EIGHT

He crossed the highway and stuck out his thumb, heading west towards Corner Brook. Sylvanus would still be there, sitting with his mother, and he needed his father, he needed bad to see him.

A green Chevy drove past, heading east towards Hampden. It honked, pulled over, and the window lowered. Ambrose Rice, Ben’s father. Kyle hopped back across the highway and ran towards the car. A dark grizzled head poked through the passenger side window. Suze, Ben’s mother.

“Recognize that muck of hair anywhere,” she called out. “Just like your father.”

“How’s she going, Suze? What’re you up to, buddy?” he asked Ambrose, lowering his head to better see him.

“Get in,” said Suze, “we gives you a ride. Your mother would have a copper kitten if she knows you’re hitchhiking.”

“Thanks, but I’m on my way to Corner Brook.”

“Then we’ll drive back to Corner Brook. We were just visiting with your mother. Imagine that now, she keeping all this to herself and your poor old father going along with it.”

“Yeah, I gotta go see him, you guys go on, now.”

“Your father’s on his way out,” said Ambrose. “Said he had to check on you and the boys with the cement.”

“He’s on his way out? You’re sure?” Kyle straightened, looking back down the highway.

“That’s what he said then—might already be ahead of us. Had to pick up some things for Addie in the drugstore.”

“I’ll take a ride home, then.” Kyle squeezed into the back seat amidst a pile of stuffed grocery bags and tried to focus on Suze’s yakking as Ambrose hauled them back onto the highway behind an eighteen-wheeler screaming past.

“…he got some lot on his mind now, your father do. Hardly spoke all while we were there and that’s not like Syllie, hey Am? And to think, not one of you calling me about your mother. But that’s Addie—always to herself. Never knew a thing till Roger Nichols showed up from Corner Brook yesterday, looking for a box of crab legs. And I blames you, too,” she said, twisting sideways, grey eyes snapping back at Kyle.

He mumbled something apologetically and Ambrose winked at him in the rearview mirror and he kept seeing his father opening the house door that night, Clar Gillard’s blood on the doorknob.

“…and what’s Bonnie Gillard doing there? Motioning me outside your mother’s room and telling me to say nothing about your house being taped off and all that. Like I was going to barge into Addie’s room and bring it up. Near bit me tongue off. It’s Bonnie Gillard herself what’s worrying me. All that stuff going on and she acting like she don’t have a care in the world. They says she done it. That’s the word down home. I hope she’s not bringing her troubles onto your mother because that crowd can suck blood from a turnip, they can. Drains the energy right outta me just looking at the mess around her father’s doorplace. Jack Verge. Not fit. And he the first one up every morning, then, with the smoke coming from his chimney so’s everyone thinks how hard-working he is. Stun thing. Most likely he’s not gone to bed yet. Still sitting and drinking at the breakfast table. And your poor father! Sitting by your mother’s bedside and holding her hand like she was his young sweetheart…”

…next morning his father wouldn’t drink, had thrown that bottle of booze out through the truck window…

“And that Kate what’s her name—you know her, Kylie? Sidling off down the hospital hall with Bonnie Gillard—”

“Kate was there?”

“Like thieves they were. You wonders what’s so important they stole off like that, having their chat and your poor mother watching after them, right concerned.”

“What were they talking about?”

“I never heard—they kept far enough to themselves, whispering like two crooks. Where we taking you, my love? You can’t go home. How long they going to keep your house sealed off? And where’s your mother going to go when she gets out of the hospital—and Sylvie?”

“Don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” He shut out Suze’s prattling and stared out the window at the passing belt of green. The clouds parted, a shaft of sun striking gold through the trees. Winter finally ending and yet here he sat, paining like an arthritic limb before the mother of all storms about to descend. And for the first he could remember he felt like something adrift, no pier to tether himself to.

“Look. Look there,” Suze cried out. Sitting on the guardrail beside the junction turnoff to Hampden and Jackson’s Arm, arms wrapped around himself for warmth, was Trapp. Skinny as old fuck and with ruffs of tawny hair clinging to a gaunt, pointy face. He rose as Ambrose braked, turning off the highway onto the Hampden Road, and came towards the car. Glassy green eyes staring into Kyle’s with such intensity that Kyle drew back.

“Don’t you stop, don’t you stop!” Suze was shrieking at Ambrose. “We’re not giving him a ride, he can rot on that stump before I ever gives him another handout. Don’t you stop, Am.”

