Three

Sandra Levine was talking about cigarettes and how much she had missed them over the past ten and a half months. In her handbag was a package of Winstons, and before the day was over, she was going to be smoking again. She told Fielding that it was a prospect that she was both thrilled by but also dreading. They were driving west on Highway 401 in Fielding’s six-year-old Accord, leaving the airport and Toronto behind on a clear day. Waiting for her at the airport, he had spotted her at once among the other travellers filing through the doors to the Arrivals lobby. Sandra Levine was something of a presence in her slacks and red-and-black woollen poncho, with a wide-brimmed dark hat. As promised, she was carrying a copy of Daisy Miller. A stocky woman in her early fifties, she had given Fielding’s hand a vigorous shake.

“Dan, it’s good of you to meet me like this. Please call me Sandy.”

They had talked about mutual acquaintances in New York publishing as they walked to his car. She was easy to talk to and gave him the lowdown on her twenty-five years in the business, her happy but childless marriage to Hiram Levine, who taught psychology at Columbia. She was amiable, funny, and shrewd, a woman comfortable in her own skin. Fielding could see how Denise would have been attracted to her.

“When I talked to Lucille on Monday,” explained Sandy, “the first thing she said was ‘Sandy, I’m smoking again.’ As soon as she heard about Denise, she went out and bought a pack of cigarettes. And there she was on the phone telling me how badly she felt about letting Denise down. Last summer when Denise and I were visiting, we persuaded Lucille to give up cigarettes. Oh, I was so full of zeal then and Denise was after her mother to quit. ‘Come on, Mom, it’ll be good for you,’ she kept saying. So we both worked on her all week, and by the end she decided to give them up after, I don’t know how long, thirty-five or forty years. On the day we left, she told us she was smoking her last one. And do you know what? She had it beaten until last Sunday. On the phone she kept saying, ‘And I promised Dee too. I promised her.’ Loses her daughter like that and then feels bad because she broke a promise to her about smoking. When I told Hiram about this, he said people say all kinds of irrational things when they’re in shock like that.”

She was looking out the window. “These lousy habits of ours. Hiram is going to smell it on me. He’s going to nag me to death. He warned me too. ‘Buy some of that special gum before you go,’ he said, ‘because you’re going to be tempted.’ His words exactly. So what was the first thing I did when I got to La Guardia? I bought a pack of Winstons.”

The highway was filled with trucks hurtling past them en route to Windsor and the American border. It was nine thirty on a Thursday morning, and a week ago, almost to the hour, he and Denise had finished their day at the Display Hall and were walking along the crowded streets back to the hotel past the enormous steel-and-glass buildings. He didn’t like Frankfurt much. Never had. There was such a grim Teutonic earnestness to the place, a grey city of suits and Eurodollars. He liked it better at night with the lights on. But last Thursday walking back to the InterContinental, he was looking forward to dinner and another night in bed. He remembered how happy he felt, but he also recalled the slight unease surrounding everything, the speck in the eye at a picnic.

“So, how about you, Dan?” Sandy asked. “How have you been handling all this? It must have been a horrible shock for you.”

Fielding took his time answering, for he had been thinking about it all week, and he was still unsure about his feelings. “I don’t quite know how to explain it,” he said. “They say that when you experience something like this, a horrendous episode in your life, it’s just as though it isn’t really happening. Everything is taking place in a kind of dream state. You hear that all the time. But I never really felt like that. To me, it was all very real. This is happening, I said to myself. Things like this happen to people every day. Why not us? And now here I am in the middle of it. Of course, you can’t be analytical about anything at the time. It’s just happening before you. You’re shattered. You see everything in your life coming apart at the seams. You say to yourself, my life is never going to be the same again. And that’s true. It won’t be.”

Sandy Levine was staring out the window at the brown fields. “If you don’t mind my asking,” she said, “were you and Denise serious about one another? Had this thing between you been going on for some time?”

“Well, no,” he said. “Not at all. In fact, I was surprised at how quickly it happened.”

“She used to talk a lot about you. I think she had a bit of a crush on you. Do people nowadays still use the word crush? God, I sometimes feel so out of date.” She looked across at him. “Anyway, I think she did. She was always mentioning you when we talked on the phone. When she joined your firm last June, she went on about this guy Dan Fielding. Denise was attracted to older men.” Not always, thought Fielding, remembering the night he had asked her about the small tattoo on her shoulder blade, and she had told him about the young actor she met when she first arrived in New York.

“A mistake,” she had said. “Both the guy and the tattoo. An idiotic mistake. He persuaded me to have it done. He had several in various places. I guess I thought it was cool at the time. A few months later he was gone from my life and good riddance. Someone told me he went out to California and got into porn movies. He certainly had the equipment for the job.” And then she had laughed. She was sitting on the bed cross-legged in her Yankees T-shirt. “Why, Daniel, I believe I’ve shocked you. You’re actually blushing.”

“She was looking forward to going to Frankfurt with you,” Sandy Levine said. “We talked on the phone the day before you left.”

Fielding asked her what Denise was like when she first went to New York. It was as if he wanted to picture in his mind’s eye a young woman with short dark hair walking along the streets and avenues, stopping to look in store windows, nervous but excited too by the blare and hectic energy of the big city.

“I remember the day six years ago when she came in for her interview. She’d come so highly recommended by her Toronto publisher, and I don’t know why, but I was expecting this big powerful figure and then Denise came in. It was raining, and she was drenched, her hair soaked. She looked about twelve years old. But she was so eager and enthusiastic. You couldn’t help liking her and being impressed at the same time. She listened carefully to everything you said. She was taking it all in. That’s a rare quality in people. Knowing how to listen. I remember thinking that first day, this is one very smart young lady. And of course she was also sweet and charming. Everybody liked Denise. Well, that’s probably not true. There were some who were jealous of her. That goes with being bright and pretty. But she worked very hard too. Hiram often had a late-afternoon class, and so I’d work until six thirty or seven and meet him for dinner somewhere and Denise would still be at her desk. I used to say, ‘Okay, kid, we’re all impressed, now why don’t you go out and have some fun?’ But you could see her confidence growing by the week. She was well read and a shrewd judge of books. And she could handle herself at literary parties. There was a kind of sexy French thing to her. Of course, Denise was part French. Her mother is French Canadian.”

Sandy Levine was looking out her side window again. “She was a refreshing presence in our midst. That’s perhaps the best way I can put it,” she added, looking at Fielding. “We became very close. She’d spend a weekend with us now and then. Hiram was very fond of her too. He introduced her to some divorced colleagues. I didn’t think much of his matchmaking, though Hiram’s heart is always in the right place. Anyway, she went out with a few of these sad sacks, but nothing much came of it. For a while she was seeing a young novelist and then there was an actor in her life. That, I gather, was a total disaster. Then, after a few years, she got homesick. I could tell. And when she turned thirty, well … that was a big birthday for her. We went out to dinner and she got a little tight. Told me she was thinking of returning to Canada. To be closer to her mother. She was just waiting for the right opportunity to come along, and so when she heard about the job at your place, well, she was very, very keen. It seemed like just the thing she was looking for. I remember her coming back from Toronto so excited and happy. ‘I think they liked me, Sandy,’ she said. ‘I had a good interview with the boss.’ She was a little worried about you, though. She sensed that you weren’t exactly overwhelmed. But she felt good about Seymour Hollis and as she said, ‘He’s the boss.’”

Denise was right, thought Fielding. He had not been as impressed as Sy Hollis or Linda McNulty. Denise Crowder, he felt, was a little too overconfident. There was also something vaguely condescending in her attitude. As if a little too much of New York had rubbed off on her. There were two other candidates, a woman Denise’s age from a rival company and a man a few years older from a small press in British Columbia who had published several promising young writers. At the end of the interviews, Fielding was leaning towards the man from Vancouver; Denise he placed a strong second. That, of course, was not how Sy Hollis saw things, and Fielding knew it when they took Denise to lunch at Le Bistro on Bay Street. When Denise left for the ladies, Sy said, “This is the one, Dan. Terrific enthusiasm and she knows her stuff. I think younger writers will love her. Linda thinks so too.”

To be fair, they were probably right. Sy had good instincts about people. It was one of his strengths. And maybe the B.C. man had an impressive track record, but he was a little too intense. In his cords and Hush Puppies, his sensible high brow and specs, he carried about him a whiff of the West Coast ideologue. In any case, Fielding knew he could live with the decision, whatever Sy’s motives. It could have been one of those days when a part of him no longer cared. A warning that maybe it was time to get out. A day for seeing himself on that balcony in Siena.

Fielding and Sandy were in Stratford now, and on the wide main street a busload of high school students was unloading, the girls talking excitedly in clusters on the sidewalk, the boys already horsing around in front of a store window, while two harried-looking teachers fussed about on the edge of things.

“They’re probably going to a matinee after lunch,” said Fielding. “You have to feel sorry for the old folks who will be in there with them.” And there were plenty of older people on the streets, window shopping, enjoying the bright fall sunshine. Sandy mentioned a day in August when she and Denise had driven down from Bayport to see a performance of All’s Well That Ends Well.

“I was totally knocked out,” she said. “We don’t get much Shakespeare in New York these days. At any rate, not All’s Well That Ends Well.”

At a village on Highway 8, they stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the main street. The locals glanced up at them shyly and then resumed talking as Fielding and Sandy made their way to a booth near the back. Roy Orbison was singing of missed chances in life and the air was full of cigarette smoke.

“I’m weakening, Dan,” said Sandy. “Would it bother you if I had one?”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, I know I shouldn’t, but maybe Lucille will feel better if she sees me joining her. How’s that for rationalizing a decision to resume a bad habit?”

“It’s as good as any,” said Fielding.

“God help me,” she said, firing up a Winston. For a moment she looked dazed. “I’m dizzy as hell,” she said. “Just like my first one about forty years ago. An unfiltered Lucky Strike. Those things were lethal.”

The waitress, an older woman, set down two glasses of water. “What’ll it be, folks?” They settled on the daily special—vegetable soup and chicken salad sandwiches on brown. Coffee.

Sandy was now used to her Winston and enjoying it.

“What about you, Dan? Did you ever smoke?”

“Yes, years ago when it seemed everybody smoked. But I was one of those persons who was never really dedicated to the habit. I could take it or leave it. I even smoked a pipe for a while. It’s funny, but Denise once said to me …” He stopped. They had been in bed when she had said it, but there was no point in mentioning that.

“We were talking about how everybody used to smoke when she was a kid, her father and her mother, everybody else’s parents. Or so it seemed. And she said, ‘I’ll bet you smoked a pipe too. I can just see you with a pipe. Pompous as hell.’ And she was right. I was a terribly pompous young man when I started in publishing. Then I met a woman and she took that out of me.”

“Your wife?” asked Sandy.

“No. It was a woman I worked with, and then she left publishing to become an agent. We never married, but I lived with her for about eight years. Then I met my wife.”

“Any kids?”

“Yes, a daughter. She’s fifteen.”

“Nice.”

This was a sombre mission, this visit to the little town where Denise grew up and where her grieving mother now awaited them. Yet sitting in this village restaurant with its frying meat and cigarette smells, with Roy Orbison on the local radio station, Fielding felt a brief and peculiar exhilaration. On this Thursday noon hour, it all seemed vivid and oddly worthwhile to be here among these people. Whole families, from babies in the arms of their teenaged mothers to skinny grandfathers and their stout wives. Going on about cancer scares and the closeness of lottery numbers, the idiocy of social workers and welfare functionaries, the unreasonableness of landlords, the awful unfairness of things in general.

An hour later, a few kilometres south of Bayport, they were passed by a pickup driven by a woman about Denise’s age, blonde ponytail sticking out the back of her ball cap, an arm hanging out the open window. A country girl from the looks of her. Perhaps she had gone to the local collegiate with Denise and was now married to her high school sweetheart. Had two or three kids. Played softball on summer evenings and curled in the winter. Enjoyed a beer and an off-colour story now and again. Not a bad life and if it hadn’t been for books, it might have been Denise’s too.

He thought about her as a young girl, travelling these very roads on a Friday night with a boyfriend in his father’s big heavy Pontiac, another couple necking in the back seat. The boys with their swagger and their hard-ons. The cigarette packs tucked into the rolled-up sleeves of their T-shirts. A deejay yakking on the radio. A case of beer in the trunk. She would have gone down these township roads past the woodlots and abandoned farms to the gravel pit where other cars already had their lights turned off and rock music blared from a ghetto blaster. Now and then headlights coming on and off to mark a score. Here, she allowed boys a certain latitude: shared a joint and returned their wet kisses, felt their weight upon her, but always careful about who gets to lay a hand on what. A smart girl who was already looking beyond those Friday nights. Who might even have preferred to be home reading, Fitzgerald or Hemingway, but too good-looking, too eager for experience to pass all this up, for this too was life and not to be missed. And always, stencilled on her brain, and never to be forgotten, the four words to freedom. Just don’t get pregnant. And it really wasn’t that long ago, thought Fielding. Say fifteen or sixteen years. Just about when Heather was born.

It had clouded over, a dark fall day now as they passed the gas stations and fast-food joints, the big warehouse stores on the edge of town. He and Sandy had not spoken for several minutes, both caught up, he guessed, in their memories of Denise. Finally Sandy asked, “Where are you staying?”

It was odd, but he hadn’t thought of it until now.

“Well, I don’t really know,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to find a motel. I noticed a couple back there. They looked all right. I can’t believe they’re that busy this time of year. And it’s early yet. I’ll find something.”

“I think,” Sandy said, “I’ll go the funeral home tonight, rather than this afternoon.”

“Yes,” he said, “I thought the same.”

On the main street were the pizza restaurants and realtors’ offices, the dollar stores and Quik Money outlets. Another little town whose business centre had been whacked by the shopping mall on its outskirts. Only the old and the poor and those without wheels now shopped downtown.

“I think,” Sandy said, “we turn at the next light. I’m sorry, I can’t remember the street, but their home is near the lake. A nice house. Denise’s father bought it when he was still on the boats. He was an engineer or something and for a while before she had the children, Lucille was a cook. I don’t know if you knew that. That’s how she met her husband.”

At the lights, Fielding turned onto a wide, pleasant street with trees and older yellow-brick houses. The road and sidewalks were strewn with leaves from the big oaks and maples.

“We’re getting there,” Sandy said. “This looks familiar. God, I’m so bad with directions. It’s a couple of streets down now and then a right and a left. It’s the last street before the lake.” They passed a school and looked out at a young woman delivering mail. When he turned the final corner she said, “Yes, there it is. The house with the yellow siding on your right.” Fielding turned into the driveway and parked in front of the attached garage. When they got out, he carried Sandy’s suitcase to the front door, feeling strange, an intruder of sorts, a man who, after all, was partly to blame for this tragedy, yet who was now visiting the mourners. He could understand how many would see it that way.

Sandy rang the doorbell and a few moments later a large, broad-faced woman in slacks and a sweatshirt opened the door. She was somewhere in her fifties, and by the looks of her, a handful if crossed. She gave them a quizzical frown and then, spotting the suitcase, grinned at Sandy.

“You were here last summer with Denise. You’re Sandy.”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“It could be the hat,” said Sandy, taking off the sombrero and giving her short brown hair a little shake.

“I remember you now,” said the woman. “Denise’s friend from New York.”

They could hear a voice from somewhere in the house. “Who is it, Del? Is it Sandy?”

The woman turned and shouted up the stairs, “Yes, it is, Lu. It’s Sandy.”

“Tell her I’ll be right down.”

Turning back to them, Del said, “Come in. Come in.”

“Del,” said Sandy, “this is Dan Fielding. Another friend of Denise’s.” The big woman gave him a guarded look as she shook his hand. She had heard of him all right. He could see that.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said.

They followed her into the living room off the hallway. “Lucille’s getting dressed,” said Del. “She’s going over to the funeral home in a few minutes. Ray’s coming by to pick her up. He should be here any minute. Have a seat.”

