Last Song Sung

by David A. Poulsen

  I said, “A few minutes ago you used the word magic to describe Ellie’s performance. What made it magic?”

  “I’m not sure I can find words that would properly describe what she could do. There was her voice, of course. I would say Joni was the best there was, but Ellie wasn’t far behind her. But it was more than her voice; it was the way she looked at every person in that audience like they were the most important people in the world to her. And I think that was sincere. It was like she and everyone out there were making love. And I don’t mean that in a suggestive or even sensual way. It was just … you see, I told you I couldn’t describe it properly.”

  I was fairly sure I detected a bit of colour in Lois Beeston’s cheeks. She looked down at the table.

  “I think you’re describing it perfectly. Please go on.”

  She took a forkful of food, chewed, swallowed, and finally said, softly, “She rarely talked between songs, just ‘Thank you,’ you know? But when she finished a set, you had the feeling that people loved her … and I mean that in the truest sense of the word, not ‘Oh, I just love your casserole, Aunt Polly.’ It was, as I said earlier, magic.”

  When Lois Beeston was finished, I realized she had made me want to believe that Ellie Foster was alive and that Cobb and I could find her.

  I pointed to her bowl. “Why don’t I let you finish up, and we can talk more after we’re done.”

  She nodded, and we ate in semi-silence, pausing occasionally to exchange thoughts about the food, the place, and the weather. Small, small talk.

  When we’d finished and the table was cleared, she once again manoeuvred paper, having, it seemed, a plan for how she wanted me to see the various pieces.

  She did. She pushed one piece of paper toward me.

  “Here are my chapter titles; you’ll see that chapter eight was devoted to Ellie Foster and the night she disappeared.”

  I looked down and noted that the title she’d assigned chapter eight was, “Singin’ the Blues: The Disappearance of a Future Star.”

  “And this is the outline for that chapter.” She pushed another piece of paper my way — a half page of typed text with a few notes pencil-scribbled in the margins. I read it and learned nothing I didn’t already know. Not surprising: it was, after all, only an outline.

  “Do you have more detailed notes about that night, your research notes?”

  “Just rough stuff,” she replied. “I’d abandoned the book before I got to the real work on that chapter.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you give it up?”

  She shrugged, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth.

  “You’re a writer,” she said. “I’m not. If I were to give you one of my early chapters to read, you’d see that. I didn’t at first.… I believed I was creative, artistic — how hard can it be, right?” She shrugged again, and the frown became a wry smile.

  It was a story I’d heard before. The person with that story in their head, and all it needed was to be on paper and the big royalty cheques would start rolling in. No, that’s not fair. Often with wannabe writers, money was not the prime motivation; more often it was about getting the story told, a story that had meant a great deal to that person for a long time, offering it to a world in which some might even read it. The problem, as Bert Nichol had noted, was that writing was so much damn harder than many people thought.

  “Can I look at your notes for chapter eight?”

  She sifted through more pages, taking some from one pile, a couple from another, then another, and after a couple of minutes, passed me the lot.

  “I think those should be roughly in order. Why don’t you look at them while I get us some coffee?”

  I nodded agreement and fell to reading, looking up only briefly to acknowledge her return with the coffee. There was too much to read without keeping her there all afternoon, so I skimmed and speed-read what I could in fifteen minutes or so. By the end, I was nodding and tapping pages that contained what looked like useful information.

  Finally I looked up and said, “You’ve done some really good work here, Lois.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do. Research is a big part of what I’ve done most of my working life, and this …” I tapped the pages again, “this is going to be helpful. If you have time, can we walk through a couple of parts I have questions about?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ve included a list of people who worked at The Depression.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any way of knowing who was actually working that night?”

  She pointed. “The names are in blue and green. Blue for there that night, green for not.”

  I laughed.

  “Is there something funny about that?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I was actually laughing at myself. I thought the two-colour thing was just to dress it up — make it look a little prettier. I should have known better.”

  She smiled, then turned serious again, watching me as I looked through her notes a second time.

  “How many of the people who were there that evening did you talk to afterward?”

  “All of them. By that, I mean all of the staff and volunteers.”

  “And you have notes of those conversations included here?”

  “Yes, as well as conversations I had with several of the customers who were there that night.”

  “That part, I don’t understand. You did these interviews several years after the shooting and kidnapping. Likely The Depression was closed by the time you did all this work?”

  “That’s correct, yes.”

  “How was it that after so much time had elapsed, you still remembered who was working that night, and even which customers were there?”

  “I didn’t.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Sorry?”

  “I’ve wanted to be a writer since high school. And I knew that life experience was important for any writer. So I started a diary in … I think it was maybe grade eleven or so. A very detailed diary, and I was pretty disciplined, wrote every day, wrote a lot. When I was working at The Depression, I thought there might be some grist for the mill. Obviously I wasn’t thinking about something like what happened in February of 1965, but these were entertainers — there was some interesting stuff going on around the place pretty much all the time. My diary entries were quite extensive — names of people, what they did, how often they were at the club, anything I thought might find its way into my imagined book.”

