Less than an hour later, I was pouring myself another glass of my sister’s awful wine, and regaling her and Tim and the girls with tales of Trinity Lodge. I made Elsie’s doll even more macabre, and Mr. Dingle zanier. I said the hallways reeked of age, and described the hanging, floppy necks, the bent backs, and the Polident grins. “My mother,” I said, “the woman who carried me in her womb, is marrying in this charnel house.” Janice and Tim and the girls laughed themselves silly. It was like my schoolboy days, when I did impromptu stand-up for my buddies in the playground: Stop, they said. You’re killing me. I swear, I’ll piss my pants.
~
Mum tightened my Windsor knot and showed me to the Xerox room. The two of us were to wait in here before the ceremony. When everyone had been seated and Jack and the priest were ready, Flo would pop in and give us the nod. Mum related all of this in the slow and eerie cadence of someone entering deep shock. I wondered had she popped a tranquilizer, and assured her it would all go well. Off she went to get changed in some other room somewhere, leaving me with a lot of time to kill.
I wandered round the lodge. It was abuzz with wedding talk. Residents stopped to chat with me and compliment my suit. Others admired the chapel, which had been done up in bunting and shimmery white chair covers. Oldsters stood at the dining hall windows and watched as staff in hair nets folded linen napkins. A few fussed as to how and where they would get their supper, but a manager was on hand to let them know they could have it delivered to their rooms or eat in the fireside lounge.
By 3:45, I was back in the Xerox room. Opposite the copier, a big drawer and shelving unit was chock a block with office supplies, including the corrector ribbon for my kind of typewriter. I helped myself to one of those and had just finished pocketing three Bic pens and some Post-it Notes when the door opened, and Mum came in. I said, “Wow.” Her angled hat was diamond shaped and had a wide-mesh veil attached. Varying depths of burgundy shimmered in her knee-length dress. “Smashing, Mum. Really.” Her bouquet was of white roses, and she gave me a matching boutonniere. “Haven’t worn one of these,” I said, “since my high school prom.”
She watched my clumsy handling of the pin and stem. “Here,” she said, “let me,” but her hands were shaking.
Flo poked her head in. She had the same big ginger hair. “Hey, stretch. Remember me?”
“How could I forget?”
“Doesn’t your ma look beautiful?”
“She does indeed.”
“Flo, dear. Could you pin this on? My hands . . .”
“No biggie, Viv.”
Short and round with big cone boobs, Flo bustled in. “Hold still,” she said. The pattern of her low-cut dress recalled Day of the Triffids. “There, that oughta hold.” She whapped my chest and turned to Mum, whose teeth had started chattering. “Come on now, Viv. You’ll be fine. Look at me. You’ll be fine.”
Mum nodded. “Thanks, Flo.”
“Gimme a minute to get sat. Then we’re on, okay? Keep her upright, stretch.”
“I’ll do my best, Flo.”
She left the door ajar. I looked at Mum. “Breathe.”
“I ought to have the hang of this.”
“Tell me when you’re ready.”
She hooked her arm in mine, stood tall like lessons in poise, and inhaled deeply through her nose.
“All right, dear.”
“Sure?”
“Now or never.”
“Here we go.”
~
A rheumatic paparazzi waiting in the hall pointed aim-and-shoots, and kitchen staff watched through the dining hall windows. Another throng of old folks had gathered by the chapel. More cameras flashed. I wore a winning grin and winked, and I had a look at Mum. Her face had frozen in a mask of catatonic glee. If I had noticed a moment earlier, then I would have paused and said, Are you all right? but we had turned the corner, and were smack in the chapel entranceway. Standing at the lectern, a dumpy little priest in white and purple vestments wearily regarded us over reading specs. Jack stood to his left, a navy blue suit hanging off the bony pegs of him, and a badly humpbacked old woman dozed at the piano. The priest cleared his throat, then he rustled over and bent toward an ear. With a convulsive start, the woman woke and pounded out “Here Comes the Bride.”
