Sweetland (30 page)

During the brief hours of daylight he kept himself busy with anything he could turn his hand to. He dug footpaths to the shed and the woodpiles, and down the hill as far as the government wharf. He put on a fresh batch of homebrew that fermented in a carboy near the stove, he drained his empties and boiled the bottles to sterilize them. He removed a vinyl window from Glad Vatcher’s house to replace the leaky wooden window at the back of the shed. He fished for brown trout up on the mash, lighting a fire by the pond to cook them in the open air. He stripped and cleaned and rebuilt the quad’s starter engine, drained the oil and replaced the air filter. He let the motor run a few minutes when he was done, took a spin down as far as the government wharf, to be sure he’d set everything back where it belonged. He had no more than a quarter tank of gas left and a litre in one of the red containers. He parked the quad under its canvas tarp and expected to leave it there until the spring.

The dog wandered off on its own during the day but came barking to be let in after the lamps were lit. It lay at his feet beneath the table and followed him upstairs when he took himself to bed at eight or nine o’clock. Sweetland heated a beach rock in the oven and carried that with him in a pillowcase, slipping it under the covers to warm the sheets. The dog lay at the foot of the bed beside the rock or nosed its way under the blankets to curl against Sweetland’s back. He slept a dead sleep as the house clicked and whined into the deepening winter.

He often woke in the middle of the night, feeling rested and ready to start the day, though he could tell by the stars through the window it was too early to move. It was something he’d come to expect since he started going to bed in the early evening, this lull in his sleep. As if a body required the break before he finished dreaming. A natural intermission. He’d taken to filling the dead time with plans for the following day, with lists and inventories, with family trees, mindless mathematical sums. The number of stairs he’d climbed at the light tower in his time as keeper (268 stairs × [(365 days × 10 years) × 3 trips a day]). The number of strokes he and Hollis put in at the oars going to and from the traps before old Mr. Vatcher sold them the second-hand skiff. The names of everyone in the Loveless family back four generations. Three nights in a row Sweetland drifted to sleep trying to fish up the name of a fierce Salvation Army woman from Heart’s Desire who was married to Loveless’s great-uncle Baxter.

Occasionally he tried to recreate one of Jesse’s lectures on volcanoes or icebergs and it was a surprise to realize how little of the boy’s endless yammer he’d taken in. He couldn’t recall any of the Latin names of the whales or what exactly defines an ungulate or the name of the rocks dropped by glaciers. The boy claimed Sweetland and St. Pierre and Ramea and most of Newfoundland’s south coast were submerged by the weight of the glacial ice sheet and they had all bobbed above the surface like corks as the glaciers retreated. It was a fact Sweetland remembered only because he’d pooh-poohed the fanciful notion for months afterwards. Jumping up and down on the mash, then waving at Jesse to hold still as he cocked his head. She bounced that time, he’d say. Did you feel it? He’d give another little hop while Jesse stared at him with a look of stoic disbelief.

It was Sweetland’s job to remain ignorant in those ritual exchanges, to offer inane questions and commentary, to nitpick and quibble while the youngster tried to sink his objections under the weight of pure knowledge. They were like pro wrestlers circling one another in a ring where
all the moves were choreographed, the winner predetermined. Sweetland hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed the farcical pageant, how much he’d been missing it. But the memory of Jesse’s dogged seriousness in the face of his clowning was so raw that it forced him out of bed, and he learned to stay clear of it, moved on to other distractions.

Most nights he pictured a map of the island and set about naming every feature and landmark from the south-end light to Chance Cove and on to the Fever Rocks, before he did the same thing along the lee side. The litany started at the Mackerel Cliffs and went from there to Pinnacle Arch, to Lunin Rock, the Devil’s Under-jaw, the Flats, Murdering Hole, Tinker Cliffs, Old Chimney, Gannie Cliff Point, Wester Shoals, Mad Goat Gulch, Upper Brister, the Founder. He took his time, being careful to include as much detail as possible, as though the island was slowly fading from the world and only his ritual naming of each nook and cranny kept it from disappearing altogether. Coffin Pond, Cow Path Head, the Tom Cod Rocks, the Offer Ledge, Gansy Gulch, Lunin Cove, Lower Brister, Watering Gulch, the Well. Each time, he remembered some additional feature, an abandoned grebe’s nest, the heart-shaped fissure in the sea-stack rocks near Music House, the radio beacon west of Clay Hole Pond. The map each time becoming more complete.

