Well, the Naughty 10 slowly began to “drop off the twig” one after the other, and like their cousins, the ten little Indians, soon there would be none. I guess they’d somehow got the scoop on what was coming—the close of their particular chapter in history—and they weren’t going to stick around to pick up the pieces. They were the last dregs of a fading society—they knew it, and their moment was over. I suddenly felt deserted; it scared the hell out of me and like the cowardly rat that I was, I too turned my back on them.
Several months had gone by and I was trudging home unusually sober along Sherbrooke Street about 2:00 a.m. in a blinding snowstorm. The road was dark and deserted. Except for the street lamps, the only other lights came from the Ritz-Carlton on the opposite corner. No one was about—the doorman had long since gone home. Suddenly there was a squeaking noise, and the revolving doors began to move. I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t see distinctly, but it seemed that a figure, on all fours, was laboriously attempting to push it around with its head. Finally it won! The figure emerged—it was Nanette! She had obviously been denied her last drink, her legs had given way and she was politely seeing herself out. She found the sidewalk and continued on her way. It was quite a sight. Swathed in full-length chinchilla and jewelled turban, the old lady crawled on her hands and knees through the deep and driving snow, her purse between her teeth, all the way down to the next pub, determined to get there before it closed. I stood in wonder, the snow covering me like huge dandruff—I couldn’t move. Was this how it ended—that vanishing “style”? Nanette, the last of the Furies, could no longer postpone her rendezvous with Death. She had owed him too much and he would soon bury her in the snow.
There had been quite a few deaths lately. My erratic so-called career, for one. At this stage in my own country I’d gone as far as I could. The
Wasps that remained still thought that “theatre” was something you did in your spare time. The more artistic Jewish community was too occupied in rising like a phoenix from the dying ashes of racial intolerance to take up the slack at present. And radio? Well, English radio at least was soon to become about as dead as the dodo and all that was left of my wartime buddies was a collection of medals. I had been a witness to the death of vaudeville, a sad gap in the world of mirth; the imminent demise of cabaret was just around the corner and so too the slow lingering death of jazz that I have mourned the rest of my life and which left me with only a few precious old seventy-eights for memories—smashed to pieces one drunken night, the sole survivor, ironically, a warped, badly scarred single of Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson’s unforgettable “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise”—and then, last of all—the death of my mother.
The news came to me as I suppose it sometimes does to the young as a kind of callous thrill, a quick rush of adrenalin, a momentary high as if it wasn’t at all real or serious, or final but just a cruel and thoughtless game. Evidently, she had suffered a small stroke, fallen and cracked her head on the bathtub. But nothing would convince me. I was too late of course; she’d gone before I’d reached her. They had put her in a cold, heartless little room at the back of the mortuary and I asked if I could be with her alone—if there was time. Time? All the time in the world, son, but somehow I felt pressed, that I must hurry. There was something I had to say to her. What a selfish thing it is to wait for someone to pass on before realizing you need them so terribly. I gazed down at her lying there. She looked pretty today—not a trace of the blow that had killed her—she’d wake up in a minute, I knew it. As I kept staring, I became a child once again, and she was reading Peter Pan to me just as she used to, and I could hear her say so clearly, like Peter, “To die will be an awfully big adventure!” So it was a game after all and at any moment now it would be all right—she’d open her eyes and wink at me. Embarrassed, I turned around to see if anyone was looking, but we were alone. I bent over her and whispered something I can’t remember, but it sounded strange and false like someone else’s dialogue; I touched her cheek with my lips, but all I felt was cold marble—and then I knew she wasn’t there anymore.
IT TOOK ONLY forty minutes to get to Polly’s island by train. The skiff was on the other side moored to the landing so I knew she was home. I rowed a little flat-bottomed boat across the bay and walked slowly up toward the house. Polly saw me. She knew, of course; it was she who had found her and she did the right thing—she always did the right thing—she left me to myself, just me and the island. I dreamed again that it was mine—that it belonged to me forever. Then I sat on a rock looking out across the lake and the floodgates opened.
