River of the Brokenhearted (6 page)

And could Joey Elias have put a good word in for her with Harris, instead of that display of piety? Yes. And was she being too cynical about their motives when she thought this? Not on my life, she thought. She was not being cynical at all. And was it because she was a woman and therefore considered weak? Of course. And their profession of dismay over the English—those men who were sworn to “help her”—were they paid for helping deliver coal and building the house? Yes, she recognized them. So her husband’s Englishness was an excuse—of course. And another strange thought—any one of them she could seduce completely in a second, and will him to want her—she could have any man over eighteen do her bidding. Of course. So she was insane? And if these men were sane and common men, were they like the majority of men? Yes. And if that was the case, would it be better to be insane? And if insane, how would she make it across the bridge—as Insane Janie McLeary? Well, what would Joan of Arc do?

Who could say she did not think this or think something so similar that the men became the very composites of the minions of some mad Torquemada, or some horrid judge in 1431, and her own father poor gulled Charles VII? She could walk by them—keep to the far side of them, huddled down. They might not see. Yet if seen? Ah, if seen, done for—the Drukens themselves there to add moral weight to Joey’s search.

She looked at the black water and saw the reflection of the fire strut and crawl in the distant waves even as the rain pelted her face. She watched the flashlight from the bridge meander through gloom dark as a deck of spades. She looking back saw her great house, with only one light on, feeble as an invalid calling. She was overcome by a feeling of futility and sadness for the future of her son and daughter. Her breathing was shallow because of the pain.

“Goddamn them—”

That might have buoyed her resolve but it did not solve her dilemma or the pain she now felt striking under her breast.

In fact, there was no way across the great river, and anyway, what would she do once across? For in truth the lights across the river were as foreign to her as Lima or Lisbon. Her idea had been to go to every Catholic house on the river and ask for any money they could spare and that she would pay them back as soon as she could while offering masses and movies about priests. And they would have her word, for her name was Janie McLeary King. But would they help? Many knew her only as a name. Some for sure thought she was crazy, for Joey Elias had been whispering this for months, and the popular conception among many was that Joey was doing everything for Janie McLeary, who had kissed him on the steps of her theatre.

Still, she found herself getting ready to swim. She calculated the crossing—close to a mile here—like this—“I have swam almost that long, on shorter jaunts—so I will have to put these jaunts together—I have watched as others have swam the river on days long ago—and have realized that I could do it also—but that was long ago before I met my life—my husband—that last year with Bobby Doyle when I was eighteen—”

That all seemed not to matter now. She had a broken rib, though, and because of this could not swim overhand as she had learned as a child. Therefore it would take her much longer, and the current would move her away from those houses, not toward them.

“I will probably drown,” she said firmly.

The water shocked her when she entered and asked her by its flow, Does this prove madness or sanity? She must act—she had to. Yet the act—for she stood a good chance of drowning—would be called insane. But the bitterness of her friends over her marriage, the hope her friends shared in her defeat, her husband’s death, Joey Elias coming to her house, her father often enlisted in support of her enemies, the scorn of the bank, car lights on the bridge awaiting her crossing—all this showed her absolute clarity of reason and purpose.

And so before she could register the complaint her body now made, she was in the water, drifting almost naked toward the very bridge where those men waited her demise with a snigger. Not because they wanted to be ruthless but because they wanted to belong and to be liked more than the one who was outcast. She was the outcast, like her family before her and her family to come. Years—even centuries—of being an outcast played in her blood, and this moment I revisit for every one of her enemies then, and for the descendants of those enemies.

She knew something else. If she did drown, a weight would be cast upon those men’s heads like a great boulder falling, and the rest of the town, secluded and insulated from the fray as good people always are, would turn on a dime and accuse her accusers, and damn them to hell. This was the lonely fate of the brave, and the prophet, and so had no more comfort to her than that.

She spat water that tasted of bark and her head was dizzy. Two minutes into the river she realized how cold it was. But far worse than it being cold—she had no light to follow except the light on the bridge. Therefore she was swimming toward the very men whose job it was to stop her. Worse, she could hear them speaking about her as she drifted toward them. Three men were leaning over the railing, looking into the black water and spitting tobacco juice.

A man swore. The others laughed and one snorted and leaned over the rail. His tobacco landed inches from her face. She held her side and gave a grimace, then quietly moved on under them and out into the channel on the far side, where three more men casually sauntered back and forth.

“This is nuts,” one of them said. “She isn’t anywhere near here.”

Tired, and stopping to tread water, she looked far above her, staring in the direction of the men’s voices and seeing their shadows.

In the tone of their faint laughter and bawdy talk was the tinge of envy over money and position they themselves would never attain—and so pretended not to want.

