Still Hunting

Martin Hunter

Description

Picking up where his first memoir, Young Hunting, left off, Martin Hunter writes of his return to Toronto in the 1960s. He marries his teenage sweetheart, goes to work for the family paper company, fathers three children and settles into a bourgeois lifestyle. But not for long. His flamboyant brother-in-law moves in with his gay lover and the Swinging Sixties arrive in Rosedale with wild parties.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770904033
• Langue: English

Extrait

STILL HUNTING
a memoir
MARTIN HUNTER
ECW PRESS



This memoir is dedicated to all the actors, child, student, amateur, and professional with whom it has been my privilege and pleasure to work in the past seventy years. To all of you, as the French say, merde .
Once again I claim the licence of a storyteller who has told most of these tales many times. This is the way I remember it.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The cover drawing was done many years ago by my lifelong friend Richard Williams. It is the way I looked during the period covered by this book.
I am grateful for the advice and encouragement of several early readers of parts of this manuscript: Jim Bartley, Stan Bevington, Ramsay Derry, Susan Walker, and especially my editor Michael Holmes.
Pictures of many of the stage productions mentioned in this memoir can be viewed at martinhunter.org.



Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la diritta via era smarrita.
— Dante, Inferno



DANCING IN THE DARK
It was our first trip anywhere since we were married. I thought of London and Paris but Judy said she wanted sun, the hotter the better. She asked a friend who had grown up in Trinidad where we should go and her friend, who considered herself something of an authority on exotic holiday destinations, suggested a small island we had never heard of, an island visited by a few discerning travellers for its coral reefs, deserted palm-fringed beaches, and the opportunity to eat fresh mangoes and papaya, which in those days were not available in North American supermarkets. It sounded perfect. Judy called a tourist agent to book a flight and make a hotel reservation. With her friend’s only-too-willing participation, she chose two bright new bathing suits and a backless dancing dress, and we took off.
We changed planes in Barbados, then landed at an airport so tiny, we didn’t see it till we were on the ground. A gangling black man who seemed to know our names and destination scooped up our bags and sauntered towards a dilapidated taxi. We got in and he tied the door to the frame with a piece of rope. He drove along the bumpy road at a dizzying speed, steering with one elbow and honking at every curve.
On our right was the sea, great waves rolling up across the white sand. Palm trees towered above, just as Judy’s friend had promised. The scarlet disc of the sun went down behind them at an alarming rate. In mere minutes, the sky changed from blood to ink. It was completely dark by the time we reached the hotel. A small parade of grinning black boys took our bags and led us to a grass-thatched hut on the beach. We fell on the bed and lay together holding hands, breathing in the moist tropical air and listening to the churring of tree frogs.
Four months earlier, Judy had produced our third child in three and a half years. Our domestic life was dominated by feeding times, diapers, and visits to the pediatrician, who scolded me for not helping my wife. “Listen,” I said, “I do everything for those kids except suckle them at my own breast.”
I was working as a junior in my father’s office. I was only home eight or nine hours out of the twenty-four. My weight dipped below one hundred and fifty for the first time since I was fifteen. Judy was so thin she had to give up nursing young Guy. Her doctor told her she should either spend a month in a convalescent hospital or run away to a desert island. I had a large overdraft, and the idea of leaving the chondroplastic dwarf who currently served as our mother’s helper in charge of the kids was unthinkable. (She had been hired by my father-in-law to help out over Christmas, the only caregiver the agency had available. They told us we were lucky to get her.) Suddenly a friend’s miscarriage freed up a Scottish housekeeper, who agreed to come to us for three weeks. My father had made a bundle on a mining stock and gave us a thousand dollars. This combination of circumstances obviously meant we were intended to have a holiday. And here we were.
We showered and changed. Still holding hands, we walked through scented darkness towards the glimmering lights of the hotel terrace. Men in white jackets and women in floating, flowery prints clustered around the bar, sipping drinks and exchanging rippling laughs provoked by what I imagined to be witty repartee. I expected Noel Coward to put in an appearance at any moment.
A languid, deeply tanned man with thinning blond hair greeted us without taking his hands from the keys of a white piano on which he was tinkling “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” He smiled confidently and drawled, “Hi, I’m Andy Graham. Glad you could join us. You’re going to have a great time here. You’re going to learn how to spree.”
