The O'Briens (36 page)

He kissed the top of Maddie's head and Margo reached for her. He gave her up, then turned to their father. “Who knows? On staff you get shifted around.”

“Did you hear anything about the Van Doos?” Margo said. “They're still building up in England, aren't they?”

“What are you supposed to be doing in Ottawa?” their father said.

“Haven't the faintest.”

“When do you report?”

“Tomorrow afternoon will be soon enough.”

“I'll drive you up.”

“I can take the train, Dad.”

“No. I'll drive you.”

Their mother took sleepy Maddie from Margo. “Let's go upstairs, Joe. Let the children talk.”

Their father stood up slowly and gazed at Mike. “You're not in trouble, are you?”

“I was sick and tired of North Africa,” Mike said. “I was getting sick and tired of Sicily. Otherwise I'm fine.”

“Good,” said their father.

~

After their parents went upstairs the three of them shifted to the living room. Margo switched on the radio, keeping the volume low. Jazz was playing from a ballroom near an army base in Manitoba. The CBC news would come on in a few minutes. Mike offered them English cigarettes, Senior Service. Frankie preferred her Camels but she took one. She crossed the room and switched on a couple of lamps, then kicked off her shoes and curled up in their father's armchair. The yellow damask silk had stripes in alternating textures, satiny and smooth. Layers of Persian carpets in maroons and golds and purples gave the living room a dark, intense glamour. “Daddy ought to have been a Turk,” Margo had said once. “He ought to have a harem. Instead he's got us.”

Mike stood with his back to the fireplace; it hadn't been lit in months. Margo sat on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her. “I think we could all use a drink,” she said. “How about manhattans?”

“Most definitely,” said Frankie. “Do we have cherries?”

“Of course,” Margo said. “Mike?”

They usually had cocktails in Margo's room before dinner while the maid gave Maddie her bath. Occasionally their mother joined them. Margo kept bottles of black market Scotch, vermouth, and rye on the floor of her closet beside her shoes. Ice, mixes, and lemons were in the kitchen.

“Glass of ginger ale for me,” Mike said.

Margo cocked an eyebrow. “Surely you jest.”

“I'm pretty tired.”

“
Comme tu veut, mon capitaine
.” Margo left the room in her stocking feet. Frankie heard her going lightly up the stairs. Mike walked over to the sofa and sat down.

It was strange that no one in her office had noticed her brother's name on a passenger list. They always had a cable manifest from Prestwick listing transatlantic passengers, because one of her duties was fixing up VIPs with connecting flights to Washington or New York or wherever they were going.

He had pulled off his brown shoes and now swung his feet up and lay back on the cushions. Jazz blew softly from the radio. She could hear Margo come downstairs and go into the kitchen to fix their drinks.

“Daddy's building a sailboat for you,” Frankie said.

“Oh Christ.” He wasn't looking at her. His eyes were closed. There were veins like worms at his temple.

“It won't be finished until after the war.” She could hear Margo cracking ice into glasses. “So how come they flew you home? Are you a Very Important Person?”

He lay on the chintz sofa like someone who'd had all the war beaten out of him. She thought of their uncle coming back from his war, throwing himself into the Lachine Canal, if that wasn't just a story. It sounded more like something their father might have done — he who'd always been capable of actions mysterious, self-destructive, and passionate.

Margo came in with drinks on a tray. Frankie took hers and immediately plucked out the bright red cherry and ate it. Cherries soaked in rye and vermouth were a food she could live on, though a girl she knew who nursed at the army hospital in Lachine had pointed out that cocktail cherries were exactly the colour of fresh blood.

Mike sat up and took one sip of his ginger ale, then put the glass down on the floor and started pulling off his blue necktie and unbuttoning his khaki shirt. Frankie watched, fascinated, as he pulled the shirttail out of his pants. He undid the last buttons and turned to face his sisters, pulling the shirt open and exposing his chest. In the soft glow of silk lampshades Frankie could see four or five raised scars on his chest and abdomen, small thick stitchings, pale against his dark skin. Each approximately the size and shape of a cigarette.

“Oh, Mike,” Margo said.

Would everyone who came home come with wounds? Why must he show Margo his scars? She'd only be imagining her husband's body torn and punctured.

“Feel this,” Mike said, touching one of the scars. “Healed up pretty good. I was pretty sore but the swelling's gone down.”

“But you were wounded last year,” Margo said. “There's nothing wrong with you now.”

