Homesick Read online

  Seeing his uncle’s name up there also helps him to feel somehow part of it. It’s the only name on the wall he can put a face to. He’s seen his mother’s snapshot of his uncle, a boy in his baseball uniform. In fact, he recently asked to look at it again to search it for some resemblance to himself. His grandfather keeps slipping and calling him Earl.

  His uncle’s name is high on the wall, so high Daniel has to tilt his head way back to find it. Earl Monkman, May 2, 1946, the wall says, Forever and Beyond. He had told his mother about discovering his Uncle Earl’s name on the wall and asked her what Forever and Beyond might mean. She had laughed. “There must have been another name you missed,” she had said. “It was something we used to write as teenagers. Arnold and Mabel, Forever and Beyond. It meant undying love. The next time you’re there find the other name and let me know who it is. I’d be curious to know.”

  Daniel had checked. But there was no other name linked to his uncle’s. Only Earl Monkman, May 2, 1946, Forever and Beyond.

  8

  For Vera, peace proved to be a great confusion. In the months following the end of the war she began to suspect that life in the Army had cruelly unsuited her for what she now had to face. Being a sergeant had taught her that she preferred giving orders to taking them. Already it was becoming clear that women were expected to quickly lose that acquired taste.

  Vera could not bring herself to look for work. It was because she found herself always tired now, an affliction so severe that it made life scarcely seem worth living. Hers was a terrifying condition; she did not know what was happening to her. Finally, when her situation grew desperate enough, Vera decided the answer was a holiday, she must have a complete rest. So she checked into a swank hotel in Toronto. To pay for this extravagance she drew on three years of savings and her $349.65 of discharge pay. For the first time in years, Vera bathed and slept in absolute privacy. She had meals sent up by room service and ate them off her lap, sitting in a chair by the window, watching the throngs flocking the sidewalks and the metal torrent of traffic roaring in the street below. It all seemed to have nothing to do with her.

  Endeavouring to feel as fresh and optimistic as those people looked, she bought herself perfume, two smart expensive suits, ordered cut flowers for her room, and went to the beauty parlour downstairs for a cut and a perm. Nothing helped. After those initial bold excursions Vera did not leave her room again until her money ran out.

  Not that she didn’t try. Her goal was to have dinner downstairs, in the dining room, in the midst of other people. Each afternoon she began to make her preparations. She needed plenty of time to get ready because the slightest effort had become exhausting. Around three o’clock in the afternoon she started with eyebrow plucking, lipstick, and face powder. At four, stockings were rolled up what seemed like miles and miles of leg, and garters were fastened. Next, she picked every blessed speck of lint from her new skirt and jacket, bit by bit, with her fingernails. Finally, it came time to dress. But before she did that it was necessary to pause, to close her aching eyes for just a second. So Vera would stretch herself out on her bed in her bra and panties, and the voices of people passing in the corridor outside her room would come drifting through the open transom, lulling voices that murmured on and on, that pitched her into a thick tangle of dreamless sleep from which she only awoke, shivering, long after midnight, long after the dining room was closed and there was nothing else to do but crawl between the sheets and promise herself. Tomorrow, tomorrow, the dining room.

  But the money disappeared, and tomorrow was Mrs. Konwicki’s rooming-house. The day Vera moved in, smuggling a frying pan and second-hand hot plate in her biggest suitcase past the landlady with the flabby, baked-red arms of a domestic bully, was the day she suspended her correspondence with Earl. After all her bragging about the Waldorf-Astoria and the advantages of a uniform she was not about to confess to Earl it had all ended in a cheap rooming-house. Vera was ashamed. And to lie about her present circumstances would have meant that she didn’t regard them as purely temporary. Things would soon look up. When she was back on the rails, a success again, she would resume writing to her brother and send him her address. However, things were so long in looking up that in the end she lost track of him.

  With all her money gone, she had no choice but to look for work. The exhaustion that showed in her face and wilted her carriage was a disadvantage applying for jobs. So, too, were her Army discharge papers which listed her trade as cook. When she explained that she had been more of a kitchen manageress than cook, interviewers either looked indulgent or sceptical.

  Once, after being turned away yet again, she had said angrily to the man who had interviewed her, “I thought veterans could be expected to be shown preference.”

