The Shipping News

by Annie Proulx

  “Sung that long as I can remember. The Gander Goose sank at sea and the Bruce was the one they shipped the moose on. Moose from New Brunswick. I don’t know when, back around the First World War. Newfoundland didn’t have moose until they brought them in.” Nor was it anything to her, but the exchange of voices in the humming car encouraged. She thought of a boy in school who had wept over his lunch of mildewed crackers. She had given him her meat sandwich, cut from a cold moose roast.

  “There’s enough of them now,” said Quoyle, laughing, wanting to seize the chapped hand. It seemed an omen when they saw one of the animals in a frozen wallow beside the highway.

  By noon there were open harbors, and the sight of blue water made them both happy. Blue, after months of ice.

  Wavey in the shops on Water Street, exhilarated and startled by the smells of new leather, perfumed magazines, traffic exhaust. She bought a toy cow for Herry, a pair of long underwear for her father. Box of greeting cards for all occasions, on sale. A paring knife with a red handle to replace the stub in the kitchen drawer. A floral-print brassiere in jewel colors. There was lovely Shetland wool that would make a Fair Isle sweater. But it was too expensive. She noticed a monger’s window where, on a bed of ice, a wonderful scene was worked in fish. A skiff made of flounder fillets rode waves of shrimp and blue-black mussels. A whole salmon was a lighthouse, shot out rays of glittering mackerel. All framed by a border of crab claws.

  She had Quoyle’s list, his envelope of money for clothes for Bunny and Sunshine. Tights, corduroy pants, a pullover for Sunshine, socks and panties. What enormous pleasure in shopping for little girls. She added barrettes, socks edged with scallops of lace, two lovely woolly tams, teal and mauve. Careful to guard against the pickpockets that abounded in cities. Ate a roast beef sandwich for lunch and spent the afternoon twacking through rich stores, looking over everything and never spending another cent.

  Quoyle shopped, too, circled the shelves of the asylum gift shop wanting to bring something to the old cousin. Who knew what his memories were? Who knew what his life had been? He’d fished. Pulled up whelk pots. Had owned a dog. Walked at night. Tied knots.

  He looked among the wrestling magazines and machine-embroidered sachets, found a sentimental photograph of a poodle in a stamped metal frame. It would have to do. There was no point in wrapping it, he told the woman at the register and put it in his jacket pocket.

  The old cousin sat in a plastic chair with wooden arms. Sat alone near a window. He was very clean and dressed in a white nightgown, a white robe. Paper slippers on his veiny feet. He stared at a television set in a bracket near the top of the wall, the picture blurred enough to show two mouths, four eyes, an extra rim of cheeks on every face. A bald man talked about diabetes. An explosive blue commercial for antifreeze showing fragments of a hockey game, a spray of ice.

  Quoyle got on a chair and adjusted the controls, lowered the volume. Stood down, sat down. The old cousin looked at him.

  “You come ‘ere, too?”

  “Yes,” said Quoyle. “I came to see you.”

  “Damn long ride, ent it?”

  “Yes,” said Quoyle, “it is. But Wavey Prowse came along for company.” Why tell that to the old cousin?

  “Oh, aye. Lost ‘er ‘usband.”

  “Yes,” said Quoyle. There seemed nothing wrong with the old man’s mind to Quoyle. He looked around for knotted strings, saw none. “Well, what do you think?” he asked cautiously. Could mean anything.

  “Oh! Wunnerful! Wunnerful food! They’s ‘ot rainbaths out of the ceiling, my son, oh, like white silk, the soap she foams up in your ‘and. You feels like a boy to go ‘mongst the ‘ot waters. They gives you new clothes every day. White as the driven snow. The television. They’s cards and games.”

  “It sounds pleasant,” said Quoyle, thinking, he can’t go back to that reeking sty.

  “No, no. It’s not entirely pleasant. Bloody place is full of loonies. I knows where I is. Still, the creature comforts is so wunnerful I play up to ‘em. They asks me, ‘Who are you?’—I says ‘Joey Smallwood.’ Or, ‘Biggest Crab in the Pot.’ ‘Oh, ‘e’s loony,’ they think. ‘Keep ‘im ‘ere.’”

  “Um,” said Quoyle. “There’s a Golden Age home in Killick-Claw. There might be a chance—.” But wasn’t sure if they would take him. Reached in his pocket for the photograph of the poodle, handed it to the old cousin.

  “Brought you a present.”

