Falling Read online

  Praise for

  Falling

  “A poetic and illuminating novel, with a tremendous depth of feeling and a bravely unflinching look at the most painful parts of human lives.”

  –Quill & Quire

  “Powerful and utterly believable.…”

  – Literary Review of Canada

  “Simpson tells the stories of [her characters] in a compelling way. She is a brilliant writer who not only understands people but has a feel for landscape.”

  – Kitchener-Waterloo Record

  “A pleasure to read.”

  – Montreal Gazette

  “We don’t quite realize the force of what’s built up until near the end, when we suddenly find ourselves fully invested in this compelling web of characters.”

  – Toronto Star

  “[Simpson] dazzles us with lyricism, with meter and cadence as well as story.”

  – January Magazine

  “The novel moves forward much like the rushing river that ends up as the tumbling waterfall, unstoppable, a force of nature, like life itself.”

  – National Post

  “Masterly.”

  – Vancouver Sun

  “Simpson’s clean prose is a joy to read.… Descriptions are fresh and immediate.…”

  – Halifax Chronicle Herald

  “Beautifully written and engrossing.…”

  – Winnipeg Sun

  Books by Anne Simpson

  FICTION

  Canterbury Beach (2001)

  Falling (2008)

  POETRY

  Light Falls Through You (2000)

  Loop (2003)

  Quick (2007)

  Copyright © 2008 by Anne Simpson

  Cloth edition published 2008

  Emblem edition published 2009

  Emblem is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

  Emblem and colophon are registered trademarks of McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Simpson, Anne, 1956 –

  Falling / Anne Simpson.

  eISBN: 978-1-55199-170-2

  I. Title.

  PS8587.I54533F34 2009 C813′.6 C2008-907387-8

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  The epigraph on this page is from the poem “I Will Return” by Pablo Neruda, from Isla Negra: A Notebook, edited by Dennis Maloney (White Pine Press, 2000).

  McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

  75 Sherbourne Street

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5A 2P9

  www.mcclelland.com

  v3.1

  Janet Elizabeth Simpson

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  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

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Some other time, man or woman, traveller,

  later, when I am not alive,

  look here, look for me

  between stone and ocean,

  in the light storming

  through the foam.

  Look here, look for me,

  for here I will return, without saying a thing …

  – PABLO NERUDA

  THE GIRL ON THE FOUR-WHEELER turned sharply at the top of the bank and felt the vehicle drop heavily beneath her. There was no time to correct the mistake, though she tried, and the four-wheeler fell, toppling to one side, slowly, all four hundred and eighty-eight pounds of it, as it slid down the bank, landing in the stream and trapping her body underneath. Her cry could have been that of an Arctic tern, high above, its wings an open pair of scissors against the blue.

  Struggling to free herself, she could only bring her head above water briefly before her exertions wedged the vehicle more firmly in the thick, wet sand.

  Damian, she shrieked, raising her head out of the water a second time.

  Panicking, she moved her head wildly from side to side, choking, trying to get air, which made her take in water. She heard an overwhelming beating in her ears.

  Her body was splayed in the stream. She struggled several more times, with less vigour, and then she didn’t move. Though she was face down, one of her hands lay with the palm up so the water moved over her fingertips. At the other end of the beach, where the rocks piled and tumbled like upended shelves and tables, Damian was dozing. He’d been swimming, and his bathing suit was still damp. The sun was warm on his body – it showed his pelvic bones in relief, touched his features with light – and it had made him sleepy. Each time he exhaled, there was the suggestion of a snore. He hadn’t slept well the night before, and now dreams came fleetingly.

  He might have been carved in stone, except for the almost imperceptible movement of his chest, rising and falling. A fly landed lightly on his leg, and he reached out a hand to brush it off. Disconnected images flickered in and out of his consciousness until he heard the distant cry of a bird and opened his eyes. After a while he got up, and stretched to one side, the other side. He had a man’s body, with a broad, tanned chest, though his blond hair was as fine and sleek as a girl’s, and would have fallen past his shoulders if it had been loose. He picked up his towel and stood at the edge of the rocks.

  The sea glinted and moved and shifted before him, becoming a hard, steely colour where it met the softer edge of sky. A roll of waves fell gently and retreated, leaving the sand darkened, velvety brown, as they drew away. The tides of the Northumberland Strait weren’t as high as those of the Fundy, and seemed almost lazy by comparison, and although the water was as warm as that off the coast of the Carolinas, the jellyfish had already come and gone: there were no more of their purplish, nearly translucent bodies, some as large as purses, to be seen on the beach. The light was beginning to slant across the land in early morning and late evening, which meant autumn was coming.

