Roxanne Bouchard: The Coral Bride

Angel Roberts wakes with a start to the crash of a lobster trap tearing the water’s surface in two. It’s a lobster trap, she’s sure it is. Thousands of times she’s heard the whoosh of the sea surging into these things, swallowing them up and spitting them out again. It sounds like a sail being torn to shreds.

She smiles, satisfied with her deduction, and then tries to figure out what the heck could be making the other sound she can hear: a hammering. It almost sounds like her anchor chain, but it’s not the regular clanking of the metal as it hurtles its way overboard. Truth be told, she barely ever uses the chain. Nor the anchor, for that matter.

The sound is curiously persistent. Little by little she comes to her senses and takes in her surroundings: the water lapping at the hull, the salty air filling her nostrils, the fabric of her dress clinging to her skin in the damp chill of the night. The pain of having her right arm twisted behind her back. Angel struggles to open her eyes. She’s propped up against the wheelhouse of her lobster trawler. The tailgate is open, and a chain is clanking overboard. The swivel connecting the chain to the anchor rode thunks over the edge, and now that rope is being dragged down to the depths. It’s attached to something, but what? The lobster trap she heard? But why?

Something yanks at her ankle and pulls her off her feet. Drags her body along the deck. Her long white dress is riding up, exposing her legs. The cold bites her thighs. Why is her right hand stuck behind her back? In a surge of panic, she spreads her left palm wide and presses it into the rubber deck matting, trying to slow her slide. Suddenly, the movement stops of its own accord. The counterweight of her body has halted the trap’s descent to the depths. Or maybe it’s already hit the seabed. The rope twitches tighter around her calves. Pulling herself together, Angel tries to wriggle her legs. What’s happening?

She draws a sharp breath as it dawns on her that someone’s trying to kill her. Yet she turns her gaze to the sky and exhales, and allows a sense of calm to wash over her.

IDENTIFICATION OF DECEASED

Name: Angel Roberts

Age: 32

Place of residence: Cap-aux-Os

Cause of death: Drowning

The dainty face of the moon smiles softly on Angel. She’s always loved the moon. But her mother said it was a liar. ‘If it looks like a D, you think it’s decreasing, and if it’s shaped like a C, you’d swear it’s curving bigger. But the moon is a liar, oh daughter of mine, you remember that. When it looks like it’s shrinking, it’s growing, and when it looks like it’s getting bigger, the opposite is true.’

A sharp noise shatters the silence, Angel’s dress tears, and, slowly, the line starts pulling her closer to the edge. Angel lets go. There’s nothing she can do. She knows she had this coming.

CIRCUMSTANCES OF DEATH (excerpt)

At around 6.00 pm on Saturday 22nd September, Ms Roberts had dinner at her father’s home with her husband, Clément Cyr, her father, Leeroy Roberts, and her older and younger brothers, Bruce and Jimmy. She and her husband were celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary, four days early. They chose that night because it was a Saturday.

At approximately 10.00 pm, Mr Cyr and Ms Roberts made their way to Le Noroît, an auberge in Rivière-au-Renard known by locals as Corine’s, where the annual party to mark the end of the fishing season was taking place. (See attached list of individuals in attendance.)

At around 11.30 pm, Ms Roberts asked her husband to take her home, claiming she was tired. Mr Cyr proceeded to drive his wife home and returned to the party at around 1.00 am.

Angel’s body pivots slightly as it slides, freeing her hand. She feels sick, and now she’s wide awake. Turning her head to one side, she sees the watery shards of the moon lighting a path on the swell. The shimmering film of splinters around her trawler grows thicker as it reaches for the horizon.

Landlubbers rattle on about the moon on the water being a glimmering silver road or a rolling carpet bejewelled with thousands of sequins. ‘They’re a bunch of romantics,’ her mother scoffed. ‘There’s no road and no silver in the reflections the moon casts on the sea. Try to touch them and they’ll slip right through your fingers, you’ll see. The moon is a liar, and the sea is a lure.’

Angel’s slide continues sternward, inching her feet closer to the watery threshold rocking the hull. A cold wave kisses her feet, licks at her legs. She could try to shake herself free, untie the rope, cling on to the boat, cheat fate and stay on board, but she won’t. Soon Angel’s lobster trawler will drift out to sea as she sinks like a stone.

MISSING-PERSON REPORT (excerpt)

Mr Cyr returned home around 10.00 am on Sunday 23rd September to find his wife absent. Despite multiple calls to her phone, Ms Roberts failed to answer. Concerned for his wife’s well-being, Mr Cyr drove to the Grande-Grave wharf, where he observed Ms Roberts’ vehicle and noticed that her lobster trawler was not tied up at the dock. Mr Cyr then called Jean-Paul Babin, one of his wife’s deckhands, who told him he was not on board the boat. Mr Babin called Ms Roberts’ brother Jimmy, who then called their father. Establishing that no one had seen Ms Roberts, the fishermen began to look for her in places she liked to sail to when she went to sea alone. Around four that afternoon, Mr Cyr alerted the local police and reported his wife and her trawler missing. Coast-guard vessels were then scrambled to join the search. (See attached report.)

The boat sways from side to side as Angel stretches out her left hand to touch the cold metal gunwale. She smiles. She’s one of only two women on the Gaspé Peninsula to own her own lobster trawler. Later, that statement will be repeated in the past tense.

‘Only two women skippers in all the Gaspé, there were!’ people will say.

Mariners will add that one of them died at sea.

That it wasn’t even a stormy night.

The sea is no place for a woman, they’ll say. Fishing is a man’s job. Obviously, they’ll infer, because it’s hard work and men like to prove how tough they are.

She was the daughter of an old cod fisherman with a grudge to bear, they’ll remind people. The big sister of a poacher and the baby sister of a man suspected of murdering his rival. And her husband, he lost his own father at sea too, before he lost his wife. He’s a man with a waterlogged past, they’ll say. The swell always consumes those who open their hearts to the ocean.

AUTOPSY REPORT (excerpt from findings)

There is no observable evidence of physical violence inflicted ante-mortem. No evidence of self-defence against a possible assailant was detected on the deceased’s arms or hands, or under her fingernails. The rope wrapped around the deceased’s calves was tied firmly, though not tightly enough to impede blood circulation. The high alcohol level and traces of sedative detected in the deceased’s blood suggest she was unconscious at the time of death. If she had been conscious, one might assume that she would have attempted to untie the cord around her ankles or scratched her nails on the rubber matting as she slid along the deck. However, no fibres or rubber were found under her fingernails.

Now her dress is saturated with seawater, her thighs dripping wet. This current, the swell that’s rolling at just the right height, has been coldly calculated, she thinks. A well-planned death, that’s what this is. Whoever has done this has thought of everything. The wedding dress, the lobster trawler, the elusive moonlit path she’s following like a fish fixated on a coppery lure.