  The old man held it in his trembling claw, looked. Turned away from Quoyle toward the window, toward the sea, his left hand came up, fingers spread over the eyes.

  “I tied knots ‘gainst you. Raised winds. The sheep is dead. Whiteface can’t get in.”

  Painful. Quoyle wished he’d gotten a box of chocolates. But persevered.

  “Cousin Nolan.” How strange the words sounded. But by uttering them bound himself in some way to this shriveled husk. “Cousin Nolan Quoyle. It’s all in the past. Don’t blame yourself. Can you hold on while I look into the Golden Age home? There’s quite a few from Killick-Claw and No Name Cove there. You know you can’t go back to Capsize Cove.”

  “Never wanted to be there! Wanted to be a pilot. Fly. I was twenty-seven when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. You should have seed me then! I was that strong! ‘E was ‘ere in Newfoundland. ‘E took off from ‘ere. They was all ‘ere, St. Brendan, Leif Erikson, John Cabot, Marconi, Lucky Lindy. Great things ‘as ‘appened ‘ere. I always knowed of it. Knowed I was destined to do fine things. But ‘ow to begin? ‘Ow to get away and begin? I went to fishing but they called me Squally Quoyle. See, I was a jinker, carried bad winds with me. I ‘ad no luck. None of the Quoyles ‘ad no luck. ‘Ad to go on me own. In the end I went down in me ‘opes.”

  Quoyle said he would find out things about the Golden Age home in Killick-Claw. Thought, in the meantime he would sign nothing.

  The old cousin looked beyond Quoyle to the doorway.

  “Where’s Agnis? She ent come see me a once.”

  “To tell the truth, I can’t say why,” said Quoyle.

  “Ah, I knows why she don’t want to come by. Shamed! She’s shamed, knowing what I knows. ‘Er was glad enough to be in my ‘ouse though when she were a girl. Come to the old woman with ‘er trouble, begged for ‘elp. Snivel and bawl. Women’s dirty business! I seen ‘er digging up the root. Squinty little Face-and-Eye berry, the devil’s evil eyes watching out from the bushes. Boiled them roots up into a black devil’s tea, give it to ‘er in the kitchen. She was at it all night, screeched a bomb, the bawling so’s I couldn’t get no rest. See ‘er there in the morning, she wouldn’t look up, turned ‘er dishy face to the wall. There was something bloody in the basin.

  “ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘is it over then?’

  “ ‘It is,’ says the old woman. And I goes out to me boat. It was ‘er brother done it, y’see, that clumsy big Guy Quoyle. Was at ‘er from when she was a little maid.”

  Quoyle grimaced, felt his chapped lower lip split. So the aunt had been to the Nightmare Isles as well. His own father! Christ.

  “I’ll come by in the morning,” he mumbled. “If there’s anything you need.” The old man was looking at the photograph of the poodle. But Quoyle, turning from him, thought he saw the mad glint now, remembered Billy’s vile story about the man’s dead wife. The old woman. Assaulting the corpse. Ah, the Quoyles.

  In the hotel dining room Quoyle ordered wine. Some obscure Bordeaux, corky and sour. Wavey’s graceful lifting of her glass. But it went straight to their heads and they both talked wildly of what— nothing. He heard her dark voice even when she was silent. Quoyle forgot the old cousin and all he had said; felt wonderful, wonderful. Wavey described the things in the stores, Sunshine’s new cobalt blue sweater that would set off her fiery curls. She was conscious of the new brassiere under her dress and slip. Samples from the perfume counter cast exquisite scents from her wrists every time she raised her fork. They looked at each other over the table. Briefly at first, then with the
prolonged and piercing gazes that precede sexual congress. Wineglasses clinked. Butter melted on their knives. Quoyle dropped a shrimp and Wavey laughed. He always dropped shrimp, he said. They both had veal scaloppine. Another bottle of wine.

  After such a dinner the movie was almost too much. But they went. Something about a French recluse who peeped through Venetian blinds and played with a bread knife.

  And at last to bed.

  “Oh,” said Wavey, lying dazed and somewhat bruised in Quoyle’s large arms, “this is the hotel where Herold and I came on our honeymoon.”

  In the morning the attendant said the old man could not be seen. Had broken the glass from the poodle picture and stabbed at all who came near. And was tranquilized. No question of a Golden Age home for him.

  37

  Slingstones

  “The slingstone hitch . . . is used in anchoring lobster pots. It may be tied either in the bight or in the end. Pull the ends strongly, and the turns in the standing part are spilled into the loops.”

  THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS

  WEEKS of savage cold. Quoyle was comfortable enough in his sweater and anorak. The old station wagon sputtered and slugged, at last quit in sight of the Gammy Bird office. He got out, put his shoulder to it, steering with one hand. Got it rolling, jumped in and turned the key, popped the gearshift. The engine caught for a few seconds, then died again as he rolled up behind Billy’s decayed Dodge. Ice in the gas line, he thought. Maybe Billy had some dry gas.

  Billy had phone messages. Two calls from the principal of Bunny’s school. Call back right away. He dialed, heart in his mouth. Let Bunny be all right.

  “Mr. Quoyle. We’ve had some trouble with Bunny this morning. At recess. I’m sorry to say she pushed one of the teachers, Mrs. Lumbull. Pushed her very hard. In fact, Bunny knocked her down. She’s a large and strong child for her age. No, it was not an accident. By all accounts it was deliberate. I don’t need to tell you Mrs. Lumbull is upset and mystified why the child would push her. Bunny will not say why. She’s sitting right across from my desk and refuses to speak. Mr. Quoyle, I think you’d better come down and pick her up. Mrs. Lumbull didn’t even know Bunny. She’s not in her class.”

  “Billy, borrow your truck? Got ice in my line.”

  Bunny had been moved to the outer office where she sat with her hat and coat on, arms folded, face crimson and set. Wouldn’t look at Quoyle. Holding back everything.

  The principal with her downy face, wearing the brown wool suit. Fingernails like the bowls of souvenir spoons. Held a pencil as though interrupted in the act of writing. An authoritarian voice, perfected by practice.

  “Under the circumstances I have no choice but to suspend Bunny from school until she explains her action and apologizes to Mrs. Lumbull. Now, Bunny, this is your last chance. Your father’s here now and I want you to make a clean breast of it. Tell me why you pushed poor Mrs. Lumbull.”

  Nothing. Quoyle saw his child’s face so full of rage and misery she could not speak.

  “Come on,” he said gently, “let’s go get in Billy’s truck.” Nodded to the principal. Who put her pencil on the desk with a hard sound.

  In the truck Bunny bawled.

  “You push that teacher?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “She’s the worst one of all!” And would say no more. So Quoyle drove her to Beety’s, thinking here we go again.

  “Mrs. Lumbull, eh?” Beety’s eyebrows up. “Be willing to bet three cookies you had your reasons.”

  “I did,” said Bunny, snorting back tears. Beety pushed Quoyle toward the door. Gave him a little wave.

  He heard the story in the afternoon. From Beety by way of Marty.

  “Mrs. Lumbull is a float teacher, takes classes when the main teacher is sick or at a conference. Today she took the special ed class. Got ‘em all bundled up, outside. Herry Prowse is in that class. Poor Herry hits the cold air and decides he has to go pee. Tries to tell Mrs. Lumbull. Hopping up and down. You know how Herry talks. Not only does she not understand him—or maybe she does— but she makes him stand at attention against the brick wall to cure his fidgeting and every time he tries to tell her his problem she mimics him, pushes him back. Herry’s blubbering away and finally wets his pants and is humiliated. And here comes the avenging angel, Miss Bunny Quoyle, full speed ahead, and rams mean Mrs. Lumbull right behind the knees. The rest is history. If she was mine, Quoyle, I’d give her a medal. But it’s going to be tough straightening this out with the school. The principal don’t want to hear there’s trouble with a teacher. Teachers are hard to get. Even teachers like Mrs. Lumbull. So she’ll try to bull it out.”

  That evening Quoyle talked to the aunt on the phone, didn’t know he would set her in motion. A screech over the wire like a sea gull. She caught an early plane, would not be turned back, and in the morning the principal saw three generations of Quoyles advancing up the frozen driveway. The aunt’s new St. John’s hairstyle like a helmet, Quoyle’s chin jutting, and Bunny between.

  Got an earful from the aunt. But it was Quoyle who smoothed things out, explained in a reasonable voice, coaxed the principal and Bunny into mutual apologies and promises. Easy enough for the principal who knew that Mrs. Lumbull was moving to Grand Falls to open a Christian bookstore. Hard for Bunny who still measured events on a child’s scale of fair and unfair.

