Saltwater Cowboys (6 page)

But this was her husband Jack she was thinking of. She needn't worry about him; he was faithful and loyal. Unlike her own father, apparently. She remembered her mother telling her the story of how her father Tom stormed out of her grandmother's house when Lillian had told him she was pregnant, how he had avoided her for the full nine months of pregnancy, how Lillian had watched him date, break hearts, go through almost every available girl in town, even when Angela's oldest sister Cynthia had arrived. Lillian had wheeled her proudly around town in her four-wheel navy blue, silver-rimmed carriage, her curly blonde hair springing out from under her baby bonnet, agreed upon by the female old guard to be the cutest baby they ever saw born in Brighton.

Lillian had resigned herself to Tom's withdrawal and absence, gradually forgetting about marrying him, growing more content, alone in her routine with her newborn daughter, comfortable with just her mother's help, until one day Tom Harrington passed her on the sidewalk, looked straight at the baby, stopped the stroller, and reached in for the baby, and when she grabbed at his nose and kicked at his chest, Tom told Lillian that he wanted to marry her and raise their child together.

Lillian's mother had protested, mumbled obscenities at the wedding reception, cursing that “stun-arse” of a man her youngest would marry and bear more children with. He was no good, not for her or anyone else. There was a distinct lack of female presence at the wedding; all of the young women in town were too hurt to watch Tom Harrington walk down the aisle.

Lillian had loosened up somewhat over the years and for the most part was as well-behaved as could be expected for a feisty old woman who had raised three daughters, for the most part on her own after Tom died in an underground mine fire.

On the morning that Jack had left for his interview Angela put the box of salt away, screwed the cap on the shaker tightly, crossed to the stove, lifted the lid off a boiling pot, and sprinkled in salt, round the pot of potatoes in circles, over and over again. She heard Lily wail as she woke from her nap. Maggie put down her crayons at the kitchen table behind Angela and asked, “Can I go see her, Momma?”

“Yes, my love, here,” Angela said, put the lid on the pot, and grabbed Lily's juice bottle. “Give her this.”

The next morning Angela awoke to the incessant shrill of the telephone. She stumbled out of bed, snaked her way through the jumble of toys on the living room floor, entered the sun-filled kitchen, and picked up the phone. “Jack?”

“I got a job offer. We'll be in Foxville by the end of the month.”

Joy welled up in Angela's chest and her eyes watered. “Oh, thank god.”

“We'll have an income and a new home in no time. There's a nice new school there and people from all over Canada, I hear.”

“Thank you, my love. You'll see how much fun we can all have together again, Wanda, Pete, you, and me. It'll be just like home,” she said.

“I'm sure it will. Go back to sleep before the girls run you ragged.”

“I love you,” Angela whispered.

The evening Jack returned from St. John's, Angela asked him to go get milk from the corner store. The autumn air was crisp and stars crowded the sky. Brighton lay tucked between a slight Appalachian mountain range. The wind was stunted by rock. The main road curled around town and connected the handful of necessary businesses: the cinema, the hockey arena, the grocery store, and a bargain department store. The corner store stood behind the library and school, close to Fung's, the Chinese food restaurant. A car passed. Jack smiled at the driver but avoided his eyes.

Jack shuffled along, head down, hands crammed into his jeans pockets. The heaviness in his belly made up for the loss of appetite. His big blue eyes were cloudy, his lips downcast. His wide face pinched the skin on his long, thin nose. He stared at his boots, dusty and heavy, and kicked rocks sharply as he walked, looking to vent his anger on the smooth bodies of the pebbles.

In the smoky, scented store, as Jack made his way to the milk cooler, Mr. Pinsent, the owner, a cigarette clamped between his stubby lips, waved and nodded. As Jack reached for a carton he bumped into Doctor Nelson and dropped his milk carton. They watched the liquid inch slowly, directionlessly, across the linoleum.

“No use cryin' is there?” Doctor Nelson said and raised the toes of his leather shoes away from the spilled milk.

Jack lowered his head and rested his fist on the glass. He took a step forward and lost his balance on the wet floor.

“You alright?” Nelson asked and hauled him forward, centimetres from his thick salt-and-pepper beard. Doctor Nelson's beige raglan crinkled against Jack's dirty denim jacket.

“Come for a drink,” Nelson said.

Jack's leg twitched. He gulped as if he'd swallowed netting that had siphoned off his breath. He could barely speak and could hardly hear what Doctor Nelson had said, but he found himself nodding, agreeing to go to the doctor's to talk privately. All the while, Mr. Pinsent, the cherry-nosed, stout and balding grocer, discreetly passed his mop underneath the feet of the two men.

Purity tea stepped in the long giraffe-neck silver carafe. Hot buttered scones steamed on a silver tray. Nelson passed one to Jack, who sat fidgeting in his jeans and navy cotton T-shirt. He felt naked without his denim jacket; it had been politely taken at the door and promptly hung by the prim young nursing student.

