The Latchkey Kid (2 page)

Mrs. Theresa Murphy, the Mayor’s wife, had, by dint of playing first violin in the local amateur orchestra, established herself as one of the cultural leaders of Tollemarche. On four Thursday evenings during the winter she could be seen, dressed in spotty black and glittering with rhinestones, sawing happily away on her violin through four public concerts, under the baton of Mr. Dixon, the elderly English master from Tollemarche public school, who tried gamely to keep the rest of the orchestra in time with her, since he had long ago given up trying to keep her in time with the orchestra.

As the wife of the civic leader, Mrs. Murphy had to do considerable entertaining in generous western style, but in this field she made no attempt to keep pace with Olga Stych or Donna Frizzell; she knew when she was beaten.

Since culture did not hammer quite so hard on Mrs. Frizzell’s door, she had more time to plan parties. Her annual garden party, for buyers of fleets of cars and trucks who dealt with her husband, was always a memorable occasion, reported upon in detail by the queen of the social columns of the
Tollemarche Advent,
a lady who could make or break a local hostess. Mrs. Frizzell found it impossible to forgive Mrs. Dawson’s becoming a widow the same week as her party; a history of Mrs. Dawson one night, and the remarks the following night of the lady secretary of the United Nations’ Society on the role of the Canadian peacekeeping force in Cyprus, had meant that for the first time in years no report of Mrs. Frizzell’s party appeared, though room had been found for a report on one of Mrs. Murphy’s receptions.

Mr. Frizzell’s business did not seem to suffer from the omission. He did an ever expanding trade in cars and trucks under his big red neon sign, which proclaimed on one side
FRIZZELL’S GARAGE – YOU CAN TRUST MAXIE,
and on the other
FRIZZELL’S GARAGE – I
GREW WITH ALBERTA.
His critics agreed that he had sure grown with Alberta – just fatter and fatter!

Mrs. Frizzell was the ruthless driving force behind his business. She nagged him northwards to the Peace River district, to establish garages there, and even as far as Fort McMurray, with instructions to buy land for future service stations. Then she went on with the lovely task of making herself the most important lady in Tollemarche.

Mrs. Olga Stych, the wife of a consulting geologist, her next-door neighbour, dared to challenge her on this; and their homes, which had, until the commencement of building in Vanier Heights, been two of the nicer houses in the best district of Tollemarche, echoed their ambitions. They were filled with wall-to-wall broadloom and the finest imitation French Provincial furniture. Their L-shaped living-rooms were graced by open fireplaces, with the latest shapes in petrified wood adorning the mantelpieces. Each owned a weird splotch of colour in a white and silver frame, painted and framed by a local artist. One had only to buy a Wedgewood coffee service or a piece of Bohemian crystal and the other would have the same the following week.

Through the six months of Alberta’s bitter winter each lady tried to outdo the other in the number of coffee parties given and the number of charitable offices each managed to obtain. Through the summer, as the skyscrapers grew on Tollemarche Avenue, they boasted of the the glories of their country cottages and the important people from Edmonton or Calgary who had spent a weekend with them at these summer homes. Theresa Murphy persuaded her husband to buy an entire lake, and news of this purchase spoiled both Mrs. Frizzell’s and Mrs. Stych’s summer.

Each week the ladies spent anxious hours in Andrew’s Beauty Salon having their hair tinted and set, still more anxious hours in Dawn’s Dresse Shoppe or the Hudson’s Bay Company store, adding more dresses and hats to their already over-extended charge accounts. Olga Stych’s generous figure would be a nightmare to any dress shop, and her dresses were consequently always more expensive than Donna Frizzell’s were. In despair, one day, of finding a well-fitting winter coat, she hastily counted up the amount of land around Tollemarche which her husband had bought up, and decided he was worth at least a Persian lamb coat. This error proved to be nearly the last straw needed to break his credit, since he had raised
every cent he could in order to invest in land for building. He protested to her hotly about this extravagance, but was quickly sent back to his rocks, cowering from her wrath.

