by R. M. Green
As I said, pretty standard stuff really. Until a couple of years ago, that is, when, one Tuesday afternoon in February, the TV suddenly had a meltdown just before The Young and the Restless.
A long time ago, back before I was Nancy Drew, during that wet, chaotic, glorious summer of ’76 when Montreal hosted the world at the Olympic Games, my dad, Lazlo Wisniewski got me a summer job at the perfume counter at the Bay. Dad worked as a tailor in the gentleman’s outfitters department when even the off-the-peg suits were individually finished. An apprentice tailor in the family business in Katowice before the war, he learned to fly in a Polish-built RWD5 monoplane. He was taught to fly by a baron no less, for whose family his family had been making suits for generations and who noticed young Lazlo’s eyes light up every time he spoke of flying. So the Baron, who was eccentric but a generous soul, taught him, much to my grandmother’s horror. The Baron Karol, who had been one of the first Poles ever to fly a plane, and, despite his advanced age and lofty rank, insisted on joining a squadron just before the Germans invaded. My dad, who was not quite seventeen at the time, followed him and, with the Baron’s help, lied about his age and found himself in the open cockpit of a PZL P.11 on the 1st September 1939. Neither he nor the Baron got off the ground. The airstrip was bombed by a group of Stukas and the Baron’s plane took a direct hit, while Dad was thrown clear of his aircraft by the force of a nearby explosion. In his raw inexperience, he hadn’t even fastened his seatbelt and that is what saved his life. Along with a few survivors, he originally tried to make his way to join up with what little was left of the army but decided that rather than commit noble suicide, he wanted to live and fight the Nazis. It took him weeks of hiding in barns, moving only at night and eventually, with the help of a courageous Estonian fisherman, he made it to England. He spoke no English and all he had with him was his Polish Air Force identity card. Within eight weeks he was back flying again. He flew a Hurricane in the Battle of Britain in the 303 Polish Fighter Squadron.
In late 1944, invalided out after taking almost a year to recover from a very bad crash-landing in which he broke both legs and sustained severe burning to about a third of his body, he left for Canada with his new young English bride, my mum, Betty, who had been a cook at the hospital where dad was laid up for the first four months after the crash. They settled in Hamilton at first but after my brothers Jake and Mateusz were born in 1949 and 1952, they moved to Ottawa. Dad got a job at the Bay, Mum became a school dinner lady at the newly opened Viscount Alexander public school and by the time I was born in 1958 as something of a surprise (my mum, bless her heart, always called me a surprise rather than an accident), we lived in the top half of a townhouse in the poorer end of Sandy Hill.
Mum and Dad have been married for seventy years this year (Dad is 92, Mum is 86) and are living in a retirement community in Amelia in northern Florida with an on-site nurse in the ‘village’. We fly down for Canadian Thanksgiving as it is in October and the tickets are cheaper. And the whole family is making the trip this year to celebrate their – what is a seventieth anniversary called? Hang on, I will look it up… Well I never knew that! According to Google, their platinum anniversary. Jake and Mateusz will be there. Actually, Jake is thinking of moving to Amelia himself next year from Calgary when he retires. Annie, his wife, died three years ago from pancreatic cancer and his kids, Jeannie and Samantha, are living in the States in Colorado and Oregon with families of their own, so they will be there too, I hope. Mateusz went to Poland after the whole Lech Walesa, Solidarnosc movement to teach English and he is still there, living in Krakow, where he owns a car hire franchise and is married to Olga. They have four kids of their own, 2 boys and 2 girls and– I can never remember – eight or nine grandchildren. I need to check the emails. It might be more! When Jeff and I went out there five years ago to see them, I think they already had seven and Ela was seven months pregnant with Janusz and I am sure there have been at least a couple of additions since then! Mateusz is selling up this year and he wants to bring the whole clan to Amelia for the party. He probably will too. They are going to have to charter their own plane at this rate!
***
Sorry about that, that was Jeff. Hammer made contact with thumb and the air was a trifle blue for a moment! He’s gone out to Canadian Tire for some more nails. He left in a huff because I suggested he swing by Drug Mart on his way back for some Band-Aids!
