Authors: Bill Rowe
From the head of the stairs Nina said, “Hi, Heathcliff. Get a Guinness in the
kitchen and come on up.”
“I’ll get it for you, Heathcliff,” said Rosie, heading for the kitchen with a
smile back. “I know the stein you like.”
“Jolly good,” said Dr. Rothesay. “You’re going to spoil me absolutely rotten,
Rosie.”
“What about me?” asked Pagan, feigning a cute pout.
“You can spoil me too, dear Pagan,” laughed Heathcliff, “as much as you
like.”
No wonder Rosie had not been interested in my evil conspiracy theory. She was
actively in on it.
“I’m watching
A Christmas Carol
on my new television set up here,
Heathcliff,” said Nina, her voice joyful. “Remember that wonderful old
black-and-white version? It’s just started.”
“The British film with old what’s-his-name as Scrooge, you mean? Oh what fun!
I’ll come right up.”
As Dr. Rothesay took the beer and the stein from Rosie, he glanced through the
door and around the living room from face to face. His eyes stopped at me and
stayed. Walking into the room, he said, “An early Merry Christmas to you all,
kids, since I shan’t see you again before the big day.” He still eyed me while
he spoke and approached. It felt almost spine-chilling. Some kids said Merry
Christmas back to him as he stopped over me.
“Hello, Tom,” he
said, smiling. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.” I was so surprised I jumped
to my feet. We’d met once briefly at the funeral home five months before. He
transferred the Guinness to his left hand where he easily held it with the beer
mug, and he offered his right hand to me to shake. Doing so, he spoke softly,
bending down to be close to my face, “Rosie thinks the world of you, Tom. Please
don’t tell her I said so, but she truly believes you saved her sanity, if not
her very life, after the tragedy, and she envisions a grand future for you
together when you grow older.” I stood there speechless with shock. “I must join
Nina now,” he said, giving my hand a good squeeze before he turned to go out.
“But I trust I’ll see you a great deal in the future, Tom.”
As I stood there, Brent came over. “Who was buddy?” he asked. “Rosie’s doctor
guy?”
“Yes, Dr. Rothesay.” By now I was feeling proud of being singled out and
chatted to by the eminent man. “He wanted to say hello.”
“He seemed awful gabby. I didn’t even think you knew him that much.”
“Rosie’s been telling him about me.”
That night, as Rosie organized games, and put on records, and dished out pizza
and pie and ice cream to her friends, and ran up the stairs to include her
mother and Heathcliff in the servings, I was reminded by the doctor’s words of
her fear last summer that she was going to go mad or die of grief. She looked to
be safely past all that tonight in her happiness. And no romantic lover with
ardent and passionate love in his manly breast had come to save her either, I
thought.
ON A FRIDAY NIGHT
in mid-January, Nina and Dr.
Rothesay and Mom and Dad and a partner at his accounting firm and his wife came
to dinner at our house. Nina and Heathcliff arrived together. I met them at the
door and took their coats. They were a big item now for sure, he carrying the
bag containing her shoes and she opening her purse for him to drop his car keys
in for safekeeping.
Two conversations from that night would leap out of my memory in later years.
One took place between the men in the sitting room when Dad mentioned that his
accounting office was associated with an international firm with offices in New
York and London but that neither he nor his partners often got a chance to go to
London, unfortunately. To which Dr. Rothesay replied that he wouldn’t shed any
tears over that if he were they: New York was fine, but London was a dreadful
city, what with its rigid so
cial and professional strata. If
anyone wondered why, that was the reason he himself could not be bothered going
back to England since his arrival here in Canada. But, asked Dad, didn’t he have
family over there to visit? Yes, but he would have them visit him when he was
thoroughly settled here. He doubted that he’d ever travel to England
again.
The other conversation occurred between the women in the kitchen when Nina,
acknowledging that she and Heathcliff were very close friends, though of the
purely platonic variety just yet, stated that a lot of the attraction of the
friendship for her was how well Rosie and Pagan, who had always been used to a
strong male presence around, related to Heathcliff. The three of them got along
like a house afire. He loved the girls as if they were his very own nieces. He
was so incredibly sensitive to their young needs, she said, you’d think his
specialty was children.
