He was just getting off the Broadway Local at Times Square, and trying to find the place where you go down the stairs for the crosstown shuttle to Grand Central, when they collided. “My God,” he said. “Faith!” For whole seconds he felt his waking vertigo (Adam’s dreams wore bells and motley, they were extravagant, their sense of humour was decidedly off-kilter) and dizziness nipped at his brain like a terrier. He thought he could hear a phone ringing; yes, he definitely heard the descant “pips” that signal a long-distance call in Australia. The conviction that he must have been changing trains at Circular Quay instead of in Manhattan was so intense that he saw the Sydney sky, very blue, and the Harbour Bridge, right there against the subway pillars. There was, in fact, a travel poster (Paul Hogan grinning, the bridge, the opera house, G’day, mate, come and see us Down Under for the Bicentennial); and so later he thought that this was the explanation; until later again when his daughter Robbie (the eldest of his three children, the one who forgave him least) phoned with the news of Faith’s death.
What do You think about Janette Turner Hospital Collected Stories (2015)?