Oh, I didn’t tell you how Jeffrey and I met! Well, I left school in May of 1977, three days before my birthday and went to work full time at the Bay, only this time in ladies fashion. A year or so, no, it was almost exactly two years after I started, we were still living in Sandy Hill but the boys were working out in Alberta on building sites, Dad was now head of gentleman’s outfitting (as he called the men’s department until the day he retired at 65 in 1987) at Sears and Mum still cooked up huge vats of mince and potatoes at the Alexander. We had lots of room since Dad had managed to buy the downstairs half of the house when old Mr Jennings had to go into a nursing home. Oh, I lost my thread then… just a second… oh yes! So there I am hanging up the latest seamless support bras from Playtex when I hear an embarrassed cough behind me. No matter how long you worked in ‘women’s’, it was always a hoot to see how embarrassed the guys got when they came in to buy something racy for their sweethearts. These days, embarrassment is a thing of the past what with the internet and main street stores like, Aren’t We Naughty? Anyway, I turned round and there was this tall, blond, blue-eyed kid, maybe a couple of years older than me, with bright crimson cheeks and stammering incoherently. It turned out he was to be the best man at his big brother’s wedding later that month and he had been given the task by his pals at Bell Canada of buying something sexy to put on the blow-up doll that someone had got hold of by mail order for the stag. He was so cute, huffing and puffing and it took me about twenty minutes to prise the story out of him. Eventually I sorted him out with some see-through red negligee, which no woman in her right mind would have ever bought unless she was working in, what the law called, a ‘bawdy house’! Then I did something very daring. Just as this cute guy was thanking me for the hundredth time and taking up his purchase, which I had carefully wrapped in plain white paper before slipping it into a Hudson’s Bay carrier bag, and this time it was my turn to blush, I suddenly blurted out, “Hey, would you like to have coffee with me some time?”
And bless him, without a moment’s hesitation or awkwardness, he said, “Sure! That’d be cool! Er… I’m Jeffrey, Jeff.” And he rather sweetly and rather formally extended his hand.
Taking it with a slight curtsey I said, “Hi Jeffrey Jeff, I’m Nancy.”
Two days after that we went and had a coffee at Tim Horton’s and one year and three very brief and very silly break ups and reconciliations later, we got engaged. We got married a year after that and Jeff returned the favour and asked his brother Lionel to be his best man. I sent Lionel a black see-through negligee through the post with a note saying, ‘Just in case this one prefers black!’ A year after we were married, Paul was born and I quit my job at the Bay to take up my new role as full-time mum. Poor Lionel, he died a few years later from a massive heart attack. We don’t see his widow, Sadie anymore and there were no children.
Oh, now I am all out of order! It must be my age! I meant to tell you about my ‘writing career’ before meltdown Tuesday!
Where was I? Oh yes, so dear old Dad got me a temp job at the Bay. I will never forget it. I was not long turned eighteen and it was the day when young Michel Vaillancourt won the silver medal in the show jumping in his hometown. We were all gathered round one of the television sets that had been set up throughout the store for the Olympics and I remember us all yelling and screaming at the screen, willing Michel on. As I was going back to my station, my friend Yvonne, who worked in ladies’ accessories, asked me if I was going to enter the competition.
“What competition?”
“Oh,
Nancy, don’t you ever read the notice board in the staff canteen?” she asked me exasperatedly.
“Not today I haven’t… what competition?”
“Here!” and Yvonne handed me a flyer with the Hudson Bay logo at the top which said that the management were running a competition as part of the new marketing campaign and were offering $250 in store vouchers to any member of staff who could come up with a slogan for the launch of the autumn range.
I shrugged, “Why would that be of interest to me?”
“Because it’s $250 and you are always thinking up clever things to say!”
“Am I? Or are you just telling me in your own sweet way that I am a smart mouth?” I laughed. It was true, I had a bit of a reputation for making wisecracks at school. Poor Miss Weatherspoon, my geography teacher. I still blush when I remember calling her a Miss Jean Brodie who never had a prime!
I took the flyer home and after a couple of hours and with a dozen crumpled sheets of paper strewn around my feet, I purposefully dotted the full stop of my first piece of creative writing that wasn’t homework.
