“The apartment will be quiet,” they’d promised since they’d both be working the night shift. It was a loud downtown apartment close to George Street, the thumping bar noise intolerable, horns from traffic, drivers drunk and confused pulling into Water Street backwards, disrupting traffic.
When Angela and her mother had driven to town, a moose had come out of the forest, charging so quickly, Angela was instantly engulfed in its shadow. It came so close she could see its underside, shaggy hairs matted with muck and bits of spring green moss. Its hind muscles were bulky against lithe bone. Suddenly, without prodding, the hulking beast changed course, sparing the lives of Angela, her mother, and the baby.
“An Act of God,” Grandmother McCarthy said and crossed herself repeatedly.
“Moose never, ever change course,” everyone said.
They could have been killed.
Angela thought the moose had sensed the baby’s rapid heartbeat. Compelled by instinct, it had swerved to preserve the young life it sensed. Angela knew nothing about animals, or moose, but that’s what she thought.
So on the day they drove to catch the ferry with Jack brittle and nervous at the wheel, mood as sharp as glass, she worried little, lulled into a sense of grace by the rapid heartbeat in her belly.
“Moose come out at dawn and dusk, don’t they?” Angela asked.
“You’re thinking of mosquitoes,” Jack said sourly.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Angela mumbled and took her eyes off the road to assemble lunches of cheese and sandwiches for the girls.
After lunch they stopped for gas just outside of Stephenville.
“Washroom key’s at the till,” the high-school boy pumping gas said. His beanie was emblazoned with a Quebec Nordiques emblem.
They bought a small brown paper bag filled with penny candy, yellow and orange chewy cones and five-cent sour jelly candy drenched in coarse sugar. The store smelled of flour. There were fillets of dried salt cod, gutted and spread like stingrays, in cardboard boxes next to the till.
“Can I get you some?” the chubby cashier asked and gestured to the cod.
Angela and Jack both shook their heads.
“God only knows the next time we’ll have dried cod,” Angela said.
Jack looked away.
They’d had cod last night at their going-away party. It had never tasted so fresh — buttery soft, chalk white, and saltier than the ocean — it was one of the best meals they’d had in a long time. The party was held at Jack’s parents’. It was a bleak evening, cold and rainy, sparsely attended — not too many left in town to see them off — no music, no grand speeches, awkward and depressing, save for the food.
Angela ran her finger over the edge of the cardboard box with the cod in it. She wanted to take the silvery wet-dog scent of the dried fish with her.
“You sure you don’t want any?” the cashier asked.
Back on the road, the fog had lifted. They cruised through several bay towns and saw lovely homes, all in shades from a springtime palette, almost Easter-egg looking, pass by, homes snug by the shore or at various altitudes against rock cliffs overlooking the ocean.
When they arrived at the ferry, Jack paid for their passage with a small packet of bills he took from his wallet. He had all the money for the trip allotted into envelopes marked for their purposes. This one said FERRY in block letters across the front. He had others marked HOTEL, FOOD, and GAS. His fingers shook nervously as he handed over the money. He’d better have calculated correctly; this was all he had.
As they waited with the queue of cars leaving Newfoundland, Jack stared straight ahead while Angela sang with the girls and played “I spy with my little eye.”
Too much green, he thought, watching the hills in the distance, crowded with balsam fir. Too much blue, he thought and watched the vast ocean swelling before them. Rats leaving a sinking ship, he thought as he drove the car onboard. All of us, scurrying away, in desperate hope for something better.
Once aboard the ferry they went up on deck to let the girls watch the water.
The metallic grey steel and cranberry-red-trimmed ferry hissed in the winter air, icicles hanging off the upper deck and railways like crooked, arthritic fingers. The deep Atlantic churned and spat underneath the motor.
Harried moms, resigned dads, and excited children lounged on deck. They watched the land recede from the heavy boat that crawled across the channel to the mainland.
