Derek tried to decipher Nicole’s emails by having her narrate them, recreating the rasp that turned thick in her sinuses, so that everything she said came from right between the eyes.
No word on the condo. My nerves are shot. Sarah says pull the offer and move on - the deadline already passed. So I’m totally at sea withit. I’d really like us to talk, but I’m up to my arse this week.
He considered this, read it back in her voice. Thought he heard the solicitude women reserve for men they are finished sleeping with.
Can you do me a favour? Can you send me a few of the mysteries from the bookshelf. My Maisie Dobbs mysteries. should be 3 and you’ll know them from the cover. I was saving them to read them all at once.
Nik.
The Nazis would have loved email, rigorous and procedural, eradicating the humanity in the exchange.
Derek retreated to the spare bedroom, where Nicole’s mysteries filled a wall unit and spilled to the floor. The room had one small window looking down on the oil tank, and before they realized how drafty it was, it had been designated a hideaway. They even used that word, hideaway, like a couple of teenagers who thought they could dismiss the world by drawing the curtains.
Many of the books were fit for the dump, pages puffed and curling with the damp. The unspoiled Maisie Dobbs set held a corner of the top shelf. Nicole would have climbed a chair to reach that high, her T-shirt rising to bare the hollows under her ribs. Derek pulled the books down and flipped one open.
“A time when light is most likely to deceive the eye, a time between sleep and waking. A time when a man is likely to be at his weakest. Dawn is a time when soft veils are draped across reality…”
Derek envied the elasticity of mind that let Nicole fall into these books, a thumbnail lodged in her teeth. He had tried a couple, waiting for the trance. It didn’t happen. He wasn’t much for books. Despite having graduated as an English major, Derek had left university without ideals or ideas. College life was not for learning, for the seeding of intellect and the limbering of critical faculties. It was a bacchanal. The social order was merciless, and Derek had felt sharply his place on the middle rung. But all things considered, there was no real downside to being young.
He left the books on the kitchen table and opened the front door to the wet, shitty evening. A blustery cold had lingered for days, making the city feel cramped and small. He zipped his coat to the chin for the short walk to St. Bon’s.
Mullock Street, where Derek lived, bordered the grounds of St. Bonaventure’s College, and was named for Bishop Mullock, the determined shepherd who had built the school from thirty thousand Irish stones. Imported for a new penitentiary, the stones were left idle when that project turned out less splendid than imagined. The bishop bought the lot at auction and had them hauled to church land, where his vision was realized.
To Derek, this seemed a fairly typical bit of St. John’s lore. There was something arid and tyrannical in the city’s ongoing romance with its history, all the stories filled with dogged resolve and half-mad patriarchs.
Whatever the price, the granite slabs of St. Bon’s were a bargain; 150 years later they sustained an air of unbending, cloistered Catholicism. Having never been through the doors, Derek pictured dark corridors, scrubbed but somewhat odiferous boys, saturnine Irishmen in cassocks, industrial-strength porridge, and masturbation.
The Roman Catholic empire that once commanded the hilltop was humbled, its schools sacrificed to secular education and tracts of property sold to help finance settlements relating to pedophilic scandals. But the grand Basilica of St. John the Baptist remained, as did neighbouring St. Bon’s, now a private school championing the Catholic mind and spirit. The Dickensian gloom of the original building might have been a tough sell to modern parents. But its aspect was lightened by less imposing additions and upgrades, like the reassuringly bland Mullock Hall. In the shadow of this hall was tiny, busy St. Bon’s Forum, a place of ice hockey in miniature. Its rink was barely two-thirds regulation size, so small that adults now played four skaters against four, rather than the standard five-on-five. There was a time when men played five-on-five hockey there, contesting hot and bloody championships in the 1940s and 1950s. The heroes of these games became legends, and in some aging circles their names might still be uttered with townie reverence. But the remaining few were elderly, and as their era of clubby manliness disappeared from view, it was not likely they would be remembered much longer.
Derek arrived to find a CBC van blocking the entrance, directly under the No Parking sign. Derek had to swing his hockey bag from his shoulder and hoist it in front of him to get through to the door. A man in a black jacket pulled a tripod and nylon satchel from the back of the van.
Brian waited inside the front door, clipboard in hand. He nodded to Derek and marked the clipboard with what seemed an unnecessary flourish.
