Chapter 13

    "To know simple things defectively is not to know them at all."

    Thinking back, now, to his last night with his parents, Paul found his father's words profoundly relevant to the situation that had so swiftly emerged with his first day in Blackfish Bay. The words were not really Angus Cameron's originally, any more than they had been his grandfather's, having come first from the mouth of Aristotle, and passed along through Thomas Aquinas, but Philippe, in his exhaustive researches into keyboard technique, had certainly made them his own, and in a fashion Aristotle never had an opportunity for, in piano studies.

    Paul had been sitting with Angus on the patio, where they had all eaten dinner under the summer canopy. Maman and Rachel were attending to the dishes in the kitchen. The two men sipped alternately at their coffee and their brandies, enjoying the leisure to enjoy the significance of their last evening together before Paul went off for the autumn school term. It would be a surprise if they saw him again before Christmas, even though Saint Bridgit's was only a modest bus ride and a ferry trip away. He was a most devoted son, but he was also an expert at finding himself intensely useful wherever he happened to be staying. And a town with an economy based on the fishing and lumbering industries had far more need of cultural input than the Cameron household.

    The conversation leading up to Aristotle had begun with Angus asking him about his intuitions over actually teaching music, outside the classroom, that is. After all, he would have a fair amount of time on his hands. Paul was not only single, but unattached to any young ladies other than casual friends. (The wiser of whom always had to ponder, when their hearts started to get fluttery, that he might just up and betake himself to a seminary. When he wasn't talking art, as he was very good at, he was talking theology, and when he wasn't talking either of those he readily brought up the subject of Gregorian chant, and how no one really understood a musical instrument until he could play all the modes on it.
    And sometimes he acted. Because he had suspected that he might teach for a few years before he could make a name as a painter, he had felt obligated to get up good speech habits by trodding the boards at UBC, and then found that he liked acting very much and was considered good at it. He had also been good at sketching his fellow actors and others about the stage and wings as he sat out the action.)

    "I'm sure it will come up. A man is what he is, and the isness simply overflows, especially in this family. But I don't think you need worry that I'll try to do too much. Both Maman and Gisela have raised the cautionary finger, followed with the appropriate lecture about overextending myself and getting sick. Besides, there's good fishing over there. No, the school comes first, and then the easel when I can get the time and everything else will have to fall into place in its own way. I have a sense that I'll be able to maintain a good balance. But it is nice to be able to pass on Grandpere's discoveries, and thus keep people interested and even passionate about the keyboard. Real pianists are rare and real teachers perhaps even rarer." He grinned. "So to some extent, I won't be able to help myself if I come upon a dabbler in distress."

    "Yes," said Angus. "It's hard to keep yourself from helping when you know what to do with the problem." He played little piano himself, but he had long understood his father-in-law's insights into the heart of the pursuit, and better than most other bystanders because he had been trained as a doctor, thus a physiologist and an authority on the complex factors of the nervous systems and their relationship with the learning process, and he had always taken much satisfaction in how exceptionally useful his wife was as a teacher: the children often ecstatic at their own prowess; the recovered adults mightily relieved, often tearfully rejoicing with the certainty of so gracefully escaping the old frustrations of such unscientific methods as they had been used to, especially when they were mothers suddenly confident in a system they could so easily show their children. Because Philippe had understood, after good deal of trial and error, so much of it provided by the standard music literature of his day, how to comprehend the simple things thoroughly.

    What could be simpler than numbers? What could be simpler than the origins of piano fingering, the organized employment of the inside three digits only? Or, for starters, even less? Not that the student remained there, of course, but charging in with all five fingers in each hand really was a fool's errand for a beginner trying to make beginner's music, and even that of a journeyman to some degree, especially as real five finger exercises had such limited and partial need of written music, and were therefore much more efficiently learned without it.

    Paul had trained to understand this so thoroughly and so easily taught it to anyone interested - even on a piano aboard one of the biggest tugs on the coast, when he had sailed on it - that it was often wondered if he would become a professional teacher. But his interests were too broad, and he had a great fondness for children in need of learning everything properly, so they would understand the order of the universe and the intelligence sent to save it. So he suspected to find an ear or two, eventually, in Blackfish Bay.                                                                                                                                           
  
     "It's comforting to know you'll be working for a good priest," Angus had said. "I look forward to meeting him when I drive you over tomorrow." This was not the first time his father had said this.
   
    There are some Catholics who make it their business to know all about priests spread over a large area around them, as if such curiosity had something to do with getting into Heaven, or even represented the perfect attitude for a layman, but Angus was not one of them: he related to intensely to the people he actually knew, clerical, religious, or laity, not the least of which were his own students, that he had no time for broader acquaintance. But he had inquired when Paul landed his post - Angus had his sources - and learned that Paul's boss would be a priest he actually had heard of as a man who had been able to create a Catholic school in a place where it had been held to be impossible.

    "You're tough," Angus had gone on, "and I doubt that a bad priest could shake your faith, but it's nice to know you won't be working for a fool and have your labours contradicted. We all know that this can happen, as various family legends can attest to. McKeon might even be able to make something interesting out of your musical ability, and perhaps with less trouble than the priests here made for you mother. Good men, but thick-headed, working-class Canadians who took a lot of teaching to straighten out. Is there anything more ridiculous than a priest who won't understand the Chant, and its place in the hearts of the people? No, but there are lots of them, especially when they're Irish, and it will be some time before the norms of Pius X work their way into every parish. Not that the priests are entirely to blame. The taste of the people is always a factor. The Vatican Council can deliberate and publish edicts as much as it likes, and should, but the people will act in their own way. And the bishops will act in their own way. We're lucky here to have the Abbey, as well as your mother. That way the real core of the Church's music has a chance. The reality of a rock wall is that it gives off an echo."

    "Hah!' said Paul. "The humble husband! When Maman had Jacob and Michael and Nicholas Taylor all in one yoke, I rather think it was the Abbey that was the echo, because those three could rouse the people so well. And that happened even before Nick showed up. Papa, be reasonable. Nobody in the world has ever taught diction like Philippe. Singers come away from him sounding like a great squadron of bombers. The monks know how to pray, but only Philippe knows how to teach singing like the angels know it. And, God bless us, his eldest daughter was a most attentive student. Not everyone listens, of course. Sloth has so many friends, especially in Church circles. But, ah, when they do listen!
Guido D'Arezzo rides again! In one year, Nick and Cassandra have turned around the cathedral in Sterling! Bishop Schwartz thinks he's back in Muenster, or maybe Toronto. Or better, because it's not just the choir loft that functions as it should. Nick is too much of a democrat for that. The people in the pews sing, and well. Very well."

    Angus had grinned. "And this is what you hope to achieve also in Blackfish Bay?"

    "To a degree, I suppose. I don't have a Cassandra, of course."

    "But you do have a voice."

    "Yes, to the disadvantage of my painting."

    "But not to the disadvantage of the children or the parish liturgy."

    "Hopefully. But also to the disadvantage of my painting."

    "Are you having second thoughts? You want to stay in the city and follow Van Gogh?"

    "No, no. I would miss the other stuff. That's the strange thing: I've rarely been able to stand by an easel all day. I don't really like the forced pace of getting up an exhibition, whereas other artists I know thrive on it. And I care very much about the liturgy, and I discovered that I cared very much about the children. It was very helpful that Sister fell ill. Nothing seemed more natural to me than that I should find myself in a classroom."