The Birthday Lunch by Joan Clark Page A

Reverend Titus had been the minister when she was in her religious phase, she would have continued attending St. Paul’s United with her father instead of switching to the Baptist Church where she nearly succumbed to being saved by the evangelical, charismatic minister, Reverend Fitch. Claudia asks Alan if he was an actor.
    “No,” he says. “I went from high school to art school and from there to a career designing theatre sets across the country.”
    Annoyed that the minister is talking about himself when he should be comforting the family, Matt gets up and stands in the doorway in the hope that the man will take the hint and go on his way so that he can take Claudia aside and tell her about his conversation with Corrie Spears. But wouldn’t you know, his sister is asking Alan Harrington if he would like to join them for supper.
    “Only if it’s no trouble.” Alan explains that his wife is visiting her sister in Toronto.
    Claudia tells him that it is no trouble at all, that their neighbour downstairs has provided them with roast chicken and a loaf of homemade bread.
    “Ah yes, Sophie Power, the mainstay of the Women’s Auxiliary. What would we do without Sophie,” Alan says.
    The rainy light brings an early dark and Laverne is in her kitchen, making herself a meagre supper of toast and tea. Shehas switched on the light above the refrigerator and closed the window. Last year a bat, attracted by the kitchen light, flew through the open casement window while Laverne was in the bathroom. When she saw it lying on the kitchen floor in the morning, she was upset that the bat had been inside her apartment all night without her knowing.
    Laverne has finished the toast and tea, switched off the kitchen light and is lowering the blind above the plank table when she notices Alan Harrington’s Plymouth van parked beside her Volkswagen. How long has his van been there? How disturbing that she did not hear Alan park in the driveway. The sight of the van means Alan is upstairs offering Hal his condolences. It also means that when he has finished visiting upstairs Alan will probably knock on her door and expect her to answer. But Laverne will not answer the door and admit Alan Harrington. Even now she has her pride and does not want Alan to see her in a disordered state with her hair unwashed and her clothes unchanged. She will proceed to bed.
    Removing the nightgown from the bathroom hook, Laverne slips it over her head and takes off her clothes—after years of attending summer schools, sharing accommodation with strangers, Laverne still undresses beneath the cover of a nightgown. She swallows another of her sleeping pills and, sliding between the sheets, she falls asleep remembering the summer afternoon she met Alan.
    Four years ago when Laverne returned from her first trip to Holland, she turned up at Fox Hill with her paintbox andsuggested that she and Lily go down to the river. It was mid-afternoon, the sun had reached its zenith and the sky was a spotless blue. The sisters crossed the road and followed the tractor path downhill, Laverne carrying her easel and paintbox, Lily the picnic basket. Below them the slow sliding Kennebecasis was a drab olive green while the meadow on either side of the path was an astonishing emerald green. On the other side of the river, the time-worn Appalachian hills were patched with dusky greens and browns and in a hollow was a white farmhouse surrounded by a field of buttercups the colour of the mustard fields in France. Laverne decided to paint the farmhouse and the surrounding hills and while she set up the easel, her sister continued toward the river. Unfolding a campstool, Laverne carefully sketched the scene on canvas as the how-to-paint books instructed. Then, squeezing colours onto the palette, she picked up her paintbrush and began to paint. How relaxing it was to concentrate on the scene, to allow time to pass without glancing at her watch.
    An hour or more passed and Laverne was