Angela had gone to the tiny café for snacks. Jack sat slumped on the upper deck, Lily in his lap, Maggie and Kate beside him. They hung over the rail to point at the great granite rock dotted with emerald trees, covered with the filaments of the first snowfall.
Tears drifted down his face and mixed with the salty spray from the ocean, flung up by the stir of the winter wind and the force of the engine underneath him.
Angela returned with bags of salt and vinegar chips. She avoided his eyes and gave him a few moments to stare uninterrupted at the grey block of land, shrunk to the size of a mere pebble — a stone skipped across the ocean — before it was swallowed by sky.
The girls ate their chips quickly, clumps of salt on their fingers, eager to run and play in the open air. Lily drifted off to sleep in Angela’s arms. Angela rummaged through her bag to find one of the leftover sandwiches. She found one and tore off chunks of bread, manoeuvred the sloppy meat and lettuce into her mouth, losing the crust altogether. She was feeding the baby in her belly, which continued to swell like high tide. Strangely saddened by the prospect of this new baby, who would most likely be delivered in Alberta, not in Brighton by Dr. Nelson and his team of enthusiastic student nurses from St. John’s; who would not hear Newfoundland music on a daily basis, or smell the ocean or taste the salt cod and fresh potatoes with drawn butter or eat beet salads and pickled beets, or suck on Purity biscuits or peppermint knobs.
Her little Albertan would eat beef, lots of it, probably, and be raised amongst strangers in a strange new land, filled with local customs that Angela would be oblivious to, and would most likely embarrass herself and her children as she tried to adapt to them. She knew, of course, what the women would be like. She’d been to town dozens of times, noticed the women in the fancy stores on Water Street and at the Avalon Mall, who spoke a little quicker, flourished about a little more dramatically. She knew she stood out as someone from “out-around-the-bay,” and she knew they’d stand out even more around Western strangers.
A few hours later Cape Breton Island came into view, flatter than Newfoundland, humble, obedient, and peaceful, its dales shallow and round as a ripe belly. Impish and mysterious, Cape Breton Island looked warm and inviting with soft, rolling hills and gentle shores.
One of the ferry workers, an old man with a Stephenville accent, walked slowly onto the upper deck and swept debris into the dustbin, all kinds of soiled napkins, clear plastic sandwich wrap, and discarded Styrofoam cups with used tea bags inside that huddled like a dead animal behind a clump of wet leaves.
He was short and skinny, clean-shaven with a slack mouth, the corner of which was reserved permanently for the simple pleasure of a dangling cigarette. His lips were twisted, the lips of an old-timer who can smoke and talk at the same time, muscle habits honed from years of salted conversations with sailors and deck-men.
He tapped Angela’s foot lightly with his broom. She opened her eyes and lifted her head heavily from Jack’s slumped, protective chest. They had fallen asleep, Jack propped up against one of the ship’s railing posts, the girls still leaning over the edge of the boat, staring curiously at Cape Breton Island.
“Missus, are you done with your lunch? I’ve got to clear up, so if you’d move them legs a little, my love.”
Angela moved her leg away from his prodding broom.
“Where you goin?” he asked and his blue eyes twinkled.
“Alberta.”
“Miners?”
Angela nodded.
“I’ve seen a lot go up there over the last litt
le while, and I’ve seen just as many come back,” he said and chuckled softly. “I daresay I wouldn’t be able to make it up there on my own, but if I had a pretty wife like you by my side, well then I just might be able to.”
Angela smiled and laughed She looked expectantly towards the shoreline and avoided Jack’s flat face, full of defeat and fear.
The ferry docked amidst a circus of aluminum, an industrial area with a slew of tarnished cars parked along the waterfront. Weather-beaten vehicles, punctured by wind, rain, and snow. Driving off the ramp, Jack felt agitated. This was it. They’d left. One last glance back at the navy-blue ocean, white thumbs of foam incessantly twiddling over themselves. The hand of fate had slapped him to this shore, this city on the edge of the country. From here they’d have to drive for days, possibly weeks on end over a cold, slithery, grey road that snaked across the country through forest and rock, over rivers and lakes, and in this weather.
