CHAPTER 18
1937
SHE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THIS MEANT. ON THE TWENTY-fourth of March, 1937, a day that turned her life “upside-down, inside-out and backwards, then way inside-out again,” Carole Bonsecours arrived home to discover that her front door had been shackled shut. A small pane in the door’s window was smashed. A heavy chain ran through it, and out a side window that had been left open a crack for fresh air. A padlock secured the links. Carole wanted to remain strong, but disbelief and torment got the better of her. In a full-blown rage, she kicked the door.
Then slumped down on her stoop.
This was real despair. She wept.
The premier, Duplessis, was cracking down on all those who offended him. Supported by the Church preaching against the red menace, he brought in the Padlock Law. Any communist or unionist, any Jew who might easily be presumed to be a communist or unionist, any unkind journalist or unfortunate jaywalker who also happened to be an immigrant and so was probably a communist sympathizer, a unionist or secretly a Jew, no matter whether he claimed otherwise, could arrive home to discover that he’d been permanently locked out of his house.
The law was now being applied to the woman who possessed the temerity to organize seamstresses, to poor Carole.
She noticed, recovering from her futile tears, that the men responsible for the sabotage were still standing around nearby and enjoying a smoke. A pair of them had had a good laugh as she kicked her house. They weren’t even policemen—mere thugs. That galled her. The small, wiry woman did what her instincts and courage demanded. She attacked.
“Whoa!” one man cried out, laughing, as she flailed away. The more pathetic her assault, the more angry she became, and she redoubled her efforts. He’d skip away like a prizefighter on the run and easily fended off her blows.
She wanted him to stop laughing. She whacked his arms and shoulders and reared back and tried to punch him in the nose, but these more serious attempts also went for naught. She lost her balance once, and he caught her and propped her up. She was so frustrated that the fight of her life had to be entirely under his control. If only she were a boy, or a very large man. If only she had a gun, she’d kill him.
She was crying, and she didn’t know for sure, but perhaps she was hysterical. He had quit laughing, and now was trying to calm her down. So she stopped her useless flailing and screamed bloody murder instead.
“This is my house! You can’t lock me out of my own house. Who do you think you are, you punk?”
The others behaved more badly, taunting her. At least this guy wanted her to calm down and spoke with basic human kindness.
But she couldn’t calm down.
“My father, you goat, left my mother this house when he died. I took care of this house since I was sixteen. My sick mother, she died—you asshole—in this house. Don’t tell me you got any right locking me out of my own house.”
All of it welled up. The hard life. Her father’s tragic death. Her mother’s long, sordid, crushing illness. The job that kept her exhausted and penniless, and the endless crusade to improve working conditions for women, which she could never cease because it had become her lifeline, kept her alive. That cause embodied the last dregs of her hope.
“You got no fucking right to do this.”
What had allowed her to persevere without succumbing had been ownership of this small, sad, sagging house. Through that gift by her father, and thanks to his life insurance policy, she had enjoyed a half-decent place to live, one that cost her next to nothing to maintain. The house gave her dignity, an advantage that other women in the rag trade could only envy.
“Give me the fucking key, you bastard. I want the key.”
Even the snakiest man was feeling less inclined to continue tormenting her. Neighbours were appearing on the sidewalk, including a few burly guys, and everybody knew that men could muster a wild ardour in a woman’s defence. If a few more showed up, the situation could worsen. The thugs now felt that their friend was doing the wise thing by trying to calm her down.
“Tough guy! Tough shit! So you can lock a woman out of her home, huh? Makes you feel big? Hardens you up? Like you got more than a hose between your legs? What did I ever do to you? You don’t even know me.”
One of the men, perhaps thinking that he was helping the situation, said something. All anyone heard was the word “communist.”
Carole Bonsecours turned on him with her venom throttled up. “You little pipsqueak shit. You think I’m a communist? Well, am I? Am I? Take a good look. Is this what you’re so afraid of? I’m half your size. You could snap my neck like a chicken’s, it wouldn’t be no different. Is this what you’re so afraid of? Is this why you wet your bed at night, praying to the Lord to keep you from being swallowed up by the big red monster? If I’m a communist, then I’m the one you’re so afraid of. I’m it. I’m the beast. So take a good look. Now tell me, what exactly are you so afraid of?”
She had a point, and the people gathering on the sidewalk nodded and murmured amongst themselves.
She spun back towards the first man she’d attacked and aimed a forefinger at him. “I work as a seamstress. That’s all I do. I sew. We’re trying to organize. The International Garment Workers’ Union will not be intimidated by these tactics.” She swept her eyes across the people in the streets, who were suddenly applauding her tirade, then her sights settled back on the first man again. “Look at my hands. Look at them! These are the hands of a seamstress. If I want to make an extra nickel an hour, why do you want to stop me? You stupid fat thug.”
“I’m not fat,” the man interjected.
