Chapter 3 Emily
EMILY
A few weeks after the family dinner, Emily was seated at her desk in the Closet, poring over some revisions to a one-page piece on Thanksgiving table decor.
Doris had been pleased with her previous work and was now upping the ante.
This article involved Emily’s first solo interviews—one with her own delighted mother, the other the eccentric proprietor of a notions store off Portland Street in the fashion district who advised her on fabric layering and the placement of glassware.
Knowing Doris would want the piece to reflect Chatelaine’s budget-friendly approach, Emily had sought out cheap samples for the photo shoot at Honest Ed’s and a few church-basement rummage sales.
THE TWO-DOLLAR THANKSGIVING TABLE:
Thrifty Decor for the Savvy Housewife
She had just finalized the title when the front desk receptionist, Constance, popped her head around the door frame.
“Do you have a minute?” she asked.
Emily looked up from her work. “Of course.”
“There’s a man at the desk, and he’s got something…I’m not really sure what to do with it.”
As the editorial assistant and with her “office” the closest to front reception, Emily was Constance’s point of contact if Doris or Clara couldn’t be reached by phone.
Emily was then responsible for relaying the information to the appropriate member of staff.
She didn’t mind being the messenger, though, as it gave her a ready excuse to engage with Doris and the staff writers, learn a bit more about the inner workings of the magazine from whatever message she was delivering.
“What do you mean?” Emily asked, puzzled.
“I’ll let him tell you,” Constance said, withdrawing. With a curious twinge at the air of mystery, Emily followed her out into the small marble-floored lobby.
The man was standing, looking uncomfortable, near the reception desk. He wore a jumpsuit with the name Ted stitched into the breast in yellow thread, and was stooping a little, as though about to walk through a low doorway.
“May I help you?” Emily asked politely.
He nodded in her direction. “Afternoon, miss. I uh, I was sent down here by the lady upstairs,” he said, pointing at the ceiling.
“From Maclean’s?”
“Yeah. I’ve been around and around, see. It’s just that I’ve come across a strange thing, and I didn’t know where to go with it. The people upstairs sent me down here.”
Emily’s brow furrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I’m a delivery driver, see. Groceries. To all sorts of places. Restaurants, businesses and the like. One of my drop-offs is the old prison over on King West. The ladies’ prison.”
Emily wasn’t familiar with it. She nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“Well, I was making my drop this morning, and a ball of paper up’n falls on my head from out of the sky while I was leaning over, shifting the crates.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew what looked like a crumpled note with blue lettering.
“The ladies were having their outside time,” he went on. “I see them sometimes, just walking in circles or standing around in groups. I looked up, and through the fence I see this girl running back toward the jail doors.”
“Well, what did the paper say?” Emily asked. She was still flummoxed, but her curiosity was growing.
“I think it’s best you read it for yourself, miss,” he said, taking a step toward her and holding out the note. She took it and smoothed it out. It was written in poor penmanship with multiple spelling errors. It was also in crayon.
Emily’s eyes flew across the lines, widening with shock as she read. There was no name attached.
Delivery man—we need help. We are starved—dirty baths—they expariment things on us, medisins that make us sick, and electrisity—Rats and lice everywhere.
Food not enough, and terrible. I done nothing wrong and they still sent me here on the incorigible law.
Loads of women are hear because of it, and done nothing.
You put a toe out of line and you get locked up alone.
No windows or exersise or nothing down there. Doctor is evil. Please tell the police!
Sined,
Incorigible
“ ‘Incorrigible,’ ” Emily said aloud.
The elevator doors opened then and Doris stepped off. “Good day, sir,” she said to Ted. “What’s that?” she asked Emily as she breezed over to them, carrying the scent of coffee and something fried that was wrapped in an oily paper bag.
“Look at this, Doris.” Emily handed over the letter. Doris deposited the bagged lunch onto the reception desk and took the paper. Her eyes slid across it.
“Good God,” she said. “Who is this person, ‘Incorrigible’? Did you bring this in?” she asked Ted.
“Yes, ma’am. Fell from over the fence at the women’s prison.”
Doris’s brow crinkled. “On King West?”
He nodded. “The Mercer Women’s Prison.”
“Why did you come here, sir?” Doris asked.
“Ted, ma’am. Well, it seems serious, right?
So I went to the police, but they laughed it off.
Wouldn’t even take the note.” He frowned.
“So I thought someone at the news might want to see it, and I had a delivery ’round the corner anyway.
The girl at the desk upstairs read it and said you’re the ones what deal with ladies’ stuff. ”
Emily could practically feel the heat burning on Doris’s face beside her. It was only “ladies’ stuff” because it mentioned women.
“Ted, thank you for bringing this to us. Do you mind if I keep it?” Doris asked.
