Sunday Best Read online

  I went to Toronto simply to be present both at the funeral service and at the graveside. The funeral was private, the coffin open. Bruce lay with his eyes closed, heavily made up as though he were about to be interviewed by a local TV station. Rest in peach. Mildred had not even dried her eyes at the cemetery before she began turning the screws. She is too cunning to attack me directly, but she is a true professional when it comes to the oblique observation hinting at my inadequacies. We had hardly climbed into the chauffeured limousine for the drive home from the cemetery when Mildred suggested that it would have been nice had Mother been at the service.

  Although I had already performed the routine, I patiently explained once again that obliging Mother – old, frail, alcoholic – to drag herself up to Toronto just to look at a coffin would be less an expression of family solidarity than a penance. Furthermore, I took full responsibility for the decision. Subjecting an old lady to that ordeal would have done nothing for Bruce and might well have put Mother herself into one of those shiny brown boxes with handles that look like linen boutique towel racks.

  Realizing she had driven herself down a blind alley in her search for the perfect guilt trip, my sister shut up, at least for the time being. For once in my life I blessed the claims of business. The corporate law firm in which I was a partner, Lyall, Pierce, Chadwick, and Dawson, had been retained to fight an important takeover. We were standing up for the small shareholders, those owning nonvoting shares, and I had become genuinely interested in the case. My presence was required in Montreal, and the limousine drove me directly from Mildred’s house to the airport.

  Not long after the funeral, Mildred came to Montreal to visit Mother, not to play the bereaved daughter, dabbing at the furtive tear with a cambric hankie, but to show how unflinchingly she was taking the whole thing. Mildred boasts that dubious virtue known as character, an ability to suppress the so-called weaker feelings and present to the world an expression of assurance and self-control that would do credit to the Statue of Liberty.

  She had packed an exclusively black wardrobe, mix and match, although with black everything already matched. Her rigorously tailored appearance, when I took her to dinner, only reinforced the impression I always had that Mildred was born to wear a uniform. Her shoulders looked incomplete without epaulettes; her bust cried out for brass buttons; her belted waist ought to have been cinched by broad, burnished leather. She inhabited an imperative world. Ought and should found their frequent way into her conversation.

  She resumed her offensive by suggesting it was a shame Bruce and I had not been better friends. I really ought to have made more effort to get to know him. There are two possible responses to such an accusation. The first is a belt in the chops. The second is a clumsy attempt at self-justification. It being the Ritz dining room, I chose the second alternative, explaining that it is difficult to be close friends with someone who lives in another city and whom one sees infrequently.

  The explanation failed to satisfy my sister, but then I knew it would. Her rules for family behaviour dictated that the man she married be totally absorbed into our family group. It was not enough that Bruce and I were civil when we met. Mildred wanted, demanded, commitment. Her idea of masculine friendship was the stuff of saga, gashing our palms with a dagger and mingling blood. She would have liked us to swear oaths on a naked sword, exchange talismans, stand shoulder to shoulder against the barbarians.

  It is difficult to adopt a heroic stance with a man who has about as much personality as the hole in the doughnut. Bruce Carson was my sister’s husband. As such he was entitled to my respect and courtesy. More I did not offer; nor did he expect more. And now that he was dead it seemed pointless, even ghoulish, to subject our relationship to a postmortem. I disapprove of necrophilia, emotional or otherwise, although it has been observed that when having sex with a dead body you don’t have to worry about looking your best. I steered the conversation onto problems dealing with the estate, Bruce’s will, and what Mildred could reasonably expect to live on, and we got through dinner.

