He made no attempt to answer. His eyes tracked her as she stepped to the foot of the bed, wriggled her hands under the blankets, and pressed one of his feet between her palms. It felt like a block of ice. “Jesus,” she said, “you are cold, aren’t you? We better see what we can do about that, hadn’t we?” She went to the wardrobe, rummaged about noisily in it, and reappeared holding up the socks he had been wearing the day he was admitted to hospital. It was a trial to get them on him. He was unwilling or unable to cooperate, his feet remained stiff as boards, each toe as unyielding as a picket in a fence. The elasticized nylon socks kept snagging on calluses and corns, making tearing, rasping sounds as she tugged at them.
“There.” Finally she had got them on him.
“Cold.”
Now she had something to do besides sit and wait. She talked to him as she bustled around the bed. “Yes, yes, I know you’re cold, Dad. Just be patient. There’s an extra blanket up on the shelf in the wardrobe. Wait until I get you tucked up in that.”
When she had, he said it again. “Cold.”
“I understand. I know you’re cold. But just give yourself a minute to see if you don’t get warmer with the blanket. It’s a nice wool blanket. See?”
Poor circulation, Vera supposed. She laid her hands on his calves. As cool to the touch as spoons in a drawer on a summer day. She flew about the room emptying whatever the wardrobe contained onto his bed – two more wool blankets, a counterpane; last of all, an extra sheet. “Not any better yet? Jesus, you can’t still be cold. You just want to see me run, that’s it, isn’t it?” She flapped out the sheet and let it float down upon him.
“Dad, Dad?” she cried anxiously. “Is that any better? Can you hear me, Dad? Do you know who it is, Dad? It’s Vera. I’m Vera.”
“Cold.”
She worked on with steady, angry determination, unwilling to give up. She found more towels in the bathroom and wrapped them like puttees around his legs. Still he grew colder. When she touched him she could feel it; her hands came away chilled and damp. Nervously she tried to blot away, wipe away, the sensation on the bedclothes.
“Cold.”
“Goddamn it, I know you’re cold. I’m trying. Don’t you see me trying? You try, too. Move your legs a little, rub them up and down on the sheets. Do you understand? Can you hear me? Rub your legs on the sheets!”
Nothing stirred, responded, but his eyes.
Vera wouldn’t quit on him. Somehow she wrestled her father into his shirt. He was all dead-weight and it took all the strength in her to pull him upright and prop him there while she manoeuvred him into the shirt. His hospital gown kept getting in the way and she managed to stab only one of his arms into a sleeve, the one that didn’t have the tube in it. She was trembling and panting breathlessly by the time she finished. Cold and again cold and cold once more. Over and over cold.
Vera muffled him up in the last bit of clothing she had, her coat, even though she knew it was hopeless. At last there was nothing to place between her father and the cold but herself. Vera pressed him close. He fell silent. She looked into his eyes until, an hour later, she saw them finally overcome, the last of him to be possessed.
Guy Vanderhaeghe
Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan in 1951. He is the author of six books of fiction. His first two books were collections of short stories: Man Descending (1982), which won the Governor General’s Award, and the Faber Prize in the U.K., and The Trouble With Heroes (1983). My Present Age, a novel, was published in 1984. That novel was followed by Homesick in 1989, which was a co-winner of the City of Toronto Book Award. His third book of short stories was the highly praised Things As They Are? (1992). The Englishman’s Boy (1996) was a long-time national bestseller and won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for The Giller Prize, and the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world’s largest monetary award for a single book.
Acclaimed for his fiction, Vanderhaeghe has also written plays. I Had a Job I Liked. Once. was first produced in 1991, and won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Drama. His second play, Dancock’s Dance, was produced in 1995. He is currently completing a screenplay for The Englishman’s Boy.
Guy Vanderhaeghe lives in Saskatoon, where he is a Visiting Professor of English at S.T.M. College.
