She is so easy to please, thinks Hanora. Now that she is truly being cared for. And maybe the fear is gone. And the anger. Or maybe not.
When she reaches the door, she turns to look back. Billie hasn’t moved from her chair. She is staring blankly at the TV screen, but when she hears the word “goodbye,” she turns her head to watch Hanora depart.
She says, with no affect whatever, “You’re getting on in years yourself, Hanora. You think that because you’re a writer and can put everything down on paper, you’re always going to get the last word.”
MARIAH’S FINAL DIARY
AFTER THE FEBRUARY VOYAGE FROM LIVERPOOL to Halifax on the Mauretania, after the trip by rail from Pier 21 to Ontario, Mariah continued to write in her diary, but erratically, between March and June.
There are drawings and sketches, but fewer now. At times, the images are blurred, as if the fog in Mariah’s head has returned and now extends to the world outside her body. Hanora feels she is about to lose a friend, and is saddened by the thought of how Mariah’s life came to an end.
MARCH 10, 1946, SUNDAY
I have not been able to write in these pages since being met at the Belleville station by my eldest sister, Patricia. She and her husband, Tom, drove me to their home and I managed an awkward fall as I was walking up three easy steps to their veranda. Entirely my own fault, as I was excited at the thought of my reunion with their daughter—now an adult herself—who awaited my arrival. The eccentric aunt come home, I suppose that’s what they were all thinking.
The fall was a hard one. My shoe caught between steps; I went over backwards, crashed to the stone walk below and knocked my head. I’m told I was confused immediately afterward. That accounts for the troubles I’ve had since. Patricia insisted on having her family doctor come to the house, and he gave instructions that I am to rest. What else would he say? There is no damage to be seen. Only what I feel inside my head.
This morning, the family left for Sunday service and I told Patricia I would resume my work, writing and sketching. She was unenthusiastic, but did not discourage me completely. She asked only that I work briefly and then lie flat again so as not to tire myself.
For days, I have lain on the divan with a dark cloth over my eyes. The headaches of old have returned. I have not yet been able to walk about the streets to look for a place to live, but that is my intention. I must find a place before Lizzie arrives in the late summer. I want to be settled and ready for her to move in when she comes to Canada. She plans to stay, and the two of us will live together and work side by side as we did in England. If we manage enough funds between us, we can travel to different parts of the country, as there is much to see. I miss Lizzie and cannot wait until she sends word that she has been successful in booking a passage. We understand that the soldiers must be brought home first. And after the soldiers, the women and children who became their families. Like the passengers on the Mauretania, a journey I won’t forget. I did some of my best work on that ship, despite several days of rough seas.
But haven’t we survived the war? Every one of us who makes our way home?
For now, I want to be up and out in the winter sunshine. Soon to be spring. As I think this, I see an early robin, its brick-red breast puffed out as it perches on a branch outside. The robin—a thrush, my British friends taught me, insisting that theirs are robins, ours thrushes—well, this particular robin will be my first drawing since I fell from the steps. Finally, I set to work again.
Hanora examines the drawing opposite the diary entry. Far from being colourful, the robin is drab and slightly blurred. Hanora was expecting to see a vibrant orange-red, but this is a sad-looking creature of greys and blacks.
She continues.
MARCH 27, 1946
I’ve been thinking of Comfort. How he made us stand in the classroom and recite “Fame and Friendship,” but only the fame part. He wanted to shame me for having ambition, for having talent. I tried to believe in myself. But Comfort would have none of that. The man is no longer alive. And why should I think of him now, after all these years? Perhaps because I don’t forget how he goaded me in front of everyone. “They eat it in the silent tomb.” A horrid image. Comfort may have desired a world in which everyone would compete to see who could be most average. If anyone stood out or differed in any way, the great plates of the earth that some believe to exist would close soundlessly over that person. Anyone with originality would disappear without a murmur.
And now, having thought of Comfort, I will draw something cheerier, the robin again—though there’s no robin to be seen today. The first robin I drew turned out darker than I’d intended. I had hoped to show off its colour.
Hanora looks for the robin but the image on the adjacent page is, instead, of Comfort, or a man she believes to be Comfort. Dark thoughts of him must have taken over. He is shown as a short, rotund man with a large protruding paunch, ruler in hand, officious expression, well drawn by Mariah, but dark and grey. His cheeks are shaded. He looks as if he is partly shrouded, and perhaps that is what she intended. He faces an outline of vague shapes, meant to be the students in the class. Their shapes resemble shades of the underworld. There is a good deal of cross-hatching, so no individual can be made out entirely. There are only hints, again, of darkness.
APRIL 3, 1946
I sat outside on a chair for twenty-five minutes, wrapped in heavy winter garments. I felt Patricia watching me from the kitchen window. The ground is still partly frozen and the cold seeped through the soles of my boots. I did not last long, but I was happy to take the air.
Patricia hovers. Concern shows on her face. I can’t stay here much longer, as I am a burden on her family. She assures me this is not the case. She is so loving and kind, I hardly know what to do next. She does not want me to leave, but I feel I should find a room, perhaps a single room until I am ready to look for something bigger. If I find something close by, Patricia will have to support my decision. I admit that I have come to depend on her. I’ve been feeling low.
