by Sophie Duffy
So he puts on his sheepskin coat that makes him look like a thinner version of Bernie and I put on my parka. He eases open the front door and we step into our first day in Canada. We promptly go straight back indoors. It’s freezing out there! A thick layer of snow covers the over-night cars in the parking lot and we realise that even Linda hasn’t prepared us for this.
‘We need proper boots,’ Bob decides. ‘And maybe a hire car.’
‘How about we order a taxi instead,’ I suggest. ‘That way you don’t have to worry about driving in all this.’ I sweep my hand in a grand gesture at the vista through our window. On the wrong side of the road.
Bob is about to object but then he gives in. He knows I’m right.
‘We need to get breakfast first,’ he says. ‘According to this,’ – he brandishes a curled up leaflet from a selection on the bedside cabinet – ‘there’s a diner called Sally Ann’s round the corner. Reckon we can make it that far?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We can make it.’ We are Polar explorers on the verge of venturing out into the undiscovered wild (though someone has always been there before you. Just because you stake your claim, doesn’t mean you’re the first one).
We spend the next few minutes scrambling into gloves and scarves and coats. Finally I zip up my hood which means I have to survive from now on with limited tunnel vision. Bob dons a flat cap which might cover the bald patch but which makes him look twenty years older (and he’s getting on a bit, somewhere in that vague, indistinguishable region of Middle Age).
‘Are you sure you want to wear that?’ I can’t help asking. After all, he might be seeing my mother later today, the love of his life. Doesn’t he want to impress her?
‘It’s all I’ve got,’ he says forlornly. ‘Linda forgot to buy me a proper hat. Whatever a proper hat is for these occasions.’
‘We’ll have to get you something else after breakfast then,’ I decide. ‘We’ll know when we see it.’
He doesn’t argue. He picks up his wallet, secures it inside the deep pocket of his coat and then taps it, treating it like the precious object it is. For I know the wallet contains all our Canadian dollars and travellers cheques but also, and most importantly, the wallet contains Helena’s address and telephone number.
This time we are slightly more prepared for the cold that assaults us on every front as we set foot back outside, a sharp wind quickly numbing any available skin. I track behind Bob across the parking lot, following the tail of his coat, Scott and Oates, into the unknown, down the road (highway), looking for somewhere authentically Canadian to eat. We pass a gas station and a restaurant called Tim Hortons which sells every type of doughnut (donut) you could possibly imagine and which I like the look of.
‘We need a proper breakfast,’ Bob says. ‘Not cakes.’
On we go, past smart shops and offices, another gas station, a school, and more exotic-looking fast food outlets (of which we’ve only heard rumours in Torquay, like some kind of urban myth that has some truth in it after all). Ten minutes later we are still not there, at our authentic Canadian diner.
‘I thought you said it was round the corner.’
‘It is,’ says Bob. ‘That’s what the leaflet said.’
It’s becoming apparent that being a pedestrian in a country where size is on a different scale altogether to ours back home isn’t going to be easy, particularly when snow is fluttering into the equation. Just as we are beginning to lose all sense of reason, and any feeling in our extremities, we find it: Sally Ann’s.
Inside Sally Ann’s is a warm welcome in every sense of the word. We are able to take off our coats before being shown to a booth by a waitress who looks like she enjoys her job and says, ‘Welcome to the Great White North,’ when she spots our red noses.
We both order as close to a full English as we can: eggs (sunny side up), bacon, fried tomatoes, toast and a bottomless cup of fresh coffee which is a far cry from the Mellow Birds we’re used to at home. The food when it comes is only spoilt by the apprehension gurgling away in the complicated workings of my insides (and in Bob’s too by the sounds of it).
‘Are you going to phone her?’ I indicate the wallet which Bob has laid carefully in the centre of the table, secure between the two of us and a wall of napkins (serviettes). He rubs his bare head, possibly trying to warm it up, maybe trying to get his brain into gear.
‘I think we should leave it for today.’ He rubs a little harder when he notices my raised eyebrow. ‘You look far too tired for any excitement. We could do some shopping, go back to the motel, watch some Canadian TV, read a book, have an early night. That way we’ll be on the ball tomorrow.’ He replaces the flat cap on his head, even though he’s always been adamant it’s rude to eat with your hat on.
