It took him a while to gather his breath to speak. ‘Probably none,’ he said quietly, turning a dial on the machine.
‘Yeah. Maybe that wasn’t what I meant.’
‘I have to turn the lights out,’ he said, and he pushed the switch, and they were in red-tinged darkness. The flash from the process camera blurred across them and flared out. He reached out a hand in the crimson dark and stroked her hair, and he knew that his fingers were wet with the developing fluid, that she would carry the smell of the darkroom with her for the rest of the night. Her face in red shadow. He thought her eyes were closed, though he couldn’t be sure.
He stepped backwards and turned on the light. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, well. I have to run this through the developer now.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All right,’ and slid down from the stool, turning towards the door.
Laser photocoagulation is performed as an outpatient procedure. Each individual treatment should take less than one hour. Your ophthalmologist will tell you how many treatments your particular condition will require. If you have been diagnosed with proliferative retinopathy, you will probably require two or more treatments at two-week intervals.
You may experience some discomfort during and after the treatment. You will be given anaesthetic drops before treatment, which should minimize the discomfort. If your eyes are still causing you discomfort one week after the treatment, inform your ophthalmologist.
You may experience blurred vision immediately after the treatment. This should go away by itself. DO NOT attempt to drive home after the treatment. You should bring a friend to the clinic who can take you home. If your vision continues to be blurry for several days, inform your ophthalmologist.
‘I have an appointment for Monday morning,’ said Alex, putting the pamphlet back in his bag as they walked, after dark, towards Pottery Road. ‘That in itself is disturbing. I don’t like them treating it as an urgent case.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘No, I’ll be okay. I’ll just take a taxi back. But I did want to ask you – if you happen to be free. I wanted to take some photos of you this weekend.’ They passed by a man wearing a surgical mask, white gloves on his hands. ‘I know I’m being superstitious. It’s not going to make a big difference, not the first series of treatments, only if I have to, only if it comes back. So it’s not really that important but – I’d like to do it, if you have the time.’
Susie nodded. ‘I was going to spend tomorrow in the library. But Sunday, if you want.’
‘Late morning? The light’s good in the late morning.’
‘Sure. Whenever.’
Under snow-covered trees, they made their way down the hill, past the concrete divider with the black word FEAR on the side. High drifts surrounded the prancing wooden ponies of Fantasy Farms, and the glowing flower man was breathing out clouds of ice crystals, clutching a bouquet of plastic roses to his chest. Into the sketchy dreams of the city’s sunken veins, across the Don.
They climbed the steep hill at Bayview, scrambling and sliding up the slope where the brush cover was most scattered, sinking into the snow. By the time they reached the top, snow had clumped in Alex’s gloves and the creases of his coat, his boots had filled with a cold layer of it, freezing his ankles. He ran quickly over the railway track, thinking how he hated crossing it, though it was small and narrow and there was clearly no train anywhere nearby; he felt sure, irrationally sure, that an engine would loom up from nowhere and flatten him.
‘Should I wait up here?’ he asked, as they reached the sharp downslope, just above Derek’s underpass. Across the valley, he could see an array of lights, and above them a soft red glow in the sky, the city’s permanent day.
‘Come down a bit further,’ said Susie. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’ She brushed snow from her arms. ‘I’d like to have you in sight, I guess,’ she added, almost apologetically.
She went down the slope ahead of him, and stumbled, clinging to a branch, onto the level area; following her, he nearly fell himself, snow down his right side. As he found his footing on the bare ground, he heard the sound of a man crying. Susie stood still. Inside the tent, the sound went on, hiccuping, empty, desolate.
She walked to the tent. ‘Derek,’ she said softly. ‘Derek. It’s Susie-Paul.’
The crying sound stuttered and died away. Susie waited, squatting down, and slowly Derek crept out of the tent, his face still wet and crumpled. Under the emaciation and dirt and age he seemed somehow young, almost childlike.
‘I’m feeling very sad,’ he whispered.
‘I can tell,’ said Susie gently.
‘I was thinking about when we were small, and Mom and Dad killed our white horse.’
Susie pinched her lips together. ‘We never had a horse, Derek.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Derek, nodding. ‘We did. It was a white horse, and it spoke to us. But they killed it. There was blood all over. You cried and cried. I tried to comfort you.’
‘Okay. Sure. Let’s just not get into this now.’
‘They cut its head off. The blood got into your hair. That’s why your hair keeps changing colour.’
Susie put a hand to her hair automatically, then shook her head. ‘Derek. We need to talk about a place you can live.’
‘I’m doing very well here.’
‘I don’t think so. It’s getting really cold. It will get colder in January. I don’t want you living in a tent.’
‘You remember that horse. I know you remember. Mom held its mouth shut while Dad cut its head off with an axe. The blood went flying.’ Tears began to roll down his face again. ‘Oh. Oh. It used to talk to us. Baby sister. It would take us away to a place where we could be safe together.’ His voice broke up into little gasping sobs. ‘You cried and cried.’
Susie covered her face with her hands. Slowly, quietly, Alex moved towards them. Derek rocked back and forth and seemed not to notice him, and he knelt in the frozen mud beside Susie and put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, and for a second bent her head to the side so that her cheek touched his fingers.
‘Derek,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘I understand that you’re sad. My concern right now is the weather. It is too cold to be living outside.’
Derek wiped tears and mucus from his face and took several deep, shaky breaths. ‘Will you introduce me to your friend?’ he said.
Susie glanced at Alex and shrugged. ‘Derek, this is Alex Deveney. Alex, Derek Rae.’
He stretched out his hand. Alex slid off his glove and took it, and they shook briefly. Derek’s hand was trembling, and it felt wet and clammy and very cold.
‘I don’t think you can take proper care of my sister,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Alex. ‘I don’t suppose I can.’
‘I’m a grown woman, Derek. I take care of myself.’
Derek frowned. ‘But you’re still very little. You’re my baby girl.’
‘Let’s talk about this housing problem.’
‘They won’t let me come inside,’ said Derek. ‘You know that. They never let me come inside. They make me go out.’
‘Well, I’m trying to find a place that won’t make you go out.’
He shook his head. ‘They always make me go out. They tell me about the behaviour. They don’t understand my parameters.’
‘If you’d take your medication, we wouldn’t have so many problems with your parameters.’
Derek scowled and looked sideways, towards the concrete wall, twitching a bit. ‘We’ve discussed this before. I don’t need medication. I have my own self-regulatory system.’