Albatross

by Terry Fallis

  I can offer an advance of $500 against royalties at a rate of 10 per cent of the cover price. We don’t publish hardcover books, so this will be a trade paperback on first printing, with national distribution. I foresee an initial run of 3,000 and we’ll see what happens from there. If we need a second printing, all the better. I’d welcome your ideas for the cover, but we have several very accomplished designers in our pool, one of whom will come back with a beautiful look for your debut collection.

  I fully understand that MacGregor Wilson is a pseudonym, and I accept that your decision to preserve your anonymity in no way exposes ProsePump to negative publicity or liability should your identity at some point in the future be revealed. We take you at your word. I also understand and respect your desire to conduct our business via email. We agree.

  If this is satisfactory in principle, please reply accordingly. Then I will forward a publishing contract reflecting the general terms outlined herein. We hope and expect that this partnership will serve your interests and ours. We await your response.

  Sincerely,

  Edison Hull

  Publisher

  ProsePump

  I was actually very calm reading the email through the first time and the second. However, the next five times I read it, I grew increasingly agitated. It was a mix of excitement, ecstasy, and panic. I didn’t realize until the seventh pass that I’d been chewing on the corner of one of the couch’s throw pillows. I’m not sure how long I’d been masticating, but judging from the damage I’d done to the unsuspecting throw pillow, it had been a while. I freed it from my dental clench and let it fall to the floor.

  I quickly researched ProsePump online and was relieved to learn it was not one of those fly-by-night pseudo-self-publishing operations that require the writer to pony up their own dough. Rather, it was a very small but well-established and respected literary publishing company. There were also several positive references to Edison Hull. Yes!

  As for the terms he proposed, as far as I knew they were in keeping with current practices. The five-hundred-dollar advance wouldn’t cover the cost of an oil change on my BMW, but I didn’t care.

  You’d think after winning an Olympic gold medal and the Masters, I might have some passing understanding of the heights of excitement and achievement. Apparently not. I was shocked, not just at securing a publishing deal but at the extraordinary and unprecedented feeling it engendered. Winning the gold had not even approached how excited I was with the ProsePump deal.

  I sat on the couch in silence and looked out over the city as a sense of calm settled over me. I was going to be published. Finally, finally, after a seemingly endless cascade of rejections, I was going to be able to walk into a bookstore and see my story collection on the New Releases shelf. It was then that I realized I hadn’t yet responded to Hull’s offer.

  I hit “reply” on his email.

  Dear Mr. Hull,

  Thank you so much for your very welcome email and kind offer to publish “The Birthmark.” I gladly accept the terms you outlined and look forward to signing the contract as soon as you can send it. As for the $500 advance, if it’s acceptable to you, I’d rather you keep that money and devote it to additional marketing efforts. I’m content to wait for my royalties. I’m grateful that you understand my rather unorthodox request for anonymity. I assure you that if my true identity were ever to be known, it would not affect ProsePump in any deleterious fashion—in fact, the opposite may well be true.

  Thank you again. I can scarcely believe it.

  MacGregor Wilson

  Chapter 16

  SEPTEMBER 2021

  ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2021, Alli and I arrived at the main branch of the Toronto Public Library at nine-thirty a.m. The event was to start at ten. I hadn’t wanted to be there for it, but they insisted and I’m not very good at saying no to nice people, particularly when they’re toiling in and advocating for the public library system in this country. So I agreed.

  A small stage of sorts was set up on the ground floor and rows of chairs had been arranged. Alli sat near the front while I was whisked into the little side room off the stage. The platform party, as I learned our presenting group was called, was small. The head of communications for the Toronto Public Library would emcee the announcement. The president of the Canadian Association of Public Libraries and I would sit at the skirted table on the stage.

  When we received the signal that it was showtime, we filed out of the side room and up onto the stage. Our host went directly to the podium while the CAPL president and I settled into our chairs at the table. A large monitor stood behind us, kind of between the podium and the table. I looked up to see a packed house filled, I was told, by library board members, the Friends of the Library, the staff of the main branch hosting us, and other library supporters. I found Alli in the second row and she made funny faces at me in an effort to relieve my nerves. It worked a little, I think. Across the back of the room, several cameras on tripods stood on a riser. A number of reporters stood impassively, steno pads at the ready. The room fell silent.

  “Good morning, I’m Tessa Conway, the director of communications here at the main branch, and I’m pleased to welcome you to our library and to this important and very exciting announcement. My role is simply to introduce the important people to my right and to wrap up when we’re done.

  “We’ll be hearing first from Sonia Smythe, the president of the Canadian Association of Public Libraries, and then from our very special guest, Olympic gold medallist and pro golfer Adam Coryell. Please welcome Sonia Smythe.”

  Sonia rose and walked to the podium while Tessa stood off to the side.

  “Good morning. I am so pleased to be here with Adam Coryell to make a very important announcement that will strengthen public libraries across the country and bring a love of reading to more remote regions, particularly indigenous communities that currently have very limited access to public library services.

  “It is entirely through the generosity and vision of Adam Coryell that we are able to make this announcement this morning.”

