The Generation Game (20 page)

After a turbulent plane journey that takes us through a never-ending night from all that is familiar to all that isn’t, we eventually touch down on Canadian soil. We
collect baggage and stagger through customs, Bob proudly wielding his British passport as if this makes him superior in some way. And that is almost how we are treated, as English cousins from the
posh side of the family (if only they knew). Everyone is so nice. They ask us if we’ve had a good flight, if we are staying long, if we know their cousin Doris who lives somewhere in the
Greater Manchester area. Finally they insist we visit Niagara Falls (as if you could stop us) and impress on us the need to enjoy our trip, eh.

It is dark and foggy as we make our way outside Toronto airport, into the chill of the January night. I have little sense of this new country but feel sick with excitement and longing amongst
other unnamed emotions. This is where Helena lives and breathes! She is probably sleeping in her bed, maybe minutes away from where we are standing right now, dreaming away an everyday sort of
night, completely oblivious to our arrival.

Yes, oblivious. For Bob has only just admitted he hasn’t told her we are coming. I’m not sure why he hasn’t told her we are coming. Perhaps it’s because he wanted to make
sure she didn’t run away again. But this does throw up all sorts of traumatic questions: What if she isn’t there? What if she’s gone on her holidays? What if she’s moved?
What if all this has been for nothing?

‘She’ll be there,’ says Bob, the mind reader. ‘Don’t fret.’

And with this new-found confidence, he manages to grab us a taxi in a way that would impress both Helena and Linda. We are driven along the wrong side of the road with all its signs in English
and French and metric, past skyscrapers we can’t see the top of, down vast multi-lane highways and across back-to-front intersections, to our motel (a motel!).

Our motel isn’t anything like the accommodation we stayed at in London with the avocado en-suite. Nor anything like Toni’s flat in Belsize Park. We collect our key from a very nice
man called Ed. Ed looks like he’s been employed by the Canadian tourist board to satisfy our English expectations, in his checked shirt and deer stalker, as if he’s about to set out and
fell a giant tree. In the meantime he’s watching an over-sized television in his little office.

‘What’s on?’ Bob asks in an attempt at male-bonding.

‘Hockey,’ Ed says, immediately perking up.

It’s nothing like the hockey I play at school. This hockey is played by huge men with crates on their heads zooming around on ice. The only men I’ve previously seen on ice have been
of the Robin Cousins ilk, dressed in spangly costumes with too much blusher. I can see this will be the first of many cultural differences between our two countries.

Once Ed has enquired about our flight, our length of stay, his old school buddy, Ken in Cirencester, and impressed upon us the need to enjoy our trip, we bid him goodnight and he points us in
the direction of our home-from-home.

‘Be sure to come and ask if you need anything,’ he calls after us. ‘I’ll be right here, eh.’

Fortunately we don’t have far to struggle with our luggage and the cold. We are soon inside our basic, to say the least, accommodation. Basic and not authentically Canadian accommodation;
there isn’t a racoon’s tail or a picture of a Mountie to be seen. We make a (very) brief tour – twin beds, a small fridge, a two ring cooker, an ancient telly, a tiny bathroom
(washroom) with only a shower, a loo, and a basin – and then unpack our night clothes and wash bags.

‘Which bed do you want?’ Bob asks.

I look at them both, with their overhead lights in the fake wooden headboards and indicate the one by the window which doesn’t appear to sag as much as the other as far as the eye can
tell. (I am recuperating from a near death experience, remember.)

‘I’ll get changed in the bathroom,’ Bob says.

I listen to the noises he makes through the bathroom door and realise that I’ve never watched him brush his teeth or shave or do any of those things I might have witnessed if he were my
real father. But this is not the time for regrets. He has brought me here after all. No-one else in the world would have done that.

He re-appears after several minutes in his Marks and Sparks striped pyjamas and towelling dressing gown.

‘It’s all yours.’

I wish it wasn’t. It’s grim inside. There’s something about the shower curtain that brings Norman Bates to mind. Maybe it’ll be less horrifying in daylight. But
unfortunately there’s no window, so presumably not.

