Good To A Fault Part 23

"Mistletoe?" Darwin said, laughing. "You're stuck now," he said. They pulled their fingers away.

Mrs. Pell's voice was loud in the living room, telling Candy Vincent, "That's my brother-in-law, Darwin Hand."

Clary was confused and embarra.s.sed, and did not have Pearce to hold; she couldn't sort out exactly what Mrs. Pell should be saying, what relationship Darwin really was to her. Amazing how carrying that thick old voice was in all this throng of people and music.

Dolly saw Darwin there-Trevor headed for the hall, but she ran the other way, to the dining room to get the torte, to show Darwin the incredible, unbelievable dessert that they had made.

A straight pa.s.sage had opened in the crowd, from Mrs. Pell's purple jacket out to the hall, so they could all see Dolly coming through from the dining room with the torte towering on its pedestal plate. She was holding it like a candlestick to make an entrance, maybe thinking of the crucifer carrying the big cross in church on Sunday, and Clary could see that it was going, it was already sliding. Dolly's face was bright and excited and Clary could hardly bear to say No, but it was going- The inch-high heel of Dolly's new black shoe caught the edge of the new carpet in the living room, and the pedestal wobbled, and the twelve layers of chocolate torte and whipping cream went smearing, veering off in a long slide of damp puffing beauty, everyone in the room transfixed, watching the layers flying outward like owls' wings that make no sound, until there was finally a series of little whumps as the pieces of torte landed, one after another, three or four of them on Candy Vincent's legs and the rest segueing out over the whole carpet.

Dolly held on to the plate.

Mrs. Pell had tucked her own legs away, in an almost-elegant gesture, and she leaned back against the cushions of the loveseat and laughed out loud, her mouth wide open and all her awful teeth showing, helpless with heaving gulps of laughter. She patted Candy Vincent, who was staring at her heavy, suede-panted legs, and laughed all over again.

Tears splashed down Dolly's poor face, and Paul put an arm around her and said idiotic comforting things: "Never mind, never mind, there are a hundred desserts here, you can make us another one, it's only fluff, never mind."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Dolly kept saying, trying not to make any sobbing noise.

Clary was grateful that Dolly had not dropped the Waterford cake plate. Because then her mother would have appeared in a cloud of lightning to open the gates of h.e.l.l for Clary and the whole rag-tag set of clumsy gypsies who had invaded and pillaged her lovely house, leaving nothing undamaged. But the Waterford plate was safe, and her mother was safely dead.

Darwin still had Pearce, so Clary could catch her breath and put her arms around Dolly, making a sandwich of her with Paul. "It's all right, really, it's all right," she said, kissing the top of her head. Trevor was scooping pieces of torte off the floor and cramming them into his mouth. The youngest Newton child had brought a spoon from the dining room for a salvage feast.

The boys were interrupted by Candy Vincent, moving through the wreckage mopping at her suede pants with a c.o.c.ktail napkin.

Clary said, "I'm terribly sorry, Candy," and Candy turned her bulk towards them, her pale eyes finding Dolly. Clary felt sick, knowing she would have to defend Dolly, but for Paul's sake not wanting any kind of a scene.

"You've done me a favour," Candy told Dolly, not smiling, but calm. "These pants were killing me, and now I've got an excuse to run home and change."

"Of course we'll pay for the dry-cleaning," Clary said, suddenly remembering Candy in Grade 7, going home in tears with a bloodstain on her skirt.

"Nope," Candy said. "I've never liked them, and I'm going to throw them out. Good excuse to shop, Karl!"

Across the room her heavy husband laughed and rolled his eyes. "Go for it, Candy," he called back. He was wearing a too-tight blue knit suit cut along rodeo lines, with pearl b.u.t.tons. But Karl Vincent was kind. He was one reason to like Candy.

"Thank you," Clary said quietly. "She was a little over-excited."

Candy waved her hand and leaned closer to speak in Clary's ear. "That grandmother is something, though." She looked meaningfully at Clary. "Quite the tales she's been telling."

Mrs. Pell was still whooping away on the little couch. Who knew what wild lies she'd been confiding. She had Trevor snugged in beside her eating a slab of torte, ignoring the chocolate oozing onto her jacket. Clary would clean it for her anyway, of course, why should she worry?

