In The Wake

C Major. The dead man heard the piano chord at Hamburg Airport and had installed it as the doorbell.  A normal buzzer or ding-dong would be out of place among the Garry oak, red arbutus, and twisted pines along the shore.  When the windows are open to the seafront terrace, the ozone from the ocean mixes with the scent of the woods and fingers its way through the house like a loping piano sonata.  If nobody is looking, the raccoons follow the same path so it is one of Thomas’s jobs to keep them at bay.   Like a sword-fighting cavalier, he drives the light-fingered bandits out of the dining room with a broom and a cattle prod, hoping to zap one on the rear end and send a warning to its den.  “Pass that onto your family” he says if he connects with a good poke.

The big windows that look across the water to San Juan Island, are not visible from the front entrance of the house. When visitors come in the front door, they are stunned by the panoramic sea view through the windows.  The driveway to the house is a steep and narrow road that slashes across the face of a cliff.  Once on the flat, the entry road bisects a parterre garden with a few good sized plane trees in a recreation of a French village square.  When the owner of the property passed away a week ago, the top leaves of the trees had just turned yellow with the first pass of crisp fall weather.  Close to the house, the drive widens into a concrete apron in front of a triple garage.  The intersecting horizontal boxes of the house are spread across the oceanfront land that is barely outside the city limits, where human cousins of the robber raccoons prowl the streets.  The owner’s cars are locked out of sight when not in use.

The doorbell rings once for each time the button is pressed, so by the time Thomas gets there, the chord has chimed twice. The double-sized, oak and brushed-steel door opens effortlessly on its precisely balanced hinges.  A woman with a birds-nest of black lace coiled on top of her frizzy brown hair, face in profile, stands under the portico.  With both hands, she holds a shiny patent handbag in front of her.  The seams of her black satin cocktail dress strain to hold in the cargo on her hips, while the top is so big that her skinny torso hardly touches the material, as if she has shrunk inside a black body-cast.  As she speaks, on hand give a reassuring pat to the double strand of pearls that loop across her age-freckled chest.  The pearls were a gift from the dead man, but no amount of jeweled diplomacy or French perfume can cover up the whiff of camphor from the dress.   Behind her, a portly man with a florid face has stepped back to check out the front of the house like he is a burglar casing the joint for a reachable upstairs window. Although it is an autumn afternoon, the man is not wearing a jacket because his extra weight keeps him on the verge of perspiration when everyone else is cold.  The buttonholes of his white shirt strain across his belly, and he is wearing a wide necktie in the clan tartan of the dead man. He has no ancestral claim on the tie and has chosen flattery over taste.  The woman is startled when she notices the heavy door yawn open because she has been telling her husband he looks like a used car salesman.  

“I’m sorry,'' she says when the door opens. “I thought we might have the wrong day.” 

“Not at all,” Thomas says. “But it wasn’t necessary to wear widow’s weeds ma’m.  This is a wake.  He didn’t want a funeral.”

“I’m so sorry,” the woman’s free hand goes up to her pearls again.  “Bryce can drive me home to change.”

“Nonsense,” Thomas says.  “It’s a small thing.  I’m sure you won’t be the only one.  I should have been more specific on the invitation.”

The robust husband steps up to his wife’s side. “What’s all this?” he asks in a voice too loud for the occasion.   

“Just details dear,” his wife says.  “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“So we’re good then?” the husband asks.  “Not a lot of cars,” he adds in a doubtful tone as if to suggest the event is already a flop.  The couple’s freshly washed red Toyota is the only car in front of the house.    

“Please.  Come in,” Thomas says.  “The others will be along shortly.” Thomas’ full name is Glynn Thomas.  People who know that, assume he prefers his surname because Glynn is too much like Lynn, a girl's name, not suited to such a man’s man.  Another camp suggests it is from his military background, but Thomas has never given a definitive answer.  He is somewhere in his thirties, and lean without being thin.  His thick brown locks touch his collar and are long enough to show natural waves that so far don’t have a strand of grey.  The same is true of his shoe-polish-brown mustache that has a dewy shine to it.  He had originally been hired to look after the garden, then the house in his boss’s absences, but during his time there, he had worked his way up to more personal duties, like chauffeur, valet, and butler.  Rumour has it that there is more to the arrangement, but the boss never made anything official. 

