by Howard Engel
The Commander went on in the same line for another few minutes. Poor Ross had to make up for the whole crew the Commander was used to tearing a strip off. Finally, he disappeared through the door into the men’s changing area. Ross looked like he was glad to see the last of him. “You know, Cooperman, a week ago a little exchange like that would have been enough to make me head straight into the bar for the rest of the afternoon. Funny, isn’t it? I think that now, by not doing the expected thing, I might disappoint him even more.”
After I left Ross Forbes, I walked through to the card room looking for a trace of my own father and found it. He was sitting on the sideline watching a game. He said hello, like we ran into one another at the club twice a week. He then took me aside to tell me that The Hammer, that knocker of knockers, could no longer afford to play when they began at a dollar a line. I listened to him describe the high stakes of the contemporary gin rummy game and nodded sympathetically. Before I left, I told him that I hoped to see him and Ma next Friday night, that I wouldn’t be over to the town house that evening.
“So, we’ll see you next week. It’s the same dinner no matter when you come. But I’ll tell your mother. It isn’t like we haven’t already seen you this week. That friend of yours is a very interesting character. I didn’t know there was so much to know about driving a truck. So many wheels to keep track of, it made my head spin.”
“I called Ma to tell her I wouldn’t be over for dinner tonight.”
“Mmmm,” he said watching the cards in the hand of the man in a cardigan.
“She didn’t seem to be disappointed I wasn’t coming,” I said.
“Mmmm,” he said. “He should go down now,” he added in a whisper to me. “He could do himself some good.”
“She didn’t even remember that I said I was coming over.”
“She’s just pulling your leg, Benny. That’s all.”
“I guess. I guess.” Then he hit the top of his head a glancing blow with the flat of his hand and I knew the man in the cardigan had done something stupid.
TWENTY-TWO
St. Mark’s Church, at the corner of Collier and Chestnut, was officially known as St. Mark’s-in-the-Fields, but everybody in Grantham, including many who had never been inside, called it St. Mark’s-by-the-Greens from the fact that it overlooked the first tee and the last green of the Grantham Golf Club. It was a lowish, wide-shouldered stone church, built, according to Frank Bushmill, in the tradition of English country churches. There was a square tower with no steeple and a big wooden door that fitted snugly into a pointed Gothic arch in front. That much I knew on my own.
I was a little surprised to see the church again so soon; I had eaten my lunch practically in its shadow. Light was coming through the stained-glass windows making bright pointed shapes on the ground. I have to admit that churches make me nervous. Even when I was a kid singing in the Kiwanis Music Festival, the hammer-beamed roofs, the regimental flags, the plaques and memorials all made me feel peculiar. It was a different feeling from the one I got at the synagogue at the corner of Church and Calvin. That smelled of furniture polish. I could relate to that. But what was I supposed to do with the old tombstones preserved in the wall of the entrance: Sacred to the Memory of … To the Glory of God and in Grateful Memory of … whose unassuming worth, unaffected Piety and generous affection this humble monument …
“What are you thinking about? You’re suddenly so quiet.” Anna was wearing a blue-and-white-striped dress which went well with her long hair. I’d picked her up at Secord. She was looking wonderfully fresh after having taught all day. Maybe it was the touch of perfume. I’m a little slow on feminine subtleties.
“Churches make me feel very Jewish,” I said. “How do they affect you?”
“I try to concentrate on the architecture. If it gets really bad, I hold my breath. Benny, this is just a little church. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m not frightened, Anna. I’m not soft in the head. It’s just that I feel conspicuous.”
“Well, then relax, Benny. You are conspicuous. But that has to do with your work and not your religion. After what you’ve told me, I’d feel like crawling into the baptismal font and not coming up for air.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Take a big breath and think of the dinner that comes after the rehearsal.”
It was about six-thirty when we arrived. I held the heavy wooden door open for Anna and followed her into the cool interior. It was a church with a central aisle leading up to the altar, with hymn-posting boards on either side of the back wall looking like Mexican lottery numbers. Like a European car, it was one of those places that looks larger on the inside than you could possibly guess from the outside.
