Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [37]
“Yes,” said Diddy Shovel. “I guess you got a story there, m’boy. How did it all come about that you was raised so far from home? That you come back?” Even now he could perform feats that would make them stare.
Quoyle rattled his teacup on the saucer. “I was—. Ah, it’s complicated.” And his voice fell away. He jabbed at the pad with his pen. Change the subject.
“That ship there,” he said, pointing. “What is it?”
The harbormaster found a pair of binoculars under the chair and looked out into the bay.
[82] “The Polar Grinder? Oh yes. She’s been tried and tested. Calls here regular to take on fish and sea urchin roe for the Japanese gourmet trade. A refrigerator ship, built in Copenhagen for Northern Delicacies around 1970, 1971. You ever see the way they put the sea urchin roe up at the fish plant?”
“No,” Quoyle thinking of the green pincushions in tidal pools.
“Beautiful! Beautiful. Fancy wooden trays. The Japs think they’re quite the gourmet delicacy, pay a hundred dollars for a tray of them. They lay them out all in fancy patterns, like a quilt. Umi, Call it umi. Eat them raw. Get them at sushi bars in Montreal. I had them. I tried it all. Buffalo. Chocolate-covered ants. And raw sea urchin roe. Got a cast-iron stomach, I have.”
Quoyle sucked at his tea, a little revolted.
“Here. Take the glasses and look. She’s got the bulbous forefoot that was coming in when she was built. There’s a sister ship, the Arctic Incisor. Refrigerator ship, four holds, insulated compartments. Chart and wheelhouse amidships, all the latest electronic navigational aids. Highly automated for her day. Since her misadventures in the storm she’s been refitted with new navigational gear, new electronic temperature gauges that you can read on the bridge, all the rest of it.
“When she was built, you know, the fashion was for Scandinavian furniture—that’s where all the teak went. That song, ‘Norwegian Wood,’ remember that?” Sang a few lines in a roaring basso. “That Polar Grinder is fitted out with oiled teak furniture. There’s a sauna instead of a swimming pool. A lot more useful in these waters, eh? Murals on the walls showing the ski races, reindeer, northern lights and such. You heard about her, I suppose.”
“No. She known for something?”
“That’s the ship that drove a wedge between father and son, between Jack and his youngest son, Dennis.”
“Dennis,” said Quoyle. “Dennis is doing some work on our old house. On Quoyle’s Point.”
“I might have been in that house,” said Diddy Shovel in a neutral voice, “when I was a boy. Long, long, long ago. Dennis, now, he is a fine carpenter. Better carpenter than fisherman. And that was a relief to Jack—with all that’s happened to the Buggits [83] on the sea. Jack has a morbid fear of it for all he spends as much time as he can on the water. He didn’t want his boys to be fishermen. So of course both of them was crazy for it. Jack tells them it’s a hard, hard life with nothing to show at the end but broken health and poverty. And a damned good chance of drowning all alone in the freezing boil. Which is what happened to his oldest boy, Jesson. Iced up out on the Baggy Banks with a full load of fish and capsized when the weather went bad. It was forecast a moderate gale but came up storm force all of a sudden. Terrible silver thaw here on shore—the more beautiful they are the more dangerous. More tea.” He poured a black cup for Quoyle. Whose tongue was as rough as a cat’s.
“So! Dennis apprentices to a well-known carpenter in St. John’s, Brian Corkery, his name was, if I remember right, learns the trade from frame to finish. Then what does he do? First job, mind you. He signs on the Polar Grinder as ship’s carpenter! She was back and forth from the Maritimes to Europe, twice to Japan, down the seaboard to New York. Dennis is just as crazy about boats and the sea as Jack is and Jesson was. He’d rather fish than anything. But Jack won’t hear of it.
“The way Jack carried on. Shocking. Thought if Dennis was a carpenter he’d be safe ashore. He was afraid, you see, afraid for him. And