Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [130]
“You come ‘ere, too?”
“Yes,” said Quoyle. “I came to see you.”
“Damn long ride, ent it?”
[296] “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.”
[297] “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