Almost a Great Escape

by Tyler Trafford

  John called us Debu-Tramps. He was right about that. Many of the girls were dunderheads — spectacularly stupid. Golf. Tennis. Dying to buy a horse and join the Mink and Manure set. Cocktail party opinions. Children. Those were our destinations. Why can’t I write that wasted life into this?

  We had money because, just before the war started, Bert signed an exclusive sales contract with Celanese Canada — the biggest textile mill in the area and one of the first to manufacture synthetic fabrics. Retail fabrics were hard to get, and we controlled the supply. The money rolled in.

  Overnight, we went from well-off to wealthy, but not from Unacceptable to Acceptable. Despite her deserved affluence, Big Marjorie waited to buy 3803 Westmount Boulevard. First, her daughters had to be married well. Then she’d buy the house. Then the guests would be invited and they wouldn’t dare make excuses. They would have to come. Then there would be gloating. Then she would be happy.

  Big Marjorie ran a matrimonial outlet for me in her Lansdowne Avenue drawing room — interviewing applicants and accepting their gifts of flowers and chocolates. It was hard to say who the men were courting most ardently — my mother or me.

  I have a character like Big Marjorie — a real life self-centred bitch — and I’m writing her like she’s a matron with a quirky side. A godsend I’m punctuating with contrived generics. But I’m not going back. Imagine living like this and thinking you’re special.

  On Friday nights she drank in the speakeasies and had front row seats at the professional wrestling. She, like Eva, was a woman of contradictions, except Eva’s contradictions were now starting to embarrass Big Marjorie. Eva had moved by then to the Mohawk Reserve — she’d rather live destitute with Indians than with her own daughter.

  After that we were never allowed to see Eva. Whenever I asked why, my parents repeated the family story — my grandmother had abandoned her children — the most wicked sin possible — and should not be forgiven. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I stuck with Ted. I know I heard it often enough.

  Not content with just refusing to allow Eva to see us, Big Marjorie used us for revenge by taking us to visit Grandfather Flanagan in Malone where we always impressed everybody by throwing money around. Joe’s spinster sister, Mary Flanagan, loved me especially — When she died, she left me the $1,000 that I would use to buy the land at Canmore.

  Big Marjorie bought us clothes so fast that some packages were never opened after they were delivered. As if spending were her wartime duty, she directed other forces north where she and Bert bought the Alpine Inn, our year-round resort hotel two hours from Montreal. The Tylers soon had the best horses and their own stable to keep them in. And a private riding ring. And tennis courts. And a swimming pool. And a golf course. And a ski hill. And an artificial lake. Who wouldn’t want to marry beautiful Alice Tyler and get his hands on that life?

  I can laugh about it now, our extravagant living, but it was all a show. Out of sight my parents argued in high emotion swearing brawls. For all the horses, tennis lessons, and skiing we had, my sisters and I were taught only envy for each other — We couldn’t stand to see each other succeed. Love meant being better than the other, getting more attention. My mother encouraged that love, our fighting for her approval. She was fighting her way to be the envy of Westmount society — and she raised us to struggle for the same worthless cause all our lives.

  I never learned to recognize The One Good Thing when it came my way.

  I know Big Marjorie believed she was well on her way to becoming a social success while I was engaged to Don. She always said she wanted the best for me, and Don was from one of the best families. He would later do very well in business, so she didn’t make a mistake about him, just me. I know how disappointed she was when I gave Don back his ring. — All right, threw it back!

  I don’t know how much Big Marjorie guessed about me and Jens or how many of his letters she opened. She was probably pleased to know he was safely locked up in a POW camp.

  Aren’t I something? Big love with Jens and that’s the best I can write about it. Where did that love go? Where did everything go? I should be writing about that.

