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  Downhill Chance

  Donna Morrissey

  A Mariner Original

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

  Boston • New York

  2003

  Copyright © 2002 by Donna Morrissey

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce

  selections from this book, write to Permissions,

  Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,

  New York, New York 10003.

  Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

  First published in Canada in 2002 by

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Morrissey, Donna, date.

  Downhill chance / Donna Morrissey.

  p. cm.

  "A Mariner original."

  ISBN 0-618-18927-0

  1. World War, 1939–1945—Newfoundland—

  Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction.

  3. Grandfathers—Death—Fiction.

  4. Newfoundland—Fiction. 5. Girls—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR9199.3.M6535 D69 2003

  813'.54—dc21

  2002027562

  Printed in the United States of America

  QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my son, David Ford Morrissey,

  and my daughter, Bridgette Adele Morrissey

  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,

  and beat upon that house: and it fell:

  and great was the fall of it.

  —Matthew 8:27

  Acknowledgements

  FOR THEIR LOVE AND SUPPORT during the writing of this novel, I wish to thank my siblings, Wanda, Glenn, Tommy and Karen, my dad and Aunt Shirley Dyke for her love of a sister.

  Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Nova Scotia Arts Council for their financial support.

  And for their critiques, research and time, I wish to thank my special friends Genevieve Lehr, Catherine Reader and Ismet Ugursal, my agent, Beverley Slopen, editors Cynthia Good and Susan Canavan, and my meticulous line editor, Mary Adachi.

  Prologue

  IT WAS A DIRTY OLD NIGHT that washed Gid O'Mara up on the shores of Rocky Head. Sheila's Brush, the old-timers called it, that late-spring storm that comes with the fury of February winds, transfiguring the desolate rock-island of Newfoundland into a great whale soaring out of the Atlantic, shaking and writhing as if to rid itself of the shacks, wharves and boats clinging to its granite shores like barnacles. Yawning with the leisure of an old tomcat, twelve-year-old Luke scrooped open the bedroom window, letting in a blast of sea-dampened wind that near put out the burning candle stub that flickered yellow over his older brother, Joey, lying beneath the blankets in their double bed.

  "The old woman's going to skin you," Joey warned, the accordion he'd been lazily drawing a tune out of flattening back against his chest as he squirmed deeper beneath the blanket, pulling his brown worsted cap farther down over his ears. But Luke was already skimming his belly across the sill and dropping to the ground below. A swipe of rain cut across his face as he scurried to the lee of the house to break the wind, ducking below the lamplight spilling out through the window where his father, his cap rolled high above aging eyes, and his mother, a crown of greying braids besetting a brow forever etched with worry, sat watching the storm. A wave broke over the bit of bank that separated the string of six houses from the sea-pounded beach, and he gave a low whistle as seething white froth swooshed up around his feet, then slid back into the rioting black water.

  Always he wondered what it would be like to live inland, away from the wet, wind and fog heaved at them by the sea, and for sure he would travel inland someday, as soon as he was old enough to get clear of his mother. But nights like this, when the storms were at their fullest, he wished for nothing. Hunching his head into his shoulders and jamming his hands inside his pockets, he crouched down besides a woodpile stacked against the house, and inched underneath the canopy made by the water-sogged canvas that covered it. Sea shelters, he called them, those dry hollows sometimes found in the tuck of an overhanging bank, or beneath the eave of a chicken coop, or behind the glass prism of frozen cliff water. He loved it, he did, crouching in weather, his mind lulled by the wind gusting past him, and the sea swarming up over the shore. And the gulls, sifting white through the dark, cried differently at night: tremulous, haunting cries that only the solitary deserved to hear.

  Oftentimes, when curled in the bow of a beached boat or crouched within the warmth of a bough-whiffen—those little dome-shaped shelters he often made by weaving boughs into each other—and with the rain plinking all around him but never a drop dampening his skin, he slept. And as he crouched now, and a couple of fair-haired youngsters, their curls made limp by the drizzle, appeared out of the dark and stood in the spot of light thrown out through the window by his mother's lamp, he thought surely he must have fallen off and that the divinity presenting itself before him was but a sweet-scented dream. Then another boy, about the same age, appeared in the light. Luke blinked, then blinked again as a woman with a blanket wrapped shawl-like around her shoulders and a babe curled in her arms and a man with dark hair and a beard flowing down his chest appeared too out of the dark—all huddling into the spot of lamplight as if it might reprieve them from the storm.

  In a land where the only visitors were fogbound fishers or the scattered husband or wife brought ashore to keep the bloodlines clean, this apparition growing in numbers before Luke became more and more extraordinary, and with a frightened yelp he tore to his feet, racing around the side of the house, hollering that Christ had returned, bringing with him the lost children of Abraham, and they was right outside, standing in the light of his mother's lamp. In less time than it took to spit, every man, woman and youngster from the six houses that made up Rocky Head were crowding out their doors and piling warily onto the bank. Luke was in the lead, and his mother, Prude, her hands clasped anxiously before her ample bosom, brought up the rear. They were as Luke left them; the children like shivering elfs, standing quietly in a patch of light besides their mother and father, their yellow curls tangled by the wind, a dull curiosity in their pale blue eyes and a stooped indifference around their scarcely clad shoulders. And when the smallest of them, no more than a toddler, turned to his mother and asked in a lilting voice and with the most sweetest of sounds, "Is this where we's going to live?" a gasp went through the outporters, and all eyes swung to Luke as they believed surely he must be right, and this bedraggled bunch were celestial creatures sent straight from the Divine Mother Spirit to land upon their God-forsaken shores—for such was the beauty in the melodic brogue of the child's Irish tongue, a brogue never before heard by anybody from Rocky Head. And when the father replied in the same sweetened tongue that it was up to the good people before him, because his boat had been lost to the sea, and everything they owned with it, the outporters stirred from their half-frozen states. Resisting their wariness of strangers, they reverently approached their God-given gifts, and divvying them up, half-carried, half-walked them straightaway into their homes and into their hearts.

  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 beside 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."

&n
bsp; "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.