What They Wanted

by Donna Morrissey

  “Did it leave you with something?” I asked him. “Like, when you woke up, did you feel—different?”

  He nodded. “Felt good. Like this nicest feeling.” He started back chewing his fingers, saying no more. I tried to think of something to say. I didn’t need to, though; Chris’s dream spoke louder than me at that moment, and carried more significance.

  A night breeze ruffles the water. I huddle deeper into my sweater. Mother’s in the kitchen again, chiding Kyle for being up so late, ushering him off to bed. “Sylvie!”she calls. “Kyle, is your sister in?”

  “Think so.” Kyle’s door closes softly. I more feel than hear Mother coming across the kitchen and I hunch closer to the house, making myself small so’s not to be seen should she look through the window. Her footsteps fade as she walks back down the hallway, closes her door. She’s like that since the accident, wanting us all inside before she goes to bed, taking several walkabouts sometimes before finally settling into sleep.

  Most times I like her fussing. But there are times when I wish to be alone. When I wish to think on dreams. For I dream too, now. Not often—and they’re coming further and further apart. But for now, they are my cookie bag, my father’s whisky. They leave me with something. Like Gran, I want the lights on at night, and lie for long hours on my bed some evenings, watching the quivering flame of Gran’s lamp on the ceiling, unable to sleep yet sensing life ebb away from me on the outside and become two rivers of feeling within me, one flowing towards time and tomorrow, the other flowing backwards, seeking its source. It feels like those times I used to stand by the footbridge in Cooney Arm, looking towards Mother’s house and looking back to Gran’s, always feeling halfways home. Sometimes I have to stave off thought before lowering the wick and turning into my pillow, so’s to clear an empty space in case he should come tonight. For like Grandfather Now, I am his stormy sea that he needs to sit and keep watch over during those nights I flounder amidst dreams of self-damnation, no matter my declarations of innocence during daylight thinking hours.

  He doesn’t awaken me. For he understands the way of dreams, that they speak in the language of the netherworld that exists beneath words and clouded thought; he understands that dreams are our truth beneath our language of lies, those lies that we will ourselves to believe but deep, deep down we don’t believe at all. And when finally the waters abate, either from exhaustion or some disturbance, like Kyle coughing in the next room or Mother’s door creaking as she takes another walk through the house, he comes. Like a beacon of light he is with me. The place always changes, but his heart is one with mine.

  The first time he came we were in a green room, the colour of my room in Gran’s house, and he was lying on the bed beside me; he was naked and his skin felt like crushed velvet as he held my sobbing body next to his, assuring me, It’s not your fault, Sis, it’s not your fault.

  Another time he sat on the edge of the bathtub as I scrubbed my face over the sink, and he asked me how he’d died, that he had no knowing of how it happened, only that it had.

  Another time he told me it was fine to grieve because he was grieving, too—it’s like that here, he said, we grieve too, for a while.

  Each time he comes I am his troubled sister, searching for peace. Each time he leaves I awaken to a warm heart and a stomach that feels like it’s floating on a sea of love. For hours I walk or simply sit, revelling in such utter tranquility it feels as though I’m drugged, beautifully drugged. By midmorning I’m lying on my bed again, the pain in my belly so deep I’m unable to straighten my legs.

  But he’s becoming weary, now. And he’s coming less and less, his precious gifts of tranquility becoming shorter and shorter. Once, I offered him a job, sweeping the school floors, a safe job. He looked at me sadly, no longer able to speak. He is fading, yet I hold on to him. I weigh him like an anchor. I am his ghost, no different from the haunts in Cooney Arm, anchoring him to a life he can no longer live. And in being his ghost, I have imprisoned parts of myself once more. Like Gran, I must learn to let go. I must learn to relinquish him so’s we can both be freed. Else, like Grandfather Now, he will become little more than a restless phantom, a haunt to himself and the life he once lived. And I, a slave once more to split-off parts of me, and perhaps this time with no caring Mother being able to deliver me from the darkness.

  In time, I will let go. But not yet. Just not yet. And I already know that it will be Chris who releases me … but that is another story …

  There is one last thing—I will speak quickly. Ben made it home for the funeral, but then left again. Not for Trapp this time. He’d brought Trapp home as he intended, left him fishing for shrimp and crab alongside his father and uncles in Ragged Rock. Ben’s travelling for himself now. To find himself, he said. He looked sheepish in saying that, for it sounded clichéd.

  As a gift, I gave him back his own words—those words he’d spoken to me that long, dark night when I had lain inside a closet and he stroked my hair, saying in a low, throaty whisper, “Gotta do your own creating now … don’t matter if you can’t draw, can’t write … just gotta find something that’s yours, a thought … one unique thought … only it has to be true, true to you … and there you are, your own creator.”

  And so he’s out there somewhere, charting his own map. As I sit here, charting mine. Perhaps someday we will join trails again. But only for a while. In the end, we all travel alone.

