The Latchkey Kid

by Helen Forrester

  “What’s your full name?” she asked Michael.

  “Michael.”

  “And what else?”

  “Michael van der Schelden,” he said.

  “Where does your father work?”

  “University, ’course.” He ran a small truck round himself.

  Mrs. Stych wiped her hands dry and looked around the kitchen.

  Michael glanced up at his sister. “Henny wants a new diaper,” he said shrewdly, and Mrs. Stych nerved herself for another ordeal.

  She felt very squeamish and thought at first she would wait until Mrs. van der Schelden returned. It wouldn’t hurt the kid to stay wet for a while, she reckoned.

  Then Michael said: “She’ll get in an awful mess if you don’t hurry.”

  With a sigh, she decided that probably Mrs. van der Schelden would not be able to do the job when she did come back, as she would be bandaged up, so she asked Michael to explain to her how his mother did it.

  Michael took her into a bedroom, bare except for a chest of drawers and a double bed. The wooden floor had been polished to a high gloss, and, when she opened the chest of drawers, neat piles of children’s clothing and of diapers were revealed.

  At Michael’s direction, she spread a plastic crib pad on the bed, took the child out of the high-chair and laid it down on it. Henny dribbled down the back of her dress during this operation, but Mrs. Stych was so absorbed in her efforts to get the child on the bed without dropping it that she did not notice this further spoiling of her new dress.

  She took a large breath to steel herself against vomiting, and cleaned and changed the little girl, who watched her with what seemed to be a faint gleam of intelligence. She did not cry.

  “Henny naps after lunch,” announced Michael suddenly, omitting to say that he was supposed to nap, too.

  It occurred to Mrs. Stych that Henny might be able to walk, so she put her carefully down on her feet, holding one hand firmly in case she collapsed. Held like that, she could balance herself and did walk in a shambling fashion. She looked up at Mrs. Stych and gave a chuckle. Mrs. Stych managed a thin smile in return.

  She led her, on Michael’s instructions, to a large cot in another room, lifted her over the rail and gently laid her down. The child was acquiescent, so Mrs. Stych covered her, pulled down the window blinds and left her.

  She suddenly remembered that Boyd would be home for lunch, so she telephoned him.

  He had just come in and was in a very bad temper as a result of Mayor Murphy’s refusal to sell him a lot in Vanier Heights. He wanted to know where the hell she was.

  She told him what had happened, and he listened dumbfounded as she described what she had done with Henny, only interjecting an occasional “You did?” as if he hardly believed her. Finally, he told her to stay where she was until Mrs. van der Schelden came home.

  Mrs. Stych then rang Grandma Stych, to say that she did not think she would be able to come that day. Once again she described her morning’s adventure, and Grandma Stych quavered her approval. Olga had done just what she would have done herself and had been most neighbourly.

  Mrs. Stych began to feel that she had been very noble. Then, as she walked slowly back to the kitchen, she began to think what coping with Henny twenty-four hours a day might be like.

  “Why doesn’t she put her in a home?” she wondered.

  At half past two, Mr. Frizzell returned with the accident victim. Mrs. van der Schelden was feeling much more comfortable after some sedation. She clutched a small bottle of pills in her good hand.

  The kitchen seemed suddenly to be full of pleasant, cheerful people. Mrs. Stych felt better than she had for some time.

  “You sit down quiet,” she said to Mrs. van der Schelden, “and I’ll make some coffee. I’ve kept the dinner hot, and you should eat a bit if you can. You like a cup. Maxie?”

  Maxie said he could just use a good cuppa cawfee – he was kind enough not to mention that he had had no lunch – and Mrs. Stych busied herself with the coffee percolator. “After you have this, you just go lie down a bit and rest yourself. I’ll watch Michael.”

  Tears filled Mrs. van der Schelden’s wide blue eyes. “You are both so kind,” she said with feeling. “Here we have felt so alone. Now I know I have good neighbours. How can I thank you?”

  Mr. Frizzell leaned over and patted her shoulder, and said it had been real nice meeting her.

  He turned to Olga. “The intern said we should send for her husband. He says she mustn’t put her hand in water for a while yet.”