“We’re not using regular rooms tonight. We’ve got one of the bigger rooms in the back because it’s better for shooting. And we’re asking everyone not to start getting dressed until the cameraman is ready, because they’re looking to get the whole experience on tape, like a regular game night.”
Derek circled the perimeter and climbed the steps to the back room. The ice was quiet, absent of the large men who usually booked the hour preceding theirs and skated about looking mournful. They played with no goalies, shooting at pie plates strung from the crossbars.
A full crowd waited obediently. Shawn Gover looked up, knees jiggling, as Derek entered.
“What’s going on out there?”
“I saw a CBC van, a guy with a camera or something.”
“Ice is ready. We should get going.”
“What’s with Brian, anyway?”
The door swung open. Brian led the entourage. “Listen up. Boys, this is Allan. I’m sure some of you will recognize him.”
Allan wore a long leather coat with a crimson scarf tucked around the neck, and tiny glasses. “Hey, boys. How the fuck are ya?”
The man from the van followed with a camera at his shoulder, one visible eye blinking rapidly.
“Barry, my trusty assistant.”
Barry straddled a couple of hockey bags and hunched down, panning the room, then lowered the camera. His hair was grey straw sprouting from a CBC ball cap, and his eyes were set in dark rings, as if the viewfinder had left inky marks.
“Boys,” he said.
Steve Heneghan stepped forward. “What kind of story, ah, like, what did you have in mind?”
Allan offered an open palm, as if in deference. “How many people really understand what’s at the heart of this game?”
Shrugs around the room.
“Fuckin’ come on!” Allan dramatically swept his hand before him. “The years you guys have invested in this ritual. The jokes. The wins. The goalie’s pads. Tonight’s lineup taped to the wall. Waiting for the Zamboni to make one final turn, and you fuckin’ can’t wait to get out there!”
Murph raised an eyebrow. There was a self-conscious cough, a shifting of asses around the room.
“And the smell,” said Allan, laughing and pointing to an open hockey bag. “Only hockey players know it’s the greatest smell in the world! What do you say to that?”
“I’d say you don’t get out much,” said Murph.
Allan skipped to the middle of the room. “If these walls could talk. This is hockey, boys! Hockey is here, in thousands of rooms and thousands of fuckin’ rinks just like this one.” He grabbed a stick that had been propped against the wall and twirled it in his hands. “Work with me on this, boys. This is the real shit!”
Derek checked the cameraman for a conspiratorial glance. But Barry was shooting again, hunched down with the lens turned to the rubber floor, his expert gaze drawn to some near-invisible detail.
“I don’t mean any disrespect,” said Gover. “But I have doubts about this.” He spoke carefully, as if reading from a prepared statement.
Brian spoke from his knees, strapping a goaltending pad at the back of his calf.
“I think what Allan is trying to say is that there’s a story here lots of people can relate to. It’s like, regular guys, you know? People can relate to it.”
“Regular fuckin’ guys,” said Allan, his pale eyes full to bursting behind the little glasses. “That’s the shit!”
“Maybe we’re not regular,” said Nels Pittman.
Allan hesitated.
“Come on, guys,” said Brian. “It’s a chance to get on television.”
There was murmured assent. Derek caught a weary, defeated glance from Gover.
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “Abso-fuckin’-lutely.”
Barry set up at the gate to the ice, and seventeen men on skates awaited their cue before lumbering past him. Derek sprinted three laps and shot a booming puck off the back boards before stopping to stretch, pleased with himself. Matt Dyer, the second goaltender, flopped beside him, spreading his legs in a V.
“Let’s get it going,” someone shouted.
“Can you guys keep skating?” asked Barry, who had moved to centre ice.
“Twenty after eight,” said Gover, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Come on, Brian!”
The goaltender skated to centre ice.
“Okay, this stuff requires patience, obviously.”
“Fuckin’ twenty after eight.”
“Okay, listen. There’s lots of other games these guys could be at. I mean, there’s hockey games out there where they’ll be welcomed with open arms. So if we don’t want them here, let’s just say so now.”
There was a shamed silence.
“Guys, I just want to do honest stories, honest fuckin’ television.” Allan left the bench and shuffled to centre ice in his oxblood shoes. “Nobody’s here to fuck you. Okay? I just wanna capture the way it is. Okay? Who’s got a puck?”
