New Girl in Little Cove

by Damhnait Monaghan

  “Oh, forget it.” He brushed past me. “I don’t know why I cares anyway.”

  “Doug, wait,” I said, but he kept on walking.

  I rubbed my eyes in frustration. Then, worried I’d smudged my mascara, I went to the women’s bathroom. As I repaired my eyes, I spoke to my reflection in the mirror.

  “I don’t know why I care either. He’s got a girlfriend, anyway.”

  “Is that you, Rachel?” a voice called from one of the cubicles. “Who are you talking to?” A toilet flushed and Sister Mary Catherine emerged.

  “Would you believe, Sister,” I said, “I’m talking to myself. I thought I was alone.”

  I made to leave, but she positioned herself in front of the door.

  “We are never truly alone,” she said. “God is always with us. He sees what you do.” Her eyes drilled into mine. “And so do I.”

  I put one hand on the wall for support.

  “My dear, I have seen you and Mr. Bishop together.” She spat the last word out like a bit of spoiled fruit. “I think that young man may be developing feelings for you. We can ill afford another scandal at St. Jude’s.”

  “There’s no scandal.”

  “Good,” she said. “But I’m asking you to remember your position as a Catholic teacher, all the same.”

  Years of Catholic schooling had taught me there was only one acceptable answer.

  “Yes, Sister.”

  So, Doug was mad at me again. What else was new? I put any thoughts of him aside and went to see Patrick about setting up a French club. Doug would not be getting any credit for the idea from me.

  “Excellent idea, my dear,” he said. “I loves how you gets stuck right in.”

  I paled at the thought of how differently the conversation might have gone if I’d raised the possibility of a remedial English club. Patrick suggested I announce the club right away at assembly.

  Ten minutes later, I gripped the podium and looked out at the student body, filling them in on my plan. The general vibe in the gym was boredom. Cynthia was sitting near the front, eyes down, fiddling with her pencil case.

  “We’ll meet at lunchtime on Wednesdays,” I said. “Everyone’s welcome, even if you aren’t studying French. We’ll look at French culture: food, music, films. And I’m going to try to bring in some guest speakers.”

  No one looked at me. No one cared.

  “Does anyone have any questions?”

  No one raised a hand.

  “We’ll do role plays, too. Ordering in restaurants, job interviews . . .” I was boring myself at this point. “So I hope to see many of you there!”

  My first lesson after assembly was senior French, a class mostly made up of girls. I unrolled a picture of Francis Cabrel, all long hair and moustache, and pinned it to the bulletin board. “In French club next week, we’ll listen to the music of Francis Cabrel, but today I thought I’d give you a taster.”

  I inserted the cassette. “This song is called ‘Je l’aime à mourir,’ which basically translates to ‘I love her to death.’” I waited for the collective swoon and was not disappointed. I pressed play and we listened to Cabrel crooning about his lover.

  “Oh, miss, what does it all mean?” asked Beverley in a breathless voice.

  “You’ll have to come to French club to find out.”

  After class I asked Cynthia to stay back. She hadn’t done her homework and just before Christmas had failed a pop quiz. It was sloppy, careless work: missing accents and incorrect subject-verb agreements. I was disappointed because she’d been my star student. When I asked her about it, she refused to meet my eye.

  “I forgot to study,” she said.

  The old Cynthia wouldn’t have needed to study. She would’ve known the material cold.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Cynthia?” I asked.

  “Best kind, miss.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “Oh, miss,” she pleaded. “Can I go please?”

  “See you at French club?”

  “I can’t be bothered with that foolishness,” she said.

  I tried not to let her comment sting.

  Two days later I held the first meeting of the French club. The posters I’d pinned up in the halls hadn’t enticed many members. A few girls in my senior French class showed up, but not Cynthia. I gave them each a ditto sheet with the lyrics for two Cabrel songs and we listened to them a few times. By the third time around, Beverley was singing along. Then we broke down the lyrics.

