Arthur had met the deputy mayor to propose a committee of concerned citizens. “A rational approach,” he called it. The committee would sit down with young people to hear their concerns and get them organized in some fashion, so they wouldn’t be traipsing around town with their long hair and blue jeans. Don’t lecture them on the dangers, he said, because young people relish danger. The issue is idleness. Fill their idle hours in a productive manner, so they have to keep their wits about them, and all but the dreamers and ne’er-do-wells will soon lose interest in cannabis and ear-splitting music.
Joyce found the music crude. But she could understand the appeal. The wildness in it, how it spoke to the great dramas of youth.
She had given up singing when she got married. A few of the old band still scratched together a show for the occasional New Year’s Eve. But everyone liked to play records now, and with the young people mad for their electric music, the old songs she used to sing would soon be forgotten.
Last year, Arthur had nearly bought a Chevrolet Biscayne. But Reg Pritchett was the sales manager at Chev, and when he started reminiscing with Joyce about their times with the band, Arthur stiffened and withdrew. They ended up going to Ford.
Her memories of the band felt like they came from another century, or another world altogether.
“I suspect we’ll all be murdered in our beds,” said Nan. “This town. It’s terrible.”
“It’s not just this town,” said Joyce. “People get beaten and killed all over. Didn’t Arthur’s Uncle Selby kill his wife? Just up the road from your house? Arthur says he threw her over the stairs.”
“That’s just talk. She fell over the stairs. She could hardly stay on her feet, what with the bad hip and the bunions. It’s different now, with all the young people and the drugs.”
Herbert smacked his lips and coughed wetly. Joyce crossed the lawn and reached into his mouth to free a chunk of cream cracker. The opposite cheek bulged with a huge lump of meal. She went after it with a crooked forefinger.
“Ayyyggh,” said Herbert.
“Don’t bite,” hissed Joyce, catching his eye. She pulled the soggy lump out and flicked it to the grass. “You’ve got to watch him with food, Nan.”
The jet crossing above had to be an air force fighter, with its high-pitched roar coming over them in waves.
“Ice cream would be nice,” said Donna. “Did you speak with your friend after? The boy’s family?”
“There was no answer.” A white lie that Joyce would correct later. She had to call Gloria eventually, drop over with a meal or something. And she was still counting on her for any word from the Cape.
A crowd lined up for ice cream at the airport, burnt-red children chaperoned by sweating fathers or surly older siblings. You would never know from their faces that a girl had been beaten nearly to death by Anthony Tucker. Joyce, Nan, and Donna strolled the perimeter of the lounge with their twirlies, pushing Herbert in his stroller.
“Hello, Joyce,” said Mary, as they walked past the Air Canada counter. “That can’t be your boy? He’s some size!”
“I thought you retired,” said Joyce.
“I keep trying.”
“There’s no one around at all today,” said Joyce.
“Nah. It’s nothing like it used to be. I’d love to come out and sit for a cigarette, but I’m trying to quit.”
“Me too.” They laughed and Mary disappeared through a door, into the inner workings of the airport that Joyce was no longer privy to.
“You know, they’re casting about for a freight clerk at EPA,” said Donna. “Just part time.”
“Oh, no. I’m through with all that.”
Herbert wanted to walk when they stepped out into the courtyard. But he wailed when a 737 came in, sending an oily gust of heat their way. So they made for the car. Across the tarmac and the old airport road, the horizon showed a ragged, sun-scorched thicket where the streets and buildings of the old town site used to be. People called it the “Army Side” now. Donna said that when teenaged boys talked about “going to the Army Side,” it meant taking a girl there in a car. Joyce believed her, as Donna was not much older than a teenager herself.
Driving home, Joyce cut through Kolsou’s parking lot and into the town square to avoid the post office. The events of the day resurfaced, and she chided herself for stepping away from the phone with her father on his deathbed and Gloria in desperate straits.
