Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [65]
“Gove! Gove!”
Or the blue iris in Mrs. Buggit’s garden.
“Vars!”
“Nothing wrong with his eyesight,” said Quoyle.
Here was a sudden subject for Wavey. Down’s syndrome, she said, and she wanted the boy to have a decent life. Not his fault. [146] Not to be stuffed away in some back room or left to cast and drool about the streets like in the old days. Things could be done. There were other children along the coast. She had asked about other children, found them, visited the parents—her brother Ken took her in his truck. Explained things could be done. “These children can learn, can be taught,” she said.
Fervent. A ringing voice. Here was Wavey on fire. Had requested books on the condition through the regional library. Started the parents’ group. Specialists from St. John’s up to speak. Tell what could be done. Challenged children. Got up a petition, called meetings, ah, she said, they wrote letters asking for the special education class. And got it. A three-year-old girl in No Name Cove had never learned to walk. But could learn, did learn. Rescuing lost children, showing them ways to grasp life. She squeezed her hands together, showing him that anyone alive could clench possibilities.
What else, he thought, could kindle this heat.
She asked Quoyle for a ride to the library. Friday and Tuesday afternoons the only time it was open. “See, Ken takes me when he can, but he’s fishing now. And I miss my books. I’m the reader. And I read to Herry, just read and read to him. And get for Dad. What he likes. Mountain climbing, hard travels, going down to the Labrador.”
Quoyle got ready Friday morning, put on his good shirt. Cleaned his shoes. Didn’t want to be excited. For God’s sake, giving someone a ride to the library. But he was.
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The library was a renovated old house. Square rooms, the wallpaper painted over in strong pistachio, melon. Homemade shelves around the walls, painted tables.
“There’s a children’s room,” said Wavey. “Your girls might like to have a few books. Sunshine and Bunny.” She said their names tentatively. Her hair combed and plaited; a grey dress with a lace collar. Herry already at the bookshelves, pulling at spines, opening covers into flying fancies.
Quoyle felt fourteen feet wide, a clumsy poisoned pig, and [147] every way he turned his sweater caught on some projecting book. He tumbled humorous essayists, murderers, riders of the purple sage, sermonizing doctors, caught them in midair or not at all. Stupid Quoyle, blushing, in a tiny library on a northern coast. But got into the travel section and found the Erics Newby and Hansen, found Redmond O’Hanlon and Wilfrid Thesiger. Got an armful.
They went back by way of Beety’s kitchen to get his girls. Who didn’t know Wavey.
A ceremonious introduction. “And that’s Herry Prowse. And this is Wavey. Herry’s mother.” Wavey turned around and shook their hands. And Herry shook everyone’s hand, Quoyle’s, his mother’s, both hands at once. His fingers, palms, as hot as a dog’s paws.
“How do you do,” said Wavey. “Oh how do you do, my dears?”
Pulled up in front of Wavey’s house to the promise of tea and cakes. Sunshine and Bunny fighting in the station wagon to see the yard next door, menagerie of painted dogs and roosters, silver geese and spotted cats, a wooden man in checked trousers grasping the hand of a wooden woman. A wind vane that was a yellow dory.
Then Bunny eyed the plywood dog with its bottle-cap collar. Mouth open, fangs within the lips, the nose sniffing the wind.
“Dad.” She gripped Quoyle’s collar. “There’s a white dog.” Whimpered. Quoyle heard her suck in her breath. “A white dog.” And caught the subtle tone, the repetition of the awful words, “white dog.