I long for the end of spring. I long to be tipped into summer. I asked about my papers, my early diaries, the ones I left at the farm when I travelled to England the second time. The farm was sold after our parents’ death. The diaries are now stored at our brother Roland’s farm, I’m told. But what of the diaries from Toronto when I was in my twenties? I’m not sure where those are. I would like my papers to be in one location so I can refer to them as I wish. And the drawings, well, there are many. The best I can do is stick them into a folder or in the back of a sketchpad. The ones that have sold? The oils? They went to their new owners with my blessings!
The last entries in Mariah’s diary were written in May 1946. These run together and are largely undated. Damage to Mariah’s brain from the original concussion during the bombing of Coventry must have been severe if she suffered such symptoms later. The second fall seems to have triggered a recurrence of symptoms. Including depression.
Maybe, Hanora thinks, all these factors are related—the concussion, the fall, the subsequent depression, the diagnosis of senility that became the official family story passed down to living relatives.
She won’t jump to conclusions. Not until she has examined every word on every page before her. But as she reads, the entries become more and more disjointed, the drawings darker and darker. Mariah draws the same image over and over. The almost-black robin. The caricature of her teacher, Comfort. Who was never a comfort and whose actions haunted her final days.
Nothing Mariah draws during her last weeks compares with the brilliance of the work she completed between the wars, and during her time in France and St. Ives, and then in Coventry during the Second World War. And yet, every detail is a valid part of her story. When Hanora finishes writing the book, she will try to interest a gallery in sponsoring a show of Mariah’s best paintings and sketches. The quality of the work is so high, there should be interest, especially if the show is held after the book is published.
She settle
s in to read the final pages. But not without sorrow. These are undated, the handwriting threadlike, wobbly.
I was brought here sometime in May. More than a month ago? No one tells me what day it is. This place, this large property, these many buildings are in Brockville and I have never been here before. I have my own bed.
A woman on the far side of the lounge knits constantly during the day. She is never short of wool. Who supplies the wool? She has been knitting a scarf, and I swear it is long enough to trail out the room and down the hall. She speaks to no one.
What day is it?
Someone ran by and punched another woman on the arm as she ran. I don’t like that. She is dangerous. There is a bruise on the woman’s arm.
The people who work here call me “dear.” I want to be addressed by my name. The leaders here need a leader.
The cat outside the window has a long shadow. Too long a shadow for such a small cat. It walks unnaturally. I do not like this cat. Not like my Smoke, in Coventry. Was it Coventry? That place seems so long ago. When will Lizzie come?
They want me to eat oxtail soup at the table. I refuse. I remember the ox with the wild eye on the farm next to ours. A scary creature because of its one wild eye. Would I eat that creature or its tail? “I have no stomach for such meat.”
My brother Roland and I turned the handle of the meat grinder in the back kitchen. We took turns, and fed chunks of bologna into the grinder. What came through the grid at the other end was pink and disgusting. Roland teased. He called the food “bologna worms” and tried to make me laugh. Our mother mixed pickles and mayonnaise into the worms to make them palatable, and spread them on bread. Roland had wavy hair when he was growing up. He was handsome, and married a handsome wife.
On Sundays, one of Father’s uncles showed up at our farm with his wife. The two walked slowly up the lane, making certain to arrive right in time for dinner. Mother had no choice but to ask them to stay. They pretended surprise, and always accepted. But we knew they came only for the meal. It was my job to stand at the porch window and give warning. I enjoyed calling out: “Here they come. The spongers are on their way to join us for their free Sunday dinner.”
I love the music from Porgy and Bess. Sometimes, music is played here. A woman sits at the piano. Another woman plays spoons. But no one plays music from Porgy and Bess. The woman who plays piano has a face shaped like a plate. That wonderful choir in Coventry sang so beautifully.
The tree with brittle copper leaves. Where was that tree? Every branch and fence post was covered in crystalline snow. Water will find its path through snow but not the other way round. Next to the house, wave formations rippled across the snowy field.
I wanted to paint the copper leaves from that winter.
Large footprints left pockmarks in melting snow. I drew those sinking caverns.
The door at the end of this room is kept locked. A nurse carries keys that rattle and clang. The window in the upper part of the door has wire mesh over it. I could draw that. Cross-hatching the mesh. We can’t go to the dining room until the door is unlocked. Sometimes in the dining room, people have spills. One woman waves her tray about as if she is a lunatic. Perhaps she was once an intoxicate.
The woman who smells like lavender came and stood by my chair. I don’t know what she wanted. When I asked, she replied in sounds but not words: “Hnn—hnn—hnn—huh—nn—hnn—nn—hnn.”
What day is it?
The woman who runs and punches has just flitted past. I always sit in the same place. She lurches, as if she might not come to a halt. She runs into obstacles. Sometimes she crashes into the door with the wire mesh. Sometimes into other people.
Most stay in their own space. They know what’s good for them.