  As I’d hoped, seeing grammar and vocabulary in a song helped bring the language alive. We finished with some role play about music; the girls concocted dialogues about visiting a music store and talking about favourite bands. Despite the chatter as the girls filed out, it didn’t feel like much of a success. Five girls who were already interested in French had joined the club. I would have to up my game if I was going to get better attendance.

  The following week I marched into school laden down with plastic containers, dishes and cutlery. Phonse met me at the door, relieving me of some of the load. “Staff party?” he asked. “Mr. Donovan never said nothing.”

  “French club,” I said. “The way to a student’s brain is through their stomach.”

  I visited each homeroom before the bell, handing out chocolate chip cookies to everyone. I told them if they came to French club, there’d be even more food on offer.

  At noon, I cleared my desk and covered it with a red-and-white checked tablecloth. I stuck a small French flag in a vase and sliced a loaf of white bread, next to which I put a bowl of jam. I poured apple juice and grape juice into clear plastic cups, and for the pièce de résistance, I placed a cake in the middle of the table.

  The five girls who’d come to the first meeting were back, along with a few students from grade nine. Sam loitered in the doorway but sheepishly joined the others when I beckoned. I pretended to be a waitress, handing each of them a menu/vocabulary list. The specials were a poor man’s version of croissants and jam, red and white wine, and gâteau. Beverley joined in straight away, asking for red wine and a croissant. With some coaxing, the others gradually followed suit. By the end of the session, most had ordered something en français and all of them had eaten my wares.

  “Miss,” said Tim, a boy in grade nine. “Any of them cookies on the go or wha?”

  “They were more of a bribe . . . I mean treat.”

  “They were some good, though.”

  “Tell you what, if you bring a friend along next week, I’ll bring a double batch of cookies.”

  Sam stayed behind to help clean up, stacking the empty plastic cups. I told him I had a guest speaker lined up for the next meeting. “It’s a corporal from the Clayville RCMP. So I know you’ll want to come along and hear him.”

  “Yes, miss,” he said. “Merci!”

  Pleased with the little progress I’d made, I assigned no homework at all that afternoon. I was taking the evening off, and so could my students. But, as I tidied my desk at the end of the day, I heard shouting in the hall.

  “Where’s that goddamn meddling blood of a bitch French teacher?”

  As the footsteps came closer, I looked around in desperation. Then I grabbed my pointer and stood behind my desk. Into the classroom charged a tall man wearing jeans and construction boots, a baseball cap on his head. It was Roy Sullivan.

  “You and that Quebec crap,” he raged. “You got no right to tell my son what to do outside school hours. Batter to Jesus, luh.”

  “S-sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “Sam’s after saying he can’t help me out on Wednesday because he’s got French club. You got no right to keep him here at lunchtime. We wants him home. Plenty of small jobs to be done in the off season, before fishing starts up again.”

  “I thought it might help him with—”

  “With what? The RCMP?” His mouth twisted. “I’m after telling him a dozen times to give up with that foolishness. Don’t you be encouraging him,
you hear? He’ll be fishing with me, like I fished with my fadder and him with his fadder before me. Stay the hell away from my son.”

  “Roy?” Patrick strode into the room. “What’s all the commotion?”

  Sam’s father flicked his hand at me dismissively. “This one needs to keep her oar in her own boat.” And he strode past Patrick and out the door.

  I sank down in my chair, still clutching the pointer and shaking.

  “Christ on a bike,” said Patrick. “That man’s a hard ticket.” He sat down on a desk and smiled at me. “Listen to me now, Rachel. Judy and I are right impressed with this French club. Don’t mind that arsehole.”

  The next morning Sam came to see me. “Miss, I’m some stunned. I forgot I needs to help out at home on Wednesday so I won’t make the RCMP talk.”

  “Your father came to see me,” I said, gently.

  He blanched. “Sorry, miss. Was he right mean?”

  “He feels strongly about fishing, I guess.”

  Sam’s face sagged. “I hates it, miss. I’m not like Dad, or me brother. I gets right sick out at sea.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then said, “I don’t care, I’m still coming. I can, can’t I?”

