IN THE morning both Peter and Samuel joined them at breakfast. Smiling, Peter handed them a substantial wad of dollars.
“First instalment of my loan to you,” he said. Samuel was chuckling. “Should see you all right in Rigo for a couple of weeks, as well as pay your bills here at the inn. And no hurry to pay it back! Wait until you’ve earned a little. Did you say you used to work as a carpenter, Michael? You may be able to find some work here in Rigo, while you’re waiting for a ship. I’m sorry, I can’t show you around today, I’m still busy with Samuel. You’ll have to find your way around Rigo on your own. Don’t get lost!”
After breakfast, Michael and Rachel decided to explore the city on their own. Heedful of Peter’s warning, they took great care to memorise landmarks that would guide them to the inn—and to Benjamin’s house. Both the hospital and the cathedral were easy landmarks, so they concentrated on roads leading to those places. For about two hours they explored many streets, mostly consisting of shops and restaurants. Moving a bit further from the city centre, they came upon rows of rather dowdy houses, all much smaller than the farmhouses they’d been accustomed to at home, and joined up to one another. They were wondering whether any of these houses would be available to rent, when they noticed a card in one of the windows: ROOM TO LET.
“Might be worth asking,” said Michael as he knocked on the door. A plump, middle-aged woman with thin grey hair and a rather careworn face answered it. Upon their explaining their needs, she showed them to a rather down-at-heel bedroom, a lot smaller than their room at the inn. But it seemed reasonably clean, and upon Rachel enquiring about the rent, the woman named a figure that would work out considerably cheaper than their stay at the inn. They asked to go away and think about it for a bit.
Once they were out in the street again, Michael said “What about it, Rachel?” Rachel replied, “Ugh! Not a very nice area, is it? And that room—the whole house in fact—looks decidedly shabby. And do you trust that woman?”
“We don’t have to trust her. We don’t have to tell her anything. And if she starts getting inquisitive, well we’ve already told a few lies, these last two days! Point is, it’d be hard for even Yellow-Hair to find us here, once she’s taken down that card—whereas in the inn we’d be easy enough to pin down.”
At length Rachel saw the sense in that. They went back into the house and agreed terms with their new landlady, setting the following day for taking up occupancy. Michael was able to pay a deposit on the rent out of his newly-acquired wad of cash. There was, however, one more question he wanted to ask.
“Mrs—er, Mrs—”
“Norman. Mrs Norman, the name’s Mrs Norman. Now what was it about?”
“Do you know in what part of the city there are likely to be trade workshops? Carpenters’ yards, metal workshops, builders’ yards, that sort of thing?”
“Strangers here, eh? And looking for work? You might try going north along this street. Though I won’t promise you’ll come up with anything.”
Thanking her, they went back out into the street, and followed her directions, turning north. Sure enough, after about twenty minutes walking they came to a district full of the kind of workshops Michael was looking for.
But luck was not with them. Michael enquired at many carpenters’ yards, but not one of them had any vacancies. After two hours of trying, they were feeling very tired and frustrated. Michael began to wonder if his western accent was betraying him: the speech of Waknuk and Kentak was markedly different from that of Rigo. It could be that these places were suspicious of ‘foreigners’, especially those who came from ‘out west’. It had been so much easier to get that carpenter’s job in Kentak! Michael almost wished he was back there.
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“Let’s make our way back to the City centre and get ourselves some lunch. We’re not doing any good here,” said Rachel, soothingly.
So back they went. Soon they were seated at a small but clean café, sharing a big meat and potato pie. Just as their plates were being taken away, Michael suddenly started and slapped himself on the forehead.
“Fool! Oh I’ve been so stupid! Of course! What is it we’re really looking for in Rigo? A ship to sail in, of course! And where there are ships, there’s got to be at least one shipyard, surely. And what trades do shipyards welcome, amongst others? Why, carpenters! That’s where I should be looking.”
“But not now,” insisted Rachel. “Now let’s go back to the inn and rest for a while. We’re both exhausted. And later in the afternoon we’ll be calling on Benjamin again—remember? The shipyard can wait until tomorrow. Perhaps Benjamin can point us towards one. Better than asking Mrs Norman: I don’t fancy telling her too much about our plans.”
So back to the inn they went, finding their way through Rigo’s streets without too much trouble. And later in the afternoon they managed to navigate themselves, with only one or two wrong turnings, back to Benjamin’s house. Their timing was perfect: just as they were about to knock on the door they spied Benjamin walking towards them from the end of the street. He was wearing a suit of dark cloth with a white gown over it: this appeared to be the ‘uniform’ for doctors in those parts.
“Hi there, again! Do come in. Just give me time to change and have a cup of tea, then we’ll be out again, exploring more of Rigo.”
Laura was in the kitchen with the children: they were all delighted to see their new friends once more. Laura placed a tin of biscuits on the table, and busied herself with making a pot of tea. Rachel watched her with some curiosity, never having seen tea made before.
“Oh, it’s quite simple, really,” explained Laura. “I use a few spoonfuls of these dried leaves—yes, I know they don’t look like much! They don’t grow in Labrador: they have to be shipped from much further south, where the climate is much warmer. You put the dry tea in the pot and then pour boiling water over them, then wait a minute or two, and it’s ready to drink—hot. With a few drops of milk—and sugar if you prefer.”
“Don’t you have to boil the water again, with the leaves in it?” asked Rachel, remembering how she used to make cocoa, back at the farm.
“Oh no! You must never do that: it quite spoils the tea. Just make an ‘infusion’ with the water off the boil.”
“And the milk?” continued Rachel, noticing the jug on the table. “I didn’t see your cow anywhere: where do you keep her?”
“Oh, we don’t need to have our own cow,” laughed Laura. “A man comes around early every morning, with a horse and cart, and delivers milk, pours it straight into our milk-jug. He gets it sent to him from a farm a little way outside Rigo. Didn’t you have the same arrangement in Kentak?”
“We probably did, but I didn’t stay in Kentak long enough to find out. Michael will know.” Michael nodded. “Everything’s so different, here in Rigo, from what it was back home! At least I recognise sugar. We had that back where I came from, on the farm beyond Kentak—” (she remembered Michael’s care not to mention Waknuk) “—comes from the sugar maple trees that grew all around. And a good thing too—or else I’d never have been able to make jam.”
“Yes, this is sugar too,” said Laura, pointing to the bowl on the table. “But it doesn’t come from sugar maple trees: there aren’t enough of them growing around Rigo. It comes from a plant called sugar-cane, which grows way down south—like the tea and coffee (have you tried coffee?)—where the weather’s much hotter. But it tastes the same as the sugar you’re used to. And it’s cheaper.”
Just then Benjamin re-joined them, and Rachel and Michael, both satisfied with Laura’s account, helped themselves to biscuits and downed their cups of tea, while the children had cups of cocoa. Then Benjamin stood up and reached for a rough fur coat hanging on a peg.
“It’s going to be chilly later on—I see you’ve both got furs—good! Let’s be going then.” He kissed Laura and the children, and out they went.
“Are we going to the harbour? Where the ships are?” asked Michael. Benjamin nodded, and they headed off to the south.