The Shipping News

“I’m not going back to New York,” said Bu

Quoyle was not going back to New York, either. If life was an arc of light that began in darkness, ended in darkness, the first part of his life had happened in ordinary glare. Here it was as though he had found a polarized lens that deepened and intensified all seen through it. Thought of his stupid self in Mockingburg, taking whatever came at him. No wonder love had shot him through the heart and lungs, caused internal bleeding.

“Dad,” said Bu

“I watched,” said Sunshine. “But I didn’t see anything.”

“I wonder if you need glasses,” said the aunt.

“I’m sorry, Bu

“So am I,” said the aunt.

The child pulled a loop of string taut, coiled and arranged it around her fingers in overlapping circles, thumbs and forefingers in the four corner loops.

“Now watch the sun,” she said. “The sun is the hole in the middle and the rest is the clouds. Watch what happens.” Slowly she drew the loops taut, slowly the center circle grew smaller and at last disappeared.

“It’s a cat’s cradle,” said Bu

“That’s extraordinary,” said Quoyle. “Did Skipper Alfred give you that string?” He took the smooth line, counted seven tiny hard knots and, joining the ends, one clumsy overhand. “Did you tie these knots?” His voice light.

“I tied that one.” The overhand. “I found it this morning in the car, Dad, on the back of your seat.”

31 Sometimes You Just Lose It

“A sailor has little opportunity at sea to replace an article that

is lost overboard, so knotted lanyards are attached to everything

movable that is carried aloft: marlingspikes and lids, paint cans

and slush buckets, pencils, eyeglasses, hats, snuffboxes,

jackknives, tobacco and monkey pouches, amulets, bosuns’

whistles, watches, binoculars, pipes and keys are all made fast

around the neck, shoulder, or wrist, or else are attached to a

buttonhole, belt, or suspender.”

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS

“ON NOVEMBER 21 the Galactic Blizzard, a Ro-Ro railcar-ferry with twin rudders and twin controllable pitch propellers left St. John’s en route to Montreal,” wrote Quoyle, still cold from his dawn excursion to the damaged ship.

Though ice was forming along the shore it was a fine day. The sky was blue, the sea was calm and visibility was unlimited. An hour after leaving St. John’s harbor, the ship struck the south cliff of Strain Bag Island head-on. The collision awakened the officer of the watch who had dozed off. “Sometimes you just lose it,” he told Coast Guard investigators.

Tert Card slammed through the door. “I’m shi

“I wouldn’t go down there. I wouldn’t set foot on one of they planes.” Billy Pretty scratching notes, looking up from his weltering desk, red-rimmed eyes, face like a pricked pastry. “I hope you got all kinds of wrecks Quoyle, because I got not much-couple more unknown bodies and two naked men in court. Here’s a boyyo nabbed creeping out of a window loaded down with a sewing machine, the microwave, a shortwave radio, a color television, and the old missus and skipper sleeping away up in their bedroom, all sweet dreams, never woke up. The police patrol saw him hung up on a nail in the windowsill. So down to the Killick-Claw lockup he goes. In the middle of the night he commences to bawl and hoot, tears off all his clothes. They said he was mental. Sent him over to Waterford for observation. It’s bloody spreading! Here’s another. A young lad, father’s a fisherman down to Port aux Priseurs, hit it rich in shrimps so he buys the boy a horse. Builds a barn and buys the boy a horse. Boy wanted a horse. ‘All the advantages I never had, blahblah.’ Didn’t know anything about horses. Put it out in the barn. After a week or so lad gets tired of it and forgets about it. Finally the horse starves to death. They give the kid some kind of dressingdown and fines the dad a thousand dollars. He’s got it, y’know, but what d’you think he does? Stands there in the court in front of the judge. Tears off all his clothes. So they sent him over to Waterford too.

“Now, over here we got missing persons and unidentified bodies, and none of them match up. Man from Chaw Cove went out hunting. All they found was his mittens. Down here in Puddickton missus finds a cold wet corpus floating under the skipper’s dock. Total stranger, and not the feller from Chaw Cove. Not a stitch on him. Makes you wonder if he hadn’t been in court recently. The worst one is this dog case. Another shrimp fisherman in Port aux Priseurs. This feller bought some fancy mainland dogs, a couple of pit bulls, couple of rottweilers, couple of Doberman pinschers, kept ‘em all out in this big run. Now they can’t find the man. Seems he went out to the dog pen and didn’t come back. Family’s all sitting around watching television. After a couple of hours somebody says ‘Where’s old dad, then?’ They shine a light out at the dog pen, holler yoo-hoo. There’s blood all over the snow and some of dad’s clothes in a poor condition. So, even though he is missing, they think they know where he is.”

Tert Card mooning against the window, staring south. “They ought to give up on the animals in Port aux Priseurs. They don’t have the touch. Stick to cars and drugs. Quoyle, you got some kind of a wreck to brighten the front page?”

Nutbeem raised his head, unfolded his arms. “Seeing it’s my last week, of course the foreign news is plummy. First, the Canadian Minister of Health has his knickers in a twist over hair removal.”

“There are some of us, Nutbeem, who do not think of Canada as a foreign power,” said Card.

“Leave him be,” said Billy Pretty. “Go on with it, boy.”