Galore

by Michael Crummey

Mary Tryphena couldn’t bring herself to speak Absalom’s name aloud. She leaned into Olive’s ear to whisper it and they stared at one another, Olive looking to see if it could possibly be true.—Do you love him? she asked.

  Mary Tryphena was taken back by the bluntness of the question.—I don’t know, she said.

  —Could you love him do you think?

  Mary Tryphena barely heard the question over the buzz in her ears. She couldn’t hold Olive’s eye any longer and turned away, caught sight of Judah at the door. She’d forgotten he was in the room and was mortified to see she had an audience. Jude seemed no happier to be overhearing the exchange, his fish eyes bulging in his head.—No, she said. She pointed at him and shouted No a second time, and Jabez went across the room to usher Judah outside.

  Mary Tryphena slumped into her chair and did her best not to bawl.—Why would he send me this letter and not say a word to my face?

  —Who are we talking about here? Jabez asked.

  Olive gave him a quick look and then smiled across at the girl.—You know Absalom has a stutter, Mary Tryphena.

  —Jesus loves the little children, Jabez said.—Do your parents know about this?

  Mary Tryphena grabbed Olive’s wrist.—You won’t tell anyone, she pleaded.

  —Not a soul, Olive said. She folded the note and retied the string before handing it back to Mary Tryphena.

  Judah hadn’t waited for her but she could see him in the distance and followed in his tracks toward the Tolt. The wind had come up and the blowing snow whipped at her, as sharp as grains of sand. Mary Tryphena was crying by the time they reached the Tolt Road though she couldn’t identify the source exactly, whether grief or relief or pity, the sobs shaking through her. Judah pushed on ahead and the dog ran back and forth between the two, whining and jumping to lick at Mary Tryphena’s face before bolting ahead to catch Jude. The weight of the stupid animal knocked her into the snow each time it leaped up and at the crest of the Tolt Mary Tryphena refused to get back to her feet. The dog pawed and licked at her but she ignored it, pulling the blanket over her head to protect her face from the massive tongue. She was being lifted up then and surrendered to it, wrapping both arms around Judah’s shoulders and she fell asleep in the stink of his arms as they jolted down the Tolt Road to home.

  Father Phelan made it back to the shore two days before Christmas. He arrived in the dead of night and made his way to Mrs. Gallery’s house in its pathetic grove of trees, whistling outside to wake her before he pushed into the tilt. The fire had guttered down to embers and he could just make out Mr. Gallery in the dark light, his chair pulled up to the fireplace. Each time Father Phelan laid eyes on him after an absence he seemed to have diminished again, fading under the weight of his guilt.—Bless me Mr. Gallery, he said, it’s a cold night. The priest stamped the snow from his boots and leggings and then crossed the room to stir up the embers, adding a junk of spruce and standing to take the new heat. Mrs. Gallery called to him from the single room at the back of the tilt.—I’ll be along directly, he said.

  Mrs. Gallery’s bed was constructed in the same fashion as the wharves and fish flakes and walls of the tilts, spruce logs skinned of their rind and nailed lengthwise on one side of the room. There was a thick layer of boughs as a mattress and bedding of ancient woollen blankets and a leathery sealskin and underneath it all the heat of Mrs. Gallery. He lifted the covers and crawled in beside her. Her mouth sweet as spruce gum and the skin of her thighs like fresh cream. Mrs. Gallery spread her legs and brought his hand to the wet of her, a little noise at the back of her throat when he found it.—That’s the bowl that never goes empty, Mrs. Gallery, he whispered.—That’s the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. His hand rocking slowly into her and he began talking in Latin, his voice rising enough to be heard through the house as she came for the first time.

  An hour later there was a commotion from the other room, a clanging as Mr. Gallery kicked at the cook pot on the fireplace crane.—He’s only making trouble, Mrs. Gallery said.

  —He’s cold is all, the priest told her.—What other comfort does he have?

  He stepped out of the bed into the piercing frost, pulling on his breeches and worn black vestments before slipping into the next room to add another junk to the fire and Mr. Gallery seemed to nod absently at the flames.—There’s plenty of this to look forward to in hell, the priest said.

