Almost a Great Escape
Page 16
Below the books are cubbyholes and slots where you kept letters, photographs, paper, and envelopes. Then the fold down writing surface supported by smooth sliding braces. Opening and closing with a gentle click. Then the four lower drawers. Maybe, but unlikely, you kept The Jens Album in one of them.
Years after I received The Campbell’s Soup Box, Dad relinquished this desk, giving it to me according to your request. I can’t write on it. Maybe one day. In the meantime, it encourages me. Write who you are. Nothing else matters. “It’s a fuck of a life if you don’t live your own way. It’s a fuck of a story if you don’t tell it your own way.”
I am baptized. Never forget the smell of alone. Never forget who you are today. Never let go of who you are.
Hidden inside the desk behind cubbyhole drawers — places no surreptitious searcher guessed — I find your treasures of pressed memory flowers and photographs. Hidden in the leaves of your books are private notes, more photographs, and more pressed flowers. Your stowaway companions. Everyone fooled by the always open desk where, I like to think, you planned my post baptism confirmation class of living like Alice.
Here’s a long hidden Note To Self * slipped smoothly from a narrow tunnel not detected. It makes me remember My Goodbye Mother.
Tyler has bought a huge yellow school bus which he is converting to a home on wheels. I think he plans to write poetry and books and just take the world as he finds it. Very idealistic and drives Ted crazy. I adore him and envy him.
Inside the glass cabinet of the desk I keep the silver cup that Grandfather Bert sent to Egypt shortly after I was born.
July 20, 1949
My dear Alice —
I am so happy about your baby and cannot wait to hear all the details. We are sending you a silver cup (engraved) for him.
Love Love,
Dad
Alongside the cup I keep what Ted thought was your ashtray. I didn’t tell him what it was — a postcard size, silver tray so tarnished that I had to polish it gently to read the faint inscription mirror written: Albert and Marjorie Tyler are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter Alice Patricia. The printing plate for your engagement cards.
Ted has promised to give me the Duncan Crockford painting of our cabin at Canmore that you told him I should have. We’ll see. If I get it, I’ll hang it near the desk. Addendum to Alice’s Suitcase.
AN ALMOST NEW YORKER STORY
A GUN ROOM STYLE
Here I am with the washed ashore debris of your Ted belittled writing. Him the master of Cambridge essays. You the fast no going back wonder changer of life into words.
I see pregnant mothers today reading books or playing music for their unborn babies in the hopes that the baby will develop better than regular kids. My Goodbye Mother didn’t know anything about that, or the dangers of smoking and drinking while pregnant. But when she was told she couldn’t have more children, she resumed her writing with the same determination she had at McGill. Despite Big Marjorie’s disparagement. Despite Ted’s eloquent criticism. She kept at her stories until I was born. Then she quit and began to teach me how to care, how to laugh, and how to live my own life. I became her possibilities.
I began to read when I was four, a little trick we kept to ourselves until I started school. And, like her, the New Yorker was my favourite. Maybe that’s why I read and my brother Geoff loves the avalanching heartbeat of testing danger . . . a Goodbye Mother attitude people admired, envied, or loathed.
Alice’s writing must have been under way when she was in her early teens. Slipped beside Robinson Crusoe I found a thin book of poetry written by Kenneth O. Macleod. I don’t know his relationship to Alice other than he is the Montreal author of a non-fiction book about Birks (as in the engagement ring Bert bought). He inscribed his work with “Again to dear Alice, ‘Memories of Summer 1941.’ Ken.”
I found one package of encouraging letters written to her by Wilf (married to sister Marjorie) after word spread that Alice would not have a second child. On the first letter, she wrote: “* NB: Wallet to read daily,” and “* Show Tyler.” I do not recall her showing the letter to me, but if I did see it, I probably would not have understood the hope it gave her — that she could have a life not entirely run by Ted . . . or, I suppose, Big Marjorie . . . or maybe I wasn’t paying attention.