She had sunk into a chair near the sofa where Sandy and Fielding now sat. They could hear Lucille Crowder’s footsteps overhead; she seemed to be hurrying from room to room. The house smelled of roast beef and cigarette smoke.

“You’ve come up from Toronto then,” said Del. She had settled into the big chair, filling it entirely.

“Yes, we have,” said Fielding.

“How was the traffic?”

“Very light,” he said.

The woman had a hard time looking directly at him, though he could tell she wanted to. She chose instead a spot between him and Sandy and stared out the front window as she spoke.

“I suppose it would be now,” she said. “The traffic in the summer up here from the south is something awful. I have a daughter who lives in Toronto, and now she just hates the drive up in the summer. It’s getting so Jack won’t do it. It’s just too much of a hassle he says. He’d rather just stay at home. If Jeannie wants to come, he says, she can come on her own.” She looked suddenly peevish as if recalling a family dispute on this very topic. They all listened to the floorboards creaking under the weight of Lucille Crowder’s footsteps above them. In front of Fielding was the dining room with its table and a bowl of artificial flowers. Beyond that a window overlooked the backyard. Denise, he thought, might have done her homework at that table, feet curled around the legs of her chair.

Suddenly Del said, “Well, we’re all just shocked by what happened.” She stopped, as if wondering whether such an obvious statement was equal to the enormity of it all. “It’s just so hard to believe,” she continued. “Poor Denise. Why, I’ve known her for nearly twenty years. Bert and me moved in across the street twenty years ago. Denise was just a little kid then. Maybe ten or eleven. She used to play with my Jeannie. They were good friends there for a while, and then in high school they kind of drifted apart. Made different friends the way young people do. Jeannie was going to come up to the funeral tomorrow, but she had to go to the hospital for an operation on her knee. Isn’t it always the way? But you have to go when they tell you, or you’ll end up at the back of the line again. She’s been on the list for months. It was just too bad the way it turned out. Jeannie was just sick when I phoned her and told her about Denise. And then she saw it on TV.”

She lapsed again into silence and they heard footsteps on the stairway. A few moments later, Lucille Crowder came into the living room, holding a coat, which she threw across a chair. Here, thought Fielding, was Denise as she might have looked twenty-five years from now, a small woman with a good figure, dark hair streaked with grey. Still pretty. In the curve of the jaw, the swell of the cheek, the dark eyes, Lucille Crowder was simply and completely an older Denise. She was smiling tiredly but already Sandy had gotten up to embrace her, a broad, colourful figure in her black-and-red outfit, enclosing Lucille Crowder in her arms.

“I’m going over to see her in a few minutes, Sandy,” said Lucille, pressing a balled-up tissue against her face. “My God,” she said, “I’ll have to go upstairs and fix these damned eyes again.”

“No, you won’t. You look fine, Lucille,” said Sandy. Over Sandy’s shoulder Lucille Crowder was looking at Fielding.

“You must be Dan.”

He had been standing since she entered the room and he went towards her, and shook her hand.

“Denise thought the world of you, Dan,” she said.

Del too had gotten up a little cumbrously from the chair and now made her way slowly into the kitchen. Lucille Crowder continued to dab at her nose with the tissue.

“Del’s been just great. She’s cooking supper for us. Have you people had anything to eat?”

“We ate along the way,” said Sandy. “A little place down the road. We’re not hungry.”

“Those places along the road,” said Lucille, laughing sharply, almost unpleasantly.

To Fielding she sounded exactly like Denise.

“You’ll probably both need something for your stomachs later on. It’s too bad. We could have made you a sandwich here. Del would have fixed something. She’s looked after me all week.” Lucille Crowder sat down on the edge of the big chair across from them. “Honest to God, I haven’t done a thing. Just sat on that sofa and looked out the window and smoked. I’m such a mess. Sat here and stared out the window or watched the television. I couldn’t tell you what I saw if you asked me.”

Sandy reached across to pat her knee. “Lucille, for goodness’ sake. You’re entitled to feel like that.”

“I’ll tell you this much,” said Lucille. “I’ll sure be glad when I get through this week. Those newspaper people in Toronto have been such a nuisance. I know they’re just doing their job, but my God they phone at all hours of the day and night. They pester you so.”

Sandy had given her a cigarette and they both began to smoke, Lucille Crowder offering a bitter chuckle.

“Just look at us,” she said. “All that high falutin’ talk last summer. Right out there,” she said, waving her cigarette at the dining-room window. “Remember, Sandy? We were standing by the barbecue? You and Dee telling me to get with the program. Isn’t that how Dee put it? Get with the program, she said. And I did. Nine weeks almost to the day. And now you’re back on them too. I hope to God it wasn’t all this that got you on them again.”

Lucille Crowder had the same straight black hair as her daughter, but she wore it longer and the hairdresser had overdone things, piled it up into something that was too youthful and didn’t quite suit her. She was talking about a young woman from the local paper who had come to the house and asked for childhood and school pictures of Denise and of how she now regretted handing them over. They would be in tomorrow’s paper and this now bothered her.

“They catch you when you’re not thinking straight about these things,” said Lucille.

From the kitchen they could hear the sizzling, and smell the roasting meat. It reminded Fielding of Sunday afternoons long ago in Leaside.

“Sandy, I’m going to put you in Ray’s old room,” said Lucille. She was leaning forward in the chair, her left hand clutching the tissue. If I photographed her at this moment, thought Fielding, I would surely entitle the picture Woman at the End of Her Rope. But how did you get through something like this? How would he and Claire deal with it if something ever happened to Heather?

Lucille caught his gaze and seemed abashed. “George Gladstone told me they got a really nice flower arrangement from your company, Dan. Thank you.”

The incomparable Imogene Banks would have looked after that on Sy Hollis’s orders.

“Dan has to have some place to stay tonight, Lucille,” said Sandy. “Can you recommend a motel?”

Lucille was stabbing the ashtray with her cigarette. “Most people like the Bayport Inn. It’s right near the water and pretty swanky for a little town like this. It’s probably where the newspaper and TV people will stay, and if you don’t care about that kind of thing, Dan, I can phone for you. I don’t imagine they’ll be too busy this time of year though sometimes there are hockey tournaments and the place fills up. But it’s probably a little early in the year for that.”

“Please don’t go to any bother,” he said. “I can look after things myself.”

“You might,” said Lucille, “be better off at the Moonbeam. It’s not fancy, but it’s out on the highway. Maybe you saw it coming in. You probably wouldn’t be bothered out there. It’s just an idea.”

“It’s a good idea,” said Fielding. “I’ll have a look.”

“They don’t have a restaurant, but they’ll serve you breakfast. You don’t have to worry about supper anyway. You’ll eat here with us.”

“That’s not necessary,” he said.

“Of course it is. You’ve come all the way up today. Drove Sandy up. We’re expecting you.”

She was firing up another cigarette, inhaling deeply. “We got plenty to eat. Ray and Kelly and Cala are going to join us. Then we can go over to the funeral home. It’ll be busy tonight. Dee’s school friends will be there. They’re mostly working this afternoon.”

Sandy Levine smiled at him. “Lucille is right, Dan. Please join us.”

“Fine then,” he said.

“We’ll eat around five thirty,” said Lucille.

In Lucille Crowder he could detect no rancour towards him, only this polite and cautious interest in a man her daughter had been involved with; they had obviously been lovers, but Lucille Crowder probably knew little more than that. She doubtless surmised that Denise had had many lovers in her short life and this fellow now sitting in her living room, this middle-aged stranger in his grey slacks and blue blazer, had been the last one. He imagined she was trying to put it all together because everything had changed so quickly. In a matter of minutes her life had gone into a tail-spin and she was still falling, her sightlines skewed. Yet a common decency impelled her to offer hospitality, even to the man who in some way must share part of the responsibility for her daughter’s death.

They could now hear the front door opening and Lucille got up at once, reaching for her coat.

“That will be Ray,” she said. With the cigarette in her mouth, she pulled on her dark coat, and to Fielding it was an oddly touching gesture; he could almost see her doing this in another time, late for something, a little flustered.

“Ray doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” she said. “He’s just like his dad.”

Then Ray Crowder was at the entrance to the living room looking uncomfortable, handsome in the shirt and tie, the Dockers and black leather jacket. Denise’s kid brother. The youngster who couldn’t stay out of trouble.

Crowder was frowning and Fielding wondered how many women had mistaken that dark, intense look for seriousness instead of what it might just be, chronic sullenness, the impatient stare of a man used to being looked at. Ray Crowder gave off waves of unfriendliness, but there could be no dispute about his looks—tall, dark-haired, a lady killer who could pick and choose among those on offer.

“Ray,” said Lucille, “you remember Sandy from last summer? She used to work with Dee in New York.”

Crowder said nothing, merely nodded at Sandy.

“And this is Dee’s friend, Dan Fielding.”

Dee’s friend. That was how he would be identified and talked about up here. At the funeral home that night and tomorrow at church, women would whisper behind their hands. “That’s Dee’s friend. That’s the man who was with her in England.”

Fielding, who had been standing nearby, now offered his hand to Ray Crowder, and for a horrible moment it looked as if Crowder would ignore it and Fielding would have to swallow the insult. But finally Crowder gave him a firm handshake and said to his mother, “We better get going. It’s almost two o’clock.”

Lucille was patting the pockets of her coat. “I know, Ray. I know, but I can’t find my damn gloves.”

“Never mind your gloves,” he said. “We’re gonna be late. People will be waiting for us.”

Lucille was already hurrying from the room. “I think I left them on the hallway table. Here they are,” she cried a moment later. When they joined her, she was putting the gloves on. Del had come from the kitchen to see them off. She was standing in the hallway smelling of roast beef and wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“Make yourselves at home, okay?” said Lucille. “There’s beer and pop in the fridge if you’re thirsty. Del will show you where. Sandy, I put towels on the bed.”

“Thanks, Lucille.”

“We’ll be back around five.”

“May I bring some wine for dinner?’” asked Fielding.

Lucille Crowder gave him an odd look, not exactly unfriendly but puzzled, and he wondered if he had breached some rule of household etiquette.

“Some wine would be nice,” she said.

“Kelly is bringing the wine,” said Ray Crowder. There was an intonation in his voice, a sarcastic colouring that reminded Fielding of Denise.

Fielding could sense Ray Crowder’s dislike. Understandable. Here was the man who had taken his sister to some place in England where she was murdered. He didn’t look after her the way a man was supposed to look after a woman in a foreign country. An old, soft-looking guy from the city. What was Denise thinking of? Maybe something like that was going through Ray Crowder’s mind. Lucille followed her son out the door calling back to them, “See you later.”

They watched her step up and into a red Dodge Ram with dark windows, a brutal-looking machine nudging the Honda. Crowder backed out swiftly and then gunned the truck down the street.

Fielding and the two women stood in the hallway without speaking until Sandy said, “Ray’s a good-looking guy, isn’t he?”

“All the girls are crazy about Ray,” said Del. “Always have been. When he played hockey as a kid, the girls used to go to the rink just to watch him take his helmet off. He was pretty wild as a youngster. Goes out with a nice girl now though. Kelly got herself into a bad marriage when she was younger, but she’s straightened her life out. Has a cute little girl. You’ll see them tonight when they come for supper. I don’t know if Ray’s gonna marry her, but I wish he would. They make such a nice-looking couple. Ray looks like his father. Cliff Crowder was the best-looking man in Bayport. When he came home for the winter, we all envied Lucille. I don’t mind saying that now, and I’d say it to her face if she was here. We all envied her. Poor Cliff. He was such a big strapping fellow, but at the end I don’t think the man weighed a hundred pounds. That cancer can turn you into a pitiful sight.” Del stopped as if to acknowledge that there was nothing more to be said about the gruesome finality of cancer. “Well, I better get the vegetables peeled,” she said, and turned for the kitchen.

“Can I help?” asked Sandy, though she didn’t look to Fielding like the type of woman who would be entirely at home in the kitchen.

“Not at all. I can manage,” said Del without looking around.

It felt strange to be there in Lucille Crowder’s living room, standing by the front window with Sandy Levine, with a neighbour woman in the kitchen. They could hear Del at work with her pots and pans. These were people he didn’t even know yesterday, and now they were all a part of something larger, strangers orbiting the enormous fact of Denise’s sudden absence from the world. In England, he had been distracted by the police investigation, by the unfamiliar air of another country; he had moved through it on adrenalin and nerves. Now in this small Ontario town nearly a week later, his mind was clear enough but he felt peculiarly disoriented.

“I better get on my way,” he said. “Look for a place to sleep tonight. I think I’ll try that Moonbeam Motel.”

“I noticed it on the way in,” Sandy said. “It looked a little down-at-the-heels to me, but I take Lucille’s point about the media. You’re not likely to find any reporters out there, Dan.”

Fielding was looking out the window at the street, but he could feel Sandy Levine’s eyes upon him.

“I’ll bet they’ve been after you,” she said.

“Yes,” he admitted. “And I haven’t said anything to them, which may have been a mistake.” He walked to the hallway and took his raincoat from the closet. “I’ll see you about five thirty,” he said.

“Fine, Dan,” she said. She was lighting a cigarette. “Good luck with the Moonbeam.”

As he closed the front door he could hear the phone ringing. It was the middle of the afternoon, a quiet time with the children in school, and housewives watching soaps; a time for retired men to rake their lawns, and as he drove away, he saw along the street clear plastic bags filled with leaves. On his way in, he hadn’t noticed them.

In Room 17 of the Moonbeam Motel, Fielding lay on the bed reading about the forthcoming shortage of water. According to Tom Lundgren, unless the developed world changed its consumption patterns, the shortage would be inevitable, probably within thirty years. Not Fielding’s problem exactly, but certainly Heather’s and billions of others’. A shortage of water throughout the world in thirty years! Even in Canada, if you could believe the professor with his tables and graphs, his pie charts and formidable sentences. Lundgren was no crank, and it all looked convincing enough to Fielding, though he had only reached page 98. There were 250 more pages. The manuscript was looking worn, its edges nicked from removing the rubber bands that held the pages together. He had always liked the heft and feel of a manuscript, the black words on white paper, a writer’s thoughts transformed into substance. Now called hard copy. He knew the time was not far off when all this would be obsolete, though he would likely be out of it by then. Once more he wrapped the rubber bands around A History of Water. It could be an important book, he thought. Something worth doing. Where else were people going to get this kind of detailed argument if not in a book? Certainly not from television. Who could remember anything from television a day later? An hour later?

Room 17 was at the back of the motel overlooking the stubble of a cornfield. When he checked in, the lone guest at the time, he had asked for a quiet room, and so now he could hear, but only faintly, the cars passing and the trucks gearing down along the highway on the other side. His clothes were hanging on racks near the door of this bare room with its bed and chair, a television set on a dresser, a shower and toilet. It was enough and its simple functionality suited him; he was far enough away from the splashing fountain, the elevator music and bar chatter he imagined were part of the Bayport Inn. The Moonbeam, he thought, was an ideal place for people in hiding. There was something forlorn and illicit about it all, a room near the highway on the edge of a town where a man alone might watch a porn movie or write a suicide note. Or perhaps both.

Years ago, mad Jack Balsam had told him how he lived in places like this for several weeks. He was then fleeing the wrath of one of his wives and seemingly had disappeared off the face of the earth. Acquaintances wondered if he had jumped into Lake Ontario. It turned out he was driving across the country in a rented car, and he later claimed it was one of the happiest periods in his troubled life. Eating in roadside diners and chatting up the waitresses. “Banging” a few of them, to use Balsam’s 1940s lingo. Staying in places like the Moonbeam. Watching the chambermaid change his sheets in the morning. Lonely women, he said. Trying to make a dollar and keep it from the brute back at the trailer park. They were always grateful for a little attention.

“Some of the best tail in my life, Dan.” Of course, Balsam was a habitual liar, and he could have invented most of it.