17
The mural is freakishly extravagant. A riot of earthy colours, crowded with mutant birds, exotic flora, and ungainly human figures cut at hard angles, their faces blank and arms held aloft.
“Almost a holiness to it,” says Morris. He draws his index finger left to right. “You can see where it references pilgrimage, martyrdom, revelation. You can even read it as a post-apocalyptic vision, as befits the era.”
“It scared me when I was a kid,” says Carter. It unsettles him even now.
“Who did it?” asks Red.
“Flight and Its Allegories, by Kenneth Lochhead,” says Terry. “Have a good look around. Everything we’ve been looking for out there, the power of those plane wrecks, the spirit of that history is in this room. This terminal opened in 1959, when flight was still considered one of the wonders of the modern age.”
“One of the great Modernist rooms in the country,” adds Morris.
Andi bends to examine the floor, touching its enormous burnished tiles. “It’s so earthy, but at the same time…”
“Mondrianesque terrazzo floor,” reads Terry. “Makes you wonder why can’t we still have airports like this. Winnipeg used to have a beauty, and that’s gone. Everything’s a box now. Or a glorified shopping mall, like Toronto.”
What strikes Carter is the scope of the room, spectacular and worldly. His childhood perspective is uncompromised. But it’s faded badly, inevitably. The mural seems to have a film over it, and cracks split several of the tiles. The air is stale, infected by the mundane domestic lounge next door.
“I suppose you know this place well?” asks Terry.
“We weren’t allowed in here after they restricted it to international flights,” says Carter. “But I saw it a couple of times, on school field trips.”
“Typical Newfoundland,” says Morris. “Cut people off from their heritage.”
“Everything is so hard and straight.” Andi makes angles with her hands.
“Herman Miller couches,” says Terry. “Eames chairs.”
“I can’t believe we could lose this place,” says Morris, spreading his arms.
“Apparently, the utilities alone run about a million per year,” says Terry.
“Not to mention maintenance, and just keeping the place up to code,” says Red. “Plus, there’s nobody here but us.”
“Christ,” says Morris. “Heritage hasn’t got a chance around here. Can’t even get the archaeologists on board.”
“It needs a creative solution,” Terry intones. “Preservation isn’t for purists. Taking a hard line is how you lose the battle.”
“There must be some part of Newfoundland that hates itself. Like, this urge to burn the whole fucking thing down.” Morris walks away.
“Wants to be alone with his boner,” whispers Red. She heads further into the room, to the curved sculpture of birds.
Terry lifts his hands, thumbs touching, to frame the mural. “It doesn’t work,” he says. “It’s the one major flaw in the room. It bullies the imagination.” He heads for the stairs to the upper level, taking them at trot. Andi and Carter turn to the other end of the room and walk up the stalled escalator. “First escalator in Newfoundland!” calls Terry.
“Look at him go,” says Carter. Morris is below them as they reach the upper level, busy with his notebook. “He writes in that thing like he’s trying to kill it.”
“At least he’s passionate,” says Andi
. “What about you? Is this stuff really what you want, or are you just doing it to do something?”
“For a long time I was in a band. It used up all my passion, I think.”
“What did you play?”
“Guitar.”
“Guitar god? You don’t seem like the type.”
They lean into the rail and look down on the main floor.
“What about you?”
“Came at this kind of sideways,” says Andi. “I started in film studies.”
“Movies?”
“I believe that’s what they’re called. You know, Terry’s wrong about the mural. Without it, the room is too orderly. Inhuman, almost.”
It was the order of the airport that most appealed to Carter as a boy. The flat land and open view, the precise tree line and groomed green spaces.
“Do you know French films?” he asks.
“Oh, yes.” Andi gathers her hair and drops it over her shoulders. “Better than I care to.”
“Do you know one called Umbrellas of Cherbourg?”
“Who made it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sounds familiar. Hang on.” Andi works her phone, and catches her breath. “Catherine Deneuve’s in it!”
