Baygirl

by Heather Smith

  “Trust me,” I said. “My home life’s enough of an adventure.”

  Nan sighed. “I suppose so.”

  “And anyway,” I continued, “why would I go to some foreign country where I can’t understand a thing anybody’s saying when I can stay here in this kitchen all summer and help you make mittens?”

  “Ha!” said Nan. “You? Knit?”

  “Why not?” I said. “You can teach me.”

  Nan put down her knitting. “You, my duckie, don’t have the patience for knitting.”

  “Yes I do! I have lots of patience.”

  “If you say so.”

  I went back to the stove. “Geez, your kettle takes ages to boil.”

  Nan laughed. “See?”

  I smiled. “You can read me like a book, Nan.”

  “I know you better than you know yourself,” she said, moving from her rocker to a kitchen chair.

  I poured the tea. “Okay then, smarty-pants,” I teased. “If you know me so well, what am I thinking?”

  Nan closed her eyes. “Let me see…it’s coming to me now…I can feel it…yes!” She opened her eyes. “They’re in the tin.”

  I reached for Nan’s ancient biscuit tin and opened the lid. “The fact that I like tea buns hardly requires psychic ability,” I said. “I eat them every time I’m here.”

  “Still,” said Nan, “there’s no denying I know you well.”

  “Like the back of your hand,” I said with a mouthful of bun.

  We sat quietly for a while as Nan slurped her tea and seagulls cried outside the kitchen window.

  “So what will you do this summer?” asked Nan when her cup was drained.

  I washed down my last mouthful of bun with the sugary tea. “Enjoy the peace and quiet.”

  Nan squinted at me again. “Peace and quiet?”

  “Yeah. It’s almost fishing season, remember?”

  “What does that have to do with peace and quiet?” asked Nan. “If anything, fishing season is the noisiest time of the year.”

  “You mean the most wonderful time of the year.”

  Nan laughed. “And why is that?”

  “Because Dad’ll be gone! Out on the boat! All day, every day!” I burst into song. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

  Nan wasn’t laughing anymore. “Oh, love.”

  “What’s wrong?

  “I just wish things were different for you, that’s all.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry about me, Nan. He’s a pain in the arse, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  Nan shook her head. “If only I—”

  I stuck my fingers in my ears. “Lalala. Can’t hear you, Nan.”

  “I’m serious, Kit. I must have gone wrong somewhere.”

  “I’m not having this conversation, Nan. You are an amazing grandmother and I bet you were an amazing mother too. The way he acts has nothing to do with you. Got it?”

  Nan reached for her knitting. “Grab a pair of needles out of my basket and choose a ball of wool.”

  My face lit up. “Really?”

  “You’ll need something to do during all that peace and quiet.”

  I picked yellow, to match the walls.

  But things weren’t going to be nice and quiet after all. The summer of 1992 had barely begun when the Newfoundland government shut down the cod fishery. They called it a moratorium. No fishing for two years. It was all anyone could talk about. Or, in my parents’ case, fight about. “Phonse, for the love of God, stop sitting on your arse and complaining about it. It’ll do us no good.”

  Dad ignored the plateful of food in front of him and concentrated on what was in his glass. “Goddammit, Emily, what am I supposed to do?”

  Mom said Dad should look into aid packages, weekly payments for unemployed fishermen. But he wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I’m not going on the package. You won’t see me living off handouts from the bloody government. No way.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with accepting a bit of help, Phonse. The government is setting up programs, helping fisherman retrain…”

  “I’m forty-bloody-three years old, Em. What am I going to retrain as…a goddamn doctor? A friggin’ lawyer? I’m a cod fisherman, like my dad and his dad before him. We make our living off the sea.” Dad violently stubbed out his cigarette on his plate. “It’s the damn seals. Eating every bit of fish out there.”

  My mother snatched my father’s dirty plate and threw an ashtray down in front of him. “I heard someone on the CBC say that the seals may not be the problem after all.”

  “And what genius said that?” said Dad, lighting up another cigarette.

