said. “I didn’t want her to go but they just took her. His stupid machine is still here though; I bet she won’t ever let him get that in the house. All the oil froze anyway and some of the tubes split open.” Her face was still tanned but her hair had darkened without the summer sun. It was streaked and wispy. “You can finish your dream if you want,” she said. “What happened to the giraffe?” With the child gone she seemed different: more present in a way because that part of her which had been constantly attentive to the child was now integrated into her and asking something from him. It was there not so much in her voice as in the movements of her arms and hands which swam around as she talked, shaping the space between them in a way which was unclear but somehow threatening. “I went to the city and saw a play,” she said. “It was about two paralytics who had only one wheelchair between them.”
“That’s good,” Erik said. He wondered if by coming to see her he had somehow refused her the possibility of privacy.
“They could take turns pushing it,” she said, “but they didn’t know if they could leave it behind. They had to spend all their time taking care of the wheelchair and arguing about whether they were afraid.”
“What happened?”
“They got married,” she said. She had woven a shawl for herself and now she was enclosed in it, wearing it as an exotic cowl, as if winter had revealed her to be an exotic creature who could survive out of season. While Erik ate his sandwich, she picked at the cellophane of the cigarette package, tearing it off in strips and wadding it up into tiny balls which she flicked absently about the room, sometimes at Erik, sometimes in no direction at all. He felt she was trying to make some sort of web about him, that his fear of her was irrational, that there must somewhere be a long intricate answer for this long intricate puzzle. When she finally came round the table and touched him, he jumped, startled, as if she had moved straight through the protective layer of flesh and made direct contact with nerves and bones.
He was the only passenger to get off at Kingston. Pat Frank was waiting for him, leaning against the wall of the station. “I hardly knew you,” Pat said. “You look like a preacher.” He led Erik towards the car. “Your mother’s at home. You can go to the hospital in the morning. They say he just needs some rest.”
“I was out,” Erik said. “I didn’t get home until almost midnight. I just made the train.”
Pat nodded. He drove casually, in the middle of the road, as if anyone with any sense knew better than to squeeze himself over to one side. There was no traffic. “You want a drink?”
“No.” He had been to Edmonton only once, for the interview. He had almost no impression at all: a flat, neatly-made city with a river running through its centre. On the train he had known exactly what it would be like to introduce Valerie to his father. He would look her over point by point, pretending to inspect her as if she were a cow he was considering at a sale. Maybe he would pinch her to make sure that the flesh was firm, not just layered fat. Then he would slap Erik on the shoulder.
“Looks good,” he would say. “Better get her while she’s still young.”
The sky was showing signs of dawn. Erik adjusted himself in his seat, lit a cigarette. He couldn’t seem to focus on what was happening. He felt he should be back in Toronto, in bed with Valerie, building castles. He let himself doze but was woken when the cigarette started to burn into his fingers. His last real conversation with Richard had been eight years ago, the night he drove home from the school house in the snow. It was after midnight when he got home and he found Richard in his armchair, waiting for him and drinking the sherry that Erik had brought him for Christmas. Sitting down, Erik felt a curious unease, a resentment springing from the feeling that he was