Relatives From Afar

I speak of relatives from afar, whose visits occur at rare intervals, say once every three years. Relatives near-by are simple problems in comparison. At least yearly it is customary to round them up. Thus, as by annual visits to the Zoo, one can keep track of recent acquisitions and note how certain adult specimens endure captivity.

I envy those of my relatives in whom the clan instinct persists. Instinctively, it seems, they readily recall the ages, sex, and principal characteristics of all of Relative-from-Afar’s progeny. Once, by a sort of blanket inquiry, I endeavored to conceal my own uncertainty as to how many remained of R.F.A.’s offspring for me to ask after. I hazarded a hearty ‘Well, and how are the others?’ R.F.A.’s astonished look apprised me of my error, while miserably I tried to cover my confusion with a feeble joke, supposing of course there’d be ‘additions’ by this time. A knowledge of relatives cannot be bluffed.

R.F.A. telephones me of his arrival in town. His own sense of clan is enormous. Instinctively he invites himself to my house to dinner. Necessarily I accept. His stay is brief — between trains. As well for me it were forever, once the first critical hour is past. It is the first hour that makes or breaks me as a member of his clan,

R.F.A. has settled back comfortably in my Morris chair, conscious of a difficult duty meritoriously performed. As I mentally sum up, apparently he has inquired for every relative residing in the territory for which he holds me responsible, with the possible exception of two or three. And these two or three! I cannot for the life of me remember whether they are bona-fide relations or connections by marriage. If the former, it would be worth my year’s salary sweetly to say to R.F.A., ‘You remember Cousin Agnes? Surely you knew we nearly lost her!’

I dare not risk it.

Now it is my turn. He is regarding me searchingly. ‘Renegade, you are going to forget someone,’ is in his eye. I am at a loss what form of inquiry I shall adopt. The ‘How-is’ form — ‘How is Aunt Mary?’ — may be employed perhaps thrice with dignity. A fourth or fifth repetition engenders monotony and implies a lack of ease with the subject. One might as well resort to calling the roll. What is worse, it creates an atmosphere of perfunctoriness, against which perfunctory conversations, especially, should be carefully guarded.

There are forms of inquiry, however, which, if carefully rotated, relieve monotony and gain for the user the reputation of a genial, kindly relative, in possession of complete details regarding each of his kin. After every visit from R.F.A. I determine to master these convenient forms. They require a minimum of thought and enable the inquiring relative to give the best of his attention to recalling names, ages, sex, and other elusive data. Of course, reasonable caution must always be observed to apply each form of inquiry only to that class of relatives for which it is intended.

‘Probably I should n’t know her now!’ In the case of any female childrelative this may be thrown off with fine effect. But it must never be employed in the case of R.F.A. s wife, his mother, or his mother-in-law (mothersin-law are regarded with great seriousness among relatives; only extra-tribally are they joked about). It should be delivered jocularly. R.F.A. will reply with a waggish shake of his head. To him, growing up signifies precociousness — something quite original with his own children, clever rogues!

‘I suppose he’s getting on well!’ One is safe in using this comment when any male child is the topic. It is especially happy where there is doubt in one’s mind whether R.F.A.’s boy is in school, at college, or has entered upon his business career. It would not be permissible were R.F.A.’s father under discussion. It is better not used where any aged relative is concerned. As applied to one of this class who is conspicuously wealthy, it might even be construed as attempted conspiracy.

I need not carry these suggestions further. The Mother of Invention, our nearest relative, will equip anyone willing to learn with a complete and errorproof system of inquiry and comment. Unless feminism or some other sinister force succeeds in destroying the family, we shall have the same classes of relatives, the same visitations among them, with the same distracting tests of memory ad infinitum. Why be unprepared?