Kit's Law

by Donna Morrissey

  “Look.” I pulled out the letter and waved it in front of her face. “It’s from Sid. He’ll be comin’ home, someday. Not yet, but … ”

  I got no further. Whipping around, she drove her fist into my ribs and ripped the letter from my hand.

  “No,” I gasped, grabbing after her as she reared to her feet. “Here, give it back. I’ll read it to you.”

  “That’s Sid’s letter,” she barked, glaring down at me. “Sid’s letter.” Then she was bounding for the gully.

  At least she still knows how to bound, I thought dismally, rising carefully to my feet and limping back inside the house

  The next day Doctor Hodgins came to visit. He was looking more sombre than usual, and I expect it had to do with my letter from Sid.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, as he noted me flinching from twisting around too quick.

  “Nothin’,” I said. “Cup of tea?”

  “Did she hit you, again?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me see that,” he said gruffly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll judge that, young lady.”

  I groaned, not for the first time the past twenty-four hours, and let Doctor Hodgins examine my ribs.

  “You’ve got a bruised rib,” he announced.

  “No kiddin’,” said I.

  “Kit.” He sank down in the rocking chair, looking up at me. “Kit, have you given thought of leaving here? Haire’s Hollow, I mean. Now hear me out,” he said, holding up his hands at the look of protest that crossed my face. “I’m not talking about shipping you off to God knows where. I have a friend—a wonderful friend—Milly Rice. She has a boarding house in St. John’s, it’s a decent place, and she … well, she’s getting on in years and the last time we talked, she mentioned getting someone in to help her.”

  “I’m not leavin’.”

  “What’s here for you?”

  “She’s here.”

  “You can take her with you.”

  “She won’t leave here.”

  “She won’t? Or you won’t? Kit, my work here is done. I’ll move with you.”

  “I’m not leavin’!” I yelled.

  He came to his feet and we stood staring at each other. Then he turned on his heel and marched off up over the bank to his car. I watched after him from the doorway, wondering how much of his wanting me away from the gully might have to do with his wanting a way out of Haire’s Hollow himself. A chill crept over me, and I wrapped my arms protectively around myself. There was a power in whatever it was that bound Doctor Hodgins to me and Josie, a power strong enough to make him lie in the face of God, nailing him to a cross of his own making. Whatever that power was, he was helpless to fight it. And however it touched on me and Josie, we were equally as helpless in its quandary.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GODFATHER’S COVE

  IT WAS LATE SEPTEMBER, JUST PAST MY sixteenth birthday, when I sat up in bed one night with a sudden start. Something had woke me. Josie’s snores rumbled through the hallway and her bedsprings creaked as she tossed and turned for comfort. I lay back down, but sat up again as a dull thud sounded from outside. Holding my hand to my racing heart, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and crept down the hallway. Thud! It sounded louder as I stepped into the kitchen. Thud! Thud! Clasping my hands in front of me as if I were in prayer, I walked steadily towards the door. Thud! Thud! Thud! Perhaps it was Doctor Hodgins not being able to sleep. Thud! Perhaps it was Shine’s ghost come back to haunt me. Thud! Thud! Thud! I reached my hand to the doorknob. Silence. Perhaps it was the wind gusting up the gully playing tricks on me, thumping a loose plank against the side of the house. But I knew who it was. And when I hauled open the door and seen him standing there in the blue light of the night, with the moon shining silver on his hair, and a burst of fuzz on his chin, my knees buckled, and I would’ve dropped if he wasn’t swooping towards me and lifting me off my feet and holding me tight against him.

  “Sid!” I wrapped my arms around his neck, and buried my face into the warmth of his throat.

  “Jesus, Kit!” He rocked me with him, his arms squeezing me tighter and tighter, his face burrowing through my hair to rest on the back of my neck. We stayed that way for some time, him rocking and grazing his face against my skin, and me squeezing up against him, smelling, almost tasting, the salty sweetness of his throat.

  “Sid … !” My voice choked and hot tears welled up in my eyes.

  “Shh, it’s all right. I’m home now, I’m home now.”

  “To stay? Are you here to stay?”

  “I’m here to stay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I promise.”

