The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever [85]
There was a channel at Nangasakit—a granite breakwater bearded with sea grass and a bell buoy rocking in the southwest sea, white foam spilling over the float as it tipped. The bell, Leander knew, could on this wind be heard inland. It could be heard by the card players rearranging pots and pans under their leaky roof, by the old ladies in the Nangasakit House and even by the lovers above the merry jingling of their bedposts. It was the only bell Leander had ever heard in his dreams. He loved all bells: dinner bells, table bells, doorbells, the bell from Antwerp and the bell from Altoona had all heartened and consoled him but this was the only bell that chimed on the dark side of his mind. Now the charming music fell astern, fainter and fainter, lost in the creaking of the old hull and the noise of seas breaking against her bow. Out in the bay it was rough.
She took the waves head on, like an old rocking horse. Waves broke over the glass of the wheelhouse so that Leander had to keep one hand on the windshield wiper to see. The water pouring down the decks began to come in at the cabin. It was dirty weather. Leander thought of the passengers—the girl with the rose in her hair and the man with three children, all wearing shirts cut of the same cloth as his wife’s summer dress. And what about the passengers themselves, sitting in the cabin? Were they frightened? They were, nine times out of ten, their fear clothed lightly in idle speculation. They fished for their key rings and their small change, gave their privates a hitch and, if they had some talisman, a silver dollar or a St. Christopher medal, they rubbed it with their fingers. St. Christopher, be with us now! They readjusted their garters if they wore them, tightened the knots in their shoelaces and their neckties and wondered why their sense of reality should seem suspended. They thought of pleasant things: wheat fields and winter twilights, when five minutes after the lemony yellow light in the west was gone the snow began to fall, or hiding jelly beans under the sofa cushions on Easter Eve. The young man looked at the girl with the rose in her hair, remembering how generously she had spread her legs for him and now how fair and gentle she seemed.
In the middle of the bay Leander turned the boat toward Travertine. It was the worst of the trip, and he was worried. The following sea punished her stern. Her screw shook the hull at the crest of every wave and in the hollow she slipped to port. He set his bow on Gull Rock, which he could see clearly then, the gull droppings on top and the sea grass fanning out as the waves mounted and swallowed the granite pile. Beyond the channel he would be all right with nothing ahead of him but the run up the calm river to home. He put his mind on this. He could hear the deck chairs smashing against the stern rail and she had taken in so much water that she heeled. Then the rudder chain broke with the noise of a shot and he felt the power of the helm vanish into thin air beneath his hands.
There was a jury rudder in the stern. He thought quickly enough. He put her into half speed and stepped into the cabin. Helen saw him, and she began to shriek. “He’s a devil, he’s a devil from hell that one there. He’ll drown us. He’s afraid of me. For eighteen weeks, nineteen on Monday, I’ve been out in all weathers. He’s afraid of me. I have information in my possession that could put him into the electric chair. He’ll drown us.” It was not fear that stopped him, but a stunning memory of her mother’s loveliness—the farm near Franconia and haying on a thundery day. He went back into the wheelhouse and a second later the Topaze rammed Gull Rock. Her bow caved in like an egg shell. Leander reached