Medallions of Wonderful

Medallions of Wonderful

Short story by Mary

The old battle axe clomped around in the room above, thunderous in her enormous sensible shoes while we cowered below in the damp and rank of the dungeon plotting her death. It may be my most vivid recollection of Milly. My collaborator, at the tender age of five, was my sister Julie. Banished to the bowels of the house for having behaved like children for the third day in a row, we resumed deliberations and hypothesized that a simple nudge at the top step would send the old girl plummeting to her doom. 

“Wait, what’s that?” Stealthily, I moved to the bottom step.

Timid, she responded in a breathy whisper “I didn’t hear anything.”

“No silly, take a sniff” I inhaled deeply “pork chops, smothered in onions, right?” It wasn’t really a question, little else made my mouth water like those scrumptious medallions of wonderful. 

“Yeah, I think so, maybe”.

I lumbered toward her with hands raised into threatening bear claws and growled in my best Grizzly imitation “Do you suppose the beast will feed us?”

Julie, who wasn’t always good at the play acting part of the game, sulked “She always feeds us; now stop that, you’re scaring me”.

The dungeon, as it happens was a great place to play make-believe and had been strictly off limits until recently. So often we’d been warned of the many dangers beyond the door to the beneath of the house; however details were vague and so it was left entirely to our vivid imaginations to fill in the gaps. It was Dad who swung open the gates of Hell when he donned a tool belt and made it his mission to convert at least part of the old girl’s cellar into a completely unnecessary rec-room. Rec-room, now there’s a term that congers up images of parties and amusement, not activities generally associated with Milly’s house. The dingy space remained dingy even with the addition of paneling and ceiling tiles but the subtle changes were sufficient enough to dub the area a ‘play room’ and get us out from under the Grandma’s feet. 

The steep, narrow previously forbidden staircase was ours to descend; our proud papa gave us a tour of the newly finished area to the left of the stairs pointing to the little table and chairs as though Disneyland couldn’t hold a candle to it. “Girls” he directed “you must not go in there” he pointed toward the bi-fold doors to the right of the staircase. “Now, I mean it, it’s no place for children”. Thankfully he neglected to ask for a promise and we didn’t offer one. Honestly, what was he thinking? To a child, it was like issuing an engraved invitation and so at our first opportunity we went beyond the doors to find a dungeon worthy of the name.   Creepy, dark, foul-smelling; it was the best of all forbidden places. The uneven floor was part cement, mostly dirt with sink-hole grates that spoke in low haunting echoes and emitted a noxious rusty odor. There was soft green moss, slimy in places that inhabited the back wall along with sinister implements of death; corroded garden tools for those with no imagination. Once we survived the labyrinth of mouldy boxes we discovered monsters with relentless arms and legs and gaping hungry mouths; an old wringer washer and a past-its-prime furnace. We inched our way toward an old trunk with an enormous latch that gave way to a plume of musty mildewed air. We hesitated, certain we would find the bodies or at least the bones of the dead and a little disappointed to discover only a stack of horrid looking dresses from the olden days. Beyond that though, on the far wall we stumbled upon the headless soldiers; the ghostly impression given to mangy old uniforms hanging on a wall with hats hovering above on metal hooks. 

Every opportunity to explore this new square footage offered an adventure in what was just another visit mired in absolute boredom. Like randy teenagers, Mom and Dad needed their together time and so every second weekend we were packaged up and carted off to Grandma’s house like some misplaced UPS parcel. The colouring books in our overnight bags didn’t go far in filling the time. There were no toys or children’s books at her house, no swings; nothing that would indicate to passers-by that grandchildren were welcome there. She didn’t stock up on sweets or kid friendly cookies; there were no cartoons on the TV and neighbourhood kids, if there were any, dared never to venture near the cranky old woman’s house. We were never told we were special or pretty, hugs were a rare commodity. All in all, a trip to the dentist was just about as much fun.

On this particular occasion, our customary and tolerable overnight stay turned out to be an interminable 3 week purgatory. We were rifled out of bed in the middle of the night amidst a flurry of activity as Mom packed suitcases, wrote notes to the school and searched for passports. Our paternal grandfather in England had fallen gravely ill and Dad hoped that he and Mom would get to see him one last time. (Sadly, they were too late.) It was after week one that Julie and I began formulating the plan for Milly’s demise.

