The Maestro

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  “Orlando,” said Burl. “Like in his name?”

  “What?” said Reggie. “Oh, yes. His mother decided before he was born that he was going to be a musician, and she named him after the great British composer, Orlando Gibbons. Gibbons was one of Noggy’s favourite composers.

  “But, Burl, the point is that our Noggy was one of the truly great musicians of this century, a great pianist, a world-class conductor, an important interpreter of other people’s stuff. But you are holding in your hands all of the original compositions of Nathaniel Orlando Gow.”

  Burl wasn’t sure what to think. He read the album cover again. Four pieces. That was all. There were times marked beside each composition. The longest was twenty-three minutes. The way the Maestro had spoken of the Revelation, it always sounded to him as if it would last a lifetime.

  Reggie took the album from him and placed it back on the shelf. She led him to the couch. She sat beside him holding both his hands in hers as if he might escape.

  “Tell me about it, Burl. Please. It’s an oratorio?”

  “Yes.” Then Burl remembered something the Maestro had said about it being his Messiah.

  “So it is big,” she said. “For chorus and soloists and a full orchestra.”

  “He said when it got performed, there wouldn’t be a fiddle player out of work in all of Canada.”

  Reggie was delighted. “And you say it’s mostly complete?”

  Burl nodded. Caught up in her enthusiasm, he found himself recalling bits and pieces of what the Maestro had said. About the beginning being called Patmospheres, and it sounding like an island under a blazing sun with buzzing insects, even a goat.

  Reggie hung on every word, sometimes squeezing his hands in hers. He found himself searching for more and more things to say so that she would not let go of him.

  She would interrupt with some remembrance of Nog, so that Burl felt they were talking about a mutual friend about whom he had some news. Finally, when he had racked his brains and there was nothing left to remember, she leaned back to examine his face. “You could almost be his son,” she said. “Almost. I can see this scared little boy looking out at me from your eyes. I used to see that in his eyes sometimes.”

  She turned away, leaned forward and picked up crumbs from the glass table. “I don’t want you to be angry with me,” she said. “But while I was in my office, I phoned Noggy’s lawyer.”

  She glanced over at Burl. He sat very still.

  “Colin knew Gow had been going up north a lot over the last year or so, but he knew nothing about the cabin. He was very interested. When I told him about you, he was even more interested. But he suggested I inform you about DNA testing. Do you know what that is?”

  Burl was staring straight ahead. He wasn’t sure what DNA testing might be, but he could guess. The fairy tale was well and truly over.

  “Apparently scientists can tell just from a sample of blood—from a fingernail, even—whether you share Gow’s genetic make-up. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Burl nodded, but he didn’t look at her.

  “You think you’d want to go through that kind of thing?”

  Burl shook his head violently.

  “It’s okay,” she said soothingly. She patted him on the leg. “Burl, look at me, please.”

  He did. She didn’t look angry. “Burl. I can’t speak for the estate. But if you can lay your hands on the Revelation, a lot of people are going to be very, very pleased with you. And they’re going to have to find some wonderful way of thanking you.”

  25

  The Quest

  REGGIE TOOK BURL TO THE BUS STATION. SHE wanted to come with him, but business commitments made the trip impossible until the following week, and she was determined that the score be rescued as soon as possible.

  “Mice!” she said. She remembered going to the cottage as a kid and finding mice had made nests of Kleenex and newspaper and any other paper they could sink their teeth into. Her eyes filled with horror at the thought of the Revelation becoming a bed, a birth clinic!

  She became almost panicky. Couldn’t his friend Bea Clifford fly him in? Reggie would put up the money herself. Burl was reluctant to get back in touch with Bea, but he couldn’t explain this to himself, let alone to Reggie. So, with her breathing down his neck, he phoned Skookum and got Palmateer. He was just about to take a party up to Kapuskasing, a long trip, and he was planning on staying overnight due to a storm warning in the area. Bea had driven off in her spook ’em clothes to Nipissing University in North Bay to give a talk of some kind. He wasn’t sure when she’d be back, but not until late. Burl wasn’t sure if Palmateer knew anything about where he was or what he was up to. He left no message for Bea.

