The button factory picnic 2 page

"He calls himself by his name," said Laura. "The same as anyone."

"He's not the same as anyone," said Reenie. "You can tell that at a glance. He's most likely some half-breed Indian, or else a gypsy. He's certainly not from the same pea patch as the rest of us."

Laura said nothing. She was not given to compunction as a rule, but this time she did seem to feel a little contrite for having invited Alex Thomas on the spur of the moment. She couldn't uninvite him however, as she pointed out-that would have been miles beyond mere rudeness. Invited was invited, no matter who it might be.

Father knew that too, although he was far from pleased: Laura had jumped the gun and usurped his own position as host, and next thing he knew she'd be inviting every orphan and bum and hard-luck case to his dinner table as if he was Good King Wenceslas. These saintly impulses of hers had to be curbed, he said; he wasn't running an almshouse.

Callie Fitzsimmons had attempted to mollify him: Alex was not a hard-luck case, she'd assured him. True, the young man had no visible job, but he did seem to have a source of revenue, or at any rate he'd never been known to put the twist on anyone. What might that source of income be? said Father. Darned if Callie knew: Alex was close-mouthed on the subject. Maybe he robbed banks, said Father with heavy sarcasm. Not at all, said Callie; anyway, Alex was known to some of her friends. Father said the one thing did not preclude the other. He was turning sour on the artists by then. One too many of them had taken up Marxism and the workers, and accused him of grinding the peasants.

"Alex is all right. He's just a youngster," Callie said. "He just came along for the ride. He's just a pal." She didn't want Father to get the wrong idea-that Alex Thomas might be a boyfriend of hers, in any competitive way.

"What can I do to help?" said Laura, in the kitchen.

"The last thing I need," said Reenie, "is another fly in the ointment. All I ask is that you keep yourself out of the way and don't knock anything over. Iris can help. At least she's not all thumbs." Reenie had the notion that helping her was a sign of favour: she was still annoyed with Laura, and was cutting her out. But this form of punishment was lost on Laura. She took her sun hat, and went out to wander around on the lawn.

Part of the job assigned me was to do the flowers for the table, and the seating arrangement as well. For the flowers I'd cut some zinnias from the borders-just about all there was at that time of year. For the seating arrangement I'd put Alex Thomas beside myself, with Callie on the other side and Laura at the far end. That way, I'd felt, he'd be insulated, or at least Laura would.

Laura and I did not have proper dinner dresses. We had dresses, however. They were the usual dark-blue velvet, left over from when we were younger, with the hems let down and a black ribbon sewn over the top of the worn hemline to conceal it. They'd once had white lace collars, and Laura's still did; I'd taken the lace off mine, which gave it a lower neckline. These dresses were too tight, or mine was; Laura's as well, come to think of it. Laura was not old enough by common standards to be attending a dinner party like this, but Callie said it would have been cruel to make her sit all alone in her room, especially since she, personally, had invited one of our guests. Father said he supposed that was right. Then he said that in any case, now that she'd shot up like a weed she looked as old as I did. It was hard to tell what age he thought that was. He could never keep track of our birthdays.

At the appointed time the guests foregathered in the drawing room for sherry, which was served by an unmarried cousin of Reenie's impressed for this event. Laura and I were not allowed to have any sherry, or anywine at dinner. Laura did not seem to resent this exclusion, but I did. Reenie sided with Father on this, but then she was a tee-totaller anyway. "Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine," she'd say, emptying the dregs of the wine glasses down the sink. (She was wrong about that, however-less than a year after this dinner party, she married Ron Hincks, a notable tippler in his day. Myra, take note if you're reading this: in the days before he was hewn into a pillar of the community by Reenie, your father was a notable souse.)

