Pavor signed the books, finishing each
by blowing upon the page to assist the drying process of the ink as
it was absorbed into the smooth, seemingly fibreless paper. “These
may not last as long as the Oxtoby & Snoad there,” Pavor
said, “but long enough I imagine.”
Duncan, resting in the high-back
reading chair behind him, caught the reference to longevity like a
loose kite string dangling before him.“Yes, what I've learned of
the publisher is they insist on the best quality of binding, paper,
ink and thread. I read an article on the Internet about their
choices. Supposedly their leather is derived from the best skins
available, tanned slowly with weak solutions of Sumac as was the
custom, followed by vegetable dyes for a small selection of colour
variation, and then finished off with an oil or beeswax glaze. They
should last . . . forever. The paper, thread and inks are of the
finest quality. Non-acidic of course.”
Pavor turned his chair around to face
Duncan, crossed his legs and leaned back. “As was the custom?”
“Yes, the tried and true methods. But
as I'm sure you know, the booming demand for reading material in the
Victorian age influenced the unfortunate changes in methods, the
introduction of sulphuric acid in the tanning process, the use of
non-vegetable dyes, the splitting of skins and the faking of
expensive grains by embossing and blind-stamping, and of course the
use of acids in the paper production. A double whammy eh? Yes, the
middle-class explosion of reading influenced the search for cheaper
and quicker methods of production, and voilà, red-rot in leather,
and more seriously, the brittle disintegrating paper. Shelf-life
diminished. Things fall apart.” Duncan swept his hand around the
room with its overloaded bookshelves, the gilt titles glimmering in
the lamp light. “Crumble & Dust rather than Oxtoby &
Snoad.”
“And now we have digital. The ghost
in the room.”
“Oh, I like that, the ghost in the
room.” Duncan smiled. “I think digital is wonderful, but it
worries me too. Millions of books held in a digital embrace, a
distant humming of hard-drives in warehouses thrumming with cooling
systems. Seems tremendously vulnerable.”
“Humming and thrumming,” Pavor
said. “Sounds like Melisande's description of a Chakra meditation
class.” As Pavor made a mental note to remember this for future
use, he noticed two hard-shell guitar cases leaning in the shadows of
an open closet door. “Speaking of sounds, Melisande mentioned you
were involved with music too.”
If not for Duncan's thick dark glass
frames, Pavor would have noticed the crow's feet spread towards
Duncan's ears with the mention of music.
“Yes, but it's been awhile."
Duncan found Pavor to be very
sympathetic, a valued possible friend, so he decided to open himself
up, reveal the soft vulnerable past with its bruised failures. “My
brother Gavin and I were into music when young. Our Mother started us
off in the late 1960s in piano lessons with a neighbour up the
street, a Mrs. Shellstone and her calico cat named Calypso. I had
more fun playing with Calypso than the piano. Then we discovered
guitars. We left the piano lessons and Calypso behind and began
singing covers of the Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys,
The Beatles. When a bit older we formed a group called The
Splices, and we were starting to compose our own stuff, but Gavin
and I, though twins, were so different, so opposite, a strange inverted
symmetry. When I listened to music, I never paid attention
to the words, it was always the tune, the melody, the architecture if you
will. I was the instrumental guy. Although he had no use for books, he was the one who came up with the lyrics.”
“That's fascinating,” Pavor said,
his writer's mind sifting for possible fictional applications of
these revelations.
“Then Gavin began listening to Punk
music, Iggy Pop and the Stoogies, New York Dolls, The
Clash, The Ramones, and early punk bands from Toronto. He could
feel their words and their energy while I just heard noise. We were
splitting apart. Ironic for a band named The Splices. I
remember I wrote a piece of music, and I called it 'Composition in
D,' and Gavin called it 'Decompostion,' providing the extra vowel,
his added touch.” Duncan laid his head back and laughed quietly.
“Such a character. He'd be listening to Joe Strummer, and I'd be
listening to Joe Pass. I'd go to the Rising Sun club to hear
Jazz music, and Gavin would find his way to some grungy graffiti grotto to hear the latest I don't what.” Duncan shook his head. “Makes
me sound like a snob, I know, but I never judge other people's
tastes, we're all so different. Diversity is the great key to life
isn't it?”
“Yes, that's good, diversity the
great key to life.”
“Joe Pass was amazing. Did you ever
catch him at the Rising Sun perhaps?”
“No, missed out,” Pavor said,
wondering if Duncan was going to bring up his brother's death.
