The Carpenter Read Free Page A

form appeared on the dock while Stan was tying up. It was Cassius coming to greet them. Stan pushed the old black dog’s muzzle away from the fish. Louise trailed her hand along Cassius’s back.
    —Can I see you clean the fish?
    —I have to take you home now. It’s getting on to bedtime.
    —Grandpa …
    He knelt down beside her.
    —You’ll get Grandpa in trouble, said Stan. Come on, let’s get your things. You can ride in the middle seat.
    Stan told Cassius to stay in the yard. Louise climbed up into the cab of Stan’s pickup and Stan got into the driver’s seat and drove them out along Echo Point Road.
    They talked about Louise’s first day of grade three. She wanted to know if he remembered when he’d been in grade three. He told her it had been in a one-room schoolhouse. He’d had to light the woodstove in winter. The building was gone now, long gone. It had been on the edge of the piece of land where the town had put up a golf course fifteen years ago.
    Stan drove them out of the bush and they passed through open country. Ahead of them dust rose in the headlights. Then they were coming up to the drive-in. A screen stood out against the horizon. The box office and the concession stand and one of the other screens had burned down the year before. Some people around town whispered about a collection on insurance. Stan had been able to see the glow of the fire from the second floor of his house. He’d gone in his truck. The town fire department and the volunteer firefighters had already had the burning screen and the concession stand cordoned off when he arrived, but he’d come ahead of the police. The cops, when they finally showed up, were young. He hadn’t recognized them and they didn’t know who he was.
    Now, passing the drive-in with Louise beside him, Stan saw how the thin new moon shone on the windshield of a car. Thecar was parked halfway to where the burned movie screen stood in deeper black against the stars. The car was dark. He thought about it and did not think about it.
    Then the drive-in disappeared behind them.
    Before long he merged onto the highway. The lights of town lay ahead. Louise put her head on Stan’s arm.
    Mary and Frank Casey had a modern split-level house east of downtown. The windows were lit. Parked in the driveway were Mary’s Volvo and a provincial patrol car. Mary opened the front door as Stan came up the walk, carrying Louise, who had fallen asleep.
    He took her upstairs and put her into her bed, and then he stood back and spent a moment looking at her. He wondered, vaguely, how many more years he would get to see her grow up.
    He followed Mary back down to the living room.
    —I hope I didn’t get her home too late.
    —No, Dad, it’s fine. Thanks. She loves it.
    Mary sat in the loveseat and Stan sat down on the couch. Next to it, against the wall, was a Clarendon upright piano. Stan put his hand out and dallied his fingers over the keys but did not press them. Frank came out of the kitchen. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and his uniform trousers.
    —Thanks for taking Louise, Stan.
    —It’s never any trouble. Where’s Emily?
    Frank sat on the arm of the loveseat and said: She’s seventeen. You can guess where she’s at.
    —A new boyfriend?
    —A boy. I don’t know that I’d call him more than that. With her, it’s the stray cats.
    —She has good sense, Frank, said Mary, putting her hand on his knee.
    —How’s the detachment? said Stan.
    —Labour Day is over. All the kids are back in school, let’s put it that way. That makes me happy.
    —Fall was always a quiet time, said Stan. A lot of people were too busy on the farms to mess around.
    —Well, if things didn’t change like they do, I wouldn’t need half the cops I have now, fall or not. But that’s how it goes.
    —That’s how it goes, said Stan.
    Stan was back on the road a short while later. He was only eight years retired from the local detachment, despite what it had meant for his pension. At