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419

Will Ferguson




  Would you die for your child?

  This is the only question a parent needs to answer; everything else flows from this. In the kiln-baked emptiness of thorn-bush deserts. In mangrove swamps and alpine woods. In city streets and snowfalls. It is the only question that needs answering.

  The boy's father, knee deep in warm mud, was pulling hard on fishing nets that were splashing with life. Mist on green waters.

  Sunlight on tidal pools.

  by Will Ferguson

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Canada

  Published by the Penguin Group

  First published 2012

  1 2 34 5 678 9 10 (RRD)

  Copyright © Will Ferguson, 2012

  "This house is not for sale" photo courtesy Kathy Robson

  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 the U.S.A.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Ferguson, Will

  419 / Will Ferguson.

  ISBN 978-0-670-06471-7

  I. Title: 419. II. Title: Four nineteen. III. Title: Four hundred and nineteen. IV. Title: Four one nine.

  PS8561.E7593F68 2012 C81354 C2011-907324-2

  For Alex and Alister

  Contents

  Would you die for your child?

  419

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  CHAPTER 101

  CHAPTER 102

  CHAPTER 103

  CHAPTER 104

  CHAPTER 105

  CHAPTER 106

  CHAPTER 107

  CHAPTER 108

  CHAPTER 109

  CHAPTER 110

  CHAPTER 111

  CHAPTER 112

  CHAPTER 113

  CHAPTER 114

  CHAPTER 115

  CHAPTER 116

  CHAPTER 117

  CHAPTER 118

  CHAPTER 119

  CHAPTER 120

  CHAPTER 121

  CHAPTER 122

  CHAPTER 123

  CHAPTER 124

  CHAPTER 125

  CHAPTER 126

  CHAPTER 127

  CHAPTER 128

  CHAPTER 129

  Notes toward an index

  AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  A car, falling through darkness.

  End over end, one shuddering thud following another.

  Fountains of glass showering outward and then—a vacuum of silence collapsing back in.

  The vehicle came to rest on its back, at the bottom of an embankment below the bridge and propped up against a splintered stand of poplar trees. You could see the path it had taken through the snow, leaving a churned trail of mulch and wet leaves in its wake.

  Into the scentless winter air: the seeping odour of radiator fluid, of gasoline.

  They climbed down on grappling lines, leaning into their descent, the lights of the fire trucks and ambulances washing the scene in alternating reds and blues, throwing shadows first one way and then the next. Countless constellations in the snow. Glass, catching the light.

  When the emergency team finally arrived at the bottom of the embankment, they were out of breath.

  Within the folded metal of the vehicle: a buckled dashboard, bent steering wheel, more glass and—in the middle—something that had once been a man. White hair, wet against the skull, matted now in a thick red mud.

  "Sir! Can you hear me?"

  His lips were moving as the life poured out of him to wherever it is life goes.

  "Sir!"

  But no words came out, only bubbles.

  CHAPTER 2

  Doors glide open, the sheets of glass parting like a magician's gesture as the West African air swarms in, a heat so strong it pushes her back into the airport. She shields her eyes, stands a moment as the bodies shove past her.

  On the other side of the pavement, a chain-link fence keeps the riff-raff at bay. Riff-raff and relatives. Taxi drivers and waiting uncles. Shouts and frantic wavings, hand-inked signs reading TAXI 4 YOU and LAGOS ISLAND DIRECT. She is looking for her name among these signs. Even with the jet lag and nausea weighing upon her, even with the flight-induced cramps in her calves and the heaving cattle queues she's been corralled through, the customs officials who rummaged through her carry-on looking for stashed treasures only to throw her dishevelled belongings back at her in disappointment, and even with the sweltering air of the airport interior coming up against the blast-furnace heat outside, even with that, perhaps because of that, she feels oddly elated. Calmly excited.


  Sweat is forming, the condensation that comes from colliding weather patterns. It trickles down her collarbone, turns limp hair damp and damp hair wet; it beads into droplets on her forehead.

