by Tom Moore
“We?”
“Felix, listen to me. It’s a good idea. We’re so lucky you’re going to inherit this place.”
She knew.
“What about your degree?” I asked.
“I can finish that any time.”
“What about my degree?”
“You can finish it from here and work on weekends. When you go to law school, I’ll have to hire someone to help me out. Drusilla, maybe. I’m sure Mom and Gerald would help as well.”
I stared at her and noticed for the first time that she was not very tall. In her sneakers, she was not as tall as me.
Father and Shirley walked back down the driveway arm in arm. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
12
The Merchant Prince
I sat at my father’s kitchen table with my head in my hands. “She’s nuts,” I said. “She’s beautiful, but she’s nuts.”
“I agree.”
“What am I going to do?”
“You can say no,” he said.
“I can’t say no.”
“Who’s in charge?” he asked.
“She is.”
“No, she’s not. You’ll have to sign the papers.”
“She’ll make my life a misery unless I do. She’ll sulk, pout, cry, tear out her hair, scream, accuse, threaten, and run away. She’ll be at me every morning and every night.”
Shirley said, “She has no money. You’ll need money to stock the place and repair the outbuildings.” She was standing by the fridge with her elbow resting on the top and holding a cigarette. “You have no job, so you’ll have to borrow everything. Say no! To her. It’s your only chance.”
“I can’t.”
“Then you’re screwed,” she said.
Father and I looked at her. We both knew she was right.
What choice did I have? I had tackled myself to my dream, and she was going to make us a merchant family from the past. At least Father and Shirley would buy groceries from us, Gerald and Maud, ourselves. Three customer families for sure. Did I know we would fail? Did I know we were doing something that would doom us? Yes and yes. But I was enthralled by my dream as much as she was enthralled by hers.
So, we were screwed, as Shirley so eloquently put it. Ellen was on a mission. She quit university and threw herself into the White premises. She bought paint and refurbished the place like Better Homes and Gardens. The shop and the house were hers. I was relegated to the flour store, the woodshed, the molasses store, and the coal shed to make my improvements.
My first recommendation was to tear down the coal shed, because almost no one bought coal anymore. By the early ’70s, most people had electric heat or oil furnaces.
We gave our notice on the basement apartment, now tastefully appointed in contemporary American, and moved to Curlew into the White House. Father helped me with the moving, and soon we just about had the business going. The old house offered its charms, like the original cherry wood furniture from Ireland and the solid silver place settings.
But the heating was an oil stove from the ’50s in the living room and a coal and wood stove to cook on in the kitchen. It was a Maid of Avalon, cast iron with some cream design work. It stood on four curved legs, had a front oven, four dampers, a top lid on one side, and a grate below the lid to poke at the embers. Above the dampers it had a large warming oven with a door hinged from the bottom. It was like going back in time, but we agreed to install electric heat as soon as we could afford it.
The plumbing was all solid, but the old water pump leaked and needed replacement. Ellen did not see this as a problem and promptly ordered a new jet pump from St. John’s. The atrocious bill arrived a month later.
The bank manager came out to see the books one day and view the renovations. Ellen handled his tour, and I watched him get back into his car shaking his head.
I came from university one day in Father’s truck and saw she had the old British Union Jack flying beside the new Canadian flag over the shop.
“Flags look great,” I said as Drusilla served us supper.
“Next month, Felix, next month we’ll be open. Look at this ad.” She showed me a professional sketch for a newspaper ad announcing the grand opening of the store.
“This looks really professional,” I said. The ad showed the flags and an attractive woman standing in the open door. It was Ellen herself with arms spread wide over her head. Her welcoming smile was pure Hollywood, her dress was tight, and her stiletto heels were lovely for a brothel. But for a shop?
“And that’s my sign, for over the door,” she said.
I would have preferred Father’s sign, but I smiled. “It’s certainly you.”
“Phil Wallen is a professional artist from Boston. He lives in Petley, and I got him on the cheap.” She smiled at her cleverness. “Phil wants to put my picture in the sign.”
“Your picture up on the building, beside the words?”
“Yes, my picture and the words The White Premises. A visual gets more attention.”
“But shouldn’t we call it The Ryan Premises? The Whites are in the past.”
“Felix, it’s easier to change the present than it is to change the past.”
“What?”
We ate at the old cherry wood dining table for eight under the Waterford chandelier. Ellen usually dressed for dinner, and under Clara White’s chandelier she lifted a crystal wineglass to her lips. It seemed she had finally found her dream.
“Where’s Drusilla?” I asked.
“She eats in the kitchen.”
“Why? Six empty places here.” I pointed a silver fork.
“So she can keep an eye on the cooking.”
Drusilla slipped in and out with food, as she had done for old Clara, disappearing into the dimness outside the chandelier’s glow. She was lanky with a long face that showed little expression. Her clothes looked like something Clara would have worn, and may have. A dark lace shawl covered her shoulders, and she slipped it up over the back of her head like a veil, especially in the cooler months.
