A friend otherwise engaged
Long before becoming one of Canada's most popular humorists, Eric Nicol and his friend Howard Rigney, both lecturers at the University of British Columbia, went to Paris in 1949 to earn their doctorates at the Sorbonne. Howard soon fell under the spell of a Canadian-born woman living in London and bought an engagement ring there that he intended to give her later in Paris. But the course of love seldom runs smoothly and sometimes you need a good friend to run the course for you -- as Eric explained in a punning letter to his parents in Vancouver.
29/1/50
La Maison Canadienne
31 Boulevard Jourdan
Paris i-e, France
Dear Folks,
Yoo-hoo, I'm over here again. Room #9, Paris. Old Ants in his Pants is back in his manse. I won't say that I got back unscathed, because if you examine me under a magnifying glass you find that I am scathed here and there, and also need a shave.
The way I got scathed is closely tied up with my getting "engaged" while I was in London, and engaged to Rigney's fiancée, Margaret Benn, at that. In fact, what you are about to read is a chronicle of romance, treachery and bigtime smuggling such as you rarely find far from Humphrey Bogart. So pull up a jug of smelling salts and harken.
First of all, there was this engagement ring, see. While in London at Christmas, Howard paid for its cutting and setting in dollars on the export scheme, whereby you save money and pick up the goods at the port of embarkation. But on his way back to Paris, Howard missed the export desk at the Newhaven customs, and tried to get his ring from the ship's purser, who didn't have it. Thus Rigney arrived back in Paris fit to spit, because Margaret is coming over in April, he wanted to give her the ring then, and she could wear it back into England on her finger, since the English customs can't keep track of all the fingers that go through their hands, so to speak. Well, seeing Rigney fit to spit, in my room, I let my big fat mouth flap out the offer of my bringing the ring back on this latest safari into the darkest bungle. This was an example of unbridled generosity on my part, and I'm buying a new bridle, with teeth, first thing in the morning.
Anyhow, I met Margaret at the jewelers in London, where I filled out a form, and we all (Margaret, the jeweler and I) joined in gay badinage about her quick turnover in fiancés, fickle womanhood, etc. And I was quick to pick up the rock at Dover Friday morning. Okay. Well, I worried some about the French customs, wondering how I would explain having a diamond ring in my pocket, and a ring worth 200 pounds at that (the gem is a family heirloom). [Friends] Pat and Alex worried with me, Alex coming up every five minutes with a new place of concealment, such as stuck to the roof of my mouth with adhesive tape. I wasn't concerned about English customs at Dover, because I knew of no reason for their getting sticky, except that the jeweler had given the value of the ring on the form as 98 pounds, there being a regulation forbidding the exporting of jewelry worth more than 100 pounds (national treasure, Dept. of Onoyoudont).
So I arrived at Dover, handed the export man my claiming slip, and he said to the customs man next to him:
"Ah, here's our man. Mr. Mullins wants to see Mr. Nicol."
Now, when I picked up the trousers, on the previous trip, Mr. Mullins didn't want to see me. Nobody wanted to see me. They just handed me my pants, the customs man checked my passport, and away I bounded to the boat.
Not this time. I waited while the minor customs man hunted up Mr. Mullins, a major customs man, and an ingot of leaden fear hardened in my belly.
Mr. Mullins came up and asked:
"Is you fiancée an English citizen, Mr. Nicol?"
"Ohhh," I said. "I know Margaret to talk to and share tea with, but that's all. She has a Canadian passport."
"I see," said Mr. Mullins. "And where does she work?"
"Work?" I squeaked. The full horror of being engaged to a girl without knowing where she worked broke over me. I knew Margaret worked for an auto supply firm. "She works for an auto supply firm, I think," I said.
Mr. Mullins gave me a cold, hard look and told me to wait. Now thoroughly miserable, in a shed emptied of everybody but me and hundreds of customs men, and seeming to hear the ship's whistle blowing up the anchor, I waited ten minutes until Mr. Mullins returned with a plainclothesman, whom he introduced as his chief. The chief smiled encouragingly and asked:
"Why are you taking this engagement ring to Paris, Mr. Nicol? Why don't you give it to her here?"
"I can't," I said. "I'd have to go back to London, and she's coming over in April. She can't go anywhere near it. I'm a student."
The chief allowed a shadow of confusion to film his eyes, then smiled again and asked:
"Well, when are you getting married?"
"In the fall," I said, remembering Rigney's having said something about getting married in the fall. "We thought it would be nice in the fall."
"And will you be returning to England to live?"
Not knowing whether the customs wanted us to return to England to live with the goddam ring, or not, I said:
"Well, that's not quite decided. There's a bit of a tug-of-war going on at the moment, ha, ha, but I think it'll be Canada. If it isn't England, that is."
The chief nodded again, baffled. Then he held out the package containing the ring.
"We opened it," he said. "You had better have a look at it."
I fumbled off the packing, opened the ring-box and stared at the ring, which I had never seen before, and which I couldn't even be sure was the right ring. The customs men must have been further nonplussed by my looking at the ring without recognition, and handing it back with my mouth open.
"This ring is valued at only ninety-eight pounds?" asked the chief, tilting the diamonds so that their light momentarily blinded me.
"That's right," I said hoarsely. "Ninety-eight pounds."
After one final searching look, the chief took Mr. Mullins aside and they mumbled together. Finally they turned and handed me the ring, with evident reluctance.
"We'll be on the look-out for this ring," said the chief.
"Thank you," I said. Then I took the package and tottered to the boat. Ahead lay the Channel and the French Customs ...
Eric
Eric passed through the French customs check without incident and delivered the ring to Howard, who presented it to Margaret in April in Paris. However, Eric was the first to live with her (and two other attractive women) when be moved to London to write a BBC radio series for comedian Bernie Braden. Margaret and Howard later married and lived the rest of their lives in England. Eric returned to Vancouver, where be became a humour columnist and the author of satirical novels and non-fiction, the latest being Old Is In.
