"He works behind the bar. Downstairs."

She giggled.

But before the panic got me, she went to work, pushing me back on the bed, then straddling me energetically, one hand holding me by the hair, the other busy where I couldn't see but could feel an avalanche. And I suddenly went spastic, then an explosion, replaced by shame and embarrassment.

"Ooh, what a naughty boy," she said, wiping her hand on the blanket and climbing out of the bed.

She was putting her clothes on as quickly as she had taken them off. Then she said: "Let's go down and you can buy me a drink. Maybe try again later."

And I said I don't think so, thinking about the big fellow in the wrinkly white shirt down behind the bar.

4.

I hadn't told anybody exactly when I'd be arriving, so Effie wasn't home. I drove out to Squint's. Aunt Jessie was there. The three of them sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea. Jessie and Squint had coats on. Big hugs from Ma and Jessie. Squint shook my hand, looking glad to see me. Squint seemed okay after all. Then he went out again. Had a big tree-farmer in the yard, a bunch of cogs and gears spread out under it on a piece of cardboard.

"Ask Jessie about Sextus," Ma said when I had a cup of tea in front of me.

"My God, you never know where he's going to be next," Jessie said. "One day he's calling from Ottawa. He was there when Trudeau won the leadership and became the prime minister. Then it was straight down to the States to cover the uproar over Martin Luther King. Wasn't that awful? The poor man."

The month before, April, they'd been talking about Trudeau at the camp. All the Frenchmen excited getting one of their own in the big job in Ottawa. Jack telling them they were all being sucked in. Some old draft dodger pretending he was a hippy. Only half-French anyway.

In '65 Jack said he voted for the Ralliement des Creditistes. Some fringe party I could never figure out. When their guy came to the camp he couldn't talk enough English to explain himself. Jack voted for him anyway. Then ragged the guys who voted Liberal or Tory. Calling them patsies. Them shouting back at him in English and French: "You're just fucking around, Jack. Makin' a mockery of democracy."

Jack saying: "Bulllllshit. That old Caouette is the real McCoy. An honest man. I bought a car from him in Amos in '39." Then laughing his head off. Jack was always looking for ways to rile people up, then laugh at them.

Ma asked, "Have you seen Effie?"

Exchanging a quick glance with Jessie when I said, "No, she wasn't home."

Then Ma says, "Och, she won't be far. So where will you be staying?"

Jessie finally asks, "So. How did you leave the old man?"

"Prospering," I said. "Doing great. Could land home any day.

You won't know him."

"Oh," she said, laughing. "What's he been doing? Watching the diet, I hope."

"Getting younger and better looking every day, Jack is."

"Well, he'd better give me a little notice," she said, brushing crumbs off her lap.

"You better be careful," I said. "Jack'll be taking up with some old French one if you're not careful."

"Will you listen to him," said Ma. "The lip."

"No big loss," Jessie said, laughing.

A few days before my last shift underground, I could hear Jack roaring in the washroom of the dry, the spasms deep in his lungs. Imagine windowpanes rattling.

One of the shift bosses tossed his head to one side and said, "You better check."

"Jesus, Jack, is this you?" I said. Standing at the urinal looking at a fibrous red blob the size of a jellyfish.

"Wha'?" he says innocently. Over at the sink drying his hands. The seizure past.

"Mother of God," I said, "somebody left half their guts hawked up in here. Yech Christ."

"Sorry," he said. "Musta had a nosebleed in my sleep last night...ran down my throat."

Before I left for home he said: "I don't want you going telling the young fella. Or anybody. Okay?"

"Sure, Jack."

After Aunt Jessie was gone, Ma said: "We were half thinking you'd want to be staying here for a little while. Till you get things ready."

By the look on her face, it had already been decided.

"God. Look at you! You're so tall and so thin!"

Me glowing and wanting to eat her.

She asked where my bags were, I said I'd left them over at Squint's.

"Oh," she said, a little surprised.

"I thought it might be best for the first little while," I said.

Then she dragged me half running to the living room and down onto the couch where she covered my face with kisses and messed my hair and told me to stay there while she made supper. And chattered all the while from the kitchen about new projects starting up and thousands working in construction, and everything changing. It was like the causeway all over again. People coming home. Her working at the motel. Assistant manager now but still planning to go back to school. One of the girls from work going to be the bridesmaid.

The wedding had been set for June, right after the federal election, so Sextus could be the best man. I wanted Uncle Jack but she said no, Sextus would be better. He was travelling around the country, writing about the campaign. Coming home as soon as it was over.

After we ate we lay together on the couch, arms wrapped tightly around each other. There was no longer any doubt in my mind why I'd come home, or where I'd spend the rest of my life. Right here. Like this.

