The Latchkey Kid (22 page)

Olga Stych was, at best, no child lover, and the pupils of the School for Exceptional Children at first sickened her, with their grotesque movements and occasionally repulsive looks. Without encouragement from Boyd and bullying by Mrs. LeClair, she would never have returned to help in the school; but once having got a little accustomed to the idea, she found that it at least filled her empty days and made her forget the many snubs she received. The children’s mothers were very impressed that a lady whose name had appeared so often in the pages of the
Tolle
marche Advent
should be prepared to spend so much time with them, and they did not seem to associate Hank with her at all.

Perhaps because Olga was able to look more coldly at the children than their closely involved mothers, she was able to see each child as a living problem which had to be solved. For years she had not used her brains or her organizing ability for anything more intelligent than arranging teas, spring “fayres” or the affairs of the Community Centre. But now, faced with the quiet despair of the mothers at the school, she began to consider seriously what long-term plans could be made to help both parents and children.

She had long conversations with Mrs. LeClair regarding similar schools which she had seen elsewhere, and Mrs. LeClair introduced her to the Baptist minister in whose hall the school met.

Olga was thankful to help the minister organize some Christmas celebrations for the children and their parents, while Mr. and Mrs. LeClair went home to Montreal to spend the holiday with their family. In spite of having Christmas dinner with Grandma Palichuk, the festival without the children would have been so bleak and lonely that Olga shuddered at the very thought of it, and pressed a not unwilling Boyd into helping her decorate the church basement with tinsel and balloons. It was, however, a visit of Mr. Frizzell to the school early in the new year which really galvanized her into action.

Mr. Frizzell, who wished to stand at the next election, for alderman on the City Council, had for some time been looking for an organization with which he could not only identify himself but be identified by. The Bonnie Scots and other service organizations to which he belonged were all very well, but he did not get much personal publicity out of them. He wanted to start something new, so that when he tried for a seat on the City Council, people would say: “Yes, he’s Maxie Frizzell, that wonderful man who started thingumabob.” All he needed was a thingumabob, and he felt that in the School for Exceptional Children he had found it. One Tuesday morning, therefore, when business was at its quietest, he rolled gently into the church hall, with the same friendly unobtrusiveness which made him such a superb salesman.

The noise level lowered considerably as he entered, and startled mothers looked up. Mrs. LeClair, whose time in Tollemarche was nearly ended, flew forward, and Olga Stych exclaimed: “Why, Maxie, what you doin’ here?”

With a look of disarming candour on his round face, he told Mrs. LeClair that he had become interested in the school through the improvement in the behaviour of Henny van der Schelden, and he had come to see how it had been achieved. Mrs. LeClair, fluttering like a hummingbird, showed him around and introduced him.

When they had got as far as Olga, who was composing an appeal for funds, while supervizing two children playing with bricks, she left her appeal and the children for a few minutes and circulated with them, eyeing Maxie suspiciously as he expressed interest in all he saw. This was her new domain, she thought savagely, and no supercilious Donna Frizzell was going to be allowed to muscle in on it.

Maxie Frizzell, to his credit, was genuinely touched by the mothers’ efforts to help their children and each other, with only makeshift equipment and inadequate, unsuitable accommodation. Surely, he thought, these kids, ignored by the school board and every other government department, deserved a better break than they were getting. He had thought of the school as just another stepping-stone towards a seat on the City Council, but as he began to realize the suffering of parents and children and was informed that there were many more children in the city in an even worse state, the quick, shrewd mind that had won him a small fortune in the rapid growth of Tollemarche was put to work to
consider the basic needs of better accommodation, paid help, and an organization that would involve the doctors of the city.

Mrs. LeClair was explaining her impending return to Montreal and her worry that the school might disintegrate when she left, since the mothers involved could not be expected to undertake the the full organization and running of the school.

“I’m not tied down with kids,” said Olga firmly, her black eyes narrowed while she tried to get under the fence before Maxie. “I can give time to it.”

“Wait a minute, wait,” cautioned Maxie, seeing his fine new project slipping out of his hands before he had even got started on it. “Suppose we try and get a committe together, maybe with some of the kids’ fathers. We might be able to sponsor a fund drive – rent a house, pay some skilled help or somethin’.”

