Watching Jimmy (10 page)

W
hen we get home, Aunt Jean goes straight to her bed. And I go to mine, which is Andrew’s now. He helps me off with my shoes and swings my legs up onto the bedspread. Then he tucks me in with an old quilt, I’m that shivery.

“It’s just the adrenalin, is all. You’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll fix you some hot honey and lemon.”

Andrew shuts the door behind him. I can hear Jimmy on the floor snuffling around the crack worrying about me. Soon, he settles down, but he’s still there on the floor blocking the hall light.

I never do get the drink Andrew promises me. “Out like a light, you were,” he tells me the next day.

So out like a light that I sleep the whole night through
and miss my supper. I think it was the smell of bacon that woke my growling stomach. That, or the urgent need to use the toilet.

I peek out into the hallway. Aunt Jean’s door is closed and Jimmy’s too. If I hurry, I can be out of the house before she corners me to ask me questions.

I feel funny today. My grandpa would say that’s what I get for wearing my heart on my sleeve.

I stop at the kitchen doorway, expecting to see Andrew or my mom at the stove, but the General’s in charge.

“Goodness. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“And good morning to you too, dear. Hot chocolate?”

“Yes, please. Where’s Andrew?”

“I took his place on the couch. It looked to me like he needed a break from Jimmy-boy” The General pours straight from the saucepan into two mugs.

It’s the most heavenly drink I ever tasted. I imagine chocolate syrup, thick and warm coursing like lava through my veins right to my toes. I close my eyes and feel the General watching me. He may have dealt with spies and prisoners of war, but he’s no match for me. I’m not going to speak the first word about yesterday. Finally, the General clears his throat. “There’s something I want
you to hear.” He switches on CBC Radio and the eight o’clock news.

There’s a story about a fire, a bank robbery in London, the weather’s going to continue dark and drizzly, no surprise there. And the Maple Leafs have beaten the Canadiens. Finally, there’s a special interest story. Aunt Jean’s kitchen is filled with sounds of the White Cliffs of Dover. It takes me a minute to realize that it’s me, me singing out of the radio. Then my speaking voice comes on, not sounding like me at all. I’m reminding the whole country of Canada, from sea to shining sea, to share. That a country couldn’t live half sick and half healthy.

“Gosh. Did I say that?” I can feel my eyes bugging right out of their sockets.

A reporter sums up the words of “that little power-house from Toronto who has lungs like Vera Lynn.”

The General takes my cup from me and sets it down on the table. Then he gathers me up in his arms and we polka around the kitchen. “Yes you did. And more. You were magnificent!” We hoot and holler and shriek ourselves breathless. Such a carry-on, that neither of us spots Aunt Jean watching us. I notice straight off the dark circles under her eyes. They are red and swollen like she’s been
crying all night long. The General lets go of me and wraps Aunt Jean in a big bear hug. “Carolyn’s on the radio. She’s famous, Jean. Wouldn’t you know? A speech about why she’s
not proud
to be Canadian makes her famous. But you’re proud of her aren’t you, Jean?”

“That I am.” She reaches for me and pulls me close. “You should have told me sooner, Carolyn. You shouldn’t have taken all that burden on your own shoulders.”

Aunt Jean doesn’t have to explain to me that we’re talking about Ted now, and not Canada.

“Now, not another word until you’ve had breakfast.” We don’t argue with the General.

There’s a mushroom omelet puffing in the iron frying pan and bacon warming and a basket of hot biscuits. Coffee for the General and Aunt Jean. Kid’s tea for me. The more I eat, the more hungry I become. It’s like I haven’t eaten anything since Labor Day. When we are done, the General clears the table and we sit there facing each other.

“Now, Carolyn girl, do you have any questions for your aunt here?”

My mouth tries to form the words but no sound comes out. Finally I whisper. “Yes … Yes, I do…. Why is Ted so mean? Why does he hate you and Jimmy so much?”

Aunt Jean’s shoulders begin to shake. She takes so long to answer that I think she never will.

“Ted’s a … dirty rotten so-and-so because … he found out that …” A shudder goes through her, “… because he found out that he’s not my brother at all.”

