Milk and Water, the title of my play about Montreal in 1927. Usually 'working titles' are just that, but frankly. But as I start to write dialogue for my play, between French Canadian Municipal Civil Servant, Jules Crepeau and businessman Thomas G. Wells, the President of Laurentian Spring Water, I like the title more and more.
I chose this title because in 1927 there was yet another typhoid 'epidemic' in Montreal and in such instances, the water people blamed the milk people and vice versa. This epidemic was traced to milk.
But Milk and Water is also a metaphor for the two men. In fact, I've opened with a description of them: two men, similar ages, similar builds, similar educations, similar salaries, both with grown children and young children, both living in upper middle class comfort in Montreal... both with wives who don't mind the fact that they are seldom around. Both 'self-made' men of humble beginnings - but with just the right amount of 'connections' to get a head start over all rivals within their particular pond in the Darwinian struggle for survival and dominance.
One is bald, one still has a healthy head of thick curly hair. And one wears glasses, one doesn't. And one is Catholic and one Anglican or Church of England. (I will have them both tear into the Presybterians...Thomas Wells sold the companies soft drinks to bars, often bribing the bartender. His wife, May, was a huge drinker.)
But there's a more essential difference.
One man is an English-Quebecker and one a French Quebecker.
The pic above is of Jules young. I may have one other somewhere. This is a photocopy from his file at City Hall. It's a bio from a 1922 book. Born the son of an 'entrepreneur peintre' and Vitaline Forget. Humble yes, but this Forget is, indeed, a relation of Sir Rodolphe Forget.
Thomas G. Wells was from Ontario. His dad was a lawyer. He had cousins The Whites. When a Mr. White of Montreal needed someone to help with his business, as his own son was a n'ere-do-well, he sent for Thomas in Ontario.
Thomas had some other Montreal Cousins, the Townsends. They got into the liquor mail order business during Prohibition, selling booze to other parts of Canada. In just one year, they made enough to retire on. So the story goes. (They had a bustling operation with tonnes of orders coming in each day.) Thomas will mention this in the long 4 hour talk he has with Jules, as they wait outside a dance club for the Prince of Wales to arrive.
I have been reading about Prohibition in Canada. I've always been told this was a legit business, or a loophole business, but I'm not sure. It's important I get it right for the story.
