Downhill Chance (2 page)

Aside from Prude, that was. “No good comes from a night like this,” she cried out as Luke ushered the boy the same age as he inside his own house behind Herb. And as was always with Prude’s prophecies, it was met with a scowl from Luke as he nudged her, too, back inside. Standing on the stoop, Luke looked over to where Joey was following the bearded mister and his missus into Aunt Char’s house and he wondered perhaps if it might not have been better to lead the young fellow into Aunt Char’s house too. Then he, Luke, could sit and listen to the elders talk as well. But the sight of his conniving cousin Frankie following tight behind Joey, yet dragging his step over Aunt Char’s stoop as he looked back curiously at the young fellow treading over Luke’s, spurned all such thoughts.

“Stay weaseling where you’re at, my son,” he muttered, hopping inside and snapping the door shut behind him. And with a great might, he swung himself into the chair besides where his father was seating the young fellow at the table and, hauling it nearer, scrutinized more fully this token from the night’s fury.

He wasn’t as pretty as the younger ones, he thought, as his father turned up the wick in the lamp and his mother, crossing herself, scurried inside the pantry, reaching for a bottle of rabbit. What with his kinky brown-and-yellow hair plastered wetly to his skull and his eyes brown slivers beneath wide, heavy lids, he looked almost odd.

“What’s your name?” Luke asked, and all hands stilled, listening for the brawling tongue.

The young stranger hesitated at first, his eyes rolling slowly onto Luke, then falling away timidly as he answered “Gid” in little more than a guttural mumble.

When nothing else followed, Prude scooped the bottled rabbit into a bowl, draining the liquor over it, as Herb stirred a spoon heaped with black molasses into a cup of tea and placed it before the boy.

“My name’s Luke Osmond,” said Luke, casting a discomfited look at his kindred as he gave his first ever self-introduction. “What’s your last name?” he asked.

All hands quieted once more.

“O’Mara,” said Gid.

“O’Mara. Not a namesake I ever heard,” said Prude, placing the bowl of rabbit and a slice of bread before him. “And where’s that talk from? I never heard tell of talk like that.”

“Go on, old woman,” said Luke impatiently, inching closer to the young stranger, “you never been nowhere to hear nothing.”

“You mind, now,” warned Prude, then, noting the boy’s eyes fixed hungrily onto the bread, she nudged the plate nearer him. “Go on, take it,” she said kindly. “Course, it’s hard to eat with everybody staring at you. Here—sop your bread in the juice,” she coaxed, pushing the rabbit breast floating in a bowl of liquor and pork scrunchions before him. “And leave off your nosying till he’s done,” she added sharply to Luke.

Luke watched as the young fellow dipped his bread crust into the liquor and then shoved it into his mouth. Aside from a queer head of hair, he had a face that was awful long and thin, and pasty in colour, and the eyes were threatening to shut at a second’s notice as he struggled between chewing and staying awake.

“He’s falling asleep in his tea, Mother,” said Herb quietly.

“Sure then, let’s put him to bed,” said Prude, and Luke sprang to his feet, helping the young fellow up from his chair, leading him into his room. “And mind you keeps them legs in bed this time,” warned Prude as Luke was closing the door behind him, “else, I nails a piece of two-by-four across that window come morn.”

“Geez,” muttered Luke, snapping shut the door. “Geez,” he muttered once more for the benefit of his guest as he turned towards him but was astonished into silence as Gid, his wet pants already falling to the floor and still wearing his wet shirt, fell into bed, rolling himself into the blankets, his face to the wall. Shrugging disappointedly, Luke fumbled with the buttons of his pants, glancing at the window, his thoughts straying to Aunt Char’s, but the threatening clucking of his mother’s tongue sounding through his door stayed the notion, and kicking his pants aside, he crawled in besides his now sleeping bedmate.

He was still awake when Joey came home a half hour later. “They come from Ireland,” he reported, his voice muffled through the room door. “They spent the last couple years down Harbour Deep and was looking for a new place to build when the wind hit. He says he was a carpenter back in Ireland.”

“What’s he looking for a new place for when he already come from Ireland to Harbour Deep?” asked Prude suspiciously.

“Now, Mother, just because he landed in Harbour Deep don’t mean he got to live out his days in Harbour Deep.”

“Nothing we got here they haven’t got in Harbour Deep,” said Prude, “unless he was looking for kin—and if he was looking for kin, why’d he spend two years in Harbour Deep when he found no kin there?”

“You’re making a case,” said Herb, the finality of his tone bolstered by the scrooping of his chair as Luke pictured him turning away from the talk and back to the storm outside his window.