“I don't want to leave,” Jack said softly to the man who had delivered him and all three of his babies, the man whose house he used to egg on Halloween night and laugh about later on with Peter.

“I know,” Doctor Nelson answered and stirred his tea in the herringbone china cup, his pinky extended and crooked gracefully. “How do you think I felt, falling in love with Sheila's mother, Jane, with no background, family, or money, living in post-war London?” He laughed. “I knew I'd have to leave home too. So I worked hard. I had one shot at rising up, and I went for it, took the scholarship to Oxford and went for gold.”

“It worked out? I mean, of course —”

“Well, yes and no. I won the woman I loved, that's for sure. A brat like Jane wouldn't have married a commoner like me otherwise. Don't get me wrong,” he said and slurpped his tea loudly, “she loved me the minute we met. I was serving
hors d'oeurves
at one of her mother's arts philanthropy parties. I told her I was going to marry her and that I was going to be a doctor like her father.”

“Do you enjoy medicine?”

“I don't love it, but it comes fairly easy to me, and it serves society, so I did what I thought was best, knowing full well it would take me to different parts of the world, far from home in London. Jane knew that too, but she accepted it.”

“Did you ever want to go home?”

“Yes, of course. But I chose to support my wife and family, and I was rewarded, and I'm not talking about the contents of my over-stuffed house, or the frames on my wall declaring to the world my worth. I'm talking about spending my life with my wife and child. I wouldn't have changed that for anything.”

Jack finished his tea. He rubbed his palms on his thighs, jiggled his feet, and sat with arms clamped under his armpits. As Doctor Nelson talked about the miners' strikes in England and Thatcher's latest response, Jack silently decided he would prove to Angela that he could take care of her. He wanted to be like Doctor Nelson. He wanted to spend the best years of his life with his wife and children, even though he'd be far from home, far from his mother and father, and all of the comforts of being established in a community that knew and loved him for who he was.

I
t rained the morning Jack and Angela loaded up the car to catch the ferry in Channel-Port aux Basques. Jack at the wheel, nervous in the fog, watched for the mud brown of the moose's hide, prone to charging, plowing vehicles of all weights and sizes off the road under the girth of its weight.

He thought of his brother Bill, driving to town with Rose, barely ten minutes out of Brighton when a moose charged past the front of the car, smashing the windshield to bits. Bill had clamped his hand on the horn and driven back to their father's house, Rose immobile, shattered glass over her face and thighs, her legs trembling with fright. The horn sounded sharper in the panic, neighbours clamouring to get a look out their windows, tired miners just finishing their night shifts hauling curtains closed, angry at the bleating horn.

When they'd pulled in the driveway, Jack had been the first out the door, steadying Rose on his shoulder, shaking and pale, her legs rubbery as a vinegary bone from the shock.

Now on the road to Port aux Basques to catch the ferry, Angela said, “We're well past dawn, honey,” and offered Jack a can of cola. She knew he was worried about hitting a moose. But she also knew there was little chance of the animals being on the highway at this hour, even during a foggy fall morning.

“We'll be in Port aux Basques before dusk,” she said.

Besides which, she felt blessed and protected. She had driven to St. John's when she was pregnant with Katie, and it had been nothing short of a miracle. She'd gone with her mother to shop for baby things. Angela already four months along and fat around the face and hips. They'd spent the night with Angela's sisters Cynthia and Marie, both bartenders on George Street.

“The apartment will be quiet,” they'd promised since they'd both be working the night shift. It was a loud downtown apartment close to George Street, the thumping bar noise intolerable, horns from traffic, drivers drunk and confused pulling into Water Street backwards, disrupting traffic.

When Angela and her mother had driven to town, a moose had come out of the forest, charging so quickly, Angela was instantly engulfed in its shadow. It came so close she could see its underside, shaggy hairs matted with muck and bits of spring green moss. Its hind muscles were bulky against lithe bone. Suddenly, without prodding, the hulking beast changed course, sparing the lives of Angela, her mother, and the baby.

“An Act of God,” Grandmother McCarthy said and crossed herself repeatedly.

“Moose never, ever change course,” everyone said.

They could have been killed.

Angela thought the moose had sensed the baby's rapid heartbeat. Compelled by instinct, it had swerved to preserve the young life it sensed. Angela knew nothing about animals, or moose, but that's what she thought.

So on the day they drove to catch the ferry with Jack brittle and nervous at the wheel, mood as sharp as glass, she worried little, lulled into a sense of grace by the rapid heartbeat in her belly.

“Moose come out at dawn and dusk, don't they?” Angela asked.

“You're thinking of mosquitoes,” Jack said sourly.

