ELEVEN

At Bottom Hill he faltered, looked towards the gravel flat and Kate’s cabin. He needed to see her. Something wasn’t sitting right. Kate wasn’t sitting right. He drove down onto the flat and pulled up before her door. Her car wasn’t there. The dog was sniffing around the back of her cabin, whining and fretting. He gave a sharp bark at Kyle and went back to his sniffing. Kyle swung the truck around and drove off the flat and up Bottom Hill. Fucking MacDuff. Stirring up a curiosity about Kate he’d never felt before. Nor wanted. He liked Kate just as she was, someone from away who had no connections to any of the goings on around Hampden. In a place where everyone’s aches and pains and passions and peeves were as familiar as his own undershirt, it was nice having a friend with no baggage that needed unpacking.

Cruising down the other side of Bottom Hill towards Hampden, he caught sight of Julia leaving the post office and hurrying towards her house, blond hair riffled by the wind. She saw the truck and stopped and he kept going. The spectacled old fellow stood on the roadside, thumbs hitched inside his suspenders, ogling him as though he was Cain returned.

“Get off the road, you nosy old fuck!” yelled Kyle, blasting his horn. He clipped down the hill, then slackened speed as he drove along the shoreline towards the Rooms. He felt like he’d lived ten days since crawling out of bed this morning. A southerly wind chopped the sea, warming the air a bit. On the far side of Fox Point he saw Wade and Lyman shovelling sand from the side of the hill into the back of—if he wasn’t mistaken—his uncle Manny’s truck.

Uncle Manny. His father’s brother from Jackson’s Arm. His favourite uncle. He felt a lump of warmth in his belly. Good. His father had company. Uncle Manny always made things better. He tapped his horn to his cousins, hoping to drive on past, but Wade dropped his shovel and was pumping his arms like a windmill for him to stop. What the hell. “Don’t have time to talk, buddy,” he said to his cousin, coasting to a stop.

Wade leaned his forearms across the rolled-down window, his face all tender with concern. “Can’t help but wonder what’s going on.”

“ ’Course you can’t. Everybody’s wondering what’s going on.” Kyle laughed. “I’m wondering what’s going on. Hell, I’d give my two right limbs to know.”

“It was one of the Keats kids that told. He’s a brazen brat, that one.”

“What? What did you say?”

“Mutt-faced Keats. Rob. He was up in the woods, spying. There was two or three of them up there but he’s the ringleader. I made his brother tell me. You was part of their game. Luke Skywalker. Leave it to Keats to be Darth Vader.”

She didn’t tell.

“Anyhow, b’y, don’t look so serious. Like I told the cops—always something falling out of our pockets into the cement. Buried me wallet, once. We got it all filled in agin where they broke it up for the knife. See you later now.” Wade drew back, then slapped the side of the cab with a finality that invited no further comment from Kyle, no matter the curiosity in his eyes.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Kyle. “How’s the old man doing?”

“Whose—mine or yours?”

“Start with yours.”

“Contrary old fucker.”

“Tell him about the spark plugs!” Lyman yelled.

“Keep digging!” Wade yelled back.

“What about the spark plugs?”

“Nothing, b’y. Nothing. The old man come up from Big Island last evening and out sawing up firewood with his chainsaw and cocky over there sneaks out and takes the caps off his spark plugs and stuffs in some tissue.”

“Jaysus.”

“Ha, ha. Old man comes back from a piss and hauls on the cord till his face is blue, can’t get a gig. Ha ha. Never cursed, did he?”

“He’s going to kill one of ye.”

“Naw, he blames everything on the religious fellow next door.” Wade thumped on the cab again. “Go on now. Don’t worry about your father—Uncle Manny’s down there with him. Good as tonic, Uncle Manny is.” Wade drew back in. “Gotta watch Uncle Syl, though. Working like a dog, he is. Head down and going at it. He’s going to have another heart attack. I told him, ‘Old man, take a break. Go on down and see Aunt Addie.’ But he don’t listen. He’s waiting for you right now, better get on down.”

“All right, buddy. See you in a bit. And thanks.”

“Nothing for it. You take ’er easy, hey.”

Kyle drove off feeling full of his cousin’s loyalty, if not his faith.

