Leaving the World

by Douglas Kennedy

  Mrs Woods had to defend many of these purchases to a board of directors who – fuelled by a nasty-letter campaign by Marlene Tucker (who simply refused to speak to me in the wake of her demotion) – were appalled that we were spending ‘good taxpayers’ money’ on ‘beatniks’ and ‘Francophones’ and ‘books that nobody will ever read’ (exact quotes from the meeting). Shrewdly, Mrs Woods had contacted several sympathetic journalists in Calgary – on both the Herald and FastFwd – both of whom wrote glowing pieces about the vast improvement in the Central Public Library’s collection and how (according to FastFwd ) it was ‘a tribute to the Library’s Board of Directors’ that they had ‘approved such an impressive overhaul of the CPL’s collections – and one which, with both its eclecticism and depth, makes it one of the best metropolitan libraries in Canada’.

  The board loved this flattery – and Mrs Woods threatened Marlene Tucker with summary dismissal if she continued her poison-pen campaign. But the person who most adored all the good press was Stockton Henderson. When I scored a rare edition of Dickens’s Dombey and Son in the original parts for a bargain $14,000 from a dealer in London and a numbered Shakespeare and Co. first edition of Joyce’s Ulysses for $58,000, Henderson invited a few journalists over to the library to inspect the goods. He also informed everyone that he himself had tracked these finds down. He basked in the journalistic copy that followed: how this big-deal oilman lawyer was, in private, a rarefied bibliophile.

  ‘Jesus, I nearly gagged when I read that,’ Ruth said the next day. ‘The guy thinks he’s a Medici, when he’s nothing more than a Borgia Pope – of the provincial Canadian variety. “Rarefied bibliophile.” Yeah, and he’s also Pierre Trudeau.’

  I smiled a weak smile. Ruth noted it.

  ‘How’re you doing today?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be sure?’

  I could hear the defensiveness in my voice, just as I also realized: She knows.

  ‘You didn’t have to come to work today, Jane.’

  ‘But I wanted to come to work. I needed to come to work.’

  ‘Well, as long as you’re OK.’

  Of course I’m not OK. How can I be OK on the first anniversary of my child’s death?

  ‘You know, if you don’t feel like being here,’ Ruth continued, ‘you should just go home. Everyone will understand.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Ruth. No one will ever understand. Nor do I really expect them to. And now if you’ll excuse me I’m going back to work.’

  I shut myself in my office for the rest of the day. Ruth was right. I shouldn’t have come in. I had been fretting about this day for weeks. Everyone says that the first anniversary of a bereavement is excruciating – not simply because you realize that a whole year has gone by since your world collapsed, but also because time heals nothing. So I kept the office door closed and I stared into my computer screen and tried to concentrate on tracking down a first edition of The Scarlet Letter. I found a dealer in Cape Town (of all places) who had one copy. But he was demanding an exorbitant $30,000. I tried to gauge whether this was a fair market price, and whether it was worth committing so much of my budget on one volume (I decided against it), while also knowing that all this first-edition detective work was nothing more than a series of diversionary tactics, allowing me to sidestep, for a few minutes at a time, the terrible reality that still, twelve months later, haunted every hour of every day.

  Finally it was six p.m., and I could get on my down coat, my hat, my scarf, my gloves – all the layers one needs against a Canadian winter – and abandon ship for the night.

  It was a cold night – the mercury in the minus teens, with snow beginning to cascade down. There were two films playing at the Uptown which I wanted to see. It was a twenty minute walk down 8th Avenue from the library, and I figured I could time it to stop in a wine bar called Escoba a few doors down from the cinema and have a plate of pasta and several glasses of something red and hearty, then duck into the cinema and kill the evening staring at projected shadows in a darkened room. But as soon as I walked out of the library, I did something rather strange. I sat down on the pavement outside its main entrance and just remained there, oblivious to the cold, the snow, the passers-by who glanced at me as if I was mad . . . which, perhaps, I was.

  A cop came by – a middle-aged man wearing a furry hat with ear flaps, the badge of the Calgary police pinned across its front.

  ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’

  I didn’t look up at him, but turned and stared into the gutter.

  He crouched down beside me.

  ‘Ma’am, I asked you a question. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll never be all right,’ I heard myself saying.

  ‘Ma’am, have you had an accident? Are you hurt?’

  ‘I did this last year.’

  ‘Did what, ma’am?’

  ‘The night after my daughter died, I sat down in the street.’

  ‘I’m not following this . . .’

  ‘I went back to where the accident happened and I sat down in the street, and I couldn’t get up again until the police came and . . .’

  ‘Ma’am, I need to know your name, please?’

  I turned away. I felt his gloved hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Ma’am, do you have any identification on you?’

  I still refused to look at him.

  ‘OK, ma’am. I’m calling for back-up and getting you somewhere safe for the night.’

  But as I heard him reach for his walkie-talkie, a man came hurrying over.

  ‘I know her,’ he told the officer.

  I glanced up and saw Vern Byrne. He crouched down by me.

  ‘Did something happen, Jane?’

  ‘A year ago . . .’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said quietly.