Fielding looked out the window at the cornfield and the darkening afternoon. It was nearly four o’clock and time to touch home base. But when he rang through, all he got was Claire’s recorded voice. You have reached the Fieldings, but none of us can come to the phone at the moment. Please leave a message at the tone, and one of us will get back to you as soon as possible. He gave her the motel’s goofy name and phone number, mentioned that he was going to the Crowders’ for dinner and would call later. “Hope all is well and love to you both,” he added, trying not to imagine the sardonic look crossing Claire’s face at the word love.

On the dresser by the telephone were a bottle of Italian red wine and a pint of Scotch from which he had taken one drink. He now helped himself to another small one and undressed for a shower. His head was filled with Lundgren’s graphs and statistics; the data was already a bit overwhelming and he was not a third of the way through. Some of it would have to be toned down. Academics fought for every syllable and integer of detail, yet they also wanted popular attention. There would be a skirmish or two over that. He should have been taking notes, but that could wait for the second reading. He didn’t know Tom Lundgren well, had met him only twice, but knew he had a family, teenagers. In fact, a boy and girl Heather’s age. Stepping into the shower, he wondered how the man, harbouring these dire predictions and knowing full well that most of us don’t change our habits until it’s too late, could bear to look at his children.

Ray Crowder’s truck was in the driveway and behind it was a big sedan from another time, a heavy, old Buick from the looks of it. Fielding could see figures moving in the front room behind the partly closed drapes. Every light in the house seemed to be on. Clutching the wine, he got out of the car and walked across the street to the Crowder home and rang the doorbell. It was a damp evening and someone in the neighbourhood had his fireplace working. The mild, smokey air was pleasing. Through the window in the door, Fielding could see a woman in a skirt and blouse coming along the hallway from the kitchen. When she opened the door, Fielding remembered Denise’s take on her brother’s latest girlfriend. “Former exotic dancer with big hair.” And even in the chaste blouse and skirt, this was an alluring young woman and she did have a head of abundant reddish-brown hair that fell about her shoulders. She stood by the open door taking his measure.

“You must be Mr. Fielding?”

“Yes, please call me Dan.”

“Kelly Swarbrick,” she said. “I’m Ray’s friend.”

She held the door open to let him pass, and he could smell her perfume, a scent from younger days when he had known a girl who wore this very fragrance. Pam Scott. Christ, that was thirty-seven years ago, his first year at university. Pam Scott. A big, horsey girl who had asked him to help her write an essay on The Waste Land. He went to her house somewhere in Rosedale, and she met him at the door in plaid slacks and a man’s white shirt. Her parents, she said, were out for the evening, and so they worked in her bedroom trying to make sense of Eliot’s poem. Fielding finally concocted an ingenious argument for her essay and Pam Scott was so pleased that before long they had clambered into her bed. She had reeked of this perfume, and on his way home, Fielding could smell it as he walked along the quiet dark streets, repeating her name again and again until it sounded like nothing but a ball ricocheting around a squash court. Pam Scott. Pam Scott. Pam Scott.

Lucille Crowder was sitting on the sofa next to Sandy, and Del was still in the kitchen. He could hear her talking to someone. The dining-room table was set for dinner.

“Can I get you a drink?” asked Kelly. “A beer or some wine?”

“Maybe just a glass of wine,” he said.

“Sure.”

He handed her the bottle of wine and she took it into the kitchen. Sandy Levine was smiling at him, looking solid and dependable in a dark business suit and cream-coloured blouse. A girl of about eight was sitting in the chair looking at him with solemn curiosity.

“Hello again,” said Lucille Crowder. “This is Cala, Kelly’s daughter. Cala, this is Mr. Fielding. He was a friend of Dee’s.” The little girl continued to look at him, but said nothing. Like her mother she was a beauty with long reddish-golden hair and she was dressed for the occasion in a black velveteen dress and white leotards, patent leather shoes. A ribbon in her hair.

“How is the Moonbeam, Dan?” whispered Sandy.

“It will do just fine,” he said. He could hear Ray Crowder’s voice from the kitchen. He had been down in the basement getting something for Del, and now he walked into the dining room unscrewing the top of a jar. His mother was watching him.

“Oh, put those pickles in a dish, Ray, for goodness’ sake,” she said with her small, sharp laugh. “Don’t leave the jar on the table like that.” Crowder did as he was told, but he was still wearing his customary scowl.

Kelly Swarbrick returned with Fielding’s wine. “Here you go,” she said. “It’s stuff we already opened. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he said. “This is fine.” Cala asked her mother if she was going to eat with everyone else.

“Of course you are. You didn’t think we’d leave you out of things, did you?”

The little girl looked to be on the edge of a pout. “Why can’t I just eat in the basement and watch tv?”

“Not tonight, honey,” said her mother.

Ray had gone into the kitchen and Lucille began to talk about the visitors to the funeral home that afternoon. There were more than she’d expected, people in town she scarcely knew who remembered Denise and wanted Lucille to know how sorry they were for what happened. Sandy asked gentle questions about them. Who were they and what did they do? This, thought Fielding, was how people dealt with loss. Friends prepared meals and poured drinks. Filled in the silences when conversation faltered. Answered telephones and offered explanations to strangers. Life, as people were fond of saying, had to go on, even though at the moment it must seem to Lucille Crowder furiously unbearable.

“Okay, everybody. Come and get it,” said Del. She was putting an enormous platter of roast beef on the table, while Ray Crowder carried in bowls of potatoes and green beans. There was a cabbage salad. Wineglasses were filled. Ray had a beer by his plate.

“Oh, Del,” said Lucille, sitting down. “This all looks so good. You’ve gone to so much trouble. I wish I had a better appetite.”

“Eat what you can, Lu,” Del said briskly. “Don’t worry about it.” She was pulling the drapes across the dining-room window, closing out the trees and the lake beyond.

Lucille talked about her two sisters and their husbands who were driving from Montreal and would be arriving later in the evening. She had booked rooms for them at the inn. A brother now lived in Australia and could only send a telegram of condolence. Another brother had died years ago in a traffic accident. An old family friend, “a man Cliff sailed with for years,” was also coming, but not until tomorrow. “Dear old Bonneverre,” said Lucille. “I haven’t seen him since Cliff’s funeral.” Again it was Sandy who elicited all this with her questions. Others ate and listened, except for the little girl who stirred the food around her plate, an elbow on the table and a fist on her cheek. The novelty of wearing her best dress on a weeknight was no longer the pleasure she had supposed it would be. She now looked determined to be cross about everything.

“Eat your dinner, hon,” said her mother softly.

“I’m not hungry,” said Cala.

Kelly looked across the table at Ray Crowder, but he was eating quickly, and seemed abstracted, sending out his message of indifference. She’s your kid. You handle it. Lucille tried quiet encouragement, leaning into her and whispering. But the child was in a funk and could not be persuaded. After a few minutes, Kelly took her downstairs. Soon they could hear the squawk and gabble of cartoon characters. When she came back into the room, she looked flushed and apologetic.

“She’s upset and asked if she had to go to the funeral home,” Kelly said, sitting down. “She’s worried about all that. Cala’s never seen anyone …”

Lucille’s hand was on her arm. “Kelly, it’s all right. She doesn’t have to go if she doesn’t want to. You take her home after supper. She can come to the church tomorrow.”

“I think she can handle the church,” said Kelly, drinking some wine. “But tonight … it could be a shock at her age.”

“It could be,” said Del. “After Bill’s funeral my granddaughter had these awful dreams. Seeing her grandfather like that. Of course, she was a little younger than Cala at the time.” It was probably true, thought Fielding. He doubted whether Heather had ever seen a corpse. Claire’s mother had been dead for thirty years and his own parents had died before he was married. Death surrounded kids nowadays in the movies and on television, but it was all just a big cartoon. It never really happened. The real thing, on the other hand—the person you once knew who is now lying in a box and won’t be getting up anymore—that was another matter altogether.

There were apple and lemon pies and coffee, and afterwards the women began to clear the soiled dishes, carrying them into the kitchen. Fielding and Ray Crowder sat amid the debris of the meal without anything to say to one another. Then Crowder’s cell phone began to beep and he got up and stood by the draped windows, listening to his caller. In the kitchen, Lucille was being mildly scolded.

“Lu, you’ll be on your feet over there for two solid hours tonight,” said Del. A drink or two had stirred the bossiness within her. “Go into the living room and relax. Take her in, Sandy. Kelly and I can do these things up.”

Fielding escaped, climbing the stairs to the bathroom, where he took a long piss. By the hall light, he could see into the bedroom that overlooked the back lawn and the trees and lake. Here Lucille Crowder now slept alone. The two smaller rooms, one on each side of the hallway, had obviously been Denise’s and her brother’s. He could see Sandy Levine’s suitcase at the foot of a bed. When he walked into the other room, he turned on the light and was startled by the books. Two entire walls had bookcases and they were filled. Denise seemed to have kept every book she read while growing up, and one could almost track her early progress through literature from childhood favourites like Nancy Drew and Judy Blume, to the required texts of high school. The Chocolate Wars, A Separate Peace, The Catcher in the Rye. And there were scores of books she must have sought out for herself. The Good Soldier. To the Lighthouse. Portnoy’s Complaint. Pictures from an Institution. Where did she find such books? An entire shelf looked to have everything Henry James had ever written.

Taking down a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, he stared at the large, round letters. Denise Crowder. Bayport C.V.I. Grade 9. 1983–84. At the end of each chapter were questions, probably taken off the blackboard for homework. How are Scout and Jem different in their attitudes towards Atticus in this chapter? How does it affect their behaviour? Give examples. Fielding could see her reading her careful responses aloud in class, her erotic gravity attracting the attention of even the dullest boy, sparing her the isolation of the plain Jane who likes to read.

There were also family pictures on the bookshelves and dresser. In one, Cliff Crowder, a big man with surly good looks, is standing in the backyard with Denise. She is thirteen or fourteen and the picture may well have been taken just about the time she was answering questions on Harper Lee’s novel. The trees behind the two figures are smaller and leafless and there is snow on the ground. Denise is wearing a parka and toque, and she still looks cold though she is grinning at the camera. In her high school graduation photo, she is in the middle of the second row, primly serious in her gown. This is the picture that mothers will show their teenaged daughters in the years ahead, he thought.

“And that’s the girl who was murdered in England. Denise Crowder. She went there with some man though he didn’t kill her. I think she was abducted from a car or something.”

And their daughters will look closer at the girl in the middle of the second row, hoping perhaps to divine in her face some warning, a hint of the calamitous end that awaited her.

From down the hallway came the sound of the toilet flushing and he wondered if he should leave Denise’s bedroom. Yet he was moved by these photographs. Whether he liked it or not, he had now become a part of Denise Crowder’s life, and these images of her childhood and youth seemed valuable and worth studying. He could hear footsteps in the hallway.

“Is that you, Dan? We wondered where you got to,” said Lucille.

“I was just looking at these books and pictures,” he said as she stood in the doorway.

“Yes,” she said, “aren’t these books something? I kept them after she went off to university. She bought them all herself, you know. Worked at the Dairy Queen on Lake Street on weekends and in the summers. Spent all her money on books. She’d go down to London and buy them there. She couldn’t get those kinds of books up here. After she was out working, when she’d come home on weekends she’d say, ‘Oh Mom, why don’t you get rid of some of these? I’ll take the ones worth keeping and you can have a garage sale or something. I’ll never look at most of them again.’ But you know what? I don’t think she meant it. I think she kind of liked them here when she came back to visit. As she got older she never mentioned getting rid of them again.”

Lucille had come into the room and was looking at the shelves. “As a little girl, Dee loved her books. I used to read to her every night, but she was reading by herself before she went to school. She knew her alphabet. She worked out the letters and put them together into words.”

As he stood next to her, Fielding wondered if she was trying to gather strength for the evening ahead at the funeral home.

“I read too, Dan,” she said. “Mostly mystery stories. I always liked them better than the romance things, which I always thought were foolish. And after Dee was working in publishing she would bring home books by Alice Munro or Carol Shields. I could read those and I enjoyed them. I understood the kind of people who were in those books. Cliff was a reader too, but mostly he liked history. He enjoyed books about war and boats, shipwrecks, that kind of thing.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and Fielding sat down beside her; he could see only half of Lucille’s face in the dresser mirror, her piled-up hair.

“Cliff was an engineer on the Tilden,” she said. “That’s how we met. I got a job as a cook on that boat. A girlfriend of mine worked on the Tilden and this other girl quit so they needed someone. They were docked in Montreal then, unloading grain, and this other girl had walked out on them. So my girlfriend asked me if I wanted the job. I didn’t think so even though I was out of work at the time. I’d been a waitress. It was the year of Expo 67 and I was going to go down to the park and try to get a job there. Better money, you see. But my girlfriend persuaded me to go on the boat and have a look around, so I did. We were in the galley, and this man came in to make himself a cup of coffee. And I had never felt anything like it before. I guess you could say it was love at first sight. So help me God, I felt weak in the knees. Like some girl in a storybook. This guy just looked over at me and that was it. Never said a word at the time. After he left, I said to Annette, ‘My God, who is that? Do they all look like him?’ She laughed at that. ‘No, they don’t all look like him,’ she said. ‘Cliff’s the second engineer. Married, but not very happy.’

“You know, I was only twenty-two years old, Dan, but I remember thinking, I would like an adventure with a handsome guy like that and if his marriage is not good, then who knows what can happen. It was unlike me, a Catholic girl with a good upbringing to think like that, but I did. And I was not bad-looking, if I say so myself.” She gave another of her sharp, angry laughs. “Not that I like to brag, but imagine! Lucille Plante, a good Catholic girl with a strict upbringing deciding to have an adventure like that. So I took the job and got to know the man who would become my husband. It all seemed settled in my head. I had met this big, handsome, English guy and I was going to have an adventure with him. And, you know it all worked out. Not right away, of course. His wife ran around. She was …” Fielding watched her in the mirror.

“Strange … one of those flower children. Like Trudeau’s wife. Cliff had a hard time with her. She ran away to the States with some hippies and he couldn’t find her. It took almost two years before he got a divorce and we could get married. And that was a pain in the neck too because the Church would not marry us since Cliff was a divorced man.” Lucille shrugged. “Today, I suppose you would just go away and live your life. But we wanted to get married and we did. I had to leave the Church. My parents were heartbroken. You know, I don’t think my father every really forgave me. They never even came to the wedding.

“When we had the kids, they started to get used to the idea, but I don’t think my father ever really liked Cliff. I think he believed that Cliff had stolen me from the Church. They would visit us for a week every winter and my father always made a big deal out of going to Mass on Sunday. I can still see him standing at the front door, all dressed up, pulling on his gloves and galoshes. And when he came back, the look we got! You’d have thought he was staying with heathens. I felt bad too. I felt the children were missing out on something. Once in a while, I would go to the Anglican Church here in town, but somehow it wasn’t the same. My mother was okay about all this, but my father … he was always asking on his visits about the children’s religious training. My father was very fond of Dee and he worried about her salut. You would say in English, I suppose, her salvation. My mother always said he should have been a priest, not a bus driver. And you know it hurt me to go like that between my father and my husband, because of course I loved them both. But you have to choose and I chose Cliff and I have never been sorry about that.

“We got married in Owen Sound. That was his hometown. In a United Church there. They didn’t seem to mind a Catholic girl marrying a divorced man back in 1969.”

Lucille stopped as if she had put a good deal of thought into what she was about to say.

“You know, I miss the old religion, Dan. You hear now about the priests and how bad some of them were with the kids. All that stuff. But still, I wish I had the old religion with me now. Right here inside me.” She tapped her knuckles against her chest with surprising force. “At times like this I wish I could believe the way I used to. At my Grandfather Plante’s funeral, I remember saying to my grandmother, ‘Oh, Grandmaman, I am sorry,’ And she said to me, ‘Don’t worry, little one. In time I will see your grand-père again in heaven and long, long after that, you and your brothers and sisters and mother and dad too, you will join us.’ Of course I was just a girl then. Maybe nine or ten.”