Paul decided that the carpet was not cleanable, at least not in the middle of the party, and he asked Dolly to help him roll it up and take it to the bas.e.m.e.nt. They let people step over them as they rolled, like a game of Twister. It was so light because it was such a cheap carpet, Paul explained.

"In fact," he said, when they opened the bas.e.m.e.nt door, "Let's just consign it to the netherworld." He tugged the whole thing out of Dolly's grasp and slid it down the stairs. It was still so new that it didn't even unfurl.

More people arrived even before the torte mess was cleared up. More food was pulled out of the oven and people's incoming arms, and replenished on the table and the rented plates. Everyone found people to talk to and other people they also wanted to talk to, and n.o.body had any axes to grind; or their axes were tucked away for the evening. Paul found himself introducing Mrs. Pell to everyone in the parish. She had never yet been to church and although he hoped professionally that she would receive the astonishing gift of the Holy Spirit, he could not help hoping she would experience the spirit in her own way at her own time, perhaps in the Temple that was the Great Outdoors. He thought he might have drunk a little too much of his adult punch, which had turned out very well. Darwin seemed to be enjoying himself too, whenever Paul caught a glimpse of him: listening to Frank Rich on the donor campaign, or getting Miss Tolliver to boast about her nephew the magician.

Clary, too, found herself enjoying the party. She and Iris Haywood ended up in the kitchen managing the endless stream of hot dishes people brought, and the equal torrent of things Paul had made. From time to time he remembered something and would dash back to find the champagne grapes at the back of the fridge, or the five fancy mustards for the ham. Then he would be ear-pinned away to the living room again by some other parishioner. Clary thought he looked happier than she'd ever seen him-he enjoyed entertaining. She liked his new shirt, and the nice red tie. She liked him so much.

Iris Haywood's eldest daughter Ivy took Pearce in hand, walking him from room to room, keeping him happy. Bringing scalloped potatoes into the dining room Clary thought it was time for another diaper, but she gave Pearce a quick sniff, and he was fine. She hoped it was not Mrs. Pell who smelled. Something certainly did.

To atone for her disaster, Dolly gave herself the job of finding and stacking the dirty plates: Cinderella enough that she cheered right up. When Candy Vincent came back wearing a blue dress, carrying a bag of ice ("You're psychic!" Iris Haywood said), Dolly felt able to slide off with the second-oldest Haywood girl, Francine, to sit on the stairs and talk about youth group, which they would be going to when they turned ten. Francine told her she had gone to a sleepover once and made the toilet overflow in the middle of the night, which was even worse than dropping the torte-the parents had to get up and all the other girls woke up too, it was so humiliating. It was a holy pleasure for Dolly to talk to such an established, clever, uncrippled girl. At this party she was like that too. Francine wouldn't let some weird guy grab his crotch at her. Although she would never go and die, Dolly thought she looked like Jane Eyre's friend Helen. Her fair hair rippled over her shoulder and she sat sideways on the stairs with her shins neatly together, flowered tights under her black velvet dress: Dolly's friend this evening. As perfect as Ann Hayter was pitiful, so that Dolly felt a stab of guilt.

Underneath them, close enough that Dolly could have reached through the banisters and touched the top of his gleaming bald head, Frank Rich-his Santa hat now on Mary Tolliver-told Paul that he had a lot to be thankful for.

"I know this must be a sad time for you what with the whole divorce thing," Frank said, "But you have a lot of friends in this parish, and most of us are happy to see the backside of her."

Paul found himself mesmerized by Frank's bright, protruding, bloodshot eyes. Had he had too much to drink?

"Not that she was ever anything but polite to me, Reverend."

How could Frank, a pillar of the church, forty years of service to the parish and the diocese, still not be able to grasp that Reverend was an honorific, not a name? Maybe no one had ever told him before.

"You know, Frank," Paul said, and he could hear the rest of it already curdling in his mouth: "I am not Reverend. Reverend is not a synonym for priest. Call me Paul, or Mr. Tippett, or Father Tippett if you like it High, or The Reverend Paul Tippett-"

A strange, unsteady name, Tippett. Like himself. He smiled at Frank. "You know, I'm grateful for your sympathy, but I'm doing pretty well."

He probably needed a drink himself, Paul realized. He felt a hand patting his head, and he reached up and touched it. Squeezed in beside Dolly on the stairs, Trevor smiled down at him.

