The Second Son (20 page)

“Don’t talk like that, Ed. Your own kids are stuck in that firetrap of a building. Besides, I don’t know why you’re sticking up for the likes of Gilles Viau. You know he hates that so many French Canadians in town speak more English than French.”

“Just because Gilles Viau’s an asshole politician doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being French.”

“Hah! You don’t even speak French to your own kids.”

“Don’t throw that in my face.”

She threw her hands up. “Oh Lord, no, I wouldn’t want to throw anything in your face. But your kids go to the English school and I’ve every right to fight for them.”

“Aw, Christ, Lorna, it’s just bloody politics. There’s always shitdisturbers in politics. That’s all they know how to do, pit one group against the other.”

“But it’s not my fault,” she sighed. “And quit your swearing in front of the kids.”

My father looked like he was ready to start stamping his feet. “And I keep telling you, we’re in business in a small town. You can’t start choosing sides. Half my customers are French.”

“I’m not backing down. I wasn’t raised that way.”

He shook his head. “Fine, then. I’ll run around town every week buying up all the newspapers.”

“Don’t be silly. You can’t do that.”

“Then we’ll be out of business by next spring. We’ll still have our pride, though. We can eat pride for breakfast. Heck, we can eat it for lunch and supper, too.” Then he looked at us and tried to smile at his own joke. “How’s that sound, boys? Pride, with ketchup on top.”

My mother shook her head at his sarcasm but didn’t dispute his prediction. “I’m sorry. You’re right, we have to eat. I’ll resign from the PTA, if you think it will do any good.”

“It’ll do more good than stories in the paper about how Lorna Landry thinks the French are picking on the English in Alexandria.”

I don’t think she went that far, but I guess she stopped being their spokesperson, because I never saw any more piles of Cornwall newspapers in the house. It started something, though, and when the argument surfaced again at Christmas I knew we weren’t just one big happy family anymore. It happened when I started telling Grandpa Landry about the big snowball fight we’d had the week before.

“Yuh shoulda seen it, Grandpa. There were some French kids passing our school, coming back from lunch hour, and somebody threw a snowball. The snow was nice and soft that day, and pretty soon there was a whole bunch of us throwing snowballs at each other. So we wiped them out, eh? Yuh shoulda seen it.” When he didn’t say anything, I figured he was interested. “Then after school this whole big gang of French kids came down the street and ambushed us coming out of school. It was a massacre, eh? Sister Anthony had to come out and ring the school bell at them, that’s how bad it got, hitting the windows and everything. Those French kids were sure surprised when she came out and — ”

“Michel,” he finally interrupted, “what do you mean, French kids? You’re a French kid, aren’t you?” He looked at my parents. He must have been wondering if I talked like that all the time.

My answer didn’t help. “Well, I’m half French, I guess. But I don’t brag about it.”

Grandma Landry made a funny noise, like she was trying to catch her breath. It was a dumb, smart-aleck thing to say. I know that now. And Grandpa Landry wasn’t stupid. He knew there was some truth behind my joke. He had grown up amongst French and English, too, and he knew the pressure there was on kids to belong to one group or the other. He was also a proud French Canadian. He turned to my father. “
Tu sais, mon fils,
when my parents left Quebec the parish priest warned them, right there in church in front of the whole parish. He said they would lose their religion and their language if they went to live in Ontario. And maybe their souls, too.”

“
Voyons, Papa, c’est juste un kid
. He took a lot of teasing over his name. That’s all. He knows he’s French.”

“Does he? I’m not so sure about that. Maybe that priest was right. My son doesn’t attend mass and neither one of his sons speaks his mother tongue. It shouldn’t surprise me. Your own French is loaded with slang.” When my father’s only answer was a shrug, Grandpa continued, “You keep telling me about Andrew’s high marks, but I never hear him speaking French. Don’t they teach French in that school?”

I watched the colour rising in my mother’s face. I knew Grandpa was on dangerous ground. Sure enough, she spoke up, “I take the boys to church every Sunday, Mr. Landry. And maybe I should push them harder to speak French. But as you know, they don’t get very much encouragement from their father. He has no patience for their schoolbook French. Theirs or mine.”

