The English Wife

by Adrienne Chinn

  Ellie licks a dollop of jam off her finger. ‘Newfoundland could have joined the United States?’

  ‘There was some talk about it, maid, yes,’ Ephraim says, ‘but it never gots onto the ballot.’

  Thomas wipes a crumb off his chin as he chews on a tea bun. ‘So, we’re independent, then? Is that whats you’re sayin’?’

  ‘No, b’y. Smallwood’s lot won the day. We’re joinin’ Canada next year. Agnes’s got a face like a can of worms. I stopped in to tell her on the way here.’

  ‘Joining Canada will be a good thing, don’t you think?’ Ellie says as she scoops jam onto a tea bun. ‘I read in the paper that they’re going to pay an annual baby bonus to parents for every child. They’ll send us money for Emmy. We can start a college fund for him.’

  Thomas laughs. ‘I doubts our Emmy’ll be heading off to college. It’s not for the likes of us around here.’

  Ellie sets down the tea bun. ‘What do you mean by that, Thomas? Our son can go to college. All he needs is a proper education here first.’

  Ephraim reaches into his pocket and takes out an envelope. ‘Hold on. I just remembered. This came for you yesterday at Jim Boyd’s, Ellie.’

  Ellie rips open the envelope and slides out the telegram.

  10.45 NORWICH

  DEAR ELLIE – POPPY DIED 16 JULY – FUNERAL YESTERDAY – LEAVING FOR LONDON – DOTTIE

  She clutches the telegram against her chest. ‘Poppy’s died, Thomas. Poppy’s died and I never got to say goodbye.’

  Chapter 55

  Tippy’s Tickle – 12 September 2011

  Sam slams the door of his pickup truck and kicks the front tyre as the others clamber out with the dogs, and onto the gravel parking lot beneath the lighthouse.

  ‘Looks like the tyre’s got a slow leak. I’m going to have to head over to Wince’s place and get him to look at it.’

  Sophie eyes the once-black truck, which is now patchy with rust and faded to a dirty grey from years of salty rain. ‘You might ask him if he can fix the hole in the floor on the passenger side, too. I think the only thing holding this truck together is rust, Sam. Don’t you think it’s time to buy a new one?’

  Sam holds up a hand and rubs his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Money.’

  ‘But your furniture’s selling for a bomb in New York.’

  He shrugs. ‘Retailers charge what they want. I make a fraction of what the stuff sells for in New York. It’s enough to pay the bills, but there’s no gravy.’

  ‘There’s always credit.’

  Sam shakes his head. ‘That means the bank owns you.’

  Ellie hands Sophie a burlap bag full of paint tubes, brushes and palettes. ‘Enough chit-chat, you two. Florie, give Becca the lunch hamper and take the easels. We’ve got a painting lesson to get on with.’

  ***

  Standing back from her easel, Sophie lifts her face up to the soft warmth of the September sun. It feels so good to be back. She’d forgotten how this place seemed to wrap her in possibilities – the possibility of being an artist, the possibility of being part of a family, the possibility, maybe, of love. She could almost pretend that the New York Sophie didn’t exist. Almost.

  She scrutinises her painting. The white lighthouse with its red beacon sits resolutely on the grey rock of the headland, puffs of white clouds floating above it in the whisper blue of the sky. Cocking her head, she squints at the white house on the cliff, and screws up her mouth.

  She’s made the roof too large. She needs to work on her technique. When is she supposed to find the time? She’d already missed two life-drawing classes this month. Maybe it’s just a silly dream. She dabs her brush into the blue paint, mixing it with white, and works at obliterating the roofline.

  Ellie wipes her brush on a cotton rag and dabs at her palette, blending grey paint into the pale blue sky. ‘You’re worrying too much about making a pretty picture, Sophie. Don’t overthink it. Art has to come from within. How does the lighthouse make you feel?’

  ‘It’s a building on a cliff, Aunt Ellie.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Ellie points at the lighthouse with her brush. ‘Does the lighthouse make you feel secure? Reassured, maybe? Or does it make you think of sea storms and danger? Is it romantic, or solid? The way the lighthouse and the cliff make you feel is what you need to express in your painting.’

