Homesick Read online

  Having allowed herself that one self-dramatizing flourish, henceforth Vera went doggedly forward. Almost immediately she felt her spirits dip, felt worry and fear crowd round her shoulders. Over and over she had to remind herself that if success depended on hard work then she would triumph. Yet just in case she didn’t, she wished all this was happening someplace else, someplace her father wasn’t present, scrutinizing her every move, ready to pounce on every miscalculation and foolishness.

  The only effective antidote to the poison of such thoughts was to fling herself into work and, if nothing else, The Bluebird provided an unlimited supply of that. Vera asked herself whether the cafe had ever had a thorough cleaning since the days she had sat in its booths, drinking Coke and gossiping with her old chums Mabel Tierney and Phyllis Knouch. Now these girls she had believed she had left trapped in Connaught were long departed, married to men in the city who had freed them from a short servitude as secretaries, while she, adventurous Vera, was back home standing in the midst of the mouse dirt and cobwebs of the past.

  But cobwebs could be brushed away. For a week, commencing a little after seven each morning and continuing until midnight, Vera scrubbed away years of neglect. Layer after layer of wax rolled up under the blade of her putty knife, saharas of dust and the haphazard sprinklings of mouse and rat shit scattered before her diligent broom, twenty years of smoke and grease caking the walls dissolved in pail upon pail of hot water, turning it the colour of strong tea. An entire afternoon was spent attacking the old yellow pee tracks in the toilet bowl in the men’s washroom, bleaching and brushing, brushing and bleaching, until the stains had subsided into acceptable pale ivory water marks. Vera had not slaved like this in years. It was for her, for Daniel. Her arms and shoulders ached and trembled, her eyes smarted and her nose ran in the fumes of powerful disinfectant as she winced, lowering knuckles (that had been scraped scouring corner grime) into a bucket of Lysol and scalding water. Muscle spasms in her lower back caused her to limp and list but not to cease her war on filth. She ate standing because she had difficulty raising herself from a chair if she sat for any length of time.

  Daniel helped after school. He polished windows with newspaper, buffed the paste wax his mother laid down on the floors, mended tears in the upholstery of the counter stools with electrician’s tape, removed rodents from traps and disposed of the bodies.

  When Vera collapsed on her bed some time after one o’clock in the morning, after she had thrown together Daniel’s school lunch for the next day, she seldom slept more than an hour or two before snapping awake. Did she lock the front door of the cafe? Did she turn the grill off after frying up supper for herself and Daniel? On a number of occasions she went so far as to steal out of the house and hurry across town in the cold and dark to lay her palm on the top of the grill and rattle the lock on the front door one last time.

  She left it to Mr. Stutz to order whatever she would need from a restaurant supplier in Regina. He knew what was necessary because for years he had performed that service for her father’s restaurant in the hotel. Still, Mr. Stutz did not really presume. He made a list and went over it with her, item by item, explaining. The shipments soon began to arrive. Vera unpacked plates and cups, gigantic roasting pans and pots, cutlery. It was all vaguely familiar from the Army kitchens she had known. There were serviette dispensers, a coffee-maker, a milkshake mixer, banana-split boats, and sundae dishes that resembled vases. One day she became the owner of an ice cream freezer and an electric cash register.

  According to Vera’s calculations, Mr. Stutz had dispersed the two-thousand-dollar loan and still he continued buying, ignoring her protests. He ordered a meat saw, arguing that if they bought whole carcasses of beef and pork and he cut them up into steaks and roasts, ribs and chops, the savings would be enormous. One more thing. Vera ought to have an electric meat grinder to grind her own hamburger on the premises, fresh. Whenever Vera pointed out the mounting cost Mr. Stutz said, “You have to spend money to make money,” and wrote another cheque. Vera wasn’t exactly convinced by his reasoning. All she could think of was the money flying away, disappearing. It was like standing in a whirlwind, money torn out of her fingers and scurried off to the four points of the compass.

