NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
“Here are various parts of Derwent’s life.”
“A party of them Artie!”
“And a lot of people I don’t know.”
“Fred, I’ve never even seen many of them before.”
“A difficult time for grieving during the holiday Daisie.”
“Rosie’s tweet said this is a celebration!”
“Oh … of his life … yes Daisie let’s celebrate!
“Artie, who for instance is that guy by the Christmas tree?”
“Don’t know Fred … I think that’s Sherman Shrowd next to him.”
“Hi, Lark.”
“Artie, Fred, Daisie, are we to be happy that we are sad at this party, or sad that we are happy?”
“Is that a riddle Lark? How can you be happy that you are sad?”
“Well, brutally speaking, you might be happy to be alive yourself and sad that Derwent isn’t.”
“Lark that is horrible!”
“Sorry Daisie, we have lost Derwent, and I feel the loss. I am sad about that.”
“Funny, I’ll miss his rudeness …”
“Lark, talking to him was like getting rubbed with coarse sandpaper.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation. I liked Derwent. Coarse sandpaper has its uses.”
“Yeah, abrasive!”
“You said it Artie, but always interesting … who the hell is that? …. anyway, Happy Holiday.”
“It’s okay Lark, you can wish me a Merry Christmas.”
“I like to be multicultural Artie. Besides I don’t think Derwent was Christian.”
“I believe he was an atheist.”
“He always had a tree though Fred.”
“How Christian is that, or Santa Claus for that matter?”
“It was for Rosie as a little kid.”
“We would be better off with out these myths Daisy. That’s what Derwent might have said.”
“Lark, myths are an important part of life.”
“Well, the fact is Santa doesn’t exist!”
“You know Derwent used to be Santa down at the preschool.”
“Daisie, are you kidding?”
“His act bought Santa into existence.”
“Oh come on Artie! How many Santas are there anyway?”
“No, I mean it.”
“You aren’t going to tell me these Santas, Derwent and all the others ride, in across the night sky from the North Pole on a fleet of sleighs are you?”
“No no no, Santa has no ground control or radar. It would be a disaster! No seriously, I am only saying Santa exists, not that all the stories about him are literally true.”
“Okay, so we have a real person who’s story is a lie!”
“No it‘s a mythical person, not a lie. There’s a difference between telling myths and telling lies.”
“Yeah, telling, repeating a myth can be an affirmation Lark.”
“That’s religion Artie.”
“It can also be poetry.”
“Well Artie, Father Christmas pulls it all together through his name and posing by well decorated trees for advertizing photos.”
“You mean ‘Father’ as in God the Father?”
“Yeah I am stretching the myth Lark … look there’s Edie Carnap with Olga Hahn.”
“So what’s Derwent’s connection there?”
“Fred he was on the board when we hired the Women’s Wells Cooperative to replace the mains on Wicket Street.”
“That’s before my time.”
“Oh! way before, Fred, in the eighties.”
Daisie sports a silky lemon yellow scarf around her neck falling down her back and front. She also has a new bowler hat on, a dense immaculate black with what looks like a yellow post-it in the band. We are standing in Derwent’s living room. There is a table set out in front of the living room fireplace spread with platters of food, the ceiling fan is on low agitating, tinsel decorating the mantelpiece. An ancient looking gold mantel clock has stopped at six o’clock. Theophilus Gladstone is sitting next to Daisie in an armchair. The chair is so low, the table comes up to his armpits. He rests asleep, his head on his arm outstretched across the table. He is one of Daisie’s ancient Canadian uncles, invited to give a lecture at P.U. He looks up.
“Have some wine.”
“Theo, there is no wine, only punch.”
He puts his head down again close to the punch bowl. Lark helped herself to a glass of the cranberry drink. She holds up the ladle.
“Any one for a red refill?”
I haven’t been in this room since Derwent and I first met here and he complained about the massive Tripp house backing on to his lot. Rosalba’s son Serge looks taller. He is standing beyond the doorway in the hall looking solemn talking to Rank Majors.
“Rosie, sorry about your Father.”
“Thank you Fred, so glad you could come on a tweet!”
“Glad to be here Rosie. This is my first tweeted invitation.”
“Fred, the bird is the simplest way to get the word out, and fast too.”
“I got it second hand really, thanks to Lou.”
“Rosie it looks like Derwent’s clock has stopped at 6 o’clock.”
“Yes now he can’t wind it, and I don’t dare touch it. So it is perpetually six in here.”
“As 6 was on your invitational tweet, that clock makes every one on time!”
“Daisie, we can party for ever.”
“How can we tell Lark, the hands are still?”
“We can watch the punch bowl empty out. Here Daisie have some more.”
“More wine!”
“Theo, this is punch.”
Theo dropped off again. His comb-over has flopped out, hinged along the side of his drooping head like the hood of a car, revealing his pate.
“Say Rosie, was your Dad Christian or what?”
“Lark, I don’t think he was anything.”
“Not an atheist then?”
“I have never heard him say anything like that Artie, but he never announced that he was anything around me. He sort of found his own Divinity I think, in his work.”
Lou comes up with a tray of drinks from the kitchen. Seeing we all have punch, he puts the glasses on the table and holds the tray by his side.
“We are going to toast Derwent in as soon as Mr. Ramsay gets here.”
“Where is he?”
“Daisie, I just called him. He was killing time down at the gas station, waiting for a delivery. He is on the way.”
“Looks like time has caught up with him anyway!”
“I am getting out of here folks.”
“Daisie you don’t have to leave just because of him.”
“Bye bye …”
Lark grabs Daisie’s arm. Linked arm in arm they squeeze through the crowd, one behind the other, towards the door. Lou’s stage whisper to Lark is to try and keep her here.
Artie waves goodbye.
“Derwent was always asking skeptical questions as I remember.”
“Lou, he had no time for cant that’s for sure.”
Rosie takes the tray from Lou and disappears among the guests.
“Yeah, he was outspoken alright Lou. He told me at my first opening that he knew I could paint but couldn’t understand why there was no evidence of it in my show.”
“How did he know?”
“I guess he may have liked something I had put in a faculty show over at P.U. back in the nineties.”
Mrs. Shrowd comes up beside Artie and grips her wrist in her long thin hand with fingers like bejeweled talons tipped in glossy red.
“Let’s talk.”
She pulls Artie aside. Diddly brings Daisie back with Lark.
“Daisie you can’t leave just as I arrive!”
Lark and Daisie each have an arm and Daisy is no longer resisting. Lark points out that she can’t leave Theophilus asleep at the table. Rank Majors is now talking to the man by the Christmas tree. Lark tells Diddlie to take over Daisie’s arm. She acquiesces with a sigh and Lark goes over to introduce herself. She soon comes back towards the punch bowl where I am standing with Daisie, Lou, sleepy Theophilus, and Diddlie, newly arrived.
“That guy is Santa, Daisie!”
“Lark he’s going to need about fifty additional pounds and a white beard to convince me.”
“Actually he wasn’t very forthcoming.”
“So what’s his name Lark?”
“Oh, ahhh … I have forgotten …I can never remember people’s names when first introduced.”
“Could it have been Kris Kringle?”
“Diddlie, what gifts did he bring?”
“Maybe he brought us Rosie’s memorial celebration for Derwent.”
“Ask Rosie, here she is, back already.”
“Ask me what Daisie?”
“Who’s that guy … wait a minute. Where’s he gone?”
“That’s how it is with mythical beings Lark.”
“Daisie that was a real person.”
“Who?”
“The guy we can’t find now Didd.”
