The O'Briens

by Peter Behrens

  Margo wondered if she was being expelled. But why weren’t Tasch and the other bridge players being summoned?

  In the corridor Mother Superior impatiently clacked the string of black rosary beads she wore around her waist, each bead nearly the size of a walnut.

  “A taxi has been called for you and your sister.” The nun’s cheeks were pink, her blue eyes sparking behind steel-rimmed spectacles. She was angry about something. “It will be at the front door in exactly half an hour. Go upstairs and start packing. You and your sister. There’s no time to waste.”

  “Am I being expelled?”

  “Do you deserve to be?”

  Maybe it was a set-up so she would rat on the other bridge players. Margo stared at the nun boldly. She wasn’t going to play that game.

  “You’re not being expelled,” Mother Superior admitted. “Your mother is taking you all to California tonight.”

  “California?” Margo was stunned.

  “I can’t imagine what she’s thinking.” Mother Superior clacked her prayer beads. “Now get cracking, O’Brien! Help your sister pack her things. Hurry! No time to waste!”

  “But I have to say goodbye to Lulu.”

  “I will not have class disturbed again. Pack your things and see to your sister. I’m sending Monsieur Desjardins up in fifteen minutes to fetch your trunks. I want you and Frances down here waiting for the cab when it arrives. Off with you now!”

  Margo had no choice but to head for the stairs, passing the chapel and its sick-sweet scent of old candles and holy water. They went out to Santa Barbara most years, but in summer, after the school year ended. What was her mother thinking of, pulling them out at the very start of winter term, so soon after the Christmas holidays?

  She found her nine-year-old sister sitting on her little bed in the junior-school dormitory. All the cubicle curtains were pushed back and Frankie, alone in the long white room, looked small. Her trunk was on the floor at the foot of her bed. There was nothing in it yet.

  Seeing Margo, Frankie broke into sobs, shoulders heaving. Sitting down beside her, Margo began rubbing Frankie’s back. Sometimes it calmed her, helped her get control of herself. Sometimes nothing worked.

  After a minute or so Frankie began to quiet down. Looking up at Margo, exhausted, eyes haunted, she whispered, “Something’s wrong with Mummy or Daddy. Are they in hospital, Margo? Are they dead?”

  “Of course not. Don’t even talk like that. Mother wants us to go to California, that’s all. No one is dead. Period.”

  “Someone is. I know someone is.” Frankie started crying again.

  “Frankie, will you dry up, please? We have to get packed. We’ve only got ten minutes.”

  Your mother’s taking you to California. What about their father — wasn’t he coming? He loved California, loved the beach.

  Frankie had always been the emotional one. Gusts of sadness and fear would break loose and she would fall into crying fits. More than once their mother had had to summon Dr. O’Neill to give her a shot that put her to sleep for the rest of the day and through the night.

  Margo wetted a face cloth and began dabbing her sister’s face.

  “Are Mother and Daddy really okay?” Frankie whispered.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And Mike too?”

  “Of course.”

  Frankie was trying hard to pull herself out of the crying jag, Margo could see. Once they really got going, the tears were unstoppable.

  “We’re going to California. It’s exciting, Frankie.”

  But it wasn’t. It was awful, depressing, humiliating. Maybe their mother was planning to get divorced in California, the way movie stars did. No one ever got divorced in the province of Quebec. If their parents divorced there was no way she and Frankie would be allowed back at the convent, and their friends would certainly drop them.

  And her best friend, Tasch, whose uncle was a bishop and great-uncle an archbishop, had just invited her to spend the weekend on Edgehill Road. It was likely that Tasch’s brother Johnny would be home from boarding school as well, though Margo had been careful not to inquire. Tasch said terrible things about any girl who showed interest in her brother.

  The weekend before, she and Tasch and Mary Cohen had stopped at Murray’s Drugstore on the way home, to try on lipsticks. According to Tasch every girl had one shade of lipstick that was her most flattering colour, but to find it you had to experiment. Margo had not yet found her shade. And applying lipstick was not easy: lipstick smeared on the teeth was disgusting, Tasch said, even worse than your slip showing, and nearly as horrible as farting in a plié.

