Being Mary Ro Read online

  Flanker Press Limited

  St. John’s

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Linehan Young, Ida, 1964-, author

  Being Mary Ro : a novel / Ida Linehan Young.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77117-648-4 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77117-649-1 (EPUB).--

  ISBN 978-1-77117-650-7 (Kindle).--ISBN 978-1-77117-651-4 (PDF)

  I. Title.

  PS8623.I54B45 2018 C813’.6 C2018-900084-8

  C2018-900085-6

  ——————————————————————————————————————————————------——

  © 2018 by Ida Linehan Young

  all rights reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

  Printed in Canada

  Cover Design by Graham Blair

  Edited by Joan Sullivan

  Illustrated by Melissa Ashley Cromarty

  Flanker Press Ltd.

  PO Box 2522, Station C

  St. John’s, NL

  Canada

  Telephone: (709) 739-4477 Fax: (709) 739-4420 Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

  www.flankerpress.com

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  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

  Dedication

  Parker Edward Thomas Young, there are no words to capture the love in my heart for you. Your smile lights my world. I hope I’m blessed to see what the future holds for you, little man.

  To my children, Sharon, Stacey, and Shawna, Mom is so proud of you all the time (well, most of the time!). Thomas, I don’t know how you put up with us all, but you do. Thank you.

  For John Young, a remarkable man whose presence burns brightly in the hearts of those who loved him. He was the embodiment of a husband, father (-in-law), grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, uncle, and friend. He was a farmer, a fisherman, a hunter, and a provider. He had a special relationship with everyone he knew and with God. His tough exterior was often betrayed by a wink and a smile, or those hooded gazes and the twinkle that told you you were “had.” His kindness and generosity were as boundless as his love for his family. He was revered by many. His memory remains alive though he is gone. John Young, you are missed every single day.

  My mom, Catherine Linehan: You inspire just by being in the world.

  And to all my family and friends, thank you for being in my life. To those who have gone before me, especially my brothers (Francis, Richard, Harold, and Barry) and sister (Sharon) who died tragically in 1980, and my dad (Ed Linehan), your loss is heaven’s gain. You, too, are loved and missed.

  To my “secret book club,” Georgette, Shirley, Bea, Norma, and Debbie, thanks for all your help in making this dream a reality.

  Life is good if you give it a chance!

  Author’s Note

  The inspiration for this book comes from a story I often heard my father, Edward Linehan, tell about a familial tragedy in North Harbour (South Side), St. Mary’s Bay. After some digging, I was surprised to find how similar in magnitude it was to our own as described in No Turning Back: Surviving the Linehan Family Tragedy.

  In December 1912, Peter and Helena (Lundrigan) Ryan lost five children—four boys and a girl—to diphtheria. Hilary aged seven, Alexander aged eight, Charles aged seventeen, Jeremiah aged twenty-one, and their sister Hannorah, aged nineteen, all died within a few days of each other at their family home. A doctor arrived by boat and was able to save others in the family and community. Cecilia, aged fourteen, survived, though I have no information to suggest that she’d had the disease.

  Although this book is a work of fiction and the timelines do not match the actual tragedy, I felt it necessary to pay tribute to the Ryans’ loss. Thanks to John Ridgely for providing information about his family roots.

  Prologue

  In the late nineteenth century, Newfoundland was a large island colony off the east coast of Canada in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Though a dominion of the British Empire (along with Canada, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, and Australia), the island was self-governed and had its own monetary system until it joined Canada as a province in 1949.

  In 1890, the population of the capital of St. John’s was approximately 25,000, but the island’s huge coastline (6,000 miles, or 9,600 kilometres) had another 50,000 people attracted by the rich cod fishery and scattered throughout thousands of tiny communities in coves and bays. Typical settlements had between forty and 200 residents—by design the numbers could sustain a reasonable inshore trap fishery.

  Labrador, the continental part of the Newfoundland dominion, had another 4,900 miles, or 7,886 kilometres, of coastline which, with the exception of the small numbers of indigenous peoples, was migratorily settled in the summers and early fall for the Labrador fishery.

  Newfoundland merchant families, like Steers, Ayres, and Bowrings, gave material credit to local fishermen consisting of goods (including food) and gear necessary for their prosecution of the fishery and winter survival. At the end of the fishing season, the merchants collected dried salt cod as repayment. The cod was sent to Britain, Canada, and the United States through Boston and New York.

  After the first snow, most of the settlements were isolated into clusters and cut off from civilization until the spring thaw. Residents lived on salt cod, vegetables which they grew during the summer and stored in root cellars, farm animals, merchant provisions dependent on the success of the fishery (tea, flour, molasses, beans, etc.), as well as wild game, seals, and birds that were hunted during the winter months.

