Double Talk (14 page)

“Everyone for wine?”

“Sure thing,” says Violet's dad. “But I'll do the honours, Irish.”

“Of course!”

Violet notices that when her dad is around, Brian assumes a formality that is at odds with his usual laid-back ways. Sometimes he even calls her father “sir.” That one always makes Violet smirk. She assumes that her husband is being ironic, but over the course of the year she has begun to second guess this. She notices that his accent changes whenever he is around her parents. His voice gets plummy, and he adopts what he assumes are Canadian vowels into his speech. He also affects a more upright posture, often clasping his hands behind his back. It doesn't quite come off, Violet thinks; he looks more like Jeeves than the Lord of the Manor.

At first she thinks he is just nervous, intimidated not only by her parents but also by the affluent surroundings. Violet knows her home is a long way from the row house he grew up in on Bridgetown's Wall Road. But if he finds the juxtaposition jarring, he doesn't let it show. Violet notices that he never complains about going there for lunch and even suggests that they visit more often.

“If I didn't know better,” she says, “I would think you were developing a taste for the high life.”

An expressionless Brian tells her she is imagining things.

“Oh, really?” Violet is suddenly irritable. She tries hard to keep her tone light. “If you think I'm imagining things, just go and look in the mirror. Since when do you wear dress pants and an ironed shirt, eh? What's next, my little social climber, boat shoes and Ray-Bans?”

“Fuck off, Violet.”

Violet's father doesn't like Brian. He calls him
the poet
behind his back, the suggestion being that he is impractical and a dreamer. He also makes fun of Brian's mid-Atlantic accent and often teases him about it, which Violet finds interesting, given the broad adjustments her father has made to his own inflection.

“Say ‘bucket,' Irish,” he will suddenly demand. When Brian complies — and it always amazes Violet when he does — her father might say, “Jeez, you're sure you're not from somewhere up around Fanny Bay?”

It bothers Violet enough that she mentions it to her mother. Her mother simply says that things were different when Violet's father started out. When Violet presses the point, her mom says he had no choice. She says his accent and manners were a requirement of the social circles he moved in and that they developed after his reputation as a lawyer had won him a place in that world. “The order is crucial,” she argues. “Harold thinks Brian is putting the cart before the horse.” Violet takes from this exchange that her father thinks Brian is also something of a pretender.

And the fiasco of the website does nothing to change her father's opinion. Brian, from necessity, takes an interest in web design, a skill he develops during the day while Lucy naps and Violet is at school, and practices again at night after Lucy has gone to bed. He often sits up all hours trying to figure out kinks in the code. When Violet complains to him about sleeping alone, he says that it will all be worth it, that HTML will give him a means to make money on the side. She watches his interest grow to the point where he begins to talk about how he can make a living from web design. Technology is one of only a few subjects that Brian and her dad are comfortable talking about. For these reasons she is willing to swallow her reservations when her father asks Brian to create a website for the Law Society.

It takes Brian almost eight months of nights and weekends to complete the site which her father and most of his colleagues find nearly impossible to navigate.

“It's not my fault,” Brian says, “I developed it to the current standards. Your dad and his cronies are just too arrogant to admit their ignorance of the new medium.” Violet thinks he probably has a point. She also knows that the site ends up costing far more than her father thought it would, Brian demanding to be paid by the hour. In total, he bills the B.C. Law Society a little over $11,000, most of which — Violet suspects — comes out of her father's pocket. When she suggests to Brian that he might have overcharged for the work, he is vehement that he has not. He claims that her father is just looking for something for nothing.

Violet's Diary Axiom #763: The sense of entitlement of those who are highly paid exists in direct proportion to the size of their salaries. My dad does not think he is in any way overstating the case when he says that he has worked for everything he has achieved.

Violet's Diary Axiom #764: A common fallacy among the wealthy is that wealth and success exist in direct proportion to drive and intelligence. My dad turns a blind eye to foreign specialists who drive taxi cabs, as well as to highly educated single mothers who live in squalid apartments.

Violet can see from the very first that her father and Brian are oil and water. Her father is driven and direct, while Brian prefers to approach the world both at a walking pace and in a roundabout manner. She knows Brian is conciliatory as long as he feels he is not being asked to give up too much, though what he considers too much is something of a mystery to Violet. “It's different in every situation,” he says, “but I know it when somebody crosses the line.” Violet also thinks of her husband as being naturally self-effacing and funny. Once, crossing the border at Fort Erie, on their way back from a Rolling Stones concert in Buffalo, the Canadian Customs official looked at Brian's passport and said, “Ireland for the Irish, eh, son?”

Brian just looked at him in puzzlement and said, “I don't know who else would want it.”

Violet suspects Brian is also the victim of a good deal of prejudiced thinking. Because of his nationality, she knows a lot of people expect him to be both full of blarney and a heavy drinker — like her dad — and are disappointed when they find out he is only one of these things. And even when he has been drinking, she knows he is more likely to affect airs than lapse into some crude stereotype of Irishness. “Identity for Brian,” she once told Keppie, “is a game of mix and match. He likes to play against expectations.”

They pile food on their plates: cabbage rolls and potato salad for Lucy, duck and lamb and bacon for Violet's dad and for Brian. Her mom, sticking to her diet, arranges a small triangle of quiche, a tuft of garden salad and a glob of tabouli on her plate, making sure there is plenty of white space separating them. Violet takes a little piece of everything; it is her duty as a mother to eat, she reasons, her duty to stay healthy.

