by Paul Almond
“So how do you do it?” Rene sampled her salad.
“Well, I’m new myself, only been at it four months. No use staying at home, eating the food that your kid brother and sister could. Sure can’t get married, either. So, you grab your turkey and say goodbye and then one day, you send a postcard home.”
“A turkey?” Eric broke in. “So you can eat?’
“No no, that’s your stuff, your turkey. You see, when I hit the road, I took two blankets wrapped around my Bible and what little clothes I had, tied them up with a couple of thongs. When you hop a freight, you gotta put everything in your pockets, and make damn sure to wear your extra clothes so they won’t get stole — maybe two shirts, maybe another pair of pants, all on yourself. Sling extra shoes round your neck. When the train goes by, you run like hell and you jump for the ladder and your speed’ll help you swing up.” Adam was shovelling in the food as if there were no tomorrow, talking with his mouth full. “Usually you try branch lines, those trains aren’t going so fast. If you git dropped off at some little town, chances are — not too many drifters there, handouts better. Besides, no railroad cops. Well, it’s a young man’s business. Not too many old guys.”
“And you ride in between the cars?” Rene took a drink of water, thinking she could have used some wine, listening to all this.
“No, no, inside a boxcar is best, but mostly you ride on top. On sunny days,” he shrugged, “well, it’s kinda fun, watching the country go by, but in the winter, rain and snow, Lord, it’s bad.”
“I bet it is.” Rene shook her head. How some people lived — well, had to live in these times.
“On the freights, you get information, pass it back and forth — where to go, where to stop, stuff like that. I always had my own salt, a big spoon and a knife, everyone has that. “ Adam looked down: he’d already finished his plate, far too fast, he realized. “After a while,” he continued, “you get the knack. But you’re always dirty. Lice, fleas, just dirty. These jungles have rats, too, big as kittens.” Eric nodded: he knew about rats, all right. “You always need a shave...”
“Terrible, terrible,” Eric murmured.
“You know, up in Winnipeg North, the immigrants had it even worse — some couldn’t even talk English. Last hired and first fired.” He took another slice of bread, famished. “Poor fellas, a lot o ’em newly arrived, come to the Land of Plenty.” Adam snorted.
“If you was a nice young Polack, well, the oil companies, banks, financial institutions, stockbrokers, even storekeepers, though not the Hudson’s Bay, they’d never hire you. All o’ them solid against anyone not Anglo-Saxon. If you changed your name, learned better English, maybe you could beat it. But a Jew, well, no name change was good enough. Those damn anti-Semitic Winnipegers, no way a Jew could escape from his Judaism.”
Rene felt dreadful. What goings-on!
Eric went to the ice box. “Rene, what else can we find for Adam?”
Rene wanted to stand but was rooted to her chair as Adam went on, “You know, Ma’am, if you left home like I did so your family had one less to feed, they called you a criminal. Cops said, Throw that guy out of town, hustle him along. No more soup or bread here, and none tomorrow, so git! How many times have I heard those words? I never stole so much as a dime or anything, but I was treated like an outlaw. In some people’s minds, bein’ poor makes a fella a felon.” Adam sat back and wiped his mouth and shook his head, overcome with emotion.
Rene reached out and touched him.
When she did, she was shocked to see tears appear in his eyes. “Excuse me Ma’am.” He got up and went into the bedroom, stifling sobs as best he could.
“Poor fellow.” Eric shook his head. “And I saw a lot worse off down there...”
Rene wondered if she should follow Adam, but thought better of it. Instead they sat silently, thinking about the Depression and what it was doing to perfectly normal people.
***
Sometime in late June, Rene and Eric found themselves on a streetcar heading east along Sherbrooke Street and then turning up Claremont Avenue to climb Westmount Mountain.
“You know, Rene, I never liked these expeditions, these pastoral calls on the well-off, I prefer my hobos...”
“But Jack made a point again last week, didn’t he.” She watched the houses become larger the higher they went. The streetcar turned along Westmount Avenue.
“It’s better when you come,” Eric said, “though I have no idea why Jack insisted.”