  “Someone from the Department of Fisheries, I think.”

  “Well, whoopdi-bloody-doo! It was probably the same arsehole who said seals don’t eat cod. Well, I agree with Captain Morrissey Johnson. You know what he said? He said, ‘Well, I know they don’t eat turnips.’”

  Mom collected the dirty dishes. “I’m just tellin’ ya what I heard.”

  Dad poured another glass of the golden stuff from his bottle. He didn’t mix it with Pepsi this time. “And the friggin’ foreign overfishing…that’s depleting our cod stocks too. We’re being fished dry.”

  Mom slammed the stack of dirty plates back down on the table. “Well, what are we going to do, Phonse? Tell me. What are we going to do?”

  As their voices got louder and louder, I felt smaller and smaller. The more they yelled, the less they saw me, and the less they saw me, the madder I got.

  “Would anyone like to hear my thoughts?” I asked.

  They looked surprised to see me, as if I had just showed up.

  “Well?”

  Dad gave a little snort of amusement.

  I gritted my teeth. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, sweetheart,” said Mom. “Sit down. We’d love to hear your thoughts.”

  I looked at my dad. He folded his arms and smirked. “Okay then,” he said. “Enlighten us. How are we going to get out of this mess?”

  “Phonse, please,” said Mom.

  “Come on, Little Miss Know-It-All,” he said, ignoring my mother. “You usually have an answer for everything. Let’s hear it.”

  “I was just going to say that maybe you could go farther out from port, try scallop fishing. That’s what Tracy Barter’s dad is going to do.”

  Dad burst out laughing. “Scallop fishing! Hmm, let me think about that. Scallop fishing means new equipment, and new equipment means money, and money, well, we’re kind of low on that. Brilliant idea, Einstein.”

  “It was just an idea,” I muttered.

  My father finished his drink and poured another. “Be a good girl, Kitty, and run along to your room. Your mother and me have important things to talk about. Grown-up things.”

  I gripped the side of the table. “Don’t be so patronizing.”

  “Ooh, big word,” he said with a chuckle.

  “You are so immature,” I yelled.

  Dad stopped laughing. “Don’t you raise your voice at me, young lady.”

  My mother stared at the tablecloth and sighed. “Just go, Kit.”

  I gave the table a shove as I pushed my chair back. Dad’s whiskey bottle wobbled back and forth, so I shoved the table again, quick and hard. He caught the bottle just in time.

  “Go, Kit.” My mother’s voice was urgent this time.

  I did as I was told.

  I could still hear them, even with my bedroom door closed. Mumble, mumble, arse mumble, mumble, goddammit, mumble, mumble, fish…I grabbed my coat and went to Nan’s. But for the first time, I felt no sense of escape. As she buttered my bread she sang:

  What ever happened to the gold in the water?


  That swam into our nets and kept our spirits strong and free?

  What will become of our sons and our daughters

  who trusted us to know that there would always be

  gold in the water…the reason for living,

  the reason for giving up our lives unto the sea

  Whatever happened to the gold in the water?

  What will become of you and me?

  And for the first time, I yelled at my grandmother. “All anybody can talk about is stupid fish!”

  I stormed out and went to Anne-Marie’s. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go up to the top of the cliff.”

  But before we trekked up the path, I slipped back into my house. Mom and Dad were still at it. Mumble, mumble, fish, mumble, mumble, crap…I crept up the stairs, stepping over the squeaky third step, and snuck into my parents’ room. I slid two cigarettes out of a package on Dad’s dresser and tiptoed back downstairs. As I opened the front door, I heard Mom clearly. “Then we’ll have to leave Parsons Bay. There’s nothing here. I’ll talk to Iggy. We can stay with him in St. John’s. We’ve better chances of finding work there.”

  My heart sank. Iggy? I didn’t want to live with Iggy. I’d barely said two words to him since I was twelve. I mean, I’d seen him a year ago at his wife’s funeral, but that didn’t really count. And what about Nan? I didn’t want to leave Nan.

