By John RC Potter

          It was one of those chilly and snowy evenings in southwestern Ontario that seemed to be worse back in the mid-70s when this story takes place. My younger sister Barb and I were pleased to have the old family farmhouse to ourselves that evening because our parents were visiting relatives. We had invited a few of our favourite cousins to see us that evening, with the expectation that we would go into town and drive from the north end to the south repeatedly, which was one of the popular things for teenagers to do back then. My maternal cousins, Pat and Marilyn, were my age and in the same grade at high school.

            We sat around the kitchen table, no doubt drinking and smoking. The wind was howling outside, and icy snow particles struck the windows startlingly. It was clear that a snowstorm was brewing, and perhaps not the best weather to go out for a joy ride. I thought I heard the door to the back kitchen open; it seemed strange that anyone would be coming to our house unannounced on such a wintry evening. There was a light tap on the door, and then it opened suddenly and banged against the kitchen counter. Everyone in the room stared in amazement. A young woman was in the doorway and leaning against the doorjamb in apparent exhaustion, her breathing audible in ragged gasps. Although she had heavy makeup on her face, it accented and enhanced her theatrical appearance. We were startled yet fascinated by this unexpected apparition: the young woman was wearing a luxurious-looking fur coat, with a colourful silk scarf carelessly wound around her neck, whilst a jaunty winter bonnet sat on her head; a few golden tresses fell across her face. The snow on this young stranger’s clothing was already beginning to melt in a pool at her feet, which were clad in expensive-looking winter boots. A beaded bag was slung over one shoulder. Before anyone could move or say anything, the young woman seemed about to collapse just before she uttered words that chilled us to the bone:

            “For God’s sake, help me!”

…………………

            Marilyn jumped up from her kitchen chair and caught the young woman before she swooned, gently guiding her to the boot bench beside the kitchen door; she also had the mind to pour water from the kitchen tap into a glass and hand it to the unexpected guest. I closed the kitchen door to prevent the frigid winter air of the unheated back kitchen from entering. We started to pelt questions at the young woman, but Marilyn sternly told us to give our gasping guest a chance to get her breath. She sat beside the young woman on the bench and put a protective arm around her fur-clad shoulder. Looking at everyone and then at the stranger, Marilyn asked calmly, “Are you ready to tell us what happened and how you ended up here?”

            The young woman shook her head, affirming her readiness to talk. She took a dainty sip of water, then said, “My car went off the road, and I wandered in the snowstorm until I saw the porch light outside.”

            Our first concern was that the young woman was injured, but she said that was not the case. She was only shaken up and, of course, chilled to the bone. The young woman told us that she was from London, a city that was a one-hour drive away.

            “Why were you up here?” Marilyn asked. “Where were you going?”

            When the young woman told us the names of the couple she would visit further up the concession, we looked around in surprise. The man she named was one of the wealthiest farmers in the community. Everyone said he was a millionaire, but you would never have known it because he was always clad in his trademark barn overalls.

            My curiosity got the better of me, and I blurted out, “Who are you?”

            The young woman paused. She seemed to be trying to remember. Did she have amnesia, I wondered? Finally, she said quietly, “My name is Isabella Labatt.” You could have heard a pin drop in our kitchen at that moment. My sister, Barb, asked the question on the minds of all assembled there. “Are you from the Labatt family in London that owns the beer company?” If so, her famous family would have been one of the wealthiest in the city.

            Seeming embarrassed by her response, the young woman’s cheeks reddened slightly, and she said, “Yes.” Then, as if it explained everything, she continued, “But I don’t drink beer.” I shook my head, thinking the young woman was a bit of an odd duck.

            Marilyn asked the young woman if she wanted to go to the hospital. The response was no. She then asked if she wanted us to take her to find her car. The response was yes.

            The million-dollar question. I asked, “What kind of car do you drive?”

            Almost apologetically, the young woman responded, “A Bentley.” It occurred to me that a tractor or tow truck would be required if any car—especially a Bentley—went off the road into a snowbank. I told the group as much. “Let’s find the car first and find out the extent of the problem,” one of the others stated.

            One of my cousins was driving the family car, a spacious sedan that we referred to as more boat than car in size. We managed to get ourselves into the sedan, with Isabella in the front seat in the middle. Before backing out of the laneway onto the snow-laden gravel backroad, Marilyn asked, “From which direction did you come?” I piped up from the back seat that it had to be from the north of our farm because the couple’s farm, where the young woman visited, was further up the concession. Although much snow was on the road, the snowfall was not blizzard-like.

