Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [109]
“It’s late to be leaving. Storm and ice could fasten you in here overnight. The ice is formed up in some places. A dangerous time of year for a sailboat. You probably won’t make it. It’ll be your corpse they find in the ovens next.” Tert Card, picking his teeth with the corner of an envelope. The paper jammed and tore, wedged between the yellow incisors.
“That’s how it goes here. There’s a general emptying out in the late fall. Away they all go to the south,” said Billy Pretty. “There’s few of us has stuck it out all the years, never been away in winter except when at sea. And Quoyle is the only one I ever see come here to settle. I’m just wondering about him. I suppose he’ll be next.”
“Obviously staying,” said Quoyle. “Alvin Yark’s building a boat for me. Bunny’s in school, she’s doing well. And Sunshine loves it at Beety’s. The kids have friends. The aunt will be back from St. John’s in the spring. All we need is a place to live.”
“I can’t see you in Nutbeem’s trailer. You looked that place over yet?” Tert Card smiling at some secret.
“He’s seeing it Friday. Quoyle’s going to help me set up for the party. Getting everything to drink you can think of from screech to ginger beer to champagne.”
[249] “Champagne! That’s what I enjoy,” said Tert Card. “With a ripe peach floating in it.”
“Go on. That’s something you read. There’s never been a ripe peach in Newfoundland.”
“I have it when I go down to Florida. I have Mai-tais, Jamaica glows, beachcombers, banana daiquiris, piña coladas—my god, sitting around in your bathing suit on the balcony drinking those things. Baking hot.”
“I doubt a man can bring up two little girls on his own,” said Billy Pretty. “I doubt it can be done without some savage talk and nervous breakdowns all around.”
Quoyle showed he didn’t hear him.
32
The Hairy Devil
“To untangle a snarl, loosen all jams or knots and open a hole
through the mass at the point where the longest end leaves the
snarl. Then proceed to roll or wind the end out through the
center exactly as a stocking is rolled. Keep the snarl open and
loose at all times and do not pull on the end; permit it to
unfold itself.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
DURING the night a warm fluke, a tongue of balmy air, licked out from the mainland and tempered the crawling ice margins. The November snow decayed. On Friday afternoon Tert Card, wild with false spring, cut up at the office, played practical jokes, answered the phone in a falsetto and went to the washroom again and again. They smelled the rum on his breath. Nutbeem’s own excitement showed in high voice notes. His departure combined with a waxing moon.
“Going to get Bunny now and take her to Beety’s” said Quoyle. “Then I’ll be back.”
In Beety’s kitchen he drank a cup of tea quickly.
“Beety, it’s Nutbeem’s party tonight. I’m going out early to [251] help him set things up and look over the trailer. God, you make the best bread.” Wolfing it down.
“Well, maybe I won’t be making it no more if Allie Marvel gets her bakery shop going this spring. Bread keeps you tied down to the house and there’s things I’d like to do.” She whispered, “If Dennis can stand it.”
“Dad,” said Bunny, “I want to go to the party.”
“Not this one, you don’t. This is a men’s party. It would not be fun for you.”
“Hey, Quoyle,” said Dennis from in front of the television set in the living room, “suppose you won’t be back here tonight.”
“Well, I will,” said Quoyle, who was sleeping on a cot in the basement workshop until they could move into Nutbeem’s trailer. “Because I’ve got a long day tomorrow. Since the roads are clear. Got to get some things that are still out at the house on the point in the morning, then help Alvin with the boat.”
“If the girls have got spare mittens out there,” said Beety, “bring them back. Show your dad, Sunshine, what happened to your mitts.” The little girl brought a stiff, charred thing.
“She brought in a few junks of wood and her old mitten stuck to a splinter. She didn’t notice and Dennis here, he heaves the