  Instead of going out the front door, I took three steps backward, nipped into the living room and took two cans of beer from Dad’s stash in the liquor cabinet.

  Up on the cliff, Anne-Marie and I sat on the grass, staring at the stolen goods.

  Anne-Marie looked at me as if I were nuts. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

  “Um, let me think,” I said. “My guess is the beer is for drinking and the cigarettes are for smoking.”

  “Ha ha,” said Anne-Marie. “You’re hilarious.” She pulled her long brown hair into a ponytail and fastened it with an elastic she had around her wrist. “I’m not touching that stuff. I have to get up early to build a shed.”

  “A shed?”

  “Yes, a shed. Last week, I designed it. This week, I build it. With Dad’s help, of course.”

  “Tomboy,” I said.

  “Yep,” said Anne-Marie with pride. “And the day after, we’re installing a bidet at Ms. Bartlett’s.”

  “A what?”

  “A bidet. You install it next to your toilet. You sit on it after you do your business and water sprays up to clean your, you know, area.”

  “So it’s a fancy arse cleaner.”

  Anne-Marie laughed. “Yeah, basically. Ms. Bartlett ordered it from the mainland. She says they’re very useful.”

  “I hope she’s prepared for the lineups outside her door. The entire population of Parsons Bay will want to have a go. Except me. I’ll stick to toilet paper, thank you very much.”

  “Anyway,” said Anne-Marie, “the whole installation sounds complicated, so no booze or smokes for me. I need to stay in top physical form.”

  “It’s one beer and one cigarette,” I said. “It’s not going to make that much of a difference.”

  Anne-Marie folded her arms. “Like I said, you do what you like. But I’m not touching that stuff. Why did you even steal it?”

  I wasn’t really sure. I felt like I was punishing my parents in a way, but then again, it was kind of pointless because they’d probably never find out. Still, I felt some satisfaction in depleting Dad’s stash of smokes and booze, even just a little bit.

  “Well?” asked Anne-Marie. “What’s up?”

  “We’re probably moving,” I said.

  “What? Moving? When? Where?”

  “St. John’s. To live with Uncle Iggy.”

  Anne-Marie was shocked. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” I said, my voice shaking. “Because it’s probably going to happen.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of the stupid moratorium. You’re lucky your dad’s a carpenter.”

  “Oh, Kit.”

  “It’s a disaster. We’ll probably be gone by the end of the month.”

  Anne-Marie put her arm around me. “It’ll be okay. St. John’s is only five hours away, and your Uncle Iggy’s cool. Remember how he’d take us for ice cream whenever he came to visit?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve barely seen him since he went off to university and got married and stuff.”

  “You’ll get to know him again, Kit. And isn’t he the one with the big fancy house? You’ll be living the high life.”

  “His wife just died last year, remember? Living with a drunk is bad enough. I don’t want to live with someone in mourning as well.”

  My head was spinning. New place. New school. New friends. I hoped Dad would disagree with Mom. I hoped he’d put his foot down and say we wouldn’t move. After all, Nan was his mother. How could he leave her?

  “Let’s go home,” said Anne-Marie. “You don’t really want this stuff. Leave it here for some losers who really need it.”

  We were about to get up when Will Hanrahan and Toby Burt came off the trailhead.

  “Speaking of losers,” I said. Anne-Marie laughed.

  “Well, well, well,” said Will. “It’s little Kit Ryan and Anne-Marie Munro. When did the two of you pick up smoking and drinking?”

  “Ages ago,” I lied.

  “Aren’t you a bit young?” asked Will with a smirk.

  “We’re only a year younger than you,” said Anne-Marie.

  “That one year makes a huge difference,” said Toby, “as far as maturity goes.”

  “So why don’t you two leave the smokes and the beer for the big boys,” said Will, “and run along home?”

  I reached out and grabbed a beer. Anne-Marie’s mouth dropped open. I popped the tab and forced my face to stay normal as I took a sip. I tossed the other can to Will. “Here, you guys can split this if you want. Anne-Marie and I have already had a couple.”