  On the eve of her opening the food was delivered. Butter stacked like bars of gold in a sturdy wooden box, sacks of sugar and flour, burlap bags of potatoes and carrots, string bags of onions, cans of coffee and tea, gallon jars of pickles, crates of eggs, salt and pepper, herbs and spices, slabs of bacon, a pink carcass of beef stamped with the government inspector’s blue ink, fryers, cardboard cartons of canned goods, drums of ice cream surrounded her in raw profusion.

  Her father’s watchful eye had been trained on all this. It was no coincidence that he had taken to hanging around the hotel across the way more frequently than had been his habit. And whenever a delivery truck drew up in front of The Bluebird Cafe he just happened to step out onto the front steps of the hotel lobby to salute a passerby and delay him with his observations about sports, or politics, or the weather, all the while throwing glances over the man’s head to the goods being hauled through his daughter’s doors. At other times when he did not realize he was being watched himself his nosiness was rude and undisguised. Then he would roost on the top step of the hotel like a cock on its favourite fence post, thrusting out his neck, a rooster preparing to crow, eyes darting an angry bird-like stare at the windows of the cafe. When Vera saw him like this, naked in his disquiet, feathers ruffled up and bristling, she had an inkling of how deeply she had gotten under his skin.

  The day the poster went up in her window announcing the Grand Opening, free coffee and doughnuts, he telephoned. His abruptness spoke of a long struggle to suppress emotion. “Vera, this is your father,” he announced in a rush. His voice sounded thick, hoarse. “What’s this I hear about you borrowing money from Stutz. Is it true?”

  “You know it’s true – since you heard it from Stutz,” Vera answered.

  “I don’t like it. You’re in no position to borrow money. You’ve got no collateral. Who do you expect to bail you out if you go belly up? Me?”

  “Expect a call when hell freezes over.”

  “You might as well have come to me in the first place. I know who’s going to get stuck with paying up. I’d feel it was my responsibility to Stutz. He works for his money, you know. What he has didn’t grow on trees.”

  “Ever think you might have jumped the gun with this mean-minded speculation about Vera’s impending failure? The money isn’t lost yet.”

  “It will be. You’ll find out just how easy it is. Soon enough you’ll find out.” He paused. “Anyway, what business did you have going to him for money? Why didn’t you come to me? What’s the matter with my money?”

  “Nothing. Aside from the fact it’s yours.”

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  “The best answer because it’s the most obvious.”

  “Let me give you some advice, girl. You’d do well to forget your high and mighty style if you intend to serve the public. The public isn’t looking to have their coffee poured by the Queen of Sheba – which you sometimes seem to mistake yourself for.”

  “No,” said Vera, “the public would rather have its coffee poured and its eggs fried by a woman who doesn’t wash her hands after she’s been to the washroom to pee – which is the case with that jewel you’ve employed across the way.”

  That took the wind out of his sails. The best reply he could manage was, “Rita is a good worker and loyal.”

  Vera refused to miss an opportunity. “Loyal like Stutz?” she asked.

  Her father went silent. She could hear him breathing into the mouthpiece of the receiver. “You think you’re so clever,” he said at last. “But did you ever stop to ask yourself what Stutz is up to?”

  As a matter of fact she hadn’t, not really. But one thing she could be sure of – if Stutz was up to anything it wouldn’t be crooked. Vera’s voice was confident and
cocky. “So tell me, what do you think he’s up to?”

  “You figure a careful man like Stutz hands over his savings like that without he has a view to something in particular?”

  Vera found her father’s tone annoying. “A view to something else. What?”

  “You really ought to dig a little deeper into your business partners,” said the old man. “Of course, how were you to know all the lengths Stutz went to over the last fifteen years trying to land himself a wife? Went to each of the three Protestant churches in turn – Anglican, United, and Lutheran – in search of the girl of his dreams. The only man in town to have sung in all three choirs. Offered to tie himself to anything available for the three-legged races at the church picnics. No takers though, no one willing to lend him a leg. Maybe it was his honesty worked against him, his talk of tithing and his glass eye. They found it very off-putting, virgins and widows alike, the tithing and the glass eye – not to mention the man is as homely as a mud fence. But despite his setbacks Stutz doesn’t lose hope. Seems he’s still in there pitching. Has he referred to the glass eye yet? They say it’s a foolproof sign of serious intentions once Stutz gets around to confessing the glass eye. Mr. Stutz doesn’t want any of his prospective brides to be buying a pig in a poke, so he’s always perfectly honest about that glass eye of his. Try and act surprised when he tells you.”

