“I guess that’s the sea?” I pointed at the bottom of the canvas.
“Yis.” The back of her hook traced the outline of the fisherman. “And that’s my John in his dory.”
“God rest his soul,” the other women said in unison.
“It’s for Linda,” Lucille said. “For Christmas.”
“She loved her dad,” said Biddy.
I knew what that was like. I sat slowly back on the daybed.
“Ah, he was a good man,” Lucille said. She stopped hooking and twisted her wedding ring. “He used to plait Linda’s hair every morning before school, remember?”
The other women nodded. Then Biddy said, “He used to say he was practising his knots, but sure we all knew he did it for Linda. She always had the most complicated concoctions in her hair.”
Lucille sighed. “She made me cut it all off after he died.”
“He was taken too soon,” Biddy said.
“What happened?” I whispered so low I wasn’t sure anyone would hear.
“He went out fishing one day and never came home,” said Lucille, her voice matter of fact. “Like his father and his brother.”
“Like too many,” said Biddy.
“Like Doug’s father,” I said.
The four women exchanged glances at this, and I thought I saw Lucille shake her head a little.
“My dad died this year,” I said, surprising myself with this disclosure.
“My dear,” said Lucille, putting down her handiwork and putting an arm around me. “I can’t believe you never said. I thought he was in Australia with your mother.”
I stayed quiet, conscious that tears were forming in my eyes.
“Tell me something about your dad, now,” Lucille said, patting my shoulder. “Grief is best shared. Like laughter and music, I s’pose.”
“He was a teacher,” I said.
“Well, isn’t it grand that you’re a teacher too?” said Biddy. “My dear, he’s looking down at you and he’s some proud.”
It felt good to have talked about Dad, however briefly, with these women. After a minute, Lucille picked up her hooking again. Biddy caught my eye and nodded at me as if to say, You’re safe here. I pushed myself off the daybed to go inspect her handiwork and the other women’s.
Flossie and Annie sat side by side, their hooks moving in time. Flossie was working on a small house with the ever-present sea behind it. Annie’s rug was much more detailed: a woman in a red dress and a white apron stood in a grassy yard, pegging sheets to a clothesline. Flossie and Annie hooked like Lucille, row by row. Biddy hooked freestyle. Her design featured a woman kneeling in a wooded area, picking blueberries. I marvelled as her hook roamed the surface of the burlap.
When I remarked on her style, she said, “Ah sure, as long as you fills it in, it don’t matter how. I likes to meander.”
As the women hooked, the scenes unfolded rapidly. It amazed me that they were creating such vivid works of art from bits of burlap, recycled wool and cast-off garments. But they brushed aside my words of praise.
“Ah, go on with you,” said Lucille. “It’s only a bit to rest your toes on.”
“You knows yourself,” said Flossie.
“Sure anyone could make these,” added Biddy.
“Well, I couldn’t,” I said. “They’d make great Christmas presents.”
“I’ve yaffles of them upstairs,” said Biddy. “You can have any you want, sure.” She put aside her frame. “Come on up and take a gander.”
“Smoke break, then,” said Lucille. I startled, but then I remembered I hadn’t said how Dad had died. Lucille lit cigarettes for Annie and Flossie, then for herself, inhaling, then exhaling with a contented sigh.
I was glad to follow Biddy upstairs. “You don’t smoke?” she asked.
“No. Do you?”
“No. That’s what killed me brother. Lung cancer.”
I grabbed the bannister. “My father too.”
Biddy stopped climbing. “It’s a terrible way to go,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
After a minute we started climbing again.
“You don’t mind them smoking here?” I asked, gesturing down the stairs.
“Ah sure, they’ve few enough pleasures,” said Biddy. “Widows, the lot of them.”
“Not you?” I asked, figuring when in Rome.
She was waiting at the top of the stairs now and touched the bloom on her cheek. “I got a face only a mother could love,” she said. But I loved it already.