On his short legs, Bryce pushes past his wife into the cool hallway with its islands of Persian rugs on an expanse of polished slate tiles.  He rubs his hands together like he is expecting Thanksgiving dinner, but that was finished a few weeks ago. Like most of the guests he has been at the house before, but only for the occasional reception and not as an individual visitor.  Bryce and the deceased had worked in the same travel agency when they were young, before the dead man won the lottery.  The lucky man was happy to meet up with his old acquaintances in restaurants and treat them to extravagant meals, but he never invited them home for lunch or dinner.  He was a confirmed bachelor who didn’t like to have his existence disturbed by the unexpected, so when there were get-togethers at the house, they were organized, catered affairs.

“So what’s on the drink menu today my man?”  Bryce asks as he shakes Thomas's hand.  His other arm reaches up for Thomas's shoulder, but Thomas lifts it off like it is a bothersome branch.  Bryce and the deceased had shared a love of exotic cocktails, and delighted in testing restaurant barmen to make a Jaded Countess here, a Black Manhattan there, or a perfect Caipirinha.

“He forgets his manners sometimes.” Melissa holds out her hand so Thomas can walk her across the threshold.  With a hiss of air, the wide heavy door swings softly shut behind them. 

“This way.” Thomas walks ahead of them, dressed in his usual bronze corduroy trousers, a satin-backed Harris tweed waistcoat, a snowy white shirt with the sleeves rolled almost to the elbows, and for the occasion, a gold brocade tie.  His boss was an impeccable dresser so beside him Thomas looked like a country lad.  Though he usually wore a more serviceable necktie, Thomas always dressed the same, whether he was clearing leaves from the roof, pruning hedges, sweeping the patios, or mixing his boss a drink.  He didn’t do housework, laundry, or cooking.  Day ladies came in to do that.

“What’s the point of having good manners at a wake?” Bryce whispers to his wife. “It’s a party, old woman. Lighten up.”

“Please don’t drink too much dear.  You know how you get. Lampshades and all.  Really.”

“Do you like them?” Thomas stretches out his arm toward the groups of Bauhaus furniture in the high-ceilinged room below.  “Black Dupioni silk.”

The new arrivals follow Thomas down a wide set of cantilevered stairs to the ground-floor room with its wall of sea-facing windows. For the house of someone who has traveled the world, there aren’t any souvenirs.  The architect didn’t design the house for knick-knacks, so the pale oak walls and sandstone fireplace have only a grand piano, groups of leather furniture, and the subdued floor lamps to fill out the large space. Thomas installs himself behind the bar at the back of the room like it is his habitual spot, and Bryce props his elbows on the polished mahogany like he is a regular customer.

“Got one in mind for the occasion?” he asks.

“I thought perhaps a Dirty Martini for you to start, Sir.” Thomas answers. 

“Make it a double,” Bryce says  “Got a thirst on.”

Melissa stands a few paces back from the bar, holding her patent handbag, her expression more appropriate to a graveside ceremony, but she is too late for that.  The deceased has already been cremated.  

Thomas gets busy with the bottles and a shaker, but while he is rattling the Martini with ice, he asks, “Ma’m?  How does the afternoon strike you?”

“I don’t really know,” she says.  “Cocktails remind me of him,” she adds, though it wasn't clear if she meant the deceased or her husband.   

“A glass of wine perhaps?” Thomas asks.  

Melissa looks slightly interested though her face is as pale as her pearls.  

“White or red?”

“Oh.  I really don’t know.  What do you suggest?  I’m sure you know better than I do.”  