“I'll keep an eye out,” Angela mumbled and took her eyes off the road to assemble lunches of cheese and sandwiches for the girls.

After lunch they stopped for gas just outside of Stephenville.

“Washroom key's at the till,” the high-school boy pumping gas said. His beanie was emblazoned with a Quebec Nordiques emblem.

They bought a small brown paper bag filled with penny candy, yellow and orange chewy cones and five-cent sour jelly candy drenched in coarse sugar. The store smelled of flour. There were fillets of dried salt cod, gutted and spread like stingrays, in cardboard boxes next to the till.

“Can I get you some?” the chubby cashier asked and gestured to the cod.

Angela and Jack both shook their heads.

“God only knows the next time we'll have dried cod,” Angela said.

Jack looked away.

They'd had cod last night at their going-away party. It had never tasted so fresh — buttery soft, chalk white, and saltier than the ocean — it was one of the best meals they'd had in a long time. The party was held at Jack's parents'. It was a bleak evening, cold and rainy, sparsely attended — not too many left in town to see them off — no music, no grand speeches, awkward and depressing, save for the food.

Angela ran her finger over the edge of the cardboard box with the cod in it. She wanted to take the silvery wet-dog scent of the dried fish with her.

“You sure you don't want any?” the cashier asked.

B
ack on the road, the fog had lifted. They cruised through several bay towns and saw lovely homes, all in shades from a springtime palette, almost Easter-egg looking, pass by, homes snug by the shore or at various altitudes against rock cliffs overlooking the ocean.

When they arrived at the ferry, Jack paid for their passage with a small packet of bills he took from his wallet. He had all the money for the trip allotted into envelopes marked for their purposes. This one said
FERRY
in block letters across the front. He had others marked
HOTEL, FOOD
, and
GAS
. His fingers shook nervously as he handed over the money. He'd better have calculated correctly; this was all he had.

As they waited with the queue of cars leaving Newfoundland, Jack stared straight ahead while Angela sang with the girls and played “I spy with my little eye.”

Too much green
, he thought, watching the hills in the distance, crowded with balsam fir.
Too much blue
, he thought and watched the vast ocean swelling before them.
Rats leaving a sinking ship
, he thought as he drove the car onboard.
All of us, scurrying away, in desperate hope for something better.

Once aboard the ferry they went up on deck to let the girls watch the water.

The metallic grey steel and cranberry-red-trimmed ferry hissed in the winter air, icicles hanging off the upper deck and railways like crooked, arthritic fingers. The deep Atlantic churned and spat underneath the motor.

Harried moms, resigned dads, and excited children lounged on deck. They watched the land recede from the heavy boat that crawled across the channel to the mainland.

Angela had gone to the tiny café for snacks. Jack sat slumped on the upper deck, Lily in his lap, Maggie and Kate beside him. They hung over the rail to point at the great granite rock dotted with emerald trees, covered with the filaments of the first snowfall.

Tears drifted down his face and mixed with the salty spray from the ocean, flung up by the stir of the winter wind and the force of the engine underneath him.

Angela returned with bags of salt and vinegar chips. She avoided his eyes and gave him a few moments to stare uninterrupted at the grey block of land, shrunk to the size of a mere pebble — a stone skipped across the ocean — before it was swallowed by sky.

The girls ate their chips quickly, clumps of salt on their fingers, eager to run and play in the open air. Lily drifted off to sleep in Angela's arms. Angela rummaged through her bag to find one of the leftover sandwiches. She found one and tore off chunks of bread, manoeuvred the sloppy meat and lettuce into her mouth, losing the crust altogether. She was feeding the baby in her belly, which continued to swell like high tide. Strangely saddened by the prospect of this new baby, who would most likely be delivered in Alberta, not in Brighton by Dr. Nelson and his team of enthusiastic student nurses from St. John's; who would not hear Newfoundland music on a daily basis, or smell the ocean or taste the salt cod and fresh potatoes with drawn butter or eat beet salads and pickled beets, or suck on Purity biscuits or peppermint knobs.

Her little Albertan would eat beef, lots of it, probably, and be raised amongst strangers in a strange new land, filled with local customs that Angela would be oblivious to, and would most likely embarrass herself and her children as she tried to adapt to them. She knew, of course, what the women would be like. She'd been to town dozens of times, noticed the women in the fancy stores on Water Street and at the Avalon Mall, who spoke a little quicker, flourished about a little more dramatically. She knew she stood out as someone from “out-around-the-bay,” and she knew they'd stand out even more around Western strangers.

A few hours later Cape Breton Island came into view, flatter than Newfoundland, humble, obedient, and peaceful, its dales shallow and round as a ripe belly. Impish and mysterious, Cape Breton Island looked warm and inviting with soft, rolling hills and gentle shores.

