Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More

by Brian Peckford

  “Now, if there’s a lot of hostility we’ll move on. Let’s just play it by ear,” I said.

  Slowly we cruised over to the cove. The sun’s rays slanted across our bow, while distant putt-putts cracked the morning silence. It was one of those special days on the Labrador Coast.

  We approached the stagehead of George and Mabel’s place. Their house was located on a hill, a couple hundred yards’ climb from the stage. As we touched the stage, George was there to catch the painter and tie up the boat.

  “What brings you fellows here today?” George inquired nervously.

  Bert learned fast. “Well, I wanted you to meet the new welfare officer.”

  “You’re Bert Coish, aren’t you, from Mary’s Harbour? You were over to the Campbells’ last night. I saw your boat come in. What would I want with the welfare officer anyway?” George exclaimed, raising his voice.

  I decided it was time to go into action. “George, boy, I was just in the area and figured I would come over and say hello,” I said, looking up from the boat. “There aren’t many government men in the area, so I thought a hello would be in order.” With that I climbed quickly to the top of the stage and put my hand out to George, who slowly reached out his hand.

  “Well, we don’t need nothing here. We are all right.”

  “Oh, yes, I figured that, George. It is just a visit. I should go up and say hello to your wife and then we will be off.”

  I quickly passed him, moving off the stage to the pathway, and began climbing the hill. Bert had climbed up the stage and began to engage George in conversation. George was looking at Bert and calling out to me.

  “There is no need going up there—my wife doesn’t want to see you—stop, come on back.” Bert was trying to engage George in more conversation and blunt the anger that he could see rising up in the man. I continued walking to the house.

  I reached the house and the door was ajar. It was a small, makeshift, wood-frame house, typical of the houses in the various temporary fishing stations then existing along the coast of St. Michaels Bay and Hawke’s Bay—usually two rooms, a large kitchen, and a bedroom.

  I pushed open the door and passed over the threshold into the kitchen. I almost bumped into Mary, standing agitated in front of me. She was thirty-six, tall and slim, with a pretty but drawn face and clear blue eyes and brown hair.

  “Who are you?” she stuttered nervously. “I saw you coming up the path through the window.”

  “I’m the temporary welfare officer. I am stationed in Mary’s Harbour. I am making my rounds around the district and thought I would drop in and say hello since I was just across the bay at the Campbells’. I see you have the teapot on—any chance of a cup of tea?”

  As she moved toward the stove she muttered, “I see, but no welfare officer ever came before. Why you?”

  “Well, I can’t really answer that. It was such a lovely day and I’m not that busy, with just a couple of older people to see, so I felt really good. So I said to Bert, ‘Let’s go over and say hello.’”

  Mary found a mug on a small counter. I sat down at the wooden kitchen table and she put a mug of tea and a can of Carnation milk before me.

  “Mary, get yourself a mug of tea and come sit at the table so we can have a chat,” I implored.

  “A chat,” Mary repeated, bewildered. “A chat about what?”

  As she got herself some tea, I responded, “Just a chat—that’s all.”

  I knew I was now pushing my luck. I really hadn’t thought I would get this far. I could hear Bert and George coming up the path; there was a lot of heated conversation as Bert tried to delay George’s arrival. George’s voice was rising. Mary sat down with her tea.

  “So, Mary, it’s just you and George in the house? Is that right?”

  Mary gave me a haunted look, her face strained, eyes flitting to and fro, waiting, no doubt, for George to arrive any second. “We got married fourteen years ago,” she stuttered. “We have been fishing in this cove every year since then.”

  George burst through the doorway with Bert close behind. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, George fumed. “Now, get out of here! You have said hello to Mary and me, so go—go now!” He was almost spitting as he spoke, looking both angry and confused.

  “Now, George, I am just having a cup of tea with Mary, that’s all— and then I will be gone.”

  “George, sit down,” Bert said. “Mr. Peckford is not here to cause trouble.”

  George grabbed a chair and sat down.