  He and Mrs. Gallery lay awake after they’d exhausted each other’s appetites, talking of the news on the shore and plans for the season ahead. It had been years since people had any enthusiasm for Christmas, households far gone into the winter’s supplies by December and months of rough hunger still to struggle through. Toward March some families were so weak they hardly moved from their bunks for weeks at a time. A central fireplace with a square wooden flue was the only source of heat in the spruce tilts, and Father Phelan would sometimes find a family huddled around it in silence, their faces cratered and blank. Not a morsel of food among them beyond a pot of watery soup. He went begging to King-me Sellers on their behalf, coming away with a pocketful of green fish not fit to feed a dog, a bag of brown flour infested with weevils. It was enough to keep them another week or two and stave off starvation until the seals came in on the Labrador ice.

  But Christmas this year promised a return to the days when the shore had known something closer to prosperity. Everyone did well enough on the fish to clear their debt with Sellers and set aside a good store for themselves, and the warm summer delivered a historic crop of root vegetables to see people through to the seals. There was an air of celebration in the two communities and Phelan expected that Christmas was the time it would surface in all its glory.

  He held Mass in Callum’s fishing room on Christmas Eve, the building lit with whale-oil torches, and he had to repeat his homily and offer the sacrament three times to accommodate the numbers who waited outside in the cold. From Christmas Day through to the Feast of the Epiphany the nights were ruled by bands of mummers roaming from house to house in the dark, five or six to a group and all dressed in outlandish disguises, brin sacks and old dresses or aprons, coats worn backwards and legs through the arms of shirts that were tied at the waist as breeches, men dressed in women’s clothes and women in men’s, underclothes worn on the outside of their many layers. They travelled with spoons and crude wooden whistles and other noisemakers, they knocked at one door after another for admittance and barrelled inside requesting cake and bread and whatever drink the house had to offer. In return they sang songs and danced and in general acted like fools. Their heads and faces were covered by sacks or veiled with handkerchiefs and they spoke ingressively to disguise their voices and they stayed until the inhabitants guessed their identities or until they’d drunk up every drop of liquor on the premises. They were aggressive and rude, they were outlandishly genderless and felt free to grab the ass of man or woman for a laugh, they frightened the children and left a house in shambles, but not a door was barred to them. Father Phelan loved the devilment and followed in their wake, taking up with one group of mummers and then another. There was a mild spell through the whole of Christmas and mummers criss-crossed the two tiny villages till daylight, the priest making his way back and forth over the Tolt Road half a dozen times in a single night.

  On the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany he fell in with a group of mummers that included Horse Chops, a man covered in a blanket, a wooden horse’s head on a stick before him. The eyes were painted at either side of the head, one black and one blue, the jaws of the horse driven through with nails for teeth and tied with leather strings so they snocked together. Horse Chops was a seer who could answer any question put to him. At every stop a mummer wearing a crown of spruce boughs chose one member of the household as a victim, asking Horse Chops the most embarrassing questions he could dream up. No subject was too lewd or personal, no question was taboo. Secret loves and affairs, unpaid debts, illegitimate children, ongoing family arguments, sins buried and unconfessed, all were fair
game.

  —This one now, the King mummer whistled, shaking a stave topped with a bladder of dry peas at Mary Tryphena. Horse Chops galloped across the tiny room to stare at the girl, the great jaws flapping loose. In the gloomy light of cod-oil lamps the creature’s face looked like something called up from a netherworld. The other mummers were negotiating their glasses under veils and sacks, tipping their heads back to drink.—Horse Chops, is there someone in love with this girl? the King asked.

  —There’s no such thing, Mary Tryphena said.

  Horse Chops pawed at the dirt floor and the jaws clapped once to signal otherwise. The mummers broke into applause and Father Phelan along with them, though his mood was dampened a little to have missed Callum. Callum had spent the entire Christmas season recovering from his fever and the priest was surprised to find him not at home now. He’d gone off on his own hours ago, Lizzie said, to try and make something of the final night of celebrations.

  —Is it a man from the Gut? the King asked.

  Clap, clap went the wooden jaws to say no.

  —A man from Paradise Deep?

  Clap.

  —A man from Paradise Deep then. Now is this a rich man or a poor man, Horse Chops?

  One clap signalled the former.

  —Bless you child, a rich man in love with you. And is our rich man one of Father Phelan’s flock?

  Clap, clap.

