The Monster of Twenty Mile Pond Read online

  THE PREMIERS JOEY AND FRANK

  “A voyeuristic and tantalizing trip through the workings of the government by a man who was there.” — The Pilot

  “Rowe’s stories paint not only an interesting picture of Rowe’s own life, but the lives of the two men in which the book is named, and in the process, their greed, power and lust.” — The Muse

  “The Premiers Joey and Frank is crack for political junkies and will be a welcome gift for even the marginally interested observer of the political scene.” — The Telegram

  ROSIE O’DELL

  “Rosie O’Dell is one of those books with such brilliant writing as to lull you into forgetting you’re actually reading.” — The Pilot

  “Yes, it’s Bill Rowe—back this time with his third novel, which I think is by far his best. Probably one of the better novels to come out in the past few years—depending on your own tastes, of course.” — The Northeast Avalon Times

  “[A] deeply emotional page-turner by one of the country’s finest writers.” — Megan Murphy, Indigo

  “This is a terrific story that hinges on a woman who is like quicksilver, running through all the cracks.” — The Globe and Mail

  “It’s well-written (Rowe is an experienced and accomplished writer), the characters are excellently drawn and much of the writing is just plain funny.” — The PEI Guardian

  “There is not a false note in this book. All the characters are drawn with skillful insight, the descriptions are so vibrant you can almost hear the water and feel the mist of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Although it has elements of a thriller, this is no gothic soap opera, but rather a brilliantly crafted look into the hearts and souls of ordinary people who are thrown into extraordinary circumstances.” — Atlantic Books Today

  “This novel is a real page-turner, with lots of tension and mystery.”

  — The Telegram

  DANNY WILLIAMS, PLEASE COME BACK

  “I started to really appreciate Rowe’s ability to narrow down a topic and come up with something pithy and witty to say about it, week after week.” — The Telegram

  “Like any columnist worth his salt Rowe is provocative and a number of the columns deal with topics whose lessons are still relevant.” — The Newfoundland Quarterly

  “Rowe’s columns on Williams’s persona, bellicose manner and political antics truly shine. What Danny Should Do in the Crab War? (May 7, 2005) puts a delightful Shakespearian twist on Williams’s strategic positioning; Is Danny a Dictator? (June 25, 2005) will stand as a classic.” — The Chronicle Herald

  “A brisk read and a fine book to have in your personal library.”

  — The Compass

  “[Rowe] does it all, of course, with his usual blend of droll good humour and common sense.” — The Globe and Mail

  “With a mind—and a pen—as sharp as a paper cut, the elegant, affable Rowe remains Newfoundland’s literary agent provocateur, provoking, teasing, sometimes coddling his subjects, but all the time digging towards truths that cause discomfort for the province’s Who’s Who and everyman alike.” — The Business Post

  DANNY WILLIAMS: THE WAR WITH OTTAWA

  “Interesting book about a successful Canadian politician . . .”

  — The Globe and Mail

  “[Danny Williams] is captivating. [Bill Rowe] spares no punches.”

  — The Compass

  “The most interesting political book to be released in Canada in some time . . .” — The Business Post

  “Rowe’s Ottawa chronicle [is] absorbing, humorous.”

  — The Telegram

  “I quickly realized that this was not going to be a dry political memoir. To the contrary, not only is the book interesting and revealing of this contentious time, it is very funny in places.”

  — The Chronicle Herald

  “An exciting read.” — The Newfoundland Quarterly

  “[One of] three of this year’s most controversial and talked about political books.” — The House, CBC Radio

  “Rowe has a more humanistic side to politics. It is as if a citizen managed to be a fly on the wall while Danny Williams fought.”

  — Current Magazine

  “An eye-opening, often hilariously funny, account of life among Ottawa power brokers and civil servants.”

  — Canadian Lawyer Magazine

  “Bill Rowe has a lot to say. There are dozens of interesting stories told, and comments passed on . . .”

  — The Northeast Avalon Times

  “A fascinating and frequently funny read.” — Downhome

  “Written with the knowledge and insight that only an insider could possess, this book (sub-titled ‘The Inside Story of a Hired Gun’) is a timely reminder of the duplicity of far too many of our elected leaders—no matter what their political stripe.”

  — Atlantic Books Today

  “The writer’s good English style—rare today—his knowledge of all kinds of personalities in the political world and his misadventures in getting a basic office set up (which took six of the eight months he was there) all make for amusing and exciting reading.”

  — The PEI Guardian

  BY BILL ROWE

  The Monster of Twenty Mile Pond

  The Premiers Joey and Frank

  Rosie O’Dell

  Danny Williams, Please Come Back

  Danny Williams: The War with Ottawa

  Is That You, Bill?

