Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (9 page)

The night proved to be a long one despite the Campbells’ featherbed. The other
cove and George and Mabel kept recurring in my mind—half awake, half asleep.
Around three o’clock I woke with a start. I heard Ches get up. I tried to review
the situation.

There was the point that this was second-hand information and that it was
really none of my business. Why should I act on such scanty information? Then
there was the idea that Ches and Edna were honest people who were not making
something up. Edna felt that there was an obligation on government to
investigate. Most people in the area, it seemed, felt something odd was in play.
Was this sufficient for me to investigate? Did a social worker have an
obligation to investigate in such circumstances?

We awoke to a glorious summer morning. The fishing crews were already at their
traps, unloading and resetting them. Any minute we would hear the boats enter
the cove.

Edna was up and had breakfast ready—fish and beans, homemade bread, and tea. We
ate well. I confided in Edna that Bert and I would go over to George’s place,
but if there was any resentment I would not push the matter and I would move on.
Edna understood and thanked me for being interested and at least making an
effort.

“I have my fingers crossed,” she shouted as we walked down the pathway to the
stage. I turned and waved goodbye.

The putt-putt of Acadian and Atlantic four- and six-cylinder
engines could be heard, and when we saw Ches’s skiff come into view we waited at
the edge of the stagehead.

“It was good to see you again, Bert, and it was nice to meet you, Mr. Peckford.
Hope you enjoyed last evening,” said Ches.

“I think we both enjoyed it,” I said. “I had a confidential word with Edna
about what I am going to do this morning. She can fill you in.” We pulled away
from the wharf and Bert waved a final goodbye.

“Where are we going, Pecky?” Bert asked, as if he hadn’t already
surmised.

“If you don’t disagree, I think we shall pay a visit to George and
Mabel.”

The slightest of grins crossed Bert’s face. “I figured that is what you had
decided. And I agree.”

“Now, if there’s a lot of hostility we’ll move on. Let’s just play it by ear,”
I said.

Slowly we cruised over to the cove. The sun’s rays slanted across our bow,
while distant putt-putts cracked the morning silence. It was one of those
special days on the Labrador Coast.

We approached the stagehead of George and Mabel’s place. Their house was
located on a hill, a couple hundred yards’ climb from the stage. As we touched
the stage, George was there to catch the painter and tie up the boat.

“What brings you fellows here today?” George inquired nervously.

Bert learned fast. “Well, I wanted you to meet the new welfare officer.”

“You’re Bert Coish, aren’t you, from Mary’s Harbour? You were over to the
Campbells’ last night. I saw your boat come in. What would I want with the
welfare officer anyway?” George exclaimed, raising his voice.

I decided it was time to go into action. “George, boy, I was just in the area
and figured I would come over and say hello,” I said, looking up from the boat.
“There aren’t many government men in the area, so I thought a hello would be in
order.” With that I climbed quickly to the top of the stage and put my hand out
to George, who slowly reached out his hand.

“Well, we don’t need nothing here. We are all right.”

“Oh, yes, I figured that, George. It is just a visit. I should go up and say
hello to your wife and then we will be off.”

I quickly passed him, moving off the stage to the pathway, and began climbing
the hill. Bert had climbed up the stage and began to engage George in
conversation. George was looking at Bert and calling out to me.

“There is no need going up there—my wife doesn’t want to see you—stop, come on
back.” Bert was trying to engage George in more conversation and blunt the anger
that he could see rising up in the man. I continued walking to the house.

I reached the house and the door was ajar. It was a small, makeshift,
wood-frame house, typical of the houses in the various temporary fishing
stations then existing along the coast of St. Michaels Bay and Hawke’s
Bay—usually two rooms, a large kitchen, and a bedroom.

I pushed open the door and passed over the threshold into the kitchen. I almost
bumped into Mary, standing agitated in front of me. She was thirty-six, tall and
slim, with a pretty but drawn face and clear blue eyes and brown hair.

