The Age of Cities (8 page)

“That's not the point. It's a bit like visiting a ranch. Only I am invisible—or at least nothing spots me—and just watch them peacefully go about their business. Lovely.”

“Lonely, I'd say. And anyway there's no intelligence there, Mother. Animal instinct only! And that means there is no culture. It's all packs, flocks or prides, and being led around by some elemental pulsations: go forth and multiply. Eating, sleeping, mating until they're feeble and then melt back into the earth.” Winston was intrigued by her creation. His need to respond was habit rather than dismay.

“Porter.” Alberta spoke out over her son's head and raised her hand to wave. Winston watched her silver bangles slide up her forearm. An elderly man, stooped and turtle-paced, made his way toward her. “How long will it be before we arrive?” He checked his pocket watch, and was sure to explain that his answer was “an approximation.” Winston pictured a troupe of porters in a train station office being given a pep talk by their higher ups, explaining how they must use that phrase so that nobody could complain if the train was running late.

He returned to his station at the end of the car after asking, “Is that everything, Madame?” Alberta was triumphant: “You see! He answered me because he sensed that I am higher than he is in the pack and should be obeyed. There was no intelligence there, just instinct. Ha. That's your civilization. It's nothing except that, but it dresses itself up, puts on airs. La-dee-da.” She made the hand gestures of a fine lady lifting her skirts to take a step.

Alberta turned to look at the porter—now unmoving, statuary hands resting on the countertop. She said, “Speaking of which … I believe that man ought to bathe. He's wearing enough aftershave to make a bear stop dead in its tracks. I'd guess that he's trying to cover up his ripeness. Maybe we should leave him a discreet note: ‘Sir, it will be to the benefit of all that you wash yourself. Signed, A Concerned Passenger.' What do you think?”

“Well, no, Mother. Or, yes. No aftershave, I agree. But bathing? I think if we want to honour your vision and return to our prehistoric former glory, he should tear off his uniform and revel in his stink. We all should. Your mighty brontos didn't wear any trousers, did they?” His mother's visions were grand, Winston had seen, and fuzzy; she didn't care too much about details so long as it looked poetically just. Winston thought she'd regret yet that she'd raised a details man. It would be Alberta's enduring lament, the final word on her epitaph.

“Very well, you win. Read your damned book, then, young man.” She was grumbling but already laying out framed cloth, thread, and needles—the tools for her embroidery. Winston was fond of his mother's pillowcase abstractions, which were always received with such expressions of puzzlement by the Women's Auxiliary. Of the donated helter-skelter chunks of livid silk and mossy wool thread, she'd say, “I call it ‘Children on May Day'” (or “Washington Crossing the Delaware” or “Louis Riel at Batoche”), as though it was a perfect replica of a nostalgic Currier & Ives plate. The women, some decades younger than their benefactress, would politely encourage the senile biddy as though she had handed them a clod of earth and claimed it was brilliant 24-carat gold. Each time they carried in the selection of pillow covers, they'd chime, “Why, thank you, Mrs. Wilson, you've been so busy lately” with a nurse's pragmatic insincerity.

Winston believed his mother took no small pleasure from their smugness and discomfort, though she never said a word about it. While pretty French manor scenes stitched by other ladies seemed to be sitting on every chesterfield in town—the single setting of bewigged but chaste youthful romance on a swing had become the inexplicable staple of the River Bend City ladies' repertoire—Winston had never spotted one of Alberta's pillow covers in the house of any colleague or acquaintance. Their absolute invisibility led him to conclude that the women threw them out before they could scare the public during the Auxiliary's Christmas and Citizen's Day sales. We have a reputation for discerning taste to uphold, he supposed they might proclaim.

As she worked on a new extravaganza in buttercup yellow (maybe “Laura Secord on the Plains of Abraham”? She always chose a historical tableau), Winston could read. There was now scarcely enough time to finish the chapter. Winston was curious to know how the author was going to manage with the Minotaur legend. Already, as they had been speaking signs of human habitation had supplanted alder and salmonberry; boats and barges gave testimony about the economic value of a streaming body of water. Invective could replace Alberta's romance of brontosaurus paradise with lightning speed: majesty was covered with blight…. Winston knew what to expect.

