Chapter Nine

9

Anglican

Cowgirls

KATYA

To get to the Gallery, Katya rode the subway two stations farther south then necessary and walked west. Most of the downtown streets irritated her. The greasy pavements of Chinatown made her nervous and the conceit of Queen, awed by its own cunning modishness, raised her blood pressure. She chose King, dry and grey as flannel, where the banks refrained from tugging at her sleeve. The intensity of her encounter with Maude Matthew had clouded her focus and she felt the need of space, of a colourless canyon where she could pull back her head and see again.

What did this Maude want, Katya wondered, could she be a friend? Did she, Katya, want another friend? She had Bena. She grinned up at a favourite gargoyle rainspout snarling down at the traffic. Yes, she had Bena. Never too sure why. Did she like Maude? Yes. And yet… well… maybe. Good question. There was sharpness in Maude, a quick intelligence that had stepped right on the ends of Katya’s words. She had recognized Katya’s imaginary disasters and had added some of her own. And laughed. At me? Katya picked at her memory, nuance was important; had Maude mocked the thought of herself half paralyzed with stroke, or had she laughed at Katya for an interfering busybody? She slowed to a corner.

And what about the fact that this Maude woman proposed sending Bena, to her an unknown quantity (for that matter, unknown quality, since she, Katya – she felt a goose on her grave – had been something less than flattering when describing her friend), had really quite seriously, as far as Katya could tell, wanted them to go (her in rubber boots, yet!) to an opening or something, a reception, in her brother-in-law’s bank, with the all too obvious purpose of annoying her own sister. Was Maude a bit scatty?

Watching for the traffic light to change, Katya’s eye was jogged by the street sign and she turned her head for a look at the Imperial Trust. The woman couldn’t be serious, could she? Sclerosis. How old was she? Katya rattled her head, she couldn’t decide. She would have to tell Bena about it and see what she thought. The light changed. Bena would want to go to the reception. How scatty was Bena? Katya crossed the street.

DAVID

David had picked Tillie’s brand of rye from the liquor store shelf, then found himself hovering uncertainly over wine racks, unable to bring his mind to bear on considerations of label, price, even colour. It’s not easy, this business of leaving, he thought, there’s no such thing as the right time and there sure as hell is no way to make it painless. Not for Katherine, or me either. What a hole! I could stand to get piss-eyed drunk. He stared down at the quart of rye cradled in both hands – he had a secret fear of holding whiskey by the neck, sure that it would somehow sneak out of his fist to smash at his feet, a rubby’s embarrassment without the oblivion – maybe I ought to get the big bottle. Large brown jug how I need thee… No. This has to be done with some sort of grace.

He patted the bottle affectionately. And it’s not just Katherine, there’s Tillie, too. With a stab of guilt he wasn’t sure who mattered more. He had asked Tillie once why rye, why not scotch, gin even? Sherry? Duty, she’d said with a straight face. Patriotism, and it gets me tight faster. Beatrice had overheard from twenty feet and delivered one of her suffering-sainthood lectures to the two of them. David sighed, focused on a reasonable price and slid two bottles of red from the wire. So what if it is fish, it’s October, too cold for white. He’d even miss Bea.

At the checkout counter, something, the ring of a cash drawer bell, perhaps the particular blue of the clerk’s smock, occasioned a jarring shudder the length of David’s spine. He knew what he needed. Not a drink, but a picture. His picture. He considered it his although it hung in a corner full of Canadians in the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was a small, square painting, an icon, the blue and red of vein and artery, the containing grace of bloodlines, one of David Milne’s wives. He had found it by chance while escaping one of Katherine’s forced marches through culture early in their relationship, when bleary with looking, stuffed with undigested facts and fed up with being treated like a notebook, he had felt himself drawn to a picture he had never seen, by a painter he had never heard of. Quietly, calmly, it had pulsed on the gallery wall, and David had forgiven Katherine her arrogance, his mother for dying, the world for being cruel, and himself for everything that came to mind. He had visited the picture off and on at need. He needed it now.

The liquor store clerk reached for the proffered money. David had a split-second sight of himself stuck at the end of a long coat-check line with an obvious brown bag in his arms – Damn! He pinched the bills in his hand. The clerk tugged. Never mind, David smiled, with the Blake show hanging, with all the crowds, his friend Paul would be somewhere on security and could be persuaded to hide the booze without a lot of bother. He accepted his change, nodding gratefully to the blue smock. He heard a snort of contempt and saw the clerk’s curled lip. Oh, Christ! He thinks I’m being coy with the money, coming on to him. Dumb bastards think anyone without a pot and hair growing out of his nose in this town must be queer. Jerk! David straightened to his full height, counted two beats, raised one eyebrow, said, “Fuck you, cupcake!” and sailed from the store.

