Adam's Peak (19 page)

He turned back to the plaster Jesus, muttered “Useless bastard,” then checked his watch and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. It was time to go home.

Outside, he noticed the Bajaj three-wheelers across the street and groaned. As he headed toward Vaththe Mawatha, the fat-bellied driver who'd accosted him the day he missed his bus stop again stepped forward.

“Sixty rupees only, sir.”

Rudy walked on a few paces then stopped. “Fine,” he answered, and the driver, showing no surprise, nodded, refastening his sarong. Rudy ducked into the back of the taxi while the driver installed himself in the front seat. After several vigorous revs of the engine, they rumbled off in the direction of Aunty Mary's lane.

C
LARE APPROACHES THE RECEPTION DESK
with a strange confidence.

“I'm here to see Adam Vantwest. He was admitted on Friday.”

The receptionist types something quickly then squints at her computer screen. “Are you a family member?”

“No, I'm a neighbour. But I was with him right before the accident.”

“I'm afraid you have to be a family member.”

“But that makes no sense,” Clare says helplessly. Then she recognizes the woman. “Ma, it's me. Can't I see him?”

Her mother shakes her head. “No, pet. It's too dangerous.”

“But why?”

“He might not be dressed. It's too dangerous.”

Suddenly aware that her mother is barricaded inside her station, Clare marches off in the direction of Adam's room. Isobel, still insistent, calls after her, but her voice becomes more and more faint.

The corridor is long and the fluorescent lights flicker and buzz. Clare passes darkened rooms and realizes she doesn't know which is Adam's. Desperate now to find him, she braces herself to return to the reception desk. Then she spots a large index card, taped to the wall next to a door. Sloppily printed in black felt pen
is the name “VAN TWEST.” The door next to the card is slightly ajar. Clare pushes it open.

The room is dim and orangey, and Adam's sheet is a saffron brocade. The bed is unusually high. Standing at the foot of it, Clare cranes her neck to see Adam's face, but Adam bends his legs, just enough to block her view. She stands on tiptoe, trying to peer over his knees, then backs out into the corridor, but Adam's legs, draped in the saffron brocade, hide his face completely.

Across the hall is another room, a regular-looking hospital room, brightly lit, with its door open. Clare looks inside. In the one bed is her father, reading a book. He looks up and smiles.

“It's my wee cub!”

She runs to his bedside. “I can't believe it! Ma told me you had a heart attack.”

“Oh, aye. That's what they call it to avoid confusion. But it was really a metamorphosis.” He puts the book down on the bed. “It's not restricted to the heart, you see. It's more pervasive.”

“Metamorphosis?”

“Aye. I'm lucky they caught it. It's like a coma, you see.”

“So you're going to be all right?”

“Oh, they're not positive yet, but I'm down to just this one wee IV.”

He holds up his left wrist, from which a tiny rubber tube snakes to a hanging bowl of clear liquid.

Clare laughs. “That's great! Does Ma know?”

“No, no. Not yet. That would have been too risky.”

He's so easy to talk to. She wants to ask her father about his metamorphosis—it makes perfect sense, and she's surprised that the possibility has never occurred to her—but the hospital has suddenly become noisy and chaotic. There are voices and footsteps out in the corridor, heavy things being dropped.

CLARE ROLLED ONTO HER BACK
, woken by the carpet installers hauling in their equipment and getting on with the business of tearing up Alastair's Wedgwood blue carpeting. She reached for the remote
control on the bedside table, pointed it at the stereo, and shut them out.

She tried to remember her dream. The part with her father was hopelessly fuzzy, but the image of Adam's room was clear. Not surprisingly. Several days had passed since the accident, and in that time she'd thought of little else. First there was the shocking matter of the thing having occurred on the very day she had been with Adam. The only time she'd ever been with him, in fact. Then there was the swarm of what-ifs buzzing about her head in an ever-multiplying cloud. The number of ridiculously simple ways she could have altered events was horrifying. And it wasn't just the matter of having refused his offer to ride up Mount Royal. Everything she'd said to him, or not said—about his family, about Vancouver, about Emma—seemed part of a necessary chain. Remove any one of those links, or add one, she thought, and the outcome would have been different. She'd convinced herself, more or less, that these what-ifs were irrelevant—Adam was still in a coma (though showing signs of improvement, according to Mrs. Skinner's reports), and she, Clare, was in her bedroom, about to get ready for work. But while Friday's events were now beyond her control, her power over things to come was dizzying. The future, previously distant and uncomplicated, something to be mulled over and planned at leisure, was now
close
—on the other side of the blind, behind the bedroom door—and its possibilities, its what-ifs, branched infinitely.

