‘Thanks for helping me out,’ he said.
We walked out to the limousine. In the distance I saw spotlights circling in the sky.
The street outside the theatre was crowded with operagoers. When our car came up to the red carpet, flashlights popped all around us. I could just see my photograph in tomorrow’s newspaper and the caption:
‘Millionaire benefactor, Mr Franklin Eaglen, arrives at the opera with an opossum from New Zealand.’
We made it upstairs to the Green Room and Franklin smiled at me, amused.
‘You’re doing this to the manner born,’ he said. ‘I appreciate it.’
I caught sight of the upwardly mobile Bertram Pine Hawk.
‘Why, good evening, Franklin,’ Bertram said. ‘Mr Mahana, I wasn’t aware you loved the opera.’
‘Kiri Te Kanawa is my aunt,’ I lied, ‘and I go all the time.’
‘We must have our little talk, Franklin,’ Bertram continued. ‘Once the conference is over and we’re not so busy.’
He turned to me again, before gliding off.
‘Meanwhile, Mr Mahana, will you let me know before we cross swords again? I managed to get out from under this time, but —’
‘Thank God that’s behind us,’ Franklin said when Bertram had moved off.
He told me the full story. He had met Bertram five years ago, and they had lived together until six months ago, when Bertram went on to somebody older and better placed politically to provide him with more possibilities of advancement.
‘This is the first time I’ve been out for months,’ Franklin said. ‘I didn’t think I could bear the ridicule. But look at me now! Here I am, with the handsomest young man in the room and Bertram is seething. I’ve come out with a guy who’s prettier than him, who’s obviously got a gun in his pocket and isn’t a hairdresser.’
We took our seats and the curtain went up. On stage was a ship with sails billowing, cresting the wild sea from Ireland to Cornwall. A young sailor was singing a taunting song. Enraged, Isolde appeared, hair wild and long blood-red dress flowing in the wind.
‘Who dares to mock me?’
She called for her maid, Brangäne.
It happened just like that, almost as if Fate had snapped her fingers. Brangäne looked just like Auntie Pat, and I could not help but think again of the story of Uncle Sam and Cliff Harper. It was not just the plot that triggered the memory — the fatal love between Isolde, an Irish princess betrothed to King Marke, and Tristan, a knight in service to him. It was also the volcanic and propulsive nature of the music. I had never heard an orchestra surge and glow with such sound. Nor voices that could soar above the orchestra and deliver such glorious radiance. And before I knew it —
We haven’t much time, Sam said.
The lovers drink a love potion. Now arrived at Cornwall, they cannot stop their desire for each other.
Don’t move, Cliff hissed. Sam groaned and arched and, stretching both arms, reached for the rung above his head. The light showered around him like a waterfall.
In the distance, you can hear the retreating sound of hunting horns as King Marke leaves the castle. Tristan and Isolde take the reckless chance to be together. Night and darkness give a private world for the lovers. In it they can sink down into the miraculous realm of passion.
Oh, God, Sam. I thought this would never happen to me again.
The two lovers consummate their ardour to music of great romantic power. But there are already hints in the orchestra that their love is also associated with death.
Cliff’s voice was smoky with lust, and Sam realised there could be no going back. He had to keep on going forward with Cliff and hope that there was a way of escape from whatever destiny was lying in front of him. And he was gone, gone, gone beyond the point of no return.
While Tristan lies in Isolde’s arms, Brangäne keeps the watch. Her aria, known as Brangäne’s Warning, is full of beauty and yet underscored by a deep sense of tragedy:
‘Alone I watch in the night
Over you who laugh in your dreams
Listen to my warning for someone comes …
Sleepers, wake up! Take care!
Soon the night will pass —’
But the lovers are discovered. By the end of the opera, Tristan dies and Isolde sings her great Liebestod before she also dies of love in his arms.
‘Mild und leise wie er lachelt —’
The aria is like a sea, one great swelling of sound cascading after another, higher and higher to a magnificent climactic peak. In the final moments, though, the sea calms, smooths out, and Isolde’s voice is a star, shining over the waves.
I will always love you, Cliff. From the first moment I saw you I loved you. You’re in my heart and nobody will be able to take you out.
You’re there forever.
I stayed with Franklin for the reception after the opera, but I was impatient to be away. Moments of the opera kept coming back to me: the doomed lovers, the titanic love duet, Isolde’s final, incandescent aria.
In particular, I couldn’t get Brangäne’s Warning out of my mind.
Like Brangäne, Auntie Pat had kept watch over Sam and Cliff all these years. She had carried their story faithfully and against all odds. That it should all end like this, with a few telephone calls and Cliff Harper unwilling to let the story have its completion, was unbearable.
May God have mercy.
When Franklin and I finally left the reception and were driving back to the hotel, I told him about Uncle Sam and Cliff Harper.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said. ‘I think I need to make one more effort, one which Cliff Harper can’t turn away from. But the timing’s all wrong. He lives out at a place called ‘Back of the Moon’, maybe two hours drive from Chicago, near Muskegon Harbour on Lake Michigan. My stopover in Chicago will be too short. I can’t do it. I’ve run out of time.’
Just before I got out of the car Franklin embraced me and then patted me reassuringly on the shoulder.
‘Things have a habit of working out,’ he said.
I didn’t think any more about Franklin’s comment until the hotel receptionist woke me next morning with a message that an urgent delivery was waiting for me. It was an envelope with my name on it. Inside was an air ticket for Muskegon Harbour and a rental car voucher. With the envelope was a letter:
Dear Michael,
You need a fairy Godmother, and I hope you don’t mind if I cast myself in that role for you. My driver is waiting downstairs to take you to the airport to catch the 8.30 a.m. flight to Chicago. From there you have a short commuter flight to Muskegon County Airport. A rental car has been booked for you to pick up on arrival. I hope you can accomplish your task in time to return to Ottawa via Chicago for the final session of the conference. Please allow me to wave my wand. Your uncle’s story needs a happy ending.
Kind Regards,
Franklin
There was a knock on the door.
‘Franklin’s just rung me,’ Roimata said. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Just make sure you’re back by the final session when we have to put the remit. So don’t just stand there! Go, Michael, go.’
And then the plane was swooping low over dazzling lakes and forests, turning onto its glide path into Muskegon County Airport. I had just on three hours before I needed to catch my flight back to Ottawa. Would I be able to accomplish my task in time?
‘Welcome to Muskegon,’ the bright, young receptionist at the car rental desk said. ‘Would you like me to trace your route on the map?’
Five minutes later, I was on the road heading for Cliff Harper’s place. The drive was incredibly beautiful, and surrounded me with the sense of history — of the times when Muskegon had been inhabited by the Ottawa and Pottawatomi tribes. First contact had come with the French during the 1600s, when trappers and hunters came to this land of tall trees and lakes. During the bustling adventurous 1800s, timber felling made Muskegon famous as the ‘Lumber Queen of the World’.