  The Temptation of Victor Galanti

  Clapp’s Rock

  The Monster

  of Twenty Mile Pond

  Bill Rowe

  Flanker Press Limited

  St. John’s

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rowe, William N. (William Neil), 1942-, author

  The monster of Twenty Mile Pond / Bill Rowe.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77117-369-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-77117-370-4 (epub).--

  ISBN 978-1-77117-371-1 (kindle).--ISBN 978-1-77117-372-8 (pdf)

  I. Title.

  PS8585.O8955M66 2014 C813’.54 C2014-903437-7

  C2014-903438-5

  —————————————————————————————————————— ——————————————

  © 2014 by Bill Rowe

  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 Susan Rendell

  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

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  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 and Recreation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council fo
r 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.

  CHAPTER ONE

  My intentions were good that golden summer afternoon. I was off to visit my beloved, as Ramona then was, to propose marriage. Driving away from my one-room flat, heading out of the city toward her family’s splendid house overlooking the sea in the Cove, I rummaged about in my mind for the protocol I should employ to negotiate her sire’s consent. I pictured her standing with her mother outside the closed door, both of them giggling at how cute and awkward her boyfriend and her daddy were being on the other side of it. She still called him Daddy. What did she do that for, at twenty-three? It had sounded charming when I’d first met her, but it had lately begun to get mildly on my nerves. What, by the way, if Daddy said no?

  But I heard him now in my mind’s ear interrupting my opening gambit: “I thought you’d never ask,” he muttered low, so as not to be heard on the other side of the door. “The answer is yes. What were you waiting for? Yes. Yes. Yes.” I was intuiting, perhaps with some slight exaggeration, that Daddy wouldn’t be that much of a challenge. He plainly loved his daughter dearly, if “Ask and you shall receive” constituted fatherly love, but he did not give the impression of wanting to detain her as a resident of his home any longer than strictly necessary.

  It was the same with Mommy. Yes, she called her Mommy still. Last month when I complimented Mommy again on the house and the superb view, she said, “Don’t be intimidated by this house, Bill. I’m sure Ramona could get used to living in something small and unpretentious for a little while.”

  A couple of weeks ago, I’d heard Daddy whisper ferociously to Mommy in the kitchen, “What is it with her? She’s so bloody contrary and pigheaded about every damn thing.”

  To which Mommy sighed, “I know, I know. But this too shall pass. Soon—be patient—it’s coming soon, soon . . .”

  I mentioned that parental exchange, which had sounded like they were desperate for a bailout, to my wise older sister, Maggie, and asked her what I was missing, because I didn’t find my divine Ramona that way at all.

  Maggie put her arm around my neck and looked sideways into my face with a droll smile. “No, of course you don’t, my Billy boy,” she said, “because now you two only meet to kiss and cuddle, if that’s the right word. But just wait till you’re walled in with her every breakfast, dinner, and bedtime, and she unearths a few irksome habits of yours—that might bring it out in her.”

  Motoring along Portugal Cove Road, I reached Windsor Lake, still called Twenty Mile Pond by old-timers who liked to bring to mind the distance around its shores. I was always partial to that ancient, down-to-earth name myself, and wished it had never been changed.

  There was a northwest wind crossing the water and the sun was low in the sky; objects stood out starkly and looked unnaturally close.

  Maybe that was why the crows were squawking out a raucous din louder and in greater numbers than I’d ever heard before. My eyes were drawn to a wide-winged osprey soaring high above the lake. That magnificent raptor and its mate, called seahawks by some, were a common sight that summer, and the constant talk of people was the joy of catching sight of one abruptly diving from a lofty height to the water far below, and seizing a trout in its talons.

  Preoccupied by wavering thoughts in my head, I glanced under the sun at the long, gilded stream of shimmering waves, and the two or three seagulls gliding above them. A striking image all at once filled my vision. It was the osprey. The great bird was just above the waves, and struggling to hover there, talons spread, as if it had brought its dive to a hasty, unforeseen halt. Then, in a merest instant, through the dazzle of light, I glimpsed a snakelike limb whip out of the water near the osprey, seize a seagull from midair, and vanish with it beneath a splash of spume and foam.

  I jerked the car across the road into a space by the shore and stopped. The osprey was already climbing fast, propelled by the thrusts of its mighty five-foot wings. I swept my eyes over the lake for many minutes, but nothing appeared on its surface again; I could see only the glittering crests of waves. At last, I moved my car onto the road, but instead of continuing toward the house overlooking the sea, I turned around and drove back to my little room in the city, the plans in my head altered utterly.

