Maccloud falls, p.27
macCLOUD FALLS, page 27
The majesty of the mountain across the river loomed over everything. In Vancouver, the mountains provided the backdrop against which city life played out. Here, the mountain was on stage, present, at the heart of all, that and the great grey river that raced through the canyon. Then she noticed, below the inn, a woman walking through the scrub, looking around her carefully and picking berries. Centuries seemed to flow around her as she brushed through the shrubs, her dark hair catching the breeze. Was it Deeanna, or the woman Deeanna may be in reality? Everything had the wrong names now, yet it didn’t seem to matter. Behind the naming was an essence, and in the essence lay a kind of truth that was unchanged regardless of who told the tale and what names they gave. The mountain was the mountain, the river the river, the woman the woman.
The afternoon passed lazily. She read a little book of poems written by a local woman she had found among the innkeeper’s wife’s library, then decided to go for a drive around the town again, to check her phone for a signal. None appeared, and so there were no new messages from her lover. She felt a sense of relief, as if she had entered a safe space where he couldn’t reach her, a space she needed badly at that moment while she tried to regain an emotional balance.
She stopped at the Indian graveyard to see Lyle’s wife’s grave, and drove on to the foot of the waterfall where she let Hero have a proper walk. It was amazing, the way it issued from the canyon wall and fell straight down, sending clouds of vapour into the air. As she passed the town on the highway she tried to spot the tipi among the houses. She felt annoyed at Gil for being so dismissive of the woman earlier. If this woman – whatever her real name was – could really heal, then it was a place she needed to go. But she couldn’t see it – a truck passed on the opposite side of the highway and her attention was broken. Maybe there was something to what he’d said, about the benefits of walking, and seeing.
When she got back to the inn, Gil was napping. She woke him gently and told him if he wanted to go to the Country night, he should get ready. He did, and they were about to leave Hero in her room and set out on foot as it wasn’t far, but Hero wasn’t having it, so she decided he’d be happier in her car where it was familiar, and cooler in the evening than the little room.
By the time they arrived, the restaurant was already packed. Gil said he’d never seen anyone else in there before. Two seats seemed to have been reserved for them in the centre of the room. They shuffled through the crowd, nodding at eager faces they’d never seen who seemed to know them, and sat down just as the MC stepped up - had he simply been waiting for their arrival in order to begin?
‘Ladies and Gentlemen – and the rest of you!’
The MC was dressed as a cowboy, complete with gun in holster and leather chaps. He wasn’t someone they recognised, but she thought he resembled Burt Reynolds in his prime. ‘It is my pleasure to introduce to you, our host for tonight, the one and only, your favourite and mine, the lady with the big…’ Howls of laughter. ‘… Voice… our own queen of the canyon, the beautiful Dollette!’
Gil looked at ‘Martina’ in surprise, and they both burst out laughing as the formerly rather mousey lady who owned the restaurant entered stage left, now fully made up, topped by pink Stetson above a blonde bouffant wig worthy of the great Ms Parton herself, and wearing a tiny frilly pink dress barely concealing a push-up bra as she stepped up confidently in high-heeled leather boots. The band, a guitar player, a woman on an electric piano and a fiddler with some kind of drum machine at his side, played an intro. As she reached the mike, ‘Dollette’ pitched into a rousing rendition of ‘I will always love you,’ which she directed specifically at the MC, and when it came to the high notes she hit them true.
‘Wow,’ Gil said. ‘The lady has a voice.’
Dollette was followed rapidly by another tribute act, or so it seemed. Who the man with the quiff in the white-spangled jacket was intended to be she did not know, but the song was obviously well known to the company, and it encouraged a chorus sing-along. Drinks were brought to order. She glanced at Gil. He seemed to know this song, with its down-home chorus… ‘Canadian Pacific, carry me three thousand miles’… and she remembered he had mentioned it in his journal. As she watched him, she noticed he seemed changed in this atmosphere, this spangled fringed sequinned corner of the cosmos, his pink alien Zoidberg exterior penetrated by some force she didn’t quite understand. He was singing along as if he belonged among these people in a way that she didn’t.