  But there was a bus leaving Toronto at 5:00 that day, arriving in Sudbury at about 11:00. He already had a ticket. So, reluctantly, Reggie settled for that. He told her about the Budd car, how he could get up there in the next day or two. Bea would pick him up at the bus terminal, he told her. He gave her the phone number for Skookum Airways.

  Finally he was on board, and Reggie was waving to him as the bus pulled out. He liked her, all right, but he was glad she couldn’t come. He needed to do this thing alone. Anyway, the cabin at Ghost Lake had never been meant for sharing. The Maestro had built it to get away from everyone, even his friends.

  Burl leaned his head against the cold glass and watched the five o’clock tide of traffic carry the bus as slowly as a waterlogged tree through the inner-city dusk. The Shadow. This was what Gow had been escaping. How hard it must have been for him to have Burl crash in on his solitude. Burl had driven him off. Perhaps now he could make some small amends for that.

  It was snowing in Sudbury when he arrived. A freak storm had swept down from James Bay, blanketing the north in snow.

  Burl took some of the money Bea had given him for the Y and found a cheap hotel near the bus depot. The proprietor grilled him about being under age. Burl told him his dad was supposed to drive down from Pharaoh to meet him at the bus but he couldn’t get out on account of the storm. The man gave him a room. “But stay outa the bar,” he said. As Burl could see, the bar was already full of grown men who couldn’t find their way home.

  He didn’t sleep much. A country-and-western band played well into the wee hours. So he lay on his bed thinking through the plans he had made on the bus, turning them over and over in his jangled brain like a chicken on a spit over a slow fire.

  Reggie had insisted on giving him some money. When it finally occurred to her, there hadn’t been time to get to a bank machine, but she had almost eighty dollars in her purse. He didn’t want to take it but didn’t know how to stop her. Now it looked like it might come in handy. He had shopping to do in the morning before he caught the train, essentials for his trip up to Mile 29. There were things he needed that he couldn’t possibly afford but could lay his hands on, if he was willing to make a little side trip before going up to Ghost Lake. A little side trip to Pharaoh. That was the catch. He didn’t like the idea, not one bit, but the more he thought about it, the more he needed those things.

  At Pharaoh he could get his snowshoes, his sleeping bag, some warm clothes, a kerosene lamp, an axe and his Woods Number One Special pack, which was the only way he would be able to carry in all the provisions he needed even to stay just one night in an unheated cabin. The Woods Number One Special was big enough to carry the front quarter of a moose.

  There was something else Burl wanted for Ghost Lake. A rifle. If he was to ever live there he would need that.

  The Budd left Sudbury and passed through Presqueville and then Pharaoh before heading northwest. It only went north every other day, so he’d be stuck in Pharaoh for forty-eight hours. He didn’t plan on staying there. There was a hotel in Presqueville. It wasn’t much; mostly just a drinking place with a couple of rooms upstairs, but it would do. He could hitchhike down to Presqueville once he’d got his stuff from the house and hide out there until the train went north the following day.
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br />   If his old man still had his job, then going to the house would be a cinch. He wasn’t sure what to do about Doloris.

  The next morning, despite little sleep, Burl was up early. The storm had blown itself out, but the snow was knee-high. He bought a little single-burner propane stove, one cylinder of propane and a can of kerosene for the lamp. There wasn’t time to mess around with the faulty generator. Not this trip. He would only be staying in the cabin for twenty-four hours—the train south would come the following day.

  He bought some groceries before leaving Sudbury— simple stuff, cans. There was a grocery store in Presqueville, but he couldn’t be sure he’d get there from Pharaoh before closing time.

  With the roads and sidewalks clogged, he just made it to the train. Out of breath, he plumped down in his seat. He was only wearing shoes and they were soaked clear through, and his pants were wet up to the knee. He surveyed his purchases. It seemed so little. The whole time at Intervalle planning his glorious return to Ghost Lake, he had built up a stockpile in his mind. He had to keep reminding himself that this was only his first trip back and it had but one purpose, the Revelation. Reggie hadn’t said so, but Burl was quite sure that if he failed this quest, he could kiss his dream place good-bye.

