Another Margaret (The Randy Craig Mysteries Book 6)

by Janice Macdonald

  Denise was one of those golden scholars who had written up with lightning speed, defended early, snagged the one tenure-track job offered that year, published her dissertation, which then went on to become a minor bestseller in academic circles, and settled into becoming a respected Shakespeare professor. No wonder she wanted to host a twenty-year reunion; she was the poster child for a successful academic career.

  I, on the other hand, had come back to grad school in my thirties to do an MA, with the concept of teaching at the introductory or college level, and ended up becoming a gypsy sessional, forever scraping out a living from three classes a term. When that dried up from time to time, I had found work in other niches of the university—online teaching, the Centre for Ethnomusicology, the Rutherford House Historic Site, the summer programming tied to the Drama Department—anything to pay the rent while using my skills. And what were my skills, anyhow? I was trained to research and read for hidden meaning; I could determine and show clouded thinkers what they needed to do to communicate more clearly; and I could stay the course until I had closure. It was as if the maxims of Thomas King’s Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour had been written for me: “Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs.”

  While I wasn’t begrudging my friend her golden life, and on the whole was pretty satisfied with my own, there was absolutely nothing I felt like showing off to a crowd of people whose names I was having trouble recalling. My involvement in this reunion was strictly for Denise’s sake. She was appreciative, even though she couldn’t quite grasp my diffidence about finding out what everyone was doing these days.

  The thing was, unless I was directly involved in something, I didn’t honestly think it pertained to me. Really, my need to know what people were doing usually limited itself to fictional characters. Of course, now that there was rumour of a new book by Margaret Ahlers, the past might be something I wasn’t going to be able to ignore.

  It had been the first Ahlers book that had lured me into the whole concept of going back to grad school and ensnared me into a secret I hadn’t shared with another living soul. That secrecy, which had eaten at me for a few years, had ceased to bother me after a while. However, with Denise and Homecoming and now this Seven Bird Saga, the past was looming up to swallow me whole.

  I don’t think I regretted my choices, but while a lot of good had come from my decision to return to school, such as bringing me back to Edmonton from Toronto and forging my friendship with Denise and eventually meeting Steve, it had been a lot to deal with. That’s what you get for chasing dreams. In fact, it had been around this time of year that I’d just arrived and was busy getting my sense of balance.

  No wonder they schedule Alumni Weekend for the fall; there is something hazy in the air, the sun moves subtly to the south with each passing day. It must approximate the fuzzy lens that moviemakers employ as they begin flashback sequences, because the capacity to fall into nostalgic reverie was looming everywhere I looked. Even with all the changes being wrought in post-double-boom Edmonton, you didn’t have to squint too hard to recall what had been where a couple of decades earlier, when I had returned to Edmonton as an adult.

  My first apartment in Edmonton had been a basement suite in South Garneau. Dingy but affordable, I had tried to make it seem cozy with some bright cushions, a couple of prints on the walls and a multicoloured throw rug over the old broadloom. At the same time, the blissful, golden fall had turned into an early pre-winter, and I recalled wondering if I was doing the right thing after all.

  I’d bought a down-filled coat at the Army and Navy. I looked about as fashionable as any well-dressed member of a polar expedition. It did nothing for my appearance, but it warmed my bones. And all this for an MA in English Literature.

  When asked why I was embarking on this degree by old friends and colleagues, it was hard to respond. I hadn’t been doing too badly as a freelance writer, times being what they were. When the jobs came along, they usually paid pretty well, and I had been getting a decent share of the ever-decreasing pie. The trouble was, I was getting tired; tired of the grubbing around producers and editors for work, tired of never feeling financially secure enough to refuse a job. I had just wanted to come in out of the cold for a while.

  I had also loved the idea of going back to university, this time on my own terms. I’ve always been a nut for research; I count libraries and archives among my favourite places. I’m the sort of person who reads whole pages from the dictionary on the pretext of finding out where to hyphenate “reification.”

  Besides, I finally had a thesis topic.

  I’d been doing a stint of book reviewing when I’d run across Margaret Ahlers’ first novel. By the time the weekly paper ran my rave, my opinions had been both pre-empted and confirmed by the Globe and Mail and the New York Times Book Review. The confirmation almost made up for my “also-ran” status.

  One for Sorrow, a first novel by Margaret Ahlers, is a work to treasure by a writer to be reckoned with. The playfulness with which she handles the shifting sands of a seemingly transparent relationship is matched by her artful and deceptively simple use of language. To say that Canada has found its Iris Murdoch would be reductive. Ahlers is a new voice, a fresh voice, and a welcome voice.

  I couldn’t have said it any better myself, and if I could have, it would be me who was writing for the New Republic and not Anne Tyler. All I knew was that I wanted to write about this author. I wanted to immerse myself in her style and delve into the intricacies of her imagination. And, although I knew it wasn’t fashionable academic practice any more, I wanted to find out everything I could about her as a person.

  Immersing and delving were no problem. Finding out anything about Margaret Ahlers was a different matter. All the dust jacket provided was, “One for Sorrow is Margaret Ahlers’ first novel. She is presently at work on her second.” There was no chatty bio and no picture-with-a-pipe-and-typewriter on the back cover. There wasn’t even a dedication.

  Little things like this do not deter the truly dedicated snoop. On the ground that I was planning a feature story, I called the publishers, McKendricks and Sons. They were unctuous and available, since free publicity is never frowned on, until I mentioned the author I was interested in. The voice on the other end of the line had then become distinctly chilly. Any more frostiness and she was in danger of falling into cryonic suspension. Telling me they couldn’t divulge personal information about their authors, she had suggested I write to Ms. Ahlers care of their address.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to do after that. While my bluff had seemed fine over the phone, I wasn’t so confident about committing in writing to the idea of a mythical feature. While I was mulling over my next move, the phone at my elbow rang. This was apparently my day for talking to book companies. My friend Garth Johnson, whom I sometimes referred to as “my publisher” when I was trying to impress people, had a job for me. The next thing I knew, I was up to my armpits in memories, ghosting the autobiography of a fellow named Jimmie Cardinal, one of the last riverboat pilots to ply the waters of the Athabasca.

  In the six months that followed, my curiosity about Margaret Ahlers was relegated to the dustiest corner of my mind. I was busy embellishing the rather meagre facts and sifting through the outrageous fictions it had taken Jimmie Cardinal seventy-two years to weave, too busy to fixate on a mysterious Canadian author. Most of Jimmie’s stories involved buxom lady bartenders. The bits about the bars admittedly had a certain ring of truth to them. Maybe it had something to do with the background ambience of the tapes onto which Jimmie had dictated his wild tales. I could almost smell the spilled beer emanating from the terrycloth table coverings as he rambled through my headphones. I’m not a real fan of taverns, so it surprised me that I was growing rather fond of the silly old codger. As a token of my affection, I left in the yarns about Lucy of McMurray and Jennie from Fort Chip. Sometimes the story is the ambience, after all.

  3.

  I’d cut my ties with the Gazette by the time Two for
Joy came out, so I’d had to shell out the $22.95 from my own pocket. While I have no compunctions about buying books, I can usually resist the urge until they appear in paperback. Not that time. My need to read Ahlers’ second novel was substantially greater than my desire to retrieve my suede jacket from the cleaners or my compulsion to renew my subscription to The Malahat Review. Besides, I had to absolve myself of the sin of covetousness, and the only surefire way to do that was to just break down and buy the book.

  If only I had never read it so I could read it for the first time all over again. It was stunning. She’d made good on all the promises of her first book and then some. Where her first novel had been dazzling, this one was strong and commanding. The voice was sure and powerful. She played with the reader—coaxing and teasing, sometimes infuriating but always alluring. Two for Joy was like Pynchon and Thurber and Stoppard and Calvino all rolled into one and at the same time it was a plot-driven narrative. Ahlers was amazing.