She didn’t tell.

There were no youngsters on the road as he drove through the Beaches. Hope you’re all down with the mumps. His father was sitting on the beach talking hard with Manny. They looked up, hearing the truck coming. Getting out of the cab, Kyle paused to look at the site. The basement floor that had been nothing but mud and gravel the day before was now a smooth slab of grey concrete and already trenched for piping. Two days’ work. He’d done two days work in one.

His father was coming towards him.

“Don’t worry about nothing,” said Kyle in a low tone, patting his father’s shoulder in greeting. “I buried the knife because I thought you done it. That was before our talk.”

“Say nothing to Manny. Nothing.”

“Up for a bit of sun, are you?” Kyle called to his uncle. Manny was getting up, stout and jaunty and black-bearded. Grinning eyes peering beneath the rim of a baseball cap worn backwards.

“Sun! Jaysus, that what it was?” Manny called back, doffing his cap towards the now clouded sky. “Thought it was a UFO and called the cops.” He put his cap back on as Kyle came up to him and thumped Kyle’s shoulder. “Look at them eyebrows, all growed in and thicker than your father’s. Christ, the two of ye—full of shit and down a quart. How’s she going, bugger?” He cuffed Kyle lightly on the chin and sat back down on the beach rocks.

“Moving along, things are moving along,” said Kyle, sitting beside him. “And Mother’s doing fine,” he said to his father. “Good news is, the house is no longer under investigation. We can go home. And by the way, they knew all along we were staying there.” He looked to his uncle Manny. “Suppose you heard about that stuff, too?”

“Shocking, b’y. Shocking. All ye’ve been going through and not a word from none of ye.” He threw a surly look at Sylvanus. “Me and the wife been at the winter house down Cat Arm and never heard a thing till we come back up and Matilda went to the post office and got an earful from Suze.”

“You knows Mother, now,” said Kyle. “Only told us in time to get a ride to the hospital.”

“Matilda’s gone on down Corner Brook now, helping her get packed to come home.”

“She mightn’t be home this evening,” said Kyle. “And this other stuff, Christ. Something you sees on TV, hey?” He looked up to a fixed stare from his father.

“What do you mean—mightn’t be home this evening?” asked Sylvanus.

“She got a small infection. They got her on antibiotics.”

“How come she never phoned then? How come nobody phoned?”

“I was there, I suppose. The nurse told me.”

“The nurse told you. Did you talk to the doctor?”

“They weren’t there. No need getting worked up, she was looking fine.”

“A gawd-damned corpse looks fine when they puts rouge on them. Did Sylvie talk to the doctor?”

“Sylvie was getting coffee. I never seen Sylvie. I near hit a moose and missed her at the airport. Sit down, b’y. How’s the clan, Uncle Man?”

His father’s hand came down heavily onto his shoulder. “You comes back from the hospital,” he said, eyes black as a crow’s, “and you don’t know how your mother is, or if she’s coming home this evening, and without seeing your sister?”

“I told you, she’s fine. Think Sylvie’d be off getting coffee if she wasn’t? And Bonnie was there,” he fibbed. “Mother’s wanting for nothing, Jesus, b’y. Here, get your paw off me.” He shrugged off his father’s hand, watched the thick hairy fingers curl into a fist the size of a youngster’s head. “Sit down. Getting worked up over nothing.”

“Don’t mind that, infections,” said Manny. “Happens all the time in hospitals. Goes in with sore ribs, comes out with sore elbows. No worries about that stuff.”

“Yes, b’y,” said Kyle. He patted the rocks beside him. “Sit down. All right? Take a load off.”

“Yes, b’y, sit down,” said Manny. “Like a stormy wind.”

Sylvanus tried to smile, his jaw appearing too stiff and he too dammed up for any stream of chatter. Lowering himself onto a flat rock beside Kyle, he drew up his knees, his elbows resting on them. A ray of sun struck down into the sea and he stared at it, eyes brutish.

“Taking a piece out of himself agin,” said Kyle.

“All right they keeps her for a few extra days,” said Manny. “Give her a break from you. Here, have a beer.”

“How’s everybody, Uncle Man?”

“Fine, by the size of their arses. That’s all I sees. The rest of them is poked inside the fridge, stuffing their faces. Eat! Jesus, all they does is eat.”

