Part 3 (1/2)
How many had come here, leaning on the rail as she leaned now. Staring at the rock in the sea. Vikings, the Basques, the French, English, Spanish, Portuguese. Drawn by the cod, from the days when ma.s.sed fish slowed s.h.i.+ps on the drift for the pa.s.sage to [33] the Spice Isles, expecting cities of gold. The lookout dreamed of roasted auk or sweet berries in cups of plaited gra.s.s, but saw crumpling waves, lights flickering along the s.h.i.+p rails. The only cities were of ice, bergs with cores of beryl, blue gems within white gems, that some said gave off an odor of almonds. She had caught the bitter scent as a child.
Sh.o.r.e parties returned to s.h.i.+p blood-crusted with insect bites. Wet, wet, the interior of the island, they said, bog and marsh, rivers and chains of ponds alive with metal-throated birds. The s.h.i.+ps sc.r.a.ped on around the points. And the lookout saw shapes of caribou folding into fog.
Later, some knew it as a place that bred malefic spirits. Spring starvation showed skully heads, k.n.o.bbed joints beneath flesh. What desperate work to stay alive, to scrob and claw through hard times. The alchemist sea changed fishermen into wet bones, sent boats to drift among the cod, cast them on the landwash. She remembered the stories in old mouths: the father who shot his oldest children and himself that the rest might live on flour sc.r.a.pings; sealers crouched on a floe awash from their weight until one leaped into the sea; storm journeys to fetch medicines-always the wrong thing and too late for the convulsing hangash.o.r.e.
She had not been in these waters since she was a young girl, but it rushed back, the sea's hypnotic boil, the smell of blood, weather and salt, fish heads, spruce smoke and reeking armpits, the rattle of wash-ball rocks in hissing wave, turrs, the crackery taste of brewis, the bedroom under the eaves.
But now they said that hard life was done. The forces of fate weakened by unemployment insurance, a flaring hope in offsh.o.r.e oil money. All was progress and possession, all shove and push, now. They said.
Fifteen she was when they had moved from Quoyle's Point, seventeen when the family left for the States, a drop in the tides of Newfoundlanders away from the outports, islands and hidden coves, rus.h.i.+ng like water away from isolation, illiteracy, trousers made of worn upholstery fabric, no teeth, away from contorted thoughts and rough hands, from desperation.
And her dad, Harold Hamm, dead the month before they left, [34] killed when a knot securing a can hook failed. Off-loading barrels of nails. The corner of the sling drooped, the barrel came down. Its iron-rimmed chine struck the nape of his neck, dislocated vertebrae and crushed the spinal column. Paralyzed and fading on the dock, unable to speak; who knew what thoughts crashed against the washline of his seizing brain as the kids and wife bent over, imploring Father, Father. No one said his name, only the word father father, as though fatherhood had been the great thing in his life. Weeping. Even Guy, who cared for no one but himself.
So strange, she thought, going back there with a bereaved nephew and Guy's ashes. She had taken the box from sobbing Quoyle, carried it up to the guest room. Lay awake thinking she might pour Guy into a plastic supermarket bag, tie the loop handles, and toss him into the dumpster.
Only a thought.
Wondered which had changed the most, place or self? It was a strong place. She shuddered. It would be better now. Leaned on the rail, looking into the dark Atlantic that snuffled at the slope of the past.
5.
A Rolling Hitch ”A Rolling Hitch will suffice to tie a broom that has no groove, provided the surface is not too slick.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS.
ON THE floor behind the seat Warren groaned. Quoyle steered up the west coast of the Great Northern Peninsula along a highway rutted by transport trucks. The road ran between the loppy waves of the Strait of Belle Isle and mountains like blue melons. Across the strait sullen Labrador. Trucks ground east in caravans, stainless steel cabs beaded with mist. Quoyle almost recognized the louring sky. As though he had dreamed this place once, forgot it later. floor behind the seat Warren groaned. Quoyle steered up the west coast of the Great Northern Peninsula along a highway rutted by transport trucks. The road ran between the loppy waves of the Strait of Belle Isle and mountains like blue melons. Across the strait sullen Labrador. Trucks ground east in caravans, stainless steel cabs beaded with mist. Quoyle almost recognized the louring sky. As though he had dreamed this place once, forgot it later.
The car rolled over fissured land. Tuckamore. Cracked cliffs in volcanic glazes. On a ledge above the sea a murre laid her single egg. Harbors still locked in ice. Tombstone houses jutting from raw granite, the coast black, glinting like lumps of silver ore.
Their house, the aunt said, crossing her fingers, was out on Quoyle's Point. The Point, anyway, still on the map. A house [36] empty for forty-four years. She scoffed, said it could not still stand, but inwardly believed something had held, that time had not cheated her of this return. Her voice clacked. Quoyle, listening, drove with his mouth open as though to taste the subarctic air. house, the aunt said, crossing her fingers, was out on Quoyle's Point. The Point, anyway, still on the map. A house [36] empty for forty-four years. She scoffed, said it could not still stand, but inwardly believed something had held, that time had not cheated her of this return. Her voice clacked. Quoyle, listening, drove with his mouth open as though to taste the subarctic air.
On the horizon icebergs like white prisons. The immense blue fabric of the sea, rumpled and creased.
”Look,” said the aunt. ”Fis.h.i.+ng skiffs.” Small in the distance. Waves bursting against the headlands. Exploding water.