Thomas pours Bryce’s cocktail into a glass exactly the right size for the drink and sets it down on a black monogrammed cardboard coaster.  “Food will be served when a few more of the guests arrive,” he says, “so I suggest a chardonnay to stimulate the appetite.”

There must have been a bottle open in the fridge because the wine appears in a long stem glass that is pushed toward her across the bar, without evidence of him uncorking anything.  The chord of the door chime sounds again.

“My apologies,” he says.  “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I wish you’d worn a jacket,” Melissa says to her husband.  “You look shabby next to Mister Thomas and he’s the help.”

“What help?  I don’t see him running around wiping anyone’s ass?”

“Please,” Melissa says.  “Don't be so vulgar.”

“Ha!” Bryce smirks. “A bird told me you like things dirty and vulgar.”

“Shhh.”  Melissa puts a finger to her mouth.  “People are coming.”

“Good,” her husband says. “Maybe it's someone who’s not afraid of her own shadow.”

Thomas leads another couple down the stairs and mixes drinks for them, but he is no sooner finished when the door sounds again and he has to rush up to escort in a small group.  Bryce is pushed to the end of the short curved bar by the new arrivals.  As the doorbell continues to insist with its single impatient chord, calling out for a progression, a young man dressed like a waiter takes over the mixing duties. 

Melissa has taken her wine over to the panoramic window and stands with her back to the room.  She might be crying for all anyone knows so they leave her alone with her teary thoughts.  Above the subdued chatter and clinking of ice in crystal glasses, she hears her husband’s voice call out. “Graham!  Graham!  Over here.” 

Bryce and Melissa know Jo and Graham from less tragic occasions. The couples met and worked with the deceased at different phases of his life, but although they knew each other, they weren't close friends. 

Jo is a head taller than most of the guests, so she has no trouble spotting Melissa on her own by the window.  Graham is sent for drinks, while Jo smiles and squeezes her way through the crowd to give Melissa a polite hug. “How are you darlin?” she asks.  

“It’s such a shock,” Melissa says, and the full glass trembles in her hand.

“I’ll say.  Who’d believe a thing like that could happen?”

“I don’t understand what he was doing out there.” Melissa frets like the tragedy is her fault.    

“He liked planes,” Jo says. “Watching them take off and land.  It was an obsession.  After the thrombosis he couldn’t risk flying anymore.”

“Wasn’t Thomas there with him?”

“Apparently, but the plane wheel came down just at the right angle and caught the crown of his head.  It missed Thomas completely.  Really bad luck!”

“So sad.” Melissa’s eyes well up.

“He wouldn’t want you to cry.  He’s probably up there laughing at us.”

“I can’t help it.  I’ll miss him.”

“Wine isn’t going to make it better,” Jo says.  Her extensive experience with alcohol made her a more qualified judge than Melissa.  “You sure you don’t want something stronger?  I could use my rum about now,” she says, craning her long neck to locate her husband.  

Melissa turns away to gaze absently out to sea like she can travel backwards in time and notice the wheel come off the private jet.  As it arcs toward the two men walking, she shouts and they stop.  The wheel bounces in front of them and flies across the road to disappear in a blackberry patch.    

Graham has extracted himself from the knot of people at the bar and with a raised drink in each hand, comes over the last place he had seen his wife.  Melissa tells him that Jo and Bryce have gone off in search of Thomas to ask about food.

“You seem to be taking this very hard,” he says as they stand face to face, glasses in hand almost touching. 

“He was Bryce’s friend since forever,” Melissa says.  “He bailed us out when our first few businesses went under.”

“He was a generous man,” Graham says.  “We’d never have managed to buy our first house if he hadn’t helped.  Jo figures there’s a lot more left in the pot.”

Melissa sways on her feet like the single sip of wine she drank makes her dizzy.  Graham puts down the drinks he still has in hand on an end table and reaches out to steady her.  She leans toward him as if she wants to put her head on his shoulder, but she catches herself.   