  “And you were able to contact all of the people you’d written about in your diary?”

  “Not all, no. But most. Some took some work to find, but I was fairly successful. There were people who raced out of the place as soon as they learned that something bad was happening, and some of those I was unable to connect with. So, to be accurate, I interviewed most but not all who were there that night.”

  “Tenacious.”

  She smiled. “I prefer determined. Tenacious makes me think pit bull.”

  “Would you be okay with my borrowing these?” I indicated the papers on the table. “We’ll be careful, I promise you. But I’d like to spend some time with what you’ve done, and I know Cobb will want to as well.”

  “No, I don’t mind. I just can’t believe any of this will be of help.”

  I smiled at her. “It may not lead us directly to the two men who took Ellie Foster that night. But every piece of information we can gather, especially with something that happened that long ago, will be helpful.”

  She thought about that before nodding. “I understand. And I want to help any way I can, believe me.”

  “I absolutely believe you, Lois. And I wasn’t kidding before. You’ve done some amazing work here.”

  She seemed genuinely pleased. “Do you just want the notes
for that night?”

  “Actually, I’d like all of it, if that’s okay. Again, I’m fairly certain there’s useful background information that I’d like to look over.”

  “That’s fine. I just have to organize things a little better.” She fell to shuffling and stacking papers once again.

  I watched her for a moment. “You knew everybody who worked there,” I said. “You remember someone named O’Callaghan?”

  “Darby O’Callaghan?”

  “I don’t have a first name. Bert mentioned a guy who worked there some, and had a crush on Ellie. Said this O’Callaghan was heartbroken at what happened that night.”

  “That’s Darby.” Lois spoke slowly again, thinking as she formed the words. “He was smitten, all right, no doubt about that. I don’t think Ellie thought nearly as much of him as he did of her. And I do remember he was terribly upset after.”

  I looked down again at the collection of paper. “If we wanted to follow up with any of the people you talked to, do you have up-to-date addresses or ideas as to where we might find them?”

  “Not many.” She shook her head. “The truth is, quite a number are dead; others moved away to God knows where. There are a few, I suppose, that I have a fairly good idea of where they might be. But not many.”

  “Understandable,” I said. “What about Darby O’Callaghan? Any idea where he might be these days?”

  “I ran into Darby a couple of years ago at the farmers’ market on Blackfoot Trail.” She nodded. “He lives outside of Calgary. I can’t remember which town, but I think I have a note somewhere. I could check.”

  “I’d appreciate that. And any contact information on any of the other people you interviewed at the time, as well.”

  She had the pages organized to her satisfaction and pushed them in my direction. It was a large stack, and I knew I’d be at it for a while. I had fortuitously brought along my briefcase, so I shoved the lot inside.

  “One last thing,” I said. “You mentioned that there were things about Ellie that you didn’t find altogether likable. But someone has commented that she seemed somehow different in the weeks just prior to her disappearance. I’m assuming you had met and talked to Ellie prior to that last gig?”

  Lois Beeston nodded. “She played The Depression once before, a few months earlier. I met her then; we chatted a few times.” She paused. “That’s interesting and something I haven’t thought about a lot. There was something in the days before her disappearance — I don’t know how I would describe it. Distracted, maybe. Like she wasn’t totally focused on the conversation, not just with me, but with others. To be honest, I chalked it up to guy problems. Ellie was … um … active in that regard. But thinking back on it, maybe there was something else going on. I mean, it wasn’t a big thing, which I suppose is why I haven’t given it more thought. But maybe there was something there.”

  “Thanks for all this, Lois, including the introduction to the Chopped Leaf. I’ll be in touch. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “I think I’ll stay here for a while, have another coffee.” She reached down and pulled a pen and the thickest diary I’d ever seen from her bag. The diary was full of bits of paper of various kinds — I could see that some were newspaper and magazine clippings, while others looked like coupons, though I couldn’t be sure in the moment I took to look at it, figuring it would be rude to stare at the thing. She opened it to a blank page, smiled at me, and began to write. I hoped I’d get a favourable review.

  I wanted to tuck into Lois Beeston’s research notes as quickly as possible, but when I got back to Kennedy’s, I opted for a run and a shower first. I followed that with an hour at the cameras and tape playback machines, then decided I could wait no longer and settled down at the kitchen table with a Rolling Rock and the stack of pages Lois had given me.

  I started with the notes on chapter 8, the “Singin’ the Blues” chapter. I reread what I’d skimmed at the restaurant, this time in detail. Sadly, Lois was right. While the work she’d done was extensive, even exemplary, there just wasn’t much there beyond the names of the players that might be helpful to our investigation.

