Blue Moon (6 page)

The next day when I once again did not become wet when his hands caressed me, he said that maybe I was afraid of sex, afraid of having a man in my vagina. Perhaps he could use my “back door,” even though some women found that painful. He would place Vaseline on his penis and an equal amount in my anus. I agreed to this and was soundly buggered that afternoon, even though I am sure the courtly Mr. White did his best not to hurt me. Later that afternoon, I endured vaginal intercourse for the first time. Although I did not become wet, Mr. White assured me I was so tight I had given him the greatest pleasure he had ever experienced in bed. During my last afternoon with Mr. White, we were very much like an old married couple. He placed his organ in my mouth, I sucked it, he then placed a rubber on his erection and then mounted me missionary-style on his way to orgasm.

Mr. White would be back in Hamilton in a month's time. We met in this way over and over again, his career in the navy leaping ahead by leaps and bounds until, just before V-J Day, he reached the rank of Admiral. Unfortunately, he was one of the last major casualties of the war in the Pacific. He never saw his daughter, Heather White, his later nameless still-born daughter nor his son, Peter David White.

There was never a real Mr. White. He is my first fictional creation. He was the person I invented in order to explain the existence of Heather, my first child. Of course, I told the medical and nursing staff at the Hamilton Mountain hospital of my wonderful husband (I doubt they were gullible enough to believe me) and, on the two subsequent occasions when I gave birth there, my husband in the interim had—I proclaimed—earned much-deserved promotions.

The existence of the man who never was went unchallenged by my few friends from Loretto Academy, and most merchants in the city were sympathetic to the plight of the wife of a naval officer, especially one stranded with a young child while her husband was fighting the Japanese in the Coral Sea. Even my account of the wedding in Cleveland, the Tommy Dorsey orchestra in special attendance at the behest of my wealthy in-laws, passed muster.

Of course my stories were preposterous. I cannot believe I could ever have been stupid enough to mouth such monumental untruths. Yet, the story has its own ring of authenticity, provided it is read allegorically. From the age of 21, I held a very special position in the city of Hamilton. I was a courtesan, specially trained by my mother to provide services to the upper-crust gentlemen of the city.

Habitually clad in a tweed skirt and a plain jumper, her crisply short mouse-brown hair flecked with white, a pince-nez attached to her nose, my mother was a formidable presence. She was also a consummate snob. Outwardly, she looked and conducted herself very much like Ethel Barrymore. She was large and officious and brooked no nonsense. Like the great American actress, she gave the impression that a heart of gold resided underneath a tough exterior. That was the most masterful of her many duplicities.

By any standard, Mother was a grand character. Even the way she pronounced her name, Alexandra (a name used by the Royals, she frequently pointed out), was theatrical: Al-ex-aaan-draaah. She would
enunciate her given name slowly—at least five seconds—and then add MacLean quickly (one second). She was what is sometimes called a handsome woman. This is a difficult expression to define, but it usually refers to a woman whose sense of power is so immense that she can summon up a great deal of respect and admiration from others even though her appearance has a slight masculine edge to it.

My father was fifth business. He looked and acted like a man of absolutely no importance. Small, squat and rodent-like, he did not have a single good facial feature. His look was furtive, always studying situations carefully and guardedly. Usually draped in massively over-large trench coats, he looked like one of those seedy, sweaty dirty men who populate Graham Greene novels. There were only two extraordinary things about him. He had a sudden, quick and violent temper, and he was an extremely possessive person. If he owned something, no one could remove it from him.

Father, who looked to passers-by on the street a small, inconsequential creature, had a fierce leonine strength which belied his size. He also had a magnificent tenor voice which he displayed at Christ Church Cathedral on Sundays; every other day of the week, the din of his puny, snarling speaking voice was heard at the seedy Balmoral Tavern, near the Hamilton Street Railway headquarters where he worked. When drunk, I later heard, Father would, when teased about his height, invite his tormentor to retire to the washroom where he could view his equipment, the proportions of which were suitable for a titan.

