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fishing vessels because the boats will be no good to the fishermen anymore. And the few fish that’ll be left will be so full of splinters they’ll only be good for firewood — they’ll have nothing else to eat but those scuttled boats.”
    â€œImagine taking on the Premier!” Danny says. “Imagine that!”
    â€œAnd she’ll be back in power before long,” Paddy loyally predicts. “All the signs are about that the Liberals are going to make a come-back.” He wags a finger at Danny. “She’ll be our premier yet. Mark my words.”
    Again we fall into silence, but after only a few minutes the sounds of Hubert’s strangling once more press unmercifully against my eardrums. I gulp for air, and even though the hall is bitterly cold, I break out in a heavy sweat. Paddy Flynn leans against the stair railing, a touch of a smile still on his face. In desperation, I say, “Paddy! Tell us some stories. You never run short of stories. Come on!”
    Danny pokes Paddy in the ribs. “Come on, b’y. You’re not here for your good looks. Keep talking. Make something up if you have to.”
    Paddy straightens up, rearranges his legs to get more comfortable and looks towards Greg for permission to keep talking. Greg shrugs. The night is already out of his control.
    â€œDid I ever tell ye about the time me mudder went to Boston to visit my sister, Maggie, and she died up there and they flew her body home to St. John’s. And my God Almighty, they lost her?”
    â€œNo,” Danny and I say in unison. Greg, too, shakes his head. By now even he needs a distraction from Hubert’s watery breathing. He has laid his reading material aside and has begun softly drumming his hands on his thighs.
    Paddy takes a swallow of beer and swipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
    â€œWell, ’twas like this,” he begins, rearranging his legs once more, settling himself in for the telling. “Well, you see, she died early one morning up in Boston. A heart attack. We got a phone call telling us about it and that they were sending her back in the morning on the plane. My sister couldn’t come with her because at that time she had so many youngsters at home she practically had to turn them outdoors to count them. So we knew we had to go in to St. John’s to pick her up. To the Torbay Airport.”
    He looks at me. “But, of course, before we could leave home there was stuff we had to do. Like getting the parlour ready.” Paddy knows that if anyone can understand about getting parlours ready for wakes, I can, but for the other two he outlines the preparations necessary to convert a room into a funeral parlour. “We brought in the kitchen chairs to lay the coffin on. Four of them. Got out the candles. Just like that candle in there, very same pale colour. Only we had two of them. Got them on Candlemas Day. Mopped and dusted and threw out the flies that had hung around over the winter. And we brought in lilacs. Hardly opened, mind you, even though it was mid-June. Capelin-skull time. You knows what that’s like. On top of that we had the coldest damn spring, the harbour still had slob ice. There was even a bloody big iceberg grounded out there, came too close to the shore and got hitched up in the shallow water. Just off the lighthouse. Got some neighbours to come stay with the children so me and Bridey and me brother-in-law, Thomas Kiervan, could go to the Torbay Airport. Mick Riley loaned me his station wagon. See, I only had a Volkswagen. And there’s not much space in one of them things for a coffin.”
    He leans over towards Greg, steadying himself by anchoring one hand on the linoleum. “You knows Mick Riley? Lives up the road a ways.”
    Greg nods. “Up by Dolph Simmons. Right!”
    â€œRight you are. Damn glad of his offer I was. Didn’t have the hearse out here then.
    Thanks to our MHA here, we got a