  26

  Back to Pharaoh

  HE TRIED TO IMAGINE THE CONVERSATION, how to explain what he’d been up to.

  Would she give him a hand with the packing, or treat him like a visitor? Would she throw stuff or would she be too drugged up to care? It’s my stuff, he would argue. All I want is what’s mine.

  The car was gone. The path was snow-covered, with one set of big bootprints out.

  The radio was on loud. Country music. He paused on the step shivering. She was singing along. He knocked.

  At first he didn’t recognize the woman who answered the door. He saw only that it wasn’t his mother. She was short and busty in red jeans and a black sweatshirt. The sweatshirt read “Las Vegas, here I come!” She had brown hair piled up every which way on her head. A cigarette hung out of her pointy little face. Same brand as Cal.

  It was Tanya. The girl from the diner.

  At first he wondered what she was doing visiting Doloris, but then the room behind her swam into focus, and he grasped the fact that it was different somehow. It was tidier or something. Things were shifted around. There were a couple of new chairs.

  “You’re his kid,” she said.

  Burl didn’t answer. He stepped inside, looked around. There was no chair by the window. Doloris’s old chair was gone.

  “Where’s my mother?”

  Tanya had stepped back when he entered. He was taller than she was. She looked confused.

  “Whaddaya mean?” she said.

  Burl’s eye searched the room. He called out. “Mom?”

  “She isn’t here,” said Tanya. She turned to face Burl again and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Whaddaya want? You can’t just bust in here.”

  He walked through the room looking at things, picking things up.

  “Does Cal know you’re here?” she said.

  “No,” said Burl, turning on her. “Does he know you’re here?”

  She laughed and punched out her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a purple poodle. “ ‘Course,” she said. “Cal and me are—”

  Burl cut her off. “I’m not blind. Just tell me where my mother is, okay?”

  “Jeee-sus!” she said, stamping her little foot on the floor. “You are a mean little cusser, just like Cal said. What are you going on about? You know damn well where she is.”

  Burl punched the wall with his fist. He left a knuckle-shaped crescent in the pressboard. It frightened him. It was the kind of thing he’d seen Cal do. “Refresh my memory.”

  “She’s at her mother’s,” said Tanya, her voice trailing away. “Up in Dryden. Which is where you’re supposed to be.” It was beginning to dawn on her that maybe this was not true. She looked scared, suddenly. Burl stared hard at her.

  “Well, you tell Cal I came to collect a few things to take back to Dryden with me,” he said.

  Tanya sat down at the table, crossed her legs. He turned to a drawer where there was usually a cache of disposable lighters. He was glad to see that some things hadn’t changed. He took a couple, shoved them in his coat pocket.

  “Hey!” she said.

  “That’s just the start,” he said, holding up his finger warningly. If she liked Cal so much then maybe she liked being treated rough. His anger was like a volcano inside him. The punch had only opened a crack to let the steam out. There was no doubt in his mind, suddenly, whose child he was.

  He opened the door that led from the kitchen to the woodshed. On a high dirty shelf he found the kerosene lantern. Deeper in the shed he took a pair of snowshoes off nails on the wall. He tucked a crosscut saw and an axe under his arm. He piled these things on the kitchen table.

  “What are you doin’!” Tanya yelled. “I just wiped that down.”

  She went to move the lamp, but he grabbed her wrist and held it tight. She got a frightened look in her eye. That calmed him down. He controlled his voice.

  “I won’t be here long. I’m collecting some things. Don’t touch them. You can wipe everything down again when I’m gone.”

  She backed off. On the radio someone sang a hurtin’ song. Tanya rubbed her wrist.

  Burl headed down the hall that led to the two bedrooms. How low the ceiling seemed. He piled up some stuff on his bed, dug through his closet for his pack. He found a dirty sock encrusted in dust.