The third fall after the oil strike in Alberta came slowly in, while Isobel mourned her husband, quite unaware that she had mortally offended Mrs. Frizzell by crowding her August garden party off the social page of the
Tollemarche Advent
. The glory of the Indian summer crept across the land with pale sunshine, golden leaves, deep-blue skies and treacherously cold winds. The publication day of Hank Stych’s book went unremarked in Tollemarche, mainly because the only bookseller in the town had not had time to unpack his new stock, and book reviews were featured only once a month in the
Tollemarche Advent
and then only in an obscure corner of an inner page. The leaves fell thickly in the more established portions of the city, to the envy of residents in the bare new suburbs who were still awaiting paved roads and street lights, never mind trees.

Mrs. Donna Frizzell looked despondently out of her picture window. The unfenced oblong of grass in front of the house and the narrow path to the sidewalk were full of leaves twirling in the wind. Mr. Stych, during his last visit home, had already cleared the adjoining garden, and the Frizzell’s leaves were gaily invading his once tidy lawn. Mrs. Frizzell’s lips tightened as she guessed what Olga Stych’s remarks would be when she saw them.

That intolerable woman, she thought bitterly, had managed to become president of the Tollemarche Downtown Community Centre by a majority of a single vote, and Mrs. Frizzell had had to be content with the vice-presidency, which office she declared gave her all the work and none of the authority. (She gave no credit to Olga Stych for her undoubted talents as an organizer.) To make matters worse, Olga was also the secretary of the Noble Order of Lady Queen Bees – a pack of overdressed snobs, groaned Mrs. Frizzell, whose members set the standard for every social event in the city. Maybe, if she could squeeze a mink coat out of Maxie, it would help her towards the membership which always seemed to elude her by a vote or two, a vote strongly influenced, she feared, by Olga Stych. One day, she promised herself, if ever she got the chance, she would give Olga Stych her comeuppance.

In the meantime, since no amount of nagging would persuade
Maxie to rake up the leaves or to allow her to employ a man to do it, she would have to do the job herself.

Mixed with the need to tidy up the garden was a desire to show her neighbours her new purple, slim pants and striped purple and yellow jacket. She therefore eased her thin shanks into these all too revealing pants, put a pair of gilt oriental sandals on her feet and hastily touched up the mauve polish on her toenails and fingernails. She peered anxiously into her six-foot-wide dressing-table mirror to see if any white hair showed after her last auburn tint, and found to her satisfaction that all her hair was the same improbable shade.

She went through the house door leading into the garage, seized a rake and plunged into the cold wind. She began to rake from the front of the house towards the road, then realized she had nothing in which to put the leaves. With an irritability caused as much by her slimming diet as by the lack of a box, she almost stamped down the stairs into the basement, which was comfortingly warm, and found a couple of cardboard boxes.

Working with feverish haste, for the wind was piercing through her elegant jacket and Gentle Curve bra underneath, she filled the boxes, staggered with them to a row of garbage cans in the back lane and dumped their contents into the bins. Her feet were icy cold in their open sandals when, on the fifth trip back to the front lawn, her patience was rewarded.

Mrs. Stych drew up at the kerb in her new European car, bought, needless to say, from Maxie’s arch-rival down in Edmonton. She heaved herself out and opened the trunk to display several large paper bags full of groceries. Mrs. Frizzell hastily drew in her stomach, tucked in her tail, and posed with her rake, just as she had seen the Hudson’s Bay Company model do when showing pants. A pair of University students passing by hastily averted their faces to hide their giggles.

Mrs. Stych, however, did not avert her gaze. She peered over the bag of groceries clasped to her bosom and was almost consumed by envy. Five feet high and weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, a veritable Humpty Dumpty of a woman, Mrs. Stych had no hope of ever being able to wear pants gracefully.

Mrs. Stych ate with all the avidity of one who has known starvation. Her father, an immigrant from the Ukraine, had carved his pig farm out of raw bush. Her pregnant mother had pulled the plough when they broke a part of their holding for wheat and vege
tables, and Olga’s first memories were of carrying away stones from the furrows. They had known such hunger that even now Olga could not bring herself to throw away a single crumb, and always ate whatever was left after a meal.

Looking now at her plump, well-kept hands, two heavy diamond rings worn above her unexpectedly old-fashioned wedding band, it was hard to believe that her mother was a work-bent Ukrainian peasant who still wore a black kerchief over her hair and spoke little English.

