The Man Who Killed Read Free

question and I’ll ask you the same.”
    â€œAh,” Jack said. “There you go.”
    A pause while we drank. Funny how quickly we returned to the shorthand of youth, a Pitman’s of our upbringing. At length I said: “I went to ground. Her people summer down in New England somewhere so I got a shack at Memphremagog and sweated it out.”
    â€œDid the school push you or did you jump?” asked Jack.
    â€œBoth.”
    â€œWhat was it?
    Here I took a drink and lit another of Jack’s cigarets. He watched me. My hand remained steady. I breathed out slowly and told some of the truth. I’d been stealing morphine, mostly, from the hospital dispensary. They were never able to nab me outright but had come close. It was that and my grades. In the end I’d held a trump card and between the board of governors and myself was forged an understanding. I’d ducked a censure or quodding, but there’d be no medical degree for myself from McGill, and that was a fact everlasting.
    There, I’d said it. It’d been bottled up long enough, and the confession was a relief, in its way. I drank more wine.
    â€œHow much did you pocket?” asked Jack after a spell.
    â€œMore than enough for me and to sell. You’d be tickled to hear my clientele. A few real hyas muckamucks. Some Chinamen from time to time. When I lost my entree I had to shift gears. It was none for them, then after awhile none for me. I had enough saved up for the shack by the lake. Read my Tacitus and had my fishing rod and thought I’d wait for her to come back in September to try again.”
    â€œShe’ll never marry you,” Jack said.
    â€œI know.”
    To counter the rising bile I swallowed more wine. Rancour. Jack squeezed lemon juice over wet bivalves. It was far better not to speculate on what you cannot control. That woman, the ache of my heart. Instead observe your present surroundings. Looming above were dark heavy beams bisecting white plaster. It was all cod-Tudor and pretense at the Derby, Old Blighty transplanted to the colonies. Best roast beef to be had, however.
    â€œLook at this place,” I said. “Do you know what it reminds me of?”
    Jack tipped an oyster into his mouth.
    â€œRemember the Royal Ensign? Seventeen Mile House on the Island?” I asked.
    Jack peered about.
    â€œYou’re right,” he said. “When was that now?”
    â€œBoat race weekend it must have been. Why else would we have gone over? Six, seven years ago. Swiftsure.”
    â€œWe had bathtub gin with those two doozies, what were their names...”
    â€œElizabeth and Rebecca,” I said.
    â€œThen borrowed Billy’s Ford and the keys to his pa’s cabin.”
    â€œThat cabin. Quel bordel, ” I said.
    â€œThey got sick on the booze. You broke the gramophone.”
    â€œYou chopped down a totem pole in Sooke Harbour,” I countered.
    Jack put his hand to his face in mock shame. “Ye gods.”
    â€œTimber!”
    My elbow was on the spread cloth and I let my forearm fall. When my hand hit the tabletop it rattled the oyster shells on the plate. Heads turned: old buffers with mottled faces. I chewed over a bland smile. Seventeen Mile House was far out on the road to Sooke, western Vancouver Island. The shores of the Pacific, our home at the edge of the world. They’d been good times together, years ago now, fresh back from the war.
    â€œLiz and Becky. You burned their knickers in the stove, didn’t you? Wonder where they are now,” I said.
    â€œProbably knitting booties,” said Jack.
    â€œThose were the days.”
    â€œAnd look at us now,” he went.
    We were back in the past for just a moment, until the soup came. We spooned it up. More wine. At last the meat arrived, good and rare and red. Spuds, celery as requested, squab and cress. Warmth coursed through me. A plate cleaned in steady, animal hunger, at last I leaned