Robertson Davies: A pat on the head, and a scowl

That time I met the Great Canadian Man of Letters, and that other time I met him

 

I met Robertson Davies twice: once when I was 10 years old, and again when I was about 25. I don’t remember the first time, but I understand my presence helped delight him; our second encounter was less pleasant, and I was complicit in a process that earned his scorn.

    In December, 1965, our Grade 5 teacher, Miss Ugolini, arranged to take our class on a filed trip to experience a performance of the opera “The Love for Three Oranges,” by Carlo Gozzi and Sergei Prokofiev. My mother volunteered as one of a handful of parents who would tag along to help herd the 30 or so children safely onto the bus, across streets and into our theatre seats, and generally keep us out of trouble. That meant I would spend the afternoon under the scrutiny of both my mother and my teacher. 

    On the appointed day, we boarded a chartered school bus that shuttled us from Cloverdale Public School, in the suburban utopia of Etobicoke, to the Edward Johnson Building, a recital hall set amid the exotic urban bustle of downtown Toronto.

    The real work for my Mum and her fellow parent volunteers came when we got downtown and, for some reason, had to walk a few blocks and cross busy intersections in order to reach our destination. The teacher and the mothers had to make sure we stayed together as a group and that we all got across the street while the light was green. When we crossed at the corner of Bay St. and Bloor St. W., as my mother recalled later, we created a bit of a log-jam on the other side, where we swarmed a bearded man in a flat-brim hat and a black overcoat. The man looked around at the sea of rosy-cheeked faces that surrounded him, raised his hands as if overwhelmed with delight, and then reached over and patted the nearest head, which happened to be mine.

    Fortunately, my mother, an avid reader, recognized the jovial stranger as Davies himself. She said later, with some irony, that the reason I became a writer was that Robertson Davies had patted me on the head.

    Fifteen years later, my nascent writing career had stalled after a few articles in a music magazine for which I was not paid. For a living I toiled as a cashier’s assistant in the Customs International Mail Unit, which collected taxes payable on commercial and personal goods entering the country by post. Part of my job was to stamp “Duty Paid” on the documents after the customer had settled with the cashier. 

    One day that giant of literature came into my place of work to pick up a parcel. By then I had read the Deptford and Salterton trilogies with relish, a literary journey that had begun when my parents gave me a copy of Leaven of Malice for Christmas when I was a teenager. I, of course, was the only one in the office who recognized Davies.

    He was accompanied by his wife, Brenda, and together they were, by then (1980), a slow-moving, distinguished-looking elderly couple. The cashier (a guy a couple of years older than me who once proudly declared that he hadn’t read as much as a newspaper article in his life) collected Davies’ money, rang the transaction through the cash register and passed the documents to me to stamp. I can’t remember what was in his parcel (it would have been noted on the document) but I recall it wasn’t anything literary or magical, such as rare books or vintage theatrical masks. It was something ordinary, like shoes or gloves, but expensive enough to trigger import duty and federal sales tax. Which probably explained Davies’ sour mood.

    As I stamped his papers my mind raced for something to say, to, at best, demonstrate a witty familiarity with his work, or, at least, show that I recognized him (“I hear Parlabane is back!” “A tax bill can be like a snowball to the back of the head!”). But all I could come up with was “Hello Mr. Davies!” 

    He didn’t answer. He looked down at the receipt I had handed him and shook his head, then looked up at me with penetrating distain. 

    I imagined he recognized me from our first encounter. I had such high hopes for you, he seemed to say. And now look at you! A customs clerk! A tax collector!

    The man who had patted my head at 10 and scowled at me at 25 stowed his receipt in his inside coat pocket, tucked his parcel under his arm and left.