  “But why?” Ramona beseeched me. “Why are you doing this? We’re so perfect together.” I had no answer for her, especially since I well realized that I was giving up the woman who physically excited me more than anyone else I’d ever met. What was I to say to her? That I was doing it because I’d seen or, more likely, hallucinated, a tentacle emerging from Twenty Mile Pond and snatching, and dragging under, a pitiable gull that looked a lot like me?

  I said nothing. But perhaps I should have answered her question. She may have been more content if she’d understood that the man who was breaking up with her was a raving lunatic. As it happened, though, she was the one who turned out to be, in the practical sense, if not the clinical, the raving lunatic.

  She married one of my fellow lawyers a couple of years after, and their relationship steadily degenerated. Her healthy appreciation of wine when I’d known her became a serious drinking problem. Her husband found out from a colleague that she’d been unfaithful to him in a Montreal hotel, after a binge in the bar. He suspected she’d also developed a codeine habit.

  None of these facets of her character were clearly evident when I knew her, but in retrospect I was not amazed that they’d emerged. When her husband separated from her, she used every force and power at her command—the female judge called it “sheer spite and vindictiveness”—to try to deprive him of shared custody of their two kids, or even of regular access to them. At one point she went public to allege that the “lawyers’ union” had ganged up on her with the judges to support one of their own, and were criminally conspiring against her.

  I ran into the ex-hubby years later at the Ship Inn, and he told me ruefully over a beer that I owed him big time.

  “What for?” I asked.

  With a drawn-out shake of his head and a woebegone grin, he replied, “For not marrying her when you had the chance.”

  Never again, after that life-changing day, did I see anything like my vision of the glorious seahawk and the doomed seagull. And I never heard tell of anything lurking beneath the waves of Twenty Mile Pond that could have produced that tentacle. Not until now, twenty-two years later.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Our seventeen-year-old niece, Esme, was as wilful as she was lovely, my wife and I both agreed, and as unruly as she was bright. She was starting to cause us more woe than our own two kids combined. What had once been just exasperating had become worrisome, especially since her cousin, our own, slightly younger daughter, Molly, was also her loyal and constant companion.

  I was inclined to be lenient, even indulgent, with Esme. After the tragedy that had befallen her five years before, I found her behaviour to be—no, not reasonable, but understandable, and my relentless awareness of what she’d been through gave me the desire and strength to bear with her.

  That was probably why I considered her first infractions fairly minor. When she was fourteen, for example, she’d been caught smoking with an older girl in the school washroom. She reported to me afterwards, with a contrite smile, that the principal had kicked her out of school for three days. It should only have been for two days, she said, but when he demanded why she had broken the rule of absolutely no smoking by anyone in the school, she’d replied, “I’m not allowed to sneak one in the staff room and blow the smoke out the window like some teachers do.” Bingo, an extra day off for being so smart-alecky.

  I told her I was more concerned with her smoking in the first pla
ce than with her doing it in school. She replied that I was not to worry; she was not asinine enough to start smoking, and the whole thing had been an egregious—her word—mistake on her part that would not recur. When the principal called me, knowing from her mother, my sister, Maggie, that I was helping with Esme’s parenting, he said that, normally, in these circumstances, she could have been expelled.

  “For smoking?” I responded in surprise.

  “They weren’t smoking tobacco,” he replied. “The teacher who caught them smelled marijuana, but the girls managed to flush the joint down the toilet.” So the principal used the lack of physical evidence and her good grades, plus her traumatic history, to tone down the punishment. Besides, our daughter Molly had told her teacher that Esme had only been experimenting on herself about the effects of cannabis because she’d read online that the drug could have a calming influence on the kind of muscle spasms that afflicted her mother.

  “I have my reservations about Esme’s noble experiment, myself,” the principal went on, “not having just fallen off the turnip truck, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt this one time, anyway.” Yes, we both agreed, normally Esme was a wonderful young lady.

  Then, when Esme was fifteen, her mother, Maggie, called me at midnight on a Friday. “Two policemen just brought my daughter home,” Maggie laboured to say, “and deposited her on the doorstep, drunk. If she passes out and throws up, I mightn’t be able to help her.” I released my wife’s amorous hold on me with apologies and regret, and pecked her pursed lips. She patted my shoulder as if she was consoling the loser in a squash tournament, and I hauled on a sweatsuit to drive over to Maggie’s.

  Esme was sprawled on the sofa. Seeing me, she lurched up straight and pulled at her skirt, which had ridden well up over her knees; the black tights had a run in one leg which extended to the ankle. Her lipstick was smeared, and her hair, as our father used to describe boisterous young Maggie’s own, was like a birch broom in the fits. Despite her disarray, my wife’s comment of a few weeks ago was still apt: “She’s an alarmingly gorgeous creature.” Two unopened bottles of beer were on the coffee table in front of her. The police had found them in her handbag.