The Shipping News Part 9

"Let's paint her red, too," said Bunny. Laughed like a hyena.

Quoyle pulled in beside the aunt's truck. He'd wrestle with the trailer and the boat on Sunday. Dennis Buggit on the roof, tossing s.h.i.+ngles into the wind. The aunt opened the door and cried "Ta-TA!"

Smooth walls and ceilings, the joint compound still showing trowel marks, the fresh window sills, price stickers on the smudgy window gla.s.s. A smell of wood. Mattresses leaned against a wall. The girls' room. Bunny piled wood shavings on her head.

"Hey, Dad, look at my curly hair, Daddy, look at my curly hair. Dad! I got curly hair." Shrill and close to tears. Quoyle picked at melted cheese on her s.h.i.+rt.

In the kitchen the aunt ran water into a sink, turned on the gas stove to show.

"I've made a nice pot of stewed cod," she said. "Dennis brought a loaf of Beety's homemade bread. I got bowls and spoons before I came over, b.u.t.ter and some staples. Perishables in that ice cooler. You'll have to bring ice over. I don't know when we can get a gas refrigerator in here. Nephew, you'll have to manage with the air mattress and sleeping bag in your room for a while. But the girls've got bed frames and box springs."

Quoyle and Bunny put a table together of planks and sawhorses.

"This is heavy," said Bunny, horsing up one end of a plank, panting in mock exhaustion.

"Yes," said Quoyle, "but you are very strong." His stout, homely child with disturbing ways, but a grand helper with boards and stones and boxes. Not interested in the things of the kitchen unless on a platter.

Dennis came down from the roof, grinned at Quoyle. There was nothing in him of Jack Buggit except eyes darting to the horizon, measuring cuts of sky.

"Great bread," said Quoyle, folding a slice into his mouth.

"Yeah, well, Beety makes bread every day, every day but Sunday. So."

[102] "And good fish," said the aunt. "All we need's string beans and salad."

"So," said Dennis. "The caplin run'll be soon. Get a garden in. Caplin's good fertilizer."

In the afternoon Quoyle and Bunny wiped at the lumpy joint compound with wet sponges until the seams were smooth. Bunny intent, the helpful child. But glancing in every corner. On the roof Dennis hammered. The aunt sanded windowsills, laid a primer coat.

In the last quarter-light Quoyle walked with Dennis down to the new dock. On the way they pa.s.sed the aunt's amus.e.m.e.nt garden, a boulder topped with silly moss like hair above a face. Scattered through the moss a stone with a bull's-eye, a sh.e.l.l, bits of coral, white stone like the silhouette of an animal's head.

The wood of the new dock was resinous and fragrant. Water slapped beneath. Curdled foam.

"Tie your boat up now, can't you?" said Dennis. "Pick up a couple old tires so she don't rub."

Dennis slipped the mooring lines, jumped into his own boat, and hummed into the dusk on curling wake. The lighthouses on the points began to wink. Quoyle went up the rock to the house, toward windows flooded with orange lamplight. Turned, glanced again across the bay, saw Dennis's wake like a white hair.

In the kitchen the aunt shuffled cards, dealt them around.

"We'd play night after night when I was a girl," she said. "Old games. n.o.body knows them now. French Boston, euchre, jambone, scat, All-Fours. I know every one."

Slap, slap, the cards.

"We'll play All-Fours. Now, every jack turned up by the dealer counts a point for him. Here we are, clubs are trumps."

But the children couldn't understand and dropped their cards. Quoyle wanted his book. The aunt's blood boiled up.

"Everlasting whining!" What had she expected? To reconstruct some rare evening from her ancient past? Laughed at herself.

So Quoyle told his daughters stories in the dim bedroom, of explorer cats sighting new lands, of birds who played cards and lost them in the wind, of pirate girls and buried treasure.

[103] Downstairs again, looked at the aunt at the table, home at last. Her gla.s.s of whiskey empty.

"It's quiet," said Quoyle, listening.

"There's the sea." Like a door opening and closing. And the cables' vague song.

Quoyle woke in the empty room. Grey light. A sound of hammering. His heart. He lay in his sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. The candle on its side. Could smell the wax, smell the pages of the book that lay open beside him, the dust in the floor cracks. Neutral light illumined the window. The hammering again and a beating shadow in the highest panes. A bird.