“Spree?”
“Native lingo for partying.”
He nodded and a huge black man in a brilliant red jacket ambled towards us with two pinkish-coloured drinks in tall, sweating glasses. “Welcome, sir, I be call Steadroy. I gonna look after you.” His smile stretched beyond the bounds of probability. “How you are this evenin’, sir?”
“Fine, Steadroy, how are you?”
“I be any better, sir, I think I have to go see de doctor.” Steadroy retired, still grinning. It occurred to me that the repartee practiced on the island might not quite be up to Noel Coward’s standards.
A short, handsome man with a splendid moustache and a cultivated British accent came over and introduced himself as Tony Smith. He informed us he was here on his honeymoon. “My third, as a matter of fact. Best so far. Brought along my mother-in-law. She and Melissa go shopping together so I can get in some tennis. Do you play?”
“My game’s pretty rusty.”
“Bridge?”
“Not really.”
“Ah well.” He shrugged his shapely eyebrows in gallant resignation. “Can I get you the other half? What about a decent drink? Whisky? They don’t really know how to do martinis here.”
“You know the island pretty well?”
“I know the Caribbean. My mother’s husband has a place in Barbados. Unfortunately, his son wants it. Anyway, there are too many goddamned English in Barbados.”
“You don’t care for your countrymen?”
“I’m a New Yorker.”
“I thought from your accent —”
“You think all New Yorkers talk like Harry the Horse, I suppose. I went to Groton.” I was used to being put in my place by Englishmen, but upper-class American snobbery was new to me. “Frankly, this trip is an experiment. If we find enough entertaining people, we might consider buying a piece of land here. We’d have to train our own servants, but in the long run that’s an advantage. Ah, here’s Melissa.”
Melissa had huge green eyes, heavy, serene brows and thick, dark hair in a plait that reached below her waist. It was no surprise to learn she was a model and had been photographed by Avedon. She let Tony kiss her and light her cigarette. He nibbled on her ear. She turned and blew smoke in his face.
Melissa’s mother turned out to be a rather fierce Montreal matron, whom Tony addressed as “Mrs. D.” She immediately began to quiz us about our acquaintance in Toronto. She was somewhat appeased to learn Judy had gone to school with the sister of her daughter’s husband.
“Jenny seems to like Toronto. And I go there to visit her and a few old friends, Connie Matthews and Polly Armstrong. I sometimes feel really I’ve been rather unfair to the place. Then I walk along Bloor Street and I think: this just isn’t a real city and that’s all about it.”
Tony asked us to join them and we all sat at a round table decorated with hibiscus blossoms. There was fish served with rice and fried plantain. “In Barbados they call this coolie food,” said Tony.
“I prefer it now that they’ve sent their European chef home for the summer. All those failed French sauces were getting me down.”
“What do you think, Mel? You happy with a diet of rice and peas?” Melissa had taken one bite, then lit a cigarette. After two puffs, she ground her butt into the mound of rice on her plate and let out a long sigh. A small band of shy-looking blacks dressed in country clothes had started to play island music: calypso with a slightly accentuated beat. Melissa started to move her shoulders languorously. She narrowed her eyes at Tony.
“Just let me finish my fish, do you mind?” Melissa’s shoulders continued to move. Tony put his fork down and said, “Oh, very well.” They stood facing each other on the dance floor, Melissa half a head taller than her husband. He closed in to take her in his arms and they began to move together smoothly, economically, but with no hint of passionate commitment.
“They are pretty, aren’t they?” said Mrs. D. “I wonder how long they’ve got?” She put a cigarette in a tortoise-shell holder and turned to me for a light. “I don’t know why they got married. Everyone knows marriage is passé. In another five years it’ll be completely gone. You’ll never hear the word again.”
On a sudden whim I asked her to dance. “My dear boy, aren’t you gal lant? Well, I can’t imagine when I’ll have another opportunity like this.”
She took up a position in my outstretched arms and followed my lead with unexpected grace, anticipating my every move intuitively, daring me to be inventive, to surprise her. What I had expected to be a perfunctory courtesy turned into a challenge. I slid into a sort of modified tango step and she quickly picked up the clues, alternating between long, gliding steps and sudden hesitations. At the end of the song, two or three people applauded. Mrs. D. smiled in acknowledgement, her lips turned down at the corners like a female Somerset Maugham.
“I think we’d better call it quits while we’re ahead, don’t you?”
I led her back to the table where Judy was waiting alone. “Your husband’s really not bad. Most young men don’t know how to dance at all.”
“You inspired me. You must have been fabulous in the ’30s.”
“