Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life, and St. Patrick's Bed
Page 22
But the real sad news is that you cannot get a beer anywhere decent. There are bootleggers everywhere, but the bottled stuff that’s been hoarded is worth a king’s ransom. It’s the story of my life that I didn’t even think about putting away my own stash the way so many others did. The rumor is that it’s just a matter of time before the temperance ladies get organized south of the border and it hits you there too, especially if your boys all leave for the fighting in Europe, so tell Cora to have her family stock up. It could be the door to a wonderful opportunity.
See you in September, old man. And as for the blessing of the baby, get ready to never sleep in again. And remember, the only way we’ll get to have a beer together is if you bring lots with you, and pack it so deep under your belongings that the customs boys will collapse of exhaustion and boredom rather than keep digging.
Yours, with a dry throat,
Martin
3
Gramma has a terrible cough, harsh, a feeble bark. Her nose is running. She is pale, her hair uncombed. Today, she does not drink the tea I offer her in the thermos lid, has no interest in it. Her head sinks into the white pillow, her mouth open, her eyes glazed. Unmoving, her hands lie like bleached driftwood at her sides, palms down. The bottle of Lourdes water sits on the bedside table.
It is February 4, 1917, and the cold of winter seeps beneath every baseboard, pours silently through the panes of every window, penetrates to the bone. It is impossible to be warm, even with the coals glowing in the stove nearby.
I touch the skin on the back of her hand, as cold as the room, and wonder again how old she is. Eighty-five? Ninety? And then I wonder about a life that stopped in 1845, that has atrophied in shock ever since, letting the world swirl around it.
She coughs, sudden, hoarse, rasping, gasps air back into liquid lungs, and I know, without knowing how, that I am fortunate to be here with her now, at this moment, in this brittle room, where there are only the two of us.
“Margaret,” I say. “Margaret Loy.”
The eyes, milky, perhaps blind, turn to me. Her lips are cracked, dry.
“It’s me. Martin. I’m here.” Then I say it the old way: “Mártain.” I hold her hand. “I am fine.”
Then her mouth makes the o, feebly, one last time, and I smile while I feel her fingers tighten on mine as I hoped they would, as she hears her husband’s name, her son’s name. As I try to give her this.
The priest comes later that afternoon and anoints her with the holy oils, as he has done so many times before. After death is better than not at all, he tells us, bending to his task, to the administration of the sacrament: her eyes, her mouth, her ears, her hands. He weaves the rosary beads through her still, thin fingers as he talks: I am not too late, he says. God will accept her.
I look at Ma. Her face is a mask, pulled tight. I put my arm around her shoulder, feel her go rigid, think to myself what I have often thought since that first time I helped her with Gramma, helped Ma lift her back into her bed, that I am touching her, that I want to touch her before she too is gone.
TWELVE
January 1920
RADEY—At her late residence, 38 Brookfield Street, on January 19, 1920, Ann, widow of the late John Radey, in her 75th year.
Funeral Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., to St. Francis Church. Interment St. Michael’s Cemetery.
The Toronto Daily Star
Tuesday, January 20, 1920
* * *
The priest takes the crucifix from the top of the casket and hands it to Mary, who, white faced, clutches it in both hands. Elizabeth and Kate are holding one another, crying.
Ma is lowered into the ground. With Da. It seems impossible. They are still alive in my head, always. I will talk to them forever. The sky is gray, the wind biting. The two of them, I think. Born across the ocean and buried so far away, in this frozen, snowy ground, sixteen seeds scattered.
I will be forty in June. At the grave’s edge, my parents in the earth, I now understand what it means to be the youngest in a family of older parents: I will experience all the death around me sooner than my siblings did, everyone will likely go before me, this will happen to me more often than it will to the others, this standing at a grave’s edge. I am in a different place. My life will be different.
And I am an orphan.
My brother, my sisters. We are all orphans.
Loy, I think, is the Irish for shovel.
A flock of starlings rises up against the bleak winter sky, heads east.