“I think, perhaps, my dear,” Rene said gently, “he knows I’m not afraid of bringing up money questions.”
They passed Roslyn school on the left, which most of their parishioners had attended before going off to private schools like Lower Canada College further to the west in Notre Dame de Grâce and Bishops College School in Lennoxville, where Eric remembered Andrew McNaughton had gone. Andy was now a General and on all sorts of committees in Ottawa. Well, he wished him Godspeed. And he knew that his old General, Arthur Currie, had become Principal and Chancellor of McGill University, right here in Montreal.
They got off at Murray Park, walked up the next avenue, and turned in at a splendid house on the right-hand side. They climbed its steps and rang the doorbell. A uniformed maid answered and showed them into a well-appointed living room.
They were greeted by a squat woman festooned with gold necklaces and bracelets, anything to enliven what was, to Eric, a somewhat sour face and over-coiffed hair. On the sofa sat a man ravaged by disease — the reason they had come.
They introduced themselves, and Antonia Petworth frowned. “I thought Father John was coming.”
Before Eric could reply, Rene knew at a glance why Jack had delegated them to come and stepped in with a sweetly delivered, though spur-of-the-moment, explanation. “He has some business at the Diocesan Headquarters today, but he was bound and determined that you should not miss your pastoral call on the appointed day. I believe he always comes on the twenty-eighth.”
“He does.” Mrs. Petworth picked up a small bell and rang it furiously. The maid appeared. “Tell Clancy to give you the coffee tray, Elsie.”
“And how are we today?” Eric came to sit next to Mr. Petworth, whose grey skin-colour stated the obvious.
“Doing the best I can in the circumstances.” Petworth looked as though he had once been well fed, but now his clothes hung loosely on his frail frame.
Before Elsie arrived with the tray, Mrs. Petworth whispered, “You know, it’s just wonderful — you can get help for so little these days. Last week my French maid,” she dropped her voice, “had the gall to ask for a bit more money. She claimed her father was sick. Well, of course, I got rid of her, and found someone else, French of course, half the price. She’ll take training but then, twenty-five cents a day and all found, of course, I feel fortunate.”
Petworth looked up. “Antonia’s thanking her lucky day she married me!”
His wife saw that this was her prompt, and took it. “Yes, you know, Harley got out a month before the crash. He saw it coming. Wasn’t he clever? Put it all in his bank. Now he’s beginning to buy up stocks again. Such a clever man. I don’t know what I’ll do when...” She stopped herself abruptly, having gone too far already.
She looked at her husband fearfully, but Harley seemed not to notice, turning to Eric. “International Nickel — $72.50 before the crash and now it’s $9.50. Can you believe it? Winnipeg Electric, listen to this, $109.50 last year when I got out, and now...” He coughed weakly, and went on with a soft voice, “Now around ten. They’re all the same.”
In came the salver with silver servers: a tall coffee pot with its graceful spout, small milk jug and sugar bowl, and four fine Wedgewood china cups. Mrs. Petworth poured coffee and passed around the Whippets. Rene had priced them in the market the other day because Eric had asked for some, topped with marshmallow and then coated in a hard shell of pure chocolate, introduced only a couple of years ago in Montreal, but beyond any curate’s budget.
&
nbsp; “Why the hell King decided to call an election, I have no idea,” Petworth grumbled weakly. “Worst time to go to the country for him, but he just didn’t seem to understand.” He turned to Eric. “You know he’ll be booted out the end of July.”
“So I hear,” said Eric. “Now, is there any way we could help you come to perhaps an early service at Trinity?”
“I gave that up a while ago. I would like to,” he added quickly, “but every so often, Father John brings me communion.”
Antonia handed round the cookies and Whippets. “You know, King is such a fine man. Look what he’s done for the country. We can hire anyone we want at almost any price. Last autumn he went to Rome, you know, and visited Mussolini. They got on like a house on fire. What more could you desire in a leader?”
“Radio is being used far too much,” grumbled Petworth in a non sequitur. “First time like this in elections. I hear them at it every day.”