  Olga nodded agreement, and said to Mrs. van der Schelden: “We could phone him.”

  “Ach,” said the young wife, “that would be good. Then I say not to fear, just to come.”

  “Have your lunch first,” said Mrs. Stych in quite a motherly tone.

  Michael had been chattering non-stop to his mother in Dutch while this exchange had been going on, and she suddenly grasped what he was saying. She looked up admiringly at Mrs. Stych. “How clever to feed and change Henny and get her to sleep. She not like anyone to touch her except her teacher or me.”

  “Yeah?” Mrs. Stych queried. “I didn’t have no trouble with her.” She put a small dish of casserole in front of the mother, with a plate of hot buttered toast. She then poured coffee for all of them. “What kinda school does she go to?” she inquired, and then added baldly: “Why don’t you put her in a home?”

  “Oh, we could not put her in a home!” the mother exclaimed passionately. “We all love her.”

  Mrs. Stych, remembering the slobbering child, looked at Mrs. van der Schelden in blatant disbelief.

  The Dutch woman continued, as she fed herself awkwardly with her unhurt hand: “We haf started on our own, a school for children like her, just some mothers together. We read how to help the children and we try everything to teach them. We teach Henny to hold a spoon. One day we will teach her to put it in her mouth. She walk better now – in the university comes a physiotherapist. He has much interest and try lots of new ideas. Soon we raise funds, have a real school like in Edmonton.”

  Maxie, who had been quietly sipping his coffee during this exchange, now asked: “How do you staff the school? What kinda people teach?”

  “All volunteers,” replied Mrs. van der Schelden, flourishing her fork. “They gives days and days of work for little Henny and the others.”

  Mrs. Stych, hearing this, felt a little less noble than she had done earlier; it was evident to her that, for some unknown reason, Maxie was interested in this school.

  The call to Toronto was put through, to Dr. van der Schelden, and he promised to take the first flight home. Mrs. van der Schelden was persuaded to go and lie down, a small boy called for Michael and they went out to play; on his mother’s instructions, Mrs. Stych made sure his hood was firmly tied and his mittens pinned to his sleeves, so that he could not lose them. Mrs. Stych thought this was fussing unnecessarily – Hank had got by without any such attention – but she attended to the child’s clothing without demur, anxious to appear gracious before Maxie.

  Maxie said goodbye and departed. Mrs. Stych was feeling rather weary herself and thought she might now go home. Then it struck her that someone would have to prepare the evening meal and feed the revolting Henny again. She pondered for a moment, and then put her head through the bedroom door to say she was going home but would return at five o’clock to help with the evening meal.

  Mrs. van der Schelden protested that she could manage, but this only served to strengthen Mrs. Stych’s resolve to return, so she just said: “See you ’bout five,” and paddled back through the snow to her own house.

  “God! You must have had quite a time!” exclaimed Boyd, emerging from behind a pile of graph paper on the living-room chesterfield.

  Olga’s black dress was a sticky mess, her makeup was hopelessly smeared and she had lost the eyelashes from her left eye. Her new gilt slippers were soggy with snow.

  “Not too bad,” replied Olga abstractedly. “
Going back round five.” She turned her back to him. “Unzip me,” she ordered.

  Boyd obliged, glad that she had not asked him about his interview with Mayor Murphy.

  She went upstairs, took off the dress, looked at it without a pang, and put it ready for the dry cleaners.

  She was still thinking about the glimpse she had had of a different outlook on life, when she lay down on her bed and closed her eyes. She had not rested for more than a few minutes, when she realized abruptly that she was very hungry – she had forgotten to have lunch.

  As soon as she felt rested, she got up and washed her face, found an old cotton housedress and put it on. From the back of the closet she retrieved a pair of flat-heeled summer shoes and slipped her feet into them. The gilt slippers lay in a dismal pool of melted snow. She picked them up and dropped them into the metal wastepaper container.

