Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [36]
“I’m Quoyle. New at the Gammy Bird. Come to get the shipping news. I’d appreciate suggestions. About the shipping news. Or anything else.”
Harbormaster cleared his throat. Man Imitates Alligator, thought Quoyle. Got up and limped behind the counter. The cool high light from the windows fell on a painting the size of a bed [80] sheet. A ship roared down a wave, and in the trough of the wave, broadside, a smaller boat, already lost. Men ran along the decks, their mouths open in shrieks.
The harbormaster pulled up a loose-leaf notebook, riffled the pages with his thumb, then handed the book to Quoyle. ARRIVALS on the cover; a sense of money gain and loss, cargoes, distance traveled, the smell of the tropics.
Followed Quoyle’s gaze.
“Fine picture! That’s the Queen Mary running down her escort, the Curacoa. Back in 1942. Twenty miles off the Irish coast in clear sunlight and crystal visibility. The Queen, eighty-one thousand ton, converted from passenger liner to troopship, and the cruiser a mere forty-five hundred. Cut her in half like a boiled carrot.”
Quoyle wrote until his hand cramped and he discovered he had taken down the names of ships that had called weeks ago.
“How can I tell if ships are still here?”
The harbormaster pulled up another book. Plywood cover, the word DEPARTURES burned in wavering letters.
“Ha-ha,” said Quoyle. “I’d think they’d get you a computer. These logbooks look like a lot of work.”
The harbormaster pointed to an alcove behind the counter. Computer screen like boiling milk. The harbormaster punched keys, the names of ships leaped in royal blue letters, their tonnages, owners, country of registration, cargoes, arrival and departure dates, last port of call, next port of call, days out from home port, crew number, captain’s name, birthdate and social insurance number. The harbormaster tapped again and a printer hummed, the paper rolled out into a plastic bin. He tore off pages, handed them to Quoyle. The shipping news.
Cracking grin that showed false teeth to the roots. “Now you’ll remember that we do it two ways,” he said. “So when the storm roars and the power’s out you’ll look in the old books and it’ll all be there. Have a cup of tea. Nothing like it on a wet day.”
“I will,” said Quoyle. Sat on the edge of a chair. Runnels of water coursed down the window glass.
“Get down,” said the harbormaster, pushing a cat out of a chair. “It’s a good range of vessels we get here now. Bold water in [81] Omaloor Bay almost to the shoreline. The government put seventeen million dollars into upgrading this harbor two years ago. Reconstructed dock, new container terminal. Sixteen cruise ships pegged to come in this year. They don’t stay more than a day or so, but, my boy, when they sets foot on the dock they commence to hurl the money around.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Depends what you mean by ‘this.’ I went to sea when I was thirteen years old—deckhand on my uncle Donnal’s sixty-ton sailing schooner, working up and down the coast. Where I built up me strength. Oh he fed me royal. And worked me hard. Then I fished for a while on a dory-schooner out on the Belle Isle banks the old way. I worked on a coastal ferry. I was in the Merchant Navy. In World War Two, lieutenant in the Canadian Navy. After the war I joined the Coast Guard. In 1963 I moved into this office as Killick-Claw harbormaster. Thirty years. Next year I’ll retire. Seventy years young and they’re forcing me out. Intend to learn how to play the banjo. If I can keep from bursting the strings. Sometimes I don’t know me own strength. What about you?” Flexed his fingers, making the joints pop like knotwood in a fire. Showed a little finger like a parsnip.
“Me. I’m just working at the paper.”
“You look like you come from here but don’t sound it.”
“My people came from Quoyle’s Point but I was brought up in the States. So I’m an outsider. More or less.” Quoyle’s hand crept up over his chin.
The harbormaster