  The happiest I ever saw my mother was the day I told her I would marry Ted. I wasn’t blind. I could see her pushing us together as soon as Ted and his mother arrived at the Alpine Inn. I could see the two mothers cooking things up. But I admit Ted was easy to fall for — handsome as hell. And I needed somebody to love. Somebody close by, not locked in a Stalag. I hardly heard from Jens even though I wrote him all the time. How could I have known about his plan to escape? Looking back, I suspect my mother intercepted more of his folded POW letters than I knew about. He always addressed them to me at Lansdowne Avenue. When I was at St. Marguerite’s, my mother was supposed to forward them to me, so I know she had the opportunity to read them. She routinely blamed the War for anything that went wrong — including letters that went missing.

  Jens Returns to Canada. After “The Great Escape,” Jens was back in Montreal for Alice, as he had promised. This photo of Jens, Alice (centre), and Joan was the last one she saved for The Jens Album. Photo courtesy of the author.

  I can’t blame Big Marjorie for the mess I found myself in with Ted — It was my own damn fault. I should have been more suspicious of how well things went with him at the Inn and how quickly our parents agreed to our engagement. It was all too easy. Imagine getting married after you’ve only known someone for three weeks.

  I knew my mother always wanted her own way, so I should have questioned why she was so agreeable when Ted wanted us to be married in Trinidad rather than waiting until the two families could be together at the Alpine Inn and she could put on a big show. My father even bought the ring for Ted — and packed me on the train to get married. Alone. Not a Tyler at the wedding. I’m sure my sisters spread rumours that I was pregnant. My mother wasn’t taking any chances. I was getting married.

  Maybe that was the day I lost writing true. All that not facing up to my heart. If you don’t live it you can’t write it. Biography is all I have left. There was so little of me in my life that I can barely remember it happening. Who the hell was I? Or more to the point who the hell did I think I was?

  When I look back on those spring days in 1944, I see my mother was worried for good reason about motorcycle racing war hero Jens. If she’d been reading his letters, she’d have known we were in love and intended on getting married when he returned for me. I remember him showing up right after my parents announced my engagement to Ted. What a coincidence! There he was. As calm and loving me as much as ever — on his motorcycle outside our house — as if escaping from a Nazi POW camp were nothing compared to keeping his promise to me. I’ll never forget that ride on his motorcycle. The way he drove so fast took my breath away. He was a slow lover. That took my breath away too. My mother really grilled me after that. She must have been worried that I’d escape too.

  I could have built that getting grilled scene more truthfully. Everybody was lying and the scene avoids it. No truth. No good. And I’m avoiding writing anything about sex. What happened to that?

  Jens met me at the train station to say goodbye the day my father and I went to New York. It was a sad parting for both of us. We knew how we felt. We’d talked it over enough since he’d come back for me that we didn’t have anything left to say but goodbye. He would always be a beautiful person to me. The most honest person I would ever know. He deserved better than me. And it wasn’t until that movie came out that I knew what he had done to keep his promise. My Jens.

  My father didn’t grill me the way Big Marjorie did but I could tell from his face that he was wondering whether I would make it to Trinidad after he left me in New York. He was wondering if I’d head back to Jens. — I wasn’t going to. I’d chosen my destination. I didn’t have a clue how wrong a marriage could go. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked out with Jens, but I would have had a hell of a lot better chance.

  There should be a bullet fired in every paragraph.
Minimum. I’m writing like a self-absorbed Whiner! If I ever say I should have would have then I know I didn’t believe in myself enough. That’s the sign. It was there and I just let it go. You always know what’s right — and what’s the easy way out. The wrong ticket. The wrong destination.

  I didn’t see Big Marjorie until I came back to Montreal with Teddy, my first child. I was recovering from an operation and was a mess — I had boils and I was exhausted. My mother fussed over Teddy more than she had ever fussed over me. She liked to call him Edward III — as if he were royalty and she were a dowager princess.

  Ted and I were already having money problems. If it hadn’t been for my father making investments for us, we could never have lived the way we did in Venezuela. Ted’s salary as a junior engineer wasn’t as great as everyone guessed, and he never saved. Whenever the unexpected came up, we were broke. I had to cash one of my father’s investments to pay my fare to Montreal. Otherwise Ted would have left me to recover or die in that dirty Maracaibo hospital while he stayed in the drilling field.

