Vera Maude was flipping through an old copy of the Star in the ladies’ room when something on The Women’s Page caught her eye. It was an article describing a garden party she had attended earlier in the summer.
… held by the Music, Literature, and Art Club of Windsor at the lovely home of Dr. and Mrs. Raymond D. Menard, Riverside, on Saturday. From the time it was announced last month it had been arousing no little interest in local social circles. Plans were extensive and many of the details were kept secret until the last moment. The event was well-attended and according to reports it was one of the most delightful of M., L., and A. affairs.
It was amusing to read the Star’s version of the event. The writer made it sound so charming and convivial. Vera Maude remembered it being anything but.
Most of the fifty-odd club members and their guests spent the afternoon playing bridge on the lawn behind the house. Vera Maude didn’t like her odds against these teetotalling cardsharps so instead she lingered in the sunroom, sipped lemonade, and pondered the garden — a nightmare of allergic proportions. When the afternoon tea was served she was waved outside. She had taken a seat at a table under the willow tree, just a stone’s throw from the water’s edge. Daphne and another one of the Daughters of the Empire joined her.
‘Maudie, I’d like you to meet Isabelle.’
Isabelle handed Vera Maude four clammy fingers.
‘Pleased to meet you, Isabelle.’
‘Likewise.’
(Vera Maude remembered hating her instantly.)
‘I’ll pour,’ said Daphne.
Isabelle passed the sugar to Vera Maude.
‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘May I have the lemon instead?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Maudie works at the library too,’ said Daphne.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ said Vera Maude. ‘Do you work, Isabelle?’
‘No,’ replied Isabelle. ‘Daddy won’t have it.’
No, of course not.
‘I don’t plan on staying on at the library forever.’
Thanks, Daphne.
‘As soon as I’ve married I plan to leave. Who knows, maybe Clive will be the one to rescue me.’
This was news to Vera Maude.
‘What about you, Maudie?’ asked Isabelle.
‘Yes, Maudie, what are your plans?’
They were both staring at her.
You bitch, Daphne.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking of becoming an opium addict. Or maybe a switchboard operator. I haven’t decided.’
Vera Maude always hated going to those things but she knew if she stopped getting invited it would be a sign of worse things to come. The library would eventually let her go and then the doors in the cultural community would start closing. And then what? It wasn’t a big city. Teach? Go to business college? Become a sales clerk at Bartlet, Macdonald, & Gow? Daphne on the other hand was a full member of the club. Whenever Vera Maude got to go to an M.L. & A. event it was as her invited guest and with the approval of Miss Lancefield, who was on the club executive. Vera Maude figured the only reason Daphne kept inviting her was to help her feel superior among the other members. Why else would someone like Daphne have anything to do with someone like her?
It occurred to Vera Maude that she still hadn’t received her formal invitation to the next meeting. Perhaps the garden party had been the last straw. Maybe the first door had already closed. She folded up the paper and tossed it on the floor.
“Maudie, are you in there?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Do you mind if I go for lunch first?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Goody — Clive is here and he’s taking me to the Prince Eddie.”
“Tell everybody I said hi.”
“Okay,” said Daphne with no sense of irony.
She listened to Daphne march away in her size fives.
“I hope you choke on a cucumber seed.”
Vera Maude adjusted her accoutrements and went back to work.
— Chapter 17 —
CURTAINS
Henry Fields was recovering in a hospital bed at St. Joseph’s. A bullet had grazed the side of his head in the shootout and nearly taken off his ear. In the bed next to him was a man in much worse shape. Clara thought he looked as if he had fallen down a flight of stairs. She got up to check the cloth on her brother’s forehead. It was as warm as his cheek and the pitcher at his bedside was empty. There had to be a utility room on the floor somewhere.
“Henry,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll be right back.”
She glanced over at the other bed. The man seemed harmless enough, sawing away like some big ugly baby. She set out in search of an oasis. Clara had done some volunteer work after the war, light duty looking after soldiers like Henry who needed some fine-tuning before they finally got to sleep in their own beds. It had started with one of the nurses asking if while she sat there she could roll some bandages. Next thing she knew she was serving lunch. So today while she was at St. Joe’s, Clara thought she would look in on the veterans’ ward.
It wasn’t what she expected. These weren’t outpatients coming back for follow-up treatment. Three years later these soldiers were still waiting to complete their journey home. There were more than a dozen of them; pale, thin bodies dressed in bandages with red, yellow, and purple stains. Broken and disfigured, they were held together with steel plates, tubes, and wire. In their wheelchairs and prosthetics they looked half man, half machine. Several of the sisters were ministering to their hearts and souls. Clara paused at the door at the other end and gazed back across this white linen wasteland. She could not imagine a worse existence, but there was. Upstairs were the soldiers with the invisible wounds, the shell-shocked and sick of mind that had yet to wake from their nightmare. These boys’ introduction to the modern age came in the form of gas grenades, flamethrowers, armoured tanks, and bombs dropping out of airplanes. Where others worked to keep the memory of the war alive, these men spent every minute of every day trying to forget.
Clara stepped backwards through the swinging door and was almost knocked down by a doctor in a hospital robe and mask.
“Pardon me,” she said.
He didn’t even look at her, just continued on his way, turned a corner, and disappeared.
The utility room was at the end of the hall. She set the pitcher down in the sink and let the water run. When it was full she poured herself a glass, downed it in three long gulps, and then headed back to the ward.
The swinging doors were closed. She pushed one open. It looked as if the other patients had been taken into the garden already. After a restless night under the sheets they usually got wheeled outside, where they could sit in the shade and drag some lemonade through a straw. The curtains were drawn around Henry’s and the other patient’s bed. Clara figured the nurses were trying to give them some peace while they moved the other patients out.
Clara gently pulled the curtain back and found Henry fast asleep. The other patient was stirring. She set the pitcher down on the table and went around to his bed.
There was a pillow over the man’s face. She yanked it off. She’d seen dead before and this guy was it. A shadow caught her eye. She jumped around, pulled the curtain back, and saw the doctor from the hallway holding a pillow over