As the old folks would say Page 16

  She readily espied Tommy Shannigan, who at this point was being guided to the police car for questioning, and, as such, made an easy target for her wrath. Bearing down upon Tommy in his vulnerable state, she appeared fully intent upon burying the iron skillet in his unprotected skull.

  That she didn’t was due solely to the timely intervention of the RCMP officer who saw her coming, and who was so intent on courageously protecting Tommy’s skull from the murderous utensil that he came darn near close to having it buried in his own. Aunt Maude still had enough of the blood of her Celtic ancestors to wield the iron skillet like a broadsword in battle, and the young Mountie had to weave and duck with genuine alacrity to dodge the great swinging arcs of the bloodthirsty skillet.

  To be fair, Aunt Maude had nothing in particular against Mounties—or any other law enforcement agency, for that matter. (She had almost married the local constable many years before.) She was merely attempting to render an eye for an eye, or an outport taxi driver for a rooster, or fulfilling whatever legal maxim her angered sense of legal justice was dictating during that frenzied moment.

  However, in the immortal words of Sir Winston, she would be denied her finest hour. Or at least partially so, since the new RCMP constable did give both himself and Aunt Maude a small degree of notoriety when he accidentally tore her blouse, while attempting to wrestle the skillet from her hands, in a desperate attempt at self-defence.

  Seeking to avoid yet another impending blow of the cooking utensil turned assault weapon, he lunged to grab the frying pan but grabbed instead the lapel of Aunt Maude’s blouse just below the neckline, ripping the blouse slightly and exposing a rather large but not unattractive portion of bright red flannelette.

  Though she was doubtless well-protected by numerous such layers of like flannelette, as was the prevailing custom of the older ladies of her era—to keep out the heat, as they said—the rend in the garment protecting her bosom did little to calm the rage boiling within that well-protected part of her anatomy.

  With a scream like a wounded banshee, she lunged with all her might at this brazen intruder into her inner sanctity. Fortunately, the RCMP officer tripped over Tommy Shannigan’s bumper and fell backwards on the bonnet of the car, while Aunt Maude went flying across the parking area onto the gravel, propelled by the weight of the skillet, which she still gripped vehemently in both hands.

  There she was finally subdued and soothed by the collective intervention of her three friends who had rushed to the scene upon hearing of the calamity, just in time to prevent serious injury to that hapless enforcer of the law.

  Her friends helped Aunt Maude to her feet, where she stood for a moment panting and sweating, swaying with fatigue from the intense exertion. The fuming and flailing instigated by the tear in the outer layer of her apparel, and her efforts to repay the RCMP constable for his part as violator, had totally exhausted her and forced her, albeit unwillingly, to disengage from the fray, something that would have been unthinkable on her part twenty years before.

  With a final savage look toward Tommy Shannigan—a look which was totally lost on him owing to his state of all-consuming terror—she gave her torso a savage twist, then strode, fuming silently, toward the gate in her yard. The crowd parted before her, much like the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments, and she dealt them vicious looks left and right in gratitude.

  Halfway across the road, however, as if prompted by some unknown spirit of malevolence, she stopped abruptly, swung about-face and, with strides more suited to the charge of an angry bull moose, arrived by the side of the unmoving rooster, who, to give him his credit, had been a most unwilling cause of the events at hand.

  Seething with spite at not being able to crush Tommy Shannigan’s skull with her iron frying pan, she proceeded, totally inexplicably, to vent her unsatiated rage on the luckless form of the dead rooster, having reversed the order of justice to which she had thus far been adhering.

  Forgetting her previous role of advocate and protector, she now delivered the dead bird such a kick that he flew over the fence, landing with an unexcitingly dull thump right in the middle of the strawberry patch, where he was studiously ignored by the little black hen, absorbed as she was in the more pressing demand of gobbling up all the strawberries that she could before she was rounded up again and returned to the relative monotony of the hen’s pound.

  Someone in the crowd who had seen a football game while they were in the ’States avowed that a kick like that deserved a contract, but he had no intentions of offering her one in her present state of mind.

  She then strode angrily into her house, without even so much as a farewell glance in her rooster’s direction. Once inside, the inner surroundings of her bungalow would endure the final expression of her wrath through the medium of assorted slammed doors and smashed dishes, the big grey cat having prudently exited to the safety of a neighbour’s shed.

  Her departure signalled the end of her role in the public entertainment, and, with Tommy settled in the police car awaiting questioning, the crowd began to disperse, the more serious component drifting back to home or wharf or whatever duties of the afternoon, the less scrupulous having already formed a plan in their collective minds, a plan that included the dead rooster as the chief ingredient.

  In that sense, Aunt Maude’s obvious disavowal of the dead bird turned out to be a unique stroke of luck. These fellows knew good fortune when they saw it, although they weren’t high on that kind of articulation, and could readily seize upon the opportunity to have chicken soup, and a time to boot, without having to submit to the hazards of climbing over manure piles at the backs of stables to steal the chief ingredient for the pot.