Reenie's cousin was older than Reenie, and dowdy to the point of pain. She wore a black dress and a white apron, as was proper, but her stockings were brown cotton and sagging, and her hands could have been cleaner. In the daytimes she worked at the grocer's, where one of her jobs was bagging potatoes; it's hard to scrub off that kind of grime. Reenie had made canap ©s featuring sliced olives, hard-boiled eggs, and tiny pickles; also some baked cheese pastry balls, which had not come out as expected. These were set on one of Grandmother Adelia's best platters, hand-painted china from Germany, in a design of dark-red peonies with gold leaves and stems. On top of the platter was a doily, in the centre was a dish of salted nuts, with the canap ©s arranged like the petals of a flower, all bristling with toothpicks. The cousin thrust them at our guests abruptly, menacingly even, as if enacting a stick-up.

"This stuff looks pretty septic," said Father in the ironic tone I'd come to recognise as his voice of disguised anger. "Better beg off or you'll suffer later." Callie laughed, but Winifred Griffen Prior graciously lifted a cheese ball and inserted it into her mouth in that way women have when they don't want their lipstick to come off-lips pushed outward, into a sort of funnel-and said it wasinteresting. The cousin had forgotten the cocktail napkins, so Winifred was left with greasy fingers. I watched her curiously to see whether she would lick them or wipe them on her dress, or perhaps on our sofa, but I moved my eyes away at the wrong time, and so I missed it. My hunch was the sofa.

Winifred was not (as I'd thought) Richard Griffen's wife, but his sister. (Was she married, widowed, or divorced? It wasn't entirely clear. She used her given name after the Mrs., which would indicate some sort of damage to the erstwhile Mr. Prior, if indeed he was erstwhile. He was seldom mentioned and never seen, and was said to have a lot of money, and to be "travelling." Later, when Winifred and I were no longer on speaking terms, I used to concoct stories for myself about this Mr. Prior: Winifred had got him stuffed and kept him in mothballs in a cardboard box, or she and the chauffeur had walled him up in the cellar in order to indulge in lascivious orgies. The orgies may not have been that far from the mark, although I have to say that whatever Winifred did in that direction was always done discreetly. She covered her tracks-a virtue of sorts, I suppose.)

That evening Winifred wore a black dress, simply cut but voraciously elegant, set off by a triple string of pearls. Her earrings were minute bunches of grapes, pearl also but with gold stems and leaves. Callie Fitzsimmons, by contrast, was pointedly underdressed. For a couple of years now she'd set aside her fuchsia and saffron draperies, her bold Russian- ©migr © designs, even her cigarette holder. Now she went in for slacks in the daytime, and V-neck sweaters, and rolled-up shirt sleeves; she'd cut her hair too, and shortened her name to Cal.

She'd given up the monuments to dead soldiers: there was no longer much of a demand for them. Now she did bas-reliefs of workers and farmers, and fishermen in oilskins, and Indian trappers, and aproned mothers toting babies on their hips and shielding their eyes while looking at the sun. The only patrons who could afford to commission these were insurance companies and banks, who would surely want to apply them to the outsides of their buildings in order to show they were in tune with the times. It was discouraging to be employed by such blatant capitalists, said Callie, but the main thing was the message, and at least anyone going past the banks and so forth on the street would be able to see these bas-reliefs, free of charge. It was art for the people, she said.

She'd had some idea that Father might help her out-get her some more bank jobs. But Father had said dryly that he and the banks were no longer what you'd call hand in glove.

For this evening she wore a jersey dress the colour of a duster-taupe was the name of this colour, she'd told us; it was French formole. On anyone else it would have looked like a droopy bag with sleeves and a belt, but Callie managed to make it seem the height, not of fashion or chic exactly-this dress implied that such things were beneath notice-but rather of something easy to overlook but sharp, like a common kitchen implement-an ice pick, say-just before the murder. As a dress, it was a raised fist, but in a silent crowd.

Father wore his dinner jacket, which was in need of pressing. Richard Griffen wore his, which wasn't. Alex Thomas wore a brown jacket and grey flannels, too heavy for the weather; also a tie, red spots on a blue ground. His shirt was white, the collar too roomy. His clothes looked as if he'd borrowed them. Well, he hadn't expected to be invited to dinner.

"What a charming house," said Winifred Griffen Prior with an arranged smile, as we walked into the dining room. "It's so-so well preserved! What amazing stained-glass windows-howfin de si ¨cle! It must be like living in a museum!"