Derek took a seat at the bench. Kevin Byrne landed beside him.
“Buddy’s a bit…”
“A bit high strung.”
“Why do you think he swears so much?”
Byrne shrugged. “An odd stick.”
They had to do an opening faceoff for the camera; did it four times before Barry was happy. On his first shift Derek sent a long pass to Byrne, and watched the camera follow it up the ice. As he left the ice someone scored.
“Whoa, one sec,” said Allan. “Can you celebrate a bit? Raise your sticks and stuff?”
Several sticks lifted, but the artifice of it set off laughter.
“Pick up the fucking pace,” shouted Gover. “Bunch of old men!” He slumped on the bench next to Derek and slammed the door shut. “You see? See what I mean? The same fucking shit. Everything gets spoiled.” He sounded almost in tears.
“Take it easy,” said Derek. “You can just skip the rest, if you like.”
Gover looked away. He had to be thinking of his wife. Derek couldn’t recall the name.
The shifts were too long, and Derek was stiff in the hips when he finally got back out. He stood still to make himself an easy target, and the puck came rolling around the boards for him. He flattened his stick to settle it and turned away from Murph.
To the net.
“Wait! Hang on!” called Allan.
Derek’s skates made bitter cutting sounds. He sent the puck fluttering into Brian’s glove and scowled. He would rather have scored, but failure made for better theatre. Allan and Barry would surely intuit this.
“Derek, Allan told us to wait,” said Brian, lifting his mask.
“Fuck that,” said Gover, still on the bench. But the game was already over.
It had been agreed to reserve the final fifteen minutes for “set pieces.” First Barry asked everyone to stand at the blue line and then sit at the bench, so he could get “cover shots.”
“I need breakaways,” said Barry. “With a defenceman chasing, so it looks real.”
They lined up for breakaways against Matt, until someone scored.
Allan gathered several of them in a corner. Derek was in this group.
“Give me some rough stuff. You ready, Bar?”
“One sec,” said Barry, fiddling with his lens. They stood watching him. Derek’s feet were freezing.
“Okay…Go!”
Nels Pittman took the puck into the boards and the others met him there, noisily slamming the glass and butting each other like mountain goats. Nels lowered a shoulder and popped Derek in the chest. Turning awkwardly, his right leg planted, Derek felt a tickle at the base of his torso, then a faint tug at his right testicle.
He returned to the bench and shoved a hand down his pants, pushing the cup aside and rubbing the space behind his scrotum. Across the ice he watched Gerry Whelan, showered and dressed, exit the building. Nearly undetected, as always.
“This television shit,” said Steve Heneghan. “It’s just standing around, is all it is.”
The buzzer sounded again, this time signalling the end of their hour. Derek stayed behind to move the nets for the Zamboni. He took a final lap, testing himself with long strides. There was the tug again. No pain, just a cinching of his right nut, like a spasm triggered by a doctor’s unexpected hand.
Heneghan bent over in the corner, stick on his knees, making awful horking noises and releasing the results.
“Spirited one out there tonight, boys,” said Wayne, sweeping balled-up tape onto a shovel and dumping it in the garbage bucket at the centre of the room. His custodial duties always seemed a slightly exaggerated performance.
Allan and Brian huddled in a corner, almost whispering. Everyone else moved quickly and quietly.
“Nobody else needs this room, right?” asked Brian.
“She’s all yours.”
“Appreciate it, Wayne. Help yourself to a beer.”
“Ah, yes. There’s always beer.”
Naked but for rubber sandals, Derek draped a towel at his waist and stole across the room, half-afraid that Barry might be waiting to catch him bare-assed. First to the showers, he flipped all taps full on and waited for hot water. The two showers were in a single, open stall with a low barrier to prevent flooding in the rest of the washroom.
He lifted his hairy testicles. What a nonsensical, troublesome apparatus. The snarl of curls, the shapeless sack, the finger puppet with its preening head. He pulled the skin taut so the matching eggs were wrapped in slim ribbons of red and blue. Nothing appeared amiss or felt tender to his touch. The sperm ducts (which Derek had once mistaken for ominous lumps) curved behind and up the back. From his research on the web, Derek knew that bacterium gonococcus invaded these tubes. The body’s counterattack produced the gummy fluid he had discharged on that awful summer morning. Long after the antibiotics had done their job and gonococcus was vanquished, he felt vulnerable, reflexively reaching inside his robe or under the bed sheets to cradle his balls, shielding them. Nicole understood the new delicacy, and it became an unspoken wrinkle in their sexual ground rules.
