Permit me, dear Reader, the luxury of sharing with you my erstwhile acquaintance with Louis de la Chesnaye Audette QC OC (April 7, 1907 – April 2, 1995). I say “luxury” because, while it would be an unwarranted extension to say that we were anything other than casual confrères, nonetheless our relatively brief companionship is memorable and, for me at least, intellectually profitable. Audette was a skilled wordsmith, in addition to being perfectly (and unidentifiably) bilingual (English/French) – that is, except when using words like “Pakenham” (which he pronounced “Pāk/en/ham”) thus disclosing his British bias (which I have every reason to believe was quite deliberate though he would as readily have denied the partisanship). He rather insisted upon having the last word so I seldom contradicted him with my colloquial intelligence, being as I am an unrepentant and undignified rural conveyancer (as he was regularly wont to dismiss me).
I must back up. My introduction to Audette – not unlike so many other favourable instances in my life – was entirely serendipitous. It began pointedly in a bar. But Audette was not there. Instead it was a chap named Douglas Peterson.
PETERSON, Douglas Gordon October 6, 1921 – February 24, 2004. He attended the University of Saskatchewan before joining the Canadian Army in 1941 and serving in Europe with The Regina Rifle Regiment and The Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. After the war, he attended U of S again, and the University of Western Ontario (BA, MSc) and the University of Cambridge (PhD). He worked with the Department of Agriculture, Division of Entymology, from 1955-1978, in Guelph, Ghana and Ottawa.
The year was 1973, following my graduation from Dalhousie Law School. I was then employed for Articles at Messrs. Macdonald, Affleck Barrs. &c. at 100 Sparks Street. On the night in question I had been playing the grand piano on the main floor lounge of the Lord Elgin Hotel. Doug was seated at the bar. After my tolerable performance, I wandered toward the bar and squeezed myself between him and someone else. I had deliberately targeted Doug because he was wearing a rich orange coloured fine leather sports jacket. He screamed entitlement. So when he offered to buy me a drink – putatively as thanks for my piano playing – I accepted heartily.
In 1973 I was 24 years old. Doug would have been 52 years old which, at the time, qualified as old. He was however not without his passions. He invited me to visit him for a nightcap at his nearby condo. At the time I hadn’t a car and I lived in a modest apartment at Pestallozi College across from the Jewish Community Centre on Rideau Street. My salary at the law firm was $4,000 per annum (so – as I regularly quipped – a hamburger from Harvey’s was “dining out”).
In the late 1960s, inspired by Pestalozzi’s ideas, Pestalozzi College Inc. was established in downtown Ottawa at Rideau and Chapel streets. This twenty-two-story urban community building aimed to provide a holistic student environment, integrating accommodations with artistic, social, and educational development. The college housed 950 residents, who governed their own community through democratically elected committees overseeing education, admissions, finance, and overall membership.
Doug’s 2-bedroom apartment adequately accommodated us. In the “spare room” (as he called it) he unfolded the hide-a-bed and directed me to my private bathroom. The next morning when I awoke somewhat fuzzily from last night’s alcoholic indulgence, I encountered Doug in his kitchen where he was preparing breakfast. It was Sunday. I recalled that I had told my mother I would visit her Sunday morning for breakfast. In haste I telephoned mother and told her I was indisposed. When she asked where I was I unhesitatingly told her at a friend’s condo in the centre of the city. She asked whose condo. Equally without hesitation I told her Doug Peterson. To my surprise, she queried, “Dr. Peterson?” At that point in the kitchen, I turned to Doug and asked, “Are you a doctor?” He replied that he had a PhD. I told my mother accordingly. Then she said, “Doug was my dinner partner at Dr. Ed Laroux’ house when your father was away.” Stunned, I turned to Doug and asked, “Do you know my mother Yvonne Chapman?”
Well of course he did. And, yes, Dr. Laroux was his boss. It was my sudden introduction to what afterwards became Doug’s celebrated ejaculation, “Gawd!” But that was only the beginning of this curious tale. It was months later that I and a friend were invited to join Doug and a colleague of his (Louis Audette) for dinner. I won’t repeat the first words out of Audette’s mouth, but it was an unqualified appraisal of “these are a few of my favourite things”. Lascivious in a word. And – as I afterwards learned vicariously – not without substantial merit.
The scope of my friendship with both Doug and Louis surrounded – and, I am quick to add, was limited to – the pleasures of the table and the trough. Naturally it was the fraternity and the comedy (and maybe the whiskey) that attracted us one to the other. Besides Louis “ate like a bird” so food was characteristically irrelevant to the trough. But I compliment him upon prescribing Dry Sack sherry with consommé (and always drinking the soup from the far side of the bowl with silver spoon projected in that direction).
Over the subsequent years Audette cultivated a winning combination of whiskey, Dry Sack sherry, wine, Porto and more whiskey. As Doug once coyly remarked when reflecting upon a dinner at Louis’ house the previous night, “When Louis stood up then fell to his knees, I knew it was time to go home!” I should add that the government of the household and culinary matters was in the hands of Louis’ reliable steward Jeffrey who (as Louis regularly observed) reportedly said, “You have time for one more!”
In fairness to Louis’ alcoholism, he would always struggle to diminish its influence upon his character by suggesting that, when it came to measuring his shots, he preferred a half-measure with lots of Club Soda. We eventually adopted the paradigm by distinguishing our own preferences as an “Audette” (though I suspect as regularly we doubled the pour at the side table when no one was looking).
On the other hand, on one of Audette’s birthdays, we took him to Zoé’s lounge at the Château Laurier Hotel. We told the bartender that it was Audette’s birthday. The bartender mistakenly augmented the quantity of the pour. Subsequently, as we stumbled to a restaurant in nearby ByWard Market, Audette tripped on the sidewalk and fell on his face. His false teeth went skidding along the walkway. He was bleeding rather profusely. Although my own car was parked nearby, I had no intention of putting this bleeding mess into my car. I hailed a cab.
When, within minutes, we arrived at his home in Sandy Hill, Louis proceeded to remove his soiled sport jacket and shirt. Jeffrey had retired for the evening. I asked where his laundry room was. He said, in the basement. I took the washable stuff to the basement and plopped it atop the washer for Jeffrey to handle on the morrow. When I climbed back upstairs to the drawing room, Audette stood before the fireplace beneath his mother’s portrait in his undershirt, suspenders and grey flannels. He looked mischievously at me and said, “How about a drink!”
This was not the only crude dalliance of which I am aware. Years later Audette was beckoned by the heritage society from St. Jean Port Joli (where he ancestral family were among the original seigneurs) to give a lecture. So smitten was he with the invitation and the ensuing welcome that he succeeded to trip on the staircase and broke the frame of his glasses. I know this because he reappeared not long afterwards with adhesive tape binding the bridge of the frames. It didn’t bother him in the least.
What did bother him was to be offered a cocktail one second beyond the hour of six! I can only assume that, when he was alone at home, Jeffrey had been mandated to materialize with drink-in-hand precisely upon the clocks chiming six!
On final recollection – probably around 1984, one winter’s eve. I entertained Louis and a number of others for dinner. After all my guests had departed, the telephone rang. It was Louis. He said, “Bill, it’s Louis. I’m in the ditch!” A tow truck was despatched. It wasn’t a major problem, he had just slid to the side of the road. Not long afterwards, the telephone rang again. It was Louis. He said, “Bill, it’s Louis. I’m in the ditch!” This time, when he told where he was, he advised he had called upon the owners of the property immediately adjoining the roadway. They proved to be former clients of mine. They generously came to his rescue. I think thereafter we arranged to have a car follow him home.