Sylvanus Now (29 page)

“What about them?”

“What about them?” He stared at her incredulously. “Cripes, Addie, you knows some things, don’t you?”

“I knows a whole lot more than you thinks I do,” she quickly replied. Her tone softened. “Syllie, perhaps there’re other ways besides jigging. We can talk about it, can’t we?” she pleaded as he balked at her words.

“Talk! I’m sick of talk. Sick of the government’s talk, sick of the fishermen’s talk, sick of my own. Jeezes, how much can a thing be talked about and still remain the same thing? Now, stand aside, else I dumps you over my shoulder and lugs you out on the fishing grounds—you’ll know enough then, about fishing and talk.” And ignoring her cry of protest, he clamped his hands around her waist, lifting her to the wayside. Dropping a kiss upon her cheek, he started toward the footbridge, fuming over the news he’d just heard on the radio, that the Russians were now building another seventy factory ships and two hundred more trawlers, and the Germans were knitting thousand-foot nets with built-in sonar for spotting fish up to two miles away, and still more countries were preparing to come on board.

He cursed upon reaching his boat, realizing he’d forgotten his hardtack and onions. Hell’s flames with it, he muttered silently, hauling out his oilskins. Be more than his belly empty if he didn’t get his arse out to sea; his puncheons would be empty too. And by the look of things, no doubt they would be without their winter’s hold again this year. He sighed tiredly. Still, there was another good six weeks left yet. Who knows what six weeks would bring, he said more to encourage himself on this lacklustre evening of grey skies and squally winds. He pushed off his boat and climbed aboard without courage. He felt tired. Half the fish and half the work he was used to, yet he felt tired.

It was a fatigue that had pursued him throughout the season. By summer’s end, with his prolonged hours on the sea, his persistent jigging and the continuing decline of his catch, he was starting to feel older than the hills.

Stuffing his lunch pack into the cuddy one cold September afternoon, he turned a keen eye to the wind. It was a full-out blow, meaning it would either reach its full pitch in twenty minutes, in which case his boat could easily handle it, and he would then be able to drop anchor and jig; or else she’d keep on building, in which case he’d turn back or run ashore. It was already late in the afternoon, and he was feeling the pinch too hard to stay ashore, wasting twenty minutes waiting to see how hard she’d blow.

“Hey, what’re you at, old cock?”

He looked up in surprise as Manny lunged down onto the landwash beside him.

“How’re you doing, buddy?” he replied, pulling his oilskins out of the stern. “What the hell!” he yelped in disbelief as Manny grabbed him by the front of his coat, throwing him against his stage.

“I asked
what’re you at?
” yelled Manny, clenching his coat tighter. As quickly as he’d grabbed him, he let go, his breathing heavy, his face darker than the rain clouds threatening overhead.

Sylvanus stared at him, stupefied. “What in hell’s flames do it look like?” he cried. “Never seen a jigger before?”

“Not sticking out of a man’s arse, I haven’t—leastways, not yet. But by jeezes, I’ll see one before the day’s out, you tries getting in that boat in this wind!”

“The wind? You think I won’t turn back if she keeps building? Cripes, I’m not that stun. Manny!” he shouted as his brother grabbed him again, shoving him hard against the stage.

“Yup, and that’s what I’ll tell Mother,” Manny shouted back, “when she’s climbing up on the head, watching out for you agin: ‘Bugger off, Mother, he’s happy as a lark, snuggled in onshore somewhere.’ You think that’s going to save her a night of hell, you little shit!” Hauling back, Manny struck him a clean one across his chin.

Stunned, Sylvanus stared at this brother, whose bearded face, always softened with laughter, was now hardened with rage, his mouth a thin, angry line, his eyes full of fear, and full of—of what?

Haunts, he said softly to himself. Full of haunts. “Mother just told you about her seeing the drownings,” he said simply. He turned from his brother’s pain, turning a bleak eye onto the bleaker face of the sea.

“How come you never told me?” said Manny. “First, she keeps it to herself, and then you.”

Sylvanus shrugged. “I don’t know, brother. I figured it was hers to tell.”

Manny drew a raspy breath. “Should’ve told us a long time ago, keeping all that to herself. Bloody hell of a thing—” His voice broke, and Sylvanus kept his eyes on the sea.

“Wish I’d lived through it with ye,” he said to give Manny time.

