Читать книгу After Helen - Paul Cavanagh - Страница 10

If my plan to reach Helen was to succeed, I knew I’d need help. I walked by the bookshop several times after school the following week, casting nonchalant looks through the window as I passed, before finally entering one snowy day when I was reasonably certain that Will was looking after the place on his own. He greeted me with his customary conviviality, rubbing his hands at the prospect of challenging me to another round of historical trivia. Between customers, we debated Peary’s questionable claim of being the first explorer to reach the North Pole. We each offered competing theories on how the ancient Egyptians could have built the pyramids. Then, once I thought he was sufficiently softened up, I made my pitch. At first, I could see that he thought I was pulling his leg. But when I didn’t show signs of getting to any kind of punchline, he looked at me as if I were some kind of amiable lunatic.

“You’re serious,” he said.

“It’ll be a hook to get more kids into your shop,” I said. “And their parents.”

“You think you’d be that much of a draw?” he said sceptically.

“I did it a couple of times in my history class. It was a big hit.”

I saw that he wasn’t convinced. “Walter’s the one to talk to about this kind of thing,” he said. “It’s his shop.”

“I was hoping you’d talk to him for me.”

Will chuckled. “Really.”

“The costume’s the thing that catches people’s attention first.” I pulled a photo of myself in full regalia from the pocket of my parka to show him. “I worked two summers in Penetanguishene.”

“What? At the loony bin there?”

“There’s a historic site just across the road. An old British outpost.”

“Walter’s not much for razzle-dazzle,” he said. “Maybe you haven’t figured that out yet.”

I jabbed the counter emphatically with my finger. “Give me a chance. I swear that I can get a shop full of kids so turned on by history that they’ll want to know what’s in at least a dozen of the books you’ve got languishing on your shelves back there.”

Will smirked. “And you’d get what out of this?”

“Professional satisfaction.”

“Oh, I see,” he said dubiously. “Of course, the fact that Helen usually works on Saturdays would have nothing to do with it.”

“We can help each other out here, Will.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t quite see what the payoff is for me.”

“You make the proposal to Walter. You get the credit for bringing more business to the shop. He begins to recognize your true potential.”

He sucked the stem of his reading glasses, cautiously reassessing me. He never would have taken me for a hustler until then. “And if it bombs?”

“It won’t bomb,” I said. “You have my word.”

Even though I’d known Will for only a short time, I’d already figured out that he and I were alike in one very important respect: we both wanted to think the best of people.

“We can’t pay you,” he said.

“Understood,” I said, beaming like an idiot.

* * *

If I’d learned anything from studying the exploits of the Europeans who’d mapped the New World — and Franklin’s expedition, in particular — it was that the quickest way to an objective was not always a straight line. I had therefore decided that my initial efforts to win over Helen would be indirect but deliberate. In gaining Will’s trust, I’d secured an important guide for my personal little expedition, someone who I hoped knew better than I how to negotiate the perilous waters that awaited me on the first leg of my journey. In fact, he proved himself a more enthusiastic ally than I could have imagined. Once he wore down Walter’s resistance to my proposal, Will took the further step of shamelessly promoting my first appearance, reasoning, quite rightly, that our fortunes were now tied together.

“What do you think?” he asked, catching me in the school parking lot on my way home one day, two weeks before I was scheduled to make my first appearance. He passed me a promotional flyer that he’d made up and, he told me, already plastered all over town.

Exclusive to Donnelly’s Books

Irving Cruickshank brings history’s

heavyweights and lesser lights to life!

10:00-11:00 a.m., every second Saturday of the

month starting in April

“Irving’s in a class all his own. He’ll take you

places you’ve never been.” —Farley Mowat

“It has punch, don’t you think?” he said, admiring it over my shoulder as if it were some Impressionist masterpiece. “I especially like the testimonial.”

“Did Mowat actually say that about me?” I asked nervously.

“More or less,” he said, unconcerned. “You are a teacher, so being in a class all your own is hardly a stretch. And you did convince him to go to your school, a place he’d never been.”

I didn’t bother to remind him that it was Helen who actually got him there. I was more concerned that some indignant local friend of Mowat’s would tear down one of the flyers and mail the fraudulent endorsement to him.

“Don’t you think this is going a little overboard?” I asked.

“Hey, you’re the one who talked me into this,” he said, his hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me you’re getting stage fright.”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I couldn’t afford to lose him now, not when I was so close to my objective. “You’ve done a great job,” I said placatingly. “I suppose I’ll just have to make sure I live up to the billing.”

My early pangs of anxiety snowballed into unmitigated panic when, just two days before my appearance, the costume that I’d been counting on from my old boss in Penetang still hadn’t arrived. Three desperate phone calls and twenty-four hours later, it finally came, complete with a split in the breeches that some fat-assed student had made the previous summer. And so I spent the night before my grand opening relying on my non-existent sewing skills to mend the damage and thus save me from making a public spectacle of myself.