Before Derek knew Nicole, she and Margot had opened their house on Leslie Street to a man named John. Just a short-term arrangement for the expensive winter months, she later explained. Without meeting him, Derek understood the man. Correctly reading the household, John saw his chance to have a quick go at a pair of depressives. That Nikki and Margot understood this as well, Derek was certain, though they would never admit as much, even to themselves. For all their common sense, women seemed capable of a recklessness that men only played at.
Preliminaries dutifully observed, the inevitable falling together likely took place on a dull Tuesday night or drunken, disappointed Friday. John would have worked in haste—a more deliberate seduction risked second thoughts on the part of the girl. Waking up the next morning, they might complete the episode with one final, drowsy romp before assuring each other that it had all been a terrible, though not unpleasant, mistake. As John turned his efforts to the next room, gonococcus flourished in Nicole’s canals and awaited its next opportunity for cross-pollination. This was Derek. He, Nicole, Margot, the evasive John, and God knows who else were forever linked in this daisy chain of indiscriminate rutting.
“I was only with him once,” said Nicole.
“He screwed Margot too, didn’t he.”
“It was a mistake.” That’s all she would say.
You had to hand it to John. He was in and out of the place in barely two months.
The Mayo Clinic website warned of further horrors: possible inflammation of the anus, eyes, throat, and tonsils, depending on what you’d been sticking in your cavities. This raised several mortifying questions, but Derek didn’t ask them. He went to a doctor he had never seen before. Nicole opted to see Sarah at the family practice clinic.
“Your sister?” Derek was incredulous. “Can’t we keep a little privacy here?”
“She’d find out anyway, eventually,” said Nicole. “You could see her too, you know. She’s totally discreet.”
“Fuck, no.”
Derek adjusted the temperature and soaked his head. Pittman stepped under the second shower. Heneghan and Gover waited.
“They’re setting up in the room, once we’re all dressed,” said Heneghan.
“Setting up what?”
“For an interview. Buddy needs more stuff.”
“Fuck that,” said Gover.
“What’s the problem, Shawn?”
“What kind of shit was he getting on with before the game? And all we did was stand around out there. I didn’t even work up a sweat.” He stepped into the water and vigorously soaped his face. “I don’t know, man. Fuck them. They should pay for the ice. We didn’t even get a game in.”
Brian appeared, a compact spider of a man without his armour.
“I had no idea you guys were so concerned, so concerned about your public image. I wouldn’t be surprised if they bailed on the whole goddamn thing, the kind of cooperation they’ve been getting. Fuckin’ bitching and whining. You can’t fuck with TV like that.”
“It wasn’t even a game.” Gover pointed an accusing finger at Brian, flecks of foam shooting from the tip. “That wasn’t a game. That wasn’t us.”
“Jesus, Shawn,” said Derek. “It’s only an hour’s ice time.”
“But it has to be fucking real. What are we doing here, if there’s no game? Waste of ten bucks.”
“Is that what you’re worried about, Shawn? Your precious ten bucks?” Brian backed away, as if Gover might lash out. “I’ll give you your ten bucks back, if it means that much to you. But a few of us don’t mind being part of something. A few of us are willing to look at the bigger picture.”
Gover turned and scrubbed his scalp. Brian’s voice echoed off the hard tile.
“You want to take over this game? You try it, man. Keeping track of twenty hockey players, bitching and whining. People not bringing their money, and lugging three dozen beer down here every Friday.”
Derek was out of the shower and dripping.
“Brian?” he said. “My towel there? Behind you?”
“Oh, sorry.” Brian stepped aside. They all fell silent, self-consciously naked.
“Fuck this, man,” said Brian, wrapping a towel at his waist and turning for the door. “Fuck this.”
“It’s bullshit, Shawn,” said Heneghan, water pouring over his head. “But you can’t fight the bullshit. You always lose.”
A quiet had descended on the room as the men dressed. Brian pulled on sweat pants and moved about, arranging a circle of chairs.