  Big Marjorie was sick in bed when I got to Montreal. The doctors could never discover what was wrong with her. I had almost recovered — I even played a little tennis on our courts by the lake — but I had to wait on her hand and foot like everybody else. She said she had made a big sacrifice for me coming all the way up to St. Marguerite’s so I could be with my friends. She only got out of bed in the afternoons and we had to bring Teddy, blankets, and tea onto the porch for her. Nobody said anything, but her complaining was driving everyone around the bend. My father stayed in Montreal. I don’t blame him.

  Even today — when I’m stuck in a sickbed — I think about the way Big Marjorie rang her silver bell and bossed everybody around from her bedroom. I catch myself being just like her sometimes. She blamed her unhappiness on sacrificing everything she could have had so her thankless children and husband could have a better life than hers. — I blame mine on Prednisone and Vodka. Nobody believes their unhappiness is their own fault — or that they can’t do anything about it.

  Why is it so hard to write twisted reality? Your problems are ok. But if you want people to care about what you are writing . . . what did you do about your problems? Go to Paris? Don’t be a loser. Feel what’s right then do it. Use your own words. Why did I plot a second-hand life for myself?

  Bert bought 3803 Westmount Boulevard for Marjorie after the war. It was rundown and he had to put over $100,000 into repairs before she would move in. Imagine how much money that was — I bought our first house in Calgary for $6,000 with my stock market profits. — I got a good tip on a Redwater well. The Westmount mansion had two bedrooms on the third floor, each with double windows opening over the neighbourhood below. My mother slept in one bedroom, my father in the other. She liked standing in the window and looking down the hill at the people below. — I bet she lifted her skirt a couple of times just to see how it felt.

  That’s descriptive. There’s an image to keep readers awake at night.

  Bert told me life with Big Marjorie on Westmount Boulevard was terrible. He had expected the new house would make her happy, but it didn’t. My sisters, always looking for the dirt, suspected he was carrying on with Hazel, my mother’s nurse.

  Big Marjorie was on oxygen the last month of her life, like I have been for years. She died in January 1948, age 48. I didn’t go to the funeral. The church was full so I probably wasn’t missed. Joanie wrote me about the carloads of flowers and said it was the biggest and most beautiful funeral that year in Montreal. That would have made Big Marjorie happy. She died at the top of Westmount Boulevard and had a grand funeral. An accomplishment.

  I find the ending to her life to be a sad unaccomplishment. I try to think well of her. She was no dunderhead — she should have used her brains for something better than manipulating people to get what she wanted. Big Marjorie believed getting what you want was a desirable quality in a mother. She taught it to me and I had to learn the hard way that only love can fill the emptiness in your heart.

  I loved my mother — but I didn’t like her. It is hard to like someone who values public displays of wealth and social status more than she values her family. When I think about the Westmount mansion, the horse shows at the Alpine Inn, our debutante balls, coming out parties, engagement parties, wedding parties, and even her expensive funeral, I think of them as excuses for her not asking me what I really wanted — to be a writer. I feel like Big Marjorie was always saying to me — “You must feel loved. Just look at all I am sacrificing for you. Look at how other people envy you. What else is there in life?”

  I didn’t feel loved, at least not by her.

  More whining. Not interesting.

  Big Marjorie’s Ambition. Owning this hilltop Westmount mansion became an obsession for Alice’s mother, and she would spend the last years of her life there gloating over those who had snubbed her during her less glamorous days.

  Photo courtesy of the author.

  I let myself believe that Ted was offering me what I wanted. And Jens, in Stalag Luft III, had no prospects. I must have been crazy not to see what he was really offering me.

  Getting back to the twisted version of love my mother learned from Joe, Eva, Ada, and convent life. She interpreted compliance as love. Maybe that’s why she and Ted got along so well. They played the game with the same rules. She assumed her goals were the best for everyone, that what she wanted should be the top of everyone’s agenda. In the end, all she did was spread misery.

