Chapter 11
Dirk
Walt greets me at choirrehearsal in his usual, hearty way, with the same huge handshake, a slap on the back and a laugh like we’re teenagers again; like he’s dreamed up some new game I can’t refuse; like life’s for living.
It was Walt who got me onto the soccer team back in college, goalie, Walt who convinced me to take my medical exams again the year I failed – after the head injury – and Walt whose recent endorsement got me to move back to the city again from Franklin when the rest of the family forcefully suggested it.
“Why the heck not, Dirk, old boy?” he said. “Why stay in the middle of nowhere and drown in misery? You never actually liked the place.”
That’s the trouble with Walt. He remembers everything. I’d forgotten I only moved to Franklin cause Millie was in love with her family home and thought it the best place to raise our family. She was right. At least the kids had a textbook childhood – all bike-riding and jumping in the leaves, and snow fights and ponies. But they were in college themselves before we knew it, the big house almost empty, and Millie slowly signing out.
Walt’s friendship was a lifeline, and the minute I moved back to the city, he hauled me into this Christmas choir.
“Nothing to it, Dirk,” he’d said. “All you gotta do is turn up and open your mouth.”
It’s been a bit more than that, like learning parts, but at least the rest of the choir made me welcome. That first rehearsal, I worried they’d mob me like Millie’s friends, all doe eyes and sympathy, but city folk are different. Everyone smiled and sang, and then rushed away, back to their busy lives. They left Walt and me to stack the chairs.
I’ll admit I like our rehearsals, turning my brain off for a couple of hours to follow the conductor’s baton, and Walt is mischievous as ever afterwards.
“Come on, Dirk,” he says. “One for the road. Rhonda doesn’t mind. Likes it when I leave her in peace a little longer. New bar. Fancy.”
He takes me by the arm and steers me away, two blocks behind the church hall, and there it is, the lights behind the bottles glowing like honey, beckoning us inside, and a young crowd in there; city people, dressed in black, tossing back expensive wines and whiskies.
“Just one,” I say. “Something red” and he’s back a few minutes later with one of those fancy glasses without a stem, as if wine and wine glasses have only just been invented.
A waiter turns up with a small black dish of green olives, and Walt dives straight in. I pick one up, admire the glossy orb, stick it in my mouth and wince at the salty assault, even stronger when my teeth pierce the skin.
“Met anyone yet?” he says.
“Only if you count the woman I spilled coffee on a few days ago. In Jill’s store – Jill was not impressed.”
“Ah Jill. Your sister. How’s she doing?”
“Store’s looking great. Boys are giving her the runaround.”
“You’re a good man, Dirk. Gonna go sort 'em out?”
I shrug. My own children brought themselves up, or Millie was a magician. Either way, I wasn’t there to see it, almost always busy in my practice or at the hospital handling decades of need; a flow of illnesses and injuries that never stopped. I loved my work – healing the injured and improving lives was a great privilege when the treatments were effective – but I was over it by the time I sold my clinic.
“You’re doing it again, Dirk.”
“Huh?”
“Going silent on me.”
“Oh. That.”