We are back at Mary’s, at number 38. The women are in the kitchen. They are slicing egg salad sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, baloney sandwiches, tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, all into small triangles, arranging them on plates. The men are in the living room smoking cigarettes, cigars, drinking coffee, tea, or beer, which has been supplied mysteriously by my friend Jock, who is here. Margaret and the older children are with the youngest ones in the bedrooms upstairs, keeping them quiet. Erector sets, snakes and ladders, checkers, the Street Car game. Maggie has given them a copy of both The American Boys Handy Book and The American Girls Handy Book, and when all else fails they will use them for instructions to tie knots of every kind, make a boomerang, fold a daisy fan from paper, make an armed war kite.
Jock, Mike, John Manion, John Dickinson, Neil Kernaghan, Oliver Johnson, and I sip Jock’s beer and discuss the prohibition laws, which were passed only last week in the United States, making the entire country as dry as we’ve been here in Ontario for four years now. We tell Jock that he is our savior, offer a toast to him, listen to his tale of buying Pabst Near Beer and mixing it with alcoholic malt tonic from the drugstore, and, chuckling, shake our heads in amazement that we didn’t think of it.
Jim Bedford, Peter Curtis, Michael Rossiter, Jim McKenna, Charles Trader—all tell us it is too early, that they cannot face a drink before noon, and we wonder what is wrong with them, tease them.
We are all here, as we should be, and I think that Ma would be pleased.
Personal items found in Ann Radey’s bedroom after her death
white chamoisette gloves—boxed, never worn
pair of eyeglasses
photo of Martin and Mike—“April 7, 1886, Elora,” printed on back
ten 41/2" shell hairpins
pincushion with hat pins
pompadour comb
statue of St. Anthony
rosary
packet of letters
death certificates for Sarah Radey O’Brien 1885, baby boy Radey 1870, Patrick Francis Radey 1884, Loretta Radey 1885, Margaret Loy Whalen 1917, John Radey 1906
baptismal certificates for Sarah, Julia, Margaret, Mike, Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Kate, Bridget, Rose, Emma, Teresa, Patrick, Martin, Loretta
locket with photo of Sarah Radey inside
$5 American gold piece
Beecham’s pills
box of Peps for winter coughs
bottle of Bayer aspirin
cherrywood jewelry box
Cuticura soap
pair of wooden shoe inserts
metal shoehorn
box of buttons
nail clippers
crucifix
dried palm fronds bottle of Lourdes water
Maggie and Margaret and Jack and I move, to an apartment at 1505 Dundas West, which we hope will give us all more space. The children are getting older and need their own rooms.
THIRTEEN
October 6, 1923
1
SUNNYSIDE BEACH
Toronto’s Lakeside Playground
Publicly Owned and Controlled
130 Acres of Pleasure
2 Miles of Boulevards and Promenade
Amusement Devices, Games, Rides, Beach Chairs, and
Refreshments
Boating, Canoeing and Dancing
Band Concerts Every Evening
BATHING PAVILION
7,700 Individual Lockers. Sterilized Suits and Towels.
Hot and Cold Showers. Diving Platforms and Water Sl
ides.
Safety Floats. Water and Beach Flood-Lighted.
First-Aid Room in Charge of Graduate Nurse.
Hair-Drying, Hair-Dressing, and Manicuring.
Professional Swimming Instructors.
Life-Guards in Charge of Beach.
Terrace Gardens, Refreshments and Orchestra.
TWENTY MINUTES BY STREET CAR, FIFTEEN MINUTES
BY MOTOR FROM DOWN-TOWN.
* * *
At 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 6, 1923, I alight from the streetcar at the Queen-King-Roncesvalles-Lake Shore intersection with Jack who is twelve, Margaret, fourteen, accompanied by Jock and his almost seven-year-old daughter, Gail. It is sunny, cool, bright, temperature in the sixties, one of the last nice days we will see before the weather turns, and I pull the brim of my boater low to shade my eyes from the glare. As we pass Tamblyn Drug Store, Jock ducks inside, emerging a few minutes later with a smug grin which he does not explain. Taking his cue, I pop into the United Cigar Store for three Havana Eden Ferfectos which I slip into my jacket pocket for later.
