Dawn

Eleanor had agreed to the interview for two reasons. She needed the money, but she was also doing it for Scott, the poet who had once been her lover. Though their relationship had only lasted a year, it had inspired over a dozen of his best published poems. Her favourite, called Dawn, was about the night they’d spent together at the small beachside house she had inherited from her parents, and where they’d seen the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.

That poem had provided the title of his best-selling collection and for a while they were a fashionable couple, invited to all the right parties, seen at book launches and Broadway first nights. All this ended, suddenly, when, after an argument about Scott’s increasing use of alcohol to cope with the pressure of earning a living just from his pen - he refused to take a regular job - he announced that he was going to cool down and clear his head by going for a swim.

Eleanor, still smarting from the row, had told him to get on with it - and take his time.

When there was no sign of him, after an hour, she had run down to the beach, where his clothes lay in a pile a few feet from the water’s edge. Unable to see him, despite the late afternoon sunshine, she had called, increasingly desperately, for him, before running back into the house to alert the coastguard.

Scott’s body was found the following day.

That had been fifty years ago. Scott’s book sales had gone up in the immediate aftermath of the newspaper headlines, the articles about how many major poets died young, and the song that a popular folk singer wrote about Scott’s death at sea. Since then, he had faded from view, a mere footnote in the lives of other American poets, Dawn being the only example of his work in anthologies.

Eleanor found it hard to live with the guilt, let alone the publicity. Giving up her career as an actress, she had made ends meet by working in the local library, but now she was retired, on a tiny pension and with hardly any savings. Her only asset was the house, which she could barely afford to maintain. Recently she had been given an estimate, by the local builders, for essential repairs to the roof, to the plumbing and the wind-damaged wall that faced the ocean. She couldn’t possibly afford it.

So when, to her astonishment, a young author had written a glowing introduction to a new edition of Scott’s poems, leading not just to a revival of interest in his work but talk of a full-length biography and possibly even a film of his brief but charismatic life, she saw an opportunity. The letter she sent him, via his publishers, suggested that, for a fee of $1000 she would break the silence of half a century to talk about her lover.

That $1000 wouldn’t cover the work she needed done, but it would be very welcome. Perhaps making a start, like this, might lead to one or two more interviews, either to journalists or on the radio. It might all add up. Eventually.

Now, here he was, sitting opposite her on the porch of the house. They had spoken of Scott, of her relationship with him, of how close Dawn had been to the truth of that long-ago sunrise. The author had been impressed by Eleanor’s clear memories, her evident honesty in describing them. He was charmed, after she had got into full flow, by the way she referred to Scott as if he was still alive. As if his death hadn’t quite sunk in. As if the fateful swim had taken place only last week.

He noticed the involuntary surprise on Eleanor’s face when she took her first sip of the wine he’d brought with him. Given the dilapidated state of the house, it didn’t take a detective to realise she couldn’t afford anything of this quality in normal circumstances. He’d been unsure whether to bring it at all, given the role that alcohol played in Scott’s death, but was pleased to see he’d made the right decision. Not least because after the first glass she had been more expansive, more open to leading the conversation rather than simply answering questions.

Her own questions had been about the likelihood of the proposed biography being published, and whether it was true that a major film producer had expressed an interest in Scott’s life.

After the second glass she had asked to be excused for a moment, then returned to the porch and the sunshine, holding a large canvas bag. She handed it to him, before sitting down.

‘These are his letters to me. Bills we were sent when he lived here - mainly from the liquor store! Newspaper cuttings he collected. Reviews of his poems. Photos of us at various events…. All sorts of bits and pieces. I took them from the table he wrote on, from drawers and cabinets, and put them in that bag, then shut it in a cupboard. This is the first time I’ve taken it out in all those years.’

The author sifted through the papers, admiring the photographs. Yes, they’d be great as illustrations to the book.

‘Gosh, Eleanor! You were beautiful!’

‘Thank you! Though I’ve always thought telling an old lady she was beautiful is a backhanded compliment. It emphasises how distant the beauty is from the present reality…’

The author had been about to reply. To make a gallant (and truthful) remark about her still-impressive bone structure, the piercing blue of her eyes, the clarity of her speech - on the phone she sounded like a woman in her 30s, not her 70s. But he didn’t. Because in his hands was a black notebook, its soft smooth cover protecting lined pages which were, he recognised immediately, full with Scott’s handwriting.

‘Eleanor! This is… These are…’

‘Extraordinary? Yes. About half are jottings. Ideas. People or situations that he’s noted down as possible starting points. The rest are the poems that they inspired.’

‘But I’ve seen all his poems. Gone through the collections in the university libraries. The diaries you donated to them after his death. I’ve even read the drafts of new ones he’d sent to his publishers as a taster of what the next collection might be like…’

‘No-one has seen these. The notes are about a lot of things, but the poems are almost all about me. Us. What we might become. I didn’t want them to end up in some dusty library. Ironic, given my career, but there you are…Literally. They might help your book.’

‘Help? They’ll make it! And make the film more likely, too. I’ve only just looked, but I can see that…’

‘Then please take them. And use them.’

She wanted to add ‘And let me know how much you’d be prepared to pay for them!’ but the effect of the wine, the pleasure she’d had, to her surprise, in going over her life with Scott with the author and her growing liking for a man who arrived as a stranger but who she thought of already as almost a friend, meant she held her tongue. Talk of money, in the context of praising Scott’s talent, and the chance to promote his art to a new generation, seemed inappropriate. Disrespectful, even.

Not worth soiling for the sake of another two or three thousand dollars.

‘You mean I can use everything in here? All the poems?’

‘More than that. Keep them. They’ll have a chance of life with you. If they stay here, as the house and I crumble together, they’ll just be thrown in the trash can when I die.’

‘Eleanor! I don’t know what to say!’

‘Then don’t! Now let’s finish the wine before you have to go. I don’t want to get rid of you, but I’m an old lady and tired by all this talking, so I’ll need to have a lie down before long.’

They finished the wine, the author turned off his old-fashioned but reliable recording machine and placed it in the canvas bag. The notebook, however, he put carefully, safely, in his jacket pocket.

Apart from a thank-you letter, written in longhand, Eleanor heard nothing from the author for three months. The roof began to leak more as the summer turned to autumn, and the plumbing became even more unreliable - hot water was now an occasional luxury rather than an everyday necessity.

Then, as autumn threatened to turn to winter, she received a letter. Postmarked New York. It was the author. He had indeed been commissioned to write the book, but it was to be, in effect, a tie-in with the film that was going to be made about Scott’s life. There were two other pieces of paper in the envelope. The first was a legal document, stating that the author hereby allocated twenty percent of any money he made from the book or the film to Eleanor. The second, which came to the exact amount she had indiscreetly told him she needed for the repairs to the house, was her share of the advance. A cheque for $20,000.