The Doryman

by Maura Hanrahan

  She dropped her purchases at the Spurrells’ and then went to fetch the children from school. When she got home, she got George and Evelyn up from their naps and helped the other children change out of their school uniforms. The rest of her afternoon was often filled with washing either windows, floors, or clothes. She heated up the iron and pressed the clothes at this time as well: Mr. Spurrell’s white shirts, his wife’s blouses, and the children’s uniforms. She put the clothes and sheets away. When Mr. Spurrell came home at six-thirty, she helped Rosa serve supper to the whole family.

  After clearing away the cutlery and dishes, Angela sat down with Rosa for her own meal in the kitchen. The two servants talked about their work and the family’s comings and goings. On a rare occasion, Rosa would tell Angela about life on the Georgia plantation where she was born and reared. It fascinated Angela; she could not believe that one person could own another, no matter what colour they were, at least until President Lincoln changed the law and there was a war. The men in her family knew what it was like to do unpaid work, though, and she told Rosa that. The older woman’s big eyes grew even wider. “Imagine, white folks doing work and not getting paid for it,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. Angela joked with her that she should come to Newfoundland and see it for herself.

  After their bit of fun, it was back to work for both women. Angela stayed in the kitchen while Rosa washed the dishes, and she began work on a pile of clothing that needed mending. They were quiet as they concentrated on their work. Angela’s work was usually interrupted by Mrs. Spurrell’s announcement that it was time to bathe the children. After their bath, Angela got their nightclothes and helped the little ones change into them. She said good night to the children but didn’t tuck them in; that was their mother’s job. As the night closed in, Angela tackled one more load of wash, hers and Rosa’s. She rarely got through the pile that awaited her. She was tired by this time, so every night the pile seemed to stay the same size. She didn’t worry about it, though. Worrying was not her way. Do your best, she told herself, that’s all you can do.

  In the meantime, she looked forward to the one Sunday she had off every month. On those rare days she slept in until eight o’clock, went to nine o’clock Mass, and had a nap until her dinner with Rosa at noon. Then she read a few poems from her notebook and took the subway into Manhattan to spend the afternoon exploring the largest – and finest, to her mind – city in the world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In his twenties now, Richard Hanrahan was fishing with the Mannings of Oderin. Captain Paddy Manning owned a western boat that was headed for the Virgin Rocks in 1912. On board was his son, John, who became fast friends with Richard, and his younger son, Tom, as well as sundry crewmen from Oderin and Baine Harbour on the Burin Peninsula. A six-mile run from the island, this was where Paddy’s wife’s people came from. There were ten of them altogether in addition to the cook, a cousin of theirs from Oderin.

  Richard was finished fishing with his father. They’d been to the Grand Banks, the Virgin Rocks, Whale Bank, Mizzen Bank, and Burgeo Bank. One year, they’d worked together on a small boat in the shore fishery. It allowed them to sleep in their own beds at night, but there was even less financial reward in it than in the Banks fishery. Afterwards, Richard went looking for another schooner to take him on for the spring trip. The Holletts of Burin took him up, and he was off again to the Banks. Steve had stayed out of the Banks fishery that year. He started work as the ferryman in Little Bay, taking people from one side of the fjord to the other in the punt that he rowed. It wasn’t nearly as hard work as fishing on the Banks, but like the shore fishery, it brought in less reward. Still, he wasn’t getting any younger; his arms were wracked with arthritis and his knees were stiffer all the time. The family could afford to have him acting as ferryman as long as Richard and young Jimmy and Jack went to the Banks. He had taken Jimmy out there a couple of years after Richard’s first spring trip, then Jack. Thankfully, the younger boys hadn’t gotten seasick, and, like their brother, they were quick learners. All of them were hard workers, and as far as Steve was concerned, that was the main thing.