BENA

Bena pressed her shoulders against the fat upholstery of the banquette, a mistake that sank her deeper into the seat until her breasts levelled with the tabletop. Stupid! She could feel her neck thicken. It was stupid not to sit on a chair, but who would wish to sit backside to the world? Even here in a place like this, a restaurant with a decorated window, ribboned pails of dry pasta and potted flowers pushed past nature, even here there must be something to occupy. She peered into the deliberate dark, grateful for that at least, the fashionable murk soaked and softened the net of age where it pinched about her eyes and mouth. Inoffensive exhibition posters framed in sharp metal littered the walls and Bena, sunk floundering in her capes, could see one threatening the back of her neck. My turkey neck! That’s what they think, I know! A wattled old bird, bare of feathers, of furs; no gabby old mink with a fat purse oozing lipstick on the china! She twisted her head and saw that it was Chagall behind her. Ha! A Frenchman. Katya thinks I do not know these things. He will stay where he is.

If only Katya would have come to meet me here, Bena sighed, she would pay this ridiculous price for the coffee and I would not mind so much the change. Three months? Four? Well, it might have been six months ago, but no more. She had come to meet a man in this place. It was near the Gallery and Bena had thought that she might like to know a man who looked at pictures. It couldn’t hurt. There were orange plastic booths then, cracked and settled, perogies and muddy borscht; a familiar old slut with a pencil poked into her kitchen perm slid plates to men in twos and threes. There were seedy men and tidy men alone with bottles of beer. And now… Stupid!

She counted seven art school students draped around the black bentwood furnishings. An artistic salad-bar, its neon imitating sliced radish and pickled zucchini, dissolved disconcertingly into an indifference of black mirror. Men would not come here! She knew for a fact that George would not. He continued to meet her in the dank cellar bar, in the stale sweat of beer and smoke, where they talked and smiled and shook their heads together over unimportant things, what politicians said, what newspapers did. He never stayed more than an hour – his day was a timetable – and only on Thursdays, after the barber. They played together in a mystery of first names and few details, sharing the absence.

Bena clanked her coffee cup into the saucer attracting a few pair of eyes, but no other movement, and spoke in her thick brass voice. “I do not live in Oakville, but I will have another cup of this coffee for which you expect so much money.” One of the black draped students unwound from a chair and with the artificial manners of a funeral home bore a Pyrex pot and filled her cup. Bena drove her heels into the rubber floor lifting herself by the spine and flourished an armload of bracelets. The waiter shied in alarm. Bena touched her throat with jeweled fingers, “October is too warm yet for furs.”

GEORGE

When George climbed out of his cockpit at the close of the war, he never willingly went up into the air again. Ambition and Elizabeth kept him moving, but on land, and when achievement kicked him upstairs he stuck on the third floor and had the windows of his office fronted with big-bellied cabinets to prevent a downward glance. If unavoidably hauled skyward in exchanges of power, he wore a pair of heavy Strathspey brogues and held to the edges of tables with his thumbs. His Chairmanship was chauffeured, but whenever possible George walked.

As he walked away from Martin and Katherine, he was absorbed in the setting of his hat. The homburg required two hands to prevent the brim bending under its weight of dignity. He liked the idea of both hands in the air, thinking it a safe move for a man in his position. He held the door and absently nodded to a woman he thought too old for the height of her heels. In my position! A breath of contempt escaped without ruffling his lips. The woman, surreptitiously evaluating the cut of George’s coat, flashed a hard eye at his mouth. Automatically he gave her his company smile and a careful bow. My position! He wished the ponderous glass door was a cottage screen on a tight spring to snap slamming shut behind those tottering heels. My supposedly so comfortable position – Tense. Every gesture controlled, refined, nice! Brittle. What I wouldn’t give for those clutching, flinging arms of Katherine Bailey’s, for even one of Martin’s twittery quirks. The benign evenness of George’s face ached to arch its brows, to purse its lips, to snort from a white-knuckled nose.

“You know,” he had told Bena one Thursday afternoon as she tried to read her future in his palm across the rathskeller table, “I think about Aramis, the third musketeer. He kept his hands in the air to stop the blood from coarsening his veins. I tried it. I was twelve. When I read the book. My father ordered me to stop walking around like a sissy.” George had sighed and curled his palm around Bena’s fingers, “The hardest job for a man in my position is keeping his skin tone.”