She began to weep quietly and Fielding put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him and whispered, “This is very hard, you know.”

“I know,” he said.

“For you too. You’ve been through a lot.”

Fielding was silent and Lucille straightened herself, taking out a Kleenex.

“Well, enough,” she said. “I want to show you a picture of Dee. My favourite.”

She was blowing her nose as she went to the dresser and pulled out a small framed photograph from one of the drawers. Sitting down again next to him, she put on her glasses and this made her look older, a bit severe. He was reminded of Denise reading her manuscript on the plane.

“Look at this,” she said, with another of her sharp little laughs. “My God, I should throw it out. It makes me so sad when I look at it, and yet I keep going back and back. This morning I must have spent an hour staring at the damn thing. There you are. You can see the mischief in her. That day her father was so mad at her. Dee wouldn’t behave. She was doing all this fooling around while Cliff tried to take our picture. He had this new camera he was so proud of. The pictures came out as soon as you took them. Oh, he thought that camera was something. And Dee was just making the fool all the time. There is a word in English, I think.”

“Mugging,” he said.

“Yes. Mugging. That’s the word. Look at her.”

They both looked at the framed picture from the dresser drawer. Had Denise put it there one day, he wondered, because she no longer wished to see herself as a ten-year-old show-off? But that didn’t seem like Denise; she would have been the first to admit that she liked attention. Maybe she just got tired of it and decided it was time to give another picture shelf space. It was odd to be sitting in her bedroom thinking of a day in her past when she decided to replace this photograph with another. The picture they were looking at had been taken on a freighter somewhere on the Great Lakes. A summer day and Lucille was standing on the deck between her two children. A small Ray Crowder looked quizzically at the camera, but Denise was laughing, making a face and standing on one leg like a stork. The other leg was neatly tucked behind her. Yes, she was mugging and probably irritating her father with his newfangled camera.

“Cliff was chief engineer when this was taken,” said Lucille, “so we got to spend a couple of weeks every summer on the boat. Dee was ten then and her brother was eight. Twenty-two years ago last July. I should throw the damn thing out,” she said, getting up and returning the photograph to the drawer. “You know, Dan, my two sisters want me to move back to Montreal and get an apartment near them, and sometimes at two o’clock in the morning it looks good. But then I think this. My husband is buried in the cemetery here and Dee … she will be in the ground near him tomorrow. Me too one day. How can I leave that? And then Ray is here with Kelly and Cala. Maybe Ray will get married. Who knows?”

She sat down again beside him. “Nobody knows. My God, a week ago Del and I were on our way to the Legion.” She looked at her watch. “Almost to the hour. Thursdays are our euchre nights. A couple of widows going out to play some cards. Just a week ago. So who knows what can happen in a week, eh?” She had taken out a cigarette and lighter. “I read once in this pamphlet that George Gladstone gave me when Cliff died. This pamphlet said that you should never make any big decisions for six months.” She shrugged and lit her cigarette, inhaling deeply, talking through the smoke. “I shouldn’t be smoking in her room. I don’t know what I’m thinking of.”

They sat for a moment in silence and then, getting up, Lucille said, “We better go now or Ray will have a conniption fit. That’s what his father used to call it when Ray lost his temper. ‘He is having a conniption fit,’ Cliff would say. ‘Let’s go now.’”

The others were waiting at the bottom of the stairs, Ray Crowder looking up at them as they descended, as if wondering what they could have been talking about. Kelly was kneeling, helping Cala with the zipper on her jacket, which seemed to be stuck, and Sandy in a smart, dark coat was smiling up at them.

“Lucille,” said Kelly, looking up briefly as she worked on the child’s coat. “I’m going to take Cala home. I’ve phoned Tracy and she’s going to look after her, so I’ll see you guys at the funeral home. Okay?”

“That’s fine, Kelly,” said Lucille. “Where’s Del?”

“She’s gone home to get dressed,” said Sandy. “She’ll make her own way over to the funeral home.”

“That’s good.” They all filed through the front door and across the lawn to the truck and cars.

In the car Sandy said, “I’m not really looking forward to this, Dan. I’ve always had a problem with dead people. And Denise … Jesus, she’s so young.” She was staring out the window at the lighted houses. Halloween decorations were already up on some of the front porches and lawns. Fielding watched the truck’s brake lights blazing two blocks ahead as Ray Crowder stopped and then turned right.

Sandy was looking over at him. “I guess you had to identify the body over in England.”

“Yes,” he said. “They phoned me on Sunday morning, and I had to go up to Exeter.”

“That must have been awful for you.”

He wouldn’t easily forget that Sunday morning and the walk along the green-tiled corridor with Kennedy. The antiseptic smell and the mark on her cheek. It had been awful, but he said nothing more about it and they drove along in silence.

A few minutes later they saw the truck in the parking lot beside a large brick house near the main street. On the lawn was an illuminated sign, white with blue lettering. George Gladstone & Sons. Funeral Directors. Several people were going up the front walk. The house, he thought, was probably once the home of some prominent family that had made its fortune in shipping or lumber. He and Sandy got out of the car and followed the others up the steps to the tall front doors that opened onto a dark hallway. There a stout young woman with a pleasant face was directing the visitors. There were three viewing rooms and this evening two were occupied. The young woman smiled at Fielding and Sandy, directing them to Room 1. Organ music was playing discreetly in the background and Fielding recognized an old reliable, Handel’s Largo. They had played it at his own father’s funeral.

At the entrance to the room they signed the visitors’ book. In the room, a couple of dozen people had already gathered and were talking in little groups. Fielding watched a woman hugging Lucille, who was standing with Ray near a table covered with flowers and cards. Fielding and Sandy were strangers, and so they were glanced at as they entered. But people had seen him on television; he could tell from the way they looked at him. The line was moving slowly past the coffin and they waited. Then a couple in front of them finished looking and stepped aside, the man still clasping his hands behind his back. Fielding and Sandy moved forward and stood in front of the half-opened casket staring down at Denise. Fielding thought he heard a small gasp from Sandy. Someone, perhaps the stout young woman with the pleasant face, had drained the blood from the body and filled it with formaldehyde, applied cosmetics and combed the dry hair. The bruising around the throat and the mark on her cheek were gone. Sandy said nothing, but she was holding tightly onto his arm. Fielding could hear the laboured breathing of an old man who was standing behind them awaiting his turn. And so they moved off to the side.

On the table holding the flowers was Denise’s university graduation photograph with its customary air of forced earnestness. Not like her at all, he thought. Not one bit and he felt an obscure irritation with the photographer. Lucille was introducing them to neighbours and acquaintances: the mechanic who serviced her car, a woman from down her street, a couple from her euchre club who travelled with her on outings to the casino at Point Edward. They eyed him carefully, neither friendly nor hostile; they were leery of him though and he could understand that. For Sandy the hard part was now over and talking to these people about Denise would not be so difficult. Fielding watched her move easily amid the comforting murmur of the room.

Standing next to Fielding was a small, elderly woman who, like him, seemed not quite at ease there. He found himself looking down at the head of tightly permed white hair, the beaky profile. A faint sweetness in the air around her. An old sachet perhaps, from a dress taken off a wooden hanger. She looked up at him and he bent forward to hear.

“My name is Florence Robertson. Who are you?”

“Dan Fielding,” he said.

She had tilted her head back to appraise him, the light glinting off her glasses. His name obviously didn’t register with Florence Robertson.

“I was a friend of Denise’s,” he said. “We worked together in publishing in Toronto.”

“Is that so?” said the old woman.

Apparently he had happened upon the one person in the room who had not read about him in the newspapers, or seen his baffled face peering out the taxi window on television. But maybe she lived alone in one of the large brick houses nearby, a house she’d lived in all her life. The last of a vanishing breed, the solitary virgin. Reading her library novel or working on her crossword puzzles. Still gamely driving her twenty-year-old Chrysler to church every Sunday. Listening to CBC Radio and scoffing at the trash on television. She could easily have missed his connection to Denise Crowder.

“Yes,” she said. “I heard that Denise went into the book business. When I taught her, I thought she might one day become an author.”

She looked too old to have taught Denise, but he was anxious to hear her story; she was someone to talk to in this roomful of strangers.

“What grades did you teach her, Miss Robertson?”

“I taught her in her last two years at the collegiate, when I was head of the English Department. As it happened, they were also my last two years. I retired the year Denise graduated.”

“Was she a good student?” he asked.

Florence Robertson was again directing her reproachful gaze around the room. This rudeness, Fielding decided, was not intentional, but merely a part of her disposition. Nor had she lost the thread of the conversation.

“Denise,” she said, “was an excellent student. A great reader. Well ahead of the others. And she wrote very fine essays and book reports. However, she was also …” Florence Robertson pursed her thin lips in search of the exact word to describe Denise Crowder’s shortcoming. At last she said, “Denise was wilful. She could not be moved on certain opinions she held in the classroom. We had our battles, Denise and I.” Having summed up Denise’s major character flaw, the old woman stepped back as if to guess at Fielding’s. She appeared to have no curiosity about his connection with her former student whose life after high school seemed to hold no interest for her. This starchy and solipsistic old woman had known Denise at a precise time in her life, and that had been enough to bring her out for this evening. When Fielding looked her way again, she was inspecting the cards of sympathy on the table.

The room was now warm and crowded, and he eased his way towards the entrance where people were lined up. Surely, thought Fielding, there were many here out of nothing more than lurid curiosity; someone from their town had been murdered and murder has a glamour all its own. They wanted to look at her. But he felt restless, smothered by the press of bodies around him. He longed for the drab isolation of the Moonbeam Motel with its window overlooking the cornfield and the shower with its stained walls. He wanted to phone Claire and explain what had happened between him and Denise in Frankfurt and England. Wanted to tell her how these things came to pass and how sorry he was and could they not talk about it when he got home? Making his way through the people, he felt a kind of panic bearing down upon him. Wondered why he had come up to this town a day early when he could have waited until tomorrow and arrived with the others. Yet how eager he had been to get out of Toronto this morning. How exhilarated he had felt in that restaurant only hours ago.

He made it to the hallway where the lineup extended to the front door, and leaning against the wall he closed his eyes.

“Are you all right, sir? Would you like a glass of water?” He opened his eyes and saw the people in the line staring at him. The young woman in the black dress and dark stockings said, “Why don’t you come along to the office and sit down for a while?”

“Yes, thank you. I’d like that,” he said, walking along beside her past the front door towards the office. He was sweating a little, but there was no pain in his chest or arms. Probably his blood pressure had spiked again in that crowded room. On a chair in the office he tried some deep breathing and that seemed to calm him. The young woman’s name was Sharon. He noticed the name tag on her dress as she handed him a glass of water.

“Feeling better now?”

“Yes, thanks,” he said, looking up at the round, amiable face. She looked like a big farm girl who had found her place in the world by helping others bury their dead. A useful trade and not for the faint of heart. He drank the water greedily.

“If you’d like to stay here for a few minutes, that’s fine,” she said, “but I have to go back out. There’s quite a crowd tonight.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Go ahead, please. I was just a little woozy for a few minutes. I’m fine now.”

“Are you sure? Would you like me to tell anyone in particular where you are?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Okay, then. Take your time, sir,” she said, lightly touching his shoulder as she left and closing the door behind her.

The office was sedate, old-fashioned except for the computer at a table to the side of the desk. There were pictures along a wall of the Gladstone generations, men in dark suits standing beside hearses, big boxy cars giving way to more streamlined models as the figures in the photographs aged over the years. Across from him was the desk and chair where George Gladstone likely sat while calling him last Sunday. Fielding waited a few more minutes and then left. There was no longer a lineup at the door, and Ray Crowder was standing by the entrance to the viewing room, talking to a man who was leaving. As Fielding approached, Crowder nodded to him.

“Do you want to go out for a drink after this?” he said. Fielding looked into the room, which was still crowded. The offer of a drink was there, delivered in Crowder’s tight-lipped, sardonic manner. Take it or leave it and Fielding was inclined to leave it. Why would he want a drink with this sullen young man who obviously didn’t like him? Yet he felt an obligation to Denise, to her family in whatever guise they appeared. He hoped the invitation included others, maybe Kelly and Sandy, and he said, “Sure.”

“A friend of mine would like to meet you,” Ray said. “He used to go out with Denise.”

Fielding was sorry now he had accepted. He was not interested in meeting one of Denise’s old boyfriends. Why would he be? What could they possibly have in common?

Ray was now talking to a couple. The woman was signing the guest book.

“Hey, thanks for coming, Brent. Sheila.”

“No problem, Ray,” said the man. “You take care now.”

Crowder turned to Fielding. “We should be out of here in about twenty minutes. You can follow me.”

“What about Sandy?” Fielding asked.

“Kelly will take her back with Mom. Don’t worry about it.” And he was gone, working his way through the still-crowded room.

Walking down the hallway in search of a toilet, Fielding passed the open door to Room 3; glimpsed the pale, bald head of the corpse on display. A half-dozen people had gathered around the widow who was seated nearby; they were talking quietly among themselves. A young man came along the hallway and smiled at Fielding.

“Are you looking for the washroom, sir?” he asked. On his lapel was the name George.

“Yes.”

“Just down the hall on your left.”

“I’m with the Crowder family,” said Fielding. “My name is Dan Fielding. Did I speak with you on the phone from England? I was with Miss Crowder.”

The young man smiled. “You spoke to my dad, Mr. Fielding. George the Third they call me around here.”

Fielding could remember the calm, Canadian voice travelling under the Atlantic Ocean towards him last Sunday. It had helped.

“Your father knew exactly what to do. It relieved my mind. I would like to have thanked him.”

“Well, Dad’s on a call tonight with my brother, Geoff. They’re out in the township, so they’ll be a while. But I’ll tell him what you said, Mr. Fielding. He’ll appreciate your comments.”

In the parking lot he stood with Sandy and Lucille. They were having a cigarette while they waited for Kelly and Ray, who were talking near the front door of the funeral home. In the shallow light of the parking lot, Lucille’s face looked drawn.

“How is it going, Lucille?” Fielding asked.

“My feet are tired,” she said without looking at him. She sounded out of sorts. “I don’t know what’s happened to my sisters,” she said. “I hope to God they haven’t been in an accident. They should have been here by now. They’ll want to see Denise.”

It was the first time she had used her daughter’s full name. A sign perhaps of irritation at how matters were unfolding, but maybe a glimpse too of the long slog ahead when everyone has left, and she faces the winter afternoons alone, wondering what to do about the books and pictures, the summer clothes hanging in the closet. Afternoons when she’s likely to ask herself whether it isn’t a bit pointless to stop smoking. He watched Kelly and Ray walking towards them across the lawn; Ray was on his cell phone and Kelly was holding onto his other arm as she picked her way carefully across the damp grass in her high heels.

Lucille said, “Dan, you make sure that Ray doesn’t get into the liquor tonight. Just beer is all he should be drinking.”

“I’ll do my best, Lucille,” he said, wondering how in the world he could be expected to stop Ray Crowder from drinking whatever he felt like drinking tonight.

“Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” said Kelly. She had put a scarf on her head and was working the key into the lock of her car. Crowder, still talking on the cell phone, had gone off to lean against his truck. Fielding watched the women getting into the car; he was trying to figure out the possible contours of the next hour or two with Ray Crowder. In the back seat of the Buick, Lucille, a small huddled figure, rolled down her window and called out, “You be careful in that truck tonight, Ray.”

As he bent into his phone to listen, Crowder absently waved to his mother.

The big car moved slowly out of the parking lot, with Kelly braking cautiously as she approached the entrance to the street. In the moist night air the windshields were coated with mist and Fielding’s hair felt wet. Crowder had put his cell phone away and was opening the door of his truck with one hand, loosening his tie with the other.

“Lyle is just leaving the arena,” he said. “He’ll meet us out there. You follow me, okay?”

