New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan (book club suggestions TXT) 📗

25

Even though Doug was still acting cool towards me, he was my go-to for advice on local customs, so I ambushed him in his classroom the next morning.

“Can you talk to me about fishing, please?”

He tossed his pen down and folded his hands behind his head. “What about it?”

I filled him in briefly on the tirade from Sam’s father.

“Don’t mind him,” said Doug. “That man’s as crooked as sin. Never seen him smile, not once.”

“But what is it about fishing? Why do they make kids do it, even when they don’t want to?”

“Don’t go tarring us all with Roy Sullivan’s brush,” Doug said. “Dad didn’t make me fish. Took me out and showed me the ropes, sure, and I was glad of it. But he would’ve been all right with me going off to do something else, too.”

“But you like fishing.” That had been clear when he’d taken me out in his boat.

He nodded. “Yes, girl. Loves a bit of fishing. It’s as much our religion as the Church. There’ll be men fishing these waters as long as there’s cod swimming in them. But it’s hard graft, and even before Dad died, I didn’t want it. And after . . . well, I wouldn’t do that to Mudder.”

I pictured his glamorous mother in her wheelchair. “Doug, what happened to your mother? I mean, if it’s okay for me to ask.”

The corners of his mouth drooped. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime,” he said. “But not now.” He looked at his watch. “Bell’s about to go.”

I was glad to hear that he’d confide in me sometime about his mother. And it seemed he wasn’t mad at me anymore.

“Thanks for the talk,” I said. “Remember when you said Newfoundlanders were a cult?”

He nodded.

“Well, you’re my guru.”

He laughed. “I’ll add it to my list of skills.”

I gave him a little wave and had reached the door when he said, “Hey, fiddle girl, how d’you like that cassette I made you for Christmas?”

So Doug had given it to me. I liked the cassette even more now that I knew its provenance.

“I loves it, my son.”

Doug threw back his head and laughed. I danced all the way back to my classroom. If Newfoundlanders were a cult, I felt ready to join.

It had been freakishly mild for several weeks, but halfway through the first lesson of the morning, the snow began to fall, thick and fast. By mid-morning Patrick had called the buses back, and by noon the students were gone. I was brushing snow from my car when Patrick came outside, sliding towards me in his shoes.

“Road to Clayville’s shut,” he shouted above the wind. “Lucille says you can stay with her.” He gestured out at the road where the gravel had disappeared from sight, and added, “You might be better walking up if you can bear it. The roads are bad here too.”

I locked my car and left it, trudging up the hill towards Lucille’s. The wind was impossible; the snow swirled in every direction, blowing down my neck and under my top. When I’d reached the halfway mark up the hill, Eddie Churchill pulled in, the chains on his tires crunching in the snow. He reached across and opened the passenger door. “Hop in,” he shouted over the wind.

“Some weather, wha,” he said. “I’ll get you up to Lucille’s.” He added there’d been a bad accident on the Clayville road right before the RCMP shut it. “Best to sit tight.”

Lucille was at the kitchen table smoking when I went in, stamping my wet boots on the floor. “You don’t need a storm to come visit, you know,” she called. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Over tea, she told me that her daughter Linda was now engaged and we talked about wedding plans for a while. After I yawned a few times, Lucille suggested I go up to my old bedroom and have a lie-down.

“It’s that kind of day, girl,” she said.

It was strange to be back in my old room. I lay on the bed and wrapped a quilt around me. The wind screamed at the window and its panes rattled right back. I didn’t think I’d sleep, but I woke later, freezing in the dark. When I tried to turn on the bedside lamp, it didn’t work.

Downstairs, Lucille was working on a crossword by the light of three candles.

“Power’s out,” she said. “I allows the wind knocked down some lines. I never made it to the shop, but there’s bread and bologna. Fancy a drop?”

She went to the cupboard and took down a bottle of rum and two glasses. I drank mine with warm cola; Lucille took hers neat, smoking steadily as we worked our way through the bottle and the crossword. I hadn’t eaten much and the rum went straight to my head. On my way up to bed, I had to hold onto the bannister with one hand, a candle flickering wildly in the other.

The moon shone bright through the lacy ice whorls on the window. I drifted off, dreaming of Doug. We were waltzing at the pub in Mardy and he was whispering “Fiddle girl” in my ear.

I woke, what seemed minutes later, to the sound of pots banging in the kitchen. The smell of breakfast cooking enticed me down the stairs.

“Power’s back on,” Lucille said. “I’m cooking up a feast.”

We stuffed ourselves on bacon and eggs, and toutons with maple syrup. I asked for seconds of the toutons. As Lucille obliged, she gleefully reminded me how I’d turned my nose up at the fried bread dough the first time she’d served it.

When we were finished eating, I offered to do the dishes, so Lucille sat with a cigarette while I washed up. When the last pan had been scrubbed, I told Lucille I was going for a walk.

She wrinkled her nose. “In this weather? You best watch out for rot holes.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“Soft spots in the snow that