Fifth Business Summary

The story of Dunstan Ramsay’s life begins in 1908 when Ramsay is 10 years old. He and his best friend and worst enemy Percy Boyd Staunton have been sledding together and have quarreled, and on the way back to town Percy throws a snowball containing a small rock at Ramsay, who jumps aside, causing it to miss him and strike the passing-by Mary Dempster, the pregnant wife of Deptford’s Baptist minister. The shock of the snowball hitting her head causes her to go into labour and deliver a premature baby boy, Paul Dempster.

Dunstan steps back from his narrative to inform us as to the reason we are being treated to his life history. The year is now 1969, and he is writing to the headmaster of the Colbourne boy’s school he had taught at to protest the tributary send-off he was given upon his retirement. Ramsay returns to his description of his childhood and hometown, Deptford, which is located in Southern Ontario, on the Thames river.

Paul Dempster survives his birth, but is premature and weak. Ramsay suffers guilt and horror over his involvement, a feeling that will affect the rest of his life. As Dunstan grow older, his association with the Mary Dempster comes to hurt his popularity at school, though he realizes that he enjoys her company and is, as he realises later, in love with her.

Mary Dempster goes missing and Dunstan, joining the town effort to find her, discovers her copulating with a tramp. Amasa Dempster does not press charges against the tramp so he is released and warned never to return to the village. The town is abuzz about what the Reverend will say at his sermon next Sunday, and it turns out that he has chosen to resign from the parsonage and live in poverty. One night the townspeople paint their faces black and riot outside of the Dempster home, and Dunstan is disgusted that Amasa does not go out to face them. Amasa becomes a shell of a man and Mary is strapped up in a harness and not allowed to leave the house. Dunstan resumes his visits with Mary and Paul by sneaking in through her window while Amasa is out.

1914, the war started, Dunstan soon withdraw from the war due to his injury. He was unconscious for six months while he is being cared for at an English army hospital. He was being lovingly cared for by a devoted nurse named Diana Marfleet. Dunstan had been presumed dead as his tags were lost in the battle, and he is shocked to learn that he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, and less affected to learn that his parents died in the influenza pandemic of early 1918 after receiving the news that he and his brother were dead.

Diana entices Dunstan back into life and helps him adjust to his new prosthetic leg while also initiating him into sexual existence. She intends to marry him, but when Dunstan refuses, she confers him St. Dunstan, who fought off the temptations of the Devil. Dunstan says that he will not marry her because he doesn’t want another mother-figure in his life.

Dunstan goes back to school at the University of Toronto and earns an MA in History. After college, Dunstan takes a job as a schoolmaster. Boy and Leola got married and traveled to Europe, and Dunstan visits the continent for his own amusements. Dunstan returns to the battlefields of Europe to search for his Madonna statue. Dunstan takes up the challenge of learning the histories of all the Catholic Saints, and becomes something of an expert in the field of hagiology.

As Dunstan develops into an eccentric teacher, Boy tries to educate Leola into a higher social standing without much success. When the Prince of Wales visits Canada in 1927, Boy is selected as an aide for the Prince, and the event is possibly the greatest moment in Boy’s life. A year later Boy’s son is born and named Edward David Staunton.

Dunstan’s school hears a guest lecture from a man named Joel Surgeoner from the Lifeline Mission to help the needy. Dunstan recognizes the man as the tramp he saw in the pit with Mary Dempster all those years ago, and follows the man to talk to him. Dunstan is surprised that Mary Dempster made the tramp into an honest God-fearing man. Joel mentions that he considers Mary Dempster a Saint, and Dunstan takes this as being all-too-real.

Dunstan finds Mary in Toronto. She is being cared for by her aunt, Bertha Shanklin. The two women are not used to the company of men and Mary is not up to being reminded of the traumas in her past. Bertha allows Dunstan to come back and get to know Mary as a new friend, and not the boy from long ago.

In 1929 Boy protects Dunstan from experiencing the Great Depression by having him invest in Boy’s own company, the Alpha Corporation, which is a sugar-refining business. At the time Dunstan is more preoccupied testing his hypotheses about the Portuguese Saint Wilgefortis. He travels to a small village in Tyrolean Austria to investigate a shrine, and finds that a travelling circus, Le grand Cirque de St Vite, is in town. By an astonishing coincidence, the young magician who jumps up on stage turns out to be an older and sleazier Paul Dempster, who has obviously made a living on the trade Dunstan first schooled him in some 15 years earlier. Paul is going by the name Faustus Legrand, and is not pleased to be reminded of his former life in Canada. Dunstan returns to his investigations of Uncumber and later discovers that Paul stole his wallet.