  “You’re welcome any time, Sam,” I said.

  I was heartened by his fleeting smile, but I was also worried about what would happen if Sam did come back next week. I didn’t want to experience a repeat visit from his father.

  25

  Even though Doug was still acting cool towards me, he was my go-to for advice on local customs, so I ambushed him in his classroom the next morning.

  “Can you talk to me about fishing, please?”

  He tossed his pen down and folded his hands behind his head. “What about it?”

  I filled him in briefly on the tirade from Sam’s father.

  “Don’t mind him,” said Doug. “That man’s as crooked as sin. Never seen him smile, not once.”

  “But what is it about fishing? Why do they make kids do it, even when they don’t want to?”

  “Don’t go tarring us all with Roy Sullivan’s brush,” Doug said. “Dad didn’t make me fish. Took me out and showed me the ropes, sure, and I was glad of it. But he would’ve been all right with me going off to do something else, too.”

  “But you like fishing.” That had been clear when he’d taken me out in his boat.

  He nodded. “Yes, girl. Loves a bit of fishing. It’s as much our religion as the Church. There’ll be men fishing these waters as long as there’s cod swimming in them. But it’s hard graft, and even before Dad died, I didn’t want it. And after . . . well, I wouldn’t do that to Mudder.”

  I pictured his glamorous mother in her wheelchair. “Doug, what happened to your mother? I mean, if it’s okay for me to ask.”

  The corners of his mouth drooped. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime,” he said. “But not now.” He looked at his watch. “Bell’s about to go.”

  I was glad to hear that he’d confide in me sometime about his mother. And it seemed he wasn’t mad at me anymore.

  “Thanks for the talk,” I said. “Remember when you said Newfoundlanders were a cult?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, you’re my guru.”

  He laughed. “I’ll add it to my list of skills.”

  I gave him a little wave and had reached the door when he said, “Hey, fiddle girl, how d’you like that cassette I made you for Christmas?”

  So Doug had given it to me. I liked the cassette even more now that I knew its provenance.

  “I loves it, my son.”

  Doug threw back his head and laughed. I danced all the way back to my classroom. If Newfoundlanders were a cult, I felt ready to join.

  It had been freakishly mild for several weeks, but halfway through the first lesson of the morning, the snow began to fall, thick and fast. By mid-morning Patrick had called the buses back, and by noon the students were gone. I was brushing snow from my car when Patrick came outside, sliding towards me in his shoes.

  “Road to Clayville’s shut,” he shouted above the wind. “Lucille says you can stay with her.” He gestured out at the road where the gravel had disappeared from sight, and added, “You might be better walking up if you can bear it. The roads are bad here too.”

  I locked my car and left it, trudging up the hill towards Lucille’s. The wind was impossible; the snow swirled in every direction, blowing down my neck and under my top. When I’d reached the halfway mark up the hill, Eddie Churchill pulled in, the chains on his tires crunching in the snow. He reached across and opened the passenger door. “Hop in,” he shouted over the wind.

  “Some weather, wha,” he said. “I’ll get you up to Lucille’s.” He added there’d been a bad accident on the Clayville road right before the RCMP shut it. “Best to sit tight.”

  Lucille was at the kitchen table smoking when I went in, stamping my wet boots on the floor. “You don’t need a storm to come visit, you know,” she called. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

  Over tea, she told me that her daughter Linda was now engaged and we talked about wedding plans for a while. After I yawned a few times, Lucille suggested I go up to my old bedroom and have a lie-down.

  “It’s that kind of day, girl,” she said.

  It was strange to be back in my old room. I lay on the bed and wrapped a quilt around me. The wind screamed at the window and its panes rattled right back. I didn’t think I’d sleep, but I woke later, freezing in the dark. When I tried to turn on the bedside lamp, it didn’t work.

  Downstairs, Lucille was working on a crossword by the light of three candles.

  “Power’s out,” she said. “I allows the wind knocked down some lines. I never made it to the shop, but there’s bread and bologna. Fancy a drop?”

