A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2)

by Terence M. Green

  In the night, I cling tightly to Gert, all that I have, feel her legs wrapped about mine, breathe her warmth wildly, lose myself, again and again.

  Gert is incredible. The coolness of her skin, the softness of her mouth—I am crazy about her. I tell her we need our own place, away from her sister and mother, where we can be alone. She smiles coyly, but puts me off. Wait till the spring she says. I don't want to leave Mother just yet.

  Your mother will be fine. She's got Evelyn. What about us? I say, using her line. What about our life?

  She comes to me, slides her hands under my jacket, along my back, kisses my chest, my neck. Spring, she says, and the fire runs through my veins as her hair, silken, dark, brushes my mouth.

  * * *

  BIRTHS

  RADEY—At St. Joseph's Hospital, October 24, 1928, to Mr. and Mrs. Martin Radey (nee Gertrude McNulty), a daughter (Evelyn Joan).

  The Toronto Daily Star

  Wednesday; October 25, 1928

  EIGHTEEN

  1929-32

  1

  Gert and I have the upper duplex at 2130 Dundas West, right on the corner of Golden Avenue, our own place, finally. Joan, our daughter, is one year and six weeks old, tottering about, my new glory. She is a miracle of tiny fingers, talcum powder, eyes that shine.

  It is Friday, December 6, 1929. I am reading about the president of United Cigar, whose stock plummeted on the New York Exchange from $113.50 to $4 in a single day and who jumped to his death from the ledge of his New York hotel. United Cigar stores are like Woolworth's stores, A & P, Piggly Wiggly—they are everywhere. It says that there are thirty-seven hundred of them. The paper is full of such stories. I picture him falling, the windows going by, wonder what goes through his mind in his last moments.

  The phone rings and it is my sister, Mary Rossiter. She has not spoken to me for ages, so I am surprised by her call.

  Martin, she says.

  I wait, listen.

  Do you know about Margaret? Your Margaret? she asks.

  Know what? She's living with you, isn't she?

  I can hear her breathing into the phone, then sighing.

  She got married last Saturday, Martin. She married Tommy Nolan, Eleanor's brother.

  The president of United Cigar, falling . . .

  They didn't tell us. Only a few of their friends. Jack and Eleanor were the only ones there. They were married at St. Paul's.

  Falling. . .

  Martin? Are you there?

  Margaret. Married. I am light-headed. They're just kids, I say at last. Jack and her. She's just a girl.

  She's twenty years old, Martin. Tommy's twenty-five. I hold the phone to my ear, try to picture Margaret before an altar, veiled, a bride, cannot. My little girl. My princess.

  There's more, Martin. She told me yesterday. She's almost four months pregnant. The baby's expected in May. Falling.

  You're going to be a grandfather, she says.

  I am floating momentarily, then dropping like a stone, unable to breathe, closing my eyes as the pavement rushes toward me.

  The day that I visit Margaret in the hospital the newspapers talk of the discovery of a new planet they are calling Pluto. I am about to see my own new planet: Anne Therese Nolan, May 8, 1930. Overnight, I am an almost fifty-year-old grandfather with a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter. I hold Margaret in my arms and we cry. Then I pick up Anne, and I cry again.

  Gert and Joan and I move again. There is a strangeness for me in the location of our new flat. It is like I am going in a circle. Gert and I and Joan move to 395V2 Roncesvalles Avenue, an apartment atop a set of stores just north of Neepawa Avenue that has an extra room.

  If I bend my neck slightly at the front window, I can see where Constance Street touches Roncesvalles. And if I close my eyes, I can see the bathroom at 10 Constance Street, Maggie lying on the floor, unbreathing, Jack and Margaret at my side.

  I cannot get Jack out of my mind. Perhaps it is being a father again, seeing it all anew. Perhaps it is my age. Or maybe it is something deeper, something I can never understand.

  I think of Jack singing in a choir that I have never heard.

  Over the phone I ask Margaret what I want to ask her. I ask her how Jack is doing, what his phone number is.

