Burning the Night

by Glen Huser

  “I think you need another glass of wine.” Walter smiled. With the late afternoon sunlight and its slight promise of spring filtering through the blinds of the bar, we toasted Jean Abercrombie.

  CHAPTER 13

  THEY HAD COME ACROSS THE OCEAN AS YOUNG people, part of those waves of settlement we had studied in an abstract way in our grade five social studies at Yarrow Elementary. Jean Abercrombie. Harriet and Per. Phillip and Everett with their father and grandfather. Edwina. Radcliffe Malthus, about whom I thought of often, frustrated by the scar of missing pages ridged along the gutter of Phillip Pariston’s journal, a scar I had replicated with a seam of quick-drying glue in my photocopy.

  Aunt Harriet had little to say about Malthus.

  “Phillip didn’t talk much about his days in Toronto,” she told me once when I asked. “And when I lived there, it was in a very different world from his.”

  He did tell her about the time he spent with Thomson, his trip to Algonquin Park. She remembered he sometimes propped the Canoe Lake oil painting against the back of her bureau where it could be easily seen whether you were in bed or in the sitting room. And he’d shown her his favourites from a portfolio of drawings he’d done for his art instructor. But he hadn’t talked about those actual days, those lengthening days of spring melting into summer.

  “My feeling is that it was too painful for him to revisit them, I think it was the most lonely time in his life. He was cut off from his family—and my letters weren’t getting through to him. When he was called home to be with Old Grand, I think he was relieved to go.”

  At the time I agreed with Aunt Harriet, but now Walter’s hypothesis about Phillip and those lost weeks niggled at me. When I finally had a chance to go to Toronto in 1978, I decided to find out what I could about his time there. And I was determined, too, to discover more about Radcliffe Malthus.

  The opportunity came up when an ad in Canadian Art magazine offered a weeklong summer institute organized around collections in the Art Gallery of Ontario. For the busy schedule of that week, I’d decided to stay with the study group in residence at the University of Toronto. But I added a few days onto the end of the course and booked a room in an inexpensive hotel off Yonge Street close to downtown. It would be possible to walk along some of the same streets Phillip Pariston had walked along during the months he lived at Malthus House. Visit the mansion, I hoped—enter rooms where he might have worked on sketches, sipped coffee, read novels from Old Grand’s reading list, sifted through the clutter of mail in search of a letter from Aunt Harriet.

  I found myself almost giddy with the prospect. But, since it was April when I registered, over three months of waiting loomed. There were things, though, I could do in Edmonton to prepare for the trip. Many days, after work, I made my way over to the Rutherford Library and into a reading room which offered access to an archive of Canadian newspapers on microfiche. Perhaps Radcliffe Malthus would serve as some kind of a key to those lost pages in Phillip Pariston’s journal.

  When had Malthus died? In Canadian Who’s Who volumes from the 1930s there were entries for the photographer but he was absent from the 1939 edition. It seemed like a place to start and so I delved into the obituaries in edition after edition of 1939’s The Globe and Mail. Finally in a March weekend paper, I found it—not only his obituary but an article.

  In the photo that accompanied the article, Malthus peered with a bemused arrogance at the camera. He looked like he might have been about sixty, so it would have been taken some twenty years before his death. A thin moustache, probably dyed to an assertive blackness, played across his upper lip. There was a studied elegance to his clothes—a felt hat with its brim angled across his forehead, a dark vest and jacket with a handkerchief spilling from its pocket, a white shirt with a stiff collar and a houndstooth-patterned bow tie.

  Pioneer Photographer Malthus Dies

  After a brief illness, pioneer photographer Radcliffe Eugene Malthus died in his Rosedale home, March 20th. A prominent figure in the city’s art scene over the past several decades, Malthus left his house to the city with the proviso that it be maintained as a drawing and photography studio. A gallery in Malthus House will be devoted to a display of the photographer’s work including portraits of three prime ministers and his award-winning beach series which features Torontonians, over many years, at the lakeside during the hottest days of summer.

