Year of Lesser (28 page)
“Can you go find him?” she asks.
“Okay,” Johnny says. He reaches out a hand in the dark and finds Loraine’s face. Touches lightly at her eyebrows and cheeks. Traces her mouth and trails his fingers down her neck. Her breathing is more relaxed now. Relief reveals itself in the settling of her shoulders, the push of her head against his hand.
“You poor thing,” she whispers. “You shouldn’t have to live like this.”
“It’s good for me,” Johnny says. “I’m spoiled.”
In that small space they lean into each other, press noses on necks, and feel the baby stir at their bellies. It is a good thing, Johnny thinks. This. Then Loraine gathers up Rebecca and before she goes, kisses Johnny on the cheek; a moist spot there. Johnny listens to Loraine leave and tries to settle in. The ground is hard beneath him. He turns, seeking a hollow for his hip. The wind blows. The trees move. A car passes on the gravel road, spitting stones into the ditch.
History, for Johnny, is what he can remember. And he always remembers most vividly just before sliding into sleep. Tonight though he keeps
shifting between what is real and what is dream and it requires all his attention to separate the two. There is Phil Barkman’s hooded blue penis, shrivelled and cute. Melody, pregnant again. Baby Rebecca, talking in tongues. Charlene, swimming in a pool of Hiram Walker, face down, a pickled pig. Himself, a field mouse being attacked by a small nighthawk—he scurries into a hole. And finally, there is Loraine, standing far off across a barren field, beckoning to him. He crosses the field but the going is slow, the land is rough and full of clumps and furrows. Burned stubble appears here and there. His shoes turn black. He fears that by the time he reaches the far edge, Loraine will have disappeared. Still, he presses on.
DAVID BERGEN won the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel
The Time in Between.
He is the author of four other novels:
The Matter with Morris,
his newest work;
The Retreat,
winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction;
The Case of Lena S.,
winner of the Carol Shields Award; and
See the Child,
which
The Globe and Mail
compared to the work of Richard Ford and John Updike. Bergen lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
A Year of Lesser
Copyright © 1996 by David Bergen.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40291-0
Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
First published in an original trade paperback edition by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd: 1996
This Harper Perennial trade paperback edition: 2010
Excerpt from THE GOLD CELL by Sharon Olds. Copyright © 1981 by Sharon Olds. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
Two chapters of this novel, “Saved” and “Eggs, New-laid,” were first published in
Prairie Fire
.
The financial assistance of the Canada Council and the Manitoba Art Council is gratefully acknowledged.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8
www.harpercollins.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bergen, David, 1957–
A year of Lesser / David Bergen.
“A Phyllis Bruce book.”
ISBN 978-1-55468-873-9
I. Title.
PS8553.E665Y43 2010 C813′.54 C2010-903097-4
HC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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