During the rest of that winter no one wondered in the least why Dr. Rothesay
loved the O’Dell girls. Good gracious, everybody gushed, why wouldn’t he? All
other adults found them entirely lovable. With minds that cracked like whips,
humorous dispositions, and generous natures, they were also gladdening to look
upon. Pagan was growing utterly beautiful. All who saw her remarked how hard it
was to take your eyes off her. Many predicted she was going to be a movie star
or a supermodel when she grew up.
Rosie was spared such expectations. She was better known for her personality.
Oh she was very pretty indeed in a fresh-faced, even saucy-faced way, especially
with that head topped off by the wild mane of hair—russet or auburn or flaming
ginger, its true colour had always been the subject of debate as the hours and
seasons revolved and its exposure to light and the sun varied its hue. Her
friends’ mothers, who never had to deal with it on thoroughly unruly days, when
Rosie described it as “like fighting your way through a thicket of blasty
boughs,” called it a natural marvel, and said they would sell their souls to
have their heads crowned with hair that thick and that colour. Smitten boys, of
whom I always observed too many about, made jibes at it for its refusal ever to
be wholly tamed by ribbons or pins.
Another wonderful trait teachers and adult friends remarked about Rosie during
this grade six school year was the lighthearted and positive outlook she had
regained despite last summer’s tragedy. She was never at a loss for a creative
suggestion, had an answer for anything or anyone, and a ready laugh—a bit
boisterous and outspoken perhaps, for a girl, some clucked amiably, but she’d
outgrow that as she approached her ladyhood.
The other girls at school were forever prevailing upon Rosie to
be captain of a team, or to emcee the Friday night hop in the gym, or to write a
letter to the editor protesting on behalf of their entire generation the
existence of famine among third-world children, or to sleep over at a weekend
pyjama party. And she’d take on everything, cheerfully and reliably.
I heard one teacher say to another as I went by the open door of the staff
room, “What a beautiful human being inside and out that young Rosie O’Dell is!”
I couldn’t agree more, but what intrigued me was how full of the joy of life she
had become halfway through this school year. She had always exuded a lively
gladness about simply existing, but this year, of all years, I would have been
less surprised to see that trait remaining dampened rather than fired up. Often
now she even struck me like one of the older, teenage girls in love I might see
at hockey games with a sweetheart or walking arm in arm with a beau or depicted
on a television show. But Rosie was only eleven years old and, apart from the
girlish crush she, as well as Pagan, sometimes seemed to have on their mother’s
Heathcliff, there was no object of any apparent love.
In July, not long after my twelfth birthday and Rosie’s, and with the expiry of
the obligatory year since Joyce O’Dell’s death, Nina O’Dell said yes to Dr.
Heathcliff Godolphin Rothesay. Only a few family and friends were invited to the
wedding. During the days leading up to it, what to do about Gram O’Dell
exercised Nina greatly. Rosie loved the old woman despite her quirks and
foibles, and had persuaded Pagan to forgive her for that speech about her name
at the graveyard— “She picked holes in ‘Rosie’ and ‘Gudrid’ too, Pagan, but
she’s old and thought she was ranting and roaring for fun like Dad.” Both of
them wanted Gram at the wedding. Nina decidedly did not. The propitiousness of
the marital match proved itself to Nina when, perhaps for the first time in her
entire life, Gram performed an obliging act seven days before the nuptials by
dying.
Questions arose about delaying the wedding out of respect for the girls’
grandmother, but Nina wouldn’t hear of such a thing. “She made me and Joyce
postpone our wedding by breaking her leg in a car accident,” she said to Mom,
“and now the contrary old bat is trying to get away with the same thing this
wedding by kicking the bucket.” Nina’s attitude raised Dad’s esteem for
her.
Mom acted as matron of honour, Rosie and Pagan as bridesmaids, and another
doctor in practice with Rothesay as best man. And when asked,
Dad
replied he’d be delighted to give the bride away. I was an usher with Nina’s
nephew from Corner Brook, a tall handsome boy two years older than Rosie. Ours
was not a terribly demanding task as there were only a dozen or fifteen guests.