  Steve was slowing down in other ways, too, and he’d taken to drinking whenever he could. Elizabeth hated it. He got even more ornery than usual, and sometimes he got angry. It was no example to set for the youngsters, she thought, and even the young ones were old enough to notice what was going on. Was this what he wanted for them?

  He didn’t drink every night, as he couldn’t get his hands on liquor that often. But he went to St. Pierre three and four times a year with a bunch of fellows from over in Marystown to get rum. They brought fish and wood to the St. Pierre people, who lived on a bald rock in the middle of a fogbank. In return, they got barrels of rum that they hid in caves on the boot of the Burin Peninsula. When they wanted to go on a tear themselves or had a customer for some of their stock, they rowed out to their hiding places and retrieved their booze.

  Elizabeth knew St. Pierre as the place her people went to be baptized and married in the old days. It was a holy place, where the priests lived. How things had changed.

  Steve would sit in his kitchen while Elizabeth and his daughters cooked and baked around him, trying their best to ignore his ranting. He talked incoherently about the time his dory got lost on Green Bank, about how the merchants took advantage of him every year, how he worked harder than any doryman in this bay, yet he could never get ahead. Now, why was that, he cried. Why the hell couldn’t he get rich, or even out of debt for once? It was damned unfair, it was.

  Once in a while, Steve plunked down in the kitchen with his rum bottle and drank quietly, but not often. During those times, he called Elizabeth over, and when she approached him he grabbed her and held her tight. “My pretty thing,” he said, still sitting and burying his head into her bosom, ignoring her acute embarrassment in front of the children. Then he started crying, sobbing even.

  “Stop it now,” Elizabeth said. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t be doing that in front of the children.” But he ignored her and kept on crying. Slowly, Rachel, Jack, and the others crept out of the room and quietly went upstairs, leaving their mother alone with their drunken, tormented father. None of them ever spoke about it, not even to each other.

  Richard had witnessed a couple of these incidents. The first time, he stared at his father and grew angry as he watched his mother squirm, red-faced, and looking helpless. Then he broke in between the two of them and told his father to stop. “That’s enough,” he said, sounding more tentative than he’d meant to. His heart sank at this. He wanted his mother to know he was on her side.

  “You! Get lost,” Steve answered angrily, his eyes narrowing, his mood changing in a flash. “I’ll say what I want.” He sneered at his son in a challenge.

  Richard pulled his mother away and stood between the two of them. He said nothing, but his defiance was there for all to see. His brothers and sisters watched in silence. They were scared, afraid of the threat of violence that flooded their home. But Steve’s inebriated attempt to pull himself out of his chair failed. He could not rise, he was too drunk.

  “That’s enough now, Richard,” Elizabeth said finally.

  “Aaagh,” Steve muttered as he waved his hand in dismissal of his ungrateful wife and son. Who cares about them anyway, he thought and took another swig of rum. Then he went into himself and stayed there until he passed out.

  The second time Richard saw his father sobbing into Elizabeth’s breast, he stormed out of the kitchen and then out of their house. He was mad at his father for his crudeness and rough ways, but he was fed up with the way his mother put up with him, too. Why doesn’t she give him a good kick, he wondered. Then he thought of Rachel and her incessant chatter about how she was going into service in St. John’s and how she’d have such adventures in the city they couldn’t possibly imagine. The lot of them drove him mad sometimes. Suddenly a trip to the Banks looke
d good, especially without the ferryman.

  PART 2

  Chapter Seventeen

  By now, Richard was an old hand at the Banks fishery. He had done all manner of work. The Newfoundland Banks fishermen gutted, dressed, and salted their own fish as their vessels did not hire men for these purposes, unlike the boats out of Nova Scotia and Gloucester, Massachusetts.

  He had grown accustomed to tragedy and trauma. One year he had gone to the Grand Banks with a Burin Peninsula crew, among them a father and son from Spanish Room. The two men had left their schooner in Dory Number 3 in late spring weather that was foggy but mild. They didn’t return to their vessel. The Captain waited, pacing the deck and hoisting his flag to show other schooners that he was missing a dory. A long, dark night passed with the two men out there somewhere on the water. The fog was still thick the next morning. When it finally lifted, all hands were hopeful the Spanish Room men would return.