  Malthus was born in Manchester, England in 1861. His father, Alexander Malthus, was a chief partner in the Western Shipping Line. His mother, Eugenia Pariston Malthus, was a landscape artist of some note in the Manchester area. After attending Cambridge briefly, Radcliffe Malthus sailed to the United States and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied under the noted Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins. He settled in Toronto in 1893 where he designed and built Malthus House over a period of two years. The photography and art studio of Malthus House became a centre for artists and musicians. Malthus was also a staunch supporter of the Arts and Letters Club. Apart from the photography displayed at Malthus House, his photographs have been acquired by several galleries across Canada. His nieces, Edith Bircombe and Mrs. Harold Garrison, Malthus’s heirs, have plans to issue a collection of the photographs as a limited edition pictorial album.

  THE LIBRARY HAD TELEPHONE BOOKS FOR CANADA’S major cities. It seemed like a long shot, looking up his nieces, but there was a listing under Bircombe, E. in the Toronto directory—nothing for Garrison. Too late to call that evening, but I dialed her number as soon as I finished work the next day. I thought I heard the sound of laboured breathing before a whispery voice answered, “Yes?”

  “Edith Bircombe?”

  Another wheeze.

  I explained my mission.

  She acknowledged her Malthus kinship. When I asked if it would be possible to meet with her or her sister at the end of July, there was a short, gasping pause.

  “Louella?”

  “Mrs. Garrison,” I said.

  “Louella’s been dead for thirty years.”

  When I gave her more of the particulars of my connection to her uncle, nebulous as it sounded, she agreed to see me.

  “Call me when you get to Toronto.”

  My thanks and goodbye seemed to get lost in a series of small, animal-like coughs.

  I HADN’T SEEN MUCH OF WALTER THE WEEKS I WAS dashing off to the Rutherford Library to prepare for my trip to Toronto. And I don’t think I realized how much I missed our get-togethers until he called me on a Saturday morning in June and suggested we meet for dinner at a café we frequented at the south end of the High Level Bridge. He sounded down—not his usual self.

  I arrived first and managed to get a favourite window seat where there was a good interior view of consignment paintings and, outside, activity on a sidewalk we had often walked along ourselves years earlier as we studied to become teachers. Students, between sessions now, in summer garb, enjoying the June weather, some on bicycles.

  I could see the parking lane in behind the Garneau Theatre and saw Walter’s car pull in. Surprisingly for someone of his height, after his old Volvo died, he always drove small, sporty cars. I found pleasure watching him emerge like some kind of compact toy unfolding upon release. As he walked to the café, he worked at loosening cramped muscles, arching his head back, rotating his shoulders. He spotted me at the window and smiled. I waved.

  “Curt-boy.” He clasped my shoulder as he sat down.

  “How are you?” I calculated that, unusual for us, we hadn’t got together for a meal for three weeks.

  “Oh—you know.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth and then made a mock-goofy face. “Visiting the dumps.”

  A waiter who could have doubled for Robert Redford took our wine order.

  I waited until he was gone before I said anything.

  “The dumps?”

  Walter, with his large farm-boy hands, played with his napkin for a minute and then shrugged. “This time I think I’m the dumpee.”
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br />   “Your accountant? I thought ...”

  “Go figure.” This made him laugh.

  “Do you want to talk—?”

  “No. I want to drink.”

  Robert Redford returned with a carafe of Merlot and took our meal orders. Wine poured, we hoisted our glasses and I filled him in on my summer plans for Toronto and the research I’d been doing at the library.

  “It never fades, does it? Thoughts about your aunt and her handsome lover boy.” He gave his head a single shake that he seemed to have developed solely as a comment on what he sometimes called my Pariston trance.

  “I suppose so, but also Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven …”

  “Ah, yes. Your world of art and artists.”

  “You seem to be at loose ends. You should come with me.”

  He ran a hand over his forehead and pushed back a stray lock of hair. I couldn’t help thinking of that accountant—what was his name?—Geoff?—running his hands over that same territory—hair, forehead, lips …

  Walter raised his eyebrows. “You’re blushing.”