“I was sitting so close once, I could
have polished his shoes. A short man, male pattern baldness, a
moustache, a three piece suit, and you think, an accountant, a salesman or a
barber. Just him on a chair, his Florentine cutaway sunburst
Gibson—at least I think it was a Gibson guitar—and his breathless
liquid bebop stylings. One of my favourite of his many recordings is
The Paris Concert, where he plays with Oscar Peterson, and
Niels-Henning Pedersen. The three P's in Paris”
Pavor took out a small leather pocket
notebook and a pencil and began to write. “The Paris Concert? Joe
Pass?”
“Yes, check it out. My good friend
Yves, the bass player for our old
band, runs Disques Deux Côtés, he might be
able to get his hands on a copy for you. So anyway, after Joe Pass, I
discovered Pat Metheny, Al di Meola and on and on as it goes.”
Pavor nodded his head, “Disques Deux
Côtés,” he said as he wrote down the name. Underneath he also
wrote, 'humming, thrumming, digital embrace, M's Chakra meditation
class, ghost in the room.' “So, did The Splices break up?”
and as he asked the question, he felt like a psychiatrist with a
notepad, Duncan, his patient in the comfy chair.
Duncan sat up and leaned forward as if
about to impart a whispered secret. “I became more involved in
books. I was working at Grange Stuart's bookshop and studying
Literature at McGill, and then . . .” Duncan caught himself from
saying 'Gavin died in a car crash' as he remembered Pavor's wife and
child had died in such a manner, a secret he was not to know. “Gavin
died unexpectedly and the group fell apart like an old book. I'm
still friends with the other band members, but we've moved on,
created our own lives, families, kids.”
The silence between them held their
respective secrets in balance. Duncan was thinking of having argued
with Gavin over a girlfriend the day he died, and the discovery from
the autopsy that he'd been high on a psychedelic drug, facts he'd
kept to himself all these years. Pavor, though staring at the
bookshelves, was examining the familiar landscape of his aggravated
guilt, travelling the nightmare loop of his unmollified regrets, all
while the shadow of Gavin's car crash stretched out to meet the
shadow of his wife and daughter's car crash and the horrible
visualization of their interaction.
“Is this where the séance is being
held Sir?” Thérèse said, her head peeking in the door, Melisande
behind her with a smile.
Duncan's wit was aroused. “The medium
and the message, we've been awaiting your arrival,” he said,
getting up and bowing to them. Thérèse left them with a sharp laugh
and Pavor got up and joined Melisande in the hallway leaving Duncan
to rearrange books and turn off the lamp thinking Thérèse was
certainly a vigorous and quick-witted amnesiac.
“I'd like you to announce our
engagement to them,” Melisande said, squeezing Pavor's hand. “The
timing's good and I'll be inviting Amelia and Duncan to the wedding
too.”
Pavor nodded, “Yes, yes of course.”
And as they walked down the hallway arm and arm, he had a déjà vu
moment, but one he quickly dismissed as a synaptic hiccup. He
breathed deeply like an actor in the wings, and began searching for
words. Speech, speech, speech, the spoon against the champagne glass,
the guests craning their necks, the dry coughs at the back of the
room.
“I can't recall,” Pavor
began, when everyone was before him in the living room, “the source
of the quote, but as an author of suspense and crime novels, it's
always stayed with me, that is, to make a good story one should have
a charm, a murder, a song and a ghost.” Was it Melmoth the
Wanderer? Shakespeare? Brockden Brown? Poe? “But I would like
to append this list, à la Jane Austen, and add . . . marriage.” He
waited a few moments as everyone exchanged looks with Melisande.
“Yes, I've asked Melisande's hand in marriage, she has accepted me,
doleful though I am, and we do hope you will all join us for our
special day, which I believe,” he said looking at Melisande, “we
will determine in the nearest of futures.”
Hugh, overlooked and
underfoot, tried to comprehend the loud congratulations, soft
embraces, and the chatter of emotions that filled the room, but found
himself overwhelmed, and so retreated to the dining room where
beneath the table's three ring circus with its trilogy of pizza
toppings, he sniffed out a camouflaged morsel of succulent smoked
meat on the oak floorboards. Chewing, he looked at them with fading
interest.
“So,” Duncan began, “in
tying the knot, are there any dangers involved in marrying a
novelist?”
Melisande looked at Pavor
with eyebrows raised in embarrassed expectation. “Ah, well,”
Pavor said, “I do tend to fall asleep with pencils on the bed. I
can't tell you how many times I've awoken with a sharp pencil
lurking in the sheets. Could be dangerous. Yes, could be.”
© ralph patrick mackay
No comments:
Post a Comment