  The man said, “Do you really consider yourself a veteran? A veteran like a man who risked his life on a battlefield? What are you a veteran of?”

  Still, she continued on, applying for positions she had no hope of getting. She did this as much to escape the rooming-house as for any other reason. Vera hated it there. It smelled of dusty cocoa-matting and the Polish Princess’s little shitter, Stanny. Stanislaus was Mrs. Konwicki’s daughter’s gift from the angels, a three year old who ran up and down the hallways persecuting his grandmother’s lodgers, banging on the closed doors behind which old men coughed day and night, a dill pickle which he’d sucked white poking out of fat, rosy baby lips, and the odour of stale poop following him wherever he went.

  One afternoon as Vera sat on a bench in a park it began to drizzle. Unable to bear the thought of being driven back into her musty room, she got to her feet and started to walk, walking in a rain not feeling nearly as cold, melancholy, and dispiriting as sitting in one. An hour of trudging brought her to the doors of a movie theatre. By then she was soaked, her hair hanging in strings, her shoes and stockings soggy, her teeth chattering. The price of a matinee was cheap to escape what had become an icy shower.

  As she paid for her ticket, Vera read a small notice taped to the glass of the booth announcing that the theatre was seeking a presentable young man or woman to assist in seating patrons. Apply in person to Mr. A.J. Buckle, Theatre Manager. An old theatre that had once presented touring operettas, vaudeville, and melodramas before being converted into a cinema shortly before the Great War, it retained certain vestiges of opulent, crusty glory: a tracked and faded lobby carpet that had once been a lush scarlet, brass handrails on all stairs, and curtained smoking-loges whose mahogany trim was scarred with cigarette burns and jack-knife hearts and initials. In her opinion it was romantic, had style. On the spur of the moment Vera decided she would apply.

  Mr. Buckle turned out to be a plump, middle-aged man, sleek as a seal, whose tiny feet transported him around the room as smoothly as if he were mounted on castors. While interviewing Vera he rolled from side to side, from one buttock to the other, and flapped his thighs together whenever he supposed he’d made a witty remark. The slapping sound helped reinforce Vera’s feeling that he resembled a seal.

  It soon became clear to her that Mr. Buckle was pretty full of himself. And he asked the most peculiar questions. Could she sew? When she said she could, he nodded enthusiastically. There was an inquiry about the condition of her feet. Any corns, ingrown toenails, plantar’s warts? Vera assured him that the condition of her feet was excellent. That was fine, said Mr. Buckle. An usher’s feet were as important as a soldier’s. With that, he appeared satisfied. The motive for his question about her ability to sew became apparent when Mr. Buckle passed a large paper bag across his desk top and said, “This will be your uniform, dear. It will require alteration. Agnes was somewhat more petite than yourself.”

  Struggling that night to remake the uniform, Vera wondered what Mr. Buckle’s definition of petite might be. Not only did the uniform look like it belonged on an organ grinder’s monkey, it also looked like it would fit one. Mr. Buckle’s former usherette must have been a midget. Vera couldn’t see how the material could be decently
stretched to cover her own long-limbed, gawky frame. Hours passed. Vera stitched madly and ripped apart what she had just stitched, made decisive chalk marks on the cloth and then indecisively rubbed them out with her thumb. She was no seamstress, just somebody who had been thimble-whacked by her mother into a modest proficiency with needle and thread. By midnight she despaired of ever putting back together what she had torn to pieces. Not only would she lose the job, she would probably have to pay Mr. Buckle for the garment she had destroyed.

  All her life Vera had been a poor loser. She turned to the amputated sleeves and flopping hems with furious, tight-lipped determination. It was three-thirty in the morning when she bit off the last thread. Her task completed, she sat for a moment, massaging her aching shoulders. The thought did not occur to her that this was the first time in months that she was not the least bit tired.

  She slipped into the uniform. To see herself full-length in the mirror above her dresser she clambered up on the bed and stood there unsteadily. The dusty maroon uniform consisted of a wrinkled skirt and a jacket with fringed epaulettes. Worst of all was the pillbox hat, complete with chin strap. While she balanced herself in a half-crouch, swaying on the saggy mattress, Vera examined her handiwork. The sleeves halted half an inch above her wrist-bones. The skirt rode above the hard ovals of her kneecaps. She looked ridiculous. Vera bowed her legs, crooked her arms, and swung them slowly in front of her from side to side, raised a hand, and scratched an armpit. Then she laughed. A real laugh, the first in ages. Laughed so long and so loud that the silence of the sleeping house was shattered. Mrs. Konwicki lodged a complaint with Vera in the morning.

