The lounge, where I was to read, was full of light. A table, at the far wall, had coffee on a burner. There were white cups standing in saucers and some biscuits and a cake. People kept coming in; some had dark glasses. They stood, quietly, against the walls. Others felt their way to the chairs that were in irregular semicircles. The sun was coming through the windows and onto the sides of some of the faces but they didn’t seem to be aware of this. A middle-aged attractive woman came in, elegantly dressed in a red suit. She stood by the table at the back and smiled in my direction.
There was no introduction. I began by saying that I grew up in Ottawa, in Lower Town. And this was the Ottawa I grew up in . . .
Not a sound, all the time I read. And when I finished there was silence.
I continued by saying I went to university in Montreal, to McGill, and read them a bit about that.
Still no sound.
I noticed that some had their clothes on awkwardly. I could see the white bloomers of an elderly lady. She was sitting beside an elderly man. They were holding hands.
I asked if anyone had questions.
No one spoke.
I told them that after McGill I left Canada and went to live in England. And read descriptions of St. Ives: the bay in summer and during a storm . . . seeing rainbows . . . the white-yellow sand beaches . . . how it looked when the tide was in and what you could see when the tide was out . . . the harbour with Cornish and French fishing boats and gulls . . . the moors with gorse, bracken, and granite boulders. And the small green fields with hedgerows full of wildflowers.
I asked again if there were any questions.
A thin woman with glasses and white hair, sitting very erect, said quietly, “I like your descriptions.”
A tall man with dark glasses, standing against the wall, said in a stronger voice, “We prefer when you describe things to dialogue.”
I then read a description of the sun coming up on the prairies, of a snowstorm in downtown Montreal, of spiderwebs in a garden after a rain.
I had read for almost an hour. They still seemed reluctant to talk. I thought I would stop.
The attractive woman in the red suit thanked me for coming. And said John was now going to give me a cup of coffee.
A young man in a white shirt, a resident, left his chair and felt his way to the table at the back. I watched as he poured the coffee and began to walk slowly in my direction. I was talking louder than usual to someone near me (he said he had a tape recorder for Christmas and he had recorded my reading) when I saw John stumble and fall. He picked himself up, someone else picked up the cup and saucer, and went back to the table. I walked over; he poured coffee in again. I took it from him with a piece of cake and thanked him.
They began, quietly and hesitantly, to talk among themselves. Then they left their chairs, and the wall, and came up to me. A bald old man said, “I saw a rainbow once. I was on a lake, near Ottawa. I was ten.” A plump, short lady dressed in green said she remembered Lower Town from what I read. She grew up on St. Patrick Street. Someone else said they remembered winter with icicles and being pulled in a sleigh by a dog. The attractive woman who thanked me moved closer. “I hope you don’t get the wrong idea,” she smiled. “But it is only when I stand this close that I can see you at all, and then only fuzzy.” She hoped that now that I had come, perhaps other writers would come and read to them. And told me that most of the audience were people who lived at home—there weren’t that many residents—and that not everyone was completely blind.
A young woman came up and asked if she could run her hands over my face.
When I came out I was glad to be outside. I walked very briskly a few blocks. Then stopped. And stood there. Staring at the sky, the bare trees—what lovely colours—a bird on a wire, a young grey cat on a veranda, a black squirrel crossing the road. I just stood there and looked and looked . . .
When I got back to the Château Laurier there was a note from Julie that said could I come up and see them in room 320.
I did go up. They were very relaxed, with two bottles of champagne on the desk and all kinds of delicatessen food around them. “Glad you could join us,” Frank said. And Julie produced an extra glass. Frank had a copy of the Citizen.
“You’re on page five—”
There was the interview, over two columns, with a photograph taken four years earlier.
“—and we’re on page one.”
I couldn’t see anything that might refer to them. He pointed to a small notice—two sentences—a branch of the Bank of Montreal was robbed by a man and he got away with an undisclosed sum of money.
Nothing, I thought, surprises me any more.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
“It’s something we have been thinking about for a while. We wanted to see if we could do it. Jim worked in a bank—so he knew how—all he needed was a uniform and to go there before it opened.”
“Did you have a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Bullets?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have used them?”
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “We didn’t have to.”
I thought, was this bravado or was there something unstable? And why did they tell me?
Julie poured more champagne and I had smoked meat and a pickle.
“What are you going to do with the money?”
Silence.
Frank finally said, “You are going to Toronto for your next lecture.”
“Yes.”
“So are we. It would be an honour if we could drive you there.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s very good of you.”
“Could you be in the lobby and ready to leave at three a.m.?”
“Are you going to rob another bank?”
They found that amusing.
They were waiting in the lobby with their luggage when I came down. Outside, in the dark, it was cold. I sat with Jim in the back. Frank was driving, Julie was beside him. They didn’t appear tired. But I could hardly keep my eyes open. On the car radio a woman was singing “Weekend in Canada.” The streets were empty and Frank was driving fast.