“Well,” said Nels Pittman. “I guess it’s time for us to play the good old hockey team.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nels shrugged, retreating behind a cigarette and a grin. Brian’s face was pulled taut. He looked like a dog on the alert.
“Surprised if they come back at all. There’s a million hockey games out there. A million hockey games where they won’t have to take this shit. You don’t fuck around with these guys.”
Allan burst through the door, heaving a two-four of Canadian to the floor.
“A few beers to fuel the witty repartee,” he announced.
“Cold?”
“Straight from the cooler.”
All hands dove for the box.
Brian and Kevin Byrne sat first. Murph looked around and took a chair without being asked. Heneghan filled the final seat after some coaxing from Allan.
Derek was among several who stayed to watch. Gover was gone, but had left something prickly in the room.
Allan pulled a chair into the heart of the circle, bringing his microphone within reach of everyone. The television lamp brought their faces into full view, rounded with the advance of middle age, chins and cheekbones receding.
“I want to understand why this game has a fire like no other. Why does it grip you, deep down?”
“What? That game tonight?”
“Just shagging around.”
“No,” said Allan. “I mean hockey. The game.” His hand drew an arc out and in, encompassing the game like a pastor. “What’s the essence? The secret?”
Heneghan folded his arms. Kevin pushed his head forward, as if trying to sniff out the trail. The question was too grand, too big.
“Why are we all here?” asked Allan finally.
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else,” said Brian. “But I’m a kid at heart. I mean, we all been at it since we were kids.”
“So there’s a real connection with boyhood, with the boy you were?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, hockey was everything.” Brian warmed to the topic, muscular shoulders relaxing under his black T-shirt. Like all the best rec hockey goalies, he was a small, hard man. “No job, no girlfriend, no problems. Just down to the rink with your buddies, and French fries at the canteen and your dad driving you home.”
Nods of agreement from the others.
“So is this about fathers and sons?” asked Allan. “Did he take you to the rink and stuff?”
“Oh yes. Every Saturday morning, before daylight.”
“Mom took me,” said Murph. “Dad wanted no part of it.”
“My dad coached all-star,” said Kevin. “So I played for him for a year.”
“That’s a great memory,” said Allan.
“Second year I got cut. Too slow.”
Allan consulted his notes.
“But I learned my lesson,” said Kev. He turned to Heneghan as he spoke. “Dad told me, ‘If you ever back down out there, don’t bother showing up anymore. Because you’ll be backing down for the rest of your life.’ I took that lesson into business with me.”
He thrust his head forward again and propped his hands on his hips. Kev was a long man with a trim waist, and he had a habit of leaning close to Heneghan when they talked, as if to contrast his lean entrepreneur’s body with that of the overfed, entitled union man.
“Any of you guys ever live on the mainland?” asked Allan.
“Three years in Ontario,” said Kev. “Slogging it out.”
“Was it different playing hockey up there? Was there the same sense of comradeship? Because to me, I really sense the Newfoundland character in this group.”
“Well,” said Kev, tilting his head from side to side. “Newfoundland and the Newfoundland character, okay. But you know, as a man who grew up in Newfoundland and who made his commitment to Newfoundland by opening his business, I mean, you have to be here and the commitment has to be here.”
“I don’t know about the whole Newfoundland thing,” said Murph. It had been nearly an hour since the game, and his lids were heavy. “We all know there’s just as many pricks and cunts and assholes in Newfoundland as anywhere else. Sorry. You can edit that last bit, right?”
“Well, I think that’s unfair,” said Kev. “I mean from the point of view of entrepreneurship and resourcefulness—”
“You can’t deny, Kev, you can’t deny—” said Heneghan.
“But from a hockey standpoint, I’ve just got to say—”
“And I’m right down there on the shop floor. That’s where, like, you got to be. Right down there.”
They were sweating under the lights now, faces pink, everyone agitating to make a point. Derek could feel the heat of the lamps from across the room.
Allan turned to Murph.
“You were about to say. Sorry, you’re…”
“Leo Murphy.”
“Leo, you were going to say, from a hockey standpoint…”
“Yeah, from a hockey, um, standpoint.” Murph rocked in his seat, a drop forming at the tip of his nose. “This is like a world you would invent if you were telling a story to your kids. Kids want an unreal world, because the world they walk around in isn’t enough. Unreal, but you need it to be more real than anything else.”