What she meant wasoutmoded. I felt humiliated: I'd always thought those windows were quite fine. But I could see that Winifred's judgment was the judgment of the outside world-the world that knew such things and passed sentence accordingly, that world I'd been so desperately longing to join. I could see now how unfit I was for it. How countrified, how raw.

"They are particularly fine examples," said Richard, "of a certain period. The panelling is also of high quality." Despite his pedantry and his condescending tone, I felt grateful to him: it didn't occur to me that he was taking inventory. He knew a tottering regime when he saw one: he knew we were up for auction, or soon would be.

"Bymuseum, do you mean dusty?" said Alex Thomas. "Or perhaps you meantobsolete."

Father scowled. Winifred, to do her justice, blushed.

"You shouldn't pick on those weaker than yourself," said Callie in a pleased undertone.

"Why not?" said Alex. "Everyone else does."

Reenie had gone the whole hog on the menu, or as much of that hog as we could by that time afford. But she'd bitten off more than she could chew. Mock Bisque, Perch a la Proven §ale, Chicken a la Providence -on it came, one course after another, unrolling in an inevitable procession, like a tidal wave, or doom. There was a tinny taste to the bisque, a floury taste to the chicken, which had been treated too roughly and had shrunk and toughened. It was not quite decent to see so many people in one room together, chewing with such thoughtfulness and vigour. Mastication was the right name for it-not eating.

Winifred Prior was pushing things around on her plate as if playing dominoes. I felt a rage against her: I was determined to eat up everything, even the bones. I would not let Reenie down. In the old days, I thought, she'd never have been stuck like this-caught short, exposed, and thereby exposing us. In the old days they'd have brought in experts.

Beside me, Alex Thomas too was doing his duty. He was sawing away as if life depended on it; the chicken squeaked under his knife. (Not that Reenie was grateful to him for his dedication. She kept tabs on who had eaten what, you may be sure. That Alex What's-his-name certainly had an appetite on hint, was her comment. You'd think he'd been starved in a cellar.)

Under the circumstances, conversation was sporadic. There was a lull after the cheese course, however-the cheddar too young and bouncy, the cream too old, thebleu too high-during which we could pause and take stock, and look around us.

Father turned his one blue eye on Alex Thomas. "So, young man," he said, in what he may have thought was a friendly tone, "what brings you to our fair city?" He sounded like a paterfamilias in a stodgy Victorian play. I looked down at the table.

"I'm visiting friends, sir," Alex said, politely enough. (We would hear Reenie, later, on the subject of his politeness. Orphans were well mannered because good manners had been beaten into them, in the orphanages. Only an orphan could be so self-assured, but this aplomb of theirs concealed a vengeful nature-underneath, they were jeering at everyone. Well, of course they'd be vengeful, considering how they'd been fobbed off. Most anarchists and kidnappers were orphans.)

"My daughter tells me you are preparing for the ministry," said Father. (Neither Laura nor I had said anything about this-it must have been Reenie, and predictably, or perhaps maliciously, she'd got it a little wrong.)

"I was, sir," said Alex. "But I had to give it up. We came to a parting of the ways."

"And now?" said Father, who was used to getting concrete answers.

"Now I live by my wits," said Alex. He smiled, to show self-deprecation.

"Must be hard for you," Richard murmured and Winifred laughed. I was surprised: I hadn't credited him with that kind of wit.

"He must mean he's a newspaper reporter," she said. "A spy in our midst!"

Alex smiled again, and said nothing. Father scowled. As far as he was concerned, newspaper reporters were vermin. Not only did they lie, they preyed on the misery of others-corpse flieswas his term for them. He did make an exception for Elwood Murray, because he'd known the family. Drivel-monger was the worst he would say about Elwood.

After that the conversation turned to the general state of affairs-politics, economics-as it was likely to in those days. Worse and worse, was Father's opinion; about to turn the corner, was Richard's. It was hard to know what to think, said Winifred, but she certainly hoped they'd be able to keep the lid on.

"The lid on what?" said Laura, who hadn't said anything so far. It was as if a chair had spoken.