A few people chuckled. Everyone could see Carole’s bile, already cranked to the limit, rise. She kept her palms raised. “So you admit it. You’re a stupid thug.”
The man shrugged. “I’m a hockey player. Played for the Blackhawks. Before I got hurt.”
“He got cut,” one of the other men said.
“You got cut. Now you’ve got nothing better to do than visit a seamstress and lock her out of her house because she wants to organize the impoverished women in her trade.” She put her hands on her hips. “Well, you’re no fucking player anymore, are you? You’re just a stupid, stupid thug who some day will be fat.”
He didn’t say anything, although he made a gesture with his head that Carole did not comprehend. She turned to see what the other men were doing. They were getting into their cars and leaving.
“Go. Scram. Home to your nightmares about communists. Piss your pants, why don’t you? You can’t do anything else with your little weenies. Maybe the commies will lock you out of your house someday, then we’ll see how you like it. Hey! If that day comes, I hope they melt the keys.”
Two cars pulled away from the curb. Carole kicked at the fender of one. She shook a fist at her tormentors, and realized then that the other man, the one she’d been berating all this time, had remained behind.
For a split second, she wondered if she should not be terribly afraid, and then, inexplicably, she didn’t think so.
“Let’s go for a short walk,” the man said. “I want to talk to you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Take a short walk.”
“What for?”
“So we can talk about your problem. I got a solution. I’m carrying it with me.”
“Talk about it right here.”
“I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Why not?” Her question was less contemptuous than she had wanted it to be, more curious than she wished to admit.
“Because I’m standing out here in a public place with everybody watching. I can’t help you in a public place. Understand something, all right? I got a job to do here. It’s my job. But maybe I can help you in private, you get me?”
She felt swayed. She didn’t want to sway. The first rule when accosting an employer or a cop on a picket line: Never let them take you out of public view. Make them answer your questions so that everyone, including the press, hears the response. Yet she felt swayed. This brute of a thug, who wasn’t fat and possibly wasn’t stupid either, was looking at her with neither contempt nor acrimony.
Anyway, the press wasn’t around. “All right,” she said.
“All right.”
They walked to the end of the block in silence and turned the corner. Now she was growing more interested, because he hadn’t said a word.
“If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “tell me first, all right?”
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t pray much. I guess I could learn in a hurry.”
He smiled, and when he looked up, he saw that she was smiling, too.
They had reached the entrance to the lane that ran behind Carole’s home. Snow had melted in recent weeks, but the lane didn’t receive much sunlight, and it remained two feet deep here.
“Okay,” he said, stopping. From his pocket he extracted a key, which he extended to her. “This fits the lock on your back door. Go in and out that way. If you cut through the lock on the front door, somebody—not me, but that won’t matter—somebody will put a new one back on. Then they’ll lock the back door again as well. So for now, this is the way you can do it.”
“Do it?” she asked.
“Get back inside your house, but so my bosses don’t know.”
She accepted the key.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I guess you must be,” she said.
“I apologize,” he said.
“I heard you the first time,” Carole said. “You don’t have to go on about it.”
“Okay then,” he said. “All right.”
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Roger Clément. Yours?”
“Carole. You played for the Blackhawks, you said?”
“Before that, the Rangers. Briefly.”
“They’re both crummy teams,” she pointed out to him.
He shrugged, and hung his head a little. Then looked away.
“I’m sorry you got cut, Roger.”
“I got hurt,” he blurted out. Then he shrugged again. “Then I got cut.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. You know. About today.”
“Yeah, you said.”
“So. I gotta go, I guess.”
“I guess you gotta lock up more houses. I gotta go, too. At least I got a place to go to now. Thanks again for that.”
“Yeah. That’s good. Yeah.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Maybe—I was thinking, you know?”
“About what?” She waited. “Yeah? What about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’d like to go out sometime. You know? I don’t know.”
“I don’t know if you don’t.”
“I was just asking. We could go out, I mean.”
“If I say no, will you lock me out of my house again?”
“I won’t—Carole, I won’t lock you out of your house no more.”
“Okay, then,” she said.
“Okay.” Then he dared to look her in the eye. “Okay what?” he asked her.
“Okay, I’ll go out with you. You mean, like, for a drink?”
“Ah. Yeah, or … I’ve been making some dough for these jobs—I mean, we could go for dinner. If you want, a movie, something like that.”
“Wow.”
“Wow?”
“Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone out for dinner.”
“Yeah? Do you wanna?”
“I guess so. It’s too bad it has to be because of these jobs, though. I feel sorry for the other people. Maybe you can help them out, too.”
He sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. Maybe not.”
“Yeah. Voo! This is weird. Okay. What the hell. I’ll go out to dinner with you.”
“That’s great.”
“Ah—do you carry a gun, Roger?”
“Yeah. Not always. Sometimes, yeah.” He lifted one of his big shoulders and let it drop, as though to say that that’s what his life was like now. He had put down his hockey stick and picked up a gun.
“Don’t, okay?”
“Ah, pardon me?”
