“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
“It was okay.”
“What’s on your mind, little buddy?”
“I got put in tortoises for Reading,” she mumbles.
Jack doesn’t laugh, he knows it’s serious stuff. Once he has got her to explain the rating system, he asks, “Why’d he do that?” Madeleine feels her indignation afresh, remembering now how she had planned to tell Dad all along, before the exercises made her feel grateful to Mr. March for promising not to tell.
“He made me stay after three”—it feels good to own up to it.
“What for?”
“… Exercises.”
“What kind of exercises?”
Madeleine doesn’t say “backbends.” Now that she is here sitting on the couch with Dad, she feels it was a bit bad of her to do back-bends in a dress in front of Mr. March when they weren’t even in the gym.
“For my concentration,” she says.
“But you’re a great reader.”
“I know.”
He considers a moment. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Tell me about Mr. March.” And he puts down the newspaper.
“Well. He talks really slowly. He has glasses. He doesn’t like us.”
Jack smiles. “I have a feeling I know what’s going on.”
“What?”
Dad knows about the backbends. But he doesn’t sound mad. He sounds as if he is going to say, Mr. March made you do backbends so the blood would flow to your head. That’s perfectly normal, and Madeleine is relieved, she has not been bad after all.
“You’re bored,” says Dad.
“Oh.”
“Einstein failed the third grade, because he was bored. Churchill failed Latin. President Kennedy can speed-read a book in twenty minutes but he did very poorly as a kid in school.”
I’m bored. That’s all it is.
“Now, I’m not saying it’s good to be bored. It’s a problem. You’ve got to make a challenge for yourself to keep things interesting.”
“Okay.”
“What’s your aim here?”
“Um. To get back to hares.”
“What’s your first step going to be?”
“Um. Don’t daydream.”
“Well yeah,” says Jack, nodding, taking it under advisement. “But how are you going to manage that when he’s so darn boring?”
Madeleine thinks, then says, “I could have a nail in my pocket and squeeze it really hard.”
Jack laughs less than he wants to, then nods. “Yeah, that might work in the short term, but what about the long term, once you get used to the pain?” She doesn’t have an answer.
He folds his arms. “Well …”—looks at her speculatively—“there’s something else you can do, but it’s not going to be easy.”
“What?”—eager for the challenge.
He narrows his eyes at her. “Let Mr. March think you’re interested. When he’s talking, look straight at him”—he points at her—“not out the window, never take your eyes off him as long as his lips are moving. That’ll be the best exercise in concentration of all. There are very few good teachers in the world, they’re a gift.”
“Like Uncle Simon.”
Jack chuckles and rubs her head. “That’s right, old buddy. But meantime you’ve got sorry old Mr. March. I’ve met him.”
“You have?”
“Sure, when Maman and I registered you at the school, so I know what you’re talking about. He’s no genius. But let me tell you, you’re lucky you have him for a teacher.”
“I am?”
“Yes, because there are lots of Mr. Marches in the world and very few Uncle Simons. You have to be able to learn from the Mr. Marches and that’s up to you. ’Cause at the end of the day, Mr. March isn’t going to be around to take the blame. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yup.”
“Press on,” he says, as adamantly as if he were addressing a young pilot. “There’s an old saying for when the battle is raging and you’ve been hit.”
Madeleine waits for it.
Dad regards her steadily, his right eye dead serious, his left eye no less so, if a little sad—it can’t help it. “You put your head down, and you bleed a while. Then you get back up and keep on fighting.”
Madeleine will look Mr. March in the eye and never miss a word. He will put felt hares next to her name. He will be amazed. And there will be nothing he can do about it, she will be so concentrated.
Jack smiles at the expression on her face. Spitfire.
He returns to his Globe and Mail and reads the joke on the front page: Your Morning Smile: The man still wears the pants in the typical family. If you don’t believe it, look under his apron. He’ll have to show that one to Henry Froelich. He skims. 200 MiGs in Cuba. Turns the page: The Cold War Comes to Latin America…. Fun ’n’ games.