“Who are you?” she stuttered nervously. “I saw you coming up the path through
the window.”

“I’m the temporary welfare officer. I am stationed in Mary’s Harbour. I am
making my rounds around the district and thought I would drop in and say hello
since I was just across the bay at the Campbells’. I see you have the teapot
on—any chance of a cup of tea?”

As she moved toward the stove she muttered, “I see, but no welfare officer ever
came before. Why you?”

“Well, I can’t really answer that. It was such a lovely day and I’m not that
busy, with just a couple of older people to see, so I felt really good. So I
said to Bert, ‘Let’s go over and say hello.’”

Mary found a mug on a small counter. I sat down at the wooden kitchen table and
she put a mug of tea and a can of Carnation milk before me.

“Mary, get yourself a mug of tea and come sit at the table so we can have a
chat,” I implored.

“A chat,” Mary repeated, bewildered. “A chat about what?”

As she got herself some tea, I responded, “Just a chat—that’s all.”

I knew I was now pushing my luck. I really hadn’t thought I would get this far.
I could hear Bert and George coming up the path; there was a lot of heated
conversation as Bert tried to delay George’s arrival. George’s voice was rising.
Mary sat down with her tea.

“So, Mary, it’s just you and George in the house? Is that right?”

Mary gave me a haunted look, her face strained, eyes flitting to and fro,
waiting, no doubt, for George to arrive any second. “We got married fourteen
years ago,” she stuttered. “We have been fishing in this cove every year since
then.”

George burst through the doorway with Bert close behind. Standing in the middle
of the kitchen, George fumed. “Now, get out of here! You have said hello to Mary
and me, so go—go now!” He was almost spitting as he spoke, looking both angry
and confused.

“Now, George, I am just having a cup of tea with Mary, that’s all— and then I
will be gone.”

“George, sit down,” Bert said. “Mr. Peckford is not here to cause
trouble.”

George grabbed a chair and sat down.

“George, boy, Mary tells me you have been here for fourteen summers. It’s a
nice place—nice and peaceful.”

“Yeah,” George growled. “We works hard and we have never had anything to do
with the government.”

“Yes, that’s something to be proud of, George. My grandfather was a fisherman
for fifty years and he was proud like you. Nothing to do with government,
nothing. And he went to the front, seal fishing for forty-nine years,” I
said.

Mary put a mug of tea by George. “Would you like a cup of tea . . . Bert, is
that your name?”

“Well, I will in a little while, Mary, but I better go check on the boat. I
think I put her on the wrong side of the stage. A little breeze is coming up, so
I better check.”

What’s Bert doing
, I asked myself,
leaving me here alone with this
fragile situation? He can’t be thinking.
And then like a flash, I knew:
Bert was taking a calculated risk; he figured if George and
Mary were going to talk, it would likely be when they were alone with me. Bert
crossed the kitchen and went out the door.

I had to make the best of it. I looked at George straight in his eyes, holding
his gaze for a few seconds, then Mary’s. “Listen. I am only here for the summer.
I am going to university in St. John’s and it is almost for sure I will never
see you again. So I started thinking, perhaps I can help . . .”

“Help, what do you mean help?” George sputtered. “The fish is good—we work
hard. We don’t need no help.” He started to get up.

“No,” Mary said, water forming in her eyes. “Wait, George. Let the man
finish.”

“Listen, George.” I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “I don’t mean help
the way you mean it. You don’t need a food order. But the government can help in
other ways—when people are sick or disabled or with other problems. It is not
like it used to be, George. It is different now.”

Mary, still sitting, trembled as tears flowed down her strained face. George
began to stutter under his breath. With every ounce of compassion I could
muster, I whispered to George with my hand on his arm. “Are there three people
in this house, George?”

George looked at Mary, at me, back at Mary. She sobbed. “Yes, George, we have
to tell . . .”

With a gush of emotion, trembling in his chair and his head in his hands,
George mumbled, “Yes, there are three of us!”