There was a child on the Mauretania who was blonde with curly hair. I wanted to draw her. She was two or three years old. Young enough to be dragging around a comfort cloth, a snippet cut from a larger piece. Faded from many washes. It was the palest of blues, sky washed by rain. The cloth was stuck to the child’s chin. Or rather, the child stuck it to her chin in moments of frustration and when she was tired. Her mother held her until she fell asleep. The ship moved forward through the waves, and I began to wonder if the rag was stitched to the child’s chin.
The beautiful small round face.
The delicate chin.
The washed-out blue rag.
I hope I drew those. Did I? I asked a woman here, but she said she didn’t know.
Patricia came for a visit. She wept when she saw me. When I saw her weeping, I wept, too. But what is the use of crying? Patricia says I am weak. She wants me to eat more because I am too thin. I want Lizzie, but she hasn’t come. Lizzie is the person who makes me feel that I belong.
An old woman comes by and speaks to me as if I am standing to the left of myself. She won’t look at me face-on. She stares into a place where she and I are invisible. The old woman’s discomfort has nothing to do with the hail that beats against the window. The place is full of gloom today. I can’t see beyond my own centre. I could sit here all day and wonder who I am.
Cake was brought to the table at midday. The lurching woman had a birthday. A candle was lit and stuck into the icing. A candle does not shed light on itself.
We sang “Happy Birthday.” The person sitting beside me told me that the people here are insane. The women reached out their hands for cake. I would like my life to be one coherent story.
The final entry has a date: Mariah’s sixtieth birthday, the day of her death. The writing is not her own.
Her sister Patricia, who collected her belongings and arranged her funeral, noted:
June 28, 1946—Our beloved youngest sister, Mariah, has been taken into the arms of the Lord. She was weak and could not live a day longer. She died on her birthday.
OCTOBER 4, 1945
BELLEVILLE STATION
HANORA STOOD BACK, BEYOND THE END OF the platform. She had left Deseronto early so she would be in Belleville in time to watch the train pull in. She wore dark brown slacks and a long beige sweater, belted at the waist. She was alone. Deliberately. She wore her hair shoulder-length now, and wavy. She had become so accustomed to wearing pincurls under her turban while working at the canteen, she had come to like the way her hair curled up at the ends. She no longer used pincurls, but she had clamped wave clips into place early in the morning, and removed them before leaving home. She shoved at the waves with the side of her hand and tried to push them into place. Checked to make sure her sweater wasn’t inside out.
Tobe had always liked to see her with her hair down.
She had returned in the summer to be with her parents, and to be with Tobe’s parents. She knew she would get herself back somehow; she just wasn’t certain how she would accomplish this, or how soon after the end of the war. After numerous trips to the High Commission, and having made military and diplomatic friends during her six years in London, she was eventually permitted passage on a hospital ship sailing to Halifax. She avoided questions and lay low until the ship left port, and then made herself useful throughout the voyage. There were many who needed help, many who wanted to tell their stories. To anyone who inquired, she was a journalist reporting on troops being returned to their home country, returning to Halifax, to Pier 21. And she did write several of their stories.
Now, through noise that was overwhelmingly jubilant, through all the jostling while men poured off the train as others shouted from open windows of coaches, she continued to look for one soldier. Hundreds of men in uniform crammed into the space between train and station. Young boys on bicycles skirted the edges of the crowd, wheeling about in circles and half-circles, never staying still. People were milling about in a way that appeared to be purposeless. It soon became clear that the soldiers were about to regroup so they could march along Station Street, and the townspeople could see with their own eyes the men who had come home after so many years away.
SHE knew his letters by heart. The first he sent from
Italy was dated September 3, 1943.
By now you will have read about the Sicilian invasion. The Regiment has been as much a part of this as anyone, but no one would know from censored press reports. We have not given up our identity, but the reports lumped us in with “Allied forces.” Our families back home would have no way of knowing where we are or which campaign we are a part of, but we don’t control that. I think the releasing of information has been a fiasco, from what I’m hearing from our own headquarters. Somehow, somewhere, Canadians were mentioned, but after the fact.
Well, now you will certainly know where I am.
Our biggest challenge yet. We fought hard over the last two months, harder than we could have imagined, but our training prepared us and we move on. We lost good soldiers. Decent men, Hanora. All young, decent men.
Mail does not catch up with us often. It’s what all the boys want. It’s what I want. I try to write to you when I can. Most days and nights, writing letters is not possible because we are on the move.
I say your name aloud. I speak your name when I sleep.
There has been an occasional pleasure to remind us of life, not death: pomegranates, a melon, once a brief dip in the sea. Every one of us has the friendship, the backup of others. Even humour surfaces. We have good scroungers in the Regiment, the best. We manage from time to time to find bitter wine (wine nonetheless).
Keep sending letters. Doesn’t matter if they arrive three or four at a time. We face a long road ahead. Every time something absurd happens—that would be daily—I think of how you and I would share the moment. War is absurd, Hanora. Utterly, devastatingly absurd.
I think of you. I pause. We sit on the big branch inside the tree, silent and still, waiting for the birds to settle. I pause again. Remember. At Jack and Evelyn’s. Ah, yes.
That's My Baby Page 19