‘Who’s he meant to be?’ she asked, leaning in to make sure he heard.
‘George Hamilton the Fourth,’ Gil said gleefully. ‘My father and mother had this record.’ She smiled as if she understood, but she had grown up with Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček, with Brahms, Debussy and Ravel, with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. This music seemed to be what her mother would call ‘American hoakey’.
The transformation in the restaurant itself was as remarkable as that of Dollette. The lights were down on all but the little stage, and the room was filled with delighted faces, barely visible in the gloom. ‘Sigourney’ could feel eyes straying towards her, turning from the stage to glance at her as if she were really the show, the Hollywood star, the unwilling impersonator, and not these sequinned performers. And, truth be told, she had spent more than the usual time at the mirror that night, perfecting her look, the one that had stopped the staff in Bloomingdale’s Manhattan in their star-struck tracks a couple of years before. She supposed she too was a performer. Like Paulette/Colette/Dollette she was undergoing her own transformation into a new space where she could make herself up like a fiction to suit the occasion. As a translator, she understood the process of transformation, but to be the transformed was strange. Unsettling, but somehow freeing.
She peered around the room, trying to see who was there. In one corner she could just make out Big George and his wife and family, who waved immediately when she noticed them. They looked as if they’d dressed up for the occasion – or was it for her benefit, the supposed Hollywood star, who was not ‘Martina’ or ‘Sigourney’? In another corner she saw some of the tree-planters she had glimpsed at the inn, standing at the bar drinking, too cool to watch. They too acknowledged her presence. And could that be the woman from the Post Office Gil had written about, the little old historian lady with the glasses, smiling at her?
Meanwhile, as the applause for the George Hamilton IV tribute slowly faded, Dollette returned to the mike, her pink Stetson tipped back and hanging by a string around her neck so the full bouffant surrounded her face like an overgrown halo. With a ‘Let’s hear it for…’, she roused a further round of applause for the white-jacketed singer, who was now retreating into the shadows.
‘Now, friends, it’s time for our very special guest – BC’s own country star, a man you all know well from his records, who so kindly accepted my invitation to travel all the way up here from Vancouver to appear here tonight, even though he is in the middle of a tour. Especially for you, please give a great big canyon welcome to, The Entertainer himself, Mr Raymond Griffin!’
Gil glanced at her with down-turned mouth, an expression that said he didn’t know who ‘The Entertainer’ was either. They both watched as a slightly built man with tan skin and the shoulder hunch of considerable age got up from the front row table. He took the mike with an assurance that spoke of many years gracing stages far bigger than this. The entertainer sang of Blue Canadian Rockies, of British Columbian pioneer homes, cabins in clearings and lovelorn hearts, and the audience were entranced. Though she didn’t know who he was, she could recognise that here was a man at home among his people, a troubadour come back to familiar territory, singing about places and things his audience recognised.
She found herself gazing around her at the dimly-lit faces which were all now focused on the professional guest performer, not on her and Gil as before. She was looking for one who might just be the woman Gil had written about, the painter, the First Nations woman warrior he had described, the figure she thought she’d seen in the berry fields below the inn – Deeanna, he’d called her. She was hoping she would make an appearance, this artist and painter of the portrait, this powerful female character he had written – if she did indeed exist. He had been rather evasive about that. But there was no obvious candidate that she could see here. And if she really was as Gil had sketched her, she would not be inclined to hide in the shadows at this show, surely? She’d grab the microphone, and make some kind of speech. She might even sing some native anthem or another – but not ‘O Canada!’
Just as ‘Martina’ realised how much she wanted this woman to exist, The Entertainer finished his third song with an impressive crescendo and a high yodelling finale. The applause was deafening. The Apple Store seemed to tremble. Dollette stepped onstage and embraced him. He sure was a star here, whoever he was. Dollette announced a short intermission, the chance for people to get another drink, and the lights came up. Suddenly, the crowd was revealed to one another, friends greeted each other, people began to mingle. Martina looked around her, searching for the face she imagined Deeanna to have – a female Elvis, he’d described her as – but she saw no one who might fit that image.
