Free Devotion by Howard Norman Page A

cupboard, took out a bottle of Irish whiskey, poured a shot glass, threw it back. Opened his notebook, scrawled in big sprawling letters YOU FUCKING IDIOT , then went out on the porch carrying the bottle and glass. He sat on the porch swing. Polishing off six shots in less than half an hour, he concluded that the collapse of all good things was due less to grim errors in judgment than to a self-destructive impulse natural to his character. He conjured up probably the most nefarious rationalization possible, in or out of his notebooks:
The sort of thing that happened in London would’ve happened sooner or later. Therefore Maggie’s better off without me.
    Out on the lawn he wandered aimlessly. He had one loafer on; the other was on the porch. It was now well toward dawn. A mile away, lobster boats were on the Bay of Fundy. The lobstermen would see the sun rising. But the pond and surrounding woods of the estate remained socked in with fog. David stumbled to the pen. Leaning against the gate, he said, “Sss-swans, swannies,” pathetic now, the alcohol stammer, and then he began calling the swans, “Here, Marcel, here Dr. H,” both characters from novels by Anatole
France. For a good two or three minutes, as he repeated the names, the swans didn’t react. Finally one trundled over to investigate, got close to David and then, as if a vaudeville cane had hooked its long neck, it effected a U-turn and joined the others near the trough.
    David lifted the latch, opened the gate and lay down, blocking the exit. Using outsize movements, like an escape artist loosening chains underwater, he removed his sweater, folded it into a pillow. “I promise I’ll go swimming with you, Dr. H,” he said, tucking his knees to his chest, closing his eyes. Half a dozen swans folded out from the corner like illustrated Japanese fans come alive. In a few moments David was dead to the world.
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    Naomi Bloor drove up in her jeep. Her bimonthly examinations were always scheduled for 7 A.M. When Naomi separated a swan out, it most often reacted in a predictable way, a kind of white explosion of wild-eyed protest, until she managed to embrace the swan, chortle “It’s okay, it’s okay,” or hum in a low monotone, then slip the leather hood over its head, at which point the swan generally stilled. She wore a catcher’s mask and chest protector, which she’d purchased in a sporting goods store in Truro. It didn’t always go smoothly. “Swans, behavior-wise,” she told David, “you have to be constantly on the alert. Seeming calm is their best trick. Because it’s right then you have to figure some nasty thought’s
just started to percolate in their swan brains. Wings suddenly flare out. Bony ends of the wings, the bill, both can do real damage.” Now and then she asked David to assist. Tasks such as holding a swan’s bill closed while Naomi put in eye drops.
    On another occasion, Naomi filled David in on how the swans came to be on the estate in the first place. “I get calls from all over this part of the province,” she said. “Kids shoot them. A storm caused one to collide with a radio tower, broke its wing. Things like that. Freak accidents. Years back, word got around, the Tecoskys take in wounded swans. I brought them one myself, first year I was the neighborhood vet. You might have noticed one can’t turn its neck back to preen? It was shot in the neck’s why.”
    Naomi was thirty-six, with dark blond hair cut in what she called a “serious pageboy.” She liked how it framed her narrow face. She typically wore overalls and a cotton shirt and lace-up boots, a utilitarian outfit. While earning her degree at the University of California, Davis, she’d married another student; the marriage didn’t last a year. Her first postgraduate posting was with a veterinary clinic in Regina, Saskatchewan. When that ended, she went