We Came From Away, page 12
MOM FELL ASLEEP MUCH faster than I expected. I, on the other hand, blessed as I was with hot flashes at the best of times, knew it was going to be a long night if I didn’t do something about it. I put on a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and quietly made my way down the hall. I rapped gently on Phillip and Uncle Fred’s door. I was hoping (expecting) that the wine that Uncle Fred had consumed at dinner might have put him to sleep, but I knew Phillip also preferred cool to cold temperatures for sleeping. I had visited his home in Montreal and knew he and Marcus slept with the air conditioning at morgue level, even in the middle of the winter. I hoped he might still be awake.
The door opened a crack. “Hey, sis,” he said. He, too, was wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
“Bring your stuff,” I said. “We’re going out.”
Moments later, we were creeping out the back door toward the chairs overlooking the shoreline. They were just visible in the moonlight that danced off the water.
“It’s going to be a long night, Phillip,” I said.
“Maybe not as long as you think.” He opened the small case he was carrying and set it on the arm of the chair. He opened a small plastic bag and retrieved a little white cylinder. “Share?” he said as he lit the end.
Three inhales later, and I heard a voice behind me.
“What in god’s name are you two doing out here?” It was Eliza.
Phillip and I looked at one another and started snorting with laughter. “Pull up a chair, cuz,” Phillip said. “Drag?”
“Oh, my actual god, you’re smoking marijuana.” Eliza pronounced it as if she had just learned the word.
I spluttered with laughter. “And if you don’t want a drag, Phillip has a stash of gummies. CBD if you want mellow. THC, if you want a trip.”
Eliza looked into the case on the arm of the chair. “Dear god, Phillip, what is that? Put that away!”
“Chill, Eliza,” Phillip said. “You’re in Canada. You’re allowed. It’s legal here, in case you’ve forgotten. Geez, you Americans are so uptight.” He passed the joint to Eliza, who, much to my surprise, took it from him and took a long, deep drag, holding it in for just a moment and letting it out in a long, smooth exhale. You could have knocked me over with a feather. She’d done this before.
“Welcome home, cuz,” Phillip said.
“So, what did you give Emma earlier today?” Eliza said, taking the seat next to Phillip.
“Oh, just a little THC gummy,” Phillip said. “Greatest thing for motion sickness.”
“How do you know so much about all this?” Eliza said, reaching for the joint.
“Turns out Phillip is part-owner of a popular cannabis boutique in Montreal.”
We all started blubbering with laughter. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a long night after all.
Listen to the Wind
Fun Facts About Vikings
The Vikings gave us the English words snort, lump, scrawny and berserk.
Vikings preferred blonde hair.
Viking helmets did not have horns.
Vikings were all about hygiene—shaving, plucking, combing.
Vikings ate two meals a day.
Vikings were great sailors, but they also loved to ski.
Viking Leif Erikson set foot on North American soil five centuries before Columbus on the northernmost tip of the Great Northern Peninsula on what is now known as the island of Newfoundland.
Fifteen
Erica
IT WAS A LONG, HOT night, made slightly more bearable by the pleasant buzz I was feeling as I lay there in my narrow, vaguely lumpy bed in the dark while Mom slept soundly. I could hear a gentle snoring and suspected she’d taken one of those tiny pills she used only under extreme circumstances, and if ever a circumstance qualified as extreme—and bizarre—this was it. I don’t precisely know the air temperature in that motel room that night, but it was a far cry from what we’d all been expecting on this Great Northern Peninsula of a province famous for its cool and grey weather. I couldn’t help but think, though, that there was something just a bit unusual—possibly even exotic—about the atmosphere here. It just felt different. Or perhaps I felt different.
Under the normal circumstances of my life as I’d created it, if you had told me that I’d spend an hour or two sitting outside in the moonlight smoking up with my brother and cousin, I would have said you were unhinged. To know me is to know that I am ambitious and opinionated, sane and sensible. I am a wife and mother with a responsible job that puts me in the public eye. I have always had to watch my behaviour lest my employers consider me a liability to their image. Smoking dope? Not really ever been on my radar, and I expect not on theirs, either. I had only tried it once or twice before (okay, maybe three times), but I hadn’t been very impressed. Phillip’s weed, though, was a different story. And no one can argue that this was not a situation begging for a little help to get through. With apologies to the Beatles, I was going to need more than a little help from my friends. As the dear late Nora Ephron, one of those writers that women my age can identify with, once said, “Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.” I was at that moment willing to admit I was a little crazy—and I hadn’t even been aware of that until that moment, lying there, sweating in the dark, wondering what tomorrow would bring. Then I giggled a bit and said quietly into the darkness, “Bring it on.”
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, after breakfast, we once again piled into the vehicle (that I was now beginning to think of as our bus) and were off. The bus tour people had left at the crack of dawn, so the dining room had been quiet. When we asked about the lack of people, Gordie told us they’d left bright and early so they could catch the ferry to Labrador. I sat back to enjoy my quiet cup of coffee.
As Gordie pressed the button to turn on the ignition, he turned in his seat so he could see Phillip and me. “Okay, boys and girls, you can say it now.”