  —A Protestant? An Englishman? A black?

  Lizzie turned to Devine’s Widow and said, For the love of God, Missus. It was clear to them both who the King was suggesting, and Lizzie thought the suggestion crossed the line, even for mummers.

  —Let it be, Lizzie, the old woman said angrily.

  —And now Horse Chops, the King said, the most important question. Will our girl marry her rich Englishman from Paradise Deep?

  Mary Tryphena held her breath, trying desperately to look disinterested, dismissive, though she couldn’t help but feel some portion of her destiny was about to be laid out for her to see. Horse Chops stepped back and gave two claps and the mummers fell over one another, groaning in despair.

  —No wedding, the King said.—No riches for our girl, alack. He turned to the room and said, A song. We’ll give her a song and a dance at least.

  —And she’ll be better for it, Devine’s Widow said under her breath. She was watching Mary Tryphena, reconsidering the girl’s inconsolable moodiness through the fall. Thinking of King-me Sellers and all she’d done to keep clear of his way, only to find herself these years later, married to it regardless.

  The mummers’ last stop of the night was Selina’s House, the stars almost doused by the first hint of dawn. There was no one up, the house dark and the fireplace cold, but they hammered at the door until they heard movement upstairs. King-me despised the mummers, who treated him as no one would dare without their disguise and the licence granted by the tradition. He only let them in for fear of what they might do if he refused. During his first years in Paradise Deep he barred the door and had his chimney stopped up with sods, one morning found his cow lowing mournfully on top of her shed. He allowed their visits then to avoid worse again, although he was frugal with the food and drink he offered. The mummers ensured they had plenty of snow on their shoes and clothes to leave a mess behind them, as a protest against King-me’s lack of enthusiasm for their entertainment.

  —King-me! they shouted up at the windows, but it was only Absalom who peeked out finally, his hair flat on one side of his head and still shivering himself out of sleep.—Any mummers’ lowed in? the King asked as they pushed past him into the cold hallway and felt their way along the walls to the kitchen.

  Absalom lit a taper from the embers piled under ash in the fireplace and brought it to the candles on the table, then set about getting a lunch of tea buns and old cheese and two pint bottles of spruce beer. The group stamped the snow off their feet and shouted for King-me to join them, though it was clear Absalom’s grandparents had retired hours before and the youngster was the only representative of the family they would see. They were all exhausted and half-asleep and finally let the issue drop. Absalom measured the beer into equal portions and stood back against a wall to wait, like a servant dismissed from table.

  Father Phelan watched him through a fortnight’s haze of booze and sleeplessness. All night he’d been wondering if it was true that Absalom was in love with Callum’s girl and had somehow made it known in the world. He had never seen the boy outside Selina’s House except in King-me’s company, had never heard him string together more than three words. Even if the match wasn’t impossible, the priest thought, little Mary Tryphena would eat Absalom alive.

  The King was on his feet again, goading the revellers into one more song and he was waltzing Absalom about the kitchen now, the boy stiff as a broomstick.—Horse Chops, the King whistled hoarsely. His voice was ruined by the hours of speaking as he inhaled and it was almost impossible to make him out anymore.—This boy, he said, still waltzing Absalom in a tight circle.—Is he in love?

  Horse Chops clapped his jaw once and the mummers gave a halfhearted cheer.

  —In love he is, the King said. A rabid blush coloured Absalom’s face and he tried to pull away but the King held him tight.—Tell us Horse Chops, is his love true?

  Clap.

  —A true love, bless you and amen.

  Horse Chops shuffled up close to the dancing couple and clapped his jaws wildly into the King’s ear.

  —Don’t be talking so much foolishness, Horse Chops, the King said. The jaws clapped awhile again.—That can’t be true, Horse Chops.

  —What did he say? Father Phelan asked when it was clear Absalom wasn’t willing to take the bait.

  The King stepped away from Absalom though he kept hold of the boy’s arms.—He claims young Ab here is in love with his cousin.

  The mummers offered their chorus of feigned disbelief.

  —Is that true? the King asked.—Are ye in love with your cousin?

  Absalom pulled to get clear of the King.—I don’t have a cousin, he said, stuttering fiercely.

  —Do you hear, Horse Chops? He says he has no c-c-cousin to fall in love with.

  Clap, clap clap, clap clap clap clap.

