At ten to nine Walter leaves Homer’s and rides two blocks to the offices of Columbine Press. The receptionist is making coffee. As soon as he announces himself, a voice calls from a room down the hall. He finds Emma Wong at a desk piled with paper, her computer to one side. She is much younger than Walter imagined, younger than her reputation. Early forties, handsome, slim of course. Calm, intelligent, confident, a professional smile. She was the hottest thing on the literary end of the Toronto publishing scene, everyone said.

‘You’re from Newfoundland, how lucky.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re a friend of James Greydon, I understand.’

‘Yes, through Marie. He married a girl from home.’

‘James is a marvellous writer. God I wish I had more time. I’m really busy right now, I guess he told you.’

‘Yes. New York. Exciting. Why are you going there?’

‘There’s a writer I want to snag.’

‘I thought authors came looking for you, not the reverse.’

‘Both. I get scads of manuscripts. I reject nine tenths of what I even bother to read, by the way, so don’t get your hopes up. Did you bring anything with you?’

‘No, unfortunately. I wasn’t ready for this. I’ve been writing stories for a few years but haven’t published anything. But there sure are a lot of words on pages. I could show you some of what I’ve written on this trip, if you like.’

‘Well…sure.’ Emma stiffens slightly, then relaxes. ‘James says you are very good.’

‘Yeah, James likes me.’ Walter takes a sheaf of loose pages from his packsack and organizes them in his lap. Emma has a fixed smile. She is quite attractive.

‘You don’t have an idea for a book or anything?’

‘No. Sorry. Not yet. But I suspect there’s a novel in all the stuff I’ve been writing in my journal.’ Walter passes the pages across the desk.

‘Journal. I see.’ She reads. Walter waits, reaching again into his bag, giving her a moment.

‘The Wilderness Adventures of Walter Mills, is that it?’

‘I guess.’

‘Anything exciting happen?’

‘Maybe. I met an interesting woman on the trip. Meanwhile I’m thinking about another woman I had an affair with in St. John’s. I’m sort of waiting for something to emerge from that. I want to keep writing.’

Through narrow reading glasses she stares at Walter’s text. ‘I encourage you to do that. You’ll need a lot more than this to make a credible approach to a publisher, though.’ She reads a paragraph or two. It is neatly written. Walter waits. She smiles. Something has caught her fancy, perhaps.

‘Give me five minutes, will you? This is very unusual, but James…’

Walter leaves the office and goes to the reception desk. Sarah pours him a coffee. She is thin, 25, and blonde. She smiles seraphically as she asks, ‘Is Emma going to publish you?’

‘No, no, we’re not near that stage yet,’ Walter replies. ‘What about yourself? Does having a job here make you want to be a writer?’

‘I’m working on it. Everybody I know wants to be a writer.’ She pushes her hair back on one side, then the other. Walter likes her, identifies with her.

‘Is there a bathroom?’ he asks. He has finally noticed his hangover. When he comes out Emma is calling his name. He retakes the chair in her office.

‘Thanks, Walter, this is fairly interesting stuff. God, I haven’t read a handwritten manuscript in a while! I like the bear, very funny. But I have to say you write…crisply, almost coldly. There is a kind of emotional constriction, almost. Why don’t you cut loose a bit, let the guy feel something. Why are you so cautious?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t quite aware of that.’

‘Yeah, it’s worth a look.’

‘Definitely. I’m going to need an editor, I can see that.’

‘Be your own editor. Organize your own stuff. Work out the structure for a book and write two eye-popping chapters that a publisher can’t resist.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Walter says.

‘Exactly. You have to stand out in the crowd, you have to shine brighter than the others. I hate to tell you, but guys like you are a dime a dozen!’ She laughs.

‘I know, I know. I just wasn’t thinking of it that way, though.’ Walter laughs and then Emma does, again.

‘You have the touch, though. James has a good eye. Send me something when you’re ready.’ She smiles patiently. She is a good person. ‘Nice to meet you, Walter. I’m disgustingly busy, as you know…’

He stuffs his manuscript into his bag and jumps to his feet. She walks him to the reception desk. She is polite and self-assured. Sarah waves to him. He descends a long flight of stairs and passes through a glass door onto the bright street. It is hot again. He looks at his watch: nine-fifteen.

