Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  “You didn’t know. I didn’t know how terrible that war was. The newspapers were mostly concerned with keeping up morale. Who was it said, ‘Truth is the first casualty of war?’”

  I shake my head.

  “You’re working today?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have to leave until one. Will you tell me more of your story?”

  “Where was I? At home, waiting for my life to start. The head girl from my old school lived nearby. I talked to her after church one Sunday. I hadn’t seen her for a while. Dorothy was her name, a tall, dark-haired girl with grey eyes and a sort of natural authority. She was a couple of years older than me. Her father was the local doctor. Her mother was dead. He was an unusual man, the doctor. He believed in education for women. She was supposed to be going up to Cambridge. She told me she was going to France instead, to drive an ambulance. She was home visiting for a few days before she shipped out.

  “I went to see Dorothy that night. Just let myself out of the house after everyone had gone to bed. I’d never done such a thing before. It was raining. There was no-one around. The doctor was out on a call. But they were used to knocks on the door at all hours. The maid was surprised when I asked to speak to Dorothy. I was shown into the library. I told Dorothy I wanted to go with her. Did I know how to drive? They gave preference to anyone who could drive. She’d learned so she could help her father with his rounds. I don’t know where I got the nerve, really. I wasn’t usually so bold, but I asked if she would teach me.

  “‘I’m only here for a week.’

  “I didn’t say anything, just looked at her.

  “Suddenly she smiled. ‘Why not? You always were a plucky thing.’ As an afterthought she said, ‘Your father will agree?’

  “‘Oh yes,’ I said. It was a glaring lie, but she didn’t notice. She had no idea what it was like to grow up in an ordinary family.

  “The next day I told my mother I was going to Dorothy’s to wind bandages. We practiced in her father’s car while he held his surgery. Petrol was rationed by then but he was allowed extra. By the second day I had the hang of it, more or less. Dorothy wrote to the Baroness.” Dad glances at me. “A handful of aristocratic ladies took it upon themselves, late in the war, to raise funds and recruit drivers for private ambulance corps. Mostly women. Freeing up the men to fight. The authorities were desperate enough by then for bodies in the trenches.” A bitterness in his voice I’ve never heard before.

  “The Baroness replied by return of post. They’d take me as long as I was eighteen. Dorothy’s recommendation counted for quite a bit, I think. I was a few months shy but I saw no need to confess that to anyone.”

  He shakes his head. “I’d always been quite honest but I discovered I had a talent for duplicity. I could lie”—he snaps his fingers—“like that.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We were due to catch the ten o’clock train on Monday morning. I packed a small bag on Sunday, hid it in the garden shed. I had a couple of pieces of jewellery from my grandmother. I took enough money from my father’s dresser for the train fare. That night I sat at the supper table, looking at them all, not listening really, just fixing their faces in my mind, Lucy, fair like my father and me, Victoria with my mother’s colouring, brown hair, hazel eyes. Ralph was in the nursery. He was only two. I went and watched him sleep.

  “At breakfast I told them I wanted to go and train as a nurse. That I wanted to do my bit and had been accepted into a program. I planned to leave in a week’s time. My father forbade me to go. I said I was sorry but I was going to go anyway. I had never imagined speaking to him that way. He told me I was not to leave the house. That if I set foot outside, as far as he was concerned, I might as well be dead. My mother wrung her hands but she didn’t stand up to him.”

  “That wasn’t what you were planning to do though, was it, the nursing?”

  “No, but I didn’t want to just creep away. I suppose I needed to give them a chance even though I knew my father would never agree.”

  “Why didn’t they stop you?”

  “They thought they had a week. And they were distracted by their outrage.” He shrugs. “I really hadn’t thought it out very well. I just knew it would work. And it did. A week later I was in France.”

  “You never saw them again?”

  He shakes his head. “I’d broken through into another world. Done something so unthinkable there was no turning back. I’d never imagined defying them in that way. But then there was Dorothy talking about driving an ambulance behind the lines and I wanted so fiercely and completely to go with her. It was my chance. I saw it and I took it. A week later I was in a world I could never have imagined.”