“Drusilla, be a dear and bring us our tea,” Ellen said.
Soon, the large teapot slipped into port, like a shining silver ship from another land, perhaps China. We had taken to using cubes of sugar to utilize the little silver bowl and tongs from the cabinet. Ellen smiled at me over a steaming cup of sweet tea as she sucked on a sugar cube. Her teeth were even, but I noticed they were small and darker than the cube.
I graduated with a B.A. that spring. When I gave Ellen the news, she reached across the counter where Dick had died and took both my hands in hers. “That’s so wonderful, Felix. I can’t wait till you hear from law school.”
“I also won a fellowship at MUN to do a master’s degree in English and another in folklore.”
She let go of my hands. “Folklore? Studying fairies and old songs?”
“I’m thinking about the degree in English.”
“To do what? Teach English?”
“I could complete a doctorate and teach at MUN.”
“A professor looks good, but they work for peanuts.”
“I’m thinking about teaching high school English.”
She was silent for a moment, and then said softly, “No prestige, no money. Felix, did you have any other good ideas today?”
I did not like the tone in my beloved’s voice.
“I’m going over to show Father my marks.” I reached down for the official transcript on the counter. Her hand shot out and covered mine.
“Felix, think. We can hang on here for three years until you get your law degree, and after that we can get out of debt.”
“I’m thinking it over,” I said.
The smile danced back to h
er face like sunbeams on a wall. “That’s all I ask,” she said, “and I’m sure you’ll do what’s best for us.”
As I walked to the door, she called after me, “Felix, I love you.”
One day, I followed Ellen to the clothesline. I carried the basket of wet laundry while she pinned each item to the line. The sun was shining, and a drying wind came in from the sea to touch the hayfields and clotheslines.
She worked very quickly pinning up the washing, and soon I had an empty basket. She smiled and reached her arms around my head. “Have you ever been afraid, Felix?”
I was not prepared for a question like that on so fine a day. “Of course,” I said.
“Have you ever woken up in the night crying in fear?”
“No,” I said.
“I have. One night I dreamed I had a sister, and we were both Untouchables in India. Do you know what Untouchables are?”
“The lowest caste.”
“We slept on the sidewalk, and men kept bothering us in the night. I loved my sister, and I wanted to help her more than myself. But it was not possible. She was gorgeous, and the men kept bothering her.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I just woke up screaming. Mom was so mad.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, she was drunk, so she was really pissed off at first. Then I told her about the dream, and she seemed to sober up.”
“Did she comfort you?”
Ellen paused at the question. “In a way, she did.”
“What did she say?”
Ellen looked me in the eyes for a moment, trying to decide if she would tell me. Then she shrugged and let her hands fall to her sides. “Mom said, ‘Don’t worry, baby, ’cause looks can get you anything.’ Let’s go back in, Felix. It’s getting cold out here.”
And she was right, the wind had turned cooler.
Father and Shirley were also delighted by my good news. Father held the transcript up to the evening light from the window and said aloud each mark in each subject. Twenty in all, five subjects a year for four years.
“Great marks! And you stuck it out for four years,” he said.
“Three more for law school,” Shirley burbled.
“Jeez, Felix, then you’ll be a lawyer!” Father said.
“I was offered two fellowships at Memorial.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It means they’ll pay me two thousand dollars a term to do an M.A. in English or folklore.”
“Wow! They must really be impressed with you,” he said.
“They offer ten or twelve each year based on marks. My English marks are my highest.”
“Your logic mark is higher.” He had noticed. “So, what’s the most logical thing to do?” He chuckled at his own cleverness.
“Ellen wants me to push on with law school.”
“Hmm,” he pondered.
“What do you want?” Shirley asked.
“I don’t know. I want the best for everyone,” I said.
“That can be difficult sometimes,” she said.
The next day was Saturday, and I had some chores in the flour store. I pushed open the red and white Coca-Cola banner that ran across the door. The pretty cola girl with the smiling red lips looked a bit like Ellen.
I poked around and eventually went up the ladder to the second floor. I pushed open the creaky door of Dick’s old workshop. His vise was still attached to the workbench, and most of his tools lay about or hung on the wall. Off to the side was a pile of boxes containing most of Dick’s dolls that I had packed away years before. I had been instructed by Clara to pack them for shipping, but here they were. The train had left the station without these jolly passengers. But who would want them?
Dick’s perfect world of miniature Curlew folk lay waiting for their resurrection, just like himself, his father, and his mother. The early spring sun shone through the upper window and drew a perfect cross on the floor with its four small panes. The Ellen doll still stood on the workbench like a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Outside, the buds were getting fat as the sap returned to dry branches. Early birds with interesting southern experiences could be heard chirping their news in song. The frogs in Joneys Gully were feeling the warmth of the sun calling them through the mud from their boggy graves, just as God called man four and a half million years ago from the dust of the earth.