  She went to the cupboard and took down a bottle of rum and two glasses. I drank mine with warm cola; Lucille took hers neat, smoking steadily as we worked our way through the bottle and the crossword. I hadn’t eaten much and the rum went straight to my head. On my way up to bed, I had to hold onto the bannister with one hand, a candle flickering wildly in the other.

  The moon shone bright through the lacy ice whorls on the window. I drifted off, dreaming of Doug. We were waltzing at the pub in Mardy and he was whispering “Fiddle girl” in my ear.

  I woke, what seemed minutes later, to the sound of pots banging in the kitchen. The smell of breakfast cooking enticed me down the stairs.

  “Power’s back on,” Lucille said. “I’m cooking up a feast.”

  We stuffed ourselves on bacon and eggs, and toutons with maple syrup. I asked for seconds of the toutons. As Lucille obliged, she gleefully reminded me how I’d turned my nose up at the fried bread dough the first time she’d served it.

  When we were finished eating, I offered to do the dishes, so Lucille sat with a cigarette while I washed up. When the last pan had been scrubbed, I told Lucille I was going for a walk.

  She wrinkled her nose. “In this weather? You best watch out for rot holes.”

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Soft spots in the snow that you could fall into.”

  “Maybe the roads are plowed,” I said.

  “Hmph. They won’t have got out this far so early in the morning.”

  As usual, Lucille was right. Snow lay thick on the road and the brightly coloured houses were muted under a heavy white trim. Plumes of smoke rose straight in the air from many of them. Abandoned cars lay buried under a thick white duvet.

  The cold seeped through my boots, and it wasn’t long before I turned back towards Lucille’s. Nearing the path that led to the wharf, I heard shouting. Someone in a light blue coat ran towards me, hands waving in the air. It was Belinda.

  “Miss,” she cried. “It’s Ruthie, Calvin’s dog. She’s trapped.”

  I hurried down the path and we ran towards the wharf together. Twice I had to grab Belinda’s sleeve to catch my balance. As we reached the wharf, I saw the dog paddling frantically ou
t in the bay between two large slabs of ice. Calvin was at the end of the wharf calling to her. When we arrived at his side, he latched on to me.

  “Miss, can you save her?” His voice caught. “I tried twice to get out there, but the ice is breaking and I don’t know how to swim.”

  Instinct kicked in and I ran to the steps that led from the side of the wharf to the frozen sea. Thankfully, someone had shovelled them.

  “No, miss,” Belinda yelled. “It’s not safe.”

  “We can’t just leave her,” I shouted back.

  Belinda called out that I should wait and she’d go get help, but I was already at the bottom of the steps. The ice was windswept, and as I shuffled along, I could hear a crackling beneath me. I edged towards the dog, holding my breath, as if that would somehow make a difference.

  “Rachel!” The cry cut through the cold air. “Get the hell back here!”

  Doug was standing beside Calvin on the wharf.

  “I’ll be right back,” I called.

  Then Calvin shouted, “Good girl, Ruthie. Miss is coming to save you.”

  I slid carefully over to where the ice ended and the open water began. I squatted down, making a clicking noise to try and coax Ruthie towards me. She paddled over, whining frantically. I grabbed her collar and tried to pull her out, but she was too heavy. She began thrashing about, her paws making the water churn.

  I called her over again and tried to grab her around her torso, but my mittens slid right off her icy coat. She thrashed away from me, bleating now like a lamb.

  “Come on, girl,” I crooned.

  She splashed back again, her movements more frantic, her whining louder. I lay down on the ice and tried to pull her out, but again lost my grip. She drifted away, paddling more slowly now and quietly whimpering.

  “Don’t give up, girl,” I pleaded, standing back up and looking around desperately.

  “Miss, do something!” yelled Calvin.

  I jumped in.

  Doug screamed my name as the cold water hit me like a fist. Ruthie splashed over, paws scratching my face until I pushed her away. My hands were numb already, but I managed to grab her collar. She licked my face repeatedly.