by Hubert Furey
“This is the new road to Brine Cove. Cuts off Big Blizzard Hill. I don’t know how many times I was stuck up there. I’ll give you a shoot down.” Jimmy accepted in silence, glad not to have to once again expose himself to the bitter cold of the highland wind, trying to familiarize himself with his new surroundings. When he’d left, he had gone up the old road.
They drove in silence until the first houses of Brine Cove came into view, but the strings of multicoloured lights and brightly lit candles in the windows did nothing to lighten his spirits. They were still cold and isolated in the semi-darkness. Only Jack Gregory responded to the welcoming warmth of colour, craning his neck in every direction so as not to miss a decoration.
“Well, there she is! Where do I go?” They were approaching a fork in the road. Jimmy nodded to the left.
“Up Pathend first, if you don’t mind. I have to get the key off my cousin. He’s been looking after the place for me since the old woman died, then I have to go back up along the shore. That’s where the old shack is.”
He wondered why he was speaking so harshly about his mother and his home. She had done all she could. Deep down, he had always known that. And his home had been the only place where he had been safe from all that other stuff.
* * * * *
Jimmy watched the familiar scene unfold before him, as sights and sounds of his childhood resounded from every knoll and exposed cliff face along his route. On the grassy bank overlooking the little inlet they called Prue’s Cove, they used to wrestle and do handstands. That’s where he had his first real fight, pounding the face off Charlie Mackay, although Charlie was three years older and four inches taller. Charlie was the first one to call him a “little bastard,” because Charlie knew it was the surest way to get him going, and he had left Charlie unconscious by the corner of the fence with a lot of blood on his face.
Charlie’s size wasn’t much help in the face of his own strength and speed and viciousness. The other boys stopped tormenting him after that. They knew it was the surest way for them to be ripped to pieces and left on the ground looking just like Charlie. But he still couldn’t handle the older ones, the men, who grinned when they slurred about his “old bag mother,” and laughed as he walked away hurt and angry because they knew he still wasn’t old enough to stand up to them, to retaliate the way he wanted to.
So he had left. As one last desperate act of defiance against an outport that had condemned and ostracized him, he had broken into Furneaux’s store and stolen money and cigarettes and left.
“Right here! This is my cousin’s place. I’ll only be a minute while I get the key.”
They had stopped beside a small clapboard bungalow that desperately needed paint. Torn plastic covered some windows. A mangy-looking German shepherd, tethered to a tumbledown doghouse, emitted a throaty growl as the car door opened and Jimmy stepped out, but cowered when Jimmy cursed in its direction. He made his way up the unshovelled path and knocked on the door. The wind from across the harbour searched him out in the shelter of the house and made him shiver again.
He repeated the knock, just before the door opened, and wasn’t the least nonplussed by the seedy figure that greeted him in the aperture. Tom Blanchard hadn’t changed a bit. Unshaven, his hair uncombed, his eyes red from repeated hangovers, he reeked of tobacco smoke and unwashed clothing.
Jimmy thought back to Dorchester. Prisoners took better care of themselves. Tom Blanchard staggered slightly as he extended his shaking hand to his cousin.
“Well, Jimmy! Out again. A little Christmas break before going back in, eh? Come in and have a cold one before ye goes up to the house.” Tom winked knowingly, an evil grin forming on his mouth.
Jimmy concealed his disgust, replying in a nonchalant manner that disguised his real feelings. “No, Tom. The first sign of booze, and they’d pop me right back in. I just came for the key. I’d like to get a fire started and get the place thawed out.”
The evil grin became more testing, more provocative. “The infamous Jimmy Blanchard ain’t turnin’ good, is he? You can forget that tear-jerky holy stuff around here. You won’t be impressing anybody in this hole with that AA crap. They’s already started locking up their doors and their daughters when they heard you was heading this way. You ain’t going to get no royal reception in Brine Cove, I can tell ye that.”
