Dinner

Part IV: Charleston at Table

Josephine Pinckney’s novel Three O’Clock Dinner is not given its proper due. Really, Ms. Pinckney as an artist is too much forgotten in Charleston. If public education were truly oriented towards making at the very least an informed citizenry, this book would be on the syllabus for high school freshmen in the school district here. And yet, it appears nowhere.

It is one of those simple, mildly thought-provoking, yet pleasing works of Southern literature from the first half of the 20^th century. There are moments of great flourish; there are earnest attempts to understand our condition; there is an enduring humor. A harsher critic might say the characters are too schematic, that the book is really a gossip column—he might even say no one would wish it longer. Its strength is capturing the upper echelons of Charleston society—of which Pinckney herself was a member—clashing against the rising lower orders during the interwar period.

It follows the Redcliffe family, amiable aristocrats in a democratic age. There are Wick and Etta Redcliff, the husband and wife who seem to shuffle along while always trying to put on their best. Their eldest son Fen passed away the year before, leaving them with a rather neurotic and perpetually glum widowed childless daughter-in-law, Judith. Yet there is a youngest son, Tat—the family name is not lost if he still remains, but Tat renounces his status, his family’s traditions. He is the New Man: for instance, among his many disruptions to bring conversation to social disorder wrought by the rich, he says he'd never go to the aid of Great Britain—this is the summer of 1939, the book having been published in 1945. On the periphery of these few there is Lucian Redcliff, the younger half-brother of Wick. He never married, preferring to expend his spirit in wastes of shame along Archdale or in pursuing taken women. He lives with his mother, Aunt Quince. All in all, a typical Charleston family, praising their ancestors, still displaying as best they can the habits and vestments of their kin.

Then there are the Hessenwinkles. The patriarch, August, is a Lutheran and a second-generation immigrant. He is the son of a baker who has made his way out of the steaming kitchen and into the bourgeois world of Business. This character and his family are likely based on the Bullwinkles, a family that once owned 133 Queen Street—what is today our own Queen Street Grocery, catercorner to where I live. To emphasize further how small the world is, a retired professor of English and dear mentor of mine lived on the same hall as the Bullwinkles’ son in 1960 at USC. Pinckney’s story is not too far-fetched. August is married to Vinny, an Irish Catholic who talks solely of how to turn a profit. She is a crook who works for the local political machine—her primary duty as an operative is to call families to see who has passed away and to cast votes on behalf of dead men, a common practice back at the time. Vinny bore nine children for August, the eldest being the buxom Lorena. She is constantly sighted around the city cavorting with men. She even at one time had a furnished apartment provided for her by a successful businessman. Lorena brings trouble wherever she goes, as beauty tends to do.

The story takes place mainly over three days—Friday to Sunday. Early on Friday, the conflict emerges: Wick receives a telegram that his youngest son Tat has run off to Myrtle Beach and eloped with Lorena. The family is distraught—exogamy is not practiced by the refined folk of Charleston. What will these nuptials portend for the family’s future? Should they drive up there and put a stop to a ceremony that has already occurred? Can they talk them out of it? Lucian is called to the family house. The half-brothers deliberate. Etta confines herself to the boudoir. They discuss the ramifications. What to do? The live-in cook tells them it’s time for dinner, as it’s three o’clock, and they’d best eat. Around the table they sit. The bowls are served. The shrimp soup puts them at ease.

With their traditional meal complete, like Persians of old they can come to a decision. The marriage will stand, and they will host the Hessenwinkles to a dinner on Sunday—at three o’clock, per usual.

A long Saturday passes. A storm prevents the newlyweds from returning—the allusions to the Paschal Triduum are a bit on the nose, but do wait, there’s more. The rain prevents anyone from leaving, so they must contemplate within. The day does pass eventually, and the day of arrival comes.

What follows is the ordeal of civility. Here are the Redcliffs, Episcopalian all and all comfortable and at ease in the city their families made. Here are the Hessenwinkles, a mixture of German Lutheran and Irish Catholic and deeply suspicious of motive and paranoid over perceived slights of their status.

But the Redcliffs can loosen anyone up: juleps on the piazza, followed by whiskey in the parlor, then Madeira for a toast. Everyone is settling in well enough. There are only glimpses of hostility, but the occasion is too grand, any disagreement becomes fatuous.

But rifts emerge, nonetheless. Vinny is not only suspicious of her hosts but of the ancient god, Fate—before taking her seat, she demands a guest be dismissed from the Redcliff table so the number does not equal thirteen. The Redcliffs cordially oblige her superstition and dismiss two children of their cousin to a separate table. Repartee, friendly contretemps ensue between the members of the Redcliffs. This perplexes the Hessenwinkle matriarch: why would anyone say anything even slightly bad of their own family? Her eyes wander about the old dining room; they settle on various pieces passed down. For sake of small talk, she gauchely inquires on their value—money ever on her mind. Her question is deftly turned into a cloaked lecture on the family they’ve entered and what they hold most dear, no slight is given—a gentleman never insults someone by accident.

