The Master of Happy Endings (7 page)

Normie was as awkward and shy as a thirteen-year-old boy, but as strong as a labouring man in his thirties. When the commune disbanded he'd been left behind by his parents, who had handcrafted the willow-twig cradle they'd left him in. Since they hadn't bothered or remembered or perhaps cared enough to come back for him, he'd been watched over by the few who'd remained in the commune's sprawling log house. Though he was considered “simple” by some of those who employed him for odd jobs, he had acquired a practical knowledge that allowed him to know the secret of discouraging moss from overwhelming a roof, the proper dates for planting vegetables, and the best angle for stacking a bank of mismatched logs so that neither rain nor waves could seriously undermine them, at least for another year.

Thorstad had tried to do more for Normie than just hiring him for the occasional labouring job. Since the young man was afraid to leave the island, Thorstad had offered to help with correspondence courses, but courses and help had both been refused. He had tried to get Normie interested in books, but had failed at this as well. It seemed there was nothing he could do except insist on paying him for physical work he was willing to do without pay for the man who'd saved him from drowning. Nothing further was asked except that Thorstad listen occasionally to the plot of the latest
Star Wars
movie that Normie had seen on the commune's television set.

While Normie hammered spikes into logs, Thorstad brought the Sinfonica over to the chair and encouraged it through the first few tentative bars of the Adagio finale to Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat, almost unbearably beautiful. But the instrument refused to go beyond the moment where Elena's piano accompaniment was intended to take dominance over cello and violin. When several more attempts led him no further into the piece, he put the cello back in its case—a child sent to its bedroom for refusing to behave—and sat on his doorstep to read one of today's letters, a single typed page signed by an “Alan Doyle.”

He had known an Alan Doyle—a Math teacher down the hall, beginning somewhere back in the seventies, or maybe the early eighties. He'd been an affable man whose bald head and long body were so exceptionally narrow that he appeared to have been squeezed in a full-length vise. He'd retired a few years before Thorstad, and would—if this were the same man—be eighty years old by now, or more. Perhaps a grandson was in need of a tutor.

Axel Thorstad!

Apparently when Alan Doyle began a letter he saw himself leaping from behind a curtain.

I was so sure it was you the minute I saw your anonymous ad
(and address) in the paper that I won't even bother with “If you
are not Axel Thorstad please ignore the following.”

I suspected you would go downhill when they deprived you of
a classroom full of adolescents you could charm and inspire and
make ambitious with your antics. Maybe you should have stayed
and volunteered as a teacher's aide. I take that back. You would
drive the teacher crazy with your enthusiasm.

But I think I have to warn you that your ad campaign is
bound to fail. Nobody is going to want an old geezer for a tutor,
not when the world is full of over-educated and unemployed
teachers right out of university and waiting for the old ones to
die off and make room.

Travel, why don't you? You and Elena used to take off for
exotic parts, if I remember. New Zealand. Spain. Argentina!
Why not retrace your steps? When old men fall off their rockers
they're expected to do outrageous things. Why not rob a bank?
Why not kidnap an heiress if it's excitement you want? If all
you want is an excuse to get off Estevan Island—and I can
imagine any number of reasons to get off it fast—why not sign
up to spend a winter on a Greenland ice floe, or take up deep-sea
diving? Better still, find yourself a lonely widow (as I did) and
move to Florida (which I didn't—this letter is being written in
North Vancouver).

Good for you, for making the effort to get back into life with
that advertisement, but you shouldn't put all your hope in that
alone. Minna and I are planning a trip to Iceland this summer.
You could be doing something like it yourself.
Yours,
Alan Doyle

“I suppose that is one of your famous letters—hah?”

He hadn't noticed von Schiller-Holst approaching along the beach. He came up the slope, planting his long staff in the grass and leaning into it just a little at each step, his stomach straining the buttons on his shirt.

Instantly annoyed, as he was whenever the
maestro
intruded, Thorstad also felt a sudden need to defend himself. It was ridiculous, of course, but he held up the sheet of paper and hoped he did not look sheepish. “A former colleague, suggesting I find myself a widow and move to Florida.”

“Don't ask me in for coffee,” the
maestro
said, though Thorstad had never invited him inside in the three years the man had lived here. “I'll sit just long enough to catch my breath.” He lowered himself with a grunt to the step beside Thorstad and held his staff in both hands between his spread knees. It was an almost perfectly straight pole, ocean washed nearly white, with the suggestion of a sea serpent carved into the top. Like most men here, the
maestro
wore a ponytail at his neck though he was completely bald on top. “I decided to circle the island in the opposite direction for a change and it's taken me nearly an hour longer then usual. I suppose there is some explanation for that, but I don't know what it is. I just thank Gott-in-himmel you're not torturing that poor cello at this moment. The world needs fewer musicians and many more good listeners.”

And fewer bullies as well, Thorstad did not say, but saw no harm in explaining the letter in his hands. “This man has written to suggest I put some adventure into my life.”

The
maestro
stabbed the ground with his pole. “You were a teacher, for heaven's sake! He doesn't think teaching is an adventure? What a fool! It would be easier to climb the Matterhorn! Safer too!”

“He also suggests travel, but he fell short of inviting me to join him in Iceland.”

Von Schiller-Holst spoke to the ground between his feet. “Once in a while—maybe twice a year—some small orchestra invites me to be a guest conductor for a concert or two. That's enough adventure for me. Enough travel as well. I have my CDs. Music provides me with everything I need.” He stood up, again with a grunt. “Off I go before the light begins to fail. To fall and break my neck is not the sort of adventure that appeals to me. Nor is a helicopter trip to the hospital my favourite form of travel.”