Most of the people taking part in Saturday’s ceremony were already sitting in the first few rows of pews. Some of the men, having just come from the club, were dressed casually. The rest were still in their office clothes. Some of the women were dressed in a studied informality. Without looking, I could still guess some of the New York designer labels. An old gentleman in a cardigan and light grey slacks was shaking hands with some of the characters in the front benches. A blonde, with long hair tied in an old-fashioned pony-tail, caught sight of us as we came in and started up the aisle towards us.
“Anna, oh, Anna, I’m so glad you got here!” she said beaming a wonderful advertisement for her dentist. “I was beginning to wonder how I could go through with this without my maid of honour. Oh! What a relief! That makes the cast complete, I think, except for Daddy and Grandfather. But they are always late!” Sherry took my hand and introduced herself, then she grabbed Anna by both hands and held her at arm’s length. For a moment they were both talking at once and I missed all of it. Sherry tended to talk in short enthusiastic bursts of energy, which was very attractive in her. It emphasized her youth. It made me glad to be with Anna, who could do that when necessary and for fun, but wasn’t stuck with it as her only manner. It may not have been Sherry’s either, but I make quick judgments in my work and most of them are inadequate or misleading. Maybe I should go to more weddings. Anna and Sherry were looking at me now, their heads together. Sherry smiled at me with her eyes and she mimed to me with an arched eyebrow what a find I had in Anna. I found myself grinning back at her without measuring my rights to be accepting any sort of compliment for my escorting Anna that night. This male/female thing is very complicated and I’m just beginning to find my way in it.
“I heard that you were out of town,” Sherry said, turning to Anna again and giving her a hug. “But I’m so glad you’re here. It’s getting so that you can’t believe anybody any more. I’ll stick with the Farmers’ Almanac.”
“Where did you hear that Anna was away, Sherry?” I asked. I was thinking of my comment to the hoods outside the seafood restaurant in Port Richmond the night before.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was Daddy. He’s always trying to scare me. I really can’t remember.” For a moment, I thought she was about to remember, but it was quite a different idea popping into her head. “Benny, have you met Norman? You must meet my intended!” She was delighted to be showing him off. If I’d said I’d already had the pleasure, it would have been an unkind and unwanted frankness, so I kept my mouth shut.
Sherry called out, and the shortish, big-shouldered young man I’d seen in Ross Forbes’s office came towards us. We traded knowing grins that covered the unspoken territory as we were re-introduced to one another. I looked Caine over carefully, making the most of this unexpected second opportunity. Like his fiancée, he was blond. In fact he seemed to be down-covered. At least he gave that impression. I’d be surprised if he spent a fortune on razor-blades. “I told you Anna wouldn’t leave us in the lurch, dear. Here she is, and just in time too.” I tried again to discover the source of the rumour that Anna would be away, and again I was disappointed. After more pleasantries, Sherry took Anna by the arm and dragged her down to the front to meet the bridesmaids. Norman Caine pulled his eyes of
f the departing figure of his bride-to-be reluctantly.
“Have you ever been through this sort of thing?” he asked me. I shook my head. From somewhere not far away I could hear a high, reedy voice saying, “Evelyn Alexandra Stagg’s mother had been Josephine Mabel Deacon. Laura Evelyn Deacon never married …”
“Sherry’s a wonderful girl,” Caine said, whistling in the dark, or so it seemed to me. He was watching her with the other young women standing in the aisle before the altar. I nodded approval, noticing for the first time a thin spot under the blond hair of Caine’s boyish round head. Down at the front of the church, talking to Biddy, who had just come over to the bridesmaids, Sherry was as animated and as bright as a bride should be and I said so to Norm Caine. Biddy, the Commander’s wife, looked lively and young for her age as well.