For all the misplaced questions, everything seems to be going well. However, there are secrets to be revealed, and they will not wait until the great unveiling. Vinny, being of significant stature, breaks a family heirloom dining chair. To reassert herself as someone fit to be at such a table, she throws her weight around by suggesting the newlyweds could rent the Redcliffe home in multiple units. The cook would either need to start paying for the roof over her head or face eviction. Etta tries to steer conversation away from money again, but Lorena, compelled by claret, delineates the entire house in an orderly fashion and how it could be apportioned to renters. Aunt Quince, quiet the whole dinner, wonders aloud how Lorena knows the house so well—and all falls apart.

Tempers ignite, no reason can contain the animosity Lorena has for her lowly station in life which she takes out on the Redcliffs’ daughter-in-law. It is revealed Fen, the dead eldest son, had a liaison with Lorena whilst married to Judith—and it produced a son: so rises Fen on the third day. Tat, cuckolded beyond the grave by his more beloved older brother, storms out. Judith collapses at the announcement of her deceased husband’s infidelity. Lorena, with all her pretensions to aristocracy, is revealed to be a mere interloper.

For brevity, the marriage is ended—annulled, as it was performed by a Catholic priest, and divorce was illegal in the state at the time. Tat flees the city. But the families gather one last time to decide the fate of the bastard Redcliffe boy.

The toddler lives in hiding with a cousin of Lorena’s across the Ashley. Judith pays a visit, curious to see the living remains of her husband. It turns out the boy looks more like his maternal grandfather, and exhibits disturbing behavior: he had tried to choke a hound puppy before Judith arrived at the rundown shack he was stashed in. He is bowlegged and malnourished. At the age of two he still cannot speak.

To correct the past—how Southern can one book be!—the Redcliffs persuade Lorena to let Judith adopt the boy. He will have a good life living near the Battery. He will get a good education, will be raised in that world Lorena so craved to be part of.

The papers are signed. Lorena storms out into the night. Judith is left with Red—Red is the boy’s name. Red sobs and kicks and protests. Judith, sweet Judith, so long-suffering Judith, caresses and pleads before screaming and demanding his silence. She recovers. She gives him a wooden giraffe to play with.

Red’s first instinct is to dismember it.

This is what has happened to our afternoon meal, formerly known as dinner, as it was previously the largest meal of the day. It has been bastardized, torn apart, ripped from its proper place. No longer do we have the time—dare I say the inclination?—to devote a few hours during the midafternoon to a sumptuous meal. Instead, we have been given lunch.

Lunch in general is a practice developed by our school system. You have your morning classes, you have your lunch, then you have your afternoon classes, and off to home you go. It has a command economy aspect, where all time is registered millesimal. Efficiency is the greatest priority. Get in and get out. Have your sandwich and have it in thirty minutes.

Charleston no longer starts slow then tapers off. It must always be abuzz.

But as ever, there are holdouts. There is a way to luxuriate in the afternoon here, the gentleman’s ambition can still be pursued—it is the greatest time to dine and drink. Il est l’heure de s’enivrer! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps!

To do Charleston right, to live correctly here, one must devote time to the afternoon meal.

But how? One can be chronically underemployed like me and indulge as the sun is at its peak. But for those who must make their way through life with a career, how can they escape?

An incongruity appears: those with the most degrees, with the prestigious careers, suffer the most loss of hours while the service industry worker who cleans the table or takes the order or prepares the meal can take a few shots and acquire a positive demeanor as the day shines the most brightly. Why can’t the junior attorney have a buzz while writing the brief for the partner? Why can’t he casually slur a word before Your Honor? Who is living life to the greatest pleasure?—he who can take a drink before noon or he who must wait for the few hours at home to relieve himself of the tedium he created?

It is during the midafternoon to take your largest meal here. Would you rather have your steak au poivre in the evening and be forced to your bedroom?—or take it during the day with a bottle of Merlot before walking about South of Broad then finding yourself settling in with another drink? Of course, this example is extreme to make a point. But it must be said the professional class does not know how to dine in the afternoon anymore, sadly. Or, at least those not members of the Carolina Club, a topic for another time.

Slightly North of Broad (SNOB) has the menu and the atmosphere to recreate the early dinner. What they so horribly call the “lunch menu” should be tossed and replaced with what they serve in the evening. A happy hour should be instituted, from one to four o’clock. Twenty-five percent off a bottle of house wine, two dollars off mixed drinks, and half-priced beers. Scrap the à la Russe service and go strictly prix fixe for this meal. This will make service easier and timelier to send off the accountant back to his cubicle—but he’ll be full and his eyes misty.

If Charleston so wants to be known as a food destination, then return to those of us who live here our afternoon meal. It will separate us from the uniform pack. It will give Sietsema something to write about in WAPO. Upend the elementary school paradigm we still labor under. Our institutions must free us—it is their duty to offer leisure at a reasonable price.