  "Where are you living?" I ask.

  Jack puts the cigarette to his lips, inhales before answering. "I've got a room on Carlaw Avenue. It's near where I'll working."

  I watch his eyes shine as he courts his distance, his independence. Then I say it, why I wanted to meet with him. "Come and live with us."

  The smoke drifts from his mouth, his nostrils. He looks perplexed. "Come and live with who?"

  "Me. And Gert and Joan."

  Clouds seem to cross his face. "Why?"

  "I'd like you to."

  He is handsome. Nineteen years old. I see his mother's dark eyes, hair.

  The windows of the coffee shop are steamed with condensation. He taps ash into a glass tray, sits back, stares at me. The smoke rises in a long tendril from the tip of the cigarette. "I don't think it would work, Father."

  "We could try it."

  No answer.

  "Margaret thinks it's a good idea."

  He looks up at me, frowns.

  "Gert says it's fine with her," I say, not mentioning her list of reservations. "You'd get to know your sister."

  "Margaret is my sister."

  "So is Joan." I sip my coffee. "You'd get to know Gert."

  His eyes turn toward the streaks of condensation running down the inside of the windows, blurring the street outside. We sit silent for a minute. Then he says: "I'm not a child anymore, Father."

  I nod. "I know. Gert and I and Joan are in one room. There's a smaller room. We'd clean it out. You could have it."

  "I don't know if it'd work."

  I nod again. "We could try."

  Silence. The smoke. The condensation. The ash grows longer, gets tapped off once more.

  It is October 24, 1930, Joan's second birthday. Gert has made a cake and Joan is excited. Jack has been with us for two weeks, but we rarely see him. He comes in late, says little, stays in his room.

  Dinnertime comes and Jack does not come home. It's not fair to Joan, says Gert, and I agree. Joan has been waiting all day. We eat, light the candles, let Joan blow them out, tell her that Jack had to work late.

  We are in bed when we hear Jack come in. We lie in the dark and listen to him go to the icebox, run water into the sink, visit the bathroom, close the door to his room.

  Jack eats with us seldom, talks little. I think that we are making some progress, but Gert says that Jack does not like her. She thinks that he likes Joan, but he definitely does not like her, she insists.

  Give him time, I say. He needs time.

  I know that he is worth it. I know that the fault is mine. I know that he can sing and that I have never heard him.

  It is Friday, November 28. I hear their voices as I climb the stairs to our store-top apartment.

  Jack. Gert.

  It is past six. I am home from work. It is the weekend. When I open the door, they both turn and stare at me, their sudden silence like a knife. In the middle, I realize again. They turn to me, in the middle, accusing. I can feel the tension.

  I wait for someone to speak.

  Jack glares at me, then at Gert, then goes into his room, slamming the door.

  Joan is sitting in her high chair, watching, curved spoon wrapped around her hand, a bowl of applesauce before her.

  "What is it?" I ask.

  "Oh, Martin," Gert says, shaking her head.

  "What?"

  "It's Jack. He's got beer. He's been drinking."

  I'm still unsure what the problem is. I don't know what I have walked in on. "Do you mean today? Now?"

  "I don't know about today. He shouldn't be drinking in the house at all. He knows I disapprove. And with Joan here."

  I look at Joan, who smiles. She bangs her spoon on her plate.

 
"I don't even know where he got it," she says. "Is it that easy to get at his age?"

  I think of Jock, of Pabst Near Beer, of drinking home brew on a bench at Sunnyside, beneath the branches of the chestnut in his backyard. "He's almost twenty years old," I say, finally.

  "It's against the law." Her eyes flash. "I poured it down the sink."

  "Poured what?" I am not sure that I am following.

  "Five bottles. I found them this morning at the back of the icebox."

  "Without telling him?"

  "I don't need to tell him." Her voice hardens. "This is my home. My icebox. We have a little girl here. And he brings it into our home."

  "Gert—"

  "You're not going to stand up for him, are you? Drinking?" Her voice is incredulous.

  Jack comes out of his room, stops, stares, then walks by us toward the apartment door.

