Fluffy

When I was very small I had a recurring nightmare in which horrific music drifted upstairs, then a dark shadow with a tall hat strode into my room to pry my eyelids open and see whether I was asleep.

In those days we had a cleaning lady named Aunt Lucy. She had been a part of our family for many years, beginning as my father's nanny when she was little more than a girl. She was French Canadian. She would come over once a week to look after me and Snoopy, and let Mom get out of the house for an afternoon of shopping in downtown Windsor.

Aunt Lucy lived common-law with Uncle George. This was not unheard of for French Canadian Catholics in those days. Uncle George had a wife in Quebec, but she was confined to a sanitarium and he could not get the marriage annulled. So Lucy and George lived together. My family would normally frown on such things, but made allowance for love under adversity. We would always visit them at home on Christmas Day.

Aunt Lucy had a fur coat, and every Wednesday when she arrived at the side door I would run down to the landing and bury my face in its softness. I can still feel it against my cheeks. Sometimes she would bring me a small gift, a little feathered model bird with wire feet. These we fastened to the wooden screen between the kitchen and the sun porch.

That was the only fur coat I had ever touched. My mother, an animal lover, would not have accepted such a thing from my father. She didn't approve of them, but never said a word to Aunt Lucy. And how I loved that fur coat.

Aunt Lucy was both stern and kind. She would call me or Snoopy a "bad egg" if we did anything naughty, but the dog got in trouble more often. I loved her dearly and I'm told my first word was l'eau-l'eau, to ask for a drink.

Aunt Lucy's coat must have become a little worn, because Uncle George eventually bought her a new one. Then she cut part of the old coat and made a stuffed pet for me, a Persian cat I named Fluffy. She had a lovely mottled coat with shades of dark brown and grey, and two shining glass eyes beneath the fluff.

Aunt Lucy got phlebitis. It was quite serious and I remember going to see her in bed. Then a blood clot went to her heart, killing her suddenly. I was only five years old.

We went to the funeral home. I was terrified and didn't want to see her lying in the casket, but understood if I didn't, I would never have a chance to say goodbye. From the back of the chapel I kept darting forward partway, then running to the back again.

"Come see Aunt Lucy," my mother said gently. "She looks lovely lying there in her pink nightie."

The next time I darted forward, I could see the soft edge of pink lace, but still couldn't bring myself to face the dead body lying there.

The funeral was a debacle. The priest, considering Lucy a fallen woman, barely agreed to do the service. When he did so, he called her Lucina, though her name was only Lucy. My family, all nominal Protestants, thought it ludicrous. I did not know about any of that, would not have understood.

I was alone at the back of the chapel. No one was paying attention. Whenever I darted forward, people would notice. It started to become a game. I did it again.

Suddenly my mother seized me in rage.

"If you can't behave yourself, you'll have to sit in the car."

I started to wail. Mother dragged me out of the chapel and across the dark parking lot, struggling all the way. She thrust me into the back seat of the station wagon and left me to sit there alone. I do not remember how long I sat crying in grief and terror, afraid of the silence and darkness, but knowing what deep trouble I would have if I left the car and tried to find the chapel again.

I had many stuffed animals, but my favourites were Fluffy and Jingles, a pale blue corduroy lamb stuffed with nylons. I didn't know where he had come from, but years later learned he had also been handmade and given to me by Aunt Lucy. His bell came off and he eventually developed a hole above his tail where the nylons started to come out; I kept pushing them back in. Fluffy's fur wore off until she was little more than a pale blob with glass eyes, her soft skin lightly burnished.

Every night I would pile her and the others around my pillow, even over my head. As long as I did that, the dark shadow with the tall hat would not come.

Saturday afternoon special

Golden retrievers for peace: