The Killing Circle

stops he sees someone right at the edge of the platform, all alone, like he’s going to jump. Except he can’t be there, right? All the stations are locked up for the night. And this guy, he’s not security, he isn’t wearing one of those fluorescent maintenance vests. So when Ivan goes by he tries to see his face. And you know what Ivan said? He didn’t have one.”

“You’ve got to take a little time away from those Tales from the Crypt comics,” I say, forcing out a laugh as the others join us from outside. Len wants to say more, but I steal a cigarette from the pack Evelyn left on the table and head outside before he has the chance.

It’s only when I’m on the street, trying to light a match with shaking hands, that I allow myself to consider what Len’s disclosures might mean. The first possibility is that he’s nuts. The other option is he’s telling the truth. At best, the Sandman story has got us all jumping at shadows. At worst, he’s real.

These worries are interrupted by the sense that I’m not alone. It’s Petra. Behind me, just around the corner, speaking with some urgency into a cellphone. She went out earlier with the other smokers apparently. A bit odd in itself, as she doesn’t smoke, and now she’s standing outside in the cold she often complains about. Thinking she’s alone.

And then the Lincoln pulls up. One among the city’s fleet of black Continentals that prowl the streets, chauffeuring bank tower barons and executive princes between their corner offices, restaurants, mistresses, the opera, and home again. This one, however, has come for Petra.

She snaps her cellphone shut and the back door is pushed open from within. A glimpse of black leather and capped driver behind the wheel. Petra seems to speak to whoever sits in the back seat for a moment. A reluctance that shows itself in her glance back at the doors to Grossman’s—then she’s spoken to from inside the car again. This time she gets in. The limo speeds away down a Chinatown side street with the assurance of a shark that has swallowed a smaller fish whole.

What stays with me about Petra’s departure is how she left without saying goodbye. This, and how she entered the Lincoln as though she had no choice.

The rest of the Kensington Circle’s final evening together goes on as one would expect. More drinks, more inevitable celebrity gossip, even some recommendations of good books we’d recently read. One by one the circle dwindles as someone else announces they have to get up in the morning. I, of course, being recently liberated from professional obligation, stay on. Pitchers keep turning up that I manage single-handedly. I must admit that my farewells become so protracted that, by the end, I’m surprised to find Angela and I the last ones here.

“Looks like we’re closing the place,” I say, offering her what’s left in my pitcher. She passes her hand over her glass in refusal.

“I should be getting home.”

“Wait. I wanted to ask you something.”

This is out before I know what’s coming next. The sudden intimacy of sitting next to Angela has left me thrilled, tongue-tied.

“Your story. It’s most…impressive,” I go on. “I mean, I think it’s great. Really great.”

“That’s not a question.”

“I’m just stalling for time. My therapist told me that among the first warning signs for alcoholism is drinking alone. That was my last visit to him, naturally.”

“Can I ask you something, Patrick?”

“Fire away.”

“Why do you think you were the only one in the circle not to have a story?”

“Lack of imagination, I guess.”

“There’s always your own life.”

“I know I may seem rather fascinating. But, trust me, beneath this mysterious exterior, I’m Mr Boring.”

“Nobody’s boring. Not if they go deep enough.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“How’s that?”

“That journal of yours. Even if only a tenth of it’s true, you’re still miles ahead of me.”

“You make it sound like a competition.”

“Well it is, isn’t it?” I hear the squeak of selfpity in my voice that a cleared throat doesn’t make go away. But there’s no stopping me now. “Most great writers have had something happen to them. Something out of the ordinary. Not me. Loss, yes. Bad luck. But nothing uncommon. Which would be fine if you’re just trying to stay out of trouble. But if you want to be an artist? Not so good.”

“Everyone has a secret.”

“There are exceptions.”

“Not a surprise in you, not a single twist. Is that it?”

“That’s it. A hundred per cent What-you-seeis-what-you-get.”

It’s a staring contest. Angela not just meeting my eyes but measuring the depth of what lies behind them.

“I believe you,” she says finally, and drains the last inch of beer in her glass. “So here’s hoping something happens to you sometime.”

It’s late. The band is packing up, the bartender casting impatient glances our way. But there’s something in Angela’s veiled intensity that holds me here, the suggestion of unseen angles she almost dares me to guess at. It reminds me that there is so much I need to know. Questions I hadn’t realized have been rolling around since the Kensington Circle’s first meeting. In the end, I manage to voice only one.

“The little girl. In your piece. Is she really you?”

The waitress takes our empty glasses away. Sprays vinegar on the table and wipes it clean. Angela rises to her feet.

“Have you ever had a dream where you’re falling?” she says. “Tumbling through space, the ground rushing up at you, but you can’t wake up?”

“Yes.”

“Is that falling person really you?”

Angela nearly smiles.

She slips her coat on and leaves. Walks by the window without turning to look in. From where I sit, she is visible only from the shoulders up, so that she passes against the backdrop of night like an apparition. A girl with her head down against the wind, someone at once plainly visible and hidden, so that after she’s gone, you wouldn’t be entirely certain if she was there at all.

PART TWO

The Sandman

13

MAY, 2007

Victoria Day Weekend