            As we drove up the backroad to the train tracks, Pat asked, “Does anything look familiar?” Isabella shook her head from side to side. Several heads looked from left to right, searching for signs of a car in the ditch. We reached the highway to Clinton and the east within a few minutes. We had not yet found the young woman’s car.

            “Did you go off the road further up the concession, past the highway?” someone asked.

            Her voice trembling, Isabella said, “Yes. (pause) No. (pause) Perhaps.” I suspected that everyone in the car was wondering if the young woman had amnesia or a head injury or had just plain lost the plot!

            We crossed the highway and drove up the concession line, Horseshoe Road, because it traveled in an arc to the north, then to the west, and finally back out to the highway. By now, we were almost to the property owned by the wealthy farmer. Barb burst out with a question on everyone’s mind, “How could it be so far away from our home? Isabella, when walking from your car, why didn’t you stop for help from one of the farms closer to where you ran off the road?”

            The young woman cried, “I don’t know!” and then covered her face with her hands, slightly sobbing.

            Marilyn made a sensible decision: “We haven’t seen your car, and the property you were visiting is next. We’ll take you there.”

            All of a sudden, Isabella shrieked, “No! Not to them!” Grasping Marilyn by the shoulder, the young woman pleaded, “Please take me back to your home.” Marilyn explained it was my home, not hers, but why did she want to return there and not get help from her friends, the wealthy farm couple she had visited that evening? Acquiescing to this strange and distraught young woman, the car was turned around and headed back down the road. Suddenly, the young woman exclaimed, “I have something to tell all of you.” She paused dramatically. “Please, don’t be angry with me, but…” There was dead silence in the car as we all waited expectantly for the young woman to continue.

            “My name is not Isabella Labatt!”

……………….

            After her surprising statement, the young woman informed us she would give further details but would only do that back at the house. The assembled cast of characters in the spacious sedan remained silent on the short return journey to the farmhouse. Everyone wondered about the young woman’s identity and the reason for her surprise appearance that evening. If her name was not Isabella Labatt, who was she? Did she have a car stuck in a snowbank? Had she visited the local millionaire farmer and his wife further up the concession? Was she dangerous? What was in that beaded bag of hers – a knife or pistol? As we disembarked from my cousin’s automotive yacht, everyone quietly walked through the snowy yard to the back kitchen door. I purposely walked behind the young woman, either to make sure she did not make a great escape or to ensure she did not knife me in the back.

            As my cousins and I took off our boots and coats in the back kitchen, the young woman responded negatively when asked if she would like to take off her fur coat. We walked into the kitchen and sat around the big table in the middle of the room. I glanced at my cousins. Marilyn looked a bit miffed as she waited for the denouement. Pat had a skeptical look on her face. At that moment, as everyone stared at the young woman, a common thought seemed to come to all assembled: in the harsh lighting from the overhead kitchen lamp, the stranger in our midst did not seem 20-ish but, rather, more like a young teenager.

            Marilyn took the bull by the horns. “Okay, if your name is not Isabella Labatt, who are you?”

The young woman grinned impishly as she looked at everyone assembled around the table. Finally, her sparkling blue eyes rested upon my sister, Barb, and me. “Should we tell them?” she asked us. At that point, all eyes were on me and my sister. I stood up, paused dramatically, and said, “This is Barb’s friend, Rosemary, who lives in the west. She’s here on a visit.” Barb explained, while the proverbial penny dropped, “You may recall that she and her family used to live not far from here, on the highway, before they moved away.” There was much whooping and hollering from our cousins and undoubtedly a few well-deserved curses on our heads! Barb, Rosemary, and I had pulled the wool over their eyes with our little charade. There was no car stuck in a ditch. The luxurious-looking pelt of skins worn by the ‘actress’ was as fake as the character wearing it. There had been no visit to the wealthy farmer up the concession. It was all part of a hastily devised plot. What seemed most extraordinary was that the idea had come to us only briefly before my cousins had arrived. It was not the first time I would direct and stage such an impromptu play, and certainly not the last! As Shakespeare’s timeless words tell us, all the world’s a stage, and for a brief moment in time, that stage was in southwestern Ontario, with the setting a farmhouse in the countryside in the middle of winter, when an actress playing the role of a character hastily named Isabella Labatt, stumbled through a doorway and into the collective memories of our youth.

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John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada who lives in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, “Snowbound in the House of God” (Memoirist). His story, “Ruth’s World” (Fiction on the Web), was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his poem, “Tomato Heart” (Disturb the Universe Magazine), was nominated for the Best of the Net Award. The author’s gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, is scheduled for publication.