“Your gun. When we go out, you and me, don’t carry it with you.”
“All right,” he said. “I won’t. I’ll do that. I won’t carry no gun.”
Four months later, on a warm summer afternoon in the parish church just around the corner, Carole Bonsecours and Roger Clément were married.
A weekly luncheon with friends at the Mount Royal Club had been his habit for more than three decades, yet on this occasion Sir Herbert Holt chose to make an unusually flamboyant approach. Slowed by his years, the octogenarian had nonetheless made prodigious progress from his home on Stanley Street in central Montreal to his club, a few blocks west along Sherbrooke. Four soldiers, each with a long rifle slung over his shoulder, protected him. They marched in perfect formation, with Holt shuffling along in the middle. He mounted the forbidding stone stairs, one shaky step at a time, towards the impressive oak door. Once there, he commanded his escorts to stand guard at the entrance, a precipice with a full, clear view of the active street. He promised to have the kitchen prepare a warm bite for each man. Three could form a barricade, he advised, so that the fourth could eat without insulting the vision of members as they, too, chugged up the stairs for lunch or departed. In this way they could then take turns until each man had enjoyed an elegant sufficiency.
The foot soldiers thanked him.
Then the richest, most powerful man in Canada entered his club.
As it happened, a luncheon companion, Sir Edward Beatty, had been approaching from the east in time to witness his friend’s arrival, as had Sir Charles Gordon, puffing along about a block behind Sir Herbert. Sir Edward had to stall only a half-minute at the foot of the stairs for Sir Charles to join him, and the two climbed up together, arm in arm for their mutual stability. Inside, they found Sir Herbert at their regular table by the great bay window.
“Let me guess,” Sir Edward mused. In his late seventies and considerably less wealthy than Sir Herbert, his position and influence were such that he could rival his friend’s power. “You’ve turned off the electricity on a homicidal maniac.”
“He’s done it this time,” Sir Charles added with a wink. “He’s denied heat to the cathedral.”
“I’ve seen it published,” Sir Edward continued, “that our friend will turn off the heat on a woman in labour and not lose a moment’s rest.” A French daily had made expressly that claim.
“But not if she’s a proper Englishwoman,” Sir Charles countered, as though rising in his friend’s defence, but in fact quoting the same derogatory article.
“Right. If she’s an Englishwoman, he’ll switch off her power and let her freeze,” Sir Edward postulated as he pulled back his chair and examined it for dust motes before sitting. “His conscience, however, will cause him to toss and turn for an hour, until he falls into the deep sleep of the damned.”
“So the French say.” Taking his seat, Sir Charles flashed his serviette to open it fully, then let it glide down upon his amble lap.
“Newspapers may publish what they wish, and the people are free to believe them,” Sir Herbert Holt waded in. “I say if a woman cannot pay her electric bill, or her fuel bill, she ought not to be having babies. If she is in labour for perhaps the tenth or fourteenth time, then undoubtedly the Catholic Church put her up to it. Therefore, in my opinion, it is not the responsibility of Montreal Light, Heat and Power to comfort her with warmth or electricity. That charity lies at the footstools of the bishops. Let them pay if she cannot.”
“You’re a hard man, Sir Herbert,” Sir Charles stated, “with a calloused heart.” As president of the Bank of Montreal, he was known to possess a calloused heart himself. Throughout the Great Depression he had foreclosed on thousands of families. Neither as rich nor as powerful as the other two, he had nonetheless become their most trusted ally.
“I am a businessman, Sir Charles.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Sir Edward responded.
“I’ll drink to anything,” Sir Charles acknowledged, “if only our bloody drinks would show up. What’s keeping our man?”
In their waning years, the men still ruled much of their visible world. Herbert Holt had come to Canada from Ireland, working as a young engineer on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He had retained the gaunt, fit physique those days had imposed throughout his life. His particular responsibilities had included the prairie and mountain sections of track, a task in which the young man had exulted as a test of his rough-and-readiness. After the railway had been completed, he considered his next venture carefully. He was determined to gain wealth and advancement in the world. Banking soon became his vocation, and following a brief stint with a fledgling institution, he accepted the presidency of the Royal Bank of Canada. From that august pinnacle, he was able to secure executive positions for himself in numerous enterprises, such as Montreal Light, Heat and Power, Montreal Trust, the Sun Life Assurance Company, Ogilvie Flour Mills and the Dominion Textile Company. Montrealers could not get through a day without using his power or eating his food or wearing his clothes, while his influence held lunar sway across four continents. Though he sat on the boards of directors of more than three hundred corporations, when pressed, Sir Herbert could name but a few. Yet employees of these unknown enterprises were in the nasty habit of going out on strike from time to time—lately, more often than he could stomach—and whenever they did, death threats frequently ensued. They accumulated on his desk alongside invitations to balls and fundraising dinners, and as the threats intensified to both a feverish pitch and manic frequency, overwhelming the social obligations, he’d call upon his friends in the military to protect him, hence the armed guard on this occasion.