  I must go now, because Mother is calling—she checked my room, and now she’s calling—it must be a restless night for her and she needs me safely inside. I look to the sky again. It stretches through the night like one warm blanket, covering me, covering Mother, covering Trapp, too, in his uneasy bed— covering all of us, the one slumbering child being guided through the dark corridors of sleep.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANK YOU to Mary Nutting, South Peace Regional Archives, Grande Prairie; right-wing, gun-toting redneck Barry Laporte; Karen Douglas, City of Grande Prairie; Michael O’Conner, prairie man of many hats; and spirited friends and neighbours Donald and Laurene Brown.

  Thank you to my editors, Cynthia Good, Diane Turbide, David Weale, and Sandra Tooze, and to my agent, Beverley Slopen.

  Thank you to that Big Iron Cavalier and tool push Rick Pelham; roughnecks David Collie and Dan Bignell; and for his remembrance of past journeys together, driller Lance Morrissey.

  Thank you to Jane Buss at the N.S. Writers’ Federation, the N.S. Council for the Arts, Dr. Lynn McAslan, and to John W. Doull’s feel for the concrete.

  Many blessings upon David Weale, Michael Chadwick, Roy Gould, Elaine Hann, Edward MacDonald, and Ron Lehr for their provocations and inspirations.

  And for their countless cups of tea, glasses of wine, and pounds of chocolate, I thank Anita Dalton, Jackie Sunderland, Corrine Corbett, Mary Lynk, Mo Jo Anderson, Ismet Ugursal, Julia Hategan, and Cindy and Paul Douglas.

  Most especially, I want to thank my fireside friend, Rick Ormston.

  A Penguin Readers Guide

  What They Wanted

  About the Book

  An Interview with Donna Morrissey

  Discussion Questions

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  What They Wanted, Donna Morrissey’s fourth novel, is set in two very different yet similarly severe environments: the depleted, sea-battered outport of Hampden, Newfoundland, and the nightmarish atmosphere of an Alberta oil rig. While vividly revealing the hardship and beauty of these worlds, Morrissey explores how members of the Now family (first introduced in her award-winning book Sylvanus Now) grapple with notions of home, love, regret, and forgiveness.

  Sylvie Now, the novel’s narrator, returns to Newfoundland to visit her father, Sylvanus, in the hospital after he suffers a heart attack. Having left their small, struggling outport a few years before to study in St. John’s and then to work as a waitress in oil-rich Alberta, Sylvie has no idea what to expect.

  She’s not sure how long she’ll stay, and she doesn’t know what it will feel like to b
e back in the house of her mother, Adelaide, a house that while Sylvie was growing up—despite being surrounded by her beloved brothers, Gran, and father—never quite felt like home.

  In a story that spans two decades, Sylvie details life growing up in the Now household—her deep connection to her father, her mother’s estrangement, a past haunted by the “three little dears” who died before Sylvie’s birth, and her own childhood fascination with the dead and their spirits—as well as the emotionally complex adventure she undertakes with her brother Chris.

  At the hospital in Corner Brook where Sylvanus is being treated, it quickly becomes clear that his physical condition will make it impossible for him to work and support his family. But Sylvie is paid handsomely by the men working in the booming oil industry, and she knows she can send enough money home to look after her family. The middle child, Chris, a dreamy, talented artist, also knows that fast money can be made on the oil rigs, and for reasons of pride and guilt, he secretly decides to accompany his sister when she heads back.

  Sylvie has always encouraged Chris to leave Hampden to pursue his artistic career—much to the dismay of their mother, who dotes on her son—but even she questions his decision to travel west. Oil rigs are dangerous places, and Sylvie worries about her brother. This concern increases when they arrive in camp, and Sylvie’s long-time love interest, Ben, a troubled man with his own secrets, has already secured Chris a job as a roustabout on a rig.

  Quitting her bar job in Grande Prairie, Sylvie begins work as a cook on the oil rig where Chris, Ben, and another man from their childhood—the nefarious Trapp—are employed. It’s an unearthly environment of unrelenting noise and tension, and the experience ends in a tragedy that ultimately offers opportunity for understanding and hope. As with all of Morrissey’s books, this story is an emotional odyssey in which the characters struggle with unresolved conflicts and desires and the questions that arise from displacement.

  AN INTERVIEW WITH DONNA MORRISSEY

  Q:

  You’ve mentioned that What They Wanted was supposed to have been a part of Sylvanus Now. What made you decide to tell the stories separately? How did you know that this narrative needed to be its own entity?

  Sylvanus Now became a more in-depth story than I originally thought. I hadn’t planned on delving so deeply into Addie’s depression or the plight of the fishing industry. But as I got deeper into the book, I realized Addie needed her own story told from the inside out, and most certainly, Sylvanus and his struggle with the declining fishing industry demanded more than part of a book. Alas, we have to go where the story takes us.

  Q:

  One review of the book mentioned that you wrote the first draft in third person. What compelled you to change the point of view to first person? How is the story made stronger by telling it from Sylvie’s perspective?

  What They Wanted is based on the true-life experience of my brother and me. It was very difficult to stand outside the story and see it objectively. Writing it in the third person gave me the emotional distance I needed. Once I was able to see the story objectively, I went back to page one and told it from the first person.

