Frost stepped up the slope of potatoes, holding on to the window sill as they rolled under his feet. He swung a leg over and pushed himself out the window and onto the ground.
There was a new commotion in the hallway. Noor’s voice ordered “Move. Move. Move.” A rusted wheelbarrow filled the doorway. There were three plastic buckets in it. Noor stepped over it and into the room. Her clothes and hair were wet. She filled a bucket with potatoes and handed it to someone without looking, and took another bucket and started filling it. Someone dumped the bucket into the wheelbarrow. Noor said “We put the spuds outside to get washed. We bring them in to dry somewhere. We wash the spud room. We bring the spuds back in. We eat them.”
She pushed the full wheelbarrow down the hallway and out. Daniel Charlie was coming through the rain with another wheelbarrow and more buckets. She dumped the potatoes and spread them out with her feet. Frost was standing nearby, as was Will. Nobody was saying anything. Daniel Charlie came and stood beside Frost and put a hand on his shoulder. Noor went back in for another load. Fire lay a few feet away, appearing to stare up into the rain.
Frost said “I’ll get a shovel.”
Daniel Charlie looked as if he wanted to stop Frost. He looked as if he wanted to say, Not now. Later, when the rain has finished. She’s not goin’ nowhere. But then he shrugged and went and gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow and stood upright and pushed it up the plank walk into the building.
10
As far as he could see in any direction, nothing moved. The water below the bridge was flat. There were no ripples around the wreckage of Fallen Bridge just down the side channel. The cattails at the edge seemed rigid. There was a high layer of cloud. The day was silent and cold. Frost stood alone on Little Bridge. He turned in a slow circle. Through the scratched lenses of his glasses he looked out at his world. Across the river to the north: Fundy’s Bridge and then the slope of Town, barren, treeless, pocked by the remains of houses and cut by erosion gullies. Northwest, the scrubby acres of Fundy’s farm and further west the remains of the airport. South, past the old highway, the ruins of the burbs, a treeless sweep of foundations and small irregular fields and broom and blackberry and thistle and scrub.
Frost came down off the bridge. Beside the old road his shoes crunched the scythed stubble of hay. He saw the empty potato fields, silver in this light, pooled here and there with rain. Upon these fields the silence of the day pressed like a weight. Frost laid a hand against his chest, as if he could feel that burden, and the corners of his mouth turned down. Farther on there were squashes and pumpkins in their sprawling patch. For a while Frost stood and observed these, waiting, as if their colour might in some way improve the silence. But soon he sighed and went on.
He stepped over irrigation ditches.
He walked for a ways beside the rapid transit track. Then he turned north, toward the river. At the water he stood above the old marina and, as he always did for some reason, looked for the rotted shapes of sunken boats that had been washed out to sea decades before. Then he left the river and walked past the graveyard. He did not turn his head toward the graves.
He passed the small barns of dirty concrete block, surrounded by mud. He passed Daniel Charlie’s workshop.
He crossed through the shadow of the domicile. Above him smoke spilled from homemade stovepipes that protruded like spines. The building seemed to lean even more than usual, as if the silence were a burden upon it as well as upon him. The smoke from the stovepipes rose in columns as straight as strings.
He walked on.
Fixed to the side of the clinic was a cross made of red polyethylene. There was no blackberry on this building. The concrete blocks looked new, and the window had glass. As Frost approached the clinic Blackie whined. The dog was tied to a big staple set into the mortar between blocks. Blackie rose up on his hind legs and strained against the twine.
Frost said “You fool, you’ll choke yourself.” He untied Blackie and made the dog stay down, and he opened the door and he and the dog went into the clinic.
There was a concrete block fireplace but it did not work well, and the clinic smelled of peat smoke. Grace sat in a plastic chair at a table made of two-by-fours, in front of a window. Frost said “Should I leave the door open for a minute?”
“What about Blackie?”
“He won’t run.”
There was a sagging couch covered with a patched white sheet. Frost folded this and laid it on the table. He wore a rabbit skin poncho, which he removed and dropped over the back of the couch. He sat. Blackie lay at his feet. Frost said “I wish we had a lock. This close to the trail.”
“The dogs do a good job.”
“I don’t like to tie them. The problem with a lock though, is you have to find one with a key. Fat chance.”
Grace came and sat beside him on the couch and leaned against him. He slid his hands under her shirt. She flinched but did not move away. “Do you know how cold your hands are? Go warm them at the fire.”
“You warm them for me.”
They were quiet for a while. The peat burned with a slight sizzle. When the room felt cold Frost got up and closed the door. When he turned, Grace had also stood. She was leaning on the table, looking out the window.
Frost said “Another god damn winter.” He took five steps to the fireplace, where he squatted and finally did warm his hands.
Grace said “It’s sad about Fire. I’m really sorry.” She spoke in an uneven rhythm, as if she had to plan her sentences while she spoke them. The voice itself was quiet and velvety.
Frost held his hands to the struggling flames.
Grace said “You knew her for so long. She was not an easy person to like, but…”
Frost said “Don’t.”
Grace stood silent for a minute. She sorted some of her things on a shelf. Plastic bags of the dried leaves of blackberry, kinnikinnick, Oregon grape. Pliers. Several needles and some coils of blue and yellow nylon thread. Two litres of alcohol. A few rolls of cloth bandage in a plastic bag. A knife. A plastic pouch of skag. A half-litre of skag-in-water.
She said “Has anyone seen another willow tree?”
Frost replied in a low, tired voice “That was the last one. Someone took it for firewood. Maybe it will send up shoots in the spring. The only thing we have now for pain is the skag.”
She stood silent again for a time and then went and crouched behind Frost and put her arms around him and laid her cheek against his back.
Frost said in the same tired croak “I wanted things to get better before I died.”
She waited, then said “Things are better. You made them better.”
“We are this close to disaster.” Grace lifted her head and looked. The space between Frost’s thumb and index finger was as thin as the page of a book. “We were always close. But this winter could be the end. There’ll be flu. There’ll be pneumonia.”
Grace said “There’s always flu. There’s always pneumonia. We’ll survive. Most of us will.”
“I’ve dug more than a hundred graves.” He lifted his calloused palms for her to see. “Susan was the first. Fire was the last. That’s my accomplishment. My world.”
“Come to the couch. I’ll rub your back. You’re thinking too much.” The pitch of her voice was soothing. But she seemed to have to force the words out.
Frost said “I’m tired. Tired of it all.”
“Let’s walk the farm” she said, as if suddenly inspired. She stood. “Then you’ll see how things are better.”
“I just finished doing that. That’s not what I saw.” Frost stared into the flickering peat. He said “People trusted me.”
For a few minutes there was no sound but the hissing of the peat. Frost got up and stepped past Grace and took his poncho from the couch. Blackie scrambled to his feet. Frost opened the door but did not leave. He stared out at the empty day.