“WHERE DO YOU think you’re going with that lipstick on?” Nancy’s mother was at the hall mirror putting on her hat. “Over to that slovenly Georgina’s again!”
She waved the hatpin in the air.
“I don’t know what’s come over you this summer! You started the holidays in a surly sulk and now you’re in full revolt. That Georgina is not fit for you. What are you doing over there all the time? You can’t even stand to be in your own ’ome.”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “Don’t talk your bay talk to me, Mom. What kind of ’ome is this? You can’t even make your own ’usband ’appy.”
Shocked by her own words, she paused for a second, then turned her saucy shoulders and headed for the door.
Her mother grabbed her by the arm. “You get right back here, my lady. I’m late for church. Now go bring that breakfast tray in to your father.”
Every morning it was the same thing: a slice of bread, a piece of salt fish and a cup of tea. But the only thing that crossed his lips these days were the mood pills and the painkillers—a whole life-numbing legion of them lined up on the bedside table.
Nancy dreaded going near him. She put the tray on the bed but he didn’t stir, just lay there, eyes glazed, his rough workman’s hands limp on the satin bedspread. She knew he was heavy with life, listing like a rusty old ship. She and her mother, each in her own way, had been taking detours around the empty hulk of him. But she wiped that thought.
“See you later, Dad,” she said, her voice trailing off as she closed the bedroom door.
Then one last primp in the hall mirror, down the front steps and up the sidewalk, skinny white legs sticking out of red shorts.
Over at the Butlers’, the blinds were still down. She knocked hard. Eventually, a sleepy-eyed Georgina emerged.
“God, Nance! Don’t be bangin’ the door down! We went to bed all hours last night. Me brother Jimmie turned up out of the blue from Labrador. Laid off again. Come on into the kitchen.”
A few minutes later, Jimmie appeared in the kitchen doorway, barefoot and in rumpled pyjamas, with a big grin on his face. Nancy fixed her eyes on his rosy toes with their little black hairs. No one in her house ever displayed their bare feet, let alone wore pyjamas without a robe. There were gaping flaps in the pyjamas—the whole outfit seemed to hang together on a single flimsy tie just below the waist, revealing the fuzzy hairline plunging down from his belly button. He came straight over to her, so close and brazen she could smell his fausty morning breath.
He looked her up and down. “Who’s that, Georgie? She’s some good lookin’!”
Nancy felt the room take a spin.
Jimmie chuckled. “Better sit down girl. You look like you seen a ghost. I’m not that ugly in me jammies, am I?”
Georgina sat at the bedroom mirror, coating her eyelids with silver shadow.
“Now, don’t you go gettin’ a crush on Jimmie. He don’t know nuttin’ about goodie-two-shoes girls like you. And he’s nearly twenty. Way too old.”
“No he’s not. Sure, I’m gonna be sixteen. And he seems real nice.”
“Nice? He’s the devil himself. And don’t go sayin’ I didn’t tell ya. Now come over here till I teases your hair up. I knows how to get your mind off that Jimmie—my cousin Toughie hangs out with a buncha boys down by Signal Hill. Let’s see if we can find ’em.”
When they got to the hill, there were no boys to be seen. They scrambled up the pathway and flopped down on a grassy slope. Looking out over the water, the summer sea all glassy and lilac, Nancy drifted off in her mind. I’m not one bit sorry for what I said to Mom. She doesn’t care about Dad.
Georgina broke in. “What do you be thinking about all the time?”
Nancy looked out to sea, at a speck of a ship making its way off Cape Spear. “There’s something wrong with my father.”
“Ah, he’s probably okay—he’s just quiet.”
“No, girl. Since he lost his job, he’s in bed all the time.”
Nancy drifted off again, thinking about her father. In the old days, he was lively, used to play cards with her, tease her. “I gets some kick out of you, Nance,” he’d say. “You’re a smart one, and a real little townie. I knows you’re going far in this world.” Then things started going bad for him at work, and the day came when he got fired. Nancy can still remember him talking on the phone with his boss. “Don’t go telling me I’m not a damn good boiler man!” he’d roared, his rage filling the little house. But when he hung up, the emotion evaporated almost immediately, dissipated like fine dust falling on the ground. After that, her father was never the same. Nancy’s playful moments with him were gone.
Georgina picked a daisy and plucked the petals. “Sure, my father hasn’t worked the last couple of years. Your mother got that job at the Royal Stores, what are ya worried about?”
Nancy answered slowly, like she was laying down a heavy stone. “Mom’s a big fat liar. Puttin’ on airs. Bragging about me going to Graham’s College. I should have listened to Dad—he was right all along—they’re nothing but a bunch of snobs in that school. And I turned into a real little snob myself. I wouldn’t even let Dad help me with my homework.”
