The Shipping News (25 page)

On the weekend Quoyle and the aunt patched and painted. Dennis started the studding in the kitchen. Sawdust on everything,
boards, two-by-fours stacked on the floor. The aunt scraping another cupboard to bare wood.

Quoyle chopped at his secret path to the shore. Read his books. Played with his daughters. Saw briefly, once, Petal's vanished face in Sunshine's look. Pain he thought blunted erupted hot. As though the woman herself had suddenly appeared and disappeared. Of course she had, in a genetic way. He called Sunshine to him, wanted to take her up and press his face against her neck to prolong the quick illusion, but did not. Shook her hand instead, said “How do you do, and how do you do, and how do you do again?” Invoking Wavey, that tall woman. Made himself laugh with the child.

One Saturday morning Quoyle went in his boat down to No Name Cove for lobsters. Left Bunny raging on the pier.

“I want to come!”

“I'll give you a ride when I come back.”

Put up with the No Name witticisms over his boat. It was an infamous craft that they said would drown him one time. On the way back he skirted a small iceberg drifting down the bay. Curious about the thing, a lean piece of ice riddled with arches and caves. But as big as a bingo hall.

“More than four hundred icebergs have grounded this year so far,” he told the aunt. He couldn't get over them. Had never dreamed icebergs would be in his life. “I don't know where they went ashore, but that's what they say. There was a bulletin on it yesterday.”

“Did you get the lobsters?”

“Got them from Lud Young. He kept shoving extras in the basket like they were lifesavers. Tried to pay for them but he wouldn't take it.”

“Season will be over pretty soon, we might as well eat ‘em while we can get ‘em. If he wants to give lobster to you, take them. I remember the Youngs from the old days. Hair hanging down in their eyes. You know, the thing that's best,” said the aunt, “is the fish here. Wait until the snow crab comes in. Sweetest meat in the world. Now, how do we want to do these lobsters?”

“Boiled.”

“Yes, well. We haven't had a nice lobster chowder for a while. And there's advantages to that.” She looked toward the other room where Bunny was hammering. “We won't have to hear that screeching about ‘red spiders' and fix her a bowl of cereal. Or I could boil them and pull out all the meat and make lobster rolls. Or how about crepes rolled up with the meat in a cream sauce inside?”

Quoyle's mouth was watering. It was the aunt's old trick, to reel out the names of succulent dishes, then retreat to the simplest dish. Not Partridge's style.

“Lobster salad is nice, too, but maybe a little light for supper. You know, there's a way Warren and I used to have it at The Fair Weather Inn on Long Island. The tail meat soaked in saki then cooked with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and piled into the shells and baked. There was a hot sauce that was out of this world. I can't get any of those things here. Of course, if we had some shrimp and crabmeat and scallops I could make stuffed lobster tails—same idea, but with white wine and Parmesan cheese. If I could get white wine and Parmesan.”

“I bought cheese. Not Parmesan. It's just cheese. Cheddar.”

“Well that settles it. Lobster pie. We don't have any cream, but I can use milk. Bunny will eat it without roaring and it'll be a change from boiled. I want to make something a little special. I asked Dawn to come over to supper. I told her six, so there's plenty of time.”

“Who?”

“You heard me. I asked Dawn to come over. Dawn Budgel. She's a nice girl. Do you good to talk to her.” For the nephew did nothing but work and dote.

There was a prodigious pounding from the living room.

“Bunny,” called Quoyle. “What are you making? Another box?”

“I am making a
TENT
.” Fury in the voice.

“A wooden tent?”

“Yeah. But the door is crooked.” A crash.

“Did you throw something?”

“The door is
CROOKED
! And you said you would give me a ride in the boat. And didn't!”

Quoyle got up.

“I forgot. O.k., both of you get your jackets on and let's go.”

But just outside the door Bunny invented a new game while Quoyle waited.

“Lie down on your back, see, like this.”

Sunshine thumped down on her back, stretched out her arms and legs.

“Now look up near the top of the house. And keep looking. It's scary, it's the scary house falling down.”

And their gazes traveled up the clapboards, warped crooked with storms, to the black eaves. Above the peak of the house the thin sky and clouds raced diagonally. The illusion swelled that the clouds were fixed and it was the house that toppled forward inexorably. The looming wall tipped at Sunshine who scrambled up and ran, deliciously frightened. Bunny stood it longer until she, too, had to get up and tear away to safe ground.

Quoyle made them sit side by side in the boat. They gripped the gunwales. The boat buzzed over the water. “Go fast, Dad,” yelled Sunshine. But Bunny looked at the foaming bow wave. There, in the snarl of froth, was a dog's white face, glistering eyes and bubbled mouth. The wave surged and the dog rose with it; Bunny gripped the seat and howled. Quoyle threw the motor into neutral.

The boat wallowed in the water, no headway, slap of waves.

“I saw a dog in the water,” sobbed Bunny.

“There is no dog in the water,” said Quoyle. “Just air bubbles and foam and a little girl's imagination. You
know
Bunny, that there cannot be a dog that lives in the water.”

“Dennis says there's water dogs,” sobbed Bunny.

“He means another kind of dog. A real live dog, like Warren”—no, Warren was dead—“a live dog who can swim, who swims in the water and brings dead ducks to hunters.” Christ, was everything dead?