  He closes his eyes, opens them again to stare at the mountains. A couple of times I think he’s going to say something. But then his eyes close and stay closed.

  His head is tilted back. The morning sun touches the domes of his eyelids. Wrinkled skin falls away from the ridge of his nose to collect in soft creases along his jaw. Trying to picture a young Dad it’s not so hard to see Charlotte. The soft mouth, thick, honey-blonde hair, that faint golden fuzz on peachy skin. The quiet stubbornness and quick reactions. The way he trained dogs, horses. He’d see what the animal was thinking. By the time it started to act he’d already be there, deflecting, redirecting. So quick it was as if it had changed its own mind.

  He tried to teach me how to do it. I could read the tells but I never reacted fast enough.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “YOU WERE GOING off to drive an ambulance.”

  “So I was.” His eyes stray to the mountains. “I’d rather not talk about the war right now.” He still isn’t looking at me.

  “All right.”

  “It was over, six weeks later.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.”

  He does look at me now. “Some things are never ‘okay’.” After a moment he says, “It wasn’t easy, coming back. Everybody celebrating victory. Happy to welcome the heroes home. Unless they were wounded. Unless they couldn’t forget.”

  He picks up his tea, puts it back down. “And for us, well, we’d lived. Full strength. Suddenly we were supposed to step back into our corsets.” He says the word with such disgust I can’t help smiling. He sees my smile, returns it, shaking his head. “There were not many options for genteel young women of no means. Through one of the other drivers I found a position as a glorified nanny. A servant with a pretty accent. Ignored by the other servants, condescended to by my employers. But what else was there for me to do? It seemed hardly better than the life I’d left. And I did miss Ralph.”

  “You never tried to get in touch?”

  “I wrote. Once. To say I was alive and well. Gave them my address. I never heard back. I didn’t see much of Dorothy. She didn’t go up to Cambridge after all. Her father died in the Spanish influenza outbreak. She trained as a teacher, specializing in Sunday School. Then one day I got a letter from her, asking if I would be interested in taking part in a mission to bring Sunday School to settlers in Western Canada.” He smiles, seeing my face.

  “The Bishops of Saskatoon and Calgary had started a Sunday-School-by-post program but the Women’s Auxiliary wanted to do more. The settlers were unchurched and their children were growing up as heathens. ‘They could set a snare for a rabbit sooner than recite the Lord’s Prayer,’ according to the Auxiliary who, bless them, raised enough money to buy a motor caravan. They were going to take religion to those children, by God. Dorothy was to be the teacher but they needed a driver. The team would be sleeping in the van or camping out. Obviously it would be most improper for the driver to be a man.

  “There were quite a few applicants. Almost all of us had driven ambulances in the war. Ideally they wanted someone who could perform running repairs. I’d once replaced a fan belt with a stocking. And I came from a respectable family. No doubt Dorothy put in a word for me. In any event, I was chosen. The Women’s Auxiliary paid your return fare, second class, if you couldn’t
afford to cover it yourself, and you got your room and board, such as it was.”

  I shake my head, smiling. “You came to Canada as a missionary?”

  “I had some belief, growing up. The war put paid to most of it. But I didn’t mind going through the motions. Religion wasn’t terribly important to me, either way.”

  “You didn’t tell them that?”

  “No. I let them assume I was a properly devout young woman.” His eyes flit over to the clock. A moment later it chimes noon.

  “Are you hungry, Dad?” Somehow it’s getting easier to call him that again. “Shall I see what I can come up with for lunch?”

  “There’s soup in the fridge. Victor stopped by earlier.”

  “When?”

  “While you were off on your walk.”

  I dump the soup into a pan. It’s thick and orange, squash presumably. I set it on the range, fill a couple of glasses of water. Stare out of the curtainless window. Did Victor wait until I was out of the way? It sounds paranoid. But I wasn’t gone that long. When I turn around the stove is spattered orange. In the pan slow volcanic bubbles burst. I snap off the heat, slide the pan off the burner. A last bubble spits scalding soup onto the back of my hand. Shit.