“Okay,” said Fielding, getting into the Honda. Presumably Lyle was Denise’s old boyfriend, and he was leaving an arena, which meant that he must play hockey, or coach it or watch it or do something with it. In the lacunal code of small-town communication, the visitor was expected to fill in the blank spaces himself. And so again he was following the brake lights of the red pickup through a town that now looked mostly deserted, the main street a dead zone with only a pizza joint and a Chinese restaurant still open. Farther out on Lake Street, though, the gas stations and fast-food places were all in lights, and he followed the truck into a wide lot next to a roadhouse. When he turned off the ignition, Fielding could already hear the deep, thudding notes of a bass guitar. With his hands in his pockets, Crowder stood waiting for him by the entrance.

Blackie’s was a large, plain room with exposed beams and a bar running along one side. There were dozens of tables and a few couples dancing to the piped-in rockabilly. Waitresses carried trays of beer among the patrons who were in their twenties or thirties, the men in jeans and shirts and caps, the young women in low-slung denims and T-shirts. A lot of flesh and tattoos on display and, in the air, a cheerful raunchiness laced with menace. A meat market, thought Fielding. Beer and tits and testosterone. It probably wouldn’t take much to start a fight in the place. Crowder led the way through the crowd towards a table and a beefy-looking man in a hockey jacket. He was combing fingers through his thick blond hair, as if he’d just arrived. On the table was a tractor cap, a pitcher of beer and three glasses. The bar was smokey and hot and Fielding draped his raincoat over the back of a chair feeling absurdly overdressed. The blond-haired man was watching him, waiting perhaps to be introduced. Fielding stuck out his hand.

“Dan Fielding.”

The man looked at him blankly and shook his hand. “Lyle Parsons. How are you doing?”

“I’m all right, thanks,” said Fielding.

“He was with Denise in England,” said Crowder, sitting down and filling the glasses with beer.

Parsons nodded. “A terrible thing.”

“Yes,” said Fielding.

They drank their beer and all three looked across at the television above the bar. A hockey game, the tiny figures swirling across the ice, the referees in striped jerseys following the play. A woman was singing of heartbreak. There was a clumsy silence among the three of them and Fielding was glad when Crowder asked Parsons how his team looked this year.

Parsons’ fleshy, handsome face brightened. “They’re going to be okay. I got three or four really strong defencemen and the Thompson boy is back in goal for another year. We’ll be all right behind the blue line. The forwards …” He shrugged. “We’re a little thin upfront. We may have trouble scoring. But nobody is going to get too many on us either.”

Crowder looked across at Fielding. “Lyle coaches a bantam team. We used to play hockey together. He’s with the OPP now.”

Had Crowder brought him to this place to show him Denise’s old flame, now a policeman and solid citizen who spends his Thursday nights coaching kids’ hockey? Did he want Fielding to look at the man Denise could have married if she hadn’t had such big-shot ideas about herself? And where had those big-shot ideas led her anyway? To guys like the dork sitting beside him in his grey flannels and blazer, his polished brogues and the fruity green raincoat with the fancy shoulder straps. A guy she went off to Europe with and we all know what happened over there. Something like that was probably going through his mind, thought Fielding, as he listened to the two men talking about the road construction that was underway just north of town. From their conversation, Fielding deduced that Ray Crowder earned his living driving a truck that was currently hauling gravel. He also learned that Kelly Swarbrick worked at the new call centre on the outskirts of town. From time to time Fielding stole a glance at Lyle Parsons. Maybe he was somewhere in that high school picture on Denise’s bookshelf, one of the taller guys in the back row. And what if she had married him? Gone off to university and returned as a schoolteacher. Settled down with this man and had a couple of kids. They would be seven or eight now, and she would be home reading her novel while Lyle coached at the arena or worked a night shift, chatting up the folks at the 24-Hour Coffee House on the highway. Yet it was hard to fit the Denise Crowder he had known into this picture.

A young man, slightly drunk, had come over to the table, and leaning down put an arm around Crowder’s shoulders. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister, man.”

“Thanks,” said Crowder quietly, without moving.

The man straightened up. “You take care, Crowder, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, watching the man move away through the crowd. “Dumb prick,” he muttered.

“You got that right, Ray,” said Lyle Parsons as they watched the man’s mild stagger. He disappeared down a corridor towards the toilets and Fielding was left to imagine that there had been something going on between him and Crowder, some bad blood and now, with Denise’s death, a truce of sorts had been declared. He wondered how many fragile arrangements like this were part of life in a town like Bayport.

“Hey, we need some more beer,” said Crowder, waggling the empty pitcher. Lyle Parsons already had his arm in the air. “How about a bite to eat too? I was thinking of some wings.”

Crowder was slouched in a kind of captain’s chair. There was one to each table.

“Sure,” he said. “I could eat a few.”

When Parsons looked his way, Fielding said, “Why not?” He was conscious of quickly adopting the laconic style of local discourse. This verbal colouring was a habit he could seldom resist when travelling. Returning once from an editors’ conference at Southern Methodist University (The Perils of Publishing Fiction), he noticed Claire looking at him with a puzzled expression, asking finally, “Why are you talking like that?” And he realized that without thinking about it he was drawling like a Texan.

The waitress in jeans and a black T-shirt placed another pitcher of beer on the table and took an order for thirty wings, medium heat. Parsons filled the glasses.

“What time is the funeral tomorrow, Ray?”

“Two o’clock.”

“St. John’s?”

“Yes.”

Lyle Parsons looked down at his big hands encircling the glass. “It’ll be a circus, I bet. The TV people are already in town. They’re staying at the inn. Cooney told me he saw their truck this afternoon.”

Crowder was looking up at the game on the television screen above the bar. “You got that right. It’ll be a circus. They don’t fucking well need to try talking to me. I’m not interested in saying anything to them. They better leave Mom alone too.”

“Don’t blame you there,” said Parsons. “They can get really pushy. I’ve seen it after bad accidents. You remember that one up on Northport Road last spring when those four Indian kids got killed? The TV people were all over those funerals like a bad smell. They were interviewing everyone’s grandmother. People were crying. Pulling their hair out. That was a circus.” He looked across at Fielding. “I suppose you know all about that. They were after you down in Toronto.”

“Yes, they were there all right.”

“I saw you on TV when you were out at the airport. You looked a little spooked.”

“Spooked is a good word,” said Fielding, and Parsons gave him a funny look, as if his word were being ridiculed; in fact, Fielding thought spooked was as good a term as any to describe his appearance on the box.

“So,” said Parsons, finishing his beer, “how long have you known Denise?”

“Since the summer,” said Fielding. “She came to work for us in June. Actually, she came up for the interviews in May.”

“So you were, like, her boss?”

“Not exactly her boss. I did interview her for the job along with several other people in the company.”

“But you were over her in the company, right? She was junior to you.”

“We pretty well treated one another as equals. But I was senior editor, yes. I had been there longer, obviously.”

He could see where Parsons wanted to take this. He saw Fielding as the older man with power over a younger employee; he had persuaded her to accompany him to Europe and then had taken her to a resort town on the south coast of England for the weekend. In other words, he was a man who had abused his position of power in the workplace, blah, blah, blah. But then Parsons was a cop and a cop’s mentality was to look for someone to blame. Still, Fielding resented the big hick’s presumption. What did he know about it anyway? If he wanted to believe his myth about the evil master and the helpless maid, he wouldn’t be alone; most people were probably construing the narrative in the same way. He didn’t feel like defending himself and was grateful when the waitress brought their food.

All three of them looked at the enormous platter of barbecued chicken wings with the bowl of blue cheese sauce and the celery sticks.

“We better get another pitcher,” said Crowder, and the waitress smiled at him. He was a sympathetic figure to all the women in Blackie’s tonight, thought Fielding. Not only the brooding good looks but also the tragic loss of his sister would appeal to them. There wasn’t a woman in the room who wouldn’t take him home and comfort him in any way she could.

“Okay,” said Lyle Parsons, “but that’s it, I think. Drinking and driving, gentlemen.” He laughed grimly.

The three ate wordlessly, looking up now and then at the hockey game. They wiped their mouths with napkins and drank more beer, though Fielding already had had enough. Parsons was now paying attention to the task at hand. A big man with food in front of him. The waitress came by again.

“Everything okay, guys?”

Parsons looked up, pausing to admire her chest. “How about some more napkins, Heidi?”

“No problem.”

A few moments later Ray Crowder said, “Where exactly were you when my sister was murdered by that English bastard?” He was holding a piece of chicken, looking at it as if maybe he wanted to throw it at someone, most likely me, thought Fielding. So here it was at last. The reason why he was in Blackie’s with Ray Crowder and Lyle Parsons. They wanted details.

“I was in the car,” said Fielding. “We’d both been sleeping and then Denise woke up.” He hesitated. “She had to go. Had to urinate. It was dark. Nobody was around, or so we thought. So she got out of the car and I went back to sleep. I was barely awake when she got out of the car.”

Both men were now staring at him, trying, he supposed, to imagine the scene.

“Where was all this happening?” asked Parsons.

“We had stopped in the afternoon,” said Fielding. “At a lookout, a scenic spot off the road. There were steps down to the beach, so we took a walk and then it began to rain and we came back to the car.” He wasn’t going to tell them about seeing Woodley on the beach. Things were precarious enough.

“Why would you be sleeping in the car?” asked Parsons. He looked serious now, even a little unfriendly. These were the same questions the cops had asked him in England, and they would be asked again at the trial.

“We were both tired,” he said. “Neither of us had slept well all week. And we’d had a couple of drinks there in the car. It was raining hard.” He stopped. There was no way to put a good face on what had transpired in that car park last Saturday. Parsons and Crowder had stopped eating; perhaps it had struck them both as singularly obscene to be eating barbecued chicken while listening to this man tell his sordid tale. Nor was it difficult to figure out that sex was at the heart of everything that had happened. He had seen it in their faces when he was trying to explain why he and Denise were asleep in the car. But neither of these men was prepared to go down that road. Ray Crowder did not want to hear about him having sex with Denise in the car, and neither did the old boyfriend.

Crowder was staring again at the television screen. “So she got out of the car to take a piss, and that’s the last you saw of her alive?”

“Yes,” said Fielding. “It was dark and I didn’t imagine for a moment that there was anyone else around.”

Ray Crowder continued to look up at the television. He seemed to be waiting for more information. Finally he asked, “Well, when the fuck did you think something was wrong?”

“When I woke up,” said Fielding. “That was maybe an hour later. Maybe an hour and a half. I can’t really be sure because I don’t know exactly what time it was when Denise left the car. But it was nearly seven thirty when I woke up.”

“And what did you do then?” asked Parsons.

“Naturally, I wondered where she was. So I got out of the car and looked around the parking area. At first I thought she might have lost her way in the dark. Stumbled down the cliffside maybe, but that seemed unlikely. I just had no idea.”

That, of course, was not true. He was dissembling. He did have an idea about what might have happened to her, and it had filled him with horror and panic. He could very well remember thinking about the man on the beach, that minatory face and frenzied stride, the oddness of him. But the version of the story recounted here in this noisy, fourth-rate saloon, sitting next to Denise’s brother and Lyle Parsons, would not include his knowledge of Woodley’s presence on the beach. He would not tell them how, as he wandered around that godforsaken car park in the rain last Saturday night, he already had an inkling of what might have happened. He realized that this was not a sterling moment in his life, but it was the way it had to be for now.

“Then I went back to the car and phoned the police.”

“Jesus,” Crowder muttered.

“He must have been waiting out there in the dark,” Fielding said. “You wouldn’t have expected a man to be out there waiting in that downpour.”

“And so he grabbed her,” said Crowder quietly.

“Yes. Apparently he had a van somewhere, but I couldn’t see anything.”

Crowder looked at him briefly. “No, you were sleeping.”

“Easy, Ray,” said Parsons.

“Yes,” said Fielding. “I was sleeping.”

Crowder pushed himself forward, overturning an empty glass, which Parsons adroitly caught before it rolled off the table. Crowder was leaning in on his elbows, his face mere inches from Fielding’s.

“You should have taken better care of her, Mister. Out there in the middle of fucking nowhere in the rain. With a fucking lunatic walking around.”

“Come on now, Ray,” Parsons said. “The man didn’t know the guy was out there.”

Crowder had slumped back in his chair and was staring again at the television screen. He looked so disgusted with everything that Fielding felt sorry for him. One of the teams had scored a goal and there was cheering at the bar. With the others, Fielding watched the endless replays of the goal.

For Lyle Parsons, the worst of the narrative seemed to be over. He dabbed a chicken wing in the blue cheese sauce. “So they picked up this guy the next morning?”

“Actually,” said Fielding, “Woodley’s brother-in-law brought him in. Woodley had been living with his sister and brother-in-law, who has a plastering business or something. They were away for the day and when they got back and Woodley wasn’t there, they got worried. Then the brother-in-law noticed that his van was gone and Woodley didn’t even have a driver’s licence.”

“Why didn’t he call the police?” asked Parsons.

“I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe he thought there was no point in involving the police then. So they sat up waiting for him and when he showed up about two o’clock in the morning, the brother-in-law suspected something and I guess he finally got out of him what happened and took him to the police. They phoned me at the hotel later that morning.” Parsons was leaning in on his elbows. He now seemed professionally interested. “And the guy had been in prison before?”

“Yes. The police told me he’d served eight years for an attempted rape or sexual assault. The victim was the daughter of a woman he was living with then. I’m not clear about the details, only that he served all his time. He was released last Christmas.”

Crowder snorted in disgust. “These guys get out. It’s a fucking joke, isn’t it? He gets out and what? seven, eight months later, he does it again. The fucking cops don’t do anything about it.”

Parsons looked across at him. “I know where you’re coming from, Ray, but don’t blame the police. The man served his time.”

“They should keep an eye on guys like that,” said Crowder. “They should keep them under surveillance or something. You can’t have them walking around the fucking streets like that.”

“We can’t keep an eye on everybody, Ray. You know that. If the man had been out on parole, then yes, I could see it. A man on parole. We keep an eye on him. But this man had served his sentence.” Parsons shook his big head in wonderment. “It was just bad luck. But if you ask me, Mister, I don’t think you had any business taking a young woman out to that place and drinking in a car like that. My God, what were you thinking of?”

“He wasn’t thinking,” said Crowder, still looking at the tv. “He was sleeping.”

It was surely time to leave, thought Fielding. He didn’t really have to sit in this joint and be scolded by these two guys, though he couldn’t blame Ray Crowder for feeling the way he did. This afternoon Ray had looked into a coffin and seen the painted shell of what used to be his sister. Tomorrow he would watch that coffin being lowered into the ground. Maybe like Laertes he would try to throttle Fielding at the graveside. And all this misery, spreading like a dark stain across the ocean to this roadhouse in Ontario, had been caused by one man who was now sleeping in his cell somewhere in England, dreaming perhaps of other young women in deserted car parks or alone on Sunday walks in country lanes. In a few hours, he would awaken to his porridge and tea, his hour in the exercise yard, the visit from the Salvation Army man who might read a passage from the Bible, which George Allan Woodley might attend to or not. Who could possibly fathom the mind of a man who inhabits his own world and ministers solely to his own urges? All that can be known for certain, thought Fielding, is that such men spoil the lives of others.

Over the noise of the roadhouse, he was trying to listen to Lyle Parsons, who was talking about Denise and high school days in Bayport. How he had lived on a farm on the tenth line and was bussed into town for high school. How he had admired Denise Crowder from afar, but didn’t work up the courage to ask her out until Grade 12. How surprised he was when she said okay. Listening to all this, Fielding could see Denise as a sexy little seventeen-year-old, joking with this big blond farm boy by a drinking fountain on some long-ago Friday noon hour.

“She was one smart girl,” said Parsons. “Always reading, but she was fun too. A good sport. A lot of those girls who were smart were often stuck-up. Do you remember Leah Seward, Ray? And Bernice Coleman? God, they were stuck-up.”

“They wouldn’t say shit if their mouths were full of it,” said Crowder.