“So, Violet, how was BUS-IN-ESS school this week?” Her dad's drawl and faux-Brit intonation are back, accentuated now by a note of sarcasm. Though her father approves of her late-flowering desire to acquire a professional credential, he does not approve of her chosen career path. More than once he has asked her to explain just what is so masterful about business administration. It is clear to Violet that he considers the term a smoke-screen, a deliberate attempt to give the appearance of professionalism to an occupation he thinks to be the rightful livelihood of charlatans. “Entrepreneurs are born, not made,” he will bark, pouring freely from the rye bottle.

“It's going great, Dad. When I hand in my final two papers tomorrow, I'm done. I'll have my degree.” She tries to sound as chirpy about it as she can, tries to hide the fact — as much from herself as anyone else — that she is exhausted. Those hundreds of hours of lectures, as well as the hundreds of assignments she has completed in just one year have silted her brain. Has there ever been a drier program of study? she wonders: three-hour discussions on statistical applications in management; human resources seminars delivered by an ex-corporate big-wig, a man who made everyone think of the Manchurian Candidate; courses in financial management and accountancy, delivered by instructors who all seem to share a similar sense of bitterness at being universally regarded as bean counters. Course after course in marketing in Canadian and in world environments; taxation law; economics; and women in management, the latter delivered by a statuesque blond in Prada shoes, who began each session by cleaning the lectern and computer keypad with antiseptic wipes.

Though Violet will never agree publicly with her dad, she has to admit that her scepticism about her chosen career has grown over the year. The whole experience seems to her less about learning a set of practical skills and more about swallowing theory. The closer she gets to graduation the more pumped-up she feels, ready for anything and nothing at the same time. And then there is all the new terminology she has to learn how to use. Luckily, her friends in the program also feel the same way about the new lingo. Early on, Violet decided to take a leaf out of Keppie's book and work up a parody. It has made her a minor celebrity at the Grad Club:

“See, people, it's not rocket science to run your idea up the flagpole; though sometimes you're going to have to swallow the frog before you can push the needle. Sometimes you'll even have to shoot the puppy, so it's best to get your ducks in a row, touch base with the net-net before you make the big ask. That way you can hit the ground running, stay ahead of the curve and be ready for the next paradigm shift. The trick is to remember that the USP, the solution, is always somewhere between jumping the shark and just adding water. Forget that piece of wisdom and you'll be screwing the pooch in a boiler room, or you'll end up nothing more than a bottom-feeding desk jockey knife-and-forking it towards blue sky thinking.”

Still, parody aside, Violet knows that the facts — as borne out by the statistics — speak clearly: equipped with a newly minted MBA she can expect fast entry into the job force and a six-digit salary within the first five years. After that, she knows, the sky is the limit. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dad, she thinks.

“So, you graduate this week. Well then, congratulations are in order,” her father says through a mouth full of duck, before reaching to refill his wine glass. “When and where is convocation? And is that where those on the Dean's list will be presented with a set of gold-plated testicles?” He thumps the table, delighted by his own cleverness. Brian works hard to suppress a snigger.

Too tired to think of a snappy response, she decides to punish them with a lecture on the virtues of her chosen occupation. Being humourless about one's profession is, she reasons, one of the hallmarks of professionalism, is it not? She tells him that without good management the world as they know it would soon cease to function. She points out that business is the matrix that allowed hot-shots like him to be handsomely paid for work that in bygone days would have been considered barely a notch above clerking.

Such friendly bantering is typical of their Sunday lunches. They sit until they can eat no more, or until Lucy decides that she wants to go out into the garden. By that time, Violet's dad is usually so pickled that her mom encourages him to take a nap. Violet is anxious on this particular day, however, that neither of her parents get up from the table until she has a chance to tell them about her new plans.

“Actually, Dad, I had a phone interview yesterday for a job back in St. John's and it went pretty well. I'll know in a couple of days if they are going to fly me down for an in-person interview.”

“What's the position?” he asks.

“Operations manager for a new offshore start-up. Supply side. I'd be coming in at a high level. And the timing's great. The industry is set to explode.” Violet knows her dad has stocks in Exxon and has been following developments related to the Newfoundland offshore ever since she first moved there.

“But you can't be serious,” her mother says, her fork pecking savagely at her tabouli salad. “I thought you never wanted to go back to Newfoundland again.”

“Mom, I know I might have said that once or twice, but this is a great opportunity, plus we still have lots of friends there. Heck, all our friends are there. And the housing is so cheap. If I get this job, we will be able to buy a house almost immediately. And you know we've been talking about a little brother or a little sister for Lucy.”

“Oh, I know, dear. It's just that you will be so far away. How will we see our grandchildren?”

“You can come and visit us,” Brian says. “You can afford to travel. And besides, you had a great time when you came down for the wedding.”

“But, Brian,” her mother says, “it's not so much the cost as it's the time. Harold still puts in a lot of hours on an average week.”

“Well, he'll just have to forfeit a few rounds — of golf — at the Uplands,” Violet says, winking at him.

Her father grunts.

“Or, if he can't or
doesn't want
to come, you can come on your own.”

“I see you've already thought all this through.”

“Dot, darling, be realistic. Violet hasn't even been offered an interview yet, let alone the job.”

“But aren't there jobs closer to home?”

“There are,” Violet says, “but the competition is much tougher.”

“If it's a case of money …”

“Mom, it is a case of money.” Violet sees Brian frown into his cabbage rolls. She knows he is hypersensitive about being perceived as fiscal deadweight. She knows that the least slight to him as provider will set him dreaming up wild money-making schemes — his latest being a website development business — in which he thinks small investments of time and energy will earn him a four-figure monthly salary.