The emotion was intense, the crying almost unbearable—and all three of us
sobbed together for a long time. Finally, George got up and took Mary’s hand.
“Come with us,” he said.

We walked through their bedroom, and in the farthest wall was a narrow doorway
leading to another room, long and narrow. One crude, wooden bunk was all the
room contained, and on that bunk lay a lanky, thin boy, blind and deaf. This was
Jake: the third member of the family. The strain and secrecy now lifted, George
and Mary sighed.

A little after noon we pushed away from George’s stage. Mary
and
George were standing there huddled together, expressing their thanks, knowing I
would get help for them.

As we sailed out the cove, Bert mused, “Well, me son, I think you’ve done a
whole season’s work right there.”

“No, we have done a whole season’s work, you and me. We are a good team,
Bert.”

THEN THERE WAS THE
trip I took with Bert to Cape
Charles, where we learned how the weather can play tricks on you. It was to be a
short trip. Just a short hop out the bay from Mary’s Harbour to Cape Charles. It
was June 24 and the ice was gone from the strong westerly winds of the past
several days—the signs of fish were good and everyone on the southern Labrador
Coast was in a positive mood and looking forward to a good year. So, in our open
twenty-seven-foot skiff with the eight-horsepower Stewart, Bert Coish and I
embarked.

I enjoyed steaming out St. Lewis Bay, whether it was to the southern or
northern side. On this southern side we had to pass by Indian Harbour (the place
in the song “Where me father fished before”). Although not the fishing community
it once was, there were still a couple of dozen families making a living from
cod fishing on the historically lucrative fishing grounds not far from the
community. After steaming past Indian Harbour, we had to pass through a tickle
that separated an island and the mainland, and then on to Cape Charles on the
coast.

Cape Charles was the summer coastal fishing station for most of the people of
Lodge Bay. The fishing grounds were right off the shelf in the open ocean, and
Lodge Bay meant the community at the bottom of the bay, sheltered from the ocean
and the fierce winter winds and storms. Even hardy Labrador fishermen realized
that it was better to be as far inland as possible in the winter. And, of
course, you were closer to wood for building houses and boats and for catching
animals to eat. Anyway, Bert and I were making this fast trip to see a couple of
clients—an older person and a widow—and that would be that. There was also
Skipper Ken Pye, an old friend of Bert’s who we had to visit.

When we arrived in the harbour (with fishing rooms on both
sides
of the tickle), we sensed the hustle and bustle: everyone who was able-bodied
was busy inspecting nets on the stageheads, or on a piece of beach nearby; newly
painted and caulked skiffs had their engines checked; and a couple of skiffs
unloaded some of the first fish of the year. It felt good being there witnessing
all the activity, even though we were mere bystanders to all the
commotion.

Well, it did not take long to complete the necessary forms of the clients I had
to see, and then we were off to visit Skipper Ken. Ken was an old friend of
Bert’s who had fished for many years on the coast. He was of average height, and
I think at that time he was in his mid-seventies. It was a large head and a
weather-beaten face that greeted us with a great smile as he opened the door of
his yellow, faded two-storey house.

“Oh my God, Bert, my son, Bert Coish, what a surprise. It is so good to see
you. I did not see you come in the harbour.”

“Skipper Ken,” Bert said, “for once we arrived without your keen eyes watching
us.”

“And who is this young man you has in tow?”

“This is the new relieving officer. He had a few people he had to see, and
given that it was a short trip we thought we would do it today. We got a long
trip down the coast in a few weeks, so we wanted to get this done now—and of
course to see you.”

“Well, well, this is a great pleasure for me, to have you fellers come and see
me today. Everyone is so busy since we moved out from the bay that no one is
very interested in spending time with an old feller like me. There’s a real good
sign of fish. The boys were out yesterday, and in a few hours with a makeshift
trap got seven or eight barrels, and big fish, too.”