A dour man, severe in deportment, intimidating in his personal style, in his old age leaner than ever and scraggy behind a white frosting of beard, Sir Herbert conveyed a puritanical nature and, both in his private and public lives, remained true to that bearing. He stepped away from his self-imposed bounds only for these luncheons, for his companions viewed life differently than a man of his ilk. He had long ago conceded that they had lived more interesting personal lives than his own, and had been rewarded with superior stories to relate. Indeed, in his dotage he had begun to live his life through these outlandish, often roguish, tales. His friends made him laugh, and he enjoyed a good chuckle more now than he’d ever done as a practical, ambitious youth, or as a middle-aged tycoon.
In this instance, the story told about him by Sir Charles held more than a wicked grain of truth, and did not cause him to laugh. Without hesitation, he would cut the power to anyone who had failed to pay a bill. Damn the Great Depression, damn the excuses. If the Church exhorted Catholic women to make babies to advance the population of Quebec and secure the political power of the French, then the Church could bloody well render payment for their unpaid bills. If not, the people could live in the dark and freeze in the cold—that was none of his concern. The French, he knew, would dance on his grave, delighted that he was finally wedged underground, and while he had acquired his wealth during an era void of income tax, they’d ignore that he had voluntarily taxed himself, siphoning significant funds to charities. He knew, if no others did, that he paid particular mind to charities that aided those he let freeze.
Business was business, and charity was charity. The two didn’t mix.
A different sort, Sir Edward Beatty had been the subject of whispers that his close friends knew to be true. Witness his support of the Shawbridge Boys’ Farm and Training School. Sir Edward, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, built a rail line onto the farm’s property. For a pleasurable weekend outing, he’d tuck himself away in his luxurious coach, then have it pulled north to the farm to deposit him on a private siding. There, he’d regale the delinquent boys from the slums with stories meant to encourage a change in their direction. A number of times, Sir Edward selected a young man for a junior position in one of his companies and indicated the sky as the lad’s limit. Several successful Montreal businessmen were indebted to him for being rescued from lives of crime and destitution. Although there were whispers.
Sir Edward was one of the wave of Scotsmen to come to Canada, often driven off their lands and shipped overseas against their will, who had prospered in the new land. They uttered a special prayer: “Lord, we do not ask You for money, we only ask that You show us where it is.” As had many of his countrymen, Beatty had discovered where money could be found.
He was homosexual, a situation his close friends tolerated. His success as a businessman, his genuine philanthropy and his fiscal acumen allowed them to forgive the idiosyncrasy even while their society did not. He struck a fine figure, for his stewardship included being the chancellor of McGill University and the president of the Royal Victoria Hospital. For someone in his position to be able to speak of an occasional risqué escapade to pals he knew from business was a fond luxury. These days, he had only the memories of dangerous follies with which to entertain his companions, as his health was frail and the aging process less than kind to his libido.
In contrast to the depleted homosexual, Beatty, and the arch puritan, Holt, Sir Charles Gordon remained an active womanizer. He would not own up to what he actually did with the women he’d debauch these days, in hotel rooms that Sir Edward discreetly supplied from his company’s chain, but he insisted that he not only had a good time, but so did his partner for the evening. The other two old men merely smiled and shook their heads. In truth, they didn’t want to know more, and Sir Herbert felt that he knew rather too much already.
The three knew themselves to be the very last of their breed.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had seen to it, advising the British that they were no longer to bestow titles upon Canadians. As the nation’s colonial past was being washed away, those vestiges that persisted were being given a particularly stiff scrub. Each of the three tycoons had been inaugurated into his knighthood prior to the edict, but now, as they passed on, others would not be replacing them at the knight’s table—not in this land—and they found no solace in this sad denouement of regal tradition.
Their drinks arrived. They had not been required to fill out a chit—even that wee chore had been done for them—and Sir Charles affixed his signature to the card.
“War,” Sir Herbert ruminated, “approaches.”
“Bloody row, I should think,” Sir Edward acknowledged. “Messy business.”
“Opportunity,” Sir Charles suggested, “for men of affairs. Grand opportunity.”
Sir Edward picked up on the theme. “At war’s end, one needs to find oneself well positioned. History has demonstrated exceptionally strong growth.”
“Gentlemen,” Sir Herbert pointed out to them, “need I remind you—I daresay that I do—that if this bloody thing proves to be of long duration, two years or three, as some say, no one at table will be around to do his part. No one at table will be partaking in the obvious opportunities, either during the war or after, and neither I nor either of you has a snowball’s chance in Bermuda of seeing the thing through to any conclusion, be it victory or defeat.”
“Oh, victory, surely,” Sir Edward piped up, aghast.
“Rather,” Sir Charles concurred.
“Victory, then. Even so, you will not live to see it,” Sir Herbert intoned.
Sir Charles sipped his gin. “Rather,” he agreed, albeit reluctantly.
