A Fickle Wind. Elizabeth Bourne

they knew of her treasonous behavior so quickly. How could they know at all? She had told no one! She was stunned.

      They asked her to sit down and proceeded to tell her that the managing director had had minor surgery over the weekend. They were most saddened to inform her that he had died on the operating table! In shock, she returned to her desk, immediately tore out the pages of scribble, destroyed them, and admitted nothing. She only confided the truth to her nearest and dearest, and this was now many years ago!

      My concentration so far has been on my schooling and working world. I think I now need to bring you into what was happening in my personal life. I had been friends with some neighborhood girls since grade school, and we continued to pursue activities together. Our focus for several years had been how to attract boys.

      A place called the Community Hall afforded an outlet for social activities for adults and adolescents. My friends and I joined, as the Hall held dances and offered gymnastics, table tennis, billiards, and other activities. Sometimes we were recruited to serve tea to adult members who played cards or chess. It was there that I met my first boyfriend, Craig, who, incidentally, became my first husband. “First,” do I hear you think? Well… yes. But all in good time.

      I was fourteen and still in school. He was eighteen months older and working for a local factory as an office boy. In my opinion, he was very good looking, and since I didn’t consider myself pretty, I thought him quite a catch. Our social life consisted of going to the Community Hall dances, playing table tennis, having dinner at each other’s houses, and going to a movie once a week.

      One Saturday afternoon after I started working, Craig and I ventured from Romford up to London with plans to dine in a nice restaurant. The trouble was that we were both too intimidated to walk in. You know the expression, “on the outside looking in”? That about summed it up. Our noses were glued to the windows, but that was as far as we got. We were afraid that we might look like fools, as we didn’t have a clue how we should conduct ourselves in such a place.

      Instead we ate at Lyon’s Corner House. Lyon’s was a restaurant chain I frequented for lunch on work days, and the Corner House was its flagship version of a high-end restaurant. Somewhat familiar ground, at least. So, when we went up to London, that was usually where we ate. I longed for the confidence and lifestyle of the diners who were comfortably laughing their evenings away in upscale restaurants, but that wasn’t my lot in life. I wondered if it ever would be.

      Not if my mother had anything to do with it! She was constantly criticizing the way I dressed and the hats I wore, and she accused me of putting on airs with the way I talked. I was an embarrassment to her. Who did I think I was?

      Regarding the way I talked: I believe I was four years old when I consciously stopped saying the word doll. I was confused. I knew my role models weren’t correct in their pronunciation, but I didn’t know what was actually correct. Much of the populace of London and its immediate surrounds spoke appalling English, and I didn’t like it. For example, they did not pronounce an “L” at the end of a word, but changed it to a “W.” (Listen to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.) So doll became dow, and windowsill became windersiw.

      Once I started school, my teachers were better role models. I listened to the radio and noted that the BBC broadcasters also spoke differently. I started to emulate these people rather than those with whom I lived. It had been fortunate for me that many of the children I encountered in high school had decidedly more desirable accents.

      My mother never called me by name, but usually “Janie.” That was her diminutive for Lady Jane, a nickname that had started when I was very young, painted my face, and dressed up. She now told me that people were watching from behind their curtains and commenting about me behind my back. Heaven forbid I shouldn’t conform!

      One day, I wanted to wear a stole around my shoulders, and my mother refused to walk with me. “Don’t you look above your station, my girl,” was a comment I heard more than once. But I wasn’t sure what my station was supposed to be, so that was confusing. And perhaps I didn’t want to know, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. So she and I were already conflicted when an event occurred that made things between us even worse.

      Craig, now eighteen, was conscripted into the Air Force. I had been thinking for some time that we really didn’t have a lot in common and that I should break up with him. Since he was now going away, it seemed like an opportune time. So I told him … and all hell broke loose. Craig, his mother, and my mother were all enraged. My mother’s biggest concern was the neighbors. Wasn’t it enough that I had caused so much gossip with my hats? Now everyone would be saying that since he would have less money to spend on me, I was dropping him like a hot potato!

      You will recall that he was an office boy, and I can confirm that he had not moved up the ladder one iota. What money, I asked? The movies every week, for a start! My father, who had always been my stalwart supporter, decided to stay out of it. After giving me her opinion in no uncertain terms, my mother would not speak to me at all, which had habitually been her way of wielding control. Craig’s mother frequently waylaid me on the street, begging me to reconsider, and Craig, it seemed, met every bus or train from which I alighted, reiterated the same message.

      My friends all had boyfriends and little time for me. I felt isolated, abandoned, and miserable for about a month, with no relief in sight. So I buckled. Two years later, on the eve of my wedding, I recall closing my eyes and thinking: I’m strong. I can handle this. It will all work out. Craig saw me and asked if I were having second thoughts. “Of course not,” I responded predictably. I wouldn’t dare have second thoughts! Hadn’t I taken a failed stand at age seventeen? I anticipated being shot at dawn if I backed out now.

       Chapter Five

      We settled down and made our home in the front room of my parents’ house. Craig was now out of the Air Force and had started a new job maintaining and repairing calculators for an international company. It was a step up from his old position, and he seemed to take to it well. I wanted my husband to have the kind of job that no one could walk in off the street and just take over. At this point, it was about the best I could hope for, as at least it took some training.

      At the rate we were both earning, however, we would never be able to have a house of our own. A down payment was way out of our reach, and any rental housing being built was snapped up immediately. I would often look out our room’s only window on a rainy, gloomy English landscape, wondering if this was all that my life would amount to. A holiday once a year at a Butlin’s holiday camp, perhaps. Even a chance to go abroad occasionally. We probably wouldn’t have children, as we needed our two incomes to survive. What a miserable, dreary existence. There were stars in my eyes and dreams in my heart but little idea how any of it could manifest by following the dismal path of drudgery allotted to the underprivileged masses in a broken country.

      I had to get away. Others had done it. Why not us? I started to plant the seeds with Craig that perhaps we should try a two-year adventure. It seemed less daunting that way, and we could always come back. After a little while, he started to warm to the idea. America was my first choice, but that was out of the question. We needed one of three things, none of which we had: money, jobs, sponsors.

      The first one was obviously out; we didn’t know any Americans and had no clue how to find work. Canada was a much more realistic proposition. I worried that it would be very cold in the winter, but then, so was England, and I had heard that Canada had central heating—a very happy thought! I’d had enough of tensing my back in November and not relaxing it until May. Even inside the house, where a small open fire was still about all the heat we had, except for an electric heater. Upon waking, one arm out of bed, I would hold my underwear in front of it until the steam from the dampness subsided.

      The calculator company for which Craig worked had a branch in Toronto, and when he approached them, they promised him a transfer. He also had two cousins in Toronto to help us acclimate. And, surprise, surprise, when we broached the subject with