happening and to get away from the weird sound of dishes rattling. But there was no way to escape the thunder that accompanied the shaking. Caroline bit her lip as she listened to the older people talk of the mystery and her breathing grew rapid and shallow. She clutched her mother’s hand and touched little Ben’s stockinged foot, dangling as his mother held him. The human contact reassured her and she calmed slightly, but the terrible shaking of the ground below them continued. And then, just as suddenly as it had come, it halted.
“Thank God!” someone called out.
“It’s not the end of the world, then,” said another neighbour in relief.
“Not yet anyway,” another weighed in, trying to sound lighthearted.
They looked at the sky, as if they hoped the face of God might appear to tell them not to worry. But there was nothing in the sky, not a single fluffy cloud, not a single black-backed gull or sooty shearwater. The air was crisp and clear and a windless graveyard stillness descended upon the village and the rest of the coast. Though their hearts still fluttered in their chests, it was impossible to believe that anything untoward could happen now. And clearly “the Big Thump,” as the people of Point au Gaul had already begun to call it, was over.
Still jumpy, Caroline scanned the village with her eyes. It was then that she saw Joe Miller, an old man from France who had moved to Point au Gaul. He seems to be up to something, Caroline thought from her station on an incline known as “Up the Hill.” Joe Miller was on the level ground that adjoined the beach and the fishing rooms known as “Down the Town.” He was on his knees. Caroline let go of her mother’s hand and Ben’s little foot and rushed Down the Town. She shimmied her way into the small crowd that had by now gathered around old Joe. She saw that his ear was pressed to the ground and his eyes were closed. The group watched him in silence as dusk drew in on this strangest of nights. He remained in his position for several minutes.
Finally, Joe hauled himself up and stood. He folded his arms in front of his chest and announced, “Prepare yourselves for a tidal wave.”
“What?”
“Prepare yourselves for a tidal wave,” he repeated in his thick French accent.
“A tidal wave indeed,” one man said. “Joe, it’s a perfectly calm evening.”
Joe pursed his lips but said nothing. Caroline stared at him. The little crowd murmured among themselves. How could there be any kind of storm on an evening like this? She saw Joe shrug as the crowd began to disperse.
Caroline was inclined to agree with them. She was getting fed up with all this rumbling and dire talk. She wanted to get back to her own house. Her father’s birthday, the twenty-first of November, was in a few days and they were having a party! Caroline could never remember her father celebrating his birthday before, which only added to the excitement.
“Yes, child, this is the first one he’s ever marked,” her mother had said to her as they added raisins to the fruitcake they were making. They’d have a sponge cake but he loved fruitcake so they were making that as well. He could take it with him when he went on his next work trip. The idea for the celebration came from Thomas, Caroline’s father. One quiet black night in late August, he told his wife, “I feel the need to visit with my close friends, with my buddies. I want to have a little celebration with them.”
His wife, Lydia, nodded, though she frowned a little at her husband’s circumspect tone. She had never heard him talk in this manner before; he sounded like an old man.
“My birthday is a good time to do it,” he said.
“It is,” Lydia smiled. “It’s a grand time.”
Thomas Hillier was a fish oil inspector for the government of Newfoundland. Fish oil was an important export and Hillier’s work required him to travel all over the country, ensuring that outgoing products were of high quality. Caroline often missed him when he was gone; so did Lydia, a native of Grand Bank who had moved to Point au Gaul upon her marriage and was now expecting another child in a couple of months.
Besides her little brother, Ben, Caroline had two older halfsiblings, Harold, nineteen, and Georgina, twenty, children from her father’s first marriage, making for a full household. Like Nan Hillier who fretted for her children back home, Harold and Georgina had gone to the Orange Lodge supper meeting in Lamaline. The Hillier siblings walked to Lamaline with their friends, David and Jessie Hipditch, the parents of three small children who they’d left in the care of Jessie’s parents back in Point au Gaul. When Jessie Hipditch felt the tremor, she saw her eight month old daughter Elizabeth in front of her face, waving at her. Then the child disappeared. It was the oddest sensation, but it was hard to pay it any mind with the blue skies and the windless air.
4
Five-year-old Pearl Brushett yawned as she sat on the edge of her bed. She slowly pulled her socks off, forgetfully throwing them on the floor. When the left one gently flopped on the softwood, she threw herself back on her bed and sighed gratefully. She wasn’t used to school, this was her first year, and it was tiring her out. It was a long walk to the schoolhouse, she had to struggle to keep up with her big brother, Fred, who was ten. And it seemed so long until dinner every day. In the classroom she often found herself staring out the window thinking of her doll, Annie, and wishing she was home, tucking Annie in and telling her a story.
“Miss Brushett!” the teacher called those times. Pearl could never relax. That was what was wearing her out.
She remembered her sock on the floor. She rose from the bed, then leaned down and picked it up, taking the other in her hand as well. She carried them to the brin bag her mother kept in a closet in the hallway. It was full of dirty clothes, it always was; there were seven of them in the Brushett family and it seemed Carrie, Pearl’s mother, could never get to the bottom of the brin bag no matter how hard she tried.
Pearl smoothed her flannelette nightie and pulled back her bed clothes. She puffed up her pillow, turned around, and sank onto her bed. Her seven-year-old sister, Lillian, already lay in bed, white-faced with an earache. Their mother, Carrie, had warmed up a plate and wrapped it in a blanket; Lillian lay with it under her head now trying to derive some comfort from it. Poor Lillian, Pearl thought, as she shimmied into bed. Pearl’s other sister, Lottie, who was eight, would be in soon, too. Between the two of them, the bed would be all warmed up for her.
“Mommy!” she called. She could not go to sleep without her mother’s good night kiss.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Carrie answered. “I’m just tucking in your little brother.”
Pearl was already floating toward sleep when she felt her mother’s soft lips on her forehead.
“You’re my good girl, aren’t you?” Carrie said softly.
Pearl nodded sleepily, smiling. How she loved the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Here, make sure Annie is tucked in there with you,” Carrie said, pulling the covers tight around her daughter. “Good night now. Sweet dreams always.”
“Always,” Pearl whispered.
Pearl’s home was in Kelly’s Cove on Great Burin Island, the site of two other villages, Shalloway, and Great Burin. With other settlements on the peninsula nearby, including Whale Cove, Kirby’s Cove, Burin Bay, Collin’s Cove, Ship Cove, and Path End, Kelly’s Cove was part of Burin. A rocky area of sheltered coves, Burin may be named for an engraving tool,
The European presence here came early. Basque fishermen frequented
Like most of the men on Great Burin Island, Pearl’s father, William, was a fisherman. William was in the shore fishery and had a good season in 1929. He’d had several good years, in fact, as had most of his neighbours.
