Frank slammed the phone down. If only he could think clearly. Things had gone too far. This whore and her evil offspring had conspired to ruin what little peace he had left in his life: his memories of Joan. What did they know about his marriage, about the happy years, the shock of Joan’s illness and the agony of her death, the agony he suffered with her? How could a woman like that know how much the ring meant to him? She probably hadn’t even tried to find it.

The next thing he knew, he was walking along the boardwalk. When he took stock of his surroundings and saw the ruffled blue of the lake and the tilted white sails of boats, heard the seagulls screech and the children play, he felt as if he were in one of those jump-frame videos he had seen on television once, with no idea how he got from one frame to the next, and with seconds, minutes, hours missing in between.

It was dark. That much he knew. Dark and the boy was at home. She was at work. He knew because he had followed her to the bar where she worked, watched her put on her apron and start serving drinks. He didn’t know where he had been or what he had done or dreamed all day, but now it was dark, the boy was at home and the gun lay heavy and warm in his pocket.

The boy, Daryl, simply opened the door and let him in. Such arrogance. Such cockiness. Frank could hardly believe it. The music was deafening.

‘Turn it off,’ he said.

Daryl shrugged and did so. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘My mother told me you’ve been pestering her. We should call the law on you. I’ll bet you’re one of those dirty old men, aren’t you? Are you trying to get in my mother’s pants? Or are you a pervert? Is it young boys you like?’ He struck a parody of a sexy pose.

Out of the window, Frank could see the upstairs light he had left on in his house over the laneway. Daryl was smoking, his free hand slapping against his baggies in time to some imaginary music. He wouldn’t keep still, kept walking up and down the room. Frank just stood there, by the door.

‘How old are you?’ Frank asked.

‘What’s it to you, pervert?’

‘Have you been taking drugs?’

‘What if I have? What are you going to do about it?’

‘Where’s my ring?’

He curled his upper lip back and laughed. ‘Bottom of the lake. Or maybe in the garbage. I don’t remember.’

‘Please,’ said Frank. ‘Where is it? It’s all I have left of her.’

‘Tough shit. Get a life, old man.’

‘You don’t understand.’

Daryl stopped pacing and thrust his chin out towards Frank. The tendons in his neck stood out like cables. ‘Yes, I do. You think I’m a fucking retard, don’t you, just like the teachers do? Well, fuck the lot of you. It was your wife’s ring. It’s all you’ve got to remember her by. Read my lips. I don’t fucking care!’

Blinking back the tears, Frank stuck his hand in his pocket for the gun. He actually felt his hand tighten around the handle and his finger slip into the trigger guard before he relaxed his grip and let go. At the time he didn’t know why he was doing it, but the next thing he knew he was walking down the stairs.

‘And stay away from us!’ he heard Daryl shout after him.

Out in the street, with no memory of going out the door, he found himself on the boardwalk again. It was dark and there was nobody else around except a man walking his dog. Frank went and sat out on the rocks. The lake stretched like black satin ahead of him, smudged with thin white moonlight. Water slopped around the rock at his feet and splashed over his ankles. He thought he could see lights over on the American side.

The next thing Frank knew he was at home and something like a thunderbolt cracked inside his head, filling it with light. It was all so clear now. It was time to let go. He laughed. So simple. From his window, he could see Daryl light another cigarette, hear the loud music. What did his feelings matter to Daryl or his mother? They didn’t. And why should they? Nothing really mattered now, but at least he knew what he had to do. He had known the moment he got close enough to Daryl to see the tattoo of a swastika on his cheek below his left eye.

Even though it was dark, Frank managed to arrange the stuff on his lawn. He was thinking clearly now. His life had regained its sense of continuity. No more jump-frame reality. The memory he had tried so hard to deny had forced itself on him now the ring was gone, the talisman that had protected him for so long. It wasn’t such a bad thing. In a way, he was free. It was all over.

It was a warm night. A raccoon snuffled around the neighbour’s garbage. It stopped and looked at Frank with its calm, black-ringed eyes. He moved forward and stamped his foot on the sidewalk to make it go away. It simply stared at him until it was ready to go, then it waddled arrogantly along the street. Far in the distance, a car engine revved. Other shapes detached themselves from the darkness and proved even more difficult to chase away than the raccoon, but Frank held his ground.

Carefully, he arranged the objects around him on the dark lawn. By the time he had finished, the sun was coming up, promising a perfect day for a lawn sale. Now that everything was neatly laid out, the memory was complete; he could keep nothing at bay.

What a death Joan’s had been. She had spent ten years doing it, in and out of hospital, one useless operation after another, night after sleepless night of agony despite the pills. He remembered now the times she had begged him to finish her, saying she would do it herself if she had the strength, if she could move without making the knives twist and cut up her insides.

And every time he let her down. He couldn’t do it, and he didn’t really know why. Surely if he really loved her, he told himself, he would have killed her to stop her suffering? But that argument didn’t work. He knew that he loved her, but he still couldn’t kill her.

Once, he stood over her for ten minutes holding a pillow in his hands, and he felt her willing him to push it down over her face. Her tongue was swollen, her gums had receded and her teeth were falling out. Every time he smoothed her head with his hand, tufts of dry hair stuck to his palm.

But he had thrown the cushion aside and run out of the house. Why couldn’t he do it? Because he couldn’t imagine life without her, no matter how much pain and anguish she suffered to stay with him, no matter how little she now resembled the wife he had married? Perhaps. Selfishness? Certainly. Cowardice? Yes.

At last she had gone. Not with a quiet whisper like a candle flame snuffed out, not gently, but with convulsions and loud screams as if fish hooks had ripped a bloody path through her insides.

And he remembered her last look at him, the bulging eyes, the blood trickling from her nose and mouth. How could he forget that look? Through all the final agony, through the knowledge that the release of death was only seconds away, the hard glint of accusation in her eyes was unmistakable.

Frank wiped the tears from his stubbly cheeks and held the gun on his lap as the sun grew warmer and the city came to life around him. Soon he would find the courage to do to himself what he hadn’t been able to do for the wife he loved, what he had only been able to do to some nameless German soldier who haunted his dreams. Soon.

By the time the tourists got here all they would see was an old man asleep amid the detritus of his life: the torso of a tailor’s dummy; yards of moth-eaten fabrics and folded patterns made of tissue paper; baking dishes; cake tins; cookie cutters shaped like hearts and lions; a silver cigarette lighter; a Nazi armband; a tattered copy of Mein Kampf; medals; a bayonet; a German dagger with a mother-of-pearl swastika inlaid in its handle.