ISBN: 9781525811500
Publication Date: May 11, 2021
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Enjoy this excerpt:
1
September 1985
Little Cove: Population 389
The battered sign came into view as my car crested a hill on
the gravel road. Only 389 people? Damn. I pulled over and got out of the car,
inhaling the moist air. Empty boats tilted against the wind in the bay below. A
big church dominated the valley, beside which squatted a low, red building, its
windows dark, like a row of rotten teeth. This was likely St. Jude’s, where
tomorrow I would begin my teaching career.
“You lost?”
I whirled around. A gaunt man, about sixty, straddled a bike
beside me. He wore denim overalls and his white hair was combed neatly back
from his forehead.
“Car broke down?” he continued.
“No,” I said. “I’m just … ” My voice trailed off. I could
hardly confide my second thoughts to this stranger. “…admiring the view.”
He looked past me at the flinty mist now spilling across the
bay. A soft rain began to fall, causing my carefully straightened hair to twist
and curl like a mass of dark slugs.
“Might want to save that for a fine day,” he said. His
accent was strong, but lilting. “It’s right mauzy today.”
“Mossy?”
“Mauzy.” He gestured at the air around him. Then he folded
his arms across his chest and gave me a once-over. “Now then,” he said. “What’s
a young one like you doing out this way?”
“I’m not that young,” I shot back. “I’m the new French
teacher out here.”
A smile softened his wrinkled face. “Down from Canada,
hey?”
As far as I knew, Newfoundland was still part of Canada, but
I nodded.
“Phonse Flynn,” he said, holding out a callused hand. “I’m
the janitor over to St. Jude’s.”
“Rachel,” I said. “Rachel O’Brien.”
“I knows you’re staying with Lucille,” he said. “I’ll show
you where she’s at.”
With an agility that belied his age, he dismounted and
gently lowered his bike to the ground. Then he pointed across the bay.
“Lucille’s place is over there, luh.”
Above a sagging wharf, I saw a path that cut through the
rocky landscape towards a smattering of houses. I’d been intrigued at the
prospect of a boarding house; it sounded Dickensian. Now I was uneasy. What if
it was awful?
“What about your bike?” I asked, as Phonse was now standing
by the passenger-side door of my car.
“Ah, sure it’s grand here,” he said. “I’ll come back for it
by and by.”
“Aren’t you going to lock it?”
I thought of all the orphaned bike wheels locked to racks in
Toronto, their frames long since ripped away. Jake had been livid when his
racing bike was stolen. Not that I was thinking about Jake. I absolutely was
not.
“No need to lock anything ’round here,” said Phonse.
I fumbled with my car keys, embarrassed to have locked the
car from habit.
“Need some help?”
“The lock’s a bit stiff,” I said. “I’ll get used to
it.”
Phonse waited while I jiggled in vain. Then he walked around
and held out his hand. I gave him the key, he stuck it in and the knob on the
inside of the car door popped up immediately.
“Handyman, see,” he said. “Wants a bit of oil, I allows. But
like I said, no need to lock ’er. Anyway, with that colour, who’d steal it?” I
had purchased the car over the phone, partly for its price, partly for its
colour. Green had been Dad’s favourite colour, and when the salesman said
mountain green, I’d imagined a dark, verdant shade. Instead, with its scattered
rust garnishes, the car looked like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Still, it would fit right in. I eyeballed the houses as we drove along: garish
orange, lime green, blinding yellow. Maybe there had been a sale on
paint.
As we passed the church, Phonse blessed himself, fingers
moving from forehead to chest, then on to each shoulder. I kept both hands
firmly on the steering wheel.
“Where’s the main part of Little Cove?” I asked.
“You’re looking at it.”
There was nothing but a gas station and a takeout called
MJ’s, where a clump of teenagers was gathered outside, smoking. A tall,
dark-haired boy pointed at my car and they all turned to stare. A girl in a
lumber jacket raised her hand. I waved back before I realized she was giving me
the finger. Embarrassed, I peeked sideways at Phonse. If he’d noticed, he
didn’t let on.