An old iron bed dominated the small bedroom to the right of the stairs. A faded pink-chenille bedspread was laden with hooked rugs. I ran my hands over them, exclaiming at the fish, birds, dories and rural scenes.
“They’re gorgeous,” I said. “I couldn’t possibly choose.”
“Think on it,” she said. “Come back next Friday if you’ve no plans.”
If? I nearly said.
On the way back down the stairs, I was ahead of Biddy, and she patted my back softly. “You come back to us any evening you likes,” she said.
Once we were back downstairs, Biddy asked the other women, “How’re ye all getting on? Is it time for a drop?”
When they concurred, Biddy took a bottle of sherry down from the cupboard and laid it on a tray of glasses, which tinkled as she slid it along the table. Lucille sloshed sherry into her glass and returned to the daybed. Flossie poured slowly, alternating between two glasses, stopping to ensure her careful measures were equal, before giving one to Annie. Biddy handed me the bottle. “You do the honours, my dear.” I poured a serving somewhere between modest and generous.
I sipped the sherry, trying not to shudder visibly at its sweetness. By my second glass, the shudders were gone.
“Tell us now,” said Biddy, “how are you making out over to the school?”
Leery of possible relations or other connections the women might have with the school community, I spoke generally. I said it was good to put into practice the theories I’d learned at teachers’ college. I didn’t mention my difficulties or the loneliness I felt, especially now that Doug seemed to hate me. I bypassed the frustration of teaching someone like Calvin and the thrill I felt when Cynthia spoke French so beautifully.
During a subsequent lull in the conversation, it occurred to me that Cynthia and Calvin were the yin and yang of my teaching. Calvin loathed French, me and school, while Cynthia loved all three. Calvin’s future was uncertain, Cynthia’s looked golden.
I was jolted back to the conversation when Flossie said she’d heard that Brigid Roche had been seen in St. John’s and asked what would happen if she came back to Little Cove.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she landed back here with the Irish toothache,” said Annie, brandishing her glass for a refill.
Biddy tutted. “Annie, you’re shocking, you are. Don’t mind her, Rachel.”
Lucille said, “Rachel, when you’re done pouring for Annie, pass ’e over.”
I topped up Annie’s glass, then Lucille’s, but Flossie and Biddy both demurred.
“What’s an Irish toothache?” I asked, filling my own glass.
Lucille breathed out a stream of smoke as she answered. “Bun in the oven.” She drew an exaggerated pregnant belly in the air.
“But what if Brigid do come back?” Flossie persisted. “What’ll happen to Rachel?”
Lucille stubbed out her cigarette and reached for her hooking. “Rachel’s got a one-year contract with the Board,” she answered on my behalf. “If Brigid comes back, I allows she’ll have to wait ’til Rachel’s year is up.”
“Speaking of bun in the oven,” said Annie. “Georgie’s is starting to rise.”
“It’s such a sin for Georgie,” said Lucille.
Anger flashed in me as I wondered if I’d misjudged these women who had seemed so kind. But then Biddy said, “Yis, maid. She has to drop out and Charlie gets to stay on. It’s a proper sin.”
“’Twas ever thus,” said Annie.
“And ever shall be,” Flossie replied.
“But it shouldn’t be,” I said, mostly to myself.
10
The women went back to their hooking and chatting. I was knocked flat on the daybed wondering what proof the sherry was. My mother sometimes reminisced about her single days when she used to sip sherry on the front porch with her own mother. I had a whole new respect for their livers. That made me wonder what time it was in Australia and what my mom was doing right then.
Isn’t it odd, I realized. Mom and I are alone, far from home, and separated from each other in our grief. Lucille was right—grief was best shared. I hoped my mother had found someone in whom to confide over in Australia. I made a mental note to ask her when she next called me. If we were going to repair our relationship, at some point we’d have to speak about the tough stuff.
A faint knocking had been going on for a while in the background, but as none of the women reacted, I decided it must be a branch tapping on a window. Then it became more of a banging.
“Who in God’s name is at the door?” said Lucille.