“Wonder where they gets that,” said Kyle, eyeing his uncle’s rounded gut.

“Ah, baby fat,” said Manny, pinching his belly. “Don’t be fooled by that—six-pack in there somewhere, hey Syllie? Cripes, the face on him. Bend over, b’y, I boots you in the arse. Here, Kylie, have a beer with Uncle Man.” He snapped open two beers, passing Kyle one and looking appreciatively towards Sylvanus’s thermos. “He’s gone Pentecost, he told me. On the black stuff. Going there myself soon as summer’s finished.”

“How’s work?”

“Crab plant just closed for another month. You might be feeding me next week. Crab fishery going the same way as the cod—too many licences, too many boats, everything overfished. Thought we learned something from fishing all the cod outta the water. Hey b’y,” he said to Sylvanus.

Sylvanus snorted, face to the choppy sheet of blue before him, wind tugging his thick thatch of hair.

“Hey, b’y, what’re you saying?” Manny persisted.

“We don’t learn nothing now. That’s what we learns.”

“Naw, you don’t say.”

“Same gawd-damned thing happening over and over. Good thing they got their science.”

“Hah, that gets him going,” said Manny, nudging Kyle. “Bring up politics and that gets him going. Right on, b’y. Somebody should teach them adding and subtracting. You takes all the fish outta the sea and how many left back to spawn? Nothing, sir. Now, how hard is that to learn? You done good, Syl, b’y, getting outta the fishery. Not just greedy governments and companies. We fishermen plays it blind, too. We wants the dollar. You done better than we, staying on shore and not trading your nets for the factory freezers. If we’d all stood up like you done years ago, we might still have a fishery.”

Sylvanus grunted. “Only thing I changed now is me address. Like the rest of ye.”

“Listen to him. Not down on himself, is he?” said Manny.

“Can’t give him nothing,” said Kyle. “Mother says he thinks he’s God, responsible for everything that happens.”

“Jesus, b’y,” said Manny. “You moved from the fishing when you were starved out. Never give in first shot like we all done. You were right, brother. We jumped on the first boat out and them boats kept getting bigger until we had them Jesus factories sitting out there and siphoning off the spawning grounds. But you stood your ground. Long before the arse was out of her, you stood your ground.”

Not aching for a drink, is he, thought Kyle, watching his father take a swig of tea from his thermos and spit it back out. He swung his arm around his shoulders and gave him a sloppy, sideways hug.

“Can’t argue that one, can you, old man. You stood your ground.”

Sylvanus gave the disheartened grunt of a father over a foolish son.

“Grunt all you wants now,” said Manny. “You had your honour. That’s what you did, then. You had your honour. Right? Right, my son?”

“Right,” said Sylvanus gloomily. “Nice hat she was till a gull shat on it. Lot of good it done me after that.”

“Hear him?” Manny asked Kyle. “Hear the like of him? Cripes, you can say what you wants now, but they didn’t have you jumping through the hoops like they done us. You seen it coming before we all did. We let ourselves be mollycoddled. Took the big pay stubs. By Jesus, you might’ve fought through hard times sometimes, but you always had your worth about you—and you deserves that. You didn’t barter that like we done. Now we all knows. Too late to do anything. It might’ve took the heart out of you, working in them woods the way you done. But there’s them who think you’re the stronger one for taking that stand.”

“What good is that now, if you can’t do for your family?”

“Not just spuds you feeds a family with.” Manny punched Kyle’s shoulder. “He didn’t get his smarts from sucking turnip greens. You done good, damn good. Not your fault God poked around in your life. That’s about the one thing now, that’s not predictable—the hand of God. You can’t go getting down and blaming yourself for stuff you got no control over. And you can’t lose hope, either. You got to trust some things. And that goes for you too, young feller, you never loses hope.”

“Hope.” Kyle gulped down the word with a mouthful of beer. “That’s the word for the day, is it?”

“The hell with hope, then. Take heart from what you already got. You got your boy here,” he said to Sylvanus. “And he still got you. And he’s gawd-damned fortunate to have you. Not going to take that from him too, are you?”