  “George, boy, Mary tells me you have been here for fourteen summers. It’s a nice place—nice and peaceful.”

  “Yeah,” George growled. “We works hard and we have never had anything to do with the government.”

  “Yes, that’s something to be proud of, George. My grandfather was a fisherman for fifty years and he was proud like you. Nothing to do with government, nothing. And he went to the front, seal fishing for forty-nine years,” I said.

  Mary put a mug of tea by George. “Would you like a cup of tea . . . Bert, is that your name?”

  “Well, I will in a little while, Mary, but I better go check on the boat. I think I put her on the wrong side of the stage. A little breeze is coming up, so I better check.”

  What’s Bert doing, I asked myself, leaving me here alone with this fragile situation? He can’t be thinking. And then like a flash, I knew: Bert was taking a calculated risk; he figured if George and Mary were going to talk, it would likely be when they were alone with me. Bert crossed the kitchen and went out the door.

  I had to make the best of it. I looked at George straight in his eyes, holding his gaze for a few seconds, then Mary’s. “Listen. I am only here for the summer. I am going to university in St. John’s and it is almost for sure I will never see you again. So I started thinking, perhaps I can help . . .”

  “Help, what do you mean help?” George sputtered. “The fish is good—we work hard. We don’t need no help.” He started to get up.

  “No,” Mary said, water forming in her eyes. “Wait, George. Let the man finish.”

  “Listen, George.” I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “I don’t mean help the way you mean it. You don’t need a food order. But the government can help in other ways—when people are sick or disabled or with other problems. It is not like it used to be, George. It is different now.”

  Mary, still sitting, trembled as tears flowed down her strained face. George began to stutter under his breath. With every ounce of compassion I could muster, I whispered to George with my hand on his arm. “Are there three people in this house, George?”

  George looked at Mary, at me, back at Mary. She sobbed. “Yes, George, we have to tell . . .”

  With a gush of emotion, trembling in his chair and his head in his hands, George mumbled, “Yes, there are three of us!”

  The emotion was intense, the crying almost unbearable—and all three of us sobbed together for a long time. Finally, George got up and took Mary’s hand. “Come with us,” he said.

  We walked through their bedroom, and in the farthest wall was a narrow doorway leading to another room, long and narrow. One crude, wooden bunk was all the room contained, and on that bunk lay a lanky, thin boy, blind and deaf. This was Jake: the third member of the family. The strain and secrecy now lifted, George and Mary sighed.

  A little after noon we pushed away from George’s stage. Mary and George were standing there huddled together, expressing their thanks, knowing I would get help for them.

  As we sailed out the cove, Bert mused, “Well, me son, I think you’ve done a whole season’s work right there.”

  “No, we have done a whole season’s work, you and me. We are a good team, Bert.”

  THEN THERE WAS THE trip I took with Bert to Cape Charles, where we learned how the weather can play tricks on you. It was to be a short trip. Just a short hop out the bay from Mary’s Harbour to Cape Charles. It was June 24 and the ice was gone from the strong westerly winds of the past sever
al days—the signs of fish were good and everyone on the southern Labrador Coast was in a positive mood and looking forward to a good year. So, in our open twenty-seven-foot skiff with the eight-horsepower Stewart, Bert Coish and I embarked.

  I enjoyed steaming out St. Lewis Bay, whether it was to the southern or northern side. On this southern side we had to pass by Indian Harbour (the place in the song “Where me father fished before”). Although not the fishing community it once was, there were still a couple of dozen families making a living from cod fishing on the historically lucrative fishing grounds not far from the community. After steaming past Indian Harbour, we had to pass through a tickle that separated an island and the mainland, and then on to Cape Charles on the coast.

  Cape Charles was the summer coastal fishing station for most of the people of Lodge Bay. The fishing grounds were right off the shelf in the open ocean, and Lodge Bay meant the community at the bottom of the bay, sheltered from the ocean and the fierce winter winds and storms. Even hardy Labrador fishermen realized that it was better to be as far inland as possible in the winter. And, of course, you were closer to wood for building houses and boats and for catching animals to eat. Anyway, Bert and I were making this fast trip to see a couple of clients—an older person and a widow—and that would be that. There was also Skipper Ken Pye, an old friend of Bert’s who we had to visit.

