by Paul Almond
“Of course, I’m here, aren’t I? Back, safe and sound.”
“And you did miss me?”
“Of course I missed you. I thought about you often, in fact. But let me tell you about this one night when I thought it was all over.”
“Go ahead, tell me.” She watched me with large eyes, waiting.
I told her about it in vivid detail, building it up to be even more life-threatening. I suppose I was trying to make up for what had been, perhaps, my rather feeble responses to her questioning.
“That’s so awful, Jack,” she said after I finished. “I don’t think I could live through another winter of you going off like that.”
“Well, perhaps you won’t have to. We’ll just have to see what the bishop has in store for me.”
Again, she looked down. I think I was failing whatever tests she seemed to be setting. I started on again about another escapade, when she interrupted. “I had no idea what you went through, Jack. Though some nights, I believe I was almost in contact with you, somehow. You know, even that very night of your storm, I’m sure it was then that I woke in a panic...”
I softened. What a wonderful woman she was.
“And now Jack, how did you miss me?”
“How?” I grasped for meanings. “How do you mean?”
“Well...” She paused and looked at me. I guess she saw I was genuinely asking for help. “Did you ache for me? Did every bone in your body cry out, day after day, minute after minute, so that the pain was more than you could take? So you had to find things to do, just anything, just to get rid of the great emptiness?”
“The emptiness?” What should I say? I had to be honest, no doubt about that. I had no desire to base this, my most important relationship, on lies. “No, no, I can’t say I did. No, it wasn’t like that at all. But I did miss you, even terribly.” And then, quickly, to divert the conversation, I went on to talk about the time I had to shoot Grey. I really wanted to get it off my chest, and she was the only one I could confide in — I mean, really tell what was in my heart. So I began on that story.
As I talked, I noticed her nodding to herself, and then she reached out her hands and clasped mine, bowing her head, her hands clinging so tightly that I faltered in my description of that horrendous downhill slide, leading to the injury of Grey. Slowly I came to a halt. “Is something wrong, dear Lorna?”
She sighed. “No dear Jack, it is as it should be, I suppose. I have to learn to live with that.” She looked up. “And now, if you don’t mind, I shall have to retire. I’ve had a tiring day, as I know you have too, and these frightening tales wear me out even further. Please forgive me. We shall see each other tomorrow, of course.”
She rose and walked slowly to the foot of the stairs, seemingly in a daze, or rather, in some deep contemplation. She paused, without looking back, and then slowly, step by step, mounted to her bedroom, alone.
Over the next three or four weeks when the weather kept me pinned to Mutton Bay and Tabacher, I fell into a kind of routine: fulfilling the many tasks I set myself: teaching school, giving services, ministering to the sick, and adjudicating family problems. But it was hard to keep on top of everything: I think my journeying had taken more out of me than I had suspected, as much fun as the adventure had been.
April was cut in half by Holy Week, which culminated on Easter Sunday on the eighteenth. The week before, I had read the Palm Sunday Gospel, about thirty minutes on the Passion of the Christ, so dramatic! We even stripped the altar for Good Friday, a day when nothing is done in the whole village, no work of course, no cooking, absolutely nothing. The next day we had a baptism at the Easter Saturday candlelight vigil. Excellent turnout on Sunday too, with everyone dressing up, including the stately Lorna Maclean, who towered above the other ladies. I was so proud of her, looking so imposing and, in fact, gorgeous. A regular attendee at church these days, she didn’t throw me off my duties; I looked forward to her sitting there, listening seriously to my sermons. Easter Monday then brought forth celebrations, mild of course, not a lot of drinking, but tea parties and visiting, even a few dances.
Lorna and I had more or less settled into a routine that seemed on the surface not to have changed. Yes, I had been troubled on that night of my arrival; yes, I had lain in bed worrying whether or not I had hurt her somehow, wondering how I’d failed what must have been some form of testing. But then, over breakfast the next morning, she had said no more and went about preparing for the day as usual. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks had gone by that I noticed her activities had changed. She hadn’t let me in on that, but Aunt Minnie did, one afternoon.