  Sophie glances over at Ellie’s painting. The lighthouse is a blend of mauves and whites, and in the greyed sky of a hazy morning, the cliff’s sharp edges disappear into a soft mist. A place of promise and dreams.

  ‘How did you learn all this?’

  ‘I was at art school in Norwich during the war. I studied under Dame Edith Spink.’

  ‘Dame Edith Spink? Seriously? She’s an icon! There’s a fantastic painting of hers in the Imperial War Museum in London of a WAAF who saved a pilot. My dad showed it to me once. He said it was his favourite painting. I have a postcard of it on my refrigerator.’

  Ellie smiles. ‘Corporal Deirdre Cross. She wanted me to join the WAAF.’

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘I worked for Dame Edith for a short while, before … Well, the war changed everything. I joined the Auxiliary Fire Service, met Thomas, moved here, and that was that for my art until Florie came along.’

  Sophie looks over at Florie and Becca who are playing with the dogs on a patch of yellowing grass nearby. ‘How long have you been together?’

  ‘Forty-four years this summer. I only knew Thomas for fourteen.’

  Florie bangs a tin pot lid with a metal spoon. ‘Lunchtime! I’m that hungry I could eat a pig fish.’

  Ellie’s thin face breaks into a grin. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without her. Money was always tight after Thomas died. She bought the old store from the Boyd family for a song with money she’d saved when she was teaching. She convinced some of the fishermen to do whale tours and iceberg tours. She put Tippy’s Tickle on the tourist map. She got me teaching art classes and selling art. She started her kennels. Florie’s a force of nature.’

  ‘She certainly is.’

  ‘We seem to manage, somehow. I own Kittiwake outright, which is a great help. The bank threatened to repossess it for years. Emmy helped when he could, bless him. He made good money fishing out of Fogo before he got into boat-building, and he gave me what he could. Thank goodness those days are over. It was very hard after Thomas died. I can’t imagine ever wanting to live anywhere else now, though.’

  ‘It’s lovely here, Aunt Ellie.’ Sophie runs her tongue over her lips. How can she broach the subject of selling Kittiwake to the consortium? She’s got to start somewhere.

  ‘Kittiwake is a beautiful house, but the winters must be freezing up there on the cliff.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t imagine, Sophie! The wind whips across the ocean down from the Arctic. I don’t think I was warm for fifty years. But since Sam put in the radiators we’re snug as bugs in a rug. No, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be in that house till the day I die.’

  ***

  Florie flakes out on the Hudson’s Bay blanket, throwing her legs wide, and pats her stomach. ‘That was some good, Ellie. I do loves your salmon loaf.’

  Ellie jiggles Florie’s denim-clad leg with a bare foot. ‘Well, you did eat half of it, honey.’

  Sophie closes her eyes and lifts her face to the sun. A gust of fresh air wafts across her skin, spiked with the salty tang of the ocean below. Opening her eyes, she tucks her hands around her knees and looks over at Becca. She’s playing a tug of war with Bear with the stuffed dinosaur as Florie’s dachshund, Hildegarde, runs and yaps around her feet.

  Sophie chews her lip. I’m still unforgiven, aren’t I, Becca? How can I fix it? How can I make it better between us?

  The mobile phone buzzes in her jeans pocket. She pulls it out and looks at the caller’s name. No surprise there. ‘Hi, Richard. Just a second.’

  She looks over at Ellie. ‘Sorry. Work call. I’ll just be a minute.’


  ‘That’s fine, dear. We’re not going anywhere.’

  She strolls past Becca towards a line of mangled spruce trees. ‘What is it, Richard? No, not yet. Yes, I know. Friday. I know. Yes, I’ve had a walk around the cliff. My aunt’s house is definitely the perfect location for the hotel. There’s a nearby cottage, too, with access to a sandy beach. Yes, Bufflehead Cottage. Yes, I thought so too. The one I sent you a picture of. No, I don’t think that one will be a problem. He needs money. I have to work on my aunt, though. Yes. Yes. Friday. I’ll have everything you need for the meeting, Richard. Don’t worry.’

  Switching off the call, Sophie pockets the phone and jogs across the grass towards Becca. She grabs the dinosaur from Bear and tosses it to the girl. The great black dog leaps into the air, barking as the dinosaur soars overhead. The toy falls at Becca’s feet, and the dachshund dashes in and scoops it up. The dogs spin across the grass in an explosion of joy.