Back in the city, I insisted on taking charge of the funeral. I wanted no one’s help. I went at once to Christ Church Cathedral where our family, for such a long time, had been so much a part of its history; so much so, in fact, that we’d come to think of it as our very own. I tried to get old Canon Whitley who had known all of us, generations of us, to take the service—she would have loved that. But he was far too aged and failing miserably; he couldn’t make the trip. There was a new dean now, very polite but aloof and indifferent who didn’t seem to know who anybody was; also, a new organist. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind playing some of Wagner’s “Liebestod” from Tristan and Isolde, a favourite of my mother’s, just a few bars would do but he shrugged and said he didn’t know it and couldn’t play it. The church was surprisingly packed when the day arrived. I was so proud for her as I sat alone in the front pew. The event proceeded smoothly and professionally but there wasn’t much heart in it, nothing personal about it really, just clear-cut and cold. Even the voices of the choir seemed faraway when the final hymn was sung as I looked around the old church with its beautiful stained glass, the great Gothic arches, the massive stone columns, and at their feet, the casket patiently waiting to be borne away. For a moment it seemed that everything was as it should be when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw the dean. He was stifling a yawn and looking at his watch. Somewhere deep inside a door slammed shut and the past closed around me. Although Mum’s death left me emptier and more helpless than I could ever have imagined, it at last gave me the anger for which I’d been searching so long—and the wings on which to bear it away.
IT WAS A LATE AFTERNOON in winter. I took up my skis for one last run down Mount Royal. I stopped by the great stone wall of Raven’scrag and waited. I suppose I was half hoping to catch a glimpse of that woman I’d seen standing there once so many years before, the woman that might have been her—but there was no one. I made my way around the mountain to the other side. The sun was setting over Fletcher’s Field. The last priests were skiing down the northern slopes, their black robes billowing out in the wind behind them as they headed back to chapel. It was a lovely sight, but there was no one there to paint them.
Now it was dark, and the moon came out and bathed the snow-covered mountain in a soft white light as I crunched my way to the top. A single dog barked somewhere far away, but the night air was so cold and dry, it could have been right beside me. A slight breeze began to shiver and make a gentle rustling sound through the furs, like a secret, whispered. Or was it a rebuke? “You don’t have to remind me,” I thought. “I know my city is beautiful.” I looked up at the lighted cross on the summit, a symbol of patience as it watched over the restless town—the Sentinel on the Crest. For a moment I was mesmerized and once again felt that awful pull, but with all the might I could muster I tore my eyes away.
I looked down the hill on the other side directly below me, where the grand old mansions rested sedately among the trees, then beyond, farther down, where shone the flashing lights—the bad times, the honky-tonk, the seedy side of life, God love it!—and beyond that still, out, across the river, the frozen St. Lawrence, out into that hazy uncertain future I was now obliged to crash and, apart from some rather heavy unpaid bar bills—and a nagging sweet pain and heartache that will stay with me till the day I reach Valhalla—the dream had cracked; I had broken free.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER NINE
A BERMUDA SHORT
The button clicked open in the control booth. “Where did you say you were going?”
It was Andrew Allan, in aspic or behind glass, whatever—his clipped English tinged with even more precise Highland Scot. He’d cut me off in midphrase, a cunning little habit he had of changing the subject when things weren’t going too well. It was a radio rehearsal, of course, and I was mouthing with much difficulty into the microphone a torrent of Restoration ribaldry from Etherege’s Man of Mode.
“Bermuda,” I gulped.
I could see his eyebrows arch higher than the steepest Grampian hill.
“And how do you intend advancing your avocation ’mongst the ‘still-vexed Bermoothes’?”
“There’s a year-round rep company there, Andrew,” I stammered, already preparing my defense.
A unanimous intake of breath silenced the studio as everyone glared at me in disgust.
“So we have a deserter in our midst?” was the curt dismissal.
