See my comments on Part 2 for further background on the main players and more details if you wish.
Red River, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Canada.
Dinner is served under the harsh unforgiving glare of the chandelier. They're busy discussing 1992 and who showed up for dinner at his sister’s place in Calcutta. Her brother-in-law looked like the Dalai Lama. No, he didn't, it was the doctor who looked like the Dalai Lama. Eileen never, ever responds to these clever conversational gambits. She merely shifts gears. His sister had that lovely yellow sari on. No, of course she didn't - she was still in mourning!
After dinner, Eileen takes me to the den and we squash together tightly on a love seat due to the absence of other seating. The many albums of knitting patterns she's been collecting for fifty years are produced - each page has a story: when she made it, what yarn she used, whether the beneficiary liked it, if she had to rip it and re-do it. That lunch in Toronto has shown me in floodlit clarity that she's not joking. This is her life. I can't interrupt. She's simply not interested. At eleven I yawn and yawn and at one I finally bail, ignoring the hurt expression on her face as she lovingly touches the patterns in album 45. The meal itself was unmemorable, a mishmash of unidentifiable stew with mushy vegetables. Though, of course, I murmured delicious when I got a word in edgewise.
I'm up at nine, plotting like an engineer as to how I can shower, dry my hair and climb into some crumpled clothes without swimming in a pool of water all day. My teeshirt-nightie does the trick and I hang it on the curtain rod to dry out.
Eileen prides herself on her ability to make cappuccinos, but does not believe in using espresso coffee beans for this, she finds a light blend works really well. If I don't look at this cupful of pale mud, I will ingest it without convulsions. Real coffee is now but a dim memory. Twenty-four more hours to go.
I'm again crouched in the back seat of the car as I'm taken on another tour - the North Side of Winnipeg. There are no distinguishing features between the north, south, east and west for the ignorant tourist, but many for the host and hostess. Each building is disagreed about. Watkins Pharmacy used to be there. No, wrong! He responds gleefully, Brown’s Furniture! The Red River flood took out a few houses here. No, no, no, that was over at Norbert. They renovated the hospital last year. No, not a renovation, that was strictly cosmetics. Silence. A lot of sky here, I murmur. Well, not a lot, he rejoins irritably, I've seen more elsewhere. I subside, swallowing the whimpers that rise unbidden to my throat.
Over brunch, which is in a lovely spot out of town, he starts in on my decision to move to Newfoundland. He's never known anyone to stick it for long, he snorts his disapproval. A half a million do, I say mildly. They’re stuck with it, no choice, he says triumphantly.
Surprisingly, he's addicted to sports on television so all excursions are calibrated to the broadcasts of sports events from around the world. We race back from brunch and he encases himself in the den and Eileen and I sit and knit in the living room, the dog protruding out of my hind quarters. They were right, they said I'd get used to it.
