“Sure, he will,” another voice would respond. “He’s well rested. He hasn’t used it in fifty years – not that we know of, anyway.”
Then at one practice Sal announced with some agitation that she had been talking to the producer in Halifax. He had told her, she said, that two other groups from the area had contacted him and he would be auditioning them as well. He would be coming in about ten days.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
“What other groups?” asked Archibald.
“One,” said Sal, pausing for dramatic effect, “is headed by Carver.”
“Carver!” they said in unison and disbelief. And then in the midst of loud guffaws, “Carver can’t sing. He can hardly speak any Gaelic. Where will he get a group?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Sal, “unless it’s those guys he hangs around with.”
“Who else?” said Archibald.
“MacKenzies!” she said.
No one laughed at the mention of MacKenzies. They had been one of the oldest and best of the singing families. They lived some twenty miles away in a small and isolated valley, but Archibald had noticed, over the past fifteen years or so, more and more of their houses becoming shuttered and boarded and a few of the older ones starting to lean and even to fall to the pressures of the wind.
“They don’t have enough people anymore,” someone said.
“No,” added another voice. “All of their best singers have gone to Toronto.”
“There are two very good young men there,” said Archibald, remembering a concert of a few years back when he had seen the two standing straight and tall a few feet back from the microphone, had seen them singing clearly and effortlessly with never a waver or a mispronunciation or a missed note.
“They’ve gone to Calgary,” said a third voice. “They’ve been there now for over a year.”
“I was talking to some people from over that way after the call from Halifax,” said Sal. “They said that the MacKenzies’ grandmother was going to ask them to come back. They said she was going to try to get all her singers to come home.”
Archibald was touched in spite of himself, touched that Mrs. MacKenzie would try so hard. He looked around the room and realized that there were very few people in it who knew that Mrs. MacKenzie was his cousin and by extension theirs. Although he did not know her well and had only nodded to her and exchanged a few words with her over a lifetime, he felt very close to her now. He was not even sure of the degree of the relationship (although he would work it out later), remembering only the story of the young woman from an earlier generation of his family who had married the young man from the valley of the MacKenzies who was of the “wrong religion.” There had been great bitterness at the time and the families had refused to speak to one another until all those who knew what the “right religion” was had died. The young woman who left had never visited her parents or they her. It seemed sad to Archibald, feeling almost more kinship to the scarcely known Mrs. MacKenzie than to those members of his own flesh and blood who seemed now so agitated and squabbly.
“She will never get them home,” said the last voice. “They’ve all got jobs and responsibilities. They can’t drop everything and come here or to Halifax for a week to sing four or five songs.”
The voice proved right, although in the following ten days before the producer’s visit Archibald thought often of Mrs. MacKenzie making her phone calls and of her messengers fanned out across Toronto, visiting the suburbs and the taverns, asking the question to which they already knew the answer but feeling obliged to ask it, nonetheless. In the end four MacKenzies came home, two young men who had been hurt at work and were on compensation and a middle-aged daughter and her husband who managed to take a week of their vacation earlier than usual. The really good young men were unable to come.
When the producer came he brought with him two male assistants with clipboards. The producer was an agitated man in his early thirties. He had dark curly hair and wore thick glasses and a maroon T-shirt with “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” emblazoned across the front. When he spoke, he nervously twisted his right ear lobe.
Archibald’s group was the last of the three he visited. “He’s saved the best for the last,” laughed Sal, not very convincingly.
He came in the evening and explained the situation briefly. If chosen, they would be in Halifax for six days. They would practise and acquaint themselves with the surroundings for the first two days and on the next four there would be a concert each evening. There would be various acts from throughout the province. They would be on television and radio and some of the Royal Family would be in attendance.
Then he said, “Look, I really don’t understand your language so we’re here mainly to look for effect. We’d like you to be ready with three songs. And then maybe we’ll have to cut it back to two. We’ll see how it goes.”
They began to sing, sitting around the table as if they were “waulking the cloth,” as their ancestors had done before them. Archibald sat at the head of the table, singing loudly and clearly, while the other voices rose to meet him. The producer and his assistants took notes.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he said after about an hour and a half.
“We’ll take the third one,” he said to one of his assistants.
“What’s it called?” he asked Archibald.
“Mo Chridhe Trom” said Archibald. “It means my heart is heavy.”
“Okay,” said the producer. “Let’s do it again.”
They began. By the twelfth verse the music took hold of Archibald in a way that he had almost forgotten it could. His voice soared above the others with such clear and precise power that they faltered and were stilled.
’S ann air cul nam beanntan ard,
Tha aite comhnuidh mo ghraidh,
Fear dha ’m bheilan chridhe blath,
Do ’n tug mi ’n gradh a leon mi.
’S ann air cul a’ bhalla chloich,
’S math an aithnichinn lorg do chos,
Och ’us och, mar tha mi ’n nochd
Gur bochd nach d’fhuair mi coir ort.