“Don’t try and start too big,” warned Mrs. LeClair, as she accepted a cup of coffee from one of her helpers and offered it to Maxie.

When the three of them were holding wobbly paper cups of coffee, she said: “Let’s sit down with some of the mothers and talk about it.”

From that talk in the dusty church basement grew the Tollemarche Exceptional Children’s School, with Mr. Maxmilian Frizzell as president and Mrs. Olga Stych as director of the school. As the months went by, it began to endear itself to the citizens of Tollemarche. Every car that went out of Maxie’s booming car lots had a pamphlet in its glove compartment describing the work being done. Physicians of every kind were pestered for advice. A group went down to Edmonton to see the work being done there. Mrs. Stych imbued the mothers with enough courage to get them to hold a tea in the school, so that interested persons could see the children at work. Parents who had been ashamed to show their subnormal children in public gained enough confidence to bring their offspring out of hiding and ferry them rapidly to the school, where they discovered that they had plenty of company and were given a degree of hope that their children might be more trainable than they had imagined.

Olga worked as she had never worked since her college days. She forgot to nibble, and over the year lost fifty pounds in weight. She was so busy that, at one point, three months went by without her adding anything to her Hudson’s Bay charge account; she had
no time to spend money on clothes. She was happier, too, when she had time to think about it, and this was reflected in her relations with Boyd. At last she had something worthwhile to talk to him about, and he became interested enough himself to volunteer to drive some of the children to picnics and other small outings. Olga spent little time at home, but her Dutch cleaning lady continued to keep the house spic and span, and in the evenings the couple frequently shared the chore of cooking the evening meal. It could not be said that they fell in love again, but a warm friendliness grew up between them, now that the house was no longer cluttered by a mass of bridge-playing, tea-drinking women. Olga’s hot temper tended more and more to be directed towards people who thought her exceptional children were only fit for a kind of human junk yard, or towards officials in Edmonton and Ottawa who had never given them any thought before.

Of course, all this activity did not go unnoticed by the girls. Mrs. Stych, in the course of her new occupation, never ran into any of her old cronies, but Mrs. MacDonald told Miss Angus that she had seen Olga Stych running – actually running – down Tollemarche Avenue. Olga was wearing dreadful, flat-heeled shoes and her petticoat was showing below her skirt.

Miss Angus replied tartly that Olga Stych always was a fool, and poured another cup of tea – Miss Angus without a silver teapot in front of her would have had no reason for existence.

Margaret Tyrrell, when she went to be fitted for a new frock at Dawn’s Dresse Shoppe, was told by Mrs. Stein that Mrs. Stych’s clothes were hanging off her because she had become so thin, and it was Mrs. Stein’s opinion that only someone with cancer could slim so fast. A rumour, therefore, went round that Olga Stych was dying of cancer, and some of the girls’ consciences smote them at the way they had treated her. Olga, however, continued to live and to feel extraordinarily well.

Donna Frizzell finally got wind of what Maxie was doing, and she held forth shrilly on the way he was wasting his time – time was money, and he should be on his car lot, not playing around with a lot of idiot kids. And that Olga Stych should not have anything to do with kids – look how her son had turned out.

Maxie was diplomatic enough not to point out that his three grandchildren still occupied the spare room, and nobody knew where either of their parents were. Betty was not much credit to
her parents. Donna did not let her grandchildren interfere with her life much – she left them with a baby-sitter most of the time, and this worried Maxie more than he liked to admit. However, to stop the uproar, he suggested that she needed some more clothes and doubled the amount she could have on her Dawne’s Dresse Shoppe account. Donna’s complaints dwindled to a grumble.

Mrs. Murphy, the Mayor’s wife, her three chins trembling gently as she tried to keep track of the city’s pecking order and at the same time see that her husband ate three meals a day, asked her priest about the new school and, particularly, about Mrs. Stych’s work there.

The priest was very old and it is not too certain that he fully understood what she was talking about, but he answered that, for sure,’ twas the work of God that was being done there and it should be supported by all good Catholics.

“But,” quavered Mrs. Murphy, “it was Olga Stych’s son that wrote that terrible book – and she must have known about it, Father.”

“’Tis perhaps a penance that she is doing,” said the old man, his wizened face peering up from between hunched shoulders.

