Foreigners

“Stephen Finucan's stories will impress you with their wide range and their lean, evocative prose. A master storyteller, he moves effortlessly from the island jungles of Conrad and Greene to the wintry streets of contemporary Toronto. These stories are no mere vignettes; each is a fully fledged tale with a strong sense of place, peopled by believable characters and carefully shaped by a master's hand. Full of risk and adventure, sometimes funny, sometimes horrific, the ten stories in this book will haunt you long after you finish reading them.”

—Peter Robinson, author of
Gallow's View

“Just as in life, when we strip away our dreams and misperceptions, Finucan's stories leave us with a sense of compassion, wistfulness, and a hovering but strangely gratifying uncertainty.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“This is an eclectic, varied book of stories that nevertheless raises one fundamental truth: that it is all too easy to slide away from ourselves.”

—
The Gazette
(Montreal )

“Fincan's writing is superb and assured. His characters live for us in their brief lines of text, and he has the ability to establish an emotional tone in the view of a distant city from the autobahn or in the description of an old widower brushing his teeth ...
Foreigners
is a wonderful collection of short stories.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“Constructed with patience and tremendous subtlety ... Finucan's powerful stories about struggling with inertia force us to consider the consequences of our own inaction.”

—
Quill & Quire

“Finucan's stories are expertly told ... The Toronto-based author's spare, seemingly effortless prose and his willingness to take risks results in a collection of chronicles both haunting and riveting ... An impressive career lies ahead for one of the country's lesser known but immensely talented writers.”

—
The London Free Press

“Finucan displays a brilliant skill for detailing the slow passing of an afternoon, of a transatlantic flight, of a walk toward home, ordinary events that suddenly turn weighty and ominous.”

—
Toronto Star

PENGUIN CANADA

STEPHEN FINUCAN
is the author of two collections of short stories and one novel. His first book,
Happy Pilgrims
, was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Brewing Company Writer's Craft Award. His most recent work,
The Fallen
, is his first novel and is set in Naples in 1944.

Also by Stephen Finucan

Happy Pilgrims
The Fallen

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

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First published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2003
Published in this edition, 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright © Stephen Finucan, 2003

“The Time Before” appeared previously in
Event
.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or
dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Finucan, Stephen, 1968–
Foreigners / Stephen Finucan.

ISBN 978-0-14-317038-9

I. Title.

PS8561.I57F67 2009 C813'.6 C2009-902047-5

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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This book is lovingly dedicated to
the memory of my grandparents

Harold Price
&
Grace Frances Price

He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Self-Reliance”

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreigners

Devil Within

Payne's Flight

An Irish Holiday

Iosif in Love

Casualties

The Time Before

Sant'Agnello at Dawn

To Have Not

Maxim's Trout

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T
HANKS GO TO MY COMPANIONS
on travels both near and far, especially Mark Finucan, Andrew Jefferson, Georgina Kelly, and Jon Lusher. Thanks also to those who offered support and advice along the way: Tara Sweeney, Phil and Lynn Whitaker, Christine Pountney, Michael Limerick, Jeff Wilbee and Ray Roberston. Special thanks to my agent, Anne McDermid, for working so hard, and my editor, Barbara Berson, for making me work so hard. Also, thanks to Cheryl Cohen, whose copy-editing skill made it all sound better.

And always, thanks to my family; without your kindness and love none of this would have been possible.

FOREIGNERS

I
N THE MORNINGS HE AWOKE EARLY
, just as the sun began to lighten the sky, chasing away the last of the night that in this, the month of April, left behind it a low-lying mist. Slippers on his feet and housecoat wrapped tightly around him, he would pad quietly along the carpeted upstairs hallway to the toilet, which was always cool and drafty no matter the season. There he would shave his face with the old straight razor that had been sharpened so often that its blade was no wider than the thickness of a pencil. He no longer used cake soap, but perfumed foam from a can. His teeth he brushed with powder that the chemist in the village ordered specially. He didn't much like paste, though he kept a tube in the mirrored cabinet above the sink against the eventuality that the powder became unavailable, as had happened with most things he'd grown accustomed to. Afterward, he would dress: white string vest, flannel trousers that had lost their crease, blue collared shirt, the knitted waistcoat that Pippa had
made for him the winter before she died, and gabardine jacket frayed at the cuffs. The waistcoat had gone shabby, the wool slack, and where the stitches had let loose he'd done his best to darn them, though the result was a puckered patchwork of mending.

Then he would walk, wellingtons on his feet: down the drive and over the road, where he climbed the ladder set across the stone wall, and on through the field opposite the farmhouse. It was a good field that drained naturally toward the woods at its bottom. A path there followed through the trees, mostly beechnuts and elms, then ran alongside a river for a mile before turning back on itself and leading once again to the field.

He'd taken this walk every morning for longer than he cared to remember. Had taken it even when this field, and those surrounding it, had belonged to the farm, and when doing so meant having to put off the chores that needed tending. Over the years a collection of dogs had accompanied him. There'd been setters and spaniels, and a skittish terrier that one day jumped into the river and, having gained the far shore, ran off never to be seen again. The dog he recalled most fondly was the last: Duchess, a Labrador retriever bitch that always dragged a stick along with her wherever she went. When, the preceding autumn, she'd been run down by a red Mondeo in the road out front of the farmhouse, he determined that there should be no more after her. He was too old for a new pup, and too set in his ways to take on a stray from the RSPCA. Rather, he resigned himself to walking alone.

Making his way back up the slope toward the stone fence, he thought what a shame it was that the field had gone unused
for so long. Ten years it had been this way, ever since he had sold off the farm's acreage to developers. It was meant to have been turned into a golf course, but the work was never begun. He figured that there must have been trouble with the Ramblers' Society, who no doubt laid claim to the ancient footpath that cut across the two fields above the farmhouse.

He was thinking of this, and about how he was happy that the golf course had not been built, when he took the first rung of the ladder. Then something stopped him: a dark-clad figure standing out front of the farmhouse, face pressed up against the window that gave onto the lounge, hands cupped at the side of the head, so as to get a clear view inside.

He lowered himself back down the ladder and ducked behind the wall. Part of him had been expecting this for some time now, living on his own so far from the village. He was glad he was out of the house; the thought of being done violence terrified him.

He squatted in the wet grass and waited for the sound of shattering glass. How long, he wondered, did it take to burgle a house? Ten minutes? More? These people knew exactly what they were after. Light fare: silver, jewellery, old-age benefit kept in a jar on the countertop, mementos and picture frames that could be pawned in the city. In and out quickly so as not to get caught. That was, of course, unless the intent was merely to do him harm, in which case he would have to remain hidden for some time longer.

It started to rain: a thin drizzle, a cold mist that settled over him like a damp veil. Sitting in the wet grass aggravated his sciatica, and soon the pain shooting down his leg became too much to bear. He stood to stretch it out, and when he did so
he glanced over the wall again and saw that the burglar was no longer at the window, but was sitting now on his front doorstep, face in hands, looking altogether pathetic. The sight gave him nerve. He climbed over the ladder and crossed the road. As he came up the drive, though, he began to doubt his impulse and considered that this might have simply been a ploy to get him out into the open where he could be more easily attacked.

As he drew near, the stranger raised her head and revealed a face streaked with blue mascara.

“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?” he demanded, with more force than he had expected.

“Do you live here?” the woman asked, her voice thick from crying.