After an agonizingly long moment, a voice called back, “It’s hanging by the door!”
Father David made a grab for it and rushed back round the corner. Fumbling frantically, he got the key into the lock, turned it and burst into the dank washroom, just in time. Relieved, he sat in the dark, catching his breath. The blood had drained from his face, leaving him cold and clammy He began to shiver. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cold edge of the porcelain sink. Oh, God, he whispered to himself, shaking his head.
He waited until he felt steady enough. Then he rose, found the light switch, returned the key, and made his way back to the car. It was still running, making a strange but pronounced ticking sound he had not noticed before. He put the car in gear, and headed back onto the highway.
It was dark now. As he approached the outer ring of the Sault, the city’s lights beckoned just as he had imagined them. But he chose to drive on, following instead the signs for Wawa. The thought of stopping, of taking a motel room, of sitting alone in front of a fuzzy television screen — this was less bearable than the thought of pressing on, though the springs in the driver’s seat were rising up now to greet him in new and tender places. He adjusted his position, with no effect.
His car was one of the few heading north. He saw signs advertising the Agawa Canyon and its spectacular fall-colour train excursion. By driving at night he would be missing this natural wonder, missing what many had described as awe-inspiring: the deep-cut valleys exploding in fall splendour, the sudden trestle bridges, the craggy outcrops of Canadian shield.
But this was not a sight-seeing tour. It was … well, what was it? A journey of discovery, he told himself, a spiritual pilgrimage, a … a cowardly escape; that’s what it was! He was running away. He knew it. But he also knew that he was not able to stop himself. Even now, as the headlights probed deeper into the lonely night, and as the racing yellow line measured out the distance between himself and home, he knew he could not turn around. Wherever it led, this road, for the time being, was one-way Though the ticking sound from the engine did seem to be getting worse.
Somewhere south of Wawa his distracted stream-of-consciousness was shattered when a long-legged animal slunk past the edge of his headlights back into the darkness. He fancied that it had been a timber wolf, though it might have been a dog. He told himself he was entering the wild Canadian northland, and the thought excited him.
It was past midnight when Father David pulled off the road for gas in Wawa. His joints were aching, and his eyes were feeling strained. Still, he could not reconcile himself with the thought of a lumpy bed in a bad motel. But it was more than that: he could not reconcile himself with the thought of staring into a mirror and facing whatever it was he thought he was doing. He brushed aside the mental picture of Beverley and Catherine, huddled together in the chair in their living-room, and of Paul, looking straight ahead, asking if he were coming back. Father David bought himself a pop and a chocolate bar, and pressed on into the night.
The drive became dreamlike after that, mile after mile, coasting down the long hills, dragging slow motion up the other sides, the engine tick-tick-ticking, the shadowy tree line sailing past, sometimes opening to vistas that were themselves swallowed up by the darkness. As he grew more and more fatigued, he felt more numb than sleepy. He permitted himself thoughts of home now, for they failed to rouse in him any emotions whatsoever. Nor were his frail rationalizations worthy of cross-examination, for they flowed along in a ceaseless stream of images, unconnected and imprecise.
It was like a drug, this endless highway He could command the wheel and keep the car on the road almost without effort, and certainly without thought, allowing his mind to wander at will. The car simply carried itself along, now whizzing down long hills, the speedometer coaxed to its upper range, now chugging up the next — ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka — requiring only that Father David keep his foot wedged sideways on the gas pedal, his eyes resting vaguely on the two elliptical circles of light that, moment by moment, delivered him to his unknown future.
Hours later, he slipped into Thunder Bay just as the city was beginning to stir beneath a blanket of wet darkness, a heavy dew having formed in the night. He felt the pre-dawn chill when he stopped for a coffee and a muffin at an all-night doughnut shop, its early morning customers shuffling silently up to the counter, uttering their first words of the day, like mantras: “Large, double-double.” “Medium, with milk.”
Father David felt tired now. He sipped at the coffee, the steam curling up into his face from the hole in the lid, as he followed the signs that led him through the city and out the other side. The sky was lightening in his rear-view mirror. It was time now, he realized.
Without a struggle, he pulled off the road at a campground at Kakabeka Falls, parking the car adjacent to the little warden’s booth at the entrance. He felt for the lever down at the base of his seat, pushing the seat back with his head until he was more or less reclined. Bunching up his sweater for a pillow, and spreading out his duffel coat on top of him for a blanket, he twisted his body sideways, pressed his cheek into the headrest, and fell asleep.
. . .
He awoke several hours later. The sun was up but still low in the east. There was activity now at the warden’s station. Through the narrow slits of his eyelids Father David could make out a couple of recreational vehicles pulled up to the window, checking out. His eyes felt dry and irritated; so he closed them tight as he lay still, allowing his breathing to catch up with the rest of his body as it awoke, registering an ache in his lower back and cramps in his joints, the result of having remained too long in the same position.
Finally he rubbed his eyes, forced himself to sit up and look out onto this new day, and climbed out of the car. It was a crisp clear morning, the dew still thick and shimmering on the ground. He pulled his sweater over his head and slid his arms into the sleeves of his coat, wandering off to find a place to wash up.
His unshaven face looked drawn and haggard in the metal mirror above the row of stainless steel sinks in the campground’s wash station. He found he didn’t really mind the look, though he was usually scrupulous in his appearance. There was the possibility of a new man emerging here, if not exactly the cigarette ad variety, then certainly someone who appeared more “lived in” than his soft — and recently jowly — city persona. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth, deciding to remain, for the time being at least, unshaved.
He pulled back onto the highway, his body heavy and his head still in an early morning haze. The road sliced now through bush country, with long stretches between the towns. Father David realized with a start that he was still in the province of Ontario! Almost twenty-four hours had still not brought him to the province’s western boundary It would be another day’s drive before he emerged onto the open prairie. What must that be like, he wondered.
Being a Toronto-centric Ontario boy, he had not often thought of the prairie provinces. His imagination had rarely carried him west of Mississauga. But he had studied the prairies in high school geography classes; he had watched recent television footage of the devastating floods around Winnipeg; he had read the complaints of prairie wheat farmers, demanding increased government support. Now he grew eager to find out what it was like to actually be on the prairies.
He stopped for a mid-morning break in Dryden, at a roadside diner that promised home-style cooking, a pulp and paper plant within sight, belching its plumes of sulphuric stench into the air. He had the Big Breakfast. It delivered what it promised: a lean steak with two eggs over easy, home fries and toast, and a bottomless cup of coffee, which the waitress kept filling without even asking.
Country and western music played from speakers hidden in the ceiling panels, real C&W, not the pop mulch that passed for “new country” music on the city stations. Like the strong bitter coffee, burning on its way down, this was music with a twang, music that stung at the same time that it soothed. Father David found himself mildly interested. The words were hard to make out, though he was pretty sure they were about someone who was hurtin’.
He paid up, leaving a two dollar tip for an eight dollar meal, gassed up, and was on