“Seat belts, everyone,” we said in unison, although it was beginning to lose its freshness. Phillip and I would have to work on that.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, Eliza, who was behind us as usual, said, “How long is the drive today, Gordie, and where exactly are we going?” I figured she probably had her phone out and was plotting our day on the map.
“Ah, lovely lady, it’s not about how long the journey takes, now, is it? And it’s even less about the destination.” I could almost feel Eliza rolling her eyes behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn around. He continued. “I’ve always thought Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu had the right idea when he wrote, ‘A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.’ We will go in the general direction of where we will eventually arrive. But for you, Ms. Eliza, you might want to drop a pin on L’Anse Aux Meadows. It is our ultimate destination.”
There was a brief silence from Eliza’s direction. I glanced behind and saw she was deeply intent on her phone. Then she looked up and said, “Dear god, people, that’s all the way up in the middle of nowhere.”
Gordie laughed. Even Mom turned around and smiled in Eliza’s direction. Yes, we were headed to that spot on the northernmost tip of the northernmost peninsula on this island where Vikings landed sometime in the eleventh century—discovering North America centuries before Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, making it the earliest evidence of European settlement in what they used to call the New World. I, for one, was actually looking forward to this.
“I suppose it is in the middle of nowhere if you think the middle of somewhere needs skyscrapers and crowds, love, but we think of it as a little slice of heaven, making it somewhere, indeed,” Gordie said, effectively putting Eliza in her place. “We’re going to enjoy the journey north and just a bit east and, if you must know, if we didn’t stop, it would take us almost two hours. But what would be the fun in that, eh?”
I completely agreed.
“We’re headed along what you call the Viking Trail here,” Gordie said, beginning what I supposed would be his tour guide spiel just as the first raindrops started hitting the windshield. “Although to tell you the truth, it wasn’t the trail the Vikings took back in the day. It’s our trail to get to where they landed. Well, would you look at that,” he said, “just a wee bit of rain to add to the atmosphere. We’ll just head down the shore for a little stop, then across to St. Anthony,” he said, pulling onto a small road headed directly toward the shore.
When we finally stopped, it was raining hard. “Fishing villages in the rain are the finest kind,” he said. “Finest kind.” He leaned behind the driver’s seat and pulled a plastic bag from under his seat. “These here are rain ponchos,” he said. “Only for the bravest among us, mind you!” Then he leaned and picked up his camera with its enormous lens from the centre console, pulled his hat on and opened his door. “Who’s coming?”
Phillip and I scrambled to put on ponchos after Mom handed them out and put her own on. We were right behind her as we picked our way down a rocky incline toward where the waves crashed on the shore. Phillip seemed to be revelling in the rain as much as I was, pretending to be a superhero with his cape flapping in the wind behind him. I was impressed with my brother, who I’d often thought had lost his sense of fun as he grew up. The little boy who looked at the world with wonder had been buried under grown-up seriousness and responsibility, and I should know. They say it takes one to know one, and my inner child had been just as deeply buried. Gordie was right. It was the finest kind.
I don’t know how long I stood there, rain dripping into my eyes from the poncho’s hood while Phillip jumped from rock to rock, and Mom stood with Gordie a bit further down the beach, taking photos. I had planned to take some pictures myself, but all I could do was stand there feeling the rain and breathing in the crisp, briny scent of the North Atlantic—or, to be more precise, I suppose it was the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We were still on the west coast of the peninsula. Either way, I had never felt this way before. I had never stood in the rain before. I had always run for cover. It was like a spell. What was it about this place? I had no idea, but I liked how it felt.
Eliza, Emma, and Uncle Fred had all opted to stay in the bus. When we got back, Eliza complained about the dripping and the dampness, but we didn’t care. We had our photos and our experience. Then we were off, heading east toward the village of St. Anthony.
By the time we reached the village, which was definitely on the eastern, North Atlantic coast, the rain had stopped, but the sky remained grey. Gordie herded us out of the truck and into a large, one-story green clapboard building with a larger-than-life statue of someone called Sir Wilfred Grenfell guarding the entrance.
When we were all gathered in the lobby, Gordie started talking. “A trip up north here isn’t complete, in my view, without taking a moment to consider the remoteness of the communities here about and a bit of history.”
“Remote seems a slight understatement,” Eliza said.
Gordie raised his eyebrows. “Consider, Ms. Eliza, what life might have been like for the native communities here and across in Labrador. Think about the long winters, the miserable conditions, the lack of health care. You could say that our Sir Wilfred Grenfell, a medical missionary, was possessed of unwavering empathy, the like we see so rarely these days, don’t you think? You know, a bit of kindness goes a long way. When he first visited, he knew he had to do something. So, he came to this desolate place to set up the mission and create a beacon of hope for the communities here and on the mainland. And,” Gordie said, looking directly at Eliza, “consider this for a moment. His wife, Lady Grenfell, was a socialite from Chicago who bankrolled the work here. She gave up her cotillions and white gloves and creature comforts to come out here to help her husband and the poor.”
I was impressed with Gordie’s passion, although Eliza didn’t look as impressed. Perhaps it was because she knew whose creature comforts he was really talking about.