 

 

Outside the station, they stood for the moment next to one of the fluted columns—tall and solid as a Douglas fir—and took in the hectic scene.

Alberta secured her hat and straightened her gloves. She looked at the sunny cut-glass chrysanthemum she'd pinned to her coat. “Is it a bit much?” she asked.

“No, Mother, it's perfect for the day.”

“Should we walk there? It can't be far.” Being outside her familiar routine had turned Alberta unusually ruffled, Winston noticed.

“Yes it can. Let's splurge, Mother. We'll catch a cab. You can close your eyes and reunite with your brontosaurus pals. We ought to wait over there, though.” He walked toward a stand of taxicabs.

Following closely behind, she said, “Smart alec. Rouse me when we've arrived at our palace.”

 

 

Winston had arranged the earliest possible appointment and fully expected to be out of the podiatrist's office in a matter of ten minutes. Greeting him with an automatic “Hello, Mr. Wilson. Lovely weather, isn't it?” the receptionist led the way to the same cramped examination room and reminded him to remove his shoes and stockings. Winston noticed the walls had been painted, lemon yellow over Kelly green, one coat only and not quite thick enough.

When the doctor arrived with his notebook in hand, he immediately bent on one knee and lifted Winston's foot. “Huh. I'll be darned,” he exclaimed. He handled Winston's ankle and calf, pressing here and there to measure the swelling. Grinning now: “Huh. And that's my professional opinion, Mr. Wilson. My diagnoses have been about as helpful as your mother's mustard poultice. All I can say is that it's a mystery, but at least it's a harmless one. And as long as you're not too uncomfortable, you're going to have to get used to having a spongy foot and a tight shoe. I could lance it, I suppose,” he muttered as he wrote in his notebook. He drew strong lines through
metaplasia
.

“Another six weeks, doctor?”

“No, I don't think so. If the swelling increases, book an appointment. Otherwise … well, welcome to the future.” He snapped the book shut and glanced at his wristwatch.

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Wilson.” Grinning again, the doctor thrust out a fraternal hand. Winston wondered if he ought to smile with the same frequency; outwardly, the doctor's life-long success seemed assured.

Winston left feeling flustered, finding in his behaviour the very picture of the hypochondriac who believes that a tiny welt left by an insect was the seed for a blistering fever and terminal case of malaria. He'd always detested boys who cried wolf.

Winston bade the elderly elevator operator adieu with a tip of his hat and strode to the creamy-tiled Hudson's Bay outpost in under ten minutes. Seated in the vestibule of the south entrance as they'd arranged, Alberta gave him a discreet and queenly wave as she noticed him emerging from the chrome doors. “You're right on time, that was a fine guess,” she said.

“You've found nothing to purchase, Mother?” She'd rested her boxy oxblood purse on her lap, but carried no shopping bags. Winston was struck by how contented she appeared.

“There's hardly been a minute to spend a cent. The perfume counter alone kept me busy, thank you very much, for half an hour. Those broads are cutthroat: ‘No woman is complete without her secret weapon.' Were you aware of that? So I was informed. It reminded me of the poster that loomed over the post office for years: ‘Tell Nobody—Not Even Her. Careless Talk Costs Lives.' Or some such tripe. You'd think we started wars, every one of us a plotting Mata Hari in the making. Huh! Still, I was nearly suckered into buying a small bottle.”

Winston had taken a seat as his mother was relating her adventure. He said, “You ought to indulge yourself once in a while,” and got up quickly to hold the door for a smartly dressed young woman overburdened with packages. “Maybe not all at once, though: a blind man might mistake you for a bouquet of carnations right now.”

“Oh my. My sense of smell gave up the ghost five minutes after I arrived at the counter.” She lifted her wrist to her nose. “It'll fade soon enough. Let's hope.”

Now standing beside his mother's chair, Winston added: “You know, I think Mr. Carlyle actually kept that poster up for years after V-Day because Doris left him. He's such a bitter fellow. He'd refer to ‘an ill wind' with a wink after a friendly lady left his wicket.”

