Dedication
For my mother, Gabrielle Monaghan,
who brought us to Newfoundland and loved it as much as I do.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Praise
About the Publisher
1
September 1985
Little Cove: Population 389
The battered sign came into view as my car crested a hill on the gravel road. Only 389 people? Damn. I pulled over and got out of the car, inhaling the moist air. Empty boats tilted against the wind in the bay below. A big church dominated the valley, beside which squatted a low, red building, its windows dark, like a row of rotten teeth. This was likely St. Jude’s, where tomorrow I would begin my teaching career.
“You lost?”
I whirled around. A gaunt man, about sixty, straddled a bike beside me. He wore denim overalls and his white hair was combed neatly back from his forehead.
“Car broke down?” he continued.
“No,” I said. “I’m just . . .” My voice trailed off. I could hardly confide my second thoughts to this stranger. “Admiring the view.”
He looked past me at the flinty mist now spilling across the bay. A soft rain began to fall, causing my carefully straightened hair to twist and curl like a mass of dark slugs.
“Might want to save that for a fine day,” he said. His accent was strong, but lilting. “It’s right mauzy today.”
“Mossy?”
“Mauzy.” He gestured at the air around him. Then he folded his arms across his chest and gave me a once-over. “Now then,” he said. “What’s a young one like you doing out this way?”
“I’m not that young,” I shot back. “I’m the new French teacher out here.”
A smile softened his wrinkled face. “Down from Canada, hey?”
As far as I knew, Newfoundland was still part of Canada, but I nodded.
“Phonse Flynn,” he said, holding out a callused hand. “I’m the janitor over to St. Jude’s.”
“Rachel,” I said. “Rachel O’Brien.”
“I knows you’re staying with Lucille,” he said. “I’ll show you where she’s at.”
With an agility that belied his age, he dismounted and gently lowered his bike to the ground. Then he pointed across the bay. “Lucille’s place is over there, luh.”
Above a wharf, I saw a path that cut through the rocky landscape towards a smattering of houses. I’d been intrigued at the prospect of a boarding house; it sounded Dickensian. Now I was uneasy. What if it was awful?
“What about your bike?” I asked, as Phonse was now standing by the passenger-side door of my car.
“Ah, sure it’s grand here,” he said. “I’ll come back for it by and by.”
“Aren’t you going to lock it?”
I thought of all the orphaned bike wheels locked to racks in Toronto, their frames long since ripped away. Jake had been livid when his racing bike was stolen. Not that I was thinking about Jake. I absolutely was not.
“No need to lock anything ’round here,” said Phonse.
I fumbled with my car keys, embarrassed to have locked the car from habit.
“Need some help?”
“The lock’s a bit stiff,” I said. “I’ll get used to it.”
Phonse waited while I jiggled in vain. Then he walked around and held out his hand. I gave him the key, he stuck it in and the knob on the inside of the car door popped up immediately.
“Handyman, see,” he said. “Wants a bit of oil, I allows. But like I said, no need to lock ’er. Anyway, with that colour, who’d steal it?”
I had purchased the car over the phone, partly for its price, partly for its colour. Green had been Dad’s favourite colour, and when the salesman said mountain green, I’d imagined a dark, verdant shade. Instead, with its scattered rust garnishes, the car looked like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Still, it would fit right in. I eyeballed the houses as we drove along: garish orange, lime green, blinding yellow. Maybe there had been a sale on paint.
As we passed the church, Phonse blessed himself, fingers moving from forehead to chest, then on to each shoulder. I kept both hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“Where’s the main part of Little Cove?” I asked.
“You’re looking at it.”
There was nothing but a gas station and a takeout called MJ’s, where a clump of teenagers was gathered outside, smoking. A tall, dark-haired boy pointed at my car and they all turned to stare. A girl in a lumber jacket raised her hand. I waved back before I realized she was giving me the finger. Embarrassed, I peeked sideways at Phonse. If he’d noticed, he didn’t let on.
Although Phonse was passenger to my driver, I found myself thinking of Matthew Cuthbert driving Anne Shirley through Avonlea en route to Green Gables. Not that I’d be assigning romantic names to these landmarks. Anne’s “Snow Queen” cherry tree and “Lake of Shining Waters” were nowhere to be seen. It was more like Stunted Fir Tree and Sea of Grey Mist. And I wasn’t a complete orphan; it merely felt that way.
At the top of a hill, Phonse pointed to a narrow dirt driveway on the left. “In there, luh.”
I parked in front of a small violet house encircled by a crooked wooden fence. A rusty oil tank leaned into the house, as if seeking shelter. When I got out, my nose wrinkled at the fishy smell. Phonse joined me at the back of the car and reached into the trunk for my suitcases.
“Gentle Jaysus in the garden,” he grunted. “What have you got in here at all? Bricks?” He lurched ahead of me towards the house, refusing my offer of help.