Kev snorted a laugh.
“You have to come through a lot of doors here, right?” said Murph. “You know how it is in a kid’s story. There’s always hidden doors and secret passages that take you somewhere weird. That’s what it’s like. You go through doors and move further from what’s real. There’s no natural world here. No earth, no sky. The ice isn’t real. That’s why a lot of people can’t relate to it.”
“So it’s a kind of escape. Is that what you mean?”
“No,” said Murph. “That’s not what I meant.”
Allan waited for him to continue. But Murph only shrugged and took a long drink.
“What do you think of professional sports, with all the big money?” Allan asked, turning from Murph to address the others. “Would you say that your game is more pure? More real, even?”
“Yeah,” said Brian. “This is what hockey’s all about.”
“When it comes to marketing and branding, there’s no doubt that sports is the ultimate,” said Kev.
“They’ve convinced us all that there’s something there,” said Murph.
Heneghan belched, setting off a tremble in his cheeks and down into his soft, stubbled jowls, gravity doing its work. A little tragedy, thought Derek. A little death.
“It’s like beer commercials,” said Murph, holding up his bottle. “I see the girl on TV. I see her tits. She’s holding the beer. I go to the store and come home with a dozen.” He spread his hands out. “I’m not buying the beer. I’m buying the tits.”
“Okay,” said Allan. “If we can just refocus here.”
“Now, what’s brilliant about sports is that when they sell it to you, they don’t even have to give you the beer. It’s all tits.”
“Not real tits, obviously,” said Heneghan.
“No, not real. Virtual tits. Marketing tits.”
This prompted approving nods all around and fresh beers for everyone. Barry moved to shoot from the other side.
“Okay, I’ve only got a couple more questions,” said Allan.
“You’ll never get the girl,” said Nels Pittman. He sat in the opposite corner, next to Derek, far from the light. “Is that the point, Murph?”
“Yeah, that’s key. You always want the tits you can’t have. You open your wallet.”
“Murph? Please?” said Brian, tilting his head towards Allan.
“Sorry.”
“Okay.” Allan was back to his notes. “People talk about how games like baseball can open your mind. You can contemplate stuff. Is hockey like that? Do you ever think about other things when you’re playing?”
“Not really, b’y,” replied Kev. “It’s hard enough just to keep up out there.”
“You don’t think back to other games, other times in your life?”
“Well, it’s funny,” said Heneghan. “I was thinking about something tonight.”
“Yes?”
“I was thinking about going out to Grandfather’s old place in the spring. Haven’t been there for three years now. Not since Grandfather died.”
“What made you think of that? Is there something in hockey that brings you back? A conduit?”
“A what?”
“Did your granddad play the game?”
“No. It’s just that with the snow breaking up and the longer days, you start thinking about maybe taking a road trip.”
“So your grandfather—”
“My grandfather died in the same house he was born in,” said Heneghan.
“Sorry, is it Steve?”
“Hmm?”
“Steve, it’s better if you look at me than at the camera.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“No, no, that’s okay. So can you just go back to the start? Your grandfather died?”
“Yeah, he died right there, probably the same room he was born in, and—”
“No, sorry. Can you start, just start again so we get it all clean. ‘My grandfather died in the same house he was born in.’ Start there.”
“Okay. My grandfather died in the same house he was born in.”
“Yeah. I mean, keep going. Not at the camera.”
“When I was a kid he told me, ‘If I dies, I’m gonna die right here. Not going up to St. John’s. Not going into the hospital. I’ll die here and I’ll be buried up back of the church with my father and his father.’ And he was.”
“Where’s this, Steve?” asked Brian.
“Out on New World Island.”
“Any other family out there?”
“No. My father got the hell out of it. They all did. There were government jobs on the go, more money than Grandfather ever dreamed of. Nobody stayed, not in my crowd.”
“Okay,” said Allan. “Maybe we can wrap up with you guys telling—”
“Hang on,” said Nels Pittman. “You were going to say something else, Steve?”
Allan looked to Brian, who looked to Nels in his darkened corner.
“I don’t think he’s finished,” said Nels. “Carry on, Steve.”
“Well, Grandfather always said, you got to fight to make a go of it around here. But his Newfoundland was already over. Everything changed.”