George had no meeting. He had sent the Blake tickets to Bena discreetly by taxi, had then contrived to look pale and asked Darla Samson to fib him out of a couple of appointments and now felt like skipping like a schoolboy as he headed for the Gallery. He hadn’t the time to go in, and he couldn’t be seen, but his curiousity had gotten the better of him. Bena had called to say thankyou and mentioned a friend. He just had to see.

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth Preston had no scruples. She had probably dissembled instinctively from birth and her mother’s consequent death, and from the age of three, discovering that ‘no’ was an opinion, not an absolute, that corporeal dissolution did not follow upon the theft of her sister’s doll, she determined that she would have what she wished and more often than not, providing she made a show of affectionate concern, could have it with a ribbon on it. Proud of this discovery, although never quite certain whether she ought to be contemptuous of other people’s lack of perception or of their virtuous forbearance, she fed her pride with a vigorous self-analysis which encouraged her to do as she pleased so long as she pleased to do it.

Holding the chatelaine’s keys to George’s wealth, she spent money and was canny enough to avoid eccentricities of taste, knowing that to be a privilege granted the disinterested. Elizabeth’s subtlety was her most obvious characteristic.

She dashed from the salon to her car, damning herself for not having taken the time to eat lunch. Now that her make-up was in place, she would have to starve until god knows what hour. There would be trouble enough not messing her hair when she changed for the reception, perhaps she could manage to sip something healthy, with an egg in, and just touch up her lips.

She checked the time at a stoplight and stomped the accelerator in exasperation. She shouldn’t have to do this! If people really appreciated all the work she did, the responsibility she took, all the fuss and bother she went to for the sole purpose of improving the quality of their lives – if even George did – she wouldn’t have to put up with this… damned traffic! and telephones! and… and having to deal directly with caterers and things. She really did deserve a secretary of her own. George wouldn’t even let her use his precious Darla Dyke for invitations and little things like that. And she should have the big car for herself, with whatsisname the driver. Here she was, late, and what on earth was she going to do about parking? She shouldn’t have to walk to the Gallery from a parking garage! Maybe if that young man… very handsome… Paul… so good about carrying things… nice hands… perhaps she could find him.

KATYA

The Art Gallery of Ontario, a paunch of stairs at the waist, a bit of old park in the rear, wears on its right breast like a brooch or a badge, a bronze Moore sculpture. Katya gave it a passing rap with her knuckles and wished for a big stick to hear if it would ring. She made herself comfortable on the nearest bench, sliding her feet loose to wiggle their toes in the rubber boots, and pulled from her string bag the plastic sack of crabapples which Maude Matthew had been unwilling to accept.

Why? Maude was quick enough with the coffee, with the invitations – to a reception, to come again. She almost begged. She invited Bena, of all people, someone she’s never met! A reason for inviting Bena. Why… Squealing, a tiny Oriental in pink slithered through the empty core of the Moore. A young woman picked her up as a man hovered before them with a camera held to his face. Does she think herself too much the princess for apples picked from the ground in the park? Was she laughing at my boots? Katya heard the camera click. Reaching into the bag, she began to arrange beside herself on the bench a still-life of a half-dozen crabapples, picking and choosing for variations of colour. Another click, as mother photographed father and daughter. Maybe she just doesn’t want to fuss with a jelly bag. Two apples were switched to prevent a blush of purple from breaking harmony.

Stomping feet into her boots, Katya rose with a heave, snatched the camera firmly from the hands of the startled woman and with impatient waves of her fingers lined up all three in front of the Moore. Waiting for consternation to pass into some scrutable smiles, she considered that the sculpture always reminded her of chicken salad, of the chore of picking meat from the neck bones. She smiled, they smiled, she snapped. Handing back the camera, Katya bowed to chatter she supposed was thanks, picked up her bags and moved on to the next bench.

PAUL

Paul Magarry liked working the Gallery’s porte-cocher entrance in the scoop beneath the belly of stairs because it was quiet. Usually there was little to do but look secure, perhaps open a car trunk for an art-renter, occasionally prevent a pushy member from parking. However, the people had discovered Blake, and Paul was busy holding doors, lending a hand, an arm, a shoulder to the immobile, the old, the fragile debouching amid sticks and wheelchairs and rugs from a stream of cars and vans. He felt like a stock-piling mortician, a doorman at Lourdes – check coats, cameras and crutches, please, line up for the miracle. One old woman in stiff velvet didn’t look to be breathing, but the young man pushing her chair… Paul stared… he ought to be hanging in the main gallery, full length.

DAVID & PAUL

David had no time for Blake; he felt sufficiently overwrought, thank you. What he needed was peace. He found Paul judiciously steering an old pair of nodding gentlemen toward the coat check. Their plump hands patting his wrists, they exchanged little bird-like trills of pleasure, and made eyes across Paul’s lapels.