  “Oh, God, Sid, I’ve hated every day.”

  “Shh, we’ll be fine, now. It’s over.”

  “It’s over?” I pulled back and looked up at him, the tears spilling down my face. “Is it really over? It’s not been two years … ”

  “The reverend done his work,” he said, wiping my face with the pads of his thumbs. Then, leaning down, he placed his lips on mine and kissed me long and hard. My mouth opened beneath his, and I kissed him back, again and again and again.

  “Jesus, Kit.” He pulled his mouth to my cheek, kissing it and kissing it, then grazed his cheek against mine as I tried to keep kissing his face, his chin, his brow.

  “Hey!” he said with an urgent laugh, taking hold of my arms and holding me away from him. “You ought not to be kissing a man like that.”

  “Ohhh!” I was back to burying my face into the tuck of his throat, the sweet scent of his skin flooding my nostrils.

  “Kit, listen to me, now,” he said, hugging me close and smoothing his hands across my back. “I want you to wake Josie and get dressed. We’re leaving here. Tonight, before anyone discovers I’m home.”

  “Leavin’… ” I pulled back and he cradled my face, speaking softly and quickly.

  “I’ll explain everything on the way. Just get ready. I have a friend waiting for us on the beach with a boat.”

  “A boat! Sid, did you escape?”

  He grinned at my look of alarm.

  “Yeah, me and the rest of the boys.”

  “Sid … ”

  “Hush, of course not. The reverend leaves for St. John’s tomorrow morning—to meet me. We need to be out of here before he discovers I’m home. Come, let’s go get Josie, and I’ll explain everything. Quickly now.” He steered me inside and down the hall to Josie’s room.

  “Let me,” he whispered, stepping quietly over to her bed.

  “Wait … ” I cautioned, but too late. The second his hand touched on her shoulder, her fist come up swinging from beneath the blankets.

  “Uuggghhh!!!” He clasped his hands to his stomach as she whumped him good.

  “I told you,” I whispered sharply.

  “Kit, if we’re trying to wake her, why are we whispering?” he moaned, bending over to catch his breath.

  “Who’s whisperin’? You’s not whisperin’?” Josie barked, coming upright in her bed.

  “Josie, it’s me! Sid!”

  “Who’s Sid? You’s not Sid.”

  “It’s Sid!” I said, pulling back the curtains and letting the moonlight in. “See? He’s back.”

  She went quiet and, laying back on her pillow, curled away from him.

  “Hey, now,” Sid said coaxingly, leaning over her. “That’s no way to greet an old friend.”

  “She’s feeling shy of you,” I said.

  “You go get dressed. I’ll get her up,” he said softly. “Hurry.”

  I left them there and dashed into my room to get dressed. It was a matter of seconds before I heard Josie’s barking laugh. And by the time I got some clothes on, they were both tussling around on the bed, with Sid pleading with her to get dressed, that he was taking us on a boat trip.

  What with her excitement over seeing Sid again, it took some doing to keep her calm and get her dressed. But soon we were all bounding down the gully with
her in the lead.

  “Now, tell us where we’re goin’,” I said breathlessly, as we came out onto the beach, foolishly thinking we were on our way to Crooked Feeder.

  “You oughtn’t keep a woman in suspense like that,” a deep, male voice boomed loudly. “It’s bad for their constitution.”

  What appeared to be a piece of the night moved. Startled, I jumped back, bumping into Josie, who clung onto my arm.

  “This is Fonse, my friend,” Sid said quickly, laying a reassuring arm across our shoulders. “I told you I had a friend waiting.”

  The blackened shape moved to stand before us, engulfing me in shadow as he blocked out the moon and the stars.

  “And a friend he’ll stay, if be the Saints of all that’s patient, ye’ll hurry on and get in the boat.”

  “Where … where are we goin’?” I asked.

  “Just an hour’s ride,” Sid said, nudging us towards the black hull that was half-pulled up on shore. “And never mind Fonse, he’s done nothing but complain since we left the jail.”

  “You did break out!” I whimpered.

