Galore - Michael Crummey [67]
The price of cod in Europe had been falling for years and dozens of local men had taken to traveling to Harbour Grace and Wesleyville and St. John’s in the spring, taking berths on sealing vessels to supplement the fishing. Even Sellers was under strain and he convinced Spurriers to mortgage the Paradise Deep operation in order to break into the market for seal oil and pelts, commissioning a sixty-seven-ton double-hulled schooner. The frame of the vessel came together over two summers in a makeshift shipyard beside the Catholic church, the boards reinforced with stanchions to withstand the ice fields where seals whelped their pups. It was an enormous outlay of money for a venture fraught with risk and the old man lost his nerve as the project progressed. King-me worried a ledger of figures and percentages through the winter but he was unable to torture a moment’s comfort from the numbers. —We’ll all of us wind up in the poorhouse on account of that goddamn boat, he said, as if it had been someone else’s idea. He woke from dreams of the vessel in flames or set with full sail fathoms underneath the ice fields and he was so troubled by these visions that he walked over the Tolt to speak with Devine’s Widow.
Lizzie was alone in the house with Patrick when King-me sat himself in the kitchen, saying he wouldn’t leave until he saw the old witch. Patrick was sent to fetch the widow from Daniel Woundy’s house and he burst in out of breath. Patrick had never spoken a word to King-me Sellers but knew who he was. Mary Tryphena explained his connection to the dead woman and the pew of mourners at the front of the church during Selina’s funeral the year before. Three youngsters between Absalom and Ann Hope, King-me sitting nearest the aisle and following behind the casket as it was carried from the church. —Me great-grandda is at the house to see you, he shouted and it took Devine’s Widow a moment to get his meaning. —Old Man Sellers? she asked, and he nodded. —Me great-grandda, he repeated. —He wants to see you.
She followed Patrick back along the paths, the boy rushing and glancing over his shoulder to make sure she was with him. Held the door to let her in where King-me sat turning a hat between his knees. The moment the widow came through the door he started in to ramble about some dream that was troubling him, fire he told her and a ghost ship that was sailing under the ice with all its sails set. He was blind to the room as he described the visions that haunted his sleep, offering details from one and then the next and back again, as if they were superimposed one on another in his mind. The widow let him go on talking until he exhausted himself and he looked around slowly, surprised to find himself in their company. He lighted on Patrick standing three feet from him. —Who’s this one? he asked.
—You’re me great-grandda, the boy said.
King-me turned to Devine’s Widow in confusion. He looked half-starved, like everyone else on the shore, the long face staved in at the cheeks and the eyes black as cold firepits, though she knew his trouble was something other than lack of food. His mind rudderless and turning in mad circles and she was surprised he’d survived Selina even this long. —We don’t have much time left, Master Sellers, she said.
—No, he said uncertainly, a rheumy film of tears setting his eyes adrift.
Patrick turned to Lizzie and said, What’s wrong with him, Nan?
—Mind your mouth, Lizzie whispered.
Devine’s Widow glanced at the boy, that foreign face of his. She’d gifted him a set of rosary beads after Mary Tryphena began