“You drive very well,” I said.
“I thought at one time of being a racing driver. But I knew I didn’t have the dedication.”
When we got out of Ottawa they appeared even more at ease. Gone was that vague discontent that was there when I met them. They began to sing a mixture of revolutionary and popular songs: “Joe Hill,” “John Brown’s Body,” “Ode to Joy,” “Kevin Barry,” as well as John Denver songs that I knew, and the Beatles. I didn’t join in. Although I sing when I’m by myself, friends have told me I can’t carry a tune. In any case I felt too warm even with the window open.
I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up the car had stopped. We were in a small town, or village, on the main street. Not a soul was outside.
“Where are we?”
“About halfway,” Frank said. “Have a good sleep?”
“I think so.”
“You were snoring,” Julie said.
A light snow. I could see the flakes by the streetlight. Everything looked shut and quiet.
“Why have we stopped?”
“Would you like to help us?”
“What is it you want me to do?”
Jim took out a leather case and opened it. He handed four bundles of twenty-dollar bills to each of us. “You and Julie do the side streets on that side. We’ll do the side streets on this. Then we’ll both do the opposite sides of the main. Put two twenty-dollar bills in each door. Not the stores. Only the houses.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so I walked briskly to the front doors of houses and pushed through the letter slots two twenty-dollar bills. I no longer felt tired or sleepy. At only one house was there a moment of anxiety
when a small dog barked. But no lights came on and no one came to the door. Otherwise we moved from house to house, street to street . . . the snow falling . . . coming back for more bundles—until there were no more.
When it was over, and we all were in the car, there was a shared sense of excitement as if we had taken part in a forbidden pleasure. Julie suddenly kissed the three of us. “Money makes a girl passionate.”
Jim said, “I kept these back as souvenirs.” And gave two twenty dollar bill to each of us, including himself. They were crisp notes and I put mine in my back buttoned-down pocket.
“I’d give anything,” Frank said, “to see some of the faces when they go to the door this morning.”
The ploughs, the small trucks, were attacking the fallen snow when we arrived in Toronto. It was like a small army. The university had reserved a room in the Windsor Arms. When we got there it was time to go our separate ways.
“You’re famous,” Julie said, looking affectionately into my eyes. “I thought famous people were different.”
I shook hands with Frank and Jim.
Julie gave me a prolonged kiss.
“I’ll read all your books,” she said.
“And I’ll look in the paper to see what banks have been robbed.”
At the lecture I talked about the past confronting the present and what matters are moments. And gave examples from my stories. Afterwards there was a small party at a professor’s house. I got back to the hotel after midnight.
Next morning I caught a taxi early as I had to get the morning train to Montreal. The taxi driver spoke English with a heavy accent. I asked him where he was from.
“Israel,” he said.
Outside Union Station the driver brought my case from the back. I asked him how much. He said four dollars. I put my hand in my pocket and drew out one of the twenty-dollar bills.
“I can’t change that,” he said. “I have just started. Where would I get money to change that?”
“Make it ten dollars,” I said.
He began, slowly, to take out crumpled one-dollar bills and crumpled two-dollar bills, from different pockets, and placed them into my open hand.
To pass the time, and to apologize for the much too large tip, I said, “It’s only money.”
He looked startled, then angry.
“What do you mean it’s only money? Why do you think I get up when it is still dark and cold—to drive through these streets. Only money.” He began to shout hysterically. “I have to work long hours, nights too, and weekends. For what am I doing this? Tell me.”
I walked away . . . aware that I’d stumbled on a simple truth, if there is such a thing. While he continued shouting and waving his hands so that people walking by looked in wonder as to what was wrong between us.
On another occasion, seventeen years earlier, in December 1962, when the children were still small (ten, eight, six), we were living in St. Ives, Cornwall, in a large old terraced house that I rented from a widow at twelve pounds a month. I only had a few books published then and was behind with the rent. I was writing mostly short stories as a way of earning money and at the same time trying to get on with a new novel. The weeks before Christmas were an anxious time. It seemed that I was always waiting for a cheque. This time was no exception. I had sent a new story to Harper’s Bazaar. They had accepted it on December 7 for their top price of twenty-five guineas. And I was watching every postal delivery. Meanwhile I had to tell the milkman that he would be paid next week, the same with the baker, and the groceries from the co-op. As the days passed the children began to make decorations and paper chains and cards. But my wife began to worry, how were we going to get through with so little money. We got by with beans on toast, cheese on toast, and macaroni with cheese.
A week later I went, with the little change I had, to the public phone box at the top of the cemetery and called up Harper’s Bazaar hoping I would get the literary editor. She assured me the cheque was on its way. And could I send her another story in the spring.
