Remembering Richard: a Few Recent Scenes

It had been almost exactly six years, but that never really mattered with Richard. We seemed to be able to pick up seamlessly where we had left off the last time, or at some other, earlier, moment in the three dozen years we knew one another. This time, he was masked—probably also a little slimmer and a bit greyer, but it was the masks we were all commenting on then, shaking our rueful heads at the new ways of the world. He was also beautifully dressed. It was an occasion: the launch of a friend’s lovely art book. We had invited him for tea (ugly cups promised) following the event, but suggested that if he wanted to bale early we would be happy to have a pre-tea visit. He said he was terrible with directions (something I had never known) but that he thought he could remember the name of our street. “Queen,” he said, and I could easily picture the grin beneath the mask. Of course, he didn’t arrive early; he stayed to help wrap things up after the launch (that was Richard). We shared a pot of lapsang souchong, poured frequently into silly cups balanced precariously on silly saucers, and he ate many cucumber sandwiches. It wasn’t until we met him for lunch a month later that we learned he generally avoided gluten (that was Richard too—too polite, or too excited by the sandwiches, who knows?) When we parted, Sheila and I repeated our hope that he would come to stay sometime in the fall. He was excited about seeing what our staid little town might do for Hallowe’en.

The new ways of the world deferred the overnight visit. In the currency of corona, it was exchanged for a physically-distanced lunch at a restaurant in Fredericton. Richard had arrived early but wandered around outside so as to arrive exactly at the appointed hour. The mask he had bought at The Dollar Store (having forgotten his) was the only cheap-looking thing about him. We gossiped and ate, and Richard flirted with the young guy who was our server, who loved him instantly (that was Richard). Ears would have been burning, no doubt, and lots of institutions and media should have been edified by the suggestions we came up with. He was working on a project he thought Sheila and I might want to collaborate on. It sounded brilliant (that was always Richard) and we felt loved to be included (he meant that too). We exchanged woes over how we sometimes felt as though we might have become irrelevant old guys (he never was!) and fretted about the future of the world in general and the arts in particular. The lunch lasted several hours that flew by. We hugged (masked) goodbye outside the restaurant and watched Richard climb onto a bicycle borrowed from a friend (I had not imagined him ever riding a bike).

We said we would do lunch again soon. We knew we would, and that we would pick up seamlessly where we had left off. Because that was Richard.