“Hello, David. Come to the Home to kiss yer old granny? Aren’t they a brave lot? Come to see the icons, too bad they haven’t any real faith, they might skip home. But it’s nice they’re brought out for the culture. You’re not here for the old Bill? You’ll die in the line.”

“Happy in your work are you, Matron? Your wimple’s askew.”

Paul ran a hand through his hair, mouthed an obscenity at David, scooped a clattering cane from the floor, slapped off the brake on a stalled chair, pointed the way to the washrooms, admired a pair of red foxes clasping a turkey neck of equivalent age, and came back to David, “This is not a good time. If you were flat out on a gurney with an intravenous baggie attached, I might get you past the scrum, but not…”

“Unh unh. I’m just going up to the Canadians, to see my Milne. But I thought maybe you could stow this,” David waved the brown paper bottles, “save me tipping a coat hanger.”

“Dear God, where?” Paul spun a look at the barely furnished lobby, “I can’t slip out to my locker, catch hell for abandoning the bunker. Oh, I know! Here, give it, and just sort of hover behind me, don’t want these old sherry-suckers to see the stash.” And Paul shuffled David into a corner immediately behind the door, lifted a sand-filled ashtray from its chrome canister stand, stood the bag in the bottom and replaced the top. “There, safe as houses. Good thing you don’t have a coat, wouldn’t fit. They won’t ask you for your blazer. Now off you go. I have to get back to my paddling, busy day on the Styx.” And Paul made a glissade for some old pearls pulling on the door.

David climbed the stairs, apologized his way through the beige mumble and passed into a tunnel on his way to the Canadians.

PAUL

When the flood finally checked about mid-afternoon, Paul stepped outside for a cigarette and a drunk rolled down the inclined drive looking to get out of the wind.

“Hiyah. Got a smoke, pal? H’re y’doin’? Thanks, pal. ’S the name of this place? No filter, eh? I like ’em with no filter. You like ’em with no filter? Ha! Your smokes, I guess, eh? Y’got a light?”

Poor grubby puppy, loaded and alone in the big bad city. Paul cupped a match in his hand. And they’re still giving dreadful shag haircuts up in the Soo, or wherever.

“Some place y’got here, buddy. ’S not a hospital, is it? ’S university! ’M I right?”

“It’s the Art Gallery of Ontario. Where’re you from?”

“Art Gallery. I’m from outatown m’self. We got… Y’know Art… Art… whaziz name? Scobie. Y’know Art Scobie? From the gas station. He’s here. Some’eres. He come t’ Tranna las year. Buddy mine. His sis’er said he got a job juslike’at. I ain’t seen ’im. You got a job?”

Just enough talent to stay drunk, scrounge cigarettes, and get chewed up by some old sleaze-bag with a twenty dollar bill. Paul sighed, ground his butt with a heel, “Yup, I got a job. You’re it. Shall we just take a wander back up to the street, pal? By the way, I’m Paul.”

ELIZABETH

Elizabeth gunned the Mercedes around the last corner breezing the capes of a crossing pedestrian – God, what a sight! The Witch of the West playing drum majorette. Three sheets to the wind, I’ll bet. – swooped the wheel into the Gallery drive – There’s Paul! Some tramp in tow. This neighbourhood! – and mortified the car to a stall by the doors. Madam Chairperson banged a kid fist on the steering wheel, snorted with frustration, slammed out of the car and marched back up the drive to the street.

KATYA

Katya crossed the foot of the stairs and went to work with her apples on the next bench.

PAUL & ELIZABETH

“Could y’spare a couple more them smokes, pal? Say… Paul? Yah, Paul, could y’… Hey! What’s that old broad doin’ there? She collectin’ the eggs, or what, eh? Nah! There ain’t no hens there. She sure has got a …”

“Paul!” Elizabeth’s heavy shoulder bag missed the drunk by accident. “Paul! Excuse me, it is Paul, isn’t it?”

“…damn nice pair rubber boots there.”

“Mrs Preston! Yes, it is. Hello. You’re looking marvellous today. Sorry about this, I’m just putting out the trash, as it were. What can I do for…”

“Hey! She’s makin’ a pile of horse balls! Lookit… uh, g’day, ma’m, horse buns. Would y’lookit the old chick in the boots there, she’s puttin’… Nah! They’re little apples!”

BENA

The car had whipped around the corner when Bena was halfway into the street; she’d had a good look at the shellacked head at the wheel. A goose walked her grave and Bena’s hand had fumbled through collars and scarves to tap a miniature of Saint Catherine in blue enamel hung in the tangle of chains on her breast. It was a locket and held a clove of garlic. Now, where was this Moor who Katya said she would be waiting by instead of in a warm place with coffee? Was it Othello? That was a play which she knew had been made by an Englishman. If there were English pictures here, maybe there would be an English statue?