  By now I had finished my drink. I returned to the kitchen to top it up and decided to give Mother’s number another try. I must have caught her during that split second between calls, because the phone began to bleat. Mother’s vision, coordination, and attention span are all sliding rapidly downhill. As a result I gave her a touch telephone for Christmas, one with oversized numbers. She manages to punch the buttons in the correct sequence most of the time. Should she get a wrong number she apologizes and proceeds to explain about her bifocals and the new telephone she still isn’t used to. Yes, a Christmas present from her son. He’s a lawyer, you know. Yes, they are much nicer than the dial ones, but it’s so very easy to make a mistake. You do too? Well, I’m so relieved to learn I’m not the only one. I really hope I didn’t disturb you, but it’s so nice to chat. I don’t get out very much these days, and in winter? Yes, they say snow is on the way. Be very careful when you go out, and don’t slip. Just lovely talking with you. And you have a nice day too. She loves it, but the device makes a sound more like a sheep than a bell.

  I have to confess it is a bit galling to know that she is having a far better time with her el cheapo, bought-on-special touch telephone than with the VCR I gave her last year. She is terrified to use that very expensive stocking stuffer.

  Mother must have been sitting on the phone. Halfway through the second ring she picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Mother, it is I, your son and heir.”

  “Geoffry! I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  This was totally untrue, but age and alcohol have combined to make Mother’s grasp of reality tenuous at best.

  “Here I am. I tried to return your call, but the line has been busy.”

  “Has it really? Well, I do have some exciting news. Jennifer is to be married, to that nice Fullerton boy she has been seeing. And you are going to give her away.”

  “Am I, now?”

  “You have to admit you are the logical person, now that your sister is a widow. Not that you could really fill Bruce’s shoes. Poor Bruce.”

  Coming from anyone else but Mother that last observation could have been taken as a snub. However, I knew hers was not a qualitative observation but a simple statement that Bruce, like all human beings, was unique. In the ensuing pause I heard a slight tinkle coming over the line, as of ice cubes in a glass.

  “I disagree with you, Mother. Richard is the bride’s brother, and he is the eldest child. Far better he give his sister away than her shop-soiled uncle.”

  “Richard is to be head usher. And her sister Elizabeth will be maid of honour. Mildred has it all worked out. What a thoughtful girl she is. She knows how much I dislike travel, so she has arranged to hold the wedding right here, in Westmount, at St. Luke the Apostle.”

  Remembering how Mildred tried to work me over because Mother had not gone to Toronto for the funeral, I suddenly found a lot of very naughty words dancing through my mind, but I refrained from saying them out loud. “At the risk of sounding like one of those boring Greek women who hung out in sacred groves uttering bad news, I strongly suspect that by the time Mildred and Company have taken over our apartments, our attention, and our lives, you will wish the two of us had taken the easy way out, like riding to Toronto for the wedding on a tandem bicycle.”

  “Oh, Geoffry, you are turning into such a – such an irascible old curmudgeon. You really must watch yourself.”

  That Mother managed to get out those two heavy-duty words without stumbling showed she was really flying. Another faint tinkle came down the Bell Canada wire.

  “Don’t worry, Mother. Six weeks before the wedding I shall enrol myself for a refresher course in sweetness school.”

  “A good idea! Just remember: it’s always darkest before the silver lining. And Geoffry, when your sister calls, do act surprised. I really should have let her tell you the good news, but I was too excited. Now the fat is out of the bag.”

  “And t
he cat’s in the fire. Don’t worry, Mother. I will greet the news with whistles of surprise and gasps of astonishment. Best actor in a supporting role. Now, I’m sure you have other people to call.”

  “Jennifer will be coming down soon, next week perhaps, to make preliminary arrangements. She’ll stay here, of course. You’ll come to dinner?”

  “Sure thing, Mother.”

  “Here comes Madame with my supper tray.”

  “Bon appétit!” I hung up, grateful to the housekeeper for her timely interruption. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get Mother off the telephone once the conversation has ended. Age and alcohol aside, she has that old-fashioned idea of courtesy as time spent on others. To be civil means giving people your undivided attention, and, it goes without saying, demanding theirs in return. My idea of courtesy is minimalist, to use a fashionable buzzword. I try to leave others alone as much as possible, neither compelling their attention nor allowing them to impinge on mine. In my family that makes me a comfortable majority of one.