“I say,” Sir Edward said, “jolly good humour today, old chap. Jolly good.”
“Not altogether,” Sir Herbert agreed. “Do you know why the military permits me an escort, the four stout lads outside? I don’t pay for the privilege.”
“It’s been my observation, Sir Herbert,” Sir Charles chuckled, “that you pay for very little in life.”
“Not so. The military, you see, is concerned for my safety, as they desire to keep me alive as long as possible—so that I might requisition things, you see.”
“What things?” Sir Edward inquired, interested. He himself had worried about the combat-readiness of the Canadian forces. They were deemed to be in dire shape, in poor position for war.
“I’ve agreed to purchase for the air force a squadron of fighter aircraft. Spitfires. They’re quite anxious that I live long enough to sign off on the allocation.”
Both men were still. No one really had any idea as to the full extent of Sir Herbert’s wealth, yet to be seated with a gentleman, an old friend, wealthy enough to purchase a squadron of aircraft, momentarily stunned their senses.
“The least I could do,” added Sir Herbert, to fill the pause in conversation, “given that I won’t be seeing the nasty business through. I presume you are both making your own plans to offer support, ahead of the game. You’re unlikely to be of much good if you wait too long.”
“That’s jolly good of you,” Sir Edward noted. He was duly impressed, and agreed that Sir Herbert’s tack was the correct one. If death should seize him in his sleep, his heirs were more likely to hoard their benefits than deposit them in the cause of war. “I’d rather like to purchase a tank or two, help the army along.”
“I suppose the navy could use assistance,” Sir Charles consented, although he didn’t want to get into any fundraising competition with these two gentlemen.
“A ship? A frigate—perhaps a destroyer,” Sir Herbert suggested.
“Think harder, Sir Charles. This is a time of war, and as they say, you can’t take it with you. It’s our legacy at stake. By that, I do not refer to my reputation or to yours, for I’ll be remembered as the dastardly chap who turns off the lights at night and the heat in winter. But our society, the companies we have built, the institutions we have seen take shape—all will be forsaken if the war is lost.”
“Quite right, quite right,” Sir Edward wholeheartedly agreed, and while he did not thump the table, his resolve was not to be denied. “Two tanks it is.”
“I think that I should rather like to buy the tanks,” Sir Charles suggested, “to leave you free to purchase a frigate. After all, you are in the steamship business.”
“By Jove, you might have something there. We’ll look into that, Sir Charles.”
Their first round had been finished and the next arrived, followed by the soup, a French onion. Sir Herbert seemed preoccupied during the course, failing to hear questions asked of him and failing to respond when they were repeated. As the soup bowls were being taken away and they awaited their succulent roast pork, Sir Herbert broached another issue that had been occupying his mind.
“I have in my possession,” he began, then corrected himself. “Not altogether in my possession, you understand. I have under the aegis of one of my companies, Sun Life Assurance, a certain relic, a cultural heirloom from a bygone era. I am at a loss as to what to do with the artifact, as I’m told it has significant historical relevance. I’ve had it appraised, only to discover that it has significant commercial value as well. The item is said to possess near magical powers, for anyone who has held the relic in his or her possession enjoyed prosperity. Some would argue that this did not bode true for that fellow Radisson, who had it, but kept trading it to his in-laws to help him keep his wife. The in-laws did rather well. When he finally took it back, well, his life was over, but at least he got to die in his sleep. An achievement for a man like him. In any case, prosperity came to Sun Life. By extension, it’s also true of me. The artifact was acquired by a Sun Life representative in exchange for an insurance policy, paid in full, for which the representative had to endure a scolding by his supervisor for making a questionable deal, until he managed to bring to his attention the diamond-gold handle. Now the item is worth at least as much as a squadron of Spitfires—”
“No!”
“By Jove, the man’s good fortune. You ought to pay for lunch on occasion, Sir Herbert.”
Sir Herbert looked across at him, unsmiling, without comment.
“What is the relic?” Sir Edward inquired.
“The Cartier Dagger, it’s called. Initially acquired by Jacques Cartier himself from Indians right here on the island of Montreal. Legend has it, in any case.”
“That would indeed be of rare value.”
“Complete with gold and diamonds in the handle, as I say. Stuffed away in a storage box. The company was clearing room for more office space when it was discovered. Good thing a man didn’t just walk off with it. I never would have been aware of the loss, yet it would have been grievous.”
“Indeed. Good on you, Sir Herbert, to have found such a thing.” Sir Charles made a mental note to send employees scrounging through the archives and storage rooms of his companies, to see what treasures might be lurking there.
Sir Herbert explained how the knife had come to be in the hands of Sun Life Assurance, when once it had been held by the Hudson’s Bay Company. As he rarely had opportunity to tell such a tale of high adventure, he relished every turn and nuance. He felt at one moment that the Cartier Dagger must indeed possess magic powers, for suddenly he was seen as the storyteller in the group. His friends were all ears, and delighted in the daring ascribed to Sarah Hanson.
