The Truth About Luck: What I Learned on My Road Trip with Grandma

by Iain Reid

  “Anytime we came to visit, you had that pack with you. It was like your version of a ratty old teddy bear.”

  “I know,” I say, shaking my head, “so strange. Whenever company — and not just family but whoever — was coming over, I’d position myself in my favourite armchair, which faced the front door. I’d have a book in my lap and set up my ashtray and place my real cigarette between my fingers. I’d studied the way Grandpa smoked and knew the technique. I never held it firmly, but as if I’d forgotten it was even there. I’d wait for the guests to arrive.”

  Grandma tilts the last of her tea into her mouth. She sets her cup down and shakes her head. “You see, I was going on so much, my tea is ice cold.”

  I follow and drain what’s left of my coffee. It’s also cold. “No, no, it was me going on. I’m glad you told me that stuff. That’s why we came out here, to chat.”

  “But not just about my old memories,” she says. “All those things happened so long ago. I’m not sure what got me started on all that.”

  Despite being full, the café feels empty. Each person sits in their own invisible cocoon. I don’t feel like staying any longer. I suddenly want to leave.

  “Well, what do you think, Grandma, shall we?” I ask.

  “We shall.”

  The lady with her baby is up and ready to go. His tiny eyes are red and watery. His thin hair, still very blond, is matted down in the front but standing up straight in the back. It’s classic baby bed-head. His mother cradles him in one arm now, rocking him slowly and sweetly.

  I help Grandma with her coat. Out of the corner of my eye I watch the young mother use caution as she zips her son’s coat up. His eyes have closed and she’s extra careful when she gets the zipper right up under his chin.

  2:39 p.m.

  A GREYNESS HAS settled onto everything. All is drab. My town has become an overused washcloth that hangs over a faucet — damp and dingy and tired. It’s not just the sky but the streets, the buildings, people’s faces. This feels like a new, undesired season, something in between winter and spring.

  It’s too brisk to be shopping outdoors, but I haven’t been to a farmers’ market since last fall. I don’t want to take Grandma back to my apartment yet. I’ve dragged her out in this weather, and it’ll take at least one more stop before I can justify this as an outing.

  We have a small but bountiful market in Kingston. All the fresh foodstuffs anyone needs, packed into the square behind city hall. During the winter, Market Square is converted into a public skating rink. And one night a week in the summer, the square is transformed into an outdoor movie theatre where everyone is encouraged to show up at dusk with a lawn chair and watch a classic film on the massive screen. For a small city, the downtown square gets a lot of use. This time of year, though, the square still has a foot in winter and the other not yet firmly planted in spring. The farmers’ market won’t be in full swing for another few weeks.

  I have an alternative plan. There’s another market, a smaller one, on the university campus on Wednesdays. In a pinch, it will do. And I’m in a pinch.

  We park on the campus, beside the main library. We do one lap around the outside of the market at a snail’s pace. Even for Grandma we’re moving slowly, heavily. We’ve bought nothing. I’ve squeezed a loaf of Portuguese bread. Grandma has commented on the man selling Russian snacks, something about it smelling good. I hope she’s at least enjoying the stroll and the relatively fresh air.

  I stop in front of the fresh veggie stand. They can’t be local, not yet. They’re probably the same ones I’ve been buying in the grocery store, grown in a greenhouse. Somehow they look more appetizing on display outside on a wobbly folding table.

  Grandma is a couple of steps behind me. A quick shoulder-check confirms she’s concerning herself with the flower lady. The flower stall held my attention for about three seconds. I robotically reach out and pick up a tomato. I’m about to release it when the lady working the stall looks up from her chair. She’s not really a lady, more a young, curvaceous woman of about my own age. I suppose I don’t need to drop this tomato just yet.

