And yet there is something in possession, marriage. In becoming an object. Something erotic in that. We all agree with this admission, even Earl.
21 Wilf walks into the Ship looking uncomfortable. Then he sees us and relaxes. He is in a suit he wants to wear in Lydia’s film. He looks like a Beatle in it. Wilf, at the age of fifty-two, has become a promising actor. That word, promising. Wilf buys a pint and sits with us and sighs with relief. Wilf: When you open up the Ship Inn door all by yourself. Youve walked downtown alone. You dont want to be alone. You feel like a dog and you want a bit of company. Well, you open up that door and you steel yourself. It’s got to be all one motion, no hesitation. Open the door and stride in, but a slow stride, maximum exposure. And you make your way to the bar. And all the way there you keep your eyes on the bottles and the mirrors and youre hoping, youre hoping there’s someone in there who knows you. You hope you dont make it to the bar before someone waves you over, grasps your arm, says, Hey Wilf, how’s it going? Yes, sir, that walk to the bar is the loneliest walk in the world.
22 I lurch for the birdie. I lurch and a hockey player strikes a two-handed blow across my calf. I fall, twist, turn to face my attacker. No one. The floor hockey crowd is on their half of the gym, separated by a net curtain. Badminton players look down at me. I roll, seize my leg, grimace. I see Lydia looking down. Oliver: Would you mind rolling over into your own court? And Lydia: Okay, let’s keep playing.
But there must be an image of agony that transcends their lust to play, for they form a huddle again, over me. Lydia kneels. Oliver offers a tensor bandage and a shoulder.
I’m wheeled into emerge. Dr Singh feels the calf. He recommends ice. Lydia wheels me over to get crutches. I swing on the crutches back to the car.
Want to get fish and chips from Scampers?
Lydia loves getting the fish and chips, she skips in, as if she knows I really want it and getting me what I want pleases her. I realize I’m a hard man to get something for.
I watch her from the passenger side. She stands under fluorescent lighting and orders, both elbows on the counter. She turns and mouths to me, through the take-out window: A drink? I write NO backwards in my breath on the car window. I try to write it in a soft way. To incorporate the thanks.
23 In bed with my leg up. Lydia brings me juice, toast, poached eggs, and coffee. I try the bathroom. When the foot is below my hips, that’s when the pain rushes down. A bucket of liquid needles sloshing heavy into my foot. It’s as if blood can’t return to the heart.
I have eaten a bowl of grapes and a clementine. I watch Lydia fill a grocery bag with wet lettuce. She slashes holes in the bottom of the bag, knots it, and, outside, whirls the bag over her head, like a pail of water at the beach. She is drying lettuce. She turns quickly and I watch her hair twist to meet her head. She is so determined.
Max delivers frozen pea soup and a bag of cherries and a loaf of bread and a salad with a cookie. It hurts to even stand up straight. The blood burning in the back of my leg.
24 The laburnum is floating, yellow cobs of dots. A woman, who has forgotten the name of palliative care, calls it that place where you goes and that’s it. Daphne’s on duty and she props my leg over folded hot blankets.
They tilt the X-ray bed. Tie two rubber tourniquets around my ankle to find a vein. Daphne tries twice, sticking me with a small needle attached to a thin glass tube. It’s called contrast dye. They wheel me in for an ultrasound. The specialist is wet from the rain. He hasnt operated the computer in three weeks. He coats my leg in cold gel. He sticks the scanner up to my groin. I see, on the screen, the vein and artery in cross-view He pushes and my vein flattens. My artery doesnt budge.
25 Lydia’s father fries me a splendid mackerel after my venogram. We have the mackerel with cauliflower and lettuce.
On crutches, I swing back home. I can’t push the clutch down, so I have to walk. I remember the man in Corner Brook who had one leg. Lived in the Bean and wore denim. He was active, tough, and got around on wooden crutches. He had strong hands. Amputees no longer do this. They have prosthetics or wheelchairs. It was a time when missing limbs were visible, the drains open, the sewers flooded over Valley Road when it was just dirt.