Tha mo chridhe dhut cho buan,
Ris a’ chreag tha ’n grunnd a’ chuain,
No comh-ionnan ris an stuaidh
A bhuaileas orr’ an comhnuidh.
He finished the song alone. There was a silence that was almost embarrassing.
“Okay,” said the producer after a pause. “Try another one, number six. The one that doesn’t sound like all the others. What’s it called?”
“Oran Gillean Alasdair Mhoir” said Archibald, trying to compose himself. “Song to the Sons of Big Alexander. Sometimes it’s known simply as The Drowning of the Men.”
“Okay,” said the producer. “Let’s go.” But when they were halfway through, he said, “Cut, okay, that’s enough.”
“It’s not finished,” said Archibald. “It’s a narrative.”
“That’s enough,” said the producer.
“You can’t cut them like that,” said Archibald, “if you do, they don’t make any sense.”
“Look, they don’t make any sense to me, anyway,” said the producer. “I told you I don’t understand the language. We’re just trying to gauge audience impact.”
Archibald felt himself getting angrier than perhaps he should, and he was aware of the looks and gestures from his family. “Be careful,” they said, “don’t offend him or we won’t get the trip.”
“Mmmm,” he said, rising from his chair and going to the window. The dusk had turned to dark and the stars seemed to touch the mountain. Although in a room filled with people, he felt very much alone, his mind running silently over the verses of Mo Chridhe Trom which had so moved him moments before.
Over lofty mountains lies
The dwelling place of my love,
One whose heart was always warm,
And whom I loved too dearly.
And behind the wall of stone
I would recognize your steps,
&nb
sp; But how sad am I tonight
Because we’re not together.
Still my love you will last
Like the rock beneath the sea,
Just as long as will the waves
That strike against it always.
“Okay, let’s call it a night,” said the producer. “Thank you all very much. We’ll be in touch.”
The next morning at nine the producer drove into Archibald’s yard. His assistants were with him, packed and ready for Halifax. The assistants remained in the car while the producer came into Archibald’s kitchen. He coughed uncomfortably and looked about him as if to make sure that they were alone. He reminded Archibald of a nervous father preparing to discuss “the facts of life.”
“How were the other groups?” asked Archibald in what he hoped was a noncommittal voice.
“The young man Carver and his group,” said the producer, “have tremendous energy. They have a lot of male voices.”
“Mmmm,” said Archibald. “What did they sing?”
“I don’t remember the names of the songs, although I wrote them down. They’re packed away. It doesn’t matter all that much, anyway. They don’t know as many songs as you people do, though,” he concluded.
“No,” said Archibald, trying to restrain his sarcasm, “I don’t suppose they do.”
“Still, that doesn’t matter so much either as we only need two or three.”
“Mmmm.”
“The problem with that group is the way they look.”
“The way they look.” said Archibald. “Shouldn’t it be the way they sing?”
“Not really,” said the producer. “See, these performances have a high degree of visibility. You’re going to be on stage for four nights and the various television networks are all going to be there. This is, in total, a big show. It’s not a regional show. It will be national and international. It will probably be beamed back to Scotland and Australia and who knows where else. We want people who look right and who’ll give a good impression of the area and the province.”
Archibald said nothing.
“You see,” said the producer, “we’ve got to have someone we can zoom in on for close-ups, someone who looks the part. We don’t want close-ups of people who have had their faces all carved up in brawls. That’s why you’re so good. You’re a great-looking man for your age, if you’ll pardon me. You’re tall and straight and have your own teeth, which helps both your singing and appearance. You have a presence. The rest of your group have nice voices, especially the women, but without you, if you’ll pardon me, they’re kind of ordinary. And then,” he added almost as an afterthought, “there is your reputation. You’re known to the folklorists and people like that. You have credibility. Very important.”
Archibald was aware of Sal’s truck coming into the yard and knew that she had seen the producer’s car on its way up the mountain.
“Hi,” she said, “what’s new?”
“I think you’re all set but it’s up to your grandfather,” the producer said.
“What about the MacKenzies?” asked Archibald.
“Garbage. No good at all. An old woman playing a tape recorder while seven or eight people tried to sing along with it. Wasted our time. We wanted people that were alive, not some scratchy tape.”
“Mmmm,” said Archibald.
“Anyway, you’re on. But we’d like a few changes.”
“Changes?”
“Yeah, first of all we’ll have to cut them. That was what I was trying to get around to last night. You’re only going to be on stage for three or four minutes each night and we’d like to get two songs in. They’re too long. The other problem is they’re too mournful. Jesus, even the titles, ‘My Heart is Heavy,’ ‘The Drowning of the Men.’ Think about it.”
“But,” said Archibald, trying to sound reasonable, “that’s the way those songs are. You’ve got to hear them in the original way.”
“I’ve got to go now,” said Sal. “Got to see about babysitters and that. See you.”
She left in her customary spray of gravel.