And why this mention of books? I can’t remember the last time I saw Bob read a book. He’s quite possibly stalling. But I don’t object and exclaim: No, Bob, let’s do it today! Let’s go hunt down my mother! I just mumble a quiet ‘alright.’ Even after a second refill of coffee, I am shockingly tired. And I am most definitely stalling.
Once we’ve wrapped up well again, we locate a department store and purchase a hat called a tuque or a toque or something like that, which is apparently what all Canadians wear in winter, apart from Ed who over the next two weeks will never be seen in anything but his deer stalker that brings Michael Landon to mind in Little House on the Prairie (rather than Sherlock Holmes). Tuques (or toques) are not particularly attractive, being basically a bobble hat without the distraction of a bobble. It seems Canadians are more bothered about function than appearance which suits Bob down to the ground. Though I can’t help wishing the tuque (or toque) suited Bob down to the ground. Still, at least his bald patch is covered up.
We then find a grocery store near the motel and gather essentials to see us through the remainder of the day so that we can hibernate till morning. For the morning should bring us more excitement and trepidation than today. It should bring us my mother.
When I wake up, daylight has scared off the Cavalier. This is it then: morning. I sit up and look over at Bob’s bed. Bob’s empty bed. For a second I wonder if he’s taken off, scared to face up to his responsibilities for once in his life. But then I hear the shower and Bob’s morning ablutions.
Bob will never let me down. That’s the job of other people, namely my mother (and that hopeless father of mine, running in circles in the jungle, most probably shacked up with some Amazonian woman with a whole tribe of children of his own).
Perhaps I should feel more excited at the prospect of seeing Helena but actually I feel very little that is good. I feel sick, sad, scared by all the different scenarios. What if her condominium is bigger than she’s always maintained? What if Orville Tupper still calls me ‘kid’? Even though I’ll be closer to his dizzying heights than a decade ago (though much closer than I could actually have guessed). What if Helena doesn’t know who I am? What if she slams the door in my face? What if she cries? What if she doesn’t cry? What if, on seeing me again, she hot foots it to the Soviet Union, to Australia, to outer space? And this time, like Lucas, her disappearance will be for good. Forever. Which, when all is said and done, is a very long time.
Bob escapes the clutches of Norman Bates and has scrubbed up well despite sharing a shower with a psychopath. Hopefully Helena won’t be too shocked at how much he’s aged over the last ten years. He’s softened the edges a little with soap and Brylcreem and something less obvious, possibly hope. But then of course Helena has got older too. I still think of her as young but she’ll be in her thirties now, in her prime. Will she really want Bob and me turning up on her doorstep with all our baggage?
After a half-hearted breakfast we wash up and brush our teeth. Then there’s really nothing left to do.
‘Ready, Philippa?’ he asks.
‘As I’ll ever be.’ I put on my most courageous smile, drawing on the vibes of Miss Parry, my Virgin Queen back across the ocean.
The address we h
ave for Helena is only a few blocks away according to Ed but a fair old distance by our standards. Ed orders us a cab and invites us to sit down and watch some American soap opera with him while we wait. The soap opera is made up of over-tanned, long-legged, almost-beautiful people who’ve never seen the inside of a drama school. The programme is thankfully relieved at frequent intervals with many adverts for things I’ve never heard of, mainly medication of some description. I add these cultural differences to the ones I’ve already absorbed and am in a far off daydream, far away from the here and now when Bob taps me on the shoulder and tells me it’s time to go.
‘Have a nice day, eh,’ says Ed. And then, as we are about to leave him alone with his TV, he adds: ‘Did you know Toronto is the Mohawk word for ‘meeting place’?’
I didn’t know that. And I have no idea why Ed has decided to tell me this right now. But I am pleased to hear it nonetheless. After all, it’s about time I met my mother.
‘Here you go,’ says the driver. ‘This building right here. Real nice condos.’ He whistles to illustrate just how nice these ‘condos’ are.
