— Emily, said Stan.
— Grandpa. There’s a man down by the basement door. He’s under a tarp and he’s-I think he’s deceased, Grandpa.
She was so factual about it. Deceased, she’d said. She was concerned but not panicking. She looked like it was out of the range of what she could figure out. Cassius went over to her and she knelt down and embraced him.
— There was a bad accident, said Stan.
The man in the rocking chair, this man she did not recognize, who was wearing a toque and was draped in a blanket, whose posture and absurd appearance was telling her what Grandpa was not, this hard-looking man, she could see his hands shaking.
— Goddammit it, said Lee. I just can’t get warm. Not at all.
The weather cleared by late evening. Pete went in through the emergency doors of the hospital. He was hungover, still wearing the work clothes he’d slept in. The emergency room was sparsely filled. A woman was holding a towel against a cut on her forehead. She looked annoyed more than anything else. A boy with his father was coughing steadily. Pete went up to an orderly at a desk.
— Can I help you.
— I got a call from my mom.
— You got a call from your mom.
— My uncle was in some kind of a work accident. They brought him here. Leland King is his name.
— Yes, said the orderly. Wait here, please.
The orderly made a call. Pete sat down. The woman with the cut sighed loudly. Then a cop came into the emergency room and spoke to the orderly. The orderly gestured at Pete. The cop came over and Pete stood up.
— To confirm, said the cop. This is your uncle you’re here about.
— Yes, Officer.
There was something unreadable on the cop’s face. He said: Your uncle. Leland King. He was in a work-related accident this afternoon. He’s banged up. Has mild hypothermia. They’re going to keep him here overnight.
— Jesus, said Pete. Can I see him?
— You want to see him?
— Why wouldn’t I?
The cop shrugged.
— Well, you can’t see him, said the cop. The doctor said he’s resting now. He’s okay, your uncle. But the other guy …
— The other guy. Bud?
— What a situation they got themselves into. Of course, Leland King is the one to turn out okay. Funny how that goes.
The cop was almost grinning. He turned around and went back into the interior of the hospital. Pete watched him go. Then he went over to the orderly.
— Listen, can you tell me anything?
— I can’t let out any information other than to say they just want to keep him here under observation.
— Is there a phone I can use?
— Pete?
He turned from the orderly’s booth and Emily was standing there. He tried to make sense of her.
— Emily.
— I had no idea he’s your uncle. I just heard your name from one of the constables. It happened near my grandfather’s place. Oh my God, Pete. Your uncle’s friend died.
— Jesus Christ. This keeps getting worse.
Emily laced her fingers together and looked at the floor. When she looked at him she smiled wearily, said: My grandfather took care of most of it. I’m just tired at this point. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. The only thing I can think about is going to bed. Is that pretty terrible?
— No. I don’t think so.
— It’s good to see you, Pete.
— You too. Under the circumstances and all. I haven’t seen you in awhile.
A white-haired man, broad-shouldered despite his age, came into the emergency room. He was carrying a wool jacket. Emily introduced Pete to Stan. Stan nodded.
— Your uncle’s going to be fine. You don’t need to worry.
— So I hear.
Stan put his arm around Emily’s shoulders. She folded against him and yawned.
— I’ll take you home, said Stan. And you, Pete? Do you need a lift anywhere?
— No, I have a car here. I was going to see my uncle but they said to come back tomorrow.
— He’ll be alright.
Stan told Emily he would be in the truck and he shook Peter’s hand again and left. Emily hung back a moment.
— I have to go, Pete.
— I know.
— It would be nice to see you again soon.
Emily went out and Pete watched her go. Then the woman with the cut on her forehead called out that at some point she was going to need some goddamn assistance. Nobody was listening.
THREE
NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 1980
The accident on Lake Kissinaw was big news for the remainder of November. There was a police investigation and then a Ministry of Labour inquest. Stan’s and Lee’s names were kept out of the paper but for a few days all you would see were pictures of Bud and his despairing widow. He was not buried. He was cremated and his ashes were spread at a campground he’d gone to every May long weekend for the last ten years.
Lee did not go to the memorial. He’d been very fond of Bud, but the thought of people, almost all of whom would be strangers, standing together, looking at him, whispering his name, knowing that it was he who’d been with Bud at the last moment, was too much to bear. He went up to the poolroom instead, and had a few drinks and shot a few games, and then went home and watched the hockey game on his TV.
By early December, six inches of snow had come to stay. Lee came into the hospital through the visitors’ entrance and went directly into a smoking area encased in glass. He nodded to an old man in a wheelchair who was smoking through a tracheotomy. Lacklustre Christmas garlands hung from the walls. Lee lit a cigarette.
Two hospital volunteers were sitting at a desk near the elevators. They were both old, a woman and a man, she with white-blue hair and he with liver spots on his bald head.
— I’m here to see Irene King, said Lee.
They peered at him. The woman painstakingly consulted a list of patients in a three-ring binder. She said: She’s in room 3B. Amiens Wing.
— I know where she’s at. I’ve been here a few times since she got here.
They gave him a visitor’s pass. He felt them watching after he’d passed by. He hadn’t been in any state of mind to pull together his observations in the short time he’d spent here following Bud’s death, but he felt a revulsion towards the hospital, he suspected because of its institutional nature.
It was in the hospital that he’d been interviewed about the accident by the police and by an investigator from the Ministry of Labour. His parole officer, Wade Larkin, had come for the interviews. It hadn’t taken long to clear Lee of any culpability but that hadn’t left him any more at ease. Clifton was in more trouble, and as his part in the investigation wore on, work had ceased.
Lee took the elevator up to the third floor. Up here were a number of other terminally ill persons. Irene shared her room with an old woman named Mrs. Petrelli, who was dying from pancreatic cancer. She did not speak English and she became talkative only when her son came to visit in the early afternoons. The remainder of the time, she watched the TV in the corner of the room, soap operas or news broadcasts. Irene reported that Mrs. Petrelli had had night terrors on two occasions, had screamed until the nurse came. Mrs. Petrelli’s son said his mother was bombed in Italy as a teenager in the Second World War. Most of her family was killed.
Irene was sitting up in bed wearing a nasal tube, her supper tray on a bed table in front of her. The meal was chicken and peas and it reminded Lee of the meals in prison. He sat down beside her. Under the bed, just at the edge of sight, was a catheter pouch full of urine.
— Did Barry or Donna visit today? said Lee.
— Barry said he would come by.
The television chattered. Mrs. Petrelli moaned.
— You shouldn’t have to share a room, said Lee.