“You got that right,” Parsons said. “But Denise just fit in anywhere. She’d go to parties. Take a drink.”

Of course she would, thought Fielding. But not because she was a “good sport,” which was how Lyle Parsons wanted to remember her. She went because she was curious—not only about what was in books, but also about what went on at parties. What a boy’s hard-on felt like in her hand in the back seat of a car. What a second slug of Captain Morgan’s and Coke did to her head.

“She was careful though,” said Parsons. “I never saw her drunk. She’d have a couple and that was it. Your mother can be proud of the way she raised that girl.”

“She was a good kid,” said Ray Crowder, who now looked bored. He seemed to have exhausted his rage and gave the impression of wanting to be left alone.

When his cell phone rang, he slumped backwards in the captain’s chair and listened, muttering a reply from time to time. His caller had to be Kelly Swarbrick, thought Fielding, for only she could tease a grin from this unhappy young man. She wanted him home and in her bed and when he finished listening, Crowder seemed in better spirits.

“Women,” he said to Parsons, “always think you’re going to get wasted and run your truck into a tree. Christ Almighty, I got thirty thousand dollars sitting out in that parking lot.”

“Well,” said Parsons, “you have to admit that some do just that, Ray. I’ve seen enough of them wrapped around trees and other things too.”

“Well, not me, Constable,” said Crowder, leaning forward. “Want to try that Breathalyzer thing on me?”

Parsons gave him a sour smile. The word constable seemed to rankle him; maybe by now he should have been further up the ladder. But Crowder was enjoying himself. Mockery suited him. Humour and sarcasm were one and the same.

“We’ll all be just a little careful tonight, and everything should be just fine. You didn’t drink much,” said Parsons, turning to Fielding. “You should be okay.”

“I’m not much of a beer drinker,” Fielding said.

“Well, we could have ordered something fancier for you,” said Crowder.

“I think I’ll be on my way,” Fielding said, getting up and reaching for his coat.

“You staying at the inn?” asked Parsons.

“No, I’m at the motel just down the road.”

Crowder grimaced. “The Moonbeam? Jesus, it’s a dump. You better check the sheets.”

“Well, it’s not far at least,” said Parsons.

“How much do I owe you?” asked Fielding.

The big man waved his hand lazily over the table. “Never mind that.”

“You’re our guest,” said Crowder slowly.

Fielding shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at the church.”

“I guess,” Crowder said, looking up again at the hockey game.

It was a relief to be outside, inhaling the damp mild air, and to know that he would never again have to set foot in Blackie’s. They had wanted some idea of what happened in England, and he had tried to give them that. It was enough and he was glad to get in the car and drive on to the motel. There were only three other cars parked in front of the units. As he passed the office, Fielding saw a woman sitting in a chair at the front desk watching the news. Images of a city somewhere in the Middle East. A crowd of angry, dark-haired men in shirt sleeves carrying a coffin through the streets. Punching the air with their fists.

The little red button was blinking on the phone, just as it had in the hotel in Glynmouth, and when he picked it up, he heard Claire’s voice asking him to call home. She sounded irritable and Fielding hesitated, wondering if he should pour himself a nightcap before talking to her. But he thought better of it and when she answered, he said, “Hi. It’s me.”

“Yes, hi. Where have you been all night?”

“I was at the funeral home until nine and then I went out with Denise’s brother and an old boyfriend of hers. They wanted to grill me. Took me to this bar on the highway. I don’t know why I went. I suppose I felt I owed something to her brother. He was furious with me, of course.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Yes. Well, I survived.”

Claire paused. “Heather’s had a really bad day.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s happened?” He could feel the tension gripping him, the adrenalin doing its work.

“She’s become the subject of e-mail chat lines and some of it, I gather, is pretty ugly. I think you can imagine what fifteen-year-old girls can come up with. You, of course, are cast as the stud father. There’s a lot of talk about your dead girlfriend. Questions like, ‘Will Heather be going to the funeral of her father’s girlfriend?’ Allison Harvey showed her some of this stuff today. That’s what your friends are for, right? To show you how many people out there are happy that you’re miserable.”

“There’s a word for it,” he said.

“I know the fucking word, Dan. Don’t patronize me. Anyway, she’s heard about this stuff that’s out there. And from other schools too. Girls she’s played against.”

“Little bastards.”

“You can call them whatever you want. It doesn’t change anything. Today, it just got to her and she came home early in tears. She couldn’t face practice and you know how she hates to miss her practices. I’m thinking of keeping her home for a few days. I wanted to earlier in the week, but she insisted on going. Said she wasn’t going to hide from anybody. And she wanted to be ready to play on Saturday. It’s a big game. But she hasn’t been eating or sleeping properly all week. Surely you noticed those dark rings under her eyes. And today she just couldn’t take any more. Came home early and flopped on the bed. Thinks her life is ruined, of course.”

“Jesus. Can I talk to her?”

“An hour ago maybe, though I don’t think she really wants to talk to anybody. In any case, she’s finally fallen asleep and I’m not going to wake her up. She’s still in her uniform. I just threw a blanket over her. All this stuff is still on television. Jesus, they had it on again tonight. Pictures of the town, the church, the high school she went to.”

“You shouldn’t watch it.”

“I’ll watch what I feel like watching. Don’t tell me what to watch.”

“We have to take this a day at a time, Claire. Sorry for the cliché.”

When she didn’t answer, he said, “I’m sorry about everything.”

“Yes,” she said. “I believe you are sorry.” Her voice sounded tired, as if she had thought long and hard about everything, and was now discouraged with how her life had turned out. “But it still happened, didn’t it?” she said. “Nothing can change that. Heather is going to have to deal with it. So am I. So are you. In a way, it doesn’t change anything to say you’re sorry. It helps, but it doesn’t change anything. We all have to work through this, but it’s still going to be there. Once something’s happened, it’s happened. There it is. A part of your life. It can’t be erased.”

“What exactly are you saying, Claire?”

“I’m saying that we can’t change what happened. It will always be there. Your weekend fling. Denise Crowder’s death. Heather’s memory of those hateful e-mails. The way friends of ours will always think of us in a certain way. ‘Remember all the trouble they had when that girl Dan was seeing was murdered in England.’ All that will be there forever and nothing can change it because it happened.”

He could imagine her thinking this through all week as she watched the news, or lay awake in bed; it was now consuming a part of every waking hour, and it was there again the next morning, the first thing to confront her. A different species of grief from Lucille Crowder’s, certainly, but grief nonetheless, grief for this fissure in her marriage and for her daughter’s unhappiness.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Dan?”

“I do, yes.”

And perhaps they both realized that enough had been said for the moment, that pursuing this line of thought any further could now be dangerous.

“What time is the funeral?” she asked.

“Two o’clock.”

“When will you be coming home?”

“I’ll try to get back as soon as I can. Probably early evening. It’s about a three-hour drive from here.” He stopped. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. “I hope Heather’s all right tomorrow.”

“She needs a good night’s sleep.”

“Yes.”

There followed a brittle moment of silence before Claire said, “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight,” he said.

Fielding hung up the phone and undressed for bed, thinking of a day in his life not long ago. A Sunday morning in September and he was going down to breakfast, listening on the stairway to Claire and Heather in the kitchen. They were laughing and talking about the game the day before, a game St. Hilda’s had won and in which Heather had played well. This joking in the kitchen was a rare truce between mother and daughter after a difficult beginning to the school year. Fielding had promised himself that he would read no manuscripts that day—the morning was reserved for the New York Times Book Review, and later they were having dinner at the Burtons’. Heather was going to a friend’s in the afternoon and Fielding hoped for a daytime hour or two in bed with his wife. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he noticed the sunlight streaming through the French doors across the dining-room floor and over the dog who was sleeping. September was Fielding’s favourite month and he enjoyed especially the light as it fell through leafy trees, a subtle and airy light peculiar to the season and the waning strength of the sun. On the radio was sacred music from centuries ago, Monteverdi perhaps. Fielding could smell French toast and hear his wife and daughter talking about the game, and as he walked to the kitchen he was thinking, “This is a good moment in my life. I am happy. Try to remember this.”

Lying in bed now in the Moonbeam Motel, he tried to summon forth every detail of those few moments on that September morning and, as he remembered, he could hear the rain starting, a sudden downpour that was soon drumming on the roof and splashing from a drainpipe into puddles beneath the window. He wanted the rain to last all night and into tomorrow. A pathetic fallacy if you wanted to call it that, but it seemed only fitting to bury a young woman on a day when the sky was dark and sodden.

On his way into town, Fielding’s head was still jammed with unfamiliar and ominous information: over the past fifty years the glaciers on Western Canada’s mountains had shrunk to the size they were ten thousand years ago; all the world’s major rivers were polluted, many with severely diminished water levels; the increase in the consumption of bottled water was drying up streams and aquifers; every day North Americans used four times more water than Europeans and fifteen times more than people in Asia and Africa. All morning he had been reading A History of Water, sitting on the bed in the motel room, his back supported by pillows, making notes, using the top of the manuscript box as a kind of writing board. Twice he had been interrupted by a woman with lank, pale hair and a tattoo on her ankle who was carrying sheets and wanted to make up the room. Each time he sent her away. He had rented the place until one o’clock, and he was caught up at last in Tom Lundgren’s grim scenario of a future in which border wars could erupt over the ownership of water; its price might one day rival that of oil or natural gas, electricity.

Fielding had scarcely noticed the passing hours and now, after hurriedly eating a sandwich at a restaurant on the highway, he was running late. It was nearly two o’clock and he was looking for Metcalfe Street and St. John’s Anglican Church, his mind still ranging over the professor’s forecast of possible social and political chaos unless we change our profligate ways. It would be Heather’s world, he thought, and even if Lundgren’s view was too pessimistic, it was becoming clear that the new century was going to be very different from the last one. And he had to wonder if an individual life would matter as much in a world where people might kill one another over water. Would a single death like Denise Crowder’s be dutifully attended to with sorrowful ceremony? Or would the end of life be something like the plague years of the Middle Ages when the dead were cast into pits and the mourners stayed home?

The rain from the night was long gone, swept away by a wind off the lake that had cleared the air and left another gusty, bright day. When he reached the side streets of the town, he could see his error in arriving so late; cars lined both sides of the street near the church, and he had to park several blocks away. It was just past two when he rounded the corner onto Metcalfe Street, panting a little after his run from the car. A crowd had gathered behind the police tape in front of the church, a subdued band of the idle and the curious, brought out on this windy fall day by their own schadenfreude and the TV cameras: housewives and pensioners, men in baseball caps and windbreakers, teenaged girls taking the afternoon off school. On the church lawn were clusters of flowers wrapped in plastic cones, remembrances from strangers who had been moved to pity by a young woman’s death.

Shouldering his way through the crowd, Fielding identified himself to the policeman and was allowed through. He could hear the whispered comments from behind him.

“That’s the man she was with.”

Stone steps with iron railings led up to the church and Fielding climbed, grateful that the service had not yet started. But surely it was about to, for the rear door of the hearse in the parking lot at the side of the church was already open. Fielding could see Ray Crowder and Lyle Parsons standing in their dark suits with other men. Two young women from the choir had come out a side door in their white gowns and were watching a cameraman film the crowd on the street. When he stepped into the church, Fielding was approached by the young woman from the funeral home with her round, innocent face. What was her name? Sharon? Yes.

“The church is full, sir,” she said. “But we have a seat for you. Mrs. Crowder asked me to keep an eye out for you.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry I’m late.”

Above their whispering he could hear the “Nimrod” theme from Elgar’s Enigma Variations played with surprising vigour and skill.

“We’ve put you with your friends from Toronto,” Sharon whispered.

“Fine.”

An elderly man escorted him to his seat halfway to the altar. He was mortified at being so late, inviting all the looks that accompanied him as he slid in beside Linda McNulty, who squeezed his arm without saying anything. When he glanced down the row, he saw Loren Schultz and Sy Hollis, Martha Young and Imogene Banks. In the first pew were Sandy Levine, and Lucille Crowder under a wide black hat; there were two older women next to her, the sisters, Fielding imagined, and an old man in a brown suit, and Kelly Swarbrick and her daughter. When the music stopped, he could hear the rustling sound of the choir assembling for the procession. Then he heard a woman’s voice. She had an English accent that reminded him of Fiona Anderson.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

Moments later they were bearing the shrouded coffin past him in silence, Ray Crowder freshly barbered and Lyle Parsons and four other men, followed by the choir and the priest, a middle-aged woman. In its solemnity and ritual the service was calming, and as Fielding listened to the English woman reading the Collects, he thought of the numberless dead who had lain in caskets throughout the centuries while these very words were spoken above them. When the choir began to sing “Softly and Tenderly, Jesus Is Calling,” he remembered a summer evening more than forty years ago when he was thirteen; a summer of loose ends with friends away at camp and high school ahead in September. He was tall for his age, but ungainly and nearsighted; soon he would need glasses and he dreaded the thought of wearing them at a new school. How lonely and lost he had felt on those early, light-filled summer evenings, wandering the streets of Toronto, thinking of the empty weeks ahead and high school.

One evening, he got into a fight with a rough-looking boy. He was crossing an unfamiliar schoolyard when the boy and his two smaller friends surrounded him and pushed him to the ground. To his surprise, he got up quickly and fought back, emboldened perhaps by the only weapons left to the bullied and miserable, his own fear and rage. Within minutes he had to be pulled off the boy by two men passing on the sidewalk. He could still remember one of them saying, “Hey, let go, buddy, you’re going to choke him to death.”

He escaped with his narrow victory, but felt chastened too; when he left the schoolyard, the boy was white-faced and coughing. What if the police came after him? He had sought refuge in the open doors of a church hall where he could hear a choir singing.

It was some kind of Youth for Christ rally in a Sunday school auditorium, and he had followed others into the hall with its old-cupboard smell and its wainscotting and folding metal chairs. There were men in shirt sleeves and women in flowered dresses and boys and girls his age and older teenagers too. The preacher was an American and he talked about godless Communism and the hydrogen bomb, the approaching conflagration, and the love that Jesus had for each and every one of them. He was a stolid-looking man with a dark, receding hairline and a five o’clock shadow. He had taken off his jacket and when he raised his arms to call upon the young to come forth, people could see the sweat marks. A woman in the choir began to sing, “Softly and Tenderly, Jesus Is Calling,” and the rest joined in. The American preacher implored them to come forward and embrace their Saviour, and soon people were shifting sideways in their chairs to let others pass. From various parts of the hall, young people stood up and prepared to be saved.

In front of Fielding was a girl about his age in a dirndl skirt and a white blouse. She was with her parents and they looked poor. He had been watching her when she sat farther down the row, but to make room for others she and her parents had moved to seats in front of him. Before they moved, however, Fielding had seen something harsh and unlovely and powerful in the girl’s listless gaze. When she was seated in front of him, he could see her bra strap through the blouse and everything was at once unsettling and wonderful: his fight with the rough-looking boy, the long evening light in the auditorium windows, the preacher’s words of healing and redemption, the swell of the girl’s cheek. When she got up to make her way past the others, she reached behind to pluck the skirt from between her buttocks and a moment later Fielding too arose and followed her up the aisle.

That summer evening was the beginning of his brief and passionate love affair with Jesus. He never saw the girl again, but he didn’t care. Actually nothing mattered and that was the joy of it—not the absence of friends, nor the prospect of high school, nor his mother’s mocking asides as he read his Testament on the front porch in the afternoons. He was intensely happy in the knowledge that if he lived a good life and prayed to Jesus for guidance, he would one day have eternal life. He even joined a Bible study group and after meetings walked a shy girl home now and then. When high school began, he was seen as an outsider, an oddball, but he was left alone, and sometimes, in the middle of a class, or walking down the hall, he would feel a surge of elation in knowing that none of this was important. Yet with the passing months, the intensity of his feelings became diluted with the realization that it was hard to lead a good life, difficult to be free of sin every day, almost impossible to look at a pretty girl without lustful dreaming.