  The King went still then, staring at the youngster through his veil.—Oh but Horse Chops here says you do, Absalom. You have two cousins in the Gut, he says.

  Clap clap clap, clap clap, clap clap clap.

  —Little Lazarus Devine, the King said.

  —No, Absalom whispered.

  —And Mary Tryphena Devine, your intended. A child of your own aunt. Lizzie Devine is your grandfather’s daughter, Absalom.

  The boy tore his arms free finally and left them there, his feet on the naked wooden stairs echoing down to them in the kitchen. The mummers sat in a drunken silence awhile afterwards and some of them removed their brin veils and hats to allow their faces the open air for the first time in hours. The details of the room beginning to rise to the day’s first light. The King sat heavily in a chair and Horse Chops settled his rump into the King’s lap, leaning on the stick that held the horse’s head.—Well that’s that I suppose, the King said.

  Callum pushed his head free of Horse Chops’s blanket and scrubbed at his sweaty face with his hand.—I expect so, he said, speaking aloud for the first time. He smiled forlornly across the kitchen at the priest.—Morning Father, he said.

  The King raised and lowered his knees under Callum like he was bouncing a child.—And how are you feeling now, Callum? he asked.

  —Like a horse’s arse is how I feel, Jabez Trim.

  —As is right and proper, the King said and he nodded under his bushy crown.

  The Feast of the Epiphany was the end of the Christmas season and Father Phelan wandered off to another of his ghost parishes on the island within the week. People settled in for the coldest months of the winter, rarely leaving the narrow border of their own tilts and outbuildings.

  The first vessel into Paradise Deep that
spring made harbour when the ice cleared off in April, a Spurriers ship freighted with salt and hard tack and twine and barrels of nails. When she shipped out a week later, Absalom Sellers was aboard and bound for England. No one laid eyes on him again for the better part of five years.

  { 2 }

  BY THE TIME MARY TRYPHENA was fourteen years of age she’d endured a dozen offers of marriage, serious proposals from men on the shore who courted through her parents, clean-shaven and dressed in their least dilapidated outfits. She sat with her mother and father as the men paraded their virtues, young widowers with a handful of youngsters and middle-aged virgins and Irish boys indentured to King-me Sellers, all promising fidelity and children of her own and what little wealth the coast provided. She won’t starve, they said. She’ll be looked after.

  Mary Tryphena felt peculiarly helpless in it all and wondered if it was somehow a state of womanhood, to be sought and fought for and have only the act of rejection to make a mark in the world. No, was her answer each time, no, no and no. And with each suitor she rejected, her reputation as the rarest and most unattainable of women travelled further along the coast.

  Devine’s Widow suspected the girl’s reluctance was fuelled by an interest in Absalom Sellers and was anxious to see her granddaughter attached elsewhere. She suggested there were only so many offers a woman could expect in a lifetime and Mary Tryphena might exhaust hers before a bud had grown on the bush.—She haven’t even got a bit of tit to be mauled over yet, Devine’s Widow said, and she’ve turned away half the single men on the shore.

  —She’ll take the man she’s meant for, Lizzie told her.

  —Don’t be filling the child’s head with your foolishness, the old woman said.

  The thirteenth and last marriage proposal of her life came from the skipper of a Spurriers ship just arrived with the Episcopalian bishop for the dedication of the new church. The skipper was an Englishman named John Withycombe who had been making the trip to Paradise Deep long enough to know everyone on the shore by sight if not by name. He himself had carried stories of the raven-haired Irish girl pursued by half the men on the coast to bars and kitchens through Conception and Trinity and Fortune bays and old country ports like Poole and Waterford. He had no personal interest in the child at first. He was in his fifties and had married as a young man, but it was said of him that he didn’t stay ashore long enough to wash his clothes and dry them on a line. He hadn’t laid eyes on his own wife in nearly twenty years and had spoken of her as though she was dead for so long that everyone thought her so. He had no interest in anything that tied him to the land and relieved his physical needs on the tired beds of the whorehouses that occupied so much waterfront real estate in his ports of call. But as he repeated and refined his story of the unattainable beauty that half the island of Newfoundland was heartsick for, the notion took root in his mind.—Imagine your life, he would say at the conclusion of each telling, in the bed of such a creature.