“You’re making me scared, Syllie,” Addie cried, and he was scared too, despite his eyes opened, despite his knowing where he sat, and he grasped the blankets back to him as if they were a buoy and he about to be swept away again.
“Syllie?”
He turned to her, her face wan in the partially lit room. She’d left the lamp burning outside their door, as she used to do when they’d first married. It softened her, the dim, gold light. Softened the room. He started breathing more deeply, slowly taking in the room, Addie. Holding his head into his hands, he let out a long, slow breath.
“Jeezes,” he croaked. “That was a bad one.”
“I thought you were dying,” she cried. “A heart attack or something, a fit.”
He pulled her to him, lying back down. “Nay,” he said. He tried to say more.
“I couldn’t wake you up. The sounds—you were making godawful sounds—not human, swear to gawd, Syllie, they weren’t human.”
He let out another long, slow breath, patting her, afraid to close his eyes, afraid of it coming back, the hag. “How’s Mother?” he asked, wanting her voice.
“You got us all scared to death this night, Syllie, damned if you don’t.”
“I never meant to.”
“You ought not to have scared her like that.”
“I never meant to.”
“But you did. She’d been coming back and forth all evening. If Manny and Jake weren’t off buying their new skiff, she would’ve had them on the water looking for you.”
“They would’ve known I’d put ashore.”
“You saying it can’t happen—you can’t drown? That old water’s always drowning somebody—for sure you knows that.”
Her tone was again that of a distraught mother. He turned his cheek to hers, gazing into her eyes, wanting to sink into their blueness as might a dying sun into the sea. He was afraid. Afraid of the dark, afraid of fear.
“She saw them,” he said to keep himself awake, to keep her talking.
“Don’t say it, Syllie. Oh, I can’t think of it—what she seen up there, watching.”
“Gawd, she saw them!” The tension from the day snapped, leaving him crumpling like a baby. She slipped her arms around his neck, cradling him. “Addie,” he whispered, the grubbiness of his cheek imprinting itself against the softness of her breasts, “Addie, I didn’t wash—I—”
“Shh,” and she cradled him tighter, her fingers stroking his hair, the back of his neck. “I’ll heat some water in the morning and pour you a tub.”
“Addie, were you scared, too?”
“Yes!” And she sobbed out loud, then muffled her mouth into his hair. “Don’t you ever stay out in a storm agin. It’s damn foolishness getting yourself drowned.”
“I won’t,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t be without you. I know you thinks I’m all to myself—and perhaps it’s not fair—”
“I don’t think that.”
“Yes, you do, but I can’t help what’s been happening to me—leastways, not all of it.”
He nuzzled deeper, closing his ears to her words, despite his need to keep her awake. It was his fear tormenting him now, not hers, and he wanted the night to be his.
“But you’d think me mad if I were to tell you my mind these days,” she cried out, her body stiffening, her arms slipping away from his neck, taking with it her breasts, his pillow.
“Wait,” he groaned, tightening his hold, wanting her back, wanting her breath all soft and sweet upon his face, but she was disappearing, back into that room where he had no place.
This time, though, she jarred the door, clenching his hand, saying, “I feels your sympathy, Syllie, I always feels your sympathy, and even though I hates it most times, it keeps me from feeling that I’m by myself, even though I am.” She gave a short laugh. “There, now you hears how mad I can be. That’s why I can’t talk to you about most things—you’d lock me up. Yes, you would,” she cried as he tried to soothe her. “Better left unsaid, some things— like I’m forsaken, I feels forsaken. Oh, Christ, I couldn’t bear you gone, Syllie. I couldn’t bear it if you thought me mad, either; renounced me. There, now you knows how mad I am. But don’t worry, I likes being in the garden with Eva. I’ll not go mad. And I’ll stay off the head if you’ll stay off them goddamn waters when there’s a wind on. You listening?”
