Patchwork Society

by Sharon Johnston

  When Ivy returned earlier than expected from Batchawana, she discovered that the new secretary was driving Red’s car, a Buick that had replaced the impractical small roadster he’d inherited from his father. She expressed her disapproval to Clara.

  “I’m not worried about Red, but it doesn’t look good for a secretary to be driving her boss’s car,” Ivy said.

  “I don’t think so, either,” Clara agreed.

  Nancy was driving the Buick on Queen Street when Clara walked out of a grocery store. Nancy had halted at a stop sign, and Clara stepped into the street, blocking the young woman’s way. Nancy recognized Clara and got out to ask what the problem was.

  “You shouldn’t be driving Red Donnelly’s car,” Clara insisted. She moved quickly to the driver’s side, slipped in behind the wheel, and took off before Nancy could stop her.

  “I was doing my boss’s chores!” Nancy shouted after Clara. “Red told me to use his car!” The windows of the car were rolled down, so Clara could hear Nancy’s words. Mr. Donnelly to you! she thought.

  Never having learned to drive properly, Clara made her way along the street cautiously to Red’s office where, once there, she scolded him in front of his employees. “What were you thinking letting your wife push a pram to do the groceries while that young woman drives your car?”

  Later, after Red drove Clara home, he confronted Ivy and demanded, “What was your mother thinking barging into my office and letting loose her opinions of how I run my office?”

  “I’m not Clara,” Ivy said, upset that her mother had betrayed her confidence.

  Red fumed as he returned to the office in the Buick.

  The moment Red was gone, Clara trotted across the street. “Tell Red that his secretary should no longer drive his car,” she urged her daughter. “Everyone in town recognizes that Buick.”

  “I’m not confrontational,” Ivy retorted, leaving Clara standing in the hall and going to her bedroom to calm down. I should have told Red myself, she thought. Red was very angry when he left. Mum has only made things worse.

  A month after the carjacking, Ivy received a handwritten note from Nancy Stratichuk, congratulating Ivy on getting her man back. Ivy handed the letter, written on Donnelly stationery, to Red.

  “I fired Nancy. That’s why she wrote that letter. Every secretary wants to sleep with her boss. That doesn’t mean she actually does. Nancy misjudged. I love you, Ivy.”

  “You don’t seem like a man having an affair,” Ivy admitted.

  “Let me prove it,” Red said, pulling her up the stairs. “My God, I’m glad we’re back in action,” he said when they reached their bedroom.

  “I’m glad Alice is asleep,” Ivy said.

  Red smoked his pipe thoughtfully, gazing out his office door at the chair that had been occupied by Nancy Stratichuk. He reflected on whether the carjacking was Clara’s first interfering offence, or if there were things he had missed. He frowned, recalling Ivy’s words while they were building the house on Hilltop Crescent. Clara likes to get her own way. In retrospect, he wished he had dealt with Clara directly rather than unleashing his anger on Ivy. She doesn’t know how to stand up to her mother, he thought. Red understood his mother-in-law had a virtual following in the neighbourhood. He didn’t feel he should pick a fight, and he didn’t want to fight with his wife.

  Red recalled Clara chiding the grocery boy and reprimanding the taxi driver for charging too much not long ago. Those disagreeable acts contrasted with the time she spent at a sick neighbour’s bedside or her daily delivery of edible scraps to Hilltop dogs when she was out for her constitutional. In good weather, Clara kept a bowl of milk on her doorstep for stray cats. She was enjoying her retirement, and Red was happy about that, but he didn’t want her meddling in his affairs, so he decided to speak to James Barnaby, who seemed to have a special understanding of Clara.

  When Red paid a visit to Barnaby, he invited him in for coffee at his kitchen table. “Clara’s a paradox. I first saw her marching around a hospital ward looking as though she were commanding a battalion. I was waiting to see Dr. Newbury about finishing my medical studies in Scotland.”

  “Clara told me the doctor was a loyal friend,” Red said.