Fortunately, when the big morning finally did arrive, my nerves eased considerably the instant I donned the uniform. I cut an impressive, if somewhat anachronistic, figure in my bathroom mirror, looking every bit the ambitious nineteenth-century Royal Navy lieutenant in my blue coat, brass buttons, and tall, arched hat. This was a role I’d played many times before, one I could wrap myself in. I was yesterday’s man and proud of it.

I provoked many a stare as I ambled up Richmond Street that warm April morning. The last dregs of snow were gone; the grass in the park was reasserting its greenness after a long winter. I passed a florist who was doing a brisk business in tulips, daffodils, and Easter lilies. I tipped my hat to the patrons gawking at me as I went.

The bookshop was bustling with customers when I entered, no doubt a result of Will’s shameless publicity. Walter was standing on a wooden stepstool, retrieving a volume of Byron from a high shelf for a matronly looking woman who reminded me of my language arts teacher from grade five. His resting scowl slipped when he saw me, a fleeting, somewhat involuntary look of surprise taking its place. Although I was sure that Will had described the details of my proposed escapade, Walter clearly hadn’t anticipated the impact my uniform would have.

I doffed my hat and tucked it under my arm. “Greetings, sir,” I said to him, full of the audacity that comes from wearing such an outlandish yet imposing uniform. “Are you the proprietor of this establishment?” I was playing to the patrons, whose initial shock was now giving way to nervous smiles and tittering. Children whispered to their parents, asking them who the strange man in the blue coattails, short pants, and white stockings was.

For a moment, I thought Walter would refuse to play along. I’d heard through Will that his response to my Saturday morning show and tell had been lukewarm at best.

“We don’t much take to sailors here,” he said to me, his scowl reaffixed.

“I am no mere deckhand, sir,” I said, recognizing that there was no turning back now. “My name is Bayfield, Henry. Lieutenant of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I am embarking on a hydrographic survey of the Great Lakes and am in need of able seamen to assist me.”

“There’s a tavern up the road,” Walter said. “Maybe you’d have better luck there.” There was a hint of mischief in his growl. He was enjoying the verbal sparring, I could tell.

“Why do you attempt to deceive me, sir?” I said, approaching a group of giggling primary-schoolers. “This shop is filled with sailors.” I crouched down and smiled at a girl in pigtails. “Wouldn’t you like to help me?” I asked her. She looked at me saucer-eyed, then glanced up at her mom for guidance. Mom nodded that it was okay. I wasn’t a crazy man, just a silly one.

Within a minute, I’d assembled my recruits, a gaggle of children ranging in age from five to twelve. Some of the older kids in the crowd hung back, intrigued but not wanting to seem too eager. People passing by the store stopped and peered in through the front window, wondering what all the fuss was about. Some wandered in to investigate. Will squeezed his way through the throng and began ushering the newcomers in, making sure that younger children got a good view of the action. He gave me a thumbs-up as he nudged a nine-year-old forward to join my party of conscripts. Walter stood by the cash register, arms crossed, a bristly eyebrow cocked in grudging appreciation.

I explained to my recruits that the Royal Navy needed to have accurate charts of the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron in order to defend Upper Canada from the Americans, who only six years earlier had attempted to invade during the War of 1812. Wooden British warships could offer no defence if they wrecked against unseen jagged rocks and sank to the bottom of the lake. After verifying that there were no Yankee spies among my cadets, I let them each handle my surveying instruments and showed them early charts of the coastline we’d been charged to survey. I told them that I was confident they were all up to the task, that my previous crew had done quite well until they’d contracted scurvy and their teeth had turned black, and that if our provisions went bad (as they’d been known to do) we could always catch crows and gulls for food.

I used all the gimmicks from my days in Penetang to get onlookers involved. I mistook one of my recruits’ fathers for a deserter from my old crew (I said I could spot his gap-toothed grin a mile away) and ordered his wife to hold him in custody. I saluted to a timid young boy hovering off to the side, pretending he was my mentor, Captain William FitzWilliam Owen, come to assess my progress and inspect my new crew. And when my hour was done, I cajoled those assembled, who were by then backed up to the front door of the tiny shop, to join me in a stirring rendition of “God Save the King.”

Will clapped me on the back after I’d said farewell to my last recruit. “Inspired,” he said.

Walter called to Will from the front counter, gesturing with a stern nod for him to take care of the customers who’d lingered to peruse the shelves.

“Who are you planning to do next month?” Will asked.

“I was thinking Galileo,” I said. “Although my astronomy’s a little rusty.”