The sun shuddered through the clouds. Sylvanus turned from its light and stood, kicking his thermos aside. “Get in the truck, Manny. Drive me down Corner Brook.”

“Cripes, yes. Get the Jesus outta here. Sitting and bawling when Addie’s most likely packing to come home. Where’s them young fellers with me truck? Jesus, they got the bottom beat out of her, most likely.”

“We’ll take mine,” said Sylvanus. “Kyle can drive yours till we gets back this evening.”

“No gawd-damn rough riding either,” Manny said to Kyle. “The wheels could fall off her any minute. Here, come here.” He wrapped short strong arms around Kyle and cut off his breath with the strength of his hug. “You remember what I says. You’re the fortunate one. You still gets to be with us for a bit longer. The other one—well, he’s watching on, somewhere. But we gets to live the riddle a bit longer. Hey, b’y? That’s good, isn’t it?”

“That’s good, Uncle Manny.” Kyle stood back and his father came before him, his big arms engulfing him in another hug. He grasped tight to Sylvanus, feeling that warm good heart pumping against his, pumping hard, pumping love, and then he was roughly pushed aside and he stood there, wrapping his arms around himself as though he were cold as his father walked away. He and Manny got into the truck. Kyle kept hugging onto himself, his face wet from a swollen heart as he watched them drive up the road and out of sight around a bend.

He walked around the site, looking about, then walked back to the beach and sat, having no mind for work. He got back up and walked down the shore. A brook cut down through the scraggy underbrush and onto the beach, its flow to the sea encumbered by a kelp-encrusted rock. He watched the brook backing onto itself before rippling over the blockage and felt himself to be that encrusted rock. He scrunched it aside with the heel of his boot and watched the brook flow into the sea, unhindered by thoughts of its own drowning, its immersion a homecoming. He thought of Bonnie Gillard entombed in her red car, screaming with fright as the river rose to greet her. He wondered if Clar Gillard had been frightened going into death. And Chris. His stomach lurched. He shielded his eyes to keep from seeing and then opened them. He needed to know. He needed to know right now.

He got to his feet and walked back up the shore. He walked past the work site, the weathered houses of the Beaches. Curious eyes followed him from behind shifting curtains. Others stared boldly through bare windows, the odd youngster scrambling behind a woodpile or shed at the sight of him. He walked with purpose, passing wet black cliffs sponged with green sods on his left, on his right the one long wave unfurling to his step.

Around a rocky bend his cousins were driving towards him in Manny’s truck. Wade lowered his window and called out.

“Just talking to Ben,” he said as the truck rolled to a stop. “He’s heading to the bar with some of the boys. I told him we’d meet him for a beer.”

“See you there,” said Kyle, without breaking stride. Going down Fox Point, he cut straightaway off the road, went down the embankment, and then leaped over the white picket fence into the cemetery. He looped around soggy mounds guarded by upright slabs of granite. He came to Chris’s, Taken Too Soon scripted beneath two clasped hands. He knelt and laid his hands on each side of the tombstone as though they were shoulders and he gripped them hard. He lowered his mouth to a piece of the cold granite, warming it with his breath. “I’m coming, buddy, I’m coming,” he whispered.

He heard Manny’s truck gearing down to a halt on Fox Point. He got up and looped his way farther across the soggy green of the cemetery, taking a foot-path through the Rooms, the air smoked with hickory from the smokehouse. He walked steadily along the shoreline up to Hampden, his cousins keeping a distance behind. It felt good, their being there. He walked up through the centre of the community, the wind swiping salty across his lips and stirring laundry hanging heavy on the lines. A youngster’s wails turned to squawks of laughter behind a closed blind. Farther on, a man’s rough command and a sweet, lyrical voice rising in protest against it. Julia. Fighting with her father in the driveway while Rose stood mute beside the new car. The father stomped off towards the house, stopping to wag a thick hairy finger at his daughter, hollering “…and if I gets wind of you driving my car once more, you’re out on the road!”

“The hell with him,” Rose said to Julia after the house door slammed. “We’ll take my mother’s car, it’s already a banged-up piece of shit.”

“Have a word, Julia?” Kyle had come up silently behind them. Both girls started, Julia’s face kindling deeper with anger at the sight of him.

“Pick a number, arse,” said Rose.

“A private word, Julia?”

“Oh, he’s all private now he don’t have a room full of people listening. Don’t listen to him, Jewels.”

Jewels. Kyle looked into Julia’s blue moonstone eyes.

“Go see if we can get your mother’s car,” Julia said to Rose. “See you later on this evening.”

Rose threw him a disgruntled look and went off.

“What’s up?” asked Julia.

“I apologize.”

“You really thought I ratted you out?” Her eyes were dark with hurt and he kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot.

“Too much going on. Didn’t get chance to think much.”

She stood, slender as a stalk of grass, hair streaming down her shoulders, and he felt like a freak, shoulders hunched, hands knotted. Hair knotted too, no doubt.

“Jewels,” he said. “That’s nice. Jewels.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“Fuck, no. Don’t go hollering for her to come back.”

“Fine, then, you’re sorry. What more do you want?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “There is something, actually. Not sure if this is the right place for it. Or time.” He gave an awkward laugh.

“Go ahead, ask.”

He nodded. Turned from her eyes, brittle with cold. “It’s—aw, fuck. It sounds foolish now.”

“It’s the only thing now. Ask it.” Her voice softened. “Sometimes the questions are tougher than the answers.”

He nodded his appreciation. Then he sucked in a lungful of air, glanced at her sideways, and spoke too fast. “The night before Chris flew off to Alberta. You came out behind him when he was leaving the bar. I saw you there. You’d been talking with him?”

“We talked.”

“Can I ask what you talked about—I mean, about Alberta. If he said how he felt about leaving?”

She was silent for so long he turned to her fully. Her eyes were softened now, like her tone. “I wasn’t his girlfriend, if that’s what you mean.”

“No. No, I didn’t mean that.”

“We went to the graduation and hung out some, but nothing serious. The night before he left, well—I guess he was wanting something more. I didn’t. Why you asking about that?”

“I—well, that’s not what I was asking about. But it’s nice to know.”

“You feel weird thinking Chris and I were a twosome?”

He shook his head. “I thought he looked scared when he left. Scared of going to Alberta.”

“Lord, no. He was proud as punch about that. Couldn’t wait to leave. Is that what you thought? That he was scared of going to Alberta? He was scared of leaving me. He thought there might be a chance if he stayed, but that he’d lose it if he left. I did leave it a bit fuzzy with him. But I think he knew that…well, that I just couldn’t come right out and say no to him. I think that was all right, don’t you think that was all right? I’ve fretted about it.”

Somewhere in his heart a small chamber drew light. He looked at her with growing gratitude. “You have a kind heart. Thank you for telling me. Thank you so gawd-damn much.”

“If I’d known you thought…”

“No. Don’t think anything more. It’s good.”

“What’s good about it?”

“Everything. Everything’s good about it. I gotta go. You see Ben around?”

“They’re at Hooker’s. They’re heading for the bar in a bit. Might be there yet.”

“All right, then. I’ll catch you later. Hey, you like fishing?”

“No.”

“Take you tomorrow, if you want.”

“God. Baymen.”

“I’ll show you my secret spots.”

“Already know them.”

“Catch me a fish and I’ll teach you how to drive a standard.”

“Already knows that, too. It’s a clutch thing.”

“Right. Right on that. Listen, call me if you wants to go fishing.” He went off, step notably lighter, no doubt, to the two cousins sitting in the truck, discreetly parked to the side of Fudge’s store, watching. He took a shortcut behind the store and down a grassy hump and crossed a low-built bridge and scaled the hillside that led to the back of the bar. Inside, he sat near the window with his back to the room and waited. He bought a beer and let it sit there. Unholy it is, drinking over the dead and getting maudlin with your own sorry self. Words his mother flung at his drunken father once.

His cousins came inside, gave him a wary glance, and sat at the bar, ordering beers. Must’ve been fifteen, twenty minutes that he sat there, staring at his beer. He heard Ben coming from half a block away. His voice chipper, raunchy like a blue jay’s. Bunch of the boys jousting alongside of him and cawing like crows. Always like that with Ben, fellows hanging around him as if he were the Second Coming, all of them talking over and under the other.