"On the possibility of social turmoil," said Father, in his reprimanding tone that meant she was not to say any more.

Alex said he doubted it. He'd just come back from the camps, he said.

"The camps?" said Father, puzzled. "What camps?"

"The relief camps, sir," said Alex. "Bennett's labour camps, for the unemployed. Ten hours a day and slim pickings. The boys aren't too keen on it-I'd say they're getting restless."

"Beggars can't be choosers," said Richard. "It's better than riding the rails. They get three square meals, which is more than a workman with a family to support may get, and I'm told the food's not bad. You'd think they'd be grateful, but that sort never are."

"They're not any particular sort," said Alex.

"My God, an armchair pinko," said Richard. Alex looked down at his plate.

"If he's one, so am I," said Callie. "But I don't think you have to be a pinko in order to realise…"

"What were you doing out there?" said Father, cutting her off. (He and Callie had been arguing quite a lot lately. Callie wanted him to embrace the union movement. He said Callie wanted two and two to make five.)

Just then thebombe glac ©e made an entrance. We had an electric refrigerator by then-we'd got it just before the Crash-and Reenie, although suspicious of its freezing compartment, had made good use of it for this evening. Thebombe was shaped like a football, and was bright green and hard as flint, and took all our attention for a while.

While the coffee was being served the fireworks display began, down at the Camp Grounds. We all went out on the dock to watch. It was a lovely view, as you could see not only the fireworks themselves but their reflections in the Jogues River. Fountains of red and yellow and blue were cascading into the air-exploding stars, chrysanthemums, willow trees made of light.

"The Chinese invented gunpowder," said Alex, "but they never used it for guns. Only fireworks. I can't say I really enjoy them, though. They're too much like heavy artillery."

"Are you a pacifist?" I said. It seemed like the sort of thing he might be. If he said yes, I intended to disagree with him, because I wanted his attention. He was talking mostly to Laura.

"Not a pacifist," said Alex. "But my parents were both killed in the war. Or I assume they must have been killed."

Now we'll get the orphan story, I thought. After all the fuss Reenie's been making, I hope it's a good one.

"You don't know for sure?" said Laura.

"No," said Alex. "I'm told that I was found sitting on a mound of charred rubble, in a burned-out house. Everyone else there was dead. Apparently I'd been hiding under a washtub or a cooking pot-a metal container of some kind."

"Where was this? Who found you?" Laura whispered.

"It's not clear," said Alex. "They don't really know. It wasn't France or Germany. East of that-one of those little countries. I must have been passed from hand to hand; then the Red Cross got hold of me one way or another."

"Do you remember it?" I said.

"Not really. A few details were misplaced along the way-my name and so forth-and then I ended up with the missionaries, who felt that forgetfulness would be the best thing for me, all things considered. They were Presbyterians, a tidy bunch. We all had our heads shaved, for the lice. I can recall the feeling of suddenly having no hair-how cool it was. That's when my memories really begin."

Although I was beginning to like him better, I'm ashamed to admit that I was more than a little skeptical about this story. There was too much melodrama in it-too much luck, both bad and good. I was still too young to be a believer in coincidence. And if he'd been trying to make an impression on Laura-was he trying?-he couldn't have chosen a better way.

"It must be terrible," I said, "not to know who you really are."

"I used to think that," said Alex. "But then it came to me thatwho I really am is a person who doesn't need to know who he really is, in the usual sense. What does it mean, anyway-family background and so forth? People use it mostly as an excuse for their own snobbery, or else their failings. I'm free of the temptation, that's all. I'm free of the strings. Nothing ties me down." He said something else, but there was an explosion in the sky and I couldn't hear. Laura heard though; she nodded gravely.

(What was it he said? I found out later. He said, At least you're never homesick.)

A dandelion of light burst above us. We all looked up. It's hard not to, at such times. It's hard not to stand there with your mouth open.

Was that the beginning, that evening-on the dock at Avilion, with the fireworks dazzling the sky? It's hard to know. Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognised. Then, later, they spring.