“Maybe he should have learned to drink a little less and keep his hands to himself, silly man. Everybody concerned would be happier.” She had not nurtured many friendships, but Alberta managed to be up to date with grapevine dispatches. Returning home with staff room gossip, Winston was usually confounded that she'd heard details that hadn't passed his way.

Alberta told him that she was giddy as a bride, and had spent the hour wandering through several floors crawling with merchandise. The bins, shelves, and stacked towers of tinned goods in the Food Department made the Bend shops look like chicken scratch, as if they were still living in the Depression, she exclaimed. And the prices weren't bad, either.

“There's enough to clothe an army. We can wander through it all later,” Alberta added. “You must be hungry, though. Any good news from the specialist?”

She was up and moving before he answered. Wandering along the aisle, she explained that she'd made a reservation for luncheon at the Marine Room, a fancy restaurant she had happened across on the top floor. “It's a lovely room. I requested that our table overlook the water. The hostess said she thought there would be something available. We'd best not be late.”

Winston was hungry and, now, curious. He asked, “You're sure? We're not far from rail tracks here, Mother, we could head that way for a thriftier meal. We could split a can of pork and beans with some tramps down that way. Shoot some dice for dessert. I'd guarantee the view would be great there, too.”

“Yes, I suppose we could. But….” She slowed for a moment to caress a diaphanous sun-coloured scarf worn by a blank-eyed plaster head. “You have plenty of money squirreled away, and you're buying. All the ladies will be impressed: A Good Son Taking His Delicate Mother Out For Luncheon.” Her left hand semaphored the words in capital letters. “They'll all have the same thought, I can promise you that.”

Alberta led him to a marble-clad wall punctuated with three bronze elevators. Riding the middle car, they remained silent till arriving at the sixth floor. Together or alone, they felt uncomfortable holding conversations at spots where they were sure of being overheard; in bank and post office lineups or the grocery store check-out, their concern was with getting through before being trapped by a chatty Mrs. Bell or Mr. Jenkins into shooting the breeze about the weather, the price of stamps or the latest setback on the new bridge. That compulsion of men to speak—to say just anything at all to halt the birth of silence—was one they did not share.

The elevator panel's square button lit 6 and a bell dinged their arrival. Stepping quickly out of the car Alberta said, “This way, sir,” with mock-solemnity and mimicked the white-gloved military hand directions of a policeman at a busy intersection. Winston followed her signs.

En route to the Marine Room, they passed under a long and narrow showcase corridor. Winston studied its vaulted stained glass ceiling. The patriotic scenes of British Columbian industriousness had been captured with chunky leaded rectangles and translucent glass, a year of cutting and soldering at least, he guessed. Such an undertaking! An undulating indigo banner proclaiming
A Century of Progress
in bright yellow ran through the centre, and on either side were illustrated the provincial hallmarks as deigned by some centennial committee—Energy and Power, Recreation, Fisheries, Forestry and Logging, Mining, Agriculture, Education, Commerce. Winston noted that Education was represented by a milky one-room schoolhouse that looked forlorn and minute on what must be a wheat field surrounded by intimidating panes of deep green Emily Carr forest. Not quite the picture of today, he thought, but accurate enough. Then as now, Agriculture and Forestry and Logging were the careers of choice for many of the future breadwinners attending River Bend High. He noticed that there was no panel dedicated to Arts and Culture. A Century of Progress indeed.

Winston was impressed, even if he would have changed two or three of the highlighted provincial hallmarks. The Bend's puny Centennial stab was another story altogether. Beside throwing in some half-baked special events for the 1958 Citizen's Day parade—the mayor and his deputy dressed as the town's two founding missionaries and a dozen frisky aldermen dressed as Indian chiefs, railway men, coolies, and lady entertainers; and the high school's entire marching band decked out as Atomic Age strawberries following two straw-hatted farmers holding a
Land of the Big Red Strawberry
banner—the town's biggest effort had been renaming the new concrete bridge in honour of the province's Century of Progress. Centennial Bridge: what lyricism. Compared to this graceful lighted canopy, that centennial enterprise was an embarrassing cache of fool's gold.