At this moment a pain shot through her right breast and she felt she would drown. She turned and swam more furiously into the black. Yet soon her arms became too heavy to move, her lungs ached for air, and water frigid as spring rain numbed her breasts and legs. She made the sign of the cross, half in hope and half in simplicity, like a child, and floated on her back, staring out at the rain. Then a youngster on the bridge shouted that he saw something in the water. All ran to look. But none could see her except the boy who yelled, “She moved out there—she moved.”

“Don’t be so crazy.”

“I’m positive she’s there—look—her arms—about two hundred yards—going toward Estabrook’s landing—near Estabrook’s boom—off to the left.”

She maintained that it was the youngster’s cry of Estabrook’s boom that gave her direction and saved her life.

The water murky with bits of bark had closed about her face for a third time when she found a toehold in the mud, and then stood on a solid bit of earth chest high surrounded by a morbid boom of logs that had come out with the ice in the spring drive and had not suffered the fate of being laid up on the wharf. And a stranger circumstance was this: if there had been no quarrel over the wood between the sellers and the buyers, which had happened that spring, this wood, too, would have been sawed, and she, still two hundred yards from firm soil, would have drowned. But the wood was still here.

She moved her arms and feet slowly, knowing that to slip under them meant her death. She skirted the boom until she found the perimeter and was able to hold her head above it. And just as she panicked—for being so close to her prize she felt she was sliding beneath the waves—a hand grabbed her. The night watchman had waded into the water to grab her while her tormentors still faced the other way. He was unknown to her, except as a hand, and a form. He held her up and helped her from the water. There on the muddy and bark-ridden shore she stood before her saviour, barefoot and for the best part naked.

“Well—you’ve had your gawk; now go get me something to wear—I have a long night ahead of me.”

“You don’t remember me, Mrs. King?” He said.

“Why?” she said with defiant suspicion.

“It’s Gully—Gully Taylor,” he said. “You saved me during the flu.”

“Ah yes—Gully,” she said, and leaned against the old shed he had been standing in. “I need a blanket to wrap meself up in—and then something to wear.”

He ran to the farm in the distance and soon came back with two towels to dry her and a dress borrowed from his sister. There in front of him she put it on, and turned to stride away.

“Mrs. King, there are some others on the road on this side,” he said.

“Then I will not go up on the highway. I will go—Well, then, I will go to Estrabrook, to Estabrook himself,” she said, her voice full of fire.

And she set out in the dark along the fishing path that youngsters made fishing eels, and found herself on Nelson Road at ten that night, barefoot and her hair soaking wet.

SIX

How do you greet a woman you’ve never spoken to before or thought of in any way except as the product of the worst of the town, who knocks on your door past ten at night to ask a favour when you are in the presence of a celebrated guest? If you are the maid that answers—the maid being a Jardine woman who held her position above others of her station—you would send her away.

“I will not go away,” Janie said. “I will see Mr. Estabrook.”

“And why will you see him? Do you have an appointment with him?” Mrs. Jardine answered.

But the study window was opened, and sound came from the back door, and a shuffle was heard in the study, then two voices—and one was Mr. Estabrook, saying, “Yes—of course.”

So that night Mr. Estabrook left the study on his guest’s instruction to bring the woman to him.

It was one of Lord Beaverbrook’s favourite pastimes to recognize the friends or the children of his former townspeople and brighten their lives with an anecdote. He got a charge out of it, and it hurt no one. So when he was told that the woman might be a McLeary, he said, “Ah, McLeary. Not the McLeary who helped me deliver my papers years back?” And Janie King was sent for.

Estabrook, tall with a bent back and white hair, brought Janie to the study. She followed him with a good deal of self-possession, though she felt that at any moment the pain in her ribs might make her fall. This was the first time she had ever been into a Protestant’s house (not counting her husband’s). It was not only a religious difference. In fact, from the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, it had been not a religious difference but a cultural and economic one. Mr. Estabrook, whose children had been taught piano by Janie’s late husband, might not recognize how well she understood this discrepancy, how she had played in its fire all of her life. Did Estabrook know of the events taking place to stop her? Quite possibly. But it did not consume his interest. His wood did, and the luxury of having at fifty-eight attained everything he had started out to do.

He opened the oak door, and as she entered she saw first the curtains blowing softly. Beyond that window, under a light, she saw a carriage, painted and restored, sitting there. So that’s what that is, she thought, for it had been a mystery to her for years what sat in the dooryard of Estabrook’s house. The house, compared with others on the river, was palatial.

Janie then saw the guest. She recognized him with a start—and Beaverbrook peered at her closely but did not quite recognize her, although he wanted to believe he did. He sat like a little imp in a chair, his feet just touching the floor, his pants held up by suspenders, his white shirt ruffled, the shirt buttons a little sideways.

Beaverbrook, the little town imp, one day would finance the Spitfire airplane to defend Britain against Hitler’s Luftwaffe. But that was still a long way off, in a future he hadn’t yet considered—though it was already in the thoughts of his friend Winston Churchill.

