Born Naked by Farley Mowat Page B

upstairs rooms, raddled with mildew and mouse nests as these were. Alan and I were turfed out of our own hostelry with the emphatic adjuration not to return or to tell anyone what was going on or “you’ll get your little asses kicked up to your ears!”
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    IN THE FINANCIALLY euphoric spring of 1929, Angus had felt flush enough to do away with old, black Henry and buy a car more nearly befitting his rising status. He chose a pea-green Model A Ford roadster equipped with a folding canvas top and rumble seat. He named this jaunty vehicle Eardlie, in gratitude to the dealer, Eardlie Wilmott, who had given Angus a bargain on it out of admiration for my mother.
    Helen had always had many beaux and continued to attract men long after her marriage. Although I am certain she never succumbed to temptation, she enjoyed male admiration and was not above a little flirtation. This did not bother my father; in fact, he may have felt it gave him licence. With sporty little Eardlie to rip around in, he now became even more the dashing caballero and began exploiting his attractiveness to women to the full.
    Either his successes made him careless, or perhaps the stories he told my mother to cover his tracks simply became too outrageous for her to accept. Whatever. The day came when she charged him with being unfaithful to her.
    Both she and Angus thought I was out of the apartment, whereas I was reading in a corner of my room when the ruckus began. Since I had never known my parents to quarrel openly, I did not know what to make of the raised voices coming from the kitchen. Curious rather than alarmed, I padded into the hall, from whence I could see them.
    Angus was squatting in front of the open door of our ice-box, balancing on his toes as he reached into it for a bottle of beer. Helen was standing right behind him brandishing both fists in the air. As I watched, fascinated, she drew back her right foot and, for the first and last time in their life together, struck my father. She kicked him so hard in the rump that he tumbled into the ice-box, hitting his forehead with sufficient force to make it bleed—though only a little.
    Helen was appalled by what she had done. Her hands flew to her face, then she said, almost dreamily, “Oh, Angus. Oh, Angus,” and crumpled to the floor in a classic faint.
    According to everything I have since read about the effects of such incidents on children, I should have been horrified, terrified, or traumatized. The truth is that I was excited by this little drama which sent a delightful shiver down my spine. Had I been older I might have been tempted to applaud. But I knew it would be a mistake to reveal my presence, so I padded silently back to my room where I remained invisible while my mother and father patched up their quarrel.
    For weeks afterwards they were extremely kind to one another and to me. And Angus was much more careful in how he conducted his affairs. Thirty years were to elapse before Helen would find him out again.
    My parents became very active in Belleville’s “younger set” this year. Membership in the Bay of Quinte Yacht and Country Club was de rigueur for “gay young things” (homosexuals had not yet hijacked the word “gay”) and there they sailed and danced the summer days and nights away.
    Stout Fella was often moored to the club wharf on weekends so I saw and heard a good deal of what went on. I delighted in the music of the dance bands, the frivolity of young men in white ducks and young women in flapper dresses, and the general air of carnival. I even liked the smell of Martinis that used to hang like a mist in Stout Fella ’s cramped little cabin. The adults around me were a merry lot, all unaware of the darkness that was about to overshadow the lives of many of them. They were happy and carefree, and so were we, their children. It was the last fling of the crazy twenties, and an idyllic time to be alive.
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