“Mark my words—no good comes from them that’s always shifting about,” said Prude, her voice rising, and Luke, too, closed an ear. Ireland, he thought, his eyes beginning to droop, the place where men wears skirts and plays bagpipes—or was that Scotland?—and talks like they’re singing. They never said nothing in the school books about people talking like they were singing. He flicked a dying glance at the back of Gid’s head and felt a queer jealousy.

The next morning his eyes popped opened to the wheedling sound of his cousin Frankie’s voice and the sweet lyrical sounding of Gid’s as he said something about finishing his tay first. Scrambling out of bed, he hopped from one leg to another, hauling on his pants. It was just like Frankie, the sneaking, lying sliveen, to be the first one out this morning, trying to steal Gid away for his own, he was thinking, pulling a garnsey over his head. And leaving it riding high on his back, he tore out through his room door.

“What’re you at, my son?” he growled, slewing his eyes from the knife-edged part of Frankie’s slicked-back hair as he slouched against the doorjamb to that of Gid’s mane as he sat at the table, chewing on a heel of bread. Gid’s hair was fluffed off from his head like a seeding dandelion this morning, now that it was dry, but his eyes, noted Luke, were still drooping as if half asleep.

Frankie had straightened as Luke barged across the kitchen. “Going down to see the shark,” he said.

“What shark?” demanded Luke, plunking himself down at the table and pulling his chair closer to Gid’s.

“Back of the stagehead,” said Frankie. “Uncle Jir dragged him ashore this morning—caught in his net, he was.”

“You stay put—I gets you some bread, Luke,” called out Prude from the pantry.

“How big is he?” asked Luke.

“Thirty feet,” said Frankie.

“Hope now, thirty feet.”

“Yes he is, my son; we was already down measuring him—two paddles long.”

“Here, mind your talk and eat,” said Prude, bustling to the table and pouring a cup of tea for Luke. “And stay clear of that shark; the last one come back to life and near took the arm of young Jack Dyke.”

“You coming, Gid?” asked Luke, taking a loud sup of his tea. “Come on, then,” he said as the young stranger nodded, draining back his cup. Taking one last sup, he clinked his cup alongside Gid’s on the table and rose.

“What about bread, Luke—my oh my, have some bread,” said Prude.

“I’ll have it with me dinner,” said Luke, shoving his feet into his rubbers and clumping around the kitchen. “Where’s me cap, old woman—hey? Where’s me cap?”

“Blessed Lord,” whispered Prude. Luke screwed up his mouth at the look of fright on her face as she crossed herself, staring into the tea leaves stuck to the side of Gid’s cup.

“Another flood coming?” he mocked. “Geez, old woman.” Snatching his cap off the foot of the daybed, he hustled Gid and Frankie out the door before him. “Women! Always bloody worrying,” he muttered, slamming the door on Prude’s cries. “Your mother read tea leaves?” he asked, chancing a look at Gid.

Gid shook his head.

“What’s your name?” asked Frankie.

“Gid,” answered Gid, his voice the guttural murmur of the night before.

“Say all your names,” coaxed Luke.

“Gid O’Mara,” said Gid, his eyes dropping shyly as both boys pierced him further with theirs, listening to each quavering syllable.

“Did you leave Ireland on a ship?” asked Luke.

“Yeah,” said Gid.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Big ship?”

Gid nodded.

“What was it like on the big ship?”

“Cold. We was sick.”

“Everybody?” asked Luke.

“Except Da and Ma.”

“Da and Ma? Is that what you calls your folks—Da and Ma?”

“Yeah.”

“Brothers! What do you call your grandmother?”

“Grandmother.”

“Do everyone talk like you from Ireland?”

Frankie snorted, “Ireland! He’s not from Ireland—he’s from Harbour Deep—just down the shore,” he muttered, leaving off Gid and sauntering towards the bank.

“Whadda you know?” sang out Luke, but Frankie had already ducked around the corner of the house and was letting out a sharp whistle.

“Ho—leee!” breathed Luke, lunging after him and coming up short, staring at the bank gouged out by the storm and littered with driftwood and countless clumps of glistening seaweed. Too, the tide was still in, and the grey, choppy water, muddied by the earth sucked from along the shoreline, seethed dangerously close to what was left of the bank. And no doubt the bulging offshore swells posed as much a threat to any poor mortal caught afloat its surface as did the wind-whipped whitecaps from the night before, thought Luke, looking out over the heaving body of water, half-mile wide to the hills on the far side, and as far out the bay as the eye could see—even on a good day. Today, a thick fog blotted out the horizon, and the banked sky rendered colourless what was visible in the dome surrounding them.

“You must’ve got some fright when ye lost your boat last night,” said Luke, as Gid came up besides him. “You got sea like this in Ireland?”

