The Master of Happy Endings (26 page)

From his bag he withdrew one of the letters that had arrived as they were about to leave for the airport. The return address was a post office box in some place called Bald Rock, North Carolina. He imagined green hills and pretty university towns, though he knew nothing about the state except what he'd read in the disproportionate number of novels it produced. The writer had included a telephone number, perhaps in case he was desperate to secure a position in North Carolina as fast as possible.

Dear Sir,
     
I may have come upon your advertisement too late to do
either of us any good. My attention was drawn to your ad by an
acquaintance who knows I once lived on Estevan myself, a very
long time ago, but have never returned. Several of us young
women and men left about the same time, and found ourselves
drifting south to very different lives. I have kept up a correspondence
with an old friend in that part of the world—and she has
sent the newspaper on to me with a pencilled circle around your
advertisement.
     
I have an elderly neighbor who remains illiterate despite my
occasional efforts to help her. She is a dear old soul, and was so
good to me in the earliest years of my widowhood that I am
prepared to return her kindnesses in any way I can—and that
would include putting you up in my spare room and cooking
your meals if you were to move here and dedicate yourself to her
education.
     
It is very beautiful here in the gentle shaded coves amongst
the blue hills. I have referred to Eleanor Sweet as my neighbor
(“neighbour,” I suppose, to you), though her house is a little more
than two miles from my own. There has been no serious crime
hereabouts since my husband, eighteen years ago, was murdered
on our front doorstep by two drunken men from just beyond the
first hill to the south, and they, thank goodness, have been put
away. Their wives do not speak to me when we meet in the nearest
town—as though my husband had invited their men to attack
him with their axes—but their attitude is of no importance to
me now, and I am quite self-sufficient, even to the matter of
growing my own food and shooting my own meat.
     
Of course there are times when I am homesick for the lovely
island of my childhood. How innocent are the young, so easily
convinced that an infatuation with a forceful man is reason
enough to abandon all that is familiar and dear and follow him
off to foreign locations. I am prepared to contribute what I can
to your travel expenses and, as I've said, supply room and board,
if you are inclined to consider this opportunity to make not one
but two women happy who are marooned, so to speak, amongst
these quiet hills. I have one of the few telephones up this valley, if
you are inclined to respond in that manner.
Yours truly,
Isobel Cleary (nee Hammond)

Might he have been more effective as a tutor to an old mountain woman in North Carolina? He might, at least, have exchanged memories of tiny Estevan Island with the woman whose husband had been murdered on her doorstep—since this Isobel Cleary must have been one of the young islanders who'd fled soon after the cattle-rustling had been discovered and the hippie draft dodgers sent packing. Because she'd included the
Hammond
in her signature, she may have been related to Bo. Had anyone informed her of his death? Axe murderers aside, he could imagine that life in a remote North Carolina valley should offer fewer distractions than Los Angeles.

He might have reread the letter if the little courier truck hadn't appeared from behind a squat white building and pulled to a stop in the shade. Yesterday's delivery man stepped out, holding a large flat envelope. He nodded to Thorstad before going past him up the steps and in through the door to the Writers' Roost. Within moments he came out again without the envelope. Before getting back into the little truck he turned a worried face to Thorstad. “You still Lost?” A perfect crease had been ironed down the length of his brown trousers.

“What about your Building 46?”

The courier scratched rigorously at a bushy sideburn. “It don't exist!” His eyes bulged. “I walked into one of their offices and said, You tell me where you hid Building 46 or I leave this parcel on your desk! They said there aint no 46! Number 46 was
retarred
. So I took the parcel back where it came from and tol' them Try again!” He sat on the bench beside Thorstad and draped his forearms over his long thighs. “No one's gonna shoot me if I rest a minute.”

“You're not from here? Your accent—”

“Nobody's from here. I'm from N'Orleans, me. You heard of it? I'm one of Katrina's orphans, scattered farther than most.”

“Your home was wrecked in the storm?”

“Busloads of black people hauled out of there fast—sent as far as they could send us. Hoping they send us far enough we won't come back. I heard some ended up in Utah! Lord! My bus come all the way to California before it let me off in desert. They're not getting
me
to stay in no desert.” He looked this way and that, as though to reassure himself that he wasn't in desert now. “So I put out my thumb and kept moving till I got to here. My Momma's cousin works for this courier company, gave me a job when somebody quit. Studios only! How you like that? Messages to beautiful actresses. Parcels to famous directors. The gossip I hear, oh my!”

Noticing the bag at Thorstad's feet, he reached down and pulled out a book—Travis's modern poetry anthology. “What y'all do with
these
?” He laid the textbook on his lap and opened it carefully, like someone nervous of what he might find inside. “You goin' to old-folks school or what?”

“I'm supposed to be a teacher for a busy actor.”

The courier bent forward to peer hard at the open page and sounded out the words at the top. “Lucinda . . . Matlock. Hmmm. Who she?”

“A woman speaking from her grave. She raised twelve children, lost eight, enjoyed her marriage, died at ninety-six. No complaints.” Thorstad took the book and ran a finger down the page. “Listen—her last few lines:

“What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.”

“She sound fierce, that one. Dead and still speaks her mind?”

“There's a whole graveyard full of people speaking their minds in the book she came from. Most complain, but not her.”

“Somebody ought to tell us what Katrina victims say from their graves—
Whooo
! My granny's tongue would blister the sonbitch
she
decide to blame.” He reached into the bag again. “These other books got poems?”

“Geography. Composition. History. The boy has exams to write.”

“Exams!” The courier abandoned the books and stood up to flee exams. “I missed as many them things I could. 'Course, I am one damn ignorant fool.”