“Well, it looked like a dog. The white dog, Dad. He's mad at me. He wants to bite me. And make my blood drip out.” The tears coming now.

“It's not a true dog, Bunny. It's an imaginary dog and even if it looks real it can't hurt you. If you see it again you have to say to yourself, ‘Is this a real dog or is this an imaginary dog?' Then you'll know it isn't real, and you'll laugh about it.”

“But Dad, suppose it
is
real!”

“In the water, Bunny? In a stone? In a piece of plywood? Give me a break.” So Quoyle tried to vanquish the white dog with logic. And headed back to the dock very slowly so there was no bow wave. Getting fed up with the white dog.

In the afternoon Quoyle set the table while the aunt squeezed and folded piecrust.

“Put on the red tablecloth, nephew. It's in the drawer under the stairs. You might want to change your shirt.” The aunt stuck two white candles in glass holders although it was still full sunlight outside. The sun would not set until nine.

Bunny and Sunshine were tricked out in white tights, their velvet Thanksgiving dresses with lace collars. Sunshine could wear Bunny's patent leather Mary Janes, but Bunny sulked in grimy sneakers. And her dress was too small, tight under the arms and short. Hot, as well.

“Here she comes,” said the aunt, hearing Dawn's Japanese car curving toward the house. “You girls mind your manners, now.”

Dawn came up the steps, balancing in white spike heels big enough to fit a man, smiling with brown lips. Her nylon blouse glowed; the hem of the skirt hung low behind. She carried a bottle. Quoyle thought it was wine but it was white grape juice. He could see the Sobey's price tag. The toes of her shoes jutted up at a painful angle.

He thought of Petal in her dress with the fringe, the long legs diving down to slippers embroidered with silver bugles, Petal, darting around in a cloud of Trésor, shooting glances at her reflection in mirror, toaster, glass, flicking her fingers at Quoyle's openmouth desire. He felt a pang for this poor moth.

The conversation dragged, Dawn saying the bare floors and hard windows were “striking.” Sunshine heaped grimy bears and
metal cars in her lap, it's a bear, it's a car, as though the visitor came from a country where there were no toys.

At last the aunt thumped the fragrant pastry in front of Quoyle. “Go ahead and dish it up, Nephew.”

She lit the candles, the flames invisible in the cylinder of sunlight that fell across the table, but the smell of wax reminding them, brought the dish of peas and pearl onions, the salad.

“Let me help,” said Dawn, half up, her skirt caught under the chair leg. But there was nothing she could do. Her voice echoed in the hard room.

Quoyle pierced the crust with an aluminum implement. Bunny stuck her fork into the candle flame.

“Don't do that,” said the aunt dangerously. A section of lobster pie rose from the steaming dish, slid onto Dawn's plate.

“Oh, is it lobster?” said Dawn.

“Yes, indeed.” The aunt. “Lobster pie, sweet as a nut.”

Dawn made her voice very warm, addressed the aunt. “I'll just have salad, Agnis. I don't care for lobster. Since I was a girl. We had to take lobster sandwiches to school. We'd throw them in the ditch. Crab, too. Like big spiders!” Tried a laugh.

Bunny looked at the crust and orange meat on her plate. Quoyle braced himself for screeching but it did not come. Bunny chewed ostentatiously, said “I love red spider meat.”

Dawn to Quoyle. Confiding. Everything she said overwrought. Pretending an interest.

“It's so awful what those people did to Agnis.” Didn't actually care.

“What people?” said Quoyle, his hand at his chin.

“The people in the Hitler boat. The way they just sneaked out.”

“What's this?” said Quoyle, looking at the aunt.

“Well, looks like I got stiffed,” she said, flames of rage sweeping into her hair roots. “We installed the banquettes on the yacht, all chairs but two done and delivered, all that. And they're gone. The yacht's gone. Pulled out after dark.”

“Can't you track them through the yacht registry? That boat's one of a kind.”

“I thought I'd wait a little,” said the aunt. “Wait to hear. Maybe there was a reason they had to leave in a hurry. Sickness. Or business. They're involved in the oil business. Or she is. She's the one with the money. Or she remembered a hair appointment in New York. That's how they are. Why I didn't say anything to you.”

“Didn't you do some work for them back in the States? That would show their address?”

“Yes, a few years ago I upholstered the sofas. But those papers are still back on Long Island. In storage.”

“I thought you were having everything sent up here,” said Quoyle, noticing again the emptiness of rooms, the lack of the furniture she said was being shipped. Two months now.

Dawn noticed his lips were slippery with butter from the lobster pie.

“It takes time,” said the aunt. “Rome wasn't built in a day.”

Outside the wind was up and humming in the cables. Bunny at the window.

“Who wants to play cards,” said the aunt. Chafing her hands and squinting like a stage villain card shark.

“Know how to play All-Fours?” said Dawn.

“Girl,” said the aunt, “you know it.”

Glanced at the cupboard where she kept her whiskey bottle. Could bite the top off.

19

Good-bye, Buddy

“The Russian
Escape. A prisoner is . . . secured to his guard. . . . In his efforts to escape he rubs his hands together until the heels of his hands pinch a bight of the rope. It is then an easy matter to roll the bight down as far as the roots of the fingers, where it can be grasped with the finger tips of one hand and slipped over the backs of the fingers of the other hand. The prisoner then pulls away and the . . . rope slips over the back of his hand and under the handcuff lashing.”

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS