“Why?”
“Because she a wicked hag of a woman.”
“What else?”
“She thinks polio is a disgrace. She thinks only the children of immigrants and poor housekeepers get it.”
“That’s just not true,” I said. “The opposite of poor housekeepers get it.” I explained Helen’s theory about all of us being a little too clean.
“My mum would never fall for that,” Gwen said.
“But…but…Warren…”
“I know.”
“What’s going to happen? He’s going to need help.”
“Violet, I know all this. It’s all I think about.” Gwen started to cry.
“Oh, Gwen, I’m so sorry. I’ll help! I’ll help in any way I can.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do. My mum won’t discuss it. She’s written a letter to Franklin Roosevelt. Apparently he’s got polio and he has some sort of facility down south where people go to get better.”
“She wrote to the president of the United States?”
“Yeah. Bright idea, eh?”
“I don’t know if she’ll get very far with that.” I looked out the window past the empty backyard to the scrub field with the golf course beyond. “Where’s Tippy?” I asked.
Gwen didn’t answer for a moment.
“Gert’s had her put down,” I said.
“No,” Gwen said. “But she’s gone. Tip’s run away.”
“Oh no.”
Tippy being gone was probably the second-worst thing that could happen to Warren. At least Gert hadn’t killed her. I’d find her.
We mumbled goodbyes when I left Gwen at her place. And we hugged, which wasn’t like us.
The phone rang as I walked in the door at home.
It was Mary at her desk at Eaton’s telling me to tell Gwen to get right down there. It turned out that a number of the girls hired that summer had been lying about staying on in the fall. Just like me. They were college girls, also like me, and were heading back to school.
“Even some of the ones that were mean to you,” Mary said.
She was sure if Gwen turned up quickly she would be hired on.
“Tell her to tone down those breasts of hers,” she said, “and wear something dark.”
I phoned Gwen immediately and gave her the news. “Mary said to tone down those breasts of yours,” I added, “and wear something dark.”
Chapter 23
Benny and Jackson were still in the neighbourhood. There was a house going up on Crawford Avenue and Ennis Foote put in a good word for Benny. His garage had turned into a thing of beauty, far more resplendent than ours. Mr. Foote had gotten carried away.
Jackson’s casts were off by now and he was hired on too, but his arms were still weak. Their tent was pitched in the backyard of the new house along with that of another man who had been hired to help the official builders.
Aunt Helen had this information for me when I got home from Gwen’s house. It seemed her first order of business when we were allowed out was to go over to the Footes’ place to see what was going on with the men. Mrs. Foote was worried about Jackson hurting himself again. It was rough work for arms so recently broken.
“Did you see Fraser?” I asked.
“No. He wasn’t home,” Helen said. “I’m sure you’ll hear from him later once he hears you’re out and around.”
Like I needed some sort of reassurance from her. Shut up, Helen, I said to myself. I realized she had been mooning over Jackson these last weeks, probably more than I had, and I wanted to slap her.
“Tippy Walker ran away,” I said. “Keep an eye out, would you, and tell everyone you see? We’ve got to find that dog before Warren comes home.”
“How was Warren?” Helen asked.
“He’s weak all over and the one leg may be paralyzed. But he’s keeping his head up. That’s for sure.”
“That dear, dear boy.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll watch out for Tippy,” she said.
Helen and Maude Foote had drawn up a plan to take turns providing food for the workers on Crawford Avenue, those with no homes to go to. Helen and I went that evening with a basket of turkey sandwiches and white cake with butterscotch icing. We waited to make sure that the men with homes had gone. Jackson wasn’t there.
I guess Helen and Maude got their wires crossed, because Maude turned up too. There was some nervous laughter and it was decided that her egg salad sandwiches could be breakfast. And her banana cake a midmorning snack.
There was a banged-up old cooler in the yard. It sat next to a huge bucket of tar. There was no lid on the tar and it made me nervous to look at it. What if it spilled out onto the clean dirt? What if a bird landed in it? What if a kid thought it was something to plunge his hands into?
“This is Fuzzy,” Benny said, introducing the other hired man. “Fuzzy Eakins.”
The man had a sleek head of hair and a smooth hairless chest inside his unbuttoned shirt so I don’t know where his name came from. I didn’t ask.
He grunted a response.
“He is from Vegreville,” said Benny, as if that would explain Fuzzy’s rudeness.
“Where’s Jackson?” asked Helen and Maude together. I knew I could leave it to them.
The two men exchanged a glance.
“Gone for a walk,” Benny said. “The boss warned him today, accused him of not, how did he say? pulling his weight.”
“He ain’t,” said Fuzzy Eakins. “He ain’t pulled no weight at all. An’ he gets equal wages for standin’ aroun’ takin’ up space. I got friends need jobs an’ Jack’s just blowin’ it out.”
“Jackson worries about his arms,” explained Benny. “He is very careful. Over careful.”
“What will he do?” Helen asked.
Benny shrugged. “He talks about going home. But it is not time for him to go.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I got friends who could be doin’ twice the job that Jack’s doin’,” Fuzzy insisted.
“Do not call him Jack. He does not like it.” Benny was testing the blade on his pocket knife.
“He’s a girly,” said Fuzzy.
“Tell Jackson to come and see us,” Helen said to Benny, “before he leaves, if he does.”
“What do you mean it’s not time for him to go home?” I asked again.
“He has, how do you say? unfinished business,” said Benny.
“What kind of unfinished business?” I asked.
“It is not for me to say.”
“Goldarnit, Benoit,” I said. “What about Tag? Does anyone know if he found his brother or if he went home, or what?”
“I do not know, said Benny. “He had not found Duke when I saw him a few days ago. I hope he is gone home because if he is not, I do not know where he could be.”
“Is that the nigra?” asked Fuzzy.
No one paid him any mind.
“Is that the nigra fella?” Fuzzy repeated, louder this time.
“Shut up, Fuzzy,” said Benny. “Go to the icehouse and get ice for the cooler. Be useful, why not.”
“What’s the…?”
“Go!” Benny said.
Fuzzy shuffled off down the lane.
“I worry about Tag,” said Benny. “If he was leaving, he would come to say goodbye. He knows we are here.”
Maude began to bustle about, ready to leave.
“How is Warren?” Benny asked.
“He could be worse,” I said. “It hasn’t affected his breathing or his swallowing, so he’s lucky in that way. His one leg’s pretty bad. No one knows yet if that will be forever or what all.”
“Poor little shaver,” Benny said.
“Yeah.”
I told him about Tippy, and then Maude and Helen and I headed off down the lane in the opposite direction from Fuzzy. We all agreed we’d rather not see him again.
“If Jackson goes back to Montreal I’d like to at least give him a train ticket,” Helen
said after we left Maude at her corner.
Jackson wasn’t something I could talk about with Helen, so I said nothing.
“His arms will be weak for some time yet,” she said. “Say something, Violet.”
“Yes, they will,” was the best I could do.
I couldn’t get a deep breath on the way home. Sometimes I got to worrying that even the shallow breaths I could manage might get more difficult and then where would I be? I might as well have polio — the worst kind.
“Goodness, Violet, you silly goose,” Helen said, as we marched home in the falling dusk. “Breathe normally, can’t you?”
I shook my head, gasping, “I can’t.”
She held my hand the rest of the way home and I was able to take in enough air to keep me alive for the time being.
Chapter 24
That night I got drunk for the first time in my life. It was a planned occurrence. I put money in one pocket and a pack of cigarettes in the other.
“I’m going to see Isabelle,” I announced to Helen and Dad, who were sitting on the verandah in the warm night air. Helen was sewing but it was almost too dark.
“Well, be careful over there,” Dad said. “You don’t have to do everything and go everywhere on your first day out.”
“I don’t blame you for wanting to be out, dear,” said Helen. “It’s been a long three weeks cooped up in the house.”
“Don’t bring any biting insects home with you,” said my dad. “Why can’t you visit someone on this side of St. Mary’s Road?”
“Because I want to visit Isabelle and I hardly ever see her. Besides, you like her. You said she had gumption.”
“That was before I knew she lived in the Taché Block and was going to pass her bedbugs along to you.”
“Never mind him,” said Helen. “Go out and enjoy yourself. Here, take one of my hatpins with you.”
“What for?”
“In case you have to give someone a poke.” She tried to hand it to me in its little case but I wouldn’t take it.
“I’m not going to be giving anyone a poke,” I said. “Can I stay out a little later than usual?”
“No,” said Dad.
“Yes,” said Helen. “If you take this hatpin with you.”
I sighed and put it in my pocket next to my Player’s cigarettes. I was trying out different brands. These ones were pretty good.
“And don’t forget to breathe,” added Helen.
“Be sure Constable Switzer doesn’t catch you up to no good,” called my dad as I let the screen door go. “And don’t be afraid to call on him if you need him for any reason.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I shouted back.
Constable Switzer was a uniformed cop who was on foot patrol in our neighbourhood at night. He was overweight and wore very thick glasses. It was hard to imagine him coming to the rescue if real danger approached. He was friendly enough: he always answered when we said, “Hello, Constable Switzer.” Sometimes he said things like, “Isn’t it a little late for you kids to be out on the streets?” and we said things like, “No.”
I ran over to Isabelle’s. Her family didn’t have a telephone so I just had to hope that she would be home. She was. I hadn’t been to her place before but I knew where it was — on the corner of Taché and Eugenie.
It didn’t look so bad from the outside — just a big square brick block of a building. But it reeked on the inside. I found her last name, Syrenne, on a mailbox, number 22. The hallways were dim and I tripped on the stairway up to the second floor before I saw the broken step. My hand caught me and scudded along the wooden floor till I had a few goodly slivers.
On my way down the hall I passed a bathroom that was one source of the overriding stench. It mingled with traces of cooked cabbage and dirty laundry. I wondered how bubble and squeak would taste to me the next time Helen served it up.
I knocked on the door of number 22. Isabelle answered.
“Well, Christ on a stick, Violet! Come in!”
She opened the door wide and I entered a tidy little apartment that smelled of cigarette smoke and lemon furniture polish. It was so clean I felt as though I should take off my shoes like I’d read that the Japanese do.
Isabelle had a younger brother, Charles, whom I’d seen around school. He was fifteen or so. And there were two younger sisters, Evangeline and Paulette. They were all there and she introduced me around. There was no sign of a mother or father but I knew she had both.
The tiny apartment was dwarfed by a huge oaken dining table. It must have been in the family for years, come with them from Quebec or from France even, who knew.
There was a lump of bedding on the table. I had interrupted Isabelle as she prepared a sleeping place for her two sisters and herself on the table.
“It’s just temporary,” she explained as she smoothed out the sheets and carefully placed the pillows. “Till the fumigators come to do the bedbugs again.”
I guess my dad knew what he was talking about.
Evangeline and Paulette stood in their nighties, watching their big sister fix up their sleeping area. Vangie, as Isabelle called her, held the raggediest old stuffed bear I had ever seen. I wanted to race out and get her a new one. Not that she’d love it more — I knew how teddy bears worked. But I worried that some of the bugs had attached themselves to the bear and that the little girl would be no better off than on her infested mattress.
“Charles, you’ll be home till maman gets in.” Isabelle was definitely the boss of this family when the parents weren’t home.
“Oui,” he said.
Isabelle kissed her two sisters and spoke to them in French.
When she closed the door behind us I mentioned my concerns about the stuffed animal.
“She won’t give it up,” Isabelle said. “My mum takes it to work with her once a week and does a real job on it. She works at a laundry. Just a sec,” she said then and stopped off at the bathroom in the hall.
It wasn’t till then that I realized Isabelle’s family had to leave their apartment to use the bathroom. And they shared it with who knows how many other families. If tiny Evangeline had to pee in the middle of the night she had to leave home to do it.
“What’s up, Violet?” said Isabelle once we were on the street.
“I want to get drunk,” I said.
Isabelle laughed. “Okay, let’s. Have you got any money?”
I showed her what I had. There was a government liquor store on Marion Street just down the block. I’d heard it was easy, for a price, to find an older guy to go in and get you something, but it was closed at that hour so we had to look further afield.
A man named Howard Strachan lived in one of the apartments at the Norwood Terraces a couple of buildings up from the liquor store. He sold stuff to anyone, but there wasn’t much of a selection, Isabelle warned. We knocked on his door and he answered in a greying undershirt with suspenders holding up pants that would have fallen down otherwise. His nose was big and pockmarked and red and his grin was ear to ear: he had the look of a clown.
“Hi, Howard,” said Isabelle. “Whatcha got?”
“Not much, little lady. Who’s yer friend?”
“This is Violet,” she said.
“Hello,” said I.
“Come in.”
The stench of the place was worse than in Isabelle’s building. It wafted out and enveloped us.
“We’ll wait here, thanks, Howard,” said Isabelle, thank the Lord, and he went inside and came back with a pint of clear liquid in a bottle.
“Potato whiskey,” he said. “You won’t be disappointed. But be careful. Get something to mix with it and be generous with the mix.”
“How much?” I asked.
“A dollar should do it,” Howard said and I forked over the bill.
We skipped away with our prize, along the wooden sidewalk of Marion Street to Andrews Candy Shop. There we came away with a jug of lemonade and two large paper cups. Isabelle had hidden the bottle in the waistband of he
r trousers when we were at Andrews. Not everyone was as understanding as Howard about young girls drinking raw potato whiskey. Andrews Candy Shop had a motto: Our aim is quality and service — a trial will tell. I was quite sure the lemonade would pass muster.
So we were set. Now, where to go to drink it? I suggested the riverbank by the icehouse, but Isabelle thought that was a boring location. She suggested a vacant lot on Marion so at least we could watch people go by. I was uncomfortable with such a public place so we settled on the steps of Norwood Collegiate on Kenny Street, off the main drag but not as secluded as the river bank.
The first sip of potato whiskey, even mixed with the lemonade, was like a slash of white lightning travelling the length of me.
Isabelle saw to it that I took it easy. She knew what the stuff could do. I brought out my Player’s and we smoked like fiends — chain-smoked, lighting them one after the other.
I talked about Jackson Shirt, about how I’d fallen for him and how my Aunt Helen had held his dick in her hands, probably more than once. I sensed that nothing could astonish Isabelle and I was right. Nothing I could tell her, anyway. She took it all in, laughed uproariously in spots and crinkled up her forehead with concern in others, like when I described Gert Walker. I told her about Tag and Duke and how we all hoped they were gone now and about little Warren Walker having polio and his dog having run off.
“The kid you were with that night at Happyland,” she said.
“Yeah, him.”
“That’s awful,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s the worst.”
I told her about Fraser Foote, about how much I liked him and how much less I wanted to kiss him than Jackson.
“Yeah, it’s Jackson I wanna kiss,” I said. I was drunk by now.
“It’s Jackson I wanna fuck.” I had never said that word before, except alone in my bedroom where I sometimes whispered it, and I liked the sound of it coming out of my mouth. “Fuck,” I said again. “I’d like to fuck him and have him fuck me.”
Isabelle laughed. “Yeah. He is pretty handsome,” she said.
“Have you ever been fucked, Isabelle?” I asked.
“Violet, I think you’ve had enough. I’m going to walk you home. It might take us a while.”
Alison Preston - Norwood Flats 04 - Sunny Dreams Page 15