  “Dr. Newbury was a godsend to both of us. When George Durling died, Clara was left in terrible financial straits. You know the rest.”

  “Not all of it.”

  “I was a psychiatrist at the Galt Hospital, so I saw what was happening first-hand.”

  “Is that how my mother-in-law became a battler?” Red asked.

  Barnaby laughed. “I imagine Clara came out of her mother’s womb in fighting form. But here’s what you need to understand about the paradox. Nurses took care of Ivy while Clara turned a mediocre hospital into an operation fully accredited by the American College of Surgeons. That was remarkable given the chaos in Lethbridge following the war. Lethbridge had the highest per capita enlistment, and thus many more casualties than other towns of that size. It also had the highest per capita rate of venereal disease as a consequence. Alas, now she wants to be a good mother, but Ivy is your wife. She doesn’t need Clara’s help any longer. That’s the conflict.”

  “Life’s filled with paradoxes,” Red said, getting up to leave. “I had to stop my medical studies, and you got to finish yours. If there’s another war, I’ll enlist as a medic.”

  “Let’s hope there isn’t another war,” Barnaby said, pushing Red affectionately in the chest with his stump.

  The Barnabys’ house was close to Shingwauk, and Red headed there to hire a few strong lads for the back-breaking brush clearing and renovations to the cabin in Gawas Bay. Clara had informed him that boys who lived far away were stuck at the school and would be glad of a chance to escape. After making an arrangement with Reverend Hives, Red drove the boys to St. Joseph Island in a company truck loaded with the timber to make a forty-foot dock. The headmaster had agreed to release the boys if a Donnelly employee went along to supervise.

  The boys from the James Bay area knew how to build rock cribs strong enough to resist winter ice. The St. Joseph Island ferry was soon loaded with bags of cement on a Donnelly truck for the boys to begin the chinking. Red no longer asked the boys what they could or couldn’t do. He arrived with materials and said, “Go to it, lads!”

  They finished the dock and started chinking the old logs. “If an Indian don’t live in a log house, he lives in a shack,” one of the boys said, and they all laughed.

  Red left them a canoe, so they could have a little fun, then returned to the city to begin drawing up plans for an addition, which he would start the following year. He was happy.

  At the end of the summer, the eldest boy about to start in his last year at Shingwauk told Red that being on St. Joseph Island was his best holiday.

  CHAPTER 44

  “I wish my country had shown some guts,” Clara said in conversation with Barnaby.

  His eyebrow arched. It was rare for Clara to speak crudely.

  “I made my peace with Germans once,” she said. “I’m not sure I can do it again.”

  “Well, you’ll have to because we’re heading for war. Your prime minister was naive to think Hitler wouldn’t continue his land lust. As soon as he united the German people in Sudetenland, he began his world domination. With the stroke of a pen, Neville Chamberlain handed him half of Czechoslovakia. The smaller nations have capitulated, giving Germany a long reach into Eastern Europe.”

  Clara knew Barnaby to be an eternal optimist. She was now frightened by his dire prediction. “I weep to think Ivy will live through another war.”

  “Red won’t be allowed to enlist with only one kidney,” Barnaby said. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  Clara sighed as though there were no answer.

  The Americans were as pessimistic as Barnaby. On the opposite shore of the St. Marys River, Fort Brady was fast building up its military, anticipating that Germany would continue its expansionism. The four American locks were a strategi
c location. They managed the twenty-one-foot vertical drop between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, allowing the iron ore ships to reach the steel factories in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The downstream mills operating with few reserves would be crippled if the locks were damaged. The American military buildup was felt on the Canadian side, as well, since uniformed men crossed the river hunting for fun in the much larger Canadian Soo. The Canadian Forty-Ninth Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment conducted exercises and practice drills on the Sault Collegiate football field, Belvedere Park on the waterfront, or any other available space. Donnelly Building Materials was busy with contracts to build the infrastructure needed to operate a military base on the U.S. side. The mixer trucks churning the cement took up most of the room on the ferry crossing the river to America.

