Native Americans once lived here. You can see why they chose it.
Honey and I circle back to Gil.
Look, he says, we could buy an aboveground swimming pool for just four hundred bucks. Or a Nearly New Weed-Whacker. He flips pages and I look over his shoulder at a picture of a raccoon family caught on someone’s CCTV. They look furtive, like raccoon criminals.
Honey positions herself in the sun and lowers herself down, head across her paws. She is a beautiful creature with a noble head, but I can see that under her thick white coat her body is gaunt. She is old, Gil thinks. My age.
Ninety miles to go. On these roads that’s at least two hours, he says, and I suddenly wish we were making this journey for pleasure. I would prefer to be meandering at no pace at all, stopping and going just on the whim of the moment. But even the scenic route can’t stop me thinking about Matthew and the pieces missing from the jigsaw. Most of the pieces. All I’ve got so far is sky.
Think, I think. Think of the facts: Owen died three years ago. In a collision with a lorry. It wasn’t Matthew’s fault. He was completely exonerated by the police.
When you’re looking for answers, it’s the things that nag at your brain that count.
Exonerated?
Gil flips over to the front page, where there’s a large picture of the winners of the local ten-mile Fun Run. It’s mostly women with their arms around one another, grinning. At the bottom there’s a notice about hunting licenses and a list of regulations, with a big jolly headline that says HUNTING SEASON’S COMING SOON .
I read more. The notice says you must be over the age of twelve to apply for a license, and a ten-hour safety course is required for new applicants. It also says that 189,000 deer were shot last year in New York State with only twenty-nine injuries to humans, none fatal. One hundred and eighty-nine thousand deer. And three hundred and eighteen bears. Who would want to kill a bear? You can’t even eat them. The thought of all those dead animals depresses me. A picture that goes with the article shows a happy guy holding up the lolling head of a dead deer. The caption says “
Steve Wilson and a nice ten-pointer.
”
What sort of place is this?
We flop back into the car. It’s hot, and once we get going I turn the air-conditioning on. Honey pants a little in the back. We’ve lingered and dawdled and it’s late afternoon before we finally leave the highway for a smaller road. Gil stops for petrol. He pays and returns to the car, but instead of driving off, he sits back, hands resting on the steering wheel, and turns to me.
What shall we do now? he asks. We can get there tonight if we drive straight through.
Let’s not, I say.
It may just be nerves but I don’t like the idea of confronting anything in the half dark, whether it’s Matthew or not-Matthew. Plus, I don’t want our journey to be over so soon. What if we find Matthew and he’s furious that we’ve chased him all the way up to the Canadian border after he and Suzanne had a fight and decided to be apart for a while? Or what if we find him with a new girlfriend or some kind of contraband? Twenty-eight kilos of cocaine? What if he hates us for coming all this way after him like he’s some sort of criminal? What if he
is
some sort of criminal?
I don’t say all this, but Gil nods anyway. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing.
OK.
I’m staring at the map. We could go to Lake Placid. It looks quite big on the map. What’s there?
The 1980 Winter Olympics, Gil says and passes me the guidebook. Have a look.
I read the entry, which reports that Lake Placid is a charming town with a delightful mix of restaurants, retail facilities (retail
facilities
?), antique shops and sporting goods outlets. “
You’ll find something for everyone in Lake Placid!
” says the book in a grammatically annoying way, and with all that stuff going on and all those retail facilities I’m finding it hard to imagine that Lake
Honey and I circle back to Gil.
Look, he says, we could buy an aboveground swimming pool for just four hundred bucks. Or a Nearly New Weed-Whacker. He flips pages and I look over his shoulder at a picture of a raccoon family caught on someone’s CCTV. They look furtive, like raccoon criminals.
Honey positions herself in the sun and lowers herself down, head across her paws. She is a beautiful creature with a noble head, but I can see that under her thick white coat her body is gaunt. She is old, Gil thinks. My age.
Ninety miles to go. On these roads that’s at least two hours, he says, and I suddenly wish we were making this journey for pleasure. I would prefer to be meandering at no pace at all, stopping and going just on the whim of the moment. But even the scenic route can’t stop me thinking about Matthew and the pieces missing from the jigsaw. Most of the pieces. All I’ve got so far is sky.
Think, I think. Think of the facts: Owen died three years ago. In a collision with a lorry. It wasn’t Matthew’s fault. He was completely exonerated by the police.
When you’re looking for answers, it’s the things that nag at your brain that count.
Exonerated?
Gil flips over to the front page, where there’s a large picture of the winners of the local ten-mile Fun Run. It’s mostly women with their arms around one another, grinning. At the bottom there’s a notice about hunting licenses and a list of regulations, with a big jolly headline that says HUNTING SEASON’S COMING SOON .
I read more. The notice says you must be over the age of twelve to apply for a license, and a ten-hour safety course is required for new applicants. It also says that 189,000 deer were shot last year in New York State with only twenty-nine injuries to humans, none fatal. One hundred and eighty-nine thousand deer. And three hundred and eighteen bears. Who would want to kill a bear? You can’t even eat them. The thought of all those dead animals depresses me. A picture that goes with the article shows a happy guy holding up the lolling head of a dead deer. The caption says “
Steve Wilson and a nice ten-pointer.
”
What sort of place is this?
We flop back into the car. It’s hot, and once we get going I turn the air-conditioning on. Honey pants a little in the back. We’ve lingered and dawdled and it’s late afternoon before we finally leave the highway for a smaller road. Gil stops for petrol. He pays and returns to the car, but instead of driving off, he sits back, hands resting on the steering wheel, and turns to me.
What shall we do now? he asks. We can get there tonight if we drive straight through.
Let’s not, I say.
It may just be nerves but I don’t like the idea of confronting anything in the half dark, whether it’s Matthew or not-Matthew. Plus, I don’t want our journey to be over so soon. What if we find Matthew and he’s furious that we’ve chased him all the way up to the Canadian border after he and Suzanne had a fight and decided to be apart for a while? Or what if we find him with a new girlfriend or some kind of contraband? Twenty-eight kilos of cocaine? What if he hates us for coming all this way after him like he’s some sort of criminal? What if he
is
some sort of criminal?
I don’t say all this, but Gil nods anyway. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing.
OK.
I’m staring at the map. We could go to Lake Placid. It looks quite big on the map. What’s there?
The 1980 Winter Olympics, Gil says and passes me the guidebook. Have a look.
I read the entry, which reports that Lake Placid is a charming town with a delightful mix of restaurants, retail facilities (retail
facilities
?), antique shops and sporting goods outlets. “
You’ll find something for everyone in Lake Placid!
” says the book in a grammatically annoying way, and with all that stuff going on and all those retail facilities I’m finding it hard to imagine that Lake
Similar Books
