Chapter 6: What the Notebooks Contained
The solicitor's name was Gerald Howe.
His office was on the fourth floor of a building that smelled of old carpet and radiator heat, and he shook Marcus's hand with the careful formality of a man who had been holding other people's difficult truths for a very long time.
Arthur sat in the chair beside Marcus.
He had said very little on the way up.
Gerald set three archival boxes on the table.
"Your father began compiling these in 1989," he said.
"He added to them regularly until 2021.
He gave them to me with specific instructions in March of last year, approximately eight months before he passed." He looked at Marcus.
"He asked that they be shared with Mr.
Whitmore first.
And then, together, with you."
Marcus looked at the boxes.
"How much is there?"
"Eleven notebooks.
Approximately four hundred pages of correspondence — letters, faxes, some printed emails.
Rehearsal notes, annotated scores, original drafts of several compositions with both men's handwriting visible." Gerald paused.
"And a recorded statement.
Audio.
Your father made it in September of last year."
Marcus's hands were flat on the table.
"He recorded a statement."
"Yes.
He wanted his account preserved in his own voice." Gerald looked at him carefully.
"You don't have to listen to it today."
"I'll listen to it today."
Gerald nodded.
He opened the first box and produced a notebook — dark green cover, the spine worn soft with age.
He set it in front of Marcus.
Marcus opened it.
His father's handwriting.
Immediately recognizable.
The same handwriting that had filled birthday cards, lesson notes, the margins of programs Marcus had kept from childhood performances.
The first entry was dated June 14, 1989.
*I have been trying to write this for three years.
I don't know who I'm writing it for.
Perhaps no one.
Perhaps Arthur, if he ever speaks to me again.
Perhaps Marcus, when he is old enough to understand that a person can do something they know is wrong and still not be able to find the moment to undo it.*
Marcus stopped reading.
He closed the notebook.
"I'll take these home," he said.
"Of course."
"The audio statement—"
"You can take a copy.
I'll have one prepared."
Arthur had not spoken since they sat down.
Marcus looked at him now.
"Did you read the notebooks?" Marcus asked.
"Gerald read me the sections your father indicated.
Not all of it."
"What did he indicate?"
Arthur was quiet for a moment.
"The parts that concerned me directly.
The contract.
What happened after.
The years he spent trying to decide whether to contact me." He paused.
"And the last entry.
From two weeks before he passed."
"What does the last entry say?"
Gerald looked at Arthur.
Arthur nodded slightly.
Gerald opened the third box and found the final notebook — smaller than the others, the cover a faded blue.
He turned to the last written page and set it in front of Marcus.
The handwriting was shakier.
But still his father's.
*Arthur was the better choreographer.
I have known this since 1979 and I have never said it to anyone.
The work we did together was better than anything I produced alone.
I took his name off it because I was afraid that if both our names were on it, the world would eventually see that too.
That is the truth I have been unable to say for forty years.
I hope he knows it without me having to say it.
I hope Marcus understands that what I built was real, even if the foundation had a crack in it that I put there myself.
I hope they can find a way to make it right.
I don't know what that looks like.
I only know that I can't be the one to decide it anymore.*
Marcus read it twice.
He closed the notebook.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Marcus said, to no one in particular: "He knew."
"Yes," Arthur said.
"He knew the whole time that you were the better—" He stopped.
"It doesn't matter now," Arthur said quietly.
"It does matter."
"What matters now," Arthur said, "is what we do with it."
Marcus looked at the three boxes.
Forty years of his father's private reckoning, sitting in cardboard on a solicitor's table.
"The legal correction," Marcus said.
"The fourteen works.
I want to move forward with it."
Gerald made a note.
"The academy's board will need to be informed," Marcus said.
"I'll handle that myself.
I'm not going to let them hear it from anyone else first."
"That's wise," Gerald said.
"The licensing agreements — how complicated is that process?"
"It will take time.
Several months at minimum.
Some institutions may push back.
But the documentation is thorough.
Your father was very careful."
Marcus nodded.
He looked at Arthur.
"I want your name on the curriculum.
Not just the legal record.
The actual curriculum.
The Renard Sequence listed correctly.
The joint works listed correctly.
Every student in that academy should know whose work they're doing."
Arthur looked at him for a moment.
"That's more than your father asked for," he said.
"My father asked for a correction," Marcus said.
"I'm asking for something different.
I'm asking for the truth to be part of what we teach." He paused.
"Those are not the same thing."
Arthur was quiet.
"You said you wanted to teach a class," Marcus said.
"I think I'd like you to do more than one."
The room was very still.
Outside, a bus went past.
The radiator clicked.
Arthur looked down at his hands — the same hands that had performed that variation in the studio two days ago, the same hands that had choreographed work that had shaped the careers of dancers who had never known his name.
"All right," he said.
May you like
It was barely above a whisper.
But Gerald wrote it down anyway.