“I’m damned nervous about this thing,” Caine said. “We nearly funked it last week.” He looked over to see if I was interested in hearing more. I was and showed it. “We almost ran off to try to find a simple civil way around all this.” His gesture took in the far end of the church including the altar and choir. “But Sherry has always wanted a big white wedding. What’s a mere man to do?” He put on a hang-dog look, but with his rosy cheeks he couldn’t quite get away with it. The high woman’s voice was coming over the pews again: “He was the first judge in the County of Renfrew. But the Metcalfs and the Heeses were all Deacons originally. Jane Louise Deacon married John Metcalf. The Dunlops come in there somewhere …”
“Are you going away on a trip afterwards?” I asked.
“Nobody’s supposed to know. Sherry wants no pranks or visitors.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“We’ll be away for a week. There’s a nice warm beach and all of the tourists will be gone by this time. Our own deserted island.” There was a slight noise at the entrance. I turned to see Ross Forbes coming in.
“Here comes the father of the bride,” I said. The shoulders of his son-in-law-to-be fell with the news. Caine glanced behind him.
“I knew it couldn’t last,” he said. I felt honoured when he shared a knowing look with me. I didn’t know to what I owed such intimacy.
“Haven’t you two declared a truce until you and Sherry drive away picking rice out of your hair?”
“You’re talking theory,” he said with a pained expression. “Practice just walked in the door. For Sherry’s sake I’m putting up with more than my share of abuse. I’m not even sure he’ll give Sherry away tomorrow. He hasn’t said a civil word to me for weeks.”
“Ah,” I thought, “you can’t beat the first families at keeping the lid on tight and keeping up appearances.”
“Hello, Cooperman,” Forbes said flatly as he came down the aisle. “I won’t ask how you got here. You turn up so many places nowadays. Could it have anything to do with my dear ex-wife?” I didn’t answer. In a moment he had passed on down towards the front.
“Hates to share the spotlight,” Caine said watching Forbes’s back retreating. “We almost had to defy tradition and get the Commander to give the bride away. That would have been a major snub, seeing that Ross is still alive and kicking.”
“You get top marks for keeping it out of the Beacon.”
“Yeah, this town loves a feud like this. You haven’t seen the Commander, by the way, have you? It’s not like him to miss gloating at Ross’s expense.” I shrugged ignorance and let Caine pass on back to the main group at the front. I took a pew by myself near an assortment of men and women who were not themselves involved in the service. I spotted what might have been the father of the groom. He was a round little man, just over five feet tall, wearing an expression of limitless worry. Maybe he was paying for the dinner which was to follow the rehearsal. Teddie Forbes turned around and seemed to be counting the empty pews. She spotted me and gave me a friendly wave with her fingers. It seemed to say: What is either one of us doing here? It was fun trying to put names to the unfamiliar faces that occasionally turned and looked in this direction.
“People! Excuse me, people!” said the old man in the light cardigan. It was a melodious, clear voice that easily filled the nave of the church without any appearance of strain. He seemed to know exactly the right volume to pitch his voice at to be readily heard everywhere. “My name’s James Nombril. I’m Canon Nombril from St. Catharine of Jerusalem Cathedral. I’m one of those one ’n’ canons, although they say that I sound off like a fourteen-inch gun at least once a week!” He paused here, acknowledged the laugh and went on. “I’m indebted to my friend Ronald Prine, the rector of St. Mark’s for letting me stand in the shadow of the Lion of St. Mark tonight. I wouldn’t think of putting Ron out of his pulpit, if it weren’t for a promise I made many years ago to my old comrade in arms, Commander Murdo Forbes.” Another friendly noise from the congregation. “Murdo?” he called. “Murdo? Where are you?” People began looking over their shoulders to see if the Commander was blushing properly. But, not finding him, they turned around to face the canon again and he continued. “Well, since he isn’t here yet,” the old man said in a sly stage whisper, “perhaps I can tell you about the time both Murdo and I nearly missed a convoy sailing from Halifax during the war.” Canon Nombril was softening up his audience with great skill. He was being informal for a senior clergyman, but kept us reminded that he was standing below the altar in a place of worship. The large eagle on the pulpit’s lectern cast a sombre shadow as Nombril went on with his anecdote, which ended: “… so you see we are both acquainted with lateness.” Once he had collected his laugh, he could now be seen changing gears. He was moving to the business of the evening.