"Want a ride?" he asked Trevor. Trevor climbed over the stair railing and onto Paul's shoulders, and they stomped off to scare the ladies in the kitchen.

The Princ.i.p.al wasn't scared. She handed Paul a gla.s.s of eggnog and gave Trevor children's punch in a plastic cup, way up there in the air. Clary went to lift him down but Paul said "No, no," and hung on to Trevor's ankles. "He's keeping my neck warm in this wintry weather."

Trevor made his legs tight to hold on better and Paul pretended to gag, and then Clary did lift him down, but they didn't spill one drop of the punch. Trevor slid back into the crowded room. The party was a forest of people, all burly bodies in rich clothes, pressed together at the top but thinner down below. If you were short enough you could get through the ma.s.s by crouching slightly. As he wandered by, Mrs. Pell told Trevor to fetch her a gla.s.s of the white wine. Darwin caught him carrying it back, holding it like the holy grail so he didn't do a Dolly. Darwin filled it with ginger ale instead and let him carry it again.

Mrs. Pell glared at Darwin. Busybody. But she wasn't too mad. Edith Varney was from Medstead, it turned out, and she knew people who had known Mrs. Pell's sister Janet's husband from Medstead, or at least his brothers.

More punch-when the girls wandered into the kitchen Clary set Dolly stirring the still-frozen orange juice while she searched for ginger ale. None left in the fridge. But Paul, coming in on a waft of music with a plate to refill, pointed Clary to the back porch for more pop in cartons, and then went with her through into the little pa.s.sage between the kitchen and the back porch, where two doors stood closed, one to the porch and one to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

In the suddenly darker quiet of the pa.s.sage Clary leaned against the bas.e.m.e.nt door so he could pa.s.s, and Paul could not pa.s.s by her. He looked into her face and leaned to see her better, to see her eyes, and then to kiss her.

His lips were cool and smoother than she'd thought and her chest contracted at the smell of his mouth, and then the taste of it, immaculate, and her arm fell around his shoulders and neck like Pearce's arm around her neck. He pressed her against the door, their bodies intruding on each other. A rush of heat flooded up her body-although her mind was clear and surprised and calm, her body was ecstatic. The bones of his face were close beneath his skin. His hand touched her cheek. She felt that melding encroaching on her like dizziness, and tried to pull away. He stood back instantly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Oh no," she said.

She tried to straighten up, and swayed, and he braced her waist. The molecules there too seemed to be merging, hand and body more than touching.

"Clary," he said, as if he was satisfied with her name.

She smiled at him, half-smile splitting open, her whole self visible. She must be blushing. She stretched her arms above her head and pulled at her hair and reached out to kiss him again, but the Haywood girl came rushing through, joyful, oblivious, running to get something from the back porch-some urgent unimportant rush that blew between them and brightened the hall from velvet darkness.

So Paul went out to the porch and got the ginger ale, and Clary went to find Pearce. He was sitting safely wedged on a church-hall chair between Sally King and Mrs. Rich, blathering gossip to each in turn.

"What a wonderful job you're doing with this little fellow," Mrs. Rich said when Clary swooped down on him. The parish must not have heard about the lice.

"He's no work at all," Clary said, and Sally King and Mrs. Rich both smiled at her like they knew all about it. Since they were both over sixty, Clary thought they had probably forgotten it, or most of it. She doubted that they'd missed a night's sleep or a peaceful meal for many years. But she smiled back at them because after all, she was in their club, the club of women who have been with children. She stood breathing in the smell of Pearce's neck. Did he need changing again? Nope. There was a definite smell, but not from Pearce. Maybe it was Mrs. Pell. But that was a new dress, new to her; Goodwill would have cleaned it.

She shifted Pearce, and he hid his head on her shoulder, face away from the ladies. Too much excitement. Children were overflowing through the party like a forgotten bathtub, the sugar in the punch beginning to tell. Cynthia Newton started rounding hers up and couldn't find Kevin, so there was a general hunt upstairs and down. Dolly got the prize, finding him sound asleep behind a dining room curtain, propped against the window, sticky spoon in one hand and chocolate all over his chin.

Someone put John Coltrane on the stereo, Giant Steps, as people went out the door.

"When do you put up your tree, Reverend?" Frank Rich asked Paul on his way out the door. "I've got a couple extra marked out this year, when I bring in the tree for the hall, coupla weeks, I could drop one off for you too, if you'd like?"