  Business was booming, and Red left his trusted foreman, Clem Giovanni, in charge so he could attend the international boat show in Toronto. Grant Howland was there on broadcasting matters and already booked into the Royal York Hotel. Grant had recently purchased a fancy summer home close to Helen Hayes at Kensington Point. His American neighbours drove Chris-Craft mahogany inboards, and Grant wanted something similar. He had attended Trinity College School in Port Hope on a scholarship given to sons of clergymen. The small, scrappy, and ambitious man was desperate to be “in” with the American Joneses. Eileen, Grant’s wife, and Ivy had admonished the boys before they left not to be extravagant. “A runabout will do us both fine,” they said.

  Red booked a room at the Royal York a few days after Grant, and they connected in the hotel bar to have a few drinks before hailing a taxi to take them across the city to the exhibition grounds. Men in bowlers and fine wool overcoats examined the boats with critical eyes. These were wealthy Torontonians buying them for their summer homes in Muskoka, Haliburton, or Lake Simcoe, closer to the city.

  “Do we look like we come from Northern Ontario?” Red asked, chuckling.

  “I hope not!” Grant replied. He had his eye on a previously owned mahogany speedboat christened the Yak Yak. He laughed. “It must have belonged to his wife. Maybe a separation agreement.”

  A twenty-seven-foot wood cruiser caught Red’s eye.

  “That’s more than a runabout,” Grant said.

  “Perfect for the Great Lakes, though. It’ll handle Lake Superior through the North Channel to Georgian Bay. I’ll christen it Ivy League to please my wife.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, after Hitler invaded Poland. The Canadian government declared war on September 10 after MP Henry Hamilton from the Soo introduced the motion for a declaration of war.

  Anne Rossiter came home to the Soo to live with her parents. Her husband, Tom, who had been in a reserve unit of the Twenty-Ninth Royal Regiment in Toronto, enlisted immediately and was soon sent overseas. She was overwhelmed that her son, Daniel, might never see his father again. Ivy did her best to comfort her friend while a nightly gin cocktail deadened Anne’s fear of the unknown. Her life, unlike Ivy’s, had been predictable until now.

  Ivy experienced the onset of war quite differently from her friends. Red was determined to enlist despite his kidney being removed at sixteen. He took the train to Bruce Mines where he was sure he wouldn’t be thoroughly examined. The doctor greeted him warmly.

  “How’s your mother, Red?” he asked in an overly friendly manner, conscious he was going to give Red Donnelly, a boy he had known as a child, news he didn’t want. “Ellen must be worried that your brother Jack’s already gone overseas.”

  “Dr. Haslett, one kidney is all I need,” Red said. “Please write the attestation order.”

  “There’s a need for men at home, Red,” Dr. Haslett said. He apologized for disappointing him and continued with the next recruit in a long queue of young men.

  Red didn’t return to the Soo but continued on to Toronto and Niagara Falls where the recruitment centres were reputed to be quite lax. The train was loud with young uniformed men singing and shouting as though they were going to a party. Red was filled with despair that an operation while a boy had set him apart as an adult. His intention was to join the Lincoln and Welland Regiment, a reserve infantry unit, and go overseas. Until each medical officer noticed the scar on his side, he was a perfect candidate.

  Ivy was frantic when Red didn’t return the day after leaving for Bruce Mines. She hated to involve Clara, but Sergeant Stuart had contacts across Ontario and might be able to track Red down. The RCMP relayed what they found. Red Donnelly had tried to enlist in Niagara Falls, and after being rejected again, spent two nights in a hotel in Buffalo where he had previously stayed during a cement conference.

  When Red returned to the Soo, Ivy was at the train station with Alice in her arms to greet him. He didn’t seem like the confident outdoorsman she had married, or the overjoyed new father she knew when Alice was born. With few men left in their social circle, it became Red’s duty, along with men too old to enlist, to dance with the ladies at fundraising galas. Ivy admired her husband’s gallantry, but something was amiss.