“You gone silly?” yelled Ambrose as Suze grabbed at the wheel. He sped up, pushing her aside, and Kyle looked back, watching Trapp staring after them. The same slump to his shoulders that he’d worn the second last time he’d seen him, sitting on the bank outside the bar and talking with Ben. Or, listening. Trapp hadn’t been talking. Just slumped there, head hanging as though it were too heavy to hold up, and Ben, his arm wrapped around Trapp’s shoulders, hugging him, hugging and talking hard and Trapp kept slumping further inside himself.

Suze’s voice was rising unbearably. “He’s heard Ben’s coming home, that’s why he’s poking around now. He got poor Benji drove crazy, he have. Too bad it wasn’t he that got shot and not his dog—”

“Sufferin’ Jesus.”

“I means it, yes, I do mean it, Am.” She looked back at Kyle. “That’s how it started, back when Trapp’s dog bit Benji. And Benji always felt bad when that sick father of Trapp’s shot the dog. He’s still making up for it. And I don’t care if Benji was teasing the dog—you can tease a dog and not have your leg bit off. And he was strange, Trapp was. And he’s who caused your poor brother’s death, too. Poor Chris. Don’t shush me, Am. Benji told us enough. Trapp wasn’t doing his job properly on the rig, too busy fighting with everybody, and then when he seen the rig about to blow—”

“Shut up!” yelled Ambrose. “Bloody well shut up. She don’t know no such thing, Kyle.”

“Benji told me straight.”

“Ben was drinking and shouldn’t been talking.”

“And that’s when the truth comes out, when liquor got your tongue.”

“By Jesus, the devil must have yours, then. Blaming a man for something like that just because you don’t like him.”

“And what’s the reason I don’t like him? Because he’s so nice? You must be foolish, my son, because the reason I don’t like him is because he’s an arse. Just like Benji said.”

“Ben treats him like a brother.”

“Brothers hate each other. Ask Cain.” She twisted around back to Kyle again. “And your poor sister, wonder she never got killed, too. She was there, seen it all, she did. First one to his side, she was.”

Kyle was opening his car door now. “Pull over, Am. Pull over.” They’d just driven past Bayside and were coming upon Bottom Hill.

“I never meant to say anything. Oh, my, Kyle. He never suffered, it was too fast and he never suffered. Oh my, what have I got done now?”

Kyle was out of the car before Ambrose rolled to a stop. “Go on now, thanks for the lift. Don’t worry,” he said to Suze. “Go on now and we’ll see you when Ben gets back.” He started walking. Walking fast down Wharf Road. Walking fast from Suze—your poor sister, seen it all, first one to his side…

He hopped the yellow ribbon cordoning off his house and then went up to the door and stopped, staring in through the window. He saw them there, his mother, father, Chris, Sylvie—all of them. Their faces hung like ghosts around the empty kitchen. The yellow plastic ribbon tic-ticced in the gusting. He clasped his hands behind his head and walked in circles like a mangy dog. His father, he needed to see his father.

The tide was just starting in. He hopped off the wharf onto the scrap of beach and started climbing around the outcropping, grasping onto the cold granite rock, short-cutting it to Hampden. He came to the ragged inlet that had cradled Clar. He wondered at the innocence of wavelets splashing and playing where Clar’s sightless eyes had stared up at him. Then he sat, cupping his knees in his hands and seeing Chris’s warm brown eyes full of light. He watched the seaweed floating on the water, watched again as it settled onto the vacant eyes of Clar Gillard, and wondered if light had ever entered those dark orbs or if he’d been a darkness even unto himself. Doing as he, Kyle, was doing. Fleeing down side roads and detours and never stopping to think that yesterday can never be fled, that its ills and thrills work hand in hand in shaping the morning’s path.

The water started swelling into the inlet, the wavelets lapping a little too hard at his boots. He pushed himslef up from the rocks to leave and paused. Peered more closely towards the rugged back wall of the inlet. About six feet up, just above eye level. A little star within the crevice of a rock. Sunlight bouncing off steel. He found footing on a ledge and hoisted himself closer. He saw the handle of a knife, its blade buried. A knife used to fillet cod in the fish plants. His heart kicked with knowing—the knife that had ended Clar’s life. Sure as hell, it was the knife. He leaned closer and his heart kicked harder and kept kicking, near rupturing his rib cage. It was his knife. Kyle’s. The knife that his father always used. Nicked in the handle from where he, Kyle, had pinged his axe off it once.

