The bake-sale table had an awning over it, and tea towels or pieces of waxed paper shielding the goods from flies. Reenie had contributed pies, not a form of baking she ever truly mastered. Her pies had gluey, underdone fillings, and crusts that were tough but flexible, like beige kelp or huge leathery mushrooms. In better times they sold well enough—it was understood that they were ceremonial objects, not food as such—but they weren’t moving briskly today. Money was in short supply, and in exchange for it people wanted something they could actually eat.

As I stood behind the table, Reenie in an undertone retailed the latest news. Four men had been thrown into the river already, with the sky still blazing white, and not altogether in fun. There had been arguments, having to do with politics, said Reenie; voices had been raised. Apart from the usual river shenanigans, there had been scuffles. Elwood Murray had been knocked down. He was the editor of the weekly paper, having inherited it from two generations of newspaper Murrays: he wrote most of it, and took the pictures for it as well. Luckily he hadn’t been ducked, as that would have damaged his camera, which had cost a good deal of money even second-hand, as Reenie happened to know. He had a nosebleed, and was sitting under a tree with a glass of lemonade and two women fussing around him with dampened handkerchiefs; I could see him from where I was standing.

Was it political, this knocking-down? Reenie didn’t know, but people didn’t like him listening in on what they were saying. In prosperous times Elwood Murray was considered a fool, and maybe what Reenie called a pansy—well, he wasn’t married, and at his age that had to mean something—but he was tolerated and even appreciated, within decent limits, as long as he put in all the names for social events and got them spelled right. But these were not prosperous times, and Elwood Murray was too nosy for his own good. You don’t want every little thing about you written up, said Reenie. Nobody in their right mind would want that.

I caught sight of Father, walking among the picnicking workers with his lopsided gait. He was nodding in his abrupt way at this man and that, a nod in which his head appeared to move back on his neck rather than forward. His black eye-patch turned from side to side; from a distance it looked like a hole in his head. His moustache curved like a single dark sideways tusk above his mouth, which clenched now and then into something he must have intended for a smile. His hands were hidden in his pockets.

Beside him was a younger man, a little taller than Father, though unlike Father he had no rumples, no angles. Sleek was the word you thought of. He was wearing a natty Panama and a linen suit that appeared to emit light, it was so fresh and clean. He was very obviously from out of town.

“Who’s that with Father?” I said to Reenie.

Reenie looked without appearing to look, then gave a short laugh. “That’s Mr. Royal Classic, in the flesh. He certainly has the nerve.”

“I thought it must be him,” I said.

Mr. Royal Classic was Richard Griffen, of Royal Classic Knitwear in Toronto. Our workers—Father’s workers—referred to it derisively as Royal Classic Shitwear, because Mr. Griffen was not only Father’s chief competitor, he was also an adversary of sorts. He’d attacked Father in the press for being too soft on the unemployed, on Relief, and on pinkos generally. Also on unions, which was gratuitous because Port Ticonderoga did not have any unions in it and Father’s dim views on them were no secret. But now for some reason, Father had invited Richard Griffen to dinner at Avilion, following the picnic, and on very short notice as well. Only four days.

Reenie felt Mr. Griffen had been sprung on her. As everyone knew, you had to put on a better show for your enemies than for your friends, and four days was not long enough for her to prepare for such an event, especially considering that there hadn’t been any of what you’d call fine dining at Avilion since the days of Grandmother Adelia. True, Callie Fitzsimmons sometimes brought friends for the weekend, but that was different, because they were only artists and should be grateful for whatever they were given. They would sometimes be found in the kitchen at night, raiding the pantry, making their own sandwiches out of leftovers. The bottomless pits, Reenie called them.

“He’s new money, anyhow,” said Reenie scornfully, surveying Richard Griffen. “Look at the fancy pants.” She was unforgiving of anyone who criticized Father (anyone, that is, except herself), and scornful of those who rose in the world and then acted above their level, or what she considered their level; and it was a known fact that the Griffens were common as dirt, or at least their grandfather was. He’d got hold of his business through cheating the Jews, said Reenie in an ambiguous tone—was this something of a feat, in her books?—but exactly how he had done it she couldn’t say. (In fairness, Reenie may have invented these slurs on the Griffens. She sometimes attributed to people the histories she felt they ought to have had.)

Behind Father and Mr. Griffen, walking with Callie Fitzsimmons, was a woman I assumed was Richard Griffen’s wife—youngish, thin, stylish, trailing diaphanous orange-tinted muslin like the steam from a watery tomato soup. Her picture hat was green, as were her high-heeled slingbacks and a wispy scarf affair she’d draped around her neck. She was overdressed for the picnic. As I watched, she stopped and lifted one foot and peered back over her shoulder to see if there was something stuck on her heel. I hoped there was. Still, I thought how nice it would be to have such lovely clothes, such wicked new-money clothes, instead of the virtuous, dowdy, down-at-heels garments that were our mode of necessity these days.

“Where’s Laura?” said Reenie in sudden alarm.

“I have no idea,” I said. I had gotten into the habit of snapping at Reenie, especially when she bossed me around. You’re not my mother had become my most withering riposte.

“You should know better than to let her out of your sight,” said Reenie. “ Anybody could be here.” Anybody was one of her bugbears. You never knew what intrusions, what thefts and gaffes anybody might commit.

I found Laura sitting on the grass under a tree, talking with a young man—a man, not a boy—a darkish man, with a light-coloured hat. His style was indeterminate—not a factory worker, but not anything else either, or nothing definite. No tie, but then it was a picnic. A blue shirt, a little frayed around the edges. An impromptu, a proletarian mode. A lot of young men were affecting it then—a lot of university students. In the winters they wore knitted vests, with horizontal stripes.

“Hello,” said Laura. “Where did you go off to? This is my sister Iris, this is Alex.”

“Mister…?” I said. How had Laura got on a first-name basis so quickly?

“Alex Thomas,” said the young man. He was polite but cautious. He scrambled to his feet and reached out his hand, and I took it. Then I found myself sitting down beside them. It seemed the best thing to do, in order to protect Laura.

“You’re from out of town, Mr. Thomas?”

“Yes. I’m visiting people here.” He sounded like what Reenie would call a nice young man, meaning not poor. But not rich either.

“He’s a friend of Callie’s,” said Laura. “She was just here, she introduced us. He came on the same train with her.” She was explaining a little too much.

“Did you meet Richard Griffen?” I said to Laura. “He was with Father. The one who’s coming to dinner?”

“Richard Griffen, the sweatshop tycoon?” said the young man.

“Alex—Mr. Thomas knows about ancient Egypt,” said Laura. “He was telling me about hieroglyphs.” She looked at him. I’d never seen her look at anyone else in quite the same way. Startled, dazzled? Hard to put a name to such a look.