I was born in Beamsville on the Niagara Peninsula on 13 October 1920. My parents moved less than a year later to a modest two-bedroom house, which they had constructed, at 214 Rosslyn Avenue South in Hamilton. The house looked like a bungalow, but it had a large bedroom occupying the front of the house's modest second storey. Our end of the street faced into the side of the escarpment; if we looked up we could see one of the roads carrying cars up the side of the Mountain where many residents of the city lived. The property values on our street were low because three doors away from us—on Lawrence Avenue—was a brick factory and a railway line. The side of the Mountain had been savagely ripped away to make room for them. Four huge kilns belched smoke into the air night and day; the fog horn sounds of the trains blared mainly in the middle of the night.
My parents, in an attempt to pretend that they did not live in Canada, filled their new home with things from the old country. “Bonnie Scotland” would have been a good name for the house, every room of which contained splendid views of lochs, highland mountains, and men in kilts.

Hamilton was Canada's Steel City, very much in the mould of Pittsburgh in the States or Leeds in England. Although graced with an enchantingly beautiful harbour on Lake Ontario, columns of black smoke poured regularly out of a vast multitude of smoke stacks. The stink that often penetrated the air reminded Mother of the foul odours that had filled her nostrils when she had visited Leeds.

Like many other middle-sized cities in North America, Hamilton was largely blue-collar. The only difference between it and nearby Buffalo was the obvious English influence: the flags, the companies whose names ended in Limited and the fact that a significant portion of the adult population revealed British accents or Scottish burrs when they spoke. That group—placed in an uneasy middle between the rich and the poor were the middle-management types: the foremen and the bank managers.

Never able to compete culturally with Toronto, nearly sixty miles away, Hamilton had in fact been sucked dry by the presence of the Metropolis at its doorstep. So it developed its own society based on a rigid segregation between rich and poor. The rich were the captains of industry and their attendant vassals; then there were the proles—Italian and Polish immigrants—who came to tend the smelters,

Toronto was considered to be a very fast place and so things were appropriately slowed down in Hamilton. In reality, this meant that Hamilton was even more strait-laced than puritanical Toronto, still unaffectionately called Hog Town in the twenties and thirties. The jealousy that Hamilton felt for Toronto surfaced early, in 1847, when
The Globe
dubbed Hamilton the “ambitious” city; the
Hamilton Spectator
promptly castigated Toronto as ostentatiously vulgar: “we cannot display here the paraphernalia of red coats and dashing equipages, but in all that betokens enterprise, public spirit, and future greatness, Hamilton will hold its own … let us hope that as we walk ahead of our rivals, we shall not imitate their example, and look down with contempt on all who have the misfortune to exist beyond the prescribed limits of Canadian cockney gentility!”

Incessantly, Mother complained that she had moved to a country where pharmacies had replaced chemists, airy pubs had given way to dark bars. “A country of smoke shops is what the Dominion of Canada has become. Not really a country at all. Just a big, hulking colony.” She did approve of Mackenzie King, however. But not because the prime minister fostered independence from Britain. Superstition ridden, he believed in the spirit world, often consulting his dead mother on crucial matters of state. “A dutiful son, he is, to his departed Mama.”

My earliest memories go back to about 1925, when I was five years old. I remember playing on the lawn in front of our house. I cradle a small doll, who is being a bit fretful. I am trying to comfort her, but I am fighting a losing battle because my mother and father inside the house are screaming at each other. I assure “Nell” that everything will soon settle down. I say this without any assurance I am speaking the truth, for I know that the battles between my parents can go on for hours at a time. Eventually, Nell and I fall asleep by the door. Next, my mother shakes me awake. “You horrible little girl,” she shrieks. “I thought you were in your room. I had the fright of my life when you weren't there.” I mumbled an apology.

I remember riding up and down the James Street Incline Railway, a seventy-two second ride up or down the face of the escarpment. Sometimes, my mother and I would take the train at the Mountain View Hotel and then descend to the middle of the city. I was puzzled that a city could have a mountain where people lived. My mother scoffed: “They call it a mountain, darling, but it's really more of a hill plopped down in the middle of the city.”