“Look,” said the producer, “I’ve got to put on a big show. Maybe you could get some songs from the other group.”
“The other group?”
“Yeah,” he said, “Carver’s. Anyway, think about it. I’ll call you in a week and we can finalize it and work out any other details.” And then he was gone.
In the days that followed Archibald did think about it. He thought about it more than he had ever thought he would. He thought of the impossibility of trimming the songs and of changing them and he wondered why he seemed the only one in his group who harboured such concerns. Most of the others did not seem very interested when he mentioned it to them, although they did seem interested in shopping lists and gathering the phone numbers of long-absent relatives and friends in Halifax.
One evening Carver met Sal on her way to Bingo and told her quite bluntly that he and his group were going.
“No, you’re not,” she said, “we are.”
“Wait and see,” said Carver. “Look, we need this trip. We need to get a boat engine and we want to buy a truck. You guys are done. Done like a dinner. It matters too much to that Archibald and you’re all dependent on him. Us, we’re adjustable”
“As if we couldn’t be adjustable!” said Sal with a laugh as she told of the encounter at their last practice before the anticipated phone call. The practice did not go well as far as Archibald was concerned, although no one else seemed to notice.
The next day when Archibald encountered Carver at the general store down in the valley, he could not resist asking: “What did you sing for that producer fellow?”
“Brochan Lom,” said Carver with a shrug.
“Brochan Lom,” said Archibald incredulously. “Why, that isn’t even a song. It’s just a bunch of nonsense syllables strung together.”
“So what!” said Carver. “He didn’t know. No one knows.”
“But it’s before the Royal Family,” said Archibald, surprising even himself at finding such royalist remnants still within him.
“Look,” said Carver, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “what did the Royal Family ever do for me?”
“Of course people know,” said Archibald, pressing on with weary determination. “People in audiences know. Other singers know. Folklorists know.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” said Carver with a shrug, “but me, I don’t know no folklorists.”
He looked at Archibald intently for a few seconds and then gathered up his tobacco and left the store.
Archibald was troubled all of that afternoon. He was vaguely aware of his relatives organizing sitters and borrowing suitcases and talking incessantly but saying little. He thought of his conversation with Carver, on the one hand, and strangely enough, he thought of Mrs. MacKenzie on the other. He thought of her with great compassion, she who was probably the best of them all and who had tried the hardest to impress the man from Halifax. The image of her in the twilight of the valley of the MacKenzies playing the tape-recorded voices of her departed family to a man who did not know the language kept running through his mind. He imagined her now, sitting quietly with her knitting needles in her lap, listening to the ghostly voices which were there without their people.
And then that night Archibald had a dream. He had often had dreams of his wife in the long, long years since her death and had probably brought them on in the early years by visiting her grave in the evenings and sometimes sitting there and talking to her of their hopes and aspirations. And sometimes in the nights following such “conversations” she would come to him and they would talk and touch and sometimes sing. But on this night she only sang. She sang with a clarity and a beauty that caused the hairs to rise on the back of his neck even as the tears welled to his eyes. Every note was perfect, as perfect and clear as the waiting water droplet hanging on the fragile leaf or the high suspended eagle outlined against the sky at the apex of its arc. She sang to him until fou
r in the morning when the first rays of light began to touch the mountain top. And then she was gone.
Archibald awoke relaxed and refreshed in a way that he had seldom felt since sleeping with his wife so many years before. His mind was made up and he was done thinking about it.
Around nine o’clock Sal’s truck came into the yard. “That producer fellow is on the phone,” she said. “I told him I’d take the message but he wants to talk to you.”
“Okay,” said Archibald.
In Sal’s kitchen the receiver swung from its black spiral cord.
“Yes, this is Archibald,” he said, grasping it firmly. “No, I don’t think I can get them down to three minutes or speed them up at all. No, I don’t think so. Yes, I have thought about it. Yes, I have been in contact with others who sing in my family. No, I don’t know about Carver. You’ll have to speak to him. Thank you. Good-bye.”
He was aware of the disappointment and grumpiness that spread throughout the house, oozing like a rapid ink across a blotter. In the next room he heard a youthful voice say: “All he had to do was shorten the verses in a few stupid, old songs. You’d think he would have done it for us, the old coot.”
“I’m sorry,” he said to Sal, “but I just couldn’t do it.”
“Do you want a drive home in the truck?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “never mind, I can walk.”
He began to walk up the mountain with an energy and purpose that reminded him of himself as a younger man. He felt that he was “right” in the way he had felt so many years before when he had courted his future bride and when they had decided to build their house near the mountain’s top even though others were coming down. And he felt as he had felt during the short and burning intensity of their brief life together. He began almost to run.
In the days that followed, Archibald was at peace. One day Sal dropped in and said that Carver was growing a moustache and a beard.
“They told him the moustache would cover his lip and with the beard his scars would be invisible on TV,” she sniffed. “Make-up will do wonders.”
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun Page 11