When Harry took a break, she made her move. “Harry, are you going to let me play your White Ladye?”
“White Ladye, eh? You really do know your banjos, don’t you? Yeah, maybe you won’t scare the customers away, but after your performance on the fretless—” He laughed, but it was more derisive than joyful.
“Try me.” It was a beautiful instrument and only needed a little tweaking to tune it. Despite age-related hearing loss, Susan Willson Reese McBride still had perfect pitch.
She started in playing “Barbry Ellen,” even singing along. Mac loved it. His favorite. The song that hooked him when he first saw her. He hadn’t heard her sing much since that night over a year ago at Jones House and never with the banjo. She claimed that her voice had aged too much to sing in public. He had never heard her singing with the banjo.
She went from one tune, to another, to another, singing with some of them. She never repeated those Harry had played. Her style was much different from his, more Southwest Virginia than North Carolina. Yet she still sang the Willson’s Cove songs the Willson’s Cove way. It seemed that finding what she had no doubt was a banjo her grandfather had made had given her a renewed voice. Harry was both surprised and fascinated, as were her audience. Mac was captivated. Again.
After dinner, they lingered, listening to more of Harry. He sang some of the songs she had done, but with the fretless, it was different. On his next break, he offered for her to play the White Ladye again, but she declined. “No, thank you, Harry, but I have arthritis too bad to keep at it. I may need for my husband to doctor my hands.”
Harry shrugged.
“But, Harry, can we get together again to talk about your banjo? I’d like to know a bit more about your family and how they got the banjo in the first place.”
“Breakfast. Eight. Caroline’s.”
Susan looked at Mac and rolled her eyes. A little terse! “Done. Caroline’s. Eight. Breakfast.”
Back in their hotel room, Susan told Mac what she knew about her grandfather and his banjos. “Grandpa, back as early as 1900 made his mountain banjos, fiddles, and lap dulcimers. He would sell them in the mountains and over the mountain in Johnson City, Tennessee. I doubt if he made enough money to cover his costs. But around 1910 or 1911, the story goes, somebody from Florida had gotten hold of one of his instruments and wrote to him. Evidently, he offered him more money than he ever made before, and the letter was something to the effect that he could make money by peddling them in Florida. He had the connection and made arrangements to go to the vacation destinations of America. St. Petersburg, Miami, or Key West. He settled on St. Petersburg.
“Up until right before World War I, he would make his trip right after Christmas, stay through January, and come home the beginning of February. In October of 1916, he changed his pattern and stayed in Florida longer, six months. I always heard that he claimed the cold weather in the mountains was bad for his health. He got home just a few days before the US entered World War I. Meanwhile, Grandma had her eighth child, Aunt Delphy. Despite f the war, he continued his trips, but he helped Grandma with her gardening and chopping wood for the fire for the winter. Then as soon as the leaves turned, he left again for Florida. That is what my daddy told me.”
Mac shook his head as if to shake the notion of a man who could leave his growing family and stay away for months at a time. “Gee whiz! It was really big of him to help her chop wood and follow the mule! Susan, I think he must have had a girlfriend in Florida. Had to.” Mac snickered. “Sounds like he was a man of passion, given that he left your grandma pregnant each time he left.”
“Well, maybe not every time, but that’s the rumor.”
The honeymooners forgot about Grandpa Willson as they pursued their own passions. The next morning, they were up early for a walk by the bay and then to meet Harry at the Chowder House for breakfast.
Chapter 5
Susan
Apalachicola, Florida, July 2009
Susan and Mac were already enjoying steaming cups of coffee when Harry showed up. The banjo man was obviously a regular at the restaurant, and the waitress brought him his coffee without asking.
As soon as Harry walked into the restaurant, he saw Susan and Mac and greeted them. He was direct, a quality Susan was beginning to get used to with the man.
“I’m a bit mixed up about you. There are things I have questioned and didn’t think I wanted to know the answers, but on the other hand, you might be able to relieve what has nagged at my brain for years.”
Susan cocked her eye at him but said nothing. He’ll get to it, I suppose.
The three ordered their breakfast; while waiting, Harry launched into the story of his banjo. “Seems like this salesman from the mountains, representing who he termed as ‘a famous luthier’ would come to Florida every year, stay for a while, and then return to get more instruments for the next year’s sales. His name was Luke Harvey. I think it was right before the First World War that he met my grandmother. This is where my story sometimes doesn’t make sense. Supposedly, they got married, but what I never understood was that Grandma’s last name was not Harvey. It was Lindsay. She was real young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, when Dad was born in 1922, so she would only have been twelve or thirteen in 1916. That’s the creepy part. Although I remember her well, she died when I was twelve, and I never asked her about Luke Harvey or any of that history. She didn’t talk much about him, other than the fact that he taught her to play the banjo and sing the songs. She taught Dad, and then he taught me.”
Susan glanced at Mac. He had a smirk on his face that she would like to wipe away. She wanted to know more. “Harry, is your dad lucid, good memory? Would it be appropriate to visit him?”
“He has more long-term memory than anyone I know but forgets people’s names. He calls all the women good-lookin’, and guys, he calls brother. He even calls me brother sometimes. As far as short-term memory deficit, it isn’t terrible. I notice the confusion if he’s tired or when he first wakes up. But yeah, I think he would love to talk to you, especially if you play banjo for him.”
“I don’t even have a banjo anymore. Sold it last year. I could probably get one at some pawnshop and fix it up. But Harry, if I’m going to play, I need a lightweight instrument. I had a resonator on the one I sold, and it was too heavy for me. That’s why I got rid of it. Even if I had removed the resonator, it would have been too heavy for me.”
“You did well on my White Ladye last night. But I’d never sell that beauty. I have another mountain banjo, much lighter, that you might be able to play. It’s fretted. I picked it up a couple of years ago. It isn’t old. Probably made in the last twenty years. I would be willing to sell it to you, if you are interested.”
“Have to see it and play it, of course. Mac?”
Mac shrugged. Although they had only just gotten married, he had already learned that when Susan had something on her mind, it would be useless to try and stop her. “How much are we talking about, Harry?”
“Two-fifty.”
“We’ll see.”
“I can pay for it myself, if it’s what I want!” Susan snapped at her groom, giving him the eye.
Mac grinned at Harry and shrugged.
After breakfast, the three walked back to Harry’s rooms. Susan was pleasantly surprised that his pad was neat as a pin, not a reflection of his appearance. Wonder if there is a Mrs. Harry. Does he have a girlfriend?
She asked. “A wife, Harry?”
“Not anymore.” End of conversation.
The