Chapter Thirteen

13

Anglican

Cowgirls

DAVID

Without an appearance of anxiety, David stood by the bar and considered the horns of white wine or liquor. Vodka, and it’ll start blowing out her ears, I know it, I’ve been in this movie, she’ll forget her pleases and thankyous and some bluesuit’ll have to hear all about the evil of Adam cornering the apple market and she’ll blow smoke in people’s faces and there’s probably no smoking, but she’ll go Clint Eastwood and nobody’ll make her put it out and then she’ll notice the floor, she’ll never resist a stone floor and she’ll make us dance and… She’ll do it. David changed weight on his feet and cast a long look to the far side of the lobby at Katherine’s enormous painting suspended between what looked to him like Juliet’s balcony and the blank slabs of elevator doors. She’s up. She’s on the wall and she wants to party. She’ll blow up real good.

No. David blew out his breath and side-stepped to the end of the bar, to the rows of filled wine glasses. He clasped two stems in each hand, all white, no argument, he didn’t care, they’d take what they got, this was not going to turn into disaster. No, enough, he was not going to cater one more time to Katherine doing showtime. Nope, I’m out. She can hate me, I don’t care, she’s not getting live booze from me. She can say what she likes, my fingers were crossed, not my fault she didn’t notice. She can sip wine and be civilized like the rest of us, or I’m gone. I am anyway, this’s just a farewell party far as I’m concerned, I’m outta here, bon voyage! She already thinks she hates me, might as well hang for the sheep. And David threaded his way back through the chatting crowd, bearing the wine without danger in his large, steady hands.

BEA

Bea tried not to gulp at her wine. She could use a pail of icewater right now, nobody wore hats at a thing like this, what on earth had she been thinking of, where had she been for twenty years, nowhere, that’s where, but she read magazines for crying out loud, people didn’t even wear hats to church anymore, where on earth had she thought she was going? I’m mad, I must be, my own mother told me not to wear a hat and I did anyway. And she’s senile. I must be mad. I can’t hide it, there’s not a chair in the place. Where do you suppose the restrooms are? You can’t wear it in and come out without it, somebody’d find it and it’s too late, they’ve all seen it. Lord, it’s hot in here. I could shove it down a toilet tank. They’re laughing. You’re a fool.

A horrible flushing roared from her ears to her feet as Bea fought tears for balance, “David? Katherine? D’you have any idea where the ladies room might be?”

“Oh Mother, for God’s sake!”

“I need it. I’m a little winded and I’ve got…”

“A bladder the size of a pea! I don’t see why you don’t do diapers, just go free-range and slosh around in it.”

“Katherine! You just keep a decent tongue, young lady. I don’t think you need that drink… You’d better start behaving, or these people will put you right out in the street, they’re not about to put up with any of your lip, so you’d better straighten up… Now, do you know where the ladies room is?”

TILLIE & BEA
& KATHERINE & DAVID

“David,” Tillie had managed, with an absentminded hand from Katherine, to slip from her coat which she hung from the arm holding her stick, “David, ask that fellow there where Bea might find a restroom.” She spoke softly, indicating a boy bussing empty glasses with a tip of her head, “And ask if there’s somewhere we can leave our coats. I’ve a feeling this’s going to take longer than I thought.”

Something was up, something was in the air, she could feel it tickling the thin spotted skin on the backs of her hands, tingling the inside rims of her ears which had become so rigid with years they seldom even felt a wind. Well, it’s not my nose itching, so I guess I’ll not be kissing fools and it’s not my palms, so nobody’s going to throw money at me, though I can’t say I’d mind. It’s not for me, I’m too old and out of the game, the signals aren’t for me, for Katherine, I’ll bet, for David and Martin, maybe even Bea, something’s got to happen to her yet. I wouldn’t mind if there was some fun still for me, but I doubt I’ve got the strength for it, it wants energy to stick your oar in, it needs desire and desire’s got sex in it and I’m not sure there’s any sex left in me. A little, I guess, enough to feel my ears and the back of my hand – I ought to feel the back of my hand for standing here thinking about sex at my age, at any age, you disgusting old fool.

Tillie chuckled to herself. Peacocks, she thought, and saw again a yard full of gorgeous strutting birds dipping and staring. She saw Stewart’s blue eyes lit with pride and mischief and giggled, thinking she should rub her nose, but when the handle of her ebony stick bumped her chin, the peacock feathers returned to wools and silks and the blue eyes were David’s.

“He says they’re back beyond the wall somewhere, the staff washrooms, and there’s a girl back there keeping an eye on coats and whatnot. Give me yours and I’ll wander Bea back that way, keep her out of trouble. You be all right with Katherine? Marty should be back in a minute, once he’s sucked up to Missus Whatzis. Okay?”