  Certain wheels had turned, certain cogs enmeshed. Quoyle went on Saturday afternoon, as usual, to Alvin Yark’s, Wavey and the children with him. Wavey turned to the backseat. Looked at Bunny, not as adults look at children, checking guilt or comprehension, fingernails, zipped jackets and hats, but as one adult may look at another. Saying a few things without words. Took Bunny’s hand and squeezed it.

  “How do you do, how do you do,” said Herry, who always caught connections.

  The car achieved some sort of interior balance on the way to Nunny Bag Cove, a rare harmony of feeling that soothed all the passengers.

  Wavey and her Auntie Evvie were hooking a floor mat with a design of seabirds copied from a calendar. Wavey worked at the puffin. Bunny went with her storybook to the rocker at the window. Here the Yark cat, when the glass wasn’t frosty, watched boats as though they were water rats. Sunshine and Herry shook toys from Herry’s red backpack. Though later Sunshine was pulled to the women, the flicking hooks jerking up loops of wool, inventing turrs and caplin. She got the sneeze-provoking smell of burlap backing. Wavey aimed a wink. Sunshine moved in, put her finger on the puffin. Dying to try it.

  “This way,” said Wavey, hand closing over the child’s, guiding the hook to seize the pale wool. Bunny turned the pages and smoothed the cat with her stockinged foot. A storm of purring. She looked up.

  “Petal was in a car accident in New York and she can’t come here. Because she can never wake up. I could wake her up but it’s too far away. So when I’m grown up I might go there.”

  What brought that on, wondered Wavey.

  In the shop Yark fretted. The snow was deep, storms and gales raged still, but the ice was breaking up, seal were moving into the bays, the cod and turbot spawning, herring were on the dodge. He felt change and life, the old seasonal longing to get out. Take a few seal. Or shoot at icebergs. Anyway, get moving. But his eyes were too weak for that, watered in the light from snow blindness twenty years earlier, even though his wife had put tea compresses over his eyes. The reason he had to work now in a darkened shop.

  During the past weeks he had set and wedged the keel into floor blocks, leveled, braced, and immovably secured the boat’s backbone.

  “Now it’ll start to look like something. Today we marks out the main timbers.”

  With his scraped and worn tape he measured back from the top of the stem along an invisible line, muttered to Quoyle. He calculated the midpoint of the hull length and marked the keel a second time a few inches forward of the midpoint mark. Measured from the sternpost to mark the afterhook placement. Quoyle tidied up rows of chisels and sa
ws, peered out the sawdust-coated window at the bay ice. Still the measurements were not over. Yark calculated the position of the bottom of the counter up from the timberline by rules and patterns he carried in his head.

  “Leave me take that saw, boy,” said the old man. His words seemed to come out of a mouthful of snow. Quoyle handed the saw, the chisel, the saw, the chisel, leaned over the work watching Yark notch the timberline to take the timber pairs. At last he could help set in the timbers, holding them while the old man fastened them to the floor with stout braces he called spur shores.

  “Now we notches the sternpost, my son.” Bolted on the counter, the metal biting into the wood with its fast grip. Put his hands on his hips and leaned back, groaning. “Might as well quit while we’re ahead. Wavey come?”

  “Yes. And the kids.”

  “You needs kids about. Keeps you young.” Cleared his throat and spat in the shavings. “When are you two going to do the deed?”

  He switched off the light, turned in the gloom of the shop and looked at Quoyle. Quoyle wasn’t sure which deed he meant. The crack that was Yark’s mouth elongated, not a smile so much as a forcing apart of seams that went with the blunt question. To force Quoyle’s seams apart. And other forced seams implicit.

  Quoyle’s exhalation that of someone doing heavy work.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Is it the boy?”

  Quoyle shook his head. How to say it? That he loved Petal, not Wavey, that all the capacity for love in him had burned up in one fast go. The moment had come and the spark ignited, and for some it never went out. For Quoyle, who equated misery with love. All he felt with Wavey was comfort and a modest joy.

  But said, “It’s Herold. Her husband. He’s always in her mind. She’s very deeply attached to his memory.”

  “ ’Erold Prowse!” The old man closed the door. “Let me tell you something about ‘Erold Prowse. There was a sigh of relief went up in some places when he was lost. You’ve heard of the tomcat type of feller, eh? That was ‘Erold. He sprinkled his bastards up and down the coast from St. John’s to Go Aground. It was like a parlor game down in Misky Bay to take a squint at babies and young children, see if they looked like ‘Erold. ‘Appen they often did.”