  There’s something I find, I don’t know, appealing about her. Maybe it’s that she’s attractive and around my age. And also that I’ve been spending all my time with a ninety-two-year-old to whom I’m directly related. I pause, examine, and then bring the red fruit up to my face. I give the tomato a sniff and nod my approval.

  “A nice piece of fruit,” I say.

  “Yeah, they’re ripe,” she says, standing up. Okay, this is an attractive woman. And an entrepreneur to boot.

  “I’ve always enjoyed tomatoes, even as a young kid,” I say, sniffing it again, this time longer. “They’ve gotta be one of my favourite things, like, in general.” In general? I need to stop sniffing this tomato.

  “Well, they’re a pretty good price, too.”

  See, she knows about prices and economic theory. She’s not just a pretty face. “I use them for loads of things. Sauces, sandwiches . . . you name it . . .”

  She smiles, but her eyes dart toward the ground. Predict­ably, I’m losing her. I hear Grandma sneeze behind me. I turn and instinctively pull her into me. I softly set my left arm around her shoulders. I’ve been noticing today that when Grandma and I walk around, people take a good, long look at us. They look much longer than when it’s just me walking alone, when I can be invisible. And they aren’t looking in a malicious way. I think they think she’s cute or something. I think they think it’s noble of me to be spending time with this little old lady.

  It also helps that I’ve been holding up an umbrella (no one else knows it’s mostly useless) for both of us but am clearly favouring her. My left shoulder is wet. My entire left side is wet. People like this kind of thing. They think I’m a good, charitable guy. The assumption is chivalry. When we walk down the street, as long as I’m holding the umbrella with my left hand over Grandma, I could be swinging a two-day-old puppy by its tongue with my right hand, à la set of keys, and these people would still find the scene charming.

  “Grandma,” I yell, pulling her in even closer, bending down to eye level, “are you okay? Don’t worry, everything’s fine, we’re still at the market.” I peer up at the girl. She’s noticed Grandma.

  Grandma shoots me a stern look. “Yes, I know. I’m fine. Hello,” she says to the girl.

  “Hi there.”

  “I’m just out with my Grandma,” I say. “I think it’s good for her to be out in the fresh air. She’s ninety-two, after all.”

  “What, really? You’re ninety-two!?”

  “Pardon me?” says Grandma.

  “She was just wondering how old you are, Grandma,” I shout directly into her face. “She can’t believe you are the age you are.” I look back to the girl, my arm squishing Grandma into my side. “I think our little walks really help.”

  And with that a man, clearly both a legitimate farmer and her boyfriend/husband, appears from somewhere to the left carrying a large brown box. He sets it down and starts unpacking jars of something. Probably jam. His arms are strong and veiny.

  “I guess you guys just buy that from the store or something, right?” I say.

  “Nope, we grow the fruit, make the jam, and jar it ourselves,” he says.

  “Cheaper than the store, too,” she says.

  “Oh, it does look nice, doesn’t it?” says Grandma.

  “Well . . . I’m not much of a jam guy, Grandma . . .”

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind buying us a jar.”

  I’ve already moved a few steps back toward the car.

  “Come on, Grandma. I think I can feel the rain coming again.”

  “Okay, but we just have to wait for something. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Oh, sure. What?”

  “I bought some flowers at that stall back there. They’re making me a special bouquet
.”

  While we wait, I see a young mother and baby. At first I think it’s the same ones from the café. Then I don’t think it is. This baby is crying, which seems out of character for the placid lad I knew at the café. The mother is unfazed by the crying. I think it might be the worst sound in the world. Maybe I’m just feeling irritable. I can’t imagine getting used to it, though. I ask Grandma.

  “I know how it seems. But things change when the kids are your own,” she says.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I realize a moment later she didn’t really answer my question. Or maybe she did.

  “Oh, look,” she says, tapping my shoulder, “the flowers are ready. And they’re beautiful.”

  7:12 p.m.