He got up and went to it. Would drive it away before it woke the aunt and the girls. It seemed the bird was trying to break from the closed room of sea and rock and sky into the vastness of his bare chamber. The whisper of his feet on the floor. Beyond the gla.s.s the sea lay pale as milk, pale the sky, scratched and scribbled with cloud welts. The empty bay, far sh.o.r.e creamed with fog. Quoyle pulled his clothes on and went downstairs.

On the threshold lay three wisps of knotted gra.s.s. Some invention of Suns.h.i.+ne's. He went behind the great rock to which the house was moored and into the bushes. His breath in cold cones.

A faint path angled toward the sea, and he thought it might come out onto the sh.o.r.e north of the new dock. Started down. After a hundred feet the trail went steep and wet, and he slid through wild angelica stalks and billows of dogberry. Did not notice knots tied in the tips of the alder branches.

Entered a band of spruce, branches snarled with moss, whiskey jacks fluttering. The path became a streambed full of juicy rocks. A waterfall with the flattened ocean at its foot. He stumbled, grasping at Alexanders, the leaves perfuming his hands.

Fountains of blackflies and mosquitoes around him. Quoyle saw a loop of blue plastic. He picked it up, then a few feet farther along spied a sodden diaper. A flat stick stamped "5 POINTS POINTS Popsicle [104] Pete." When he came on a torn plastic bag he filled it with debris. Tin cans, baby-food jars, a supermarket meat tray, tom paper cajoling the jobless reader. Popsicle [104] Pete." When he came on a torn plastic bag he filled it with debris. Tin cans, baby-food jars, a supermarket meat tray, tom paper cajoling the jobless reader.

... perhaps you are not quite confident that you can successfully complete the full program in Fas.h.i.+on Merchandising. Well, I can make you a special offer that will make it easier for you. Why not try just Section One of the course to begin with. This does not involve you in a long-term commitment and it will give you the opportunity to ...

Plastic line, the unfurled cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper, pink tampon inserters.

Behind him a profound sigh, the sigh of someone beyond hope or exasperation. Quoyle turned. A hundred feet away a fin, a glistening back. The Minke whale rose, glided under the milky surface. He stared at the water. Again it appeared, sighed, slipped under. Roiling fog arms flew fifty feet above the sea.

A texture caught his eye, knots and whorls down in the rock. The object was pinched in a cleft. He worked it back and forth and then jerked at it. Held it on his palm. Intricate knots in wire, patterned spirals and loops. Wires broken where he had tom the thing loose from the rock. He turned it over, saw a corroded fastening pin. And, turning it this way and that, he caught the design, saw a fanciful insect with double wings and plaited thorax. The wire not wire but human hair-straw, rust, streaky grey. The hair of the dead. Something from the green house, from the dead Quoyles. He threw the brooch, with revulsion, into the pulsing sea.

Climbing again toward the house, he reached the spruce trees, heard a rough motor. A boat veered toward the sh.o.r.e and he thought it was Dennis until he saw the scabbed paint, fray and grime. The dory idled. The man in the stem cut the motor, raised the propeller. Drifted in the fog. The man's head was down, white stubble and gapped mouth. His jacket crudely laced with thrummy twine. Old and strong. Jerked up a line of whelk pots. Nothing. He lowered the propeller, pulled again and again on the greasy rope. The engine settled into a ragged beat. In a minute man and [105] boat were eaten by mist. The motor faded south in the direction of the glove factory, the ruins of Capsize Cove.

Quoyle clawed up. Thought that if he got in there with axe and saw, set some pressure-treated steps in the steepest pitches, built a bridge over the wet spots, gravel and moss-it would be a beauty of a walk down to the sea. Some part of this place as his own.

"We thought the gulls had carried you off." The smell of coffee, little kid hubbub, the aunt in her ironed blue jeans, hair done up in a scarf, b.u.t.tering toast for Suns.h.i.+ne.

"Dennis was here in his truck. He's got to go cut wood with his father-in-law. Said bad weather was coming, you might want to get the rest of the s.h.i.+ngles on. Says it ought to take a day, day and a half. Left you his carpenter's belt. Wasn't sure if you had tools. Said there's five or six more squares under that sheet of plastic. He's not sure when he'll be able to get back. Maybe by Wednesday. Look what he brought the girls."

Two small hammers with hand-whittled handles lay on the table. The throats of the handles painted, one with red stripes, the other with blue.

