Free Emancipation Day by Wayne Grady

rum,” said Freddie. “Why don’t you two go and see if they’re leaving any for us.”
    The twins scampered off and Freddie turned to Jack. “Vivian tells us you’re from Ontario somewhere. Windsor, is it?”
    Jack noticed the way they called her Viv amongst themselves, but Vivian when addressing him, as though her name was their private possession, not to be used by strangers. “Windsor, yes,” he said. “Across from Detroit.”
    “Never been there, I’m afraid. Been to Toronto a few times.”
    “What line of work are you in?” Jack asked, man to man.
    “Oh, import and export. Feeding the troops and all that.”
    “Import and export?”
    “Our people bring in fish, and we pack it up and ship it off to Merrie Olde on the Derry Run. We also bring sugar and rum up from the Islands, bit of coffee and cocoa. Surprised the Germans haven’t got us blocked off. Torpedo the odd fishing boat and the whole fleet would stay in harbour. That’d starve the Brits out. Your lot’s doing a fine job of keeping the U-boats out of Cabot Strait.”
    His lot? “Not me,” Jack said. “I’m just a bandsman.”
    “Not a bit of it,” Freddie protested. “Morale is everything. You must know that.”
    “I guess so.”
    “You’ve done wonders for Vivian’s morale, I can tell you. Regular droop before you came along.” Freddie went back to poking at the fire. “What do your people do in Windsor, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    His people? He bloody well did mind. “They build houses.”
    Freddie started to say something, but then Iris and Vivian came in carrying trays and trailing the twins.
    “Wait, girls, just wait, for heaven’s sake,” Iris said, setting her tray precariously on top of the books and magazines on the low coffee table in front of the chesterfield. On the tray were a teapot, four cups, a stack of saucers and a plate of cookies. Vivian placed her tray on a side table. It held an ice bucket, two tumblers and a bottle of rum—not the one he’d brought.
    “Cookies!” said the twins in unison.
    “Make them yourself, Auntie Viv?” Jack asked Vivian.
    “Vivian can’t boil water—can you, love?” Iris said.
    “I can make toast.”
    “Yes, but you have to pull the blackout curtains first in case the wardens think you’re signalling the Germans with the flames.”
    “Iris, that happened once.”
    “Will you have some tea, Jack?” Iris asked. “Or do you prefer rum?” Everything she said had an edge to it, a secret meaning she would hint at but was not willing to share outright.
    “I’ll have a bit of the serum, if you don’t mind,” he said. Was that polite enough for her?
    Iris laughed, not entirely pleasantly, and got up to pour thetea. Jack wondered what it was she was so disappointed in. She didn’t know anything about him.
    “You don’t like going to sea, I hear.”
    “It’s not that I don’t like it,” he said. “I get seasick. The doc thought I was going to die out there. I spent most of the run hanging over the side with the dry heaves.”
    “We have men working for us who are just the same,” said Iris. “Still, they go out every day to fish.”
    “Mommy, what’s the dry heaves?” asked one of the twins.
    “I’ve read somewhere,” said Freddie, “that Polynesians actually boast about getting seasick. And they’re the best sailors in the world.”
    “Mommy, what’s the dry heaves?”
    “Not now, girls.”
    Jack gave Vivian his best Frank Sinatra smile. She looked lovely, sitting on the chesterfield beside the twins, hands folded in her lap, knees slanted demurely a few degrees away from him. Pretty as a pin-up. Now Iris, on the other hand, she still hadn’t brought him his drink.
    “On second thought, Iris,” Jack said, “maybe I’ll have a cup of tea.”
    Iris asked Sadie to pass her a cup from the tray, and Freddie asked Jack if he intended to go back to Windsor when the war was over.
    “Only if we win it.”
    “Really?” Iris said, handing Jack