CHAPTER NINE
1956

A few days after The Hill was telecast, Stephanie sat in the back seat of the Austin beside her little suitcase, unusually quiet. Paul suspected the reason. The Easter holidays were ending. Back to school for her.

“So there weren’t a lot of hate letters from the show?” asked Angela.

“No. Sydney was sure afraid. But the reactions so far have been fine, even surprisingly good. Even from clerics.”

“And you said you’ve gotten your next show?”

“A General Motors called Seat of the Scornful. Goes out April 17th. But I know he’s going to insist on an even worse script, Tolliver’s Travels for May 29th. But there’s a Spanish dancer you could do.”

Angela brightened. “Tell me about it.”

Paul nodded. “When it’s set.” He lapsed into silence, Stephanie being his main preoccupation.

Angela turned to look at her daughter and smiled, with no answering look. “You know Stephanie, I’ll be home all this term. You’ll come home on Saturdays. Every second week, I think.”

No reply from Stephanie. Paul knew she didn’t like St. Mildred’s, the boarding school for young girls run by nuns. When it came time for Steph to enter grade one last September, Angela had enrolled her there before going on tour.

After Christmas, taking Stephanie back to the school had produced quite a scene. Paul prayed it wouldn’t be repeated. He had been staying (clandestinely) off and on at Angela’s tiny one-room flat on Church Street. But it had felt cramped for both of them, so one day he’d suggested: “I think I’ll go up and stay at Harry’s for a while.”

“What’s wrong with my flat? It’s close to your office, so convenient for you. That’s one of the reasons I took it.”

“It’s wonderful, Angela, but Harry might build a room in his basement.”

“Harry? Is he a carpenter?”

Paul chuckled. “Of course not. But he knows a nice guy in a hardware store who could tell us what to do. We’d both build it.”

He remembered the sceptical look, mixed with annoyance, on Angela’s face. But build the room they did, spartan of course, adding Stephanie’s single bed from the Vaughan Road apartment and a small unpainted desk. All he needed. And now Cay didn’t mind as her new lodger was mostly out, save for evenings when, due to his new interest in astronomy, he’d bought a six inch telescope to watch planets, nebulae, and star clusters in the crisp dark air.

They pulled up outside St Mildred’s. Little Stephanie carried her suitcase, so Paul offered to take it but she pulled away angrily. They rang the bell, and a sister in a black outfit opened the door and ushered them into the vestibule. “Welcome back, Stephanie, we are delighted to see you again!”

Stephanie didn’t reply and another Sister, also dressed in black, took Stephanie by the hand. “We’ll go down to the cellar where you can take off your coat and then you’ll come up and say goodbye to Mummy and Daddy.”

“He’s not my daddy,” snapped Stephanie and held back. But the nun had a firm grip, and almost dragged her out of the room. Paul grimaced, but then Sister Grace ushered them into a neat but sterile drawing room, where they sat to discuss Stephanie.

The Sister Mary Adela admitted that Stephanie did not seem overly happy, but for the most part was a good little student, and obedient; they discussed what the nuns taught the students at her age. She slept in a room called “the baby dorm” and had made friends with an even younger girl, which made her a little happier. Angela explained again about her tour, that this winter they had danced all over the eastern and southern United States, travelling between cities every day on buses, which, by the way, carried no toilets. But now she was back and would be able to see Stephanie every second weekend, according to rules. The Sister allowed as how this would probably make it easier on the little darling.

Stephanie returned, and Paul found out later that the other nun had stayed below to clean up the vomit, for Steph threw up every time she had to go back.

They went into the vestibule. “Well, goodbye darling.” Angela bent to hug her daughter.

“I bet this time, you’ll enjoy it,” exclaimed Paul! He cheerily gave her a hug, which she resisted. As they turned to go, Stephanie began to wail and rushed to her mother, clinging tightly to her legs.

Taken aback, Angela gently tried to unwrap her, murmuring, “Don’t worry, Stephanie, I’ll be right here all spring — we can see you every second weekend, it’ll be all right.” That only made her wail louder and the high-pitched screams brought another nun. Sister Mary Adela bent and tried to unwrap Stephanie, which meant she only screamed louder and hugged tighter. “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy.”

The second nun, obviously more adept at this, with arms and fingers of steel pried Stephanie off her mother and dragged her by the arm through the door, still yelling.

Angela and Paul looked on helplessly. The bewildered Sister escaped inside and hurriedly closed the door.

Paul and Angela walked slowly back to the car.

They drove for a time in silence. But Paul could contain himself no longer. Not only had Stephanie’s treatment disturbed him no end, but Angela’s clinging ways — so stifling — how many times had she claimed, “You don’t love me,” when he had done his best to reassure her, over and over. It was all just too much. He didn’t know what to do. Having had no experience of what a good relationship should be, no father and mother loving each other, in fact no father at all, how couples behaved, how they related in a happy union — it was all simply beyond him. Was this all there was to life? If he got free, for a time, perhaps... yes, he must get free. Get away now, was his only thought, for good or ill.