Blood pounded in his ears. The water lapped harder at his boots. He looked madly around the inlet for somewhere to hide the knife. Why hadn’t the cops found it? It was right there, easily seen. How hadn’t they seen it?

Because it couldn’t have been there. Couldn’t. They would have seen it. Someone put it there. After the cops had finished searching, someone had returned and stuck in the knife. There hadn’t been a storm. No wave could have flung the thing ashore and wedged it this high onto the rock. He looked up. It was a thirty-foot drop from the top of the cliff.

He pressed his hand against his still kicking heart. He extracted the knife and slid it down the inside of his coat sleeve, crooking his elbow to keep it in place. He climbed around the outcropping and onto the grey pebbly beach girdling Hampden, looking up at the houses against the wind-blown sky. A revved chainsaw ripped through the air, smell of cut birch. A missus hanging a mat over her clothesline. Another coming out of her basement with a load of splits. They both stopped, looking down at him, watched.

He bent his head, took a scuffed path through the weeds and up onto the road, coming face to face with the old fellow with the hitched-up pants and glasses. Dobey Randall. His eyes cut stark clear through his lenses at Kyle. They were poignant with knowing, as if he’d seen everything that had just happened. Kyle walked away from him, his step quickening with panic. He kept himself from breaking into a trot past a gathering of men and young boys on the wharf near Clar’s ribboned-off truck. Their voices lowered as he passed. Felt like he was in a movie scene and all eyes were on him; the director would yell Cut any second now, everyone would break into chatter, all would be normal again. A rough voice called out.

“Your father working today, then?”

“He’s in Corner Brook. How’s she going, Pete, b’y?”

“Not bad. Your mother’s good, then?”

“Yeah, she’s good. You sees Father, tell him I’m down Beaches.”

“Needing a hand down there?” asked Stan Hurley.

“Naw. Got the boys with me, Lyman and Wade.”

“Give you a ride, I suppose.”

“Naw, be someone along soon enough.”

The knife slid down his arm, the tip pricking into his wrist. He gripped the cuff of his sleeve and straightened his arm. Heard a car coming down Hampden Hill. The shiny four-door manual Chevy, straight off the lot, bucked like a rabbit and choked to a stop alongside of him. Julia. Driving her father’s new car. The passenger window rolled down. She lowered her head, staring scantways at him. Clear blue eyes, hair clamped in a messy bun, stray feathery strands tickling her face.

“Chance a ride?” she asked.

He got in, the knife sagging to the back of his sleeve. He dug his hand into his pocket and closed the door.

“Going down Beaches?” she asked.

“Yup. Yup, I am. How far you going?”

“All the way if you’d like.”

He forced a smile to his stiff jaws. He held on to the door handle as she started the engine, rode the clutch too hard, stalled her.

“Self-taught?”

“Yup.” Another twist at the ignition and the car vaulted forward, grinding first gear into a nub and then jumping into second and much too soon into third and they were bucking down the road. “Dad sees this, he’ll kill me.” She laughed. “But that’s how he done it—stole his father’s standard and learned on a hillside.”

“We’re riding a stolen car?”

“Borrowed. Not like he don’t know by now. Half the outport’s harping on the phone by now. She stalled her going downhill, b’y. Can’t think what she’ll do going uphill.” She laughed again. Her mouth the prettiest pink he’d ever seen. “You always so serious?” she asked him.

“What? No. No. Just busy, is all. Nice day, eh?”

“How’s your mother?”

“She’s fine.”

“Glad to hear that. Nice woman, your mother. We always chat at the post office or in the store.”

“Yeah. We like her, too.”

“Right. Anyway, she’s interesting. Quiet without being quiet, you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

She gave him a contrite look. “We all knows about her operation.”

“Figures.”

“That bothers you?”

“No. No, I don’t mind.”

“She does?”

“She’s like that.”

“You Nows. Floated up the bay all those years ago and you’re still strangers.”

“Jaysus. That bad?”

“Your sister hardly talked to any of us going to school.”

“She’s shy.”

“And you?”

“Me? Uh, no. Nope. Hell, I’m about. You’re the one who’s gone.”

“Changing that soon enough.”

“How’s that?”

“Not quite figured, yet. Everybody’s beating a path to Toronto or Alberta or Saskatchewan. Not me. I’m the one who’s gonna make it here.”

“Doing what?”

“Figure something.”