The button clicked shut and we resumed our high-flown duties. But there had been a wicked glint in his eye, so, in a way, I felt blessed. It was just Andrew, after all, running true to form—his way of saying good luck!
MY MOPED was purring me along, up quaint, narrow carless roads which rose gently away from a clear turquoise sea. The soft breeze bathed my face in a welcoming warm spray, and there was something agreeably sensual about the air that reminded me I was in a strange new land. I noticed too a slight irregular rhythm in the revolution of my rear wheel, where some small bits of Marian Seldes’s skirt still stuck to the spokes: some days before, she had been riding behind me, holding on for dear life, when her dress caught in the wheel and ripped right off, leaving me in a ditch and the tall, lanky actress sprawled rather unceremoniously in front of the posh Princess Hotel, practically “starkers” from the waist down. Otherwise, most trips had been smooth, and by now I was becoming quite fond of my trusty little motor. Although I’d not slept the night before (I was never to sleep on that island), I felt curiously buoyant as it contentedly buzzed me away farther and farther from what I had conceived to be the loftier reaches of Art toward the more earthy world of light entertainment commonly known as “stock.”
Marian Seldes, our leading vamp
The year-round rep theatre that had engaged me as its bushy-tailed resident leading man was snugly situated inside Hamilton’s Bermudiana Hotel, perilously close to the bar. It was run on the star system (the theatre, not the bar) which meant established, slightly aging idols of stage and screen would sneak a quick island hOl’ while performing in plays of their choice while we, the resident company, shakily but bravely supported them. My “resident leading lady” was a very young, very perky Kate Reid. Marian Seldes (daughter of distinguished New York critic Gilbert Seldes) played every femme fatale of the season; also from New York, fabulous old Ruth McDevitt, who took care of the characters; and from Canada—in charge of all low comedy—hilarious Barbara Hamilton. To keep us in order was a gifted and sensitive Norwegian, Johann Fillinger, who acted as director–cum–scout leader and claimed Henrik Ibsen as an ancestor—don’t they all?! Among others there was a sneaky scene-stealer called Eric House and a merry, sexy little fifteen-year-old apprentice named Waverly (stepdaughter of John Steinbeck and daughter of film star Zachary Scott), whom Kate at once took under her protective wing. And then there was Mister Billie.
Kate, my surrogate sister and friend, as Mary Stuart
Mister Billie wasn’t part of our company, though he might just as well have been. He was certainly a member of our “family”—in fact he helped make us a family. Mister Billie worked for the hotel. He was a tall, fine-looking black man of indeterminate age (somewhere between forty and sixty) and always jolly and smiling. His effusive greetings as we arrived each day for work never failed to start life off with a bang. He had a habit of whistling all day long wherever he went. It could have been most irritating but it wasn’t, because Billie knew how to whistle—it was quite beautiful, really, soft and musical. The hotel had no need of an aviary. It had Billie.
He ran the elevator during the day and was our “front of house” man at night, making sure the audience was settled in their seats before sending us back the signal for the curtain to go up. He looked after us as if we were his brood, often mixing his special concoctions to start our hearts whenever we felt under the weather. He also tended the bar after the performances. Billie did everything and was always smiling, always whistling. I’m sure he never slept. The hotel was his life. He loved the hotel, and the hotel loved him. I’m certain it couldn’t wait for the very last guest to retire to bed so it could share its secrets with Billie. Far into the night, Mister Billie would shuffle through the empty hotel whistling softly to it and telling little stories, and the hotel would listen until it felt quite calm again, and then it would fall asleep. But damn it, if Billie wasn’t there first thing in the morning to wake it up.
One thing was crystal clear. The semitropics did not inspire work—hard or otherwise. I quickly began indulging myself in my latest ambition to become a thespian by night and a beach bum by day. If I could accomplish both, then—by Setebos, it would indeed be a perfect world!
The isle is full of noises
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears.