But Quoyle felt a black wing fold him in its reeking pit. He had never been on a roof, never put down a s.h.i.+ngle. He poured a cup of coffee, slopping it in the saucer, refused the toast made from Dennis's wife's bread.

Went to the foot of the ladder, looked up. A tall house. How tall, he didn't know. Steep pitch of roof. In all Newfoundland the roofs were flat, but the Quoyles had to have a wild pitch.

He took a breath and began to climb.

The aluminum ladder bounced and sang as he went up. He climbed slowly, gripped the rungs. At the edge of the roof he looked down to see how bad it was. The rock glinted cruelly with mica. He raised his eyes to the roof. Tar paper stapled down. New s.h.i.+ngles halfway. There was a wooden brace nailed above the s.h.i.+ngles. Crouch on the brace and nail the s.h.i.+ngles? The worst part would be getting up to the brace. Slowly he got back down to the ground. [106] He heard Suns.h.i.+ne laughing in the kitchen, the tap of the small hammer. Sweet earth beneath his feet!

But buckled on Dennis's carpenter's belt, the pouch heavy with roofing nails, the hammer knocking his leg as he climbed. Halfway up he thought of the s.h.i.+ngles, went back down and got three.

Now climbed with only one hand, the other clenching the asphalt pieces. At the top of the ladder he had a bad moment. The ladder rose up several rungs above the roof and he had to step off to the side onto the roof, to crawl up with the deep air beneath him.

He crouched awkwardly on the brace, saw that Dennis put the s.h.i.+ngles on in tiers that he could reach comfortably, then set the brace in a new position. The tops of the spruces were like stains in the fog below. He could hear the slow pound of the sea. He did nothing for a few minutes. It wasn't so bad.

Quoyle put his three s.h.i.+ngles up behind him on the slant. Took one, slowly b.u.t.ted it to Dennis's last, taking care to maintain the five-inch reveal. He got a few nails out of the ap.r.o.n, gingerly eased the hammer from under his b.u.t.tock, got it out of the leather loop. He nailed the s.h.i.+ngle. As he pounded the third nail home he heard a sliding sound, saw the two loose s.h.i.+ngles he had carried up, slipping down. He stopped them with his hammer. Placed a s.h.i.+ngle, nailed it. The third. It was not difficult, only awkward and breathless.

Now Quoyle balanced half a square of s.h.i.+ngles on his shoulder, climbed back. It was easier, and he got up the roof without crawling, laid the s.h.i.+ngles over the ridge and set to work. He glanced at the sea once or twice, saw the profile of a tanker on the horizon like a water snake floating in ease.

He was on the last row. It was fast now because he could straddle the ridge. The nails sank into the wood.

"Hi, Daddy."

He heard Bunny's voice, glanced toward the ground, but the glance stopped high. She stood on one of the rungs above the roof level, straining to put her foot on the roof. She held the hammer with the red-striped neck. Quoyle saw in a tiny vivid window that [107] Bunny was going to put her foot on the roof, was going to step forward onto the edge of the steep pitch as though on a level path, was going to fall, to pinwheel shrieking to the rock.

"I'm going to help you." Her foot reached for the roof.

"Oh, little child," breathed Quoyle. "Wait there." His voice was low but pa.s.sionately urgent. "Don't move. Wait there for me. I'm coming to get you. Hold on tight. Don't come on the roof. Let me get you." The mesmerizing voice, the father fixing his child in place with his starting eyes, inching down the evil slope on the wrong side of everything, then grasping the child's arm, her hammer falling away, he saying "Don't move, don't move, don't move," hearing the painted hammer clatter on the rock below. And Quoyle, safe on the rungs, Bunny pinned between his chest and the ladder.

"You're squas.h.i.+ng me!"

Quoyle went down with trembling legs, one hand on the rungs, his left arm folded around his daughter's waist. The ladder shook with his shaking. He could not believe she hadn't fallen, for in two or three seconds he had lived her squalling death over and over, reached out time after time to grip empty air.

12.

The Stern Wave "To prevent slipping, a knot depends on friction, and to provide friction there must be pressure of some sort. This pressure and the place within the knot where it occurs is called the nip. The security of a knot seems to depend solely on its nip nip."

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS.