  “Just a bit hot in here.” I managed a small laugh. “Seriously. You should think about it. Accommodations already booked.”

  “It’s a thought.”

  We tackled our meals and, when we were finished, Walter beckoned the waiter. “Two Drambuies and one bread pudding to share.”

  “Oh, lord.” I patted my stomach.

  “I would come,” he said, “but the time you’ve booked is right when I promised my sister I’d help her organize a family reunion.”

  “Something major?”

  “Mandriuks from all over the prairie provinces and some cousins from the Maritimes. Who ever thought there’d be Ukrainians settling in New Brunswick?”

  Our liqueurs and dessert arrived. I raised my glass of Drambuie. “To the Slavic invasion.”

  CHAPTER 14

  MY ROOM IN ONE OF THE COLLEGE DORMITORIES at U of T was spartan and lacked air conditioning but I spent as little time in it as possible. The Institute’s instructors were in summer mode, doing what they could to bring some humour to their sessions, and among the registrants, we quickly formed a group determined to check out restaurants and watering holes every evening. Whenever I had a free daytime hour, I often hurried over to spend more time at the Art Gallery with its impressive collections. Thomson’s The West Wind drew me back time and again. It had been hard to gauge the size of the painting from the reproductions in books and posters. Quite different from the small painting I owned (I’d packed the colour photocopy with me) but mesmerizing in its size and force despite what critics might say about it being an homage to art nouveau.

  Towards the end of the institute, I missed a late afternoon lecture on Henry Moore’s sculptures to meet Phip for a drink in the trendy lounge of an old brick hotel close to the advertising firm where he worked. I hadn’t called him until midweek and it turned out he would be headed out on holidays to a summer cottage in the Gatineau hills on Friday.

  “Noreen’s been up there for the last week and Dana and her husband are coming in from Ottawa on the weekend with the baby—Connor.”

  He pulled photos from his inside jacket pocket. Most of the pictures were of the newborn, but in one I could see that Phip’s oldest daughter had settled into a resemblance of her grandmother, an echo of the angular face, the thick blond hair.

  “How does it feel to be a grandfather?”

  A waiter arrived with our drinks. He was lithe, vested, chatty in a way that could only help raise the ante on a tip.

  “Dana reminds me of your mother,” I said, savouring the medicinal iciness of my gin and tonic. “The way she looked in those photos of her when she was a young woman.”

  “Definitely Scandinavian,” Phip agreed, sampling his scotch. “The baby’s wonderful. I’m beginning to believe all the advertising copy I’ve ever written about the subject. How about you? Bona fide bachelor?”

  “That’s me.”

  “A good companion.”

  I looked at him questioningly.

  “I mean a companion to the ladies. You must have found someone after Mom died, someone to hash over the concerts, talk about the latest books, what’s up in the galleries.”

  This time I could feel a sudden heat come to my own cheeks.

  Phip chuckled. “A playboy. Never mind. I still appreciate the time you spent with her those last years. She wasn’t always easy to be around.”

  “I loved being with her. In some ways I think it was the best time of my life.”

  “Still poring over her scraps of paper, her keepsakes?”

  “It still intrigues me. I thought I might write it up in some way.”

  “Hey.” Phip raised his glass to a toast position. “Go for it. I know Dana—well, probably Amber too—would like to see the result. When they were teenagers they got it all out and listened to the copies of the tapes you made before Mom died. I think Dana did a school project. High school?—or maybe grade nine.”

  I pushed the twist of lime into my drink. It was the time for plunges. “Have you ever checked out any of Phillip Pariston’s Toronto connections?”

  “Not really.” Phip lit a cigarette and settled back. In his tie and summer suit, he seemed part of a club of prosperous businessmen who had quickly filled the small lounge. White collar men with a heftiness kept in check by memberships to fitness centres. “I went and saw the Thomson stuff that’s been going up in the galleries, of course. There was quite a bit of it on display even when Mom and Dad lived here. Mom liked me to describe the places to her.”

