Eventually, it was by foot, wagon, and stagecoach over corduroy roads into southern Ontario, establishing themselves as best they could in the strange, new land. They settled, along with several other families, in and around Guelph for their Erst decade, then finally in Elora, when Da and Ma married and Da learned to be a blacksmith.
We were all born there. From 1860 to 1885, Ma had thirteen babies who lived, and three who didn’t. I was born in 1880, the last survivor; I remember Patrick and Loretta, the babies who died in 1884 and 1885, and then there were no more. My oldest sister, Sarah, died of consumption, just before Loretta was born. Sarah, Julia, Margaret, Mike, Mary, Ann, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, Bridget, Rose, Teresa, and then me.
I spent the first seven years of my life in Elora, until we left for Toronto in 1887. Moving to the city was an astonishing idea to me. I had been there only once, when I was four years old. We rode on the Grand Trunk Railway, to see Gramma Whalen, who lived in a strange stone building that Ma told me was called the lunatic asylum, and who did not know who I was. The building had a big shiny dome on top with a water tank in it that let everybody inside have running water, and Ma took me up the round staircase to the top of the dome to see it. I remember staring at the tank, picturing the wonder of water flowing into the rooms below like magic.
After twenty-seven years, Da abandoned his blacksmith shop, the soot and the fire, the ash settling everywhere about him. The city held the promise of husbands for his girls, husbands that they would never find along the banks of the Grand.
TWO
1898
1899
1
The advertisement in the August 10, 1898, Edition Of THE Toronto Telegram newspaper reads Wanted—Diningroom girl, Nipissing Hotel, 182 King East at George.
“I’m going to apply for it,” says Rose.
Ma looks at her, unsure.
“I can’t keep working at the asylum. It’s making me crazy. I’ll be as crazy as them soon.”
“Father.” Ma looks at Da for help. He is smoking his pipe, rings of the sweet smell floating everywhere in the kitchen.
He shrugs. “I don’t see the problem.”
It is not the answer that Ma wants, and it shows on her face.
He knows this and continues. “It would make me crazy to work there.” Then he looks at his wife. “It would make you crazy.”
She presses her lips together, frustrated. Then: “But Gramma.”
He shrugs. “Rose can’t be expected to devote her life to that place just because Gramma Whalen is there.” He pauses. “Let her go, Ann.”
Watching them, Rose’s face is torn. She has never taken such a stand before, and even if she wins it will seem like a failure.
Ma sits, holds her head in her hand, thinks.
It is September. I am working at the head office of Don Valley Pressed Bricks and Terra Cotta, 60 Adelaide Street East. I am eighteen years old, and with my first pay envelope have purchased a nut-brown, American-made man’s fur felt hat, unlined, with Russian calf-leather sweatband, for two dollars at Simpson’s, which I now place jauntily on my head as I head out the door.
It is five o’clock and it is Friday. The day is over. I am meeting Lillian at the Nipissing where Rose works. It is walking distance from both of our offices, and Rose will, as always, slide a bottle of Pabst beer our way.
Lillian is nineteen, has soft black hair, small lips, a filament of scar along her chin. She likes to touch my hands, my hair. I can think of nothing but her since we met at the St. Francis dance in the summer. The Cinematographe on Yonge Street last Saturday cost me fifty cents for the two of us, but since that time my head and loins have been whirling: she kissed me, her tongue touching mine.
I am surrounded by sisters. I am used to women. I think I understand them. But Lillian proves me wrong, proves me an innocent. Because I want her, because it seems possible to have her, my thoughts stop at her body, where they pivot and slue, caress and probe. I plot and scheme to be alone with her, to touch her, to let her touch me. I know about sin, about honor, about being a gentleman, but these things evaporate when we are together, and I am only what I am. And what I am is new to me, powerful and exciting.
October, in the hayloft of the barn at Boyd’s farm, off the Dundas highway, near the Humber, I lie across Lillian’s softness and kiss her deeply. The rest of the church group is off on the hayride and will not return for an hour or more. We are not the only couple that has stolen away, but we are the only ones here, now.