“Yeah,” spoke Gid in a half whisper, and its quiet drew Luke’s attention back to him. He wasn’t looking out over the sea at all, but along the shore the way he had come the night before. He shivered a little and Luke noted a small reddish birthmark puckering like a raspberry from his lower jaw, close to his ear. Catching his look, Gid lowered his chin, hunching his shoulder a little as he was apt to do, till the birthmark vanished amidst hair and shirt collar. Luke shifted his glance onto Gid’s eyes, and was startled at the intensity with which they were fastened onto him. And like the pull of the moon to the earth, they drew Luke’s attention to a muscle flexing out of control in the corner of one of Gid’s wide, flat lids, lending him a pained look, and striking Luke with an urge to place his finger upon the pulsating flesh till it stilled. Balling his hands into fists, Luke shoved them into his pockets, shrugging indifferently as Frankie threw him an impatient look.

“Dare say he was scared. Bet he never gets storms like this down Harbour Deep,” said Frankie.

“He’s not from Harbour Deep, my son, he’s from Ireland,” said Luke, kicking a clump of kelp back into the sea.

“Yup, right.”

“Yes he is; you heard him talk.”

“So? He’s still from Harbour Deep.”

“Then, how come he don’t talk like the ones from Harbour Deep?”

“Because he used to live in Ireland.”

“If he used to live in Ireland, then he comes from Ireland, don’t he?”

“Do he wear a skirt?”

“Geez, Frankie, they only wears skirts in marches.”

“Do you wear skirts?” asked Frankie, turning to Gid.

Gid shook his head, eyes faltering between Luke’s and Frankie’s.

“Like I said—only in marches,” said Luke, nudging Gid into a stroll along the bank.

“So, big deal,” said Frankie, taking up stride besides them.

“Listen to Frankie,” jeered Luke, “jealous because you’re not from nowhere.” Sauntering forward, peering sideways at Gid, he added, “I’m going up the Basin soon. By meself.”

“Hope now, by yourself,” scoffed Frankie.

“Yup. Walking up along shore; soon as I gets around to it. I’m going to buy a bottle of orange drinks—you can come if you wants,” he said to Gid. “You know where the Basin is? It’s up there, look,” he said, turning and pointing to the opposite end of the bay that Gid had come from. “Can’t see nothing today for fog. But when it’s not foggy, you can see some of the houses. Close on to fifty she got; with a road going smack down the middle of her. They says they’re going to have cars and trucks up there soon. You want to come?”

“Hope now, you’re going up the Basin by yourself,” said Frankie.

“Yes I am, my son. You’d be too scared to go.”

“Yup, right,” sneered Frankie.

“You can’t listen to him, he’s a liar,” said Luke, dropping his voice as Frankie fell behind, poking a stick at a dead crab. “Real barrel-man, he is, and sly as a conner. Go on home, conner,” he yelled over his shoulder at Frankie, and taking hold of Gid’s arm, he hurried him farther along the bank. “Let’s go see the shark,” he urged, “and don’t mind Frankie; his father drowned when he was a baby, and his mother’s deaf as an haddock and don’t come out her door and got him spoiled rotten. Do everybody talk like you in Ireland?”

“I was the one taking him down to see the shark,” Frankie bawled out, and the crab come winging past Gid’s ear, near nicking it.

“Ohh, you just struck him,” said Luke, swinging around.

Then the sound of Prude’s voice pierced the air as she came out on her stoop, singing out, “Luukee, Luukee!” Taking to their heels, both boys snatched hold of Gid’s arms and bolted with him down the bank towards a rickety stage-head, standing half on land, half on water. Prude came bustling around the corner of her house, wringing her fist, and the wind flapping her skirts as she sang out “Luuke, Luuke, get back here, ye’ll be drowned; mark my words, ye’ll be drowned.”

But the broad of their backs was the most she or any of the elders saw of the three boys that morning and during the following weeks. And with school having closed since early April due to the teacher from St. John’s having a gall-bladder attack, there was more than enough time to squander. Climbing the hills, they took their new best friend to the top of the cliff that jutted out from the side of the hill, looking down upon the six painted houses, and the odd assortment of weather-beaten barns, woodsheds and outhouses that looped out from the base of the hill, circling back again, forming a communal backyard, webbed with pathways and overhanging clotheslines. There the younger ones shrieked to each other, ducking amongst the flapping sheets, mindless of the scattered goat bucking before them, and the elder’s warnings of a tanning if they dirtied a spot on the wash with the black of their faces. And too there was the cluck-clucking of Aunt Char’s hens firking the dirt by her stoop, and dogs barking and cats snarling, and always, always, the screaming of the snipes as they fought over fish entrails near the stagehead, and the plaintive cries of the gulls as they glided overhead, gaining momentum for the downward swoop over the surf.