"I appreciate it."
"One thing, and I'd need your permission," he said. "I'd like to have all your mother's radios on at the same time, just during Classical Hour out of Buffalo, as it might be the closest I'll ever get to hearing a full orchestra in person. Reese Mac Isaac's gone to New York City, anyone's guess for how long. So the radios won't disturb her. I haven't figured out yet how to plug them all in and not blow every fuse in the house, but somebody at Metcalf's Electric will advise."
"It's all fine with me," I said.
"I'll do this only once," Mr. Lessard said. "It'd be a Sunday night, since that's when Classical Hour comes on. I'll make my decision which Sunday by checking the programming schedule in the newspaper. I won't stand for any godforsaken Vivaldi. You don't have to worry about that. Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach and a bunch of others — they're allowed. Would you care to be told on which Sunday I had all the radios on at once?"
"Not necessary," I said.
"All right, then, Wyatt," he said. "Good luck to you. I'll look after your house. Vivaldi won't break in. Not on my watch."
Are You Sure You Took Down What the Radio Said Word for Word?
MIDDLE ECONOMY SITS between Upper Economy and Lower Economy. Upper Economy is farthest west. Locally the joke was, if you were traveling west to east along the Minas Basin, your financial prospects got worse by the mile, until finally you ended up in Lower Economy. I never once heard the logic of that joke reversed: if you traveled from east to west, you'd get rich. I suppose it just wasn't the disposition of people born and raised in that part of Nova Scotia to tell it that way.
I hadn't set eyes on Tilda in close to four years, since the summer of 1937, when she would have been going into ninth form. On that occasion, Tilda had come to Halifax with my aunt and uncle because Constance needed to have a tooth pulled, and they all spent the night at my family's house. Despite my aunt's being in pain, we had a nice family reunion. Though I do recall my father and uncle sitting in the parlor after supper discussing in somber tones Hitler and Germany, commenting on radio broadcasts made by Winston Churchill. My mother sat on the porch, providing my aunt with powdered aspirin and commiserating with her over her throbbing tooth. At one point Tilda and I were playing a spirited game of checkers at the dining room table when we heard my aunt call out the word "Groan!" which extended into an actual groan. That made us laugh, though sympathetically. Also, we couldn't help but eavesdrop on my father and uncle. "My dad's got more opinions about current events than the Smith Brothers have cough drops," Tilda said.
I think I was five or six when I first met Tilda. I remember how my mother put it: "You're about to have a very special surprise, darling. Aunt Constance and Uncle Donald couldn't have children of their own. God saw to that — no, no, I mean God has graced their lives with a new little girl. They've named her Tilda. They're all coming to visit this afternoon."
Tilda's real parents had lived in Glenholme, which is fairly close to the Economys. There was no immediate family, or none willing to take Tilda, age two, when her parents died within three months of each other. The only word about that I ever heard was "wasting disease."
Anyway, my aunt's dentist appointment was at nine the next morning. While Tilda sat in the waiting room, my uncle took the opportunity to ship out two sleds directly from the train station. I'd gone along. "My very first customers from British Columbia," he said. "You just can't get any further away in Canada than that, can you? Excepting Eskimo territories, and I'd be God's biggest fool to think Eskimos would need one of my sleds." By one o'clock they were back on the road. I can still see them driving off. My aunt sat in the middle, her face swollen, still groggy from laughing gas. She leaned against Tilda's shoulder. When my uncle's truck got five or six houses down the block, Tilda, without turning to look back, stretched her arm out the window and waved goodbye. It's my self-generated theory that Tilda assumed I'd be watching from the porch, not wanting her to leave — that she somehow knew, far in advance of me, that I already loved her, even though we'd spent virtually no time alone and had made only small talk.
Two habits were set early on in my life in Middle Economy. One was set by my uncle, the other was set by me. Starting the first day of my apprenticeship, my uncle insisted that I join him every workday morning for breakfast in the kitchen at six A.M., allowing us to be in the work shed by six-forty-five sharp. Then, with his permission, at ten I'd drive my DeSoto over to the bakery owned and operated by Mrs. Cornelia Tell and spend my half-hour break over a coffee.
The bakery was in the center of town. On one side was MAUD'S SEWING (Maud Dunne sat in the window working her sewing machine), on the other BAIT AND TACKLE. Early on, I'd got a sample of how Cornelia Tell questioned all motives for politeness. I'd sat down and said, "Would it be too much trouble if I got a scone with my coffee?" Cornelia Tell shot back, "Even if it does cause me trouble, do you still want a scone?" I never put it that way again, believe me. I just said, "I'd like a scone." That same morning, while I sat eating a cranberry scone and drinking my coffee, Cornelia Tell was behind the counter, swirling frosting on cupcakes. "Today being Tuesday," she said, "do you know who you're going to meet back home at lunch?"
"I have no idea," I said.
"You'll be sitting down for lunch with Lenore Teachout. She's originally from Great Village, not too far down the road. Her parents still live there."
"And why would Lenore Teachout be at our house today?"
"Because every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — except earlier this week she had a cold — Lenore carries a box of pencils, a pencil sharpener, a notebook and an exercise book called Shorthand Self-Taught over to your house. She knocks on your door and your aunt lets her inside and serves tea. Then Lenore listens to your radio. She writes down what people on the radio say. She practices stenography — do you know what stenography is, Wyatt?"
"There's a stenographer in Magistrate's Court, right?"
"Right as rain. And that's the employment Lenore Teachout aspires to. And it's very sensible of her. Because Lenore potentially could find work in any Canadian city where there's a busy courthouse."
"Why does she practice stenography in our house, though?"
"Because she doesn't own a radio."
"You seem to know a lot about her."
"Your aunt Constance and I are dear, dear friends, Wyatt. True, even the dearest of friends keep things from each other, but they don't keep everything from each other. Your aunt keeps very little about Lenore Teachout from me."
"Does Lenore know that?"
"Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, you'll notice how tall Lenore is. She was always tall for her age. Wait here, I'll show you something."
Cornelia Tell went out the door onto the street, then back in an adjacent door that led up a flight of stairs to her rooms. She'd lived above her bakery since her husband, Llewyn, a fisherman, had drowned at sea twenty-three years earlier. When she returned to the bakery she set down a copy of the Great Village Elementary School yearbook for 1914 and paged through the grainy individual portraits of administrators, the school nurse, teachers and students, and a photograph of all the students taken near the flagpole. "Aha!" she said, "found it!" She placed her finger on a quarter-page photograph of a Christmas pageant. "This girl, right here, is Lenore Teachout, age ten. Your aunt Constance brought this to my attention." I bent close and saw that Lenore was costumed up as a camel, on all fours, men's shoes for hooves, a bale of hay on her back, posed next to the Magi and a crèche. "They made her a camel," Mrs. Tell said, "because she was tall for her age, eh?"