Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [117]
“Wife was gone, children off to Australia. Funerals and pearly gates and coffins got to working on ‘is mind. Finally ‘e set out to make ‘is own coffin. Went down to ‘is shop with a teakettle ‘alf full of screech and commenced ‘ammering. ‘Ammering and sawing ‘alf through the night. Then ‘e crawled back to the ‘ouse to sleep it off on the kitchen floor. Me old dad went over to the shop, just as curious as ‘e could be to see the wonderful coffin. There she was, coffin with a stem and a keel, planked up and caulked nice, a little six-foot coffin painted up smart. Best thing about ‘er was the counter, set nice and low, all ready for ‘er little outboard motor.”
Quoyle laughed feebly.
Yark bolted a curved spruce piece he called the apron to the inboard of the stem. “Strengthens the stem, y’see. Support for the planks—if we ever gets to them, if I lives that long.” He crouched, measured, tapped a nail into one end of the keel, hooked the loop of a chalk line over the nail and drew the blue string to a mark on the far end, snapped. A faint mist of blue powder and the timberline was marked.
“Suppose we might ‘ave a cup of tea,” murmured Yark, first wiping his nose on the back of his hand, then leaning over the shavings to snort out sawdust and snot. Sang his bit of song. “Oh it ain’t no use, ‘cause every nut and bolt is loose.”
But Quoyle had to go along to Nutbeem’s trailer.
¯
At the trailer Nutbeem, Dennis, Billy Pretty and the blackhaired man sat on the steps; despite the cold, were drinking beer. Quoyle gagged at the thought. There was no crane, no boat.
“You’re lookin’ dishy, Quoyle.”
“Feel it, too. What’s the situation?” He could see that at least the trailer was back on its cinder blocks, the glass raked into a crooked windrow.
“She’s gone.” Dennis. “Couldn’t get the crane, see, but Carl [268] come with his bulldozer. That was a mess. Tore the cabin right off her. Got that diver lives down No Name there, Orvar, come over and put a cable under her. We drags her at an angle to get a line to shore and she breaks in half. Tide was coming in fast and now it seems like she drifted. She’s out there somewhere in two pieces. So, on top of everything else, she’s a menace to navigation.”
“I’m some disgusted,” Billy Pretty, mud to his knees, side of his face scraped and raw, the enamel blue eyes bloodshot under the brim of his cap. Sipping as though he drank some aperitif.
Nutbeem swallowed a gassy mouthful and looked at the bay. The sky heavy and low. Although it was only three o’clock, darkness seeped.
“I wouldn’t have made it anyway,” he said. “Storm coming. Gale warnings, sleet, snow, followed by deep cold, the whole string of knots. By Tuesday there’ll be fast ice. I wouldn’t have made it.”
“Maybe not,” said Billy Pretty, “but you could have hauled your boat up until spring.”
“No use crying in my beer,” said Nutbeem.
A few small flakes of snow drifted down to Billy’s knees. He glared at them, breathed to make them melt. A few more fell, widely spaced. “Here’s the devil’s feathers.”
But Nutbeem had the stage. “I’ve changed my plans as the day has gone along.”
“Will you stay on a bit, then? Stay for the Christmas pageant and the times, anyway.”
“I don’t expect I shall ever want to go to another party,” said Nutbeem. “It’s like the lad who loved to steal spoonsful of sugar until his grannie sat him down in front of a basin of the stuff, gave him a whacking great stuffing spoon and told him he’d stay right there until the basin was empty. He never had a taste for sugar after that.” He laughed in a wretched puff of cheeks.
“At least you can smile at it.” Dennis, half-smiling himself.
“If I didn’t I’d go round the twist, wouldn’t I? No, I’ve decided to smile, forget and fly to Brazil. Warm. No fog. The water is a lovely swimming-pool green, quite