November 11, 1946
Hello Dear Alice — the Blonde Bombshell —
Keep up the writing kid, first to me and second to work on the great Venezuelan novel. Stick to it chum, although I will admit that it is an awful bloody chore. The novel, not me. I tried to.
. . . But you Alice will continue to write — no giving up. Presently, doggedly, with the head drooping and spirit battered to shreds. . . . It is in you dear and it will come out.
. . . Now I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do. Forget the novel for the time being. Too long. Too difficult for a start. Decide that you are going to write for the S.E. Post, or Colliers, or etc. Study the Post, if that is the one, to note the type of story, the length and the illustrations. Lay off any continued story because that is the most difficult kind and anyway that would bring you back into novel length. Grind out a typical magazine story (reading time 15 minutes) (30 minutes if you are a lip mover) and arrange with Ewing Krainin, 538 Fifth Avenue to hand it around N.Y. for you. He knows the people who decide what gets printed. If you can do the above in six months you’ll set a new record for speed. Honest. However it can be done only if you write each day. That’s what the successful writers of today do. If you try to write every second day you are beaten. That’s what they say. Even a half-hour per day will do the trick but it must be every day.
. . . Love from CWB
Wilf, the only one in Alice’s family to encourage her writing, sent other letters admiring her gun room style and sense of humour.
January 9, 1947
Hello Dear Alice,
Thank you for your nice letter; your style is very good although your language may be described as invigorating. Very refreshing, not unlike a strong breeze from the gun room.
Are we to have a second Hemingway? Answer me that, kid.
How is the writing, chum? Time to start pitching again? Lower your sights dear and stop aiming your writing at the New Yorker. They seem to demand a sophisticated writing in their stories that only an experienced craftsman can turn out. Also, they pay nothing and that means $100, at most. St. Eve. Post will accept a simpler type of writing, will pay $1000 and eventually when you are fat and famous, $5000. Of course, then, you can write for the N.Y. for the fun of it. Study the Post. How about a story of the old Venezuelan aristocracy and what became of them?
. . . Love to Ted, Teddy and yuh.
Instead of Venezuelan aristocracy, Alice writes back a dissertation on “sanitary units.” I wonder if even Wilf appreciated the irony of this substitution for aristocracy. It took me a moment to catch.
February 22, 1947
Hello Dear Alice —
I love your last letter. It’s wonderful. I don’t think I have ever read one more funny. It appeals especially to my type of sense of humour. It is certainly a thoughtful dissertation on the progress of civilisation as evidenced by the availability of sanitary units. You have everything except the illustrations.
. . . All the best
CWB
A THREE PARAGRAPH STORY
FOREVER YOUNG
This is the only excerpt of a story written by Alice that I found. I have no idea of its date, and that adds to its importance to me.
The months passed — years passed. More and more men and women — fell — never to return. The Europeans kept coming. The Norwegians were such heroes to us. They skied and jumped off our mountains in a marvellous style we had never seen before.
One Norwegian Jens Müller came often from “Little Norway.” We grew fond of each other and when the day came for him to leave he promised to return for me. Too soon I heard he had been shot down.
Those who die an
d those who we can no longer see live on in our hearts. There are times when anticipation is better than realisation. Jens lives on in my heart. He is forever young.
A TYLER STORY
THE LAST LETTER YOU WROTE ME
Just before she died, Alice asked me to do a quiet something for her. It doesn’t matter now what it was. A few days later I received my last letter from her:
My dearest Tyler —
Every day I thank the Lord for letting me share in the life of a very special human being.
I thank you so much for what you have done — your sacrifice has not gone unnoticed.
Your action has wisdom and integrity seldom seen in society today.
Thank you Tyler for your great gift. It has lifted my spirits — God knows I need that before I leave for eternity.