“I've had trouble breathing. It gets clogged up for a while, then clears. They thought it was asthma. I finally saw a Canadian army doc in Sicily. He did X-rays and saw something in my chest, a piece of shrapnel. That's when they sent me back to England. Feel,” he said. “They don't really feel so bad.”

Margo stood with her drink and cigarette in one hand, her other hand cupping her elbow. She didn't move. The CBC news had started but they weren't listening. Frankie put down her drink, got up and walked over to the sofa, and knelt on the floor. Her brother took her fingers and guided them. She touched a rippled scar and the dark skin underneath, hard and firm.

“I was boarded in London. The air force docs said, get up to Scotland and hitch the first ride home you can. I hung around Prestwick three days before there was room.”

Margo knelt beside Frankie, and he took Margo's fingers and guided her. “My lungs are infected. I read my file on the plane. They think I'm going to die.”

Margo said, “That's crazy.”

“You can read the file if you want, Margo.”

“Air force doctors are quacks. Daddy'll get you a real doctor.” Margo jabbed her cigarette between her lips and started buttoning up their brother's shirt. “If you're sick, Daddy can get you into a real hospital. You're tired, that's all. You're home now. We'll take good care of you.”

Mike reached out and took the cigarette from Margo's mouth. Frankie could see the cork tip reddened from her sister's lipstick. Mike took a puff. “Maybe you're right,” he told them. “I feel pretty good right now.”

Displaced Person, Part II

Margo O'B. Taschereau

10
Skye Avenue

Westmount, P.Q.

15th August

Dear Jean,

Still no word from you, will you please drop a line, we're all terribly worried.

Are you in Sicily? We think you must be.

Mike is home, and very ill. He flew across from Scotland and walked in the door the night before last. Daddy is having him seen by Wilder Penfield. He was never properly treated after being wounded last year.

As I wrote in my last, Madeleine and I are very happy here at No. 10. It suits us. But things are a bit hectic here now
 . . . 
Daddy's arranging for Mike to be removed from the air force hospital and sent to the Royal Vic
 . . . 

I know you wanted us to keep up the Northcliffe flat but it was just too bleak there, Jean, you really wouldn't have wanted me to stay. We couldn't get anyone to clean the place and N.D.G. is not my cup of tea. Never was, never will be. After the war we'll find something much nicer. Mother and Frankie are such a help with Maddie. At this very moment Frankie is giving her a bath, I hear her splashing. She's a lucky little girl to have her aunt and grandparents taking care of her while her papa is overseas. This morning at breakfast Daddy was feeding her scrambled eggs off his plate. Very sweet! I only wish you could have seen it.

I hope you're safe wherever you are, dearest.

Please, say a prayer for Mike
 . . . 

The things you put in your letters . . .

I understand how hard it is for you to be separated from the people you love.

You're a passionate man.

When this is over and we're together once more I'll be able to show you that I love you.

All you expect of me, all you want — I'll try to be all those things but I don't know if I am able. If I fail your expectations, what will you do then? In some ways my life is easier now that you are so far away. Wartime. A perfectly good excuse not to bother each other.

Our girl is good and sweet. She is in love with balls, any sort — balloons, tennis balls, golf balls, baseballs, rubber bouncing balls. She saw the globe in Daddy's study and reached out shouting ba, ba, ba.

Listen Jean I'm cold without you. Whatever it is in you that throws me out of whack, I need that now. The days are the days are the days.

Mike is awfully thin and brown as a negro. Are you so thin? Oh Jean sometimes I want to scream at this letter paper, or lick it, chew it. I'd like to destroy my own weakness. I want to snap the pen in half and throw it out the window.

Will we ever travel? I want to see Rome. France. I want to see Paris with my husband, who was an officer in the War.

I hope the doctors can help Mike. Frankie read his charts, he had malaria.

You were always complaining that I was not affectionate enough, that you were made to feel unsure of my love, that my feelings for you were small and inaccessible. And I remember you saying any number of times that I did not understand myself.

As if you did, Jean.

It made me angry to hear you say those things and I was afraid you could be right. But now I know I must have you in a life of trouble. And lately I feel inside a sense of luck about everything, and an openness, Johnny, that wasn't there before.

Before you went away I felt this way only once or twice, when you were inside me. I tried to tell you but you weren't prepared to listen because you were a man going off to the war. Now it's with me almost all the time, this feeling, the very opposite of foreboding. I don't know where it comes from, Johnny. Joy. All the things the nuns said about you, most of the warnings were true, but I still don't care. I know now that you are going to survive and come home. I have seen in dreams, don't laugh, you and me and Maddie together. I'll be everything for you and we'll make more babies won't we. When the war is over and you've come home we'll go away for a good long time. We'll go down to Maine, or up north. I'll want you to tell me everything you have seen and felt. And then we'll leave the war behind us and walk into the rest of our lives.