“I’m sorry,” she says and stands up straight again.  “I really don’t drink, you know," she says. "Bryce makes up for both of us.” She turns to look past the dining room, at the restaurant-style swinging doors that lead to the kitchen.  “I need some air,” she says, and sets down her barely touched glass beside Graham’s.  The sliding doors to the front patio are closed because it is an autumn day and a chilly wind is blowing across the water from the snow-capped Coast Range.  She struggles to open one of the doors but when a frigid wind blows up in her face she quickly closes it again.  Graham has stepped up to her side to help, but she has already changed her mind.  “I’ve got to run up to the car for something,” she says and hurries up the wide staircase like Cinderella fleeing the ball.  She keeps one hand on the banister so the open-fronted steps don’t confound her and make her lose her balance.    

When Bryce and Jo push open the kitchen doors, they are immediately shooed out by Thomas.  

“The buffet is a secret,” he says.  

“The bar snacks are gone buddy,” Bryce tells him.  “We’re hungry.”

“I’m sorry Sir,” Thomas says.  “As you can see,” and he steps aside to let two waiters with platters of canapes sweep past him, “we were expecting you.”  Thomas bows his way back into the kitchen with the edges of a smirk behind his mustache.  

Eschewing the canapes, Jo and Bryce duck round a corner and find themselves in a wing of the house where guests don’t usually wander.  Jo leads the way, her arms held up and out to the sides like she is leading a squad of newbies through a booby-trapped corridor. “The bedrooms are down here,” she whispers.  Jo has spent twenty years practicing various martial arts and has a lot of belts and medals to show for it.  Nobody was surprised when the deceased chose her to be the manager of one of his first companies.   In the early days she ran the place like a general with a point to prove, though after a few years it was whispered that she had a vodka problem and sometimes beat her husband.

“Look at this!” Jo opens the door to a vast bedroom with islands of Persian rugs stacked three deep on the red jarrah-wood floor.  Two of the bedroom’s walls were windows that opened onto a second terrace not visible from the front room. 

Bryce hustles past Jo like she is the doorman at a fancy hotel.  “Too bright,” he says.  “I couldn’t sleep here.  There must be shades here somewhere.”  He finds a control panel just inside the door and pushes buttons that make lights go on and off, until he hits one that makes the windows turn magically dark. Another button turns on a bedside lamp, so he walks over to the bed and sits down, bouncing on it to check for comfort.  Jo disappears into the ensuite bathroom.  

“What a setup,” Bryce calls out as he peers into the dark edges of the room.  “It’s just missing a good woman.”

The bathroom light clicks out, leaving Bryce silhouetted against the bedside lamp.   

“Already tried that,” Jo says as she emerges from the deep dark of the bathroom door.  “He didn’t go for it.”

“You tried to have it off with him?  He never told me, and I think he would have.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she says.  “Any idea how much this house is worth?”

Ignoring her question, Bryce pats the bed beside him.  “I wouldn’t turn you down sweetie,” he says, sounding like a daddy offering the world to a disillusioned beauty. 

There is a snort and belly laugh from Jo. “You’d be tits up before I was halfway done with you.”

“Try me.” Bryce stands up to face her like a little Napoleon ready to engage.

“Pathetic,” she says, and walks over to the control panel by the bedroom door to make the window panels transparent again.  With a confident index finger she pokes another button and the bedside light blinks out, leaving her red-faced suitor alone in the daylight with his problems.    

As she strides ahead of him down the corridor to rejoin the guests, with what breath he has left, he asks her, “How much is it worth then?”

“A small fortune,” she says without looking back.  

Graham is standing by himself in front of the living-room windows when Jo and Bryce return. He avoids eye contact with his wife, but says to Bryce,“She went out for some air.”  His long pale fingers gesture toward the stairs like they are the paws of a Siamese cat tempted by the open door of a birdcage.    

“Thanks, buddy,” Bryce nods and beats the shortest path to the bar for a fresh drink.