She wrapped her arms around him again, but in the fashion of old: her arms clasping him to her, her body pressing urgently against his, her breathing almost halted, as though she were listening, searching, waiting for his life’s breath to enter her so’s she could breathe again. As much as he loved it, he hated it, how she clung to him like that, rendering their lovemaking to something inside of her, outside of him. But he understood her now, her fear, her need to cling to something living, strong. And he clung to her in the same desperate manner, his buoy against the sea mother still out there, still rattling her emptied arms across the beach rocks, searching. He shivered, wondering how in the name of Jesus he’d ever get himself out in boat again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHOAL BENEATH FULL TIDE
THE FISHING SEASON was all but done the morning Manny and Jake slipped by on the water in their new thirty-foot skiff. They sang out to him, but he carried on walking alongshore, pretending not to hear, knowing full well what they wanted—or were offering.
“Get the hell flames over here,” Manny sang out.
Without raising his head, Sylvanus waved them onward.
“Come on, b’ye. Day in the skiff do you good,” yelled Manny. “Jeezes, for fifty quintals of fish, the least you can do is help haul it aboard.”
“I’m not taking your fish,” said Sylvanus.
“No, you’re not, then. You’re not the only one who’d give away your arsehole and shit through your bellybutton. Now come on. Jump aboard.”
They were coasting the shoreline, Manny leaning over the bow with a paddle, steering the boat alongside, and Jake leaning on a paddle in the rear, pushing them forward. Shaking his head, Sylvanus swung off the path, ducking behind his mother’s house, shutting out Manny’s vexed sputtering and Jake’s harangue that he was “just like Father, just like Father.”
Leaning over the fence, he watched Adelaide straddling a drill of carrots, pulling them up by their tops and dropping them into a sack she was dragging alongside her. He was continuously surprised by how well she had taken to gardening. Cripes, even when the rain was pissing and wind walloping, she pulled herself out of bed, hauled on her planting clothes, and nibbled a piece of bread on her way to his mother’s. Like most anything with Addie, she never talked about it, except to say it was fine, everything was fine. He had given up arguing with her, for he was as guilty as she, these days, keeping things to hisself and saying, “Oh, it’s fine, the fishing’s fine, everything’s fine,” whenever she asked. Cripes, enough she’d settled for a fisherman and Cooney Arm. He wasn’t about to start whining that she’d settled for a fisherman without fish. And if truth be told, since the night of the storm, he was starting to be more appreciative of her keeping things to herself, for undoubtedly she was hearing from his mother, from Elsie, from Melita, and others that things weren’t fine. But she wasn’t coming onto him about it—like Melita was onto Manny these days—worrying and fretting. And for that he was infinitely grateful. It was his to worry and fret and keep his pantry filled. Enough for her to worry and fret about her own things.
Yes, sir, strange thing to talk about, fear—fear of a dream, fear of nothing, fear of fear itself. It was like she said, some things just can’t be told. Enough to understand that it wasn’t about him, and to leave her alone so’s to find her own light and vanquish the dark from that inner room she still remained inside of, brooding.
She had worked her way to the end of the drill and was about to drag her sack, bulging with carrots, up the mound of the root cellar at the farthest end of the yard, when she glimpsed him standing there. Laying down the sack, she started toward hi
m. With her hair scrimped back and clipped, baring that wan, little face that had become a mite tinted over the summer, he swore he could count every fleck in those luminous blue eyes. And as she drew nearer, raising a hand and loosening a scarf she wore around her neck, he well imagined the throbbing in the hollow of that long, graceful throat.
“You ought to have gone with Manny,” she said almost scoldingly, coming before him, “even if you won’t take his fish.”
He grinned. It felt like she was always scolding him since her fright that night. “Why would I go, then, if I don’t want his fish?”
“Lots of reasons. You’ve never fished midshore in a skiff. You ought to try it before you shuts it down. Perhaps you might like it, and God knows, it’s lots safer, and it’ll get you more fish. And it’s not going to hurt you, either, to take the load of fish he’s offering you this evening. Not when you needs it and he already got enough.”
He was too stunned at first by her knowing of his deeds to calculate the sudden surge of anger darkening his face. “Elsie up shooting off her mouth agin, is she?” he yelled, glaring around the yard as if expecting to find the mouthy sister-in-law hiding behind the cellar.
