Chapter 8: The Board
The boardroom was on the second floor of the academy's administrative wing — a long table, eight chairs, a wall of framed photographs showing the academy's history going back to its founding.
Marcus's father was in several of them.
Arthur arrived at one fifty-eight and sat in the chair Marcus had placed at the far end of the table, slightly apart from the board members.
An observer's position.
He set his leather bag on the floor and folded his hands on the table and waited.
The board filed in.
Six members.
Marcus had told Marcus only that a matter of historical record required their attention and that an outside party would be present.
He had not told them who Arthur was.
Three of them recognized the name when Marcus said it.
One of them — a woman named Patricia, who had been on the board for twelve years and had studied dance history at university — went very still.
"A.
Renard," she said.
"Yes," Marcus said.
"You're alive," she said, to Arthur directly.
"Apparently," Arthur said.
Patricia looked at Marcus.
"How long have you known?"
"Four days," Marcus said.
"Let me explain everything from the beginning."
He did.
He took forty minutes.
He walked them through the partnership, the contract, the stage name, the fourteen works, the notebooks, the solicitor, the recorded statement.
He placed copies of the key documents in front of each board member.
He did not soften it.
He did not frame his father as a villain.
He presented the facts as the notebooks contained them, including the last entry.
When he finished, the room was quiet.
Then a board member named Robert — the longest-serving member, a man who had known Marcus's father personally — said: "This will affect the academy's reputation."
"Yes," Marcus said.
"It will."
"Licensing agreements, curriculum attribution, the academy's founding narrative—"
"All of it will need to be addressed.
I know."
"The press could—"
"The press will find out eventually regardless," Marcus said.
"The question is whether we correct the record ourselves or wait for someone else to do it for us." He looked at Robert steadily.
"I am not willing to wait."
Robert looked at the documents in front of him.
"What does Mr.
Whitmore want?" he said.
Not to Marcus.
To Arthur.
Arthur looked at him.
"I want my name on the work I created," he said.
"I want the students in this building to know the accurate history of what they're learning.
And I want to continue teaching here, for as long as I'm able." He paused.
"I'm not interested in damaging this institution.
I'm interested in being part of it."
Robert was quiet.
Patricia spoke.
"The Renard Sequence is in the national curriculum framework.
It's referenced in the standard training literature.
Correcting the attribution at this level isn't just an internal matter — it requires coordination with the national dance bodies."
"I'm aware," Marcus said.
"Gerald Howe is prepared to assist with that process.
It will take time.
But it's not impossible."
"And the academy's name?" Patricia said.
"The academy was founded in your father's name, Marcus."
Marcus looked at her.
"My father built something real," he said.
"He built it with a crack in the foundation that he spent forty years trying to decide how to address.
He didn't get there in time." He paused.
"I'm getting there for him.
The academy's name doesn't change.
What changes is the truth of what we teach and who we credit for it."
The room was quiet again.
Then Patricia said: "I'll support the correction.
Formally, on record."
Robert looked at the photograph of Marcus's father on the wall.
He looked at it for a long time.
"So will I," he said.
The others followed.
One by one.
The vote was unanimous.
Marcus looked down at the table.
Arthur said nothing.
But his hands, still folded on the table, relaxed slightly.
After the meeting, as the board members gathered their documents and began to leave, Patricia stopped beside Arthur's chair.
"I have a copy of your original notation scores," she said.
"The ones from the Paris residency.
I found them in a secondhand bookshop fifteen years ago.
I always wondered why the name on them didn't match anything I could find in the records."
Arthur looked at her.
"They're yours," she said.
"If you want them back."
Arthur was quiet for a moment.
"Keep them," he said.
"But bring them to class sometime.
I'd like to see them again."
Patricia nodded.
She left.
Marcus and Arthur were the last two in the room.
Marcus was looking at the photograph of his father on the wall.
"He's in every room of this building," Marcus said.
"I know."
"That won't change."
"It shouldn't," Arthur said.
"He built the building.
He just didn't build it alone."
Marcus looked at him.
"No," he said.
"He didn't."
He gathered his documents.
May you like
He held the door open for Arthur.
They walked out together into the corridor, and neither of them said anything else, and it was enough.