Love you forever
Mum XX
A GOODBYE MOTHER STORY
THEY NEVER CAME BACK
I am in a claustrophobic tunnel. The what if crumbling walls of a tunnel leading to a railway platform are fast burying me.
It took one year for the tunnel named Harry to be completed. One moonless night earlier and Jens’s telegram would have reached you before your engagement to Ted. I cannot think about you and Jens anymore.
I midnight wake and wander to Eden Brook. I have to write about the you I carry.
I was twelve years old in Mr. Redekop’s grade eight class at the Springbank School. You didn’t know Mr. Redekop. My last teacher you met was Mrs. Bilton at Elbow Park School, grade three, when you talked her into letting me be in her class even though I didn’t know handwriting. I was on my own in school after that.
My best friend at Springbank was Ron Anderson who had a white-faced horse named Baldy and his own room in the basement of his house where nobody touched his stuff. He had to work hard at home doing farm chores. He could lift a bale of hay onto a pickup. When he was allowed we would ride in the bush and pastures by the Elbow River. I think we were close to Eden Brook except it was a cow pasture then. Ron and I knew the gates and how to stretch the wire fences down to cross without gates. We had sandwiches smashed up in plastic bread bags and a fort. We lived dangerous lives.
When I wasn’t riding with Ron or by myself or looking after my rabbits and pigeons, I was building a cross country course for my horse Gold Dust. I let the rabbits play on the lawn when it was quiet. I was waiting for the right day to let my homing pigeons take their first flight. I planned to tie an important message on their legs that would surprise me later.
You brought home barrels and rails for my cross country course. Mostly I piled up brush and logs. You borrowed an orange City of Calgary street barricade. My course went through the trees and made loops. Some jumps you had to go over a couple of times from different directions. There was a slide down a pile of loam and another over a bank and onto an abandoned road. The best part was the final sprint up a laneway towards home with bush on both sides. That’s where I put the barricade and two barrels because I needed a lot of speed to get Gold Dust over the big ones. You would wait for me to race up the laneway. I didn’t have a stopwatch but I had an official finish line. You held panting Gold Dust like you were our groom waiting for the results. We were champions.
You let me do anything. One other place I liked to jump but didn’t tell you about was on the Atkins’ land. (Can you believe they rented that land from Mrs. Bilton’s family?) Anyway, I found four rocks about a horse length wide on the side of the hill. Two were small for warm-ups. Two were high enough to be scary. They looked like cement filled with rough rocks. I looked rocks up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the boys’ room and figured out conglomerates. It took a lot of speed to get Gold Dust over them. The truth is she didn’t like jumping. She didn’t like anything much except oats. I had to head Gold Dust home fast and then veer her over the rocks. She was more likely to try if she thought it would get her back to the oats sooner.
You didn’t ask a lot of questions. Neither did I.
For a couple of years on Saturdays Teddy and I and sometimes Geoff would ride down the Banff Coach Road and over the Trans-Canada Highway to Milli Pratt’s for Pony Club. That took all day. That’s where I saw teenagers jumping over proper jumps and practising for horse shows. I went to some shows with Gold Dust but to have a chance of winning you had to have a better horse. You and I talked about that. We found one named Ebenezer. A chestnut with four white socks. And he could jump at least four feet and junior classes had smaller jumps than that and I knew Ebenezer was for me. Milli Pratt agreed. He was going to cost $2,000. We had to talk to Dad.
No.
That was the last time he made me cry. Age twelve.
He had his own plans for me I was to find out later.
That summer he told me I had to write some tests, to see how I was doing in school. It was a kind of game. He made it sound like fun. He would time me. It sounded like a race. I did my best to do well. I finished early. Later I found out how stupid I was. While he was marking the tests I rode Gold Dust as fast as I could over my cross-country course.
When I got back he told me I had been careless. He knew that I could have done better if I hadn’t hurried so much. But it was important to be honest so he had sent in the scores.
