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by Gordon Pinsent

  “We’re having too many of these, my friend,” the friend said. “And the one I’m not looking forward to, is yours.”

  After that, he couldn’t drive.

  Nearing her death, he was close to wishing he could go himself. He seemed made up of small, stuck-together photo fragments of many personalities, none of whom added up to a solid enough caregiver when needed. She was all he needed. To remind him how to go on. To love. And not stop living just because she had. To teach him how to breathe. He’d never recognized dying in either of them, so when it came through the door at last, he slammed the door on it.

  To the end, she had worried only for him. “Get out of here now. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  Guiltily he did what she’d suggested, and removed himself to another vacant hospital space until at last they came to him to inform him that it was over. They expected him to go to her for a final moment with her in repose, but he sank into himself, from which he has since been afraid of completely surfacing.

  How did she die? Natural causes. Natural causes? What the fuck are they? Natural causes. That all? Notice how some people just hurl those generals around like turds from a tall cow’s arse, and leave you to break it down into details while they head off to more heightened lives. How the fuck do we know if they know what they meant? He’d just like to nail them into having to explain themselves once.

  And what’s he going to go from? Die, I mean. Give him a good one. A great cramp when doing something heavy. Don’t make it a natural cause. He doesn’t want to drop dead without a mark on him. Got to have a wound! Must. To give them some idea of what happened to him at this age. He does not want them calling it natural causes without stopping to guess there might have been triggers to it. Lazy bastards.

  He gives a quick look at the face, or what’s left of it. Nobody’s seen him naked, so would they get a surprise, when they stripped him for the morgue? His body would need to be better looking. He’d perform there as well. They’d have a look and there he’d be. Never seen without his clothes. By anyone. Done up to the throat, and the mystery body underneath. A perfectly formed body! Not a scar. This body wasn’t old. Not matching the face at all. Younger and trimmer and unused by a good fifty years than what anyone would expect. Bloody near alien! … you think?

  He is beginning to appear somewhat … unreal. He is sitting or moving about in some fictional state of life perhaps where any other person of normal understandable needs would not want to be seen.

  The segue has not occurred that quickly. Nor would it, if he didn’t wish it to be so. And he didn’t. She would have wanted to be certain that his continuance would be a secure and safe one. God knows, she had waited ’til he grew up within their marriage, and yes, she had witnessed the maturing. The stability of this would convince her when he was fit and able to graduate to a new page in his unknown life. How he would step out of their life and into his life alone would be worth her extra time with him to see.

  He’s not in a hurry to change that. Nor should he be. And that’s fine with her as well. She’ll wait ’til he’s ready, if that ever will come about. It doesn’t matter. Not to her and not to him. It wouldn’t be natural for either of them.

  You, he’s talking about you, dear. That won’t change. He’ll keep you as long as he can feel your breath upon him. As long as the ringing of your rich voice will brush his skin, and as long as you want to continue life with him, as you would if you were here as usual – before your “natural cause clause.” And while you both – one here, one gone, one alive, one not – refuse to accept your one hideous day of dying from all of the thousands of days of sweetness in his life with you.

  But now, with your help, he’s got to be the man you knew. Starting with his imagination. He’s got a trout in his trunks, and it won’t let him sleep.

  He will enter into someone else. Always a good way to spend his day.

  Does she want to come along? Could he stop her? For certain, she couldn’t stop him. And what harm? Was it real? Could it ever be real?

  Would he lose himself, stray into fields bravely imagined? And would this field have an edge he had not registered, and end himself as well if she could not completely go without him? If he could not entirely let her go, then she might curiously assume the strangers he would meet within himself in whatever drifting worlds he allowed himself to go.

  And of course she could never stop his mind, nor would she want to.

  Then, a sliver of rationality.

  Day will break, and mend again, and then again.

  Dear Charm,

  I forgot to tell you this, until now.

  I was scuffing the snow outside our apartment block, waiting for a cab to arrive. This was only three days after your funeral, having learned now to dip my head so as to not be accessible to neighbours and such-like, knowing they would understand why my watery eyes would be that way. Not that this manoeuvre would work on a homeless, drifting by.

  “Any change?”

  “No,” I said.

  The homeless sniffed and trudged on. Then I recalled how you, my darling wife, had always carried change for homeless. So I called back homeless, and dug for coin.

  Homeless sharply returned, twinkling elfishly. “I truly admire the way you changed your thinking there,” he said, hand out.

  When he received the change, he took it upon himself to sit down on a cement block, completely ignoring my perpetually water-filled eyes and purposely distanced body language.

  “Is there anything better than freezing your arse off in Canada?”

  I said nothing.

  Then another one: “Lives here do ya?”

  “Yes.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Yes, I bet. But know what I always say? I say it all evens out, y’know. What you got is probably a hundred times better than what I got, but that’s yours, and what I got is mine.”

  Nothing.

  “And what you eats no doubt tastes a whole lot better to you in your mouth than if you had a mouthful of what I eats, and likewise backwards.”

  No proper appreciation forthcoming.

  “At the same time, I’d most likely heave up yours and you’d probably heave up mine. That’s the way of the world, idden it?”