  “Break out?” Fonse roared. “Now where’d you get a fool idea like that? The Saints be praised, can’t a man be in a hurry to get home to a wife he hasn’t seen in six months? Or is we goin’ to stand yakkin’ on this beach all the bloody night?”

  With a frightened yelp, Josie turned and ran back towards the gully.

  “No, Josie, it’s O.K.,” Sid called out, running after her. “Dammit, man, will you shut up?” he roared back at Fonse. “Come on, Josie. We’re fine. He’s my friend. A big-mouthed friend.”

  Speaking softly all the while, Sid managed to get her back to the boat. With a sudden move, Fonse wrapped both hands around my waist and, lifting me up, planked me down on the wooden seat. A shrieking bark from Josie, and she was lodged down next to me. Then, Sid and Fonse was shoving off the boat, their boots scrunching into the beach rocks as they kicked off from shore. Swinging themselves up over the bow, they clamoured into the boat as we bobbed into the shimmering pathway of the moon. Clumping past us, the boat rocking threateningly beneath his mighty weight, Fonse seated himself in front of the motor, and Sid dipped a paddle down through the water, steering us away from Haire’s Hollow. The put-put-put of the engine’s pistons rung out through the night, and we headed down the bay. Fonse talked Josie into sitting in the stern alongside of him to help with the steering, leaving me and Sid to ourselves. Pulling a piece of canvas around our shoulders to stave off the chilly night air, Sid snuggled me against him and began firing questions.

  “First, tell me where we’re goin’,” I said, putting my hand over his mouth to silence him.

  “We’re goin’ to Godfather’s Cove,” Fonse called out over the putting pistons. “Land of the Gods, of which they thinks I’m one, at least Mudder do. Loret, now, she’s the wife, and she got other thoughts. And after bearin’ five youngsters, she got a right to ’em.”

  I smiled at the black outline of Fonse’s face and turned to the warmth of Sid’s breath on my cheek.

  “How far is it?” I asked.

  “Twenty mile. And that makes for an hour’s ride in the chariot,” Fonse replied.

  Standing up, Sid and I turned our backs to the God and sat on the other side of the seat, pulling the canvas up over our heads for a tent.

  “Of course there’s those that risk being toppled out and might never get there,” Fonse roared, and my mother barked out laughing.

  “Why was he in jail?” I whispered.

  “He started a brawl at a garden party. Someone’s wife went outside for a piss, and when Fonse opened the back door to get some air, there she was, bare arse to the wind.”

  I broke into giggles and Sid twisted around to see if Fonse was listening. “Anyway,” he whispered, “the Mister didn’t think kindly of Fonse exposing his wife’s arse like that and punched him a good one. Before Fonse was back on his feet, Loret, Fonse’s wife, threw a punch at the Mister. And then the wife, still hauling up her pants, come in across and packed a punch to Loret. Then Fonse’s mother walloped the wife across the arse and said she shouldn’t have been pissing on the doorstep to begin with, and then up she went.”

  “Did they all get put in jail?”

  “Nope, just Fonse. So happened the Mounties was out that night, and they dragged Fonse off and threw him in the back seat of their car.” Sid paused. “And that’s where the trouble started. According to Fonse, he was trying to tell his side of the story to the Mounties, but the Mounties weren’t listening very well, so he leaned over the seat and boxed one of them on the ears and busted his eardrums. He was given six months for hitting a Mountie.”

  I laughed. Nothing sounded bad on this night as we cut through the water, passing Chouse Brook, heading for a distant point just beyond the black hulk of Big Island. As comforting as the booming of Fonse’s voice as he talked to Josie, and her quick barking retorts, was the billion stars still littering the sky, and the warmth of Sid’s arm as he slipped it around my waist. I answered his one thousand questions about everything that had happened since he left, from my quitting school and taking up studying at home, right down to the length of Margaret Eveleigh’s ringlets the last time she come calling.

  Then, Fonse was bellowing out, “Here she be, friends, the cove of all coves.”

  Throwing back the canvas, we peered straight ahead into the quiet, tree-lined cove before us, its flat calm waters mirroring black the gull-grey dawn. A grey, pebbly beach ringed the water’s edge, and a small wharf jutted out from its deepest point. I turned towards Sid and studied him afresh in the morning light. The tufts of yellow covering his chin and top lip banished forever the schoolboy Sid, and in the split second before he looked back at me, grinning his old familiar grin that used to make me think that he was making fun of me, it felt like I was looking at a stranger.

