4

ONLY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE BABYSITTER WAS expected, just as Ruthy was dabbing perfume behind her ears, she was summoned to the phone in the hall. It was Sandra Pinsky. She couldn’t come, after all.

“Why?” Ruthy complained.

“You want to know the truth?” Sandra dissolved into laughter. “I’m all out.”

“Oooo,” Ruthy moaned. “Come on.”

“Me and the boy scouts have the same motto: be prepared.”

A lot of good it’s done her, being prepared all these years, but Ruthy didn’t say it. “Couldn’t you phone your doctor to leave a prescription outside? You could still pick it up.”

“I phoned earlier, but he was just going off for the weekend. I said to him, oh, doctor, but I’m without pills. What pills, he asked? The pills. In that case, luv, he said, I’d keep my knickers up until Monday if I was you.” She exploded into laughter again. “Isn’t he wicked?”

“But there must be a locum he leaves in the clinic. Ask him for the prescription.”

“He’s a Pakistani. Oy, Ruthy, how could I? I’m too embarrassed.”

“Oooo,” Ruthy pleaded. “Come on.”

“I’m not even dressed. I left an invitation out for Mr. Stein. He’s coming on Saturday. Watch out for him, dearie, he doesn’t look the type, but he’s got only one thing in mind.”

“Are you coming?”

“Come to my place. The Avengers are on tonight. It’s a two-part one. I saw the first part last week.”

“Oh, I see. The penny’s dropped. You,” she said, hanging up. Ruthy decided not to attend the Friendship Club again after all; it would be no fun on her own, the so-called 27’s to 45’s (yeah, sure), pathetic types, most of the men at least fifty, wanting to know how much you were worth, was there a dowry, and, failing everything else, if you were interested in having a little fun.

A quick glance at the Jewish Chronicle revealed there was nothing on at the Ben Uri Gallery; neither was there a lecture that appealed. Across the street, she picked up a quarter of sweets and the Evening News.

Niagara Falls. Deanna Durbin. Yes, and Joseph Hersh, she thought, thank you very much.

Mrs. Frankel stopped her outside Grodzinski’s.

“They took Golda back to the hospital this afternoon. Didn’t you see the ambulance outside?”

“No.”

“Her uterus is hanging, she can’t walk. I don’t understand; I thought she had it out.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Ruthy said.

“Listen, it’s better to grow old than to die young. And where are you going, all dressed up?”

“To eat latkes at Buckingham Palace. Where else?” she asked, running for the bus.

Imagine, she thought, a new life. Without yentas everywhere. You pack your bags, you buy tickets, and off you go. Goodbye Quality Outfitting, so long Sunday afternoon teas in Edgware, her sister-in-law asking, “And did you meet anybody this week?” Australia, Canada, South Africa. Even her brother, and he took the Financial Times every day, said there was a better future there. He had been to Toronto, the mayor was Jewish. The government didn’t squeeze you like a lemon.

Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald had made a film in Canada, Ruthy recalled, but the title eluded her. “Give me some men, who are stout-hearted men …” One would do.

Takes the RUB out of SCRUB. Brewed, Brood. Earn, Urn. Our WURST is truly the BEST. NO WAIT to bake, no WEIGHT to eat … Swaying on the Victoria-bound bus, Ruthy unsnapped her bulging, coupon-filled handbag and stuffed her dictionary of homonyms inside, still savoring a couple of the winning ones. A RECKLESS driver is seldom WRECKLESS long and – for a baby’s name, this – Prince of WAILS.

It was a rotten night, cold and rainy, but there was no harm in seeing, was there, she thought, as she joined the knot of people collapsing their umbrellas outside Caxton Hall. Scanning the notice board, Ruthy noted that a yoga group was meeting on the first floor, so was the Schopenhauer Society, and the Druid Order – brrrrr – was holding its monthly meeting. The Canadian thing, as she imagined, was in the main hall and she was lucky to find a seat.

You pack your bags, you go. This is the twentieth century.

There were chattering people everywhere, some middle-aged and making no pretense about it, but many more who were young, coddling children on their laps. Settling into her chair with an assumed air of indifference, Ruthy offered a sweet to the taciturn man next to her and nervously inquired, “Why do you want to go to Canada?”

“There’s too much waiting for dead men’s shoes here.”

“And you?” Ruthy sang out to the man on her other side.

“Harold Wilson.”

“My family’s been here for generations. I’m just looking in for a friend.”

Trans-Canada Journey, the color movie they were shown about a trip from Halifax to Vancouver, displayed all of the vast dominion’s natural wonders and spoke glowingly of the opportunities available there. No sooner was the film done, its final image an R.C.M.P. corporal mounting the steps to parliament, than the lights went on again and a brisk smiling young man, from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, bounded onto the platform. “You’re an excellent audience. Terrific! I can sense our immigration offices will be jam-packed tomorrow morning.”

Which evoked more coughing than huzzahs.

“Canada needs people, the RIGHT kind of people –”

Everywhere you go, Ruthy reflected, anti-semites.

“– We have many, many jobs that are just going begging, with one of the highest standards of living in the world.”

The young man summoned three experts to the platform and they also smiled brightly, devouring the audience with their enthusiasm.

“Do you welcome unskilled workers?” a man asked.

“That’s a loaded question. If you mean a nineteen-year-old, sure, he’ll acquire a skill, but if you mean a man of forty, the kind who is on and off national assistance all the time … well you get ’em, you keep ’em, we don’t want ’em.”

“I’m an engineer myself.”

“You certainly look like a professional man to me, sir. I realize your question was of a general nature.”

“If things are so rosy in Canada, why do so many immigrants return?”

“I’ll field that one,” the youngest panel member hollered, winking at the first row. “Homesickness. Unadaptability. If your wife is the kind who has to see her mum once a day and four times on Sunday don’t come to Canada unless you bring your mother-in-law.”

“What’s the unemployment situation like?”

“Three point nine.”

Somebody guffawed.

“Oh, I admit it gets higher in winter, but –”

“Didn’t you have a recession in 1961?”

“Recession, no, a sort of leveling-off, yes. But right now we’re booming. Booming. We want people, the right type. We need British immigrants.”

“What about medical bills?”

“That’s a very, very good question. We have no national health plan, but we do have private health schemes that cost very little.”

“I have four children, you see.”

“Look, if you’re the kind of guy who runs to the national health doctor and sits in his waiting room all day because it’s free, and you have the sniffles …”

Finally, Ruthy rose and asked in a small voice, “I’m over forty –”

“Louder, please.”

“I’m inquiring for a friend who is over forty and works in a dress shop. What are her chances of employment in Canada?”

“That’s a very good question. I’m glad you asked it. Now if you were a man, I’d have to say your chances were not so hot because of pension schemes and such … but many shops and offices prefer to employ women who are past the marrying age.”

“Well, thank you. Thank you very, very much.”