He and I were there all dickied up to provide gender symmetry at the front of
the church, that little deconsecrated church in Quidi Vidi Village. When the
bridal party walked out after the ceremony, Rosie and her cousin came together
behind Mom and the best man, and I was paired with Pagan at the end of the
parade. Pagan smiled at me, blushing as we came together, and she looked more
beautiful than ever in her self-conscious earnestness walking up the aisle. I
actually liked walking next to Pagan, she being a couple of inches shorter than
me, but I couldn’t stop the thought that if I’d been in Rosie’s place I would
have arranged the procession so as to have me and her walk along side by side. I
figured she wanted to be next to the cousin because, unlike me, he was taller
than her. I had no idea how far such trivial notions were from her
thoughts.
The reception took place at our house. What hit me most there was that Dr.
Rothesay, Nina, Rosie, and Pagan already looked and acted like a real family. An
easy familiarity among them reigned. Neither of the girls hesitated any more
than Nina did to loop into one of Rothesay’s arms, or take his hand, or when he
was seated, put an arm around his neck and hug him from behind. Both Rosie and
Pagan flitted about him more or less constantly, but it was Pagan alone whom he
would take upon his knee, or lift off her feet during a hug, or pat on the bum
as she passed close by. That was all natural, she being only ten, but once or
twice I noticed Rosie striving too openly for his attention, and saw Dr.
Rothesay turning to her from Pagan with a patient look on his face. I wished
Rosie wouldn’t do that. Her undisguised attention-seeking seemed so out of
character for her at any time, let alone her vying for it with her little
sister.
A change of plans by the new O’Dell-Rothesay family during the reception
surprised everyone. Arrangements had already been made for my mother to move
into Nina’s house and take care of the girls while Nina and Heathcliff went on
their honeymoon to San Francisco. I saw myself dropping in to say hello every
other day. But now, out of the blue, after a spirited chat among Nina and
Heathcliff and Rosie and Pagan, with much nodding of heads, Heathcliff asked Dad
if he could use the telephone in the den. He went in, closed the door, and came
out beaming five minutes later with his announcement. He had just made airline
reservations for his lovely bride’s
lovely daughters on their
flight tomorrow. The girls jumped up and down ecstatically and the guests
glanced at each other in wonder for a few seconds before applauding.
“Doctors are truly the new high priests,” Dad joked to Heathcliff. “To arrange
those reservations with the airline the day before the flight, right in the
middle of peak season, I don’t think even a chartered accountant could have
pulled that one off.”
Dr. Rothesay laughed and seized Dad’s shoulder comrade-like. “I was exceedingly
lucky, Joe,” he said.
When Nina and Heathcliff left to spend the night at the Newfoundland Hotel,
Rosie and Pagan went home with their aunt to sort out what clothes they would be
taking with them on the trip.
“I can die happy now,” said Dad to Mom in the kitchen loading up the
dishwasher after the last guests had left, “because I have now seen and heard
everything:
taking your kids along on your honeymoon
.”
“I didn’t get the idea the brainwave was Nina’s,” said Mom.
“That’s worse again. Imagine taking your
stepkids
along on your
honeymoon.”
“He desperately wants to become part of the family, Joe. Remember, there’s
three of them and only one of him. I think it’s kind of cute.”
“You think that’s cute? Obviously there will never be a meeting of male and
female minds on what makes up cute.”
“What do you mean? He’s a male and a fine figure of a male, if I may say so,
and he obviously thought it was cute.”
“You got me there.” Dad laughed out his words as if in despair for humanity,
shaking his head. “And that is really scary.”
With the abrupt end of Mom’s commitment to look after the girls, she and Dad
took it into their heads to use a few days of their vacations visiting the
French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. These last remains of the once vast
colonial empire of France in North America were only a few miles off the toe of
the Burin Peninsula on the south coast of Newfoundland, but to take the ferry
there meant we’d have to drive several hours across the Avalon Peninsula and
down the Burin Peninsula to Fortune. In the absence of Rosie, I was eager to go.
We arranged for Brent, who was with his parents in Twillingate, to come with us.
He had to be driven east to Goobies, where we picked him up at an assigned time
at the service station restaurant on the turnoff to the Burin Peninsula. When I
rushed through the door of the restaurant to see Brent sitting there with his
suitcase waiting
for us, it all felt like we were on an exciting
adventure. And how true that feeling turned out to be.