Jimmy shrugged his indifference to the tone. He remembered how often his mother had warned him against his cousin Tom, how he was on the way to becoming just like his cousin.
“Well, I’m here now, Tom, ain’t I? Whether they want me or not. So just give me the key. I got somebody waiting for me down on the road. I’ll come back after to get the news.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a shot of something first?” The tone was becoming more conniving, more evil. Jimmy looked at him coldly, an ominous tone permeating his voice.
“Just give me the shaggin’ key, Tom, so I won’t have to rip you and this stinking place apart to get it . . .” The effect was immediate. Tom Blanchard had heard that icy tone before—the icy tone that preceded a savage, destructive explosion. Without further reply, he turned and disappeared into the house, returning almost instantly dangling a piece of fishing line, to which was attached a key and a small medal displaying an image of the Blessed Virgin.
Tom had returned to his original demeanour, snickering at the medal as he handed Jimmy the key. “Your mother warned me not to lose that medal. She said it was a ‘miraculous’ medal—supposed to look after you. You’re goin’ to need some kinda miracle. Better if she had left ye a bit of money . . .”
* * * * *
Jimmy took the key and put it carefully in his pocket, turning without speaking and heading back to the car. As he felt the medal in the palm of his hand, he thought about his mother, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. Tom Blanchard was right about one thing. He could use some money. The bit they had given him in prison had gone on clothes and motel rooms and meals on the road and there wasn’t much left, certainly not enough to do him through Christmas.
Jack Gregory awoke from behind the wheel, where he had been dozing. “Everything straightened out?”
“Yeah! I got the key. Do you mind running me over to the house? It’s back the way we came.”
“Not at all. Hop in.”
Jack Gregory turned the car and headed back along the road which, except for one spot where it swung behind the Tout, hugged the harbour edge all the way up. They passed the intersection with the new road, the tires crunching snow with a monotonous sound. Jimmy instinctively slid back in the seat as they passed Furneaux’s store. Once he was set up in the house, he could avoid them. As they passed a small abandoned sawmill, he thought of the two old Gorman brothers.
Until the big lumber dealers moved in, they made some kind of a living sawing logs for people who built their own houses, and lived alone in a crumbling house behind the sawmill. He used to help them run out the logs, and they used to let him sell the slob sides for pocket money. He learned in prison that they had died. They never once suspected he was stealing from them.
“Nice little church.” Jack Gregory was peering under the windshield at the white, clapboard church which sat on Windy Hill, overlooking the houses along the shore below. “I suppose you can’t tell me what it’s like inside.” Jack Gregory was being mischievous again. There was something he liked about this man. He reminded him of that guard in Dorchester.
“I dunno. Maybe they changed it. But it was pretty dull and boring when I was twelve years old.”
He knew it hadn’t always been like that. In fact, it was one of the few places where he could go and he didn’t hear words like “bastard” and “old bag” and “slut,” and all the other things that had made him hardened and tough, and had made him want to strike back and hurt. But that had been a long time ago, and the church now was in the same place as the sch
ools and the teachers and the child welfare experts and the prison wardens and the probation officers.
“Is it much farther? This road seems to be getting narrower. And I’m a bit narvous about that drop to the landwash.”
Jimmy smiled to himself. So Jack Gregory had a weakness. But then, a tumble down the fifty-foot drop to the Brandy Gulch wouldn’t help anybody. “Actually, you can turn here. My house is that little square one out by the point. I can walk from here.”
The car stopped, and Jimmy reached into the back seat for his travelling bag before turning to look at his benefactor. “I appreciate what you’ve done. Going out of your way for me like that.” Jimmy was surprised at his own sincerity. “Maybe I’ll do something for you sometime.”
“Hey! You never know. It’s getting to be a small world. Paths always cross again. You got any money?”
The question startled Jimmy. “You mean . . . I thought you were driving me for . . .”
Jack Gregory laughed. “No, not to pay me, you twit. Do you have any money, to take you through, for food, cigarettes?”