GEORGE

George figured that he might someday go the way of the cat, but curiousity was the force of his affairs; what point was there in resisting innocent passion? He was safe enough on this side of the street, it was broad, there were trees. Catching sight of the friend, he would see more of Bena.

PAUL & ELIZABETH

“Paul, I’m late… Dear God! Is nothing safe? I… Paul, I’m late for a meeting, the Board, probably the Chair. I’m late and I haven’t the time to park… Oof!” The roar of Bena’s passage tipped Elizabeth into the drunk.

“Holy Mother and all the good Saints in a pastry, Katya! What is this dirty old peasant in her boots like a barnyard and her noisy shawl with the Rudolphs on it? This is my nice friend, the widowed lady with the house of her own? So long from Finland she should know how to dress like she knows how to say in English things that will hurt her friends? I have come to meet you, I invite you with my tickets, I am glad my friend is not here to see you like this. Where is this Moor of yours, Katya? He is hiding I think, from the sight of you. Moors know how to dress. You smile! You are cruel, Katya.”

“Holy Shit! It’s another one! This’s some place y’got here, Paul buddy. It’s as good as the movies. You one a them, Lady?” He took a closer look at Elizabeth.

Paul couldn’t help himself, holding down laughter just made his eyes run, “I’m sorry, Mrs Preston. You were saying?” He bit his lip.

“A zoo! This isn’t a gallery, it’s a zoo! Cut-throats, lunatics and…” Elizabeth’s left hand clutched at the enormous silk-embroidered carpet of a purse slung from her shoulder, “…and thieves, more than likely,” her right hand pointed, “and screaming bag ladies. Clear these people away from here – You there! You’re not wanted here. This isn’t a circus! Go somewhere else, or we’ll have to have the police.” Katya and Bena stared around, not comprehending. “And clean up whatever mess that is you’ve made there. Trash everywhere in the streets! You people, you come here, you have no respect… You must have something decent to wear! It isn’t Hallowe’en. This is the Art Gallery of Ontario!”

“You tell ’em, lady. ’S what Paul here says it is, too. An’ he works here. You tell ’em!”

“Yes, he does,” Elizabeth’s mouth curled and her eyes lashed, “and he’ll clean up this garbage and park my car. The keys are in it.” And she cracked off on hard heels.

“She’s not yer mother, is she? Y’got that other smoke then, pal?”

GEORGE

Discreet between a planterful of pinched petunias and a lamppost when he spotted his wife, the appearance of Bena had sent George to cover behind a strategic tree. It wouldn’t do for a homburg to be seen lurking in areaways, between buildings, but he could respectably pass for a concerned arbourist perhaps, and poke at bark for termites.

She can’t know who Bena is, surely. Darla’s the only one who knows where I am when I’m not in the office. Knows from experience. She wouldn’t let the cat out. It has to be coincidence. Oh, sure, Porgie! You don’t believe in coincidence. Certainty of the culpability of the found-in as an article of natural law was one of those things that George kept under his hat. Accident’s coincident, and responsibility’s shared. Trust his wife to meet his girlfriend in a street fight.

George felt no urge to rescue. Elizabeth’s career had begun in the schoolyard defending leaf houses and skipping ropes and her tactics hadn’t changed. He couldn’t hear what she was saying – yelling, actually – but he knew the stance, the arm conducting the rout. Mind you, her cavalry looked a little disorderly. Bena’s troop, on the other hand, could give pause to a charge of Highlanders. Which, George guessed, might well be the flea in Elizabeth’s ear; unorthodox battledress, intimidation by loud colours and too much jewellery. Bena, old soldier, wasn’t in any danger, and rubber boots would be handy in a mudsling. When Elizabeth spun her heels, George patted his tree, smiled reassuringly at a schnauzer with a woman on leash, and withdrew.

PAUL & KATYA & BENA

Usually, Bena could recognize an insult still in the egg, but the opening cracks had been at her back, and then the shock of focus on the shouting head – the driver of the car! – had slowed her down, “I did not know what she said. The police, I thought she wanted. But then! Then she insults my Katya! You are not decent, she said! Making a mess here! Hallowe’en, she said you were! And you have no respect. Aach, what things to say. And to a stranger! To know, that is different. And me! She thinks I do not know that this is the Gallery of the Art of Ontario!”

“She should pick her nose until it bleeds.”

“Katya! You are not decent.”