Mum and I proceeded past sadly empty chairs. There were a dozen guests in all, six each side of the aisle. Janice and Tim and the girls sat up front on my left. Behind them, Flo elbowed Larry, who quickly slipped his toothpick out, and hid it in his fist. A big bald man on Jack’s side squatted in the aisle, and focused his Pentax camera. Bap went the flash, blinding me. The next thing I saw was a spider web, black. It spanned the entire shoulderblade of a pale, mangy woman in the second row on Jack’s side. The scrawny guy beside her had a mullet halfway down his back. His shoes were Nike high-tops, and he wore a gold cross and chain on the outside of his shirt, with a skinny leather tie. He smiled up at Mum and me, revealing a gold cuspid.
Across the aisle, Glenny caught my eye and pointed deftly at the pianist, who kept on a-pounding as Mum and I passed the two front rows. Twin boys on Jack’s side had stuck their fingers in their ears. Baldy with the Pentax threw them an Old Testament look. The hockey-mom-type beside him (heavy rouge, blond highlights) was staring daggers at me, as though all this were my idea. I replied with a Fuck you look, then delivered Mum to her place beside Jack. His eyes already brimmed. His nose already ran.
Cautiously, the priest went and stood at this end of the Sturm und Drang piano. Only mildly startled now, the woman flubbed a few notes, but threw in a lovely flourish, then up came her hands. Silence had taken a drubbing, but dragged itself back up, and widened in the room.
The priest resumed his place at the measly lectern. Stubble darkened his ruddy jowls, and his purple stole had stains, as though he had wiped his mouth with it, after a greasy beef-dip. The fist he raised to his face failed to mask a sideways jutting of his lips. Gas—pfft—parted them. I took my seat, and he began. “Dear friends . . .” His low and ragged voice sounded like a loss of faith. Maybe it was just a cold. I think the cunt had had a few.
In any case, throughout his rote delivery, Mum maintained her trance-like stare. Surely she had noticed and decided to ignore what was happening to Jack: he wept, and as he wept, his snoot issued thick snot. In slow, slithering increments and sudden, startling drops, a matching pair of danglers grew ever longer and slightly pendulous. The priest blethered on. I glanced at Janice—she looked ill—and ought to have stood and stopped this farce. The strings of snot were shoelace long. But I didn’t do anything, and neither did anyone else. Asked if there were impediments to this holy union, we all kept our traps shut, and the priest moved on to vows (at last). Jack pronounced his hoarse “I will,” then caught the swaying length in his cupped and scooping hand. Mum placed the quickest, most tight-lipped of kisses on his wet mustache, and the listing, C-shaped pianist let out a little snore.
~
Mingling with Jack’s family was too hideous a prospect. “Be right back,” is all I said, and without even stopping to throw on my coat, blasted right the fuck out the front doors, into the Arctic cold. Aimlessly, I walked the grounds, wincing whenever my head replayed moments of the wedding. Jesus H. What a joke. All of life revealed itself as prolonged mockery! Swearing at the savage wind, I imagined other families, groupings of good and handsome folk gathered at this moment round a Steinway baby grand, sipping mugs of buttered rum, and singing “Good King Wenceslas,” or discussing the new biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein—in a house in the country in Vermont, wearing lovely sweaters.
A shovelled walkway on my left meandered into shadow, and something led me up it. Scattered bits of Safe-T-Salt crunched beneath my feet. I came to a small courtyard. A young maple tree hung with silver bells and stars stood in the middle. On its right, a wooden footbridge crossed what would have been in summertime a narrow, winding s
tream, now a declivity in the snow that lay in neat, even loaves on the seats of benches and nearly buried the garden gnomes. Retching up its ugly song, a magpie perched in the maple tree, and snow glimmered down from the wobbled branch. I rubbed my hands and blew on them and covered my smarting ears. Behind me, a man said, “Brutal, eh?” It was him from the second row, the one with the major mullet. He had put on an open hunting coat over his ill-fitting tan suit.