  When the salesgirl finally refused to let them try any more lipstick until they bought some, Tasch said haughtily, “Nous n’achetons pas nos cosmétiques dans les pharmacies.” Margo was impressed by her friend’s boldness and rudeness, though the salesgirl probably didn’t understand a word of French.

  “Look, kids, buy something or get lost,” she snapped.

  They headed for the magazine rack. Tasch and Mary Cohen grabbed movie magazines, then slid into a booth and ordered tea with extra honey and toasted cinnamon buns, which they spread with butter and more honey and devoured while Tasch read aloud a story about Hollywood stars who sunbathed in the nude.

  Margo had been facing the door, so she had seen Johnny Taschereau entering with some other Brébeuf boys. Each time she saw him she felt a thrill, though he had no single feature that could be called handsome. He’d had bad skin for a while and his cheeks were lightly scarred. But he laughed readily and his teeth were white and straight and friends always surrounded him.

  Hearing her brother’s laugh, Tasch turned and stuck out her tongue at him. Johnny waved at them. According to Tasch, her grandmother expected Johnny to become an archbishop and her father expected him to be a Rhodes scholar and lawyer, then prime minister of Canada.

  Margo licked honey from the toasted bun. Johnny was saying something that coaxed a smile from the grumpy Scotch waitress and had all his Brébeuf pals laughing. He certainly wasn’t handsome, but he seemed to enjoy being alive, every second. Maybe that was it.

  And now her projected weekend chez Taschereau was not going to happen unless her mother let her stay behind for a few days, which was most unlikely.

  The windows in the dorm had been locked and sealed ever since the furnace was lit back in October. Glass lacquered with white frost glowed in the daylight. There’d been a blizzard the day before; sleighs had been the only vehicles moving on Côte-des-Neiges Road. After study hall Margo and Tasch had tobogganed down the hill to the seminary, and after supper twenty nuns and girls had shovelled off the ice rink and gone skating, the tips of their noses red and stinging, breath and laughter exploding in white clouds from their mouths. After lights out she and Tasch and Mary Cohen and Mathilde Rousseau had played three brilliant rubbers of bridge by flashlight.

  It was hard to imagine California sunlight and the house on Butterfly Beach. Her parents had never pulled her out of school before. Her father often went away on business, but family routine had followed the same cycle for years: Montreal and school in winter, Butterfly Beach in summer. Frankie had sensed something seriously wrong, and now Margo wondered if her sister was correct. Were they really leaving without their father?

  ~

  After hauling their trunks downstairs, the porter, M. Desjardins, went to tend the furnace. The porter’s little room was just inside the main door of the convent and there was a phone on the table. Margo checked up and down the gleaming hallway for Mother Superior and didn’t see her.

  “Frankie, tell me if you see the witch coming.”

  Ducking into the little room, Margo quickly dialled her father’s office.

  “I’d put you through in a jiff,” the receptionist said, “but your dad’s not here. Might be in Duluth, or New York. Want to leave a message?”

  “Margo, she’s coming!” Frankie whispered.

  Margo heard Mother Superior’s prayer beads cli
ck-clacking and hung up the phone. A cab was pulling up under the stone portico outside. The blue sky had clouded over. It looked as though more snow was on the way.

  As the taxi driver was fitting their trunks into his car, the exhaust pipe fumed white smoke. The cold air smelled harsh and unsettled.

  “Tell your mother she’ll have to write well in advance if she hopes to have you back here,” Mother Superior said. “I make no promises. Tell her I’m surprised and disappointed by this very abrupt withdrawal.”

  You old witch, Margo thought, what do you know about her, or us, or anything?

  ~

  The taxi fishtailed up Côte-des-Neiges, tires churning and slipping while Margo gazed out her window and Frankie sat very close, practically clinging. The city was still buried under snow from yesterday’s storm.

  “Nothing is wrong,” Margo said.

  “When people say nothing’s wrong, something always is.” Frankie started to cry again, quietly.

  “Here, use this.” Margo fished a handkerchief out of the pocket of her coat. She also had a pack of Sweet Caps cigarettes in there. She and Tasch had shared a few furtive puffs the night before, after skating, and remembering this in a smelly taxi that was taking her away from her friend caused a fresh pang of dislocation and anger. She gazed out at the snowed-in city. Everything important was rooted here.

