About the Author cont...

D.A. I was there with my sisters. It’s true that we didn’t hang around together; we tended to hang around with girls our own age. We saw our parents at Christmas and occasionally visited with Memere and Pepere Chaput and our aunts and uncles in Joliette. We spent all our summers in Val d’Or. I have fond memories of that, going to the beach every day that the sun shone, and picking raspberries and blueberries.

I loved the boarding school and I liked the Sisters of Providence. They were kind to us, not like the horror stories we hear about Aboriginal boarding schools; as far as I know, and I was there five years, there was never any of that stuff going on at Ste Ursule.

K.H. You were just a little child. What did you like about the boarding school?
D.A. I loved the space, having my own bed. At home, we shared not only bedrooms but beds also. I loved the large weeping willow and the swings in the backyard, the candy on Sunday. Your allowance started with ten cents on Monday and every time you were naugthy, you lost a penny of it; often, I only had two cents left by Sunday, but I took revenge by buying a 2 cent hard cinnamon candy that lasted a long time. But again, here is a proof that these nuns were kindhearted: I was quite naughty but Soeur Paul never, ever let me go below two cents; I don’t think anyone was ever let go lower than two cents, no matter how bad they behaved.

I loved also the rituals of singing in the chapel, watching the coloured light streaming through the stained glass windows; I loved the skating rink in winter, the staging of plays with elaborate rented costumes, the French lady who taught us “diction”. But I especially loved the long overnight train ride in September and June.

K.H. What kind of student were you? Was learning easy for you?
D.A. Learning was easy for my sisters and me, but I often got into trouble for being a clown or for my pranks, such as sneaking snow balls into other girls’s boots after recess. I didn’t mind the occasional, well deserved mild spankings. I didn’t even mind the seasonal lice. And I got infested each round!

K.H. What do you think your life would have been like if you had not gone to that boarding school?
D.H. To be honest, I hate to think how awful it could have been. It most likely would not have been as good as it has been. We were little waifs, walking around the main street of Val dÒr, picking up empty coke and beer bottles which we turned in at the corner store for two cents each. My mother didn`t have time to keep an eye on all of us and at the same time take care of the rooming house and of my father.  

K.H. When did you leave Val d’Or?
D.A. When I was 15, we moved to Northern Ontario.

K.H. How did you meet your husband?
D.A. I met him in Kingston, in a pub. As a teenager, every year at Christmas, I would ask my mother for a jewellery box. I always received the same answer: “Why a jewellery box? You have nothing to put in it.” I never did find one under the tree. At the beginning of my second year at Queen’s University, my roommate brought me a lovely jewellery box from the World Trade Fair in Osaka. A month later, I met Neil, a designer-goldsmith. Don’t you think it was all in the cards?

K.H. You seem to believe in destiny?
D.A. Absolutely. One hundred per cent. I believe nothing is of our own volition. I believe that we are born as we are, by destiny. We don’t choose our birth; we don’t chose our personality, our looks, our abilities, our brains, our location; I could have been born in a strict Muslem home; I could be living in a country with purdah; I could have had a child molester as a father; I could have been a thalidamide baby; I could have died of polio; the list goes on… We don’t choose the accidents of our life, good or bad. If I had not been to that pub that night, I would not have met my husband ; my whole life would have been different. I will never know what made me want a jewellery box so ardently or later, what made me want to go to that pub, or, for that matter, what made me become a writer.

K.H. No idea?
D.A. I suspects it was the desire to make people laugh or at least, ask themselves questions.

K.H. Do you have any plans? Anything in particular you would like to write about?
D.A. I would like to write about my travels in India and other places. And I have many many other stories dancing around in my head. But really, I have no plans. Perhaps because I am a bit superstitious. And ever since I have travelled in Muslem countries and met Muslem people, I feel that planning is arrogant. Like them, I hardly ever use the future tense anymore without adding “Inshallah” (God willing). There you are: I am superstitious.  That is why I have become like tumbleweed; I go where the wind blows me and so far, I love where it sends me. It is always full of wonderful surprises. And wonderful people. I believe that every step we take in life is part of our destiny. Often, years later, we look back and realize the repercussions of an apparently insignificant action in our past. (Like my going to that pub where I met Neil. It was my first time. Neither was Neil a pub goer; he had gone there quite accidentally.) And I believe that everyone we meet in life enriches us one way or another.

K.H. When did you start writing?
D.A. I came to Queen’s to study science but ended up with a Master’s in French literature. To look back and see exactly what led me to it would be a novel in itself. It just happened. Most lives just happen; very few people live their lives according to plans. Those who do often cause considerable colateral damage around them. Something I do know is that my insatiable lust for travel started with my first 14 hour train journey from Abitibi to Ste Ursule at the age of six. My only companions during the overnight trip were my two older sisters, Michele, 7 and Lucie, 8. Travel led me travel writing, which in turn led to short story writing.

K.H. Do you always write in English?
D.A. Although I enjoy writing both in French and English, most of my writing is in English.