The contents of my suitcases had to last me the entire year; now I was second-guessing my choices. My swimsuit and goggles? I wouldn’t be doing lengths in the ocean. I looked at the mud clinging to my sneakers and regretted the suede dress boots nestled in tissue paper. But I knew some of my decisions had been right: a raincoat, my portable cassette player, stacks of homemade tapes, my hair straightener and a slew of books.
When Phonse reached the door, he pushed it open, calling, “Lucille? I got the new teacher here. I expect she’s wore out from the journey.” As he heaved my bags inside, a stout woman in a floral apron and slippers appeared: Lucille Hanrahan, my boarding house lady.
“Phonse, my son, bring them bags upstairs for me now,” she said.
I said I would take them but Lucille shooed me into the hall, practically flapping her tea towel at me. “No, girl,” she said. “You must be dropping, all the way down from Canada. Let’s get some grub in you before you goes over to the school to see Mr. D
onovan.”
Patrick Donovan, the school principal, had interviewed me over the phone. I was eager to meet him.
“Oh, did he call?” I asked.
“No.”
Lucille smoothed her apron over her belly, then called up the stairs to ask Phonse if he wanted a cup of tea. There was a slow beat of heavy boots coming down. “I’ll not stop this time,” said Phonse. “But Lucille, that fence needs seeing to.”
Lucille batted her hand at him. “Go way with you,” she said. “It’s been falling down these twenty years or more.” But as she showed him out, they talked about possible repairs, the two of them standing outside, pointing and gesturing, oblivious to the falling rain.
A lump of mud fell from my sneaker, and I sat down on the bottom step to remove my shoes. When Lucille returned, she grabbed the pair, clacked them together outside the door to remove the remaining mud, then lined them up beside a pair of sturdy ankle boots.
I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, counting the curlers that dotted her head, pink outposts in a field of black and grey.
“Sit down over there, luh,” she said, gesturing towards a table and chairs shoved against the back window. I winced at her voice; it sounded like the classic two-pack-a-day rasp.
The fog had thickened, so nothing was visible outside; it was like watching static on TV. There were scattered cigarette burns on the vinyl tablecloth and worn patches on the linoleum floor. A religious calendar hung on the wall, a big red circle around today’s date. September’s pin-up was Mary, her veil the exact colour of Lucille’s house. I was deep in Catholic territory, all right. I hoped I could still pass for one.
“Do you have other boarders?” I asked.
“I only takes one at a time,” said Lucille. “You’re the first mainlander.”
A steady heat emanated from the wood stove and the smell of freshly baked bread almost masked the odour of stale cigarettes. Lucille dropped a tea bag into a mug, lifted a large kettle and splashed in boiling water. Then she plonked the mug in front of me, along with a can of evaporated milk. I’d seen it in grocery stores, but never tasted it.
“You take sugar?”
I shook my head, then, following Lucille’s lead, dribbled the canned milk into my mug. I took a cautious sip, wincing at the sickly sweet taste.
“Too hot, is it?” asked Lucille.
I nodded.
She sliced into a thick, white loaf of bread and my stomach growled in harmony. Then she pushed a jar of homemade blueberry jam and a tub of margarine towards me before sitting down and lighting a cigarette, turning her head to blow the smoke away. The familiar gesture and the smell of smoke were like a slap in the face. It was too soon after Dad’s death. But this was Lucille’s house, and she didn’t know about Dad, so I swallowed my outrage, washing it down with the tea.
I was on my second slice of bread when Lucille said, “I s’pose you heard what happened to the last French teacher?”
“No.”
Her lips tightened for a moment, then she said, “She run off with the priest.”
“What?” I might be a lapsed Catholic, but a priest running off with a parishioner will always be good gossip. I needed all the details, if only to share them with Sheila when next we spoke.
But Lucille pushed herself up from the table and said it was time I headed into school. “Besides you as the new teacher,” she said, reaching for my plate, “we got a new priest in the bargain. Don’t be getting any notions about him, now, he’s the back end of sixty.”
I opened my mouth, ready to swear to a lack of interest in any man of the cloth, no matter what his age, then shut it again when Lucille winked at me.
As I drove to the school, I couldn’t stop thinking about the runaway priest. No wonder Patrick Donovan had grilled me on my Catholic background during our telephone interview. He’d started by emphasizing the importance of faith for teachers in Catholic schools. Then he said, “Are you a practising arsey?”
“Pardon?”
“R.C. Roman Cat’lic.”
I had crossed my fingers behind my back before answering. “Baptized and confirmed. I attended Catholic schools and my father taught in a Catholic high school for thirty years.”
I hadn’t directly answered his question, but I hadn’t outright lied either. While he carried on talking about the vacant teaching position, I’d walked over to the kitchen bookshelf, the telephone cord uncurling behind me. I flicked through the worn pages of Dad’s old atlas and found the map of Canada. I traced the route from Toronto to Kingston, then Montreal, and on to Quebec City—the farthest east I’d ever been. My index finger splashed into the St. Lawrence Seaway and drifted over to Newfoundland, the tenth province and a place I’d never much contemplated, beyond the tired old jokes: “The world will end at ten o’clock, ten thirty in Newfoundland.”