“If I may, I’d like to welcome you all here tonight, especially, if I may say it, those of you whom we seldom see. You may take that as a commercial message.” Another laugh. The canon went on in his amusing but skillful way, asking those in the back to move closer to the front, and generally making a fuss over the young couple. He introduced the organist who had just seated himself in the choir. The young man sounded a chord to acknowledge the bobbing heads and expressions of approval. Again Canon Nombril changed gears.
“People, I want to see all ushers and bridesmaids moving back to the narthex.” He then explained that he meant the foyer at the back of the church. I watched while he drilled the ushers in moving people into pews down front, reserving the front two for the families of the wedding party. He showed the bridesmaids how to walk, admitting humorously that he was often surprised to see young women who lacked any notion of how to walk in long dresses. Anna shot me a look, which I pretended I didn’t see. Canon Nombril took great pains in coaching the young flower girl, a pretty six-year-old, the daughter of Harold Grier, who sat next to Dr. Gary Carswell. The doctor, I gathered, was going to stand up with the groom.
As a rehearsal it went very well. The only things omitted were the lines. I heard no prayers or exchanges of vows. We jumped from cue to cue. “People, the responses go in here and by now, Norman, you should be certain that Dr. Carswell is holding the ring in his hand.” Carswell amused everybody by flourishing the ring. “Very good, Doctor. We want to get the young couple off to a good start, don’t we?” He went on to tell a story about a wedding in which the ring had been attached to a satin pillow by a stitch of thread. It took three minutes to separate the ring from the pillow. Meanwhile the bride had dissolved in tears.
By the time he finished with us, anyone who had been paying attention could have written a guide to the modern wedding. We knew who was to be seated on the right above the ribboned pew and who was to sit on the left below the ribboned pew. We knew that once Teddie was safely seated in the front pew on the left, the ceremony was about to begin in earnest. We knew who was to check boutonnières and transportation. Subtly, we were informed that this was the way these things were done. This was the standard, everything else a falling away from it. In addition, Canon Nombril wanted the ceremony to work the way a naval battle drill worked, with battle stations fully manned at zero hour or somebody w
as going to be on report. For a moment I thought he was going to get us to synchronize our watches. He didn’t, but the pause before his “Any questions?” made up for it.
After the drill was concluded, with the procession and recessional worked out to the music, Canon Nombril huddled with the leading players in the chancel for another ten minutes. When they returned, beaming, as though some of life’s secrets had already been opened to them, Canon Nombril thanked us for our kind attention. “I’ve been asked, people, by Mr. Kenneth Caine, father of our groom, to invite you all to break bread with us next door at the club in the General Brock Room, I believe.” He explained that this was another of the traditions involved. Before we were able to get away, he asked us to go through the recessional one more time and to clear the church, beginning with the front pews first, just as we would on the great day itself. The organ struck up again, and the bride and groom led the way out of the church, with the rest of us following at a dignified distance the people in front. I’ve been in plays that had less time with the director than this wedding. I was amazed at the detail of the rehearsal. In me, at least, it awakened hunger.
TWENTY-THREE
It was a short walk from St. Mark’s-by-the-Greens to the club. In fact, a well-worn path cut across the grass, avoiding the front parking lot, and ended at the side door. Three times Canon Nombril had referred to the club as being only an iron shot away from sanctity. He also allowed that St. Mark’s was the same distance from perdition. He said it with a generous grin, in case anyone might take him seriously. Anna was involved with the wedding party, so I had to content myself with walking along with Teddie. “I’ll bet you’re getting as big a kick out of this as I am, Benny,” she said. “The only amusing thing is the sour look on Ross’s face. You have to admit that’s worth the price of admission.”