“Thank you, David, it’s so nice to have you around putting up with our fuss. You…” and she remembered that he was pulling out, removing himself from Katherine’s life, her own life, and she knew she didn’t want it to happen, couldn’t let it happen, another man gone like her Stewart was gone, like Bea’s husband was gone, like all the men seemed to go. She was sad and hurt and angry all in a burst in her heart and she felt a rush of heat course through her blood, the tingling of her hands and ears became a pulse and she knew she felt desire and the strength of desire; she wasn’t finished yet, there was fun to be had here somewhere, she could feel it, “Do it, David, go get Bea dried out. Take my coat, make her give you hers and try your damndest to lose that hat, Martin was useless, but I know she sees it was a mistake now and she might surrender. Take your time, get her another glass of wine and steer her around a bit, keep her away from us. I’ve a few words for Katherine and we don’t need an audience. I’ll try to get some more food into her, so we’ll likely be over by the cheese and crackers if you need us. See if you can corner a banker for Bea, she likes navy blue and money, it shouldn’t be that hard. Don’t rush.” Tillie turned to her daughter with a jerk of her thumb, “Bea, go with David. And behave.”

KATHERINE & TILLIE

I’m comatose. Katherine’s hands clasped her glass in a prayer to hold the heave of her chest. I am. Screaming at my mother doesn’t count, I can do that in my sleep, from the grave, for Christ’s sake. I’m cocooned. Here’s a roomful of people, nice people, kind people even, maybe, people who might even like me, as if I cared, but I do, well I don’t want them to hate me and yell at me, no I don’t want that, so why do I feel wrapped in cotton wool behind plate glass? Glass wool, prickly humid stuff, pink insulation crawling under the skin of my hands – God don’t let me sweat now! Don’t scratch. Looks like you’ve got bugs, or impetigo and you won’t get to play with the other kids. Oh shit! This’s hell, autism must be horrible like this, my mind’s pinned to a pad and my wings don’t work.

Fucking hell! It’s a major moment of my life, the biggy for Christ’s sake, it is. I’m on a wall in a bank in the Big City. Not just some bank, either, not the dinky little credit union in bloody Strawbridge full of waitress’s tips and used car loans, no way, this’s your tasteful chartered institution crammed with old liquor money and blue-rinse stocks – Jesus, woman, it’s where you always wanted to be. Yes. Well. Yes, but I never thought I’d get here this way; I should have been here by birth, somebody was supposed to have discovered I was the real, true, beautiful heiress lost on a picnic in Muskoka, found and raised as their own by simpletons, only to be restored at last to my oak-panelled Daddy in time to come out in organza and marry some twig off the Family Tree. Shit. Instead, I’ve had to bust my own ass to get here, perform like the grinder’s monkey, tin cup and all, just to get them to take me seriously. And how serious is that? Cute little beast, give her a nickel – and dime me to death to decorate their walls and match the couch. Christ, not even the couch, they want pictures to match the mats they pick. Pick me! Pick me! Please pick me for your friend, look how hard I’m trying. Just take a look; those are my tits on the wall, my rocks. D’you even know how to try? God girl, ease up.

“Katherine? Are you all right, dear?”

“Oh, Gran,” Katherine’s fingers left off twisting the tails of lavender scarf and clasped her grandmother’s hand, “I hate this, I just hate it.”

“Believe it or not, dear, I understand. I made hats for them once upon a time, you know, and they never really let you forget it, no matter how good you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re out there square on your own two feet making them look like royalty, they’re bound to remember you for it. There’s the rare one without envy who can’t be happy enough for you, but by and large they’d as soon think you’re up on your hind legs and they were born queens.”

“Jesus, Gran, you’re one of them. I don’t mean like that, but you belong here.”

“No I don’t. Watch your tongue. What’s belong mean? People belong to their attitudes. Look at your mother, look at Bea, there’s an attitude for you, beaten down since I don’t know when. And why? Near as I can figure out she’s always thought she’s only half human without a man beside her and the only man she ever really wanted there was my Stewart, her own father, only one she ever thought good enough. She settled for your father, long as he lasted, because he wasn’t far off being Stewart, same kind of gentleness and humour, still had a boy in him, a good boy, and he had something like the mystery in him Stewart had; for the life of me, I don’t think either Bea or I ever knew what those men were thinking about, except when they looked straight at us. And god knows, I was wrong about that half the time.” Tillie whistled a long sigh through her teeth, “I don’t know, maybe I’m full of bullfeathers, but I don’t think I’d ever have been a happy woman without Stewart to keep me company, he was the best company, and I’ve managed on the memories since he’s gone. Now they’re starting to warp on me and I wonder if I can keep my feet. I wish I’d thought of peacocks when he was alive.”

“What is this about peacocks? Ma said something before about you and peacocks. What…”

“Ah, never mind that now. The point is, I think, that she hasn’t had my good luck, didn’t get to keep her man and that’s why she’s got an attitude that sours lemons.”

“Gran! For God’s sake, it’s the end of the twentieth century, you’d better not let people hear you spout that kind of sexist bull… reaction. Germaine Greer’d bite your tongue. You need a man to be happy? That’s blasphemy!”