Paul counted out from his pocket enough money for a pack of cigarettes, “Get yourself some smokes. And stay out of trouble.” He patted the drunk with avuncular gravity and steered him to the curb, “That’s the gutter, and that’s the road. Maybe you’d better just hike on home. Take care.” And Paul turned, polishing his palms.

“Ladies! Fresh from the bus, are we? The boots are a nice touch. Is there a tractor convention in town? Or,” His eyes absorbed the vivid reindeer and the bangle overload, “or is this ethnic perseverance in the teeth of the Canadian cultural amoeba?” Katya was disarmed by the teasing grin and Bena liked a uniform; they smiled.

“Why the apples?” From where he stood, Paul could see the little piles of apples on further benches.

Katya displayed the length of the street with an arm, “It’s so grey. And so hard. It’s supposed to be an art gallery, so what’s wrong with a few dabs of colour? I tried to give them away, for jelly, but everybody’s lazy. So I brought them along to play with while I waited for her,” Katya jerked her chin at Bena, “and I’m dressed like this because she hates it.”

“Always a good reason,” Paul nodded sagaciously, “I offend my friends whenever I can. Keeps them out of your drawers.”

Bena reared, “Enough! I will hear no more insults. I am not Genghis Khan’s horse, Katya, I am not from Oakville, I am not a Hallowe’en person, I am not just from the boat in this country, and I am not a bad friend. Or, if it is so,” Her capes were furled over a muffled clash of wrists, “it is necessary! Someone must remember how it is to behave. This little bit of manners in this country that believes it is civilized… Aach! To learn to hold a fork is not enough. This Canada plays coquette, takes money, and holds her knees tight… It is not enough. It is not nice, and it is foolish. Myself, I would like some respect. You, young man, who was that Missus My-Husband-is-Very-Important who yelled at my Katya?”

“Ah, the Queen P. That’s Elizabeth Preston. And you’re right about the husband, she’s Mrs George, down at the Imperial Trust.”

“George. Preston.” Bena pronounced the names deliberately. Although she had never devilled much biography out of her friend George, allowing his vulnerability the protection he thought necessary, Bena built puzzles from the centre out, and she wasn’t slow. “A financial man. That woman. His wife. Sweet Virgin.”

“Wrong on both counts. D’you know her, or something?” Paul was sure he saw pain unfocus her eyes.

“I do not.”

Katya started at the edges and worked in. “You mean the Imperial Trust downtown?”

“That’s the one. Have you seen it lately? Just got a shave and a haircut, very elegant. More like electrolysis and a coif.”

“And she’s Elizabeth Preston? The wife of the man who runs the Imperial Trust? You’re sure?” Intent, the sardonic grin on Bena’s face went unnoticed. “Lord God in the bright blue sky! Don’t point your finger, you’ll poke somebody’s eye. I don’t believe it! I just met…” Katya stopped and shook her head, “It’s so small, the world, so small. I don’t believe…”

“Katya, there are many things you don’t believe. You do not believe for instance in wearing clothes that are decent, that do not insult your friends when they invite you with tickets, tickets from a wonderful friend. We must now look at the pictures.”

“Bena! I just met that woman’s sister. An hour ago. The woman who sits in her yard, you know, the corner house, by the subway. I talked to her. Really! Maude Matthew. I had coffee with her not more than an hour ago.”

“That crazy old woman in her chair?” Bena’s hand reached for Saint Catherine at her throat. “You told me that you did not want to drink coffee, Katya.”

“Don’t be stupid! I stopped and she was… Never mind. She’s not crazy. A little odd maybe, but she invited us to this bank tonight, to the Imperial Trust, you and me. I don’t believe it. I was telling her about you, because I had to meet you, and she… She got all excited and wanted us to go to this reception she said her sister… That woman! That’s the sister. She told me about her, the bossy kind, a nag about clothes, Bena. And she runs this place.” Katya jerked a thumb at the gallery. “Little tiny world.”

“Oh, yah. She likes to think so.” Paul strangled the air with his hands, “I know of at least a dozen curators who’d love to give her a public hanging.” He sensed potential mayhem, “What’s this reception business? A little burgundy and brie do to show off the new emporium?”

“I suppose that’s why. Would this Elizabeth have organized that? Maude Matthew said we should go and if anyone asked, say we were invited by the sister-in-law of George Preston. I don’t think she likes her sister much, but she said he’s a gentleman.”

“Yes! Yes, oh yes, yes. We will go, Katya. We must! Even if it is that terrible woman’s party, she did not make the invitation to you, so it will not be wrong to go. You will introduce me to this Maude Matthew, and you will wear your nice skirt with the jacket, yes, and that pair of…”

“No, Bena! We’re not going. And she’s not either, Maude isn’t. She said she doesn’t like crowds. She wanted us to go… I don’t know why. She wanted me to wear my boots, and I think she thought you’d complete the act. I’ve the idea she just wanted us to annoy her sister. We’ve already managed that.”

