Roxanne Bouchard: We Were the Salt of the Sea

I figured I’d have to get used to the name, for a while anyway. Put on a brave face and add it to my vocabulary at least, if not my family tree. So for the first time, contemplating the sea, I said it. I took a deep breath in and let it all out.

‘Marie Garant. Do you know her?’

He recoiled. All the sparkle in his face fizzled out, as if I’d blown out a candle. Suddenly on his guard, he looked at me suspiciously.

‘She a friend of yours?’

‘No. I don’t actually know her.’

He picked up the glass again and started rubbing the heck out of it.

‘Phew! You had me worried there. Because let me tell you, that Marie Garant, she’s no woman to get close to. Especially not you, if you’re a tourist that is. I wouldn’t go around shouting about her if you want to make any friends around here.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘But you’re not from around here, so you weren’t to know, of course.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘Is she the reason you’re here?’

‘Er… No.’ It was barely a lie. ‘I’m on holiday.’

‘Ah! So you are a tourist! Well then, welcome! I’m Renaud. Renaud Boissonneau, dean of students at the high school and businessman with business aplenty!’

‘Er, pleased to meet you.’

‘Let me tell you, we’ll take good care of you. How did you like the pizza? Most of the tourists haven’t arrived yet – this place is usually full of them. That’s right, it’s always packed here. People think it’s nice and rustic. Did you see the decor? This place has history, let me tell you. Because you might not have noticed, but we’re in the old rectory. That’s why the church is right next door! The patio wraps all the way around, so anyone who wants to avert their eyes from the steeple while they’re drinking their beer can go and look at the sea or the fisherman’s wharf instead. Oh, and the curate lives upstairs. Which means, let me tell you, that when you’ve had a couple of drinks and you’re ready to confess your sins, you can just go right on up!’

Having successfully tamed the dishwasher, he was now noisily unloading some mercifully unbreakable plates.

‘I do pretty much everything around here, I do. How about that decor?… See. I was the one who did it all. Let me tell you, I brought up everything I could find in the basement. See how original it is? There’s wagon wheels up on the ceiling with oil lamps hanging from them, clogs, little wooden birdhouses, tools, saws, cables and rope, and I hung some old oilskins in the corner. Do you need a rain jacket? I suppose it’s been a nice day today. But it has rained a lot the last little while, don’t you think?’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Ah, a city girl!’

As if the distance gave him permission to confide in me, he leaned in to whisper something. ‘And let me tell you, I do all the decor, wait tables and wash the dishes, but you’ll never guess what – soon I’m going to be cook’s helper as well! At fifty-three! Never too old to be young again, mam’zelle !’

He straightened up and slammed the dishwasher shut again. ‘Everything you see over there, it’s all from our place. That globe, them old cameras, the marine charts, the grandfather clock, the two-handed saw, the horseshoes. Do we say horseshoes or horse’s shoes? Let me tell you, I reckon you can say either. Oh, and them bottles, the clay pots, them mismatched mugs, even the recipe books! So tell me, which way did you come? Through the valley or round the point?’

‘Er, through the valley.’

‘Good on you, not going out of your way for nothing!’

He rubbed the counter like he was trying to make his rag all dizzy.

‘Out of my way for nothing?’

‘The point! Percé, the Northern Gannets, Bonaventure Island… talk about going out of your way for nothing, mam’zelle ! Think you want to go there?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t made any plans yet.’

‘Because we just got some tourist brochures in today! I haven’t read through them yet, but… Ah! If it isn’t the fair Guylaine herself!’

All at once, he flung the rag away into the sink as if he had dirt on his hands.

Guylaine Leblanc, to look at her, must have been at least sixty-five. With salt-and-pepper hair pulled up into a loose bun, she had about her that air of goodness that grandmothers in American family movies exude. She laughed tenderly with a twinkle in her eye for Renaud, who was clearly putty in her hands.

‘Have you met our new tourist, Guylaine? What was your name again?’

‘Catherine.’

‘Catherine what?’

‘Day. Catherine Day.’

‘Catherine Day wants to stay at yours; you have a room for her, don’t you?’

Renaud kissed Guylaine on both cheeks and then she walked me over to her sewing shop, Le Point de Couture, on the south side of Highway 132, where she sold clothes and did alterations. The auberge was at the rear of the shop, well away from any road noise. The vast ground floor was decorated in the same fashion as Renaud’s bistro with a surprisingly comforting hodgepodge of antiques and easy chairs, and there was a deep veranda overlooking the shore. Guylaine had three rooms for tourists upstairs; she must have slept somewhere at the top of the staircase that led to the attic. She gave me a room facing the sea – her favourite, she said – all decked out in white and blue, with driftwood trim and a hand-stitched quilt on the bed. It was a very nice room.

My first Gaspesian morning unfolded beneath a motionless yellow sun. I went downstairs to join the others staying at the auberge for breakfast.

‘…well, my four kids had flown the nest, you know, and my second husband had just passed away, so of course I had a rough time of it when my doctor told me they’d have to cut off my boob… I really didn’t know what would become of me…’

I poured myself a coffee. A young couple – tourists – cooed at each other at one table, while an older lady chattered on and on at Guylaine, shadowing her every footstep.

‘…because there’s no point pretending, you know. I’m sixty-six years old, and I’m not getting any younger. Plus, with only one boob, what kind of man is going to want anything to do with me? I’ve always lived my life for my kids, you know…’

Our landlady was whisking the pancake batter with the kind of laid-back yet attentive air that makes people feel like you’re listening to them and gives chatterboxes carte blanche to pour their hearts out even more than usual.

‘…so this is the first time I’ve ever gone away, because I’ve never travelled, I’ve never done anything, really. I don’t even know what I like to eat! Do you have a favourite meal you like to eat? Well, I don’t! See what I mean?’

I downed the rest of my coffee and took off for the Café du Havre.

That’s where I would have breakfast almost every morning from then on. It’s a pretty spot, basking on the quayside, with its nautical decor and its servers calmly, yet efficiently, breezing around. The hubbub inside bounces off the walls, drifts out the window and seeps its way back in through the side door. It’s the kind of place you know you’re going to lose yourself in a little, cut yourself some slack from all those daily imperatives to be oh-so polite, oh-so on time and oh-so beyond reproach throughout the never-ending loop of days. A time zone unto itself.

‘Christ in a chalice! What did I tell you? Look at them Indians coming back in on the ebb again!’

He was a strong man, gripping his coffee mug with every muscle in that big body of his as he waited for his breakfast. Long hair tied back over his neck and a red bandana on his head. Jeans, work boots and grey sweaters they were wearing, him and his deckhand. They had just returned from fishing pretty much empty-handed. I had been sipping my second coffee when their boat came in. Tails between their legs like that, I figured the lobsters must have given them the cold shoulder. The waitress breezed over with her red hair, green eyes and youthful smile. She set their plates of scrambled eggs down on the children’s drawings that adorned the table top. The men looked up and thanked her. She walked away.