  January 21, 1891

  Men lined the shore like setters pointing on a duck, silent, their gazes fixed on the schooner in the distance. It had been four days since the derelict vessel first appeared in the bay. One of the young Ryan boys from North Harbour noticed it while out bird hunting in the rocks on the point. The winter storm had brought three days of sou’west winds and blowing snow. It had also brought the ship. The storm blew itself out, and the boat, which appeared to have been taking shelter behind Colinet Island, had carried on the tides north toward the point amid thin pans of ice.

  This wasn’t the first time an abandoned ship had drifted within reach of the communities of North Harbour and John’s Pond. In ’87, some of the livyers had found another vessel on the rocks and were able to scavenge ropes, barrels, food, and wood from the wreck. Now mostly these same menfolk waited in the cold winter morning for the chance to recover bounty served up by the latest storm.

  The rocks stretching out into the sea were covered with polished, two-inch-thick ice formed by the sea spray of the last few days. It was risky to attempt a rope until the boat was close enough for a good throw of the grappling hook. Once
snared, they would pull the boat close enough to tether it to an old, gnarly spruce tree on the point. Until then, they would wait. The calmed sea was taking its sweet time. The fire they had set on the beach had long gone unattended in anticipation of the trove.

  Finally, the call went out to try the rope. All hands were in agreement when Pat Linehan, arguably the best to throw among the bunch, positioned himself on the wet rocks near the base of the firepit. The driftwood-fuelled fire had thawed a ring about four feet in diameter, which would keep him from slipping.

  His black rubber boots skidded a little as he, a pudgy man in his mid-forties, dug his toe into the beach rocks to get a better footing. He grabbed the rusted metal of the small anchor, bent low, and heaved with all his might. If he missed, the hook could tangle in the small pans of ice that were banked on and near the shoreline, and they would be there for hours trying to work it loose. Untangling would be treacherous, and they would have to wait another day.

  The hook landed with a thud on the deck almost thirty feet away, and a cheer went up from the anxious crowd. They all grabbed hold of the rope with mitted hands and pulled in unison. Before too long, the boat scraped on the rocks and ice pans. It was as close as they could get it. They were lucky the tide had been coming in and was almost high, or the trek to the beached vessel would have taken that much longer.

  The men stretched two weather-beaten, wooden ladders out across the uneven, ice-covered expanse. End to end, they almost reached the hull. David Rourke walked out the length of the makeshift bridge, balancing another, conceivably the best of the ladders, across his body. When he reached the boat, he raised the ladder, bracing the bottom in the slushy ice pan with the top resting on the frozen gunwale. He held it fast as the men crossed to him and scaled the hull. The last man held the rail’s end, and he climbed up.

  The boat was listing but remained steady under the slight ebb and flow of the tide. Several men went to work on the sails and lines above deck while six of the fourteen went below. Whatever was retrieved would be shared, and each man would take only what he had a use for. The boat would stay tied as long as the winter storms would allow. Whatever board and planks that remained would be used to build or repair stables and houses in either of the communities. Material from the forty-foot schooner would be split among those who needed the timber.

  Pat came up from below, his body heaving as he lost what little breakfast he’d had that morning. He was quickly followed by the other five men, each one retching.

  Pat spoke first. “There are men below. I think they’re dead.”

  His younger and slightly taller brother, Jim, spoke up. “I believe I heard somebody moan.”

  David, a tall, stout man in his early fifties, still sporting a crop of light brown hair beneath his grey woollen cap, pondered the situation for a few seconds. “We’ll need to check. I’ll go. Pat, you come with me?”

  Pat shook his head. “I’ll not go, the smell is horrible. They’re surely all dead.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Jim. “I know I heard a moan.”

  David slowly walked toward the hole and descended into the bowels of the vessel.

  “Over there,” said Jim. He pointed in the darkness below. David’s nostrils filled with the most wretched stench he believed he had ever smelled. He struck a match on the beam and saw a piece of candle almost melted into the crude wooden table to his left. He lit the wick, scraped the candle from its resting place, and shone the dim light on several bunks in the bow. He heard Jim gulp for air behind him. David’s stomach rolled, and he held his fingers over his nose, trying not to vomit.

  He moved toward the bunks. The six of them were indeed occupied. Tattered woollen blankets fully covered three of the men on the bottom bunks. He pulled back the first sheet. The man was clearly rigid in death. He made the sign of the Cross by rote. It wasn’t recent, either, by the smell. He could be dead a week. With the frost, perhaps even longer. David didn’t bother looking under the rest of the blankets on the lower bunks. He believed they would all be dead and that somebody had taken the time to cover them. Three men in the upper bunks hadn’t had the same treatment.

  “Are they dead?” Jim asked behind him.

  “These three below are. I’ll check the ones on the top.”