  He stood up as Fonse abruptly cut the motor, and I saw that he wasn’t as scrawny as he used to be, and what with his hair inching down over his collar, and jeans and a sweater replacing his black jacket and white shirt, it felt again like I was looking at a stranger.

  “Aren’t we a bit far from shore?” he called back to Fonse.

  “Aye! And that we are, my fair fellow,” said Fonse, and I turned to encounter a pair of muddied brown eyes squinting down at me from beneath a thatch of curly brown hair. “You’re as pretty as Sid said you was,” he said, passing a paddle to Sid, whilst picking up the second one for himself. “See the bobbers?” He pointed to foot-long rectangles of brown cork floating in widening circles across the greeny brown reflections of the cove’s glassy waters. “That’s Fudder’s nets. We paddle around them, else we chance gettin’ the propeller tanglin’ up in them ropes. And then, you got yourself a dandy problem.”

  “What sort of problem does that get you?” asked Sid, dipping his paddle to the opposite side of Fonse, helping him steer around a net.

  “What happens is the boat gets jutted around,” said Fonse, “so’s the stern is pushin’ into the wind, and the bow is in reverse. Now, you see how a bow is shaped like a ‘v’ to displace water? Imagine now if it was the broad side of the stern pushin’ into the sea and wind. You see what would happen?”

  “The boat would swamp,” I said.

  Fonse grinned, his narrow lips peeling back over wide, white teeth and sending creases rippling back from each corner of his mouth, echoing years of hard laughing, and widening further his square rugged jowls.

  “Heh, she’s smart as well as pretty,” he teased. “Best make friends real quick with Loret, else you might get cat claws across those blooming cheeks.”

  “Pay no heed to Fonse,” Sid said, leaning over the bow as we neared the wharf. “From what he says, Loret’s as soft as April snow.”

  “Who’s snow? What snow?” Josie asked contrarily from the stern, blinking herself awake and standing up unsteadily, her hair a tangled maze around her shoulders.

  “Here now, it’s sleepin’ beauty, awake at l
ast,” Fonse said, holding out a hand to steady her. “Hold on, we’s home!”

  The boat bumped to a gentle stop against the wharf and Sid climbed on top, loping the painter around the post. Straddling past where I was sitting, Fonse grabbed hold of the wharf and hauled the boat tight alongside as Sid reached down and helped me and Josie climb out. All hands on shore, we set off on a deeply trenched path through the birch woods, and come out onto a large potato garden, broken with patches of waist-high grass. At the back end of the garden and atop a little rise was a two-storey house, its half-dozen windows looking down upon us, and a thin trickle of smoke coming out of its chimney. A bent-over old woman with iron-grey braids swinging down over her shoulders crept out the door, peering at us through a pair of spectacles perched on her nose.

  “The Saints be praised,” she sang out in a voice as booming as Fonse’s. “If he ain’t decidin’ to come home. Loret! It’s Fonse! He’s back!”

  A dark head appeared in one of the upstairs windows, and then another, and another, and then the old woman was running down over the steps and throwing herself into Fonse’s arms. The door swung open again, and a younger woman, a few years older than me, with her dark hair mostly pinned back and hundreds of curls sprouting all around her face, came running out, shrieking and yelling to the high heavens. Behind her came a youngster, and another, and then a scrawny, white-haired old man, and a younger man, the spit of Fonse, and just as big, with a cowlick twisting a lock of dark hair across his forehead, and behind him, still more youngsters, until they were all shooting out the door and coming towards us like a load of buckshot.

  Fonse tried to catch them all in his arms as they come shrieking and yelling and throwing themselves at him. And when the load got too heavy, he buckled to his knees, with them swarming around him, tousling his hair and clapping him on the back, the arms, the neck, the face or whatever part of him was left exposed.

  “What a charm, what a charm!” laughed the old woman, breaking away from the pile.

  “And who’s this he’s brought home now?” bawled out the old man, peering at us closely.