  “Oh good,” Dad says, seeing the bowls I’m carrying. “Curried butternut and apple.” He sounds like a kid. “I never much cared for squash until I tasted this.”

  The soup is pretty good. Just enough curry to brighten the starchy sweetness of the squash. The apple lends some tang.

  Farmers who can cook. Too good to be true. Bill, when the brothers moved to the farm. Watch his bank account.

  I want to ask some questions but Dad never did like to talk while he was eating. Mum talked enough for two and always finished first anyway. He used to eat so slowly I’d be wriggling with impatience to get down from the table. ‘Can I get up please? May I get up? May I get up please?’ At last he’d put down his knife and fork. ‘Off you go, then.’

  When he puts down the spoon I ask, “Where do they come from, anyway?”

  “Victor and Manfred? Manitoba.”

  “And their family?”

  “From Germany, I think. Could be wrong. Central Europe. They’ve taken to this land the way they say the Ukrainians did to the prairies. Knew just what to do with it. Chernozem. Black earth. It’s a Ukrainian name, you know.”

  “It’s working out well for you, having them here?”

  “Oh yes. They know how to work. You should see the root cellar. Cabbages and potatoes. Carrots in a barrel of sand. Great big crock of sauerkraut. Brussels sprouts hanging by their roots, the whole plant. Never seen it done that way.”

  “Do you give them money for groceries?”

  “Of course.” He looks me in the eye. “They refused to take as much I offered them.” He glances at the clock. “What time did you say you had to leave?”

  “I might as well go now.” I sound as tart as I feel.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  At the door I say, “Thanks, Dad.”

  He nods. “Drive carefully. And come back soon.”

  I open my mouth. Close it again. That’s not like him. “All right. I will.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “HEY MEG. AM I glad you’re here.” Alison’s reaching for her jacket. “I’ll just go out for a quick puff, if that’s okay with you?” Squarish face, permed black hair, she looks far too young to have four grandchildren.

  The front door beeps again. Jay’s actually wearing her leather jacket. Definitely means winter. Tanya’s hair is still blue. “So I’m going to be a bridesmaid,” she’s saying. “Powder blue satin shoes, matching dresses. Me and my round brown face. Can you picture it?”

  “Keep the hair,” Jay says. “Hey Meg.”

  Tanya nods to me and goes on back to take off her jacket. It has fake white fur on the sleeves. She turns as she reaches the closet, holds out her arms, grinning. “Like it? The girls got it for me. Value Village.”

  I smile, don’t know what to say.

  “Height of style,” Jay says. “You need a hat to go with it.”

  “Doctor Zhivago meets the voyageurs. How many are coming in today?”

  “I’ll look,” I say, retreating to the front desk.

  Alison bustles around the north flank of the dome. “I’m back,” she announces wheezily. “Hey Meg, do you have a sister?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “New girl, she’s the spitting image of you. I haven’t gone through her stuff yet. She’s got enough of it. Holy, you should have seen her hauling it all in.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Danielle Laboucan.”

  “Ring a bell?” Jay asks.

  “No.” My voice is sharp. Jay’s eyes rest on me then turn away.

  Alison is pulling on her coat, looking for her bag. She looks up, points her lips at the corridor leading from the bedroom wing. “See what I mean?”

  A short young woman with glossy black waist-length hair walks toward us. High cheekbones, pale, smooth skin, strong, sculpted lips. I glance at Alison, puzzled.

  “Ignore the hair,” she says.

  Since mine is reddish brown and cut just above my shoulders that might help but I still don’t see it. I have freckles and my lips are nothing you’d notice. Height and build are about the same, I suppose: five foot nil, bulky torso, flat butt and skinny legs.

  “I see it,” Jay says. “It’s in the outline, not the details.”