Dunstan continues his weekly visits with Mary Dempster, but it is becoming a chore to him. Next he compiles his first book, A Hundred Saints for Travellers, which is intended for simple identification, while his next book explores why people need saints. Dunstan becomes an eccentric friend for Boy to promote at his various social functions. In this chapter Dunstan also covers the early years of David and Caroline Staunton, along with Boy’s rampant philandering. But in 1936 things take a tragic turn in the Staunton household when Boy’s hero finally ascends to the throne, only to abdicate it by the end of the year. That Christmas proves to be the undoing of the Stauntons, and by the time Dunstan arrives for dinner, Boy has stormed off, Leola is crying, and the kids are traumatized for life. Leola tries to seduce Dunstan and remind him of when they were together. When Dunstan decides to leave, she screams out “You don’t love me!” Dunstan flees the scene, only to be called back by one of the Staunton servants, and when Dunstan returns, Leola is wrapped up in her bed after having slit her wrists and bled all over the bathroom. She had intended to kill herself but had done a poor job of it. She also left a note confessing her love for Dunstan. Dunstan is sure the nurse has read this note, and possibly told the children, but he has the unfortunate duty of helping Leola return to life, as Boy has disappeared on a drinking binge and does not return for many weeks.

Leola dies of pneumonia. Dunstan suspects that she may have purposely brought on her own death. Dunstan handles her funeral arrangements, as Boy is consumed in his work as the head of the fictional Alpha Corporation for the duration of World War II. Dunstan is also named temporary Headmaster of Colbourne College. At the conclusion of the war Boy has the unenviable task of informing Dunstan that he will not be continuing as Headmaster, due to his perceived peculiar interests and lifestyle, although Boy admits that those same traits make Dunstan an asset as a professor at the university. Dunstan angrily protests, feeling he was shabbily used, but eventually agrees to return to his former role as Dean of History. To save face, Dunstan asks that the Board announce that the vocation change was Ramsay's idea, and asks for a 6 month leave of absence before he returns to work. Boy agrees on behalf of the Board, and Dunstan leaves on his sabbatical.

While traveling in Mexico City, Dunstan attends a magic show. To his surprise, the show is artistically done, evoking feelings of mystery and wonder. The magician, Magnus Eisengrim, turns out to be none other than Paul Dempster.

Dunstan meets Paul’s entourage's autocrat, Liesl, who physically is extremely ugly, but possesses great intelligence and charm. She convinces him to ghost-write a fictional autobiography of Eisengrim.

Dunstan temporarily joins Paul’s entourage, creating for him the illusion of the Brazen Head, a kind of fortune-telling act. He tells much of his life story to Liesl, often shocking himself with how indiscreet he is being. He asks Liesl not to reveal to anyone what he has told her, and Liesl refuses. Meanwhile, Dunstan becomes inescapably attracted to Einsengrim's head showgirl, Faustina. He often peeks at her while she is undressing, and finds excuses to talk to her. He is further shown to be acting in a way counter to his own personality when he smacks another showgirl on the bottom and winks at her when she protests. One night after the show, Dunstan, hoping to catch a glimpse of Faustina, finds her naked and passionately kissing Liesl; the experience deflates him and sends him into deep depression.

Liesl shows up at Dunstan's room that night, beating him for his inability to handle his attraction to Faustina. She then attempts to roughly seduce him; Dunstan becomes enraged and furiously attacks Liesl, breaking and bloodying her nose before she escapes through the door. After releasing his pent-up aggression, Dunstan feels more relieved than he has in years. Liesl returns a few minutes later and explains that releasing him from his anger was her intent all along. She suggests that Dunstan is suffering from the "revenge of the unlived life": the guilt he feels over events in his life have prevented him from truly living it: he still agonizes over Mary Dempster's condition, and he's never realized just how good he was to accept Leola as a friend when she rejected him in favour of Boy, and even to accept Boy who insisted on mocking him for losing out in their love triangle. Liesl suggests that Dunstan has “never led a real life,” and that his role in life is that of “Fifth Business.” Dunstan then makes love to Liesl, and despite her unattractive appearance, he calls it the most healing experience of his life.

Returned to Canada. Dunstan tells Mrs. Dempster that he has found Paul. This news makes her distressed and agitated, and she has to be moved to the locked area of the hospital. Boy goes into politics, with limited success. He gets married again, to a practical, ambitious businesswoman, Denyse Hornick. Boy and Dunstan are nearing their sixties; Dunstan senses that old, long-concealed parts of their personalities, such as Boy's inability to deal with events that do not unfold according to his desires, and his own propensity to unleash a sharp-tongued comment in the middle of a conversation, are re-emerging.

In 1959, Mrs. Dempster dies after Dunstan transferred her to a private hospital more to her liking using the funds from Eisengrims's biography as well as monthly payments from him; Dunstan takes care of her cremation and funeral. On a visit to Europe, Dunstan meets with the aged Blazon, who approves of the self-discoveries that Dunstan has made since meeting Paul and Liesl. Dunstan finally rediscovers the sculpture of the Madonna he had seen during the First World War in an exhibition room in Salzburg.

He explains that Paul had brought his show to Toronto. After the performance, Paul, Dunstan and Boy meet in Dunstan’s room for a short chat. Old secrets and grudges now come out: about money, Leola, and Paul’s real identity. Dunstan tells Paul what really happened to his mother, years ago in Deptford: the snowball that Boy threw had a rock inside it. Dunstan shows them the rock, and a box containing Mary Dempster's ashes. Dunstan admits his own guilt, and urges Boy to confront his own inner self, but Boy refuses to admit any fault.