  “And Radcliffe Malthus?”

  “The photographer?”

  “I’m anxious to find out more about him. Next week I think I might be able to meet up with his niece. He was an important person in your father’s life.”

  “My father? You think so?” Phip paused for a moment, started to say something, then changed his mind.

  “I remember when Malthus died. That was before the war.” Phip loosened his tie and sighed. “I must have been about twenty then. Remember reading the newspaper announcement to Mom.”

  “Had they ever met?”

  Phip shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I went to Malthus House once, though, with a buddy who had a leave before going overseas, a guy from Manitoba who’d been studying architecture, and Mom made us tell her all about the house. It’d been fixed up into kind of a museum with photos all over the place. We thought Casa Loma was more interesting, though.”

  “I’m planning to get over to Malthus House. When the course is finished.”

  “It’s actually not far from here.” Phip played with the ice left in his glass, wetting his fingers, the long Ahlstrom fingers, and rubbing the moisture against the back of his neck. “There’s probably a pamphlet on him.”

  I walked Phip to his car parked in a lot a couple of blocks away.

  “So things are really okay with you?” he said, searching his pockets for car keys. There was a touch of concern in his voice that drifted on the patness of what people say to one another in moments of parting.

  “Everything’s fine.” The words emerged over a small, nervous laugh that I hadn’t intended. “Life is good.”

  “You know, we’re fortunate to live in a settled time.” Phip left the door open as he eased himself into the seat and turned on the air conditioning. “You’ll never have to go to war. I don’t think my daughters’ husbands will, or—we can hope—little Connor. Is it just luck? I hope no one in the family ever has to go through what Mom went through. There were times when everything would double back on her and she’d be crazy with grief and remembrance. All the worlds that crumbled around her.”

  “I know.” I ran my fingers along the top of the car door. “We are lucky.”

  “You take care.” He reached out for a final handshake. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  BEFORE I LEFT EDMONTON I HAD TRACKED DOWN EDITH Bircombe’s address and sent her a note reminding her
of my desire to see her when I was in Toronto. Once the Institute was over, I followed up with a phone call and, in that whispery voice she agreed to an afternoon meeting.

  She lived in a walk-up off Church Street, a fading, stucco edifice with some Romanesque touches and hints of stained glass here and there in windows that had escaped replacement. I was not surprised to find her attached to an oxygen canister. She was an aging butterfly, layered in bright silk that had, at some point, been subjected to a batik process that left trails through fields of maroon and crimson and celery green. She gestured me in and beckoned for me to follow her as she trundled the oxygen canister into a sitting room rampant with cushions that looked as if they might have been fashioned from the remains of the garment she wore.

  “I’m an artist too,” she whispered. “I work in silk.”

  “Very … nice,” I managed.

  “Sooo …” she said, once she had settled into an armchair and manoeuvred the canister into position. “You’re looking into the life of Radcliffe Malthus.” She giggled faintly. “He’s not remembered much any more. I think his photographs are in storage at the National Gallery at the moment. You asked about Louella. That’s a portrait of the two of us.” She waved to a framed photograph across the room.

  I got up to take a closer look. They were teenagers, these girls, dressed in a flapper style that made me think of photographs of Clara Bow or Louise Brooks. Bee-stung lips, bobbed hair, eyebrows refashioned with a makeup pencil. Filmy silk and pearls.

  “He sent one of those photos to Hollywood,” she mused. “Louella and I thought they might be looking for more sisters—you know, like the Gishes, but no one ever responded. I guess there were so many. But then, Mary Pickford came from Toronto. People have to come from somewhere and why not Toronto?” She flashed a lipstick-stained smile at me that crumpled into a gasping spell that sent her fingers scuttling over valves in the breathing apparatus.

  “Emphysema,” she explained, regaining her breath. “Louella died a couple of years after the war. Traffic accident. She was Rad’s favourite, I think, although he was always very sweet to me. Pour yourself a drink.” She waved to a mahogany cabinet, one of the few pieces of furniture that remained silk-free.