  ‘Becca?’

  Becca stares at Sophie. Turning, she heads back to join the others.

  Chapter 56

  Tippy’s Tickle – 1 April 1949

  ‘At the confederation celebrations in St John’s today, Joseph R. Smallwood was called upon to form an interim government—’

  ‘That’s right, my son,’ Ephraim says as he chews on a piece of boiled cabbage. ‘You go on there.’

  ‘Sssh, Dad. I wants to hear McSwain.’

  ‘Cryin’ shame,’ Agnes says as she pours tinned milk into her tea. ‘I’m a Newfoundlander no matter what that Smallwood says.’

  ‘You looks like you’re goin’ to a funeral, woman, in all your black.’ Ephraim opens another bottle of beer. ‘Tis the best thing that’s happened to us here on The Rock since the Americans built their bases here in the war.’

  Thomas rolls his eyes. ‘Ssh, will you both. You’re as nattery as noddies after cod heads.’

  Ellie leans back from her chair and turns up the dial on the new radio, which Thomas has set, pride of place, on the centre of the hutch. Monthly payments for two years to Jim Boyd, he’d said. They’ll need to find the money from somewhere. Still, she’s glad. It’s a connection to the outside world. A world she can barely imagine still exists.

  ‘… The effects of confederation have already been felt widely in Newfoundland. Prices for many commodities have dropped drastically, such as clothing and food—’

  ‘That’s a good thing, Mam. Food and clothes’ll be cheaper now.’

  ‘… Railway passenger and freight rates also were slashed—’

  ‘Does you hears that?’ Ephraim says. ‘We might be able to get to the Regatta in St John’s this year if the train’s cheaper.’

  Agnes dabs at a drop of gravy on her black wool dress. ‘I’m not takin’ that train anywhere. Tippy’s Tickle’s all I needs. Can’t be doin’ with all those Catholics prancin’ about St John’s.’

  Ellie sets down her teacup. ‘The Catholics mostly voted for independence, Agnes. Just like you.’

  Agnes shoots a glare at her daughter-in-law. ‘That’s as may be. Doesn’t mean I’d shake the hand of the Pope on a cold day.’

  ‘… Perhaps the predominant feeling was expressed by a seal hunter who returned from the northern ice flows last night on the Terra Nova. This man, who voted anti-confederation—’

  ‘There’s a Catholic for you, Mam.’

  ‘… said, “We’re in this now and we’re going to be good Canadians, but whatever they want to call me, I’ll still be a Newfoundlander at heart.”’

  ‘Man after my own heart,’ Agnes says as she pours another cup of tea.

  Ellie collects the supper plates. ‘Maybe they’ll find the money to build a school here now.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath it’ll be any time soon, Ellie Mae.’ Thomas takes a swig of beer. ‘Towns’ll be lined up for Canadian money all the way to Cape Spear.’

  ‘Well, we need to do something, Thomas,’ Ellie says. ‘Emmy will be five this summer. He needs to start his schooling and there’s no way to get him to the school all the way down in Wesleyville.’

  ‘We could set him to board with my cousin Edna in Badger’s Quay,’ Ephraim says, stuffing his pipe with tobacco. ‘The school’s only a couple of miles from her place. A good walk for a young lad.’

  ‘That’s very nice, Ephraim, but I’m not having Emmy board at his age. And two miles is too far for him to be walking to school on his own.’

  Agnes places a plate of molasses cookies on the table. ‘Ellie’s right.’

  Ellie’s head snaps around to face her mother-in-law.

  ‘Slap me in the face with a cod, Mam,’ Thomas says, laughing. ‘Did you just agree with Ellie Mae?

  Agnes picks out three of the cookies and puts them on her dessert plate. ‘Pains me, for sure, but Emmy’s too young for that lot out there. No tellin’ who’ll get his hands on him.’

  ‘You gotta stop dressin’ him likes a girl, Mam. He’s a boy. He’ll start gettin’ ribbed for it.’

  Ellie reaches over for a cookie. ‘Maybe we can find someone to teach the children over in the church basement. I can speak to the vicar. He might know where we can find a teacher.’