  Vera slammed down the receiver on the mocking voice, hard.

  The day of The Bluebird’s official opening Vera hosted a crowd of respectable size lured by free coffee and doughnuts and rumours of a falling-out between Alec Monkman and his daughter. Visitors were quick to note that there was no sign of the old man about the place, just the boy passing around a plate of sugar doughnuts and Vera smiling in a new apron as she poured the coffee. The puzzling element was Mr. Stutz nodding to everyone with a proprietorial air from a back table. No one was sure how to read the significance of that, Mr. Stutz, Alec Monkman’s right-hand man, conspicuously seated at a back table in The Bluebird.

  Despite the modest but encouraging success of the Grand Opening, in the days and weeks immediately following, business was slack. There was no give in the market. Alec Monkman kept his regulars because his regulars were creatures of habit. The local storekeepers and clerks still migrated twice a day to the hotel and seated themselves at their customary tables during coffee breaks. They were like dumb horses plodding to familiar stalls, thought Vera. That way get-togethers remained cozy and unchanging, as unchanging as arguments about Saturday night’s hockey game, or the time-honoured ritual of matching for the coffee bill. Each morning and each afternoon the jokes made at the loser’s expense would be repeated and the laughter would be just as loud and appreciative as if it was all happening fresh and for the first time. What Vera couldn’t understand was that the old jokes were better because they were predictable and comfortable. It seemed that people in Connaught didn’t like surprises.

  Her father had close to twenty regulars upon whom he could depend. Vera had one, an admirer of her raisin pie, the jeweller Wiens, a German immigrant and resolutely solitary man who appeared punctually at ten-fifteen each morning and three-fifteen each afternoon for a glass of chocolate milk and slice of raisin pie which he consumed in sad silence. After scraping his plate with his fork he rose, paid his bill, and left, having scarcely uttered a word.

  A business, Vera had to remind herself, could not be supported on the back of a Mr. Wiens, no matter how faithful he was to her cooking. It was discouraging but true that the only times when The Bluebird held more than a single customer was when the quota opened at the elevator and grain trucks backed up for more than a block waiting to deliver their wheat to the Pool. Then the farmers who couldn’t find a seat at the hotel crossed the street to Vera’s so they could nurse a cup of coffee and not have to wait in the bitter cold to unload.

  With so few demands on her time Vera could often be seen standing in the large front window of The Bluebird, arms folded over her breasts as she meditated on the snow blowing and shuddering like smoke on the roofs across the way. There were afternoons she didn’t speak to a soul until Mr. Stutz dropped in to have his supper after work. Regardless of her objections, Mr. Stutz always insisted on paying for his evening meal, which only made Vera feel even more of a charity case. Many nights he sat at the back table as late as eight o’clock, toying with his coffee cup and being sickeningly cheerful, advising her not to worry, she’d soon turn the corner. By mid-February, Vera was convinced there wasn’t any corner to turn, no corner existed. Her sole concern was now endeavouring to desperately pry a nickel loose here and there. That was what it had come to, a scramble for nickels. She hoped that by staying open two hours later than her father’s restaurant she might capture a few dregs of business, but what she got was scarcely enough to pay for the extra electric light she burned. The Bluebird had rapidly become a losing proposition. Night after night while Daniel worked on his homework in one of the booths, Vera perched on a stool at the deserted counter, crossed her right leg over her left and flicked her foot up and down like a cat does its tail as it watches the mouse’s hole. Her anxious eyes seldom left the door of The Bluebird as she waited in a misery of anticipation, an ashtray overflowing at her elbow. If the door did swing open it was sure to be a teenager wanting a package of Old Dutch potato chips, or a Coke, or a young father asking if he could buy a bottle of milk from her because his wife had forgotten to go to the store that day and now they were out and the baby was crying for a bottle. Slim profits in a bag of chips or a quart of milk.

