Free Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More by Brian Peckford Page A

North Shore and did not
     realize that many of the people whose doors I had just knocked on were sort of
     following me down the pathway to this certain house. As I entered the property,
     a woman came screaming out the doorway.
    “Don’t you dare come on our property, we want nothing to do with those dirty
     Tories. I remember you, Mr. Peckford!”
    My wood assailant strikes again! As we say in the political business, I marked
     her down as doubtful.

    PERHAPS THE MOST UNUSUAL yet
     rewarding experience of that year was the case of the witch and my supervisor,
     which ended with more than a little irony.
    One slow afternoon in July, I was working away in the office and was about to
     close a little early when I heard someone enter. Before I had a chance to open
     the door from the office to the waiting room, this middle-aged woman of medium
     height did it for me. She abruptly entered the office and began chattering on
     about her neighbours. I took my seat behind the desk and tried to make some
     sense of what the lady was saying.
    “Just slow down a bit, missus,” I said. “I can’t pick out what you’re saying.
     What is your name?”
    She told me her name was Rosy. “I lives over there,” pointing out the window,
     “around the harbour, in old Skipper Thoms’s garden. Of course he’s dead, been
     dead for years. But his relatives are there.”
    “And why did you come and see me today?”
    “I come to see you because I knows you will help me. See, those relatives
     thinks I’m a witch.”
    Taken aback, I responded, “Why do you say that?”
    “I told Charlie I had a dream, and he was going to drown in a few weeks.
     Charlie did not like that. And his wife, she will get a visit from a stranger, I
     told him.”
    “Well, don’t you think telling them about such tragedies was pretty
     unusual?”
    “But I dreamt it and it is real. But you—you are favoured. You are
     favoured.”
    “Favoured?”
    “Yes, the Satan man told me.”
    I realized that this was not going to be easy. I figured that I should just go
     along and see where this would take me.
    “But these are really only dreams, Rosy,” I quietly replied. “They are not
     real.”
    “Oh, oh you are wrong, Mr. Peck—my dreams come true, and the Satan man? He
     visited me in my kitchen yesterday.”
    “I would say that this Satan man was really a dream too—a waking
     dream.”
    This stalled Rosy. She paused and seemed to be trying to process this twist to
     the conversation. She mumbled, “Waking dream, waking dream.”
    I thought this was a good time to pose some down-to-earth questions that might
     take her out of her spell.
    “Rosy, are you married?”
    “I was; he’s gone now. Jack’s gone now.”
    “What happened, Rosy?”
    “He drowned. I told him that it was too rough out there. I told him to leave
     his trap until tomorrow, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s gone and I am
     alone.”
    “I am really sorry to hear that, Rosy. That must have been quite a shock. I had
     a friend who drowned.”
    “You did? You had a friend who drowned?”
    “Yes, I did. And I was pretty sad for a long time.”
    “For a long time,” she repeated.
    “And Rosy, you have been sad for a long time, too.”
    “Yes, four years is a long time,” she said, almost under her breath.
    “Well, now you know someone who has had an experience something like
     yours.”
    “Yes, Mr. Peck. I am glad I met you. But the people in the garden, Charlie and
     his wife and friends, are tormenting me—they say I am a witch . . .”
    “Well, I will go over to your place with you and talk to Charlie and his wife
     and his friends.”
    “You will come over with me now!” she exclaimed.
    “Yes. I will, right now.”
    And so we left and walked around the harbour. She was now in good spirits and
     pointed out where her late parents had lived, where her father’s stage was,
     where she had played tiddlywinks, and the dilapidated building that used to be
     her school.