It was a night in mid-December when Sweetland wandered up into the valley above Music House on that imaginary map, and for the first time he placed the Priddles’ cabin in its place, two-thirds of the way to high ground. He’d never thought to name it before and it occurred to him he hadn’t made the trip out there since having the island to himself. The brothers had a generator at the cabin which meant there’d be gasoline stored there, a resource so obvious he felt stupid not to have thought of it. Beyond that essential, there might be cans of beans or corned beef or Chef Boyardee pastas; batteries and matches; bottles of rye or dark rum or Scotch; soap and shaving cream; magazines or old newspapers or books of word searches. The thought of the plunder on
the opposite side of the island was so diverting, Sweetland was afraid he wouldn’t sleep the rest of the night. But eventually he drifted off.

Blue skies when he woke, but the morning looked for weather. An augural bank of cloud away off west and south. The temperature hovering around the freezing mark, a clammy feel to the air. The radio forecast saying snow or rain or some mix of the two, depending on how the system tracked. Wind and a couple of days of December fury coming on, and it wasn’t sensible to head out there with that sentence hanging over him. But the thought of the cabin, now that he’d struck on it, was impossible to resist.

He stripped the tarp off the quad. There was enough gas to get him partway to the lighthouse, which would save him lugging a full container all the way back across the island, and give him a ride home into the cove through whatever weather was coming. The Priddles had never locked their place to his memory, but he brought a hammer and a set of screwdrivers and the axe, just in case. The dog chased him as he pulled out of the shed and started up the path toward the mash, Sweetland driving slow and glancing back now and then to see the animal was with him. He cut across Vatcher’s Meadow and he was halfway to the lighthouse when the engine sputtered and quit. Sweetland sat on the machine a few minutes after it died, as if all it needed was a rest, as if it might pick itself up after a nap and carry on.

The clouds were a long ways to the south, the day still bright. He glanced up at the sun, ghosted on both sides by blurred reflections of itself. Sun hounds, Uncle Clar called them. A fierce bit of weather approaching, all appearances to the contrary. He had an hour’s walk to the light and that far again down to the Priddles’ cabin. And he was likely going to find himself holed up there awhile.

He climbed off the quad, took his pack from the carryall. He called for the dog, turned a circle where he was standing. The ground lying
flat as far as he could see and no sign of the animal. He put his fingers to his mouth, whistled for all he was worth. He looked up at the sun hounds, watched them shimmer as the moisture being pushed ahead of the storm flexed and bowed. He whistled again and shouted until he was hoarse. A little dwy of snow blew in off the ocean from the distant clouds. “Jesus fuck,” he said.

He walked on to the lighthouse as the storm descended, a soft, steady fall of snow settling on his shoulders as the sun disappeared. By the time he crested the rise above the keeper’s house the wind had shifted to the east and was blowing hard, catching him broadside. The snow suddenly wet and heavy and driving and Sweetland kept his head down to protect his face, to be able to take a breath without choking on the drift. He carried on past the lighthouse for the shelter of the path through the tuckamore, the trees offering some protection from the weather. The snow blowing overhead in fierce sheets but it was surprisingly warm and quiet out of the wind, and Sweetland opened his coat as he went, making his way toward the valley. He was fifteen minutes into that descent when the dog burst past him on the trail, bounding ahead. The black coat barely visible under the spray of white in the fur.

“And where the fuck were you?” Sweetland shouted. Relieved to see the animal.

He’d caught sight of the cabin’s peak at the head of the valley, but it disappeared again as he moved down into the trees. He was at the door before he knew he was close. There was a drift of snow across the front of the building and he kicked it clear, stepped inside behind the dog. The cabin backed right into the eastern ridge and out of the wind. Sweetland shut the door behind him and listened to the silence. Except for the occasional rattle in the chimney, there was nothing to say a storm was on. He looked down at the dog, its breath coming in plumes. It was colder inside than out, a chill the room had been storing up for months.

