Vertigo

“Twenty-six thousand at the last count.” Werry gave him a humorous glance. “We still call it a city, though. When the provinces all became autonomous and got their own governments they wanted to be as much like real honest-to-God countries as they could, so they didn’t issue charters for anything but cities. There aren’t any villages or towns in Alberta. Just cities. Hundreds of them.” He laughed and flicked up the peak of his cap, his bonhomie apparently fully restored.

“I see.” Hasson tried to digest the information. “And how many men in your department?”

“Actually on the street — four. That was half of my force you saw disappearing into Ro

“It doesn’t seem enough men.”

“I manage — and the job carries the official rank of reeve. If I transfer to a big city it’ll be as reeve.”

Hasson tried to visualise ways of ru

“This is it,” Werry said cheerfully. “Rob, you’ll have your feet under the table in no time.”

Hasson tried to smile. Just remember, Dr Colebrook had told him once, a person who has had a nervous breakdown and dealt with it successfully is far better equipped to face life than somebody who has never been through the experience. The battle for self-control reveals i

He was looking around him, smothered and tapped, when a door at the end of the hall was opened by a woman of about thirty. She was of medium height and fair haired, with a lean- hipped yet busty figure, and the exact kind of full-lipped, sulky good looks that Hasson had seen in a hundred old fiat-screen movies in cinema clubs. This he thought, was the saloon girl who enjoyed her work, the gangster’s girl friend, the chick on the back of the big bike, the roadside café waitress for whose favours truck drivers beat each other down with chair legs. She was dressed for the multiple part, in high-heeled shoes, toreador pants and a white T-shirt, Hasson was unable to meet her gaze.

“May,” Werry said, his voice filled with omnidirectional pride, “I’d like you to meet my cousin, Rob Haldane. He’s been travelling for days and he’s hungry. Isn’t that right, Rob?”

“That’s right.” Hasson agreed, accepting that there was no diplomatic way of making Werry see that his principal requirement was for solitude and rest. “How do you do?”

“Hello, Rob.” May took his extended hand, and on the instant of contact gave him a sudden smile, coy and direct at the same time, as though some unexpected human chemistry had been worked, taking her by surprise. The trick was so unsubtle that it embarrassed Hasson, and yet he immediately felt flattered.

Werry beamed at them both. “We ought to have a drink. What did you do with the bottle, Rob?”

“Here.” Hasson discovered he had slipped the bottle of whisky into his topcoat pocket. He was in the act of producing it when they were joined in the hail by a sharp-featured, thin-shouldered woman of about sixty. She was modishly dressed as though about to set off for a party, with an abundance of jewellery and hair tinted to match her coppertex suit.

“And this is Gi

“Pleased.” She looked up at Hasson through narrowed eyes and made no move to shake hands. “You’re the one who nearly killed hisself in a car.”

Hasson was taken aback. “That’s right.”

“Haven’t they got any good hospitals back in England?”

“Now, Gi

“He needs it,” Gi

“Were you about to have a belt?” she said, forestalling him, glancing significantly at the bottle in his hand. “If you need it, go right ahead and have it — the smell doesn’t bother me.”

The phrases which Hasson so desperately needed to put together collided with those which were already swirling in his mind, rendering him even more incapable of speech than before. He turned to the others in the little group. Werry was nodding eagerly, expectantly, as though enjoying a bantering contest between life-long friends: May was still regarding him with wide- eyed, misty candour, projecting waves of startled tenderness. Hasson suppressed an urge to flee. “That’s my bottle, Gi

“Why didn’t he say so?” Gi

“That Gi

Hasson smiled in return, strickenly, wondering how insensitive it was possible for a man to be. “I’m a bit tired. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go up to my room.”

“You’ve hardly touched this,” Werry said disappointedly, holding the whisky bottle up to the light. “I got it specially for you.”

“Thanks, but I’m. . . Is my room upstairs?”

“Follow me.” Werry picked up the larger pair of cases and led the way up the narrow stair. He installed Hasson in a pleasant square room which had a double bed and framed photographs of ice hockey teams on the walls. The furnishings were modern except for one glass-fronted bookcase filled with dark cloth-bound volumes whose titles had been eroded to isolated specks of gold or silver. There were two windows admitting a white light whose main direction was upwards, reflected from the snow outside, creating am airy ambience similar to that of the passenger cabin of the flying boat in which he had crossed the Atlantic. Hasson surveyed the room, seeing it with a presternatural clarity which came from the knowledge that it was to be his private fortress for months to come. He checked that there was a lock on the door and almost at once picked out the best place to set up a portable television.