  SUNDAY MORNING WAS JUST ABOUT to slide into Sunday afternoon when Mildred got around to telephoning. With her impeccable sense of timing, she caught me just as I had finished bundling myself up warmly and was on the point of going out. I use the term going out in the tame sense of leaving the apartment. When I was younger, going out meant heeding the call of those jungle drums. But nowadays that sound is muffled, even more so when the city lies buried under thirty-seven centimetres of snow, or fifteen inches as I tell my American friends so they can grasp the extent of the inconvenience.

  There is something infinitely depressing about four bare walls waiting for the final coat of paint, and I intended to kill the afternoon with lunch and then a movie, perhaps the one about the musical man-eating plant from outer space. I was just thinking that with any luck I might obtain a cutting of this same plant to send to my sister, when the phone rang.

  One of the qualities I most dislike in myself is my capacity for being bullied by the telephone. An appliance that began life as a communications convenience has turned into the control centre of any household, even more compelling than the television set. People will tear themselves away from the climatic moment of a favourite TV program to answer the importunate ring. I even had a lover once who interrupted a terrific fuck-in-progress to answer the phone in the next room. By the time he hung up I had dressed and departed, for keeps.

  I wanted to leave my apartment, to hear the phone ringing more and more faintly as I headed for the stairwell, which I have taken to using so as not to be obliged to speak to neighbours on the elevator. But I knew two of my partners were at the office today and maybe wanted to reach me. Then there is Mother, a walking accident waiting to happen. Lastly, there was always the chance, remote I must admit, that a grateful client might want to fly me to New York City in a private jet for early dinner at the Four Seasons, followed by a box at the opera.

  I gave in and decided to answer the phone.

  “Geoffry?” My sister’s naturally resonant voice was so amplified by the receiver that my ear buzzed.

  “You are listening to a recorded announcement. Geoffry Chadwick is unable to come to the telephone at the moment because he is levitating. At the sound of the dry, hacking cough please leave –”

  “Geoffry, I have something important to tell you. Please pay attention!”

  I guess it was the “Please pay attention!” that did it, but the promise I had made to Mother about feigning astonishment went up in smoke.

  “You telephoned to say that Jennifer is to be married and I am to give her away.”

  “You’ve been told!”

  “Bad news travels fast.”

  “Really, Geoffry, I hardly think that word of Jennifer’s engagement could be called bad news. But then you have always treated my children as though I bought them on the black market.”

  “The bad news part is not the engagement. That’s Jennifer’s affair. If she wants to tie herself down to one man for the rest of her life it’s her –” I was about to say “funeral,” but remembered my recently interred brother-in-law, “decision. What concerns me is giving her away, like a promotional gift. What happens if I have to take her back?”

  “You’re just being silly. All you will have to do is walk down the aisle with Jennifer on your arm. It doesn’t seem too much to ask, for your own niece.”

  “Why doesn’t Richard give her away? He’s more closely related than I, and the male presence in the household.”

  “Richard will be head usher. And the bride really should be given away by a senior relative.”

  “Thanks a lot. As far as I’m concerned, senior begins at seventy. Audrey Crawford tells me I have to wear a morning coat.”

  “Oh, so Audrey told you.”

  “And Mother.”

  “How is Audrey? Haven’t seen her for months.”

  “All right, I guess. Her hair is still the colour of ripe corn, and she’s beginning to look like a middle-aged kewpie doll. But she wasn’t wheezing or gasping or limping or anything. Now about that morning coat: I don’t own one.”

  “You really should, a man in your position.”

  “And what position is that, pray tell?” I was tempted to make an off-colour observation, but my sister has no sense of humour about sex, or much else for that matter. She knows perfectly well I am homosexual (I don’t add “practising” because I got it right years ago). However, Mildred still carries on as though the right woman were waiting just around the next corner.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. If you don’t wish to have one made you could rent, but do so in plenty of time. There is always a shortage of dress clothes in June.”