  The rooster was unceremoniously seized by an onlooker with the most assertive leadership qualities—the most brazen, as they would say then—and carried by the legs in an inconceivably undignified manner to a house immediately adjacent to the accident scene.

  Friends and accomplices made up a mock funeral cortège as they followed him, singing a very bad rendition of “Nearer My God to Thee” in solemn tones in anticipation of the rooster’s final farewell.

  The house in question was the residence of a very ordinary older couple who made prodigious use of the moonshine can and had established a bit of a reputation for themselves in the community thereby. The lads hung out here on a regular basis till all hours of the night, moonshine was available for purchase by the half-pint bottle, and it was widely suspected—but never proven—that many a stolen hen had ended its days in the owner’s boiler.

  In the outport Newfoundland of the day, it was the closest thing you got to a house of ill repute.

  * * * *

  Once inside, the soup-making ritual began.

  The big, red rooster was meticulously cleaned and dropped, again unceremoniously, into a large boiler, where his proud career as centre of attraction to the female members of his flock ended among assorted pieces of carrot and parsnip, and, as they say, “rice accardin.” Copiously seasoned, the object of admiration of countless hens ended his days as the culinary centre of an old-time “kitchen racket.”

  As the once glorious rooster was ravenously devoured, and the sounds of slurping soup resounded among the kitchen walls, tumblers of hot moonshine were passed around. An accordion came out of nowhere. There was soon singing and step-dancing, and what began as a small-time scoff escalated into a first-rate party.

  The events of the day were told and retold into the wee hours of the morning, a telling and retelling which would only cease when the soup and moonshine were both exhausted, and nothing would remain of the rooster except some unrecognizable bones which would be ignominiously thrown on the manure pile the next day.

  The b’ys were short on metaphysics and teleology, but they knew enough about life and death to understand the final end of a fattened rooster, and they didn’t bother themselves about philosophy and su
chlike while hot chicken soup and moonshine were still in abundance on the table. These people didn’t have to wait for fast-food outlets to teach them how to value cooked chicken, although the new health regulations would have said a thing or two about feathers in the soup.

  Many a smiling comment was passed about Aunt Maude’s unfortunate loss, to the accompaniment of generous rounds of raucous laughter. As befitted the social role of her ponderous presence, such comments were disapprovingly hush-hushed by the ruling matriarch of the household, who outwardly disclaimed against the pilfering of the bird and vocalized her sympathies for Aunt Maude accordingly, but who inwardly couldn’t wait for the first taste of the delectable broth.

  * * * *

  It’s been a long time since that big, red rooster so ignominiously departed from this world.

  Sadly, Aunt Maude Finnegan followed soon after in his wake, no pun intended. Her passing was not in any way related to the tragic demise of her favourite rooster. However, because her body was found peacefully asleep in somewhat the same position as that of the rooster’s in much unhappier circumstances, the local wits, aping the daily newspapers which were now finding their way with more alacrity into outport households, seriously and solemnly affirmed that no foul play was suspected.

  The matriarch who presided over the ritualistic scoff has also departed this world, and she, along with all those of her generation, have taken a world with her.

  Mind you, we have a million channels on television and all the world news we can eat. And I wouldn’t want any of that stuff back—the muddy roads, the little wood stove in the corner, taking a beach rock to bed to keep your feet warm—most definitely not. I’m more sensible than that. I’m a lot better off and a darn sight more comfortable than they ever were.

  It’s just that—well—they seemed to have more fun.

  TOMORROW THE GILLER

  “What are you writing now?” asked my wife as she squinted over my shoulder.

  “A novel,” I replied, with absolute confidence.

  “A novel! But I thought you were writing a short story.”

  She was furrowing her brows, not sure if she had heard me correctly. I knew she was doing all this behind me, because I had seen her do it before in that exact same tone of voice. She always squints first, then furrows after.

  “Yes, short stories lack the depth of the profound life experience. It says so right here in the Central Avalon Peninsula Author’s Guide for Beginner Writers.”

  “Profound life experience?”

  My wife sounded skeptical.

  “Yes, a short story could never fully express my profound life experience . . . where I was a teacher all those years . . . then there was that time I went to Saint Pierre . . .”

  “You started a novel eight years ago?”

  It was definitely a mild reprimand. My wife didn’t like things dragged out.

  “Yes. This is another one. I’m going to write both of them concurrently. The Guide says it can sometimes be the best way to overcome writer’s block. If you’re having trouble with the first novel, begin a second one.”

  My wife was pursing her lips with her fingers.

  “If you can’t write one, write two. Isn’t that . . . ?”

  “It might be, but I’m inclined to agree with them. Besides, maybe I can write them so they follow one another . . . like a trilogy.”

  My wife was looking at me as if she didn’t understand, her eyes narrowing even more than she had previously furrowed. She was incredibly sensitive to my creative moods.

  “A trilogy has three books.”

  “Yes, I know that. I will write these two concurrently and the third will naturally arise from the intense flow of creativity to which I have subjected myself writing the first two.”