“Maybe you could get Walter to play the Grand Inquisitor,” he said with a sly grin. He excused himself and began working his charms on some nearby browsers.

Helen was nowhere to be seen. Her red head wouldn’t have been tough to spot, since she would have been among the tallest people in the throng. I made my way through the remnants of the crowd and past the front counter, still hoping to find her. Like any good performer, I was careful to hide my disappointment. I nodded my appreciation to a woman who complimented me on my uniform, and I smiled at a tot who, much to his father’s amusement, saluted me as I passed. As much as I’d tried to convince Will that the aim of my performance was to capture the imagination of a new generation of readers, I had to acknowledge now that I’d failed to realize my true goal. I felt like a charlatan, a haplessly infatuated geek masquerading as a historic man of substance. I couldn’t wait to get home and change out of my costume. After one last futile survey of the shop, I headed out the door.

From the sidewalk, I took one last look at my miserable reflection in the shop window. The uniform had lost its magic. I was simply a milquetoast history teacher dressed in a clown’s outfit. I removed the magnificent, preposterous hat. My hair stood out at riotous angles as if a bully had rubbed his fist over my head. As I continued to lament my pathetic mirror self, another figure—a woman’s—stepped out of the jumbled background of Richmond Street traffic and consolidated itself beside mine in the window. It was Helen.

“Why so glum?” she asked. “That was quite a performance.”

I turned to face her, caught between emotions. I quickly wiped the hang-dog look off my face, but I wasn’t sure what to replace it with. “You saw it, then,” I said.

“From the back of the shop,” she said. “I ducked out the side door just now so I could congratulate you.” She smiled at me like she’d just found a valuable antique at a garage sale. “I hope you know that you’ve done something quite extraordinary: you’ve actually lived up to Will’s hype.”

I felt transformed from a forgery into an icon. “It’s the clothes,” I said, forcing back a bashful grin.

“Oh, I definitely think it’s more than that,” she said.

I was momentarily tongue-tied. I fell back into Bayfield’s persona, hoping to borrow some of his bravado. “Would you care to take a walk with me, my lady?” I asked, boldly offering her my arm. I held my breath as she curled her arm snugly around mine.

We crossed Richmond Street to Victoria Park. My impressive hat helped to offset Helen’s height advantage as we strolled along the paths that criss-crossed among the tall maples and oversized evergreens that the city lit up as Christmas trees in December. Just beyond the bandshell, the spires of St. Peter’s Basilica kept watch over us like a chaperone. The silence between us was electric.

“When I first saw the uniform, I thought you’d come as Franklin,” she said eventually.

“Guess I’m superstitious,” I said. “I didn’t want to play a doomed explorer my first time out.” I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and dusted off a park bench, inviting her with a flourish to take a seat. “Actually, Franklin passed through Penetanguishene around the time Bayfield was using it as a base of operations for surveying the Great Lakes. Perhaps they even met.” I sensed that I was babbling but couldn’t help myself. “Franklin was on his way north, on one of his earlier overland Arctic expeditions. It’s where he heard that his first wife, Eleanor, had died of TB back in England.”

“You can’t stop teaching, can you?” Helen said archly. “Not even for a moment.”

I shrugged apologetically. “It’s what I do.”

“Well,” she said, reaching up and straightening my stock, “you may find that I’m a rather unruly student.”

“Will mentioned something about your being a writer,” I said, taking the opportunity to turn the conversation towards her.

For the first time since I’d met her, I caught a tinge of embarrassment in her cheeks. Her lips drew tight, then re-formed into a stiff smile. “I used to dabble,” she said. “You can’t really call yourself a writer until you’ve published something.”

“You should keep at it,” I told her. “You’re a good storyteller. That day in front of my class, you and Farley were terrific together.”

She looked at me warily, uncomfortable with my praise. “Unfortunately, none of the editors I’ve sent my work to agree with you.”

“James Michener didn’t publish his first book until he was forty,” I said. “It went on to become the musical South Pacific and won two Pulitzer Prizes.”

She leaned back and gave me a sober second look-over. “You just have all sorts of trivia at your fingertips, don’t you?” she said dryly. “I can see why you and Will get along.”

“You known him long?” I asked.

She stared at me oddly. It was as if she’d just caught on to a practical joke I was pulling at her expense, one that was evidently so clever that I’d failed even to let myself in on it.

“What?” I said.

“So that’s what all this is about,” she said, shaking her head, miffed with herself for not figuring out my angle sooner. “He’s already spoken for, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Will,” she said. “He’s already got a boyfriend.”

“Will?”

Finally, she read the desperate confusion on my face. “Ah,” she said, recognizing her mistake. “You didn’t invite me here to talk about Will, then.”

“No,” I said, distressed that my sexuality could be so much in doubt to her.