  Far off, so far as to be dreamlike, was a line of blue hills on the western coast of Cape Breton. To the north were the headlands of Cape George, but Ballantyne’s Cove was beyond the nearest cliff, with its reddened, exposed soils. On the water, some distance out, and apparently equidistant between the coasts on either side, was a white sailboat, but its sails were furled. There was no wind. The sky was clear, devoid of any clouds, and it promised to be hot all day.

  Damian moved over the rocks with a kind of animal grace, dropping from this shelf of stone to that one, over a small crevice where some broken b
eer bottles lay, and at the edge of the rocks he leapt down to the sand below. He paused and ran his hand over initials carved in the stone:

  Hey man! It’s 15°C – Oct. 21, 2000. J + E.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw something yellow, sticking up out of the sand. He couldn’t figure it out for a moment. It was all wrong. Lisa’s kayak. But why –

  Lisa, he shouted.

  He ran, sprinting so fast that his heels made little tails of sand fly up. He yelled again, more loudly this time. When he reached the ATV, overturned in a stream on the beach, he howled – a long, drawn-out cry. But he’d already waded into the water to raise his sister’s head out of the stream, which he managed clumsily. He was shaking so badly he could hardly keep her head steady. Water dribbled out of her mouth. He opened it, checked it with his fingers, and started resuscitation. He worked as swiftly as he could, holding her head up, realizing, in a distant, shocked way, that it wasn’t doing any good, but continuing relentlessly. On a ridge above the beach, a man came out of a house after hearing someone howl. A cry for help. All he needed was a glimpse of the overturned vehicle and a boy cradling someone in the depression where the stream ran out to the ocean. He went inside to make a phone call and then grabbed some plastic picnic cushions and ran to the beach, down the path between wild rose bushes with a glossy black dog racing ahead. He followed the tracks of the four-wheeler to where the trailer and two kayaks had come unhitched. Going over the bank, he fell, regained his balance, and plunged down the sandy slope.

  Damian was still doing mouth-to-mouth; he hadn’t tried to move Lisa. But she wasn’t breathing. Her hands didn’t seem to belong to her. The twine bracelet he’d made, with the shells and blue beads, was still on her wrist. And how strange it was that the striped beach bag had been thrown on the sand a few feet away, flung to safety.

  He moaned, unaware of the man who had arrived at his side, gasping for breath, and the dog, sending up a flurry of sand as it made circles around them, running in and out of the water and spraying them as it went.

  We need to do CPR, said the man.

  Damian looked up at him. She’s my sister.

  Put these cushions under her head, the man instructed. Then maybe we can pull her free. I’ll see if I can hold up the end of this thing – you get the other end.

  Damian nodded.

  It was the man, not Damian, who stuffed a plastic cushion under Lisa’s head, carefully but swiftly. Damian had to be persuaded to let go of his sister for a few moments while they each took an end of the ATV and, with a great effort, hauled it to one side, freeing her.

  Careful, said the man. Brace her head and neck.

  They carried her up from the stream and set her down on dry, level sand. Her body was heavy and wet, and her head was turned to one side.

  The man immediately began CPR. There was nothing delicate about the way he pushed down on Lisa’s chest, quickly, confidently. He pumped her chest thirty times, gave her two breaths, and continued pumping. Sweat appeared on his forehead, but he didn’t stop to wipe it. There was only an occasional grunt as he kept up the CPR, and, intermittently, the barking of the dog.

  Time wasn’t moving in the usual way: it could have sped up, or reversed, or made some peculiar twist. The man thought that a year could have passed before he saw the paramedics running across the beach with the spinal board. They’d come along the path from the wharf road, the one with the old barbed-wire fence across it, then down the steep path. When they arrived they were breathless; they moved in closely while the man continued to do CPR. The red-haired paramedic quickly set up a portable defibrillator and prepared a bag-valve mask.

  How long had she been under water?

  Damian shook his head.

  And CPR – how long had they been doing it?

  The red-haired paramedic placed the mask over Lisa’s mouth and nose as he asked the question, and the man, relieved of doing CPR, glanced at his watch and told them it had been about fifteen minutes since he’d made the phone call.

  Swiftly, they transferred Lisa to the spinal board. They scarcely seemed to shift her, so efficient were their movements. It was almost as if they rolled her onto it, bracing her as they did so, immobilizing her head with a C-collar and strapping her body in place. They cut her bathing suit straps neatly and peeled back the material, wiping her chest dry before placing electrode pads on her skin and hooking her up to the heart monitor on the portable defibrillator.

  One of the paramedics took the mask off Lisa’s face.

  All clear, he said, but Damian was still holding his sister’s arm.

  Stay back from her – okay? All clear. Shock delivered.

  Lisa’s body jumped violently when the paramedic shocked her. He held up his hand so none of them would touch her as he checked the heart monitor.