Jimmy blushed. But then, it was understandable. Nobody had ever offered him money before, except to keep him from beating them up. “I have a few dollars. Enough to get a bit of grub.”
Jack Gregory was removing five twenty-dollar bills from his wallet. Just for a moment the old temptations returned, but Jimmy stifled them. “Here! Take this. If you’re just out of Dorchester, I know you’re not very flush. And Christmas is no time to be hungry. It’s not much, but it will see you over a few days.”
Jimmy wanted to protest, but the logic was overwhelming. He would need money if he were to stay any length of time at all. He was eyeing the five twenty-dollar bills almost hungrily, but he couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t a lot of other bills in the wallet. “You sure you can afford this?”
“Not really, I suppose. But every Christmas now, for the last ten Christmases, I’ve been giving a hundred-dollar bill to the Salvation Army, and I haven’t given this year yet. I’ll give it to you instead. Somebody like you would wind up with it anyway. Go on. Take it. Have Christmas dinner on me.”
Jimmy held the money for a second as he looked the other man in the eye. Maybe if he had met somebody like Jack Gregory twenty years ago! He took the money quickly and pushed it into his pocket beside the key, then he stepped back to close the door, the travelling bag hanging loosely by his side. “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate what you did for me. Best of luck to ye.”
Even after the door closed he could still hear Jack Gregory’s mischievous voice. “Stay out of jail. You’ll never get to own the place no matter how long ye stay. Merry Christmas to ye.” Within seconds he was gone. As the tail lights of the car disappeared around the curve by the sawmill, Jimmy felt emptiness. He was alone again, and in a way he was glad. Then the emptiness changed to coldness.
People like Jack Gregory were fools. Oh, sure, they survived well enough in a protected little place like Newfoundland, but they would never make it on the streets of Toronto or Vancouver. Opening his wallet like that in front of a total stranger! If he’d been anybody else—even if he had given in to the temptation to revert to his former self—that wallet would be lying empty alongside Jack Gregory’s freezing body, while the Toyota was being sold on the streets of Montreal.
That guard was just as stupid. Trusting him! Trusting Jimmy Blanchard! A blast of cold wind stung his face as his mind went back to the riot in the prison yard, and he watched the Bedford gang pummel that guard into a mush of broken bones. The eyes of the guard kept looking in his direction, pleading for his help. In his mind he saw them lift the body into an ambulance when the riot was over, and he watched as the wind blew up the sheet, exposing the lifeless face.
He shook away the memory and gathered his collar tightly around his neck, pointing his body in the direction of the little square house on the point beyond the Brandy Gulch. His biggest problem now was to light a fire and get that bloody house warm.
He had expected the house to be cold and damp, but he never could have envisioned the despicable state which greeted his entrance, and which was appallingly visible even in the feeble, flickering glare of the cigarette lighter which he held in his outstretched hand. Trash and garbage were everywhere, and a stench of urine emanated from one corner, sickening him. As he tossed his travelling bag carelessly onto the kitchen table and peered from room to room, a gripping sense of despair overpowered him. The place had been literally looted, the walls stripped devoid of every picture and ornament, and not a chair remained in the kitchen.
Old cousin Tom must have had a field day after his mother died. Empty beer bottles lay in various positions on the table, and cigarette butts were scuffed out indiscriminately around the floor. Jimmy ground his teeth in anger. Not only had Tom lifted everything that was portable, he’d been using the place for a watering hole, too. No doubt he’d find a lot more empty bottles if he looked hard enough.
He sat on the edge of the table and lit a cigarette while he contemplated the depressing condition of the scene around him. He should follow his instincts and go right over and pound the daylights out of his dear cousin, but he instantly dismissed the thought. Tom might purport to be his friend, but Jimmy knew if he lifted a finger, Tom would be the first one to shove him back in the clink. He drew heavily on the cigarette while he turned his mind to his next immediate course of action. If he didn’t soon get some fire up, he could freeze to death just as easily here as he could on the Trans-Canada, and the last thing he’d had to eat was on the ferry that morning.