“Oh, but ladies! Just think, all the more reason to show up at her little soirée. You’ve gotta go! Maybe not with the boots, but you’ve gotta go. She is a bitch, no question, but the Lady P. wouldn’t dare make a scene at her own party – just not done – especially if she sees you chatting up her old man. You have to!” Paul bounced with pleasure.

“Yes, Katya, we must. It is duty. We will show her what it is to be a lady with good manners who can forgive insults screamed in the street like a peasant who has fish to sell. She should know that all trick-or-treat is not for Hallowe’en. And I would like to shake George Preston’s hand in his bank.”

Katya’s hand stole to the pocket of her dress and fingered the card inside. She imagined the look of a crowd assembled by this Elizabeth Preston. A square Finn in pleated wool might make it, she thought, but the Imperial Hungarian Gypsy… not a hope. “No!”

“Oh, yes, yes! To be a fly on the wall! I’d buy tickets. Hell, I’d sell tickets. You have to go. You… By the way, I’m Paul.”

“She is Katya and I am Bena. It is a pleasure.” Bena offered her hand, “You are a man who understands these things. My Katya does not concern herself with the business of honour; her people fight over beer and for birch trees, but you know what it is to be insulted and how it is so necessary to… How do you say it? To walk over their heads…?”

“You mean step on the little peop… Oh. Over… uh… Transcend?”

“Yes, I think that is so. We must do that, Katya. Perhaps it is too late already in this Canada; it will become like Magyar, like all of Europe has become – some places it is custom, tradition, some places it is revolution, but all the same it is too many people making rules without wisdom. I tell you, between the Devil and the Cross, it is what is wrong there and here it will come too. It does come when that… that woman! When that woman with the very big purse can stand in the public street – Did you see she had legs like a chair from Sweden, Katya? – and call you, my best Finnish friend who grew up in Luther, that child of Satan biting the nipples of Holy Mother Church, but religious all the same, my dear Katya, she called you a d.p.!”

“She didn’t!”

“She might as well have done so.”

“She did say terrible things about your clothes, you know,” Paul twisted the blade, “Called you a bag lady.”

Katya felt herself bending. That pushy, arrogant… bitch! She had said that, had certainly thought something very like it, like the woman in the park, blind to anything that doesn’t match their livingrooms, match the couch. And this one seems to think that includes the art gallery and now she wants the streets too! Smug, bossy, overbearing bitch. No wonder her sister doesn’t like her. “You’re right, Bena, she needs tromping on. We’ll rise above her all right. I’ve got this,” she pulled the invitation Maude had pressed upon her from her pocket and waggled it at Bena, “our ticket to the circus, we’ll beard the lion in her bank!”

“Aach, you have a ticket, my Katya, excellent. Then we must go. It is what is fair. I invite you here to the pictures, you must take me there. We will wear our nice clothes, yes?”

“Yahoo! Good girls. I would pay money to see this. It has been a pleasure, ladies, but I have to get back, the public returns. Oh, hell, and I’ve gotta stick her car somewhere. I can think of a couple places. I hope we meet again, come back on a dull day.” Paul patted each on the arm, “Bye,” and trotted off down the drive. Bena and Katya ascended the stairs.

ELIZABETH & DAVID

Elizabeth darted from the elevator and collided with David’s legs where they sprawled from an ottoman. “What do you mean by blocking…” She stopped mid-snap. Her eyes followed jean legs up to large strong hands, a flat belly, marvellous shoulders, an apologetic grin, and she rephrased herself, “This is a dangerous corner, I’m afraid.”

David rose, “I’m sorry. I guess I get a little too relaxed, it’s my fault for taking up so much room.” He pointed to a small red and blue painting hanging in an alcove beside the elevator, “It melts my bones, takes me home. My mother had a rocking chair on a porch like that.”

“Oh yes, a very nice little thing. It’s a…” Elizabeth tried hard not to squint for a signature.

“Milne.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, we have a few of those, I think. They’re becoming quite… They’re Canadian, of course, we do our best to please everyone.” She took a sidelong retake from the jeans up, “You must excuse me, I have an important meeting, the Board. Of course…” She dropped a beat, “…afterward, we generally… some of us that is, we repair to the Members’ Lounge, if you…” She let it drift.

Not unused to such encounters, David kept his smile carefully straight, said thankyou with a brief inclination of his head, and when the woman scudded away across the broadloom, he promptly forgot her.