In bed, Mimi puts down her Chatelaine magazine and asks, “Did you find out what was wrong?”
“Wrong with what?”
“Madeleine.”
“Oh, yeah,” says Jack, “she had a little problem daydreaming. Got nailed for it by the teacher, Mr. Marks.”
“Mr. March,” says Mimi. “Is it serious?”
“Naw,” he says, “she’s got it under control.”
Mimi lays her cheek on his shoulder, strokes his chest; he covers her hand with his and squeezes. Continues reading his book, Men and Decisions.
She says, “She seemed so upset.”
Eyes still on the page, “Oh I don’t know, I think maybe….”
“What?”
“Well maybe she was more upset by the cross-examination,” he says, as though idly speculating.
Mimi lifts her head a little. “Did I cross-examine her?”
“A bit.” His tone says, No big deal. He is not looking to criticize her.
She pauses, then nestles in, runs two fingers across his nipple, says, “You’re such a nice papa.”
He smiles. “Yeah?”
She raises herself on one elbow; he closes his book and reaches for the lamp switch. “Come here, Missus.”
The sand dunes of Pinery Provincial Park are the perfect setting for Desert Rat warfare. Mike plays with her all weekend. They battle and escape and die elaborately, tumbling down the dunes—impossible to hurt yourself no matter how high you jump from, sand in your hair, a sandcastle that takes all day, sand in your sandwiches. Into the clean water of Lake Huron, riding the breakers all that windy Saturday, and that night, tucked into her sleeping bag next to her brother, Madeleine closes her eyes and sees the water cresting endlessly to shore on the movie screen inside her lids. Just smell the canvas of the good old tent, the friendly musk of the air mattress and, when the campground is quiet and you hear the sizzle of the last campfire of the last camping trip of the season being doused, listen to what was behind the silence all along: the waves in your ears, soundtrack to the surf behind your eyes.
On Sunday evening when they return, there is a moving van in the driveway of the little green bungalow.
THE QUIET AMERICANS
The nature of this national identity is a question Canadians agonize over…. When asked, they can describe it only in negative terms. They may not know what it is, but they are sure of what it is not. It is not American.
Look, April 9, 1963
“CLASS, SAY HELLO to Claire.”
“Hello, Claire.”
Funny how a new kid makes you feel as though the rest of you have been together for ages. Suddenly you are a group and there is an air pocket around the newcomer. She does not belong. Even Grace belongs, in her way.
Claire McCarroll arrived just after the nine o’clock bell, with her father. Holding his hand. Mr. McCarroll resembled all the other dads in Centralia, but if you looked closely at the badge on his air force hat you would see an eagle with outspread wings, thirteen stars encircling its head, one claw clutching an olive branch, the other several arrows. Above his left breast pocket were his wings
, outstretched on either side of the shield of the United States of America, topped by a star. His uniform was a deeper blue than those of the Canadian dads, and when he moved, the weave imparted a grey sheen. The effect was pleasingly foreign and familiar all at once.
Claire was dressed in baby blue, from barrettes to ankle socks. She carried a Frankie and Annette lunchbox suspended from her wrist like a purse. No one ever stays at school for lunch so Madeleine wondered what she had in there. Auriel passed a note to Madeleine that read, “Is she your long-lost sister?” They did look something alike. Dark brown pixie cuts, heart-shaped faces and small noses. Except Madeleine was taller and the new girl had blue eyes, shyly downcast. No one had yet heard her speak. She reminded Madeleine of a porcelain figurine—something lovely for your mantelpiece.
Mr. March shook hands with her father, then escorted Claire to her seat—he can be nice sometimes. The American dad hesitated in the doorway and waved to Claire. She waved back and blushed. Madeleine understood that. Finally her embarrassing dad left and everyone stared at Claire as she sat and folded her hands on her desk. And everyone—at least all the girls—noticed her beautiful silver charm bracelet.
Mimi, Betty Boucher, Elaine Ridelle and Vimy Woodley are in mid-protest on Sharon McCarroll’s front step.
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” says Vimy.