  I knew what I had to do. I phoned a friend of mine, Sharon Tindle, who is now the chair of her department. At the time, Sharon taught seven to nine courses a year at three different universities in the greater Toronto area, published her requisite articles, and was kind enough to lend me her university library card from time to time. Also, as the only person I kept in touch with from my undergrad days, she was my only remaining contact within academe. I made an appointment to “do that lunch thing” with her on the following Tuesday. She knew I wanted to pick her brains about something, but she didn’t mind. After all, I had offered to pick up the bill.

  “We should do this more often,” Sharon said, forking down her shrimp cocktail. “I haven’t seen you since you needed all that history about the Great Lakes.”

  She was referring to a radio project I’d been hired to write a year or two earlier. It wasn’t that I was such a history buff, but it seemed to be where all the freelance money was in those days, especially if you hoped to squeeze any grant money whatsoever out of the government.

  “Actually, I want to talk to you about universities, Sharon.”

  “Really? Is this an exposé, or are you doing another government study?”

  “Neither. It’s absolutely personal. I want to go back to school, and I thought you might have some ideas about where I should apply.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! You, back at school? I thought you couldn’t wait to get out the last time?”

  “It’s different now,” I insisted. “There’s a project I want to work on, and—”’

  “Don’t tell me, I know. I heard all about the budget cutbacks at the CBC.”

  I remember being annoyed with her superciliousness about my nebulous freelancing career. What right did she have to look at me with such pity; she was only on an eight-month contract herself at the time. I had to resist the urge to point out that fact, though, because I needed her, and antagonizing her was not the best way to ask for a favour. I tried to muster a grin.

  “Well, yeah, that’s part of it. But the main thing is, there’s this writer I want to work on. She’s new, so there’s bound to still be plenty of scope for thesis material and I thought, why not?” I was treading on dangerous ground; in Sharon’s field, it was hard to squeak out another article on The Beaux’ Stratagem. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice my potential gaffe; I guess she was too caught up in imagining me in a schoolgirl’s plaid skirts and knee socks.

  “Randy Craig, MA,” she mused. “Who’d have thunk it?” She quickly swallowed her last bite of shrimp, roused herself from her state of disbelief, and prepared to give me her full attention. “And who’s this wonderful writer?”

  “Margaret Ahlers,” I said. Just hearing myself speak the name out loud gave me a tingle. I knew I was on the right track.

  “Ah, the next Margaret, the Great Canadian Hope,” Sharon nodded, a little too smugly for my satisfaction.

  “Have you read her stuff?” I demanded.

  “Really, Randy—if Bakhtin can get away with stopping at Dostoevsky, I see no reason to justify myself for curtailing my own literary studies with John Gay.” Sharon sniffed. “I’ve heard she’s quite spectacular, though.”

  “From whom? Is anyone working on her already?” I felt like I was fourteen again, lusting after Duncan Winston and hearing that he’d asked Kathy Menzies to the Valentine’s dance.

  Sharon noted my proprietary jealousy with a smile. “I have seen a couple of articles on her, I think. From a woman out west. Quill, I think, or Quinn. Recently. Well, I suppose they’d have to be, wouldn’t they? She is fairly new on the scene.”

  I was getting confused. “Who’s new? Ahlers or this ‘Q’ woman?”

  “Ahlers. No, this woman—I’m pretty sure it’s Quinn—has been around quite a while. I’m almost certain I’ve met her, or heard her give a paper at any rate.” Sharon peered at me over her wine glass. “You know, Randy, if you’re so het up about working on this Ahlers woman, maybe you should look into working under Dr. Quinn.”

  This was precisely the sort of information I’d wanted, I knew I could count on Sharon. She promised to find out where Dr. Quinn was on faculty, and to look up the articles she’d written on Ahlers. I could have hugged her. Instead, I cheerfully sprang for dessert and picked up the tab.

  Sharon called me a week after our expensive lunch.

  “I’ve photocopied those articles and popped them in the mail to you.” Sharon is egotistic enough to never identify herself on the phone. “I’ve also located Dr. Hilary Quinn, associate professor of English, acknowledged expert to date on the works of that great Canadian novelist, Margaret Ahlers. Seems this Ahlers coming along has done her career a world of good. The only other submissions I can find by her are various Notes and Queries. If you ask me, her criticism’s a bit stolid; still, it’s sound.” It must be all those years of lecturing; Sharon’s capacity to hold forth without taking a breath was truly impressive.

  I finally managed to get in a word. “That’s great, Sharon. Thanks so much. I owe you. So, where do I go to study with this woman?”

  “I had a feeling you were going to ask that,” she chuckled with a condescending tone.

  Now that I have lived in Edmonton twenty years, I can see that this is just one of the common slurs people toss at Edmonton—and it’s usually people who have never even visited. Having chosen to live in Edmonton rather than just end up here by birth or chance, I found myself being a booster of my city.

  Maybe I should look Sharon up online and give her a piece of my mind. Or thank her. Or perhaps it is just enough to think of her as that footnote in my history that got me back into academe and firmly ensconced in Edmonton. Cheaper, too; man, that girl could eat.

  4.

  There’s a standard joke about preparing yourself for an Edmonton winter. You’re told to stick your head in a deep freeze and repeat to yourself: “Yes, but it’s a dry cold!” At least, I’d thought this was a joke when I’d first heard it, in the middle of September. A few weeks later, I wasn’t too sure.

  Being a Forces brat, I’d done a longish stint in Lancaster Park as an adolescent, and I had figured I was on speaking terms with Edmonton as a city. The university was brand new to me, though. All I remembered was the Jubilee Auditorium next to the residence towers, and a really boring piano recital I’d been taken to in Convocation Hall. My date had been Howard Davies, a pretentious Grade Niner with illusions of adequacy. The place had been full of Italians who yelled “Bis! Bis!” after every number. As I recall, the rest of the known world had been at a now-legendary Three Dog Night concert. That’s what you get for being Ms. Nice Guy.

  Anyhow, I was unprepared for the campus when I arrived on the scene. For one thing, it would be hard to tell where the university officially started if it weren’t for the “welcome” signs posted along the perimeters. None of the buildings matched. Low-slung, older structures hunched alongside sandstone towers; brick façades gave way to plate glass. It seemed as if the central principle of design had been lifted from
one of my grandmother’s crazy quilts.

  Assorted science buildings sprawled anywhere they liked: Biological Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences, Earth Sciences, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Forestry. Physical Education had staked out its territory in the western corner of the campus, virtuously distancing itself from the carcinogenic fast-food outlets. One of their buildings was shaped to represent a huge pat of butter. Perhaps they hadn’t yet heard about cholesterol.

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but the social sciences, humanities and fine arts all seemed huddled together, as if for support, along the eastern front. All the buildings here were attached by enclosed walkways to a long structure named HUB. It was a residence-cum-shopping-centre-cum-universe unto itself that stretched for three city blocks down the eastern edge of the campus, from the central transit stop to the edge of the North Saskatchewan River. Stairwells placed at regular intervals on either side led to a bubble-roofed, enclosed pedestrian mall. HUB boasted a grocery store, a drug store, a laundromat, a bar, several restaurants and food kiosks, a secondhand bookstore, some clothing boutiques, bank machines, knick-knack shops, a video arcade, and several coffee lounges. Student apartments looked out over the mall via colourful cupboard-door shutters. It reminded me of a high-tech medieval street at the time. Since then, of course, the leaking skylight roof has been changed out to a conventional top with high side windows, the flooring has been tiled and most of the idiosyncratic shops have been replaced with chains and franchises. Still, it continues to be a warm way to get from class to class.