“Your folks’ll like that.”

“Right. The old man pales whenever I mentions it. Wants me making it big in da big city, like Mary Tyler Moore.”

He smiled.

“You? What’s your plan?”

“Still figuring it.”

“There it is. Closed-mouthed Nows.”

“Takes after Mother.”

“Yup. She don’t hand out invites, either.”

“I’ll tell her to invite you for tea.”

She laughed. “Roses said you were daft.”

“Roses is a thorny bitch.”

“She can laugh, though. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh.”

“Huh, maybe later.” He grabbed the door handle to keep me from jolting forward as she yanked the gear stick from fifth down to third, starting up Fox Point, tires biting into the dirt.

“Oops, forgot fourth,” she said and laughed at the concerned look on his face and he wanted to touch the creamy taut column of her throat as she tossed back her head, laughing harder. “Why are you so serious?” she asked, turning to him.

He smiled. Couldn’t help himself. Felt like he’d slipped through a crack from gloomy skies into liquid sunshine.

“Stop chewing your nails.”

Jaysus. He dug his hand into his pocket.

“An ouroboros moment?” she asked.

“A what?”

“The snake. Feeding off its own tail while growing a better one.”

“Yeah, that’s it—regrowing myself. In bits.”

“Well, you starts with your head. Then the rest takes care of itself.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you just lose your head.”

“How many headless gurus do you know?”

There was an undertone to her banter. He lowered his window, too stuffy to breathe. “Cripes, slow down, here.” They were driving through the Beaches and a dozen youngsters flew out onto the road in front of them, hollering and yodelling. Bath towels tied around their throats, hanging cape-like down their backs. Bandanas with cut-out eyes around their heads.

Julia hauled the stick into neutral, slowing to a crawl. Kyle yelled out the window, Won’t be enough of ye left to pray over, you gets struck. He rolled the window back up. “Look at that little devil,” he said to Julia as the eldest—one of the Keatses—waved a silver plastic sword at him with one hand and gave him the finger with the other.

“The finger? He gave you the finger? My God, what is he, ten? Eleven?”

“Been giving me the finger since he was four,” said Kyle. “Rimmed or warped, that one.”

“Oh my lord, brazen little bugger.” She honked her horn and laughed and he loved how she was always laughing and he hated driving past the last house and her pushing the stick into neutral and coasting to a stop.

“Too hard on the brakes. Ought to gear down.”

“Yeah, I’ll figure it.” She leaned against the wheel, watching him, smiling.

“Yeah, see you later, then.”

“Just a sec.” She reached for him as he was opening the door and too late he twisted away, her hand already enclosed around his forearm, her palm against the bone-hard handle of the knife. She pulled back, shocked. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in all of White Bay whose hand wouldn’t intuitively know the feel of a trimming knife. Fear chased across her face with dawning clarity as she stared at him.

He cursed. Sat back in the car, closing the door.

“Say nothing,” she whispered.

“I found it.”

She nodded.

“I can’t talk about it right now,” he said. “Maybe—well, when it’s all done with.”

Her hands gripped the wheel. He moved to reassure her and she shrank against the door. He gaped at her incredulously. “You’re not scared of me? Holy Jesus. Look, I didn’t do this thing. There’s stuff going on—Christ, I don’t even know myself what’s going on.”

A sharp whistle sounded from the beach. His cousins. They were off by the shoreline, having a smoke. He held up his hand to them and Julia pulled the stick to reverse.

“Listen,” he began, but she interrupted with a shake of her head.

“You can’t talk now, I get it. And you shouldn’t. I have to get home.”

“I’ll—I’ll talk to you. Later.”

She nodded. Her mouth, her face, all concerned. She wouldn’t look at him. He got out of the car, closed the door, and stepped back. She sat quiet for a moment, then looked up at him. She gave a slight nod and he put his hand to his heart in gratitude.

“Hol-ee jeezes!” Wade had come up behind him, watching as Julia rode the clutch hard, burning through the gears as she drove back up the road. “That her father’s new car?”

“Come on, let’s go to work.” Kyle walked onto the dark raw earth of the site, looking at the dug trenches for the footings, already encased with honeyed two-by-twelves and carpeted with beach rocks. Lengths of rebar were laid out, ends interlacing and tied with steel wire. Mounds of sand and gravel and bags of cement mix stood next to a wheelbarrow by the eastern corner. Everything tidied, strips of plastic anchored down with rock. Waiting for a clear sky and his father to come and start mixing the cement.