Bum’s rush, he thinks, then suppresses the thought. He is thinking about his novel. He heads out on the bike to find somewhere to write. He finds a place on Queen Street.

The Vanessa Chronicles, by Walter T. Mills. No, he has to change her name, of course. Jane, then, for now. And the male character, Eric. He thinks back to their first meeting – a scene he would need, obviously.

Eric sits at his desk at the company where he works. A secretary escorts Jane in and introduces her. She needs a service that Eric is the best at providing. Something like that. She needs to do – what?

Walter cannot use the real company or the real purpose of Vanessa’s visit to his actual workplace because everyone in town would know who he was talking about, or would think they did – St. John’s is that small a place.

But does it matter? Maybe such details could be avoided altogether. They are not important to the pith of the moment: when Eric sees Jane he starts, twisting his head around once and then again in a kind of double take, and for the whole time she is in his work area he trembles, his head awhirl, his tongue thick and awkward.

That is the gist of it: he is stricken.

But why? Why so quickly? He has never met her before. Is it is all about the way she looks? If so, what turn of jaw, style of hair, cast of eye or length of lash contribute? Or is it the smell of her, a subtle pheromonal compatibility?

Details are required. What is it that catches Eric’s eye and seizes his mind and, an instant later, his heart? Or should one speak of heart in this context at all? Isn’t it more a question of lust, plain and simple?

No, thinks Walter, it is surely more than that. How many women had he seen in the weeks and months and years preceding his first sight of Vanessa without anything like the same reaction? Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Even at the time it seemed the stuff of legends.

Jane’s beauty is particular to Eric. She is to him not just a beautiful woman but somehow more beautiful than any other woman. She is possibly not attractive at all to other men, but when Eric sees her something twists in his gut, something snaps in his head. He is instantly and unwittingly and uncontrollably afflicted. So is she, it turns out, though Eric does not know this until later.

Walter worries that however much he alters Vanessa by dressing her up and painting her face and trotting her out as a character in his story, no matter what details of her lifestyle and world view and behaviour patterns he changes to disguise her identity, everyone will know.

Worse, he fears that no matter what plot devices he invents to end the story, to save Eric from Jane, he will never entirely escape the torture of having known Vanessa without being able to possess her.

These are his thoughts at the time of this writing in the Bristol Tea Shop on Queen Street where he is drinking coffee and smoking Export A Lights at the back of the premises, on a wooden deck surrounded by a high latticework fence made of interwoven plywood strips, steamed and bent and stained, that bring to mind the old riddling fences he saw in Newfoundland as a youth just before they disappeared entirely.

Whatever it is in Jane that triggers Eric’s main switch and transforms him instantly, Walter knows he is going to have to do a lot of thinking to describe it. He resolves to work on the problem as soon as he is home in St. John’s.

When he arrives back at the apartment Marie is ready. He grabs his bags. He hugs James and thanks him. James, beaming, tells him how welcome he is, any time.

On the way to the airport Marie confesses that she and James are separating. Walter is dumbfounded. He exhibits concern but says nothing, hoping Marie will tell him more. She says, ‘I can tell you everything but you have to promise you won’t write anything about it. I’ve had bad experience with writers.’

Walter promises. He hears as much of the story as can be squeezed in on the expressway to the airport. Marie herself, it turns out…

But Walter is sworn to secrecy.

The plane is a cattle car. It lands in Halifax and Deer Lake and Gander. He has a middle seat between two large men. He sleeps a dozen times but never for long, never with any satisfaction.

He is home by eleven thirty, ten o’clock in Toronto. Silence. Cool St. John’s silence.

He listens to his phone messages. There is nothing relevant. There are three e-mails, one from his daughter Sandra. Janis was very pleased to meet you. She says you are good in the woods.

He is horny as the hobnails.

At midnight he calls Vanessa, lets the phone ring once and hangs up. That is the code. A minute later she calls him back. He asks her if she would like to come over for a drink. No, she can’t, she has to get up early and she is already in her pyjamas.

‘The red silk pyjamas?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Jack in bed?’