But three days later the cheque still hadn’t arrived. I was up here, in the attic room, wondering what to do when Martha, our eldest, came running up the stairs shouting. “Dad. Dad. Look what the postman left—smoked salmon.”
She gave me this long, neatly wrapped parcel with white stiff cardboard on the outside. In the top left-hand corner a label said “Nolan, fishmonger, Dublin.” And there was my name and address and in large letters “Smoked Salmon—Perishable.”
I quickly brought it down to the kitchen.
My wife and kids watched me unwrap it.
It was the largest smoked salmon I had seen.
“Who sent it?” my wife said happily.
I looked through the parcel.
“It doesn’t say. They forgot to put it in.”
I sliced large slices, very thin. And we ate them with brown bread, cut lemon, and pepper from the small pepper mill.
We had smoked salmon for lunch and smoked salmon for dinner and, next day, smoked salmon for breakfast.
It was too large for our small fridge so we kept it where it was cold—between the outside front door and the inner door. And had to take it away when the milkman called, the baker, and the grocer.
It seemed such a luxury (the whole family at the kitchen table, eating platefuls of smoked salmon) when there was hardly any food in the house.
At night in bed we couldn’t sleep.
“Who do you think sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s from Dublin—you don’t think Edna?”
“No,” I said.
“I hope not,” my wife said.
“Perhaps it was Francis.”
“I hope it’s Francis,” my wife said.
We went through the possibilities.
“Your stories are all about how we have no money. Some reader of Vogue or Harper’s after reading one decided—”
“The fishmonger,” I interrupted, “probably forgot to put the card in. Good night.”
But it bothered us.
We had the O’Caseys in, Doreen and Breon, for a smoked salmon treat. They also had young children and money was tight. I did large slices cut thin with more lemon and brown bread and pepper. They said it was delicious and nothing like that had ever happened to them.
Then on December 22 the cheque came from Harper’s Bazaar. And I felt like a new person. I gave my wife most of the money—paid the milkman and part of the bill we owed at the co-op. We got the last tree from the greengrocer. And the children and my wife suddenly got into the swing of things. I went out and got some greenery to put up around the rooms near the ceiling. They put up decorations . . . small presents began to appear under the tree, neatly wrapped up. The schoolkids, when they knocked on the front door after singing a carol, now got a few pennies. And later, at night, in a light rain, there was the massed choir in the street, men and women dressed all in black singing “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” unaccompanied. They held flashlights under their chins and umbrellas above them . . . beautiful sound . . . their voices clear. Then they walked up the slope, in the dark, regrouped . . . and sang some more . . . the flashlights lighting up their faces.
Next day there was a letter from Canada, from my mother, with a twenty-five-pound money order for the children. And in the evening Morley and Florrie came. (He was a farmer near Truro and ran a butcher shop and she had the postal substation—my wife was evacuated there during the war.) They came with their day’s takings in a carrier bag and gave us a goose and a chicken. I cut some of the smoked salmon while my wife told them what happened.
“Well, I never—” Florrie said.
“It’s very good,” Morley said.
Next morning before seven I was at St. Erth station waiting for the train to come. I was there to meet my wife’s mother, who had recently bec
ome a widow and was coming on the overnight train from London. I walked up and down the open platform to try and keep warm. Over to the west the clouds were low and grey. And one cloud, like a smudge, detached itself and was moving closer. I watched it. Suddenly I realized it wasn’t a cloud but starlings. They came just over my head—and above and below, on either side of the tracks. Thousands of them. It felt as if I was in a black snowstorm. And the continual sound of their wings.
Then just as suddenly it went quiet. The train arrived, no one got out. A porter ran up to me. “Are you waiting for a lady?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t wake her up.”
It was my mother-in-law having difficulty keeping her eyes open. I put on her sheepskin jacket, took her case, and the porter and I got her into a taxi. Her chin was on her chest.
I managed to wake her up on the drive back.
“What happened?”
“I took some drink on the train—to help me sleep—then a sleeping pill—”
“How many pills did you take?”
“One—two—”
Her head went down again.
When I got her into the house I told my wife what happened and to make a large jug of coffee. We forced her to drink. Then held her up, one on each side, and began to walk up and down the room and in the hallway, her feet dragging, I slapped her face when she closed her eyes, gave her more coffee, and continued walking. We did that for over an hour until she could stand by herself.
“I’m all right now,” she said. She looked worn out. “I’ll go upstairs and lie down and have a rest.” She slept right through until next morning.
In the morning I made a fire in the front room. The pile of presents under the tree had grown almost overnight. Then, when we were all down, we sat on chairs, the children on the floor. My wife brought in a pot of hot coffee. And after we had coffee I started to give out the presents. One for each, and I would wait until the person opened it. Then I’d go to the next. The children saved their wrapping paper . . . the pile of presents by them.
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