“The dagger remained within her household for a few generations, until a dolt of a great-grandson traded it to Sun Life in exchange for an insurance policy. So it’s languished with us to this day.”
His companions shook their heads, unable to comprehend the extent of this man’s luck.
“But what to do? You see my dilemma. It’s not the sort of thing you leave to family. A recalcitrant grandson-in-law of mine will be pawning it before I’m fully comfortable in my grave. Shall I donate? But to whom? That’s the issue.”
Sir Edward, who valued his title, for it secured his station in society at a time when, if it were more known, his homosexuality would mark him as an outcast, suggested that Sir Herbert consider giving the artifact to the British monarchy. “King George plans a visit, raising spirits for the war effort. It would be a gesture.”
Sir Herbert rejected the idea out of hand as he bit into his pork. “I am loyal to the Crown. But I am an Irishman by birth and a Canadian by way of my good fortune. I cannot bestow a relic that remains of monumental importance to my adopted land to the Old Country, which is already stuffed with ancient treasure. Besides, the knife has been in the possession of the British monarchy in the past, apparently. Obviously, they gave it up, the silly, inbred dolts.”
“Give the knife to Canada, then,” Sir Charles advised.
“With that oaf, Mackenzie King, as our prime minister? I’d rather give it to the man who delivers my coal. King would receive the dagger and make himself the centre of the ceremony—use the event to win more votes. No! He’s taken away the possibility of knighthood from our younger peers, and the three of us, we’d be lords by now if not for him. For that reason alone, he cannot receive the relic. Canada’s loss, but nothing’s to be done.”
“King,” Sir Edward scoffed, “has declared ten times that we will not go to war in defence of any nation. Did you hear his speech? No foreign wars, he says. We all know he’s lying. All to win votes in Quebec, the scoundrel.”
“Meanwhile,” Sir Charles took note, “the air force is collecting promises for fighter aircraft from our friend over here.”
“The government is building the military for the defence of Canadian soil,” Sir Herbert pronounced. “The military has been given free rein to prepare for our national defence through private resources. It must be done, but it’s all such nonsense, half-measures, and it’s all that blackguard King’s fault. He tells Hitler he’ll fight on the side of Britain, that’s fine, but tells the people of Quebec he will not fight at all. Hitler takes solace, I tell you. No one else does.”
“I have just the ticket,” Sir Edward sparkled. “Oh, this is splendid. Place the dagger in trust, to be given at war’s end to a great Canadian hero. Why not? If the military wants to raise private funds, they cannot say no to an honour bestowed by private financiers.”
Their discussion, then, became quite animated as they debated the merits and demerits of the notion. Sir Charles was concerned that the knife would be won by a foot soldier who’d then return to his life as a fisherman or a woodsman, only to have his wife use the blade to skin fish or hack apart a moose. That wouldn’t do. “Bit of a pickle that,” Sir Edward agreed. Sir Herbert could not tolerate the thought that a recipient might sell the relic for its exceptional value, something his heirs would surely do, causing the knife to soon appear in the hands of a Swiss banker or “a miner from Bolivia.” That wouldn’t do, either. He noted that many genuine heroes in battle would have neither the resources to secure the relic from theft, should it be given to one of them, nor be able to manage the insurance premiums.
Yet the idea evolved, and by the time they had finished their succulent pork they had decided that the Cartier Dagger should be held in perpetual trust by Sun Life, or by trustees the company might appoint should the business fail. The relic could then be presented to a suitable Canadian war hero who had become, after the war—this was Sir Edward’s contribution—the president or chief executive officer or chief operating officer of a major corporation. The corporation would then hold the knife in trust until the demise of either the hero or the company, whichever came first, when it would be returned to Sun Life, who would then seek another national hero who was also a business executive to receive the knife on loan. “In this way, the so-called magical powers of the ancient dagger will be put to good use, to the benefit of an enterprise. Nobody will use it for whittling.”
“Do you know,” Sir Herbert enthused, “receiving the knife could become as significant as receiving a knighthood. Or a lordship. The closest thing to it in our land. Nothing Mackenzie King can do about it either, the oaf.”
The idea took hold. Sir Herbert Holt and his companions left the Mount Royal Club that day happier than when they had arrived, believing that they had devised a secret legacy for themselves that, apart from tanks and Spitfires and frigates, would allow them to celebrate the victory of their nation in war. Although they’d likely not be alive to join the festivities, they could now gaze out upon the gathering cloud of battle, and upon the larger parade of eternity, with brighter, more expectant, eyes.
“Good roast pork today,” Sir Herbert mentioned upon reaching street level.
“Succulent.” Sir Charles smacked his lips.
Sir Edward had a sudden thought. “I say, Sir Herbert, we’re going your way.”
“That’s true, we are,” Sir Charles concurred.
“Jolly good, then,” Sir Herbert offered. “Fall into step. Look lively now.”
