Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke Another old friend bites the dust. I met Austin in the pilot. We assumed he was a student he looked studious always neatly dressed in shirt and tie and a blazer. with dark rimmed glasses and always smoked a pipe, He kept pretty much to himself usually sitting in the front with enough light to read. Somehow got together and had many great conversations over a year or so. he mentioned writing a book I had never heard of. Then suddenly he wrote a piece for the Telegram or Maclean's or something entitled " I have No White Friends" .
I confronted him "what the hell is this, I thought we were friends." Somehow he convinced me it had nothing to do with me and we carried on Until he published a book and disappeared from the scene. The a few years later I met him at the track with his wife and we had a pretty good day and went out for eats and drinks. I met him another day by himself. We had both had a terrible day and in further honest discussion discovered we had enough between us to put a $2.00 bet on the last race. We picked a horse and made enough to drive to the Pilot in his Mercedes and have a couple of beers and laugh at our fortune bad and good.
Ran into him him at now and again at Art openings and the like and then met him at a book opening for Barry Callaghan.
and we reconnected a bit Barry and him used to go to Peterborough once a month for a writer's circle held by one of Barry's students who also happened to be a friend of mine. I visited him once in a while at his house but hadn't seen him for a dozen years until I called him last year he wasn't well and not much up for conversation.