  “Please,” I said, and for a reason unknown to myself, shared: “I’m sorry. I’ve just lost my wife.”

  “That right? I lost t’ree of the bitches!!”

  The entire city of Toronto must have heard that, and waited for my reaction. There wasn’t one – at least, that you would have heard. But a whole well of crying and laughter collided inside me, and try as I might, the laughter stayed as long as it wanted to.

  Missing you.

  G.

  charmless

  I hear her through the morning

  riding waves of music’s ocean

  breakfasting with my emotion

  mindful of the tune she plays

  upon my heart, into my day

  to swell my world, to cool my way

  to teach love’s majesty again

  make distant all existing harm

  I praise the miracle of Charm.

  WHEN I WAS NOTIFIED BY THE FOUNDERS OF CANADA’S Walk of Fame that they wanted to add my name to the Toronto firmament, I automatically asked them to hold on for a minute so I could tell Charm – until I remembered why I couldn’t. Those first few months after her death were challenging ones, full of habits I had to break and dreams I had to erase. So I called Leah instead, and she was very pleased to hear that I would be celebrated in very good company. My fellow 2007 inductees were Johnny Bower, Rick Hansen, Jill Hennessy, Catherine O’Hara, Lloyd Robertson, and the popular West Coast rock band Nickelback, and Eugene Levy was set to host the gala evening at the Hummingbird Centre. And despite the fact that I couldn’t help wishing Charm was by my side, taking it all in, it was a great night. At my request, Leah and Peter Keleghan presented my award to me, and I’d been get
ting so many sad looks from sympathetic audience members that I purposely decided to keep it light.

  “You can’t do this!” I protested meekly. “I happen to live here. This is just the kind of thing that can turn a Canadian’s head. This is going to make me take side streets. Can’t walk this way any more. What happens when they see you pass by your star? ‘Look at him. Passing by his star! He’ll be calling himself an icon soon.’ ‘We got the Mountie and we got the beaver! Those are the only two icons we need!’

  “Anyway,” I continued, “I’ll happily take it. If only to be part of this great list of fellow inductees. This has to be the best list of them all. I can see alumni reunions coming out of this one: With the brilliant Catherine O’Hara; the heroic Rick Hansen; Jill Hennessy, who for the longest time had been a second ambition of mine; Ivan Reitman, who deserves a street of stars; Lloyd, who needs no other name by now, he is known and loved that much; Johnny Bower – those were Leafs, Johnny! – and Nickelback!! I got all their LPs and 45s!!

  “All said, this couldn’t be a better day. And I’m truly honoured. To have been introduced by my wonderful daughter Leah, most talented, and truly beautiful, and her Peter Keleghan, brilliant actor,” I added, wrapping it up. Then I held up the award, so everyone could see it. “And this is yours, Charm, as it is with all I have or will ever have!”

  Alone again.

  A kindly old friend sent a “toke” by way of a designer lady guest. I looked at it, beautifully done, as a designer would have it – with a wee filter even – but where would my mind go that it had not been? Could be that our Spanish cleaning girl could find a few grounds in our place in a couple of days and report it. That would be worth a mug shot next day, maybe. And maybe no one would recognize me now, if Charm wasn’t with me. We were forever one.

  I could also – perhaps thanks to the toke – forget all that had been said by the charming ladies down the long hall outside our place.

  “Whenever I saw you two together I said, That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  “What you two had is what everyone wants.”

  “What memories you must have, though. How does married love last that long?”

  I didn’t just smoke what the lady guest brought and rolled. I ate the mother.

  The advice had been to have a couple of puffs, a sip of single malt, and fall down. That’s what someone, somewhere, un-remembered, offered up. The designer lady guest had kindly brought this gift from someone in the building, and it was a sweet thing to do; a favour, not politely paid back by a stagger, puke, and crash about our place in search of anywhere horizontal to sit, or fall, die-like. On nails would be good.

  Upon waking somewhere between bedroom and bathroom, I hadn’t recalled a whole lot about the designer lady guest, except her kindness in leaving a note reminding me to lock the door as soon as I somewhat resembled myself again. The place looked all right when I’d recovered sufficiently, and not a speck of the spooky smoke stuff for the Spanish cleaning girl to discover.

  On June 2 the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto opened its controversial Michael Lee-Chin Crystal addition and I honoured my commitment to an evening gala, World of Possibilities, set on three outdoor stages. Paul Gross was the ringmaster, with Jann Arden, Isabel Bayrakdarian, the Canadian Tenors, Deborah Cox, Seán Cullen, David Foster, K’naan, Leahy, Natalie MacMaster, and David Suzuki among the notable crowd-pleasers on hand. Director Rob Iscove choreographed the cameras to capture the event for producers Mark Shekter and Bernie Rothman, and the whole shebang was broadcast on Global Television. So I was glad to take part, but I didn’t go out very much after that. And when I did I often wondered why. At what used to be Charm’s favourite restaurant, Richard the waiter said: “I meant what I said. You look fifty-five, not a day more.” But it was clear, by the way he’d fled without eye contact, that he’d not been entirely truthful. Chris the chef waved from above the day’s special. And got a wave back. As did the waiters Nadine, Rosita, Heidi, Michael, and David. Plus a kiss from Susan, and a hug from Fernando, our lifelong friendly managers. Well-meaning smiles from all, in the worst acting ever.

