Watching Jimmy
Page 9
The General reaches for Aunt Jean’s hand to give her courage, but she pulls away. She looks shriveled and alone.
“Ted was so upset when he found out. And who can blame him? Then Bertie died, and so much fuss was made about our son, who Ted said wasn’t even a blood relative. And then we had our miracle baby. Jimmy.”
Aunt Jean’s face softens when she mentions Jimmy’s name and then tenses up again. “Ted let it eat at him. That, and being turned down for the service because of his flat feet.”
“Oh-h-h-h-h. I see.” And I did see. Poor Ted. A bastard for real. And me an almost bastard. It was like Ted’s whole life was a story on a blackboard and with one swipe of a wet chamois, was wiped right out. You had to start again and think about things differently from the very beginning. And it’s no wonder that Bertie missed having the blessed flat feet. No wonder at all. It makes sense now.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’ve been willfully blind about Ted. I’ve been consumed by remorse and regret and responsibility. I was so relieved when he seemed to do so well financially. When your mom wouldn’t let him take over the house, properly mind, he saw red. He thought it was his chance to be the head of the household. To take his rightful place. And steal me blind in the process. I blame myself. But I’ve done making excuses for poor Ted.” Aunt Jean takes another shaky sip of water.
“I’m done with Ted. This family is done with him. There are some things that can’t be undone. Lord knows, I’ve tried.”
I look up at the General. “Is she still going to lose the house?”
“I’ll answer that! It is immaterial to me whether or not I lose this house. This house is just bricks and mortar. Bricks and mortar. Nothing at all compared to the health of my Jimmy … and the safety of you, Carolyn. Nothing at all. We’ll get along. We always do.”
We let that hang there for about ten seconds. Finally, the General clears his throat. “Now, Jean. Is there something you’d like to ask Carolyn?”
I tell the whole story about how Jimmy flew out the back of Ted’s car. I don’t intend to ever tell it again, but I must say that I was wrong about half-believing the swing story The true details hit me right in the heart. All over again.
Poor Jimmy. Poor Aunt Jean. Poor, poor Ted.
I look up when I’ve finished the story. My mom is leaning against the door jamb. She, too, is in her pajamas and her robe and she’s gripping a coffee mug so tightly, I think it will shatter. Her face is white, her lips bloodless. The cords of her neck are sticking out and I see a pulse beating where her throat meets her neck. The look on her face is the same one she had when I was in Grade 2 and Luanne Price called me a poor little bastard.
“Carolyn, that night … the night when you stayed at the MacGregor’s … the night that Jimmy was sick —”
“Drunk,” interrupts Aunt Jean. “The night that Ted got Jimmy drunk. From here in, we must speak the plain truth of it.”
“All right then, the night that Ted got Jimmy drunk. Did Ted hurt you? Did he put his hands on you?”
I know what she means. Did Ted attack me? Did he violate me because I’m a girl? I tug at the sleeve of my pajama top, pulling it down over the wrist that Ted grabbed as he pulled me to him. The bruises have long since disappeared, but not the memory of his strength. The gasoline smell of his breath on my face. The rasp of his whiskers. No. These memories have not gone away.
I look at Aunt Jean’s face. Her eyelids are fluttering and I think she’s praying to the Lord that nothing bad has happened to me. She looks desperate to know if Ted has sunk to new depths.
Suddenly I’m very calm. While I understand that there are things about Jimmy that need to be told, there are things about me and Ted, which Mom and Aunt Jean do not need to know. What would be the point? I’ll get over Ted’s demands that I give him a kiss. His drunken leering at me from top to toe, in that way.
I look up at the General. He mouths the word later and I seize on it like a life ring.
I will tell the General.
“No,” I whisper. “He never harmed me. He could never catch me to hurt me. I’m small, but I’m fast.” I laugh like I’ve just told the funniest joke. Mom and Aunt Jean laugh with me, so anxious to believe that I’m telling the truth. The General gives me a nod. He’s not so easily fooled. He ruffles my hair and makes room for my mother at the table.
“More tea?” he says to me.