Georgina laughed. “Graham’s was way too snooty for me. But sure, Nance, you’ve always been the real little sook with them teachers, flouncing around in the English country dances, just like your mother wants.”
“Not any more. I’m finished with Graham’s.” Nancy’s eyes filled with rebellion. “Those teachers cheated me out of first place ’cause I’m from Rabbittown. I knows I did better than that Gillian Lancaster in the exams. She told me herself she flubbed the answers on the War of the Roses. But down to Graham’s, someone like me just can’t come first.
“And never mind what Mom wants. I hates her. Lying all the time, especially about Dad. ‘Dave’s been busy workin,’” she says to the neighbours over the fence. And then there’s that old minister who comes to the house. He grew up in Bard’s Cove with Mom. And that’s the be-all and end-all for her. You should see how she does herself up for him, hair curled and rouge on her cheeks.”
“Jeez, flirtin’ with the minister! I thought my mother was bad!”
“I’m telling ya, he’s always over, drinkin’ her tea and eatin’ her shortbread. Sometimes he even opens the middle button on his black shirt to let his belly out. It’s disgusting.”
Georgina’s daisy was plucked down to the yellow stump. She tossed it aside and stood up. “Come on, girl. Let’s go down and find the boys.”
At the bottom of the hill they ran smack into them—a gang of bored Sunday afternoon teenagers looking for trouble. Georgina’s cousin Toughie came right over and draped his hairy arm around Nancy’s shoulders. “Wanna come out to the Battery to the bunkers with us, duckie?”
Nancy could feel a whiff of danger coming off him, but here was her opportunity to get to the bunkers, the teenage courting and cavorting spot she’d heard so much about. She looked over at Georgina, who had already hooked on to one of the other boys.
“Georgie,” she called from under Toughie’s arm, “do ya think we should go out there with them?”
Georgina motioned with a flick of her hand that they should definitely go along with the boys.
Toughie started scuffing down the road, pulling Nancy along. Not daring to look at his pockmarked face, she trotted beside him, her eyes focused on his boots, with the laces flying.
He’s so ugly, and really rough. I should turn back.
She tried to free herself but he pulled her back with a jerk. “Don’t mind me,” he laughed. “I knows I got no cout’ at all.”
At the entrance to the bunker, Toughie clamped his hand into Nancy’s groin. “I likes your curly hair—is it curly down there in your cunny too?”
Something quivered “down there.” Nancy’s cheeks caught fire. She turned to Georgina. “I’m not goin’ in there with them. I want to go home, now.”
But the boys pushed the girls into the bunker, blocking the entrance.
Inside, it was dank and cold and smelled of urine. Nancy held on to Georgina. “My God! Did you see what Toughie did to me? We got to get outta here.”
“Don’t be so foolish. Sure, Toughie got a crush on ya! What else do ya want?”
The boys teased and taunted the girls, grabbing at their arms with tobacco-stained fingers.
Within fifteen minutes, the wind in the Narrows had switched. Summer drained out of the air. Nancy shivered until her little nipples went hard under her thin T-shirt.
Toughie snickered. “Sweet Jesus! Look at her now, she’s gettin’ horny!”
Nancy jumped back and hit the sooty bunker wall. “Please, let us out,” she pleaded, close to tears. “I gotta go home.”
A voice called in through the entrance. “That you in dere, Toughie?”
It was Jimmie. He looked into the bunker. “What in God’s name are you two girls doin’ down here?”
Nancy called to him over the boys’ heads. “They’ve got us barred in, Jimmie.”
Jimmie slapped Toughie on the shoulder. “That’s enough now, Tough b’y. You got that young Nance frightened to death! Better let her go before she starts bawlin’.”
One of the boys stubbed his cigarette and walked out. Game over, the rest of the pack straggled out and shuffled off. As they rounded the corner, Toughie yelled back, “Them bitches was beggin’ for it.”
Nancy stepped out of the bunker, none the worse for wear, just a few spots of soot on her red shorts. “Thank God you turned up, Jimmie,” she gushed, placing her hand on his hard bicep. “What would we…”
But then she noticed her, a girl standing behind Jimmy, a bit of a toughie herself—large breasts bursting the buttons on her blouse, and dirty high heels with frayed tips that needed to go to the cobbler’s.
“Oh! So it’s Velma’s turn now, is it?” said Georgina, with a snarky smile. “I s’pose you two are goin’ into the bunker yourselves. Come on, Nance. Let’s get out of here and let them lovebirds get on with it.”
Night was setting in as the girls raced out the foggy road back to town.
“Is that really his girlfriend?” said Nancy. “He can do better than that. She’s hard.”