  WE SPENT THE rest of the afternoon alone. Not only from others but from each other. Grandma in the pink chair, with her book and tea. Me at my desk, in my room. I’ve been at my desk for a while. Now I decide to just lie down on the floor. I stay like this, stationary, supine on the floor, for ten minutes. Then twenty. Then half an hour.

  I wonder how long Grandma is going to live?

  It’s not something I’ve ever seriously considered before today. I’ve thought about it, but always in the context of how long she’s already lived. She’s lived so long, through so many years, eras. But I haven’t thought about looking ahead, at how long she has left. She can’t have much time left. What becomes the priority at that point in life, looking back or ahead? When your days are numbered, do you think of much else?

  If I were ninety-two I would be wrestling with these questions often. Maybe daily. Maybe hourly. Only in old, old age are we objectively certain our time is almost up. Death is life’s only inevitability (yeah, taxes, I know, I know). Is the fear of death more about ourselves or losing others? There seems to be a link between physical discomfort, pain, and death, but when we die, it likely hurts those closest to us more than us. But really we know nothing about death beyond the obvious. What does that say about existence, that we understand very little (apart from conflicting theories) about its only absolute? I’m still lying on the floor when Grandma knocks on the door. She has something with her. It’s the flowers from the market. She thinks I could use them in my room.

  “But they’re your flowers, Grandma. You bought them. You love flowers.”

  “They’ll look good in here,” she says.

  I could ask her about the things I’ve been thinking about, about death. But I don’t. Not yet, anyway. I don’t want her to think about it if she doesn’t. And I don’t want her to think I’m grilling her. Just because she’s closer to the end of life doesn’t mean anything. And I suppose she isn’t necessarily closer to the end anyway. That’s the perception, the likelihood, but it’s not a certainty. She’s definitely close, but maybe I’m closer.

  “Remember what you were telling me at the café? About being in Taplow?”

  “Yes, all that talk has got me thinking more this afternoon. That’s what I’ve been doing. I wasn’t reading much at all, just thinking. I’ve been in my head a lot today. More than usual for me.”

  “Did you stay there long? In Taplow, I mean?”

  “Well, the day our routine finally changed I think it was a grey, rainy day. I don’t know why I think that. After breakfast all the nurses were brought together and told we would begin marching drills, rain or shine. We weren’t told why, or for how long. We were generally told little. That morning, what I felt was closest to excitement. I knew what it likely meant, to be drilling. I’d been anticipating a change in our activities. It would mean another move.”

  “Did you know where?”

  “No, dear. But luckily, I’d always been a walker, even back while studying. I didn’t mind the marching drills. It was written in my high school yearbook that I was the fastest walker in the school. On our morning marches, if the mist wasn’t too thick, we could see Windsor Castle.

  “The morning drills weren’t the only change. We started participating in mandatory gas training. Nothing had been confirmed but nothing had been denied. All we knew was something was imminent. They even had us going to lectures on tropical medicine. A couple of weeks later, the oldest nurses and any in poor health were sent back to Canada. No. 5 had been picked. As we all figured, we were moving.”

  “And you were fine with that, just having everything change without warning?” It’s a stupid question considering the context, and I realize this as I ask it.

  Grandma laughs it off. “Oh, sure. That’s what we’d signed up for.”

  I decide I should ask fewer questions and just listen.

  “Since leaving Canada I’d been sleeping less. Not because I couldn’t sleep — I can always sleep — but sleeping seemed out of place, almost like I thought it should be rationed, too. There was too much work and activity. London had been fun.”

  She tells me the story again, the one she told me at the café, about the bombing when she was at the movie (she does repeat herself, like any ninety-two-year-old would). She’d enjoyed her time but still considered it good news they were moving again. They were closer to the action than they’d been in Winnipeg, but she wanted to be closer still, to be part of it.

  “My biggest regret was that I never did get to see Donald while in England.”