“How’s Aunt Addie?” asked Wade.

“She’s fine, just fine. Looks good, buddy. Lot of work done.”

“That’s your father. Hard man to keep up with when he gets going.”

“Hooker and Snout came and give us a hand,” said Lyman, joining them.

“They’re gone back to the plant. Working this evening,” Wade added. “Heard you got hauled in agin. Awful stuff, hey, b’y?”

“Questions, Jesus. Don’t know why they thinks I got the answers. Come on. Let’s mix cement.” He started towards the wheelbarrow, the knife sagging heavier in his coat sleeve.

“Hey? But we got no mixer,” said Lyman.

“We’ll mix it ourselves. In the wheelbarrow.” Kyle looked skyward. The cloud was thin. “Won’t be raining for a while. We’ll have the footing poured by then.”

“What about Uncle Syl? Who’s going to do the mixing?”

“Your brother, nutcase. Graduated Boudine High, suppose he can handle a bag of cement.”

“You sure?” asked Wade. “Uncle Syl mightn’t appreciate us going it alone. And without a mixer.”

“What’s the matter, forget your recipes?”

“One part, two parts, three parts. Mix, sand, and gravel. Let’s get at her, then. If that’s what you wants.”

“That’s what I wants.”

“Fine, then. Go get the hose,” Wade said to Kyle. “And you get them spades over there,” he ordered Lyman. “Over there, stun arse, next to the wheelbarrow. Never mind, I gets them myself. You run up to Vic’s and get her rake.”

“A rake?”

“Just go get the fucking rake. Come on, let’s get at her,” he said to Kyle and shifted the wheelbarrow closer to the bags of cement. “I’ve never done it without a mixer. But I suppose it’s the same mix, hey, b’y?”

“Yes, b’y.”

“Now, let’s see here—for a wheelbarrow full, we’ll need two bags of mix.”

“Where’s the hose?”

“Tucked over there by the bottom of the hill. Set her up this morning. Running her from Billie’s Brook up there.”

Kyle went over to where the rubber hose coiled like one of Julia’s snakes near a clump of dried brush and hauled the end of it back to the wheelbarrow.

“Here, give it to me, I hoses down the wheelbarrow first,” said Wade. “We’ll start pouring there, the east corner. Go check it, make sure she’s ready.” He stuck one of his fingers into the opening of the hose, jettisoning a spray over the wheelbarrow. Kyle went to the east corner, letting the knife slip from his sleeve into his palm. He checked that Wade had his back to him, then bent to brush away the small pebbly rocks beneath a strip of rebar. Quickly, he dropped the knife, covering it with the pebbles. Then he stood, looking down to make sure it was fully concealed, and walked back to Wade.

“Looks good. Let’s get her started.”

“Grab that bag of cement. Hold on, now. We puts the water in the wheelbarrow first, cuts down on the dust when you add the mix. Open the bag from the end, there. Hold on now, we gets the water in—not flowing very good. Slower than Lyman.

“All right, start measuring the water. We measures the water before we pours the mix. Get that bucket, there. Has to be same amounts every time else it’ll look all patchy. Get the spade, start mixing in the mix. Rake is better, if bonehead ever gets back.”

“How’s this? I think it’s good…add the sand?”

“That’s right, add the sand. Grab the shovel. Slow—mix it in slow. That’s the way. Now then, shovel in the gravel. Okay, start mixing.”

“Right. All right. There she goes, mixing just fine,” said Kyle. “How’s your father?”

“Contrary as Mother.”

“Don’t change.”

“Got hisself a shack built down Big Island. He’s the only one there.”

“That should do him.”

“You’d think. So contrary he built another shack right alongside it. And he made the rule he’s not allowed in there. Imagine that now, his own rule. Gives him something to complain about.”

“Go on, b’y.”

“Swear to Jesus, that’s what he done. Here comes poke. What took so long, dicked the dog?”

“Dick you.”

“Here, give me that rake.”

“Move over, I does it myself.” Lyman stuck the prongs of the rake into the mix in the wheelbarrow and started raking. “Bit more water, she’s drier than the Pentecost.” He raked slow and easy. Folding and blending till it looked like a load of mouldy cottage cheese. Kyle lifted the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed it to the eastern corner as Wade started shovelling the thick mix into the casings.

“Get over here, Lyman. Grab the trowel, Kyle, man. Hold on, now. Hold on. All right. Start levelling. Smooth her out.”

