Do you want me to come down?
I walk down. The harbour is covered in new snow, and the morning light is pink on the snow. The water is bright. The shipyard is quiet.
Tinker Bumbo is lying on his cushion. He looks asleep. Except he’s not noisy enough.
Lydia’s father says, We should bury him.
Lydia: Out in the woods.
She calls Max and Daphne and they come by with Eli, and Maisie comes too and we drive out together to the barrens on the highway. Lydia’s father has put Tinker Bumbo in a canvas sack and laid him on a plastic sled. We tow him, single file, into a group of spruce trees beside the mouth of a pond.
Under a big spruce we push away the moss. And Lydia and I pry out a big rock with a crowbar. The rock separates from the frost.
I lay his blue blanket in the hole. Then lay him gently on it. He’s cuddled into his position. Lydia covers him in moss, and I trim a few boughs and lay them over him.
We cover Tinker with the crystallized soil. The sun is soft on the water. There’ll be grouse here soon enough.
Lydia’s father says Lydia and I should come back in the summer and paint the rock for Tinker.
26 Last night I walked to three different parties. At three in the morning I’m at Maisie’s. I am on the couch with Alex Fleming. I have Alex’s hand cupped in mine. We are drinking beer Maisie found in a cupboard. Tonight Alex is taking care of me. We are all wounded in ways that require temporary solace.
I say to her, I’m blowing this popsicle stand. This entire city. I’m leaving it. I’m gonna drive my trusty Jethro to Heart’s Desire and never come back.
Alex asks if I need company. I wouldnt be good company. You’d be a useless article. Precisely.
27 The snow comes when you arent looking. Snow as fresh as a new sinister avocado leaf.
I’m in my bedroom with the space heater on blast. The Star of the Sea looks large. Alex, at midday, comes over for a cup of tea. She’s wearing funky inner-city sneakers that look as fortified as skates. I’m still in my pajamas.
Alex: I can’t stand people asking me what I’m up to.
Me: I’ve noticed people dont ask me that any more, because times are so hard. I have no job and I broke up with Lydia. I’ve given up on the novel. I’m drinking too much. They ask me where I’m at, that’s all. They dont want to feel embarrassed.
When she leaves I go back to bed. I look at the city through binoculars. The Christmas lights make me forlorn. I look in the window where Oliver lives, but he’s not in. But later, when I call about the Heart’s Desire house, he says he was there. On his back on the floor, keyboard on his stomach. He says I can go out there any time I want.
I am focused on the last saltbox house in St John’s. Then down to Craig’s house in the Battery. Every spring the neighbours paint the rocks in his backyard white.
28 I wake up with a clenched, sore jaw. I drive out to Heart’s Desire because Christmas in town is driving me to fury. It’s so cold. And I think of Bartlett’s candle. So cold at the pole the flame could not melt the outside of the candle. Merely the wick and a narrow pool down the centre. I make a smoked-salmon pasta when the jannies come in. A barrel-chested fellow with a dress on, a crutch, and a large beige bra on over the dress. He’s wearing a rubber Halloween mask and rubber boots and trigger mitts. A woman dressed as a man wiggles her behind, where a silver bauble dangles. A third fanny quietly sits himself down and lights up a smoke. He has a green towel over his face, and he parts the folds to smoke.
Me:You’ll be wanting a drink of rum.