Melissa slips out the heavy front door and stops under the portico.  What was an empty parking area when she arrived, is now as tightly packed as a supermarket lot the day before a holiday. She sets her eyes on a bench under a plane tree and starts across the car-park toward it.  When she hears the squawk of late Canada geese flying high overhead she looks up and notices a tall elegant woman descending the stairs beside the steep driveway.  

The woman must have seen her too because she waves.  Melissa waves back, but then notices the woman is making a pawing motion with one of her hands, a gesture that could mean she is beckoning Melissa or sending her away.  

“Hello!” the woman calls.  She is almost at the bottom step.

Melissa waves back to be polite, though she has never seen the woman before.  She might be one of the serving staff who has arrived late for the party, but given her cashmere shawl, long pencil skirt, and soft leather boots, it was not likely.  

“The taxi man would not take me down the road.” the woman says.  “Too steep. No room to turn. A big city driver.”

At closer range, the woman’s turquoise and silver earrings flash at the sides of her expensive haircut, picking up their own colour among the many blues of her irises.

“Isolde,” she says, and extends her hand to Melissa.  “I think by the cars and the black dress, I must be in the right place.”

“If you’re here for the wake, yes,” Melissa says. 

“I’m here for the funeral.”  Isolde sounds uncertain.  “Is that not right?”

“There was no funeral,” Melissa says.  “He didn’t want one.  A wake is a sort of party.”

“Ah,” Isolde says.  “Eine Totenwache. It is okay then.”

“Did you know him well?” Melissa asks.

“We met a long time ago,” she sighs.  “In another country.  I needed to come here anyway because my son is at the University.  I had an invitation from Mr. Thomas.”

“We’ll ring the doorbell together, and you can meet him,” Melissa says.

“Yes, I have heard of this man.  Our friend told me all about him.”

When Thomas opens the door, his face is flushed like he has run all the way, but he doesn’t explain his breathlessness.   He bows to the ladies and puts a hand out to the new arrival.  

“Isolde,” she says, shaking his hand vigorously as if he is a sales contact with whom she hopes to do business.  “You have heard of me?” she asks.

“Of course, of course.  Do come in.  You’re right on time for the buffet.”

“We Germans are good at that,” she chuckles at her own joke as if to show she is sophisticated enough to make fun of herself. 

“Did you find a spot?” Thomas looks past her to the full parking area as if expecting a chauffeured Mercedes that needs directions.  Normally that would have been his responsibility but today he is the host.

“Taxi,” Isolde says. “My son is coming by to pick me up.”

“I'm sure everyone will be delighted to meet him,” Thomas says as he takes the new arrival’s arm to guide her down the staircase.  Melissa brings up the rear as often happens when her husband finds someone else’s ear to bend with his outlandish schemes.

Thomas escorts Isolde to the coat check to leave her shawl and then to the bar where he personally mixes her a drink.  There are glances and nods between guests who notice that Thomas is treating this woman like a VIP, while they have no idea who she is.  

Like fast forward on a surveillance camera, knots of people come together and split apart like ants touching antennae and going about their strange business.  There is a blur of traffic to the bar and the buffet.  Twos, threes, and fours of people chat, eat, and drink their way through the afternoon.  Because the house faces east, the sun goes off the oceanfront patio first and the sea takes on a deep rich blue with skitters of sparkling waves that ruffle the surface.  The first guests drift off and the parking lot begins to clear.  Bryce and Melissa, Jo and Graham, as self appointed loyal friends of the deceased, ignore the general drift to the exit, as if waiting for an official declaration to end the party. 

Thomas returns from seeing off the last of the extraneous guests and at the bar, as he clears away the perishable drink ingredients, he signals for Isolde to come over for a word  Jo leans toward her husband and the other couple, and asks in a low, almost masculine voice, “Anybody heard anything about a will?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he left it to charity,” Bryce says a little too loudly.  Melissa gives him a nudge and a frown.  

“Me either,” Jo says.  “Probably some damn hospice for cats. Dirty animals!” 

“He had a soft spot for homeless people,” Melissa says.  The three of them turn on her like she has suggested revolution.  