And they are nice. A far cry from the Upstairs of Bernie’s Lot. Several notches up from our two-up-two-down. A different league altogether from the maisonette above the shop that we’ve left back in Britain, further away than all the miles we’ve travelled to get here. Helena’s home is somewhere in there, somewhere inside the impressive building that looms above us. Soon I’ll get out the taxi, enter the lobby, or whatever they call it in this country, and quite possibly be reunited with my mother. Any minute now.
‘Philippa?’ Bob says. ‘Are you coming?’
Bob has paid the driver and is holding out his gloved hand to help me because I am incapable of voluntary movement. He guides me towards the towering darkened glass doors and has to take my hand to get me through them.
‘This is a bad idea,’ I tell him.
‘Have you got a better one?’ he asks.
I let him lead me towards the lift or elevator or whatever and watch his finger push the button that lights up a number 6 and then we’re inside, Bob and I, the smell of stale smoke and air freshener, going up, up, nearer and nearer our destination, until we’re almost at the home that has never had quite enough room for me, that I was expecting to be small and poky and a bit of a hovel but that I now suspect is going to be rather grander, bigger, than I’ve ever pictured on all those lonely nights, staring at my curtains, trying to conjure up my mother.
There is a jolt, a ting-a-ling, the quiet swoosh of the lift doors like in Star Trek, soft carpet underfoot down the long corridor, brass numbers on front doors, looking for the right one, the one that’s waiting at the far end with the name TUPPER written in neat schoolgirl handwriting on the label below the bell. A bell that Bob presses with determination mustered from somewhere or other. A door that will open to reveal…
… a boy?...
A school boy of maybe nine or ten.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Who are you?’
I feel like saying the same thing only I can’t speak. I can’t say anything, anything at all. Bob has to kick-start his own voice with a cough.
‘I’m Bob,’ he says. ‘I’m a friend of Helena’s.’ When the boy doesn’t respond, he adds: ‘Have we got the right address?’
‘Uh-huh,’ the boy says. But it is me he is looking at. Me, he is interested in.
‘This is Philippa,’ Bob says.
‘Philippa.’ The boy rolls my name around his mouth, tasting it, like a Revel, wondering what flavour it will turn out to be, if it is one he’ll like. Or one he’ll want to spit out in disgust. (My metaphors are coming on no end since being in the sixth form, even with all that time off.)
The boy stands very still but there is a slight flicker in his eyes that suggests his brain is doing something, making connections.
‘You mean Aunt Philippa?’
His brain is quite clearly not working properly and Bob has to put him right because my brain isn’t working at all.
‘No,’ he laughs. ‘Philippa’s only sixteen. Philippa… Helena… well… ’
As Bob stutters, falters, can find no way of introducing me to this unknown boy staring up at us, he is saved by a man’s voice from deep within the condo.
‘Wes,’ it says. ‘Who is it, kid?’
If I were asthmatic this is when I’d reach for my inhaler but unfortunately I have no such crutch and have to ride it out, this wave of memory that is earnestly trying to drown me, to squeeze the air into my lungs and not let it out again.
‘It’s Bob and Philippa, Dad,’ the boy calls out. ‘Shall I show them in?’
There is a gap, a black hole of silence.
‘Sure,’ the voice says eventually. ‘Bring them on in.’
‘Follow me,’ Wes says and I am compelled to do as this boy instructs, even though I’d far rather retrace my steps, get back in the lift, back in the taxi, back to the motel where I can settle down in front of the adverts with Ed.
Wes ushers us into the hospital-warmth and shuts the door behind us. We are standing in a wide long hallway on a glossy wooden floor. There are black and white photographs all around us on the walls. Landscapes. Mountains. Prairies. Lakes. Forests. That sort of Canada thing. A single-stemmed orchid blossoms in a glass pot, tall and slender, its roots on show, seeking out the light, its scarlet red flower a shock against the white walls, the black and white photos. I can’t smell the flower… but I can pick out the lingering remains of Helena’s cigarette smoke and perfume. I’d know that anywhere.
