E. Proulx - The Shipping News

“When I was a kid they came around at night and sang outside the door,” whispered Dennis. “Old Sparky Fudge, Benny’s granddad, you see, had a renowned voice. Lost off the Mummy Banks.”

Then Bunny and Marty stood alone on the edge of the stage.

“Hi Bunny!” screamed Sunshine. “Hi Marty!” A ripple of laughter.

“Quiet, now,” whispered Quoyle. The child like coiled wire.

Bunny and Marty wore matching red jumpers. Beety had let them sit at the sewing machine and stitch the long side seams. Quoyle could see Bunny’s knees trembling. Her hands clenched. They began to sing something Quoyle had heard seeping from behind a door, a haunting little tune in a foreign language which he guessed was an African tongue. How had they learned it? He and Dennis mopped at their eyes and snorted with embarrassment.

“Pretty good,” croaked Quoyle.

“Oh, aye,” said Dennis in a robber chiefs voice.

Quoyle remembered Nutbeem’s tape. Had the children memorized some pagan song of unknown meaning from that tape? He hoped so.

A woman, perhaps seventy, glowing hair in a net like a roll of silver above her forehead came smiling onto the stage. Bunched cheeks over her smile like two hills above the valley. Eyes swimming behind lenses. A child ran out and placed a soccer ball on the floor behind her.

“Oh, this is good,” said Dennis, nudging Quoyle. “Auntie Sofier’s chicken act.”

She stood still a few seconds, long old arms in her jersey, the tweed skirt to the knees. Yellow stockings, and on her feet red slippers. Suddenly one of the legs scratched at the stage, the arms became wings, and, with a crooning and cackling, Auntie Sofier metamorphosed into a peevish hen protecting an egg.

Quoyle laughed until his throat ached. Though he had never found hens amusing.

Then Wavey and Herry. The boy wore a sailor suit, clacked across the stage in tap shoes. Wavey, in her grey, homemade dress sat on a chair, the accordion across her breast like a radiator grill. The few false notes. Wavey said something that only the boy heard. A strained silence. Then, “One, two, three,” said Wavey and commenced. The hornpipe rolled into the audience and at once hundreds of right heels bounced against the floor, the boy rattled his way up and down the blank boards. Quoyle clapped, they all clapped and shouted until Herry ran forward and bowed from the waist as his mother had taught him, smiling and smiling through the hinges of his face.

The showstopper was Beety.

The black cane appeared first from behind the curtain and a roar went up in the audience. She came out jauntily. Strutted. Wore dance tights and tunic covered with sequins and glass bugles, rondels, seed beads, satinas and discs, crow beads, crystal diamonds, cat’s-eyes, feather drops and barrels, sputniks and pearls, fluted twists, bumpy-edges and mother-of-pearl teardrops. She had only to breathe to send shimmering prisms at them. A topper that took the light like a boomerang. Leaned on the cane. Twirled the hat on one finger, flipped it in a double somersault and caught it square on her head.

“We all know Billy Pretty’s ways,” she said, voice charged with tricks and amusements, a tone Quoyle’d never heard. He glanced at Dennis who leaned forward, mouth half open, as eager as anyone for her next word.

“Proper thing to save a dollar, eh Billy?”

The audience, laughing, twisted around in their seats to stare at Billy who sat near the back, strangling. The cane twirled.

“Yes, we knows ‘is ways. But ‘ow many knows the time last winter, February it was, time we ‘ad that silver thaw when Billy wanted to ‘ave the old grandfather clock in ‘is kitchen repaired? It was like this, m’dears.” The cane walked around. “Billy called up Leander Mesher.”

The audience creaked and twisted in their seats again to look at the grocer whose hobby was repairing antique watches.

“Leander’s been known to fix a few watches at ‘is kitchen table. The old kind. There may be a few ‘ere remember them. You used to wind them up. Every day. S’elp me, it’s true! Every day. Life was terrible ‘ard in the old days. So! Calls Leander up on the telephone. It was a local call. No charge.” She became an uncanny Billy Pretty, hooped over the phone.

“ ‘Leander,’ he says. ‘Leander, what would you ask to repair me old grandfather clock that’s ‘ere in me kitchen the ‘undred years past. I winds it up with a key. It is not battery operated.’

“ ‘Ah,’ says Leander. ‘Could be about a hundred and ten dollars. The cost comes in getting it ‘ere. Pickup and delivery. Got to charge fifty each way. Got to ‘ire two strong lads, gas and oil for the truck. Insurance. Air in the tires.’

“ ‘There’s no cost to air in the tires,’ says Billy.

“ ‘Where ‘ave you been, Billy? ‘Tis called ‘inflation.’

“Well, m’dears, Billy thought about it a bit. We knows ‘e lives up on the ‘ill and Leander’s ‘ouse is down at the bottom and in between a dozen streets. Billy ‘as it all figured out. ‘E’ll carry the clock down to Leander ’imself. Save fifty dollars. Leander can bring it back. Uphill. After all, it’s not that it’s all that ‘eavy, being mostly an empty space for the pendulum, but it’s awkward. Very awkward.” She measured off the dimensions of the grandfather clock, reaching high with the cane to touch the wooden dove that everyone knew topped Billy’s clock, widening her arms, stooping and dusting a bit of lint from the carved fruitwood foot. Quoyle twisted around, saw Billy roaring with pleasure at the resurrection of his clock on the stage. Someone in the audience went TICK TOCK.

“ ‘E gets a good length of rope, you see, knotted and looped around nicely where ‘is arms’ll go. And ‘oists ‘er up on ‘is back and out the door! ‘Eading for Leander’s.” Now she was Billy teetering down the steep, icy hill.

“ ‘Awful slick,’ says our Billy.” Taking careful little steps.

“Now, down near the bottom of the hill is where Auntie Fizzard lives, ninety years old, isn’t that right m’dear?”

And everyone stretched forward to see the elderly lady in the front row who raised thick canes in tremulous salute and drew cheers and clapping.

“Ninety years old, and there she goes, got ‘er galoshes on with the little bit of fur around the tops, ‘as frosters pounded in the ‘eels so’s she won’t slip, wearing ‘er black winter coat and a woolly knitted hat, got a cane in each ‘and, and each cane got a red rubber tip on the end. She couldn’t fall down if she was pushed. She thinks.” Now Beety was Auntie Fizzard, inching along, casting fierce glances to the left and the right, watching for those who push ninety-year-old women.

“Up at the top of the ‘ill…” The audience roared.

“Up at top of the ‘ill you might say there was a bit of trouble. First our Billy runs a few little steps to the right and slides, then ‘e catches and trips to the left and ‘e slips, and ‘e goes straight on and ‘e skids, and then the ‘ill is steeper and the ice glares like water, and ‘e’s on his way, then over ‘e goes, clock-side down and picking up speed like ‘e’s on a big komatik ‘e can’t steer.

“Poor Auntie Fizzard ‘ears the ‘issing noise and she glances up, but ‘tis too late, the clock clips ‘er and belts ‘er into the snowbank. There’s an awful silence. Then Billy gets up and starts to haul ‘is precious clock out of the snow, get it on ‘is back again. ‘E’s still got a few steps to take to Leander’s souse, you see. Glances over and sees Auntie Fizzard’s boots sticking out of the snow. Sees them frisk around a bit, then ‘ere comes Auntie Fizzard out of the snow, ‘er ‘at crooked, one cane buried until spring, black coat with so much snow on it’s white.