One afternoon he heard his parents talking about him in the kitchen. With his customary reasonableness, his father was defending him.

“He has to work these things out for himself, Jean.”

But his mother sounded adamant; she was restless and in a hurry, on her way out the door to the hospital to work an evening shift.

“Well, if he doesn’t get off this religious nonsense, he’s going to lose his year. You saw his last report card.”

A few weeks later, he had his eyes examined and was fitted with glasses. The world was suddenly a larger, clearer space and he could now see the numbers and words on the blackboard. He fell in love with a girl who, when he now thought about it, was very like Denise, sexy and smart and adventurous, but far too sophisticated for him. She went out with boys in older grades. It was all so long ago, he thought, listening again to the words of the priest.

The service was nearly over and she had come down to the coffin and was sprinkling sand over it.

Almighty God with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We praise and magnify Thy Holy Name for all thy servants who have finished their course and kept their faith; and in committing our sister Denise to thy gracious keeping, we pray that we with her, and with all those who are departed in the true faith of Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in the eternal and everlasting glory;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

The six men grasped the handles of the coffin and carried it down the aisle, looking stony-faced and straight ahead. The priest followed and then Lucille and Sandy, arm in arm, and the sisters and Kelly Swarbrick and the little girl in her black velveteen dress and white leotards. Then the strange-looking old man in his baggy double-breasted summer suit, his large, pale head entirely hairless as if he had recently undergone cancer treatment. The choir and congregation sang “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” and then people filed out into the glare of the afternoon. The TV cameras were there and when Fielding looked down to the parking lot, he saw a cameraman filming Sandy and Lucille as they were being helped into the limousine behind the hearse.

Imogene Banks gave him a perfect consolatory smile. “A terribly sad day, Dan.”

“Yes.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Lousy.”

The others joined them on the lawn and everyone seemed uncomfortable and eager to be away. Sy Hollis gripped Fielding’s hand.

“You’re going out to the cemetery, aren’t you, Dan?” He had put on sunglasses, and it was hard to read the expression on his face.

“Yes,” said Fielding, “and I’d better be going because I’m parked several blocks from here. I think they’ll be starting soon.”

“Right,” said Hollis. “I don’t know the way so we’d better get to our cars. We’ll see you there.”

Fielding worked his way through the crowd that was still milling around on the lawn and on the steps to the street. Dresses and skirts were being pressed against women’s legs by the wind, and an older man lost his hat. It went skimming across the parking lot and a younger man was running after it. Fielding hurried on towards his car.

The cemetery was on the other side of town, just off the highway, and only about thirty people were gathered by the grave. The TV folk had apparently decided not to film the burial scene. Maybe, thought Fielding, it was a little too close to the bone for television. Under the bare trees the leaves were thick and still wet from last night’s rain. The priest stood by the open grave, her greyish hair blowing across her face as she held the fluttering pages of the prayer book in both hands. The coffin rested on the apparatus that would lower it into the earth.

“In the midst of life we are in death,” she said.

How true that was, Fielding thought. About this time a week ago he and Denise were eating dinner in a Lebanese restaurant in Soho. They had flown to London from Frankfurt that afternoon, and it was on the plane that she asked him about his weekend plans. When he mentioned his jaunt to Devon, she said it sounded like fun. She had never been in the English countryside. Would he be interested in some company? He didn’t like to say no to her, but Devon was special. Devon belonged to Claire and him and so he had said …

What had he said? Some nonsense about walking the footpaths and how one had to be used to them. In fact, he wasn’t planning to do much walking at all; there simply wasn’t the time. He could remember her shrug. She knew he was lying. But in the little restaurant, after two or three glasses of wine, he had changed his mind. Asked her if she were still interested, and of course she was and that was that. She had taken his hand across the table and smiled.

“Should I buy a walking stick in the morning, Daniel?”

“Not necessary,” he said.

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to receive unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our mortal body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

Fielding was listening carefully to the serious, old words, to the stately lustre of this High Anglican language from over four hundred years ago. Yet to believe such words at the beginning of the twenty-first century seemed to him preposterous. The coffin had disappeared into the ground and Fielding read the words on the tombstone above the open grave.

CLIFFORD JOHN CROWDER
1938–1998
Beloved husband of Lucille Anne
1945–

People were now returning to their cars. Sy Hollis was talking to Sandy Levine, the wind stirring his hair as he stood beside her in his big-belted trench coat. Martha Young surprised Fielding by rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. She was not usually demonstrative.

“We’re heading back now, Dan. Will we see you Monday morning?”

“Yes, I think so, Mart,” he said.

“That’s good. You look tired. Try to get some sleep this weekend.”

“I’ll try,” he said, watching her join the others who waved to him.

His colleagues liked him. They were polite and considerate, but they were also surprised and puzzled, disappointed too, perhaps, by his involvement with Denise Crowder. It had changed their estimation of him in unaccountable ways. He could see it in their faces. Sy Hollis walked over and for a moment neither of them said anything. Then, looking around, Hollis said, “I’ll bet this is a pretty little place in the summer.”

“I would imagine so,” said Fielding.

Hollis was watching him from behind his sunglasses. “I’ll tell you the truth, Dan, you don’t look so hot.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Fielding.

“Do you want to take some time off?”

“It might be better,” said Fielding, “if I just got on with it.”

Hollis made his little popping face. “Well, you’re the best judge of that. So you’re coming in Monday?”

“Yes, I think it’s best, Sy.”

“Fine,” said Hollis, pausing to stare up at the swaying branches. “I suppose you’re going back to the Crowders’ for a drink?”

“Yes, I probably will.”

“We had to beg off. Denise’s mother asked us, but I think it’s more for the family and close friends.”

Fielding was watching Lucille, who seemed to have collapsed into the arms of one of her sisters. Others surrounded her and they moved off, a sorrowing group of women in dark clothes, huddling towards the limousine on the circular drive.

“I think I’ll be off then,” said Hollis. “Take care of yourself, Dan.”

“Thanks, Sy,” said Fielding.

Hollis had only walked a few steps before he turned. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look at Tom Lundgren’s manuscript. I’m only asking because he phoned yesterday afternoon. Wanted to know what we thought. Tom understands the difficult time you’re going through. He just wondered if anyone else had read it.”

The wind was lifting Hollis’s wispy hair as he stood with his hands deep in the pockets of the trench coat. Fielding didn’t like talking business at Denise’s graveside.

“Can I talk to you about it on Monday?”

“Sure,” said Hollis. “I’d just like to be able to say something to the man this weekend. You know what authors are like.”

“I’ve read it quickly,” said Fielding. “It needs work, but it’s mostly style. The writing is a little stiff and overly technical in places. That can be fixed. It’s a book worth doing, I think. I’ll call him tomorrow if you like.”

Hollis nodded. He looked surprised by this news. “Well, that’s good, Dan. Very good. I’m glad to hear it. Thanks.” Turning away, he walked towards the car where the others were waiting.

An elderly man in a dark raincoat was kneeling on a mat, folding the green cloth that had served as artificial grass over the graveside; he was folding it slowly, tucking in the corners as if he’d done this a thousand times. Fielding wondered if this unhurried attention to detail belonged to George Gladstone Senior, and when he asked, the man looked up with his narrow, lined face.

“Sir?”

“My name’s Dan Fielding. We talked on the phone last Sunday.”

“So we did,” said Gladstone, getting to his feet and offering a hand. “My son George said he was talking to you last evening. We appreciate your comments about our service.”

“You took a lot off my mind last Sunday, Mr. Gladstone.”

“That’s what we’re here for, Mr. Fielding,” he said.

Across the cemetery by a little shed two men were standing next to a backhoe. They were having a smoke and probably waiting for everyone to leave so they could fill in the grave and go home to their suppers. George Gladstone was kneeling again, dismantling the machine that lowered the casket. Standing there, Fielding could see the gouged side of the grave and the dark gleam of polished wood.

When he looked up, Ray Crowder and Kelly Swarbrick were walking quickly towards him, Kelly nestling into Ray, holding onto his arm with both hands.

“Mom wants to know if you’re coming back to the house,” said Crowder.

“Sure. I would like to say goodbye to your mother and Sandy.”

Crowder nodded and the two of them turned and walked back towards the others who were now making their way through a row of gravestones to the circular road where cars were parked. Fielding hurried across the damp leaves and grass towards his own car. He badly wanted to talk to his daughter, and once inside the car, he called home on his cell; as he waited for the connection, he watched the funeral home limousine drive away, passing through the gates onto the highway. Other cars were following.

When Heather answered, her voice sounded faint and groggy as if she had just awakened.

“Heather, it’s Dad.”

“Oh, hi Daddy.”

“Hi. Were you sleeping?”

“Yeah. Just a little nap. I didn’t go to school today. Mom thought it would be better if I took the day off. Have a long weekend to myself.”

“Yes, she told me last night that you had a rough time yesterday.”

“It’s not been that bad. Some crappy e-mail from people I definitely despise.”

“Delete them,” he said.

“Oh, I already have. But you know …”

“Yes, I think I do. But you have to expect some of this stuff, Heather. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Mom says it will all be over soon. Things will settle down. Once the television stuff is finished and the newspapers stop writing about you and Miss Crowder.”

“Well, she’s right. Soon there’ll be other things for them to write about, and we can try to get back to normal.”

“I hope so,” she said. “When are you coming home?”

“This evening, though I may be a little late. I’m going to the Crowders’ for an hour or so. I shouldn’t be long.”

“That’s good.”

“Is your mother around?”

“No, she went to a movie with Mrs. Burton. Something called The Hours. Mrs. Burton was going on about it when she came by for Mom. You know how she can be. Anyway, she’s read the book that this movie is supposed to be about and she really liked it. She’s been bugging Mom to see it. So they went this afternoon. Mrs. Burton said it would be good for Mom. Take her mind off all this stuff.”

“Good idea,” he said. “Just tell her I called, and I’ll be a little later than I thought. I should be home by nine or ten o’clock.”

“Sure.”

“Take care now.”

“You too, Daddy.”

By the time he arrived at Lucille’s, the house was already crowded with people who sounded as if they were on their second drink. Not festive, of course, but more relaxed certainly, grateful no doubt that the formal ceremonies were now over and a more relenting spirit allowed. He could see a smile or two flickering now and then across faces as people talked. Del was again in the kitchen, and with the help of two other women had prepared a supper of salad and cold cuts; there were also plates of sandwiches and cakes and pies. Lucille was seated on the sofa, attended to by her sisters, dark-haired, good-looking women in their sixties. Lucille was the only one smoking in the house; others had stepped through the patio doorway to enjoy a cigarette on the back lawn. Fielding could see Sandy Levine talking to a young couple, and again he envied her that ease with strangers. It was not difficult to sense people’s reluctance to speak to him. He was neither a friend of the family’s nor strictly speaking a business acquaintance; he was instead the man who had cheated on his wife with Denise, who had in some manner put her in harm’s way. What kind of conversation could you have with someone like that?

The wind was gone now, the sun behind the trees and sinking into the lake, leaving a salmon-coloured sky that grew paler by the minute. Fielding stood near the patio door, with a glass of wine, looking out at the picnic table and barbecue, the guests on the lawn, the early evening sky. Here was an ordinary and pleasant little space in the world, somewhere to come to from the city on a weekend, a place to sit with her mother on a Saturday morning in July, catching up on town gossip, telling as much about what was going on in her own life as she cared to—a place where one day she might have watched her own children playing with their grandmother. People were now making room for Lucille, who had stood up. From outside, others were squeezing through the patio doorway and Sandy smiled at him as she passed. Slowly the murmuring died away as Lucille, standing alone now by the dining-room table, looked nervously around, clenching a tissue in her hand.

“First,” she said. “I want to thank you all for coming back to my house to help us remember and say goodbye one last time to Dee. Some of you have come a long way, including my own two sisters, Sylvie and Mathilde, and their husbands, Don and Laurent, who drove from Montreal. And also dear Bonneverre, who worked so many years with Cliff on the Tilden. Bonneverre has been a guest many times in this house and he was a great favourite of Dee’s. How she used to laugh at his stories and jokes. Remember, Bonneverre?”

The old man was sitting in a corner of the room, and as others turned to stare, he nodded.

“Thank you,” Lucille said, “for coming all the way down from Thunder Bay.”

There was scattered applause and again the old man inclined his large, pale head.

“Of course I must mention Denise’s special friend, Sandy Levine, who has come from New York City. She is going to say a few words, but before she does, I want to first ask Miss Robertson, Dee’s favourite teacher, to speak to us.”

People paused to sip their drinks, watching as Florence Robertson came forward. Lucille seemed especially proud that the old teacher was now in her house and was going to speak about Denise. Beneath the tightly curled white hair, Florence Robertson frowned, the facial expression of a temperament inclined to constant judgment; Fielding imagined that she had set her features just this way even as a child, quick to find fault with others and produce her little scowl. She was holding pages of handwriting and said dryly, “I very much doubt, Mrs. Crowder, that Denise regarded me as her favourite teacher.”

A little scattered laughter as she adjusted her glasses and bent to her task. “Denise Crowder came into my Grade Twelve class in September of 1986. She was nearly seventeen and I was sixty-four and I can assure you that we didn’t see eye to eye on many things.” There was more laughter, uneven and light. What was the old girl going to say next? “I will be frank. I found Denise pert and wilful and in my opinion much too sure of herself. At the same time, however, I am bound to say that for a girl her age, as I soon discovered, she had a remarkable grasp of English literature. I remember an essay she wrote for me on Edgar Allan Poe. I found it quite extraordinary, and I have to confess that I had serious doubts at the time about it being her own work. That’s how professional it seemed to be. But of course it was her own work, and I soon came to realize what a gifted young woman she really was …”

As Fielding listened, he could see the sixteen-year-old Denise crossing swords with her flinty old English teacher, the girl standing by her teacher’s desk after class to dispute a grade or defend an argument in one of her essays. But Florence Robertson was going on a bit, losing some of her audience—men and women for whom high school may have been nothing more than time spent listening to stuff they hadn’t the slightest interest in and could see no point to, a boring interlude between childhood and the rest of life. Still, Florence Robertson finished her speech with a flourish, admitting that “the young lady proved to me how first impressions can be so wrong, and I want to say how proud I was to have heard how she went to work in publishing in New York City. In closing, I can only add that I was and am utterly shocked and saddened by her untimely death. This is a very tragic day for all of us.”

There was applause, hesitant at first, and the old woman looked rather startled when Lucille embraced her. Sandy Levine came forward and began to speak of the young woman who had come to her office six years ago, eager to find her way in the publishing world. “Denise,” she said, “was young and energetic and confident.” Sandy had cleverly tailored her remarks to her audience, knowing that for most of them the world of book publishing would be as remote as astrophysics; yet her words were without condescension and filled with engaging anecdotes. Everyone laughed as she recalled Denise’s sense of humour, her unbuttoned appreciation of the ridiculous in life. Sandy mentioned a visit to the office by a pompous author and, in its wake, Denise’s devastatingly accurate imitation of the man. When Sandy finished, there was enthusiastic applause, and Lucille, pressing the tissue to her eyes and laughing in spite of herself, said, “Yes. That was Dee. Exactly.”

As people again began to mingle, Fielding stepped outside onto the patio, hoping fresh air might help a lurking headache. He would wait until Lucille had a moment to herself and then say goodbye and be on his way. It was dark now, but still mild enough to stand outdoors in a suit. Behind him the patio door was opening again as more guests came out for a cigarette, talking quietly among themselves. To his surprise, Lucille also appeared. She had thrown a sweater across her shoulders, and was smoking and holding a glass of wine.

“I’ve been looking for you, Dan,” she said, “but there are so many around. A good thing, of course. I’m glad, but …” She shrugged. “Don’t mind me, I think I’m getting a little tight. I haven’t been drinking at all these past few years. Not since my husband’s death.” She stepped closer to him. “Cliff and I,” she said, “we used to drink quite a bit. I think it’s what did Cliff in. He had cancer at the end, but I think all that drinking weakened his liver.” She was almost whispering to him. “Poor fellow. If he was alive today, he’d be sixty-four. But it’s probably just as well. He thought the world of Denise. She was his pride and joy. For sure, this would have finished him off.”

