Dreams and Promises: Love, Loss and Redemption in a Land of Infinite Promise

by Anna Markland

  “Mom?” Fresh tears spurted from under her closed eyelids. She held the headset pressed to her ear. “George’s back.”

  There was a long pause, then the comforting voice of her mother came down the line. “I heard a rumour.”

  “He doesn’t remember me . . . or anything.”

  Another pause. She could almost see her mother rolling up the edge of her apron, then smoothing it down again, a ritual she employed whenever a matter required deep consideration. “You sit tight, darling. Your brother has to take the team into Glencove tomorrow to pick up supplies. I’ll come with him. We’ll have a good talk – in private.” Dot giggled as she heard several gasps on the party line followed by a series of clicks.

  “I’ll see you about ten.” She pulled the jack on the switchboard, ending the call. She then connected a line to the railway station and asked to have George’s and Mabel’s luggage sent to Ada’s address. “Yes, George is home. He’s lost his memory.” After listening to the station master’s congratulations she disconnected the jack. “Guess I’m going to be saying that a lot.”

  “To begin with.” Winnie’s looked at her switchboard, lit up like a fireworks display. “I’ll bet they’re all eager to talk about George.” She rolled her eyes. “You go on home now, Dot. You want to look your best tomorrow – when George gets his memory back.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears.” Dot smiled. Winnie was the best tonic in the world.

  Back on the domestic side of the door, she found Mabel and Ada still sparring in the kitchen. “I’m making his favourite dinner, chicken and dumplings, with apple pie for dessert.” Ada held a rolling pin in her hand.

  “He doesn’t have a big appetite. A good, nourishing soup, would be better.”

  Dot cringed at Mabel’s casual assumption of authority.

  “Chicken and dumplings.” Ada banged the rolling pin on the floured board and glared at the nurse.

  “Right.” Dot came between the adversaries. “I’ve arranged for your luggage. Why don’t you come upstairs with me, Mabel, and I’ll show you our room. Even without fresh clothes, I’m sure you’d like to comb your hair and wash your face.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Mabel made a wide path around Ada and followed Dot up the single flight of stairs.

  “We’re in here.” Dot opened the first door on the right. “Ada is across the hall and George, as you know, is in the room beside hers. The bathroom’s there.” She pointed to the door at the end of the hall.

  While Mabel freshened up, Dot couldn’t resist peaking in on George. He looked so small, barely a bump under his mother’s handmade quilt. His face was turned so she saw the side with the scar. Her heart clenched. George, her George, had been sorely wounded and there’d been no one to comfort him. She inched close to the bed, peering down at him. His hair was still thick and curly and blond, like his mother’s. His ears sat neatly against his head. She remembered admiring those ears. No bat ears for her George. She touched his shoulder, feeling the bone even through the layers of the quilt. Ada was right, he needed fattening up. She tucked the quilt more closely around his neck.

  His eyes flew open, wide, staring, terrified. He caught her wrist in a grip so strong it threatened to break the bone. “George,” she gasped. “George, let go. You’re hurting me.”

  “What are you doing in here?” Mabel bustled through the bedroom door. “I didn’t say you could visit.” She sat down at the edge of the bed and laid her hands on George’s shoulders. “It’s all right, dear,” she cooed, “it’s all right. I’m here. No one is going to hurt you.”

  “Mabel?” George’s gaze focussed on his nurse. He released Dot’s arm. “Where am I?”

  “You’re home, in Glencove.” Dot massaged her wrist, but refused to quit the room. “You’re back in Canada, Georgie-love. The war is over. We’re going to get married, and have our own farm, just like we planned.”

  “I’m marrying Mabel.” George regarded her with the eyes of a stranger. “We’ll live in town. She doesn’t want to be a farm wife.”

  “But . . .” Once again Dot’s world spun out of control. “You can’t. We . . . I . . . you . . . you asked me first.” She sounded like an eight-year-old and she knew it. “You must remember, George.” She sought confirmation of her place in the world.

