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Dear Ms. Woking,
It’s a relief to have set down, finally, all the details of my story. It’s more than fifty years ago. I know time and feckless memory have distorted the true picture. I’m happy that a handful of documents remain in my possession and are now safely preserved in electronic format as well. (These include most of the typed show script for The Secret Feast, cast lists and call sheets from that final season, and some memos from Michael’s desk.)
I have received your kind letter, and will try to answer some of the questions you posed. I don’t mind that they are of a personal nature. It was a personal story, after all.
Indeed, I followed in my father’s path, that is, I became a parish priest. Unlike him, I’ve been unorthodox, impulsive and prone to opinions that upset my superiors. I like to think Michael would have been the same, if he had been ordained.
I’m happy to report that I did remain in contact with Olivia Murney for many years. She didn’t marry Nate Garrick. In fact, she never married anyone. I last saw her in the late 1970s, at an art exhibition in Manhattan. She kept company with poets, artists and eccentrics. I felt awfully fusty and conventional around her. She lived out an exuberant joy in simply being who she was. Audra would have admired her.
I’m still in touch with Clive Murney, and count him a dear friend. That chemistry lab proved a prophetic gift, and he still owns it. He has recently retired after a career as a chemical engineer for the National Laboratories in Los Alamos, New Mexico. I was able to visit with him in Santa Fe two years ago. We had long talks about the events of that Christmas of 1937.
Not every story has been happy. Martin Milberg returned to England after the disbanding of the show. In 1940, he joined family members living in occupied Belgium, and helped them to escape the Reich. I’m told he returned to England but he didn’t survive the war. News of his passing devastated Michael, who had kept working in Auckland with the hope of reuniting with Martin someday.
Michael taught literature and theater for some years at a college in Alberta, Canada. When I was placed at a parish in Nova Scotia in 1958, I made a trip to Edmonton and we enjoyed a happy reunion. I am only glad because a year later, Michael passed through to the realm of angels. Surely he’s been riling up the pious element there ever since.
I returned to New Zealand two years back. After such a long absence, I was startled by how much the city had changed. I was equally surprised to find that the warehouse still stands, though it’s no longer surrounded by fields and forest.
I was contacted by the firm that had once been Elliot & Elliot, and is now known as Prassler, Parker and Elliot. I am grateful they found me, as I would otherwise never have known about the gifts that Michael bequeathed to me.
I am now the owner of that priceless automated toy theatre. It’s still in fine working order and remains on loan to the Canterbury Cultural Museum.
Ms. Woking, your firm is in possession of those warehouses that were once Very North. I am told that although they are vacant, the structures remain sound and safe for occupancy. I have assembled a small committee of potential patrons and donors. I hope that we may meet with you soon.
It’s my ambition to restore some version of The Secret Feast. It may not be possible to recreate the full expanse of it, nor would it prove feasible to operate in such an exclusive manner as was done before. But surely, with a team of committed designers and performers, and the wise council of financial experts, we can conjure up some specter of the miraculous. Let us discover at what intersection dreams and economics might gainfully meet.
For there are worse ways to spend our days and fortunes. Let us conspire to create wonders.
Father Emanuel Candler
July 28, 1994