That night, I lay in bed with the one I considered the prettiest woman in creation. She turned to me and said, “So, are you going to law school?”
“Yes,” I said. “If they accept my application, I’ll go.”
Her arms went around me, and I received the most divine gift a man could imagine. Afterwards, I lay on my back thinking. I realized I had never said no to that woman at any point in our relationship so far.
13
Help from an Angel
The following month, I was accepted at Dalhousie University, to great joy at home. Ellen was so loving and affectionate that I hated to leave her for Halifax. Father loaned me his truck, and I started off on Joey’s Trans-Canada Highway for the ferry in Port aux Basques that would take me to Nova Scotia. My clothes were stowed in a large cardboard box on the passenger floor. I was well stocked with a cooler full of sandwiches and bottles of Coke. There was even a cooked chicken in aluminum foil packed away, and Father had hidden a bottle of beer under it. I don’t know where he got it, for there was never a beer in our house.
He walked me to the truck as Shirley and Ellen waved from the kitchen door. He took an envelope from his pocket. “I gave you a hundred dollars when you went to Memorial. Now here’s another hundred to get you through Dalhousie,” he said.
“Thanks, Father, but I plan to get a job in Halifax and . . .”
“There’s also a letter. I don’t want you to read it till you pass Deer Lake. You should get there by tonight.”
“Okay,” I promised.
“You never let me down yet,” he said, and I thought for a minute he was going to hug me. But he just handed me the keys to the truck. “Front driver’s tire has a slow leak, so keep her pumped up at the gas stations. She’ll be fine for a day or two. Good luck!” Then he reached out his hand like he was signing a deal.
I happily took his honest hand in mine and gave it a shake. “I’ll phone you when I get there.”
“Yes, do that. Shirley and I will be waiting tomorrow night to hear from you, and I’m sure Ellen will, too.”
Then Ellen ran down the path from the house in tears. Her arms were outstretched, and she threw herself around me. Father jumped out of her way. “Felix! Felix! I love you!” She smothered my face with wet kisses.
“I love you, too, Ellen,” I said, holding tight to the keys. Finally, she let me go and sobbed as I started up the truck.
“Choke her,” Father shouted over the din of sputtering. I realized that he meant the truck, and I pulled out the choke button. The sputtering evened out into a smooth roar. I blew the horn, waved, and pulled away from home and toward distant battles. I felt a bit like Ashley Wilkes leaving Tara for the Civil War. Scarlet waved to me sadly in the rear-view movie screen of the old Dodge.
I linked up with the Trans-Canada Highway in Holyrood, and stopped for a Coke and chips at the Fleetline Bus terminal. I had my own stash, but I just wanted to see the place again. A few people recognized me and said, “Goodbye!” and, “Good luck!” Then I jumped aboard the Dodge, popped the Coke between my legs, and gunned her out of the parking lot.
Trans-Canada Highway West, the sign said, and I sallied forth for the mainland like many others. It was a warm August day, the best time in Newfoundland, and I hated to waste it driving to Nova Scotia. I could be home puttering around the yard at some project that meant something to me. I could be in the arms of a
loving and adorable wife. No, that was out. If I went back, she would be very angry with me!
I put down the window so I could hear the birds sing, but that worked only if I drove very slowly. So, I did. Eventually, I stopped the truck, got out, and sat on the tailgate. I had reached a small town called Goobies, from which a little river ran under the highway. I knew a guy in Doyle House from there. People had swum and fished in that river for a hundred years. There was an old sawmill behind the town. Suddenly, I wanted to go down and visit the mill and talk to someone. I watched some kids swim on that warm summer day, and I thought about Weavers Pond back home. Joyful birds flew over my head, and none of them were headed west like me.
Slowly, I got back into the truck and drove along toward Clarenville, listening to the birds. Faster cars passed me, and a few tooted their horns. But I drove slowly.
Around noon, I stopped at the Clarenville Irving for a bowl of pea soup. It was great. I stood in the back of the truck and looked down over Clarenville from the parking lot. It was a hearty, bustling hub town that serviced a whole region. In the distance I could see Shoal Harbour and the bridge to Random Island waving slightly in the heat and mist. Some men were fishing in the Arm.
I started up the truck and sat for a moment or two before I got on the road to Gander. There’s an international airport there where Joey Smallwood ran a pig farm in the ’40s. I drove past the airport exit and pushed on to Grand Falls, home of John Malacat.
I stopped at the Mount Peyton Hotel and went into the dining room. A solidly built gentleman with a thick head of black hair approached me. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie. “Yes, sir? Table for one?”
“Yes, please,” I said, not used to that title.
He pulled out my chair with the deft move of a professional. “Menu, sir?”
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, so why not? “Sure,” I said.
He was back in a jiffy with a large pitcher of water. “Adam’s Ale?” he asked.
“What?”
“Adam’s Ale.” He filled my glass with water. “May I recommend the special, pan-fried Atlantic salmon? It’s caught locally, and it’s delicious.”
