Patchwork Society

by Sharon Johnston

  “And what did you expect your family to do then?” Louis growled harshly.

  Red said nothing.

  “Red, you’re squandering the best asset you have,”

  Louis said. “Louis, take the girls home,” Ivy said. “I’ll go with Red.” They drove in tandem to Hilltop Crescent, and Louis dropped off the girls.

  Red crossed the street to Clara’s to borrow some milk. When he returned, Ivy had locked the door.

  Through the window, she said: “It’s over, Red.”

  Alice wailed and begged Ivy to unlock the door. Nora looked frightened and followed her mother up the stairs.

  Sitting in the vestibule, Alice clutched a pair of her father’s old spats. “Please don’t leave, Daddy.”

  Red returned to Clara’s and asked her to intervene. Dressed in a navy wool dressing gown, Clara crossed the street and banged on Ivy’s door, but she didn’t answer. Clara returned to her house and telephoned, but Ivy let the phone ring.

  Alice’s tonsils were removed the next day. The operation was simple enough, and Ivy waited for her to come out of the anaesthesia. Dot came into the hospital room, expecting to see a chipper eight-year-old.

  “The anaesthetic should have worn off,” Chas said. “Nothing has roused her, Ivy. Call Red and tell him to get down here right now. Dot told me what happened last night. Alice needs to see her father.”

  Frightened by Alice’s lack of response, Ivy called Red. He arrived at the hospital dressed casually in a crimson viyella shirt.

  Alice lifted an arm that minutes before had seemingly been paralyzed. “Daddy!” she cried. “I caught a big fish while you were away.”

  Red had been a good father, Ivy thought. Barely able to swallow, she turned away.

  CHAPTER 53

  Barnaby found Ivy in the front pew in the General Hospital chapel. The strong smell of incense suggested there had already been Mass that morning. He slid in beside her. Ivy turned with a wan smile, receiving his unique hug. Her eyes were puffy from crying.

  “Alice seems fine,” he told her, his face quivering with emotion.

  Barnaby had been like a father to Ivy during her lonely years as a schoolgirl in Lethbridge. She knew it pained him to see her so unhappy. “You wouldn’t have expected this when you walked me down the aisle to join Red. We were so happy until the war.”

  “Red’s an enigma. I’ve been trying to figure him out for seven years.”

  “We all have,” Ivy said. “We looked on helplessly as a man who had the world by the tail was destroying himself.”

  “In my years as a psychiatrist, I did treat some veterans with self-loathing, but they had visible and limiting handicaps like Dan MacIntyre. I remember Dan speaking at a public meeting in the Lethbridge Legion Hall. The officer of public health for the city called the community together to address the problem of venereal disease being spread by returning soldiers. You would’ve been too young to know what was happening. Your mother was instrumental in the city-wide effort to control that debilitating disease.”

  “Tell me about Dan,” Ivy said. “I can’t imagine the man I met at Batchawana — the man who gave up his artificial leg to a Native veteran — was ever unhappy.”

  “Dan hated himself and everyone around him when he returned to Lethbridge, at least until he met a prostitute who made him feel important. I’ll never forget his moving testimony.”

  Ivy could barely understand Barnaby’s words because his voice was so filled with emotion.

  “Dan stood in front of the crowd that day and tearfully spoke about a young prostitute. ‘Betty Sanchez,’ he said, ‘found the person within me who had been crushed or distorted during the war. She made this disfigured soldier feel attractive.’”

  “Have I done the opposite with Red?” Ivy asked. “First it was Nancy Stratichuk, and then while I was alone at the cottage with the girls, he took up with a waitress he met at the Windsor Hotel. Apparently, she moved to the Savoury Café. And who knows how many more there will be? Are these women his Betty Sanchez?”

  “War has a long reach. It crushes those who fight and crushes those who can’t.”

  “What can I do, Barnaby? Red’s already taken an apartment above the Savoury Café. He had breakfast in the restaurant this morning before coming to see Alice.”

  “I’m sure this girlfriend won’t last long. Let the girls visit him. They won’t be the first children to see a paramour. It will go over their heads if you let it.”