There were still plenty of eyes directed her way – or Sigourney’s way – but less so than at first. She turned to Gil, whose face was an odd sickly yellow pink in the house lights, but his eyes were gleaming with a delighted boyish look that told her just how much fun he was having. She couldn’t help but laugh a little, so glad to see her cancer buddy enjoying himself so. And if truth be told, so too was she. She laughed aloud.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Your face, lobster man.’ And she was about to ask him if his fictional creation, the wild Deeanna, was here in reality when Dollette and The Entertainer approached their table. Up close, the singer looked much older than under the stage lights, at least old enough to be her father, his thinning hair coiffed to maximum volume, his skin stretched as if much work had been done, and stage make-up carefully applied.
‘Raymond,’ she said. ‘These are the people I told you about. This is Martina,’ – she seemed to wink at him as she said this – ‘And this is the writer, Gilbert Johnson.’
‘A pleasure, I’m sure,’ the grinning star said. ‘When Dollette here told me you were in town, I wanted to meet you right away. Drove up today. I’m a canyon boy, you see, though I ain’t lived here for a long time. But I got songs, songs about it. Been writing about it all my life. You heard some just there.’ He flicked his thumb at the stage behind his shoulder.
Gil was staring at the singer, smiling, his pink swollen skin in sharp contrast to the taut tan facing him. ‘Great!’ he said. ‘We really enjoyed your set.’
‘You did?’ He was looking right at ‘Martina’, but obviously seeing Sigourney. ‘That’s great. You know, if you need a song written special, I can do that. I done film work before.’
Martina sighed, turned her eyes to the ceiling.
“‘Ballad of Jimmy Lyle’ has a ring to it, I was thinking,” he added.
She was about to try to tell the singer to stop when she glanced at Gil and saw his grin. ‘Sounds great, Ray,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘Why not?’ Gil added. ‘Sigourney’ shot him with a glance.
Dollette laughed, not a Ms Parton sound at all, but her own nervous girlish giggle. ‘I just knew you’d get along. Ray here is someone we’re very proud of. He’s written songs for all kinds of singers. Lots of hits, haven’t you, Ray?’
‘Sure. Listen, how about this,’ he said, and his yodel-voice sang out – Jimmy Lyle, Jimmy Lyle, his life was one great trial, but he just kept right on goin till the end… That’s what came to me driving up. Little refrain.’
‘Great!’ Gil said again, smiling. Martina just sighed and shook her head, and turned away. Over her shoulder, she heard Raymond ask if she was okay. She nodded towards the washroom, and left them talking. A little group of guys were on the threshold at the back door, some of them smoking, as she passed. One of them she recognised as a tree-planter from the inn. She smiled at him as she passed. ‘Na, that’s not her,’ she heard him say, behind her. She looked straight at him, said, ‘Thank you.’ But as she carried on down the corridor towards the washroom sign, she heard another voice say. ‘Yes, it is. She just don’t want you to know, dood.’
She pushed open the door to the washroom, to see the pinkest room she had ever encountered. Dollette’s personality had been expressed in full. Everything bar the mirror and the faucets were a shade of the hostess’s favourite colour. Above the long mirror, a row of theatrical bulbs shone incandescence over the small space.
The single cubicle door was locked so she waited, studying her face in the mirror. It was true, she did look a little bit like Sigourney Weaver, particularly in profile. Particularly the left side. But how a whole town could convince itself she really was a film star baffled her. They must really want some drama in their lives.