  “I’m sorry.” Mabel stood, watching. “I had hoped George would get his memory back before we told you.” She settled him into his pillow once more, ignoring Dot. “Rest a little longer, darling. Your mother is making your favourite supper.”

  She rose from the bed, took Dot by the arm and steered her out of the room. “You mustn’t wake him like that. He was terrified. Don’t you know he has nightmares?”

  “How could I know? I haven’t heard from him in over a year.”

  “Well, you should have thought.” Miss Featherley stalked to the stairs dragging Dot with her. “You people on this side of the ocean have no idea what our boys went through.”

  “Your boys?” Dot stumbled after her. “Their our boys. George is one of ours. He belongs here, with me. He loves the land. He’s a wizard with horses. He can read the sky for rain. He knows where the best of the wild strawberries grow. He had his first dance with me. He is not one of your boys.”

  She stormed down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. “George is engaged to Mabel Featherley,” she announced and glared at Ada as though it was her fault.

  “He can’t be.” Ada set the pot of chicken on the stovetop with a hard thump. “He’s engaged to you.”

  “A fact he has forgotten.” Dot plopped down in a wooden chair, then jumped up again. “That . . . that . . . nurse had the gall to lecture me about George. How dare she think she understands him better than me. I’ve known him for fifteen years. She’s only had him for fifteen months!” She grabbed a scouring pad and attacked the kitchen sink, venting her fury on a stubborn tea stain.

  “You’re perfectly right.” Ada took off her apron and smoothed her hair. “If I could I’d send her back to England on the next boat, but that wouldn’t solve the problem. We must help George get his memory back. Once he remembers that he loves you, we can send her packing.”

  “My mom’s coming into town tomorrow.” Dot dropped the scouring pad, as deflated as a leaky balloon.

  “I’ll ring her and tell her to bring her photograph album.” Ada patted Dot’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, dear. I’ll not have that opportunist for a daughter-in-law. Those girls took advantage of our boys when they were sick and scared and vulnerable. I won’t let it happen to George.”

  Dinner was a strained affair. Ada ignored Miss Featherley. George was mostly silent, picking at the dinner his mother had prepared with such love. “Tomorrow I’m going to a rally for Agnes MacPhail, George.” Dot hoped a new topic would lessen the tension around the table. “You should come too . . . and Mabel, if you wish. We’re compiling our own voters lists.”

  “Why?” George fixed her with a hard stare.

  “Because,” Dot flushed, feeling defensive, “the old ones don’t include women. I’m determined that every female in the riding is on the list for the next election.”

  “You should stay home,” George grumbled. “Politics is unwomanly.”

  “What do you know about it?” Dot stabbed her fork into a succulent bite of chicken. “Women couldn’t vote when you went away.”

  “I saw it in England. As if we didn’t have enough troubles with the Hun. Mabel agrees with me.” He turned to his nurse for assurance. A gesture that was beginning to grate on Dot’s nerves.

  “Women can influence their husbands in matters of state,” Mabel spoke soothingly. “They needn’t vote themselves.”

  “Rubbish,” Dot exploded. “What about unmarried women, or widows? Miss MacPhail is a school teacher, an educated woman. She’s highly qualified to sit in Parliament.” She gave up trying to eat. “George, you can’t even remember your own name. Why should you vote but not me?”

  He dropped his fork
with a clatter, his hands shaking, a sheen of sweat on his brow. Nurse Featherley jumped to her feet and put her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to face her. “It’s all right, dear. Dot didn’t mean to shout.”

  “I didn’t . . .” Dot started to protest, then closed her mouth. Perhaps she had been a bit heated.

  “Loud noises are very distressing for him,” Mabel lectured in a schoolmarm voice that made Dot want to throw something. “I’ll put him to bed now with a sedative.”

  She watched, open-mouthed, as George, meek as a lamb, followed Mabel from the room.

  “We must make him remember.” Ada set her jaw. “That milquetoast is not my son.”

  “What a day.” Dot sighed and pushed back from the table. “Do you mind if I leave this to you. I’m on the graveyard shift and need to rest for a few hours.”

  “You go ahead, and don’t let that hussy push you around. I know George loved you before and he will again. We just have to be patient.”

  When her mother arrived the next morning Dot couldn’t wait to get away from George and his nurse, taking up space at the kitchen table. After a night on duty at the telephone exchange, she was tired and irritable. She’d tried to rest for a couple of hours but Mabel’s constant tiptoeing in and out and of the bedroom had disturbed her sleep.

  They left the house and strolled along the creek that ran through the middle of town. Dot poured out her confusion and hurt and resentment. “It’s not his fault he lost his memory, but what has happened to his spirit? He trails around after her like a lost little boy. You remember George. He was a leader, the first to take a dare. When he made up his mind to something, there was no stopping him.”

  “I know.” Her mother made a wry face. “When he asked for your hand, I wanted him to wait until after the war, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Said he’d be back and he couldn’t risk some other lad getting in ahead of him.”

  “I know the war was awful, but look at Archie Gill. He lost an arm, but he’s still Archie.”

  “Why don’t you ask Archie to talk to George. Another soldier. Someone who knows what he’s been through.”

  “I will.” Dot threw a pebble into the slow-moving current, watching as the ripples spread out. “When I first saw George, I couldn’t believe my eyes, when I knew for sure it was him, I was over the moon. Then he looked at me like a stranger and broke my heart all over again. It’s as though I’ve lost him twice.”

  “You can always come home, child.” Her mother comforted. “The house is crowded, what with six of your brothers and sisters living there, but it’s your home and there is always room for you. You’d have to give up your job. You can’t walk five miles each way, especially in the middle of the night. But if it’s too hard to be around George . . ?” She spread her hands, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  “Thanks, Mom, but I’m not giving up that easily. George fell in love with me once, he can do it again. Besides, I like my job.”

  After saying good-bye to her mother, Dot returned to the house. Ada had a photograph album spread on the kitchen table. “Here you are on your first day of school.” Mrs. Weston turned the album toward George and away from Mabel. “I packed your lunch in that honey pail.” She looked up and saw Dot. “Ah, Dot, you’re just in time. Did your mother bring her album?”

  “Right here.” Dot held up the long, leather-covered book, the pages tied together with a black shoelace. “Here’s my first day of school.” She laid down the album and carefully opened the pages. “See, I had a honey pail for a lunch kit, too.”

  “Here you are with your dad.” Ada took up the account, “and your Uncle Alf. Oh, and there you are with Dot at a skating party.”

  Page after page Ada and Dot led George through the first eighteen years of his life, their recollections punctuated with “don’t you remember?” But George stared at the photos as those of a stranger. The only image that seemed to stir something in him was one of the dog. He was hunkered down with his arms about Rusty, grinning for the camera, with a basket of freshly-caught trout at his feet.

  “You were about ten in that one,” Ada said.

  “Did you go fishing too?” Mabel smirked at Dot.

  “Sure did.” Dot stuck her chin in the air. “I caught just as many as George. Made him mad when we were little. Then he decided to brag that he’d taught me to fish so he could take credit for my prowess.” She grinned, remembering the arguments they’d had. “Remember?” She smiled into his face, willing him to smile back, willing him to set her world right again.

  He merely shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said, looking to Mabel.

  “Time for a rest then.” The nurse leapt to her feet and took George’s arm. “You mustn’t overtax him,” she scolded Dot and Ada. “Lean on me, dear. I’ll look after everything.”

  “Well!” Dot jumped up and smacked the photo albums shut. “Has a fine opinion of herself, doesn’t she?”

  “I won’t have it.” Ada started for the stairs. “He’s my son. If anyone’s going to tuck him in, it’ll be me.” She disappeared from view, her footsteps thumping heavily on the stairs.

  Seething with resentment, Dot grabbed her hat and her purse and headed out, letting the screen door slam behind her. She stalked down Main Street, barely recognizing folks who greeted her, not slowing down for anyone. She did not want to talk about George and his amnesia or his snooty English nurse. She barged into the hairdressing shop. “Marge. Can you fit me in?” She yanked off her hat and started pulling the pins from her hair.