Once the
maestro
had set off to continue his reversed circumnavigation of the island, Thorstad went inside to spoon coffee into the pot: Kicking Horse brand, Kick Ass quality, certified organic. Just the scent of it could lift his spirits, though Lisa warned him against the habit every time he brought a new package to her counter.

Doyle had suggested travel and adventure. Well, there'd been more than enough adventure travelling with Elena, who had a tendency to make scenes that Thorstad had to smooth over. On their final day in Barcelona a beggar woman had tossed her bundled-up baby at Elena, who instinctively dropped her purse in order to catch the child. Naturally the woman had snatched up the purse and run, which meant they'd had little choice but to carry the woman's doll to the police station to report the theft. Elena berated herself for her stupidity—she who ought to have known the habits of Barcelona beggars! The police were so incensed by her elaborate criticism of their failure to rid the streets of crime that they'd put her behind bars, though only until she'd calmed down and even, to Thorstad's astonishment, apologized. At least she claimed it had been an apology. He did not know enough Spanish—either Catalan or Castilian—to be sure.

He could not imagine travelling now without her, just as he could not imagine actually writing, without her encouragement, his planned biography of Jack Jones, the “Pocatella Kid,” whose career as a stunt double ended when he was thrown from his wagon during the filming of
The Dawn Ride
. To write the biography now would feel like an unhealthy disappearance into daydream, a retreat to a world more dangerously narrow even than his current life.

The return address on today's second envelope included some sort of embossed logo created from an entanglement of initials, followed by the name of a street in the provincial capital. Inside, the handwriting was steady, and slanted uniformly to the right.

Dear Sir,
     
I did not see your advertisement myself, but my mother-in-law
in Prince Rupert sent it to me as a clipping, along with some
sentences praising the kindness she detected in the letter she
received in response to her query. I am afraid the dear woman
cannot accept the fact that her husband was drowned, along
with his friends, when their small charter plane fell into the
sea several years ago.
     
We may be able to help one another, you and I. Of course, I
know nothing about you, except for what you've said in the
newspaper along with the sympathetic nature my mother-in-law
detected in your letter, but I wish to encourage you to telephone
me at the number below so that we may speak of this
“adoption” matter—by which I assume you mean a sort of barter
relationship whereby you would apply yourself to helping our son
with his high school courses in exchange for comfortable (and
private) room and board.
     
I shall tell you briefly of our situation here. My husband is a
dentist. We live in a pleasant neighbourhood of large lots with
plenty of trees. There is a small self-contained cottage at the back
of our property where you may cook your own meals if you wish.
Or, if you prefer, you could cross the yard to eat with us. This is
something we can discuss. Our son is a fine soccer player and a
keen budding actor whose dedication to both sport and drama
has resulted in unsatisfactory grades at school. He has promised
to co-operate with a private tutor so long as we don't require him
to quit the soccer team. We seem to have come to a firm agreement
on this—that he will not be required to drop soccer so long
as his work with a tutor results in improved grades.
     
I suspect I will be too late, having received your advertisement
only now, and that you will already have found a good
home and position elsewhere. If this is the situation, I can only
hope that it works out well for you, and that you will be happy
there.
Sincerely,
Audrey L. Montana

This was precisely the response he had imagined when he sent out his advertisement! Upon reading the letter a second time he saw that it was a real offer, that in its incomprehensible generosity the world out there had sent him a reply he might have invented for himself.

But this happy recognition was joined too quickly by a disquiet that was almost dread, raising cold goosebumps down his arms. Here was an opportunity to do what he needed to do— escape from the dangerous isolation of this place on the very terms he had hoped for—but he knew already that he would not respond to this woman's offer. He must have been mistaken, he must have been hoping for something he hadn't identified. Perhaps he shouldn't have used the word “tutor.” Preparing someone for government exams was not teaching so much as nagging, drilling, anticipating, and of course pretending that the exam had something to do with education. He could think of any number of reasons to stay clear of this Audrey Montana. As he replaced the sheet of paper to its envelope and tapped it gently along with Alan Doyle's letter into the space between his mother's Bible and
I'm Not Stiller
, he told himself that even in his seventies a man could wish for a future that offered more than what he had briefly devised for himself.

4

Since he could not bring himself to accept even the perfect response to his ad, he saw no harm in allowing Lisa Svetic to know the nature of the advertisement that had resulted in all those letters crossing her counter. She was, or said she was, appalled. “This is far more dangerous than a mail-order bride! A family of lunatics could've decided to get themselves a servant for the dirty jobs they don't want to do for themselves. They'd lock you up at night so you couldn't escape.” While tidying up a shelf of canned soup, she outlined a situation where he would be walking into a house filled with young monsters who would make his life a misery by playing tricks on him. “They'll hide your books, bust your cello strings, and mock you in public when you're forced to walk them to school.”

This had been, indeed, a possibility. “But I expected an interview first, of course. And I've had some experience with mischievous youngsters—some holy terrors in fact.”

But even after an interview, she insisted, the person he might have chosen from all those letters could turn out to be a former student who'd been waiting for the opportunity to take revenge for humiliations he'd suffered—because of his poor grammar, for instance, or the graduation ceremony he'd been denied because of Mr. Thorstad. “And there's always the chance you'd fall into the hands of a homicidal maniac who likes to murder old men who remind him of his father.”

Since it must have been obvious that he was not especially alarmed by her imagined scenarios, she informed him, as she rang up his cheese and eggs on her ancient machine, that if he fell for one of those job offers he would find the world much changed since he'd said goodbye to civilization. “Haven't you been reading the papers?” For instance, if he thought wearing a fur coat was still the worst of crimes a person might commit in public, always punished with a hostile splash of thrown paint, he should be prepared for an endless list of newer crimes. “Suppose you lit up a cigarette in a restaurant! Prepare to see your picture in the paper.
‘Old Man Endangers Public Health
.
'
”