The Codfish Dream by David Giblin

Author:David Giblin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Heritage House
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

twenty-eight CAROL

CAROL HAD THE job of housekeeper at the Carringtons’ resort, taking care of the cabins that the fly-in guests used during their stay. Before Carol came to the resort, the housekeeping had taken two people all day; she was able to do it by herself and finish by lunchtime. She quickly found she could more than double her income if she offered her services to the owners of the yachts at the marina, so after she’d finished the cabins each day she spent the afternoons cleaning boats. Carol was making more money in a day than most of the guides were.

Behind the resort was a trail that led all over the island. On afternoons when she had no boats to clean she could walk the trail to the lake, or, in the opposite direction, be at our house in a matter of minutes. If we were out fishing, which was often the case, she was welcome to make herself at home. Our house became a haven for her.

The indifference people showed to her comings and goings as she cleaned up after them completely amazed her. She was ready to accept most of the men as incredibly untidy. She was even willing to deal with their thoughtless demands as part of the job. She was not ready for the way people totally ignored her presence. Growing up in a small town she was always treated as an individual. No matter what you did, people recognized the person behind the job. This was definitely not true at the resort, especially on the yachts. Carol felt like a charwoman in a nineteenth-century Gothic novel. If people were on board while she cleaned, they went about their business as though she didn’t exist. They would talk among themselves about the most personal matters, have arguments, even make passes at other people’s wives in her presence. They would leave confidential documents lying around, open and in full view: investment plans, ad campaigns, information that would be of enormous interest to the right people.

Carol wasn’t the kind of person to take advantage of the situation. Yet the way the people involved seemed to take this for granted began to disturb her. Especially when she realized their assumptions weren’t based on her highly developed moral code but on the fact that she was a housekeeper. She sensed a strong condescension, even suspected they might think she was too stupid to know what she was looking at. The longer it went on the more she wanted to do something about it.

If they had taken the time to find out something about her, they would have quickly revised their opinion. As well as speaking English and French, Carol was fluent in Ukrainian and German. The Ukrainian she had learned from her grandparents and the neighbours she had grown up with in the Kootenays. This talent with language meant that her winters on the ski hills had also given her a smattering of Swedish, Italian, and even Japanese. She

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