Small Ceremonies Read Online Free Page B

even her skin is faintly lilac, her face a benign fretwork of lines framed with waves of palest violet.
    â€œJudith, you look a picture. How I wish I could wear those pant suits.”
    â€œYou look lovely as you are, Mother,” Furlong said, and she did; if ever a woman deserved a son with a mother fixation, it was Mrs. Eberhardt.
    Martin disappeared to get us drinks, and Furlong, by a bit of clever steering, turned our discussion to his new book, Graven Images.
    â€œI know I can count on you, Judith, for a candid opinion. The, critics, mind you, have been very helpful, and thus far, very kind.” He paused.
    For a son of the Saskatchewan soil, Furlong is remarkably courtly, and like all the courtly people I know, he inspires in me alleys of unknown coarseness. I want to slap his back, pump his hand, tell him to screw off. But I never do, never, for basically I am too fond of him and even grateful, thankful for his most dazzling talent which is not writing at all, but the ability he has to make the people around him feel alive. There is an exhausted Byzantine quality about him which demands response, and even at that moment, standing in the theatre foyer in my too-tight pantsuit and my hair falling down around my rapidly ageing face, I was swept with vitality, almost drunk with the recognition that all things are possible. Beauty, fame, power; I have not been passed by after all.
    But about Graven Images, I had to confess ignorance. “I’ve been locked up with Susanna for months,” I explained. It sounded weak. It was weak. But I thought to add kindly, “Meredith is reading it right now. She was about halfway through when we left the house tonight.”
    At this he beamed. “Then it is to your charming daughter I shall have to speak.” Visibly wounded that I hadn’t got around to his book, he rallied quickly, drowning his private pain in a flood of diffusion. “Public reaction is really too general to be of any use, as you well know, Judith. It is one’s friends one must rely upon.” He pronounced the word friends with such a silky sound that, for an instant, I wished he were a different make of man.
    â€œMeredith would love to discuss it with you, Furlong,” I told him honestly. “Besides, she’s a more sensitive reader of fiction than I am. You, of all people, know fiction isn’t my thing.”
    â€œAh yes, Judith,” he said. “It’s your old Scarborough puritanism, as I’ve frequently told you. Judith Gill, my girl, basically you believe fiction is wicked and timewasting. The devil’s work. A web of lies.”
    â€œYou just might be right, Furlong.”
    When Martin came back with our drinks, Furlong issued a general invitation to attend his publication party in November. He beamed at Martin, “You two must plan to come.”
    â€œHmmm,” Martin murmured noncommittally. He doesn’t really like Furlong; the relationship between them, although they teach in the same department, is one of tolerant scorn.
    The lights dipped, and we found our way back to our seats. Back to the lovely arched setting, lit in some magical way to suggest sunrise. Heroines moved across the broad stage like clipper ships, their throats swollen with purpose. The play wound down and so did they in their final speeches. Holy holy, the crash of applause that always brings tears stinging to my eyes.
    All night long memories of the play boiled through my dreams, a plummy jam stewed from those intelligent, cruising, early-century bosoms. Hour after hour I rode on a sea of breasts: the exhausted mounds of Susanna Moodie, touched with lamplight. The orchid hills and valleys of Mrs. Eberhardt, bubbles of yeast. The tender curve of my daughter Meredith. The bratty twelve-year-old tits of Anita Spalding, rising, falling, melting, twisting in and out of the heavy folds of sleep.
    I woke to find Martin’s arm flung across my chest; the angle of his