For my birthday in July you had a party for me and my friends from school and most of them brought their brothers and sisters. I have the picture you took of them all standing around my 13 birthday cake candles. Just a bunch of regular kids, except the boys who hayed and had big farm muscles.
A few weeks later Dad said the results had come back from my tests and I had done very well and had been accepted except there was a final interview. That’s when I was told I would be going to boarding school in the fall. You didn’t say anything.
I went alone to the interview at a hotel and met the headmaster. Mr. Ned Larsen who had hair just like Dad brushed back black and Vitalis shiny. He pointed out I was 13 which was young for grade nine but they were willing to see how I did. I was going to get a bursary which was something I had never heard of. I had more important questions to ask.
Was there going to be riding? Could we have horses? Well, you can’t have your own horse but you can go riding. A couple of boys go riding and I could go with them. And what about skiing? Oh yes. There was skiing. Bring your skis after Christmas.
The interview ended and I was thinking about it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to say yes. I waited for you and Dad to ask if I had made up my mind. The only thing you said to me was I had to go with you to buy boarding school clothes. The school had sent a list and we had to get everything on it. Oh. I’m going.
I decided it was time to try out the pigeons. I opened the door and they flew out circling higher and higher into the sky until they disappeared. All I could do was stand there watching and wondering what had gone wrong. They never came back.
I met a couple of older boys on the CPR platform in Calgary saying goodbye to their parents. Dad was shaking hands with the other men proud of their sons heading off to be trained as the leaders of tomorrow. Not telling them what an aggravating son of a bitch his son had turned out to be. And glad to see him go.
You stood by yourself. Just watching. You never said anything. That’s when we began to have a lot of before then things not to talk about. I wasted four years there and felt sorry for myself a lot. Now I feel more sorry for you.
The school was on Vancouver Island. I had no idea how far it was from the train tracks at Old Canmore. It took all night to get to Vancouver where a bus took us to the ferry and then to the school. I was 13 and would never live at home again. I phoned collect Sunday nights to say hello. Not long until I would become the Christmas and summer holidays visitor growing up and away from five brothers and a sister with family stories I’ll never be in.
I’ll never forget waking up that first morning in a dormitory with ten strangers. I didn’t know where I was. Everybody laughed when I asked about the horses and the skiing. This was a British school.
This was Shawnigan Lake School. SLS. Your name is Trafford. Just like your father’s at Cambridge. You will be playing rugby and cricket and there are house prefects and school prefects and school ties and house ties and blazers with crests and chapel every morning and study time after dinner and bells that ring when it is time for class and bells that ring when it is time to sit down to eat and ring when it is time to stand up and bath schedules and lists posted of exam results and do anything wrong you get defaulters working for an hour in the garden supervised by prefects and shine those shoes and fix your collar and stand up when the master comes in the class and say good morning sir.
Aren’t we smart in grade nine learning Latin except for Trafford a lazy boy who will fail in life and never be a prefect or a leader of tomorrow. All but Mr. Dickens who taught English and said he would prefer if his class stayed in their seats and kept reading.
My only regret was that I didn’t keep the letters you wrote me. Almost every week I got your rolling circle writing the way you talked that should have been in the New Yorker and nobody knew but me. You made me laugh so I could know you loved me but there’s other interesting things to write about too. Mr. Ross, the publisher of the New Yorker, you wrote, said everything could be explained or described by a writer. Even on blue crinkly paper I love you can’t stay hidden long in scenes and personalities. You wrote the way you think. Who else could write wonderful like that with no going back edits? And probably drunk. Hemingway. Henry Miller. Old friends of yours.
In Mr. Dickens’s class we memorized poetry and analyzed essays and compared and contrasted, similes say things are like other things, and wrote model paragraphs so we would be prepared for our matriculation exams. Mr. Dickens signed J.E.D. taught me the mechanics. Forgive my misplaced modifiers and alliteration trespassing but I cared more for the voice writing letters signed