E. Proulx - The Shipping News

“She’s gone.” Dennis. “Couldn’t get the crane, see, but Carl come with his bulldozer. That was a mess. Tore the cabin right off her. Got that diver lives down No Name there, Orvar, come over and put a cable under her. We drags her at an angle to get a line to shore and she breaks in half. Tide was coming in fast and now it seems like she drifted. She’s out there somewhere in two pieces. So, on top of everything else, she’s a menace to navigation.”

“I’m some disgusted,” Billy Pretty, mud to his knees, side of his face scraped and raw, the enamel blue eyes bloodshot under the brim of his cap. Sipping as though he drank some aperitif.

Nutbeem swallowed a gassy mouthful and looked at the bay. The sky heavy and low. Although it was only three o’clock, darkness seeped.

“I wouldn’t have made it anyway,” he said. “Storm coming. Gale warnings, sleet, snow, followed by deep cold, the whole string of knots. By Tuesday there’ll be fast ice. I wouldn’t have made it.”

“Maybe not,” said Billy Pretty, “but you could have hauled your boat up until spring.”

“No use crying in my beer,” said Nutbeem.

A few small flakes of snow drifted down to Billy’s knees. He glared at them, breathed to make them melt. A few more fell, widely spaced. “Here’s the devil’s feathers.”

But Nutbeem had the stage. “I’ve changed my plans as the day has gone along.”

“Will you stay on a bit, then? Stay for the Christmas pageant and the times, anyway.”

“I don’t expect I shall ever want to go to another party,” said Nutbeem. “It’s like the lad who loved to steal spoonsful of sugar until his grannie sat him down in front of a basin of the stuff, gave him a whacking great stuffing spoon and told him he’d stay right there until the basin was empty. He never had a taste for sugar after that.” He laughed in a wretched puff of cheeks.

“At least you can smile at it.” Dennis, half-smiling himself.

“If I didn’t I’d go round the twist, wouldn’t I? No, I’ve decided to smile, forget and fly to Brazil. Warm. No fog. The water is a lovely swimming-pool green, quite a David Hockney color. Balmy breezes. Perhaps it’s still possible to live pleasantly for a few months. And the fish! Ah, god. Yellowtail steaks. There’s this very simple local sauce-you can put it on fish or in other sauces or salads-just squeeze a cup of lime juice, put in a good pinch of salt and let it stand for a few weeks, then you strain it and put it in a corked bottle and use it. It smells rather strange but has a quite wonderful taste. You sprinkle it on a bit of fish smoking fresh off the grill. And Cuban Green Sauce-lime and garlic and watercress and Tabasco and sour cream and lobster coral. And I make a curry, a conch curry, simmered in coconut milk and served with slivers of smoked sailfish that is, if I do say so, heaven on a plate.”

“Stop,” said Quoyle. Veils of snow swept the bay, dusted their shoulders and hair.

“Dear boy, I haven’t even got to the bloody stone crabs. Stone crabs, the glorious imperial yellow, scarlet and ebony exaltations of all the crabs of all the seven seas, the epicure’s hour of glory, the Moment of Truth at the table. I like them with drawn butter to which I add a dash of the sour lime sauce and a few drops of walnut pickle liquor, maybe a fleck of garlic.”

“You’re a poet with the food, Nutbeem,” said Billy Pretty. “The time you gave me a plateful of your seal flipper curry. It was a poem.”

“I think I’m safe in saying, Billy, that we are the only two people who have ever eaten of that rare dish. And the shrimp. Brazilian style. A big black iron skillet. You heat some olive oil, throw in a few cloves of garlic, then add the shrimp just as they come from the sea-but dry them off a bit, first. When they’re cooked to a lovely orange-red you drain them on brown paper bags, toss some sea salt and a grind or two of green pepper or a shake of the Tabasco bottle over them and serve them on the bags. just bite off the heads, drag the meat out with your teeth and spit out the tails.” The snow swept over them. Nutbeem’s hair and eyebrows were thick with it as he faced into the wind. The others had gyred around to give their backs to the weather.

“That’s how my old friend Partridge used to fix shrimp,” said Quoyle.

The silent black-haired man frowned. There were fluffy white epaulets on his shoulders.

“I dunno. It’s some good the way they do them at Nell’s in No Name Cove. It’s them little shrimp, size of your fingernail. She shucks ‘em, dips ‘em in batter and rolls ‘em in crushed graham crackers, then deep-fries ‘em and serves with packet of tartar sauce. Proper thing! Good too in the flour sauce on baked beans.”

“Yes, those are the sweetest shrimp I’ve ever tasted,” said Nutbeem. “They’re very good, those tiny shrimp. Anyway, later I might just drift up the coast, then go over to Pacific Mexico to some of the shark-fishing villages. Very rough places and a very rough sport. I’m not actually planning anything. A certain period of drifting is in order.”

“Ar,” said Billy, using the edge of his hand as a strigil, scraping the snow off the back of his neck below the tweed cap. “Wish I was young again. I’d go with you. I was to São Paulo and down along the coast. I even had that lime sauce you talk about. Back in the ‘thirties. And stone crabs. Been to Cuber, too. And Chiner. Before the war. Ar, Newfoundlanders are your great travelers. I got a nephew was on a troop carrier here lately, carrying the Americans to their Gulf War. Anywhere in the world you go you’ll find us. But now I’m past the age of interest. I don’t care whether its limes or potatoes, fish or fried.”

“When you going, Nutbeem?”

“Tuesday. Same date. Gives me the last chance to whip up a nice helping of bizarre stories for Jack and Tert. ‘Elderly Widower Elopes with Lobster!’ ‘Prime Minister Bathes in Imported Beer.’ ‘Filthy Old Dad Rapes Childrens’ Horse.’ Perhaps I shall miss Gammy Bird , after all. Oh, Quoyle, a bit of bad news for you. The Goodlads say now they won’t rent their trailer out to a newspaperman again. After last night. I pleaded with them, told them you had two sweet little daughters, were a very modest fellow, persnickety housekeeper, never had parties, et cetera, et cetera, but they’ll have none of it. I’m awfully sorry.”

“I’ll find something else,” said Quoyle. With every breath a charge of snowflakes in the nostrils. The headache was a dull background throb.

“It’s too bad,” said Billy Pretty, silvered with snow, changing color with the season. “It’s too bad.” That seemed to cover everything.

Quoyle squinted at the sky where nothing could be seen but the billions of tossing flakes stirred by a rigorous wind.

“It’s a stepmother’s breath,” said Billy.

“QUOYLE, finish that up and I’ll take you round the corner to the Heavy Weather and buy you a hot grog.” Tert Card, morose and white, staring with hatred at the ice-bound bay. For it had gone very still and cold. Pancakes of submerged ice joined with others into great sheets, the rubbery green ice thickened, ah ice foot fastened onto the shore, binding the sea with the land. Liquid became solid, solid was buried under crystals. A level plain stretched nearly to the mouth of the bay. He watched the ice breaker gnawing through, cutting a jagged path of black water.