Once I’ve brushed my teeth and got into my own familiar pyjamas, I feel better. It doesn’t matter where we stay. All I want is a bed. And the bed isn’t so bad. It is good
enough to lure me towards sleep, to soften all visions of a psycho lurking in the shadows. I turn on my side and gaze at the window, the orange curtains. And I blow a kiss at the Cavalier
who’s stowed away in my suitcase and followed me across the ocean in the hold of the plane and is right at this moment settling himself down for the night, getting ready to watch over me.

It is late morning when we finally surface into a fug of jet lag. After a shower (a very brief shower due to the cold and the haunting violin shrieks), we have a complimentary
cup of coffee. Then we sit on our beds and stare at each other.

‘Let’s get some breakfast,’ says Bob. ‘That’s the best place to start.’

So he puts on his sheepskin coat that makes him look like a thinner version of Bernie and I put on my parka. He eases open the front door and we step into our first day in Canada. We promptly go
straight back indoors. It’s freezing out there! A thick layer of snow covers the over-night cars in the parking lot and we realise that even Linda hasn’t prepared us for this.

‘We need proper boots,’ Bob decides. ‘And maybe a hire car.’

‘How about we order a taxi instead,’ I suggest. ‘That way you don’t have to worry about driving in all this.’ I sweep my hand in a grand gesture at the vista
through our window. On the wrong side of the road.

Bob is about to object but then he gives in. He knows I’m right.

‘We need to get breakfast first,’ he says. ‘According to this,’ – he brandishes a curled up leaflet from a selection on the bedside cabinet –
‘there’s a diner called Sally Ann’s round the corner. Reckon we can make it that far?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We can make it.’ We are Polar explorers on the verge of venturing out into the undiscovered wild (though someone has always been there before you. Just
because you stake your claim, doesn’t mean you’re the first one).

We spend the next few minutes scrambling into gloves and scarves and coats. Finally I zip up my hood which means I have to survive from now on with limited tunnel vision. Bob dons a flat cap
which might cover the bald patch but which makes him look twenty years older (and he’s getting on a bit, somewhere in that vague, indistinguishable region of Middle Age).

‘Are you sure you want to wear that?’ I can’t help asking. After all, he might be seeing my mother later today, the love of his life. Doesn’t he want to impress her?

‘It’s all I’ve got,’ he says forlornly. ‘Linda forgot to buy me a proper hat. Whatever a proper hat is for these occasions.’

‘We’ll have to get you something else after breakfast then,’ I decide. ‘We’ll know when we see it.’

He doesn’t argue. He picks up his wallet, secures it inside the deep pocket of his coat and then taps it, treating it like the precious object it is. For I know the wallet contains all our
Canadian dollars and travellers cheques but also, and most importantly, the wallet contains Helena’s address and telephone number.

This time we are slightly more prepared for the cold that assaults us on every front as we set foot back outside, a sharp wind quickly numbing any available skin. I track behind Bob across the
parking lot, following the tail of his coat, Scott and Oates, into the unknown, down the road (highway), looking for somewhere authentically Canadian to eat. We pass a gas station and a restaurant
called Tim Hortons which sells every type of doughnut (donut) you could possibly imagine and which I like the look of.

‘We need a proper breakfast,’ Bob says. ‘Not cakes.’

On we go, past smart shops and offices, another gas station, a school, and more exotic-looking fast food outlets (of which we’ve only heard rumours in Torquay, like some kind of urban myth
that has some truth in it after all). Ten minutes later we are still not there, at our authentic Canadian diner.

‘I thought you said it was round the corner.’

‘It is,’ says Bob. ‘That’s what the leaflet said.’

It’s becoming apparent that being a pedestrian in a country where size is on a different scale altogether to ours back home isn’t going to be easy, particularly when snow is
fluttering into the equation. Just as we are beginning to lose all sense of reason, and any feeling in our extremities, we find it: Sally Ann’s.

Inside Sally Ann’s is a warm welcome in every sense of the word. We are able to take off our coats before being shown to a booth by a waitress who looks like she enjoys her job and says,
‘Welcome to the Great White North,’ when she spots our red noses.

We both order as close to a full English as we can: eggs (sunny side up), bacon, fried tomatoes, toast and a bottomless cup of fresh coffee which is a far cry from the Mellow Birds we’re
used to at home. The food when it comes is only spoilt by the apprehension gurgling away in the complicated workings of my insides (and in Bob’s too by the sounds of it).