  She wondered if her mother planned to photograph their departure. Two years before, Frankie had crashed her bike on the steepest part of Murray Hill Avenue, then stood in the middle of the road wailing, skin peeled off her knees. Their mother raced out of the house, but before reaching Frankie she stopped, peered through the viewfinder of the little Leica she wore on a strap around her neck, and snapped a photo of poor Frankie with her bloody knees, wailing.

  Iseult snapped them so often and they were all so used to it that Frankie probably hadn’t even noticed, but Margo had.

  She’d better not be taking any pictures tonight, Margo told herself.

  ~

  On Skye Avenue the front path and steps had been shovelled out and swept clean of snow. Frankie raced for the front door and rang the bell. Margo followed slowly.

  Alicette opened the door. “Ah, bienvenues, mes filles.”

  The maid waited to pay the cab driver, who was bringing in their trunks. In the front hall Mike was pasting labels on a trunk and a couple of suitcases. The grandfather clock on the stair landing started to bong; it was quarter past four, very nearly dark outside.

  “We’re booked on the International Limited at five thirty,” Mike told them. He always knew the names of the trains.

  “I don’t want to go,” said Margo. “Dad isn’t even home. He’s gone to New York.”

  “Margo, is that you?” Her mother called from upstairs. “Come help me get organized.”

  “Where’s Daddy?” Frankie yelled.

  Their mother appeared on the second floor, smiling down at them. “Daddy’s away.”

  “Isn’t he coming?” Margo asked.

  “Come up and lend a hand, Margo. There isn’t much time.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In New York. I want you to sort your and Frankie’s summer clothes.”

  “Mother Superior said if we leave we might not be allowed back.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “How long are we going for?”

  “We’ll talk about it on the train.”

  “I have to know how long if you expect me to pack properly.”

  “The winter. Maybe longer. Come upstairs; I don’t have time to argue with you.”

  “The whole winter? What about Daddy?”

  Her mother didn’t answer, had already turned away. Margo’s legs felt stiff, numb. She didn’t think she could climb the stairs. It was horrid leaving everything like this, hurtling away.

  “Mother!”

  Their mother reappeared at the top of the stairs. “Please, I need your help, Margo.”

  “Why are we going so all of a sudden?” Frankie said fiercely. “Where is Daddy?”

  “Why doesn’t he meet us in Chicago?” Margo said.

  “We’ll be on the beach in a few days. You love California.” She disappeared again.

  There was nothing to do but go upstairs, drag out the trunks, find the summer clothes, and start packing. Margo had always been organized — Frankie was the scatterbrain — but this time her packing was anything but thorough. She dragged some things from the cedar chests in the attic and tossed them into the trunks — bathing costumes and tennis shoes, polo jerseys, summer frocks and sun hats — but she knew she was leaving many useful things behind. They would be missing all sorts of gear once they got to Santa Barbara. If her mother really believed they could be uprooted so handily, so easily, she’d find out she was wrong.

  Mike and the maids dragged the trunks downstairs. Two cab drivers waiting in the front hall began hauling luggage outside. Their cabs were hidden by the heaps of snow in the front garden but Margo could see smoke from the tailpipes curdling and gleaming in the moonlight. The sky had cleared again. It was starry and very cold, and Frankie was fussing over which coat to wear to the station.

  “Your Red River, of course,” Margo said. “Hurry it up.” Red Rivers were navy blue wool coats with scarlet piping and scarlet sashes that tied around the waist.

  “It’s going to be hot in California,” Frankie complained.

  “Well, tonight it’s cold as a witch’s elbow, and it’ll be worse in Chicago. Anyway, a warm coat makes a cozy extra blanket on the train.”

  “C’mon, Frankie, skip the fuss,” Mike said.

  Frankie began pulling on her Red River and the toque and mittens that matched the scarlet piping. Margo slipped into her Harris tweed overcoat with the velvet collar, a Christmas present from her parents. She liked the silhouette: very sleek and grownup. And her chic velvet cloche hat, picked out at Holt Renfrew with Tasch’s help.