  "Jack, wait." I keep my voice calm. I raise my arm, touch my temple as I try to think.

  He stops.

  "Where are you going?"

  His hand clenches the doorknob. The muscles of his jaw work. "Away," he says. Then he looks at me, ignores Gert. "It was a mistake, Father."

  No, I think. No, Jack, it wasn't. Don't go. Not now. It's just starting. We need time. "These things happen in a family," I say.

  "No," he says. "No, they don't." He looks from one to the other of us. "Not in a real family."

  "Gert didn't mean—"

  "Yes I did. I don't want it in the house."

  Jack straightens, looks at me. "Mother would never have done this," he says. "Have you forgotten?"

  I am stung. It is as though my face has been slapped. I have not forgotten. I can never forget.

  He looks at me, controls his breathing. "What have you done?" he asks, with finality. Then: "Why did you do it?"

  I don't know. I don't know why anybody does anything, why anything happens. There is an actual physical ache in my chest. Parts of me are sliding away, breaking up. I feel his contempt, his anger, a wind blowing hotly. "Don't be so hard on me, Jack," I say. "Don't be so hard on Gert either."

  "You're not hard enough on yourself, Father."

  "Don't be rude to your father," says Gert.

  Jack looks at her. "Rude?" he says, amazed. His eyes linger on her, puzzled.

  Joan bangs her spoon on her tray. Her eyes are wide.

  "Jack," I say.

  But the door opens, then closes, and he is gone.

  2

  [File Card, MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY:]

  Anthony Nolan

  died 11 March 1931

  buried 19 March 1931

  stillborn

  St. Michael's Hospital

  funeral director Connors

  single grave 46

  section 10

  range _4

  * * *

  Margaret's son. My grandson. I think of little Patrick and Loretta, so many years ago, in the ground at Elora. And Sarah, Da, Gramma, Kervin, Liz, Ma, Maggie, Mike.

  Anthony.

  Jack.

  Wednesday, March 2, 1932, the newspaper headline shouts:

  LINDBETGH BABY KIDNAPPED

  Taken From Crib

  Wide Search On

  A family photo appears below, showing the baby, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., surrounded by his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. A ransom note has been left. It is unbelievable. That anyone could do such a thing.

  The world is crazy, I think suddenly. Someone is going into other people's houses and taking children. They are just disappearing.

  Margaret and Tommy and Anne live with Tommy's parents. The Nolans have moved from Berkeley Street to a new semidetached house in the north end of the city, on Maxwell Avenue, near Yonge and Eglinton. Margaret has found a home, a life, made her own family with another family.

  I am not sure what to make of Tommy. I have trouble talking with the man who got my Margaret pregnant before he married her. And he has trouble talking to me. His parents, too, have treated me coolly the few times I have visited, and I wonder what they have been told. Tommy plays guitar and banjo in bands all around the city, plays out-of-town jobs, plays in orchestras at the King Edward, the Palais Royale, plays jobs on the Island and with Romanelli's Orchestra on the cruise boats that sail across the lake to Niagara and back in the evenings.

  But Margaret has recovered from the stillbirth. She is pregnant again. There will be another baby in November.

  Art school is a memory.

  * * *

  KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS

  HOLD SWAY AT ISLAND

  Afternoon's Big Event

  at Annual Picnic

  is Baby Show

  More than 2,500 members of the Toronto council, Knights of Columbus, yesterday flocked across Toronto Bay to Center Island for the council's annual picnic.

  During the afternoon there was a long list of sports. Despite the heavy downpour, the afternoon was its usual successful self. One of the big events of the afternoon was the baby show, which was justified with some forty entries, out of which the judges had difficulty in awarding final results.

  The grand winner of the sweepstake was Anne Therese Nolan, 2-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Nolan, adjudged the bonniest baby in the show. Anne was presented with a handsome sterling silver porringer.

  The Evening Telegram

  August 10, 1932

  I watch as Gert shows the picture of Anne that accompanies the newspaper piece to Joan, who is almost four years old, and who is fascinated by the idea of a baby contest.