As she stood there, gazing into her own reflection curiously, in the mirror behind her another woman appeared. Maybe she did look a little like a female Elvis, or a female Johnny Cash. Or was it Joan Baez she reminded her of? She sure looked like someone. She was a slightly bizarre sight, here in Dollette’s shrine to the full blush of pink femininity. Her strong face, dark complexion and such jet black hair combined with such a determined stare, contrasted to the pink of the white woman, the white pink, the lobster skin of the alien, that foolish traveller she had adopted, the walking Scotsman. And there was strength in her shoulders. But when she turned there was nothing but a feeling, a fleeting figure passing and the cubicle was empty. Only a closing door to see. If someone had been there, they had left. She sat down on the pink padded chair in the pink washroom, her mind a mess. Who was she, after all, to be here now in this strange place? It was another Canada up here, and she did not belong.
Back in the room, she saw the woman from the washroom talking with Dollette on the stage. As she crossed to her seat, Dollette stepped up to the mike.
‘Now folks, you all know we like to encourage new talent up here at The Falls, and next we got a treat for you. She’s a Falls girl who’s been away a long time, down in the city, but now she’s come home again. And she’s got a song for you, one you all know. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for one of our own, Miss Dee Anne.’
As she sat down next to him. Gil said, ‘It’s her. The native woman I saw.’
‘First Nations,’ she corrected. ‘And I know,’ she replied. ‘I saw her too. Just now. In the washroom.’
The band played the intro, the crowd murmured recognition. They knew she was going to be a country girl again.
‘Buffy Saint Marie,’ Gil said approvingly.
‘Really?’ she said, ironically, but he missed the tone.
‘Yes, she’s Cree. Adopted by a white family, then discovered her native roots when she was older.’
Martina smiled. ‘Mansplaining,’ she said, to the air in front of her, then winked at him. ‘In fact, white mansplaining,’
Gil’s pink face looked puzzled, then he caught on. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I got you.’
‘Sshh,’ she hissed. ‘I want to hear her.’
The intro over, she began to sing. Her voice was not perfect, but it was strong and for the first time that night there was a real passion, not mere pastiche, in the sound that emanated from the stage. The crowd felt it, they responded, wanted to join in, to help her hit the high notes, as they became her chorus, singing along to a song they all knew well. Even the band seemed better, rising to the challenge as if thrilled to be part of the moment.
‘Wow,’ Gil breathed as she turned from the mike and, the spell broken, the band stumbled towards unrehearsed conclusion. Martina simply sat there staring at the singer, a faint smile on her face. The moment of triumph was brief. Dollette came to the mike, applauding daintily, her Stetson oddly squint above her blonde perm wig. But the singer wasn’t done, she wanted the mike and wrested it from Dollette’s surprised grasp. Confused words echoed as both spoke at once, but the audience heard the hostess say, ‘No, the band don’t know that,’ quite clearly even without amplification. The singer ignored her and began unaccompanied, but Dollette unplugged the mike after a few words. For a moment they stared at each other, then the singer stepped off the front of the little stage and stormed out the door, bumping into chairs and tables as she went.
Gil turned to Martina, to make some comment, but she was already getting up, following the runaway’s steps towards the door, slower and more elegantly. People looked on, surprised, as if wondering what bond could exist between them. A couple glowered at Gil, as if he might have an answer, but all he could do was shrug.
Outside, the singer was standing on the edge of the deck, her back to the door, the dark gloss of her hair fringed silver by the arclight above. Martina shut the door behind her and walked slowly across the wooden planks, her shoes clicking out a rhythm, until she stood alongside her. The woman didn’t move to acknowledge her, she seemed lost in her own mind. In front of them, but hidden from view, was the great river, its constant rush loud in the evening’s silence. Along the old bridge a string of lights flickered, as if responding to the motion below, or the breeze it created.
‘You sang well,’ Martina said, after a while.
No response.
‘What happened in there?’ she asked.
Finally the statue moved. ‘I know who you are,’ she said.
‘Do you? I’m not so sure I do right now.’
‘You want to make a movie about that Scotsman, the one who helped the BC chiefs a hundred years back.’
Martina laughed softly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s just a rumour.’
‘I met him. Your scriptwriter. I know.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘You’re pretending not to be who you really are, the two of you. But everybody knows. It’s a waste of time. And a bad idea.’