—THE TEMPEST
The night before, we had all gone to Myrta’s house. Myrta’s parties were the best—somewhat bizarre—but the best. Myrta was himself somewhat bizarre. In fact, I don’t believe the shutters in his somber, old colonial mansion had ever been opened. Myrta never chose to rise before 6:00 p.m. There is no doubt about it, he lived for the darkness—Myrta was a creature of the night.
Myrta Guinness, eccentric, reclusive, one of the more obscure members of that large illustrious family, lived alone on the island, except for a few shadowy figures one took to be servants. In this “Villa Dolorosa” Myrta would lose himself amongst an extensive assortment of elaborate mechanical music boxes of all ages and sizes, some reaching to the ceiling; added to which, piled on shelves and in glass casements, his pride and joy, probably the world’s largest and most unique private collection of baby coffins.
Myrta was a hopeless dilettante—a harmless voyeur; he loved, above all else, to have the young about him, especially young artists whose talent he admired. He entertained on a lavish scale and was gentle and generous. Myrta hardly ever spoke a word. He was, I discovered, a sad, shy and lonely soul, bereft of purpose and blessed with no particular gift of any kind save one: he played the musical saw more brilliantly and more hauntingly than could be dreamed possible. He would wait till all the trilling, tinkling birdsong and little mechanized marching bands from his massive music boxes had come to an exhausted halt, and then, in the half dark, he would bend that menacing saw over his knee and with his bow delicately brushing the shining metal, he would transport us to another world, a world of high-pitched unearthly beauty. It was the song the Sirens sang—it had wrecked ships, it had lured men to their watery deaths. As he played, an extraordinary thing happened—his face visibly altered, he was suddenly vibrantly alive, he had brought his own youth back.
BERMUDA in the early fifties was much less tightly packed than it is now, but it was a small world. One needed only to stay for little more than a weekend to discover who the key figures were on the island—the Triminghams (at whose well-known shop I instantly began running up bills) or the Butterfields or the Farnsworths, and so on. One very quickly got to meet most of them.
One young ne’er-do-well scion of an established Bermudian family was a Michael Somers, whose distant ancestor, Sir George Somers, had been wrecked off the island at the turn of the seventeenth century, the incident which most probably gave Mr. Shakespeare the idea for his Tempest. M. was camp as a row of tents, definitely in the fast lane, and threw round-the-clock soirées by the baker’s dozen. If
the drinks were slow in coming, he would scream in a kind of high-pitched bark at his black “houseboy,” “Goose the Guests” while delivering a vicious karate chop-kick to the old man’s derrière with a dexterity Bruce Lee would have envied. Long experience had taught the ancient retainer to ward them off with equal dexterity by swiveling his bottom from side to side in what resembled a geriatric version of the hula-hula.
An annual tradition of his young master’s was to drive his speedboat (a sleek cigarette with a knife-sharp prow) late at night at full throttle straight into the large cruiser Queen of Bermuda, habitually anchored in Hamilton Harbour. Having accomplished this mission, he would speed away undetected leaving a great gaping hole in the ship’s stern, forcing the tourists on board to be detained indefinitely while the damage was being repaired. Had he ever been caught, the headlines in the local papers would simply have read “Queen Rams Queen.”
There was no doubt about it—the atmosphere down in them islands was soporific to a degree. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t buck it. When one wasn’t forcing oneself to summon up enough energy to commit words to memory, there wasn’t an awful lot to do really, except get into trouble—gentle, harmless trouble, that is. The few nightspots, dotted sparsely across various towns from Hamilton to Somerset to Paget Sound, were for the most part considered out of bounds. They were largely attended by the local black population, who were warm, friendly and kind—a sunny contrast to the somewhat uptight, stuffy whites. At that time the island natives were pretty much kept at bay, shown little regard, made to feel subservient. Notwithstanding they seemed fairly content—any sign of anger or dissatisfaction was barely apparent. We thespians and some local playboys were just about the only white trash who visited those boîtes of the night. Mister Billie had put us on to them.
In Spite of Myself: A Memoir Page 10