My grandmother must have decided that Christmas was not the time for this discussion. She gave Grandpa the famous Gervais glare, as she responded to my mother, “That’s as much our fault as anyone’s, Lorna. The family always had that rule, if there’s someone with us who doesn’t speak French, we all speak English. Maybe that was a mistake.”

That’s when I realized how much I had upset my grandfather, because he snapped right back at her, “Well, Cecile, maybe we can be forgiven if we get tired of waiting for the English to learn some French, after two hundred years.”

That was too much for my father. “Aw, who the hell cares about that stuff, except a bunch of priests and politicians trying to stir up shit?”

“Hah!” My grandfather put his glass down on the table, hard. “There were no priests or politicians in the streets of Montreal last March, were there? During the Richard riots? That was the people, finally getting fed up.”

My father laughed. “And you think that wasn’t politics? It’s always the same thing, one group or the other, looking for the advantage.”

“People just want their rights, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” my father came back with, “and if Hitler had won the war we’d all be speaking German. Anyways, another fifty years and we’ll all be speaking English. Why don’t you get it over it, Papa? The Americans will be running the world before long. Then you’ll see what language you’ll have to talk to earn a living.”

My grandfather was getting red in the face, the same colour as my dad, who had been into the rye and ginger all afternoon. “Well, I won’t be around that long, will I?” Grandpa said. “But you might, Edouard. And maybe you’ll have to decide who you are. I wonder if you know, really?”

Dad downed the rest of his drink and stuck his chin out, “I’m Ed Landry from Alexandria. And damned proud of it.”

“So, belonging here in Alexandria is the most important thing for you? Do you think that’s what’s best for your boys, too? Is there a future for them, here?”

“Damn right. I love this town, and so do they.”

“Maybe you love it a little too much. I wonder . . . does it love you back,
mon fils
?”

My mother spoke up then. “Your father might be right about that, Ed.” She explained to my grandfather, “We got mixed up in a French-English dispute this fall and it cost us some business. Some people want everything their own way. Just last week, Mrs. Cardinal who owns the dress shop by the mill square, she refused to serve me in English.”

“Aw, Lorna,” my father protested, “that woman fights with everybody that comes in the door. Her own husband couldn’t stand her. Drank himself to death.”

My mother shook her head. “Just the same, things are changing in this town. People aren’t getting along like they used to. They’re taking sides.”

“More politics,” he answered. “A few troublemakers are stirring things up, trying to get their hooks into people. You just have to steer clear of that. Especially if you’re in business.”

Grandpa frowned some more. “It’s always business with you, isn’t it, Ed? Does it not matter to you that your own people have been kept down? Don’t you think they’re entitled to their rights? To speak their own language in the places they work?”

“But they shouldn’t step on other people’s rights to get them, do you think, Mr. Landry?” my mother asked. I’m not sure she realized how upset he was.

It was my grandmother who answered, still looking to keep the peace. “You have to understand, Lorna. Michel is just lucky his English is so good. If his English wasn’t perfect, he wouldn’t have a job at Eaton’s — I can tell you that. And they sure don’t go out of their way to serve the French people. Michel has been told to serve everyone in English, unless they demand to speak French.”

“Oh, I know, some people can be so unfair. It’s just that I’ve always believed Alexandria was better than that.”

“When you were growing up, maybe. It wasn’t so good when we were kids. Many times we were chased home by kids throwing rocks at us and calling us pea-soupers. For sure, there was no French allowed in schools back then. You’re maybe too young to have heard of Bill 17, but we had to fight hard to keep our language. Maybe that’s one reason we’re proud to be French Canadians. I’m sure the boys will be, too, when they’re old enough to understand what it means.”

My father was pouring himself another drink and shaking his head. “You people are always worrying about the wrong thing,” he started muttering. “French or English, or Scottish for that matter, doesn’t mean a damn thing when you’re starving. You don’t see the Jews insisting on speaking Hebrew. The almighty dollar, that’s what everybody worships these days. Making a living, that’s what comes first. I’ll talk whatever language people want, even join their clubs and wear their funny hats, just so long as I can make a buck off it. That’s what counts in the . . .”