He blurted out: “Angela, I’ve got to get away this summer. I’ve got to. I’m going back to Oxford to collect some of my things.”

Angela, also shaken by the previous scene, did not mince words as she cut him off: “You’re not going to leave me!”

“Not leave you, Angela,” Paul replied, almost angrily. “I haven’t been to Europe for three years. I left a lot of things in Oxford and I have to collect them.”

“Just have them sent back! I don’t want you to go. You can see what troubles I have. I need you here.”

“I have troubles too, Angela. But...” He tried to soften, knowing she was under strain. “I want to travel again. I’m getting the summer off.”

“I’ll have a fortnight off too, we can be together. We can go to Apple Barrel.”

“I’ve been to Apple Barrel. I want to go back to England. You know I’m getting my M.A. conferred at the Sheldonian Theatre.

“So go over, get your MA, and come right back.”

“No, I want to see things. I’ve never been to Scandinavia. Northern Finland, it’s even above Québec province, above the Arctic Circle. Imagine, so close to the North Pole.”

“You know I can’t come, I have to take class every day. You’re just being selfish.”

“Selfish? Is that what you call somebody who wants to better himself?”

“You can better yourself here.”

And so the arguments would rage on, most evenings when they met for dinner in the tiny apartment. But they would often end in reconciliation, and then lovemaking. They both did really enjoy being together, Paul reflected. But something was still so unsatisfactory. He had to get away and be alone, to think. And to decide on this relationship once and for all.

And what better way than in the birch forests of Lapland?

***

As soon as Paul arrived in Helsinki, each day was full: hitchhiking north to Lapland in the back of a truck with a couple of Australian nurses on a load of smoked reindeer meat, which had a roly-poly feel, shifting as the truck bumped along the gravel road, more enticing than any mattress. Later, they all had a real Finnish sauna at the driver’s farm. After the welcome heat, birch branches had been fetched and they all slapped themselves, then dashed outside to splash in a barrel of icy water.

Watching the midnight sun at Nordkapp so very far above the Arctic Circle was the highlight for Paul, then sleeping on a ferry deck on the four-day trip down Norway’s coast past indelible fjords. By the time Paul arrived back in London to stay with Stanley Myers and his new wife, he had forgotten any Angela troubles.

A couple years previously, they had married and now had a little son, Nicholas. Eleanor Fazan, known to everyone as Fiz, had a lithe dancer’s body, athletic rather than voluptuous, large round eyes in features that spoke of warmth. She told him she’d been brought up in Kenya.

Paul went over his central problem with Stanley. “You know, Stanley, I’ve been with Angela now for some time, but there’s so much... I can’t take. I don’t know what to do. I think I need to get free.”

“Your letters said she was pretty darned attractive.”

“True, but so clingy! She keeps saying: ‘You don’t love me.’ I do — as much as I can. But when she clings, I kind of draw back.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“When I get back? Break it off. I think...”

“You think?” Stanley smirked.

“Well, I’ll try, anyway.”

But the next three weeks in London took his mind off it. He saw Christopher Plummer perform, who afterwards asked about Paul’s mother, Rene, with whom he had acted in Coriolanus in Montreal. Peter Dale Scott showed off a stunning new wife, Maylie Marshall, whom Paul fell for rather heavily, but she was firmly attached. Ronnie and Rose Marie Duncan came to London and invited him to dinner. He had drinks with Tony Richardson who was heading up the new Royal Court Theatre that Ronnie had begun.

Before leaving England, Paul trained north to the Edinburgh Festival and stayed with Chris Bell and the Oxford Theatre Group he had helped. He spent a day with pretty red-haired Deirdre who had travelled with him and the Oxford and Cambridge players all around England. She had married Neil, an Oxford student and electrician on OUDS productions — the son and heir of Lord Rosebery.

But when finally Paul came back to Toronto, Angela happily provided dinners, her lovely body welcomed him under the covers and, for the life of him, he found it impossible to make the break. Routine overtook them both.

Off she went again on tour: eight cities and twenty eight performances in November and December. When she arrived back, they picked Stephanie up from St. Mildred’s and went to the Zoo.

A few months ago, Glenn Gould had given Paul’s skunk to Riverdale Zoo in the Don Valley. They hadn’t expected to see Alice but in one enclosure, a little creature with black-and-white stripes was grubbing for beetles. Most skunks look the same, but when Paul called, the little animal ambled in their direction and finally ended up at the fence. Stephanie had been delighted. “I think Alice remembers us!”

“She sure does,” Paul agreed. “She seems happy.”

