A Life with Words by Richard Wright

Author:Richard Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada

Barachois, Gaspé—House in winter—A February day in 1969.

January brought storm after storm. They were virtually buried in snow, and when the plow went by a wall of snow obscured the highway. He cut steps in the snowbank down to the road. They brought their groceries home on the child’s sleigh. But so what? They weren’t going anywhere. Sometimes he worried about an emergency. The hospital in Gaspé was fifty kilometres away, but he imagined they would cope. Other people along the coast did. On weekend afternoons they skated on the bay and he coached a local hockey team. They attended parties with relatives and neighbours. Everything seemed to slow down, and he lived in the moment. By the following summer they had guests who were curious about their retreat from the rest of the world. He had set himself a deadline of October to finish his book, and he made it with two weeks to spare. After his wife finished typing the last draft, they prepared to leave. His plan was to find work in publishing again, perhaps for a year, and then enroll at a university in the hope of eventually becoming a teacher. That seemed the best way to finance a life of writing. With this in mind he had sent letters to several publishers and was surprised to receive a half-dozen replies expressing interest.

That last week he felt good about everything. He thought his book was publishable, though you could never be sure. Still he was eager to re-enter the other world, have the book read. Get on with things. Yet the night before they left he lay rigid in bed unable to sleep, getting up a half-dozen times to step out on the veranda for a leak, always a sign of anxiety. Staring up at the star-filled autumn sky. The beauty of all that emptiness. What used to be called the heavens. Then back into the house and a quick look into his two-year-old son’s crib. At what age did the threat of crib death subside? But the child was sleeping deeply and peacefully. He told himself to settle down while he quietly opened cupboard doors and—For goodness’ sake, what was this? Why, a bottle with two or three inches of whisky still in it. No point in leaving that, and it would definitely be unwise to travel with an opened bottle of whisky in the car. Suppose they had an accident? He saw himself being questioned by a cop about the whisky bottle. No, no, this had to be emptied, and not down the sink either.

Sitting in the rocking chair in the quiet dark house he sipped whisky and water, felt the symptoms of anxiety receding: the cold hands and feet, the shivering, the need to urinate. It was all slipping away while his wife and son slept. He hadn’t made a penny in over a year and funds were getting low. But they were young and healthy and surely one of the half-dozen publishers would hire him.

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