Sharon has invited them in but the ladies have only dropped by to welcome her, deliver an information kit and a plate of squares, and extend the formal invitation for the young woman to join the Officers’ Wives Club. Sharon was immediately endearing because she instantly asked them in, allowing them to decline vigorously. She’s a pretty little thing. Mimi is reminded of an actress … which one?
From the front porch it’s plain to see that the McCarrolls’ house contains the usual forest of cardboard boxes and errant furniture, but Sharon is neatly turned out in pumps and a bright little short-sleeved dress, a Willkommen plate already graces the wall of the tiny front hall, alongside a commemorative plaque of her husband’s squadron at Wiesbaden, and the smell of baking is coming from her kitchen. Impressive, but not surprising in an American service wife. Their ability to march in and out on a dime and a blaze of home-baked, fully accessorized glory is legendary.
What is surprising—and the women will discuss this later—is that Sharon McCarroll is not what you would expect of a fighter pilot’s wife. Especially an American one. She is shy. Soft-spoken. She makes Mimi, and perhaps the other women too, feel … American.
“We’re just the Welcome Wagon.” Elaine Ridelle is in pedal pushers and tennis shoes, still managing to look girlish six months into her pregnancy.
“We aren’t here to see you put the kettle on, love,” says Betty. Betty unfailingly wears a dress—in this instance a crisp shirtwaist. Not due to any old-world view of proper female attire, but because she knows how to bring out the best in her figure, which is pleasingly plump. “Put a pair of trousers on me and I’d look like a beached whale,” she has said. Which is an exaggeration, but Mimi respects a woman who knows her own good and not-so-good points. Mimi herself is in a pair of lemon-yellow cigarette pants and a sleeveless white knit turtleneck.
“You’ve got your hands full enough already,” she says, handing her new neighbour a foil-covered Corningware dish, and before Sharon can object, “It’s only a fricot au—a lamb stew.”
Sharon is so young. Betty and Mimi are moved to take her under their wing, and Elaine says, “Do you and your husband golf, Sharon?”
At which Sharon smiles, looks down and half-shakes her head, no, and Vimy says, “Give the poor girl a chance to catch her breath, Elaine.”
“That’s okay,” says Sharon, a gentle Southern sigh in her words. Lee Remick, that’s who she reminds Mimi of.
Vimy says, “Here’s your survival kit, my dear, my number’s at the top and my house is over there.” She points up the street to the detached white house with the flagpole on its lawn. She hands the young woman a binder and adds, “My daughter Marsha babysits, and that’s probably enough out of us for the moment.”
Mimi observes Vimy closely. Her manners, her ability to put others at ease; that is the definition of breeding, and a must in a CO’s wife. Mimi learned a lot from her mother and her twelve siblings back in Bouctouche, New Brunswick, but she didn’t learn what women like Vimy can teach her. Jack will one day be in Hal’s position, and Mimi knows she will have to entertain “wheels,” as Jack calls them, in her own home. She will be promoted too. The men all have to take exams and pass courses in order to qualify for advancement; the wives have to train on the job. Mimi notes how Vimy smiles graciously, and doesn’t shake Sharon’s whole hand, but instead lightly presses her fingers.
Of course, they all end up trooping into the little green bungalow, because Sharon insists—not in hearty tones, or with brash protestations of Southern hospitality, but by blushing and retreating to her kitchen, where she puts the percolator on and takes a pan of hermits from the oven.
“This is Bugs Bunny. He’s a rabbit.”
Laughter. Madeleine pauses. Silence, all eyes upon her. Mr. March has ordered her to go first. She has looked him in the eye and proceeded to the front of the class. Clean slate. Concentrate.
“I like Bugs because he speaks his mind,” she says loud and clear.
Laughter. She didn’t mean it to be funny. She’s merely telling the truth. Show-and-tell. Just the facts, ma’am.
“His favourite food is carrots and his favourite expression is, ‘Nyah, what’s up, doc?’”
Laughter. She can feel her face reddening. She consults her recipe cards, where she wrote her presentation in point form with the help of her father.