“You really were making a pass at me.”

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “if that’s what you’d call it.”

“Right,” she said, smiling at me contritely. “Well, continue then.”

I stared at her, completely flummoxed.

“You were actually doing quite well up until that bit about Will,” she said, sucking back a smile.

I sat there slack-jawed, hopelessly thrown off stride.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve spoiled the mood, haven’t I?” She crossed her leg over mine. “There. Does that help?”

“You’re not just having fun with me, are you?”

She patted me on the chest. “Is fun such a bad thing to have?”

There was something very comfortable about the weight of her thigh. With her big frame, she could have easily played girls’ volleyball in high school, but I guessed that team sports weren’t her thing. While I relied on a borrowed uniform to give me confidence, she drew hers from the fit of her own skin.

“No,” I said, letting the back of my hand run along the generous length of her thigh. “I suppose not.”

She pressed the tip of my nose with her finger as if to reward me for a correct answer.

“I just thought that maybe you were already spoken for,” I said.

Her finger pressed less gently. “No man ever speaks for me.”

“What about that biology professor of yours?”

“Least of all him. Besides, we recently parted company.” I sensed this was a recent development that perhaps might be news to him. “I used to think that older men had their advantages. Refined tastes. Experience. Maturity. Now I realize that they’re just wilful little boys with wrinkles and bad habits that are that much harder to break. The last thing I need is another pompous ass who reminds me of my father.” She slid her leg off mine and sat back, carefully inspecting me. She adjusted the hang of my coat and brushed one of her loose red hairs off my shoulder. “You have an honest face. Very transparent. I like that.”

“Meaning I’m a sucker,” I said. “I know that. Anything else?”

“You’re not afraid of bossy women,” she said, her eyebrows wiggling.

“A sure sign of bravery or stupidity.” I could see the freckles at the base of her neck through the opening in her blouse and let myself imagine how far down they went.

She snatched my hat from my head. “Men always complain about women who keep them in line,” she said, holding it out of my reach. “But without them they’d be stumbling around making a mess of their lives.”

“Is that so?” I said. “Please enlighten me.”

She tried on the hat. Much to my chagrin, it fitted her rather well. “The wise man, recognizing his limitations, defers to a woman’s judgment in all things that are of any true consequence,” she explained. “But he shouldn’t be a doormat. No woman respects spinelessness. Acquiescence without obsequiousness, that’s very important.”

“I thought women only talked like that in plays by Oscar Wilde,” I said.

“My father runs a bookstore. What do you expect?”

“Give me my hat back,” I said.

“Make me,” she said, daring me to manhandle her.

The melee that ensued attracted much attention from the people waiting in line at the nearby souvlaki stand. Helen and I wrestled for the hat, rolling in the muddy grass beside the statue of a copper green soldier in full Boer War regalia. I pinned her beneath me with one hand while groping for the hat, which had landed in a patch of daffodils, with the other. She could have sent me rolling ass over teakettle with one buck of her hips, but she didn’t, which allowed me to retrieve the hat and perch it back on my head.

“I hope you know I let you win,” she said, red-faced and panting, a wicked grin on her face. Her skin was flushed down past the base of her neck.

Streaks of mud and grass stains covered my uniform. My old boss back in Penetang would kill me if the dry cleaner couldn’t get them out. But it was worth it. Helen pulled me closer. I hoped my button-up pants weren’t giving away the boner I was developing.

“If we were on board my ship, I could have you flogged for such insubordination,” I told her suggestively.

“You wish,” she said.

A little girl in the souvlaki lineup looked at me, bewildered. I recognized her as one of my recruits. She whispered something to her mother, probably asking why the nice man in the funny suit from the bookshop was sitting on top of that woman. Her mother looked scandalized and steered her away. I’d besmirched Bayfield’s reputation, violated the code of conduct for children’s entertainers, shown myself to be a dissolute man just like any other.

“I should go home,” I said to Helen. “Get changed.”

“Take me with you,” she said.

I’d imagined this moment with Helen many times while lying awake at night, but arriving at it so abruptly tipped me off balance. All I could think of was my dingy little apartment, the unwashed dishes in the sink, the dirty clothes on the floor, and the bedsheets I hadn’t bothered to change in months. I was woefully unprepared.

“Well?” she said impatiently.

I must admit, I was more than a little intimidated. As eager as I was for action, I realized that I had about as much chance of surviving unscathed a sexual encounter with Helen as a novice First World War pilot had of surviving the chaos of his first dogfight.

I helped her up and brushed a flake of dry mud from her cheek. “My car’s just across the street,” I told her, determined to let valour be my guide. I took her by the hand and led the way, restraining myself from breaking into a trot. Dirty sheets or not, I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity.