The Birthday Lunch by Joan Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

the man who despises the cliché.
    Trish noses the Rambler into a parking space, rides the elevator to the eleventh floor and asks Matt’s assistant to call him from the boardroom. “Tell him his wife is waiting in his office,” Trish says. Because she rarely comes to his office, Matt will suspect something is wrong and, driving into the city, Trish worked out how she will break the news.
    Matt opens the office door and before he can ask why she is here, Trish says, “The kids are fine, Matt.”
    “Let me guess.” He grins. “You want to take me out for lunch.”
    “Matt.” Trish takes his hands in hers. “I have terrible news. Your father called. Your mother was hit by a truck.”
    Matt frowns. “When was this?”
    “A couple of hours ago. The accident was fatal.”
    “Are you telling me that Mom is dead?”
    “I am so sorry, Matt,” Trish says and tries to hold him.
    But Matt turns away. He knows if Trish holds him, he will break down and he will not allow himself to break down. Hands in his pockets, head thrust forward, he paces back and forth, back and forth between the windows and the wall. It can’t be true, it can’t be true that his mother is dead. In a desperate attempt to make sense of what Trish has told him, Matt stops pacing and, putting both hands against the wall, he bangs his head so hard the picture of the Calgary Tower tilts to one side. He keeps on banging, trying to bang the terrible news into his head. He hears the faraway voice of his wife telling him to stop, telling him that if he doesn’t stop he will hurt himself. But Matt cannot stop. Shock defies belief and he cannot believe his mother is dead. It is only when he feels pain shooting across his forehead that Matt allows Trish to pull him away from the wall. “Listen to me, Matt,” she says. “Hal needs you. Think of your father.”
    His father. Ashamed that he has not thought of his father, Matt lowers his head. Trish is right. His father will need him and he will go home to his father. And to his sister. Claudia will need him too. “Yes. I need to go home,” Matt says. Contrite and humbled by grief, he allows Trish to lead him to the parking garage.
    ——
    Strapped in his seat, Matt is blind to what is outside the window: the flawless blue sky; the jagged upthrust of ancient sea beds; the geometry of prairie crops.
    A flight attendant appears with the drinks cart and Matt orders a double scotch. As usual he is flying business class, which is why Air Canada came through with a ticket on short notice. His seatmate orders water.
    The flight attendant moves on and Matt hears a tremulous voice ask if something is wrong. For the first time he glances at the tiny bundle of cloth and bone beside him. Christ, the woman must be eighty at least. A frequent flyer, Matt habitually discourages conversation by occupying himself with a client’s file; but without a file on his tray table he is defenceless and he blurts out the naked truth that his mother is dead. There. Now that he has told her, maybe she will leave him alone. But the old woman persists and asks how his mother died.
    “She was hit by a truck.”
    “How old was she?”
    “Fifty-eight.”
    “She was young.”
    “Yes.” Only now does Matt realize how young his mother was.
Was
, he thinks, already he is thinking
was
. He does not tell the old woman that today was his mother’s birthday. When Trish was driving him to the airport she told him that the accident happened around two-thirty, which means his mother was fifty-eight for about fourteen-and-a-half hours. Matt asked, but Trish did not know how the accident happened.
    Matt tugs on eye shades. He cannot sleep but at least the eye shades shield his anguish and the old woman will notexpect him to talk. If only he could sleep. But he cannot sleep because as soon as he closes his eyes, regret moves in. Flowers, he did not send his mother flowers. Every year since moving West, Matt has sent his mother birthday flowers: a