After their meal Anawak decamped to the Polar Lodge. Akesuk didn't try to persuade him to stay. He fetched the flowers from the little bedroom and put them on the table. 'You can always change your mind,' he said.

TWO HOURS REMAINED until the funeral. Anawak didn't leave his room, just lay on the bed and tried to sleep. He didn't know what else to do. Of course, there were plenty of things he could have done. He could have found someone to take him to Mallikjuaq, or maybe walked there himself. Tellik Inlet was still frozen and would have carried his weight. Or he could have asked Akesuk. No doubt he would have been delighted to drag him around half of Cape Dorset and introduce him to everyone personally. In Inuit settlements everyone was family, either by blood or marriage, and a tour of Cape Dorset, the capital of Inuit art, would be like wandering round a vast exhibition. But to be shown round by Akesuk would have been too much like the return of the prodigal son, and he didn't want anyone thinking that this was a homecoming. He was determined to maintain a safe distance. Allowing this world to get close to him would reopen old wounds. So instead he lay motionless on his bed, boring holes in the ceiling, until he finally dozed off.

His alarm clock roused him from his slumber.

As he stepped out of the Polar Lodge, the sun was already sinking on the horizon, but the sky was still bright. Across the frozen inlet, he saw Mallikjuaq, only a stone's throw across the ice. The lodge was on the north-east periphery of Cape Dorset, and the cemetery was on the other side of town. Anawak looked at his watch. Plenty of time. He'd arranged to meet Akesuk and drive to the church in the truck. Next to the Lodge, on the street leading down to the sea, was the Polar Supply Store. On closer inspection Anawak realised that the shop also offered a delivery service, vehicle hire and car repairs. The building seemed familiar, but the sign was new, and when Anawak walked in he didn't recognise the men behind the counter. They weren't local. The shop was cosy and cluttered on the inside, and sold practically everything from dried caribou sausages to fur-lined boots. Towards the back there were stacks of prints and numerous sculptures. It wasn't his world.

He went back out and wandered down the street towards town. An old man was sitting in front of his house on a wooden pallet, working on a sculpture of a loon. A little further down the road a woman was carving a falcon in white marble. They greeted him, and Anawak continued on his way, feeling their eyes on his back. The news of his arrival must have spread like wildfire. There wasn't any need for anyone to introduce him: they all knew that the son of Manumee Anawak had arrived in Cape Dorset to bury his father. No doubt he'd already set tongues wagging by staying at the Lodge instead of at his uncle's house.

Akesuk was waiting for him. It was only a few hundred metres to the Anglican church, but they drove. A crowd had gathered outside. Anawak asked if the people were there because of his father. Akesuk was astonished. 'Of course. Why else would they come?'

'I didn't know that he had… that he had so many friends.'

'These are the people he lived with. What does it matter if they were his friends? When a man dies, they all go with him on the final stage of the journey.'

THE BURIAL WAS short and unsentimental. Anawak had been obliged to shake hands with everyone before the ceremony. People whom he'd never set eyes on embraced him. The priest read from the Bible and said a prayer, then the body was lowered into a shallow hole, just deep enough to accommodate the coffin. A layer of blue plastic was placed on top, and the men dropped stones into the grave. The cross was askew in the hard ground, like all the other crosses in the graveyard. Akesuk pressed a small wooden box with a glass lid into Anawak's hands. Inside were some faded artificial flowers, a packet of cigarettes and a metal-capped bear's tooth. His uncle gave him a little shove, and Anawak walked obediently to the grave and set the box beside the cross.

Akesuk had asked whether he'd wanted to see his father one last time, but Anawak had declined. While the priest was still speaking, he tried to picture the man inside the coffin. It was hard to believe that anyone was in there at all. Suddenly he realised that the dead man would never do anything wrong again: his father was gone forever. Guilt and innocence stopped mattering. Whatever he'd done or failed to do in his lifetime became meaningless now that his plain coffin was surrounded by cold earth. For Anawak it had long since ceased to matter anyway. The old man had been dead to him for so many years that the burial seemed an overdue formality.

He'd stopped trying to make himself feel anything. All he wanted was to leave. To go home. Where was home? As the congregation began to sing, he experienced a sense of isolation. He was shivering, but it had nothing to do with the cold. He had thought of home and meant Vancouver or Tofino, but now he saw that it wasn't true.

Anawak was staring into a black hole. His field of vision narrowed, and the world spun. Darkness swept over him, as powerful and inevitable as a wave. He was like an animal in a trap, forced to watch as the dark rushed towards him.

'Leon.'

Panic coursed through him.

'Leon!'

Akesuk had grabbed his arm. Anawak stared in confusion at the wrinkled face and grey moustache.

'Is everything OK, boy?'

'No problem,' he murmured.

'Good God, you can barely keep upright,' Akesuk said, full of sympathy. The mourners turned.

'I'm OK, thanks, Iji.'

He could see what the others were thinking – and they couldn't have been more wrong. They assumed that it was part of the ritual of bereavement. There was nothing unusual about collapsing at the grave of a loved one – even if you were an Inuk and too proud to let anything break your will.

Except maybe alcohol and drugs.

Anawak felt nauseous.

He turned and strode across the graveyard. When he reached the church and felt the road beneath his feet, he felt an urge to run; but he didn't Heart pounding, he paced up and down. He wouldn't have known where to run to. None of the roads was marked for him.

HE HAD AN EARLY dinner at the Polar Lodge. Mary-Ann had prepared a meal for them, but Anawak had told his uncle that he wanted to be on his own. The old man had nodded briefly and dropped him at the hotel. There had been a sadness in his eyes that wasn't inspired by the thought of his nephew in silent communion with his father, as Anawak had led him to believe.

Hours went by, and Anawak lay on one of the twin beds in his room, staring at the TV. How could he survive another day in Cape Dorset without the memories overwhelming him? He'd booked the room for two nights because he'd assumed there'd be a will and other paperwork to deal with, but Akesuk had taken care of that already. There was no need for him to stay.

He decided to cancel the second night. He was bound to be able to get a flight to Iqaluit and, with a bit of luck, there'd be a spare seat on the plane to Montreal. From there he didn't care how long he had to wait for his connection. There was plenty to see in Montreal, and it was far enough from this hellhole at the end of the earth…

ANAWAK WAS DREAMING. He was in a plane, circling Vancouver, waiting for permission to land, but the control tower wouldn't let them. The pilot turned to him.

'They're not going to let us land. Vancouver and Tofino are out of the question.'

'Why?' yelped Anawak.

'We've made our enquiries. You don't live anywhere near here. We've got no record of a Leon Anawak. Ground Control says I have to take you home. Where do you want me to go?'