Most of them simply had to be ignored.

Clare stared at the blank ceiling a moment longer then got up. She went to the window and raised the blind. Mr. Vantwest's car was in the driveway, but all the curtains in the house were drawn.

What if I were to go over there and knock on the door?

You should have done it already.
Emma's voice was terse and accusing.
You were probably the last person to talk to him before his accident.

I don't think his family knows that.

Doesn't matter. You should still visit them.

There was no getting around this, it seemed. Isobel had taken a casserole across and left it outside the Vantwests' front door with a card, which Clare had signed. Joanne Skinner had kept herself updated
somehow. But Clare had yet to cross the street. Like a spy, she'd kept track of her neighbours' movements from her bedroom window. She knew that Adam's sister and her little girl had left, and she'd witnessed the return of the aunt—Mr. Vantwest hauling two bulging suitcases from the car to the house, the aunt trailing behind in a summer dress and a ski jacket, carrying what looked to be bags of groceries. She'd watched for Rudy Vantwest, but he hadn't yet appeared.

What would I say to them?

Emma became exasperated.
That you're sorry to hear about Adam's accident. You want to know how he's doing. Is there anything you can do to help?

It just sounds so phony.

It only—Look, Clare, what makes you think the Vantwests are going to be paying special attention to what you say anyway? You're not that important to them.

For a long time she stared at the house across the street.

I'll go tomorrow
, she promised at last.

Eyeing the clock, she swore under her breath then flew to the closet. She imagined her next pay statement: docked for lateness resulting from long, inexplicable conversations with self. The real Emma would send her to a shrink.

DOWNSTAIRS, THE HOUSE WAS A SHAMBLES
. The living room furniture had disappeared—given away to the Skinners' niece, to make way for the Ikea things—and everything else had been shifted into the kitchen. Since their arrival, the installers had torn up the dining room carpet, and one of them was now tramping across the Wedgwood blue living room in muddy work boots with lolling tongues. The other man was chatting with Isobel in the hall, thoughtfully smoothing his wavy grey hair with one hand, while Isobel touched his other arm, just below the elbow, and laughed.

A complete shambles.

Clare slipped quietly out the front door. Hurrying to the station, she rehearsed her resignation speech, defying the terrors and uncertainties that Adam's accident had spawned.
Listen, Markus,
she would say.
I'm going to be moving to Vancouver. I've really enjoyed working here, but ...
She considered
this and started again.
I wanted to give you enough notice, but I've decided I'm moving to Vancouver. I know some people there, and ...
What had Adam said?
It's such a great city.
Again she paused. She'd never be able to muster up Adam's enthusiasm for the place. But he'd said something else as well, something about making a life for himself there. An appealing idea: making a life. Like making a casserole, or composing a song.
In Vancouver I think I could really ... I need a change and I think maybe I could ...
She marched past brown lawns patched with dirty snow and scraps of rubbish newly exposed by the thaw.
The thing is, Markus, I'd like to go somewhere different and see what happens.
Hardly convincing, but it would do.

At work, though, she was paralyzed by what-ifs. From behind the front counter, she concentrated on Markus's dull, sandy hair and grey pinstriped shirt, trying to push herself over the edge, but the paths that branched away from Markus and his music shop promised only plane crashes and botched job interviews and regret. When her boss joined her behind the counter and set about changing the paper roll in the calculator, Clare sighed quietly and resigned herself to another day in the pattern.

“So, I guess that band teacher decided to do her ordering through us,” Markus said in his slow, meandering way.

“Really? That's great.”

“So ... would you mind being her contact person?”

“No. Sure. That's fine.”

“Good. I mean, you know, that would be great if you could.” He fed the new paper roll through the machine and tore off the end. He kept the crumpled scrap in his hand, as if unsure what to do with it. “So ...” He cleared his throat. “We should catch up some time.”

Clare dusted the glass counter with her sleeve and watched Peter tidy the rack of songbooks.

“Sure.”

“Maybe some day after work ... or ... whenever you're free.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

She thought of Adam's invitation, so different from Markus's. Adam hadn't messed around with vague propositions. He hadn't said they
should
go for a ride
some day
. No—he'd looked her in the eye and asked her to go with him right that moment.

She stared out the front window at the passersby in sunglasses and unbuttoned coats and considered the fact that Adam Vantwest could not possibly be among them. He'd wanted to go to Sri Lanka, Clare recalled, and with a sudden recklessness she imagined going there for him. A ridiculous idea, of course, but for a moment she pictured herself walking along a tropical village road, absorbing exotic sights and sounds, which she would bring back to Adam. Then she turned to Markus.

“What are you doing this evening?”

“Tonight? I'm not sure. Why?”