  She found that Boyd had kindly put a plate of ham and lettuce ready in the refrigerator for her, and she sat down at the kitchen table and ate it absently.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Tomorrow I think Henny cannot go to school,” remarked Mrs. van der Schelden to Mrs. Stych, as that lady patiently pushed Henny’s evening dish of Pablum into her. “It is a pity. She make good progress. Nobody else go from this part of Tollemarche – and me, I cannot drive at present.”

  Mrs. Stych thought of the appallingly empty Monday hovering over her, with only the throb of the washing machine for company.

  “If you can help me dress her, I’ll take her, and I could bring her back, too,” she offered on impulse.

  Mrs. van der Schelden protested that she could not allow Mrs. Stych to do so much. Mrs. Stych had already been so kind.

  Olga was moved unaccountably by the near-affection apparent in Mrs. van der Schelden’s expression as she said this. Nobody had looked at her like that for years.

  “Sure, I can do it,” she said firmly. “I’ll go to the stores in between.”

  Monday morning was grey and icy. Mrs. Stych had forgotten all about Hank and did not see him. He did, however, sleep in the house, eating breakfast at a coffee shop in the town before going to see a travel agent. The only sign that Boyd had left of his presence was an empty cereal dish and coffee cup in the kitchen sink.

  Remembering the fate of her black dress on the previous day, Mrs. Stych put on a pair of slacks and a car coat.

  Henny was accustomed to her special seat in the van der Schelden’s ancient Chevrolet, so it was decided that Mrs. Stych would use their car instead of her own. The car was cold and Mrs. Stych’s fingers were clumsy on snowsuit zippers and seat buckles. Henny made protesting noises, and her arms and legs flapped wildly as she struggled to return to her mother. Mrs. Stych did finally get away, however, with Henny slumped angrily down in her seat, slobbering and howling alternately.

  Mrs. Stych had been given the address of a church hall which had been lent to the embattled group of mothers, and she was thankful when, after crossing the river in a heavy flood of construction trucks serving the contractors building a new bridge, she found the shabby hall tucked behind an ugly red-brick church.

  Henny, by this time, had given up her complaining, and Mrs. Stych unbuckled her and lifted her out onto the sidewalk. It had been finally agreed that she would deliver Henny to the supervising mother, with Mrs. van der Schelden’s apologies for her own absence and the promise that Henny’s father would collect her later in the day.

  Henny staggered uncertainly around on the sidewalk, like a puppy searching for its mother’s milk, while Mrs. Stych locked the car. Feeling uncomfortably responsible for the child’s safety, she ran to her and caught her hand. She guided her up the pathway to the open door of the hall, and, when Henny teetered uncertainly at the top of the basement steps that led down into the building, Mrs. Stych picked her up and carried her down.

  She pushed open the inner door and found that school was already in session. There seemed to be seven or eight ladies present in the gloomy basement room, with about double that number of children. Mrs. Stych stood uncertainly in the doorway, holding Henny in her arms, and a grey-haired lady in a smock hastened towards her.

  “Mrs. Stych!” she exclaimed, her husky voice and her accent unmistakably French-Canadian. She grasped Mrs. Stych’s elbow and propelled her in a friendly fashion into the middle of the room.

  At first Mrs. Stych did not recognize her, her wispy, unset hair and bedraggled smock acting as a disguise. Then she was shocked to realize that she was faced with the wife of the president of Boyd’s firm, whom they had entertained both at the Edwardian Ball and at the West Enders Club, to which Boyd belonged. Then she had been exquisite in black, hand-woven silk and real pearls; now she looked as if she had been on her knees cleaning a house for hours past.

  “Good morning, Mrs. LeClair,” Olga finally managed to stutter, as, still in her high-heeled snow boots, she found herself the centre of attention. She was still clutching Henny to her ample bosom and was finding her extremely heavy.

  She put the child down, and another lady promptly came for ward and greeted Henny in soft, clear tones, as she knelt down to help her off with her snowsuit. Mrs. Stych, despite her confusion, was interested to see how the lady took one of Henny’s hands and guided it to the pendant of the zipper, pinching the tiny fingers firmly over it. Henny made no real effort to help in the unzipping, but allowed her hands to be guided. The lady did the same with the little boots, and here for a second Henny did show some interest before her bobbing head turned away.