“Smoke?” he said.
“No thanks.”
“Mind?”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re Viv’s son?”
I hesitated, “Yeah.”
“Randy. Jack’s my dad.”
We shook hands. He lit his smoke, and exhaled a mighty plume.
“Like this spot?”
“First time,” I said.
“Dad and I used to smoke out here when I came to visit.”
He offered me a flask. I had a timid sip. “Rye?”
“Wiser’s, Special Blend. Go on, get her in you.”
I had an honest haul, and liked its amber burn.
“That’s the way, amigo.”
I handed it back to him, and he drank off a good two shots. Dragged a wrist across his mouth.
“That was some fuckin wedding.”
“Yeah.”
“My old man.” He shook his head. “Snot was down to here!” He saw my face. “Come on. May as well laugh about it.”
I said, “He’s your dad.”
“He’s old, and he knows it.”
Shivers ran the length of me. I said, “Well, I’m sorry.”
Randy said, “Why?”
“My mom.”
“She makes him happy, man.”
“Sure about that?”
“Fuckin rights. Shoulda seen Dad a year ago. Could hardly stand. Gave up on life. Then he met your mom.”
“You say so.”
“I know so.”
A female voice called, “Randy-bear?”
“Up here, babe-a-loo.”
Wearing a puffy ski coat, the woman with the web tattoo walked awkwardly in her high heels. “Knew I’d find you here,” she said.
“Shootin the shit with Viv’s son.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Trix.”
“My fiancée,” Randy beamed, throwing his arm around her.
“Your mom looked so beautiful. Didn’t she Randy-bear?”
“Old man wishes he was younger.”
Trix slapped his shoulder. “Pay no attention to him.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Aren’t you cold? You look cold.”
Waggling his flask, Randy said, “Stayin plenty warm.”
“Well, Connie wants you back inside. Now, she said. For pictures.”
“Is she the one with the twins?” I said.
“That’s her all right,” said Trix.
“I think she wants to murder me.”
Randy said, “Don’t worry. Bark’s worse than her bite. Get a glass of wine in her, she’ll be just fine.” He gave his smoke to Trix. “Finish ’er off, snooks.”
She took two quick drags and said, “Let’s go in. I’m freezing.”
“Comin, amigo?”
“You guys go. I need another minute.”
“You’ll die out here,” Trix said. “Randy, give him your coat.”
He began to take it off.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be just a minute.”
I watched the two of them, arm in arm, disappear down the walkway. Apart from a swish of traffic out on Elbow Drive, it was very quiet. A big lopsided orange moon hung low in the blue-black sky. I waited for a summative thought, something epiphanic, but mainly I was cold and more or less okay with the silence of my mind.
Turning to go, I saw an old woman watching me from between her partly drawn drapes, from her second storey room. She had on a white housecoat, and I want to say it was Elsie, but that would be untrue. Anyway, I waved at her then beat it back inside, where Mum bustled over and warmed my face in her two hands. “My son,” she said. “My beautiful boy. I was so worried. I thought you had gone.”
MacInney’s Strong
I
Modern Scottish Poetry. I had ripped it off. The remainder bin at Coles. Maybe half the poems I could actually read. The rest were either in Scots or the Glasgow pidgin—dizny day gonabootlika hawf shut knife—that sounded to me like a busted mouth. Staring at the inside cover, I wondered what I would write there—something about heritage, something pertaining to voice—and then as the bus clunked and shuddered into lower gear, I dropped the heavy book in the knapsack at my feet, and stood in the aisle to throw on my coat.
Innisdale had sprawled some. A new marina. Prefab homes. A nativity dripped in one wet yard. Snow had been dusting Kingston when I left at noon, but down here the day belonged to March or early April. Drizzle and grit. Sky the grey of pickerel scales. Up on our left the slow-moving river and its scrawny islands came into view, and the bus swung in at the old hotel. I caught my balance. The old man was there.
