Bread and Wine

Margery Temple had embraced the Catholic faith with a warm heart and without any worrisome second thoughts. She was already involved in the administration of the church—she helped out with the post-funeral lunches and tea parties—and she had made an impressive donation to the fund to repair the roof. She had also placed a small notice in the bulletin of St Vitus’ inviting the “community of faith” to join in a celebration of her baptism two Sundays hence.


Landing Margery Beebe Temple as a new congregant was a feat that had not gone unnoticed at the splendid offices of the Archdiocese. Mrs Temple was wealthy, widowed, recently converted, eager and desperate to make a difference. She was also something of an innocent and she reacted with real joy when she learned that the Cardinal and an archbishop would attend her baptism at St Vitus.


Beebe, however, was not at all surprised.


“The handouts start now, Ardie, just watch. Margery is such an easy mark. Honestly, they must see her coming. Before too long she’ll have built a cathedral,” she said. Ardie and Beebe were having lunch together and had already gone through half a bottle of red wine and there was no guarantee that a second bottle would not soon grace the table.


Ardie laughed and cautioned Beebe to “go easy” on Margery. “You’ll only encourage her to dig her heels in, Beebe, so be careful,” he said. He looked at her over his wine glass and took a long satisfying draught.


“They mean business if they are sending a bloody cardinal to the baptism. They don’t land people like Margery every day,” said Beebe, pushing at her salad with a fork. Ardie noticed that Beebe didn’t eat all that much but merely picked at her food. She didn’t give up the drinks, however, and leaned over to pour more wine into her glass.


Margery had recently taken an apartment at Granite Place and was looking forward to rekindling some friendships and getting reacquainted with the city. She was spending less time at her farm in King City and was establishing some new friendships among the parishioners at St Vitus.


Margery planned to invite her family to an intimate supper on the day of her baptism—Father Greg was also going to be in attendance—and both Kat and Suky were helping plan the occasion. Margery planned to wear a demure navy suit and a new gold and diamond crucifix on a simple chain around her neck. Flushed with the joy of her conversion she was hoping that both Ardie and Beebe would, after spending some time with dear Father Greg, consider following in her footsteps and joining the church.


She had tried to broach the subject with Ardie but to no avail. He stopped by 7A one night—Negroni in hand—and told me about Margery’s clumsy attempts at religious conversion.


“Margery is recruiting altar boys and her first target is me,” he intoned in his deep voice, “but I told her that I found a new place to worship a long time ago and never went in for team sports in the first place,” he laughed, taking another sip of his drink. Seeing it was nearly empty I went to the kitchen to look for some vodka, came up empty and returned with a chilled bottle of Tanqueray. Ardie smiled and poured himself a shot.


I had been kept hopping at work because there was an upcoming gallery exhibit of the Beijing Series of photographs, plus some older works from her food series. The catalogue was printed—full of errors—and Miss Cousins was in a dark mood most days. Fortunately the errors were not my fault (I was better than that, thank you very much!) and it was the printer who received a harassing phone call from The Boss.


The gallery showing was a combination of social event and business networking opportunity and there was a great deal of administration to take care of. Miss Cousins closely followed politics and was delighted to watch the Republican “thumping” in the United States. She was faxing some of her conservative friends with the poll results and—between cigarettes and coffee—discussing a new series of paintings that would feature the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant, with the donkey triumphant.


There was, you see, an element of humour in some of her art.


Jane called and invited herself and Bethany to my house for supper; Bethany was now spending some afternoons with Sra. Cabral at The Campanile so Jane would be at the building after work to collect her. It goes without saying that “Uncle Ardie” would be included and somehow the party shifted from 7A down to Sra. Cabral’s lobby-side apartment and ultimately up to 12B and a repast prepared by Habashka.


Habashka and Sra. Cabral had formed a unique bond and, united in a mutual love of the domestic arts, were the new odd-couple in Midtown.


It was at this impromptu after-work mid-week supper that Ardie invited me to go to church with him on Sunday and “watch the fun” as Margery became a Roman Catholic. “You won’t want to miss this, Chum, because the roof might fall in when Beebe enters the church,” he laughed, finishing with a wet cough. He took another pull on his torch (right in the kitchen!) and reached for a bottle of red wine. In the living room Bethany was absorbed in television and Jane and Sra. Cabral were chatting quietly. Habashka bustled and Ardie reached over and stroked my cheek.


He looked at me with his piercing eyes, smiled, and said nothing.


I realized then that Ardie had already figured everything out. What use would words be?