  Joan's finger rests on Anne's face, against her cheek.

  "That's your niece," Gert explains. "You're her aunt. Aunt Joan."

  Joan looks at her mother, smiles. "Aunt Joan," she says.

  At Woolworth's we buy a flat five-by-four-inch congratulations card:

  On this happy occasion

  I want to help you celebrate

  by sending my Best Wishes.

  On it is a house, sitting lushly amidst an array of chocolate and pink flowers. In the bottom right-hand comer, in fine print, is scrolled: Etching, Genuine Hand Colored.

  Gert addresses the envelope to Miss Anne Nolan, signs the card "Joan Radey." She lets Joan lick the brown two-cent George V stamp and place it in the upper right comer of the envelope.

  Gert lifts her up as she drops it in the mail slot.

  I watch in amazement, as she sends it across the city, to my daughter, my granddaughter. Children everywhere, I think.

  Specters of Patrick, Loretta, Anthony float in some dark recess. Then I shake my head, trying to lose another image that has surfaced: it has been three months since baby Lindbergh's body was found, decomposing in the woods some four miles from the family's estate.

  Margaret calls on October 24 and puts Anne on the phone to wish Joan a happy fourth birthday. When I get the chance, I make conversation, ask her if she's following the Lindbergh story.

  Isn't everybody? she asks. It's unbelievable. How could anyone do such a thing?

  But I am not good at small talk, so I ask her what I am avoiding asking, what I carry around inside me like a stone. I ask her if she knows where Jack is.

  She tells me that Jack is gone, that he and his cousin Carmen have left the country, gone to Detroit to look for work in the auto industry, that they heard there were jobs there. Don't worry, Father, she says. He's written a couple of letters. He moves around, but I have a few addresses. He'll keep in touch.

  On November 21, Margaret and Tommy become parents again—a brother for Anne. My grandson, Ronald Francis, is born in the back bedroom of the Nolan house on Maxwell Avenue. Margaret is fine. The baby is healthy.

  Before Christmas, Gert and Joan and I move to an apartment atop stores at 3097A Dundas West, just east of Clendenan. The new place is a better fit, cheaper, since we no longer need Jack's room.

  I do not tell Gert about how I could see Constance Street from our front window, about how I could not stop myself from looking, about how it is better if we go.


  NINETEEN

  1934

  August, 1934. Joan carries a box of her toys up the stairs beside me at 265 Pacific Avenue. She is five years old, almost six, has long black hair curling to her shoulders, a white bow tied at the top of her head.

  "Which room is mine?" she asks, large eyes peering through the open door of the new flat.

  "Last one on the left."

  She scampers ahead. I listen as the box is set down, hear the closet door being opened for inspection.

  Gert, who has been climbing the stairs behind me, appears now at my side. Winded, smiling, she clutches my arm.

  Our new flat is in a lovely, brick, three-storey detached house on the northeast comer of Pacific and Humberside. We are only eight blocks from Gert's mother and sister on Gilmour, five blocks from St. Cecilia's School where Joan will start grade one in September. It is tree lined, a residential street—the complete opposite of Dundas—where Joan can play more safely.

  It was down Pacific Avenue that I watched Gert disappear that first day, that Sunday, before the streetcar pulled in front of me, blocking her from sight. Now Gert squeezes my arm, lets me know her pleasure. I look at her face staring up at mine, realize how pale and tired she seems. I put my arm around her shoulder, pull her tight, think how a man needs a family, how I need her.

  "You did well," says Jock, glancing around the new place.

  "Considering," I say.

  "Pardon?"

  "Considering my wages have been cut thirty percent. And that this is smaller than where we were by three hundred square feet."

  "Beautiful house, though. Beautiful street." Jock pauses, thinks. Then: "Thirty percent?"

  I nod.

  "That's a whack."

  "At least I still have a job. They say one in five is unemployed." I look at him. "Did you hear that Metropolitan Life Insurance now claims there were twenty thousand suicides in thirty-one?"