“No, ma’am. As I said, police didn’t give a hoot, but it seemed important. If you’re happy to do something with it, that’s fine by me. I’ve done my bit. I’ll let you do yours. Have a good day, now.” He turned and walked to the elevators.
Doris beckoned to Emily. “Come with me.”
Emily followed her down to her office, where Doris slid her heels off, sank into her desk chair and tore open the paper takeaway bag.
“I’m ravenous,” she said. “Meetings upstairs all morning. My God, those men just go on and on and hardly say anything at all.” She took a large bite of her sandwich and handed the note back to Emily. “What do you make of this?”
Emily scanned it again. “Did you see this, about the…‘incorrigible law’? What is that? I’ve never heard of it.”
Doris chewed slowly. “I don’t know. But there’s all kinds of strange rubbish still on the books, isn’t there?
” She took a swig from a cup on her desk.
The drink must have gone stone cold hours ago, but she didn’t flinch.
“Isn’t there something in the Criminal Code about ‘alarming the Queen’?
” Doris continued to eat, keeping her eyes on Emily.
“Well,” she said between mouthfuls, nodding at the note. “How do we find out what it is?”
Emily tapped a finger on the note. “Telephone a lawyer? Go to the courthouse?”
Doris nodded. “You got it. I’ve got a friend who’s a secretary at Osgoode Hall. She knows more than half the lawyers upstairs do,” she added, eyes rolling to the ceiling. Doris had friends everywhere, Emily had noticed. She was a sun around which smaller planets clustered, warming in her orbit.
Doris set the sandwich down and wiped her hands on a napkin before leaning forward and fingering through the Wheeldex beside the telephone.
After a moment she withdrew a card and picked up the receiver.
Emily heard it ring a few times before a woman answered.
Doris made brief small talk, then straightened.
“I wonder if you could do us a favour, Helen. We have interest in something called the Incorrigible Law. Has to do with prisons, maybe. Crim—oh? Yes. Yes.” Doris seized a pen from the glass cup on her desk and scribbled something down.
“Confirming: ‘the Female Refuges Act’? R-E-F-U-G-E-S?” She nodded and looked up at Emily again.
“Do you have the text by any chance? Mmm. Okay. Thank you, Helen, you’re a treasure. Best to Phil. Bye now.”
She set the receiver down and slid the piece of paper over to Emily. “She says ‘the Incorrigible Law’ is the nickname for something called the Female Refuges Act. It legislates women’s prisons, but she says it’s mostly applied to vagrants and prostitutes.” She raised her eyebrows.
Emily swallowed. One didn’t normally hear the word “prostitute” in polite conversation. “Oh my.”
“Indeed.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed, though she wasn’t entirely sure why, Emily dropped her eyes to the prisoner’s note.
“Vagrants and…prostitutes or not,” Emily said, “these are some pretty serious allegations.”
She looked up again at her boss, who surveyed her. “And why doesn’t it matter to you if they’re prostitutes?” Doris asked casually.
“Well…” Emily began. She’d never had much cause to consider “women of the night,” as she’d heard them called.
But she thought back to the piece they’d done on battered women, the descriptions from doctors about the physical and psychological toll the violence took on women.
How for most of them, it had come as a shock.
“One of the things that struck me with the battered women piece,” she said, “was that those women ended up in a bad way through no fault of their own. They didn’t want their lives to end up like that.
They didn’t choose to marry men who were violent.
We hardly get much choice in whom we marry to begin with. ”
“And many men are adept at concealing their violent tendencies,” Doris added darkly. “I’m not sure any woman really knows the man she walks back down the aisle with. The surprises tend to come afterward.”
Emily’s insides tightened, thinking of all she thought she knew about Jem.
The more she spoke with women like Doris, who embodied the sort of future she wanted for herself, the more unappealing the idea of marriage became.
It seemed astonishing to her that women didn’t freely share the downsides of marriage with one another.
Everyone was more focused on maintaining an image, an illusion.
Like the magazine itself: a perfect glossy cover concealing the messy topics no one wanted to talk about.
“I agree with you, Emily,” Doris said, rousing her.
“I don’t think any woman would choose a path of prostitution, either.
Not as such. But we all know the system is set up against women.
For many of us—the lucky ones—that just means restriction, dissatisfaction; for others, it spells total ruin and degradation.
” She hesitated, then took what looked like a reluctant last bite of her sandwich, as though the conversation had stolen her appetite.
“This Female Refuges Act and the prisoner’s note warrant a dig about.
” Doris sat back in her chair. “Listen, Emily. You’ve done some good research for other articles lately.
I should like your help with the background on this one. ”
Emily’s heart leapt. “Thank you!”
“Head up to the Legislative Library,” Doris said.
“See if you can locate the law. That’s not to say there isn’t a story here about the conditions inside the prison, regardless, but I think we need to verify the legal bit first, about how the women are getting sent there in the first place. Let me know what you find.”