  They all got into one taxi and their luggage went in the other. Margo and Frankie sat on either side of their mother. As the cab turned onto Westmount Avenue, Mike and the driver were already discussing who had the best team that year, the Maroons or the Canadiens. Margo looked out at hillside streets half buried under snow. Westmount Avenue wasn’t much more than a single lane through the drifts. They passed the enormous stone mansion where her pal Mary Cohen lived with her parents. Cars were trapped in driveways by hard furls of frozen slush flipped up by the street plows. Under the moonlight everything had a blue cast. Her mother gave her hand a squeeze.

  Margo had been going to California all her life. Changing trains at Chicago always meant changing stations without much time to spare. The frantic taxi rides across town from Dearborn Street to Madison and the Los Angeles Limited had always made her stomach ache with anxiety. When she was little, she would cling to her father’s hand, terrified of being left behind, stranded, forgotten. Chicago was where she had first felt the size and recklessness of the world.

  “Morenz is the best there is,” Mike was telling the cabby. “He’ll stop on a dime and leave you nine cents change.”

  Margo suddenly remembered her set of monogrammed silver hairbrushes, a Christmas present from her parents, which she’d left on her dressing table at school. Who might take them? Who would save them? Who would keep them for her?

  “Morenz is a scrambler,” the cabby was saying, “but can he take a beating?”

  “It was sixty-eight degrees in Los Angeles yesterday,” her mother announced, giving Margo’s hand another quick conspiratorial squeeze.

  Her mother seemed to want her to think that what they were doing was fun. Jolly. An adventure. Her mother could squeeze as much as she liked, say whatever she wanted, but Margo was not going to be persuaded. It was obvious they were running away from him, and therefore from themselves, and nothing good would come of it.

  WESTMOUNT, 1931

  Wild January Thaw

  Snow had melted. Fields north of the border were black and white under a sky
heavy as lead. His head hummed as the train ran up to the St. Lawrence. He worked at the ache with more coffee. His spirits, in general, were all right. The train had pulled out of Grand Central a few minutes after noon and was due at Bonaventure at ten p.m. He’d made himself take lunch in the dining car, then snoozed for a couple of hours.

  After a jaunt there was a calm that came along with the lows, and sometimes he could see things more clearly then, or so he imagined. On the other hand, who alone could gauge with accuracy their own powers of seeing or understanding? Who’d be there to point out all they had missed?

  He’d started selling off stocks early in 1928, thereby missing what, in the eighteen months before the crash, had looked like some pretty spry returns. But it had been time to get out. Gusts and blows ruled the stock market, which had much in common with the ocean; plenty of men he knew had drowned there. It was certainly never to be trusted. The market had nosedived but Iseult and the children would never know hardship. No tumplines on their foreheads. No bent backs or shoeless autumns. No Ottawa River rising in April thick with snowmelt, raft pilots drowned, fields flooded, animals carried away.

  He wore a striped shirt bought at Brooks Brothers that morning, and a new silk tie. His suit had been sponged and pressed by the Pullman porter before they’d passed Poughkeepsie, and he looked all right, considering. His suits would never fit so well as Grattan’s, but then he didn’t have Grattan’s shoulders or long legs.

  Back in the first years of Prohibition, buying liquor from cab drivers and bootblacks in New York, he had never been sure what he was getting: raw alcohol with caramel colouring, bathtub gin. It hadn’t mattered much to him — he wasn’t in it for the taste — but now the stuff was pure and golden. In this twelfth year of Prohibition, excellent Canadian whisky could be had more cheaply in Manhattan than in Montreal, which said something about the efficiency and acumen of a businessman like Buck Cohen.

  He had picked out a brooch at Tiffany’s. Iseult didn’t like most jewellery, or anything that offered itself easily. This piece was twenty-two-karat gold, filigreed and exquisite, set with one fiery pearl. They had shown him more magnificent things and he’d wanted to buy them, but in the end he had chosen the piece he knew she would like best. Not that she would ever choose jewellery herself. And he had bought slender wristwatches for the two girls and a pair of excellent German binoculars for Mike.