Heneghan lifted his hands and rolled them over each other, indicating the unstoppable march of modernity.
“My father could get a government job, buy a house, get a pension. He didn’t want to live like Grandfather, and I couldn’t live like Grandfather even if I wanted to.”
He paused. Barry kept the lens trained on him, sipping a beer with a free hand.
“That’s interesting,” said Allan. “And do you think we’ve lost something by leaving behind those traditional ways?”
“Let me tell you about traditional ways. Grandfather was a grown man before he found out his sister was his mother.”
“His sister…How?”
“The woman he thought was his oldest sister was really his mother. The mom he grew up with was really his grandmother. They didn’t tell him until he was in his twenties or something.”
There was a pause while all hands unravelled this turn.
“What about his father?” Brian asked.
“Never found out who his father was, first nor last. His mother took it to her grave.”
Barry held the shot, smiling. Everyone drank. Heneghan looked at Allan, as if expecting a response.
“Wow,” said Allan finally. “I mean…So, the whole idea of traditional Newfoundland—”
“I don’t believe in traditional Newfoundland.”
“You could believe in nothing,” said Murph. “You could believe in nothing, and this could be your game.”
Derek stayed until the beer was gone. Heneghan offered to drive him home, but Derek said he was only going around the corner. Heneghan had no business getting behind the wheel, and Derek watched as his Toyota pickup hit a patch of black ice and clipped the gate at the end of the parking lot. Under a flash of street light Derek saw the damage, a long silvery gash along the fender. But Heneghan didn’t stop. He backed up, shifted gears with a lurch, then pulled into the street and away.
At home, the telephone blinked with a message, a beacon in the dark kitchen. It was Lou. Louis Butt. Hey-Hey Lou Langdon.
“A long talk tonight, me and your mother. Thought you’d want to know. We’ll be talking to you, I’m sure.”
Quarter to midnight. Derek called back.
“It’s all out there now?”
“All out there, yes,” said his father.
“What about Cynthia?”
“Hmm? Yes. Yes, we called her. It’s all done now.”
Derek coughed. A filament twitched, playing his testicle like a fish on a line.
“Where were you all night?”
“At the rink.”
“Bloody fool,” said Lou, with an abrupt laugh. “A bit old for that now, aren’t we?”
“Is Mom still up?”
“Sure. I’ll get her.”
There was a murmur of voices, his father’s hoarse and his mother speaking in long, low tones. Derek couldn’t make out what was said.
“Everyone’s tired now, Derek,” she said when she picked up the phone. “We can talk about this soon.”
“Okay.”
“Your brother called tonight, on top of everything else. He’s coming home for a bit.”
“Is he bringing his new wife?”
“I don’t believe so. Maybe with the pregnancy she’s staying close to home.”
They said goodbye and hung up. Cynthia had turned up on call-waiting while they talked. Derek called.
“Can we get together tomorrow?” She was wide awake. “I’m seeing Mom for breakfast. Can you come over after, around nine?”
“I will.”
“You’re a guy. Maybe you can offer some, I don’t know…knowledge, I guess.”
Knowledge. Allan had come to the rink like the pilgrim to India or the tourist seeking authentic Newfoundland. Marvelling at colours and smells, the monastic purpose, he expected transformation, a cleansing. Like Cynthia, he believed there was knowledge.
“Well, I think I did the right thing,” she said. “To look into his past.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I was right to look at those old letters. It’s what people carry with them, the past. They carry it all their life.”
Derek poured a vodka and orange juice in a beer glass, and drained it while standing next to the refrigerator. Then he climbed the stairs and undressed. He did all this in the dark. The only light came from the fridge, when he opened it to get the orange juice.
He got in bed, fell asleep immediately, and dreamt he was alone in a strange dressing room at a strange rink. The walls and floor were brilliant white, and the reflected light made him shield his eyes. Hearing running water behind him, he turned to find a set of open shower stalls. One was occupied. Nicole was showering, the water flattening her dark hair and pasting it to her face. Without acknowledging Derek, she stepped out of the shower and through a door. He followed her into a smaller room, dark and unfurnished, except for a couch. Naked and dripping wet, Nicole sat down and reclined, turning her face to the wall. Derek dropped to his knees and laid his head in her lap. “Close your eyes,” she said, and he did.