, Laverne concedes and Hal places the gold earring on her gloved hand. “You dropped this earring on the garage floor the night before Lily’s birthday when you put water in the Impala’s gas tank because you were so determined to have a birthday lunch for Lily without me. I think you should have it back,” Hal says and walks away.

  Above him, clouds stream across the sky and in the distance he hears the grumble and thump of Katjana, the soft rolling thunder, the slow rumble of retreat.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Ross Leckie and Mark Jarman for inviting me to be UNB’s Writer-in-Residence during 2012–2013. The opportunity to live and work in Fredericton was fortuitous since I was well into the fourth draft of The Birthday Lunch, a novel set an hour’s drive away in Sussex, one of four Maritime towns where I have lived.

  I would also like to express my appreciation to the Sussex Regional Library and in particular Fennella Brewer, who was tireless in tracking down information germane to the novel. Thanks also to Alice MacFarland, who provided me with information about the pauper auctions held in Kings County, New Brunswick, during the nineteenth century. Thanks to Andrew Crawford for sharing his knowledge of auto mechanics and woodworking. And thanks to the Sussex RCMP detachment, Wallace Funeral Home and the Covered Bridge Inn. Grateful thanks to my hospitable friend Ruby Grey, who provided me with books about the early history of the town.

  I am grateful to Gail Crawford, Tony and Pam Clark, Bernice Morgan and Conny Steenman-Marcusse for reading early drafts of the novel. Special thanks to my friend and former editor, Diane Martin, who now lives in Woody Point, Newfoundland. And special thanks to my friend and agent, Dean Cooke, for his expertise and eagle eye. Thanks also to Angelika Glover for her close reading and to Ruta Liormonas for her enthusiasm.

  Last but not least, grateful thanks to Anne Collins for her incisive editing, and to my editor, Amanda Betts, whose comments, suggestions and patience helped shape this novel the way I wanted, which is to say, as tight as a drum.

  JOAN CLARK is the award-winning author of sixteen books, including The Victory of Geraldine Gull (finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction); Eiriksdottir: A Tale of Dreams and Luck; Latitudes of Melt (a New York Times Notable Book); and An Audience of Chairs (winner of the Winterset Award), as well as two short-story collections and several novels for young adults. She received the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada for her body of work in 1991, and was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2010. Born and raised in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, she now lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

 

 

 


‹ Prev