Page 147 of Rhymes with Metaphor
He didn’t return to Blackberry Lane, but he did go down to the triangular fountain in the park to look for the black toonie he’d given Joel, thinking maybe he’d find it and know what Joel’s wish had been.But he couldn’t find it.
He visited the places he hadn’t been with Joel, places that shouldn’t remind him of Joel.But they still did.He went to the site of the old wildlife centre that rehabilitated injured and orphaned wildlife, where one summer, when his grandmother was sick and his father didn’t want to deal with him, he was sent to volunteer.Volunteering there had been good for Reg, as it had taken his mind off his own troubles.He had spent his days waking at sunrise and bottle-feeding fox kits, sleeping on the site overnight on a camp bed near the enclosures.The man who ran the centre was a retired teacher who had drilled into Reg that the purpose of the centre was rehabilitation and release.He was warned not to get attached to his charges, but he did all the same.He had no one else to lavish his affections on.The centre had closed years ago, and it was now an empty field, with only the bones of a few rusty kennels remaining as evidence that anything had lived and healed here.It reminded him of Joel anyway.He had come to Reg sick and lost, and Reg had nursed him to health and ushered him to self-awareness, and then let him go.
Usually when Reg released an animal, it would dart out of its cage and disappear with a flicker.But sometimes, rarely, it would stop and look back at him, and there would be a moment of shared understanding.It only now occurred to Reg that the pause before Joel had bid him goodbye might have been an invitation for Reg to ask him not to leave.
Too late now.
Everything Reg had cared for over all those years was gone.Reg sat in the grass and put his head in his hands.And in that moment, his phone rang.It had been silent for so long, Reg regarded it for a few moments as if it were an alien artifact.
It was a Canadian number, but it wasn’t Martin’s or Joel’s.
“Hello?”said Reg cautiously.
“Reg,” said a vaguely familiar voice.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Ramsay.Listen, our Clock Game poem has won the Rameses Brambletwitcher Prize.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“We’ve got a twelve hundred dollar cheque to split between us and an awards ceremony to go to, day after tomorrow.Have you got anything on?”
“Nothing in particular,” said Reg, staring at the empty field.
“I’ll send the details,” said Ramsay, and she hung up.
“Rameses Brambletwitcher,” said Reg, wondering what surreal situation he’d been dropped into.
Reg had been waiting for something to knock him out of his inertia.Apparently, that something was Rameses Brambletwitcher.
He booked a ticket home.
––––––––
Coming back to Canadafelt strange.He’d grown accustomed to the hot, dry Indian weather, followed by the early Welsh spring.The Canadian spring was unwelcoming and aggressively cold, and he was still suffering from the residual aftereffects of a long flight and the tail-end of malaria.
He’d timed it either very badly or rather well, depending on the perspective.He arrived a few hours before the award ceremony was due to begin, so he popped into the loft just long enough to drop off his luggage.He knew Joel hadn’t been back in the interim, as he’d set the door alarm to send him a phone notification if anyone used the keypad.The only person who had done so was his cleaner, who’d come in once while he was away.
He felt disoriented at the awards ceremony.Quite a lot of people wanted to speak with him, but he’d been wallowing in solitude so long, it took tremendous effort to perform the most basic social graces.That, and the aftereffects of his journey left him exhausted after a couple of hours, and he made his excuses to leave.Before he left, he had a brief chat with Ramsay, who introduced him to a literary agent friend who wanted to know whether Reg had anything “book shaped” he could send her.As what he had started writing in India was becoming more book shaped the longer he worked on it, he offered to send her that.He left the event with the bemused impression that he had stumbled into possible literary representation.That, and winning the award were the only good things that had happened to him for the past three months.He allowed himself to hope that his fortunes were changing.
