My Present Age (34 page)

But as soon as I close my eyes strange things begin to happen. Just now when I did for a moment, I heard footsteps and I thought it might be them. No, not exactly footsteps. It was the sound of naked feet shuffling in this room. I opened my eyes and saw nothing.

Now again. Who is that? That man standing there, face obscured in shadows. A big man, gentle on bootless feet, moving slowly through the room soft, soft.

“Do you hear the rain?” I ask him, now that I know who he is. The kitchen light strikes his naked black feet. I can see a sliver of creamy sole, inky toes.

“You go to sleep,” he says. “Right now.”

I feel it coming. So simple and easy. And the last thing before I am pitched into sleep is the smell of wet, broken grass, and the rain’s gentle thrumming in a room that waits on the promises of summer.

Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, in 1951. He is the author of six books of fiction. His first two books were collections of short stories:
Man Descending
(1982), which won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, and the Faber Prize in the U.K., and
The Trouble With Heroes
(1983).
My Present Age
, a novel, was published in 1984. That novel was followed by
Homesick
in 1989, which was a co-winner of the City of Toronto Book Award. His third book of short stories was the highly praised
Things As They Are?
(1992).
The Englishman’s Boy
(1996) was a long-time national bestseller and won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for The Giller Prize, and the prestigious International
IMPAC
Dublin Literary Award, the world’s largest monetary award for a single book.

Acclaimed for his fiction, Vanderhaeghe has also written plays.
I Had a Job I Liked. Once
. was first produced in 1991, and won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Drama. His second play,
Dancock’s Dance
, was produced in 1995. He is currently completing a screenplay for
The Englishman’s Boy
.

Guy Vanderhaeghe lives in Saskatoon, where he is a Visiting Professor of English at S.T.M. College.