The brothers spent no time at the cabin over the winter and the woodbox by the stove was nearly empty. A bit of kindling, a pile of
sawed-up two-by-four scavenged from the remains of the deck at the keeper’s house. A Bic lighter beside the flue. Sweetland set about making a fire, leaving the stove door open an inch to let the draft take up through the dry kindling. Looked around the room as he waited for the heat. The cabin was a storey and a half, with bunks in a loft built under the eaves. A window over the sink against one wall. A square table beneath the loft, a loveseat the brothers had sawed in half to make it easier carrying out from the cove. It was stuck together with nails and duct tape, a predominant slump across the middle. There was a poster-sized outline of Newfoundland tacked on the opposite side of the room. It was a commemorative map produced in 1966,
Come Home Year
in a faux-antique script across the top.

Hardly the cornucopia of delights he’d been dreaming about. Sweetland was familiar enough with the cabin that none of it was a surprise. It was hard to believe he’d made so much of it in his mind, lying alone at three and four in the morning.

When it was warm enough inside to take off his coat, he poked through the cupboards over the sink. Two plates, two bowls, a mismatch of glasses and mugs. A plastic baggie of Tetley, a tin of Maxwell House instant. An unopened kilo of sugar, one of the few things he had plenty of. Half a dozen boxes of Kraft Dinner, three Styrofoam containers of Cup-a-Soup. A half-empty jar of peanuts, a flask of vodka. A pack of rolling papers. One lonely tin of Flakes of Ham. Sweetland dug through the cutlery drawer for a can opener and he set half the gelatinous meat on a plate for the dog. He ate the rest of it from the tin, savouring every salty mouthful. Thinking it was enough on its own to have made the trip worthwhile.

He carried the kettle outside and filled it with fresh snow, set it on the stovetop where it spat and hissed. Then he walked to the lean- to built against the waterside wall of the cabin where they kept the generator. Hoping for more firewood, hoping for several gallons of gasoline. The room was padlocked shut and Sweetland took the screws off the
lockset in the door jamb, pushed the door as wide as it would go. The generator sitting in shadows at the back of the narrow space, one gas can beside it. Sweetland reached to touch it with his boot and the container shifted where it sat. Not half full. Enough to get the quad back to the cove, and a trip to the lighthouse from there if he ever needed it. But no more than that.

There was nothing else of any use to him. A couple of paint cans, a stack of roofing shingles. A shovel with a broken handle. A coffee can full of roofing nails, screws, a dozen cigarette butts. Sweetland picked through the can to collect the butts and he took them back inside the cabin. He brought in more snow to add to the meltwater in the kettle and then he sat at the table with the flask of vodka, poured himself a shot in a coffee cup. He’d never cared much for vodka and he let it sit there while he straightened the smashed butts and scraped the tobacco from the paper tubes onto the tabletop. There was enough to roll three cigarettes with the papers in the cupboard. He tore strips of the thin cardboard from the cover and rolled them tight to make a crude filter for each one.

“Now, Mr. Fox,” he said. The dog was curled on the loveseat and lifted its head to look at him. “Who’s got it better than this?”

There were moments, he had to admit, when he sounded slightly unhinged. He’d had plenty of quiet time since missing his chance to escape with the Coast Guard to consider whether he was losing his grip on reality and he found it hard to argue otherwise. But he couldn’t make himself believe it. And he was surprised to find he was more or less content with his predicament now, with his place on the abandoned island with Loveless’s little dog and Jesse’s grave. He held to what he’d chosen and managed to make a sort of peace with the bizarre incidents that had become a feature of his days, accepted the fact that some of the world he lived in couldn’t be found on a map. A crazy person wouldn’t be capable of separating the strangeness from the rest of his life, he thought, of settling in the midst of it. But he allowed it was possible that all crazy people thought that way.

He lit one of the hand-rolled and took a slow drag on the butt. His first taste of a cigarette in twenty-five years and he held the stale smoke in his lungs a long time.

Halfway through the flask of vodka he was feeling sick to his stomach. The foul alcohol or the shot of nicotine, or a combination of the two. He was drunk enough to push on, regardless, poured the cup full and lit the second of his three smokes. His head buzzing like a neon light. He’d almost forgotten how much he loved the cigarettes, what a poisonous comfort they were.