Mrs. Murphy nodded agreement, and immediately took out from the sideboard drawer a tattered notebook and added Mrs. Stych’s name to the list headed “Do-gooders”, so that she got asked to the right Murphy dinners.

The person most astonished by Olga’s new interest was Hank. His father wrote to him from time to time regarding his business affairs, and told him what his mother was doing; and, though Hank never wrote to Olga, a large box arrived one day at the school from London, England. It contained a number of very helpful books on mental retardation. It did not contain a copy of Hank’s second book; this he sent privately to his father, and, after reading it, Boyd decided not to mention its existence to Olga; the distilled bitterness of the story might have really hurt her.

In the late fall, nearly two years after Hank had left for England, the great bridge across the treacherous North Saskatchewan River was to be completed, and the City Council was hopeful that a royal princess, on a tour across Canada, would condescend to stop at Tollemarche and open it.

“She can’t just stop here and cut a ribbon,” expostulated one lady alderman, who was worried because she did not know how to address a princess. “She’d have to stay overnight – it’s too far for her to travel onwards the same day – unless she went back to Edmonton – and that bunch down there will surely monopolize her, if they get the chance.”

The other aldermen looked at her scornfully. One of them said firmly: “We’ll keep her out of Edmonton – there must be some way of filling up a day here.”

His eyes wandered round the council chamber, and alighted on the sole member of the Edwardian Days Committee who happened to be present. “I know – she can drive through the city, have a civic luncheon, open the bridge and drive over it, and in the evening the Edwardian Days Committee can organize a dinner and ball for her.”

The Edwardian Days Committee man was nearly stunned at having a princess thrust at him, but recovered sufficiently to bat the ball back firmly to the Council: “Who is going to pay?” he asked darkly.

Amid the flurry of discussion, a voice said: “There’ll be the Lieutenant-Governor and his wife, maybe the Duke, and ladies-in-waiting and equerries.”

The Edwardian Days Committee representative reeled with horror – he could not imagine what an equerry was.

Alderman Maxie Frizzell saw his opportunity and seized it. “That leaves her with most of her afternoon unaccounted for –”

“She could rest,” interposed the lady alderman.

Maxie froze her with a look. “I think she should spend the afternoon at the Exceptional Children’s School – we really got somethin’ to show her.”

The Council received the suggestion with relief. It was agreed upon immediately, and Maxie grinned to himself. He had never, in earlier times, dreamed that he would consider a child being taught to go to the bathroom by itself a great victory to be boasted about, but he knew it was. He wanted more money for the school, and nobody could give it publicity like a princess could – publicity meant money.

The Princess, with her usual kindliness, had the request added to her already overloaded schedule.

On a golden fall day, therefore, an astonished Olga Stych, accompanied by a triumphant Maxie Frizzell, found herself, in a plain black dress covered with a white apron, curtseying to a princess. When she took the royal hand, she was acutely aware that not even two layers of cream the previous night had lessened the roughness of her own hands, which had been long neglected. She knew she looked dowdy in comparison with Donna Frizzell, who stood forgotten in the background amid a bevy of minor officials, but she had not had time to buy a new dress for the occasion and had fallen back on an old black one which did not hang too loosely on her. Donna was looking gorgeous in rasberry pink wool worn with a pink gorgette turban and hair dyed shocking red; her hard, thin face, however, was frozen into such an expression of envy that it was obvious that she should have been dressed in green.

The Princess did not seem to notice the shabby dress, and, indeed, all she saw was a very tired, capable-looking woman, whose long black hair was dressed in neat braids round her head, helping a blank-faced little girl to present her with a bouquet. The Princess had inspected many charitable institutions during her long life, but she felt very moved by the quiet patience of these Prairie women, who, she was told by the Lieutenant-Governor, had begun the school knowing nothing of the care or training of subnormal children. Perhaps it was because they were so isolated that they were evolving methods which were beginning to attract attention from all over the continent.

The Princess spent over an hour going quietly from child to child, escorted by a group of nervous officials, helpers and, of course, Maxie Frizzell.