“She’s off working at a number of different houses now,” said Aunt Minnie, “and she helps down at the fishing co-op, cleaning the place for the summer’s cod fishing, and she’s back helping Captain Blais, and over at the Rogers, too. I know they give her things in return, and she trades them up!”
“She trades them up? How do you mean?”
“Well, she trades this for that, this fish for one bigger or better. She’s a smart maid; I think she’s laying up a store for herself.”
“What makes you think that, Aunt Minnie?”
Aunt Minnie just shook her head and went about her business. I resolved to talk to Lorna about it, but then thought it might be too much of an intrusion. So we kept to our routine, though our evening chats were cut short because she disappeared every evening after dinner.
“You’re putting the Vatcher children to bed again?”
She nodded. “I don’t go there during the day anymore. I have to work harder, somewhere that gets me better bartering.”
“Work harder? Why ever do you have to do that, Lorna? You have a safe haven here.”
She shrugged. “Don’t you worry about it, Jack, just keep on with what you’re doing; you’re making a fine job of ministering to everyone — torn in ten parts, I do see that too. You just keep on. And so shall I.”
I found this rather ominous, but then not long after Easter I got an early morning visit from a young man I had often seen in church, a Perce Mansbridge.
“Good day, good day, Perce,” I said. “Something troubling you?”
He nodded. “I been up the coast visiting relatives.” He looked distinctly worried as he took off his hat. “I seen a flag up at that there settlement on Gros Isle,” he went on, without the usual polite preamble. “Seems like they might need your services.” People when marooned, not able to go for help, often hoisted a flag. “But them ice conditions, terble dangerous. Didn’t know whether I should tell ya or not.”
“Thank you, Perce, of course you should.”
“But she’s a good long way off with these ’ere ice conditions. Don’t know if you want to take it on, or even if you should. Trouble is, they’s me relatives. The fella’s a cousin and...”
“You were quite right to tell me,” I confirmed. “That’s my calling.”
“You thinking of going, then?”
“I’ll have to. No other way. Today it’s only the little ones I’m teaching, and my assistant teacher can handle it.”
“I better come with yez then. Fer that ice is dangerous, no telling when it’ll give out. Some places the melt’s as big as a lake over that ice.”
Could I really ask someone to risk their life with me? “No thanks, Perce, I’ll be all right.”
“I knows why yer saying that, and it don’t make no spot o’ difference with me. I’ll come too.”
He suggested we borrow his uncle’s team of nine dogs, the best anywhere around, because he said we might be needing that. Packing hurriedly, we set off together, after I told Aunt Minnie where I was going. I asked her to say my farewells to Lorna, for I knew she’d expect me home for supper. I didn’t want to see her right now for she’d worry at my leaving. We’d be meeting the most dangerous ice conditions ever: broken floes, drifting ice pans, and the dark ocean beneath. But duty did call.
Chapter Eighteen
The three of us sailed along over
the melting surface of the gulf. Perce had explained that his cousin’s wife, Becky, was about to give birth any time now, so I insisted we bring the middah along because, like as not, the island settlement was too small to have an experienced one to hand. He agreed, and we enlisted the services of Alice Gallichons from Old Post.
“She’s some pretty, that Becky,” Perce went on to explain. “I was really getting close to having ’er marry me instead, but then Howard won ’er fair in square, ’e did. Put me in a bit of a spin for a few months... but now, she’s still part o’ the family...” All this was explained while we sped through what seemed almost a lake, and I feared that we’d go right through the thin ice beneath.
When I voiced my fears, Perce replied cheerily, “That’s just the melt; she’s solid under, no fear o’ that. We’ll make our way...” At least he appeared sanguine; not so, I. Then he went on, “Why Becky went off to live with ’er own folks on that island I’ll never know. Mrs. Stiles, she’s not handy with birthing, no doubt about that. Never was. Not like other women ’ereabouts.”
I couldn’t stop myself watching the water on either side. I noticed my hands were gripping the komatik box much too fiercely. I tried to get myself to relax.