Rene sipped her coffee. “So,” she asked, trying to hide her incredulity, “you find these times beneficial?”
“Listen, my dear,” Antonia leaned over to her, first glancing at the archway which led to the rear. “My second maid gets about ten dollars a month. The French laundress, she scrubs and irons by hand, not every day, of course, and you know what she makes? Two dollars a month. I don’t have to give her board; she lives at home. But I pay her carfare.”
“Antonia is very generous.” Petworth grabbed a Whippet.
“And you know,” Antonia went on, “the chef, he got distracted last week and burned the roast. Apparently his two brothers had their homes foreclosed. Well, I made good use of that, didn’t I, Harley?”
Harley nodded. “Quick on the uptake, my Antonia.”
“Oh yes, I cut his salary from fifty dollars a month down to thirty-five and I dared him to leave.” She smiled. “Of course he didn’t. He needed the money!”
Eric was downing his coffee as fast as he could, wanting to end this encounter and pronounce his blessing.
“Now Mr. Petworth,” Rene broke in, “you have been so awfully clever, we’re all so proud of you in the congregation, as I’m sure you must know.” Eric frowned as he glanced at his wife — had she gone mad? Harley looked up appreciatively, and actually smiled for the first time. “So Father John wondered if there was a way you might be kind enough to pass on to Trinity a taste of those hard-earned gains. You know in these times, the church is finding it difficult to pay even his salary!”
The man frowned. “Good Lord, we can’t have that! Antonia, go upstairs and bring down my cheque-book. I’ll see to that at once.”
“While she’s out,” Eric said quickly, “let’s pray together for your healing, and I’ll pronounce a blessing.” Standing above the sick man, Eric made the sign of the cross, prayed with Rene, and gave him an extended Benediction, which continued as Antonia returned, waiting in the archway until he had finished. Then she came, handed the cheque-book to her husband who promptly wrote a cheque for five hundred dollars. He tore it off and handed it to Eric.“That should keep them quiet at the church,” he barked, then coughed and shook his head weakly.
After thanking him profusely, Rene seized her chance. “I think, perhaps, Eric dear, we should be going.”
Later as they walked on up the street, Rene knew that Eric would start venting his anger and thought she had better bring up more cheerful news. “Did you see in the paper this morning that Kingsford Smith flew the Atlantic? Landed in New York yesterday, it said. Remember he came over the Pacific while we were in Australia?”
Eric nodded, his head still churning with annoyance at the previous meeting. “Yes, in the Southern Cross again. Courageous pilot. Adventurous spirits seem everywhere these days.”
“Remember how happy we were when Amy Johnson, the young British girl from Hull, flew solo to Australia last month? She touched down in Darwin on the anniversary of my graduation from the Ginner-Mawer school, May 24th, that’s how I remember.”
Pleased to have diverted the conversation, though momentarily saddened by the loss of her dancing, Rene chatted about the various flights, helping them hike effortlessly up to Westmount Boulevard, just below the summit. On the first crescent winding upwards, they turned in at a palatial grey stone building. Its many terraced steps led up through attractive rock gardens, along a cement path, up more stairs, and Eric rang the bell. A uniformed maid answered and ushered them in.
In the hallway, they were greeted by Freda Winser, tall and white-haired, wearing a smart red suit with a minimum of jewellery. “My brother is waiting for you, Father. Could you go straight in and see him? I think he needs to speak to you alone. Meanwhile, Mrs. Alford might sit with me in the living room. When you return, perhaps you’ll join us for a sherry?”
“Oh yes, thank you.” Eric went down the hall into a sick room Freda must have converted from her dining room.
Rene preceded Freda into their living room. Above the fireplace, a wonderful oil painting of a young artillery man hung above various military portraits which perched upon the mantelpiece. Freda, seeing Rene studying them, explained: “My sons. Two killed at the front. That centrepiece, Edward, he was in the Artillery.”
“Was he? Eric was in the Artillery, too.”