  He shocked her twice more, then stopped. He picked up the bright red defibrillator that resembled a child’s toy but left the electrode pads on Lisa’s chest. The skin of her chest was white, in contrast to her tanned arms, and her breasts were exposed, yet chaste in their girlishness.

  What are you doing? asked Damian.

  Right now – giving her oxygen. And epinephrine –

  But what about her heart?

  We’re still monitoring her heart. The paramedic squeezed the oxygen bag attached to the tube he’d inserted into Lisa’s mouth. He spoke rapidly to his partner. And we’ll keep up CPR, he assured Damian.

  The paramedics lifted the board and began carrying Lisa across the beach, instructing the man to do CPR as they went. He pumped Lisa’s chest as he walked alongside; it was awkward, but he did his best. Damian tucked in her hand so it wouldn’t hang over the edge of the board.

  The dog no longer barked, but ran close beside them. They made a curious procession, winding over the rocks at the end of the beach and up the path, fringed with soft grasses, blond and dry at the end of summer, and clusters of mauve asters and goldenrod. The man was breathing hard; at times the path was simply too steep or too narrow for him to continue CPR. At the barbed-wire fence they halted, while the dog, tail wagging, nosed through the asters and found a stick.

  It took a few moments to get the board, with Lisa on it, over the twisted fence, which had been pulled down so people could step over it. After the board was passed over the fence, the red-haired paramedic took over from the man and continued CPR. The dog did not come, but as they went across the patch of gravel at the side of the wharf road, the man whistled, and the dog came leaping over the fence, carrying the stick in its mouth. Damian, behind the others, was shivering. He had put on a T-shirt from which the sleeves had been ripped. His lips were blue, but he had no idea he was cold.

  They put Lisa into the ambulance and the red-haired paramedic kept doing CPR. Damian climbed inside and crouched, shivering. He watched the paramedic dully. Despite everything that was being done for Lisa, something was missing. There would have been more urgency if –

  But he couldn’t face thinking it.

  At the back of the ambulance, the other paramedic turned to the man. He can’t come with us.

  Let him, said the man.

  The paramedic shook his head as he shut the ambulance doors.

  And make sure he gets a blanket, said the man. It’s the least you can do.

  The man watched them go, then turned and went back along the path, stepping over the barbed wire. The dog had gone ahead, but the man picked his way carefully down the steep path, sending a scattering of pebbles to the rocks below. The ocean was as calm as it had been earlier, and the sky was the same wide-open blue, and this was astonishing to him. There were tears in his eyes and he had some difficulty getting over the rocks and down to the beach. He slipped several times, despite his caution. Then, once he was on the sand again, he saw the footprints they’d made on the way to the ambulance. He stood helplessly, crying. He wiped his cheeks roughly with his hands and kept going directly to the place where it had happened. There was the four-wheeler and its trailer, wit
h the kayaks tossed this way and that. He’d get these things off the beach, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it just then.

  Yet he knew which cottage had been rented; he knew where he would take the four-wheeler, trailer, and kayaks. It was one of the smaller cottages, the one with the roof that needed to be reshingled, and it was rented each summer to a woman from Halifax. A MacKenzie, he thought. Yes, that was right. And these two, the boy and the girl, must be her children. He felt his throat constrict. She wouldn’t know yet about her daughter.

  The thought came to him that if he’d just looked out the window sooner, if he’d got up for another cup of coffee – but of course he hadn’t. He walked to the edge of the water, thinking of the girl’s suffering, and how no one had known of it.

  At last he turned and went up to his house, where there was no one to greet him. He brushed his hand across the thinning hair on the top of his head. Every summer for as long as he could remember he’d come from Halifax to spend a few weeks at Cribbon’s, in a house that reminded him of the place, not far from here, where he’d spent summers as a child. It was curious that he hadn’t known the boy or the girl, but he had always kept to himself, just as they must have kept to themselves.

  Now he would have to live with the fact that he had not been able to help. He had seen several people die during his life, but never one as young as this. This thought depleted him, and he went up the path and then the steps of his house slowly, stopping at the top. The dog was with him, eager to get past and go inside, and in a moment he was by the door, his tail batting against it. But the man didn’t go inside. He stood on the deck, looking out at the deceptively tranquil water. He waited for a moment, as if to get his bearings.

  Cecily, he said, and his voice broke. He sat down heavily on a plastic deck chair, putting his hands firmly on the armrests and shutting his eyes.

  He continued to sit where he was, his eyes closed.

  The dog whimpered, and the man opened his eyes. He knew that it was going to be hard on the boy, a terrible thing that he would take into himself. It would do things to him. But there was no changing it. It was like a stone falling in water. A stone dropping with a little sound – plink – and a ring around the place where it had vanished, and another, and another.