The children had been lovingly dressed for the occasion, and nobody cried or wet his pants during the visit. It must be admitted that some of the mothers standing quietly in the background, holding those children unable to walk, let the tears course down their faces as they watched. They knew that the Princess’s visit would benefit the school immensely, and they appreciated what Olga and Maxie had done for their children. They had often said to each other that Olga need not have come to their rescue. She didn’t have a retarded child – her own boy was so brilliant that the whole world had heard about Tollemarche, just because it was his home town; yet she never spoke about him, never rubbed it in.

After all the cars were gone, the children dismissed for the day, an exhausted Olga sat on the veranda steps to rest for a minute in the mild sunshine, while she waited for Boyd to come and collect her. She would go home and lie on her bed for a while, after which she and Boyd would attend the ball given for the Princess.

She leaned her head against the balustrade and closed her eyes, remembering the last ball she had attended, the Edwardian Ball to which Hank had taken Isobel. She could bear to think of Hank now.

For a long time, she had felt so furious with him that it was as well he was separated from her. She had blamed him for all her woes, hated him for not saying goodbye, for never writing to her. Then, as she became more involved in Henny’s school and had seen that there was another Tollemarche, one of suffering, of always having to face doctors’ bills, of tenacious love of children, of love for marriage partners, a Tollemarche that did not care a hang for social success – it was too busy trying to stay alive – she had begun to see herself for what she was, a grasping, selfish woman. This had made her angrier still, and she had plunged still deeper into the work she had undertaken, working off her self-hatred in her fight for recognition of the needs of the very helpless.

Boyd came silently up the path and stopped half-way to view the picture that his wife made as she dozed in the sun, her hands folded in her lap, her face tranquil.

“My! She looks more like her mother every day,” he thought; and he was happy – he liked his mother-in-law. Here, waiting for him on the steps, there seemed to be again the country girl he had married, a girl who seemed to have made a very special niche for herself in the hearts of the people of Tollemarche.

“Hiya, Olga,” he called cheerfully, “got news for you.”

Olga’s eyes popped open.

He was waving a letter, and he came up the veranda steps and sat down beside her. “It’s from Hank.”

The letter was addressed to both of them and invited them in friendly terms to attend his wedding to Isobel Dawson in a month’s time. A formal invitation from Isobel’s aunt was enclosed.

Olga put the letter carefully down in her lap. She remembered the tiny, fair-haired girl at the Edwardian Ball, and asked Boyd cautiously: “Wotcha think of it?”

“I think it’s great,” replied Boyd firmly, having spent half the morning, while trying to deal with his work, in thinking out what attitude he should take. “She is older than he is, but she’s got something he needs. She must have, seeing it’s lasted this long.”

Olga fingered the letter uneasily. She said in a low voice: “Y’know, Boyd, I know now I never gave that kid a square deal” – she hesitated, as though she found it difficult to drag out of herself what she had to say – “and, y’know, I often feel sorry about it. I coulda done a lot better.” She picked up the engraved wedding invitation and turned it over. “I guess he turned to her just because she showed an interest in him – like I never did.” Her voice, her weary, drooping eyelids, indicated a quiet, bitter sadness. “Mebbe she’s just kinda kind. Wotcha think?”

Boyd patted her hand uneasily. “Well, he hasn’t done so badly,” he comforted her. “And, y’ know, it’s my belief she’s not doing so badly regarding a mother-in-law.”

“Waal, I wish Hank would feel like that,” she replied with a small sigh, “but I guess he never will.”

“Aw, I don’t know,” said her husband, as he hunted through his pockets for a cigarette in a manner very reminiscent of his son. “You be real patient with this Isobel of his – like Grandma Stych was with you – and, you’ll see, he’ll come round.”

A slow smile spread over Olga’s face. “Yeah, I never thoughta that – she was always patient with me. I never thought of it before. You’re so right – I’ll try.”

A new idea occurred to her, and she said: “It was sure funny this morning, watching Donna Frizzell as I was talking to the Princess. It made me realize that I’d sorta arrived socially – that Princess didn’t make no point about me being Ukrainian or anything like that – she was just kinda nice to me, and so was everyone else.”

Boyd put his arm round her. “You’ve done really well, honey, and I’m proud of you – and what about a mink coat for the wedding?”

“Oo, my!” she exclaimed. “That would sure be nice.” She paused, and then said: “Provided there’s enough in the bank to buy Isobel and Hank something real handsome as well.”

“There is,” said Boyd dryly. “Believe me, there is.”