  “Ladies,” announced Mrs. LeClair, the French rasp of her voice carrying to the rafters, “may I introduce a new helper, Mrs. Stych – perhaps I should say Olga – the wife of one of my husband’s colleagues.”

  The mothers murmured a greeting, and Mrs. LeClair turned to Olga. “Let me show you where to put your coat. I presume Mrs. van der Schelden was unable to come?”

  “She couldn’t,” confirmed Olga, and then began to add: “I’m not supposed to stay – ” But Mrs. LeClair had already started off towards a door marked WOMEN and did not hear, so Olga trailed after her rather helplessly, anxious not to offend the wife of the company’s president.

  Mrs. LeClair led the way into the cloakroom.

  “I did not know zat you are interested in exceptional children,” she remarked, turning her intelligent brown eyes upon Olga, who automatically had begun to take her boots off.

  “Well,” said the floundering Olga, “I – I don’t know anything about them – I didn’t know there were so many.”

  Mrs. LeClair clasped her hands together in a gesture passionate enough for a prima donna about to strike high C. “It does not matter. We none of us know much. I have worked with them in Montreal, and when Father Devereux here mentioned this group to me, I came to see if I could help during the little time my husband and I are staying in Tollemarche.” She smiled. “We pooled our experience, and, by taking turns in caring for the children, we give the mothers a small respite.”

  Mrs. Stych gathered her wits together and opened her mouth to say that she would not be staying to help, having promised only to deliver Henny, but she did not stand a chance of getting a word in, now that Mrs. LeClair was securely mounted on her hobby horse.

  “Of course, we all read everything we can. One husband is a doctor and he is going to bring a new physiotherapist from the hospital, and they will try to think of new ways in which we can teach these poor children as much as they can absorb. We have also written to other groups to ask about their experiences.”

  Tears came to her eyes as she went on: “If you only knew, my dear! So many children are kept indoors, because their parents are ashamed of them, and some, which we have not been able yet to gather in, we are sure are thoroughly ill-treated. I dream – I dream …” she raised her clasped hands towards the ceiling, “of building a beautiful school in every major city, designed especially for them.”

  Mrs. Stych came to the conclusion that if she was not to offend such a dedicated and important lady
she had better stay, so, with a sigh, she removed her coat and hung it up.

  “Why don’t they put them in homes?” she asked.

  Mrs. LeClair’s eyes flashed.

  “And leave them like vegetables to rot?” she asked. “No! Not as long as I have strength to fight for them. They are all capable of love and they respond to love. I encourage these mothers! I say to them to work on! They can accomplish much if they try.”

  She opened the swing door with a flourish, and passed through it so fast that Mrs. Stych was nearly brained by its backward swing, as she followed her.

  Mrs. Stych looked around her cautiously.

  Some of the children looked quite normal, and were sitting on the floor playing simple games with bricks and marbles. Henny was on a mattress, having her legs exercised and obviously enjoying it. Two youngsters lay in Karrycots and their attendant mothers were laying out mattresses on which to put them. One child sat on a mother’s knee and was looking quite intelligently at a picture book. The mother was pronouncing very clearly the names of the objects depicted in the book and then trying to persuade the child to say them after her.

  Mrs. Stych was acutely aware that she was wearing slacks, her makeup was not good and altogether she was not looking her best, but she soon realized that she did not know any of the women present, except Mrs. LeClair. She wondered where they came from. Four of them, in cheap slacks and blouses, worn without foundation garments, were obviously not of her social circle, but some of the others looked as if they might have money. They all had in common a look of intense fatigue.

  She did not have long to ponder about the status of her fellow workers. With firm, bony fingers Mrs. LeClair clasped her elbow once more and shot her into the kitchen attached to the hall.

  “Sixteen small glasses of milk, and a biscuit for each child. Eight – no, nine coffees, please.”

  Despite a subdued resentment at having been caught up so ruthlessly to help, Mrs. Stych managed her best receiving-line smile for the benefit of Mrs. LeClair, and said: “Sure, I’ll soon fix that.”