Lee sat down at last. His hands formed patterns on the tops of his thighs. He thought about the air in the room and how it moved and was recycled man to man. He watched Maurice cross the floor and stand by the window, lift the dirty blinds, glance down at the street. The fading daylight was ashen.
— One night of work, said Gilmore.
Lee looked at them, one to the next. He looked at them for a long time. Then it was in the motion of his head, however slight. All things came to that.
Gilmore leaned forward again.
— Say it.
— Say what.
— Say the words, pal.
— You want me to say it?
— Call me old-fashioned but there’s a certain thing about a verbal contract.
He flexed his hands. He could feel his pulse right down to the balls of his feet.
— Fuck it, said Lee. Everything. Yes.
— Good to hear, pal.
Gilmore offered a handshake. Maurice gave Lee a phone number on a scrap of paper.
— Call us tomorrow.
Lee nodded. He put the scrap of paper into his billfold, next to the business card with Stan Maitland’s number on it. That encounter seemed to have happened to a different man altogether.
— It’s good, said Gilmore. How you’ve thrown your lot in. Soon you’ll find yourself a man of means. Give that some thought.
— The rest will happen fast, said Maurice.
His visitors did not remain for much longer. It was better that they did not linger. It would introduce doubt and they must have known it. As surely as they’d known what his response would be.
He went to the hospital, up to the Amiens Wing. He was making his way down the corridor, conscious of his steps, conscious that things were happening, when the older of the two little boys ran down the hallway ahead, coming from the direction of the washrooms. The boy did not see Lee. The boy ran through the door of Irene’s room.
Lee came to the door. It was open six inches or so. He looked through the narrow space. Donna and Barry and the two boys. Irene wearing a respirator. He watched them and he remained unseen. After a moment he turned and left.
Back at his apartment, he looked at the model kits he’d bought for the boys. The purchase was pre-emptive on his part, the invitation having never come, but he hadn’t wanted to be caught empty-handed.
Not that it mattered now. He thought about stuffing the two bombers into the garbage can, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He left them where they sat, and he got himself a drink and sat down to watch television.
But then he saw something that he had overlooked. The mark on the wall, some weeks old, from when he’d launched the beer can against it. He wetted a rag and scoured the mark. The scuff came out but an indentation remained.
He was tired, heavy in the bones. He’d walked to the hospital and back. This made him weary, but it wasn’t the only thing.
Because Gilmore was right. All other considerations aside, Lee was tired because he was greatly relieved. Relieved to let go of these motions he’d been forcing himself through. Relieved to see that thing-that thing he couldn’t name-stepping out of the dark once again, taking shape, letting him know he hadn’t been forgotten.
It was clear now. Everything was clear.
FOUR
DECEMBER 1980 TO MAY 1981
On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, there was a light snowfall. In the shallows of the lake the reeds were clenched by thin black ice. Stan went about his ablutions and put on his suit. When he entered the kitchen, he heard scratching on the back door. He opened it and Cassius came in. The dog’s fur was crisp and cold. He padded over to the woodstove.
Stan put on his overcoat and galoshes and went out carrying the good leather shoes he would wear for the evening church service. The trees creaked overhead. Snow shrouded Edna’s garden. There was nothing to say where she’d leaned over and died one morning. At times, it seemed she was something he could only grope for in the dark. Stan got into his truck.
At seven-thirty, Pete was parked in his car looking at the United Church. Snow wheeled down out of the sky. Pete sat until the last of the Christmas Eve churchgoers went through the door and then he waited a few minutes longer.
He would have to be back at the Texaco for nine o’clock. Caroline had given him two hours’ leave. She’d asked why and he told her he was going to church, and she gave him a doubtful look but did not say anything further.
He’d made one stop before church, perhaps as a gesture of appeal. He did not know. He’d parked out front of the variety store. The light was on through the blinds in Lee’s window. Pete got out of the car and went through the alley to the parking lot.
There was a big Dodge van parked close to the Dumpster. One of the side-view mirrors was wrapped with duct tape and part of the windshield was cracked. The hood of the van was open. A man was bent over the engine, working by flashlight.
Pete was about to go up to the apartment when he heard his name spoken. He turned and saw that it was Lee working on the van. Lee was shrouded inside his coat and he was holding a spark plug and a dirty rag. He was backlit by the flashlight, which was resting on top of the heater. Cigarette smoke lifted around him.
— When did you get a set of wheels? said Pete.
— I’m hanging onto it for a buddy of mine. What are you doing here?
— If you can believe it, I’m going to church.
— What are you doing that for?
— Emily is going to play piano for the service. I don’t care. I want to hear her. If I have a chance to see her, I’ll tell her I’m leaving town after New Year’s.
— The time’s come, has it.
— It has, said Pete.
Lee just nodded and said: What are you doing here?
— I was passing by … Look. I gave it a lot of thought. A lot of things are fucked up and … Well, they’re just fucked up. I’m sorry about what I said, about why would you come back here and all that. I’m not the big man, Lee. I’m not anything at all. Anyway, I thought I’d see maybe if you weren’t doing anything if you might want to come along when I go see Emily. Maybe you can keep me from making an ass of myself.
Lee drew on his cigarette. He turned the spark plug in his fingers and worked it with the rag.
— Go away, Peter. I don’t want to go to church.
— Lee-
— Listen, don’t come around here no more. You don’t have to be sorry for what you said because you were right. I am no good, and it was stupid of me to come back here. If I can get my shit together, I’m not going to stay much longer, either. For now, the best thing is if we just stay out of each other’s way. I don’t want anything to do with you. With any of you. Do you hear me?
Pete stood for a moment. He felt cold right to his bones. Then, without thinking of anything he could say he turned to go. Lee had already bent back over the van’s engine.
The encounter was still stinging him as he went into the church. The entryway was vacant. Through the doors into the sanctuary, he could hear “Good King Wenceslas” being played on the organ.
He went through the doors and found himself at the back, behind all the rows of pews. The place was crowded. In the pews closest to the front, he could see the shoulders of suits and evening dresses, of coiffed hair, of perms, the well-to-do families. In the middle pews were the elderly, mostly blue-haired women, sitting upright and dignified. And in the pews at the back were the meagre and the odd. Some were families. Some were single mothers. There were children with cold sores and bad haircuts. There was a weird little drunk Pete had often glimpsed collecting empty bottles to take back for the deposit.
He moved up a few rows and sat in an empty spot beside a lone man in a ski jacket who was gazing at the floor. At the front of the sanctuary, Pete could see the organ pit and the organist, and next to the organ on a riser was a baby grand shining brightly.