  But they never did. Their bodies were never found, nor was their dory. The older man left a widow and several children still living at home; his son was to be married that summer. Such events were all too common amongst Banks fishermen.

  Another year, one of his fellow crewmen, a young man from Fox Cove, drowned in an accident that could have happened only in the Banks fishery. Again it was foggy, blindingly so, and the schooner ran into the man’s dory, causing it to capsize. He was thrown into the cold ocean and, like many fishermen, could not swim. He panicked, and swallowed a great deal of frigid sea water before anyone could get to him. That was his captain’s last voyage; indeed, he spent the rest of his shore days a recluse.

  Not all captains were so sensitive. The dorymen spoke of skippers who kept on sailing when men were swept overboard. They were lost to the waves and cold water anyway, they reasoned, so few of them could swim. They’d only be going back for bodies, and that was a waste of time. They were in a rush to get back to port so they could unload and get the fish to market.

  Captain Paddy Manning took on Richard Hanrahan as a doryman every spring now. He liked the young man’s work ethic. Richard went at a job with a vengeance until it was done. He never complained, not even when others did. He took the initiative, too. He spotted things that needed doing and did them before he was asked. And he was a top-quality salter. He was getting a reputation as a salter all over the coast. He was a good example for the Captain’s younger sons, Tom and the other boys from Oderin.

  Sometimes, though, Captain Paddy wondered about Richard’s studious ways. He had something of the scholar about him, although Paddy had never seen him read. There would never be such an occasion, of course, with the life they led. He was awfully serious. He seemed rarely to smile. He seemed a bit driven, as if there were a force of unhappiness behind him, pushing him along. Paddy wondered if Richard knew how to enjoy himself. Yet he knew the young man was a good one. He hoped that the years would be good to him and that the stiffness in his back would give way a little.

  On Lady Day, the harbours in Oderin were blocked with vessels of every size and shape. They came from Gallows Harbour, Baine Harbour, Petite Forte, Monkstown, Burin, Spanish Room, Marystown, Little Bay, Lawn, and the Banks themselves. They came from Long Harbour, Red Island, Merasheen, Fox Harbour, Harbour Buffett, St. Bride’s, Argentia, and St. Pierre. Anglicans and Catholics came to celebrate the day. Even some Methodists appeared. Very little of the religious conflict that marked life on Newfoundland’s northeast coast reared its ugly head here. Protestants and Catholics ate and drank together. Some, like Richard’s grandmother Rachel Spencer, a Protestant, and grandfather Jim Hanrahan, a Catholic, even married each other.

  As he made his way across a crowded meadow with his mate, John Manning, a cup of tea in his hand, Richard first saw Angela. She had just returned from New York, and she carried with her an air of urban sophistication, most apparent in the mauve feathered hat that sat on her head. Richard’s eyes rested on it, and his mind drifted back to the first time he saw such hats in Burin long ago, just before his first spring trip. God, that was so long ago and he had thought those hats were so beautiful.

  She was so pretty.

  “How do you do?” The voice was loud.

  “Dick? Dick? ” John was speaking to him.

  “Sorry. Oh, sorry! I was just ... How do you do?” He nodded and took her hand. Her eyes were sky-blue, and her name was Angela, which reminded him of angels. She was laughing because of their exchange, but there was no mockery in her laughter, just the hint of camaraderie. She was full of fun, there in her purple hat. He offered to get her some lemonade, and she accepted. John smiled and ever so quietly drifted away from them. He had seen something in his sister’s eyes and knew that it included only Richard and herself.