“Katherine, dear, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about company, companionship, that one bit of comfort that makes life worth all the fear and the pain; the friend you don’t have to be dressed up for even when you are. And you’re right, those feminist women are right, it doesn’t have to be a man and maybe it doesn’t have to be just one person, but for me it was, Katherine. Maybe I’m simple, it certainly all seemed a lot simpler, and all I ever wanted for company, besides my own self, was your grandfather, and he happened to be a man. And I guess I was ready for the rest of it, for the sex, when I found him. So, if that makes me a sexist old dinosaur, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

“And I do believe Bea’s pretty much like me, though I won’t say that to anyone but you; she just didn’t have the luck and after, well, some streak in her decided it was her fault – she had some women friends who let her think so – and all her memories went sour. Those damned Lettie girls with too much alum in their pickles and that nasty piece of work, Bess Everett!” Tillie shook her head and thumped her stick on the slate floor, “Lord, Katherine, let’s not keep repeating ourselves. Come, we’ll go see if they’ve got a good dry bit of cheddar cheese and a water biscuit, I feel starved of a sudden.”

“But…”

“They’ll find us. Come on, give me your arm.”

MAUDE & GEORGE

“A man, Maude? Is he with you?”

“No, George, she isn’t. Really, I’m not sure it’s likely she’ll turn up.”

“Did you give her name to Percy at the door?”

“That his name? Silly old soak’s had a blue rinse. No, I gave her my invitation card, thought it might be best considering her wardrobe. If she does show, she might have a friend with her.”

“Then how did you get past Percy? He’s been around for ever, but you never…”

“I told him I was your sister-in-law.” Maude snorted, “Believe me, George, I can prove that when I need to; just puckered up like Lizzie smelling turned fish and told him his buttons needed a polish.”

“Oh Maudie,” George wagged his head, “I’ll have to see he gets a decent drink after all this.”

“How about me? I’m the one had to be Elizabeth.”

“Now? Should you?”

“George! Don’t you come Little Beth on me.”

“I’m sorry, of course.” George raised his chin to the barman and tipped it toward Maude who exchanged her empty glass for a fresh one. “Who is she then, they, maybe, these people you’ve invited? I didn’t think you knew anyone. What did you do, Maude, join an aerobics class, or something? Tai chi in the park?” He took her elbow, “Come, we must promenade, look as though we cared. You’ve not taken up the guitar, have you?”

Taking a long swallow, she grinned up at George, “A motorbike gang. Unhuh, the uh… Satan’s Angels, George. I’m a moll. I think that’s what I am. This jacket reverses to a Jolly Roger drippin’ with blood.”

“A wolf in old lamb.”

“Better than old mutton in old lamb.” Maude threw a skip into her step and was pleased she had come and wished, not for the first time that George were hers. “No, no clubs. A woman I thought was Italian left a bag I thought was drugs, but wasn’t, it was apples, crabapples, in my yard, and she wasn’t, isn’t, Italian, she’s Finnish, from Finland, though that must be back a bit because she’s no accent to speak of, and we got talking and… Well, Elizabeth called while she was there, to remind me about this,” Maude waved her drink at the throng, “though I don’t believe it was a reminder, because I certainly don’t remember her telling me in the first place, and she was such a nag, you know the way she is, nagging on about my clothes, and about you too, by the way, George, you’re drinking far too much, apparently, and there was Katya, that’s her name, the woman in my yard, well she was in the kitchen when Lizzie phoned, and I just thought she might wear her rubberboots to this clambake and put Queen Bess’s nose right out of joint for good. And she told me she has a friend, a gypsy princess type who’d be the cherry on top, so I couldn’t help myself,” Maude raised her shoulders in a huge show of Gallic helplessness, “I gave her my ticket to the ball.”

Rubberboots? George’s hand jerked hard enough to slop the dregs of scotch and ice over his wrist; his eyes were back behind a tree, peeking at the sight of his wife and his woman-friend meeting head on in a foot-stomping, arm-waving collision in front of the Art Gallery. He was picking at the bark of the tree, nervous, but amused by the wailing and gnashing of teeth, thinking the contest well-matched; Elizabeth’s bag swinging in heavy arcs from her shoulder, a couple of young men defending her back; Bena curvetting in a whirl of capes, a stocky woman planted at her side wearing… Rubberboots!

He must have spoken aloud, because Maude nodded and said, “Unhuh, black rubber farmer boots with brick red soles. Katya said she wore them to make her friend crazy, she’s a nag about clothes, like Lizzie, and they were meeting at the Art Gallery to take a look at the Blakes, so she… Are you okay, George?” She couldn’t see over heads, but she guessed he was trying to see the door, “I doubt she’ll come, George, really, it was just wishful thinking. Besides, even if she does, she’ll be decent, she’s not that crazy.”
“Oh good.” George could see the back of Percy’s serge uniform hat as it moved up to the door. He could imagine Percy’s pink wrinkled old hand on a bronze lion as it pulled. He could see the thick grey glass swing inward and he could mutter coincidence, George, coincidence, when a short, thickly-built woman in a dark sweater-set rather tentatively poked a paper square in front of her. And when she was impatiently prodded forward from the shadows behind, he moaned, “Oh, God, Maude.”