Although Phonse was passenger to my driver, I found myself
thinking of Matthew Cuthbert driving Anne Shirley through Avonlea en route to Green
Gables. Not that I’d be assigning romantic names to these landmarks. Anne’s
“Snow Queen” cherry tree and “Lake of Shining Waters” were nowhere to be seen.
It was more like Stunted Fir Tree and Sea of Grey Mist. And I wasn’t a complete
orphan; it merely felt that way.
At the top of a hill, Phonse pointed to a narrow dirt
driveway on the right. “In there, luh.”
I parked in front of a small violet house encircled by a
crooked wooden fence. A rusty oil tank leaned into the house, as if seeking
shelter. When I got out, my nose wrinkled at the fishy smell. Phonse joined me
at the back of the car and reached into the trunk for my suitcases.
“Gentle Jaysus in the garden,” he grunted. “What have you
got in here at all? Bricks?” He lurched ahead of me towards the house, refusing
my offer of help.
The contents of my suitcases had to last me the entire year;
now I was second-guessing my choices. My swimsuit and goggles? I wouldn’t be
doing lengths in the ocean. I looked at the mud clinging to my sneakers and regretted
the suede dress boots nestled in tissue paper. But I knew some of my decisions
had been right: a raincoat, my portable cassette player, stacks of homemade
tapes, my hair straighteners and a slew of books.
When Phonse reached the door, he pushed it open, calling,
“Lucille? I got the new teacher here. I expect she’s wore out from the
journey.” As he heaved my bags inside, a stout woman in a floral apron and
slippers appeared: Lucille Hanrahan, my boarding house lady.
“Phonse, my son, bring them bags upstairs for me now,” she
said.
I said I would take them but Lucille shooed me into the
hall, practically flapping her tea towel at me. “No, girl,” she said. “You must
be dropping, all the way down from Canada. Let’s get some grub in you before
you goes over to the school to see Mr. Donovan.”
Patrick Donovan, the school principal, had interviewed me
over the phone. I was eager to meet him.
“Oh, did he call?” I asked.
“No.”
Lucille smoothed her apron over her belly, then called up
the stairs to ask Phonse if he wanted a cup of tea. There was a slow beat of
heavy boots coming down. “I’ll not stop this time,” said Phonse. “But Lucille,
that fence needs seeing to.”
Lucille batted her hand at him. “Go way with you,” she said.
“It’s been falling down these twenty years or more.” But as she showed him out,
they talked about possible repairs, the two of them standing outside, pointing
and gesturing, oblivious to the falling rain.
A lump of mud fell from my sneaker, and I sat down on the
bottom step to remove my shoes. When Lucille returned, she grabbed the pair,
clacked them together outside the door to remove the remaining mud, then lined
them up beside a pair of sturdy ankle boots.
I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, counting the
curlers that dotted her head, pink outposts in a field of black and grey.
“Sit down over there, luh,” she said, gesturing towards a
table and chairs shoved against the back window. I winced at her voice; it
sounded like the classic two-pack-a-day rasp.
The fog had thickened, so nothing was visible outside; it
was like watching static on TV. There were scattered cigarette burns on the
vinyl tablecloth and worn patches on the linoleum floor. A religious calendar
hung on the wall, a big red circle around today’s date. September’s pin-up was
Mary, her veil the exact colour of Lucille’s house. I was deep in Catholic
territory, all right. I hoped I could still pass for one.
Excerpted from New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan,
Copyright © 2021 by Damhnait Monaghan
Published by Graydon House Book
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| Photo Credit: Rachel Elizabeth |
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DAMHNAIT
MONAGHAN was
once a mainlander who taught in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. A
former teacher and lawyer, Monaghan has almost sixty publication credits,
including flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and short stories. Her short
prose has won or placed in various writing competitions and has been
nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. New
Girl in Little Cove placed in the top six from more than 350 entries in
the 2019 International Caledonia Novel Award. Social Links: |
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