Manny wiped at his face. “You did,” he said brusquely. “Probably closer than we all did—inside of Mother, like that. Anyway, fighting with the missus, that why you were putting off this evening? Go on, b’ye, everybody fights with their missus,” he carried on as Sylvanus never spoke. “No need to drown yourself—not right off, anyway. Get drunk first. Come on—Jake’s got a fire going.”

Sylvanus shifted moodily. “I’m not fighting with the missus.”

“Well, what else would send a man out in a gale, then?” And as if finding the answer to his own question, Manny let go with a wearied sigh. “Looking for a fish, right? Jesus Christ, man, if it’s come to this—pushing off in a storm—it’s time to do something, isn’t it? Look, Syllie, there’s other things coming. You’re going to have to start thinking differently.”

“What other things?” asked Sylvanus. “Manny?” And a different kind of worry knotted his stomach as Manny looked beseechingly to the hills, as though begging for words. “What the hell, Manny? Jeezes, you’re not dying or something, are you?”

Manny scoffed. “Not that I knows of. Look, you just got to give up your stubbornness, is all. Just give up your blasted stubbornness!”

“Stubbornness! What the hell you talking about,
stubbornness
?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about—stubbornness! And don’t fly off your head at me,” he warned as Sylvanus groaned. “See! See, that’s just what I means!” he said as Sylvanus turned from him impatiently. “You don’t listen, Syllie, you don’t listen to nothing or nobody.”

“What things—what bloody things? In the name of Jesus, say something and I’ll listen,” yelled Sylvanus.

“Nothing! I’m not trying to say nothing! No sense talking to the likes of you about nothing when it comes to fishing!”

“Right, right, just like Father, just like Father— whoever the hell Father was,” and he wiped at his mouth, near frothing he was so bleeding mad.

Manny grinned—a hard grin, one that was more a curse than a grin. “My son, you’re the case,” he said. “Boundaries, b’ye, that’s all. We finally got them—just heard it on the radio. Twelve miles. Perhaps that’ll change everything. Come on, let’s go to Jake’s.”

“Boundaries? Hell, that’s not what’s up your arse this evening. Boundaries!” he spat, as Manny swung away from him. “Some good now, to make boundaries when the fish makes their own. Horseshit, is all that is, horseshit!”

Manny spun about. “Yeah, well, why don’t you go have a little chat with the fishies,” he said, jabbing hard at his brother’s chest, “and when you gets everything straightened out between them and the wops and the limeys and the krauts and all else who’s out there, you give me a shout and we’ll have another chat, all right?”

“Oh, bugger off!” snarled Sylvanus, knocking his hand aside. “Bugger off!” he warned as Manny, enraged, curled a fist. “By the jeezes, you won’t get away with that agin.”

“Manny! Syllie!”

They both turned at their mother’s voice. She came running, her winter shawl weighing down her thin shoulders and her boot laces all untied. Adelaide hurried behind, pulling on a coat, her hair whipping with the wind.

Manny stove his fist behind him. “For gawd’s sake, Mother, get back in the house,” he yelled.

“What’re ye fighting over?” cried Eva. “Manny?”

“Nothing, we’re not fighting over nothing,” said Sylvanus. “Take her back, Addie. Jeezes, she’s freezing,” he cried, draping an arm around her shoulders to shield her.

The old woman broke clear of him, her brow as dark as her boys’. “I’m not so lame I needs to be led. Did you tell him?” she asked Manny.

“No. No, look, Mother, go on inside.”

Sylvanus raised his hands to the heavens. “Yup, here we go agin.” Turning appealing eyes to his mother, he fell before her on one knee, his hands mockingly clasped in prayer, asking, “In the name of Jesus, will you tell me what it is ye haven’t told me?”

“They’re moving us.” It was Adelaide who spoke.

Sylvanus rose, looking to her. Her face was white with cold, her lips blue. “Who?” he asked, despite his incomprehension of her words. “Who’s moving us?”

“The government,” she said.

Manny’s voice was strained. “You’re the last one to hear it, brother. The government’s moving us—everybody. Resettlement,” he added almost irritably as Sylvanus kept looking from one to the other with a blank look. “The whole shebang—except for them who won’t go. But from what I hears, there’s nobody saying no—except the old midwife, probably. And Mother, if you don’t go,” he added as an afterthought.

Sylvanus stared speechless at his brother, an awful dawning opening his eyes as he heard, finally, what his brother had been trying to tell him for some time.