They found a motel and Angela stretched out on the bed.
“We’re hungry,” she said and rubbed her belly.
“Fried chicken?” Jack asked.
Angela nodded.
He drove for ten minutes and found a fried chicken spot.
“Newfie?” the woman at the counter asked.
“Yes,” Jack said.
“My husband is a Newfoundlander from Harbour Grace,” she said.
Jack felt a pang of nostalgia. He’d been out there once as a child. His Uncle Martin lived there. He remembered the half-sunken ship in the bay, tilted to one side, rusted and dented, with whale-sized holes in the stern. How they’d skip stones for hours, try to sail the rocks through the holes. They’d stay all day until the sun itself seemed to sink into the ocean.
Jack’s loneliness eased. This plump woman, smothering chicken legs in a flour and spice coating, apron flecked with hot grease splotches, had warmed his heart.
“Enjoy,” she called out.
Jack cradled the bucket of chicken under his arm and waved. The woman winked as she wiped down the saltshaker and pricked the encrusted holes with a toothpick.
The next morning they were on the road. The car was slathered with slushy winter rain. The wipers heaved through the mire with all the might of a plow. Jacked pulled over at the first gas station and they sat in the coffee shop, waiting for the weather to clear up.
“The girls want more hot chocolate,” Angela said.
Jack pulled a few dollars from his pocket. Chocolate turned into lunch, and lunch turned into snacks, and snacks turned into dinner.
“We’ll have to go back to the motel, try again tomorrow,” Jack said irritably.
Angela took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and nodded.
By the next morning the wet snow had relented into dry flurries. Jack didn’t stop driving once they were on the road. They made it all the way through the forests and pulp mills and lakes to the edge of New Brunswick.
Katie read aloud the road sign that said EDMUNDSTON.
“Are we there yet?” Maggie asked.
“Not yet.”
“But Katie said we were in Edmonton,” Maggie said.
Angela and Jack smiled and winked at each other.
The next afternoon they arrived in Quebec. The St. Lawrence River was a light airy blue; cascades of ice had wrinkled the edges. They stopped at a diner just outside Quebec City. Angela ordered the fattest slice of pecan pie she’d ever seen. The filling was a deep mud brown, not light amber like she would have back home.
The waitress frowned at the children. A French pop song played on the radio.
“I’ve always wanted to learn French,” Angela said.
“Oh,” Jack said absent-mindedly.
Angela watched him quietly and licked her fork, a candied husked pecan split down the middle, porcelain white flesh like a dislodged tooth, wedged in the prong.
“More tea,” he said to the waitress who hovered about with mop in hand, ready to clean up the mess made by the children.
Jack kept his tea off the table, held it, and rotated the cup around in his palms, warmth spreading through his knuckles. Being on the road for this long was strange to him. The tension in his neck, nerves in his groin tightening and releasing as he kept his foot tight over the gas pedal. The carrying on Angela did with the kids, the noise, the games, the crying.
As they filed into the washroom, Jack relished the break. When they returned he put down the empty teacup and rose to get the door. Weary and aware of the task ahead, he put on a smile and hoisted Lily on his neck. He carried her to the car and strapped her into her car seat.
That night they stayed in a motel outside of St. Jerome. Jack had longed to stop in Montreal and show Angela the shops, old Montreal, and the Basilica. She’d love the big church. But he’d kept driving; it was snowing and the roads were getting clogged.
“Snow’s no better here,” Angela said, emerging from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her wet hair. The television was on, and the forecast predicted more snow all across southern Ontario and the north. “Do we have to keep going?”
“We’ll just have to plow through,” Jack said.
The next morning they drove steadily, making it west of Ottawa by lunchtime. Along the highway Maggie had spotted a pair of golden arches. The girls begged Jack to stop. He pulled over at the next service station along the highway and reversed, heading back east to get to the McDonalds. Katie and Maggie sprang from their seats and ran into the restaurant. The smell of starch and hot grease enveloped them, the shrill buzzing of the fountain pop machine and the slush of ice cubes. Katie and Maggie ran around the interior then returned, their faces tear-stained and bewildered.