Thorstad also stood, once he'd returned the poetry book to his bag. He would go up and see whether he could interest Travis in the twentieth century's list of horrors and the abundance of best-answer questions they might spawn. Assuming, of course, that he was free of the journalist and not acting before the cameras.

The delivery man returned to his truck and concentrated on his clipboard. Thorstad had got ten or fifteen metres past him up the paved slope before the little truck caught up—enough time to be struck with the thought that this was one person who might know the whereabouts of people in this business. He held out an arm. “Hold it, please?”

“No room for passengers. Anyway, it's 'gainst the rules.”

“You ever deliver something to
Another Life
?”

“What studio's that?”

“I don't know. An old friend sometimes appears on that show. Oonagh Farrell?”

The courier closed his eyes and thought.

“Plays an elderly Swedish princess,” Thorstad said, to help him think.

“Lady with a big laugh?” The courier's grin was wide. “I seen her name on a door, yes sir. Heard big laughing behind it, then it opened and out she come to read something on the paper in her hand. She had the whole place roarin' in a minute.”

“Next time you see her, maybe you could tell her an old friend from her teaching days says hello.”

“Put yourself in a box and I'll take you to her. You can tell her hello to her face.”

“I directed her in her first stage role. She'll remember that.”

“You a director?” He slapped a knee. “Hell, I thought you was a granddaddy brought to work because your caregiver sick!” Thorstad hoped this was meant as a joke. “You want to say hello on paper I'll put it in my pocket and remember it next time I hear that laugh.”

That imagined piece of paper was suddenly dangerous. What did he think he was doing? He felt, suddenly, as though he'd come too close to slipping off a cliff. “I think you should forget I mentioned her.”

“Fine with me.” The delivery man put his truck in motion. “That woman just gone off to Nowhere with Building 46. Now I got my job to do. You do yours but don't get lost!
Ha, ha!
”

His job? His job was to drag Travis back into the bloodshed of the twentieth century and his obligations now in the twenty-first as soon as the journalist, the publicist, and the director had all had their share of him.

When he'd crossed most of the distance to Stage 5, the writer in pink pyjamas was suddenly beside him, his beaded moccasins silent on the pavement. “I hope you left a few good ideas in my office, man. I'm about run out of my own!”

Thorstad saw no signs of distress in the man's face, though there were beads of sweat on his shiny scalp. “You survived your meeting?”

“What do I care what they think?” He flung his arms wide, as though to throw off what he'd heard from his fellow writers. “They think we're a
team
. They think they're auditioning for
The
Closer
or something. Hell, I don't care what they think. I won't be back next season anyway.”

“You know this?”

“I've
decided
this. My brother-in-law's working on a movie script for Brad Pitt and needs me.” Before going in through the door to the sound stage he said, “Apparently Paolo wants to talk with me now—something about my stupid script.” He tilted back his head and shouted fiercely to sky. “Probably wants to tell me how brilliant it is!” Then, chuckling, he quickened his pace and left Thorstad behind.

Apparently a scene had just been completed. The powerful lamps had been extinguished and crew members were securing or shifting equipment amongst the temporary walls and stacks of unpainted plywood in the grey depleted light. The excitable Charlie, rushing off to an emergency elsewhere, informed him that Travis had already left the building. “Only one little line, but he'll be back for his big scene later!”

It appeared the actress who played the wealthy matriarch was still in the building. At least Thorstad assumed this woman surrounded by a group of admirers was the actress. She was familiar from the episode he'd seen in the Montanas' viewing room, though he could not at the moment recall her name—once a glamorous star in the era of Jean Simmons and Susan Hayward, now something of an elderly matron in a moss-green sweater set and tweed skirt. She appeared to be holding court, with several of the crew clustered around to overhear what was being said between her and the director. Evidently she was hearing only compliments from Paolo and Paolo was hearing only compliments in return, while her eyes checked the faces of her admirers. She seemed pleased with whatever it was she saw.

Dolores Williams. You could see traces of the lovely Dolores Williams despite the added girth. Tiberius's bloodthirsty mistress. As a young man he had seen her swooning in the arms of Gregory Peck. And, if he remembered correctly, shooting the hat off Gary Cooper's head. There was a time he might have asked for her autograph, but now he could only wonder why it was disappointing to see that certain people had allowed themselves to get old.

When Paolo led the writer off for a private conversation, the clipboard woman stepped up to the actress. “Always a pleasure to watch you work, Miss Williams.”

“Thank you, sweetie. And
gracias
for not blowing the whistle on me.” She glanced to either side but did not lower her voice. “I buggered up that one line pretty bad, but everyone was too polite to stop me so I kept on going. There are some advantages to being older than everyone else on the planet.”

“This is Travis's friend,” the clipboard woman said. Perhaps Thorstad had been gawking.

The actress put out a small round hand for Thorstad to shake. He assumed she did not expect him to raise it to his lips. “You thought this old dame had died off years ago—admit it. A few close calls but I'm still here!” Her laughter was low and warm. “You could probably say the same yourself.” She patted his hand, perhaps with sympathy, then wiggled goodbye fingers and set off towards the outer door where a young man hurried forward to take her arm.

Her perfume remained in the air. He was surprised to discover himself confused and embarrassed. For a moment he'd been his seventeen-year-old self thrilled to be meeting the famous Dolores Williams and at the same time he was his seventy-seven-year-old self shocked to discover that the movie star, down off the screen, looked older than his remembered grandmother. Apparently sixty years, once behind you, were little more than an instant.

“You might want to check on Travis,” the clipboard woman said. “Paolo was pretty hard on him.”