Now I was actually in Newfoundland and on my way to meet the man who’d brought me here. The gang of teens was gone from MJ’s takeout and few people were around. But as I pulled into the schoolyard and parked beside a red pickup truck, caked in dust, two young girls appeared. They were perhaps thirteen and strolled down the road, arms linked. When I got out of the car, one of them hollered, “H’lo, Miss O’Brine,” before they ran off giggling.
O’Brien, I said to myself, enunciating all three syllables.
A tall man in his forties stood at the school entrance, his broad frame filling the doorway. “It’s Patrick,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to meet you. I heard your car on the gravel.”
I followed him into the foyer, where the smell of bleach mingled with that of ditto-machine fluid. Straight ahead, in a small alcove, was a statue of a saint with a flame wreathing his head. He wore the obligatory brown robe and sandals.
“There’s himself,” said Patrick, following my gaze. “Been trying to get rid of him since I got here, but no luck.”
I glanced at St. Nondescript. He seemed fine to me, if you were into that sort of thing.
“Come on,” said Patrick, striding down the hall. “I’ll show you ’round.”
The school was small: staff room, office, classrooms; all were deserted. We stopped at the end of a corridor and Patrick showed me the small library.
“We didn’t have a library when I took over the school,” he said. “It was a real priority for me.”
“I’ll be sure to make good use of it,” I said. But the room was in stark contrast to the well-stocked libraries I was used to back home. It seemed unlikely there’d be much of interest to me on those half-empty shelves.
The tour finished in my classroom. Patrick sat down on top of a desk and motioned for me to do the same. I took in his faded corduroys and scuffed construction boots, then forced myself to concentrate on what he was saying. He took me through class lists, policies and procedures, and a huge planner.
“I hope you enjoys your time with us,” he said. “Most of the youngsters are right keen to learn. There’s some lives in Little Cove, but most are bused in from other small communities. There’s seventy-four students spread across the six grades. They’re allowed to drop French after grade nine, so we gets a big dip then, but sure you’ll change that, won’t you?”
It seemed my first goal had already been set for me.
Patrick was still talking. “A few bad apples in grade nine this year. If there’s any problems, see me sooner, not later. And look out for Calvin Piercey—he can be a right pain in the arse. He’s in grade nine. Again.”
“Calvin Piercey,” I repeated, writing down the name.
“Another thing.”
I waited, pen poised. There was a long silence while Patrick rubbed his sandy beard and looked past me out the window.
“There’s not a lot to keep a young one like you occupied ’round here.”
That had already become abundantly clear, but I didn’t say so.
“And there’s not much privacy,” he continued. “I already knows you stopped to get directions at the gas station on the way
out here. Heard you bought some postcards, too.”
“Who . . . what?” I couldn’t even begin to phrase an appropriate question.
Patrick roared laughing. “There’s very few secrets in Little Cove, my dear. People knows what you had for breakfast before you’ve brushed your teeth.” He waved a finger at me. “So you’ve got to keep yourself in line, hey?”
My cheeks burned. Was this some kind of lecture? But then I remembered Lucille’s comment about the teacher running off with the priest and decided not to take it personally.
There were more questions. “Have you got family here in Newfoundland?”
I clenched the pen a little tighter. “I . . . I don’t really know anyone here, actually.”
We were quiet for a minute, the only sound the rain splattering against the windows. I could hear the unasked question; I knew he was dying to know why I’d taken this job so far from home.
After a minute, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, I don’t know your circumstances, but maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m thrilled someone with your credentials is joining us.”
He stood up, then rapped his knuckles on the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” At the door, he turned back and said, “I knew you were the right one as soon as I saw your name. My wife was an O’Brine.”
Alone in the classroom now, I paced the aisles and looked out the window. Then I sat down at the huge teacher’s desk—my desk. Its wood was pockmarked, like the cheeks of that girl who had given me the finger. Had my predecessor sat here, dreaming of her priest? I shuddered at the very thought of it.
Looking out at the empty desks, I tried to imagine faces to match the names on the class lists.
Belinda Corrigan.
Cynthia O’Leary.
Calvin Piercey.
I picked up my pen and drew a circle around this last one. He didn’t know it yet, but Calvin “pain in the arse” Piercey was about to become my project. It was something Dad had repeated many times. Sometimes you come across a student who seems past help, but when you finally reach them, it turns out that the troublemaker is merely a lost soul. They’re the ones you stick with, Dad used to say. They’re the ones who need you most.
Dad. If only I could talk to him. Tell him about the school, my desk, Patrick. I reached into the pocket of my painter pants and pulled out Dad’s silver lighter. I ran my fingers across the engraved initials: J.O’B.—Joseph O’Brien. When Dad’s colleagues had given him the lighter, Mom commented that the initials also spelled Job and could be a reference to Dad’s unlimited patience with students. I’d taken it after he died, hoping some of that patience would rub off on me. But a part of me hated the lighter too, because it was what Dad used every day to light the cigarettes that eventually killed him. I flicked the flame briefly, then shoved it back in my pocket.
New Girl in Little Cove Page 1