  Of course, everyone always assumed this was all driven by my unbridled generosity. It probably looked like it from the outside. But it all made me a little uncomfortable.

  “I’ll present the major components of this new investment and then Adam will offer a few additional details. Most smaller and more isolated communities in Canada do not have brick-and-mortar public libraries. Infrastructure funding is just not available. But we have always wanted to serve these areas, and have done so in the past using mobile libraries. As the name suggests, these are modified vans, buses, and other vehicles that tour more remote communities on a weekly basis, bringing books and other services directly to them.”

  Alli kept her eyes on me and smiled, as did many of the other members of the audience.

  “Unfortunately, over the years, funding for mobile libraries has not kept pace with the need. Many mobile libraries are now off the road, having been either put up on blocks or sold for scrap. But today, we begin a new era in mobile libraries in this country, thanks to a significant two-part donation by Adam Coryell.

  “Adam has generously donated eight million dollars in capital funds for the purchase and modification of thirty brand-new mobile libraries, or bookmobiles, to bring books, reading, and the library to rural and remote indigenous and other communities.”

  The monitor on the stage flickered to life with an artist’s rendering of the newly designed mobile library. It was painted in wild colours and the words Bobbie’s Bookmobile were emblazoned across the side. It really looked cool. I got a little choked up when I saw it and was pleased with the oohs and ahs from the crowd.

  “But buying and outfitting the bookmobiles is only part of the story. To ensure we keep them on the road for the foreseeable future, Adam has donated an additional five million dollars to create an endowment fund to service the vehicles and keep them running in tip-top shape. We’ve already purchased the stock vehicl
es, and the modifications are being made right now. We hope the first of the new bookmobiles will be on the road as early as next month.

  “This is an extraordinary gesture by an extraordinary donor. Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Coryell.”

  The audience—except for the bored-looking reporters at the back—stood and applauded. There were a few whoops from the more enthusiastic library supporters in the audience. At that moment, I really wished I’d been stronger in resisting this kind of public event. I reached to shake Sonia’s hand as I made my way to the podium, but she drew me in for a hug. Eventually, I made it to the mic and the crowd settled.

  “Thank you for coming out to this. It isn’t how I normally spend a Tuesday morning. In fact, I’m missing a class right now.”

  The audience chuckled and I relaxed a little bit—just a little bit.

  “But I’m very pleased to be here. This is important. I owe Bobbie Davenport a great deal. It was she, armed with a measuring tape and an academic paper by a Swedish professor by the name of Ingemar Gunnarsson, who first suggested that I just might have some natural ability in a game I’d never played before. From the moment Bobbie Davenport put a golf club in my hands for the first time, my life was never the same, and neither was hers. She was my teacher, my counsellor, my coach, my caddie, and above all, my friend. Without her, there is no way I’d have been lucky enough to play professional golf, to win a few tournaments, and to represent Canada in Tokyo. And not to dwell on it, but as most of you will know, a year or so ago on a rooftop in Dubai, she gave her life to save mine.”

  The room was silent. I could hear myself breathing between sentences. I kept my eyes on Alli.

  “As you can see from the screen behind me, this mobile library program is literally undertaken in Bobbie’s name. When she was very young, she lived in a small community on the north shore of Lake Huron called Thessalon. She was an only child and, as she tells the story, her life really began the day the bookmobile rolled into town. It changed her and, as much as anything else, helped chart her course in life. She became an English and creative writing teacher, as well as a phys ed teacher and coach. She was also a very accomplished amateur golfer.”

  Almost there now. Wrap it up.

  “So this donation is made in her name, in her memory, and in her honour. I don’t really think of this as a donation. I consider it to be an investment. And when these thirty bookmobiles start to change lives the way one changed Bobbie Davenport’s many years ago, we will all reap the returns on this investment. Thank you again for being here.”

  Alli led the standing ovation that followed. I’ll have to check my files, but I may never have been quite as uncomfortable as I was sitting at that library table under the lights as the applause carried on for much too long.

  It was all over shortly after that. The media asked a few questions, I did a few stand-up interviews for the reporters who had come, and then I gently extricated myself, grabbed Alli, and started walking back to the condo, just a block south.

  “You were great,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Just about perfect. Bobbie would have been very proud.”

  “Thanks. I was just glad to get out of there. I’m not sure I could have handled one more person commending my so-called generosity.”

  “That’s because they don’t know you the way I do,” she said. “You are a very kind person, but I think what you did today was not just exercising generosity. It was just as much about assuaging guilt.”

  I stopped and looked at her. “Guilt about Bobbie?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Guilt about the wealth you so effortlessly amassed.”

  I nodded and we walked on.

  It was an all-Bobbie-all-the-time kind of day. At about four-thirty, Alli and I drove out of our underground parking lot to begin the drive north to our next destination.

  The Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto looked just as it had on my first visit almost exactly eight years earlier. It felt a bit odd but still nice to be there again. It was the first time I’d ever been there with Alli and without Bobbie. The event had already started when we made our entrance. It wasn’t my idea to make an entrance. But my presence caused enough commotion to boost it to “entrance” status. Duke saw me from the other side of the room and headed my way.