Wild geese fly south, creaking like anguished hinges; along the riverbank the candles of the sumacs burn dull red. It's the first week of October. Season of woollen garments taken out of mothballs; of nocturnal mists and dew and slippery front steps, and late-blooming slugs; of snapdragons having one last fling; of those frilly ornamental pink-and-purple cabbages that never used to exist, but are all over everywhere now.

Season of chrysanthemums, the funeral flower; white ones, that is. The dead must get so tired of them.

The morning was brisk and fair. I picked a small bunch of yellow and pink snapdragons from the front garden and took them to the cemetery, to place them at the family tomb for the two pensive angels on their white cube: it would be something different for them, I thought. Once there I performed my small ritual-the circumlocution of the monument, the reading of the names. I think I do it silently, but once in a while I catch the sound of my own voice, muttering away like some Jesuit saying a breviary.

To pronounce the name of the dead is to make them live again, said the ancient Egyptians: not always what one might wish.

When I'd been all the way around the monument, I found a girl-a young woman-kneeling before the tomb, or before Laura's place on it. Her head was bowed. She was wearing black: black jeans, black T-shirt and jacket, a small black knapsack of the kind they carry now instead of purses. She had long dark hair-like Sabrina's, I thought with a sudden lurching of the heart: Sabrina has come back, from India or wherever she's been. She's come back without warning. She's changed her mind about me. She was intending to surprise me, and now I've spoiled it.

But when I peered more closely, I saw this girl was a stranger: some overwrought graduate student, no doubt. At first I'd thought she was praying, but no, she was placing a flower: a single white carnation, the stem wrapped in tinfoil. As she stood up, I saw that she was crying.

Laura touches people. I do not.

After the button factory picnic, there was the usual sort of account of it in the Herald and Banner- which baby had won the Most Beautiful Baby contest, who'd got Best Dog. Also what Father had said in his speech, much abbreviated: Elwood Murray put an optimistic gloss on everything, so it sounded like business as usual. There were also some photos-the winning dog, a dark mop-shaped silhouette; the winning baby, fat as a pincushion, in a frilled bonnet; the step-dancers holding up a giant cardboard shamrock; Father at the podium. It wasn't a good picture of him: he had his mouth half-open, and looked as if he were yawning.

One of the pictures was of Alex Thomas, with the two of us-me to the left of him, Laura to the right, like bookends. Both of us were looking at him and smiling; he was smiling too, but he'd thrust his hand up in front of him, as gangland criminals did to shield themselves from the flashbulbs when they were being arrested. He'd only managed to blot out half of his face, however. The caption was, "Miss Chase and Miss Laura Chase Entertain an Out-of-Town Visitor."

Elwood Murray hadn't managed to track us down that afternoon, in order to find out Alex's name, and when he'd called at the house he'd got Reenie, who'd said our names should not be bandied about with God knows who, and had refused to tell him. He'd printed the picture anyway, and Reenie was affronted, as much by us as by Elwood Murray. She thought this photo verged in the immodest, even though our legs weren't showing. She thought we both had silly leers on our faces, like lovelorn geese; with our mouths gaping open like that we might as well have been drooling. We'd made a sorry spectacle of ourselves: everyone in town would laugh at us behind our backs, for mooning over some young thug who looked like an Indian-or, worse, a Jew-and with his sleeves rolled up like that, a Communist into the bargain.

"That Elwood Murray ought to be spanked," she said. "Thinks he's so all-fired cute." She tore the paper up and stuffed it into the kindling box, so Father wouldn't see it. He must have seen it anyway, down at the factory, but if so he made no comment.

Laura paid a call on Elwood Murray. She did not reproach him or repeat any of what Reenie had said about him. Instead she told him she wanted to become a photographer, like him. No: she wouldn't have told such a lie. That was only what he inferred. What she really said was that she wanted to learn how to make photographic prints from negatives. This was the literal truth.

Elwood Murray was flattered by this mark of favour from the heights of Avilion-although mischievous, he was a fearful snob-and agreed to let her help him in the darkroom three afternoons a week. She could watch him print the portraits he did on the side, of weddings and children's graduations and so forth. Although the type was set and the newspaper run off by a couple of men in the back room, Elwood did almost everything else around the weekly paper, including his own developing.