  Somewhere: her name. She sees it being waved above the mob on the other side of the chain-link fence. But just as she is about to walk across, a voice behind her coos "Madam?" She turns, finds herself facing an armed officer in a starched green uniform, sunglasses reflecting her face back at her in a wraparound, panoramic mirror.

  "Madam, please. You will come with me."

  It is almost a question, the way he says it. Almost, but not quite."Madam. You will come with me."

  She pulls her carry-on closer: the only luggage she has. "Why?"

  "Airport police, madam. The inspector, he wishes to speak with you."

  CHAPTER 3

  The boy's father was speaking softly in river dialect, as he always did when speaking truths. "A father, a mother, must ask themselves this. If it gives the child a better life, would they? Would they die for their child?"

  The mangrove forests were breathing. Wet sighs and soft lapping sounds. The boy's father, deep in tidal mud, was hauling in nets flopping with quicksilver as the boy stood on the shore, fishing spear ready.

  "Remember," said the father, switching to English for emphasis as smoothly as one might switch from net to spear, "Kill the fish quickly. It is kinder that way."

  CHAPTER 4

  "Laura? Are you there? It's—it's about your father. Please pick up."

  The sound of a sob being swallowed.

  Laura spit into the sink, scrambled to the phone.

  "Mom?"

  After they'd finished speaking, Laura hurried down the hallway, pulling on her jacket as she jabbed at the elevator button.

  Outside, the night air was crystallizing into snow. She crossed a street empty of traffic, ran-walked down the hill.

  The bungalow of her childhood was a stucco-on-stucco arrangement thumbtacked to the side of a steep street. A police car was parked out front, with Warren's brand-new Escalade hogging the driveway. It didn't matter; Laura had nothing to park.

  When they were little, her brother Warren was convinced that the small nuggets of glass embedded in the stucco of their home were actually rubies, and he offered her fifty percent of the proceeds if she would collect them for him. "But I thought rubies were red," she said. "Don't be so picky," he replied. "They come in every colour, like Life Savers. It's why they're so valuable."

  So Laura spent an afternoon knuckling green glass from the walls. Fingers beaded with blood, she followed Warren proudly to the corner store, where Mr. Li offered them two all-day suckers in exchange—on condition they didn't mine their parents' stucco for any more gemstones. Laura considered this a fair return on investment; Warren was less enthused. He muttered angrily all the way home as Laura swung the empty plastic pail and moved the sucker back and forth in her mouth. She found Warren's sucker, still unwrapped, in his room several weeks later. He would try to sell it to her for a quarter the next time she got her allowance.

  Inside her parents' wood-panelled living room: a police officer.

  Holstered gun and pale eyes. Those crocheted throw-cushion covers that had been there since forever. The knitted afghan draped over the back of the chesterfield (both the cushion covers and the afghan her mother's handiwork). And on the wood panelling behind: clunky oversized picture frames (her fathers handiwork, both the frames and the panelling). Mall-bought oil-painted scenes of Paris in the rain, of Matterhorn in sunlight. Might as well have been paintings of Mars; her parents had never been to Paris or the Alps. And now her father never would.

  Laura's mother barely noticed Laura enter; she was floating in place, scarcely tethered to the earth. Warren, standing to one side, fleshy face knotted with anger, had his arms wrapped tightly across his stomach. Warren, as bulgy as Laura was thin. Family photos always looked like an ad for an eating disorders clinic.

  Warren's wife Estelle, meanwhile, was attempting, mostly in vain, to corral their twin daughters into the dining room and away from grown-up talk. Squirmy girls, mirrored reflections of each other, full of giggles and sudden solemn pronouncements. "Dogs can't dance but they can learn." "Daddy's silly!" "Suzie's dog can dance, she told me." Kindergarten tales and childhood non sequiturs. Warren's wife mouthed "hello" to Laura before disappearing into the other room.

  Why would they bring their kids?

  The officer with the pale eyes stood, extended his hand to Laura.

