Until I Find You

"But he taught at the school--however briefly--when you were teaching there, too," Jack reminded her. "You knew him, didn't you, Caroline?"

Jack and Miss Wurtz were in a coffee shop on the corner of Lonsdale and Spadina. It was the weekend after Alice had died. Caroline was dressed, as he'd never seen her, in blue jeans and a man's flannel shirt; Jack didn't think she was wearing a bra. Nevertheless, she was absolutely stunning for a woman in her fifties--she was radiant, even glowing. Those high cheekbones, her fine jaw cut like crystal, the peachlike blush to her skin--Miss Wurtz was a knockout. She sighed again and ran her long fingers through her wavy hair, which was now completely gray but still lustrous; her hair had the sheen of slate in sunlight.

"Yes, Jack--if you must know--I knew him," Caroline said. Staring down at the coffee in her cup, she added softly: "William gave me some of my favorite clothes. He had an eye for women's clothes. They may be a bit old-fashioned by today's standards, but they're still my favorites, Jack."

Naturally, Emma had spotted the clothes. Caroline saw that Jack couldn't speak; she reached across the small cafe table and touched his face. "He was not just my lover--he was my only lover," Miss Wurtz told him. "Well, it didn't last," she said, almost cheerfully. "Too many other women wanted William--women and girls," Caroline added, laughing. Jack was surprised that she sounded more amused than bothered by the thought--maybe because it was so long after the fact. "Your father was far more committed to his music than to our fair sex, Jack," she went on. "And if you ever heard him play," Miss Wurtz whispered, taking Jack's hands in hers. "Well, it suffices to say--no wonder he was more engaged by his music than by us!"

No wonder Jack had dressed The Wurtz in mail-order underwear in his dreams! Who could resist the temptation to give her clothes? His father hadn't resisted her!

Jack swallowed his coffee with unusual difficulty. "Did my mom know?" he asked Caroline.

"Your mother knew that William liked the way I spoke. That's all she knew," Miss Wurtz told him. "William must have said something to Alice about my voice--my diction, my enunciation. He used to tell me, admiringly, that I didn't have an accent."

"So it was Mom's idea--to have you teach her how to talk?" Jack asked. "I thought it was Mrs. Wicksteed who wanted her to lose the Scottish accent."

"Goodness, no!" Caroline said, with a laugh. "Mrs. Wicksteed was such an old-school Canadian--she loved a Scottish accent!"

"But you must have known about the girls--I mean the boarders, Caroline."

"Oh, who didn't know about those silly girls!" Miss Wurtz exclaimed. "You know boarders, Jack. If they could get pregnant all by themselves, they'd probably try it."

"But he left you, too, didn't he?" Jack asked her. "You don't sound as if you hate him."

"I never expected him to stay, Jack. Of course I don't hate him! William was one of those pleasures every woman wants to have, at least once in her lifetime. With all due respect to Alice, Jack, you have to be deluded to imagine you might keep a man like that. Especially at his age at that time--he was so young!"

Jack loo

ked at Caroline Wurtz with everything he had lost visibly written on his face--the way he must have looked when his mother said, "Who knows what sort of father he would have been, Jack? With a man like that," Alice had said, with disgust, "you can never be sure." But Miss Wurtz had used the exact same phrase--a man like that--with enduring affection!

"If you'd been my mother," he told Caroline, "I would have had a father. At least I would have occasionally seen him."

"I haven't heard a word from him, or about him, in years," Miss Wurtz told Jack. "But that doesn't mean you can't find him."

"He may be dead, Caroline. Mom is."

The Wurtz leaned across the cafe table and grabbed hold of Jack's left ear; it was as if she were Mrs. McQuat and he still in grade three, about to be taken to the chapel by The Gray Ghost.

"You faithless boy!" she said. "If William were dead, my heart would have stopped! The day he dies, my breasts will shrivel to the size of raisins in my sleep--or I'll turn into linoleum or something!"

Linoleum? Jack wondered. (The poor woman had been at St. Hilda's too long.) His ear, which she still held, was throbbing. Suddenly Miss Wurtz let him go; she laughed at herself like a young girl. "Well, don't I sound like a brainless boarder!" Caroline exclaimed. "You faithless boy," she said to Jack again--this time fondly. "Go find him!"

"Tell me the context, baby cakes," Emma used to say. "Everything comes with a context."

That Saturday in March--it was 1998, and March in Toronto is not reliable motorcycle weather--Jack walked to the circular driveway at the corner of Pickthall and Hutchings Hill Road, where he had once stood holding his mother's hand in a sea of girls.

The motorcycles, their engines off, were parked in a row--with something less than military precision. The day was overcast, there was a raw chill in the air, and the gas tanks of the motorcycles were beaded and glistening in the descending mist--a fine drizzle. In that weather, Jack didn't take the time to count them, but there were about thirty motorcycles--their license plates indicating how far some of their riders had traveled.

North Dakota Dan had driven all the way from Bismarck; he'd hooked up with Lucky Pierre at Twin Cities Tattoo in Minneapolis, and they rode together down to Madison, Wisconsin, where Badger Schultz and his wife, Little Chicken Wing, were waiting. They'd picked up the Fronhofer brothers at Windy City Tattoo in Chicago, and rode together into Michigan; they hit snow in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, but they still made it to East Lansing in time to have a party with Flipper Volkmann at Spartan Tattoo. The next morning, they rode with Flipper to Ann Arbor, where Wolverine Wally joined them. They had some understandable difficulty clearing Canadian customs, but they picked up the 401 in Windsor and rode through the rain to Kitchener and Guelph, where they met a couple of Ontario tattoo artists Jack had never heard of. (He still couldn't remember their names.)

There were riders heading north from Louisville, Kentucky, and three cities in Ohio, too. Joe Ink from Tiger Skin Tattoo in Cincinnati, and the Skretkowicz sisters from Columbus--one of whom was the ex-wife of Flattop Tom, who joined up with the sisters in Cleveland.

The contingent from Pennsylvania, too numerous to name, included notables in the tattoo world from Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Allentown, and Scranton--and Night-Shift Mike, from Sailors' Friend Tattoo, rode the long way north from Norfolk, Virginia. There were motorcycles in the circular St. Hilda's driveway with license plates from Maryland and Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey, too.

From the voices raised in song--one could hear them booming from the chapel, the male voices seeming to challenge the organ and overwhelming the boarders' choir--Jack knew that Miss Wurtz hadn't been idle. She'd ushered the bikers inside and made them comfortable at the rehearsal. Hot coffee would soon be available in the gym, Miss Wurtz had told them, which wasn't quite true--not soon, anyway.

"But how many of you know 'God Save the Queen'?" The Wurtz had asked them. To the bikers' uncomprehending silence, Caroline had said: "Well, I thought so! It seems you could benefit from a little practice."

By the time Jack got to St. Hilda's, she had them singing. Most of the tattoo artists didn't know which queen they were singing to save--but it was for Daughter Alice, which is why they'd come, and the sound of their voices seemed to warm them. They stood dripping in their wet leathers; the smell of the road, oil and exhaust, mixed with the smell of their well-worn gear, their wind-blown beards, their helmet-matted hair. Thrilled, the boarders' choir faced them from the safety of the altar. The girls' voices sounded like those of children among the bikers, who were mostly men.