The Last Woman by John Bemrose

was said that long ago he killed a man. “Killed his man,” as people put it, as if for every man another man was reserved for just that purpose.
“You escape from the hospital, Fred?”
“Rather die out here,” says the rasping voice. “Ten minutes out here worth a year in there.”
They stand without speaking. Billy feels no particular discomfort: on Pine Island silence is as much a form of communication as words. Billy has nothing to say, and perhaps Fred doesn’t either, but how will they know unless they wait for a while? As if prompted by the same thought, they both turn toward the lake, where, far off, a few gulls are circling. “My grandfather had a dream,” Fred says, and pauses to take another drag. There are ordinary dreams, and there are dreams that float up from the heart of things – dreams told to few and handed down like heirlooms. For a while Fred squints toward the lake. “When all the trees are gone, the people will be gone too.”
Fred tosses away his butt and for a few seconds watches it fume beside a rock. “But then what did those old farts know anyways, eh?” He shuffles away, leaving Billy with the sense the remark was aimed at him. By launching the claim, he had ignored the advice of several elders. Others, including Matt, had supported him. The divisions had spread until a kind of civil war had infected the Island. Friends had stopped speaking to each other. Old feuds took on fresh momentum. Apparently, it isn’t over yet. He watches the old man go off. In the open back of his gown chevrons of fat, spotted with bedsores, quiver with each step.

As the days go by, Billy has the deepening sense that something’s coming unstrung. The sun isn’t just hot, it bites. The lake doesn’t look right. Passages between islands have turned into pastures of dried mud. There are new animals in the bush, new birds in the sky: the old folk talk of it constantly. Several times he’s woken to the cries of people drinking and fighting; once to the stertorous roar of a chainsaw – no good sign at four a.m. And in the morning, blood on a rock, licked by a dog.
Yes, something’s unravelling, something so old, so basic, so taken for granted, so beyond the power of ordinary words to describe, that now it’s coming apart, people can only feel angry and confused.
And yet, the limpid evenings come as always. Out on Nigushi, the islands drift in purple and mauve. He thinks of Ann Scott often. In the kitchen, as she wept for her father, he had touched her shoulder: he can still feel the coolness of her skin. She had told him they were going to Black Falls the next day. Rowan was starting hockey camp. Richard had his usual appointments. He thinks about Richard – this new, substantial Richard, pompously aloof one minute, genial the next. Over dessert, Billy had caught him gazing at him, those small bearlike eyes bright with some unreadable emotion. Richard had looked quickly away.
Yvonne throws a barbeque to welcome him home. People sit around the yard on chairs while the smell of burgers floats from the grill. Billy sits chatting with friends,pleased to discover he still has a few on Pine Island. His niece, Brenda, wants to play catch with a beach ball. The little girl laughs when he lets it bounce off his face and runs off to twine herself around her father’s legs.
On the high porch overhead, the kitchen door opens and slaps shut.
“Jimmy!” Yvonne calls. “Come down and see your uncle.”
Billy’s nephew was three or four when he left. Now, looking up, Billy sees a long-haired teenager peering over the rail. A good-looking, smooth-skinned face. Widely set eyes – Johnson eyes. As the boy comes down the stairs, Billy gets to his feet, galvanized by a sudden sense of youth, family.
For a while they make hesitant small talk. After a few minutes Jimmy collects a handful of sandwiches and drifts off to an empty chair. His nephew wants to be an underwater engineer, Yvonne has told Billy. “There were