  Becoming the darling and champion of the theatre staff helped Vera recover her old self. It didn’t matter that her admirers were a pathetic collection of oddballs and misfits who accepted Buckle’s reign of terror either because they didn’t have the spine to tell him to go and take a long walk on a short pier, or because they knew they weren’t employable anywhere else except in another half-assed establishment run by a lunatic similar to Buckle. Their general incompetence made Vera feel protective, even motherly towards her fellow employees.

  Frank the usher was fifty-five; a nancy boy with fluttery hands, wide-awake astonished eyes, and a habit of whispering conspiratorially everything he said. He sucked peppermints constantly because he worried about his breath, carried his comb stuck in his sock, and walked as if he were holding a ball-bearing between the cheeks of his ass and didn’t want it to fall out. Frank was a great fan of musicals and sometimes when he watched them at the back of the theatre his feet would start to shuffle rhythmically. Once Vera saw him suddenly attempt a pirouette in the dark.

  Maurice the ticket-seller was in poor health and distressed by worries about losing his job because his angina pectoris was so bad that ticket-selling was just about the only job he could do. He was Mr. Buckle’s errand runner. During the summer Mr. Buckle sent him out to move the manager’s Oldsmobile from parking stall to parking stall, following shade, and in the winter he dispatched him to fire the engine of the car every two hours so that when it came time to go home Mr. Buckle would have no trouble starting it.

  Then there were Amelia and Doris, the weird Wilkinson sisters, who stood side by side manning the refreshment counter. They never tired of telling how since childhood they had been inseparable. Their one goal in life seemed to be to keep their destinies linked. Although Amelia was a year older than Doris, in their uniforms they appeared to be twins. Outside the theatre they dressed in identical, matching outfits so as to strengthen that impression. Doris and Amelia liked to pretend they were twins because it made them feel out of the ordinary, special and glamorous the way the Dionne quints were special and glamorous. Their greatest fear was that the other would so anger Mr. Buckle as to get fired, leaving her sister behind, abandoned. The idea was so inconceivable, so unbearable that they had sworn a pact that if one was dismissed the other would immediately resign. However, having sworn such a rash pact, each sister began to doubt the other’s judgement in dealing with Mr. Buckle. They were continually admonishing and checking up on one another. “Doris, don’t you go giving Mr. Buckle one of your looks!” “Amelia, save your sauce for the goose!”

  When Mr. Buckle first took over his duties as manager of the movie house, he deeply offended the Wilkinson sisters when he forbade them to take any unsold popcorn home to their mother as they had been doing for years, on the ground that it encouraged overpopping. Despite their outrage over the imputation they could ever be so irresponsible, Amelia and Doris cloaked their real sentiments and always smiled most charmingly, in unison, whenever Mr. Buckle crossed their paths or found himself in the vicinity of the refreshment counter.

  The only member of the staff aside from Vera who showed no fear of the manager was Thomas the projectionist. Since projectionists did not come a dime a dozen Thomas was treated more respectfully by Mr. Buckle than the others were. He was distinguished in another important way. Because he did not come under the public eye he did not have to wear the theatre uniform and was exempt from Mr. Buckle’s surprise snap inspections, occasions when all uniformed personnel would be drawn up in the lobby before the doors opened to have their turn-outs scrutinized by the manager. Nothing was more resented than this. Everyone felt Mr. Buckle’s observations about their garments and personal grooming to be belittling and demeaning. Mr. Buckle seldom needed to issue a direct order about a failing in attire, a hint was enough. If, however, his hints were not acted upon, retribution was swift. The upshot could be that you found yourself detailed to pick soggy cigarette butts out of urinals for the next month.

  His air when he reviewed the troops was swaggering. “Doris, I’d see to that butter spot on your jacket, if I were you. Those of us who handle food must leave an impression of immaculate cleanliness with the public. Butter spots don’t look very sanitary, do they? I’d go for a thorough dry-cleaning, if I were you, not just a touch-up with cleaning fluid. You’re due for a dry-cleaning. After all, Amelia had hers last week.”

