David Flusfeder - The Pagan House

Fay had said it might be an amusing evening. Edgar doubted this, but the first guests to arrive did seem built for amusement. Company Bob was a vice-president of the Company or a vice-vice-president, rubicund like a clown, loud and aggressively amiable in a checked shirt that clashed madly with his ferocious skin. His wife was a plump woman with red hair who had tented herself inside a white dress. She stood impatiently at the sideboard that held the glasses and wine bottles until Warren poured her a drink, whereupon she sat at the table guarding herself with a quietly angry dignity that seemed there just to be lost.

‘We’re cousins,’ Company Bob told Edgar. ‘Through the Pagan side. And I think through the Stone side also. So’s Janice.’

‘Who’s Janice?’ Edgar asked.

‘I’m Janice,’ Mrs Company Bob said.

Guthrie, who was the next to arrive, was nicer. She was a spry white-haired woman with brilliant blue eyes that she enjoyed shining on people with an intimately enthusiastic attention. She kissed Fay and told the company that this was my very best friend ! Guthrie questioned Edgar on the length of his stay and held his wrists to emphasize the shame of him not staying longer, and Edgar responded to her touch with a stiffening that indeed shamed him, but which was nothing compared to his response to Marilou Weathers. Marilou Weathers had wide eyes and a prettily thin chapped mouth and pale freckled skin that was redder around her eyes and mouth, and brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail. She entered the room, giggling timidly behind her husband, whom everyone called Coach. Edgar arranged his napkin over his lap and dared to look at her again. Marilou Weathers was tall and wore a big green jumper with the face of a dog embroidered on the front; its eyes protruded by her breasts, its red mouth hanging appealingly open. Edgar had to look away and inadvertently caught the attention of Coach Weathers, who had a tanned skin and sharp features and carried himself like an off-duty soldier, vigilant and coiled. He wore sunglasses and a peaked cap and baggy shorts and a faded college sweatshirt and spoke the fewest words required of him, as if life were a constant test behind enemy lines. His first name was Spiro. Edgar immediately admired and feared him.

‘I got to tell you Warren,’ Company Bob said, ‘we’re all totally behind this musical of yours.’ The way he said this made Edgar suspect that one of the secrets of adult life was that everyone said the reverse of what they really thought.

‘It’s an opera ,’ Marilou said.

‘That’s what I mean. And you’ve got permission to put it on in the Mansion House?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘I love history, don’t you?’ Guthrie said to Mon.

‘Just adore it,’ Mon said, making Edgar wince, but the sarcasm seemed to pass everyone else by.

‘Bob sometimes says that this place has got too much history,’ Janice said.

‘You can never have too much history,’ Mon said.

‘That’s exactly what I say,’ said Guthrie.

‘Bob doesn’t agree,’ Janice said.

‘It’s not that I dis agree,’ the vice-president said, ‘just that you have to separate the business and the personal. All that nineteenth-century lovey-dovey business doesn’t sit well with the issues of corporate life.’

‘What’s the lovey-dovey business?’ Edgar asked, getting interested, his imagination providing an orgy of unlikely images that involved office desks on which were mounted bizarre contraptions that screwed into the barrels of telephone receivers.

‘What are the issues of corporate life?’ Mon annoyingly asked.

‘Leadership, responsibility, profitability,’ Bob said promptly. He then went through the flatware and silverware on the table, lifting up each knife, fork, spoon, plate and bowl and reporting its provenance. ‘Oh, and this is a very nice piece,’ he said, weighing a sauce-boat in his hand, which was soon splashed with Warren’s béarnaise sauce. ‘This is the Commonwealth line, isn’t it? Nineteen fifty or ’fifty-one or thereabouts.’

‘That’s really, really impressive,’ Marilou said, licking and then touching her chapped lips, as if she was reminding herself of a secret.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ Bob said modestly.

‘That to me is history also,’ Janice said.

‘It’s the history of the Company , not its pre -history. Whenever we have a new employee I send them down to the display room. I say, look at our product lines, memorize them. We make what we sell and we sell what we make. That’s how business works. The shareholders are very happy. And that’s what I try to explain to Malcolm.’

‘The new CEO’s an outsider,’ Janice said to Edgar, who was wondering if pretending to faint was a viable way out of this occasion.

‘That’s history for you,’ Mon was saying.

‘That’s what I say,’ Company Bob said. ‘Took someone like Mac to bring the whole shooting-match into the twentieth century.’ He turned to Edgar. ‘Your granddad was certainly a character. The stories I could tell you about him!’

‘I’ve had quite enough of Mac stories,’ Fay said.

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Guthrie said, patting her best friend’s hand. ‘But it’s true that Mac was such a larger than life character. Mike is just like him in some ways. Do you remember that time on Marble Hill—’

‘This meat’s very good, Warren. It’s extremely tender,’ Fay said.

‘The soup was good also,’ Marilou said.

‘I’ll give you the recipe,’ Warren said.

‘I think she knows how to cook succotash,’ said Janice.

Everyone else had finished the main course. Edgar attempted a larger mouthful of meat in an effort to clear his unfinishable plate. But it was far too ambitious a portion and took an eternity to chew through and he was sure his cheeks were bulging like a cartoon squirrel’s. Warren and then Fay, kindly, to include him, asked him questions and all he could do was mumble and retch.

‘Don’t ever lose that accent. It’s terrific!’ Bob said.

Plates departed and bowls arrived, all identified by Bob with their brand name and year of manufacture. Bob drank more beer. Guthrie drank more wine and became flushed and talkative. Janice drank more wine and grew sober and quiet. Fay was engaged in a political debate with Company Bob. They were arguing about the Mansion House. Bob had suggested that the Mansion House should be sold off and little pinpricks of deep red appeared on Fay’s cheeks. Edgar had not seen his grandmother angry before. Her voice became stern. ‘If it wasn’t for the Mansion House then this could be anywhere else.’

‘Market forces. Place got to pay its way. Here’s a building where all the guest rooms are empty, a few old fellows living upstairs on peppercorn rent, and no one visits the museum. If we ran the Company like that we’d soon all be in the street. Got to remember who pays the piper. It’s the Company that keeps everything else afloat.’

‘Not market forces. Absolutely not. Where did the Company come from?’

‘Ancient history, Fay.’

‘That’s not the point. People around here used to live differently. They chose to live differently. It may not have lasted for ever and it didn’t bring heaven on earth but it was a very decent time, people looked after one other, worked with one other. It doesn’t matter so much what they believed but what they did, and what they did is find a new way of living.’

The conversation went on and others joined in and Edgar stopped being able to follow what they were talking about but he was sure that what Fay was saying was decent and right, as Bob’s skin became even redder than before and he kept saying, ‘That’s all very well but who’s going to pay for it?’ and ‘That sounds a lot like Communism to me and we know what happened to that !’ The debate collapsed under the force of Bob’s repetitions and the table returned to its separate groups. Mon flirted with Coach Weathers, who uncoiled a little under her attentions. Every time he looked to check what his wife was doing, Marilou Weathers held a spoon (1920s, Presidential line) defensively in front of her face.