Everything in that house was done with military precision with the exception of bedtime which was pretty much up to the discretion of the individual. Morning reveille was at 8:00. Beds were made. Housework began after a breakfast of raisin toast and tea sweetened with a ridiculous amount of sugar. The furniture was spit polished, floors swept, glass shined and the crevices in the rubber runners on the hardwood stairs manicured with a toothbrush. This routine was followed by an inspection; a positive critique may have been rewarded with a fig newton, depending on her mood. What came next could have been called any number of things; playtime, alone time, don’t bother me time, but simply meant we were left to our own devices. The TV went on at precisely 4:00 and not a pin was allowed to drop while Grandma’s play was on. I grew to hate every actor on General Hospital and God save the person on the other end of the line if the phone rang during that hour.

Supper was at 6:00 pm sharp. The military rule book went out the window at this point as we were all encouraged to draw up our individual TV tables and watch the news while dining. Milly wasn’t a bad cook come to think of it. Meals were usually meat and potatoes of some description; goodness knows foreign foods like pasta never made it into the pantry. I think I was well into high school before I ever tasted spaghetti or pizza. Her meals were simple but she was a deft hand at seasoning and everything tasted good. Her specialty was pork chops baked in the oven with dried onion flakes and butter; the onions turned a caramel colour as they roasted and oh, how I loved those sweet crunchy bits.  As with everything else that she cooked, butter was a major component. Perhaps my awakening taste buds had less to do with her skill and more to do with my mother’s lack of it. Mom’s culinary handicap was Dad. He was a ferociously fussy eater and to be honest had it not been for Milly I suppose I would never have had the opportunity to try new and wonderful things like spinach. To Dad, a green vegetable was a pea. That’s it, that’s all; there were no other green vegetables. Everything else was either a tree or a bush or a leaf. Lettuce in a salad was tolerable but tomato and cucumber were the only allowable partners in that relationship. Cucumber of course was a white vegetable after the skin had been peeled off.  Milly’s salads were much more adventurous. Apples and bananas were permitted to accompany the lettuce and everything was bathed in copious amounts of Thousand Island dressing. After supper, dishes had to be washed, dried and put away before the first notes of the Coronation Street theme song started to play. Okay, so Milly got this one right. She is solely responsible for my incredible 50 year relationship with the Street!

The evening was spent in front of the TV watching all her favourite shows with Lawrence Welk and Perry Mason at the top of the list. Her snack of choice was black olives. She’d eat them one after the other straight from the can, disgusting.  Just before the eleven o’clock news, we were set to task preparing more raisin toast with unsalted creamery butter and sweet, sweet, sweet tea. Once you were flying high on all that sugar, bedtime would be suggested but never mandated. Some strange and scary movies happened at that time of night and seemed splendidly vivid in their colours considering it was a black and white TV. 

The dungeon notwithstanding, I quite liked Milly’s house. It had charm if not warmth. It was on a pretty corner lot with wonderful trees and flower gardens. I think she must have been an adequate gardener in her younger days. Tiny pink blossoms fell from a magnificent flowering crab apple tree at the top of the short driveway. A rickety stone walkway and steps led to a tiny vestibule via the back door. No one ever used the front door although the glass in it was spit-polished daily just in case. You entered the kitchen first. It was a small version of a country kitchen with a retro Formica table set and oil cloth flooring. There was a small dining room to the left housing a proud Duncan Fyfe table, a tidy china cabinet which displayed Milly’s few prized possessions and a bookshelf for her Harlequin novels. Sneak peaks into these little treasures would serve me well after puberty. From the dining room was the first in a series of French doors that ushered you to and from each tiny room in seemingly grand style, only to let you down by the dowdy space beyond. Case in point was her uninspired living room, with its beige furnishings and the few unexceptional looking tidbits on the mantel of the phony electric fireplace. Each of the French doors was bejewelled with a crystal doorknob and although I bristled at most of our routine cleaning tasks, I took great pride in polishing the shiny door accessories. They always seemed out of place somehow, like diamonds hanging from a hemp bracelet. 