Elizabeth wasted a good half-hour holding a full glass of sherry, not wanting to gum up her lipstick, but the young man didn’t appear. She could hope, but to be honest with herself hadn’t expected him, nor would she have known what to do if he had come. Some polite thises and thats were the most she ever managed when her flirtations bore fruit. Oh, dear, I hope not! So many of them are. It’s really just having them… Well, just having them notice. I mean, at least having them acknowledge that I’m a woman. And there’s that delicious little frisson down my… With discreetly obvious reminders to one or two of the right people about her evening’s entertainment, she left the lounge to find Paul and her car keys.

PAUL & DAVID

“Hey, Paul, I need my jugs. I gotta go like a bunny. I’ve stayed too long at the fair. I’ve got work to do yet, and then I have to go home and stuff a fish.”

“Don’t be coarse. She’s probably a very nice person.” Paul turned to hold the door and bow to an old woman in sable and tennis shoes. A hand behind his back waved David to the ashtray.

“I mean, I have to make dinner, trash-mouth.” David tucked the brown bag under his arm, “Fish and rice and everything nice for my little wife and… I guess you’d call him her agent. D’you know a guy named Martin Knight?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Should I?”

“Thought you might have run into him. You know, in bars, places… I don’t know about him, but… Then again, he may not know himself.”

“The world is a closet, David, my dear. Full of hairballs. It’s a zoo out there, as I’ve heard say. I stay at home and knit.”

“Oh sure.” David had once taken a chance and hired Paul to staff an adolescent group home, and had regretfully accepted his resignation a year later when Paul confessed that his frustration had reached critical mass, that he must quit and go get laid. David respected Paul’s honesty, but he didn’t believe the knitting. “Listen, what’re you up to tonight? Want to come to a party?”

“Fish and rice and a closet-case? No thanks.”

“No, no. Tonight there’s a shindy for Katherine, for a painting. It’s at the Imperial Trust; they’ve redone it, so they’re showing it off, and they bought a picture for the foyer, a huge mother of a thing. There’ll be lots of good booze. Chivas country.” David realized he was eager for Paul’s acceptance. He needed a friend.

“The Imperial Trust!?” Paul was goggle-eyed; it truly was a world of wonders. Whatsername, Katya, had said it was tiny. His friend Terry claimed there were really only a thousand people, the rest were holograms. “David, you’re kidding.”

“No, really! No problem. Hey, I’m still the husband of the artist, aren’t I? Why shouldn’t I invite anybody I like? I’ll get you in. Please come. I won’t have anybody to talk to, Katherine goes comatose when she can’t get pissed, and she doesn’t dare, her mother and grandmother are coming, but I’m kind of shit-listed with them at the moment, and Marty makes me want to strangle kittens. You got a suit? Jacket and tie’ll do. I can lend you…”

“I have my own gowns, thank you, she said with hauteur and a flip of her tresses. You bet your buns I’m coming, Davey-boy. It’s too perfect. I wouldn’t miss this for a week with a weight-lifter! Well… maybe if he talked marriage… No, no, no, I’m coming! I’m coming! When?”

“Better make it about eight, so I’ll be sure to be there. Wonderful! Thanks, Paul, it’ll be fun, I promise. I better get going.” David hesitated, “Gowns?”

“Don’t worry,” Paul patted the jeans, “best bib and tucker.”

“But do you really…”

“You’ll have to come up and see me sometime.” Paul flirted a shoulder and David batted it with a fist. “Go on now. I’ll catch you later. Later at eight. And believe me, David, thank you.”

PAUL & ELIZABETH

Elbowing her way through the coat-check lines, Elizabeth saw the young man talking to Paul by the door, saw the pat on the bottom and the poke at the shoulder. She stopped in her tracks and popped her lips in disgust. Oh, for God’s sake, wouldn’t you know! Of course, she didn’t know about Paul, but she was sure. His hands are quite good, but they’re, you know, a bit small for a man’s. Damn! All the best looking ones. It’s a good thing I don’t really… you know. It must be hell if you really want them. Of course, he did hit Paul back… maybe… Oh stop! Stop lowering yourself. It’s ugly. It’s common.

“Paul! You have my keys?”

How sweet it is. Paul wasn’t sure he could control his face and had to squeeze his tongue on rising bubbles.

“My car keys?”

“Yes, Mrs Preston, certainly.” He suspended the leather case over her palm, and found control, “I understand that you’re having quite an occasion this evening, Mrs Preston.”

“I’m sure I don’t know how you would understand any such thing, but then I suppose the staff around here are as full of gossip as they usually are below-stairs.” She snatched her keys, “Thank you for parking my car. Goodbye.”
“You’re welcome.” Paul held the door, “Au revoir, Mrs Preston.”