‘This way,’ Wes says when we’ve put our coats and winter-wear on the hallstand. We follow him down the hallway, past several doors, all closed, all possibly hiding Helena.
‘Through here.’ We reach the end and Wes disappears into a room which, when we step in behind him, turns out to be some sort of living room/office. There is a big red sofa beneath the picture window which overlooks a tree-filled park, all white and dramatic. There are more photographs in here, row upon row of black and white framed portraits. Handsome chiselled men – the sort that pose mysteriously and make women swoon. Over in the corner stands an ornate bureau above which hangs a cork notice board with messages and lists pinned to it, most of them written in the loops and curls that I’ve never quite managed to forget. And then the centrepiece of the room: a vast table covered in papers and magazines and photos and general mess, behind which sits Orville Tupper. All he needs is a fluffy white cat.
‘Bob,’ he says. ‘It’s been a while.’
I don’t hear Bob’s reply. I can only stare at Orville Tupper sitting there, making no effort to get up, showing no signs of pleasure at seeing us. Waiting for him to notice me, to speak to me.
‘Hi Philippa,’ he says on cue. ‘You’ve grown up.’
This is the first time I’ve heard my mother’s husband say my name. Somehow I wish he’d stuck with ‘kid’ because my name is the one thing he cannot take away from me. I want him to keep his hands off it. It is mine.
Bob answers for me.
‘Children have a tendency to do that,’ he says. And I could kiss him for those words, for sticking up for me.
Orville doesn’t notice this dig – or ignores it – and takes Bob at his word.
‘They sure do. Seems like only yesterday Wes was in diapers.’
‘Is he… your son?’ Bob blushes as he asks this question which, given the circumstances, is rather personal and obtrusive.
‘Sure,’ Orville says. And when there’s more silence than anyone can bear, he adds: ‘And Helena’s too, of course.’
Of course. I knew this the moment Wes opened the door. I knew he was Helena’s son, though strangely it was the one scenario I’ve never played out. I’ve never in a million years imagined her having other children, not when she tried so hard to keep her first born at ocean’s length.
‘Wes, can you go get some pop for our guests. Or would you like coffee?’
‘Coffee,’ I manage to say, my first word.
I don’t want Orville thinking I want pop. Like he said, I am grown up. I drink coffee.
‘Do you need a hand?’ I ask Wes.
‘No, I’m alright,’ he says. ‘I do it all the time.’
Orville waits for Wes to go and then he speaks in a quiet voice. ‘Wes is very helpful. He’s had to grow up fast and help out around the place. You know, since the accident.’
‘Accident?’ Bob asks.
It is then that we are told. We realise why Orville didn’t get up. He isn’t being rude. He is stuck in that position. Always stuck in that position. In a wheelchair. Paralysed from the waist down after a car crash five years before.
I hear Orville Tupper explaining all this. I hear it and I am pleased. Not because I’ve had my revenge already done for me. But because it goes some way to giving me a reason, a real reason, why Helena hasn’t called for me. She must have had Wes unexpectedly and then, just as he was old enough and she thought she could send for me at last, there was the accident. Orville in a wheelchair and no longer able to earn money as a model. That was what happened. She did love me. She does.
I slump onto a chair next to Bob who’s already taken up Orville on his offer of a seat. If I don’t sit down I could quite possibly faint with the excitement of it all. The shock. The relief.
Orville is now on a level with me. Across the table I can see his hands that once might have appeared in adverts for Canada’s equivalent to Ratner’s. Now they have calluses and look rough and raw from doing the work his legs used to.
‘I guess we never quite got round to you, Philippa,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’
And it is that word, sorry, that makes me cry.
Bob hands me his hanky and after a few minutes I am calm enough to notice the mug of coffee on the table in front of me. The boy next to me, offering me a donut.
‘Thanks, Wes.’ I am suddenly ravenous and sugar is what I need. A cake. A comfort.
‘You’re welcome,’ he says.
‘Why did you call me Aunt Philippa?’ I ask him, after a few mouthfuls, while Bob and Orville talk about unimportant things like the state of the Canadian health service and education system. But Orville is still half-tuned into our conversation and cuts in.