I kiss the scar on her chin, her throat, touch her face, her shoulder, her arm. She holds me close, tightly, kisses me back, murmurs. She lets me open her clothing. I touch her everywhere, my mind fogged with desire. The knife-edge of frost hovers in the still air, our breaths misting slightly.
We make love. It is my first time, as it is Lillian’s. I am thrilled, relieved, shaken, terrified. And Lillian, sweet Lillian. She clings to me, and I understand suddenly the weight of what we have done, what I have done. The aftermath of emptiness and confusion leaves me embarrassed. I think of my sisters, my mother. Women will never be the same, now that I know. And I think of Da, and glimpse his life as if through a dusty window for the first time. I had always wanted to be like my father, back in the blacksmith shop, back by the sureness of the forge, when sparks lit the air. But not now, not the way things are now. Now his life does not look all that enviable to my widened eighteen-year-old eyes.
“She expects me to marry her,” I tell Mike. My brother is thirty-two, has been married seven years, has three children—Mary, Bill, and the baby, John, named after Da.
“You’re too young,” he says.
I shrug.
“Are you shaggin’ her?”
“Jesus, Mike.”
“Course you are. That’s why she expects you to marry her.”
“You’re happy, aren’t you?” I ask. We are sitting on the front verandah of his house on Gladstone Avenue.
“Mm.” He pauses, thinks. “Happy’s a funny word. I love my kids and my wife, if that’s what you mean. But happy? I don’t know about happy anymore. I don’t know what it is.” He looks around. “Half the time I’m scared. This place costs us eighteen dollars a month. Even a small furnished room with privileges would cost you twelve a month. Can you afford that?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Then what’re you thinkin’ of? Are you goin’ daft?” But he smiles. “There are ways of doin’ it without gettin’ her pregnant, you know.”
It is my turn to smile. I am enjoying my big brother’s confidence, his knowledge that I am finally a man.
“You want to end up swallowin’ Carter’s Little Liver Pills every day like Da, complainin’ about chest pains, stomach pains, every other sort of pain, while a horde of kids runs around your ankles?”
“Like you? Is that what you’re saying?”
Again, he smiles. “You’re too young. Don’t get caught.” He passes me a Sweet Caporal cigarette, takes one himself, and together we smoke them.
2
Because it is a beautiful day, this Friday, the nineteenth of May, Lillian and I leave the Nipissing early while there is still light, walk north along George to Queen, then the half-dozen blocks east along Queen toward Lillian’s parents’ house in Irish Cabbagetown. The terrain of merchants and industry, thrift and enterprise, hope and ambition stands out hard and clear, the slanted sunshine flashing off glass facades:
Ball & Co., Men’s Furnishings, Hats & Caps, 218 Queen East.
John Patton’s Boot and Shoe Store, 224 Queen.
Wm. Tafts, Gents’ Furnishings and Dry Goods, 226 Queen.
John J. Waters, Flour, Hay & Grain, 239 Queen.
George R. Fawcett, Men’s Suits, 240 Queen.
C. R. Stong’s Groceries, 252 Queen.
F. Belknap, Fish, Fruit, Vegetables, 260 Queen.
W. Muir, Hack, Coupe and Livery, 272 Queen.
J. R. Hancock, Suits Tailored, 275 Queen.
W. Mackenzie, Fur
niture, Stoves, New & 2nd Hand, 280 Queen.
R. A. Cardwell, Practical Hair Dresser, 282 Queen.
Geo. Hawkins, Fresh Meat & Provision Merchant, 288 Queen.
Robt. Fair, Hardware, 290 Queen.
A. A. McKay, Millinery, Shoes, 294 Queen.
Abbott’s Meat Market, (Trading Stamps), 322 Queen.
E. J. Convey, Boots and Shoes, 330 Queen.
William Moore, Butcher, (Fresh & Salt Meats), 340 Queen.