“She must have been quite a spouse,” Mom said. “Gordie, do they still make those parkas?” she said, changing the subject.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, winking at Mom. I’m sure he winked this time. “Come downstairs to the shop after the tour, and I’ll show you the new ones.”
Gordie left us with a museum docent, and we took a tour around, viewing artifacts and musing about how difficult life must have been back here in the nineteenth century. I was even thinking about how brutal the winters must be here, even now in the twenty-first century. When we finished our tour, I noticed Mom must have slipped away at some point. We wandered down the open staircase in the middle of the building into the inescapable gift shop. It was there I found Mom and Gordie, deep in conversation, heads together as they stood in front of a rack of winter parkas with fur-trimmed hoods.
Gordie looked up when he saw me. “Erica, darlin’, come over and see these. I do believe your mother might be buying one.”
I looked at the blue parka with an intricately embroidered scene depicting two Inuit on the ice wearing similar parkas. Mom seemed to be quite taken with it, and I wondered where she’d wear it in Toronto. Everyone there could be counted on to wear black from head to toe from some point in early November until at least mid-April.
Mom was running her hand over the cloth. “I always wanted one of these when I was a little girl in St. John’s,” she said. “You know, Erica, this is called Grenfell cloth because it was developed specially for Sir Wilfred when he wanted something to wear to keep out the strong winds. Isn’t it wonderful?”
I moved closer. “Yes, it’s quite extraordinary,” I said as I browsed the collection of colourful parkas.
“What are you looking at?” Emma had just come down the stairs and noticed us in the corner beside the rails of coats. “Ooh,” she said as she looked at the embroidered design on the parka Mom was holding. “Oh my god, these would be perfect for winter days in the village. I have to have one of these.” Then she looked at the price tag. “Oh, maybe not today,” she said, then she ran her hand over the fluffy fur trim on the hood. “Is that real fur?”
“I expect it’s fox fur,” Mom said. “Isn’t it divine?”
“Absolutely not,” Emma, the vegan, said. “Real fur? Not for me.” Then she moved away, heading toward the postcards.
I looked around and saw Eliza across the shop, browsing what appeared to be a shelf of knick-knacks. The items I could see on the shelves seemed to be small stone and wood carvings—not at all the kind of decorative items I would have expected Eliza to covet. She seemed to be caressing what looked like an Inuit soapstone carving of a bear. I watched her as she lifted it and turned it over—like you do—and I wondered if she did that to her hosts’ china when she went to dinner parties. God, I could be so snarky when it came to Eliza, and here, I had been thinking that I’d put my bitchy persona to bed. I guess you can’t bury parts of yourself forever. Maybe we’re not even supposed to. I must admit, however, I’d been feeling slightly less irritated with her since I’d discovered that her perfect life might not be so perfect. So, sue me. I’m only human.
In the end, Eliza bought the piece she’d been admiring, and Phillip bought a pair of hand-made green suede slippers trimmed with rabbit fur for Marcus. Dear god, I could never imagine perfectly turned-out Marcus wearing such things, but Phillip seemed to think he’d adore them. Mom bought the blue parka trimmed with red fox fur—real fox fur. I bought a pair of what the salesclerk had called hand-knit, thrummed mitts for Maddie. They were red and looked like they had a bird’s eye pattern of off-white, but the clerk told me these were actually pieces of sheep’s wool woven in every three stitches. Maddie would love them.
Once more back in the bus, and we were on our way to the ends of the earth.
GORDIE TOLD US TO BUCKLE up for a picturesque drive along the coast and a surprise. I wondered what kind of surprise it might be in this remote part of the world.
“Not sure I’ll be able to deliver on this today, but I have good intelligence. Sit tight,” he said half an hour later as he pulled off the narrow highway and bumped along a dirt road until we came to a stop just where the rocks rose. I presumed there was a drop to the sea below on the other side, which we couldn't see from our vantage point.
Since it had stopped raining, everyone piled out, and we followed Gordie. This time, we really did look like a line of lemmings following our leader to the edge of a cliff, where we would then plunge to our deaths. But Gordie had other plans.
As he reached the top of the hill ahead of us, he opened his arms wide, reminding me of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments and said, “Behold!” As we moved closer to him, he said, to no one in particular, “In all things of nature, there is something of the marvellous." Then he turned and said, “Aristotle.” In case we thought it was an original Gordie O’Brien, I suppose.
I reached the crest of the hill just as the word “marvellous” slipped from his lips, and I looked beyond. “Magnificent,” I said, wishing that the word awesome was still one that really meant what it said. There, just off the shore, was a massive slab of bluish-white ice—an iceberg in all its glory on this July day. It was just there, drifting languidly in the direction I’d heard referred to as “iceberg alley,” the route icebergs took in the spring from the glaciers farther north along the coast of Newfoundland. I just hadn’t expected to see one in the summer. As I whipped out my phone to try to capture the moment in a photo, I thought about how most of the iceberg was beneath the surface. I’d read somewhere that ninety percent of the iceberg is beneath that water line. I looked at Eliza, who had taken up a position not far from where I was standing, and I wondered if I really knew my cousin at all.
Sixteen