  It seems so irrational to me, unlikely, that this would have ever happened. But she tells me this twice, that she’d really believed she might see him. London would have been her best chance. She’d had a feeling on the boat that she was going to see him. It was a mightily implausible hope. It was confirmed, three weeks after arriving in England, just how unlikely.

  “I received word Donald had been shot down. Again. This time somewhere in northern Africa.”

  She was glad she was busy and that she had people to care for, depending on her.

  “There were so many rumours during our last days at Taplow. Everyone had their own ideas. Our destination was a closely guarded secret, and of course I was curious but knew it was outside my control. No one knew for sure, not even the soldiers or officers.

  “Even after boarding the ship we didn’t know. I spent even less time in my cabin on this voyage. I knew even more people now than on the trip over. I still liked the decks at night. We would chat in groups, about lots of things, some theorizing about where we were going.”

  “You still weren’t sure?”

  “No. Some of the officers tried to use the stars as a map. We all started to detect a very slight warming in temperature, or thought we did, and figured we must be going south. When we passed through Gibraltar, things became clearer, and then finally we knew when we anchored at our final destination.”

  “Where?”

  “We were in Sicily. We’d landed at Augusta as part of the Allied convoy. The morning we landed we were immediately sent down below. You see, we were landing with the invading troops and were under heavy fire. There were some serious injuries, but it was actually our supply ship that took the brunt of the shelling. We lost our medical supplies and even our uniforms. To disembark we had to climb down rope ladders fastened to the side of the ship. I can still see us. I was wearing my silk stockings, a nurse’s cap, and a knee-length skirt, and over the side we went.”

  “That’s unbelievable.”

  “The British officers were aghast. They couldn’t believe these Canadian nursing sisters, these women, had landed with an invading force in an active war zone. It was unheard of.”

  “I guess you must have felt part of it all after that.”

  “We certainly did. Everything, the mood, our duties, it all changed after that. No. 5’s new home was an abandoned generic two-storey building we converted into a makeshift hospital. It had been booby-trapped by the Nazis before they fled. We were told to be very careful with everything; toilet seats could explode when lifted, even a single pen could be hazardous. We had no supplies and very little equipment.

  “O
ur clothes had also sunk with the supply ship. The nurses were given men’s army uniforms to wear. They didn’t fit any of us. We would laugh and tease one another about who looked the worst in the baggy pants. But the hospital became active and hectic right away. There was no time for further training or practice. It was time to work. We cared for patients all day or all night or both. On one occasion, while changing the dressings of a badly wounded American soldier, I found a nest of maggots underneath the old bandages. I didn’t say anything to the patient, but I left them. They would all fall off eventually, when their helpful work was done.”

  “Was the hospital full?”

  “It was. It was well over capacity. We had to line up any extra cots in hallways, anywhere there was space. Lots of dysentery and malaria. The badly wounded who weren’t sent back to England were contained on the top floor. The first floor was reserved for the sick, infirm, and less seriously injured. More sick, wounded, and maimed arrived daily. Amputations became ordinary. So did surgeries of all kinds. I always thought it was the night that was hardest on the boys.

  “The bombings that had sunk the supply ship continued. You could hear the planes flying overhead. The shelling was focused on the harbour, but the blasts were felt and heard throughout the hospital. At their peak I would just walk up and down the aisles, in between the beds and cots. I wouldn’t talk. I just felt like I had to do something, that maybe even my presence might be a help. I hoped it offered some comfort, a sense of composure.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “it would have.”

  There’s no music playing now, no radio or TV on. My room is very quiet.

  “And then again it was time for No. 5. to move. We proceeded to Catania, a larger city at the base of Mount Etna. It wasn’t until our third day at Catania that I was off duty for an entire afternoon, and I was recruited to play in a rugby match organized by a group of British soldiers. I’d met them the day before. It was my first time playing rugby. I tried not to let on. I’d missed playing sports. I enjoyed it. It was fun to get out and play something again. Now why do I remember that?”