J. W. Mogan, House & Sign Painting, 345 Queen.
Herbert O. Charlton, Furniture, Carpets, 347 Queen.
G. H. Moody & Co., Fresh Meat & Vegetables, 350 Queen.
The 9 Little Tailors Co. Ltd., 352 Queen.
R. W. Hislop, Baker and Confectioner, 356 Queen.
Geo. F. Moore, Conveyancing (Deeds, Wills, etc.), 359 Queen.
We turn south onto Power Street, where Lillian lives with her mother and three brothers. On our left is St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, then the House of Providence—its spacious grounds and dignity housing the aged, the orphans, the destitute. Lillian lives across from it, atop Osgoode Dairy, at number 82.
In the tall grass by the woods beside the Don River north of Cabbagetown, in spring, sexually exhausted, clothes disheveled, Lillian and I lie entangled side by side. I roll over, shield my eyes from the sun, dizzy from the passion of the interlude. Then I drop my hand from my brow, close my eyes, and through sun-spotted lids I see that my boyhood is gone forever.
THREE
Eternity is in the present. Eternity is in the palm of the hand. Eternity is a seed of fire, whose sudden roots break barriers that keep my heart from being an abyss.
—Thomas Merton
The Sign of Jonas
There are so many illusions. There is the illusion that our life is all of one sweep, that it has a beginning, a middle, an end—that there is some shape that can be discerned. But instead of shape, I see now, there is texture, a surface composition mingled with a basic substance, woven from some primordial loom. Some of the threads intertwine tightly, some loosely, some are dead ends needing to be snipped. Many are soft, others coarse. They all wear with time, fraying, rotting with the rains and winds and the dryness of the sun.
We live several consecutive lives, and each time we look back on our previous life it is with wonder. Sometimes it is with fondness, other times with shame, but always with wonder.
Everything changes, replaced completely. And we move on, forward into the future, unraveling, shrinking, expanding, thinking that we are going somewhere.
How often have I stood with hand on doorknob, entering a room, and wondered how did I get here? Or stared out a window at my surroundings, listening to those with whom I live, and wondered how did this all happen to me?
And then we die, and the next surprise befalls us: there is more. And still, nothing is clear, except that the Day of Judgment is ongoing, in constant session, and that we are not punished for our sins, but by them.
The flock—my flock, I now think of them—was squawking, whistling, preening, in the branches of a great maple tree. I had no desire to disengage myself from them, and this intrigued me too. Why did I not fly off by myself?
I was not what I seemed, so I was convinced that they may not be what they seemed either. And when we sat there, resting, what did they await? When we flew, what did they see? The world, I know now, is mystical, not magical: mysteries that human reason cannot plumb.
I stared down at the city, through the hole in time, and saw the cleansing, the conflagration begin.
FOUR
Tuesday, April 19, 1904
The Queen’s Hotel
Fine cuisine, courteous staff
210 boudoirs, 17 private parlors
Running water to all rooms
Telephone in lobby
Accommodation for 400 guests
Private garden, fountains
100 Front Street West, Toronto
“I’ll be twenty-four years old in less than two months,” I say.
My boyhood friend, Jock Ross, sitting across from me in the lounge of the Queen’s Hotel, pours his second bottle of Carling’s Ale carefully down the side of his tilted glass and nods. He watches the foam rise to a proper head before he smiles.
“So is that a complaint or a boast?” He sips the ale, sighs, sets it down, stares at me, eyes twinkling. “You’re in your prime, same as me.”
It is past seven o’clock and we have been sitting here since we finished work. “So what’s going to happen to you and Nancy?”
Jock looks surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Isn’t she on about marrying?”
He shrugs. “They always are. So what?”
“How do you put them of?”
“It’s a talent. A gift. You should know that.” He strokes the end of his moustache, still smiling.
I smile in return, sharing some imagined masculine confidence. Then: “Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“That you’re deluding her.”
“I’m not deluding her. She’s deluding herself. I’ve promised nothing.”