They entered the bar noisily, Ben ahead. Longish black curls, broad easy smile. It was how Kyle remembered him those days back on the wharf when he’d come visit Sylvie and Chris, and he, Kyle, was just a kid. Once Ben leaned over the edge of the wharf with him and helped him spear a flatfish with a gaff. Kyle pitched it flipping and flopping onto the wharf, his heart seizing with excitement. Ben gutted it, hands dripping with gurry, and Sylvie shrieking and Chris running for the frying pan. Later Addie fried up the fish with pork scruncheons and Ben saluted Kyle sitting at the head of the table as Fish Killer Supreme.

“What’re you at, bugger,” called Ben, coming towards him. “How’s she goin’.” Ben took his hand tight and looked steady into his eyes and Kyle saw that Ben’s eyes were clear. No longer shame-cast as when he’d first returned after Chris’s accident.

“Good to see you, man, good to see you. Sorry about this morning. Near hit a moose, stuck on the road for an hour. Where’s Sylvie?”

“She’s coming in a minute. Your mother’s getting out this evening, your father’s waiting to drive her home. Good to see you, bugger. Look at that stubble. Not like his old man, is he?”

“The spit,” said Skeemo. He’d come up behind Ben. Sup, Pug, and Hooker, all of them crowding around Kyle’s table, plunking down their beers and scraping back chairs, Wade and Lyman amongst them. Welcome back, man, welcome back, they chorused, raising their glasses to Ben. Their smiles fell away as they looked at Kyle, becoming unsure, looking back at each other with loud chatter should their puzzled expressions give them away. Except Hooker. He sat on the edge of his seat, staring at Kyle with the same tension as he might the climactic ending to his favourite TV show.

“Her fever’s gone,” said Ben, edging his seat closer to Kyle. “She’s sitting up, ordering everyone around and demanding to be sent home. Sorry, buddy.” Ben gripped his arm, looking into his eyes again. “Sorry you had to go through this.”

“Not all bad. Brought the old man around, he hasn’t drunk since.”

“Go on, b’y, he must be dead. You checked his heartbeat?”

The boys laughed, and Kyle did too.

“What’s all this about a knife? What’s the scoop on Clar, haven’t heard nothing but what Mother’s saying. Christ, get strung up you repeats after Mother.” Ben laughed, the boys laughed, and Ben toasted them all. “That’s the thing with Mother. Something don’t make sense, she shapes it till it does and then preaches it as the gospel. God love her, she would’ve done good at something. So what’s the scoop, what’s going on, bugger, the Beaches youngsters got one on you?”

“Jaysus, they had me convinced I knifed Clar. Went to the cops and confessed and the cops kicked me out. Not kidding,” he said, glancing at Hooker. “They kicked me out. Knife fell out of my arse pocket when we were pouring cement. The little bastards were spying up in the woods, and Darth Vader nailed me for murder.” He guffawed, his words easy, his nervousness barely perceptible beneath the jiggling of his foot.

“String ’em up, little bastards,” said Lyman.

“That’s right, bud,” Skeemo hooted, “string the little bastards up,” and he clinked his glass against Lyman’s and then Ben’s. “Welcome home, man. Good to have you back.”

“What went down with Clar?” asked Ben. “Mother’s after curdling me short hairs.”

“He was upping his game for sure,” said Skeemo.

“Got worse after Bonnie left him,” said Sup.

“That right, now, brother, and just how the frig can bad get badder?” asked Hooker.

“Spraying her down with oven cleaner, old man. Never done nothing that sick before.”

“Not that we knows. Nobody knows now what she put up with.”

“I say he got worse,” said Pug, “else she wouldn’t have moved out.”

“She was always moving out, numbnuts,” said Skeemo.

“And always moving back in,” said Sup. “She never this time, though. He was getting worse over time, I seen it in his face. Starting to feel sorry for the bastard.”

“That right, now,” said Kyle. “And was that before or after he sprayed his wife with chemicals?”

“Not bawling here now,” said Sup. “Had a few talks with him, that’s all. He had that nice way about him sometimes.”

“Yeah, he did. Agrees with you there,” said Skeemo. “Way he smiled.”

“Last thing I seen before he suckered me,” said Kyle. “Didn’t look that nice.”