Paul thanked him and wondered where the Christmas decorations were. In the rafters of the garage? Lisanne might have overlooked them. She and the editor were going to the Mayan Riviera for Christmas. He advanced the CD a jab, to "Spiral." She'd never give the box another moment's thought, all those ornaments collected over all those years. One minute he was leaning into Clary in the back hall, and the next washed into sadness by a box of tinsel baubles that might not even be in the garage. Schrodinger's Christmas cat.

Clary wandered through the rooms with Pearce on her hip, searching for Dolly, who was in the back porch with Francine. That would be nice, if that worked out. Better than that listless Ann Hayter, whose mother was too odd for comfort. When Clary had picked Dolly up last week Mrs. Hayter hadn't seemed to remember that she was there. See how my charity only extends to the ones I care about, she thought. I don't care at all about Ann Hayter, even if she's in trouble, even if that household has something clearly wrong in it. "Time, Dolly," she said. "We've got to get Pearcey home."

Dolly did not complain, thank goodness-probably because Francine got up right away. The Haywoods kept strict discipline. Dolly and Francine said good night with some formality, respecting their long evening's conversation.

"She's going to ask her mom if I can come for lunch on Sunday," Dolly told Clary, who was busy keeping her heartbeats from going crazy, and hardly heard. Paul had kissed her, right there.

"I think she'll let me, don't you?"

"Oh yes, probably," Clary said, wondering what she was agreeing with, pressing her free hand to her chest to stop that quaver in the breath.

Out in the kitchen a posse of women were cleaning up, leaving the place spick and span. If Lisanne had still been there the women wouldn't have done it, Clary thought, with a moment's temporary sympathy for her. But of course she would have bristled if anyone but Paul had tried to help, and scoffed at him. Impossible. Possible. Her cheeks went hot again. This was annoying. She went through the kitchen arch, stalking Mrs. Pell. There she was, all alone in purple splendour on the dark loveseat. Looking old and a little the worse for wear, but she had been comparatively unexceptional all evening. As she struggled to her feet, Mrs. Pell said, "That settle's comfortable enough but there's something dirty inside it. You'd think a minister would have a cleaner house."

Coats were dealt out into the proper hands, those who had boots had found them, the music softened and slowed. Trevor was sitting on the bottom stair by the time Clary and Pearce and Mrs. Pell and Dolly worked their way through. Getting them all dressed was easy enough. The hard thing was Paul. Clary put her arms back obediently for him to help her with her coat, but she found it hard to turn around. His hands fitted the coat onto her shoulders and stayed there for a moment-not long enough for anyone else to see.

She might not have been able to look at him at all, but she suddenly remembered and turned to say, "I hate to tell you this, but there's a bad smell in the living room. I think it's the loveseat."

"Oh, good Lord, I just brought it in from the garage."

"Something died inside there, man," Darwin said. "I thought it'd better wait till after the party. I'll help you take it back outside."

"I can't-Candy Vincent sat there half the night!"

"Everything else was perfect," Clary said.

"Everything else?"

She bent her head. "Oh, yes," she said. She fastened Pearce back into his seat and took his comforting weight in her hand. "Children, we'd better-" She held out her hand to shake Paul's. Their hands fit together. After a moment, because she had to, Clary let go.

They trooped out into the cold air.

Sparks of stars flew above the rooftops and northern lights were flaring, slashing, bright yellow and green and red flowing into each other. All the people who had left the party were still standing on the sidewalk, looking up, sighing as the curtains swayed.

33. Rose window.

Paul stopped at the house on his way to do his hospital visits on Sat.u.r.day morning. "In case I don't see you there," he said, when Clary answered the door. "I thought if I didn't-I thought I'd stop to see you, just in case. In case you-"

She laughed and asked him to come in, but he could see children in various stages of pyjamas running back and forth, and he said he wouldn't, "Only I hoped-"

He started again. "I wanted to ask if you could come for dinner tonight, to my house." He was already halfway down the steps, as if to give her room to refuse.

"Of course," she said. "Yes!"

He was off. "Six-thirty?" he called back. "Seven?"

"Six-thirty, please," she said, wondering what she would do about the children.

At six p.m. Mrs. Zenko knocked on the door and stepped inside, calling for Clary.