“No one knocks with good news,” Flossie said. “Must be some bad, else they’d be in here by now.”
They were still debating the best course of action when the door finally opened, sending gusts of wind into the kitchen.
“Geraldine!” cried Biddy, rising nimbly from the rocking chair to embrace the blonde in the doorway. “My dear, you’re too long in St. John’s picking up them fancy ways. Imagine knocking at your own aunt’s door.”
Biddy’s niece was beautiful. There was no other word for her. Her hair was impossibly straight, her complexion flawless, her smile wide.
“You needs to get that door fixed, Biddy,” said Geraldine. “It was stuck.”
“I’ll have a word with Phonse, by and by,” said Biddy. “Now come in out of it ’til we gets a look at you.”
I fought my way up from the depths of the daybed, waiting to be introduced. The women clustered around Geraldine, exclaiming over every part of her.
“Loves your coat,” said Annie. “Some style on ya, girl.”
“How’s the hospital?” Lucille asked. “You running it yet?”
There was laughter and more questions.
Then Geraldine fetched a chair from the hall and sat down beside her aunt.
“I’ll not stop long,” she said. “Mam will be waiting.”
“My little sister can wait,” said Biddy. “She’s into town to see you all the time. I haven’t set sight on you in weeks.”
I stood up and put a steadying hand on the wall. “I should go.”
Biddy clucked. “Here’s me forgetting my manners. This,” she said, putting a hand to Geraldine’s cheek, “is my lovely niece Geraldine who’s a nurse in St. John’s.”
“Call me Geri,” she said. “Please. It might convince Biddy.” She smiled and patted her aunt’s hand. “I’ve only been asking her for six months. You must be Rachel. Doug’s told me about you.”
“He has?”
“Well, sure. He’s some glad to have another new teacher, so it’s not just him that’s a rookie, right?”
“Is Doug your . . . ?”
“He’s her boyfriend,” said Biddy.
Geri grimaced briefly and seemed about to say something, then stopped herself. But maybe I was wrong; my head was spinning from the sherry. “I’ll see you at home, Lucille,” I said, then waved goodbye to everyone and lurched towards the door.
As I staggered up the road to Lucille’s, a cloud crossed over the moon, rendering the night darker and my progress slower. I fumbled with the gate latch, then made for the house. Once inside, I didn’t bother turning on the hall light, but felt my way along the wall to the living room. I flung myself on the nearest couch, doilies scattering like snowflakes. I grabbed the phone, my finger shaking as I turned the dial. When Sheila answered, I shouted down the line at her.
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
“Who? Jake?”
“No!” I said. “Doug.”
“Who’s Doug?”
“He’s a teacher here.”
“The one that took you fishing?”
“Yes. But he’s mad at me now, because of the English club. And he’s got a girlfriend called Gerald.”
Sheila said nothing.
“And she seems really nice, too,” I added.
“Who?”
“Gerald! Keep up, Sheila.”
There was a long silence and then Sheila said, “Rachel, have you been drinking?”
“Just some sherry with the hookers,” I sniffed.
“What hookers? Rachel, you’re making no sense.”
I closed my eyes, my grip on the receiver loosening, my thoughts drifting. Sheila waited for further details that never came. After a minute, she jumped in.
“Okay, so Doug has a girlfriend. Do you like him?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then why does it matter? And what’s this about an English club? I thought you were teaching French?”
I told her about my gaffe.
“Oh boy, you do like to stick your foot in it from time to time.”
“I know.”
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“I don’t think he’ll tell anyone,” I said. “But he’s mad at me. My head hurts. I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay,” Sheila said. “But listen, cut yourself some slack. You’ve been through so much—your dad, Jake, the move down there and all the other stuff.”
I listened to Sheila make excuses on my behalf for a while longer before saying goodbye.