  Anne-Marie’s eyes were huge.

  “Do you want some of this?” I asked her. “Or have you had enough tonight?”

  “Enough,” she spluttered. “I’ve had enough.”

  Will lit up a cigarette and asked if I needed a light.

  “Sure.” I picked up a cigarette and tried to hold it as naturally as possible, mimicking my dad, who was never without one. I looked at the cigarette between my fingers and thought of Dad’s disgusting fingers, yellowed with nicotine stains, and I knew before I even took a puff of my first cigarette ever that it would be my last.

  Unfortunately, Dad didn’t disagree with Mom. Within three weeks of the announcement, we were packing up and moving to St. John’s. It was a sad day when Dad sold his boat. Fishing boats weren’t in high demand since the moratorium, and he had to practically give it away, selling it for way less than it was worth. I was surprised at how hard it hit me. I mean, I knew he was attached to it—I just didn’t realize I was as well.

  I was ten years old before Dad took me out on his boat. All the other kids in Parsons Bay had been on their dads’ boats since they were little. Some of them were even working on them part-time. It wasn’t Dad’s fault. Mom would never let me go. Dad would laugh it off to his friends. “It’s the wife…just a tad overprotective.” But at home he would say, “Goddammit, Em, she’s my daughter. I am not going to let any harm come to her.”

  But Mom would say, “As long as Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan are part of your crew, you will not be taking my daughter out on that boat. You can’t be trusted. You’re irresponsible. I don’t want to see my Kit washing up on the shore.”

  My father named his boat after something my grandpa Skipper said when I was little. Skipper was my mom’s dad, and he drove us all nuts by constantly complaining about his many ailments. On
e day he was moaning about a black spot on his big toe. Mom said it was a wart. Skipper said it was cancer.

  I asked Mom if he was going to die. She said, “Kit, your grandfather is a hypochondriac.”

  I asked Dad if Grandpa Skipper needed a doctor. He said, “Kit, what your grandfather needs is a good kick up the arse.”

  I went to my bedroom and got my magic kit. “Skipper? Want me to magic it away?”

  “No harm in trying,” he sighed.

  I came up with a magical cure-all chant and knelt down beside the ottoman where his foot was resting. With his big toe at close range, I hesitated. It was huge, and the nail was long and yellowed. Instinctively I held my breath. I knew all too well the smell that came from the big rubber hip waders he wore every day. The whole porch reeked of them, so I could only imagine what the foot itself smelled like. But I had a job to do. I raised my magic wand. “Abracadabra Alakazot, please get rid of that big ugly spot!”

  Mom rolled her eyes. Dad laughed his head off. Skipper thanked me and went to sleep.

  The next day Skipper gathered the whole family around. “Our Kit has magical healing powers!” he declared. “Look! It’s gone! I never saw the likes of that in my whole entire life. She’s a charmer, I tell ya, a charmer.”

  “What a load of horseshit,” said Dad. “Sure I can still see it there, plain as day.”

  “Well, I didn’t say it was completely gone,” huffed Skipper. “But it has shrunk. Sure it’s practically invisible! Can’t you see that? Are you blind or what?”

  Dad snorted. “I’m not the one that’s blind.”

  My mother shot him a look. “Okay, Phonse, that’s enough.” She took a close look at Skipper’s toe. “Well, will you look at that. It has shrunk a bit.”

  “My little charmer,” said Skipper, looking at me with a big smile.

  After that, he had me curing all of his friends. I abracadabraed Mrs. Ryan’s stomachache and alakazammed old Dick Mulligan’s boil. I even hocus-pocused Mrs. Pope’s colitis. And afterward, every one of them claimed there was an improvement. Anne-Marie teased me, saying Fisty Hinks wanted his arthritis charmed away because his fist wasn’t as tight as it used to be. Dad thought the whole thing was hysterical. That year, when he branched out on his own and bought his very own fishing boat, he named it Kitty Charmer.