  The day after Lady Day, Richard, John, Captain Paddy Manning, and the rest of the crew of the Bridget, named after the Captain’s wife, sailed to the Virgin Rocks in search of cod. The breezes were gentle, the clouds high, and the sun warming and pleasant. The summer air infused them with a lightness they rarely felt as they scrubbed decks, mended sails, baited their hooks, loaded their trawl tubs, and then rowed away from their western boat when they finally reached the Bank.

  Captain Paddy enjoyed the days, too, but he kept an eye on the sky and the water. “It’s August,” he said every so often. “August Gales, you know.”

  Their habit was to fish as much as they could, to stay on the Bank until their vessel was loaded. One day towards the end of their trip was particularly hot. John and Richard, who were dory mates, had baited and hauled their trawls twice that day. Then they had returned to the Bridget and gutted, washed, and dressed the fish. Captain Paddy had rendered their oil. Under the hot August sun, sweat poured off Richard’s face. Without a word, he pulled his clothes off.

  “Come on, John,” he said, nearly naked on the deck. “Let’s go for a swim.”

  John stood and looked at his friend, almost dumbstruck.

  “Are you cracked, b’y?” he asked.

  “There’s a shoal here, sure,” Richard answered. Then he dashed over to the ship’s rail and dove over the side. His body broke through the water silently and he glided through the ocean.

  “I didn’t even know he could swim,” John said, peering over the railing.

  “Go on, then,” Captain Paddy urged. “Join him.” He, too, looked down at Richard, who had surfaced now about twenty feet away and was splashing about in the cold Atlantic. The Captain smiled. Richard’s sudden playfulness made him feel surprisingly good, too.

  John glanced askance at his father, as if he, too, had gone mad, but then he stripped and joined Richard under the waves. In the water, they wrestled each other like children, and raced each other back to the Bridget.

  *

  At the end of the season, Richard and the rest of the crew spent a few days putting everything away, where it would stay until the next spring trip. This was on the merchant’s time. They took down the heavy sails and folded them, then carried them up and stored them in Captain Paddy’s premises. They upended the dories and brought them to the premises for storage as well. The trawls, of which there were hundreds of yards, had to be taken out of the tubs and put away. So did the tubs themselves. They took the pounds and liver butts apart. They took leftover provisions off her; there was a little sugar in the galley and some flour, but not much else, so exact in their planning were the Mannings. They gathered and washed the bedding before putting it away. They cleaned the entire ship, scouring every inch of her, believing that nothing shortens the life of a vessel more than dirt.

  Finally, on the day he was to set sail back to Little Bay for the winter, Richard asked to speak to Captain Paddy.

  “Sure, son, what is it?” said the Captain, sounding concerned at first.

  “Well, sir, it’s about Angela,” Richard started, then stopped.

  The Captain lifted his brushy grey eyebrows.


  “Well, sir, well, we want to get married.” Richard heaved a great sigh.

  He must have been awfully nervous about this, thought Captain Paddy.

  “Both of you, you and Angela have talked about this?” the Captain asked.

  “Yes, sir, we have,” said Richard, suddenly sounding braver. “We want to get married Christmastime.”

  “Well, son, you have my blessing,” the Captain answered. He was thinking what a good match these two would be.

  Richard smiled broadly.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “Thank you very much, from both of us.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The year after their winter wedding in Oderin – all the weddings were held after the fishing season – Richard and Angela built a house on the hill in Little Bay, just up from Steve and Elizabeth’s. Their custom, as old as anyone could remember, was that the woman moved to her husband’s village upon her marriage.

  Richard’s sister Rachel had just finished her years working in St. John’s; she had worked in a restaurant where Military Road curves into Gower Street, in front of the old Newfoundland Hotel. She wore a black uniform, not unlike those worn by maids in turn-of-the-century France, and she was very proud of it. She was good at her job and she worked hard. Although she loved her time in St. John’s, she loved Little Bay even more, and there was never any question of her not returning home to marry and raise a family. Like her brother, she married a native of Oderin, Banks fisherman Jeremiah Abbott.