  Given that it is such a personal story for me, telling it through Sylvie’s eyes was the best means by which I could get close to the bone, to really bring the reader into her psyche and understand her. Plus, given that it is largely my story, I couldn’t imagine anyone else telling it besides Sylvie.

  Q:

  How did the process of writing this book compare with writing your others? Was telling the difficult story of your experience in Alberta more challenging? More meaningful?

  This is certainly the most difficult book I’ve written, simply because of the emotional investment it demanded. I was very tight-chested writing it … it resurrected emotion in me that I had long since buried. But I knew this would happen … it’s why I waited such a long time to write it. Certainly it is the most meaningful of my stories. Thus far …

  Q:

  Did you ever consider writing a non-fiction book about your experiences on the oil rig? Is fiction always your vehicle for storytelling?

  Naw, I could never write non-fiction. I like the creative energy … I like the suspense of where fiction is going to take me. It is the only creative outlet for me. I can’t do anything else, except weed gardens. Love doing that.

  Q:

  Sound plays an integral role in this book. For example, Sylvie seems to hear the sea in her father’s chest when she first visits him in the hospital. The morning she leaves for Alberta, she recognizes the first sounds she must have heard: gulls, ocean waves, sounders. And in Alberta, the unremitting roar of the rig, Cook’s rattling cough. Do you pay particular attention to sound when you’re writing a scene?

  I pay attention to all of the senses when I’m writing. I close my eyes, and I try to see, feel, hear, smell what a setting brings. It’s critical for bringing a reader into the setting of a story. It’s a critical tool for me—writing through the senses—for it helps me define the tone and mood of each scene; it helps me to present the personality of my characters, their mood.

  Q:

  At the end of the book, Adelaide says in conversation with Sylvie, “Perhaps accidents are the way of life, and it’s for us to bring them meaning.” Are your books ways of bringing meaning to the accidents?

  Writing for me is a way of understanding life. It helps me delve deeper into character and learn the psychology of that character, to understand the archetypes reigning within us. It pushes me to learn from the old philosophers, history. There’s much that I learn in looking for a character or setting or in psychological behaviours that never makes its way into the book. I love researching, but most of it never reaches the page or else it gets edited out before the book is printed.

  Q:

  Did you find it necessary to travel back to Alberta while writing the book? Were there parts of the story that required further research?

  No, I didn’t have to travel back to Alberta … at least, not the rigs. I remember them as though it were yesterday. Those things I didn’t know—the inner workings of the rig—I learned from several roughnecks who gave me their time. Google is also a writer’s best friend— gawd, it was tedious learning the parts of a rig and how they all fitted together. And then in the end, as I already said, most everything I sweated over understanding got edited out.

  Q:

  Do you read for inspiration? What kinds of stories do you find yourself drawn to?

  I read all the time. I read the classics, I read psychology, philosophy, ancient history, space stuff … I go through stages where all I want to do is read, when I want for nothing but to be a student. But then my bank account signals, and I gotta go to work.

  Q:

  What are you working on now?

  I’ve recently started a new novel. It opens in the town of Stevenville in Newfoundland (surprise, surprise) but then migrates to Halifax. And that’s all I want to say about that … Did I just quote Forrest Gump???

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Why do you think Morrissey chose the title What They Wanted? How does “want” play a pivotal role in the book?

  2. How does Sylvie and Chris’s relationship change throughout the novel? Does their interaction in Alberta differ from their interaction in Newfoundland?

  3. If not for his father’s heart attack and his guilt about losing the boat, do you think Chris would have left Newfoundland?

  4. The night before Sylvie and Chris travel to Alberta, Sylvie asks Gran why everyone gets so upset when someone leaves the bay, and Gran answers, “From the way we used to live, I suppose. All by ourselves, getting what we wants from the other. When somebody leaves then, we feels crippled.” Yet, in the same conversation Gran declares, “But you got to go.” Why do you think Gran feels they must go?

  5. How did you respond to Chris’s drawings? What did they tell you about him?

  6. The only time Sylvie sees fear in her father’s eyes is when he imagines
being forced to leave the bay. Where do you think this fear comes from? Do you think he felt fear when Chris and Sylvie left?

  7. Why do ghosts, spirits, and shadows populate this book? What do you think Morrissey is saying about memory? About what it means to be haunted?

  8. As a girl, Sylvie often hid in a closet near the porch hoping to see one of the ghosts in the walls. After Chris’s fatal accident, Sylvie hides once more in a closet in her hotel room. Why do you think she does this? And what finally changes inside her to allow her to leave that dark hiding space?

  9. We get to know Trapp only through other characters’ perceptions of him. He is a character who haunts the book from beginning to end, but we never know exactly what he’s thinking. Why do you think Morrissey decided to present Trapp in this way?

  10. Do you think that Sylvie eventually comes to understand Ben’s need to look after Trapp? Why do you think she initially rails against it so vehemently? What does it reveal about her own feelings regarding freedom and responsibility?

  11. At one point in the novel Sylvie says, “No matter whose table I was sitting at, or how sweet the jam, it always felt like I was just halfways home.” The book begins with the Now home being literally split in two. Does Morrissey offer a definition of home? What do you think home means to Sylvie? Does this change throughout the book?

  Table of Contents