"How did Tattoo Peter lose his leg?" Jac
k asked for the hundredth time.
"I told you--you'll have to ask him."
"Maybe on a bicycle," the boy said.
It was midafternoon in the district; most of the women were already offering advice. All of them greeted Jack and Alice by name--even those older prostitutes in the area of the Old Church. Alice made a point of walking around the Oudekerksplein; they passed every window and doorway, at a pace half the speed of Jacob Bril's. Not a soul hummed "Breathe on Me, Breath of God" to them.
They went to the St. Olofssteeg to say good-bye to Tattoo Peter. "Alice, you're welcome to come work with me anytime," the one-legged man told her. "Keep both your legs, Jack," Peter said. "You'll find it easier to get around that way."
Then they walked up the Zeedijk to say good-bye to Tattoo Theo and Robbie de Wit. Robbie wanted Alice to tattoo him. "Not another broken heart," she said. "I've had enough of hearts, torn in two or otherwise." Robbie settled for her signature on his right upper arm.
Daughter Alice
Rademaker was so impressed by her letter-perfect script that he requested one, too. Tattoo Theo got his tattoo on his left forearm, which he said he'd kept bare for something special. The lettering ran from the bend at Rademaker's elbow to the face of his wristwatch, so that every time he looked to see what time it was, he would be reminded of Daughter Alice.
"What do you say, Jack?" Tattoo Theo asked. "Shall we listen again to der Zimmerman?" (He wasn't German; he didn't know der from den. Not that Jack knew German, either--not yet.)
Jack picked out a Bob Dylan album and put it on. Robbie de Wit was soon singing along, but it wasn't Alice's favorite song. She just went on tattooing, leaving the singing to Robbie and Bob.
"When your rooster crows at the break of dawn," Bob and Robbie sang. "Look out your window and I'll be gone." At this point, Alice was starting the A in Alice. "You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on," Bob and Robbie crooned. "Don't think twice, it's all right."
Well, it wasn't all right--not by a long shot--but Alice just kept tattooing.
Els took them to the shipping office, which was a confusing place--they needed Els's help in arranging their passage. They would take the train to Rotterdam and sail from there to Montreal, and then make their way back to Toronto.
"Why Toronto?" Saskia asked Alice. "Canada isn't your country."
"It is now," Alice said. "I'll never go back to sunny Leith--not for all the whisky in Scotland." She wouldn't say why. (Too many ghosts, maybe.) "Besides, I know just the school for Jack. It's a good school," Jack heard her tell Saskia and Els. His mom leaned over him and whispered in his ear: "And you'll be safe with the girls."
The idea of himself with the St. Hilda's girls--the older ones, especially--gave Jack the shivers. Once again, and for the last time in Europe, he reached for his mother's hand.
II
The Sea of Girls
8
Safe Among the Girls
It was Jack's impression that the older girls at St. Hilda's never liked having boys in their school. Although the boys couldn't stay past grade four, their presence--even the presence of little boys--was seen as a bad influence. According to Emma Oastler: "Especially on the older girls."
Emma was a menacing girl, and an older one. The grade-six girls were the oldest students in the junior school; they opened and closed the car doors for the little kids at the Rosseter Road entrance. When Jack started kindergarten in the fall of 1970--the first year St. Hilda's admitted boys--Emma was in grade six. He was five; she was twelve. (Some problem at home had caused her to miss a year of school.) On Jack's first day, Emma opened the car door for him--a formative experience.
Jack was already self-conscious about the car--a black Lincoln Town Car from a limousine service, which Mrs. Wicksteed used for all her driving needs. (Neither Mrs. Wicksteed nor Lottie drove, and Alice never got her driver's license.) The limo driver was a friendly Jamaican--a big man named Peewee, who was nearly as black as the Town Car. He was Mrs. Wicksteed's favorite driver.
What kid wants to show up for his first day of school in a chauffeured limousine? But Alice had not done badly by yielding to Mrs. Wicksteed's way of doing things. It seemed that the Old Girl was not only paying Jack's tuition at St. Hilda's; she was paying for the limo.
Because Alice often worked at the Chinaman's tattoo parlor until late at night, Lottie got Jack up for school and gave him breakfast. Mrs. Wicksteed had sufficiently roused herself in time to do the boy's necktie, albeit a little absentmindedly. Lottie laid out his other clothes at bedtime--on school mornings, she also helped him get dressed.
On those mornings, Jack would go into his mom's semidark room and kiss her good-bye; then Lottie would cross the sidewalk with him to the corner of Spadina and Lowther, where Peewee would be waiting in the Town Car. To her credit, Alice had offered to accompany her son on his first day.
"Alice," Mrs. Wicksteed said, "if you take Jack to school, you'll make it an occasion for him to cry."
Mrs. Wicksteed was firmly opposed to creating occasions for Jack to cry. While doing his necktie one morning, she told him: "You will be teased, Jack. Don't make it an occasion to cry. Cry only when you're physically hurt--and in that case, cry as loudly as you can."
"But what do I do when I get teased?" Jack asked her.