  ‘You’re gettin’ awfully tight with Father Gill, there, maid,’ Thomas says. ‘You thinkin’ of becomin’ a Protestant?’

  ‘No, of course not, Thomas. It’s just I don’t have much choice if I want to worship. The closest Catholic church is in Gambo.’

  Agnes crunches on a cookie with her new set of dentures. ‘I imagines your God’s gonna put a black mark against your immortal soul for steppin’ into a Protestant church.’

  Ellie dunks her cookie into her tea. ‘We actually have the same God, Agnes. I think He understands. It’s not ideal, but “Needs must” as a friend of mine used to say.’

  Chapter 57

  Tippy’s Tickle – 13 September 2011

  Sophie taps HOTMAIL into the search bar on her laptop, but the screen goes blank except for the message: No Internet Connection.

  She groans and flops back against the wooden spindles of the desk chair. Bloody hell. No Wi-Fi connection again! She has to get these pictures and a report on the site to Richard today, or she’ll never hear the end of it. She can’t use the connection over in Florie’s shop. There just isn’t enough privacy. She glances out at the view from her bedroom window at the top of Kittiwake. Her eyes travel over the horizon, with its base of deep blue abutting the bright blue sky. Tufts of clouds hover high in the sky above the ocean, blowing in from the east. She looks towards the right, where the triangular tops of firs and spruce trees obscure the view of Sam’s cottage and the sandy cove beyond.

  Sam. He has a computer. She’s seen his furniture website. He must have a decent connection. She could ask to use his Wi-Fi. Pushing the chair away from the desk, she switches off the laptop and slides it into her computer bag.

  ***

  Sam pokes the kindling in the wood burner with an iron poker, stirring up the flames. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

  ‘Thanks again, Sam. You’re a lifesaver.’

  ‘Tell your boss I charge a hundred dollars a half-hour.’

  Sophie laughs. ‘Sure.’

  Sam raises an eyebrow. ‘You don’t believe me?’ He points to the router. ‘This is an ultra-deluxe range-extending router brought all the way from St John’s on the back of Thor’s bike.’

  ‘How is Thor, anyway? And his brother … Ace, wasn’t it?’

  ‘They’re good. Ace’s remarried. A Brazilian physiotherapist from St John’s. Thor’s had twins since you were here. Ruby and Pearl.’

  ‘You still go biking with them?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Are you … involved with anybody?’

  Sam snorts. ‘Would it matter if I was?’

  ‘Well, uh, she might not like me being here … using your Wi-Fi.’

  Sam hangs the poker on a hook and joins Sophie at the table where she’s
set up her laptop. He shifts aside a pile of drawings. ‘Anything else you need?’

  ‘No, no, I’m good.’

  ‘You’re sure? More coffee, tea?’

  ‘She doesn’t live with you, does she?’

  Sam grins. ‘It’s just me and Becca. And Bear, of course.’

  Sophie taps a drawing with her pencil. ‘What are you drawing?’

  Sam unrolls the drawing and sets Sophie’s coffee mug on one corner while he holds the other down with his left hand. ‘I had an idea for retreat cabins. We’ve got all sorts of artists finding their way up here in the summer. Painters, writers, textile artists, photographers … you name it. They see some pictures online, and the next thing you know, they’re showing up at Florie’s asking where they can stay for a few months. Some of the locals rent out rooms, but there’s no place for them to do their art except around Ellie’s art table in the store or on someone’s kitchen table. So, I came up with an idea for these cabins.’

  Sophie leans over the plan drawings. A simple square room clad in plywood, with a tiny toilet and kitchenette, and a log burner in the open-plan main room.

  ‘This looks great, Sam. Could I … would you mind if I made a few suggestions?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Sophie slides a blank piece of paper across the table and draws a truncated cube, its far wall replaced by a plane of glass, with a deck protruding from the side wall like a platform.

  Standing back from the table, she cocks her head and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ‘What do you think? We could keep the interior simple, play with a mix of plywood and cladding painted white, and paint the exterior in the colour of the stores I’ve seen – red, white, some blue, you know. Let the deck go silver like the wharves.’

  ‘Looks good. I like it.’

  ‘I just tweaked it a bit, that’s all. We could play with the shapes. Maybe make one triangular, even a circle. I can do some drawings while I’m here. They won’t take me long.’