Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [136]
“This driver used to barrel right across Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, had his arms sticking through the steering wheel, knitting away like a machine. Had a proper gansey knit by the time he got to Montreal, sell it for good money as a Newf fisherman’s authentic handicraft.”
“Might as well,” said Benny Fudge. “Happen to know what he got for one?”
“No. But I can tell you about the time buddy was ripping along down the Trans-Canada knitting about as fast as the truck was going when this Mountie spies him. Starts to chase after him, doing a hundred and forty km per. Finally gets alongside, signs the transport feller to stop, but he’s so deep in his knitting he never notices.”
One of Billy’s jokes. Quoyle smiled faintly.
“Mountie flashes his light, finally has to shout out the window, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ So the great transport knitter looks at the Mountie, shakes his head a bit and says, ‘Why no sir, ‘tis a cardigan.’ ”
Benny Fudge didn’t crack a smile. But Billy screeched like rusty metal.
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At the end of the seal hunt Jack switched to herring. He had his herring trap.
That was what Quoyle loved best, it seemed, sitting on the stony shore out of the wind behind a rock, holding the grill of silvery herring over coals. These cold picnics on the lip of the sea. Wavey made a table from a piece of driftwood and a few stones. Herry trailed rubbery seaweed. The sun warmed a grassy bit of sheep pasture where Bunny and Sunshine raced across the slope.
“Wavey!” Sunshine’s shrill voice. “Wavey, did you bring marshmallows?”
“Yes, maid. The little ones.”
The Maids in the Meadow thought Quoyle, looking at his [310] daughters. And as though something dropped in place, he matched Billy’s father’s verse with his life. The Demon Lover. The Stouthearted Woman. Maids in the Meadow. The Tall and Quiet Woman.
Then Bunny ran at them with her hands cupped. Always an arrow flying to the target. A stiff, perfect bird, as small as a stone in a child’s hand. Folded legs.
“A dead bird,” said Wavey. “The poor thing’s neck is broken.” For the head lolled. She said nothing about sleep nor heaven. Bunny laid it on a rock, went back to look at it twenty times.
The herrings smoked, the children dodged around, saying Dad, Dad, when are they ready. Dad, said Herry. And put his pie-face up, roaring at his own cleverness.
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“Cockadoodle Christ, you’re worse than the gulls.” Jack, watching Quoyle shovel herring into a bucket.
“I could eat the boatload.”
“If you wasn’t getting out the paper you ought to take up fishing. You’re drawn to it. I see that. What’s good, you know, you bring a little stove in the boat, frying pan and some salt pork, you can have you the best you ever ate. Why you never see a fisherman take a bag of lunch out. Even if he goes hungry now and then. Nothing made ashore that’s as good as what you pull out of the sea. You’ll come out with me one time.”
Two weeks later the herring were unaccountably gone and the Gammy Bird took a temporary dive in size while Billy and Quoyle and Dennis helped Jack overhaul his lobster pots, build a few new ones. And Benny Fudge went to Misky Bay to have all his teeth pulled.
“I don’t know if I’ll be fishing lobster for meself or all of yous.”
“I wish I was going out,” said Billy. “Oh there’s money in lobster. But you can’t get a license. Only way anyone here could have a license for lobster is if you turned yours over to Dennis, here.”
“I’m ready,” said Dennis.
“Won’t be tomorrow,” said Jack. Short and hard. Jealous of [311] his fishing rights. He was. And wanted to keep his last son ashore.
“Come a nice day we’ll have a big lobster boil, eh?” said Billy. “Even if we have to buy them off somebody down at No Name Cove. Too bad there isn’t some kind of occasion to celebrate.” Winked at Dennis, rolled his eyes at Quoyle.
“There is,” said Quoyle. “The aunt’s coming back this Saturday and we’re having a welcome home party at my