“As nails, my dear, but Jim likes a bit of hard.”
Nancy looked down at her sooty shorts. “Mom would kill me if she knew what I was doin’.”
“Why don’t you tell her we met my cousin and she fell down and broke her arm and we had to take her to hospital or somethin’?” offered Georgina.
“Honest, Mom, it was raining. Georgina fell down…”
“Look at the state of you. I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
“We couldn’t help it, she hurt her foot.”
“That’s not true. Coming ’ome ’ere with makeup on, smell-ing of cigarette smoke! You’ve been out flirting with boys.”
Nancy smothered her smirk. Mom scolded and flailed her arms around, more panicked than mad. “Where’s my little Graham’s lady? I’m going to tell the teachers about this. You’ve let the school down. They’ll know how to fix you and those boys.”
“Who cares about that bunch of old maids! They don’t know nothing about boys.”
“Now, now, my child, just tell me where you’ve been all day. I want the real truth.”
Nancy bellowed, sending a shiver through her mother’s sheer curtains. “You got some nerve talking about the truth. And don’t you be accusing me of flirting. I sees you with that fat ol’ minister.”
With that, she gave her mother an almighty shove onto the couch.
Plopped among the crocheted doilies, her mother was dazed for a second. Then she got to her feet. “I won’t ’ave this behaviour in the ’ouse,” she said, shaking. “Now, settle down and I’ll make you your tea.”
Nancy made her eyes go as hard as she could. “I don’t want no tea, Mom.”
The next morning, while her mother was at the clothesline, Nancy dashed over to the Butlers’. Jimmie was out on the front steps having a smoke.
“Are you all right, Nance girl?” He was all concern. “That Toughie’s a young son-of-a-bitch. He didn’t touch ya, did he?”
“I’m fine,” she said, hands on her hips. “He’s just a big bully.”
“If he ever tries that again, you let me know,” he said, cupping her elbow. With his touch, the blood left her head but she managed to follow him up the rickety steps and into the house.
She spent the rest of the holidays manoeuvring her way into Jimmie’s company.
“You’re practically living at the Butlers’,” said her mother. “You must have ’em charmed to death over there—a proper Street Angel. But ’ome with us you’re not fit to talk to—a proper House Devil.”
“Me and Georgie are just babysittin,’ Ma,” said Nancy, feigning innocence. “Mrs. Butler’s got a lot of work on her hands with all those kids.”
“I don’t know what kind of a place that woman runs. I’d say she’s not much of a housekeeper.”
Over at the Butlers’, it was, in fact, out-and-out pandemonium. No smells of bread fresh-out-of-the-oven or clean-sheets-off- the-line there. Georgina’s tribe of brothers and sisters ran wild—no beds ever got made, kitchen cupboards were left open with food tumbling out, taps dripped, TV blared. Mrs. Butler spent her time in some kind of party den at the back of the house. Nancy saw people coming and going with cases of beer and heard the twang of country music coming through the door. Jimmie went in there, too. Nancy would hang around near the door, watching for him. When he’d come out, all chatty with a beer in his hand, he’d joke with her in his gravelly voice, spitting out his words rat tat tat tat tat tat, like out of a machine gun: “What are ya doin’ with our dumb old Georgie? Sure, a girl like you needs a b’yfriend to take ’er out and show ’er a good time!”
Georgina knew her brother’s game. “I’m telling ya, Nance. You’d better stop moonin’ after Jimmy. He’s a spiky townie. A little Graham’s girl like you’s gonna get some surprise if he decides to come on to ya.”
“I’m not goin’ to get no surprise. Don’t forget, I’ve been out to the bunkers with Toughie. And, anyway, Jimmie told me he really likes me.”
It was the Monday afternoon of Labour Day weekend, a moment caught in time between two seasons. The streets were bare of traffic, and the only movement was a few youngsters on front steps. Nancy’s parents were both sleeping, her mother curled up tensely on the couch, her eyes shielded by the back of her hand; her father still holed up in the bedroom. In the bathroom, Nancy was busy applying makeup. She could hear her father turning over in bed, coughing and sighing.
Lately, the coughing had been getting worse. This morning when she brought in the tray, she’d noticed a spot of blood on the tissue he was grasping. Dad had opened his eyes and muttered to her in a strained voice,“Too bad you’ve got a sick old father, Nance.”
“Don’t worry, Dad, you’re getting better,” she’d said, in a hopeless attempt to soothe him.
Nancy opened the bathroom cabinet, took out her mother’s perfume, “Sweet Surrender,” and sprayed herself liberally.
She heard her father cough, then sigh again.
God, let me out of here.