I think you have to keep yourself within yourself and not give too much to your men and when you are feeling very low, get some sleep. Pray for my brother. Everyone here sends love,

yours xxx Marg

~

Re: R94274 O'Brien F/L M.F. R.A.F.

Nov 9 42 NZ Gen Hosp, Helwan. Adm from No.4 ADS. Multiple shrapnel wounds. 13 frags removed from chest r shoulder and neck. Post-op generalised pain, anorexia and sleeplessness 14 days. Headache, backache, slight cough. Discharged after 28 days.

March 19 43 RAF Wadi Sirru. Intermittent febrile. Patient had malaria Egypt 42, took quinine and Atabrine, which made him quite yellow and dark in colour. Treated by Aspirin at Station Sick Quarters with some relief.

May 20 43 55th Gen Hosp. Tunis. C/of chest pain and shortness of breath. No history asthma but possible pneumonia. Malaria in Egypt 42.

Discharged May 22

Aug 5 43 No. 1 Cdn Gen. Hosp. Catania Sicily.

Appears wasted and cachectic. Tall, brown, sick looking. Reps. feels well when not febrile. Chest X rays indicate infected pleural effusion at nidus of foreign body in chest cavity. Needle aspirate verified fluid collection. Tentative diagnosis empyema chest cavity. Recommend imm. repatriation

August 8 43 Station Sick Quarters, 78 Wing Ashburton, Devon. 102.5°. Pains in chest. Weight loss. Indigestion. Loss of appetite. Reps difficulty breathing as if a balloon in his chest. Consumed large no's of Aspirin. This man is a very healthy-appearing man -- good physical specimen without any complaints except occasional fever and shortness of breath.

1. Loss of strength, duration 7 mos.

2. Loss of wt. - Dec 42 wt 193 lbs - Aug 5 /43 wt 173.

9 Aug 43 No 11 Canadian Gen Hosp, Taplow. Xrays reveal empyema in chest cavity prob. from shrapnel wound Nov 42 in ME. Pleural effusion with fluid collection. Referred to RCAF Medical Board London for repat.

Aug 10 43 RCAF Med Board London. Recommend immediate Repat. to Canada.

~

Hon. Charles Power, P.C.

Minister for Air,

Ottawa

14th August 1943

Dear Chubby,

Re: R94274 O'Brien F/L. M.F. R.A.F.

My son who left for overseas in October 1939, and has since then spent considerable time in England, Africa and Sicily with the R.A.F., was wounded in Egypt and since then has been off and

on between duty in various hospitals.

For the past five weeks he has been, as near as I can gather, a sort of specimen for all the passing doctors to examine, and finally, about ten days ago, the attention of the R.C.A.F. Medical Board in London was called to his case.

They, I am glad to say, acted with promptitude and sent him back to Canada by plane. He has at least a serious infection in his chest, and an immediate operation may be essential. I drove him to Rockcliffe Station on Sunday, where he immediately went to hospital. I now understand that he is to come to the Lachine R.C.A.F. hospital tomorrow.

I want him placed at once in either the Royal Victoria or the Neurological Hospitals here and I want Dr. Wilder Penfield or an equally competent man to perform the operation.

Sincerely,

Joe

~

Re: R94274 O'Brien F/L M.F. R.A.F.

Aug 15 43 RCAF Station Rockcliffe Hosp. F/L O'BRIEN was x-rayed. Tall, thin, brown and looks chronically ill. Empyema chest cavity pr shrapnel. Needle aspirate confirmed fluid.

August 18 43 No.3 Command Medical Board Hosp., Lachine. Foreign body in chest cavity about size of apple seed. Bed rest, APC & C for pain.

20 August 43 - at request Dep Minister (Air) trans to Royal Vic Hosp for consultation with Dr Penfield. Appears not acutely ill.

August 21 43 Chest X-rays ind. nidus of foreign body in chest cavity ... empyema verified via needle aspirate of fluid collection. Dr Penfield cons. Patient obviously in terminal stages. Nothing further can be done.

Aug 23 43 Royal Victoria Hospital Montreal P.Q. Post-exam marked by pt. running extremely low temp. Complained first 2 days of chest pain ... appetite did not return. Felt miserable, short of breath, soreness. Went downhill very rapidly, expired 9:19 pm. Permission for autopsy could not be obtained.