As they left, Paul’s thoughts were diverted by Angela bringing up the recent flight of the Sputnik on the fourth of October. That and the foreign minister, Lester Pearson, winning the Nobel Prize for his work on the Suez crisis. But for Paul, this visit was about Stephanie, and he quickly turned his attention to her.

“Now that you’re taking ballet, Stephanie, won’t it be fun to watch your mother rehearse?” At seven years old, Steph had been taken to her first class in September with the company’s ballet mistress, Betty Oliphant, at her studio on Sherbourne. “You know Steph, I like your hair short.”

“I hate it!” Stephanie complained. “Matron didn’t want to have to do my pigtails, so she just cut them off.”

Paul didn’t know quite what to say, but Stephanie went on. “Then Jane,” her father’s new girlfriend, “took me to Holt Renfrew and they cut even more. I was late getting back to the school, so when Matron found me, she pushed me down stairs, and I tumbled to the bottom.” Paul could see her little face go into a grimace, as if to cry.

“But Matron has left this term,” Paul quickly reassured her. “If that happens again, you tell Angela or me right away. Other parents must have complained. They don’t get away with that stuff forever.”

Stephanie allowed that she was happier now.

“And how are you liking Grade 2?”

“All right.”

Poor little thing, but what else could Angela do? Since Paul had come back from Europe, his slate had been full. In October, General Motors had moved to Sunday nights, no longer sponsored. Angela had gone on tour and he’d directed four more dramas. So this Saturday, the first time all three would be together, they went out to dinner after the zoo.

To cheer them up, Angela said, “Celia seems excited about the new Canada Council.”

“I heard something about that. Wasn’t it set in motion this spring? March or something?

“Yes, based in Ottawa. It’s already started.”

“But why would that excite Celia?”

“She thinks it will give money to artists, and writers, and, well, orchestras and so on...”

“And of course, the ballet company!”

“We hope so. We’ve all been talking about it. Louis St. Laurent and his Liberals started it, to promote works of art.”

“Quite a mouthful!” Paul grinned.

This December 8th 1956 was unseasonably cold. For two days snow had fallen and decorated the lawns and awnings in white. The company had left the St Lawrence Market, needed as winter accommodation for the homeless, so Paul was driving them to Pape Hall, where they now rehearsed. The double doors were big enough to admit trucks of horse feed stored on the ground floor. They climbed a narrow staircase and along the dusty corridor past the costume department where James Ronaldson, a former dancer, made costumes and gave dancers their fittings. Paul called to say hello to Jimmie, at work up a ladder in his tiny loft.

James called back, “Please keep the door shut, it’s freezing.”

They went into the dance studio, if it could be called that. One window only four feet wide reached the ceiling and two old iron radiators, three feet off the floor, threw off tepid heat. The ceiling often leaked — when it wasn’t snowing. Thankfully in January, when performing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, they would do class and rehearsals on a warm stage. Here, with nowhere to change into practice tights, the dancers had littered one side of their dance studio with outdoor garments.

While waiting for their enchaînements, dancers wore coats and huddled together for warmth. Angela saw her daughter arrive and hurried across to kiss Stephanie, then tore back, threw off her coat, and began rehearsing. Paul and Stephanie found a couple of chairs, and sat to watch. Celia spotted Paul and waved.

Myrna winked at him and Colleen Kenny came tripping over to kiss Paul. They whispered, but stopped when Celia glanced in their direction. Stephanie sat up straight, watching every movement.

***

“Sure is cold in there, Angela, don’t know how you all do it.” Paul drove them home, Stephanie in the back seat.

“That’s the way it is, old bean. Now how do you like your new offices on Front Street?”

“Horrible,” Paul replied. “More space, but no windows, except at the front where Sydney’s office is. Ron Weyman is doing well on the half-hours, Mel Breen has been elevated to director, so he does one occasionally. No one’s as busy as me, unfortunately.”

Angela turned to her daughter. “How did you like the rehearsal, Stephanie?”

“Okay. Celia does our Chechetti exams. Everyone’s afraid of her.”

“No Stephanie, we all like her. She has to be like that or she couldn’t run the company. She’s very nice.”

Paul nodded. “On tour, Angela, anyone hear about the November 1st Springhill disaster in Nova Scotia? Forty miners died.”

She looked at him, and frowned. “Paul, our alarm clocks wake us up, we roll out of bed, run downstairs, grab breakfast, check out, jump on the bus, none of us ever reads a newspaper. Once on the bus, we fall asleep, but they wake us up for a pee break. When we get to the city, often we don’t even check in, we just go straight backstage, put on wet white and makeup, do our hair, and out we go on stage.”

“Day after day?”

“Day after day.” Angela smiled. “But what else are we going to do? Sit around in unemployment offices wishing we could spend the rest of our lives appearing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre?”