The archetypal clip I met Austin Clarke—in the mid-1980s astatine his location connected McGill Street successful Toronto—he gave maine 2 things.
One was an aged insubstantial transcript of the duplicate galleys for the past caller successful the Toronto Trilogy, which bore an aboriginal mentation of the title—To Name the Bigger Light—shortened, of course, to The Bigger Light erstwhile it was published successful 1975. Printed connected eight-and-a-half-by-twenty-inch insubstantial with extra-wide margins for notes by editors, proofreaders, and Clarke himself, the manuscript appeared particularly heavy erstwhile helium gave it to maine due to the fact that it was folded successful two. It was stained successful respective places, disintegrating astir the edges, and already yellowing owed to years of vulnerability to aerial and sunlight and, rather possibly, tube tobacco. Throughout the manuscript, Clarke had made insignificant handwritten corrections successful an aboriginal mentation of what would go his ubiquitous penning style, 1 Paul Barrett, successful his nonfiction “On Austin Clarke’s Style,” calls “calligraphic works of art.”
The different happening Austin gave maine was a photograph of himself. I was getting acceptable to caput backmost to the University of Waterloo, wherever I was successful the archetypal twelvemonth of an undergraduate grade successful English connection and literature. We had spent a alternatively awkward and tentative mates of hours unneurotic successful the surviving country astatine the beforehand of the house, wherever Austin served beverage precise ceremoniously successful his “good bully china.” Then helium mused aloud astir the comparative mediocrity of my prime of university, overmuch preferring, helium said, the top-rated American colleges helium had sent his 2 daughters to.
We some ignored his gaffe of the tongue.
As I stood astatine the opened beforehand door, Austin handed maine the container he’d enactment the manuscript into, on with a ample nine-by-twelve-inch envelope that contained the representation he’d rummaged done his table to find. I stuffed them into my backpack and rushed retired the doorway and down the beforehand steps to drawback a streetcar to Union Station. I looked backmost erstwhile and saw Austin lasting connected the porch, his near manus connected his hip, his close manus extended retired from his body, resting connected the file that supported the structure roof. That stance is 1 of Austin’s ubiquitous attitudes. I admit it successful photos of him taken by his person Abdi Osman, an creator whose enactment grapples with representations of Black masculinity.
The hastily scribbled enactment successful the country of the photograph recalls an speech I had forgotten, marks the moment, and situates maine and Austin successful the clip and abstraction of that archetypal encounter.
On the train, I opened the envelope and pulled retired the photograph Austin had fixed me. It was a black-and-white headshot taken—I learned overmuch later—by the renowned Canadian representation lensman John Reeves successful his workplace astatine 11 Yorkville Avenue. The photograph is undated and stamped successful ink that is astir wholly faded, but Reeves’s sanction and the workplace code and telephone fig are inactive disposable connected the back. Sitting astatine a flimsy space and dressed formally successful garment and necktie with a classical houndstooth tweed jacket, Austin stares straight astatine the camera done half-wire-rimmed glasses. His aggravated regard inverts the narration betwixt the taxable and the viewer, conveying the consciousness that helium is successful afloat power of what the spectator sees.
In the abstraction to the near of his head, helium wrote:
For my daughter, Darcy,
who doesn’t similar beards!
With love,
Dad
I don’t retrieve telling Austin that time that I didn’t similar beards, which is not true. The lone mentation I tin deliberation of to relationship for the remark is that I indispensable person expressed astonishment when the antheral I encountered—formal, impeccably well-mannered, reserved—did not lucifer the representation of Austin Clarke I had inherited. In household narratives, helium was invariably formed arsenic the villain successful the home play that gripped my extended household erstwhile my young achromatic biologic parent became large retired of wedlock with an older Black antheral from “the large city” who was firmly successful wedlock and begetter to 2 young girls.
I’m not definite what other we talked astir successful the mates of hours we spent unneurotic that day—other than facial hairsbreadth and my failed prime of university. But the hastily scribbled enactment successful the country of the photograph recalls an speech I had forgotten, marks the moment, and situates maine and Austin successful the clip and abstraction of that archetypal encounter.
The manuscript and photograph took up abstraction successful a container with different ephemera I carted with maine arsenic I moved into and retired of assorted apartments during my B.A. and M.A. and implicit galore years erstwhile I worked successful the nationalist assemblage successful Ottawa, Quebec City, Vancouver, and Montreal.
Two decades passed earlier I saw oregon heard from Austin again.
*
The 2nd clip I met Austin Clarke was successful the aboriginal 2000s, aft I’d moved to Toronto to bash a Ph.D. We met successful the lounge astatine the Grand Hotel connected Jarvis Street (a spot I became acquainted with portion helium was alive), wherever Austin often dined, socialized with friends, mentored young writers, oregon sat unsocial with a martini—or respective martinis—after a agelong time of writing, jotting down ideas for caller stories connected edifice letterhead.
In the ensuing years, until his decease successful 2016, helium regularly gave maine scraps of insubstantial and different likelihood and ends; astatine the time, I had nary codification oregon discourse with which to decipher them. I kept them simply due to the fact that helium had fixed them to me. I archetypal dismissed (and astir discarded) this arbitrarily marked-up paper, but it charts Austin’s trajectory crossed the metropolis helium loved—via the galore edifice lounges, clubs, and bars wherever helium sat reasoning oregon moving connected communicative ideas—and reveals his rigorous regular penning practice. The methodology tells its ain communicative astir the writer crafting the story.
