The Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards Read Free Book Online

columns on the first page: OWEN JAMES ON KILLED IN ACTION—SECOND JAMESON SON TO DIE TRAGICALLY . SOME SAY JAMESON NAME DOOMED .
    Eric was called to the Jameson house. He came into the front parlor, with its expensive vases showing scenes of wild horses and Arabian nights, and its crocheted rugs that displayed Mary’s attempts at a domesticity no one had taught her. A scent of horse prevailed upon it, and scenes in gray pictures of men in heavy coats and cork boots.
    “Tell me about me boy now,” Mary asked, her hands shaking just slightly as she held a dishcloth—as if it could support her. Buckler stood behind his sister stoically, out of place.
    “Reg did his bes— They got trapped in a field—it’s that colonel always staying behind the lines and sending men out to their doom.”
    “You mean our Owen is dead?” Buckler asked.
    “From what I hear, sir.”
    Eric went back to his house feeling he had accomplished some grave duty. He frowned at his grave duty. Now, instead of being a hanger-on with the Jamesons he had a position, and as he said to his cronies, “ran things over there.”
    The house turned inward in mourning all over again. The woman waited in silence for three more weeks, certain both boys were now gone.
    Still, knowing that things had been left out of Eric Glidden’s story—no one bothered to come to the Jameson house from the Department of War, and there had been no letter either—Buckler himself started to investigate the rumor. After almost a month, he discovered something. Owen was alive. The colonel who had reported the death had gotten the story completely backward, because he himself had not been in the field.
    Within four weeks of Buckler’s inquiries Owen’s exploits became, as they say here, “half-assed legendary.”
    Owen turned out to be as tough as a night in jail and twice as mean. He fought with the Canadian First Army on the left flank of Monty for ten months. There were four occasions where he showed true bravery, though he himself rarely spoke of it. In August of 1944 he won the Victoria Cross for a series of actions and counteroffenses. The last of which, Owen carried to safety, through enemy fire he consistently returned, one man from his own platoon and his town— Reggie Glidden.
    The local paper’s front page:
    ONCE GIVEN UP FOR DEAD ,
OWEN JAMESON RECOMMENDED FOR VC .
REGGIE GLIDDEN FREEZES UNDER FIRE ,
CARRIED TO SAFETY BY WOUNDED JAMESON .
    The story went on to report how in the fog of war mistakes happen, and mistakes in stories happen.
    He was, after all, what Mary saw: a prize.

    After the war the soldiers drifted back in smaller company than which they left, on trains boarded in Halifax. The town expanded by their presence and many went back to working the woods or mills or small fishing villages. Or others drifted south into the cacophony of Saint John to labor for Irving in that industrial city. Lula was unhappy, and so too was Brower. They were unhappy that the men, when they called, did not call on Lula anymore.
    It was during this time, in a stark moment, that Camellia realized Brower and Lula wanted her gone. That they had wanted her gone since the stroke had come, and had without her realizing it been pressuring her to go. That old Brower was bothered by a comparison that no one desired, yet no one could refrain from. Now she caught the anger in his eyes.
    So Camellia consented to marry. To everyone who knew her, the man she picked was a rash pick—a man once considered brave, the town now ridiculed mercilessly. She married Reggie Glidden in late June of 1946. Some said this act alone saved him from suicide.
    After this she went to work in the house of Mary Jameson, who it was said felt sorry for the two newlyweds.

FIVE
    Alive or not, Owen Jameson did not come readily back to Canada after the war. He stayed away until October of 1946. He wanted the town and his mother to forget him.
    He went to the museums, art galleries, and plays. He stayed in