  “Adam Coryell, so good to lay eyes on you,” he said, gripping my hand and shaking it. “Welcome back to where it all started.”

  “Thanks, Duke. It’s great to be back. The old place looks pretty much the same to me.”

  “We don’t like a lot of change around here. It was a very big deal last year when we decided to move the tee blocks back on fifteen. So change isn’t really our thing.”

  “I saw you at the service for Bobbie and I’m sorry we didn’t connect afterwards,” I said.

  “Ahh hell, I was a mess that day. I’d have been pretty terrible company anyway, so I bailed just before the minister brought the curtain down.”

  “Yeah, but you came. That meant a lot.”

  “Well, Bobbie meant a lot to me.” Duke’s eyes glistened.

  “If I could have your attention, everyone, we’re going to begin,” said an older woman in her outside voice. “If you could make your way out into the hall at the entrance to the restaurant, we’ll get started.”

  It took a few minutes before the crowd assembled. The older woman running the show stood in front of the entrance, where a blue drape concealed something on the wall.

  “I’m Shirley Crosby, president of the club this year. Thank you all for coming. This won’t take long,” she said. “Our executive has been struggling with how to memorialize Bobbie Davenport, in light of her important contributions to the club and outstanding performances on the course as a near-perennial club champion in her day. Well, we tried not to over-think it and we hope you all approve. I should also say how thrilled we are that her protégé, Adam Coryell, is here with us this evening.”

  Duke led a cheer that melted into applause. I smiled, nodded, and gave a rather anemic little wave.

  “Adam, would you mind joining me here for the unveiling?”

  I didn’t know about this, but figured it didn’t sound too onerous. I made my way up and stood on the other side of the drape from Shirley.

  “Okay, we’ve never really had a formal name for our restaurant. And I know Bobbie really enjoyed sharing a meal with friends right here. So, ladies and gentlemen, from this moment on, the dining room will be known simply as…if you could help me, Adam.”

  We both grabbed our respective corners of the blue drape and pulled it away.

  “Bobbie’s!”

  A plaque of sorts was revealed. The word Bobbie’s in flowing script angled along the top of the plaque. Below was a photo of Bobbie and me taken at Augusta during the Masters. We were standing together on the tee at twelve, the par three in the middle of Amen Corner. She looked so happy in her classic Augusta white coveralls. Beneath the photo was a brief bio detailing her exploits at the club, on and off the course. Seeing the photo gave my heart a little lurch, but I took a deep breath and covered my tracks. Just above the photo it read,

  In honour of Bobbie Davenport and her many years of service and success at the Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto. Tuesday September 14, 2021.

  Alli was a trouper and stayed with me while I spoke to everyone. Several club members extended standing invitations to host me any time I wanted to play a round for old times’ sake. I thanked them all and promised to get in touch if I ever felt the urge. I was quite sure I wouldn’t feel the urge to play golf again anytime soon, if ever.

  OCTOBER 2021

  In a strange coincidence, Alli’s novel, Ghostly, and my short-story collection, The Birthmark, were published in the same week. But that was just about the only common ground our books could find. The Birthmark seemed to sneak onto bookstore shelves quietly, with little or no fanfare. It’s difficult to gain any kind of profile for a new book, particularly a short-story collection, when the author is completel
y unavailable for any promotion and publicity.

  On the other hand, Alli’s publisher laid on a big launch event at a large independent bookstore in downtown Toronto. A rare midweek book review appeared in the arts section of the Globe and Mail, and to call it a rave seemed to shortchange the word. Alli’s novel had buzz before it even hit bookstores, so her launch was packed. It wasn’t broadly known in publishing circles that Alli and I were together. So I wanted to stay in the background at the launch and not shift any of the attention from where it belonged—squarely on Alli. Don’t read any conceit into my concern. It was just a reality of celebrity culture, even though Dubai and Tokyo were more than a year in the rearview mirror. Unfortunately, Alli couldn’t get through her launch remarks without thanking me and pointing me out standing in the shadows at the back of the room. But it didn’t really matter. There were no reporters in the house. There seldom were at book launches.

  Alli smiled through the entire event. Both her publisher and editor spoke in glowing terms about the novel. They gushed and Alli blushed. There were blurbs on the back cover from three of Canada’s most respected and revered novelists, two of whom attended to show their support. Alli spoke very well and then read a section that aptly captured the tone and voice of the novel. During the reading, the audience was utterly silent as they sat in the palm of Alli’s hand. After the formal part of the proceedings, Alli assumed her position at the signing table as the line snaked through the entire store. It was Toronto rush-hour traffic brought to life in a bookstore. I watched Alli engage with each of the excited attendees as she patiently and gratefully signed their books. She was a natural. She was made for this world. And I was pleased to discover just how happy it made me feel. Writers are a competitive lot. Yet I could not discern within me even the faintest traces of envy, jealousy, or resentment. I have no doubt I’d have felt differently had it been anyone other than Alli. I guess that’s love.