“Hey, man, not picking up for the guy, all right? He was one sick fuck!”

“Father says Bonnie drove him nuts,” said Lyman.

“Father says. Ha ha,” said Ben. “Crazy fucking Jake. Still blaming Kitty Wells for killing Hank.”

“Perhaps she did. Drove him to drink.”

“Drove him to yodel. Ha! And we thought he was singing.”

“Seriously, man, who came up with yodelling?” asked Skeemo.

“Someone with their balls nipped on a cracked toilet seat,” said Sup. The boys hooted and Sup leaned forward. “Perhaps that’s what done it. Bonnie started humming a Hank song, and he got jealous.”

“He was fucked before she met him,” said Pug.

“He wasn’t treated right, man. He was crucified growing up.”

“So was Jesus. He didn’t roll aside the stone and go trawling for fights, after.”

“No b’y, he left that for his Old Man to do,” said Skeemo.

“Ha ha, while he snivelled in the desert for forty days and nights,” said Pug.

“And his Old Man’s been cursing us ever since.”

“Cursing who, jingle balls. Clar was fed with a silver spoon,” said Hooker.

“Money don’t get you everything.”

“He could’ve walked. Starts growing hair in your armpits, you don’t need your mother packing your bags.”

“Had his noggin kicked too many times.”

“He wasn’t kicked, where you get that? Old Man Gillard just had to look and Clar shrivelled up. Everybody did. Never had the evil eye, did he, that old fucker.”

“That’s who he should’ve tied up and hosed down with cleaner,” said Skeemo. “Our father was no effing picnic, but me and Sup, we got bigger than him and frightened the shit outta him one night with a baseball bat. Behaving ever since. Bawled last Christmas when we give him a present.”

“What did you give him, black pepper?”

“Pepper you, dickhead! Stick that up your arse, that’ll get you hopping.”

“Jaysus, there’s a thought. I wonder—”

“You knows what thought done now—ha ha, hey b’y?”

“Listen to the philosophers over there.” It was Rose and her cousin, Tina. They’d come in quietly and already had beers in their hands, heading for the pool table.

“Got it all figured out, do ye?” asked Rose. “Knows who killed Clar?”

“Heard it was your mother,” said Skeemo.

“Heard you’re next,” said Rose, and Hooker laughed too hard and Rose tossed him a haughty look and started racking the balls. Hooker made to rise and Kyle kicked his leg.

“Make her come to you, b’y. Jaysus.”

Hooker gave him a sour look and got up anyway. “Partner up?” he asked, sauntering to the pool table and Rose.

“Sure, b’y, I’ll bust your balls for you,” said Rose, chalking her cue.

The boys guffawed and Skeemo rose with a pained look. “Sounds like an invite to me.”

Ben looked around in awe. “Look at the boys, look at ’em. Few girls walks in and they’re all up and gone.” He cuffed Kyle’s chin. “What about you, bud? Got a girlfriend? Speaking of…” He got up, peering out the window. “That’s the rental. Sylvie’s here.”

“Sylvie?” Kyle took a gulp from his drink. He wiped his mouth, held his hands on the armrests for a second, then rose from his chair. “Back in a minute,” he said to Ben and headed for the door.

“Hold up, buddy.” Ben hurried after him. “Chance for a few words?”

“Later. Need to talk to Sylvie before she comes in.”

“Hold on.” Ben stood between him and the door. “What’s going on?”

“What’s not, old man. We’ll talk later. Look,” he said as Ben backed up against the door, “I’ve got to talk to Sis. Hey, I didn’t do it, all right?”

“Do what? Ben looked stricken. “Knife Clar? Jesus, who’s thinking that?” He looked to the boys. “No-o-o, is that what they’re thinking? Jesus Christ, what’s going on, brother?”

“I gotta talk to Sis, I’ll be back in a minute, all right? Look, I need to catch her before she comes in.”

Ben drew aside, his hands falling helplessly at the distance separating them. “I’m with you, bud. Whatever the hell is going on. And Sylvie, look, she don’t know nothing about you and—and the police.”

“Let’s keep it that way for a bit. All right, buddy? That’s all I can say now. Okay?”

“Thanks.” Kyle opened the door and went outside, surprising himself with his assured step.