The Shipping News

Quoyle knew how that was.

“Very sudden Dad got up from the table. He’d been sitting there beside the shortwave radio, we’s all sitting there, and he said lesson’s gone,’ and went across the road to his shop-where the Gammy Bird office is now-and stayed there by himself all night. There was the northern lights that night, so beautiful you couldn’t believe it, these colored strings shooting out, it was like a web. And in the morning there was these-well, like silver threads was on everything, rigging, houses, telephone wires. Had to come from the northern lights. And mother said it was Jesson’s doing as he was in passage from his earthly body.”

“After Jesson, he started the paper, right?”

“About right. But you know, Dad don’t really run Gammy Bird, Tert Card does. The paper is there, you know, and he started it, he decides more or less what goes in it. But he’ll phone in, make up some story about being sick, then go out fishing. Everybody knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, he runs it,” said Quoyle. “Tert Card dances his tune, I think.”

“Eat your apricots, Bu

But Bu

While De

“Alfred!” said De

“Yis,” said the old man. “I remembers the Quoyles and their trouble. They was a savage pack. In the olden days they say Quoyles nailed a man to a tree by ‘is ears, cut off ‘is nose for the scent of blood to draw the nippers and flies that devoured ‘im alive. Gone now, except for the odd man, Nolan, down along Capsize Cove. I never thought a one of the others would come back, and here there’s four of them, though one’s a Hamm and the other three never set foot on the island of Newfoundland. But the one I come to see is the carpenter maid.”

De

“So, you’re the maid was goin’ to put on the roof with your little hammer.”

“I was going to help Daddy,” whispered Bu

“Right enough. ‘Tis very few that helps their fathers nowadays, lad or maid. So I’ve brought you a bit of encouragement, like.” He handed Bu

“You are thinking to yourself ‘what is that thing?’ Well, ‘tis a simple matter. Help you make straight lines and straight cuts. With this and a saw and a hammer and some nails and a bit of timber you can make a hundred little things. I had it when I was your age and I made a box with a lid first thing, six pieces and two bits of leather for the hinges. Wasn’t I a proud thing?”

“What do you say, Bu

“I want to make a box with a lid and two bits of hinges.”

Everyone laughed except Quoyle, watching Bu

“Then,” said Quoyle, “we’ll say thank-you Skipper Alfred for the fine square and get off to home if there’s going to be time for after-di

And in the car, made Bu

17 The Shipping News

“Ship’s Cousin, a favored person aboard ship…”

THE MARINER’S DICTIONARY

PHOTOGRAPHS of the Botterjacht on his desk. Dark, but good enough to print, good enough to show the vessel’s menacing strength. Quoyle propped one up in front of him and rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter. He had it now.

KILLER YACHT AT KILLICK-CLAW

A powerful craft built fifty years ago for Hitler arrived in Killick-Claw harbor this week. Hitler never set foot on the luxury Botterjacht, Tough Baby, but something of his evil power seems built into the yacht. The current owners, Silver and Bayonet Melville of Long Island, described the vessel’s recent rampage among the pleasure boats and exclusive beach cottages of White Crow Harbor, Maine during Hurricane Bob. “She smashed seventeen boats to matchsticks, pounded twelve beach houses and docks into absolute rubble,” said Melville.

The words fell out as fast as he could type. He had a sense of writing well. The Melvilles’ pride in the boat’s destructiveness shone out of the piece. He dropped the finished story on Tert Card’s desk at eleven. Card counting waves, fidgeting through wishes.

“This goes with the shipping news. Profile of a vessel in port.”

“Jack didn’t say anything to me about a profile. He tell you to do it?” His private parts showed in his polyester trousers.

“It’s extra. It’s a pretty interesting boat.”

“Run it, Tert.” Billy Pretty in the corner rapping out the gossip column.

“What about the ATV accident? Where’s that?”

“That’s the one I didn’t do,” said Quoyle. “Wasn’t much of an accident. Mrs. Diddolote sprained her wrist. Period.”

Tert Card stared. “You didn’t do the one Jack wanted you to do and you did one he don’t know you did. Hell, of course we’ll just run it. Proper thing. I haven’t seen Jack in a flaming fit for a long time. Not since his fishing boot fell onto the hot plate and roasted. Tell you what, you better leave your motor ru

What have I done, thought Quoyle.

“Don’t get your water hot about Edith Diddolote. She’s in Scruncheons with her sprained wrist and her fiery remarks.” Billy’s diamond pattern gansey unraveling at the cuffs. The blue eyes still startled.

“Bloody hell, about time you got here. Billy’s up at the clinic getting his prostate checked and Jack’s on his way down. He wants to see you.” Tert Card snapped open a fresh copy of the Gammy Bird. Shot black looks from his gledgy eyes. At his desk, Nutbeem lit his pipe. The smoke came up in white balls. Outside the window fog and a racing wind that could not carry it away.

“Why?” said Quoyle apprehensively. “Because of the piece?”

“Yep. He probaby intends to tear your guts out for that Hitler yacht piece,” said Tert Card. “He don’t like surprises. You should have stuck to what he told you to do.”

The roar of the truck engine, the door slam; Quoyle went sweaty and tense. It’s only Jack Buggit, he thought. Only terrible Jack Buggit with his bloody knout and hot irons. Reporter Bludgeoned. His sleeve caught on the bin of notes and papers on his desk; paper sprayed over the desk. Nutbeem’s pipe twisted in his teeth, tipped out a nugget of burning dottle as he unkinked the telephone cord by letting the receiver hang low and spin. Looked away.

Jack Buggit strode in, ginger eyes jumped around the room, stopped on Quoyle. He hooked his hand swiftly over his head as though catching a fly and disappeared behind the glass partition. Quoyle followed.

“All right, then,” said Buggit, “This is what it is. This little piece you’ve wrote and hung off the end of the shipping news-”

“I thought it’d perk the shipping news up a little, Mr. Buggit,” said Quoyle. “An unusual boat in the harbor and-”

“ ‘Jack,’ ” said Buggit.

“I don’t have to write another one. I just thought-.” Reporter Licks Editor’s Boot.

“You sound like you’re fishing with a holed net, shy most of your shingles standin’ there hemming and hawing away.” Glared at Quoyle who slouched and put his hand over his chin.