I staggered up the stairs and onto my bed, fully clothed, wrapping Lucille’s quilt around me. I replayed all the conversations I’d had with Doug since my arrival in Little Cove, the sherry helping me skip lightly over the remedial English incident. Why hadn’t Doug or anyone else mentioned Geri? Then I remembered Lucille saying Geri wouldn’t go fishing with Doug, but I’d heard it as Gerry.
What had perfect Geri said tonight? Doug was glad to have another rookie teacher so he wasn’t alone. I was a teammate, or had been, until Doug put me in the penalty box. Now I had to find a way to apologize. So far, Doug seemed to be my best bet for a local friend. I didn’t want to lose that over my own stupidity.
My thoughts turned to Jake. Hearing Sheila say his name had brought back the awful scene on the night of my graduation party. Mom had insisted on throwing a party to mark my graduation from university even though neither of us felt like celebrating so soon after Dad’s death.
“Your dad would’ve wanted you to celebrate your achievements,” she’d said. And in the end, I’d agreed.
The party had started so well. It was a warm evening in late May, with a slight breeze that rattled the patio lanterns in time to the music. Clusters of friends and family chatted and sipped champagne. My cousin Pete was tending the makeshift bar and Uncle Scott was at the barbecue ready to grill. Jake and Sheila were standing by the pool chatting, and I remember thinking how lucky I was to have those two people in my life: my best friend since kindergarten and the kindest, most thoughtful guy I’d ever met. They had both propped me and my mother up in the sad days following my father’s diagnosis, and all the way through his deterioration and death.
When I checked in with Pete at the bar, he held up an empty champagne bottle and I said I’d get some reinforcements. As I opened the fridge in the kitchen, I heard my mom talking to someone at the front door. Well, my mom was talking, the other person was shouting.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, “you seem quite upset, but I don’t know you, so I’d like you to wait here while I get Rachel.”
Champagne bottle in hand, I reached the hall, but by then the girl was pushing past Mom. She fixed her wild eyes on me and I stepped back against the wall. Then, following the noise of the party, she ran towards the patio doors, screaming Jake’s name. Mom took the champagne from me and we quickly followed her outside. We found her on the deck, scanning the crowd. Th
ere was a patch of damp on her red tank top and a large birthmark on her left shoulder. I reached out and tapped it.
“Hey,” I said.
But then she spotted Jake and bolted. He had his back to us, but Sheila didn’t. As the girl got closer to Jake, Sheila’s smile shrank away.
“You fucking bastard,” the girl screamed. “You said you were breaking up with her.”
Jake turned around, lips screwed up. He looked from her to me, and I knew this girl was not lying. People were pointing and whispering behind their hands to each other. Then the stranger shoved Sheila hard, sending her into the swimming pool.
There was a collective intake of breath, and then Jake screamed, “That’s not even her!” As if that changed anything. The song “I Want to Know What Love Is” was playing in the background, and I remember thinking, I thought I knew.
Jake and my cousin Pete escorted the girl out of the backyard. I averted my eyes as they walked past. Sheila emerged, dripping, from the pool, and my mom handed her a towel.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“You know I always like to make a big splash,” she said.
I just about managed a smile before I started shaking. My mom put her arm around me. One by one my friends approached, murmuring platitudes and saying goodbyes, despite my mom’s pleas that they should at least eat something.
Sheila went up to my room to borrow some dry clothes. Then the few of us who remained—Mom, Sheila, Uncle Scott and Pete—collected bottles and glasses. Uncle Scott insisted we eat some of the food he’d barbecued. We sat down to eat, but I kept getting up for things from the kitchen: more napkins, a jug of water, ketchup. When I came back from yet another trip, Sheila pulled me into the seat beside her and rubbed my back. We were picking at our food when Jake walked around the side of the house.
“He’s got some nerve,” Sheila said.
“Someone make him leave, please,” I said.
Uncle Scott stood up and walked towards Jake. He kept coming, palms raised, as if approaching a wild beast. “Rachel, please let me explain.”
“Unless you can tell me that girl was delusional and there’s nothing between you, I never want to see you again,” I shouted.
New Girl in Little Cove Page 7