The three old men shuffled their way east on Sherbrooke Street, enjoying the escort of the four riflemen. They smiled at their friends, waved to those who gazed from windows, feeling that victory was in the air, even that they were somewhat younger again—stalwart lads, heroes returned from the trenches to commandeer their country’s devotion.
Only when she went out with him did she realize how lonely she’d allowed herself to become. Only when she laughed with Roger did she understand that her spirit had cracked, that she’d been living on a fortitude nurtured deep within herself. She did not recognize her reflection, not as she had appeared back then and certainly not now, this fresh smile in her eyes, this sudden jittery laughter in the throat. Who is this dame? She recognized only her fierce determination to neither succumb nor die. Now she was seeing someone else—the person she might become, but also, the person she had always meant herself to be. Only when she kissed him did she realize that she was worn, that in another month without him, or a week, or an hour, she’d have been worn right down, forever. Only when he held her in his arms under the rear porch light to her home—because she still could not enter by the front door—did she grasp that her life these days was dangerous, that anyone entering her life submitted to danger. The only man who could love her had had to be a man with big fists and a brave heart, and maybe even a pistol on his hip. Who else could survive her existence?
His imperfections made him perfect.
When she guided him into her bed, she didn’t let him up. She let him know that she wasn’t going to be padlocked under his great bulk. He was astonished by the force of her desire. She told him what to do and how to behave, and he had never heard of a woman like this. He complied until he was unable to do anything other than move with her. She exhausted him first. Later, she let him hold her, drop that heavy arm around her while she slept. Only then did she accept that she now needed and loved this man. If he had ideas in his head she despised, she’d hate those ideas, but she’d still love him. She admitted that she had no choice in the matter. If Roger loved her, too, then she’d be free, and count herself as blessed. If he didn’t—but she could not imagine that, so would not allow herself to try.
Roger loved her. He said so often. When she teased that all men spoke foolish things to the women sleeping with them, he was nearly apoplectic. He couldn’t stand that she might not believe him. She was still only teasing, just kidding around, when she said, “So prove it.”
“How?” He’d climb mountains, learn to swim seas, fix her shingles … what?
“What’s wrong with my shingles?”
“Don’t change the subject. How do I prove it?”
“You don’t like my roof?”
“Have you taken a look at it lately? What can I do to prove myself?”
“I dunno. Marry me, I guess.”
He didn’t hesitate for a second. He immediately dropped to one knee and asked her properly. She then tried to talk him out of it, tickled him and laughed him off and told him to be serious and scolded him for being a big, dumb, well-built thug. She put her hands on her hips and stomped a foot and screamed his name, “Roger!” as if trying to call him back from the land of the clinically insane, but he would not be dissuaded. So she said yes.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Yes,” she repeated, very quietly, her well of determination surfacing again.
Why not? She had never claimed ownership of her life before. Now she did.
Problems arose that were not typical of most married couples. Roger led a battalion of goons to a picket line, intending to clear the way for thirty female scabs on a bus. The men piled out of their cars with baseball bats and wire cutters to open a hole in the factory fence away from the entrance where the picketers had gathered, when the strikers spotted them and converged. They were all women. The men put their bats down because they weren’t willing to use them on women. Then Roger realized that the voice over the bullhorn was speaking directly to him. “Roger Clément! Get away from that fence!”
The goons thought it strange that their leader was being addressed by name, and they looked at the woman, then back at Roger, who said, “Uh-oh.”
“Roger! Get away from the fence!”
He walked up to the woman with the megaphone and tried to speak so that he would not be heard by the others. “Carole, what are you doing here?”
She chose to speak through the bullhorn. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m breaking up this strike,” he whispered. “I’m leading the scabs inside.”
She shouted into the bullhorn, “He says he’s breaking up the strike!”
Eighty women shouted back, “NO!”
“He says he’s leading the scabs inside.”
“NO!” the women shouted back as one.
“What do you say to that?” Carole asked the throng.
“NO!” the women roared back, and circled closer.
She put the bullhorn right up to his face. “Are you going to use those baseball bats on women?” she asked the strikebreaker. “If you do, mine is the first head you’ll have to crack, just so you know. Are you going to drive that scab bus over our bodies?”
One of the thugs behind Roger defiantly called back, “If we have to!”
“Because I’ll be first to lie down in the road!” Carole called through the horn.
“That’s okay with me!” the thug shouted back.
Roger turned around to face him. “She’s my wife,” he told him.
“What?” he asked. Then he told the others. “She’s his wife.”
“Carole, come on, what’re you doing here? You don’t work here.”
She lowered the horn to her side. “This is what I do. Defend striking women.”
“Well, this is what I do. I bust up strikes.”
“Not today. Not this strike.”
“Yes, today,” he argued back. But then he caught himself. “They’ll send other guys if I fail.”
“Fine. I’ll bust their balls, too.”