“Yes, please.” And so, I turn the page on Ted.
I don’t go to school. I stay in my pajamas all day and we play Scrabble and Crokinole and drink mint tea like we all have bellyaches instead of heartaches.
So it isn’t until two days later that I face the class after my Remembrance Day speech. Not a pencil shaving drops when I enter the classroom. The hair climbs straight up on my arms, the atmosphere is that spooky.
And then they cheer. All the kids cheer except the horrid Luanne Price who stares an ugly stare at me, through my forehead and all the way to the back cloakroom. It seems I was not only on the CBC Radio, but on CBC Television too. I have to say that it never occurred to me that our local Remembrance Day ceremony would be televised. You see, Aunt Jean doesn’t have a television and neither do we. But everybody else seems to. Pity I never saw it.
Mostly because of that television broadcast, mail starts pouring in. Letters for Aunt Jean, some of them with cheques enclosed.
I’ve been getting mail, too, although its beginning to dwindle. Mostly I get letters from classrooms of kids whose teachers have obviously made them write me. Sometimes I get a group letter containing one line from each kid about why they are proud to be Canadian. I feel bad about that because it was never my intention to make my speech homework. I have about five letters from choirmasters asking me if I want a new job. There are six letters from little girls asking for advice on how they can become actresses and go on the CBC.
But the best letter of all is a stiff and heavy envelope with an embossed coat of arms of Saskatchewan on the flap. I know who this is from and I hug it to my chest.
“Well, open it!” says Aunt Jean.
Jimmy bellows his support. I take a knife from the drawer and carefully slit open the package. Inside, there’s a signed picture of Tommy C. Douglas. And there’s a hand-written note.
“What’s he say? What’s he say?”
I read it right through to the end and start again. I fold it up and put it back in the envelope.
“Well?”
“He likes me.”
“Of course, he likes you. We all like you. Land sakes. Such a girl, Jimmy.”
The letter from Tommy Douglas is my treasure. I’m not sharing. Except maybe with Jimmy when he goes to bed. He’ll like the story about how Tommy Douglas hurt his leg and had a bone infection and was going to lose his leg until a doctor stepped up and said he would operate on it for free.
It’s a sign.
With the money and the publicity, a miracle has happened. A lawyer has come forward (I suspect he’s a friend of the General) and determined that Uncle Ted’s mort-gage is a flimflam. A fraud. It’s not properly signed. There’s no evidence that Aunt Jean’s husband borrowed anything from Ted. I guess Ted was trying to take what he thought he was rightfully owed. The General says Ted’s lucky that he didn’t get his tail landed in jail.
Oh yes, and Aunt Jean has been given a little job through Veterans Affairs that she can do right here at home.
But best of all, the Bank of Nova Scotia has opened up a fund for Jimmy’s operation. Money is pouring in from across the country. Soon there should be enough money to pay Dr. Phillips at Sick Children’s Hospital.
As I told you, our Jimmy is not a mental defective like Luanne Price says. Our Jimmy is in there. He’s in there. This I know. And Dr. Phillips will let him out.
And as for Ted? I admit that there’s never been a Thursday yet that he doesn’t cross my mind. But he’s long gone. And if he shows up again? Never mind. We can deal with Ted. As I said at the beginning, he doesn’t scare me. Never ha
s. Never will.
I’m not afraid of anything.
Not anymore.
Text copyright © 2009 by Nancy Hartry
Lyrics by Nat Burton for “The White Cliffs of Dover” © 1941 Shapiro Burnstein & Co. Inc. are reproduced on pages 136 and 137 by permission of Faber Music Ltd. All rights reserved.
The quotes beginning on page 109 are from a speech given by Tommy Douglas in September, 1958 entitled “That Freedom May Flourish.”
Published in Canada by Tundra Books, 75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9
Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York, P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008903013
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher — or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency — is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hartry, Nancy
Watching Jimmy / Nancy Hartry.
eISBN: 978-1-77049-076-5
I. Title.
PS8565.A673W38 2009 JC813.′54 C2008-902093-6
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Copyright