He had gone in to eat in the motel in Deer Lake, but the trucker was in a mad tear and he had to rush out just as the waitress laid the food before him, and he didn’t stop anywhere else until he was dropped off. He would give the hundred dollars he had in his pocket for a big steaming mug of hot tea or coffee, hot anything.
Jimmy tightened his jacket around him and moved aimlessly around. He had to get some heat in his body somehow. He had to get a fire going, and soon.
Using the lighter as a torch, he walked instinctively to the woodbox in the porch, but all that remained were bits of dried rind which covered the bottom. There wasn’t a scrap of wood to be seen. He stood there, staring at the empty box, completely depressed. No doubt Tom had drained the oil tank the same way. He thought of walking out to the back to check it, but he knew it would be a useless waste of energy.
He caught sight of a broken chair on its side by the woodbox, and his old spirit returned—at least he had a chair to sit on—and then the thought struck him. He didn’t need oil. The kitchen stove was wood, coal, and oil. All he had to do was lay his hands on some wood and he could get both stoves going.
Jimmy walked to the kitchen window, shivering again. The warmth he had accumulated in his body in the car had long since disappeared, and he knew that he would have to go looking somewhere in Brine Cove for wood. He dismissed the thought of stripping boards from the walls of the house. Even he knew that to be too self-defeating in purpose. There was no alternative. He would have to go somewhere in Brine Cove—ask somebody to give him a bit of wood, or freezing to death would be no joke.
His gaze rested on the line of houses across the road, and on the smoke rising from chimneys visible in the yellow glow of the solitary streetlight overlooking the myriad of Christmas colours that stood out in the crushing darkness. He knew from memory that there would be ample firewood around these homes, dried and neatly stacked and ready for use in newly constructed fireplaces. The Jimmy Blanchard of yesterday would just walk over and sneak away a couple of armfuls, but he had to keep his nose clean. They would be waiting for him to do something stupid like that, just to get an excuse. No, stealing was out!
He wondered what kind of greeting he would get if he knocked on the doors of the houses owned by the Ryans and the Wilsons and Shannahans who lived there. What was it Tom ha
d said? No royal reception. Still, he couldn’t remember doing anything to any of these people, although he hadn’t done much for them, either.
He gathered his collar tightly around his neck as he stepped back into the snow in the direction of Frank Ryan’s house. It was darker farther away from the light, and he had to pick his steps once again through the snow which had accumulated in the path. As he crossed the road and entered the yard, his eye caught the movement of the curtain to the right of the door, the action plainly silhouetted against the light of the foyer beyond, and he became aware that he was being watched.
Well! Some things hadn’t changed. Mildred Ryan had been peeking from behind curtains all her life, seeing everything that was going on, especially when it came to his place. No doubt they had been watching him since he got out of Jack Gregory’s car. Probably knew when he stepped off the ferry in Port aux Basques.
He moved without emotion, as if he knew exactly how the forthcoming meeting was going to turn out, but he pressed on. Not everyone would say no. At least that’s the way it was on the street.
Jimmy rang the doorbell and stepped back, awaiting a response. The door opened much too quickly, as if he was expected, and did not open all the way. The sharp, pointed face of Frank Ryan was halved in the narrow aperture, directly across from his own, and Jimmy knew that there were other bodies standing behind.
He proceeded, wanting to adopt a tone of familiarity, of friendliness, trying not to have his voice sound too mechanical, too artificial. He didn’t bother with introductions. Best to presume that they knew him.
“Good day t’ye, Frank! I just got back to the old homestead across the road, and it looks like I’ve been cleaned out. You couldn’t spare me a bit of wood to get the stove going, could you? I’d really appreciate it.” He stood waiting, his body being seized with violent tremors from the cold, but he didn’t have to wait long. The halved face in the door was a mixture of fear and savagery.