One of the ferry workers, an old man with a Stephenville accent, walked slowly onto the upper deck and swept debris into the dustbin, all kinds of soiled napkins, clear plastic sandwich wrap, and discarded Styrofoam cups with used tea bags inside that huddled like a dead animal behind a clump of wet leaves.

He was short and skinny, clean-shaven with a slack mouth, the corner of which was reserved permanently for the simple pleasure of a dangling cigarette. His lips were twisted, the lips of an old-timer who can smoke and talk at the same time, muscle habits honed from years of salted conversations with sailors and deck-men.

He tapped Angela's foot lightly with his broom. She opened her eyes and lifted her head heavily from Jack's slumped, protective chest. They had fallen asleep, Jack propped up against one of the ship's railing posts, the girls still leaning over the edge of the boat, staring curiously at Cape Breton Island.

“Missus, are you done with your lunch? I've got to clear up, so if you'd move them legs a little, my love.”

Angela moved her leg away from his prodding broom.

“Where you goin?” he asked and his blue eyes twinkled.

“Alberta.”

“Miners?”

Angela nodded.

“I've seen a lot go up there over the last little while, and I've seen just as many come back,” he said and chuckled softly. “I daresay I wouldn't be able to make it up there on my own, but if I had a pretty wife like you by my side, well then I just might be able to.”

Angela smiled and laughed She looked expectantly towards the shoreline and avoided Jack's flat face, full of defeat and fear.

The ferry docked amidst a circus of aluminum, an industrial area with a slew of tarnished cars parked along the waterfront. Weather-beaten vehicles, punctured by wind, rain, and snow. Driving off the ramp, Jack felt agitated. This was it. They'd left. One last glance back at the navy-blue ocean, white thumbs of foam incessantly twiddling over themselves. The hand of fate had slapped him to this shore, this city on the edge of the country. From here they'd have to drive for days, possibly weeks on end over a cold, slithery, grey road that snaked across the country through forest and rock, over rivers and lakes, and in this weather.

They found a motel and Angela stretched out on the bed.

“We're hungry,” she said and rubbed her belly.

“Fried chicken?” Jack asked.

Angela nodded.

He drove for ten minutes and found a fried chicken spot.

“Newfie?” the woman at the counter asked.

“Yes,” Jack said.

“My husband is a Newfoundlander from Harbour Grace,” she said.

Jack felt a pang of nostalgia. He'd been out there once as a child. His Uncle Martin lived there. He remembered the half-sunken ship in the bay, tilted to one side, rusted and dented, with whale-sized holes in the stern. How they'd skip stones for hours, try to sail the rocks through the holes. They'd stay all day until the sun itself seemed to sink into the ocean.

Jack's loneliness eased. This plump woman, smothering chicken legs in a flour and spice coating, apron flecked with hot grease splotches, had warmed his heart.

“Enjoy,” she called out.

Jack cradled the bucket of chicken under his arm and waved. The woman winked as she wiped down the saltshaker and pricked the encrusted holes with a toothpick.

The next morning they were on the road. The car was slathered with slushy winter rain. The wipers heaved through the mire with all the might of a plow. Jacked pulled over at the first gas station and they sat in the coffee shop, waiting for the weather to clear up.

“The girls want more hot chocolate,” Angela said.

Jack pulled a few dollars from his pocket. Chocolate turned into lunch, and lunch turned into snacks, and snacks turned into dinner.

“We'll have to go back to the motel, try again tomorrow,” Jack said irritably.

Angela took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and nodded.

By the next morning the wet snow had relented into dry flurries. Jack didn't stop driving once they were on the road. They made it all the way through the forests and pulp mills and lakes to the edge of New Brunswick.

Katie read aloud the road sign that said
EDMUNDSTON
.

“Are we there yet?” Maggie asked.

“Not yet.”

“But Katie said we were in Edmonton,” Maggie said.

Angela and Jack smiled and winked at each other.

The next afternoon they arrived in Quebec. The St. Lawrence River was a light airy blue; cascades of ice had wrinkled the edges. They stopped at a diner just outside Quebec City. Angela ordered the fattest slice of pecan pie she'd ever seen. The filling was a deep mud brown, not light amber like she would have back home.

The waitress frowned at the children. A French pop song played on the radio.

“I've always wanted to learn French,” Angela said.

“Oh,” Jack said absent-mindedly.

Angela watched him quietly and licked her fork, a candied husked pecan split down the middle, porcelain white flesh like a dislodged tooth, wedged in the prong.

“More tea,” he said to the waitress who hovered about with mop in hand, ready to clean up the mess made by the children.

Jack kept his tea off the table, held it, and rotated the cup around in his palms, warmth spreading through his knuckles. Being on the road for this long was strange to him. The tension in his neck, nerves in his groin tightening and releasing as he kept his foot tight over the gas pedal. The carrying on Angela did with the kids, the noise, the games, the crying.