  ‘How do you know this woman?’ the cop asked.

  ‘We work together.’

  ‘Is she always like this?’

  Vern tapped him on the shoulder. They both stood up and spoke in low voices for a few moments. Then the cop crouched down again beside me and said: ‘Your colleague has assured me he’s going to get you home. He told me what you said about your daughter is true. And that’s really hard – and I’m sorry for you. But this is my beat – and if I find you again in the street like this I am going to have to get you admitted to the psych wing at Foothills Hospital . . . and, believe me, that would give me no pleasure.’

  ‘This won’t happen again,’ Vern said.

  ‘All right,’ the cop said, ‘but you promise you will get her home?’

  ‘You have my word.’

  The cop left. Vern helped me to my feet, putting a protective and steadying arm around me.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going home.’

  ‘You’ve got to go home. You heard what the officer said.’

  ‘I am not going home.’

  My body stiffened. I was suddenly determined to be immobile.

  ‘Please, Jane,’ he whispered. ‘If the officer comes back and finds us still here . . .’

  ‘A drink,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Buy me a drink.’

  Six

  VERN HUSTLED ME into the first bar he could find. It was located diagonally across the road from the Central Public Library. The wind was scalpel sharp and the blowing snow made visibility difficult. Vern grasped my left arm with the force of a lifeguard pulling a half-drowned swimmer out of deep water. We all but fell into the bar.

  ‘Jeez,’ Vern said under his breath as he looked around. ‘Kind of fancy.’

  The bar was actually a restaurant called Julliard. There were booths. Vern steered me into one. A waitress approached us, all smiles.

  ‘You guys look like you need some anti-freeze! So what’s it going to be?’

  ‘What’s your pleasure?’ Vern asked me.

  I jus
t shrugged.

  ‘You like rye?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Two Crown Royals, straight up, water back,’ he told the waitress.

  When she was out of earshot he leaned over and asked: ‘You OK now?’

  ‘Thank you for getting me here.’

  The drinks arrived. I picked up the glass and downed the rye in one go. It didn’t burn the way so many whiskeys do when they hit the esophagus. It had a slight sweetness and a hint of honey that was immediately warming. I put the glass down and turned to the waitress who still hadn’t removed our glasses of water from her tray.

  ‘Could I have another, please?’

  ‘No problem,’ she said, then added: ‘You sure as heck must have been cold.’

  ‘Know what I can’t stand about Canada?’ I suddenly said to Vern. ‘All the goddamn politeness – and the way everyone uses namby-pamby language. Heck . . . jeez . . . sugar . . . freaking. Can’t you people swear in this country? Do you all have to be so inanely polite? Know what I think? You all sit on your hands so much you can’t come out swinging. I mean, they broadcast all that politically correct Inuit Throat Singing shit on the CBC . . . and you don’t fucking object. Not “freaking” object. Fucking object. That’s right, fuck. I’m from South of the Border and I say fuck . . .’

  This rant was delivered in a very loud voice. It silenced everyone around us. All eyes were upon me. Before I knew what was happening, Vern was throwing some money on the table and hustling me out the door. Again he steered me by the arm as we hit the cold. He said nothing, but the lifeguard grip had become that of a cop making an arrest. We turned left up 8th Avenue.

  ‘There’s always a taxi outside the Palliser,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.

  ‘I messed up in there. I . . .’

  ‘Stop, please,’ he said, the tone more worried than angry.

  ‘All right, all right. Just get me home and . . .’

  ‘I don’t think you should be left alone.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘That’s not my reading of the situation.’

  ‘I can handle things.’

  Vern said nothing. He just gripped me tighter and pushed me forward. The wind was now cruel, grating any exposed skin. We made it to the Palliser in five minutes, by which point my fingers had so stiffened that it pained me to bend them. There were three cabs outside the hotel. Vern bundled us into one of them and gave the driver an address on 29th Street NW.

  ‘I live just off 17th Avenue SW,’ I said.

  ‘We’re not going there.’

  ‘You hijacking me?’ I asked.

  Vern said nothing, but leaned over and locked the door beside me.

  ‘Trust me: I’m not going to jump out of a moving vehicle,’ I said.

  ‘I did once.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Why?’

  He stared down at his hands and spoke slowly.

  ‘My daughter had just been committed. More to the point, I had signed the papers committing her. After that I went on a seven-day bender. It ended with me jumping out of a moving car. I was hospitalized for three weeks. I broke my left leg. I cracked three ribs. I fractured my jaw. They also put me in a psych ward. I ended up losing my job. It was awful – and I’d rather not see you go through something like that.’

  ‘I’ve done the psych ward already.’

  He registered that with a quiet nod – and we said nothing until we reached 29th Street NW. The cab pulled up in front of a modest split-level bungalow. Vern paid off the driver and got me inside. As we crossed the threshold he hit a light. We were in a hallway – and one which looked like it was last decorated in 1965. There was faded brown floral wallpaper, an old antique coat rack, a side table covered with two lace doilies. (Does anyone still use doilies?) He took my coat and hung it up and told me to make myself at home in the front room.