“She’s big?”
“Big?” Andi laughs. “Oh my god.”
“Anyway, there’s a lot of singing in it.”
“I probably sat through a sleepy Monday morning screening at some point. Yeah, the still looks familiar. I’ll ask my friend Bridgett. She stuck with film studies. I kind of drifted on. What do you want me to ask her?”
“I don’t know. It just, stayed with me, I guess.”
“I totally get it.”
//////
Carter’s phone erupts, waking him from a nap. Sam and Isabelle are on their way to Sick Kids by now. But the message is from North Bay Kevin.
At this point we must restrict visits to immediate family. Thank you for your thoughts. I will call you in person when there is any news. This is a courtesy due to you because of your previous relationship with her. Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.
Prick.
He calls Jordan. No answer. “Very urgent that you get back to me with anything you know,” he tells voicemail, and emails the same.
//////
It’s dart night at Mitch’s Lounge. “Mixed league every Tuesday,” says the bartender. Beyond the pool table, dark figures flick forearms to pierce brightly lit dartboards. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Murmurs of approval or consolation. Then the next group, chins lifted and right arms raised, like ballet dancers poised to begin. Thunk, thunk, thunk. A voice cries out: “Yes, b’y!”
Terry pulls together three tables next to the bar. Carter sits in a corner, wedged between the door and a line of lotto machines. The machines are unused, but still ping and whirr like a parking lot carnival. Andi sits between Morris and Red, well out of Carter’s range. There are two young guys he doesn’t know, bearded and man-bunned. Probably from the Globe Theatre dig.
By waiting until Saturday, leaving at five-thirty in the morning with no checked bags, and sitting in Halifax for nearly three hours, he can get to Toronto and back for under $900. He could get it close to $800 by staying an extra day. But he can’t. He can’t skip out on the dig like that. Three days max. Kevin won’t stop him. Prick’s not even immediate family himself.
Carter will see Leah Saturday afternoon, and tell her the band earned its legacy. He’ll vow to protect it. If he can look her in the eye and tell her that, if she can hear him, she’ll believe it.
Then he’ll take a day to see Sam.
Thunk, thunk, thunk. A round of applause and voices. A scream rises above it all, a short-haired woman jeering at the other team.
A grey-bearded man in green rubber boots approaches the bar, glances their way, and stops. “Terry Purchase! You’re not back again?” he shouts.
“Hawco, you miserable son of a bitch!”
“Jesus Kerrr-rist!” Bodies part so the men can lean across the table and lock hands.
“Hawco here saved our tails last year, pulled us out of the muck with his big old pickup.”
“Back for more, Doctor T. Still digging for gold, are you?”
There is laughter and shouting from the dart game, and the short-haired woman pumps her fist.
“Oh yes,” says Terry. “And how’d you make out with the moose last year?”
His friend inflates his large face and heaves a sigh, removes his ball cap to scratch a thinning scalp. “Two days over on Dead Wolf Pond,” he says. “Cows? My Jesus, by the dozen. Only saw the one bull, and he must’ve been three hundred yards off.”
Terry chucks his chin and snorts, as if disappointment at Dead Wolf Pond is all too common.
“You got a bull-only ticket, you’re never gonna fill it over there,” says Hawco.
“Hawco is a hero in this town, my friends,” says Terry raising his pint. “How many pots of soup did you make for those Americans on 9/11?”
“Oh, a good deal of soup,” says Hawco.
“Don’t be blowing smoke up his arse,” calls a woman with a cigarette, standing outside the fire escape door. Carter catches Andi’s eye. She smiles and shrugs as if to say, how did we end up here?
Carter excuses himself to the bathroom, where an old 3-D photo of Joey Smallwood hangs over the sink. Joey sits with a contemplative hand to his chin. His blue shirt matches the blue map of Newfoundland behind him. Carter leans to one side, narrowing the angle to get the blurry 3-D effect. The island recedes, and Joey jumps out, especially his thick black glasses and the don’t-fuck-with-me glint in his eye.