“He is wily. He lives by his own rules and he always gets away from Elmer Fudd. Once he dressed up as a girl and sang, ‘The Rabbit in Red.’”
Giggles.
She departs from her notes and sings tentatively, in Bugsy’s voice, “‘Oh da wabbit in wed …’”—a little soft-shoe—“‘yah-dah dah-dah-dah dah-dah de wabbit in wed.’ And he put on false eyelashes and even, you know”—she spreads her fingers and makes a circular gesture over her chest; the class screams with laughter. She raises one eyebrow, twists her mouth like Bugs and improvises—“Falsies, I pwesume.” Rapidly now, can’t put a foot wrong, “Like the time he pretended to be a girl Tasmanian Devil with lovely big red lips?”—one hand behind her head, the other on her hip—“‘Well hello there, big boy,’ meanwhile he’s got a bear trap in his mouth for teeth, chomp!—‘Yowww! Yipe-yipe-yipe!’”
It is out of hand. Mr. March quells the merriment. “Enough mirth. You may sit down now, Miss McCarthy.”
Madeleine instantly sobers up, gropes for her recipe cards where they have fallen under Mr. March’s desk and returns to her seat. It’s just as well that she has been cut short. It means that she didn’t have to pass Bugsy around the class—standard operating procedure for show-and-tell. She doesn’t like the idea of everyone handling him—although Bugs probably wouldn’t mind. Nothing sticks to Bugs.
Grace Novotny has brought in a rag doll named Emily. It’s homemade. “My sister made it for me.” One of the sluts, thinks Madeleine involuntarily, then feels terribly sorry for Grace having a kind slut for a sister. Grace can’t pronounce the letter “r.” She says sistew.
Grace whispers something into the side of Emily’s soft dirty head, then Emily gets passed around. Some kids are openly mean, handling the doll with their fingertips, holding their noses. Grace doesn’t seem to register any of it. Madeleine holds Emily in both hands, not by her fingertips. Emily is grimy, but a lot of dolls are if they are loved. What if there is pee on Emily? There probably is if Grace sleeps with her. She is missing a felt eyebrow, her mouth is stitched in red wool. The effect is not of lips but of lips stitched shut with red wool. She wears a bikini, yellow polka dots like the song.
When Emily has been passed back to Grace, she tucks her in her arm and, without warning, starts singing, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Wee
nie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini.”
There’s a difference between kids thinking you are funny, and kids laughing at you. The class is laughing as much as they did for Madeleine but it’s different, and Mr. March is not stopping them. Madeleine doesn’t find it funny but she tries to laugh in the way of “you’re funny” as opposed to “you’re retarded,” in order to make the laughter okay, but it doesn’t work. She gives up and waits for Grace to finish. Luckily Grace doesn’t know all the words—she repeats the first line a few times, then sits back down.
Mr. March reads the name of the next person on the list, “Gordon Lawson.” Gordon, with his clean freckles and tucked-in shirt, shows and tells about fishing flies. It’s a relief even if it is terribly boring.
Jack takes a walk over to the Flying School. He plans to inquire about lessons for his son at the civilian flying club but he has an errand to do first. He heads down a corridor identical to the one in his own building, with its battleship-grey linoleum, until he gets to a door with “USAF Exchange Officer” painted in block letters on the frosted window. Through the half-open door he sees the USAF hat hanging on the halltree in the corner. He taps his knuckles against the glass. He expects to hear the usual hearty “It’s open,” and is prepared to extend his hand with a joke—something about IFF: identification friend or foe. Prepared for a super-friendly hotshot American pilot. But there is no sound. Instead, the door opens all the way and a young man stands before him. He salutes with the velocity of a karate chop and says, unsmiling, “Hello, sir.” He looks just about old enough to be a Boy Scout. Jack says, “Wing Commander McCarthy,” and shakes McCarroll’s hand. “Welcome to Centralia, captain.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“This is a robin’s egg.” Claire’s palms are cupped around a pale blue shell. It was in her Frankie and Annette lunchbox, nested in tissue paper. “It fell and I found it.”
Does she have an accent? It’s hard to tell, she speaks so softly.