The Shipping News

14 Wavey

In Wyoming they name girls Skye. In Newfoundland

it’s Wavey.

A SATURDAY afternoon. Quoyle was spattered with turquoise drops from painting the children’s room. Sat at the table with cup and saucer, a plate of jelly doughnuts.

“Well, Aunt,” he said, “you are in the yacht upholstery business.” Sucking at the tea. “I thought all along it was sofas.”

“Did you see my sign?” The aunt sanded a bureau, rubbed the wood with hissing paper, sling of flesh under her upper arm trembling.

Bu

“I want to do that!” said Sunshine, reaching for the block and the car.

“Get your own. This is mine. “There was scrabbling, the knock of skull on table leg and Sunshine’s howl.

“Crybaby!” Bu

“Here, now!” said the aunt.

“Calm down, Bu

“The shop is sixes and sevens at the moment, but at least the sewing machines are set. Getting experienced help is the big problem, but I’m training two women, Mrs. Mavis Bangs and Dawn Budgel. Mavis is an older woman, widow, you know, but Dawn’s only twenty-six. Went to university, scholarships and all. Absolutely no work in her field. She’s been doing lumpfish processing at the fish plant to fill in-when there’s work-and then scraping along on unemployment insurance. That’s the lumpfish caviar.” Didn’t care for it herself.

“No, I didn’t see the shop. I interviewed two of your customers, I’m writing about their boat. The Melvilles. It was a surprise. No idea you were a yacht upholsterer.”

“Oh yes. I’ve been waiting for my equipment to come. Opened the shop about ten days ago. I started the yacht upholstery, you see, after my friend died. In 1979. What these days they’d call a ‘significant other.’ Warren. That’s who I named the dog after. In the postal service. Warren was, not the dog.” She laughed. Her face flashed elusive expressions. Didn’t tell Quoyle that Warren had been Irene Warren. Dearest woman in the world. How could he understand that? He couldn’t.

“I swear until today I never knew such a thing existed. I would have been less surprised if you’d been a nuclear physicist.” It came to him he knew nearly nothing of the aunt’s life. And hadn’t missed the knowledge.

“You know, you’re very easily surprised for a newsman. It’s all simple and logical. I grew up beside the sea, saw more boats than cars, though sure, none of them were yachts. My first job in the States was in a coat factory, sewing coats. The years Warren and I were together we lived on a houseboat, moored it at different marinas on the Long Island shore.

“We got a special rate at Lonelybrook, the marina we were at longest. And if we got tired of seeing the same familiar boats, on Sundays we could drive away to some other harbor, look at their boats, have a di

“I reupholstered an old chair we had on the houseboat, nice lines to it but a sort of mustard brown with the piping all frayed and thready. Got a good upholstery fabric, a dark blue with a red figure in it, took off the old upholstery and used it for a pattern. Just took my time stitching and fitting and pressing. It came out perfect. And I enjoyed doing it. Always liked sewing, working with my hands. Warren thought it was nice. So I did one in leather. That was something, working up leather. This real dark red, burgundy I guess you’d say. The only thing was I didn’t get the welting as perfect as I should have. It pooched out a little here and there. And I had a lot of trouble with the tufting. Made me sick to look at how that beautiful leather was spoiled. Because to me it was spoiled. So Warren says-knew I enjoyed it-says ‘Why don’t you take a workshop in leather upholstery? Some kind of a course?’

“And Warren was the one that noticed the ad in Upholstery Review. Got me the subscription for Christmas. A reader. Read anything came into the house, the toothpaste boxes and wine labels. Used to buy a bottle of wine for Friday night supper. Books! My dear, that houseboat was filled with books. So this ad was for a summer course-Advanced Upholstery Techniques-at a school down in North Carolina. Warren wrote off for the brochure. I was just horrified at the cost, and I didn’t want to go off alone for a whole summer. It was an eight-week course. But Warren said ‘You can’t tell, Agnis, you might never get the chance to do this again.’ Upshot was, I decided I would.”

Sunshine squirmed out of Quoyle’s arms and got the blocks. She put one on the road under the table, glanced triumphantly at Bu

The aunt was rolling, telling Her Story. The romantic version. “It was at college in a little town on Pamlico Sound. There was about fifty people there from all over. A woman from Iowa City who wanted to specialize in museum restoration using antique brocades and rare fabrics. A man who did doll furniture. A furniture designer who kept saying he wanted the experience. I wrote to Warren, glad I came. Told them I didn’t have a specialty, just liked working with leather and wanted to improve at it.”

She put the sandpaper aside and wiped the tabletop with a waxy rag, long swipes that picked up the dust. Bu

“About halfway through the course this instructor, he works with the Italian furniture designers, said ‘Agnis, I’ve got a tough one for you.’ It was a little twenty-foot fiberglass cruiser that be longed to the school’s janitor. He’d just bought a used boat. My job to fit and upholster the odd-shaped cushions that were settees in the daytime and berths at night. There was a triangular bar that he wanted upholstered in tufted black leather, the tufting spelling out the boat’s name which was, as I remember, Torquemada. I persuaded him that wouldn’t look as well as a classic diamond pattern of pleated tufting with a smart padded bumper at the upper rim. I said he could have the boat’s name etched on a brass plate to hang behind the bar, or a nice wood sign. He said go for it. It worked.

“I put in some curves, scrolled and rolled edges, gathers and pleats-a very sumptuous style that suited the fellow’s dream. Really, there’s quite an art to it, and I was upholstering beyond myself. Pure luck.” She pried open a tin. Yellow wax. The smell of housekeeping and industry.

“Instructor said I had a touch for boat work, that yacht upholstery paid. Said you got to see some great boats and met a lot of interesting people.” Clear enough the aunt let a stranger’s praise change her life.