Death Spiral Read Online Free PDF Page A

little, and then he thought better of it. He already knew what she’d say. The same thing she’d been saying to him for years. “Hi Duncan,” she’d say, and she’d smile so that the world would light up all around him. “I’d like to, but I can’t right now.” And it was enough. It had always been enough.
    Not like the other girls who always laughed when he asked them out to the movies, as if he’d just said the funniest thing in the world. Either that or they’d walked away real quick, like they were really busy and had to be someplace else.
    Carole wasn’t like that. Carole was perfect.
    Duncan thought maybe he’d wait for a better time, when she was alone. He thought maybe he’d go around to her place that night, work through the brush along the river and stand in the freezing dark. Sometimes she remembered to pull her curtains closed, sometimes she forgot. It didn’t really matter to him because he loved her so much.
    He walked with renewed purpose back toward the feed mill. Just the thought of Carole’s dark window lighting up at around eleven o’clock enlivened him. And anyway, it was past time to hitch Babe to the cutter and get back to the shop. He had an order to fill. Twelve hundred running feet of white pine ripped in one-inch boards and cut to sixteen-foot lengths. With any luck he’d have it all finished and stacked by suppertime. And then he’d listen to Amos ’n Andy . And then he’d hitch Babe up again, or maybe give Dandy a run instead, and head back into town to his favourite beverage room. Maybe some of the fellows would let him sit in with them. Some of the war vets. But at ten o’clock he’d have to say “S’long,” and leave. And when no one was watching he’d slip over to the river.
    And one night he knew he’d walk right into her backyard. And one night he’d toss something against her window. She’d lift her window up and put her head out and her hair would tumble down like he always liked to see it, her hands going up and pulling out a bunch of pins and her hair tumbling way past her shoulders.
    “Is that you, Duncan?” she’d say.
    “I was just passing by,” he’d say, “And I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me.”
    “Yes,” Carole would call back down to him, “I would, Duncan.”
    And the night would light up.
    * * *
    Wilf held Mr. Cruikshank’s icy body in his lap and listened to Mary’s frightened voice coming from downstairs. He knew she was on the telephone talking to the police, maybe to Andy.
    He was beginning to shiver. Beneath his coat, his shirt and pants were soaked through. He pulled himself out from under the old man, fumbled for his cane and struggled to his feet. Mr. Cruikshank lay there in a puddle of water. Wilf leaned against the wall trying to catch his breath. A wave of shame washed over him. A fighter pilot, and he’d reacted no better than a frightened kid. Or a blithering idiot. He walked back along the hall to a smaller bedroom than the first one and stripped the top blanket off the bed. When he came back, the old man’s knees were still raised to his chest as they had been in the bathtub, his head still thrown back, his body the palest of blues. Wilf covered him up and sat down on the toilet seat.
    There was no bath mat to soften the tile floor. There were no bath towels in sight. A thin ridge of ice gleamed under the baseboard.
    Wilf’s eyes went back to the tub. Shards of ice were still floating around in it, swishing around and around. He stared at the ice for a long moment. He could still hear Mary chattering away. He’d have to call himself a taxi once she’d finished. He’d have to go home and change his freezing clothes.
    He got up and walked back down the hall. A round window the size of a ship’s porthole was positioned near the top of the stairs. As he passed it some movement from outside caught his eye. Flames of silvery frost laced the glass and at first he wasn’t sure he was seeing what he was