  “I’m frightened, Barnaby. My mother-in-law has sold what was left of her share of the business to Wentworth Lumber. I expect the Wentworths will want the other half.”

  “Don’t fret about money. But I do advise getting a lawyer. We have no idea what Red might do. But don’t burden the girls.”

  Alice had to remain at home for a week after being discharged from the hospital. Clara walked Nora over the “spooky ravine” to her first day at King George School. She had implored Ivy to wait it out with Red as had Barnaby. Both suggested she would need a lawyer for a separation agreement so that she and the girls would have enough income to stay in the Hilltop house.

  CHAPTER 54

  Adam Wright, the lawyer handling Ivy’s case, lived next door to the Rossiters. Ivy didn’t want to meet Adam in his office, since she knew the other members of his law firm, so their first meeting began on a bench in the courthouse where Adam had arranged to use the Crown attorney’s office. Normally, the benches were for criminals waiting their turns in court, and Ivy’s navy tailored suit seemed incongruous. She was sound asleep with her head on her handbag when Adam approached.

  He shook her shoulder gently. “Ivy, you’ve become so thin.” Leading her into the office, he motioned for her to sit, then took a seat beside her. “I kept a second chair for the supporting parent,” he told her.

  As a neighbour, Ivy thought, Adam is probably aware of the sentiment on Hilltop Crescent that Clara’s been an overbearing mother-in-law. She figured he likely understood why her mother wasn’t with her.

  Adam smiled encouragingly. “So how can I help you?”

  It took Ivy a minute before she could say, “My husband’s become a serial cheater. He had an affair with his secretary, and when she quit, he took up with a waitress in town. I’m humiliated, Adam. But much worse, I’m afraid.”

  “Take some slow, deep breaths,” Adam said, reaching for Ivy’s hand. “Cry if you need to.”

  With a stoic steadiness, Ivy described the gradual disintegration of what had started as a happy marriage.

  “We’ll need proof of infidelity to obtain a divorce under our laws,” Adam said. “I can arrange for a Pinkerton detective to obtain that discreetly.”

  “Could I begin with a separation agreement to establish support before I sue for divorce?”

  “Of course, you can. A divorce is final. Maybe you and Red can still work things out.”

  “What am I going to live on, though?” She hated recalling Clara’s words when she quit nursing school: You’ll have nothing to fall back on. At the time, Ivy had thought her mother was referring to death, not divorce.

  “Spousal support is less binding than divorce alimony,” Adam explained.

  “Divorce is too final. Let me leave Red in stages.”

  “You’ll need to establish what it costs to live before we can tackle Red. Most wives don’t keep a budget. But don’t worry. You’re going to be fine, Ivy.”

  When Ivy met with Adam again, he had news from the Pinkerton detective he had hired. Spying was offensive to Ivy until she was told the detective had found Red at the Royal York with a female friend he’d registered as “Mrs. Donnelly.”

  Ivy shook her head in disgust. “It’s no consolation to discover Red’s cheating on the waitress. It’s ironic that he paid a Royal York waiter to make him seem important years ago. How did a man with everything come to lack such confidence? That’s when I should have made him talk to Dr. Barnaby, his friend and a psychiatrist.”

  “I’m sorry to hav
e shown you the proof,” Adam said, closing the manila envelope and returning it to his briefcase.

  * * *

  Red’s support payments fell far short of what Ivy and the girls would need to remain at 43 Hilltop Crescent. Ivy suspected he was now in his own financial trouble after expanding too fast. However, though it was less than she needed, she was relieved to have a legally binding agreement of support.

  Ivy began scanning advertisements in the local newspaper for job openings. There was nothing advertised for a person with no skills. When Adam called to tell Ivy the Algoma District welfare department was opening a local office in the Soo, it felt like serendipity.

  Russ Thompson, a man of about sixty, was the regional manager and an acquaintance of Adam. The lawyer called Russ to arrange a face-to-face interview for Ivy. She went to the meeting determined to get the job.