“Then who is he? The bastard —” Goodness, Jimmy and I only put up with Ted for Aunt Jean’s sake, because Ted was the only other relative she had.

“Now, now. There’ll be none of that kind of language here,” the General sputters.

“Then who the heck is he?”

“You’re right, Carolyn, he is a bastard. He is a bastard … and I’m his mother.”

“His mother! But you’re Bertie’s mother!”

“Yes. Bertie’s
adopted
mother. Jake and I never thought we could have children because…. because, I had Ted so young, when I was fifteen years old. It messed me up in more ways than one.” The General hands Aunt Jean a glass of tap water. She takes a long swallow.

“I ran with a wild crowd. I made a terrible mistake and my dad sent me away to ‘private school’ in Nova Scotia. My mother and I were pregnant at about the same time, and when she lost that baby, it seemed simple to switch
hers with mine. There was no shame on this house and no one was the wiser. Until Ted tried to enlist…. He ordered up his birth certificate.”

The General reaches for Aunt Jean’s hand to give her courage, but she pulls away. She looks shriveled and alone.

“Ted was so upset when he found out. And who can blame him? Then Bertie died, and so much fuss was made about our son, who Ted said wasn’t even a blood relative. And then we had our miracle baby. Jimmy.”

Aunt Jean’s face softens when she mentions Jimmy’s name and then tenses up again. “Ted let it eat at him. That, and being turned down for the service because of his flat feet.”

“
Oh-h-h-h-h
. I see.” And I did see. Poor Ted. A bastard for real. And me an almost bastard. It was like Ted’s whole life was a story on a blackboard and with one swipe of a wet chamois, was wiped right out. You had to start again and think about things differently from the very beginning. And it’s no wonder that Bertie missed having the blessed flat feet. No wonder at all. It makes sense now.

“I’m sorry, honey. I’ve been willfully blind about Ted. I’ve been consumed by remorse and regret and responsibility. I was so relieved when he seemed to do so well
financially. When your mom wouldn’t let him take over the house, properly mind, he saw red. He thought it was his chance to be the head of the household. To take his rightful place. And steal me blind in the process. I blame myself. But I’ve done making excuses for poor Ted.” Aunt Jean takes another shaky sip of water.

“I’m done with Ted. This family is done with him. There are some things that can’t be undone. Lord knows, I’ve tried.”

I look up at the General. “Is she still going to lose the house?”

“I’ll answer that! It is immaterial to me whether or not I lose this house. This house is just bricks and mortar. Bricks and mortar. Nothing at all compared to the health of my Jimmy … and the safety of you, Carolyn. Nothing at all. We’ll get along. We always do.”

We let that hang there for about ten seconds. Finally, the General clears his throat. “Now, Jean. Is there something you’d like to ask Carolyn?”

I tell the whole story about how Jimmy flew out the back of Ted’s car. I don’t intend to ever tell it again, but I must say that I was wrong about half-believing the swing story The true details hit me right in the heart. All over again.

Poor Jimmy. Poor Aunt Jean. Poor, poor Ted.

I look up when I’ve finished the story. My mom is leaning against the door jamb. She, too, is in her pajamas and her robe and she’s gripping a coffee mug so tightly, I think it will shatter. Her face is white, her lips bloodless. The cords of her neck are sticking out and I see a pulse beating where her throat meets her neck. The look on her face is the same one she had when I was in Grade 2 and Luanne Price called me a poor little bastard.

“Carolyn, that night … the night when you stayed at the MacGregor’s … the night that Jimmy was sick —”

“Drunk,” interrupts Aunt Jean. “The night that Ted got Jimmy drunk. From here in, we must speak the plain truth of it.”

“All right then, the night that Ted got Jimmy drunk. Did Ted hurt you? Did he put his hands on you?”

I know what she means. Did Ted attack me? Did he violate me because I’m a girl? I tug at the sleeve of my pajama top, pulling it down over the wrist that Ted grabbed as he pulled me to him. The bruises have long since disappeared, but not the memory of his strength. The gasoline smell of his breath on my face. The rasp of his whiskers. No. These memories have not gone away.

I look at Aunt Jean’s face. Her eyelids are fluttering and I think she’s praying to the Lord that nothing bad has happened to me. She looks desperate to know if Ted has sunk to new depths.