Alice Gallichons had been sitting well wrapped up, hardly speaking. But now she responded, “Not simple, births. I know a good few who wouldn’t touch ’em. For us what likes it, nothing easier. But if she’s given birth already, who knows what to expect. They might both be gone.”
I burst in, “No no, let’s think the best, that’s why we’re going after all.”
These nine dogs certainly made up the finest team in Mutton Bay: the way they worked together as we forged across this shallow ice lake, in some places deep enough to give their bodies a good soaking. Hard pulling.
I tried to cheer up. “They seem to be enjoying themselves, Perce,” I said.
“For sure,” Perce replied, “Just hope the weather holds for the return, though.”
Now why on earth bring that up? Every day, we all knew that the full melt was coming closer. Crossing from that island would become even more dangerous, if not impossible. But our little rescue trio, clinging together, rolled along. Around dinnertime, we climbed over a cape and saw before us a jumble of loose floes enclosing, in the distance, Gros Isle. We stopped to take it in.
I shook my head and just gave up.
Perce took it upon himself to decide. “I reckon we’d better go round the shore to get closer, no matter if we have a hard time with them ballicatters” — rough edges and pinnacles of ice thrown up by the spray with more snow piling on top. “See that there shelf out there?” He pointed to the white sheet stretching out to a line of dark water in the gulf. “Wind keeps pressing that shelf in, crams these floes together, so we might manage.”
We set off, gritting our teeth, and me invoking the Lord’s help as strongly as I could. With the broken floes nestling close, I still saw ominous cracks between them and frightening openings of black water. As we crossed onto some floes, they sank and I felt the komatik go down. Not enjoyable one bit. The team would start across a pan, and then veer sharply off: lots of experience travelling this spring ice, I gathered. And I had none. Lucky Perce had come along.
We finally made it over to the island. Perce guided our lead dog, Nipper, toward the cluster of rough but sturdy dwellings. We clambered off at his cousins’ and I stood up to stretch, my worry building. What would we find when we entered?
“You fellas go in,” Perce said, “and I’ll take these here dogs round to a pen.”
Aunt Alice stamped her feet to get the circulation back. “Please, you go on in,” I suggested and, divining somehow the reason for my reluctance, she went and knocked. A young man, same age as Perce, opened the door and his drawn face lit up. “Come in, Aunt Alice, come in.” She hurried through, shutting the door.
Perce soon came round the corner of the house looking as though he had just seen a ghost. Wordlessly, he beckoned. I followed him and he pointed up.
High against the outside wall hung a bundle wrapped in white canvas. What on earth could that be? He returned my look and I saw in his look the awful truth. “You think... that’s the baby?”
He nodded and closed his eyes. He swayed and I came to steady him. “It may not be,” I said, rather fatuously. “Come.”
When we went in, I knew Perce had been right.
The middah had doffed her outer clothes and was hurrying from stove to bedroom. Through an open door, I saw the bed on which Howard’s young wife, lay. Becky’s mother, Mrs. Stiles, a heavy-set grey-haired woman, was wringing her hands and obeying the terse commands of the middah as best she could. As I took off my coat, I saw an unspoken sorrow pass between Perce and his cousin Howard, slight of build with a broad, intelligent face and brown hair. “I saw outside...” Perce began.
Howard nodded. “Last night. We did what we could. A little maid she was. Gone. Didn’t tell Becky.” He glanced at me. “She keeps asking for her.”
“So Becky’s all right?” Perce asked. I could tell from the shake in his voice he was close to panic.
“Not too all right, I guess.” Howard shut his eyes, bowed his head, and tears began to run down his cheeks. Perce gave his cousin a firm hug, doing his best to hide his own grief.
What a difficult state of affairs for an outsider!
“Is there something we can do?” Perce asked Aunt Alice.
“Just keep out of our way.” She hurried into the bedroom with towels and a bowl of water. The mother stood shaking her head and then followed the middah. I began to hope silently for Becky’s survival, now our paramount problem.
When his mother-in-law came out of the bedroom, Howard calmed himself to ask her, “You think, Momma, you could get these fellas a cup of tea?”