Laying his phone on the back of the toilet, he selects the flight, declines travel insurance, lounge access, the air miles discount, advance seat selection, and the prepaid onboard café voucher. Clicks through to review his itinerary. Hesitates again.
Nine hundred bucks is reasonable, for a flight leaving the day after tomorrow. But it’s still nine hundred he doesn’t have. Carter saves the booking and gives himself until midnight to decide.
“Everything okay?” Andi meets him outside the washroom, as if she’s been waiting.
“Me? Yeah, fine. Actually,” he waves the phone as if news just arrived. “My boy has to go to the hospital.”
“Oh no!” says Andi, her eyes flying open wide. She swallows quickly and clears her throat. “I mean, Jesus, what happened?”
“It’s a heart condition. Or we’re not sure. It might be.”
“The poor kid. Poor you.” A hand on his arm. “How old is he?”
“Four. It’s nothing. Chances are it’s nothing. They keep saying it’s nothing. But he has to keep going back.”
“Is he sick now?” She waves away smoke drifting in from the nearby fire escape.
“He’s never been sick. But he has an appointment tomorrow.”
“So sorry,” she says, and touches a moist palm on his cheek.
Terry is in full flow with his 9/11 tale. “Jimmy Meisner is with air traffic control,” he says. “He comes to work that morning and he can’t believe it. The radar. The radar blocked, blocked with aircraft.” He raises a finger and twirls it. “Thousands of people with nowhere to go.”
“That’s right,” says Hawco, who has pulled up a chair.
“Now, Jimmy knows what it’s like to seek safe haven, because his own mother came here to escape the Communists,” says Terry. “So he calls his wife and says, I hope everyone in this town got the spare room ready. I hope they got the basement ready.”
Bob Dylan sings from the ceiling. Hawco leans back and roars in unison. He’s standing on the road. It’s raining on his shoes. Lord knows he’s paid his dues. And on to the next verse.
//////
Andi sits with her feet dangling, struggling to stay upright on the
slippery floral bedspread. She pulls her arms from her windbreaker, letting it fall behind her. Presses her knees together, as if trying to take up the smallest possible space, and silently accepts a drink. It’s warm in the room—there’s a film of sweat on her upper lip—but Carter can’t open a window because the wind has shifted.
Hawco plants himself next to Andi, pouring shots in plastic cups and handing them around. The students sniff the drinks—rye whiskey, which Hawco acquired from the bar—and take careful sips.
Red sprawls on the bed behind Andi and Hawco, her dirt-caked boots dangling. Terry perches on the bar fridge. Morris sits on the dresser.
Carter accepts his drink of rye, and picks his way through knees and feet to find space just inside the door. He checks his phone, half expecting something from Isabelle.
“Ready?” says Terry.
Morris will read them a draft of his conference paper. Just the introduction, where he lays out his theme. “Hang on,” he says, shuffling papers and smoothing his beard. “Okay? Are we okay?”
“This is a two-minute elevator pitch,” Terry announces. “He gets two minutes to tell us why we should care.” Red snorts a giggle. “Okay, go.”
“Okay. So I’m going to start with this. This is the opening, so it’s super-important.” A tug of his hair. “Okay. In 1912, Pablo Picasso produced a still life called The Scallop Shell, one of the foundations, sorry, foundational works of Cubism. Cubist art, I mean. The piece included the reproduction of a cover from a pamphlet about aviation. The title of the pamphlet, featured prominently in the piece, is Notre Avenir est dans l’Air, excuse my French, which means Our Future is in the Air.
Morris removes his wire-rimmed glasses and rubs the lens with the hem of his shirt. Hawco shifts in his seat. “Refills for anyone who wants it,” he says, raising the bottle by its neck.
The End of Music Page 24