Around them people had gathered in little clusters and Lucille said, “Let’s walk down to the hedge.” She had linked her arm in his the way Denise might have done, and they walked down to the end of the garden. Fielding could smell the cedar bushes and the smoke from the cigarettes. Lucille sipped her wine, looking up at the dark sky.

“I enjoyed our little talk last night in Dee’s room. It was nice to look at those old pictures with you.”

“I enjoyed it too,” he said.

They were quiet together for what seemed to Fielding a long time and then finally she said, “I think you are a nice man, Dan, and I can see why Dee liked you.”

“Thanks,” he said, “but I’m not as nice as you might think.”

“That may be so,” she said, “but Dee liked you. She’d talk about you when she’d come home on the weekends. How you would say something funny in a meeting that would make her laugh.”

How odd to hear this! Never had he imagined that he was making any kind of favourable impression on Denise Crowder at editorial meetings, or at any other time. If she had been sending signals, they had missed him entirely.

“She said you were a little shy, but she liked that about you. Of course, she knew you were married and she’d had problems with a married man in New York. She was in quite a mess there for a while. But she liked you a lot. I could tell from the things she said about you.”

He could see where Lucille was heading; she wanted to know more about his relationship with her daughter. How did he feel about her? Did she make him laugh? Had he thought about her when he was at home? Had he considered leaving his wife and daughter for Denise? Was it that kind of relationship, something grounded in genuine feeling? In other words, had they been in love? How could he tell her that it was only a few days in Europe? One of those episodes in life that most people take guilty pleasure in, hoping that deceit will conceal their secret forever. Two weeks ago, he would not have been able to say truthfully that he even liked Denise Crowder.

Perhaps in his silence Lucille intuited something, for she suddenly threw the rest of her wine into the cedar bush.

“Well, what does it matter anyway?” she said. “I am very proud of Denise. Of the confidence and ambition she had. I used to wonder many times, My God, where did all that come from? She was not like the rest of us. I could see that even when she was a little girl, and it used to scare me. I knew one day I would lose her. I don’t mean lose her to a husband, I mean lose her in another way. Not really ever understand her. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do,” Fielding said. “I think my father may have felt that way about me.”

Lucille seemed not to hear him. “We used to have parties in this house. Good times. Lots to eat and drink, dancing, cards. Friends would bring their kids too. We used to have a ball. But after a while Denise would just fade away. Go to her room and close the door and read. Sometimes her father would get so mad. He’d say, ‘Where is Denise? Why isn’t she down here with the other kids?’ But really he wanted to show her off. Show how smart she was. I could see that. ‘She’ll never have any friends,’ he used to say. And for sure she didn’t have many friends. Girlfriends anyway.

“All through high school, the other girls didn’t like her. Or so it seemed. They were jealous, I think. Dee could wrap the boys around her finger, and other girls would get mad.” Lucille shook her head and laughed a little bitterly. “I remember her saying one day, ‘Mom, I’ll be gone from this place in a couple of years. I’ll be living in cities and I’ll just come back to Bayport to visit you and Daddy.’ Then in Grade Ten, I think it was, she got a job at Dairy Queen and she worked there in the summers. The best cashier they ever had and those words are from the man who owned the place then, Jack Lambert. He was at the funeral home last night and he told me that again. He said that Dee practically ran that dairy bar over on Lake Street. And she looked so cute in that uniform. The fastest, the smartest at the cash register. Jack told me.

“You know, Dan, I never worried about her making her way, handling boys, anything like that. From the time she was a little girl, I knew she was going to look after herself in this world. She was that independent. When she went off to university, she had her own money. I think her father gave her a thousand dollars, but most of it was her own money.”

They heard a commotion from the patio and looked up to see a figure stumbling near the doorway. Kelly Swarbrick was holding onto Ray Crowder and another couple were helping out; there was some laughter over a missed step. Lucille was looking at the lighted doorway and the dark figures.

“I thought he was in the basement watching television with Cala,” Lucille said. “He told me he didn’t want to hear any speeches.”

She had taken out another cigarette and was striking at a match furiously and without success. She seemed at once fed up with the sheer cussedness of life: its enslavement to appetite and old bad habits, its helpless reliance on chance, its thousand natural shocks that threaten to undo us. Fielding took the box of matches from her hand and lit her cigarette.

“Someone’s brought a bottle,” she said, pushing her arms through the sleeves of her sweater, talking with the cigarette in her mouth. “Someone’s given him liquor.”

They could see Ray and Kelly along the side of the house walking towards the front.

“Kelly’s taking him for a walk,” said Fielding. “She’ll look after him.”

“Kelly’s a good woman in her own way,” said Lucille. “She takes care of that little girl. I give her all that. But she’s not for Ray. She’s not the one.” Lucille was taking huge reefs on her cigarette, pulling the smoke deep within her, talking as it billowed forth. “It breaks your heart to see her try so hard. Dee could see that early on. First time she saw them together she said, ‘This won’t last. It’s too one-sided. Ray likes her well enough, but he’ll get tired of her hanging on him like that.’”

Lucille had stopped to button her sweater.

“One night in the summer Kelly was talking about herself. Ray had gone somewhere. So she was telling us how she quit school and got this job and that job. Met Cala’s father. A real bum. Lived with him for a while and then had to get out. She didn’t say, but I guess he was beating her. Took the baby with her and went down to Windsor where she got a job as a stripper. She called it exotic dancing, but it’s the same thing, isn’t it? Then she came back to town and found work in this new call centre. Met Ray. After she went home that night, Dee just tore a strip off her. Said she was tired of hearing that stuff about never having any education. ‘Mom’ she said, ‘I went to school with lots of girls like Kelly. Tits out to here at fifteen and a lineup of boys waiting to get into their pants. Always too busy doing their hair to do their homework. Then ten years later they’re whining about never having any education. How many brains does it take to finish high school? And why does she still go around looking like a tart? Those gunslinger jeans and all that hair. Jesus!’ Oh, Kelly was scared of her. You could tell the way she looked at Dee when she said anything. I feel sorry for Kelly. She’s a good woman in many ways.”

Lucille flicked her cigarette across the grass.

“It’s getting chilly. We better go in.”

They began walking towards the house and Lucille said, “I suppose you’ll have to go back to England for the trial.”

“Yes, I’ll have to be there.”

“When do you think that will be?”

“I don’t really know, Lucille. The detective I dealt with over there said probably late spring. These things take time.”

“Yes,” she said. “I imagine they do.” She paused. “I was thinking I might go over. I don’t really want to, but I feel I should be there. My oldest sister, Mathilde, thinks I should leave it alone. Let the courts deal with this man. She says I’ll sleep better if I never lay eyes on him. And I’m not much of a traveller. I’ve been to Chicago, Detroit, Superior, Wisconsin, places like that. That was on the boat years ago, but you don’t see much on the boat except the docks.” She stopped. “Cliff and I went to Las Vegas once. It was just a year before he passed away. He looked just awful and I kept thinking he’s dying. I’m walking under all these lights, going to these shows where people are laughing at the comedians’ jokes, but I’m having a holiday with a dying man. That kept running through my mind as I looked at all those older women in the coffee shops or playing the slot machines. Widows! And I kept thinking, I’ll be a widow this time next year. I could never go back to that place now. And England would be sad like that too, I suppose.”

They had reached the flagstones of the patio, and in the light from the house she looked haggard. It was all catching up to her as they stood looking in at the people who were talking, using hands to emphasize a point, nodding in agreement as they listened. From outside it looked like just another Friday-night house party.

“What do you think, Dan?” she asked. “Should I go over there for the trial of this man?”

He had been thinking about that. Thinking about her in the strangeness of an English town with its old buildings and narrow streets. In the courtroom watching the bewigged figures with their accents and mannerisms. Trying to make sense of it all. Watching television at the end of the day in a bed and breakfast.

“I can’t really answer that question,” he said, “but I tend to agree with your sister. I just don’t know if you’d benefit in any way from being there. They have the man who did it. He’s going to prison. Probably for most of the rest of his life. You might want to think about it a bit more, Lucille. About going over, I mean.”

“Yes,” she said. “You’re right. I have to think about it.”

They stood for another moment looking in at the people.

“I’m sorry it all happened, Lucille,” he said.

“Well, of course you are, Dan. It’s not hard to see that.”

They fell silent once more, and then she said, “Well, I better go in. They’ll wonder what’s become of me.”

In the warm, noisy house, people stepped aside for them as they entered, smiling at Lucille, one woman touching her arm as they passed. Sandy Levine was sitting on the sofa next to the old man called Bonneverre. He was telling a story, slicing the air with his large hands. When Sandy noticed them, she said something to the old man, and then got up. She could see that Fielding was on his way. He found his raincoat in the hall closet and Lucille shook his hand.

“Goodbye, Dan,” she said. “I’m glad you were Denise’s friend.”

He had wanted to say something more to her out in the backyard, something about her courage, and generosity, her goodwill. But he hadn’t and now it was too late; she had already turned to thank a man and woman who were also leaving.

Sandy Levine said, “If you are ever in New York, Dan, I hope you’ll give me a call. I’d love to see you again.”

“I will, Sandy. Thank you.”

After he closed the front door, he listened for a moment to the murmuring voices from within, and then he walked down the steps and across the lawn. He recognized at once the two figures coming along the street and crossing the dark grass towards him. There was no way to avoid them and when they were only a few feet apart, Ray Crowder stopped and said, “Leaving us now, are you, Mister?”

“Yes,” said Fielding. “I was just saying goodbye to your mother.”

“But you weren’t going to say goodbye to me, were you?” Crowder’s question seemed unanswerable and Fielding said nothing. The young man was drunk, but not all that drunk. He wants to hit me and nothing else will satisfy him, thought Fielding, wondering if he should take off his glasses. But that could be seen as provocation, an invitation to fight. He wondered how long it would take the couple in the hallway to say goodbye to Lucille and be out here walking to their car.

“What does your wife think of all this, Mister?”

Fielding considered the question. “I think she’s disappointed in me.”

“Disappointed.” The sneer in Crowder’s voice was palpable.

“Isn’t that just too fucking bad? The man’s wife is disappointed in him.”

“Ray?” said Kelly. “Come on, hon, let’s go in. Leave him alone.”

She had been holding onto Crowder’s arm, but now he pulled it away. “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, Kelly? You talk too much. Do you know that? You just talk too much.”

Kelly Swarbrick shrugged. It was as if she had heard all this before. Pulling up the collar of her jacket, she walked off, heading towards the side of the house and the back patio. Fielding and Crowder turned to watch her disappear around the corner of the garage and then they faced one another again. “You should have taken better care of my sister, you son of a bitch.”

As Fielding staggered back and fell, he worried about his glasses and the drive home. He should have expected it. In fact, he had expected something like this, but it came so quickly, this blow striking his left cheek; his glasses were now askew, hanging it seemed on only one ear. Everything was a dark blur and one side of his face was numb. Above him Crowder was cursing but the words seemed to come from afar, and there was also shouting and the sound of running feet. The grass felt damp and cold on the back of his neck. He recognized Lyle Parsons’ voice.

“Jesus Christ, Ray, what the hell have you done?”

Fielding could not make out Crowder’s reply, and now there were other voices too and he imagined people spilling out of the house, eager to see what was going on. Something to talk about tomorrow. And how quickly it would get around the town and become a part of the folklore surrounding Denise Crowder’s death. But Lucille would be furious with her son. A large figure was kneeling beside him; he could hear the panting and smell the faint sourness of Lyle Parsons’ breath.

“Are you all right? Can you get up?”

“I think so,” said Fielding, “but my glasses. I’ve lost my glasses.” He was now leaning on his elbows and behind him someone was fitting the glasses around his ears. He could see the shoes and legs of those standing above him. Slowly he sat up and Parsons helped him to his feet. Light-headed, he was only half-listening as Parsons told everyone to go back into the house. It was all over and there was nothing more to see. Ray Crowder was between two men and they were walking away towards the side of the house. One of the men had his arm around Ray’s shoulders and was talking to him.

“Are you going to be all right?” asked Parsons.

“I’m fine,” said Fielding.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back in the house for a while?”

“No, no. I’ll be on my way.”

Together they walked across the lawn towards the street and Fielding’s car.

“You’re lucky,” Parsons said. “If he’d been sober, he’d have put you in the hospital. I was watching from the front window.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ve got a long drive ahead of you. Think you can handle it?”

“I can handle it.”

“Did you drink anything tonight?”

“Not really. Maybe half a glass of wine.”

“Well, you should be okay then.”

They stood under the street light regarding one another warily, and Fielding wondered how intimate Lyle Parsons and Denise Crowder had been all those years ago. Perhaps more than he had at first imagined.

“Well, take care of yourself,” said Parsons.

“Thanks. You too.”

He got into the car, grateful to be sitting down again, and watched Lyle Parsons walking back along the street, a big-shouldered, bulky figure, turning into the Crowders’ driveway. Fielding’s left eye was beginning to water and he pressed a handkerchief against it.

As he drove along the streets of the town, Fielding glanced at the windows of houses and the lighted television screens. On the main street, he saw a boy and a girl. They were Heather’s age, and they were eating pizza from a box, laughing as they walked along the wide, empty street. When the street became the highway, he passed the hamburger and the coffee places, the roadhouse with its half-filled parking lot, the heavy throb of the music briefly insistent even within the car. He passed the Moonbeam Motel where that morning he had finished reading A History of Water, and soon the town was behind him, the headlights tracing a path through the darkness of the countryside. Looking out, Fielding was moved by the terrible finality of death. Denise Crowder was under earth and leaves, and all that was left now lay in the memories of those who had known her. But memories reside in consciousness, and in time the dead are conveyed gradually to its furthest reaches, returning only when summoned by keepsake or song, on anniversary dates, in dreams.

She was watching television in the study, and after he opened the front door and took off his coat, he felt the abrupt silence of the house as she turned off the TV. A moment later she was in the hallway watching him hang up his coat. It wasn’t until he walked towards her that she noticed his face.

“My God, what happened to you?”

She was standing by the entrance to the kitchen in a bathrobe, her arms folded across her chest.

“I got punched in the face,” he said, stopping in front of her. “I was careless. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t see it.”

“Who did this to you? The brother?”

“Yes, Ray took a poke at me on the front lawn as I was leaving. He was a little drunk.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t really blame him. He thinks I’m responsible for what happened. He got it off his chest tonight. His mother will be more upset about this than I am.”

Claire was frowning as if she didn’t want to hear anything more about the Crowder family.

“You’d better let me have a look at that,” she said, going into the kitchen.

He followed her, narrowing his eyes against the brightness, and sat down at the table.

“How’s Heather?”

“Heather is fine. She’s sleeping.” Claire was at the sink running cold tap water over a cloth. “She’s doing a lot of sleeping right now,” she said, returning to the table and standing over him. “I’m just wondering if she has a touch of mono. I’m taking her in to see Janet next week.”

She had taken off his glasses and was now pressing the cloth against his face, probing the cheekbone with her fingers.

“When I talked to Marlene this morning, she told me Janet wants to see you again. You never told me that.”

“No,” he said. “I went to see her Wednesday afternoon. My blood pressure was running a little high.”

“You never told me that either.”

He felt a little sleepy under the touch of her fingers.

“Does that hurt?” She was pressing lightly on his cheekbone.

“A little. Not too much.”

“I don’t think anything’s broken. Did Janet prescribe something when she saw you?”

“Some little white pills.”

“Lorazepam, probably.”

“Yes, I think that’s what they’re called.”

“You better take one of those tonight so you can get some sleep.”

“Yes, I will,” he said.

She had moved behind him. Closing his eyes, Fielding leaned his head against her stomach, and felt her fingers on his face. It was enough. For now it was enough.