Perhaps he might teach her how to do hand-tinting, as well, he said: it was the coming thing. People would bring in their old black-and-white prints to have them rendered more vivid by the addition of living colour. This was done by bleaching out the darkest areas with a brush, then treating the print with sepia toner to give a pink underglow. After that came the tinting. The colours came in little tubes and bottles, and had to be very carefully applied with tiny brushes, the excess fastidiously blotted off. You needed taste and the ability to blend, so the cheeks wouldn't look like circles of rouge or the flesh like beige cloth. You needed good eyesight and a steady hand. It was an art, said Elwood-one he was quite proud to have mastered, if he did say so himself. He kept a revolving selection of these hand-tinted photos in one corner of the newspaper-office window, as a sort of advertisement. Enhance Your Memories, said the hand-lettered sign he'd placed beside them.

Young men in the now-outdated uniforms of the Great War were the most frequent subjects; also brides and grooms. Then there were graduation portraits, First Communions, solemn family groups, infants in christening gear, girls in formal gowns, children in party outfits, cats and dogs. There was the occasional eccentric pet-a tortoise, a macaw-and, infrequently, a baby in a coffin, waxen-faced, surrounded by ruffles.

The colours never came out clear, the way they would on a piece of white paper: there was a misty look to them, as if they were seen through cheesecloth. They didn't make the people seem more real; rather they became ultra-real: citizens of an odd half-country, lurid yet muted, where realism was beside the point.

Laura told me what she was doing vis-a-vis Elwood Murray; she also told Reenie. I expected a protest, an uproar; I expected Reenie to say that Laura was lowering herself, or acting in a tawdry, compromising fashion. Who could tell what might go on in a darkroom, with a young girl and a man and the lights off? But Reenie took the view that it wasn't as if Elwood was paying Laura to work for him: rather he was teaching her, and that was quite different. It put him on a level with the hired help. As for Laura being in a darkroom with him, no one would think any harm of it, because Elwood was such a pansy. I suspect Reenie was secretly relieved to have Laura showing an interest in something other than God.

Laura certainly showed an interest, but as usual she went overboard. She nicked some of Elwood's hand-tinting materials and brought them home with her. I found this out by accident: I was in the library, dipping into the books at random, when I noticed the framed photographs of Grandfather Benjamin, each with a different prime minister. Sir John Sparrow Thompson's face was now a delicate mauve, Sir Mackenzie Bowell's a bilious green, Sir Charles Tupper's a pale orange. Grandfather Benjamin's beard and whiskers had been done in light crimson.

That evening I caught her in the act. There on her dressing table were the little tubes, the tiny brushes. Also the formal portrait of Laura and me in our velvet dresses and Mary Janes. Laura had removed the print from its frame, and was tinting me a light blue. "Laura," I said, "what in heaven's name are you up to? Why did you colour those pictures? The ones in the library. Father will be livid."

"I was just practising," said Laura. "Anyway, those men needed some enhancing. I think they look better."

"They look bizarre," I said. "Or very ill. Nobody's face is green! Or mauve."

Laura was unperturbed. "It's the colours of their souls," she said. "It's the colours theyought to have been."

"You'll get in big trouble! They'll know who did it."

"Nobody everlooks at those," she said. "Nobodycares."

"Well, you'd better not lay a finger on Grandmother Adelia," I said. "Nor the dead uncles! Father would have your hide!"

"I wanted to do them in gold, to show they're in glory," she said. "But there isn't any gold. The uncles, not Grandmother. I'd do her a steel grey."

"Don't you dare! Father doesn't believe in glory. And you'd better take those paints back before you're accused of theft."

"I haven't used much," said Laura. "Anyway, I brought Elwood a jar of jam. It's a fair trade."

"Reenie's jam, I suppose. "Out of the cold cellar-did you ask her? She counts that jam, you know." I picked up the photograph of the two of us. "Why am I blue?"

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 675