  “But you only wrote two chapters of that first novel; the Train and the Boat. You didn’t even finish the third chapter—The Kitchen.”

  “Yes, these were the symbolic representations of Newfoundland outport life.”

  “But you had the awfulest time with them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was my turn to furrow. I never squinted, although sometimes I looked piercingly.

  “Well, you only ever had two characters, and they were ever so long in one place. For the longest time you couldn’t get them off the boat. And they’re still in the kitchen!”

  “An absolutely disciplined approach. You remember Lawrence Durrell. They all sat around a table in Cairo through four books. He only had four characters. Cleo . . .”

  “I know them,” she interrupted. Of course she did. My wife has read more novels than I could ever write in a year.

  “But he was a distinguished European writer, like Joseph Conrad. He . . .”

  I stopped her, showing mild displeasure in return.

  “Joseph Conrad had to write in a foreign language.”

  “You could write in Polish?”

  My wife was shaking her head in amazement. She always expressed amazement at my wide-ranging knowledge of literature.

  “Of course, if I sailed around on Polish ships for a while.”

  Now she was shaking her head in absolute disbelief.

  “You should finish your first novel before you do anything else.”

  That’s what she would do. Every author has a different approach. The Central Avalon Peninsula Author’s Guide for Beginner Writers was very clear on that.

  “Besides, I can’t think of any more symbolic representations of Newfoundland life.”

  I sat musingly.

  “What about the wharf?”

  I could have sworn the tone was acerbic, but I interpreted it as helpful. I thought a moment before I replied.

  “No, the wharf would never work. The heroine has high heel shoes on—spike heels. They would get caught up in the spaces between the planks. She would trip and get hurt and I don’t know how to write about hospitals . . .”

  The Guide said a beginner writer had to be authentic.

  “Besides, they would be standing there too long—for a whole chapter—and we’re getting into late fall . . . winter. And they would have to change clothes. I would have to rewrite pages. I have to maintain consistency. That’s what the Guide says.”

  That got her. Imagine using the wharf for a symbolic representation of Newfoundland life! My wife straightened and the lines of her face tautened. Her voice had taken on an unusually dry tone.

  “Maybe they wouldn’t have to talk at all. Maybe she could just stand there and have her coat furl around her aching legs while he tried to haul her out from between the planks.”

  I should have picked up on the tone more quickly, but I was becoming excited, my inspiration triggered by my wife’s metaphorical language. Burst upon burst of creative energy flooded through my brain, unleashing images like the thick rolling of the sea. The images tumbled over one another like potheads roiling in shallow water by a deserted beach.

  “Excellent,” I shouted. “A beautiful metaphor. Furl. Just like a sail. The nautical reference. You’re absolutely right. I should go back to my first novel. Splendid. ‘Her thin coat furling around her aching legs . . . while squid-shaped forms danced on the harbour stillness.’ That’s it. Authenticity. Keep it Newfoundland. Precise detail. That’s what the Guide says. . . . Or should I say ‘Her squid-shaped coat . . . swirling sail-like. I have to be more precise. . . . Let’s see . . . sail-like, sail-like . . .”

  The door was closing quietly. I was alone, with my genius, my inspiration. Every Central Avalon Beginner Writer should have such an encouraging and knowing wife, to help him past his first Beginner Writer’s Block, to help him recognize the infinite limits of his bursting imagination. I was typing furiously.

  “She stood on the wharf, a slippery wharf, a wharf of many planks, with space
s in between, with one plank missing (probably stolen); her loose-fitting Arcade-purchased coat furling and reefing about her tautened, aching legs . . . the anguished squirting of many squids the only sound to disturb the ethereal silence of an excitingly demure August afternoon . . .”

  Perfect! Now what will I have him say first . . . ? I know, the sexual reference. Just a hint of sexual overture.

  “Astrophilia, my dear, you look so beautiful standing on a planked wharf, your coat so sail-like, furling and reefing . . .”

  HE WAS A MINER

  He sits, a tired man, beside his stove

  Drawing warmth from the little that remains

  His memories begin with that small cove

  With its rippling brooks and gentle, winding lanes

  “I was just fifteen” (He coughed a wracking cough)

  “You went to work, there were no choices then

  Well, join the church . . . fish. . . . Times were bad

  If you had a lot of learning wield a pen”

  He drew his breath in hard. “I had no berth

  And you have but little learning with grade eight

  Join the Church?” He smiled amidst his pain

  “I don’t think I was made for Heaven’s gate”

  “No, the mines had everything you’d ask”

  (He paused to stem another wracking cough)

  “Just pick and shovel, bend hard to the task

  And as for pay, well, they paid enough”

  “You name one, I’ve been there . . . I’ve dug it all . . .

  Lead in Buchans, Tilt Cove copper, Bell Island iron ore

  Down north, out west . . . wherever came the call

  Gold in Nova Scotia, St. Lawrence . . . the mica mines in war . . .”

  (He grasped his chest and struggled for his breath)