I sit back, thinking. Jock is an Orangeman, something that meant nothing to me when we were boys. Now it is an irony that we both view with amusement. Yet I wonder if there is some fundamental difference in our outlook that is rooted here.
My sister Teresa married Peter Curtis, a molder at Massey-Harris, last year. The wedding was enormous. Emma was maid of honor; his brother Fred, who works as an attendant at the asylum, was best man. The year before that it was Elizabeth who got married—to Jim McKenna, and I was best man, with Kate as maid of honor. There were one or two weddings a year it seemed. I danced with Peter’s sister, Maggie, but now I cannot picture her face when I try.
“You want to end up like your father?” Jock asks.
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“Not me. I’ve seen how my old man’s been eaten alive with the responsibility.” He sips his ale. “He’d give his eye-teeth to be here with us right now, doin’ this.”
I allow that this is true, but the argument still does not satisfy. “There must be more.”
“There is. And I’m going to see Nancy later to indulge in it.” A wink.
“Don’t you want your own place, your own family?”
“Someday.”
“When? When is it time?”
“Don’t know. I just know it isn’t time yet.” He pauses, serious for a moment. “I guess you just know. I guess it depends on the woman.”
“And Nancy?”
He frowns, thinks, dodges the question. “I tell you, Martin. It all scares the hell out of me.”
“But living at home with our parents? It’s got to end.”
He concedes this with a nod. “That it does.” Then he smiles. “Maybe next year.” He empties the rest of the bottle into his glass. “And what about you and Kathleen?”
I smile, shrug. I know what he means. Lillian is a memory, as is Suzanne, Judith, others. Kathleen will join them, inevitably. And Harriet. Dear Harriet, back in Elora, my first girlfriend, my childhood love. Her head resting on her forearm, soft hair cascading across her wrist, her other hand laboring over the printed letters in the notebook on her desk in Miss Lecour’s class. Gone like a wisp of smoke across the hills, from a time that I can scarcely comprehend.
And a new smoke wafts toward us from the present.
The wail of the sirens turns heads everywhere in the lounge, a mutter of curiosity floating among us.
The noise overwhelms, all talk stops. We wait, listening.
A man enters, tells one of the waiters loudly enough so that we can all hear that flames are rising from the roof of Currie Neckwear on Wellington, two blocks north of us.
Jock and I look at each other, drain our glasses, pull our coats and hats on, and head for the door. We are not alone.
How does this happen, this inferno? The newspapers the next few days will detail it relentlessly: the wind, the shortage of hy
drants, the low-pressure water system, the errors in judgment, buildings with no internal firebreaks. The intestinal wonder of the modern high-rise—the elevator shaft—provides wind tunnel after wind tunnel, as flames roar upward through the chutes four stories at a bound.
After an hour of watching, our faces lit by the horrible glow, Jock and I return to the Queen’s Hotel, sip another ale, subdued. We are numbed by both the weather and the event, but we do not go home. We remain near the flames, like moths, wanting to see how it will all play out. For now, the hotel is safe.
But it is not over.
Around 11 P.M., a blackened firefighter enters the lounge, tells us that we should vacate the premises, that we should go home.
No one argues. The lounge empties.
We venture back out into the unnatural heat and light, the sound of a nightmare unfolding mere blocks away. The flames have crossed Wellington, have moved south and east, leapfrogging to Brown Brothers’ Stationery. As we watch, it and other once-dominant edifices collapse in upon themselves, become boiling ash-mounds that will not rest, a spectacle scarcely believable. A dozen or more buildings are ablaze. The heat cooks our faces, bakes the grimace into our mouths.
And still the radius grows. The firefighters work in the center of the maelstrom about us, beaten at every step, losing ground in inevitable stages. Flames rise higher than imaginable, a riotous Babel. Slowly, the hours like days, detachments pour in from Hamilton, then as far away as Niagara Falls, Buffalo. The wind whips our faces, whips the fires; the temperature drops, and strangely, snow begins to swirl.
Shadow of Ashland, A Witness to Life, and St. Patrick's Bed Page 16