At this moment Beaverbrook was trying to think of who this girl was. Perhaps he had seen her as a little girl near the well. But he wasn’t quite sure. He smiled, and his eyes narrowed. He had been telling anecdotes about Churchill and Lloyd George, saying that he felt Winston’s career was over, an addition to the dustbin of history. It was a very common mistake made that year, and Lord Beaverbrook made his share of common mistakes.

“Although he might make a comeback, I cannot see it,” he had ventured, boldly.

Now he shifted his weight slightly, crossed his ankles, and changed his accent to a Miramichi one, which he could affect as easily as a bawdy joke. “A McLeary. I bet you are Jimmy’s girl.”

She nodded.

“That would be it—Jimmy’s girl. Has Jimmy gone to his reward?” Beaverbrook asked.

“Not yet—so the reward keeps dwindling,” Janie said.

“Ah yes, a common problem.” Beaverbrook smiled. He liked this girl very much. And wanted to know what she did. He suspected she did not do much. To him, Irish people were fine, but needed taking care of.

“Janie owns a picture show,” Eastbrook offered

“You own a picture house?”

She noticed that he was visibly impressed, perhaps more because she was Irish and a McLeary than because she was a woman.

“Yes, I do, sir,” she said.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Good going. But don’t call me sir.”

“Do I call you lord?” my grandmother said clumsily.

“Call me Max.”

“I think you have earned sir,” she said quietly.

Beaverbrook liked this answer but made no more of it. Why was she wet—did she just get out of a bath? He smiled. She smiled back.

Then, addressing Estabrook (she felt it was in her dignity’s benefit not to bother Lord Beaverbrook), she told her story. Estabrook must have known the story even if Lord Beaverbook did not, but he listened in silence and seemed to imply a steady ignorance about this:

The theatre would go in two days if she did not pay the mortgage. Worse, there were men from another picture house trying to stop her tonight. (She did not call them a mixture of Orange bastards and Catholic scum as she was known to call them in private.) Drawing a breath, she continued, she was hoping Estabrook would chaperone her to the Catholic houses, for they might be willing to loan her money, and they would not dare stop him.

Both men were silent for a time after she finished speaking. Both amazed that she had swum the river. It showed tremendous character—and a little insanity.

“Well, who holds your mortgage?” Beaverbrook asked.

“The Royal Bank.”

“And have you been tardy in your payments?”

“Never.”

“Then who told you you could not renew such a mortgage?”

“Mr. Harris, sir.”

“And who is Mr. Harris, Janie?”

“Manages the bank here, Max,” Estabrook said. “And who would give a man like that a position here?” Beaverbrook asked.

Janie and Estabrook were silent.

“Well, this is bad behaviour,” Beaverbrook said. “Your client’s going in the night to beg money, swimming a river. We will straighten this out, won’t we, Janie—you and I—we will straighten it all out.”

“Yes, sir,” Janie said.

“Churchill loves pictures. Do you, Janie?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You see, you’re just like my friend Churchill.”

She knew that to answer flippantly would lose her the patronage she seemed to be acquiring. So she only nodded and stared straight ahead, feeling something biting her Irish heart.

“Come with me, Janie girl,” Beaverbrook said. “As much as you might want to, you won’t be swimming back. And you’ll have your money—damn right you will.”

It was after midnight, and the men who had manned the bridge—those brave fellows, my grandmother would sometimes call them—had dispersed but for a handful of hardliners. It had turned to fog, and the boy who had exclaimed he had seen her arms moving in the water was now curled up on the side of the bridge road, making himself a bed. The fifteen dollars he had already spent fifteen times over was now drifting away in his sleep, toward Estabrook’s boom.

Then he heard “Let it pass,” and he jumped up, to see automobiles coming straight toward him—a huge black Packard with side lanterns and a car in front of it and a car behind. People—and the boy would remember this forever—whom he had believed and looked up to as men of tremendous worth now stood aside like children, and the cars passed by.

At first he thought it was Joey Elias. Then he heard the name Janie McLeary and thought, rubbing sleep from his eyes, Ah, they have her. Then he thought of the fifteen dollars. But no one made a move for her.

She sat in the back seat of a great car, with a fellow she seemed bigger than, and stared ahead—only now and again glancing from side to side quickly to see who it was on the bridge, as poor Mary, Queen of Scots, might have done on the way to the axeman in February of 1587. The plots were equally diabolical.

Janie looked straight at the boy now. He had never seen her before, but realized it was Janie King, sitting beside a man he recognized as Lord Beaverbrook.

A cheer went up on all sides as they followed the car.

“Good for her, she got across,” the man who had spit his wad closest to her face said, as if he himself had nothing to do with trying to stop her. She might have heard it, for she looked back through the window at him, and then the car itself seemed to jump a gear and disappeared into the fog. The boy walked behind it, his hands in his pockets. The night was cool. He longed for bed.