I didn’t win.
A manager in the publicity department had a quiet word with Dad who had a quiet word with me.
“Listen, Kochanie,” he always called me that: it’s Polish; the nearest translation would be ‘darling’, “they didn’t want to make a fuss [how typically Canadian, I thought] but they just felt that your slogan was a bit inappropriate. After all, it’s only been a few years since that Quebec thing, OK? Nobody is mad with you. Just you are young,” and with that the matter was closed. And that, until that fateful afternoon two years ago, was the extent of my career as a writer.
What was my slogan?
In large cartoon letters with firework bursts drawn in the background, I had written:
‘Come and have a blast at the Bay!’
I was disappointed, mildly, but I gave it no more thought until many years later when Paul was on an immersion course in French because he had a six-month posting coming up as a liaison officer at HMCS Donnacona, the naval reserve base in Montreal. I will never understand how just because the navy use a place as a base, they call it a ship even when it’s a large building on dry land! Anyway, Paul was staying with us for a couple of weeks; this was just a few months after he met Sarah who was studying at Carleton University in Ottawa. They met while skating on the Rideau Canal, you know. Paul literally swept her off her feet. He later admitted he knocked her down deliberately so he could have a chance to speak to her! Anyway, Paul was wandering around the house all day with a navy issued Sony Walkman with some government French course on tape. Being the supportive mum I am, I invited Sonya over to help him practice. Sonya’s mother came from Quebec City and Sonya spoke French, English and Arabic fluently. Well, Paul was grateful for the help and I was enthralled listening to him and Sonya jabber away… my handsome son, so clever and in French too! I caught a few words and one afternoon, they were doing some sort of role play about shopping. Women can understand shopping in any language, can’t we, girls? That suddenly brought back my memories of the Bay and the slogan competition so I told the story and when I explained the slogan, Paul and Sonya looked at each other and burst out laughing. I was a bit vexed at being the butt of the joke but tried not to show it.
“So what was so bad about it?” I asked a tad peevishly.
“Well, Cherie,” said Sonya, still mocking me but being very sweet about it, “it may have been borderline in English but the French version would have been something like, ‘On va s’eclater chez la Baie!’ for the stores in Quebec!”
I was still puzzled and still a little miffed. Paul came over to me and put an arm round me and bent his neck to give me a peck on the cheek.
“Mum,” he said as gently as he could but I could hear the laughter bubbling up in his voice, “Mum, “on va s’eclater chez la Baie” can have a literal meaning too.” And then the penny dropped. After twenty-eight years, the penny finally dropped. I felt such a fool!
Of course like most Canadians, I knew about the FLQ, the extreme Quebec-based separatist group that carried out a string of attacks including almost a hundred bombings over several years in the late sixties, culminating in 1970 with the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte, who was a minister in the Quebec provincial government, and the October Crisis. I was only about eleven or twelve at the time but I remember seeing Pierre Trudeau on TV just before he invoked the War Measures Act, and watching the news like it was a movie as tanks and soldiers went out onto the streets of Montreal.
I didn’t need Paul to say any more. I guessed. When they were gone, I did Google it and, now that I look back on it, a phrase like, ‘We’re gonna explode at The Bay” does indeed, seem a little inappropriate given the circumstances in that era!
No, I was not writer: I was a watcher. I am a little ashamed to admit it but with two grown-up children, a husband who works office hours and no interest in the gym or pottery classes, I spend my afternoons, once the housework is done and before I make a start on the dinner, watching soaps. I am addicted to the vacuous, often poorly acted and always overacted, continuing serials with their ludicrous plots, cardboard sets, ridiculous dialogue and the cheesy music which punctuates every glance, close-up and dramatic conclusion. They are my friends and I invite them into my living room every weekday from 2pm till 4.30pm. And like all good friends, I overlook their faults and foibles. Woe betide the telemarketer who dares to call during those hours! Not even Caroline or Rachel call me then. Sonya sometimes does but that is only so we can compare notes on what a bitch Brooke is or whether we think Steve will ever find out that the real father of his baby is his brother, Duncan. In my defence, all I can say is that I don’t drink in the daytime, I don’t do drugs and I don’t have a lover. I don’t even like chocolate much. My habit, my vice are the soaps; those ridiculous, implausible serials that seduce the viewer into addiction. It’s true, you try it. I remember even Habib, who is constantly but good-naturedly teasing Sonya for her soap compulsion, once, a few years ago, put his back out playing golf and was laid up in bed at home for two weeks. By the end of that fortnight he was calling me to express his disbelief that Troy would ever marry that slut, Maria, when everyone knew she had poisoned Brady to get her hands on the insurance money!