For once, the Butler house was almost empty. Georgie wasn’t even home. One of the little ones was playing ball on the veranda.
“Jimmie’s inside watching TV,” he said, as if he knew exactly what Nancy was after.
She went towards the front door, paused, then reached for the doorknob. It was loose and rattled as she pushed her way into the house. In the porch, she stopped again, fixed her skirt and patted her hair. Then she made a flash decision—flicking off her sandals, she put on a pair of Mrs. Butler’s spikes. The hard arch of the high heels bit into her feet.
The living room was eerie, dead, like the eye of a storm. Jimmie was sitting on the sofa eating chips in a pool of ketchup, his fingertips red and gooey. Black and white cartoon characters chased around frantically on the TV screen but there was no sound.
“Hi, Nance. TV’s on the blink again. Georgie’s not here. Come on in anyway.”
He was fully clothed but there was something fleshy, naked about him. The top buttons on his shirt were open, exposing a crucifix and a cluster of saints buried in his curly chest hair. The dark hair reminded Nancy of Tony Curtis, her favourite movie star. She edged her way into the chair by the door. He continued eating, muttering with his mouth full. “How’s your father gettin’ on? Don’t see ’em around much.”
He went into the kitchen, looking her directly in the eye as he passed. She sat there, not sure what to do. There was the sound of water running and the fridge door opening and closing. He was whistling “Teen Angel” and interrupted the tune to call out, “Why don’t you come in here with me, girl.”
An open beer stood on the table in front of him. He threw his head back and took a long swig of it, closing his eyes with pleasure as it went down his throat. Nance pinned herself against the counter, teetering on the red stilettos. He parted his lips in a half-smile as if he were about to tell a joke.
“Some fancy shoes you got on. What are you doin’ dressed up like yer mother?”
He was lighting up a Lucky Strike.
“Wanna have a smoke while you’re at it?”
He came over, took a nice long drag, blew a tantalizing billow her way, then slipped the cigarette between her lips. She took a few puffs, but couldn’t stop sputtering and coughing. He took it out and threw it into the sink.
Now the decks were clear.
He put his hands on her breasts.
She caught her breath.
“Mmm…” he moaned, “I’ve been dyin’ to get hold of these little tits.”
Then he started nibbling her lips, softly. It was sweet. She closed her eyes, like in the movies. Before long, he was pressing harder, pushing her against the counter, barging in on her, his knee between her legs. She was scared, her heart pounding, but she liked the bristle of his beard, his warm breath, the feel of his grip.
“Come on in the backroom for a bit, will ya?” he said, his voice husky.
Once out of the kitchen, he got rougher, grabbing and poking as he kept up the necking. Her lips went numb until her only sensation was the taste of beer and tobacco in his mouth. They were crammed into an armchair. He was squashing her leg, but she didn’t dare say anything. His rubbing and kissing was beginning to feel mechanical, impersonal, like he’d forgotten it was her—Nance, from two doors away.
She opened her eyes and, over his shoulder, had a look around the room. The curtains were closed and it was dim; all she could see were a few chairs, a radio, a single hospital style bed in the corner, and a band of bright daylight under the closed door. Jimmie tried to pull her towards the bed.
“I can’t, Jimmie, I have to go home.”
“I’m not gonna hurt ya.”
But she froze in her cramped position on her side of the chair. He leapt up and leaned over her, parroting her, “Have to go home,” his face contorted. “Go on then. You better go running back to your mother and that crazy bayman father you got.”
Outside, there were footsteps in the hallway.
“Jimmie, are you in there drinking already?”
It was Georgina.
“Has Nance been over here? They’re lookin’ for her.”
Nancy jumped up and fixed the straps on her top. The bedroom door flung open. Georgina stood in silhouette in the bright light of the hallway.
“That’s not you in here with Jimmie! I told ya to stay clear of him. Your mudder’d be some mad if she knew the like of this was going on. Anyway, there’s something wrong over to your place. You better go straight on home out of it.”
“I didn’t do nothin’ to her,” said Jimmie, hiding himself with his hands. Then he added in a cutting tone, “She’s too stuck up for us.”
Outside her house was an ambulance, its roof light spinning. They were just taking her father down the steps on a stretcher.
Her mother called out from the doorway. She looked neat in her starched apron but her colour was off.
“He took a bad turn, my child. But they’re going to make him all better in the ’ospital. Come on in and ’ave your tea now. The minister’s going to drop by for a word of prayer.”
Nancy ran to the ambulance. As they lifted her father in, she thought she saw his hand motion to her. Her mind went straight to her favourite memory of him, at Nanny’s funeral, when he’d held her little girl’s hand in his big mechanic’s hand. Already then, she knew how sorry he was about everything.