A Circle on the Surface by Carol Bruneau

Author:Carol Bruneau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nimbus
Published: 2018-09-25T17:30:55+00:00

13

Smoking one cigarette after another did nothing to quell the shakes. The evening ending up as it had, he would have killed for a drink—though he had begun to think being relieved of a burden was not a bad thing. Beulah couldn’t bring his friend back, or the proper feeling in his legs. But if ever he had faced a test of will, this was it, because Clinton’s boy could not be too hard to track down; the gal at the desk might even have directions. Enman had seen the truck himself once, at Hubley Hill’s springtime gig when Hubley had him run home for his violin then coaxed him up on stage. The Goodrow kid had handled any thirst the dancers worked up. Everyone on their feet, except for Una.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the truck nearby, in a clearing by the Run that wound through O’Leery. Bottles tucked to cool amongst the stream’s mossy rocks. He could easily walk; losing a car that was a money pit was more than a mixed blessing. Maybe Beulah’s going missing was Fate’s odd seal of approval on his return to Barrein, where plenty of people got along without owning a car.

And this was a test, all right. It must be. There was a higher reason for Beulah’s disappearing into thin air. Borrowed? If that was the case, she would have been returned by now, so much for Enman’s being unburdened. So, stolen: it really didn’t matter by whom. A test of his mettle, Ma would say, of his resolve to quit drinking. The ability to let useless things go.

But why?

Why not, my son? It isn’t for you to ask, she might say. The inscrutability of things rested as grimly as the room around him, with its grimy sink wedged between the bed and the window, which was jammed shut.

After splashing his face, Enman trudged reluctantly along the narrow upstairs corridor to the bathroom. The smell of vomit greeted him, and a spattering of blood in the toilet and along the edge of the yellowed tub.

Thank heavens Una wasn’t here to savour this taste of the city spilling past its bounds into O’Leery. People’s bodily functions on public display. He did what he had to, then hurried back to the room, shoving a chair against the door with its busted lock. The Grove had seen better days; just ask Hill, who had entertained in its dining room a thousand years ago.

He wished he could call Una, but the hour was much too late. He hoped she wasn’t nervous being alone, and that she had locked up. He stripped to his shorts. His getting into bed set the springs jangling. At least the sheets were clean, stiff from the clothesline. A surprise, like the surprise relief that had come to him that Beulah was, or might no longer be, his to maintain. A goner. The relief hit him afresh, finding its spot again, a lightness between his ears. The writing had been on the wall for months, that the car was a goner.

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