  Back to hiding out.

  Leah came up with new and frequently enticing ideas to keep me preoccupied, and she and Peter were a godsend – an island of stability in a suddenly shaky existence. It took me a couple of years to pull myself together, to retrieve my old self, to want to go back to work.

  Receiving an ACTRA award for Best Actor for Away from Her helped stir the embers, but it was a totally unexpected tribute from the Company Theatre that got me fired up again. In Toronto the young Company Theatre was still very much the new kid on the block. It had been founded in 2004 by two ambitious and talented young actors, Allan Hawco and Philip Riccio, who wanted to build a stage showcase for some of our most engaging actors – Nick Campbell, Rosemary Dunsmore, Eric Peterson, Gary Reineke, Sonja Smits, Maria Vacratsis, and Joe Ziegler, to name only a few. And Hawco and Riccio too, of course; I think that’s why it works, Company Theatre shows are all about the talent on stage – Hawco and Riccio are committed to presenting “the best actors at their best,” and so far their track record has been stellar. Their 2005 production of Whistle in the Dark and their 2008 production of Festen both made it onto the annual best-of-theatre lists of both national newspapers, and both earned critical notices that read more like love letters than reviews.

  Consequently, when I received a call from Hawco and Riccio, I was flattered to think they might invite me to appear with their already illustrious ensemble. But instead they were calling me to tell me that they wanted to create a new award of excellence for artists whose careers were marked by creative risk-taking; that they hoped I would agree to be the first recipient, and that they wanted to call it the Gordon Pinsent Award of Excellence. I don’t remember exactly what I said, although I think it was mostly “Pardon?” with a dash of “Sorry, say that again?”, a pinch of “Are you sure you have the right number?” and the all-but-inevitable “Is this a crank call?” At the end of the day I was elegantly feted at a black-tie dinner at the Windsor Arms Hotel. Allan Hawco and Canada A.M. commentator Seamus O’Regan, a member of the Company Theatre’s board of directors, co-hosted the evening, which was easily one of the highlights of my professional life. In addition to me, Hawco, and his buddy O’Regan, there were several other Newfoundlanders in attendance, and they made a beeline for me as soon as I arrived.

  “I’m sure they didn’t mean to swarm you like that,” said Hawco apologetically.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I loved it! Who are they?”

  “My family from St. John’s,” he confessed with a sheepish grin.

  The idea of not being on stage or screen for even a year had always been unthinkable to me in the past, but now it happened, and I tried to cushion the fall by easing myself into the market again as painlessly as possible. Mostly I did voice work, a couple of shorts, a bit on Brent Butt’s hit series Corner Gas on CTV. An offer to co-star in a pilot for a smart and funny new dramatic series was very flattering, and when I read the script I was sure it would get a green light, but the thought of doing a weekly series again, so soon after the upset of Charm’s untimely exit, was frankly overwhelming. So I reluctantly took a pass. But I did agree to do a guest spot on Christina Jennings’ ambitious dramatic series The Listener for CTV and NBC and by the time I got the call from Ridley Scott – yes, that Ridley Scott – I had my sea legs back.

  Ridley Scott and his brother Tony were two of the fourteen producers behind a mammoth international co-production of Ken Follett’s best-selling novel Pillars of the Earth, and the producers were looking to Donald Sutherland and me to represent the Canadian investment onscreen. Ian McShane, who had become something of a cult anti-hero in America after starring in Deadwood on HBO, was top billed, and I shot my last scene on location with him. We were in the makeup trailer when I looked at myself in the mirror and grimaced.

  “Jesus!” I exclaimed. “I look so rough today they’ll have to sho
ot me through Doris Day!”

  McShane shrieked with laughter. It was one of the oldest gag lines in show business, but he had never heard it before. Clearly, I was on a roll.

  “You know, Ian,” I added, in a hushed, confidential tone, “My wife Charm never swore ’til she saw you in Deadwood!” And he doubled up with laughter again.

  Ken Follett himself was working on the script with seasoned screenwriter John Pielmeier, and the production had budgeted for Donald and me to each do four episodes. They offered me the role of the King, but I didn’t want that, because he dies right away, in Budapest, and I didnt want to go all the way to Budapest for such a small part. So I said no, and then they offered me the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I said yes, because I wanted to go to Vienna, and I wanted to bring Leah and Peter with me, for moral support. Besides, I’d played padres, priests, ministers, cardinals, everything but the Pope – but this would be my first Archbishop.

  The cathedral they built was just magnificent. Big budget shoots are great for that. Everything looks so much more real, more finished. There’s something about a cast and crew all pulling together, all trying to give their very best work to a director they love working with, which brings you back up to the peak, to that joy and pleasure that reminds you why you got into this business in the first place. There were more than 250 people just on the crew. And then they started throwing big robes on me, and the cap, and I thought, This is me! I felt completely at home in all those extravagant trappings.