— Thank you. My grandmother taught me. She could play like you wouldn’t believe.
— My grandma lives with us, said Pete.
He did not mention anything about his grandmother’s illness. For a moment he had a clear idea of how his story must sound to someone like Emily-his grandmother was dying, his uncle was an ex-con, he’d never met his father, and, as for himself, he was a dropout who worked at a gas station. Emily, meanwhile, had it good, and came from good people. At best, he thought, she might tolerate someone like him, as long as she was seeing his friend.
And yet, he was conscious of how he felt, standing here with her, watching her sip her tea. He said: Do you think you’ll go with Billy again?
She shrugged. The mug was in front of her mouth.
— You never know. If he continues to be a gentleman, maybe I’ll go with him again.
Pete rubbed the back of his neck: Yeah, Billy’s a good guy.
— He’s very good-looking, said Emily. He’s got beautiful hair. And my dad would absolutely hate him.
— I see.
— Maybe you can see Nancy again. We could go out, the four of us. That would be fun.
He agreed lamely that they should all meet again. Then he went down the steps and got in his car, wondering what it was like to have a place where you fit in.
He pulled onto the street and watched Emily in his rear-view mirror until he’d turned the corner and lost sight of her.
Stan had a bad night. When he slept he dreamed he was awake but was unable to move. And when he was awake he lay looking around. All the ordinary features of the bedroom had new dimensions in the darkness. In the morning his whole body ached. He put on a track suit in preparation for his exercises.
Cassius was sitting by the woodstove when Stan came down. The last two nights had been cold enough to warrant a small fire in the stove, which Stan had kept because it was as old as the house itself and because it appealed to him in a way that electric heat did not. Stan scratched the dog between the ears and they went outside. Edna’s garden was choked with weeds. The flowers were all dead. Stan and Cassius went down the embankment to the basement door under the house. Inside the basement, Stan kept a workbench and a selection of tools. Across from that was the exposed bedrock on which the house was built, coming up in one place to the bottoms of the joists. There was space for storage, extra siding, shingles, storm shutters, life jackets and fishing rods, a paint-spattered wooden ladder. In the opposite corner, an Everlast heavy-bag hung from the overhead beam.
He turned on an FM radio he kept on the workbench, tuned it to the news. He wrapped his hands and knuckles, aching as they were, and he put on a pair of old sixteen-ounce training gloves he’d had for many years. He shadowboxed for a few minutes and then he worked on the heavy-bag. In his youth, before his long tenure as a cop, he’d had four years as a professional boxer. His record was twenty-two fights, with seventeen wins, twelve of those by knockout. He’d been known as a good stylist and an outfighter, classing as a light heavyweight at a hundred and seventy pounds.
Stan had come back to exercising daily around the time he turned fifty and his doctor had given him some warnings about his blood pressure. So he’d quit smoking-which Edna had never cared for anyway-and had brought the fighting exercises back into his life. His knees and hips wouldn’t let him use the jump rope much any more, but he could still work combinations on the heavy-bag. It used to be his cross, thrown with his right hand, that would win him a fight, if the victory was to be by knockout. Stan would strike his opponent’s body until the guy let his hands and elbows down, and then he’d propel the cross from his hips and abdominals straight into the guy’s jaw or temple.
After four three-minute rounds he stopped punching the bag to listen to the news. His sweatshirt was damp right through and he felt older than ever. Cassius lay with his muzzle between his forepaws. As a puppy it had upset him to watch Stan work on the bag and he would bark and snap until Stan would have to get Edna to call Cassius out to her. Now the dog only watched through half-lidded eyes. Stan steadied the bag. The news broadcast finished. He stood looking out the yellowed window-glass over the workbench, down past the cedar trees to the western shore of the point, which endured the worst of the weather when the prevailing winds blew.
He had a list of chores he needed to attend to. The outboard motor needed servicing. The toilet was making erratic sounds. He went at the chores in a distracted fashion. After lunch, he set a ladder against the side of the house and climbed up to clean the eavestroughs. The sun was warm on his face and the colours of the leaves were vivid against the sky. Somewhere, the sound of a chainsaw was buzzing through the trees.
He had been at this for twenty minutes when he heard the dog barking and a vehicle in the turnaround. He looked down and saw Dick Shannon coming to the base of the ladder. Dick was uniformed, carrying his cap in one hand.
— That’s a long way up.
— I’ll put that dog on you, Dick.
— That’s fine. He could watch me all the way to my car.
Dick bent down and picked up a stick from the grass. He held it for Cassius to sniff and then he hurled it across the yard. Cassius trotted after it but stopped halfway and just looked. Dick shook his head and looked back up at Stan and said: I told you I owed you a visit. Them things you asked me about on the telephone a few days ago.
Stan came down. He got some beers from the fridge and carried two lawn chairs to the dock. They agreed there were not going to be many more days this year that they’d be able to sit by the lake and take in the sun.
— How’s town? said Stan.
— Same as ever. Say, do you remember that business with Simon and Charles Grady?
— Christ, that’s a lot of years ago. King, wasn’t that his name?
— Leland King, said Dick. Anyhow, he’s been paroled. He’s back in town.
— I remember driving Leland King down to the provincial jail when his trial started. I thought he looked just like a kid. Remember how his dad-I think his name was George-dropped stone dead in that store of his one morning?
— Only from hearing about it later, said Dick. I think I was still overseas when he died.
— That’s right. It would have been ‘44 or so. Anyway, it was better for him, I guess, to die long before he’d see what his son would make of himself.
— I expect Frank will pay a visit to Leland before long, said Dick. Tell him how things are.
— It was Frank who was first on the scene with the Gradys, if I remember right. Frank was new to town. Him and Mary hadn’t even had Emily yet.
— I see Arthur Grady sometimes, driving around, said Dick. He still looks after the living boy. Hell of a thing.
— Yes, said Stan. When it happened, it was the biggest goddamn news in the county for a whole year. As big as the Lacroixes were … And Charles Grady, he was one hell of a hockey player, but I always wondered if maybe there wasn’t a little more to the story than what came out at the trial. There were a whole lot of people not saying anything at all.
— Oh well, said Dick. I don’t think it matters much any more.
They drank their beers and watched a boat cut across the lake two hundred yards out. The change in the colours had reached the point where there was an equal distribution of green and yellow and red around the shore. Edna had liked spring best because that was when she planted her garden, but she’d always said fall was the prettiest time. She came into Stan’s head abruptly now, as she sometimes did, and just as abruptly he tried to push the thought of her away.
— So, do you still think you’ll retire next summer? said Stan.
— You better believe it. They won’t have any trouble getting me out the door.
— I was a few years past the thirty-five when I went. I lost money on my pension but I just didn’t know what I would do with myself. I still don’t.