Then there was the elaborate, ornate, magnificent fountain in the middle of Gore Park a short walk away from Eaton's. Once—I must have been 6—when my mother was less vigilant than usual, I escaped from her and managed to slip through the iron railing on the periphery of the fountain. Of course I returned soaked to the bone and received a severe dressing-down.

I have a vague recollection of being taken to the Sunken Gardens in front of McMaster University on Main Street. Fascinated by the huge lily pads floating in the long concrete reflecting pool, I considered the possibility of wading in to pluck one of the huge pink
flowers but, weighing the consequences carefully, decided not to. I remember being dragged along in August 1930 to the British Empire Games (the first ever) at the Civic Stadium; there, in the pouring rain, I had to sit through a dozen or so foot races. Despite the awful weather, my mother purred delight: “This city is linked as never before with the Imperial family—the best family in the world.”

Then there was the Farmer's Market where I can still see a pyramid of gleaming russet apples, a small hill of bright orange pumpkins, and hundreds of pur pie-flower ing autumn cabbages. My mother was shocked when she took me to see the new Rock Garden made from what had once been a gravel pit. On the day we visited only a small sprinkling of tiny Alpines had established themselves. “In the United Kingdom, we have real gardens with real flowers, Evelyn. Never has the term 'Rock Garden' been more appropriately used to describe a rubbish pile.” Almost out of control, she whispered loudly: “For the life of me I don't understand how your father sweet-talked me into this.” That lament repeated on a regular basis—would be accompanied by a majestic sweep of her right hand. Everything within her line of vision was an eyesore.

My recollections of childhood are fragmentary at best. I did not know precisely why until I read Virginia Woolf's
Moments of Being
where she provides an account of how her teenage half-brother placed his hands into her private parts: “I can remember the feel of his hand going under my clothes; going firmly and steadily lower and lower. I remember how I hoped he would stop.” Those words haunted me as I read them, as did Sylvia Fraser's
My Father's House,
her account of growing up in Hamilton fifteen years later than myself.

At first, my father did not force himself on me. No, he was a subtle thief. He would fondle me, usually in the presence of my mother; when her back was turned—even for a moment—he would place a finger into my vagina. Or, he would take my hand and place it on his erection, a blissful smug expression crossing his face—as if he were a lover made happy because he was soon to arrive at the moment of orgasm inside his beloved.

A bit later—I would have been 9 or 10—he attempted to penetrate me. He summoned me to the large bedroom at the front of
the house shared by him and my mother. Summarily, he informed me it was a hot day. When I agreed with this observation, he suggested we remove our clothes and lie down on the bed. I knew this was an improper thing to do and when I voiced my reluctance to do so, he informed me I was like my mother: unforgiving and cruel. He had simply wanted to show some affection towards me, and I—like “the other female occupant of the premises”—was a cold little bitch.

As he said these things, he removed his clothes, revealing in the process his erect penis. He began to manipulate his member, pushing his foreskin up and down as if he were peeling and then re-peeling a very large banana. Then, he ordered me to remove my clothes. Frightened and confused, I began to cry. He walked over to me and began to pull my clothes away. I became hysterical and began to scream. He pushed me on to the bed. Just as he was about to have his way with me, the door opened and there was Mother. A migraine having descended upon her, she had begged off work two hours before her shift finished.

Swiftly and decisively, she commanded my father to leave the room. He was never allowed to sleep there again. The full force of Mother's temper was directed against me, however. “A fine little vixen you have become. A regular little temptress.” She slapped me hard on the face and informed me that I would henceforth cohabit with her “in order to protect you from your father's filthy lust.” She then sat on the bed for a few minutes and, in the process of adjusting herself and retrieving my torn clothing from the floor, commanded me to make her a pot of tea. “Strong, the way you know I like it.” She dismissed me from the room. The incident was never discussed again.