Conduct in Question

Chapter 15

Harry has a very complicated relationship with the Alton Club, a male bastion of business, political and legal affairs in the city. Women are permitted to apply for membership, but how welcome do you think they are? Watch the slideshow to see. 

Harry left the office just before five to have drinks with his friend Stephen Barrett at the club. The Alton Club was a small stone structure located at King and Bay, the pulsing center of the financial district. Its heavy wrought-iron gate, adorned with a brass coat of arms, gave discreet protection from the curious eyes of the casual passerby. Only properly identified members and their guests were admitted.

Harry nursed ambivalence toward the club. It had always been the inner sanctum of the old moneyed crowd, and it remained one of the last bastions of class and unspoken sexism. Despite his egalitarian upbringing, Harry wrote a check every year from his business account for the exorbitant fees, and shaved a tiny amount of tax from the demands of Her Majesty.

Several years ago, Harry had taken his father for lunch in the dining room of the Alton Club. By then, Dad had become a shrunken man whose shirt collar gaped. His face was mildly contorted by a recent stroke. At the retirement home, he would not let anyone shave him, and consequently, his face was patchy with whiskers.

Why the Alton Club? Harry knew he could not impress his father. Besides, what man at his agSave & Publishe still sought his father’s approval? He could only try to make up for the lost years between them.

Dad sat in silence with his scotch, seeming to drift off into his other world. Harry reflected, with sadness, that watching senility creep over his father was like seeing lights turned off in a house one by one. Then, surprisingly, a light would snap on again and burn for a moment or an hour, until it flickered into darkness.

Their lunch was interrupted.

“Harry?” Harry lowered his menu as Jonathan Conroy approached the table. “Good to see you!” Conroy clapped him on the back. Ever since Harry had bailed him out of a professionally tight spot on a real-estate deal, he had been quite friendly. There could be no other reason. He was small potatoes next to a firm with a “Grand Corridor.”

Harry rose and introduced his father.

“You must be very proud of your son, sir.” Jonathan shook the old man’s hand. “Were you a lawyer yourself?”

Stanley rose with only slight difficulty. “No, sir, I was a teacher.” Harry was pleased: his father spoke with strength and confidence.

“Oh, that’s grand! Which university?”

Stanley simply shook his head and smiled.

“Then at one of the boys’ schools?”

“No, Mr. Conroy. I taught grade five at Dalton Public School downtown to forty children. I started in the Depression.” Stanley paused and glanced around the paneled dining room of the Alton Club before continuing, “Those days, no one had a thing.”

Harry knew the rest of the story, but could think of no way to divert his father.

“I saw little children crying each day in class because they were starving, Mr. Conroy.” Stanley Jenkin’s voice choked with memory. “They smelled. Some had no running water, you see. They had no warm clothes.” Stanley held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I could not understand why they had to suffer so, when a privileged few had so much.”

The old man had begun to weep openly. Conroy was stricken with embarrassment. Harry patted his father’s shoulder and eased him back into his seat. A waiter filled the water glasses. Conroy recovered. Hastily, he shook Harry’s hand and bowed his way from the table.