Beaverbrook mentioned Janie King to Hoyt, the head of the Royal Bank of Canada, while Hoyt was in England. It was told in the company of Bennett and Churchill one evening that year. Churchill loved the story of the girl who swam the wild river—the outcast. He had become one himself by that time because he was considered a warmonger, out of fashion for his concern over this new man Hitler. Since it looked as if he could possibly lose his seat in the Commons, and his family home, he felt a kindred spirit in the “mischievous way all great men are linked.”

So he said, “That cannot be good—you cannot have your clients swimming arctic rivers just to renew a mortgage. If nothing else it looks bad to the press, Mr. Hoyt.”

“You are right, Mr. Churchill, I cannot,” Hoyt answered with dignified severity.

Harris was demoted to a teller. After this he had not a friend in town—no one to tell him he was important or prominent. As a teller he found life difficult. He became a hanger-on and the butt of jokes in the dens of Joey Elias. He began to gamble on horses—something out of character.

My father once said that the first of his life was forgettable, “almost dastardly forgettable.” He felt that his whole life was forgettable until he came back from overseas, after the second war, and had his children.

But it could not have been as forgettable as all that, for my father wanted to forget it, as many do who say that something is forgettable.

A year before his death he began to write down his story. In these chronicles he was searching for who he was, or what he was, and he had no one to help him navigate the terrain.

“There you go—I haven’t left you much—but these chronicles make up for it. If I were you, I would settle for nothing less than what they give the next president for his memoirs.”

Though startling and brilliant in spots, they also had pages of rhymes about pickles, notes on bargain hunting, fifty pages of attacks on his school principal in 1937.

They are written fairly unguardedly, and I have assumed his appraisal of the demoted bank manager—“Harris thought he was a bigwig, and played off others like a reflection”—is correct.

My father went on to write: “Harris realized his ambition had failed, realized in a habitual way—habitual to describe actions arising from a certain kind of shared mentality—action arising from a set of circumstances no different and no more dignified than common herding to please others. And how did he try to please others? By pretending to be something he was not. He failed, utterly—utterly he failed (how many ways can I put it?).”

This, my father called “reflection.” Most of us have it. My father did not. He was too brave.

Janie King, who had been born with nothing, had beaten back a flood of enemies by stepping off the old wharf into the water. She had been called insane. Yet she still felt unsafe. In early summer that year, taking her son and small daughter to a relative in the middle of the night, her eyes glittering with anxiety, she said she had to go. She had an idea on how to change her fortune once and for all.

She boarded a train discreetly one late July evening and travelled in the terrible summer heat on a leather-backed seat southwest toward Toronto. She told no one, not even Walter. It was an unpleasant journey—the farthest away from our river she had ever been—and took almost two days, with a delay in Montreal, where she sat in a dull, sun-drenched building, alone, her purse clasped in her hand and the rudiments of her rural life showing through to the more worldly people about her. They would make fun of her, she was sure—her hat and her dress and her shoes all slightly out of step with those dressed like flappers on an outing. She even in her mid-twenties was more matronly, if not motherly. And what had she left behind? She knew it in her blood, like no one else. She had left a river, a great teeming river the likes of which would not be seen after St. Lawrence for two thousand miles or more. She had left a river in New Brunswick that would swallow you with its life, shout in its rapids, laugh in its eddies, create industry in its currents, a river of Irish and Scottish myth, wedded to the soil. She had left this to find and bring back a form of phantasmagoria that those who had grown up on it, lived life by it, and bled in its soil would trade their hard-earned money to see.

She would not be thwarted, even to the point of excommunication, which some in the church wanted to threaten her with. But she would not be frightened by this, either. For Janie in her single-mindedness could not be frightened. And she was doing this for no other reason than to spare her daughter and her son the poverty she herself had seen, the misery of the slop pail and the cold-water bath.

And our great sad river in New Brunswick, what had it created for the outside world? It had created the greatest ships under sail ever to be managed by a line, and that line was the Cunard shipping line. In like fact, it had created the man, emboldened and disliked, who would help Churchill win the Battle of Britain—Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. Our great river in the north so obscure had guaranteed the Spitfire, had quarried the stones for the Parliament Buildings, had matured a prime minister of Canada and a prime minister of Great Britain. And now Janie wanted something from the great world to bring back home, to those hard-working and death-defying soft-hearted men and women she had known as a child.

She arrived to Toronto on a heavy, humid afternoon, with the taxis idling at the front of the grand station. She was not going to stay at any fancy hotel; art for its sake never impressed her. She stayed in the Simcoe Hotel, in a single room. She told me this when I was ten years old, for I was bold enough to ask. She registered under an assumed name, Janie Larson—a cousin of hers.