  Instead of a handshake, a business card. "Sergeant Brisebois," he said. "I'm with the city's Traffic Response Unit."

  His card read Sgt. Matthew Brisebois, TRU. She wanted to circle the typo, add an "e." But no, not a typo. Something much worse.

  "I deal with traffic fatalities. I'll be overseeing this investigation. I'm very sorry about your father."

  No, you're not. Without traffic fatalities, you'd be out of a job.

  "Thank you."

  "Can you fucking believe this?" It was Warren, turning to stare at his sister, eyes raw. "Dad drove off a cliff."

  "Warren," said their mother. "Language, please."

  "Your father appears to have hit a patch of black ice," the officer said. "It would have been impossible to see. Missed the bridge onto Ogden Road, westbound off 50th. It's an industrial area, and he was travelling at high speed. Very high." As if he were fleeing something, Brisebois wanted to say, but didn't. Instead, he asked,

  "Where would he have been going that time of night?"

  "Work," said their mother. "He was a watchman, at the rail yards."

  "He was a teacher," said Warren.

  "Retired," said their mother. "We were both teachers. Henry taught shop, I taught Home Ec. Henry was feeling—was feeling housebound, had started working, part time, as a night watchman."

  "Would he have worn a uniform?"

  She nodded.

  "I ask because he didn't have one on. He was wearing"—

  Brisebois checked his notepad—"a sweater. Slacks. Loafers. The loafers came off in the crash. Would he have kept his uniform at work?"

  "I suppose," said their mother, voice distant. "I just don't understand why he would be on Ogden Road in the first place. He always took Blackfoot Trail."

  Brisebois jotted this down. "And did your husband wear his seatbelt? Generally?"

  "Oh yes. He was very careful about that sort of thing." Laura's mother was holding a wad of Kleenex as though clutching a rosary.

  "Mrs. Curtis, your husband phoned in a complaint a few weeks ago, said someone was across the street watching your house."

  "Oh, that? It turned out to be nothing. Henry was up late and thought he saw somebody prowling under a street lamp. The police came, but—I'm sure you have a report."

  The officer nodded. "We do. I'm just trying to ascertain if—"

  Laura's brother leaned in, bristling. "Why are you asking these questions? This is bullshit."

  "I m trying to piece together what happened, and why."

  "Why? I'll tell you why. Because this fuckin' city never clears its fuckin' streets after it fuckin' snows. That's why. Always waiting for a fuckin' chinook to do their work for them. Assholes. The snow gets packed in, we drive on ruts for months. Sure! Why pay for snow removal when you can wait for a la-di-da warm wind to come down from the fuckin' mountains and melt it. Well, it doesn't fuckin' melt, does it?" His voice was cracking in anguish. "Do you know how much I pay in property tax? Do you?"

  "Language, Warren!"

  "Sir, I understand you're upset. But I do need to—"

  "A fuckin' shitload, that's how much. And what do I get for it? My father—The city, that's who did this. I pay my taxes, they raise them every year like clockwork. For what? You want to arrest someone, arrest the fuckin' mayor."

  When Laura finally spoke, her voice was so soft the officer almost missed it. "Did they say what kind of sweater?

  Brisebois looked at Laura. "Sorry?"

  "Th
e sweater he was wearing, did they say what kind? Was it green, a green cardigan?"

  "Um..." He flipped through his pad. "No, I believe it was blue. With patterns."

  "What kind of patterns?"

  "I'm not sure. It'll be in the accident scene photos, and the Medical Examiner's Office will have the actual sweater. Why do you ask?"

  "I was just... wondering. It doesn't really matter. Not now."

  Outside, the first whisper of a warmer wind was stirring, trickling down distant mountainsides, moving across the foothills.

  Above Ogden Road, the tire tracks in the packed snow would melt, first to slush and then to sludgy water. Traces of the accident would slowly vanish—except for one distinct streak of rubber, an extended skid on the asphalt where a second set of tire treads led toward the guardrail beside the bridge. Those marks would last a long, long while.