Free More in Anger by J. Jill Robinson Page B

note to May and then include it with the letter Mac had already written, which was lying on the sideboard. He communicated with May more often than she did; their relationship seemed to be the best of them all.
    June 1960
    Dear May,
    Well, the papers this last week have been swamped with advertisements of “Father’s Day.” Thank goodness I warned Pearl and you off this Father’s Day business years ago, so that I will not have to look forward to thanking eitherPearl or you for a Power Mower or a high-powered rifle.
    I have omitted in my last two or three letters mentioning Doctor Zhivago. I struggle with it every night for half an hour or so after I go to bed. Possibly I have no true literary taste, but where this book gets its reputation is beyond me. Really I find it very boring but I soldier on in the hope that it may improve. I am two-thirds of the way through now.
    I have now finished the story of Hannibal. What a general! Greater even than Napoleon, I believe. I enjoyed not only the reading of it but also translating the copious notes in Latin and Greek by Livy and Polybius respectively. Over the course of my reading I have developed a great interest in Hannibal. He was such a marvellous man and yet ended his life in frustration.
    Our garden is looking quite nice now. However, the gardener is slipshod in his work and so the garden does not have the well-clipped look it should have. (One certainly has to be content with very little nowadays from workmen and cleaning women. I wonder what it will be like twenty-five years from now.) The gardener put the pansies and sweet peas in last week. Your mother’s glads are appearing and we have a few leaves on the trees. Everything is behind, though, as the weather has been rather cool much of the time recently.
    I took a great deal of interest in the Democratic and Republican conventions, as I think did most Canadians. The last-minute alliances between Kennedy and Johnsonfor the Democrats and Nixon and Rockefeller for the Republicans left most Canadians like myself somewhat mystified.
    Love,
    Dad

    Eventually, Opal broke down and wrote to Pearl asking her please to make clear whether she wanted them to go to her house for Christmas or not. She explained as nicely as she could that they needed to do some planning, so they needed to know. To be on the safe side Mac had gone down to make the reservations on the train, in case Pearl answered in the affirmative. Even so, he could not get them the dates they wanted; he had to take a bedroom leaving on the Thursday before Christmas, which Opal was afraid Pearl would not like, because after the time they had stayed a week, Pearl never wanted to be bothered with them more than two days before Christmas and two days after. Pearl might think Thursday was too soon for them to arrive, and tell them they would be in her way.
    While they waited for a response, Opal fretted. She tried to focus on making her annual list of ingredients for her Christmas baking, but she couldn’t concentrate and kept misplacing the list and then having to start over. What if Pearl said no again? What then? What would her family in Winnipeg think if they weren’t with their grandchildren for Christmas? Pearl and May had always been in Winnipeg with their grandparents forChristmas. Watching as they opened their parcels. The uncertainty was breaking Opal’s heart. Each day, she fretted until the mailman came, empty-handed. Here it was, almost December. They simply had to get an answer from her pretty soon. She wanted Mac to telephone, but he wouldn’t. “That would be the wrong thing to do,” he said. “And you may have noticed that we are always doing the wrong thing as far as Pearl is concerned.”
    â€œPooh,” Opal had retorted.
    On December 1, they received Pearl’s letter. Pearl did not want them to come. So that was that. Opal felt let down, and she knew that Mac did too, though he