Mrs. Stych fixed her button eyes upon the elegant figure of Mrs. Frizzell and bowled purposefully across the lawn. Her high, grating voice was caught by the wind and carried half a block, as she asked: “Aren’t Maxie able to do the leaves?”

“He’s up at Grande Prairie, seeing to his new garage and car lot.” She smiled, showing an excellent set of artificial teeth, as she rallied her forces. “Enterprising, that’s Maxie,” she added, her eyes agleam with malice.

While she spoke, she remembered Maxie’s grumble from behind his newspaper, the last time he had been home, when she had told him to do the leaves.

“Do ’em yourself,” he had said. “You ain’t got nuttin’ to do while I’m away up the Peace, not now Joann and Betty is married.” His pursed-up, babylike lips had quivered. “I got no time, you know that.”

In the tirade which immediately followed, Mrs. Frizzell had reminded him that she was a pillar of the community, all for the sake of his business. She was secretary of the Tollemarche United Church Willing Workers’ Group, vice-president (not president!) of the Tollemarche Downtown Community Centre, a driver for Cripples’ Transport, a member of the Car Dealers’ Wives Society, and, she would remind him, a member of the Committee for the Preservation of Morals. And, she would like him to know, the Morals Committee had just succeeded in having D.H. Lawrence’s books banned from the cigar stores.

Mr. Maxmilian Frizzell had never read a book since leaving school and did not know who Lawrence was, so he put down the newspaper and took up the
Car Dealer and Garageman
with what dignity he could muster. The next morning he departed, thankfully, for the North, to see his new garage and a silent, obliging Métis woman of his acquaintance.

The leaves remained on the lawn.

The high heels of Mrs. Stych’s new, mink-trimmed bootees were now sinking into the Frizzell lawn and threatening to snap at any moment, so she knew she must be quick. She therefore ignored Maxie’s undoubted enterprise, and asked: “Any news from Betty yet?”

Mrs. Frizzell brightened. She fell right into the trap, as she said: “Yeah, she got a daughter in Vancouver General yesterday. Don’t want me to go over yet. Her husband Barry’s taking care of the other two kids – he’s a real capable boy.”

“It must make yer feel old, being a grandmother for the sixth time,” promptly replied Mrs. Stych, her face carefully arranged to indicate that it was a disaster.

Mrs. Frizzell was not, however, so easily crushed. Scottish ancestors, one of whom had married a Cree, (who was, of course, never mentioned by any member of the family), had given her a physical and mental toughness which enabled her to fight methodically for anything she wanted badly. Now she wanted to squelch Olga. It had to be done, however, without giving too much offence – Mrs. Stych was, after all, a Lady Queen Bee. Old at fifty, indeed!

She smiled sweetly.

“At forty-five, I don’t mind. I married young and so did Joann and Betty.” She lifted her lance. “I’m just so glad they’re settled with good, respectable boys for husbands.”

Mrs. Stych winced. Mrs. Frizzell had no need to remind her that her neat, conforming sons-in-law were far more popular in their home town of Tollemarche than Mrs. Stych’s own son, Hank.

Hank, when Mrs. Stych thought of him at all, always gave her a headache. Consequently, she had done her best to ignore his existence. But Donna Frizzell never failed to remind her of his dragging progress through school, compared to Betty and Joann’s smart performances. Now, at nearly twenty, he was still struggling to pass his Grade 12 examinations in high school, having been assured by his father, the school, and society at large that the world held no place for a boy without his Grade 12. Mrs. Stych could many times have wept with humiliation when Donna hastened to tell her of yet another minor car accident in which his ancient jalopy had been involved, yet another girl with whom he had once been seen who was “in trouble”. For a boy who only worked part time in a supermarket he had too much money, and this was
another source of innuendo from Mrs. Frizzell. Olga herself was far too busy to worry about what Hank was doing, but she wished Donna would mind her own business. And now she had pierced her again on this sore spot.

Mrs. Stych clutched her groceries more tightly to her bosom and tried to heave her high heels out of the roots of the Frizzell grass. One day she would get even with Donna for this. Hank might be wild, but nobody had pinned anything serious on him yet. The Frizzell sons-in-law might wear halos, but when it came to financial success they were nowhere.

“Yeah,” agreed Mrs. Stych, at the same time disinterring her high heels. “They sure need to be good boys, being so hard up. Betty and Joann must have a hard time managing.”