  He stuffed his things in the backpack. He would fold them later; right now he just wanted out of there.

  The master bedroom was all newly done up. There were flowered pillowcases and a pink comforter on the bed. There were pretty figurines along the windowsill.

  “Get outa here!”

  Tanya was at the door. She was carrying a long kitchen knife. “Just get the hell away from this room.”

  Burl looked at the knife, saw it shaking. He looked at Tanya’s face. He looked around the room. It had been painted and dressed up so much that there was nothing left of his mother in here. He felt, for the first time, as if he was truly intruding.

  “I only want one thing in here,” he said quietly, not wanting to spook her, though he was pretty sure she wouldn’t use the knife on him.

  “What?”

  “One of the rifles is mine. He keeps them in the closet.”

  “They ain’t there.” She nodded her head towards the hall. He followed her back to the kitchen.

  “It was the first thing I moved when I got here,” she said, opening the broom-closet door for him. She said it as if she couldn’t understand how any woman would sleep in the same room as a bunch of guns.

  There was only one rifle in the closet, way in the back behind a new broom and mop. It was the old pump-action Remington .22 single shot. It wouldn’t be much good against bears. Burl had hoped for the .30-.30.

  “He’s got the others in the car,” said Tanya. He dug a box of shells off the top shelf, carried them out to the table with the rifle.

  Tanya followed him, but she had dropped her arm with the knife in it. He went on about his work.

  It was strange. The house was slipping away on him. It was less his home now than it had been when he’d walked in half an hour earlier. Now with every passing minute, he felt more and more that he was the one who was trespassing. He would phone Granny Robichaud when he got a chance, to make sure his mother really was there. But it seemed likely. And as he thought about it, Burl couldn’t figure why she hadn’t gone years ago. There might even be a chance for her to kick the drugs up in Dryden, start a new life.

  “You almost done?” Tanya asked. She had put her weapon away.

  “Yes,” he said. He packed his things carefully now. The woodstove was pumping out BTUs. Cal wouldn’t like that. The house used a lot of wood anyway. Maybe he’d let her waste wood for a while—maybe he liked her a lot—but he’d crack
down eventually. For a second, Burl actually felt sorry for Tanya.

  “I thought you was with her,” she said, maybe trying to make some kind of peace.

  He didn’t answer. Then he take-twoed it, cut her a little slack. “I’m sorry I was so angry. I was surprised, that’s all.”

  “What do I tell him?” she said.

  Now that they were more or less talking, he realized that she was more his age than Cal’s. He shrugged, not looking at her.

  “Tell him I’ve found a really good thing,” he said. “Make sure he knows things are going really well for me and that I wanted him to know that.”

  She clamped her mouth shut. He didn’t think she’d say anything to Cal. Not unless she wanted a split lip.

  27

  A Windowless Night

  IT WAS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON BY THE TIME Burl reached Presqueville. He had walked almost halfway from Pharoah before finally being picked up by a native guy in a pick-up. He shared the bench seat with the whole family and a dog. The truck was badly in need of springs, but the cab was warm and the kids shared a bag of popcorn with him.

  There was no room for Burl at the hotel. There was some major repair work being done on the line, and residence at the CPR barracks had overflowed into every available space in town.

  He walked around with very little idea of what to do. Presqueville was long and skinny north and south, stretching along the railroad line. No crossroads went more than a couple of blocks east or west except for the main intersection which was the road out to the Trans-Canada. There wasn’t much of a downtown. The Woolworth’s, a Safeway, the drugstore, a beer store at the end of a muddy side road, a couple of churches, the hotel and a handful of other small businesses. In the Bide-A-Wee café Burl ordered some chips and gravy. He looked out the window into the gathering dark, looking for familiar faces.

  At 6:00 Burl headed back down the main street towards the train station. He asked if he could leave his stuff there until the northbound train the day after tomorrow. Grudgingly, the attendant agreed. There were no lockers; Burl hauled his stuff out of the way into a corner of the office. Then he used the washroom, not sure when he’d see another, for the café had closed and he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk going into the bar.