Suddenly I’m very calm. While I understand that there are things about Jimmy that need to be told, there are things about me and Ted, which Mom and
Aunt Jean do
not
need to know. What would be the point? I’ll get over Ted’s demands that I give him a kiss. His drunken leering at me from top to toe, in that way.

I look up at the General. He mouths the word
later
and I seize on it like a life ring.

I will tell the General.

“No,” I whisper. “He never harmed me. He could never catch me to hurt me. I’m small, but I’m fast.” I laugh like I’ve just told the funniest joke. Mom and Aunt Jean laugh with me, so anxious to believe that I’m telling the truth. The General gives me a nod. He’s not so easily fooled. He ruffles my hair and makes room for my mother at the table.

“More tea?” he says to me.

“Yes, please.” And so, I turn the page on Ted.

I
don’t go to school. I stay in my pajamas all day and we play Scrabble and Crokinole and drink mint tea like we all have bellyaches instead of heartaches.

So it isn’t until two days later that I face the class after my Remembrance Day speech. Not a pencil shaving drops when I enter the classroom. The hair climbs straight up on my arms, the atmosphere is that spooky.

And then they cheer. All the kids cheer except the horrid Luanne Price who stares an ugly stare at me, through my forehead and all the way to the back cloakroom. It seems I was not only on the CBC Radio, but on CBC Television too. I have to say that it never occurred to me that our local Remembrance Day ceremony would be televised. You see, Aunt Jean doesn’t have a television and neither
do we. But everybody else seems to. Pity I never saw it.

Mostly because of that television broadcast, mail starts pouring in. Letters for Aunt Jean, some of them with cheques enclosed.

I’ve been getting mail, too, although its beginning to dwindle. Mostly I get letters from classrooms of kids whose teachers have obviously made them write me. Sometimes I get a group letter containing one line from each kid about why they are proud to be Canadian. I feel bad about that because it was never my intention to make my speech homework. I have about five letters from choirmasters asking me if I want a new job. There are six letters from little girls asking for advice on how they can become actresses and go on the CBC.

But the best letter of all is a stiff and heavy envelope with an embossed coat of arms of Saskatchewan on the flap. I know who this is from and I hug it to my chest.

“Well, open it!” says Aunt Jean.

Jimmy bellows his support. I take a knife from the drawer and carefully slit open the package. Inside, there’s a signed picture of Tommy C. Douglas. And there’s a hand-written note.

“What’s he say? What’s he say?”

I read it right through to the end and start again. I fold it up and put it back in the envelope.

“Well?”

“He likes me.”

“Of course, he likes you. We all like you. Land sakes. Such a girl, Jimmy.”

The letter from Tommy Douglas is my treasure. I’m not sharing. Except maybe with Jimmy when he goes to bed. He’ll like the story about how Tommy Douglas hurt his leg and had a bone infection and was going to lose his leg until a doctor stepped up and said he would operate on it for free.

It’s a sign.

With the money and the publicity, a miracle has happened. A lawyer has come forward (I suspect he’s a friend of the General) and determined that Uncle Ted’s mort-gage is a flimflam. A fraud. It’s not properly signed. There’s no evidence that Aunt Jean’s husband borrowed anything from Ted. I guess Ted was trying to take what he thought he was rightfully owed. The General says Ted’s lucky that he didn’t get his tail landed in jail.

Oh yes, and Aunt Jean has been given a little job through Veterans Affairs that she can do right here at home.

But best of all, the Bank of Nova Scotia has opened up a fund for Jimmy’s operation. Money is pouring in from across the country. Soon there should be enough money to pay Dr. Phillips at Sick Children’s Hospital.

As I told you, our Jimmy is not a mental defective like Luanne Price says. Our Jimmy is in there. He’s in there. This I know. And Dr. Phillips will let him out.

And as for Ted? I admit that there’s never been a Thursday yet that he doesn’t cross my mind. But he’s long gone. And if he shows up again? Never mind. We can deal with Ted. As I said at the beginning, he doesn’t scare me. Never has. Never will.

I’m not afraid of anything.

Not anymore.