Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [84]
Quoyle thought of a thousand settlements afire in the wind, flaming shingles flying over the rocks to scale, hissing, into the sea.
In the end they did not go.
24
Berry Picking
“The difference between the CLOVE HITCH and TWO
HALF HITCHES is exceedingly vague in the minds of many, the reason
being that the two have the same knot form; but one is tied
around another object, the other around its own standing part.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
SEPTEMBER, month of shortening days and chilling waters. Quoyle took Bunny to the first day of school. New shoes, a plaid skirt and white blouse. Her hands clammy. Afraid, but refused his company and went through the pushing rowdies by herself. Quoyle watched her stand alone, her head barely moving as she looked for her friend, Marty Buggit.
At three o’clock he was waiting outside.
“How did it go?” Expected to hear what he had felt thirty years before—shunned, miserable.
“It was fun. Look.” She showed a piece of paper with large imperfect letters:
BUN
Y
[191] “You wrote your name,” said Quoyle, relieved. Baffled that she was so different than he.
“Yes.” As though she’d always done so. “And the teacher says bring a box of tissues tomorrow because the school can’t afford any.”
¯
Blunt fogbows in the morning trip around the bay. Humps of color followed squalls, Billy Pretty babbled of lunar halos. Storms blew in and out. Sudden sleet changed to glowing violet rods, collapsed in rain. Two, three days of heat as though blown from a desert. Fibres of light crawling down the bay like luminous eels.
On the headlands and in the bogs berries ripened in billions, wild currants, gooseberries, ground hurts, cranberries, marshberries, partridgeberries, squashberries, late wild strawberries, crawberries, cloudy bakeapples stiff above maroon leaves.
“Let’s go berrying this weekend,” said the aunt. “Just over a ways was well-known berrying grounds when I was young. We’ll make jam, after. Berrying is pleasure to all. Maybe you’ll want to bring Wavey Prowse?”
“That’s an idea,” said Quoyle.
She said she would be glad—as if he’d invited her to a party.
“Ken will bring me across—wants to see your new roof.”
Ken looked less at the roof than at Quoyle and his daughters; joked with the aunt. Gave Herry a good-bye touch on the shoulder. “Well, I’m off. Business in Misky Bay, so might’s well go around the point. Shall I come along later, then?” Eyes like a thornbush, stabbing everything at once. In a hurry to get it all.
“All right,” said Wavey. “Thank you, boy.” Her berry pails had rope handles finished in useful knots.
¯
The aunt, the little girls, Quoyle, Wavey and Herry walked overland to the berry grounds beyond the glove factory, their pails [192] and buckets rattling, clatter of stones on the path, Sunshine saying, Carry me. The sun laid topaz wash over barrens. Ultramarine sky. The sea flickered.
Wavey in toast-colored stockings, a skirt with mended seams. Quoyle wore his plaid shirt, rather tight.
“People used to come here for miles with their berry boxes and buckets,” said the aunt over her shoulder. “They’d sell the berries, you see, in those days.”
“Still do,” Wavey said. “Agnis girl, last fall they paid ninety dollars a gallon for bakeapples. My father made a thousand dollars on his berries last year. City people want them. And there’s some still makes berry ocky if they can get the partridge berries.”
“Berry ocky! There was an awful drink,” said the aunt. “We’ll see what we get,” and looked sidewise at Wavey, taking in the rough hands and cracked shoes, Herry’s face like a saucer of skim milk. But a pretty boy, they said, with his father’s beauty only a little distorted. As though malleable features had been pressed with a firm hand.
The sea glowed, transparent with light. Wavey and Quoyle picked near each other. Her hard fingers worked through the tufted plants, the finger and thumb gathering two, seven, rolling them back into the cupped palm, then dropping them into the pail, a small sound as the berries fell. Walked on her knees.