Surrounding us are the billboards: Coca-Cola, Old Chum Tobacco, Sunnyside Hair Dressing Parlor, Laura Secord candies, Cozens Spring Service, Columbia Six, Autolene Motor Oils, Neilson chocolates, Players Navy Cut Cigarettes, Boulevard Garage and $1 Taxi. In the distance, on the hill, is the Sunnyside Orphanage, a strange juxtaposition to this place of childish diversions. In the opposite direction, on another rise, I can see the tiled roof and sign of the Sunnyside railway station. Tomorrow, bright and early, Jack and Margaret and I will board the new CNR line there for the forty-mile trip to Hamilton to see Maggie.
We step carefully across the maze of intersecting streetcar tracks, complicated beyond belief, descend the steep stairway to the amusement park, and I listen to Gail as she squeals with delight, cannot wait any longer, and pulls on Jock’s arm.
The Flyer roller coaster dominates against the sky, its trolley of cars with screaming passengers rising and falling rhythmically every few minutes, a clock’s pendulum. The crowds are here already. Lineups for the Dutch Mill, the golf putting course, Fun Land, Pick Your Car.
Jock puts Gail on the merry-go-round, stands at its rim as she circles. Both their faces, I see, are glowing. Jack and Margaret scurry off to try the Frolic and the Dodgem. When they return, I give them some more money for games: the Monkey Racer, the fish pond, the Kentucky Derby, and they take Gail with them, holding her hands on either side, and I am proud as I watch them.
The Aero Swing seems tame enough for Gail so we say to Jack and Margaret, all right, fine, you can take her with you, and I light one of my three Havanas while I stand and watch the three of them. Jock is poking about inside his shoulder bag, which he has set down on a wooden picnic table, busy at something. I can’t help but focus on Jack and Margaret, my two, glorious in what little remains of their childhood, as they lift upward, then swoop down, again and again, heads thrown back, white teeth flashing.
We eat red hots, french fries in a vortex cup, choose among Honey Dew, Hires Rootbeer, Vernor’s ginger ale, Frost Kist drinks. At midafternoon there is a giant corn roast taking place on the beach. We give the children some nickels, and while Margaret and Jack take Gail to watch Tiny Tim, the dancing bear who has made an appearance there, Jock reaches into his shoulder bag and takes out two thermos bottles, hands me one, winks, and we settle back on a bench, the children visible in the distance.
“You sly dog, you.” I watch Jock unscrew the top of his thermos, pour the foamy, cool brew into the lid.
“Pabst—mixed with alcoholic malt tonic as usual, direct from Sunnyside’s own Tamblyn’s.”
I take out the two remaining Havanas, offer Jock one, and we light up, sipping our brew, kings.
The children are lined up for ears of roasted corn, patient. Tiny Tim rivets everyone on the beach.
“You seen the brick of wine you can buy?” asks Jock.
I shake my head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“New York state vintner is selling a solid block of grape concentrate, about the size of a pound of butter. It comes with instructions that warn that if you add water, you’ll have wine, and that would be illegal.” He smiles. “Fella at work showed it to me.”
I snort. “That’s what gave Harding the heart attack. The hypocrisy. That and the fact that all his cronies were dipping into the public till. His attorney general somehow managed to bank seventy-five thousand dollars on a salary of twelve thousand dollars a year.” I send a stream of blue smoke into the air. “Mackenzie King and Coolidge. Prime minister, president, doesn’t matter. They got their heads in the sand too. They say Coolidge spends from two to four hours every working day taking a nap.”
Jock chuckles. “And the rest of the time he gets driven around in a Pierce-Arrow, waiting for problems to solve themselves.”
“I’d like to have a nap every day.”
