Death Spiral (35 page)

EPILOGUE

Hitting something, body instantly coming loose like a rag doll, hitting again.

And again.

A screech of sheering metal, a wing cartwheeling by, the canopy coming off and over on her side, spinning.

And pain. Something wrong somewhere. A warning coming down a telegraph wire, bicycling down a leafy small town street.

And stopping in a wash of petrol. And waiting for the whoosh and rush of flames.

It’s snowing out.

Shapes moving around in all this black tumbling smoke. Going away. Coming again. Voices, foreign and excited-sounding. Coming closer this time.

Snowing. Feathery. Floating all around.

A man stands in a long dark coat. He has rags on his feet. I look down at him looking up at me.

Black snow. Landing on my hands. And on my mouth. Turning into soot and grime. Into bits of hair. And skin.

And we are both amazed. A boy climbs up on my solitary wing.

And I am flying.

Flying.

And the boy is balancing beside me, wing-walking in his striped shirt and pants at four hundred miles an hour.

In his bare feet and up on his toes.

Clothes fluttering,

Holding on in all this raging smoke.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The genesis of
Death Spiral
can really be found in my previous novel,
Transgression
, which was about a young French girl who falls in love with a German soldier during the occupation of France, and who as a result was ostracized by her family, her community and all the world, or so it felt to her. It was about the harm we do to each other, both in small things such as this girl’s somewhat innocent transgression, and in something as vast as a world war. The puzzling question as to why we continue to feel compelled to inflict mayhem on each other was left as a kind of ghost shimmering between the lines. In
Death Spiral
this ghost is now front and centre and so I think it makes sense, at least artistically, to acknowledge this previous novel first of all.

I found the creation and writing of
Death Spiral
a kind of no-holds-barred psychic wrestling match, and so it was wonderful, as always, to have my wife, Judi, in my corner. But she’s much more than an excellent corner man. She’s a great no-nonsense first reader with amazing instincts. She’s a relentless editor. And quite simply, she is and has always been my one true and constant support.

There are also ghosts of the good kind hovering over this book, such as my grandfather who felt it necessary in 1916 with a wife and a young daughter and one glass eye to volunteer for the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, and who subsequently found himself fighting in Belgium where he was made a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. And my artist father who during the Second World War designed war bond posters and painted war scenes in front of my very young and impressionable eyes. And all the glamorous returning soldiers I looked up to after the war, the few exotic creatures that accompanied them called War Brides, the Displaced Persons that soon followed looking for any kind of employment. All very early influences, all crucial to this work.

I want to thank Kim McArthur for her immediate enthusiastic response on her first read of the manuscript, it made my heart do a back flip. Thanks to my editor Barbara Berson for all her insightful help, particularly around the deeper themes of the story. And thanks to Ted Boniface for once again bravely taking on the role of first outside reader and giving me back not only a welcome measure of confirmation but some key notes on places, times and facts.

And once again much gratitude to my representative Beverley Slopen, who trusts my instincts as a writer no matter where my mind goes, and who has worked and continues to work so effectively on my behalf.