  His praise was heartily artificial. Formerly a high school principal until certain difficulties led to his resignation, Mr. Buckle knew the value of commending the deserving. “Well, well, Maurice! Now we’re certainly looking spiffy. The missus certainly got that braid back into fighting trim in short order! Good man!” And a mournful Maurice would get a cordial clap on the shoulder, the sort of warm congratulation you give a man who gets right on top of things, without a moment’s hesitation.

  Vera did not get right on top of things, not even after Mr. Buckle had publicly criticized her shoes. Wearing a pair of brown shoes with a maroon uniform just wouldn’t do, would it? They sort of clashed, didn’t they? Black would go much better with maroon, don’t you think? Vera ignored Mr. Buckle and kept right on wearing her brown shoes. The next time the staff were paraded Mr. Buckle made a speech. He said that those who neglected their appearance not only let themselves down, they let down everybody else who worked at the theatre because what one employee did reflected, for good or ill, on all. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who he was talking about. Especially since he kept his eyes fixed on Vera’s shoes as he spoke.

  Go piss up a rope, Vera thought. She wasn’t leaving the one pair of comfortable shoes she owned in the closet because some horse’s patoot wanted to play Napoleon. She’d worn a real uniform in her day, one that actually stood for something, and if he thought she was going to take seriously this monkey’s tuxedo, he had another think coming.

  When he raised the issue again, a week later, Vera put it to him straight. “I’m wearing brown shoes because black shoes don’t get picked off trees. Black shoes and my salary don’t see eye to eye right at the moment.”

  None of the staff had ever heard anyone speak to Mr. Buckle that way. Maurice studied the toes of his shoes and nervously shunted his top plate back and forth with his tongue. Frank squeezed his lips and buttocks even more tightly together. Doris and Amelia tried to look disapproving of a w
oman who could be so rude.

  Mr. Buckle got oilier and smoother, a sure sign in his case that he was angry. “You knew what your salary would be when you accepted your position here, Miss Monkman. You were informed.”

  “Sure I was. But I wasn’t informed half of it would have to be ear-marked for dry-cleaning and new shoes. I didn’t know I was expected to dress like a Rockefeller on what you pay me.”

  Mr. Buckle considered such remarks beneath reply. He simply bobbed up and down on his toes, as if he were pumping more pounds per square inch and more purple into his face. When it was sufficiently purple and swollen he turned on his heels and marched off. In retreat to his office he let fly one parting shot over his shoulder. “If shoes are beyond your budget perhaps you might manage to replace your stockings. There’s a ladder in one of yours.”

  “Whyn’t you use it to climb up and kiss my ass?” invited Vera under her breath, just loud enough so that the others could catch what she said but Buckle couldn’t.

  When Mr. Buckle’s office door closed on that first act of defiance, Frank and Maurice, Doris and Amelia all clustered around Vera, whispering excitedly.

  “Atta girl, Vera. Doesn’t he know he got told!”

  “What a nerve! The nerve of that man, Vera! Shoes. As if we could afford shoes! Just as easy as glass slippers!”

  “The Rockefeller! Did you see his face? The Rockefeller really got to him. Boy oh boy! The Rockefeller!”

  “Remember your heart, Maurice,” cautioned Frank.

  “Boy oh boy! Rockefeller right up his ass!”

  “Let’s not be crude, Maurice,” admonished Frank. “Fair sex present.”

  “Well, Vera said it, didn’t she? And so do I. Rockefeller right up his ass!”

  Mr. Buckle would have fired Vera right then and there if it hadn’t been for her one invaluable talent. Nobody could deal with a troublemaker the way Vera did and the theatre was situated in an area where troublemakers were not uncommon. If it wasn’t for her, the kids at Saturday matinees might have pulled the building down around their ears the way Samson had the Philistines’ temple. And when it came to the other insalubrious types you met running a theatre in this district – the drunks who argued with Cary Grant, the perverts who pestered unaccompanied ladies, the indecent couples who groped and writhed their way through an entire feature presentation – Mr. Buckle didn’t know how these would have been dealt with if it hadn’t been for that brash young woman.