  “To do what?” Marge, eyed Dot in the mirror, then pushed a long hair pin into the elaborate hairdo of her current customer.

  “Cut it.” Dot yanked out the last of the pins, letting her hair cascade in shiny black waves down her back. “I want a bob.”

  “No kidding?” Marge’s eyes bugged.

  “In with the new.”

  “Right.” Marge put the finishing touches on her current client and persuaded her out of the chair. “I’ll see you next week, Mrs. Peters. Same time.” She followed the woman to the door and locked it behind her, then turned to Dot, with a broad grin. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Dot sat in the chair before the big mirror. “Have you heard . . ?”

  “I know all about George and his memory and that English nurse.” Marge, wielding a pair of shears gazed at Dot’s reflection. “Is that why you want a bob?”

  “George always admired my daring.” She took a deep breath. “I think it’s time to remind him of why he loves me.”

  “You got it, sweetie.” Marge snipped and a long tress of Dot’s hair fell to the floor. She nearly lost her nerve but Marge was already onto the next section. Dot closed her eyes and counted the snips.

  “There!” Marge whipped off the smock covering Dot’s clothes. “Open your eyes.”

  She peered through a narrow slit under one eyelid while keeping the other firmly closed. If she snuck up on her new look, maybe it wouldn’t be so shocking. Her reflection peeked back at her. At least, she assumed it was her reflection. The woman in the mirror was a stranger. A rather smart looking stranger. She opened both eyes wide. Her hair lay smooth and shiny against her scalp, ending just below her ears. Heavy bangs reached almost to her brows, making her eyes look large and mysterious. “Gulp,” she said.

  “I know. Quite a change.” Marge ran her fingers through the shortened locks, fluffing them up. “Do you like it?”

  She turned her head, studying her reflection from different angles. She tucked her chin down and pouted, then laughed aloud. “I look like Irene Castle. Thank you, Marge. I like it very much. I just hope George does, too.”

  “He better. You look absolutely kissable.”

  Dot sighed. She and George had shared only a handful of chaste kisses before he went away. She wanted more kisses and she wanted passion, this time. “I guess we’ll find out.” She took one last look at her reflection then opened her purse. “What do I owe you?”

  Marge named a modest sum.

/>   “That hardly seems like enough.”

  “Consider it a down payment. Once the other girls in town get a look at you, they’ll be lined up at my door. You know in the cities women are going to barbers to get their bobs? The men don’t like it one bit.”

  “The world is changing. Women aren’t going to sit quietly at home any longer. Men will have to get used to it.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “Well, here goes.” She turned the lock and stepped into the street, her hat in her hand. Her new style wouldn’t hold a hair pin, let alone a hat pin.

  She sauntered toward the telephone exchange, enjoying the breeze that ruffled her bangs. She felt so free. No need to keep tucking stray tresses into place. When she reached the telephone exchange she wore a big smile along with her new hairdo. “Hi everybody.” She tried a sultry pout, but couldn’t control a giggle.

  “Dot!” Jean was the first to find her voice. “Good gracious! What have you done?”

  “I like it.” Winnie turned from the switchboard to consider her friend. “That ought to shake up George.”

  “That was the idea, but now it’s for me.” She shook her head, letting her hair fly out, then settle back into it’s smooth lines. “It’s so easy and light. I’ll save an hour a day not having to put up my hair.”

  “An hour you can spend sleeping.” Jean yawned. “This shift work will be the death of me.”

  “I’ve got graveyard again.” Dot grimaced. “I’d better get home and snatch some shut-eye.”

  “See you later.” Jean turned back to the switchboard. “I’m calling Marge right now.”

  Stepping through the connecting door to the house, Dot took a deep breath, then walked to the kitchen. As usual, Ada was there, her hands busy with a soft dough.

  “Scones tonight?” Dot asked casually, then chuckled when Ada looked up and did a double take. “Yep, it’s me.”

  Ada wiped her fingers on her apron, then gestured for Dot to turn in a circle. “Well, he won’t remember you with that look.”

  “I thought maybe he needed to see a new me, since the old me has no effect. Where is he, by the way?”