The standoff was short-lived. Roger turned to lead his men away, and they all expected to be going at that point. After all, a man could not beat up his wife in public, not even when it was his job.
Carole called, “Hey.”
Roger turned to face her again.
She kissed him on the lips.
Then she picked up her bullhorn and shouted, “Go home!”
The women promptly responded to the cue. “GO HOME!”
“GO HOME!”
“GO HOME!”
Before that rising chorus, the thugs and the scab bus departed. The women beat their fists upon the cars and the bus and cheered as the vehicles vanished down the road. For Carole, the day was a lovely victory.
Roger, on the other hand, had some explaining to do to his bosses.
The couple tried to find Roger a new profession. He tried factory work first. Men were eager to take on the guy with the fists, with the big reputation. He’d come home bleeding and feeling vilified. Nobody wanted the former hockey lug lifting cement bags or picking out the defects on an assembly line. They wanted him to take on challengers during the noon break, or to crack the boss’s nuts, or to come along with a bunch of the guys for a drink after work, and after that—you know how it is—they wanted him to work over this one guy who owed this other guy money from an unpaid bet that the first guy said he’d never made. They wouldn’t leave him alone, and sometimes Roger talked about it to Carole around the kitchen table.
“When I was paid to use my fists, I never had to. I never hit nobody. Almost never. Hardly ever. I just showed up, and maybe I smashed some tables and chairs, or knocked out a window. I damaged the furniture. The worst I did—”
“The worst you did was lock my front door.”
“Right. But the next worst thing, this one guy had a toy train set. He had the Rocky Mountains in there and everything. A little postman delivering the mail, and milk trucks. He had bridges and rivers and a complete village, with tiny dogs and women in fancy clothes, everything just right. The train went around in a circle, into a tunnel for a while—it was really neat—then it came back out, blowing its teensy horn. Toot-toot! So anyways, I smashed his toy train set, and I think, afterwards, he’d’ve preferred it if I crushed his skull. Anyways, that was the next worst thing to locking your door. Okay, the occasional bloody nose—nothing big, you understand me? I intimidate, that’s the word for it. That’s all I do. I never hurt nobody unless a guy was stupid enough to take the first swing.”
“Yeah. So? You’re not doing that anymore.” They were talking by candlelight and she gently caressed the back of his big right hand. His friends said his right hand could knock out a truck.
“I’ve already beat up six guys from my factory. Look at my knuckles, they’re all cut, bloody. Tomorrow, there’s two tough guys coming over from the factory four blocks down to see if one of them can take me.”
Carole sighed. He did have a problem. The good honest life of the workingman just wasn’t up to snuff. “You could lose,” she suggested. “Then maybe nobody will care about taking you on anymore.”
He looked at her as though she’d lost her mind.
“What?” she asked him.
“You don’t understand,” he pointed out to her. “Losing means I end up half-dead. Or all dead.”
She thought about that. Then the reality of his life occurred to her, why he was feeling so badly.
“Roger, do you mean that, when you fight, you—” She didn’t want to say it.
“Usually the other guy ends up in the hospital. Sometimes I knock a guy out with just one punch. He’s out cold, but at least that way he’s not a bloody mess.”
Maybe he should go back to being a goon. Life was more peaceful that way.
“I don’t like beating up all these guys,” he said. “I didn’t like it in hockey, I don’t like it now.”
“Tell you what,” she said. Gently, she placed her fingers on his muscled forearm. “Go earn your living whatever way you know how. Something better will come along. For now, I’ll stay out of it.”
“You have to tell me what picket lines you’re on.”
“That’s a deal.”
She didn’t like it though when he smashed up politicians’ offices.
“Roger. He’s the good guy.”
“What makes him so good?”
She’d have to explain it.
“Then he should hire me to smash up the other guy’s office.”
“Roger, sweetie, that’s why he’s the good guy, because he doesn’t hire goons.”
She was especially unhappy when he disrupted polling booths and frightened voters away.
“Was that necessary?”
“It’s my job.”
“To destroy democracy? To stand in the way of the people? To not allow working men and women to exercise their right to vote? Roger, that’s wrong.”
“But they’re voting the wrong way.”
She’d have to explain it to him. “Even though I prefer that votes go one way and not another, I accept that people have the right to their own choice. That’s why we have a vote—so that everybody can decide who wins, not some pack of goons.”
“I don’t decide who wins.”
“Ah, honey, sweetie, actually, you do. You know nothing about politics, nothing about the issues, nothing about the politicians involved, yet you, sweetie, you and your two big fists and all your ballot-stuffing friends, you decide who wins. Now, do you think that’s right?”
He didn’t know if it was right, but he thought better of himself somehow.
“No, sweetie, that’s not the point.”
“Anyways, what’s so wrong with ballot stuffing? Nobody gets hurt and we get the right result.”
That’s when she realized that he was teasing her, and she smacked him on the bicep, then held her sore hand and winced. By the end of the discussion, as they did after so many others, they took one another to bed and enjoyed all that, too.