When painting had been his trade—his trade and not his fallback—my father had worked in laundered whites and held a soldier’s carriage. Now, in a pale green canvas coat, he slouched, and his old grey sweats, torn at the knee, were a motley of eggshell spatters and emerald smudges, chestnut smears and lilac splotches. He didn’t see me wave. Fists in the pockets of the pale green coat, mouth working a cough drop or a candy, he was staring up Highway 7 as though the bus were still in the distance. In the window of the hotel lounge behind him a neon OPEN fizzled, and I had not slung my knapsack before I could feel the familiar palsy, the living rigor mortis, begin to claim my back and my neck.
Down the steps of the idling bus I followed the paunchy knock-kneed driver, drawing back my shoulders and drawing in the diesel-tainted air before I said, “Dad.”
Beneath his dull eyes the wrinkled skin sagged even more than I remembered, but his stride was sure, and his grip still cracked my knuckles.
“Scholar’s beard, is it?”
“Wouldn’t say that.”
“Had to look twice.”
I only shrugged and then followed his gaze to the bus driver, who was opening a baggage bay.
“Hey there, chief.”
“Afternoon.”
“Needin a hand?”
“Got it, thanks.”
As the driver hefted an armload of parcels (some in plain brown paper and others in holiday reds and greens), I asked my father where he had parked. He jerked his thumb and said, “Up the road.”
I started walking.
He said, “No suitcase?”
I turned on a heel and said, “Told you, remember?”
“Ah, right.”
“Have to get back.”
He tapped his temple, “Yeah, I remember,” and jogged to catch up.
There was a new Subway where Mac’s Milk had been, and as we passed that and the small joyful shopfronts, my father whistled a marching tune. On his breath was licorice and mint. A lozenge then. In years past, he had used the same kind up at the rink or when we fished early mornings. Five of the things—glossy black pellets—could fit in the palm of your hand, but in your mouth they were vaporous bombs. I remembered the small tin box they came in, and the name, written in a yellow-green cursive, was coming back to me when my father said, “Heads up, son, this is us here.”
I looked at it—a stubby rust-red VW van—and then I looked at him.
“What happened to the car?”
“Thought I told you.”
I shook my head.
“Made a trade.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Anyway. Give us your bag.”
I passed it to him. He reefed open the slidi
ng side door, and as he stowed the bag, Varsol wafting around us, I looked at the jumble-and-sprawl of red and green and cream drop sheets, stiffened brushes and thick-rimmed pots, worn sandpaper and splotchy receipts. Toward the back, I spotted the white wooden box, with its stark red cross and stenciled FIRST AID, that I had watched him make twenty years before, just as I had watched him use needle and thread to emblazon the shoulders of his sky blue shirts with crests reading EMCA. Now I could not look at him, and even a simple question—“Are you still on the ambulance?”—clotted in my throat. Up in Kingston, it was all different. I took karate. I said my piece. Here, I climbed like a convalescent into my side of the van and made room for my feet amidst a slew of unopened mail and Tim Hortons coffee cups.
Struggling now with the crude seat belt, I saw on the floor beside my father’s seat the small selected Yeats I had given him two years ago. Hardened droplets of eggshell white pimpled Yeats’s youthful face, and the book was bloated as though it had been left in the rain and the sun. Quickly I checked the inside cover. My clumsy inscription—now partially smeared—came in part from Auden’s elegy: Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. We were not Irish, the old man and I, we were Donegal Scots. I mean, he was. What was I? An incomplete curriculum. Of Auden and Yeats I had read only bits entombed in fat anthologies. The kind with notes explaining Breughel and gyre.
Over on his side, my father now struggled with the door—its latch was not releasing—and, closing the almost ruined book, I leaned across and jerked on the handle. He climbed in and settled and gave the van choke. After two or three tries—“Cooperate, you bitch”—the engine banged into clamour and rattle.
The Ambassador of What Page 7