  “You’ve never worked, Mrs. Donnelly, yet you trained as a nurse,” Russ Thompson said when she was seated in his office. “Welfare work is quite different. We offer a crash course for new recruits to learn the rules, regulations, and benefits that make up our system of welfare. It will require you to live for two months in Toronto, and you must have your own car.”

  “I’ll need to take a bank loan for the car,” Ivy said, trying to smile, though she didn’t feel the least bit cocky.

  “The government will reimburse your mileage.”

  Ivy didn’t hide her disappointment. “That would be helpful, though gasoline is very expensive these days.”

  “I’ll need you more often on the road seeing your clients than in an office,” Russ told her to justify the car. “I believe it’s in the modest homes and shacks where the real social problems play out. You need to see people in their own environment to help them.”

  “I have two young daughters at school. I’ll ask my mother to take care of them for two months. She’s over sixty, and a five- and eight-year-old can be quite a handful, but my mother managed a hundred-bed hospital, so I’m sure she can manage them.”

  The interview ended with Russ talking about his own daughter. “She moved to Australia with her soldier-husband at the end of the war,” he said wistfully. “It’ll be nice having someone her age in my office.” He stood up and shook Ivy’s hand. “I’ll do everything I can to help you do your work, but you have to take the course.”

  “Let me get back to you tomorrow after speaking with my mother.”

  “Your mother’s very capable. I knew her when she was nurse-matron at Shingwauk. She was a vocal advocate for the new building. Shingwauk has a lot to thank her for. Please give her my best.” Russ then saw her out the door.

  CHAPTER 55

  The day after her meeting with Russ Thompson, Ivy sat in the lobby of the Bank of Montreal waiting to see the manager, Reginald Monteith. Clara had readily agreed to care for Alice and Nora for two months while Ivy took her course in Toronto. She advised Ivy that she might find Monteith tight but not heartless. Clara knew him through his wife, with whom she played bridge. “It’s three years since the war ended,” Clara said. “I think banks are used to helping families remake their lives.” The stress on Clara’s face had aged her beyond her sixty-one years.

  Monteith opened his office door and invited Ivy in. “Come in. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  A tall, slim man with a trimmed grey moustache and neatly combed grey hair, he wore a dark blue pinstripe suit that seemed to be the uniform of all bankers. She followed the manager into his office and waited to be asked to sit down. He smiled and gestured toward a chair in front of his desk.

  “I’m surprised, Ivy, that you want to be a social worker rather than a nurse. What was the point of spending three years in Montreal training at Royal Victoria Hospital? This must disappoint Mrs. Durling.” Monteith raised his eyebrows. “Why, your mother ran a hospital!”

  Ivy resented the implied comparison. She took a deep breath and released it slowly before replying. “Mr. Monteith, I’m trying to stand on my own two feet, and I need your help. My support payments from Red won’t be enough to buy a car.” She held back tears, recalling how isolated she’d felt from her own mother while growing up in the hospital. My children will have a normal home despite missing a father, she thought, tightening her fists so that she wouldn’t cry in the banker’s office.

  The manager pushed back his chair and stood up. “Ivy, I can’t lend you $800 unless your husband signs this document.” He held up the loan form in exasperation.

  “The courts have recognized my separation,” Ivy retorted. “Why can’t the bank?”

  “A loan must be guaranteed by someone with liquefiable assets.”

  Ivy shrugged and sighed audibly. “I haven’t seen my husband since he sold his half of Donnelly Building Materials. I was told he moved to Michipicoten Harbour and apparently takes tourists out on Lake Superior in the Ivy League.”

  Monteith seemed confused.

  “Red’s boat is named the Ivy League. It’s a twenty-seven-foot cruiser he uses to earn money, I suppose. No one in the family understands Red’s behaviour, Mr. Monteith.”

  “Well, Red must have assets from the sale of his company. Your only asset is your house,” he added, raising an eyebrow. “Banks would go out of business, though, if loan repayment depended on a person selling his house. Just have your husband sign this paper and then we’ll lend you the money to buy a car.”

  “I’ll have to think this over and get back to you. I believe your bank has a misguided policy. How can any woman be set free with such humiliating practices?”

