by Tim Bowling
Chelsea
The handwriting was atrocious, and it took me a while to make out the words. The shaking of my hand didn’t help. But the money – five thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills – was clear enough, as clear as money always is. For a long time afterward, I pictured Chelsea entering the English department, the transparent horse tucked into her duffle coat the way the little monkey had been, but even that image grew dim by Christmas. Life had to move on, and it did. I used the extra money to give my family a slightly more bountiful holiday, and then I put the rest securely into RESPs.
Now I teach my classes and accompany my children to their sports games and music recitals and carry out the responsibilities that must be carried out. And every now and again, when there’s a calm hour in the maelstrom, I watch The Railrodder or Sherlock Jr., and smile with the knowledge that the film goes on beyond the salt edge of the sea, where the magic happens in darkness, and the subtitle of a young woman’s promise, “But maybe I’ll come back,” is the same promise that looks out from the eyes of the always astonished and astonishing world.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the Edmonton Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Access Copyright Foundation for their support. He also wishes to express his gratitude to Paul Vermeersch, Ashley Hisson and Noelle Allen for their editorial insights.
Bibliography
Atlas, James. Delmore Schwartz: The Life of An American Poet. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.
Blesh, Rudi. Keaton. New York: MacMillan, 1966.
Frost, Robert. A Further Range. New York: Henry Holt, 1936.
Horton, Andrew, ed. Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. Cambridge Film Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Keaton, Buster, and Charles Samuels. My Wonderful World of Slapstick. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967. First published 1960 by Doubleday.
Kerr, Walter. The Silent Clowns. New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1975.
Knopf, Robert. The Theater and Cinema of Buster Keaton. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Orrell, John. Fallen Empires: The Lost Theatres of Edmonton, 1881–1914. Edmonton, AB: NeWest Press, 1981.
Schwartz, Delmore. Portrait of Delmore: Journals and Notes of Delmore Schwartz: 1939–1959. Edited by Elizabeth Pollet, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986
———. Summer Knowledge: New and Selected Poems, 1938–1958. New York: Doubleday,1959.
———. The World is a Wedding. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1948.
Apart from appearing as a main character in novels that he has written, Tim Bowling also works in many other genres of literature. His nineteen books have been shortlisted for major national prizes in fiction (the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, for his most recent novel, The Tinsmith, in 2012), nonfiction (the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize) and poetry (the Governor General’s Award and Canadian Authors Association Award), and in 2008 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Bowling a fellowship recognizing his entire body of work. His writing has also been nominated twelve times for the Alberta Literary Awards and nine times for the City of Edmonton Book Prize.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, places and events portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
© Tim Bowling, 2017
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Buckrider Books is an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.
Cover image: Photo by REPORTERS ASSOCIES/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
Cover and interior design: Peter Cocking
Typesetter: Mary Bowness
Author photograph: Jacqueline Baker
Typeset in Lyon Text
Printed by Ball Media, Brantford, Canada
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Book Fund.
Buckrider Books
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Canada L8R 2L3
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.
ISBN 978-1-928088-32-5 (print)
ISBN 978-1-928088-48-6 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-928088-49-3 (mobi)