Up the steep narrow stairs to the second floor was the gabled room which was dedicated to our visits. It could have been described as a guest room but Milly didn’t have other overnight guests. On the main floor and to the right of the kitchen were Milly’s bedroom and the only bathroom with its tiny pedestal sink, a mirror that was smaller than your face and a little shelf dedicated to her blue and white bottle of Milk of Magnesia.

Her boudoir was unexceptional until we entered wig mania; it was in the early 70s I think. It was the new fashion. Mom became a blonde, because they have more fun and Milly happily cancelled her regular permanent wave appointments. The top of her long dresser looked like a freak show from Dawn of the Dead with a seemingly endless row of white Styrofoam heads in various stages of undress. The first wig was newly washed, another combed out and ready for curlers, the next looked like a cat that had stepped too close to an electronic fence, teased and sprayed within an inch of its life. The last was coiffed and ready for its premiere tomorrow. There was always one bald head, serene and alarming; today’s wig had to have somewhere to spend the night. 

Milly was ever so old, older than a grandma should be in our opinion. Mom, we were told, was a change-of-life baby which meant absolutely nothing at the time. Extremely proud of her longevity, Milly volunteered information about her age to anyone within earshot and long before a listener had a chance to ask. She was military through and through, a veteran of the Great War and a volunteer in the one that followed that and tremendously proud of her work with the Legion. Sensible shoes, dresses and hats were the norm although, as I recall, she did go through a polyester pant suit phase. She always travelled by bus or streetcar and her ear was tuned to all things British. Whether in the mall, on the bus or awaiting her turn at the doctor’s office she immediately engaged in conversation with anyone who even hinted at a British accent. She’d ask “where in the old country are you from?”  I‘m sure she never considered that the ‘old country’ could mean anything other than Britain.  She definitely wasn’t a kid person but she seemed to like babies and took particular pleasure in entertaining infants on the bus by clicking all five digits on one hand in succession. It sounded like the rapid fire of a machine gun and grated on my nerves and yet the routine always seemed to astound and quiet a fussy baby. There were those oh so rare occasions when she would consent to travel by taxi, usually due to poor weather or when the Corn Doctor had been overly ambitious with her feet. That was a huge extravagance for her. She would begrudgingly pry open the metal clip of her coin purse and count out the exact change; never considering the option of a tip for the driver. We thought she was cheap. It was embarrassing. Mom or Dad would have given the nice man a gratuity, of that we were certain.

We were baby boomers; brought up in a middle class relatively affluent household where doing without was something of a foreign concept. I don’t think we could be defined as spoiled. We had everything we needed, not wanted.  Mom didn’t shop for brand name labels, clothing was bought on sale and winter coats were put on lay away at the discount store. A product of their time, Mom and Dad were careful with their money, but not quite as frugal as Milly. Of course, I know now what I clearly didn’t know then, that having lived through the great depression and 2 World Wars, Milly knew all about doing without and was to say the least, thrifty. Saving and storing for another day was in her nature. There were exceptions of course.  After years of rationing and when sugar was once again in abundance, Milly treated herself to several heaping spoons full of the sweet stuff in every cup of tea and at every opportunity. This kind of extravagance rarely found its way to her grandchildren however and as kids we neither understood nor appreciated why she was so tight with her wallet. 

It was after a morning of bus travel and a grotesque shopping excursion to Eaton’s for a new size 22 all-in-one girdle that we asked ‘politely’ for pocket money to buy a treat. She promptly reminded us about the quarter she’d bestowed earlier in the week and sniped something about candy and sticky fingers. She grumbled “I’ll think about it tomorrow after we’re finished at the Corn Doctor’s office.” Oh God, I still have an aversion to feet. And that was it, the tipping point. I whined and Julie fussed until the old battle axe fulfilled her promise to banish us once again to the dungeon. Once there, our mission was clear. We firmly agreed that our sub terrain summit meeting must not end until we had a decisive plan for murdering Grandma.

We were quibbling over the “you do it”, “no, you do it” part when the door opened and the enticing aroma of those marvelous pork chops drifted down the stairs.

“Come on you two, supper’s ready”. She was saved.