IT WAS like mirror writing. The slightest change in reverse sent the trailer on the opposite tack, and Quoyle squinted in the side mirror at reflections of opposition. Again and again it folded like a jackknife blade seeking its bed, and twice it gouged the new dock. He was sick of it when finally the thing went straight back and into the water. A trick to it. like mirror writing. The slightest change in reverse sent the trailer on the opposite tack, and Quoyle squinted in the side mirror at reflections of opposition. Again and again it folded like a jackknife blade seeking its bed, and twice it gouged the new dock. He was sick of it when finally the thing went straight back and into the water. A trick to it.

Got out and looked at the trailer. Wheels were in the water, the boat poised. His hand was on the tilt latch when he thought of a securing line. That would be fun, launch the boat and watch it float away.

He managed to attach bow and stern lines, yanked the latch. The boat slid down. He got the winch line loose, scrambled onto the dock and made the boat fast. It was something of a two-man [109] operation. Then back to the trailer, close the latch, wind up the cable. The fifty-dollar boat was in the water.

He got in, remembered the d.a.m.n motor. Still in the station wagon. Carried it onto the dock, put his foot on the gunwale and fell into the boat. Cursed all vessels from floating logs to supertankers.

Quoyle didn't see he'd mounted the motor in a position that would force the bow up like the nose of a bird dog. He poured in gas from the red can.

The motor started on the first pull. There was Quoyle sitting in the stern of a boat. His boat. The motor was running, his hand was on the tiller, wedding ring glinting. He moved the gears.h.i.+ft to reverse, as he had seen Dennis do, and gingerly applied a little power. The boat swung in toward the dock at the stern. Jockeyed back and forth until he was beyond the dock. s.h.i.+fted into forward. The motor gave a low roar and the boat went-too fast-parallel with the sh.o.r.e. He eased back on the throttle and the boat wallowed. Now forward again, and rocks leaped up ahead of him. Instinctively he pushed the tiller toward the sh.o.r.e and the boat curved out onto Omaloor Bay. The water curled. Traveling on a gla.s.s arrow.

He worked the tiller, traced curves. Now faster. Quoyle laughed like a dog in the back of a pickup. Why had he feared boats?

There was an offsh.o.r.e breeze and the waves slapped the boat bottom as he sped at them. A sharp turn and he felt the boat skid. Pushed the throttle back. The stern wave roared up behind him and sloshed over the transom, swirled around his ankles and spread out in the boat. He pulled at the throttle again and the boat leapt forward, but sluggishly, and the water on the floor rushed toward the stern, adding its weight to Quoyle's. He looked for something to bail out the water; nothing. Turned very carefully toward the dock. The boat was vague and unwilling, for the water had altered the trim. Yet he moved forward, not afraid of sinking only two hundred feet from the dock.

As he approached he jerked back on the throttle again, and again the stern wave sloshed over the transom. But close enough [110] to cut the motor and let the boat grind against the dock. He threw his mooring lines over the piles and went up to the house for a coffee can bail.

Back on the water again, he played the throttle delicately, turning with care, wary of the stern wave. There had to be a way to keep the water out when you slowed down.

"Of course there is," said Nutbeem. "Your transom's cut too low. What you need is a motor well, a bulkhead as high as the sides of the boat forward of the motor, with self-bailing drains in each corner. Build one in an hour. I'm flabbergasted they registered it the way it is."

"It's not registered," said Quoyle.

"You'd better hop on down to the Coast Guard and do it," said Nutbeem. "You get caught without a registration, without a motor well, without the proper lights and flotation devices they'll fine your a.s.s off. I suppose you have an anchor?"

"No," said Quoyle.

"Oars? Something to bail with? Distress flares? Do you have a safety chain for your motor?"

"No, no," said Quoyle. "I was just trying it out."

On a Sat.u.r.day Dennis and Quoyle hauled the boat out of the water. Bunny on the dock, throwing stones.

"She's a rough b.u.g.g.e.r," said Dennis. "In fact, you might burn her and start over."

"I can't afford to. Can't we put in a motor well? When I tried it out last week it went right along. It was fine until the water came in. I just want to get back and forth across the bay with it."

"I'll put in a bulkhead and give you some advice-only take this thing out on quiet days. If it looks rough better get a ride with your aunt or drive your wagon. It isn't fit, you get in a hard nip."

Quoyle stared at his boat.

"Look at it," said Dennis. "It's just a few planks bunged [111] together. The boy that built it deserves a whack of shot in the backside."

Quoyle's hand went up to his chin.

"Dad," said Bunny, crouched on the pebbles, ramming a stick into the sand. "I want to go in the boat."