  It was a relief, when midnight finally crawled round, to check the grill, draw the blinds, and lock the door. In seven short hours Vera would be obliged to start the slow water-torture all over again. Until then there was sleep, an exhausted reprieve from worrying how to meet the rent in March or thoughts of the $3100 she now owed Mr. Stutz. That was how winter stumbled on. Vera barely noticed the sun gaining strength, the icicles hanging from the eaves suddenly one day releasing a rain of pattering drops on the sidewalk outside The Bluebird’s window, the children running home from school with their coats unbuttoned, their toques clutched in their hands, the puddles in the shining gravel of Main Street reflecting blue sky.

  The change of seasons also seemed to bring a change of luck. Vera had the Portuguese to thank for that. The motives behind the arrival of the Portuguese in Connaught were by no means straightforward or simple. For more than a year there had been vague but persistent rumours circulating that an American mining company was considering establishing a potash mine somewhere in the vicinity of Connaught. The rumours could not be dismissed as farfetched since a mine had opened in the province only five or six years before. Nevertheless, for months no one could really believe such a stroke of good fortune could smite their particular sleepy backwater. Yet, if it did, the stakes would be enormous. If the mine did go ahead, the American company would need to choose a town for their headquarters, a town in which to settle office staff and miners. That would mean prosperity and unprecedented growth, a spectacular, heady boom in business. Anyone with a head on his shoulders could see that if a mine were to be established in the district there were only three possible choices for a headquarters, the three towns which stood within twenty miles of one another – Hildebrook, Czar, and Connaught. Of course, it was all a gamble, a gamble that the mine would go ahead at all, a gamble as to which town would claim the glittering prize if it did. But it was Connaught’s town council which acted first, having weighed the odds, then hesitated and see-sawed for months before taking a deep breath and casting the dice. The stakes were too high, too tempting to stand aside. Besides, all of the councillors were also businessmen and stood the most to gain from risking the taxpayers’ money. They reasoned that if the mine was to proceed, the Americans would select the most progressive, the most go-ahead town as centre of their operations. As Councillor Stevenson, who owned a plumbing business, put it, “No American is going to pick some backward shit hole to live.” This was the argume
nt that clinched the decision to pave Connaught’s dirt roads and lay new cement sidewalks as an enticement to the Americans and a way of gaining a march on Connaught’s unpaved rivals. A contract was hurriedly signed with an Edmonton company and, on May 1, the Portuguese arrived to lay asphalt and pour cement.

  Vera could almost have believed that the angels sent them. New to town, strangers, they took their meals where they were made to feel most welcome, at Vera’s. In a single stroke her fortunes were reversed. Suddenly she found herself serving breakfast, lunch, and supper to thirty men, seven days a week. It didn’t matter that Daniel was run off his feet serving tables and herself cooking in the kitchen. What counted was the money she found in the cash register at the end of the first day of the Portuguese invasion. The total astounded her. Vera made up her mind that no one, but no one, was going to take her Portuguese away from her. In a matter of days she was on the friendliest of terms with the short, dark men who smiled so brilliantly and laughed so easily. Soon they were teasing her in fractured English, proudly displaying to her snapshots of wives and children, and teaching her to twist her tongue around their names. Soon they were at ease enough with Vera for their foreman Domingo to approach her with a request. “Please, can you make a party Portuguese for them? To help the homesick?” Diffidently he held out to her several sheets of wrinkled paper covered with awkward, misspelled translations of recipes. “Please, these foods?”

  Vera agreed to help if Domingo would assist and guide her. Lacking certain ingredients it was necessary for her to improvise, Domingo at her side, sampling and judging. “Like this, Domingo? More or less?” And he nodded or shook his head, smacked his lips in theatrical appreciation or curled them in distaste.