  I was disappointed, pushed the stack of paper away, swore out loud, and took out my frustration on the beer, throwing it back with little attention to taste, thirst, or enjoyment. I sat for several minutes, willing myself to read more, procrastinating, dreading the thought of darkness where I had hoped for at least a little light, and finally turning on a clock radio that sat on the kitchen counter, opting for oldies rock.

  I thought about food (the Whole Bowl No. 1 was wearing off), I thought about another beer, I thought about the lyrics to “Ahead by a Century.” And I thought about Lois Beeston madly scribbling in her diary during her time at The Depression. All interesting thoughts — none of them productive.

  I decided I would begin at the beginning of her notes and read until I found something … anything that would provide a clue, an insight, a shred of knowledge that might be useful, however remotely. It was a childish notion and I knew that, but I needed some incentive to plunge back into something that would take hours and may not offer much reward.

  Happily, I was wrong. It didn’t take long. I changed my tack after the first-chapter notes and decided to read them out of order, to choose bits that sounded at least interesting. And relevant. An hour or so into my reading, I came to an untitled chapter: the lyrics to songs written and presumably performed by various performers.

  Half a dozen pages into the section, I came to the heading, “The Songs of Ellie Foster.” I doubted that what followed was all of her songs, maybe not even most of them, but they were worth a read. Hell, they might even offer some insights into the kind or person she was, this woman we were hoping to find … and find alive.

  Ellie Foster’s songs, or at least some of them. Eight or nine songs in, I found it. The lyrics I’d seen before.

  Summer sun. Summer fun. Some were done

  They walked the gentle path

  At first asking only that the wind and rain wash their shaking hands

  Stopping peace to fame

  That pearson’s name

  Man at the mike … so, so bad

  But good at play

  And always the sadness, the love over and over

  The long man points and tells

  An owl sits and stares, sound around and through his feathered force

  So much like the other place. And so different …

  Midnight. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. A time with no day of its own

  The last of sun. The last of fun. The last time won

  They circle the windswept block

  At first telling the youngest ones it’s only a dream

  See the balloons, hear them popping

  Are they balloons?

  No more the sadness, the hate over and over

  The long man points and tells

  An owl sits and stares, sound around and through his feathered force

  Midnight. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. A time with no day of its own

  The words to the song on the CD that had been left in Monica Brill’s car, the CD that had brought her to Cobb and me.

  I read and reread the words, just as I’d done before, noting the typo in line six, wondering if the mistake was Ellie Foster’s or Lois Beeston’s, realizing it didn’t matter. In fact, maybe the lyrics didn’t matter except that they confirmed the song on the tape was actually written by Ellie Foster and, one would surmise, performed by her as well.

  This time the song had a title, “Dream of a Dying.” It was as impenetrable as I’d found the lyrics of the song to be.

  Still, I’d fulfilled my self-imposed mandate of finding some kernel to ponder. My second bottle of Rolling Rock was, while not exactly celebratory, at least enjoyable. I headed back to the main floor camera with a spring in my step, and even joined Ann an
d Nancy Wilson as they reprised “Magic Man.” Timing is everything.

  I sent an email to Jill. It read:

  Have either you or Kyla had any luck trying to unearth meaning from the lyrics of the Ellie Foster song? BTW, found song title: “Dream of a Dying.” If you guys come up with anything that might have any significance at all, I will take both of you to the restaurant of your choice, and I’ll even watch an entire chick flick without a single complaint.

  Love you both,

  Adam

  I hit “send” and went back to Lois Beeston’s research notes, then found a chapter that she had actually written called, “In the Beginning.” It was a history of the coffee houses and the folk music that had “claimed its place alongside rock and roll — led in Canada by people named Joni, Ian, Sylvia, Gordon, and Bruce … before the British invasion headed by The Beatles and the musical rebellion they ushered in.”

  As I read her words I realized she wasn’t wrong in her doubting assessment of her own literary abilities. I felt bad about that but pushed the thought out of my head and concentrated on the story she was telling, not how well or badly she was telling it.

  And it was intriguing. She took her dreamed-of readers across the country and into clubs in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, and, finally, Calgary. She stopped there, I guessed, because her focus was on The Depression, but I thought it odd that she didn’t conclude the journey in Vancouver, with its rich tradition of live music, including folk in the fifties and sixties.

  I was interested in her discussion of Le Hibou. Lois noted that Ellie Foster had played it not long before her fateful gig at The Depression. Of course I already knew that, but she added something I didn’t know. Not only had Ellie performed more than once at Le Hibou, but also, her most recent performance there — the one that immediately preceded her fateful gig at The Depression — was one of special significance. It was, in fact, the final show at the Bank Street location of Le Hibou, on February 7, 1965. Ellie had been joined that night by Carol Robinson and Amos Garrett, and four days later the same threesome opened the new location of the club at 521 Sussex Drive. All of that only a couple of weeks before her life changed so dramatically — and horribly — in a back alley in Calgary.