I don’t know how much longer the argument went on that afternoon. I got bored and started playing with some of my Christmas presents. I wanted to try out my new trapper and hockey socks, more concerned with my identity as a hockey player than a French Canadian. It did catch my attention that the pickings were pretty slim that Christmas. I only got about five presents from my parents, and three of them were clothes, not counting the hockey socks. My mother had warned us a few weeks before not to expect too much. Now I knew she wasn’t kidding.

I remember listening to them later that evening, when they’d settled into their traditional card game and were slapping their cards on the table, arguing about tricks instead of that other stuff. Mom was calling Grandpa Landry “Papa” again, and it sounded like the fun they used to have all the time. I guess I was fooling myself. I wonder if they were, too. Perhaps it was a truce, like countries at war often have at Christmas. I guess families do that all the time.

Or maybe it was because business had picked up at Christmas, before it went in the dumps again after New Year’s. It must have been pretty bad. My father came home late one night and started yelling about Grandma Bessie. “Guess who I saw coming out of Allied tonight?” he said as he came in the door.

Andrew and I were still at the supper table, eating our dessert. I remember because it was the first time my mother had made that instant chocolate pudding my father had brought home from the store, and it wasn’t as good as the real thing. My mother looked up from the sink where she had started the dishes. “I hope you’re not expecting supper. I can’t be — ”

“Never mind the damn supper. Don’t you want to know who I saw? Coming out of goddamn Allied?” I guess he was mad we weren’t paying enough attention to him.

A year earlier and all that swearing would have gotten him a big lecture. Now my mom just asked, “All right then, who did you see? The baby Jesus?”

Andrew and I had to smother some giggles. My father didn’t even crack a grin. “You think it’s funny, do you? You won’t think it’s so funny when we can’t pay our bills at the end of the month.”

“Sorry,” my mother sighed. “Tell me who you saw.”

He sulked for a minute before he told her, “I saw Bessie MacRae, heading to her car with three clerks carrying an order like I haven’t filled for her in two years. You think that’s right?”

“She’s just my stepmother, Ed. I can’t make her buy from us. We’ve been over this before.”

“You could at least give her a piece of your mind the next time you see her. She’s like all the rest. She comes to me for credit — she’s got a bill with me for ninety-six dollars, right now, ninety-six dollars — but when she gets the cash from her milk cheque she goes to Allied. Just to save a few pennies on her bill. Goddamn Scotchmen, they’re all the same.”

“Now Ed, you know it’s more than a few pennies. Allied is undercutting you a few pennies on most items. It adds up. Besides, it’s not only her. Your own cousin Fred left you to go to work for them.”

He stopped pacing and stared at her for a few seconds before he answered. “It’s not the same. I didn’t have enough work for him. He has to feed his family.”

“And Bessie’s been having a hard time since Andy died. That’s why she’s so anxious for Sissy and Rod to take over the farm. Most of what she makes goes to that hired hand, just to keep him there.”

“Sure, sure, make excuses for her. Did you ever think she might keep her hired help longer if she wasn’t such a pain in the ass to work for?”

She banged a dish down on the drying rack. “I’m not making excuses, I’m just trying to explain why — ”

“That’s not the point, goddammit. It’s the damn disloyalty. They come to me for credit, then go to Allied when they’ve got cash. Goddammit!” He yanked out a chair and dropped himself into it, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. “I can’t keep it up, goddammit, I can’t keep it up.”

She went still, and looked at him kind of funny. Then she dried her hands and went over and rested a hand on the back of his neck for a moment. Finally she moved to the sink and started to fill the kettle. “I’ll make us some tea.”

He still had his head down, talking to himself. “I’ve tried everything, even a discount for cash orders. But I just can’t compete on prices. I’ll never get the price breaks they do on bulk purchases. And those goddamn ads they run, whole pages, all those loss leaders.” He looked up at my mother. “I just can’t compete, Lorna. Some of their prices are cheaper than my goddamn wholesale costs.”

“You’re still delivering, though. George doesn’t deliver.”

“Sure,” he snorted, “and everybody and his uncle is buying a car these days. And those green stamps, I don’t have those bloody green stamps. Do you know how many people ask me about those bloody stamps?” He mimicked an old lady’s voice, “ ‘Why don’t you have green stamps, Ed? Allied has green stamps.’ I got so mad at old Mrs. Fraser today I finally asked her, ‘And do you boil those green stamps, Mrs. Fraser, or just fry them?’ ”