She brightened. At last, something she felt comfortable about! “Yis yis, so sorry, such a twenty-four hours, I never knew whether I was comin’ or goin’. Of course, I’ll get yez a cup o’ tea. And how about some bread and molasses?”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Stiles.” I added that I was the new clergyman in Mutton Bay.
She nodded. “Oh yis, I heard about you, Mr. John. The folks all like yez. I ’ope it’s only one funeral you’ll be ’olding ’ereabouts.”
“Mrs. Stiles, the power of prayer, combined with a good middah, can often work miracles,” I said as firmly as I could. I noticed both she and Howard seemed to cheer up somewhat.
After tea as we were talking in low tones, the middah came out with the news that her patient was resting. A good chance, or so she said, that she would pull through, but I saw from the look on her face that she did not believe it. “What she needs is some rest, and good red meat.” She frowned. “But meat we don’t ’ave.” Becky’s father had gone off looking for caribou two days before, but had not yet returned.
“Oh yes we do,” piped up Perce. “I brought a good three or four pound. My uncle went inside and shot a big buck last week, and we froze it.” He jumped up. “I’ll just fetch the parcel, and bring in our bags.”
I knew I had better get going. “Is she asleep?”
The middah shook her head. “Dozing, most like.”
“Would it disturb her if I went in?”
“She keeps asking for her baby. Dunno what to tell her.”
I paused. How should I handle this? She’d have to know sooner or later... “Perhaps I should enlighten her on your behalf? I can describe how her little maid is safe in the arms of the Lord.”
They looked at one another and then nodded. I rose with some misgivings, for I still did not feel confident in such situations.
I entered, shut the door, and pulled the chair close. I leaned forward. “Becky, I am your clergyman from Mutton Bay. I want to tell you...” She reached out and grasped my hand. “I want to tell you that your little maid is now sharing a far greater joy than any of us could imagine.”
She gave a cry and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “I knew it,
I knew it. They didn’t have to tell me. I just knew.”
I let the silence fall for a moment, and sat back. What now?
“Gone... gone... she’s left me forever...” Tears gathered in her eyes.
“Becky, Becky, right now, Our Lord is rocking her, and choirs of angels are singing her to sleep. She is, and will be forever, surrounded by Heavenly Grace.”
She said nothing, staring at the ceiling. I realized that somehow, these words were not as great a comfort as I had hoped. Try another tack. But what?
I leaned forward again. “Becky, you’re young, from all I hear you’re throbbing with life; the middah says you’ll soon get better. You will have many more children, without a doubt. I can see it plainly.” I stopped as she turned to look me full in my face. “I know this seems impossible now, but many mothers have lost their first child, and gone on to have wonderful families. And you know this to be true, don’t you?” I paused. “Don’t you?”
Becky nodded. So the words had reached her.
I went on gently, “And now, for the sake of those many beautiful children you and Howard will have, you must try to sleep. We’ll come in later to pray for your own safe journey back into the land of the living once again, and continue to be a glorious — and from what I hear from Perce — very lovely lass.”
I actually saw a slight smile flicker across her lips before she closed her eyes. I stayed sitting until I saw her breathing relax; she had gone to sleep.
During the night the fog crept in with the stealth of an arctic fox and by morning, we were completely surrounded. Even had we planned to leave, and of course we could not with Becky’s health hanging in the balance, we were marooned.
She had lost a lot of blood; Alice was unable to say whether the point of no return had been reached. During the night she had made a thick broth from a portion of the caribou and had been feeding it to her. The flow of blood had stopped. It was now a question of whether the good Lord would keep her alive, or take her up to join her lost child.
In the early morning, my first instinct, to read the Bible at her bedside, was actually not such a good idea: it might just depress her. So instead, I prayed silently: a form of deep thought as I sat by the fire, and sometimes at the foot of her bed. I had no idea if any of this would do any good, but was mightily heartened when, in the afternoon, the middah told me that Becky had whispered that she liked my presence in the room and was deriving some strength from it. So far, so good.