‘Yes, an hour ago.’

‘Well come over for a minute.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Well. I’ll see you tomorrow then.’

‘OK, yes, tomorrow.’

He sits to write a reply to Sandra. The phone rings. Vanessa has changed her mind. She can come over to see him for one half hour only, is that OK?

She uses her own key to get in. They sit on the couch and talk. She has changed her hair. A perm it is, just like his mother used to get. Her bangs and the streak of colour are gone. She looks older, less concerned with cuteness, appealing to a different audience entirely. No makeup, skinnier than before, smiling shyly, having a drink of gin and orange juice.

And then they kiss, tentatively at first, touching each other, trying it out, seeing if anything is there. Walter sits back, stretches out, half lies down, slings his legs over her lap.

‘You want me to lie down on top of you, don’t you.’

‘Yes.’ And she lies on him and they kiss and he runs his hands over her ass. Walter is exactly where he wants to be. Then she lifts her head and stares at him. She pushes herself up.

‘I am worried about Jack. What if he wakes up and finds me gone?’

‘That’s silly.’

‘Yeah, I guess it is. Anyway he knows I go for walks.’

‘And he’s at the office at the crack of dawn, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah, he never wakes up, even when I come to bed.’

‘How often do you make love?’

‘None of your business.’

Walter shifts to make room for her at the end of the couch. She lights a cigarette, picks up her drink.

‘How was the camping trip?’

‘Great.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Quetico.’

‘Just you and Sandra?’

‘No, she brought a friend.’

‘Woman?’

‘Yes. Janis.’

‘Sandra’s age?’

‘No, older. About your age.’

‘Cute?’

‘Sort of. We had a bear in the campsite and she frightened it away.’

‘Did you sleep with her?’

‘We had separate accommodations. The girls had their own tent.’

‘Did you make out with her?’

‘What do you mean, make out?’

‘Did you kiss her?’

‘I kissed her once.’

‘Did you touch her?’

‘No, not like that. It was very affectionate, a walk in the woods.’

‘Where did you touch her?’

‘On the body. Not on her tits or anywhere special.’

‘I wish I could believe that.’

‘Well you have to.’

Pause.

Drink.

‘Wouldn’t you be jealous if I made out with someone else?’

‘Not necessarily. But I don’t know for sure though because it hasn’t happened. Except with Jack, of course. But he’s your…’ Walter hesitates.

‘Husband,’ she says quickly, then sees the trap. ‘I don’t care, I hate to think of you with any other woman.’

‘There are no women, none at all. Are you available yourself?’

‘I want to make love with you but I am afraid you’ve picked up a disease.’

‘Not possible.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Believe me.’

‘I wish I could. Maybe tomorrow. God, I’m nervous.’ She finishes her drink and stands up. ‘Will you walk me home?’

It is a warm night. They stop behind the high stone wall under the big trees, out of the light. They embrace and hold each other for a full minute at least. Finally she pulls away.

‘It’s over,’ she says.

‘I doubt that.’

‘I am so guilty. I should never have done this with you.’

‘No, no, you needed to do it, if not with me then with someone else.’

‘But Jack would die if he knew.’

‘You think he hasn’t been fooling around on you? You even told Dorothy he was.’

‘I said that for effect. That ambitious little tart, I hate her.’

‘Only because she liked me.’

‘You took her home that night.’

‘We had pizza, that’s all.’

‘You lie to me.’

‘I don’t. You lie to yourself. You don’t love Jack.’

‘I’m totally screwed up. You have messed with my mind.’

‘You needed it.’

‘You hypnotized me. I never wanted any of this.’

‘You refuse to take responsibility for your own deliberate actions.’

‘You have preyed on me like a psychopath.’

‘You are a very naive person, do you know that?’

‘I can’t see you any more.’

‘You can hardly see me anyway. It won’t be much different.’

She begins to cry. Walter reaches for her but she shakes him off and turns away. He watches her walk the long driveway to the house. She uses the side door. At the top of the wooden stairs she turns and looks, lit by the garden lamp.

He walks home past the park. He speculates about Marie and James, scanning for clues. At home he pours a drink and sits to write. He is not tired at all…