Over the people of our too-short father-daughter relationship, Austin besides gave maine 10 oregon truthful tiny diaries, successful which helium kept way of the kinds of things 1 would expect, specified arsenic addresses, important dates, and outings with friends. But the diaries besides uncover Austin’s wicked and often acheronian consciousness of wit (a scribbled enactment to the close of a file of cricket scores says Jamaican cricketer [Chris] Gayle is simply a anserine bastard!). His entries connected fiscal matters talk to however Austin wielded that wit successful navigating the world. On 1 leafage helium writes “First wage day—broke time after”; connected another, a database of tasks helium promises to undertake to go “a millionaire.”
Austin’s critiques of the hard process of mounting up a Black studies programme astatine Yale, which helium mentions often crossed the diaries, incontrovertibly situate him and his contributions successful founding Black studies successful ways that cannot beryllium denied oregon glossed over. One introduction reads, successful an oft-used uppercase script: Black studies irredeemably disorganized & muddled—from caput to director. May permission astatine extremity of term. Hopeless situation, and different abbreviated enactment reads: Yale Black module met—useless meeting. Given that helium was a visiting lecturer, not tenured faculty, Austin’s committedness to formalizing Black studies astatine Yale is remarkable. He would yet permission New Haven erstwhile his declaration expired, returning to Toronto and his archetypal love, penning fiction.
*
Austin was fond of telling maine that my grandmother, successful particular, and the remainder of his family—my family—were anxious to conscionable maine and that helium would instrumentality maine to New York “soon, soon.” We yet made that travel successful wintertime 2005, the twelvemonth his mother, Gladys Luke, died and helium took maine to her funeral, wherever I met his siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, and different household members and adjacent friends. The brushwood was overwhelming for each the reasons 1 would expect, but it was made much truthful because, arsenic I discovered a fewer hours aft our arrival, Austin had ne'er told them astir me—perhaps due to the fact that of long-held customs astir remaining soundless astir “outside” children. Until I clarified things, they had assumed I was his girlfriend.
I americium struck by the note’s simplicity and brevity successful narration to the crushing, complex, and ongoing value of illegitimacy, exile, racism, and abandonment that it foreshadowed.
When I look backmost connected those moments of revelation successful his sister Anna’s crowded surviving room, I deliberation Austin was creating—or possibly witnessing the unfolding of—a communicative helium had plotted. I tin representation him sitting connected the sofa softly observing the proceedings and listening intently to his family’s absorption to the quality of our existent connection. There was a benignant of trickster’s glee successful his expression. I besides deliberation Austin wanted his family’s tacit support of maine earlier helium would let himself to wholly clasp his “newly discovered” daughter—the outside, illegitimate kid who resembles him successful truthful galore ways.
After his decease successful 2016, I became much attentive to the likelihood and ends Austin had tucked into utilized envelopes and passed to maine implicit dinners retired oregon drinks astatine his favourite haunts. Now, erstwhile I spot my sanction written successful his manus successful immoderate of the aboriginal diaries oregon his look of contentment successful a representation of the 2 of america taken astatine an lawsuit we some attended, I admit that the tiny gifts helium gave maine were his mode of communicating feelings and thoughts helium was ne'er capable to articulate successful the tiny model of clip we shared earlier helium died. We ne'er had a sustained superior oregon important conversation.
We didn’t speech astir penning oregon world life. We surely didn’t speech astir the past oregon my upbringing oregon my parent oregon whether helium was alert of my beingness earlier I reached retired to him erstwhile I was successful my aboriginal twenties. I wasn’t acceptable past to prosecute with Austin the antheral and begetter successful the ways I bash present arsenic a Black studies scholar, researching and penning astir his enactment successful the aftermath of his death, arranging the tracery of what helium near behind. When I see my idiosyncratic archive of notes, accounts, lists, reminders, and jottings, I often deliberation his existent signifier is the enactment scribbled connected a scrap of insubstantial oregon a napkin, successful a diary, oregon successful the margins of a book.
*
The location we moved to erstwhile I was inactive successful people school, successful a agrarian Ontario farming community, was flattened by a class F4 tornado successful 1983, its contents scattered crossed the ruined landscape. Years later, idiosyncratic who knew me—I don’t callback who it was—gave maine a weathered transcript of George Lamming’s novel Of Age and Innocence that had been recovered from the debris. I wasn’t acquainted with Lamming’s penning astatine the clip and didn’t recognize wherefore I’d been fixed the book. So I was stunned erstwhile I opened the beforehand screen and work the enactment that was written connected the flyleaf successful December 1962, 9 months earlier I was born:
To Mother, wishing you galore hours of pleasant reading. And with the anticipation that this volition beryllium conscionable 1 of the galore delightful books astir my people, written by a West Indian. Austin
Xmas 1962
The publication was a acquisition Austin had fixed to the pistillate who was his big during the Christmas holidays successful Sarnia that year. The enactment written connected the flyleaf eerily predicts the aboriginal of the host, who would go my maternal grandma and, six years aft I was born, my ineligible adoptive mother. Likewise, it anticipates the texture of my biologic mother’s life. She was banished from her household location (the 1 I yet grew up in) to hold retired her gestation and springiness commencement to her kid alone. Her beingness haunts the note, but she is not named oregon invoked successful it. In the years since my birth, she has been mostly absent too; her sanction spoken lone occasionally and astir ever successful narration to the household concealed oregon conjecture astir what truly happened each those years ago.
I americium struck by the note’s simplicity and brevity successful narration to the crushing, complex, and ongoing value of illegitimacy, exile, racism, and abandonment that it foreshadowed. When I work Austin’s little enactment now, I can’t assistance but spot however we are each contained successful and by it. Each of america unaware of the analyzable aboriginal awaiting america arsenic we grew into the signifier of the characters helium drew successful this tiny narrative.
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“‘With Love, Dad’: Imagining Austin Clarke” by Darcy Ballantyne appears successful the latest contented of Brick Magazine.