But later, when I awoke and found her to be sleeping, her head close to mine, curls tickling my nose, I was suddenly overcome by dread. The faces of our fathers filled the room, beaming their unhappiness all around. And when my stirring woke her she sat up slowly and asked, "Do you really want to? Go through with it? We don't have to, you know."

I said, "I really want to."

Then she told me that she could understand what I was feeling. She felt the same thing. But it would pass.

"We've got the jitters," she said. "I hear everybody gets them."

You want to get married but you don't want to get married. And you finally do because you said you would.

I was glad she admitted jitters and misgivings, because the images of her father and mine were jostling in my head all the time, it seemed. The old odours of his work clothes, still hanging on pegs in the porch. His hardhat and utility belt on a shelf. But more than that, I had the awful feeling that I was to be measured against his judgment for as long as I stayed here.

That was fifteen years ago. I have learned to ignore it. But only after recovery from years of absolute failure.

The old people around here used to fear the cailleach oidhche, the spirit that threatened their sleep, uninvited and unwelcome, creeping up on them with her smothering weight. I know her well. Not as an old woman, but as a man.

The slightest movement and she's fully conscious. Legacy of her father's prowling.

"Where are you going?" she asked, hint of panic in her voice.

"I'm beat," I said. "Gotta go home."

"Home?"

"Ma offered me a place out there. Just so-"

"It wouldn't do any harm to stay here," she said. "I could fix up a room."

"No," I said. "It isn't that."

5.

It was late in May. The election was on for June 25. Our day was June 29. It was surprisingly easy to settle in with Ma and Squint. They lived in a big old place that had been mostly closed off until Ma moved in. Within a few days I found a rhythm in the place. Going out in the mornings, checking what Squint was up to. Usually fixing some piece of machinery. He had half a dozen men working in the woods and he spent most of his time repairing vehicles and equipment. The tree-farmer had a major problem. I'd picked up enough general knowledge of machinery working in the mines that I could be useful to him. Knew a lot about diesels.

Squint was easy on the head. He had some of the old man's edginess but a lot of Jack's slow deliberation. And he loved to talk.

So I asked him, "How has old Angus been making out lately?"

He laughed without stopping what he was doing.

"Angus is Angus," he said.

"What exactly is it that's wrong with his hearing? He always acts kind of deaf."

"Who knows," Squint said. "Selective deafness. Hears what he wants to, misses the rest. Pretty useful handicap."

"He's faking."

"No," he said.

September 1944, in Italy. Angus got caught out in his own artillery barrage. Out in no man's land. Coriano Ridge.

"Typical of Angus," I said. "Caught out."

"Well," Squint said, "maybe. But Angus was a specialist. They sent him out on sensitive snooping assignments, lightly armed. Gathering information about what the enemy was up to."

"Lightly armed?"

"You had to travel light, and the Sikhs taught him to depend mostly on his knife," Squint said. "Lots of stories about what Angus would be getting up to out there. They say he could travel at night like a raccoon. Whenever they wanted to take a prisoner for questioning, they'd send Angus."

When I finally encountered him, in front of the liquor store in Port Hawkesbury, Angus looked like a wreck. His hand shook when he held it out to me. Still wearing a necktie, but the shirt collar was grimy and the skinny neck scruffy.

Very serious. Asking about Ma and Squint and Jack. I was surprised by the amount of dignity he could muster. What did I think about the election? Was I ready for the big day? Great thing, Effie and me. Hoped we'd have a whole barnful of kids.

Some hope.

Before I left him he dropped his voice and asked if I could spare a five until the cheque came. I dug one out and gave it to him.

I remember asking Jack, "How did you face Angus, after you first found out?"

Jack shrugged. "Figured if the fella that caught the bullet could put it behind them, who was I?"

Then I blurted: "But what if Pa didn't know? What if he thought it was a sniper like everybody else?"

"That's a good one," Jack said.

And each evening I would drive in to the motel and get Effie. We'd go to a movie. Eat at the drive-in. Or a restaurant. Or just drive and talk. Then we'd go home and have a drink of something. Or tea. And she'd ask if I wanted to stay and I'd say I'd better not.

"You're so old-fashioned," she'd tease.

Me mumbling something apologetic.

Her saying, "It's a good thing one of us has his head screwed on right."

6.

Getting married is way too easy. A couple of people not yet wise enough to make a sensible decision only have to go along to some church or government person and ask to be married and it's done. So sure of themselves.

Of course it's easy to get out of commitments now. Thanks to Mr. Trudeau! People in and out of marriages like mortgages. Actually a mortgage is a lot more binding. Ending a marriage? No fuss, no muss. But I see lots of fuss and muss at work. People and their personal problems take up half of my time.