"Darwin and Fern and I are taking the little ones to the lobster place," she told Clary. "It's Seniors' Sat.u.r.day and I've got a coupon, so we'll have a party too."

Clary found their jackets and tied two pairs of shoes and kissed Pearce, and then she went to do her hair and change her own clothes. She tried on the grey wool dress-too severe, cloisterish. She tightened the belt. Took it off. She put on the brown skirt. Without the sash it was plain enough. It was only dinner.

Leaning in the doorway of her room, Darwin said, "He's a seriously good guy. You know that. Why are you confusing yourself? Get over there."

She tried a necklace, then took it off. She shouted, "Oh!" and Darwin laughed at her. Nothing, unadorned. That was her. Darwin found her keys.

Paul was watching through the window when Clary got out of her car. Her chestnut-hull jacket, hair in a low braid twisting over the collar. Autumn beech leaves, with a little plain white peeping through the neck. Always a pleasure to look at her. How familiar she was, her legs moving the way he knew, her back straight, her straight gait, and her heavy skirt moving easily through brown and gold. Dressed up for this, but still herself. He opened the door. They stood looking at each other.

"What's for dinner?" Clary asked.

"Well. I thought-carbonara-I have some good pancetta."

Paul backed into the living room, giving her the room, empty as it was. No pungent sofa, at least; the church-hall chairs returned and the floor bare wood, this time, Murphy-soaped. His mother's Jacobean crewel-work curtains vacuumed to banish the lonely settled dust. Clary's clothes looked beautiful in there. Clary did.

She was carrying a bottle of wine. He had bought wine gla.s.ses and some pretty good wine himself. He was competent. It was only spaghetti, he told himself. Even if it curdled, it would taste good. He talked about Italy while they grated cheese and broke eggs. He had not known that she'd lived in England, with her mother's cousins. They compared notes on the plummy voices, the quaintness of the packaging, the beauty. He had done graduate work at Cambridge after U of T, cold and hungry all the time. His mother still lived in Toronto. His sister Binnie had died, she knew that. No other family to rush to his side.

"My mother would, gladly. But it would only make everything harder. She and Lisanne never-could not-" He stopped. No need for this fumbling.

"My mother hated Dominic," Clary said. "That made it easier, because I didn't have to justify anything to her-being left. She never sullied our ears with his name again."

Paul hated to hear the flat note in her voice when she spoke of her once-husband. He consciously brightened his own voice, saying, "What we look for first is someone as unlike our parents as possible-we did a good job on that, both of us. Congratulations!"

He lifted his gla.s.s, but caught its base somehow on the wooden salad forks and spilled red wine into the greens waiting in the bowl.

"Never mind," Clary said, dabbing at them with a paper towel. "It'll be a vintner's salad. Take the edge off the vinegar."

As she did. Paul turned away to light the stove, quickly, in case he might touch her. While up from my heart's root / So great a sweetness flows I shake from head to foot.

The carbonara was the best he'd ever made. He was flushed with achievement, or with wine, didn't matter. Able to talk freely, to hold forth to someone who didn't look puzzled by his train of thought or ask what some word meant, who laughed when he made a mild joke. She might even have laughed at his marrying-Xanthippe epiphany, he thought. Xanthippany.

He steered his thoughts away from Lisanne, but too late. She was present enough at the table, sneering at his attempts to be engaging.

He fell silent. Clary, too, seemed to run out of talk, or the need to talk. She smiled at him. He understood that her kindness would not let her be stiff or seem uncomfortable. Her perfect courtesy, her upbringing. Or maybe, he told himself, she was not uncomfortable. Not conscious, as he was.

There was a pint of fancy ice cream, frozen impermeable. He left it on the kitchen counter to soften, and found the old coffee grinder which Lisanne's sister had scorned.

While Paul made coffee, Clary went upstairs to find the bathroom.

She had drunk a lot of wine, not too much. A little too much. The bathroom, straight ahead. Where she had changed Pearce, at the party, and he had said Clah! Perfect boy. She looked into the other doors, stepping lightly on the bare floors so Paul would not hear her snooping. A shelf-lined study, the desk not as untidy as his office desk; a little room with a daybed and a bookcase; then his bedroom, which had been his and Lisanne's. A big pine bed, a dresser, nothing else. No night tables, so the bed stood bare against the wall. An ironing board set up in one corner for him to iron his clerical shirts. She must be drunk, she was getting sad.