“What’s wrong?” Angela asked as she buckled Lily in the ketchup-stained high chair.
“Ronald McDonald and Grimace and Hamburgler aren’t here,” Maggie said.
“Don’t worry, my love, we’ll get you a toy version,” Jack said. He returned a few minutes later with a tray of Happy Meals, Cokes, and burgers for Angela and himself. He slipped on an open pack of vinegar and the tray upended. The mess of food was drenched with cola; ice cubes squashed some of the steaming fries. The head of the toy Hamburgler snapped off and rolled under a vinyl booth.
Angela bit her lip. Jack sank to the floor as the girls wailed and clamoured around him in the hopes of rescuing the food. Angela wanted to curse. She wanted to smack him. The manager came over. Angela looked sheepishly at him.
“It’s alright, we’ll get you another order,” he said and asked one of the high-school kids to clean up the mess.
Jack sat down and avoided Angela’s eyes. The manager returned with a full tray of food.
Jack ate silently, the girls happy enough with their plastic toys, Angela with no more time for anger, the burger satiating the pangs in her belly.
By nightfall they were outside of Orillia. They stopped in a motel and in the morning swept the cloddish drift of snow from the windshield and drove until they were outside of Sudbury.
“Anyone you know working in the nickel belt here?” Angela asked.
“Used to be, but the mining strike has turned this town upside down,” Jack said.
The sable roadside rock looked as if it had been painted with soot.
“Mining did that,” Jack said and pointed at the rock.
The ebony hills allowed the world above to get a glimpse of the mining world below: the charred rock, scraped of all its worth, so much like the deep, dark canyons underground that the miners colonized, gnashed, and tore at, year after year, for survival and providence. Posterity unheard of, you took from the rock all you could, and all you could now, never worrying about the future or how some town or city would look when you were through. Raven hills be damned.
The scant snow seemed gauzy, a light webbing spread over the town and rocks, temporarily dressing the wounds left by miners, a snow easily blown away by a driving wind. It swirled over the windshield. The growing cold formed a damask-patterned print of frost on the windows of the
car as it slunk slowly along the highway.
“We should stop for the night,” Angela said.
They pulled in at the next motel. The room was cheap, airy, and cold. They spent the night under woollen blankets Angela had pulled from the trunk — itchy and thick as dried scabs.
It took the better part of the next day to reach Sault Ste. Marie. The leaden snow had covered the roads. Plows removing snow and spraying salt moved at glacial speeds. The children, barely visible behind a mountain of toys, fought over each toy the other picked up.
“For the love of —” Jack shouted angrily.
“Honey,” Angela said soothingly.
Jack turned up the radio to drown out the noise. A nerve in his leg was throbbing. It was time to stop and find another motel and get something to eat. At the dimly lit restaurant in the roadside motel on the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, the waitress placed Jack’s order before him. He bit into the small butterscotch brown pie crust. He thought it would be filled with beef. It was sweet and sticky and tasted of cinnamon.
“The menu said mincemeat pie,” Jack said. Angela had a loose string of mozzarella cheese hanging from her chin. She took a bite of his pie and her nose wrinkled.
“That’s not ground beef,” she said.
When the waitress returned with apple juice and soup for the girls, she told them it was, in fact, a mincemeat pie.
“It can’t be, it’s not ground beef,” Jack said.
“A mincemeat pie is made with raisins and currants and spices,” the surly waitress said. She walked away languorously, collected used plates and cups, dropped peas on the floor, and smashed them underfoot with her salt-stained Ski-Doo boots.
Jack shrugged. Baffled, Angela raised her palms.
Things are called different here, Jack thought. It’s like a whole new language. Like French, only harder because you’re supposed to know what things are. That mincemeat isn’t ground beef. If you thought otherwise you’d be looked at like you had evolved no higher than the ground yourself.
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