  I can see myself doing the same, especially after a few drinks. I’m like a child sometimes the way I crave attention. There’s nothing I like better than commanding a room. I can’t resist. It makes me feel young again. It reminds me of when I was courted and desirable. I know it drives my children up the wall, but I need the flattery that being blonde and beautiful brings me. Or used to bring me. When I think about how easily I gave up McGill and my writing, it is no wonder I looked to everybody like just another rich blonde debutante marrying a family ring. Jens saw me differently — but — well, there’s no going back. I made my choice and I’ll stick it through to the end.

  That’s better. A little truth about my life. Not a bullet but with potential to be a killer.

  After my mother’s funeral, the family disintegrated. Nobody knew what to do for themselves after being told what to do by her for so long. My father became depressed, drank a lot, lost interest in his business, and married my mother’s nurse, Hazel, giving proof to my sisters’ gossiping.

  All of the beautiful Tyler children became alcoholics. I succeeded in dealing with my alcoholism — a couple of times. John would be the only one who could keep the bottle locked up. I outlived my sisters. I expect John will outlive me.

  My father dropped dead in 1954, age 53. The doctors said it was a heart attack, which surprised the family because he’d just had a check-up. Everybody suspected nurse Hazel knew how to use her hypodermics to her best advantage, but that couldn’t be proved. By the time she let the family into the house, she’d taken everything of value, even the gold strips my father hid for us above the door jambs.

  Ted and I had moved to Calgary in 1951, on my father’s advice, to get in on the oil industry just starting there. Ted joined Home Oil but planned to branch out on his own with an advance on my inheritance.

  As soon as we heard my father had died, we took the first train to Montreal and began making plans for living big in Calgary. The estate lawyers told us there was nothing left for us — no millions — a few thousand for me. Everything had been spent on my parents’ big lies life. Ted and I couldn’t believe it. We wanted to start an investigation. Accountants. Lawyers. Detectives. All our plans were ruined. As was our marriage.

  More whining.

  As soon as Ted knew I wouldn’t be getting the fortune he’d been expecting, he didn’t waste any time getting involved with every available woman — that hurt, considering I grew up being the girl every man wanted. It rattled me, and he took advant
age of my insecurity to pressure me into giving him most of the money I had kept back from my investments. As if that would convince him to keep his pants on.

  No bullet but at least a laugh in that paragraph.

  The land I had bought at Canmore worked out well, so I bought a farm at Springbank, west of Calgary. By then the last of my seven children had arrived, Katie and Tom. Right away, Ted had his business friends take me aside and convince me the farm was a poor venture. By the time they were finished, I had sold most of it to them . . . and they all made good money reselling it later. I paid to build our new house and then Ted told me I was beginning to imagine things. He kept that up until he had to tell me the blackmailers wouldn’t accept imaginary money.

  Even better. That laugh has some sting to it — Maybe there’s still some good writing in me. Or at least enough vodka left to write the conclusion. It is going to be a close finish, but bet on the vodka. It always wins.

  That was when I agreed to send Tyler to boarding school. Ted might have destroyed both of us if I hadn’t. Tyler would never back down from him, and I knew I couldn’t protect him much longer. Imagine not being able to protect your son from your husband.

  The rest is Prednisone and Vodka haze and doesn’t matter much now anyway. At least Tyler got away. Like those damn pigeons of his.

  This is what I knew in my heart all along. It’s a fuck of a life if you don’t write it your own way.

  A TYLER STORY

  “A YOUNG WOMAN IN CANADA”

  I am now living in the aftermath of The Jens Album. It caught me not paying attention and tripped me. Instead of falling into Eden Brook grass, I fall into myself. I fall into the maybe never happened memories of my forgetting place.

  In the Album I found Jens who knew my laughing teasing adventurous Goodbye Mother. Jens’s letters were proof that she existed. I hadn’t imagined her, that I hadn’t made her up inside the despair of her alcoholism, unfaithful husband, cancer, and polymyalgia.