“Really? I’m sure your husband would love this then. Edward was in the Firing Line for a long time before... before he died. A Howitzer battery. Tenth Brigade. And that’s his older brother, an officer, also lost.” She shook her head sadly.
Rene was stricken. Eric’s Brigade. Suppose he knew Edward? What if they had even been in the same Battery? She remembered the rugby party in Sherbrooke and how the appearance of Ralph Rideout’s brother had shocked her husband. Suppose he recognized this Edward? She brushed aside the thought — Winser was no name Eric ever mentioned. But she needed that glass of sherry to steady her nerves. If only... if only, she prayed, Eric doesn’t know him.
The cut glass decanter and crystal glasses had been laid out on a silver tray. Freda poured one for her guest. “I was married to a wonderful man, Norbert Whitehead —” Rene sat up as though struck — Whitehead! She knew that name... “...but now,” Freda went on, “I’ve reverted to my maiden name, Winser, like my brother’s, better for the tradespeople.”
Rene took rather an unladylike slug of her sherry. She dreaded Eric’s return.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S E V E N
“Whoa, Mack.” Selwyn Mason, Eric’s new churchwarden, pulled his horse to a halt. Eric jumped out, took Paul’s little carrycot and helped Rene step down in front of her new parsonage. Eric’s incumbency was due to start on the morrow, Tuesday, Sept 1st, 1931.
“There she is, Holy Trinity Church.” Selwyn stood by his horse, looking at the neat white wooden church with its clapboarded sides, and then glanced at Eric. “I hope you like her, Reverend.”
“Selwyn, you must call me Eric. Come, Rene, let’s look inside.”
Rene naturally wanted to check their new home first, but dutifully followed Eric as he strode over to the attractively arched front door flanked by pairs of triple lancet windows, a trio of the same high above, too. Selwyn carried the baby.
Rene watched Eric’s excitement as he walked up the steps. All three went in and looked about. What a pretty church, she thought, seven rows of dark wood pews and at the end, three more stained glass lancet windows over the altar.
“Look, Rene, a real pulpit!” Eric couldn’t disguise his delight as he came down the aisle. Rene sat down in a back pew with Paul, now asleep. Her husband hopped up the steps into the chancel and turned to read out the scroll running under the roof:
How amiable are thy dwellings, oh Lord of Hosts. My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and speak good of his name.
“Painted by one of the daughters of Reverend Fyles, our first clergyman,” Selwyn explained. Rene liked this fine farmer who had picked them up from the West S
hefford station in an express wagon, just like Earle’s. Medium height, with bold features, a tuft of brown hair topping his sunburned face, with good cheekbones and striking blue eyes, their churchwarden would probably be a tower of strength for Eric, Rene decided.
Eric went forward to the altar, moved the candlesticks aside and called out what he saw written on the two white porcelain plaques behind: “My flesh is meat indeed. My blood is drink indeed.” He came back to the top step by the lectern similar to the larger wooden eagle gracing Trinity Memorial Church.
“Come see the baptismal font,” Selwyn suggested.
Eric came back down the aisle, nodding to himself, clearly delighted with his new posting.
Selwyn bent to read the inscription: The Rev T.W. Fyles humbly presented this font as a thank offering to Almighty God. Jan 1st, 1865.
“Just about when the Shigawake church was built, a good long time ago,” commented Eric, pleased again.
Rene congratulated herself: so it had really worked out well. On the way from the station, she’d taken in the rolling hills and dales of this part of the Eastern Townships, cattle calmly grazing, flocks of docile sheep, more than on the Coast, maple leaves beginning to don autumnal colours. She knew that here, Eric would enjoy a good long incumbency. Just what she had hoped.
Selwyn rubbed his hands together. “Well, Annie’s got a fine dinner waiting for yez, but you’ll want to see your home first, I know that.” He turned to Rene. “We have a new son too, born in May.”
“Oh lovely. They’ll grow up together.” Rene smiled. Selwyn had also been pleased at Eric’s reaction to his new church. They made for the adjacent parsonage, seemingly larger with its parish hall behind, built out over a stable that sheltered horses in wintertime.