Kyle followed behind Wade, flattening and smoothing the cement with the rake. Lyman followed Kyle, smoothing it with the trawl. They poured and levelled and smoothed till the wheelbarrow was emptied and a good length of footing filled. Kyle checked where the knife was buried beneath the cement, resisting an impulse to bend down and mark the sinning spot with a cross.

They mixed another batch of cement and Wade poured, Lyman levelled, and Kyle smoothed. He kept looking for his father; no sign. The wind took a turn into a southerly, the air warming on Kyle’s face. A meagre shaft of sunlight limped across the site and one of his cousins muttered What the jeezes is that. They mixed up another batch, and then another and another. Batch number eight and Kyle’s back started stiffening. He took off his coat, switched from raking to pouring and then back to smoothing. The sea grumbled along the shoreline. Gulls squawked. It had begun to darken when Wade touched his shoulder.

“We better get it covered—can’t trust it won’t rain before morning. Expected Uncle Syl before now.”

Kyle looked up the road for the hundredth time. He took the hose and sprayed clumps of drying cement off the wheelbarrow. Lyman cleaned the spade and rake and they all took a hand in covering the poured cement with strips of plastic. It was nearing six when they finished, Kyle’s stomach rumbling. Couldn’t remember what he ate last.

“Where’s your car?” he asked Wade.

“Ask Lyman. He rear-ended a feller on the highway. Just past Deer Lake.”

“Rear-ended somebody on the highway? How’d you manage that?”

“Don’t know. He was three car lengths in front of me and I looked at something on the dash, and then I was up his arse. Cops took my licence.”

“What for?”

“Said the car wouldn’t safe.”

Jaysus.

“Should start our own company,” said Wade. He was standing next to Kyle, looking back over the freshly poured footings. “One side left and she’ll be finished. Get the floor poured tomorrow if the rain holds. Not bad work, hey? What do you say, Ky? Start our own company? WK Contracting.”

“Kinda like just the K.”

“Right. Pours his first load and thinks he’s boss.” He thumped Kyle’s shoulder and mock-kicked his brother’s butt.

“Like the old man, always up to no good,” Lyman complained. They strolled off the site and up the road through the Beaches. None of the youngsters were in sight. A few minutes after they passed the last house, Harry Saunders, with his wife and boys and two mutts all crowded inside the cab of his truck, pulled over. Kyle climbed in the back, his cousins beside him, and after he smacked the roof of the cab Harry drove them up the road. Two light poles before the government wharf in Hampden, Harry half rolled to a stop, the cousins jumping out. Kyle clung to a spare tire as the truck started forward. He looked back at his cousins walking up the hill towards a stand of birch and the weather-beaten hovel they lived in. This past winter had taken a nasty swipe at the dwelling, scarcely a piece of felt left on the tar-blackened roof. He watched his cousins go through the doorway and then look back, lifting a final hand of farewell towards him, and he felt the heart beating strong inside that hovel. He could tether himself to its portal in any storm.

At the crest of Bottom Hill he thumped on the cab, hollering his thanks to Harry, and jumped out. No sign of his father’s truck. He cut through the roadside entanglement of dead knapweed and thistle and half slipped, half strolled his way down the muddied shortcut through the woods, holding his breath as he always did whilst passing the rotting sawdust and fire-charred remnants of the Trapps’ sawmill. Hated that fucking beam hanging and creaking.

Coming down to the back of his house, he stopped. The dog. He was sitting by the gump, string of drool hanging from his mouth. He flapped his tail like a beaver and whined. Eyes wide and hopeful. It was hungry.

“Nobody looking after you?” he asked irritably. He peered around the corner of the house. Crept up to the front, looking down the road. He saw no cops or anybody about and went to the back, crawling in through Sylvie’s bedroom window. Expected to see his father sitting at the table. No one there.

He keyed open two cans of corned beef and emptied them onto the cutting board. Forking one, he threw it out the window and the dog was on its feet, chomping it full before it hit the wharf. Jaysus. He tossed out half the contents of the other can along with a heel of bread and then closed the window. He sliced the remaining bully beef over two thick slices of bread, slathered it with mustard, threw in a couple of pickles, and bit into it whilst stripping off his clothes for a shower. After towelling himself dry, he crawled into his bed for a nap. He’d go look for his father later. Perhaps he was drunk agin. He fell into a fatigued sleep, thanking the Almighty for the opium of work.