The Heart Beats in Secret. Katie Munnik

imagine now. She’s far too loud and bright and flamboyant for any classroom. Maybe things were different in London. She wears ground-trailing skirts and her hair is short and dyed jet black to match her mascara. And she’s an actress now, which she says isn’t a world away from teaching. She’s managed to get leading lady roles in a few Shakespeare plays – says it’s the accent that kills at auditions. She thinks it’s a riot I’m still in nursing. A last-generation job, she calls it, perfect for old-fashioned girls. I’m not quite sure she understands wanting a stable life. And it’s not like she has pots of money to prop her up. Before she moved into the flat, she had a basement room with no furniture. Just a mattress on the floor and a radio to keep her company. She says it did wonders for her Canadian accent, all that talk radio. The prime minister is said to be very upset about this room-er. Tomorrow, the high temperature will be twenny-three degrees.

       Heat is supposed to be included in our rent, but the flat is still cold. Jenny walks about draped in blankets. Margaret says that the weather will be warmer by March. I’ve already been through a full year, but Montreal weather is hard to anticipate. Margaret keeps saying things like when the snow melts … and that was before the dog days. They roll off her tongue quite naturally, but then, she’s from here. I should be keeping a logbook, I think, marking down temperatures and the superstitions of the natives. But she’s right to remind me. Seasons change quickly here, and spring doesn’t linger. Last year, it was such a shock. Ice and blizzards one week and then the crocuses were up and gone the next. Blink and you miss it and everyone’s in bare legs. Margaret says I should really call the folk at the camp soon and see if they can help, if that’s my plan. She said it so sweetly. You’d like her. I guess I want you to know that I’m being looked after. We’re a family of sorts here at the flat, the girls like sisters and guardian angels – their friends and suitors, too.

       I’m not going to write to you now about my baby’s father. I don’t mind that you asked and I will tell you at some stage, but for now he isn’t important. And I’m fine with that. That sounds defiant, or defensive. It isn’t meant to. I am well and as peaceful as I can be in this cold and troubled city. Jenny says get used to it – not just snow but bombs, too. Bienvenue au Québec, baby. But don’t worry about me. I am well and safe and more or less happy.

       Lots of love,

       Felicity

      * * *

       Montreal, March 1969

       Dear Mum and Dad,

       So much for nonchalance. Even if I didn’t have to, I’d want to leave my job now. Not because I’m tired out – though I am – and not at all because of the people, because they really are lovely. But the work is getting scary and so is this precarious city. You probably don’t hear much on the BBC, so here’s the scuttlebutt, as Dad would say.

       Last night, there was hell of a march. The anglo press is reporting it as a peaceful protest, but at the hospital, we see another side to things. Of course, they are comparing it to last month’s attack at the stock exchange. No bombs last night, so no structural damage, but there were ten thousand people out on the streets, at least. From what we saw, the police got rough, or possibly the protestors did first. I was in the flat and there was so much noise outside. Someone lit a bonfire in the middle of the street like we were in a war zone or revolutionary Paris, and there were firecrackers or worse, too. Some were even shouting ‘A bas la Bastille!’ but it wasn’t the prisons they were protesting about or even the government. It was McGill. For heaven’s sake, a university. But a symbol, too. Everything is becoming a symbol, or a slogan. ‘McGill au Travailleurs!’ they chanted. ‘McGill Français!’ They’re demanding that the university become a unilingual French, pro-worker institution. So much for art history and politics if that happens, though I suspect nursing would still get funded. They’d need it.

       At the hospital in the morning, we saw a lot of bruising, twisted ankles, and more than a few broken legs, too. One boy, who was carried in dangling between two cronies, came in with a fractured skull. They were all grinning, which was perhaps the most disturbing part. ‘Had a good night, boys?’ one of the doctors asked, but they only whispered to each other in French and kept on grinning.

       One of the students who had been demonstrating came by the flat this evening, and got angry when I told him what I’d seen at work. He’s half French and mostly fervently separatist, but he likes hanging out with us British girls. I made a pot of tea and he told me about his grandmother – mémé. She had a digestive problem and it turned out to be cancer in the end and he spent a lot of time in the hospital with her, translating. Officially, everyone is guaranteed medical care in their own language, but he said it’s never really that way. His mémé needed a specialist, but the specialist didn’t speak a word of French and neither did half the nurses. Not like you, he said. You try at least. ‘Bonjour’ alone works wonders. He told me his mémé went downhill pretty quickly after she was admitted. He couldn’t be with her all the time and she spent her final weeks fumbling through the few English words she knew, trying to make herself understood by the busy anglo nurses. That’s no way to go, is it?

       I see the injustice, but it’s all getting scary. There were four bombs on New Year’s Eve then three mailboxes exploded in the next few days. And those are the ones that get reported because they’ve exploded. I wonder how many other bombs have been found and stopped in time. Two exploded at the end of November at Eaton’s downtown. Even Jenny is getting apprehensive. She’s talking about heading out of town for a bit. I might try to convince her to come out to the camp with me. I called them the other day and the woman on the phone was lovely. No trouble at all, she said; come as soon as you like. There is a space where I can stay, and she wanted to know if the father was coming, too. A gracious way of asking. I told her that he wasn’t and she really gently suggested that I talk to him. Tell him where I was going. Give him the option, she said, so he could know and choose for himself. I don’t know. I’d rather do all this on my own. It isn’t like he’s going to turn around and ask me to marry him. He’s not that type. But he knows about the baby, so maybe I should talk to him before I go.

       I’ve been having weird dreams, which isn’t surprising. I dreamed the baby was stuck in a postbox and I couldn’t get it out. When I looked down through the slat, I could see it all curled up on top of the letters like it was floating, way down at the bottom of a well. Then I dreamed that the baby was a package and I was wrapping it up with paper and string and worrying about the postage. What does it cost to post a baby? The woman at the post office was being difficult, and then, when I finally had it all wrapped and stamped, I realized I didn’t know how to address it. Isn’t that odd?

       I hope this letter gets through – well, gets out of Montreal, I mean. I keep thinking about all those letterboxes. Sorry this is all so disjointed and rambling. That’s just how I’m feeling myself. I hope you are well. Thanks for the description of Aberlady Bay. It’s nice to think about things continuing on just as they always have – the wild flowers, the rabbits and the deer.

       Lots of love,

       Felicity

      * * *

       Montreal, April 1969

       Dear Mum and Dad,

       I will be moving soon. Yesterday, I went to the campus with Margaret to talk with some of her friends about the camp – they looked like a bunch of radicals with long hair and jeans, but they were kind. One of them had lived at the camp last summer and the other – Annie – was friends with the folk who started it up. She says she goes back and forth a lot to help them out. I asked if it was a cult or anything, but both girls said no. Annie said the folks who started it were Christians and there are some hippies now, too. Some folk are radical, but not everyone. It’s a real mix and it’s just a good place to be.

       She showed me photos of the farmhouse where the midwife lives. Just a humble log house, really Canadian with a porch along the