Oh my! Is that the time? I better put the potatoes on. Jeff is back – I can hear him stomping about down there. Bear with me, I just get a little carried away sometimes. I’ll tell you all about it after dinner when Jeff is watching Hockey Night.
***
Me again. Jeff is swearing at the screen arguing with Don Cherry, but then again, who doesn’t? Jeffrey is third-generation Irish and was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick. But after a row with his alcoholic father when he was sixteen and a perfunctory goodbye to his despised stepmother, Jeff took the eighteen-hundred dollars that he had saved up from working as a clerk in a local grocery store at five bucks a day since he was fourteen when he left school and hobo’d on freight trains to Bangor, Maine in the US. His brother, Lionel, had done more or less the same thing three years earlier and being a little older, at eighteen, had enlisted in the army. Jeff worked in an electrical repair shop and enrolled in night school to learn about the rapidly growing telecommunications technology. After a few years, and having lost his resentment towards his father (who died two years after he left), Jeff took the train back north and in 1974, when he was not quite twenty, he got as job as an engineer’s mate, a sort of unglorified apprenticeship, with Bell Canada in Ottawa. He stayed with his brother Lionel who had left the army after five years and was living in the mostly French suburb of Vanier working as a mechanic. After Caroline was born in 1984, Jeff who was now head of the emergency repair division was offered a management job at Cantel, the first wireless phone company in Canada just a few months before the service went live. Through various name changes and buy outs over the last thirty years, Jeff has st
ayed with what is now Rogers Wireless and is now one of the VPs in the technology department, which is ironic considering he always forgets to take his darn cell phone with him whenever he leaves the house! Still, at least we have really fast broadband!
In case any of you are observant and good at math (and Lord knows, I’m not), you may have worked out that I left school just before my birthday in 1977, when I was just about nineteen years old. Yes, I missed a year of school. I forgot to mention it. Well, it was a long time ago. I was 8 and mum was bringing me back from ballet lessons (her idea, not mine) at Madame Lenska’s Academy of Dance, which was actually a large open room above a butcher’s with a somewhat clumsily installed rail and a mirror. Madame Lenska herself, despite her name, was neither Polish nor Russian; she was a nasal blonde from Brooklyn who, as a young woman, had danced burlesque while she auditioned, without success, for the American Ballet Theatre. So, mum and I caught the bus. I remember it was freezing cold and we had had early snow. It was October and the leaves had all died that year before we got the chance to see them in their full amber, russet and maroon glory. Later on, they told me it was no one’s fault, the bus driver swerved to avoid a stray dog and the wheel hit the kerb and the bus flipped over on its side and skidded along causing sparks and screams for nearly a hundred yards. By some miracle the dog ran off unharmed and no one in the bus suffered more than a few cuts and bruises, and the driver got a broken arm. Mum emerged without a scratch. By sheer bloody bad luck, the window next to where I was sitting shattered into a million pieces and amazingly missed me completely, save for one sliver. That darned sliver went straight into my right eye. Apparently, I had whacked my head pretty hard on the back of the seat in front and was out cold, so I didn’t feel a thing. When I came to, a couple of days later, in a room with two beds but just mine was occupied (they had sedated me while they operated), I awoke with a thumping headache, three missing front teeth and a broken ankle. I couldn’t see anything and I put my hands to my face and felt the thick bandages. That made me panic but I could smell my mum’s perfume, she always wore ‘Evening in Paris’, and I could hear my dad clearing his throat. Mum and Dad were sitting on the edge of the bed and the boys were, so they told me later, standing tearfully behind them. I smiled groggily and said, “Mum, Dad! Where am I? The bus tipped over! Are you ok?”