  When we arrived in the harbour (with fishing rooms on both sides of the tickle), we sensed the hustle and bustle: everyone who was able-bodied was busy inspecting nets on the stageheads, or on a piece of beach nearby; newly painted and caulked skiffs had their engines checked; and a couple of skiffs unloaded some of the first fish of the year. It felt good being there witnessing all the activity, even though we were mere bystanders to all the commotion.

  Well, it did not take long to complete the necessary forms of the clients I had to see, and then we were off to visit Skipper Ken. Ken was an old friend of Bert’s who had fished for many years on the coast. He was of average height, and I think at that time he was in his mid-seventies. It was a large head and a weather-beaten face that greeted us with a great smile as he opened the door of his yellow, faded two-storey house.

  “Oh my God, Bert, my son, Bert Coish, what a surprise. It is so good to see you. I did not see you come in the harbour.”

  “Skipper Ken,” Bert said, “for once we arrived without your keen eyes watching us.”

  “And who is this young man you has in tow?”

  “This is the new relieving officer. He had a few people he had to see, and given that it was a short trip we thought we would do it today. We got a long trip down the coast in a few weeks, so we wanted to get this done now—and of course to see you.”

  “Well, well, this is a great pleasure for me, to have you fellers come and see me today. Everyone is so busy since we moved out from the bay that no one is very interested in spending time with an old feller like me. There’s a real good sign of fish. The boys were out yesterday, and in a few hours with a makeshift trap got seven or eight barrels, and big fish, too.”

  “This has always been a good place for fish,” Bert said.

  “I looked at the records about this place since my arrival,” I noted. “This is an industrious place. No welfare here.”

  “Oh no,” said the skipper. “We got good fishing grounds and good fish killers.”

  “I am getting a little thirsty,” Bert said. “Have you got a bottle of homebrew around?”

  “I was about to ask,” the skipper said with a sly look in his eye, “whether you would like a little libation, but I was holding off a bit because when you got a government man around, you got to be careful.”

  We all laughed, and realizing (a little late perhaps) that this was really a question directed at me, I hastily exclaimed, “No problem! I would love a drink right now. Man cannot live by bread alone!”

  “I have some ‘controllers’ liquor left from last year’s final coastal boat run,” the skipper said. “Some good dark rum!”

  Our eyes told it all, and soon we were sipping the good stuff and animated discussion ensued. And the lies that were told . . . I suppose the right question would be, What questions or issues didn’t we cover? There was the weather, which meant at this time of year the wind, since this factor largely controlled whether you could get out fishing or not; there was Smallwood—no one talked of the government—it was all Smallwood and that he never visited (well, he didn’t have to, what with old-age pensions, family allowances, widow’s allowances, disabled allowance, and that was it); and the fishery, where on the coast there was a good sign of fish and where there was no sign at all—and this was all cloaked in second- and third-hand accounts. There was one piece of news making the rounds that both Bert and the skipper had heard about recently: there was a new net—a nylon gillnet, known to catch lots of fish and not to deteriorate like the other nets—and it was getting a lot of talk around the fishermen. Some saw it as a godsend while others figured over time it would hurt the fishery, given that many nets would get lost in storms and would continue netting fish that were never brought ashore.

  Well, before we knew it, it was evening and now too late to get back to Mary’s Harbour. In any case, we were in no condition to navigate at dusk and after dark. Skipper was overjoyed that we had stayed so long, and scraping around the kitchen in Aladdin lamplight, we helped him find some bread and some salt fish. A few dry pieces of wood in the stove (we had let the thing go out hours before) and a kettle of water and some black tea, and we were in business for a good mug-up. We laughed at our situation as we staggered about, each telling the other two of similar circumstances like this that we had all experienced.

  Sleep came easy in the featherbed in Skipper’s upstairs bedroom. When we awoke at six the next morning, the skipper was up and the fire crackling downstairs. Peering out the window, we saw that the weather was ugly with a cold nor’easter blowing mist and fog. Down the narrow, squeaky staircase we stumbled into the warm kitchen. The kettle was boiled, the teapot was heating, and some leftover fish and brewis in the pan on the stove told us breakfast was being served.

  “There’s a nice wind blowing,” the skipper said. “No one got out this morning.”

  “No,” Bert said. “I figure the fish are safe for a few more hours, but it looks a bit ugly, all right. We have got to get back. I told the missus we’d be back this morning for sure. Sort of thought we might get away late last night once we had a few and got yarnin’. So we will have to get out in it.”

  “Well, you’re going in the bay, and after a bit of crosswind for the first while you’ll be able to go with it for the better part of the stream, I think,” the skipper commented.

  “Yes, it shouldn’t be too bad,” said Bert. “It might be too rough to get a seal or duck, though.”

  And so the conversation went. We finished our breakfast after a second cup of strong tea and got ready to leave.

  “Well, boys, thanks ever so much for coming, and it was nice meeting you, Mr. Peckford. You have a few good stories of your own, for a young feller. The best to you!”

  So down to the stagehead we went, and climbed aboard the boat. It was cold and the fog was settling in, and some “slop” snow was coming across the cove. But we were determined to continue. Bert started the engine, I pushed her off from the stage, and we were off. We had to head to the west, go around a few islands, and then due west into St. Lewis Bay to Mary’s Harbour. Bert was at the tiller and I went up to the bow so that I could have a good look as we steamed along. We had only steamed for five minutes and the wet snow and fog had already enveloped us. Suddenly, there was no land to be seen. We were going to follow the land to our south until we found the tickle, crossed the cove, then went through the tickle and out in St. Lewis Bay. And home.

  “I’ll slow her down a bit,” Bert shouted.

  “That’s a good idea,” I shouted back.

  With the boat now crawling along, Bert called out again. “Do you see anything?”<
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  “Nope,” I said.

  We knew that normal steam time to the tickle would be about fifteen minutes. We chugged along just off from the rocks, the land intermittently coming into view.

  I moved back toward Bert. “No, boy, that fog is right down on us, Bert. I can’t see the land at all.”

  “The wind has died down but the fog has got thicker,” said Bert. “Perhaps we should cross over and see if we hit the tickle.”

  So, gingerly we crossed the cove and I went back to the bow to see if I could see land and the tickle. A few minutes passed.

  “Oops,” I shouted, “there’s land—we’re going to ram into it!”

  Bert did a reverse and we nudged the rocks. I eased the blow with the gaff in three feet of water.

  We had to figure out if the tickle was to the right of us or to the left—we thought it might be to our left, or west—so we veered the boat over to port and crawled farther along, with the rocks of the shore in view. The fog still hung to the shore and the wet snow increased.

  “We missed it, Pecky boy, we missed it—that damn fog and snow makes a bad combination. We’re headed in Lodge Bay!” Bert exclaimed. He stopped the engine and I gently helped bring the boat to a stop, nudging the gaff along the bottom.

  We were now getting wet—we really hadn’t dressed for this—as we both were wearing only a windbreaker and pants. We had some rain gear in the cuddy, but that was it.

  “Well,” said Bert, “I guess we have a choice—we can continue to look for that tickle or we can just go on up Lodge Bay to the settlement, go in one of the houses, and wait this out.”

  “I like that latter idea,” I said. “We are getting wet. We might miss the tickle going the other way and get confused around those islands and have to pull in where there is no shelter.”

  “I think you’re right, Pecky, as much as I would like to give it another try.”

  So we began our slow journey up Lodge Bay nudging next to the rocks. We couldn’t go very fast, and so it was an hour or more before we could make out a stage and pull up to it and see a few houses on the shore. The fog just would not lift and the wet snow kept coming.