A Fickle Wind. Elizabeth Bourne

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СКАЧАТЬ between them, and he asked if I could lend him fifty cents, which I did. He gave me the project, and I started to work.

      As the afternoon progressed, it became apparent he wasn’t going out, and I started to worry about how he would repay my fifty cents. This sounds a little ridiculous now, but you have to remember my circumstances. That was actually five phone calls for me to look for more work. And this was my first working experience in my new country. Was I going to be “taken” right away? Not if I could help it!

      When it was time for me to leave at the end of the afternoon, I gave him my time card. He calculated that he owed me for five hours and, since there had been no discussion of repayment of my fifty cents, I suggested he make it five and a half hours. He looked puzzled and asked why he should do that. I explained, and after showing some surprise and hesitation, he did.

      I recall running down the stairs feeling quite elated and, strangely, with a sense of relief. I think it was more than just the repayment. It had been a test of my mettle—and I had passed. I had stood up for myself, even in this new land, three thousand miles from home. My mother would have been proud of me. And hadn’t that been the name of the game all my life?

      I found a job in a British car dealership. I had gone on a temporary assignment and noticed they were interviewing. After about three days of proving I could do the job, I asked to be considered. One of the principals for whom I was working liked my work and was a declared Anglophile, so I was hired. It wasn’t what I would have chosen—I sat facing a muddy-green wall with a crack running through it—but it was a beginning.

      Craig had become friends with a man with whom he worked, and it was time for me to meet him and his wife. Don and Jean were our first Canadian friends, and we were blessed. Not only did they take us under their wings and show us wonderful Canadian hospitality, but they provided our first true Canadian adventure. Jean’s parents owned a cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a beautiful summer resort area about 120 miles north of Toronto. When the weather permitted, Jean and Don went up on weekends. They invited us to join them on one of these occasions shortly after we met.

      To go away for the weekend was a whole new experience for us. It hadn’t been any part of the life we had left, and Craig and I were somewhat overwhelmed. How grand everything was turning out to be. The cottage was cozy and comfortable but was, indeed, a cottage, with an outhouse.

      Jean and Don had a boat, water skis, other sports equipment, and water toys. There was a large dock, which was a favorite hangout for Jean and me. We sunbathed for hours, ensuring a dark bronze tan when we returned to the city. One of the men I worked for once said I looked like Lena Horne, and I was thrilled. Our time there was magical, and I loved it.

      We became fast friends as a foursome. The guys were both athletic and energetic, and Jean and I had lots in common. We both loved to be glamorous and fashionable, and we enjoyed relaxing, reading, and being very lazy on our weekends. Sometimes we would get the guys to drop us off in Port Carling, where we sat at the bar of the drugstore drinking Pepsi floats. How sophisticated and cool! And how very different and eye-opening it all was to me. It was what the young people did in the American movies I had so loved. It was those movies, I believe, that had planted the seed—the family was supposed to be poor but had a telephone, and the teenage daughter would skip out of the house and get into a huge car to drive to meet her friends at the drugstore to drink Pepsi floats! It was a whole new world, and my toe was in the water.

      Summer weekends in Muskoka became a way of life. Sometimes Jean’s family would be there: her mother, father, brother, and his girlfriend. But no one expected anything of us, and we went about our own established routine.

      For some reason, Don seemed to enjoy teasing me, naïve and unsophisticated as I was in those days. I recall he made lunch one day, and in my chicken salad sandwich he hid dried grasshoppers. I thought the sandwich tasted weird, but I was too polite not to eat it. This led to much hilarity when he later produced the container.

      A couple of weekends after that, I brought up a homemade blackberry pie. I explained I had done my best to pull off all the stems, but if anyone found one, I was sorry. After it was consumed, I put a can of dried bees in front of Don and explained that no one else would have noticed any “stems,” but that I had lifted the crust on his piece and mixed the bees in with the berries, so whatever he had noticed resembling stems had actually been bees’ legs!

      On another occasion, when we went to a local dance, Don went up to the band and announced over the microphone that a celebrated singer from England had recently arrived on their shores, and everyone should give the young lady at the table in the front (pointing at me, of course) a big hand to encourage her to get up and give them a song. I was horrified as everyone started to applaud and cheer. I cannot carry a tune and I could feel the panic rising. But this needed some fast thinking …

      When the applause died down, I stood up and said that I was so sorry to have to disappoint them, but I was under contract to a promoter in Britain and was actually forbidden to sing anywhere at all without prior arrangements with my agent. I think it was after that incident that Don started to believe he’d possibly met his match and I was not quite as gullible as he had thought. We are still the best of friends.

       Chapter Six

      Craig and I started to experience so much that was appealing about Canada. We met people through our jobs, neighbors in the apartment building, Jean and Don’s friends, Craig’s cousins’ friends, and friends of friends. Many were British and in the same boat as we were, looking for new friends in a new country. There was a big influx of people from Britain at that time, determined to get away from the lengthy aftermath of the war and find a better life. And we were all young and wanted to have fun. There had not been much fun in the lives we had all left behind.

      Craig and I went to people’s homes and parties and invited them to our home and our parties. There were get-togethers almost every weekend—Muskoka in the summer and Toronto in the winter. We always seemed to be busy socializing in one way or another. Everyone contributed to the food and liquor, which made it affordable, as none of us had much money. It was a life far and away different from anything any of us had ever known. Life in Canada was upbeat, with permission to enjoy—and we loved it.

      But it wasn’t all beer and skittles, to quote my father. There was no gold in the streets, and our financial well-being was entirely dependent on us, so we knew we had better behave responsibly. I recall living on baked beans on toast and Aunt Jemima pancakes to get through a rough spell. The rent was probably due! But we worked hard, paid back our loan (which seemed to take forever), and saved again, this time for furniture and then for a car, which was an amazing accomplishment. We bought a used Pontiac, big and blue, just like we’d seen in the movies. It was our first car ever, and we loved it.

      All of this, however, was indicative of something much larger. I was already realizing the enormous difference between England and Canada: If you had a brain in your head and were willing to work hard, Canada offered the opportunity to get a foothold, albeit at the bottom of the ladder, and to attain a better life, one rung at a time. I had felt a helplessness and hopelessness in the England we left—and we weren’t about to go back. Forget a two-year adventure. We were either here, or somewhere like it, to stay.

      It was part of my job description to work one Saturday morning in five to run the switchboard. Not my favorite thing to do, but I have since come to believe that everything happens for a reason. And there was a very good reason for my being there on one particular day.

      A man named Max Ruthven showed up that Saturday morning for a meeting with the owner of the company. They had a joint venture in another company СКАЧАТЬ