‘Are you going to phone her?’ I indicate the wallet which Bob has laid carefully in the centre of the table, secure between the two of us and a wall of napkins (serviettes). He rubs
his bare head, possibly trying to warm it up, maybe trying to get his brain into gear.

‘I think we should leave it for today.’ He rubs a little harder when he notices my raised eyebrow. ‘You look far too tired for any excitement. We could do some shopping, go
back to the motel, watch some Canadian TV, read a book, have an early night. That way we’ll be on the ball tomorrow.’ He replaces the flat cap on his head, even though he’s always
been adamant it’s rude to eat with your hat on.

And why this mention of books? I can’t remember the last time I saw Bob read a book. He’s quite possibly stalling. But I don’t object and exclaim:
No, Bob, let’s do it
today! Let’s go hunt down my mother!
I just mumble a quiet ‘alright.’ Even after a second refill of coffee, I am shockingly tired. And I am most definitely stalling.

Once we’ve wrapped up well again, we locate a department store and purchase a hat called a tuque or a toque or something like that, which is apparently what all Canadians
wear in winter, apart from Ed who over the next two weeks will never be seen in anything but his deer stalker that brings Michael Landon to mind in
Little House on the Prairie
(rather than
Sherlock Holmes). Tuques (or toques) are not particularly attractive, being basically a bobble hat without the distraction of a bobble. It seems Canadians are more bothered about function than
appearance which suits Bob down to the ground. Though I can’t help wishing the tuque (or toque) suited Bob down to the ground. Still, at least his bald patch is covered up.

We then find a grocery store near the motel and gather essentials to see us through the remainder of the day so that we can hibernate till morning. For the morning should bring us more
excitement and trepidation than today. It should bring us my mother.

When I wake up, daylight has scared off the Cavalier. This is it then: morning. I sit up and look over at Bob’s bed. Bob’s empty bed. For a second I wonder if
he’s taken off, scared to face up to his responsibilities for once in his life. But then I hear the shower and Bob’s morning ablutions.

Bob will never let me down. That’s the job of other people, namely my mother (and that hopeless father of mine, running in circles in the jungle, most probably shacked up with some
Amazonian woman with a whole tribe of children of his own).

Perhaps I should feel more excited at the prospect of seeing Helena but actually I feel very little that is good. I feel sick, sad, scared by all the different scenarios. What if her condominium
is bigger than she’s always maintained? What if Orville Tupper still calls me ‘kid’? Even though I’ll be closer to his dizzying heights than a decade ago (though much closer
than I could actually have guessed). What if Helena doesn’t know who I am? What if she slams the door in my face? What if she cries? What if she doesn’t cry? What if, on seeing me
again, she hot foots it to the Soviet Union, to Australia, to outer space? And this time, like Lucas, her disappearance will be for good. Forever. Which, when all is said and done, is a very long
time.

Bob escapes the clutches of Norman Bates and has scrubbed up well despite sharing a shower with a psychopath. Hopefully Helena won’t be too shocked at how much he’s aged over the
last ten years. He’s softened the edges a little with soap and Brylcreem and something less obvious, possibly hope. But then of course Helena has got older too. I still think of her as young
but she’ll be in her thirties now, in her prime. Will she really want Bob and me turning up on her doorstep with all our baggage?

After a half-hearted breakfast we wash up and brush our teeth. Then there’s really nothing left to do.

‘Ready, Philippa?’ he asks.

‘As I’ll ever be.’ I put on my most courageous smile, drawing on the vibes of Miss Parry, my Virgin Queen back across the ocean.

The address we have for Helena is only a few blocks away according to Ed but a fair old distance by our standards. Ed orders us a cab and invites us to sit down and watch some
American soap opera with him while we wait. The soap opera is made up of over-tanned, long-legged, almost-beautiful people who’ve never seen the inside of a drama school. The programme is
thankfully relieved at frequent intervals with many adverts for things I’ve never heard of, mainly medication of some description. I add these cultural differences to the ones I’ve
already absorbed and am in a far off daydream, far away from the here and now when Bob taps me on the shoulder and tells me it’s time to go.