  ‘You want to stay with rye?’ he asked.

  ‘Rye works,’ I said.

  The front room was decorated with the same wallpaper and had heavy mahogany-toned furniture similar to the coat rack and the table in the hallway. Again lace covered the headrests on the oversized armchair and the sofa. There was a venerable baby grand piano covered with sheet music and a pair of Tiffany lamps on two end tables. But most conspicuous were the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all heaving with music texts and thousands of CDs. The CDs were all alphabetized, with little dividers noting major composers. There was also a serious stereo system covering two shelves and two large floor-standing speakers.

  Vern came in carrying a tray, on which stood two crystal whiskey glasses, a bottle of Crown Royal, an ice bucket and a small water pitcher. He set the tray down on the coffee table.

  ‘This room is amazing,’ I said.

  ‘Always strikes me as rather ordinary.’

  ‘But the CD collection. There must be over a thousand discs here.’

  ‘Around eleven hundred,’ he said. ‘The rest are in the basement.’

  ‘You have more?’

  ‘Yes. A few.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  Vern shrugged, then pointed his thumb towards a doorway off the living room. He opened it, flipped a switch and I followed him down a narrow set of stairs into . . .

  What I saw completely threw me. Because there, in this completely finished basement, was shelf after shelf of CDs, again meticulously organized in library style, with a high-end stereo system connected to two massive speakers. One oversized leather armchair faced these speakers. There was also a large trestle table and a high-back swivel chair, strewn across which were papers, books, a laptop computer – and behind which was a shelf on which rested the entire Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. The basement felt like both a serious musicological shrine and something of a command center. If Dr Strangelove had been a classical music fiend he would have felt most at home in this subterranean cavern.

  ‘Good God,’ I said. ‘It’s extraordinary.’

  ‘Uhm . . . thanks,’ Vern said.

  ‘Did you buy all the CDs?’

  ‘Uhm . . . around a quarter of them. The rest . . . well, ever heard of the British magazine Gramophone? Or Stereo Review in the States? I’ve been reviewing for both of them for around fifteen years.’

  ‘And this is where you write your reviews?’

  ‘Yes . . . and also work on . . .’

  Again he broke off, not sure if he wanted to share another piece of information with me.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘I’m writing a textbook.’

  ‘But that’s fantastic. Is it commissioned?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Who’s the publisher?’

  ‘McGraw-Hill.’

  ‘The biggest textbook publisher in the States. I presume it’s a music textbook?’

  ‘It’s sort of like the Oxford Dictionary of Music – but aimed at high-school students. Potted histories of major composers from Hildegard of Bingen right up to Philip Glass.’

  ‘How did you land such an amazing gig?’

  ‘I wrote them a long letter, explaining my background, my teaching experience, my degrees, my writings for various magazines – and also included a pretty extensive outline. Never expected to hear anything from them but, out of the blue, I got this call from an editor there named Campbell Hart. Asked me if I would come to New York to meet him. Even offered me a plane ticket and a hotel room for one night if I’d make the trip. Hadn’t been in New York since . . . Jeez, since I was a university student back in the late sixties.’

  ‘Where did you go to university?’

  ‘Toronto – and the Royal College of Music in London. But that was a long time ago.’

  Now it was my turn to look at him carefully to see if he was being on the level with me.

  ‘What were you studying at the Royal College?’

  ‘Piano.’

 
‘You were accepted there as a pianist?’

  ‘It’s ancient history.’

  ‘But . . . the Royal College of Music in London. You must have been some pianist.’

  ‘Let’s go back upstairs,’ he said.

  He started turning off all the lights, then escorted me back into the living room.

  ‘You ready for that rye?’ he asked.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You want water back or some ice?’

  ‘No – I’ll take it neat.’

  As he poured out two fingers for me I noticed just the slightest tremble in his hands. He handed me the glass, then slowly measured out a small amount for himself, fussing over its size, making certain it didn’t exceed a specific amount.

  ‘I like your house,’ I said.

  ‘I haven’t done much to it.’

  ‘But it’s very solid – and the furniture is so late nineteenth century . . .’

  ‘My mom would have liked to have heard you say that. She picked it all out.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She was a music teacher in a high school here in Calgary.’

  ‘Was she your piano teacher?’ I asked.

  He nodded slowly, then followed this with a small sip of his rye.

  ‘She must have been so proud of you when you got into the Royal College of Music.’

  He fell silent and downed the rest of the whiskey in one go. Then he stared down into his glass for a very long time.

  ‘Have I said the wrong thing?’ I asked.

  He shook his head and started fingering his glass while furtively glancing at the bottle of Crown Royal. It was clear he so wanted another drink – but had to limit himself to just one.

  Finally: ‘I had a full music scholarship to the University of Toronto. While there I studied with Andrei Pietowski. Polish émigré. Brilliant and very demanding. He thought I had “it”, that I was going to be the next Glenn Gould. He even had me play for this Austrian pianist named Brendel when he came through Toronto. Brendel was living in London. He had connections at the Royal College. I got a full scholarship there. That was 1972.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I arrived in London. I started at the Royal College. And . . .’