The First Part of Chapter 3: Easter

At Easter, James’s relationship with Clarissa reached a significant stage: he was about to introduce her to his parents. His relationship with both of them was quite warm and loving, and was ideally what every parent-child relationship should be; it was a bit uninteresting, perhaps, and resembled something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but it was predictable, and that was what James preferred. The predictability even extended to their jobs in the public sector, which tended to be more stable than the private sector. His father seemed to take on a variety of roles in life, in reflection of his multiple careers; a journalist at the CBC was merely his latest job, and before he had been a university lecturer, proprietor of a bookstore, and a semi-professional activist, advocating on behalf of sundry causes. They had discussed her introduction to his family one night at Clarissa’s apartment, and he called his parents’ house on the Wednesday before Easter.

“Hello?”

“Hi mom,” he said.

“Oh hi Jimmy, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing great, actually; I don’t suppose I told you about Clarissa,”

“Your new girlfriend? Eunice told me, and Kevin confirmed it. Gossip travels, you know; we only live a few blocks apart.”

“I wanted to tell you that I’m bringing her over for Easter,”

“We’ll be glad to welcome her into our home,” said Patricia.

“Thank you mom,” said James.

After he hung up the phone, he thought that it had gone well: on Easter Monday, they agreed that James and Clarissa would be visiting his parents’ house. He had always thought of that house, which he had first seen when he was eleven, as a cozy place, with its short picket fence in the front, shaded by a large maple, and decorated within with many exposed beams, dried flowers and carved objects.

On the other end of the line, Patricia looked out of the front window, which afforded a nice view of Dundonald Park, and thought: Jimmy has a girlfriend! It was not as if Clarissa were the first, as he had had plenty of girlfriends from high school and his university days, but she was excited all the same. She continued to look at the park, in happy anticipation of the time when the trees would have leaves, the snow, which was now forming slushy puddles, would be gone from the ground, the kids would be playing and Somerset Avenue on the opposite side of the park would be partially obscured by the foliage. She knew from Eunice that James was quite lucky this time; Eunice had described Clarissa as a tall woman, poised and elegant, and very pretty. In addition to spring, this was one more thing to anticipate happily. She only wished the same thing could be said of her daughter Katherine, who had divorced her husband a few years ago and had not looked back; she was still single, which bothered Patricia, who had started nudging her to meet other people, and had even gone so far as to attempt to set her up once or twice with some of her co-workers at the library; failing that, her daughter was a teacher, and there would always be a few eligible bachelors there. Ryan arrived home at five, and she told him about Clarissa. His reaction was quite happy. “It would be excellent to have Clarissa over for dinner on Monday. I’ll tell Kate.” Ryan talked to Katherine roughly once a month, slightly more so in the summer, and slightly less so in the winter. “Have you heard about Ollie?”

“The one with the hypertension?”

“Yeah, that one. He had a heart attack.”

“Oh dear, really?”

“He’s fine now, though. He’s on a low salt diet.”

“Well, that’s good for him,” said Patricia, who turned to her seed collection: things needed to be planted soon, considering that the last vestiges of winter were going, albeit with a seeming reluctance.

Easter arrived, and as happens in spring, there was a sudden snowstorm on Good Friday. Patricia grumbled as she shovelled the surprisingly powdery snow off the driveway and onto the dirty grey snow banks. The amount of snow gave her no bother, as it only came up to just above the ankles. It was more the fact that she had felt sufficiently warm just on Wednesday to go outside wearing her flower print skirt and set up the parasol on the back patio, and was planning to do some gardening on Saturday.

On Monday the weather was sufficiently warm to melt Friday’s snow. James was at home, relaxing with a book, which was what he did best; this time, however, it was to keep his cool in anticipation of Clarissa’s meeting with his parents. She had said she would be back from Toronto shortly after two, and would be coming to his house at three thirty. It was three o’clock at that moment. James rose from the chair in his living room and fetched a bag of potato chips from the kitchen; they were dill pickle. He like many men, considered himself a connoisseur of potatoes in all of their forms: fries, chips, mashed, cooked into soups, scalloped, barbecued, baked and boiled. There seemed to be a never-ending variety of potato recipes, as Kevin, who he had had over on Saturday, impressed upon him during a conversation about Keynesian stimuli, and how easy it was to eat too much of them. He reflected on his condition at that moment; in his opinion, he was doing quite well; he had a girlfriend, his income was decent, and his expenses, the largest portion of which was the mortgage he had paid on his house, were small; such were the fleeting virtues of being young and not tied down with all sorts of commitments, he thought.

The appointed time arrived, and James got out of his armchair and looked down the street. A tall feminine figure had just come into view down the street. He could recognise Clarissa from a distance, and there was no mistaking: this was Clarissa. As she approached the front walk, he stepped out the door to greet her.

“Hi Jim,” she said brightly. “Nice house,” she added. “It looks like it’s from the Edwardian era,”

“Clarissa, you look splendid,” said James.

She walked up the front steps and kissed him.

“The plan is to walk to mom and dad’s place; it’s on MacLaren Street and faces the south side of Dundonald Park.”

“That will be nice.” They then set off on the leisurely stroll to meet James’s parents; at this time, there were no leaves in the trees, and the winter had taken its toll on the ground cover, reducing it to a few sticks, the lawns lay flat, and so the earth was bare for all to see. Given that the shrubbery was non-existent or brown, their attention was drawn to the architecture of the neighbourhood, which, given that it was in the inner city and built in the Victorian era, was beautiful and covered in many places with the delicate traces of naked ivy vines. The buildings came in a variety of styles; some were unchanged from their construction over a century before, others had newer additions in various places, while still others were new. The architecture visible along the eight-minute walk made the trip almost as worthwhile as the destination, and it was for this reason that the neighbourhood was so desirable for so many people. James had made a hefty down payment on his house, and there were nicer and therefore more expensive houses on the street.

Given that it was a holiday, they did not pass very many people on the street, and there were very few cars on the road; Gladstone Street was nearly empty. On the way to the house, Christine waved at them from her front porch; she was putting some dried branches in a vase for decoration, as the weather did not permit any showy plants outside just yet. They waved back. Christine had moved in to that house on March first, and was thus just getting to know the neighbourhood. Eunice had introduced her to her husband, James and various other neighbours, including Belinda, David and his wife Pia in an effort to integrate her into the community; it was clear that Eunice had taken a liking to Christine.

Previous Next