“How long have you known this?” he asked, then lapsed a second before falling back as though struck. “You’re all for it. You’re all for it,” he repeated, as though to convince himself of his words. “And Jake—no doubt Jake’s for it—he’s talked you into it, hasn’t he, hasn’t he, Manny? Yes, he has, that son of a bitch,” he yelled as Manny shook his head. Again Sylvanus lapsed into silence, his eyes beseeching his brother to tell him no, no, it isn’t so, that he, Manny, wouldn’t go along with no government plan to shut down Cooney Arm, shut down their homes, their fishing. No, no, not so, nobody would want this, to shut down Cooney Arm, to be moved.

A sickness crept into his heart, leaking into his guts, his testicles, weakening him, and he stared disbelievingly at this brother who was now shifting uneasily, dragging in deep breaths for words of persuasion.

“Stick it,” said Sylvanus in the awful quiet of a voice whose anger has been shorn by its source. “Stick anything else you got to say. It’ll sicken me to hear it.” He turned to his mother, her aging face sinking into the hollows of her skull, her eyes pleading with his to be fine.

“I knows it’s hard, Syllie,” said Manny. “But we can come back whenever we like, keep our houses for a summertime place—”

“Screw you! Screw you, a summertime place! And you knows dick if you thinks this is going to fix anything. How long have ye known this?” he asked his mother and Addie. “Bloody hell,” and he punched his knuckles into his palm as his mother’s eyes fell away.

“Only yesterday,” said Adelaide. “You haven’t been home long enough to say nothing to.”

She reached out to touch him, and he shrank from her. “You knows the way to the stage,” he said stealthily. “You wouldn’t have gotten dirty poking your head in for a minute.”

She flushed red and he was surprised by his cutting her. He was surprised too, as if he’d just awakened, at the sight of his mother standing there in the freezing winds, wearing only a shawl.

“For gawd’s sake, take her back in,” he said to Adelaide, and then turned to Manny, grabbing his shoulders, his voice strong, “Manny, jeezes, b’ye, we don’t have to follow through with this. What the hell, Manny,
move
? Everybody
move
? What the hell, brother, we don’t have to move.”

“Not just for we, buddy, for the youngsters, too,” said Manny. “They’ll have better schools and roads. We’re too small and too out of the way to get some of the things they’re getting in Ragged Rock, Hampden, places like that. Look, b’ye,” he said as Sylvanus turned from him, “it’s not what we wants, all right? It’s all that’s left for us, that’s all. The whole goddamn thing’s turned around. They don’t need we salting fish no more, not with the factory freezers on board. And you can’t help but see the truth of it. Might not be what we wants, but it’s a better way, simple as that. Freezing fish is a better way of keeping them than salting. Bigger boats is a better way of catching them. Simple as that. And if we don’t go along with it, we’re out in the cold.”

“Bullshit! That’s bullshit,” Sylvanus snorted. “That’s just what they wants you to think because it’s too bloody much trouble to keep after the markets, is all, and they all wants the new stuff—the new markets, and them big, pretty boats, and everybody wearing aprons and looking white and clean and modern—
modern!
” he mocked. “That’s what they’re always saying, isn’t it, that we got to be modern, that we’re backwards with no vision? Shamed of us is what they are, shamed of a bloody sou’wester and a punt.

“Well, you better watch out, buddy, because they’ll have you trading your skiff for a trawler next, and your sou’wester for a derby, and next thing you’ll be all nice and modern on the deck of a freezer, doing to us what the rest of the bastards have been doing for years now—wiping us out. Vision!” he spat, his mouth contorting with anger. “There’s more vision in the eye of my dick than what’s in their heads. Ye go, then, along with everybody else listening to their crap. But I’m not. I’m bloody not, youngster or no youngster.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Adelaide as he spoke this last. Lowering his head, he lurched past her, past his stage, and onto the shore, hunching his shoulders against the sky already darkened with low, heavy clouds, and the winds swooping off the land, and scuds of foam flitting along the beach from the fevered sea.

Move. A sickness churned in his stomach, and he stood still against the squalls as though to feel the steadiness of the rock beneath his feet, to assure himself that it, too, wasn’t about to erode. It started to drizzle, the wet scenting the air with a fleet of smells that, under this threat of moving, were already alien with nostalgia. He’d been breathing them since the day of his birth. He hadn’t noted them a separate thing from all else around him. Pine smoke, birch smoke, green vir—cripes, he knew whose chimney they were pouring from: Manny hated vir; Jake burned only vir; Ambrose, as he himself, loved the nice clean smell of birch.