  He didn’t attempt to answer.

  Ivy left the bank and walked west along the main street, searching for a place to have coffee. The Savoury Café was on the south side about four blocks from the bank. For a moment, she thought about crossing the street to the Savoury to commiserate with the waitress who had also lost Red. It seemed bizarre that he had left so suddenly for Michipicoten Harbour. Maybe they had a disagreement, she thought as she continued to the Tea and Talk Café owned by Carl and Mildred Grey, who were her neighbours. She entered the café and ordered a blueberry muffin and large coffee, then settled back in the corner of a booth to figure out how to buy a car. Her reflections were interrupted when Carl slid into the booth beside her.

  “How are you doing, Ivy?” he asked. “I know what’s happening with Red across the street.” Carl was referring to her husband and the waitress at the Savoury.

  “That’s not happening any longer. Red’s escaped to Michipicoten Harbour. I think he’s had a breakdown.”

  “Normally, we ignore gossip, but Red’s blatant infidelity angered us,” Carl said. “We are your friend and see Red as the guilty party.”

  Those words made Ivy feel guilty herself and caused her to wonder what she might have done to cause the breakup of her marriage. To Carl, she said, “You know, that was the best part of my marriage — the many friends Red and I shared.”

  “I doubt if any of them will be going to Michipicoten Harbour anytime soon. Red’s isolating himself up there.” Carl’s face brightened. “I hear you’re looking for a job. You’re a gutsy lady.” He made the V sign.

  His congratulatory tone caused Ivy to spell out her troubles with the bank. By the time she finished her second coffee, which Carl insisted she enjoy on the house, she had agreed to swallow her pride and ask her mother to guarantee the bank loan.

  CHAPTER 56

  Ivy donned a cheerful face, despite her heartache at leaving, as she waved at Clara and Ellen, whose arms were around Alice and Nora. Initially, the children were to be split up between the two grandmothers. Clara was close to their school and it was decided they could visit Ellen on weekends to give Clara a rest. The grandmothers and the girls were happy with this arrangement. As the train pulled away, Ivy realized her mother-in-law’s shame at her son’s behaviour had been turned into loyalty for the girls.

  Anne and Tom greeted Ivy at Union Station in Toronto to take her to the new house they had bought on an upscale st
reet near Havergal where their daughter, Beth, was in junior school. Daniel was enrolled at Upper Canada College, a twenty-block drive from their home. It took a week before Ivy found a one-room bachelor apartment on Avenue Road, a mile south of the Blakes’.

  A large room at Queen’s Park had been seconded for the course to accommodate fifty students. They, like Ivy, would return to work in welfare offices in their home communities. There were men enrolled who were younger versions of Russ Thompson.

  At first, Ivy spent her spare time with Anne and Tom, if he was home. He had risen in the investment firm and would soon become a partner. Anne was involved with Daniel’s and Beth’s schools and volunteered one day a week for the Junior League, an upper-crust ladies’ organization. The Soo had a more modest sister league called the May Court Club. Anne was her usual clever and witty self. Her wit rivalled Tom’s well-honed sardonic humour. Anne enjoyed the cocktail hour, and on at least one evening consumed too much. Tom enjoyed performing his head trick for Ivy, flipping himself upside down on the formal mahogany dining table. They were happy.

  Ivy soon discovered that her classmates had led varied and interesting lives. She was the only one in the course who was divorced, a fact that sparked an interesting conversation in a nearby restaurant where the students congregated one evening.

  “Why didn’t you just divorce your philandering husband?” one female student asked.

  Ivy took a moment or two to answer. “I loved and hated Red at the same time, so I chose to start with a separation agreement.”

  “I suppose divorce is permanent,” the inquiring student said thoughtfully. “You’re the first divorcee I’ve met.” The word divorcee seemed awkward on the young woman’s tongue.

  “Marriage with Red was very confusing. Looking back, I think he wanted me to fight to stop his philandering. Despite his business success, he never felt confident after being rejected for enlistment. Going to war was the definition of manhood.”