  David stood and peered at the first partially covered figure. He wasn’t moving. David felt the man’s head. He was cool and clammy and didn’t respond to his touch. “Sweet Jesus. What’s happened here?” he said under his breath.

  He moved to the second fellow. Unlike his bunkmate, he felt scalding hot. The man moaned and reached for David’s arm. “This one’s alive.”

  He swiftly checked the last person. “We need to get them to Dot. Quickly!”

  David shouted to the men on deck to make something to carry the sick crew. The foraging forgotten, the men quickly made barrows from the masts and sails, worked to get each man up on deck, and then fastened them to the makeshift stretchers. The strangers coughed and wheezed as they were being moved.

  “We’re taking them to the nurse?” Jim asked.

  “Yes, my wife will know what to do,” David said.

  By the time they made it from the point to the community, the sun was high in the sky and they were tired. Twelve men piled into David’s house, carrying the three patients.

  “Dot, Mary, come quickly! We need your help.”

  Dot, a striking dark-haired woman in her mid-fifties, came from the pantry. The splash of grey near her temples was the only thing betraying her age. Mary, pushing her red hair back into a bun, came down the stairs a few minutes later. In her mid-twenties, she’d become well accustomed to summonses from her mother to help with the sick and injured.

  “Help me, girl,” Dot said. “Go back and grab some blankets.”

  One of the sick men coughed and doubled over while gasping for air.

  “Cover your face, too.” She directed the men to lay one of the sick on the daybed while the others were placed on the floor near the stove. She couldn’t say which was worse off. Two were fevered and quite sick. Dot put her ear to the third man’s chest and then his mouth. She shook her head. “This one’s gone.”

  Dot questioned her husband while four men hastily removed the dead fellow. The rest of the crowd backed out into the porch and spilled out into the lane.

  The one on the daybed opened his eyes and tried to speak. He wheezed and struggled for breath before closing his eyes again. The one on the floor began to moan and shake. He was burning hot, and he began to convulse. Mary dropped the blankets on the table and tried to keep him down. He lashed out uncontrollably and knocked her back, but her father helped her get the man on his side.

  “David, we need to strip them. These clothes are filthy,” Dot said. Her husband was familiar with commands when his wife was in action.

  David helped her while Mary ran upstairs for more clean sheets. Mary, who had been assisting her mother since she was very young, would likely follow in her mother’s footsteps: Mary would be a nurse.

  The man on the daybed tried to speak, and Dot leaned close to listen. He coughed and gagged several times but managed to give their names and a bit of information. Once she got him settled, she grabbed her medical book from the sideboard and looked up the symptoms from the book her husband had brought her only a few months before.

  “Dear God, David,” she gasped. “Don’t let the men go home to their families. Lord have mercy on us all.”

  1

  “The doctor is tending to women and children in North Harbour. He won’t be here for two to three more days. I’m sorry, Mary Ro.” The man’s broken voice was filtered through a wide, ragged strip of cloth which had been torn from a flour sack and was covering his nose and mouth. He didn’t look her in the eye—none of them did. She knew there would be both pity and terror, and she didn’t know which would have been worse.

  “I know
.” She fell back on the wooden chair and moved out of the way as four men shuffled toward the door carrying her father’s body. She couldn’t cry. There was work to be done.

  She heard wood scraping on wood from outside and the dull thud as she suspected her father was being placed in the hastily made spruce box that was probably in the snowbank near the doorstep. Woodsmoke from the firepit burning near the house and the faint scent of tar mixed with the smells in the kitchen. The porch door banged shut, and Da was gone.

  The kitchen didn’t have the familiar comforting smell of fresh baked bread that she had known growing up. Instead, her nostrils filled with the pungent odour of pine tar and turpentine that had been boiling in a dipper on the stove for the last few weeks.

  She glanced outside and noticed the sun was shining, although the cold from the February morning left a frosty sheen near the bottom of the pane along the sill. She saw frosted breath as Old Bell snorted and shook her head. The small brown mare was tackled to the sleds a few feet from the gate. Mary touched the glass. “You take care of him, you hear? It’s precious cargo you’ll be pulling to Chapel Hill.”

  Meg Dalton stood near the sawhorse. Instead of watching the house like she did most days, she was wide-eyed as the men who, out of Mary’s view, were tar-sealing the crude wooden box containing the body of Mary’s father. The fourteen-year-old’s mitted hands covered her face as she cried uncontrollably at the scene before her.

  The girl crumpled on the sawhorse and looked toward the house. She caught the movement of the curtain as Mary, for the fifth time, pulled away the large piece of canvas marked with the “X” from the top sash and moved back from the window. Mary’s warm fingertips left prints on the cool glass, transparent circles of hope that blended once more into the white frosted pane as the winter air renewed its unrelenting assault. Every sign of life was being stolen from the house, both from the inside and out.