“You think so? All right, let’s put it this way.” Theo spoke with a bitterness which made him sound like a much older person. “Mr Morlacher put my father into the reeve’s job, and he did it because he knew he would be completely ineffectual. The idea was that Mr Morlacher would be able to do anything he wanted around Tripletree without being inconvenienced by the law. Now the situation has changed and Mr Morlacher needs some hard-nosing done on his behalf — and there’s nobody to do it for him. I’m sure you can appreciate the humour in that. Everybody else in town does.”
The boy’s words came across like a carefully planned and rehearsed speech, one which had been repeated many times to many people, and Hasson realized he had dipped his toes into a deep dark pool of family relationships. Shocked though he was by Theo’s cynicism, he made up his mind to backtrack before getting involved in other people’s problems. He was in Canada for no other reason than to rest and recuperate, and at the end of his allotted time he was going to flit away, as free and unencumbered as a bird. Life, he had learned, was difficult enough…
“I think we’ll be home in a few minutes,” he said. “There’s a road ahead which looks like the northbound motorway, freeway.”
“Make a right there, then take the third on the right,” Theo replied, an odd inflection in his voice making him sound almost disappointed over Hasson’s failure to respond to his set piece. He changed his position in the seat several times, looking moody and intelligent, giving the impression that his mind was far from being at ease.
“The accident this afternoon,” he said. “Was it a bad one?”
“Bad enough — two people dead.”
“Why was Mr Morlacher talking about murder?”
Hasson slowed down at the intersection. “As far as I know some mental subnormal started bombing the east approach — with the inevitable result.” “Who says it’s inevitable?”
“A character called Isaac Newton. If somebody is crazy enough to switch off in mid-air it only takes him seven seconds to reach terminal velocity of two-hundred kilometres an hour, and no matter what sort of vector he tries to add …” Hasson paused as he became aware of Theo’s unseeing eyes being turned towards him. “We get to know about that sort of thing in the insurance business.” “I suppose you would,” Theo said thoughtfully.
Hasson fell silent, wondering if the stories he had heard about the uncanny perceptiveness of some blind people could be true. He followed the directions given him by Theo and brought the car to a halt outside Al Werry’s house. Theo made an adjustment to the control on his cane bringing life to the inset ruby beads, got out of the car and began walking towards the house. Hasson lifted his television set out of the rear seat and followed him, glad to turn his back on the darkening world.
The hall seemed smaller than before due to the fact that Theo was struggling out of his coat in the centre of it, and this time the aroma of coffee had been added to the background smells of wax polish and camphor. Hasson’s anxiety level increased at the prospect of having to go into the back room, there and then, and sit making conversation with a group of near-strangers. He made immediately for the stairs, fighting off the urge to go up them two at a time before the door to the back room was opened.
“Tell your folks I’ve gone up to unpack,” he said to Theo in a low voice. “Then I’m going to freshen up a bit.”
He reached the landing just as the sound of a door handle turning came from below. He made a panicky rush into his own room, set the television on the bed and locked the door behind him. The room looked dim and strange in the twilight. Faces in framed photographs stared at each other in silent communication, agreeing among themselves that the intruder in their midst should be ignored. Hasson drew the curtains together, switched on a light and busied himself with setting up the television on a table beside the bed. He switched it on, bringing into existence a miniature proscenium under which tiny human figures strutted and strove in a perfect simulation of life.
Hasson doused the light, hurriedly stripped off his outer clothing and — with his eyes fixed on the technicoloured microcosm — got into the bed. He pulled the covers up until they almost covered his head, creating yet another barrier between himself and the universe outside. The coolness of the bedding coming into contact with his back produced painful spasms which caused him to twist and turn for a full minute, but eventually he was able to find a comfortable position and began relaxing his guard. Using the remote control panel, he instructed the set to sample any British television programmes that were available by satellite and promptly discovered that, due to the difference in time zones, he had access to nothing but early morning educational broadcasts. In the end he settled for a holofilm that was being put out by a local station and promised himself he would go back to the store at the first opportunity and buy some library spools of British situation comedies and drama series. In the meantime, he felt warm, tolerably secure, free from pain, absolved from the need to act or think… Hasson was recalled from his electronic demi-world by a persistent tapping on the bedroom door. He eased himself into an upright position and surveyed the room, which was now in darkness, reluctant to leave the cocoon of bedding. The tapping noise continued. Hasson got to his feet, went to the door and opened it to find Al Werry advancing upon him, still in full uniform.
“You can’t see a thing in here,” Werry commented, switching on the lights as he spoke. “Were you asleep?”
“Resting, anyway,” Hasson said, blinking.
“Good idea — you’ll be in good shape for the party tonight.”
Hasson felt something lurch in his chest. “What party?”
“Hey! I see you went ahead and got yourself a TV.” Werry crossed to the television and hunkered down to examine it, a doubtful expression appearing on his face. “Dinky little thing, isn’t it? When you get used to a two-metre job like the one we have down in the front room anything else hardly seems worth bothering with.”
“Did you say something about a party?”
“Sure thing. It won’t be too big — just a few friends coming round to meet you and have a few drinks — but I promise you, Rob, you’ll get a real Albertan welcome. You’re really going to enjoy yourself.”
“I …” Hasson gazed into Werry’s eager face and realized the impossibility of putting him off. “You shouldn’t have gone to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble — specially after the way you guys looked after me in England.”
Hasson made another attempt to recall their first meeting, the drinking session which Werry appeared to cherish in his memory, but no images were forthcoming and he felt an obscure guilt. “I met up with your friend Morlacher this afternoon, by the way.”
“Is that a fact?” Werry looked unconcerned. “He said the man who got killed today was some kind of a VIP.”
“Bull! He was a buyer for a department store down in Great Falls. He didn’t deserve to get killed, of course, but he was just an ordinary joe up here on an ordinary business trip. Another statistic.”
“Then why did…?”
“Buck always talks that way,” Werry said, losing some of his composure. “He’s got it into his head that the Civil Aviation Authority can be talked into extending the north-south air corridor up past Calgary to Edmonton, maybe even as far as Athabasca itself. He goes on TV, gets up petitions, brings bigwigs here our of his own pocket… Doesn’t seem to realise there Just isn’t enough urgent freight traffic to justify the expense.”
Hasson nodded, visualising the cost of installing a chain of automatic radar posts, energy fences and manned patrol stations to bring a three-hundred-kilometre strip up to the safety standards demanded by the various pilots” guilds. “What’s it to him, anyway?”