What They Wanted (42 page)

In time, I will let go. But not yet. Just not yet. And I already know that it will be Chris who releases me … but that is another story …

There is one last thing—I will speak quickly. Ben made it home for the funeral, but then left again. Not for Trapp this time. He’d brought Trapp home as he intended, left him fishing for shrimp and crab alongside his father and uncles in Ragged Rock. Ben’s travelling for himself now. To find himself, he said. He looked sheepish in saying that, for it sounded clichéd.

As a gift, I gave him back his own words—those words he’d spoken to me that long, dark night when I had lain inside a closet and he stroked my hair, saying in a low, throaty whisper, “Gotta do your own creating now … don’t matter if you can’t draw, can’t write … just gotta find something that’s yours, a thought … one unique thought … only it has to be true, true to you … and there you are, your own creator.”

And so he’s out there somewhere, charting his own map. As I sit here, charting mine. Perhaps someday we will join trails again. But only for a while. In the end, we all travel alone.

I must go now, because Mother is calling—she checked my room, and now she’s calling—it must be a restless night for her and she needs me safely inside. I look to the sky again. It stretches through the night like one warm blanket, covering me, covering Mother, covering Trapp, too, in his uneasy bed— covering all of us, the one slumbering child being guided through the dark corridors of sleep.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
HANK YOU
to Mary Nutting, South Peace Regional Archives, Grande Prairie; right-wing, gun-toting redneck Barry Laporte; Karen Douglas, City of Grande Prairie; Michael O’Conner, prairie man of many hats; and spirited friends and neighbours Donald and Laurene Brown.

   Thank you to my editors, Cynthia Good, Diane Turbide, David Weale, and Sandra Tooze, and to my agent, Beverley Slopen.

    Thank you to that Big Iron Cavalier and tool push Rick Pelham; roughnecks David Collie and Dan Bignell; and for his remembrance of past journeys together, driller Lance Morrissey.

     Thank you to Jane Buss at the N.S. Writers’ Federation, the N.S. Council for the Arts, Dr. Lynn McAslan, and to John W. Doull’s feel for the concrete.

      Many blessings upon David Weale, Michael Chadwick, Roy Gould, Elaine Hann, Edward MacDonald, and Ron Lehr for their provocations and inspirations.

       And for their countless cups of tea, glasses of wine, and pounds of chocolate, I thank Anita Dalton, Jackie Sunderland, Corrine Corbett, Mary Lynk, Mo Jo Anderson, Ismet Ugursal, Julia Hategan, and Cindy and Paul Douglas.

         Most especially, I want to thank my fireside friend, Rick Ormston.

ABOUT THE BOOK

What They Wanted
, Donna Morrissey’s fourth novel, is set in two very different yet similarly severe environments: the depleted, sea-battered outport of Hampden, Newfoundland, and the nightmarish atmosphere of an Alberta oil rig. While vividly revealing the hardship and beauty of these worlds, Morrissey explores how members of the Now family (first introduced in her award-winning book
Sylvanus Now
) grapple with notions of home, love, regret, and forgiveness.

Sylvie Now, the novel’s narrator, returns to Newfoundland to visit her father, Sylvanus, in the hospital after he suffers a heart attack. Having left their small, struggling outport a few years before to study in St. John’s and then to work as a waitress in oil-rich Alberta, Sylvie has no idea what to expect.

She’s not sure how long she’ll stay, and she doesn’t know what it will feel like to be back in the house of her mother, Adelaide, a house that while Sylvie was growing up—despite being surrounded by her beloved brothers, Gran, and father—never quite felt like home.

In a story that spans two decades, Sylvie details life growing up in the Now household—her deep connection to her father, her mother’s estrangement, a past haunted by the “three little dears” who died before Sylvie’s birth, and her own childhood fascination with the dead and their spirits—as well as the emotionally complex adventure she undertakes with her brother Chris.

At the hospital in Corner Brook where Sylvanus is being treated, it quickly becomes clear that his physical condition will make it impossible for him to work and support his family. But Sylvie is paid handsomely by the men working in the booming oil industry, and she knows she can send enough money home to look after her family. The middle child, Chris, a dreamy, talented artist, also knows that fast money can be made on the oil rigs, and for reasons of pride and guilt, he secretly decides to accompany his sister when she heads back.

Sylvie has always encouraged Chris to leave Hampden to pursue his artistic career—much to the dismay of their mother, who dotes on her son—but even she questions his decision to travel west. Oil rigs are dangerous places, and Sylvie worries about her brother. This concern increases when they arrive in camp, and Sylvie’s long-time love interest, Ben, a troubled man with his own secrets, has already secured Chris a job as a roustabout on a rig.

Quitting her bar job in Grande Prairie, Sylvie begins work as a cook on the oil rig where Chris, Ben, and another man from their childhood—the nefarious Trapp—are employed. It’s an unearthly environment of unrelenting noise and tension, and the experience ends in a tragedy that ultimately offers opportunity for understanding and hope. As with all of Morrissey’s books, this story is an emotional odyssey in which the characters struggle with unresolved conflicts and desires and the questions that arise from displacement.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DONNA MORRISSEY

Q:

You’ve mentioned that
What They Wanted
was supposed to have been a part of
Sylvanus Now
. What made you decide to tell the stories separately? How did you know that this narrative needed to be its own entity?

Sylvanus Now
became a more in-depth story than I originally thought. I hadn’t planned on delving so deeply into Addie’s depression or the plight of the fishing industry. But as I got deeper into the book, I realized Addie needed her own story told from the inside out, and most certainly, Sylvanus and his struggle with the declining fishing industry demanded more than part of a book. Alas, we have to go where the story takes us.

Q:

One review of the book mentioned that you wrote the first draft in third person. What compelled you to change the point of view to first person? How is the story made stronger by telling it from Sylvie’s perspective?

What They Wanted
is based on the true-life experience of my brother and me. It was very difficult to stand outside the story and see it objectively. Writing it in the third person gave me the emotional distance I needed. Once I was able to see the story objectively, I went back to page one and told it from the first person.

Given that it is such a personal story for me, telling it through Sylvie’s eyes was the best means by which I could get close to the bone, to really bring the reader into her psyche and understand her. Plus, given that it is largely my story, I couldn’t imagine anyone else telling it besides Sylvie.

Q:

How did the process of writing this book compare with writing your others? Was telling the difficult story of your experience in Alberta more challenging? More meaningful?

This is certainly the most difficult book I’ve written, simply because of the emotional investment it demanded. I was very tight-chested writing it … it resurrected emotion in me that I had long since buried. But I knew this would happen … it’s why I waited such a long time to write it. Certainly it is the most meaningful of my stories. Thus far …

Q:

Did you ever consider writing a non-fiction book about your experiences on the oil rig? Is fiction always your vehicle for storytelling?

Naw, I could never write non-fiction. I like the creative energy … I like the suspense of where fiction is going to take me. It is the only creative outlet for me. I can’t do anything else, except weed gardens. Love doing that.