Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [33]
“It’s like I said, we need a boat. Cross the bay in half an hour. Foolish to waste money renting a house when we have the old family place right over there that only needs fixing up. I talked today to a carpenter. Dennis Buggit, lives in Killick-Claw. He’s not doing much. Says he can work on it right away. His wife is going to take care of the girls tomorrow and I’ll go over to the house with Dennis, work up some estimates, see what’s involved. Beety, that’s the wife. Thinking of starting a day-care in her house. Best news I heard since we got here. These two,” jerking her head, “could be the first and best customers.”
Bunny kicked the wall. Sniveled.
The only word Quoyle heard was “boat.” “Aunt, I don’t know anything about boats. They are expensive. They are uncomfortable. They are dangerous. You need a dock or something. I don’t want a boat.”
“Afraid it’s the sensible answer. Unless you want to stay here at a hundred and something a night. That’s two days work for the carpenter.” Barking. Her eyes hot.
Quoyle pressed the buttons of the television set, forgetting it was dead.
“It doesn’t work, Daddy,” sobbed Sunshine.
“I hate this place.” Bunny, kicking at the wall with her scuffed shoes. “I want to go in a boat. I want to go fix the green house where the aunt was born and have my own room. I will sweep the floor if we can go, Daddy. I’ll do everything.”
[74] “Let’s go have supper,” muttered Quoyle. “I can’t handle this right now.”
“The dining room is closed to the public tonight. It’s the curling championship dinner. They fixed us some chowder, but we’ll have to go get it ourselves and eat it here in the room.”
“I want meat,” said Bunny. “I want meat chowder.”
“Too bad,” said the aunt rather savagely, “it’s not on the menu.” To herself she added, eat fish or die.
¯
Tert Card in a red shirt and white necktie, on the phone: Billy Pretty on the other line. Billy laughing, choking out dark sentences Quoyle couldn’t understand, almost another language. Drumming rain, the bay stippled. The gas heater howled in the corner.
Quoyle looked at Nutbeem. “Is a guy named Dennis Buggit related to Jack? A carpenter? The aunt’s talking to him about fixing up the old house. We’ve got to do something. We can’t stay in that damn motel much longer. And the road out to the Point is lousy and there’s nothing for rent in Killick-Claw. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ll move back to the States before I buy a boat.
Nutbeem dragged his jaw down, raised both hands in mock horror. “Don’t like boats? Can be rather amusing, you know. Practical for a place that’s all coast and cove and little road. That’s how I ended up here, you know, because of my boat. Borogove. I call her that because she’s mimsy, a bit.” Nutbeem’s transitory talk. Theatrical speeches like a stump-jumper’s spiel, urgent at the time, but forgotten by morning and the speaker on the way to another place.
Quoyle’s notebook propped on his tea mug, a half-finished paragraph on a truck accident in the manual typewriter. Everyone else had a computer.
“You’ll get one when I give you one,” Jack Buggit had said. But not meanly.
“Dennis is Jack’s youngest son,” said Tert Card, who heard everything, leaning toward them, his foul breath spouting across the room. “He don’t get along with the old man. Used to be the [75] apple of the old man’s eye, especially after they lost poor Jesson, but not now. You never know, Jack might take it wrong if Dennis works for you. Then again, he might not.” The phone trilled like a toy whistle.
“That’s him now,” said Card, who always knew, and picked it up.
“Gammy Bird! Yut, o.k. Got you, Skipper.” Hung up, swiveled his chair, looked at the marred sea. Laughed. “Billy! What do you think. He’s up at the house with double earache. Says ‘You won’t see me until tomorrow or next day.’ ”
“I thought it would be cracked ribs this time,” said Nutbeem. “Earache