Open Writing

After Partition in India the Terry, Browne and Ottman families from Kharagpur joined us in Vancouver. In the early years we supported and helped each other settle into our new land by regularly meeting and socializing. We mainly shared information and gossiped about friends and family.

John Terry Junior, one of the Terry's twin sons and my sister Gloria briefly became engaged. Much to John's sorrow, Gloria broke off their engagement.

Anne Terry, John's younger sister and I often went out with the others as a de facto couple. Anne's and my relationship was purely platonic. She had inherited the devilish sense of humour so common amongst the young men of Dad's apprenticeship era. I remember an incident when Anne and I went to downtown Vancouver one Saturday afternoon. We had travelled by tram to the Marpole depot. On our walk to the city centre about four or five blocks away Anne spotted an elderly lady trudging along, wearily struggling with a couple of bags of shopping.

"Lena", Anne cried out throwing her arms around the startled woman. "How wonderful to see you, it’s been such a long time."

"Do I know you?" the old lady said obviously racking her brains trying to place this swarthy girl with curly black-hair.

"We met at - er - You know!" Anne said as if she was trying to remember a mutual acquaintance.

The old lady suggested a few names with Anne shaking her head at every one of them.

Suddenly, Anne backed away and said accusingly, "Wait a minute, I don't know you", she then turned and strode off haughtily.

Her unfortunate victim continued on her way shaking her head in utter bewilderment.

As soon as Anne had called out "Lena", coward that I was and knowing what was coming, I disappeared into a shop and pretended to examine their merchandise.

I warned her that one day she would pick on someone who would not be amused at being ridiculed and she could find herself in serious trouble. Fortunately she chose her targets well. Her main purpose was not to embarrass her victims so much as to embarrass the person she was with. She never failed in this regard.

Unlike Gloria, who soon made many friends at school and acquired a Canadian accent, I continued to amuse myself by hiding away in movie theatres.

I had also become passionate about classical music. Also unlike Gloria and her friends I soon found popular music repetitious and boring. The Sunday afternoon concerts on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio station became compulsive listening for me. For some reason my father found my total absorption in the symphonies and concertos of the Romantic composers in particular both alarming and unhealthy: strangely, he saw it as a form of addiction.

This sea change from popular to classical music increased when Doctor Macmillan and his family, who had befriended us on our long train trip from Montreal to Vancouver, invited me to accompany them to a concert by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy at the show grounds. The barn like building made a poor concert hall but I was too engrossed in the wonderful music to notice. At the interval, Mrs. Macmillan sitting in the seat behind me, tapped me on my shoulder and said, "Did you enjoy that, Owen?" "Yes, I did. I thought it was fantastic." "I know you did, dear" she said half-jokingly, "You sang the whole way through it."

One afternoon I had taken more than enough nagging from my boss Maurice Charkow and walked out of the building in a rage telling him quite graphically what he could do with his father's company. Maurice realizing that he had pushed me too far chased after me and apologized, saying that it was a management device he used to get his employees to work faster, thus enabling him to meet his deadlines. To console me further, he arranged for both of us that evening to attend the local Theatre under the Stars production of "Song of Norway" in Stanley Park. I accepted his apology and we thoroughly enjoyed the show especially the live performance of Greig’s piano concerto in the finale. He also invited me to his home on a few occasions to hear music from his large record collection. He introduced me to many Impressionist composers like Borodin, Debussy, Katcheturian and Aaron Copeland. It was wonderful to be able to discuss music and various artists' interpretations and to discover for myself why some performers or conductors were able to touch me whereas others never could. It opened a whole New World for me.

Not long after arriving in Vancouver my mother sent both Gloria and me to the Anglican Church Socials on Friday nights. Unfortunately I found most of the young people there rather shallow, and shared little of their interests. I enjoyed dancing, but found that I needed other avenues to seek out kindred spirits.

One young man, Alec Draper and I became friends for a while. We played tennis a couple of times a week and went fishing on a few occasions. I learned later that Alec's initial interest was not in my friendship but in meeting Gloria, I was merely a means to that end. Gloria however was going steady with a Latin looking lad.

Gloria kept trying to find me a girlfriend. As her priorities and mine were almost diametrically opposed, her efforts were to prove unsuccessful time after time. My self-consciousness because of missing tooth did not improve matters.

When I eventually did meet a slim angular girl called Barbara, who was a very competent pianist, I invited her to our home to hear my collection of vinyl LP records. I had painstakingly acquired about a couple of dozen. Barbara had barely walked through the door when she saw my records stacked in a bookcase. She strode across the room, swung open the bookcase doors and then stood watching mesmerized as the records flipped over one by one onto the floor at her feet and smashed. By the time I reached her and grabbed the remaining records, half of my precious collection was destroyed. I carefully placed the unbroken ones on the chair nearby and bent down to pick up the fragments. In her distressed state Barbara flopped down onto the records on the chair. She destroyed my whole record collection in a few minutes. My suppressed despair and fury abated when I realized that she must have been just as devastated as I was at what had happened. We never saw each other again..

I do not know what it was, but my relationships with the Canadian girls always seemed to end disastrously. Undaunted Gloria relentlessly continued in her efforts.

© Clement 2006