  I shrug, irritated, then the girl turns to study the notice board. It’s like catching a glimpse of yourself in a store window. Same smudge of a nose. Same big breasts that start at your throat. Even the way she stands, feet splayed, weight back on her heels.

  “So how many are coming in today?” Tanya’s in the doorway from the office.

  “Seven,” I say, looking down at the list. “Two are here already.”

  “Did anyone go to the counsellor’s office?”

  “Not yet.” I look up. Danielle is nowhere to be seen.

  “I’ll go.” Tanya heads for the counselling wing.

  Jay’s watching me. “How’s it going?”

  I reach for the logbook. “Not too bad.” I write,

  28th October

  16:00-24:00 Jay, Tanya, Meg

  “How many left today?”

  “Five, I think. Should be in the book.”

  “I’ll go and check Danielle’s stuff, shall I?” I didn’t mean to make it a question.

  “Alison didn’t do it?”

  “I gather there’s a lot of it.”

  I retrieve a pair of latex gloves, a couple of Ziploc bags. The passage smells of sweat and cologne.

  “Come on in.”

  Gone with the Wind drawl. Nobody mentioned that.

  Danielle’s alone in the room. She’s sitting on the left-hand bed, knees pressed together, clutching a book to her chest. Black book, gold cross.

  “I’m Meg. How are you doing?”

  She shrugs. “Okay, I guess.” The accent is for real. Beside her on the bed is a giant suitcase with wheels, on the floor five lumpy black garbage bags.

  “I need to go through your things,” I say. “I’m sorry. I know it feels a little weird.”

  “Oh, hey. Do what you have to do.”

  “Where are you from?” I pull on the gloves.

  “Georgia. I guess. Or I was.”

  The suitcase is carefully packed, nice clothes. Really nice. “So how did you end up in Alberta?” Designer jeans, cashmere sweaters.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Silk lingerie. “Tell me. If you want.”

  “You got time?” She looks at me, dark brown eyes, almost black. Mine are just brown. She does have freckles.

  “They’ll page me if they need me.” One garbage bag is full of shoes. Hope her room-mate’s travelling light.

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “I grew up outside Atlanta.” S
he pauses, watching me set aside bottles of perfume and mouthwash.

  “Alcohol,” I say. “The mouthwash you can collect when you leave. The perfume, razor, hairspray we keep in one of these bags in the office. You can ask for them anytime.”

  “Okay.” She nods.

  “Go on with what you were saying.”

  “My parents were from Austria. They immigrated in their twenties, tried for years to have kids, finally adopted me. They were in their fifties, kind of rigid. They did the best they could. But I started getting high. Turning tricks, dealing. My Dad died then my mom, not even a year later. I got in more trouble. Cops threw my sorry ass in jail. That was in St. Louis.”

  She pauses again, watching me flick through notebooks, shuffle a pile of CDs. If someone really wants to hide something I won’t find it.

  “So where were you actually born?”

  There’s a knock on the door. “Room check.” Jay sticks her head in. “There’s a slew of new clients coming in, Meg. We could use you up front. And you’re Danielle? I’m Jay.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Danielle says.

  “You need anything, talk to us, okay. Supper’s in half an hour.”

  I pick up the bag of toiletries. “Let’s take these to the desk. If you have any money, valuables, credit cards, we suggest you let us keep them in the safe. Then we’ll get you some bedding.”

  “Suppertime. It’s suppertime.” Tanya’s voice blares out of the speakers. “If you don’t know where the cafeteria is, follow the crowd.”

  Jay looks at me. “Why don’t you go ahead. We’ll finish these two up.” She turns her gaze to a sturdy man in his thirties with a dark braid and a thin, jaundiced woman who could be anywhere from thirty to fifty.

  I slip in behind Geoffrey as he holds out his hand for a plate of lasagna. He reminds me of a heron, wading at the edge of the water.

  “That’s so gay.” A girl’s voice behind me.

  “It is not.”

  “It is too.”

  I twist to look. Shannon and a gaggle of other girls.

  “It’s really, really gay.”