Verghoers, kissed then kept his lips on hers through the whole song and when it was over they were sealed together, run into one another like melted candles.
More than three years had passed since, following the last and worst fight with Chrissy, he had driven to the army surplus store in Kingston, bought himself a giant cardboard suitcase, stuffed it with the contents of the bottom drawer of the big maple dresser Chrissy’s uncle had given them as a wedding present. Three
long
years, he would say in those imaginary conversations he had with himself or Chrissy, rambling interviews he would conduct while driving his truck or punching holes for new trees in the grainy soil of the forest floor. Three
long
years, he would say, the
he
who believed fate, alcohol and an uncontrolled temper had set him and Chrissy on separate roads, roads that would converge as soon as his sins were atoned for, the devil bottle put aside, the temper mastered by calm reflection on the pulse of the universe, or failing that, the fact that its main victims were himself and his daughter. But no matter which of his various selves held the floor, those years
had
been long, and the more time that passed the more cut loose and adrift he felt, unable to remember being in sight of shore, unable to remember if shore existed or if its memory was merely invented to give geography to his loneliness.
After leaving Chrissy he moved into a half-finished lakeside cottage with Ray Johnson from the lumber yard. They’d played together on the West Gull Junior Hornets for a couple of years before graduating to the Hornets proper—two-thirdsof a second line where he provided the speed, the determination and sometimes the craziness it took to get the puck to the net where Ray could always be found holding off the enemy with his elbows.
Chrissy had told him that she was sick of his drinking and that now he could drink all he wanted. He had wanted to drink a lot, or at least enough to make a bridge across darkness to sleep and to make him sleep deeply enough that he didn’t wake up until light.
Eventually that bridge crumbled and in the middle of the night sleep would desert him. Those were the times he had gone to bed hammered but woke up even drunker. So nauseated he could no longer lie still, he would get to his feet only to lose his balance on the way to the bathroom, bouncing off the walls, grabbing furniture to keep from falling on his face. Trembling and feverish, breathing the darkness to keep himself alive, he would turn stone-cold sober while thinking that if he actually
did
manage to drink himself to death not a single person in the universe would think anything except that Carl McKelvey had got what he wanted.
“You ever hear of Socrates?” Chrissy had once shouted at him and he had immediately thought of the picture of the white-bearded man in the fat russet book she used to prop up her lamp at university. “He said all knowledge is self-knowledge. If that’s true you don’t know dick. Did you ever think of that?”
Chrissy had been bending over the couch, trying to change Lizzie. Carl snatched Lizzie away and yelled that Chrissy was “about as much mother as a half-ton truck.” Seeing her fury, he thought he’d hit the nail on the head but afterwards, repeating it to himself, he wondered exactly what he had meant. And then for some reason he asked himself how much motherhis own mother had been. All this while holding Lizzie in the crook of his arm, swaying on his heels like a boxer about to bounce off the ropes, hurtle into the centre of the ring swinging. Hurricane Carl.
Lizzie was crying.
“Give her to me.”
“No.”
“For Christ’s sakes, listen to her cry. Can’t you tell you’re scaring her? Or is that how
your
father was just scaring the piss out of you to make sure you’d end up like him?”
He was holding Lizzie, petting the side of her face, drawing his finger along the soft skin under her chin. She stopped crying, reached
More than three years had passed since, following the last and worst fight with Chrissy, he had driven to the army surplus store in Kingston, bought himself a giant cardboard suitcase, stuffed it with the contents of the bottom drawer of the big maple dresser Chrissy’s uncle had given them as a wedding present. Three
long
years, he would say in those imaginary conversations he had with himself or Chrissy, rambling interviews he would conduct while driving his truck or punching holes for new trees in the grainy soil of the forest floor. Three
long
years, he would say, the
he
who believed fate, alcohol and an uncontrolled temper had set him and Chrissy on separate roads, roads that would converge as soon as his sins were atoned for, the devil bottle put aside, the temper mastered by calm reflection on the pulse of the universe, or failing that, the fact that its main victims were himself and his daughter. But no matter which of his various selves held the floor, those years
had
been long, and the more time that passed the more cut loose and adrift he felt, unable to remember being in sight of shore, unable to remember if shore existed or if its memory was merely invented to give geography to his loneliness.
After leaving Chrissy he moved into a half-finished lakeside cottage with Ray Johnson from the lumber yard. They’d played together on the West Gull Junior Hornets for a couple of years before graduating to the Hornets proper—two-thirdsof a second line where he provided the speed, the determination and sometimes the craziness it took to get the puck to the net where Ray could always be found holding off the enemy with his elbows.
Chrissy had told him that she was sick of his drinking and that now he could drink all he wanted. He had wanted to drink a lot, or at least enough to make a bridge across darkness to sleep and to make him sleep deeply enough that he didn’t wake up until light.
Eventually that bridge crumbled and in the middle of the night sleep would desert him. Those were the times he had gone to bed hammered but woke up even drunker. So nauseated he could no longer lie still, he would get to his feet only to lose his balance on the way to the bathroom, bouncing off the walls, grabbing furniture to keep from falling on his face. Trembling and feverish, breathing the darkness to keep himself alive, he would turn stone-cold sober while thinking that if he actually
did
manage to drink himself to death not a single person in the universe would think anything except that Carl McKelvey had got what he wanted.
“You ever hear of Socrates?” Chrissy had once shouted at him and he had immediately thought of the picture of the white-bearded man in the fat russet book she used to prop up her lamp at university. “He said all knowledge is self-knowledge. If that’s true you don’t know dick. Did you ever think of that?”
Chrissy had been bending over the couch, trying to change Lizzie. Carl snatched Lizzie away and yelled that Chrissy was “about as much mother as a half-ton truck.” Seeing her fury, he thought he’d hit the nail on the head but afterwards, repeating it to himself, he wondered exactly what he had meant. And then for some reason he asked himself how much motherhis own mother had been. All this while holding Lizzie in the crook of his arm, swaying on his heels like a boxer about to bounce off the ropes, hurtle into the centre of the ring swinging. Hurricane Carl.
Lizzie was crying.
“Give her to me.”
“No.”
“For Christ’s sakes, listen to her cry. Can’t you tell you’re scaring her? Or is that how
your
father was just scaring the piss out of you to make sure you’d end up like him?”
He was holding Lizzie, petting the side of her face, drawing his finger along the soft skin under her chin. She stopped crying, reached
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