“Jesus!” Jo says. “Anything except that.  If it was me….”  She doesn’t finish her thought because the door chime interrupts.  The two couples are silent as they watch Thomas rush up the stairs and stumble near the top, but catch himself.  Isolde comes over to join the group.

“That’s probably my son to pick me up,” she says.  “He is always in a hurry so I will say goodbye now.”  She shakes hands with all of them except Melissa, who tries to go in for a hug, which Isolde discreetly side-steps. “Our poor friend was fortunate to have such fascinating people as you to look out for him.”  

Thomas reappears at the top of the stairs with a tall young man who is dressed all in denim, a look that his father favoured when he was young.  The two couples stare up in silence as they watch the young man come down the stairs with Thomas.  It isn’t that he is ugly or ungainly, quite the contrary, he looks so much like his father that he could be a twin come alive after twenty years of hibernation.  The stunned silence is broken by Isolde.  

“I was only the incubator as you see.  He is like his father, no?” 

There are nods from everyone, who shoot questioning glances at each other.  Isolde walks over to her son, hugs him tightly, and then drags him over, obviously against his will, to meet the friends.  He dutifully shakes hands with them like he is the groom at his wedding who can’t wait to be done. Except for a few words like “It’s a pleasure,” that he mutters before he passes on to the next person, his manner is kind but distant.   

Isolde waves goodbye to the couples as she climbs the stairs behind Thomas and her son.  She turns to wave again from the top of the steps, flicks the corner of her cashmere shawl over her shoulder like she is the queen mother spiriting away the young prince.

“Did you know about him?” Bryce asks.  

“Not a word. Nothing,” his wife answers.

“What difference does it make?” Melissa asks.  

“Don’t you get it?” Jo hisses at Melissa like is the younger, slower, sister.   “Where do you think the money’s going?”

“Straight into golden boy’s pocket,” Graham says and several heads turn, surprised by his forthrightness, though they know he is probably right.  

When Thomas comes back down to the living room, the two couples are bunched together like a pack of dogs waiting for the right time to attack. 

“Now that you have met the principal heir,” Thomas says before anyone can ask questions, “You are probably interested in the distribution of the estate.  Although my employer considered you valuable friends, I’m afraid that he has indicated he has helped you all generously over the last years, and hopes that you will remember him more as a friend than a bank.”

“What about the house?” Bryce asks.  Some of the red had drained from his face at the news.    

“Our friend has left me with a suitable stipend and full title to the house.  I’m sorry if you are not happy with the outcome.  The decision was out of my hands.”

Jo’s eyes narrow like a mother who suspects her child is lying.  “Nothing?” she asks.  “What about the German woman, the mother?”

“Oh she’ll be fine.  She went on to marry the owner of a shipping line and has another family with him.  Our friend’s son grew up with her in Germany but decided to go to university here and get to know his father.  They had never met until a few years ago though he always knew of his son’s existence.”

“Sounds fishy to me,” Bryce says.    

“Asshole,” Jo blurts out. The others look at her and are tight-lipped, unsure if she means Bryce, Thomas, the deceased, or his son. 

 “Interloper. Arriviste!” Graham says to clarify his wife’s intentions.  His drink almost slops out of his glass when he strikes the dramatic pose of a musketeer about to shoot, though he is not pointing at anyone.  

“Any concerns are to be directed to his lawyer,” Thomas says, sounding offended.

“Oh I’ve got questions all right,” Jo says, tilting her defiant chin at the houseman as if she could bully him into having things her way.

“The parking lot will be almost empty by now,” Thomas says calmly. “I'm sure you can find your own way out.  Do give my regards to your families.”

As the rest of the group stomp up the stairs, Melissa hangs back to thank Thomas for his hospitality.   “You must have been very close,” she says.  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s all right,” Thomas says.  “I’m luckier than most.”  He walks Melissa up the stairs and closes the door behind her before she can see how luminous his eyes have become.  There are staff and leftovers to deal with before he has time for a proper breakdown.