Harmless by James Grainger

Author:James Grainger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780771036699
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2015-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Back on the big path, Alex and Joseph trudged deeper into the woods, Joseph handling flashlight duties, finding no clues, only litter and old ATV tracks, even a bike hanging from a tree, one rusted wheel protruding from the greenery like the fuselage of a crashed plane. They walked up and down low hills, skirting ravines and marshes, thickets of scrub, and patches of old growth, the boundaries of the path repeating like a wallpaper pattern of leaves and branches. Occasionally the pattern varied, evergreens replacing maples and birches, so that to Joseph’s tired eyes it was as though they were passing from one narrow, wallpapered corridor to another without ever reaching a proper room. Through it all, his mind replayed reels of shrill interior voices, self-defeating memories, and violent images until they became as monotonous as the passing landscape.

Eventually the path led them to a barren plateau overlooking miles of black treetops rolling out to the horizon to merge with the night sky. The sunset was long over but a luminous glow pulsed in the west, as if the forest extended to the outskirts of a shining city just out of view. Above them the sky was crowded with stars, clustered so thickly that they looked, to Joseph’s city eyes, like diamond brooches mounted on a velvet backing. It must be the Milky Way. God, if only Franny were here with him, on a camping trip, the two of them contemplating the stars, bonding in the silence far from the city. Never mind that he hated camping. For her sake, he’d learn to like it. Just give him the chance. He turned around to take in where they’d come from. The sky there was solid black, the stars cancelled out by banks of clouds that were following their trek into the wilderness like a silent flotilla.

He called Franny’s name, hoping against reason that she was close enough to hear him. He remembered her at eight years old, just before he’d moved out, arranging her foreign-coin collection on the kitchen table, as absorbed in her work as a composer, placing the coins inscribed with animals in one pile, those with buildings in another, one-offs in the centre. She’d looked up at him, her face expectant as she waited for him to surrender his complete attention to her, but even there he’d failed her. He should have shared with her everything he’d learned as an obsessive stamp-collecting boy, flooded the room with that boy’s enthusiasm, but his attention had been distracted, racing between the romanticized past, unsatisfactory present, and bright future. Had he ever given his full attention to Franny and Martha, even for an entire day? He’d read to Franny at bedtime, then comforted Martha after another grinding day at the legal clinic, but that barely added up to two hours. Why was his attention so precious that he needed to keep a portion in reserve? It wasn’t like he put it to noble ends. It brought him no deep,

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