  “You’re the beau of the ball,” she told him when they returned from an evening of dancing.

  “I’d rather be risking my life overseas,” Red retorted with a bitter tone Ivy had never heard.

  * * *

  Red’s moodiness persisted for several months after being rejected by the military, and Ivy needed an explanation. She crossed the street to see Clara. “Why is Red so rude to Barnaby? They were always such friends.”

  “Barnaby’s wounds are the image of sacrifice,” Clara offered. “We need to find a legitimate way for Red to do his part for the war effort. I’m not sure what that could be. Certainly, it won’t be mailing off packages.”

  Louis Derrer was the commanding officer of the Sault Ste. Marie Reservists and made time before being deployed to talk with Red. He wasn’t old enough to be Red’s father, but he had taken a personal interest in Red, who showed so much promise.

  “Cement production is going to be important during and after this war,” Louis said. “Ready-mix concrete will be used to build factories for war production, roads, docking platforms, and cement redoubts. I’d recommend you attend the conference on cement in Buffalo next month. See how the speed of production and quality of cement is changing.”

  With his university education, Red was considered a bright light among the rougher men attending the conference. Many participants represented large companies, yet Red found methods he could scale to his smaller operation. Certainly, hand-mixing batches of cement, except on small projects, was considered obsolete. After the conference, he travelled to Portland, Michigan, where cement-mixing trucks were manufactured. Before returning to the Soo, he stopped in Toronto, booking himself into the Royal York for three days with the hope of seeing some friends from his university days.

  Their parents were courteous when he called, but the answer was always the same: “My son’s overseas.” Red also felt an unintended sting when he went into the main dining room of the hotel. Waitresses doted on the uniformed men sitting at the tables. Red, in a silk suit and tie, was ignored. When he finally got the attention of a waiter, he asked if a big tip would make him important.

  “Money always talks,” the waiter said. He hovered over Red, opening a bottle of wine with a flourish. The attention continued until the soldiers left. Red cut his visit short and returned to the Soo.

  Ivy scoffed when he described the tip to the waiter. “Do you really think a waiter can make you important?” she asked with a disapproving look.

  Her words stung Red, who left in his car. When he returned, Ivy was in bed.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said as he got into bed, but Red turned on his side with his back to Ivy.

  An opportunity for Red to do military training without being overseas came from America. A ski-and-snowshoe patrol consisting of two hundred men arrived in the American Soo, and the commander discovered that the terrain wasn’t appropriate t
o train his men for winter warfare. Louis Derrer, a military man himself, spoke with the commander of the winter-training unit and suggested Red could set them up at Hiawatha Park, which would be an ideal training location because of its varied geography. Many of the recruits from states such as Alabama had never seen snow. Until they met Red, they had no idea of the deadly obstacles winter could bring. Red started with snowshoes. The men thought they were being insulted with such a mindless task until several had frostbitten fingers.

  “You have to be quick when your gloves are off,” Red said. He spoke like a drill sergeant, making the men run up and down hills until they could do so without tripping and falling face first in the snow.

  The men who had never seen a frozen lake were frightened to cross. Red used a hand auger to demonstrate the depth of the ice. “At four inches, you can ski across,” he told them. “A little more thickness if you’re walking. Remember, an auger is handy if you need drinking water.”

  “What if we don’t have skis?” a young recruit with frozen fingers asked.

  “Excellent question. You go on your belly to distribute your weight over a larger area. If you’re a group, let the lightest person cross first and keep yourselves tied in case the lead goes down.

  “How will we know if a vehicle can cross?” a young lad asked.

  “If you don’t have a drill, consider how long the lake’s been frozen. A truck can cross when the ice is eight inches thick.”

  The men lined up single file to cross the lake, the snow-novices visibly scared. Red explained the difference between single-file crossing and crossing in tandem. “Has anyone here been ice fishing?” he asked. A few had, and he promised to take them to Still Bay. This brought up the danger of crossing rivers because of the way the underlying current made the ice thin. “You have to know the river outlets and avoid them.”