  “Rented clothes? Other people’s armpits? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Indeed not.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Heat and irritation were making me prickle; I put down the receiver and took off my overcoat. Reluctantly, I retrieved the receiver.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” said Mildred. “Go to a reputable outfit, where they dry clean clothes between rentals.”

  “You seriously expect me to put my dainty private parts into a pair of rented trousers that God only knows who may have worn?”

  “Your dainty private parts, as you call them, have been in worse places, I venture to say.”

  “Mildred, don’t be coarse.”

  “Stop being squeamish.”

  “Have you no other friends, colleagues of Bruce’s, equipped with morning coats and anxious to be of service to the Widow Carson?”

  “Geoffry, is it really too much to ask you to do this for your own niece? Once in a lifetime?”

  “Wrong again! We live in the age of serial monogamy. Jennifer will probably have at least three husbands, not to mention her share of serious shackups.”

  “You are quite impossible.”

  “What is the date of this extravaganza? I’ll have to consult my horoscope.”

  A quick sigh of impatience came down the line from Toronto. “June thirteenth. It’s a Saturday.”

  “Doesn’t sound very auspicious to me. Not at all. I’ll have to have my fortune told before I can give you an answer.”

  There ensued a slight pause. From experience I knew Mildred was manoeuvring her big guns into position.

  “Of course I can’t force you to wear a morning coat, or to give Jennifer away, if you refuse to do so. However, I would sooner you broke the news to Mother than I. She will be dreadfully disappointed. The last thing she said to me before she hung up the phone was that looking forward to the wedding will help her get through the winter months. That she couldn’t wait to see her youngest granddaughter walk down the aisle on the arm of her only son. And Geoffry is so tall; he will look so handsome and distinguished in a morning coat.”

  She had me, the bitch. I was the butterfly in the bottle, waiting for the cotton wool soaked in chloroform. I could gladly push Mildred fully dressed off a pier – and did once as a child, to no end of recrimination. Bu
t I could not disappoint Mother. The whims of the old and frail carry more weight than edicts chiselled in stone. There was another reason. Even though my father had been dead many years, I still remembered him with the warm glow of affection. He was the first man I ever loved, and now that I look back on my life I realize I probably loved him best of all. He would have expected me to do as Mother wished. And it was for him I capitulated.

  “Very well, dear sister. I can see you take no prisoners. I will give Jennifer away. And I will wear drag, although a bigger drag than having a morning coat made I cannot imagine. You have won your point. I am shot down in flames. And I have had nothing to eat today. I am going out. You are listening to a recorded announcement: this conversation will self-destruct in five seconds. So long, Millie.” (She hates being called that.)

  I did go to see the movie about the carnivorous plant. Even as it gleefully gobbled down various members of the cast, I couldn’t help thinking that Mildred would have given it heartburn.

  2.

  MONDAY MORNING ON THE DOT OF TEN the red light on my telephone began to flicker. As I had a good deal of work to get through, I had asked my secretary to screen calls.

  “A Mrs. Lois Fullerton to speak to you, Mr. Chadwick. Shall I say you’re busy?”

  “No, Mrs. Patterson, I’ll take it.” There followed a faint click. “Good morning, Mrs. Fullerton. Geoffry Chadwick here.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Chadwick, I hope I’m not calling you at an inconvenient time. I could call back, or leave my number.”

  The voice on the line was the stuff of adolescent erotic fantasies, low, vibrant, melodious. Her vowels were full of sex, her consonants of money.

  “Not at all, Mrs. Fullerton. Am I correct in assuming that you are the mother of the groom?”

  “Precisely.” She laughed into the receiver. I had read in pulp novels about women who laughed deep, throaty laughs – that is, before they were discovered to have shot their husbands. But Lois Fullerton did laugh a deep, throaty laugh, a kind of come-hither chuckle. “Now, I have not yet met your sister Mildred, but we have spoken on the telephone. As she has only recently lost her husband, like me I regret to say, I understand you are to give the bride away.”