”I remember a fellow lived in a wrecked fis.h.i.+ng boat,” the aunt said. ”Old Danny Something-or-other. It was hauled up on the sh.o.r.e far enough out of the storm and he fixed it up. Little chimney sticking up, path with a border of stone. Lived there for years until one day when he was sitting out in front mending net and the rotten hull collapsed and killed him.”
The highway shriveled to a two-lane road as they drove east, ran under cliffs, pa.s.sed spruce forest fronted by signs that said NO CUTTING NO CUTTING. Quoyle appraised the rare motels they pa.s.sed with the eye of someone who expected to sleep in one of them.
The aunt circled Quoyle's Point on the map. On the west side of Omaloor Bay the point thrust into the ocean like a bent thumb. The house, whether now collapsed, vandalized, burned, carried away in pieces, had been there. Once.
The bay showed on the map as a chemist's pale blue flask into which poured ocean. s.h.i.+ps entered the bay through the neck of the flask. On the eastern sh.o.r.e the settlement of Flour Sack Cove, three miles farther down the town of Killick-Claw, and along the bottom, odds and ends of coves. The aunt rummaged in her black flapjack handbag for a brochure. Read aloud the charms of Killick-Claw, statistics of its government wharf, fish plant, freight terminal, restaurants. Population, two thousand. Potential unlimited.
”Your new job's in Flour Sack Cove, eh? That's right across from Quoyle's Point. Looks about two miles by water. And a long trip by road. Used to be a ferry run from Capsize Cove to Killick Claw every morning and night. But I guess it's closed down now. If you had a boat and a motor you could do it yourself.”
[37] ”How do we get out to Quoyle's Point?” he asked.
There was a road off the main highway, the aunt said, that showed as a dotted line on the map. Quoyle didn't like the look of the dotted line roads they pa.s.sed. Gravel, mud, washboard going nowhere.
They missed the turnoff, drove until they saw gas pumps. A sign. IGS STORE IGS STORE. The store in a house. Dark room. Behind the counter they could see a kitchen, teakettle spitting on the stove. Bunny heard television laughter.
Waiting for someone to appear, Quoyle examined bear-paw snowshoes. Walked around, looking at the homemade shelves, open boxes of skinning knives, needles for mending net, cones of line, rubber gloves, potted meats, a pile of adventure videos. Bunny peered through the freezer door at papillose frost crowding the ice cream tubs.
A man, sedge-gra.s.s hair sticking out from a cap embroidered with the name of a French bicycle manufacturer, came from the kitchen; chewed something gristly. Trousers a sullen crookedness of wool. The aunt talked. Quoyle modeled a sealskin hat for his children, helped them choose dolls made from clothespins. Inked faces smiled from the heads.
”Can you tell us where the road to Capsize Cove is?”
Unsmiling. Swallowed before answering.
”Be'ind you aways. Like just peasin' out of the main road. On a right as you go back. Not much in there now.” He looked away. His Adam's apple a hairy mound in his neck like some strange s.e.xual organ.
Quoyle at a rack of comic books, studied a gangster firing a laser gun at a trussed woman. The gangsters always wore green suits. He paid for the dolls. The man's fingers dropped cold dimes.
Up and down the highway three times before they spied a ruvid strip tilting away into the sky.
”Aunt, I don't think I can drive on this. It doesn't look like it goes anywhere.”
”There's tire tracks on it,” she said, pointing to cleated tread [38] marks. Quoyle turned onto the sumpy road. Churned mud. The tire marks disappeared. Must have turned around, thought Quoyle, wanting to do the same and try tomorrow. Or had dropped in a bottomless hole.
”When are we gonna get there?” said Bunny, kicking the back of the seat. ”I'm tired of going somewhere. I want to be there. I want to put on my bathing suit and play on the beach.”
”Me too.” Both throwing themselves rhythmically against the seat.
”It's too cold. Only polar bears go swimming now. But you can throw stones in the water. On the map, Aunt, how long is this road?” Hands ached from days of clenching.
She breathed over the map awhile. ”From the main road to Capsize Cove is seventeen miles.”
”Seventeen miles of this!”
”And then,” as if he hadn't spoken, ”eleven more to Quoyle's Point. To the house. Whatever's left of it. They show this road on the map, but in the old days it wasn't there. There was a footpath. See, folks didn't drive, n.o.body had cars then. Go places in the boat. n.o.body had a car or truck. That paved main highway we come up on is all new.” Yet the signature of rock written against the horizon in a heavy hand; unchanged, unchanging.
”Hope we don't get to Capsize Cove and discover we've got an eleven-mile hike in front of us.” The rasp of his nylon sleeve on the wheel.
”We might. Then we'll just turn around.” Her expression was remote. The bay seemed to be coming out of her mind, a blue hallucination.
Quoyle and the road in combat. Car Disintegrates on Remote Goatpath. Dusk washed in, the car struggled up a grade. They were on the edge of cliffs. Below, Capsize Cove, the abandoned houses askew. Fading light. Ahead, the main track swallowed in distance.
Quoyle pulled onto the shoulder, wondered if anybody had ever gone over the edge, metal jouncing on rocks. The side track down to the ruined cove steep, strewn with boulders. More gully than road.
[39] ”Well, we're not going to make the Point tonight,” he said. ”This is as far as I think we should drive until we can get a look at the road in daylight.”
”You don't want to go back out to the highway, do you?” cried the aunt in her hot voice. So close to the beginning of everything.