“You think I can’t figure some things? You think I needs you figuring everything for me?”
“Then you knows I can take care of my own larder and I don’t need anybody else’s handouts.”
“No, you only had Elsie and Melita turning your fish every day—oh, you still thinking Jake’s young fellow is doing it, do you?”
Sylvanus sputtered in rage. “But I had it out with the little bastard. Don’t tell me he’s been slacking off agin!”
“You hold on there,” demanded Adelaide, catching hold of his shirt sleeve as he slewed around, about to charge off. “You just never mind that crowd—lazier than their mother, they are. And that’s why for once Elsie didn’t go shooting off her mouth about who was turning your fish—because her youngster was getting paid a nickel for it, a nickel for nothing.”
Sylvanus pounded his palm with his fist. “I’ll throttle that little bastard!”
“Yes, and I’ll throttle you if you spins one more yarn in my face about puncheons and quintals. You listen to me, Sylvanus Now,” she said with an anger matching his, “for sure I haven’t been much good to you in the past, but you could’ve told me some things. Cripes, better than having Melita and Elsie and everybody else looking down their noses. And I don’t mind work. For sure I turned enough fish in my days to handle the few you got—and if I got to handle them, I got a say in what we does, too—like taking fish from Jake. So you can stop acting like you’re a king and me your little hussy.”
“Hussy!” He near choked. “Jesus Christ, Addie, where the hell did you get that—”
“Well, that’s what a hussy is, isn’t it, something holed up in a bedroom?”
“Addie, I haven’t got you holed up in no bedroom.”
“No, you just got me petitioned off from everybody else with that damn wall and no window, so’s I won’t have to feel a part of anything.”
“Well, that’s what you wants, isn’t it,” he cried out, “never having to see a flake agin?”
“Not when you got the likes of Elsie breathing down my neck, scorning me for having to do my work. I’ll work a thousand flakes rather than having that calling me cripple. And I don’t give a shit if she was saying it or not saying it, that’s what I felt like, finding out they were doing my work—a cripple! Especially your mother, hobbling around the garden all day long and then running to the flakes, first sign of rain.”
“Don’t talk to me about that,” he choked. “I’m going to kill that little bastard, and for sure you could’ve figured some things out, Addie. It’s not as if you don’t know the life of a fisherman.”
“And maybe I should’ve, but you sure made it easy not to look. Ooh, don’t argue with me, Syllie,” she cried, throwing up her hands, “and don’t bother bringing up anything to Jake’s fellow or Elsie or your mother—I’ve taken over turning the fish when you’re gone. Don’t ogle like that—I’ve been doing it all summer. So, it’s not only you who can yea or nay anything Manny’s offering. If you don’t take his fish, I will.”
His sharp intake near cut his throat. “Bloody hell, you will!” And he stepped forward, clenching his fists.
She drew back, startled. And with the blue of her eyes colder than the mother on a winter’s morn, she walked back to her bag of carrots, her back stiff as a picket.
Oh, fine, just bloody fine. Not enough he had everybody else on his back, but now she was climbing on board, too. He’d thought it was too bloody good that she was minding her own business and letting him stick to his; but, no, bloody sir, that couldn’t last long. She had to start going against him, too—and about his own work! A vein popped on his neck. He expected slurs from Jake and Elsie and others with idle tongues; but this rebuke from the one whom his strength and abilities sheltered did more than nick his pride; it erected a feeling of dread for his next encounter with her, because for damn well sure she wouldn’t give up on a thing once she got started with it; he knew her well enough for that. And his mother turning his fish! And Elsie and Melita! Christ, why hadn’t somebody said something? And now she, Addie, hobbling around on his flakes, doing what he swore she’d never have to do again—and all behind his back. Anger choked him.
Swinging himself inside his stage, he kicked a puncheon, caving in its side. Catching sight of a coil of new white jigging line that needed dying, he seized it and lunged outside. Chasing off a couple of boys lurking around, looking for mischief, he kicked together enough driftwood and slabs for a fair-sized fire. Dragging out his father’s old iron bark-tub from the stage, he laid it atop the two sticks he’d criss-crossed over the now blazing flames and half filled it with sea water, yelling hell’s flames at the boys attempting to edge their way back.
How did she know about Manny’s offer of fish— unless Manny was shooting off his mouth about it? But, no, Manny wouldn’t do that—Jake would! Elsie would, and she’d be sure to run, yarning about it. Or perhaps Jake never said nothing, either. Perhaps Addie had taken to snooping about his stage, spying on everything he was saying and doing. Cripes, that’s what Elsie was always doing, snooping and spying—and he hadn’t ruled out her foul tongue yet. No doubt she’d been up spouting off to Addie and threatening her not to tell.
But he knew the unlikelihood of that, no matter how much he would’ve preferred it. The opposite of anything Elsie said is what Addie would do, simply because Addie was as spiteful as Elsie in her own way, which served all their purposes because there was nothing nobody liked better than seeing Elsie getting the short end of something. He sighed, and lifting a bag full of pine cones out of the stage, he dumped them into the water just starting to boil, and watched dismally as the brown dye from the cones started muddying the water worse than his anger was muddying his thoughts. And all this time his Addie was turning his fish.
He grunted. Yet no matter his displeasure, the thought stayed with him—Addie turning his fish. It started warming him—like when he’d watch her ironing his shirts sometimes, gently smoothing and patting his sleeves as though it were him she was smoothing and patting. He grunted again. But why hadn’t she let him know? Why the bloody hell hadn’t she let him know?
He shook his head. Of course she wouldn’t let him know. It was just her way to say nothing—not that he wasn’t making his peace about her always keeping things to herself! No, he was starting to be fine about that. But this was different. This was his work she had took on and kept to herself.
His anger was starting to ebb. Mad as he was at her butting in about Manny and the fish, it was starting to feel fine that she’d taken on working his flakes and not telling him. Not one for rubbing his nose in his dirt, Addie wasn’t, he’d give her that. And not one for complaining either, no matter that she’d settled for a fisherman in Cooney Arm and even that was turning out all wrong. Took everything, she did, laying nothing on him
.
With a sigh, he tossed his fishing lines into the dyed water and sat, arms crossed over his knees, staring moodily as the boiling mud decimated the whole of what was white, yet leaving the matter beneath unaltered. Unlike his Addie. Everything was altered within her since he’d met her. Yet despite his attempts to understand her, she was starting to feel more of a bulwark than the defined structures of his stage and boat these days. For with the downturn in fishing, all was shaken beneath him, and he was more uncertain of his life with the mother than he was with the woman sharing his bed.
What if the foreigners and bigger boats did take it all? What if, come spring, nothing ran, not even the scrub cod? What then? Thus far, his house had wanted for nothing, despite his shortage of fish the past year. The bit of coin he’d saved had seen to that, and she hadn’t felt a thing, hadn’t known but that his puncheons were bursting to their brims. And for certain he’d keep them in meat again this coming winter. But his coin was gone, all used, and no amount of hunting would put flour in the larder, or butter on the table, or clothes on their backs. It was the fish that provided him with coin. Logging brought some relief, but not enough.
The grimness of the thought sobered him. He’d take the bloody fish, then. He’d take whatever the hell would help him through this winter, and he prayed to the sweet Jesus Lord that the coming spring would favour his jiggers as well as it was favouring the gill nets and the trawlers— and not just for money, either. Fish was his mainstay mentally and spiritually as well, for he had built himself upon that cursed sea, and he was only a part of himself without her.
Upon making the decision, a weariness crept over him, comforting almost, like the soothing that comes after a hard knock to one’s bones, and he felt like balling his oilskins into a pillow and crawling into the crux of his boat and going to sleep. But, no. The harshness of his loudmouthed threats and his clenched fists summoned him back to the garden, to putter around, fixing the back-bridge or something, pretending all was fine and rendering the harshness of his behaviour a common thing, else it’d be harder and harder to go back, making it a thing that would then have to be spoken of. And he didn’t want that. Hell, he didn’t need that, he thought, hanging his head ashamedly.
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