“Isn’t that what you do up there on the seventh floor?”
“And then I’d like to have a tall, cool beer and a nice supper, every night, put my feet up.”
We are quiet, watching the children, the dancing bear, content.
Jock seems to know what I am thinking. “How is Maggie doing?”
I shrug. “She needed the break, the rest. The kids are looking forward to seeing her tomorrow.” I add: “So am I.”
“You haven’t talked about it much.”
I cannot talk about it, I think. Men do not talk about things they do not understand, as women seem to do, turning situations and people over verbally, parsing them, tasting them, telling each other what someone not present thinks.
“I haven’t seen you enough. Busy. Families keep you busy.”
“Amen.” He drinks, squints into the sun.
“The fainting spells have been going on for too long. Heart palpitations. No one’s sure why. Pale, no energy.”
“And this doctor she’s seeing?”
“In Hamilton. He’s supposed to be a specialist at this sort of thing, so her sister Nellie arranged for her to stay with friends of hers there for the week. The Wilsons. They’re putting her up, no charge. Very kind. We can’t afford any of it as it is.”
Jock listens.
“What can you do?” I ask.
He is quiet for a while. We smoke our Havanas. Then he points to the beach, to Jack and Margaret and Gail. “Watch the dancing bear,” he says.
When the children come back, it is Jack who looks at the thermos, smells it, and I note the small cloud of disapproval rise behind his eyes—so like his mother—a cumulus that I have seen floating there more and more frequently. It is becoming clearer. It has always been Jack who judges me, whom I cannot win over fully, who puzzles me, and I wonder, again, what it is I am doing wrong.
2
When Jack and Margaret are finally asleep, I sit in the maroon upholstered easy chair, feet up, enjoying reading the newspaper by electric light. One of the attractions of this Berkeley Street flat is that it is electrically wired, the first that we have lived in. At forty-three, though, I cannot read without eyeglasses, which bothers me, because even they do not stop the strain, fatigue, and I dab at my eyes with my handkerchief, rub them often. Still, the light is a wonder, a marvel.
There is a wooden mantle over the stove, and beside the earphones to the crystal set I see the mix of books lined up atop it: Seventeen, The U.P. Trail, Mr. Britling Sees It Through, Penrod, Tarzan of the Apes, Tom Swift and His Motor-Cyde, This Side of Paradise, Main Street, The Scarlet Letter, The Shoes of Happiness by Edwin Markham, whom Maggie tells me is her favorite poet, others.
I have no favorite poet. Only one of the books is mine, one of the two copies of Sister Carrie that is also there.
I take my eyeglasses off, hold them by the spidery wire rims in my hands, polish the lenses with my handkerchief. We must be up early tomorrow. Forty miles is a long trip.
I dream again that night of Jack slipping off the wooden dock into the lake, beneath the surface.
He does not come up. I dive into the black water, stay under for ages, lungs burning, cannot find him. Oh God, please God.
He is gone.
I wake up sweating, only Maggie is not here. I am alone. No one strokes my head, my brow.
As always, I am cold.
I stare into the darkness, calming myself.
FOURTEEN
I sit in darkness, I sit in human silence. Then I begin to hear the eloquent night, the night of wet trees, with moonlight sliding over the shoulder of the church in a haze of dampness and subsiding heat.
—Thomas Merton
The Sign of Jonas
I was not sure where we were, but the flock seemed higher than usual, the earth below more rounded, the vista more sweeping. A waving necklace of honking geese undulated in the distance, a flat ribbon of silver river coiling beneath us in the sun.
Time and space and memory unrolled into one giant net and we, black birds against the blue sky, slipped through larger holes and back through others. I imagined that I spoke to my grandmother, silent still, even now, explaining what I was seeing, what I was experiencing, wanting her to know, wondered if she was listening, knew that she was listening, inside me, outside me, somewhere, somehow, knew that she had not died, not really, because I could see her so clearly, and understood now that family is a memory that transcends words.