Michael Crummey - Sweetland

HE HEARD THEM BEFORE HE SAW THEM. Voices in the fog, so indistinct he thought they might be imaginary. An auditory hallucination, the mind trying to compensate for a sensory lack. The way a solitary man will start talking to furniture, left alone long enough.

Anyway, voices out there.

He’d gone across to the mainland after a load of wood on Saturday morning and was stranded overnight by the fog. Slept in the wheelhouse under an old blanket with a pair of coveralls rolled up as a pillow. The mauze lifted a little at first light and he thought he might be able to pick his way home. Had the island in sight when the mist muffled in, so thick he couldn’t see ten feet past the bow. Cut the engine to drift awhile, listening blind for other boats. Just the lap of waves against the hull for the longest time. The wail of the foghorn on Burnt Head. And in the lull between, a murmur that seemed vaguely human. Then a single wordless syllable shouted, like a dog’s bark.

Spooked him. Miles out on the water and that voice seeming to rise from the ocean itself. He had to work up the nerve to respond, hoping there was nothing in that blankness to answer him. Hello, he called. Half a dozen voices shouting wildly in response and he leaned away as if he’d been pushed by a hand reaching out of the fog. Jesus fuck, he said.

He started up the engine and the voices rose, wanting to be heard above it. Put-putted in the direction he guessed they came from, his head cocked to follow the racket being sent up like a flare. A shape slowly taking shape in front of him, a darkening bruise in the fog, the lifeboat’s red burning through.

He slipped the engine into reverse to avoid running broadside into the open boat. Figures standing along the length, waving frantically. A dozen or more it looked to be and no one local. Dark skin and black heads of hair. Some foreign trawler gone down on the Banks, he thought, a container ship on its way to the States. All of them in street clothes and not a one wearing a lifejacket.

A man leaned out over the bow as he came around, cantilevered at such an angle Sweetland didn’t know what stopped the fellow pitching head first into the water. He looked Indian, Sweetland thought, or some variation of Indian, he never could tell that crowd one from the other. There were more people huddled below the gunwale, none dressed for the weather and half-frozen by the look of them. Sweetland passed a tow rope that the man tied to the bow of the lifeboat and then he made a motion to his mouth, tipping his head back. Sweetland rummaged around for the two Javex bottles of fresh water he carried, grabbed the blanket and a folded canvas tarp, handed them along.

Those faces staring across at him with looks of deranged relief. He was riding low with the load of wood and it occurred to him they might try to come over the gunwale onto his boat and swamp him, much as drowning swimmers were reported to drag their rescuers under. He made what he intended to be calming gestures with his arms and started up the engine to pull ahead to the full length of the tow rope, then headed slow slow slow toward the cove.

Glancing back now and again, startled each time to see what was following in his wake.

HE SAW THE GOVERNMENT MAN WALKING up from the water. The tan pants, the tweed jacket and tie. The same fellow who came out for the last town meeting, or one exactly like him — there seemed to be an endless supply on hand at the Confederation Building in St. John’s. The briefcase looking for all the world like something that was in his hand when he left his mother’s womb. Sweetland turned away from the window, as if he could hide from the man by not looking his way. Glimpsed a flash of him as he went to the front door of the house, heard the knock.

No one in the cove ever knocked at a door. He thought to ignore it, but the knock came a second and then a third time and he pushed away from the table, went out through the hallway. No one in the cove used their front doors, either. Sweetland’s hadn’t been opened in years and he had to jimmy it loose of the frame. The man standing there lost in the sun’s glare, a voice from the nothing where his mouth should be. “Mr. Sweetland?”

He waited until the figure resolved out of the light, until he could see the eyes. “Just come off the ferry, did you?”

“Just this second, yes.”

Sweetland nodded. “I must be some fucken important.”

The government man smiled up at him. “You’re at the top of my list.”

Sweetland stood to one side to let the man by. “Cup of tea?”

“You don’t have coffee by any chance?”

“I got instant.”

“Tea is fine,” the government man said.

Sweetland moved the kettle onto the stove while the young one took a seat at the table. He tried to think of when a stranger sat there last, seeing the kitchen for the first time. Low ceilings, the beams an inch or two clear of Sweetland’s crown. Painted wood floor, a daybed under one window, a Formica table with chrome legs pushed up to the other. His mother’s china teacups on hooks below the cupboards. All so familiar to him he hadn’t noticed it in years.

The man’s briefcase was lying on the table in front of him like a placemat and Sweetland set a spoon and the sugar bowl on the flat surface of it.

“No sugar for me,” the youngster said, setting the bowl to one side. “A drop of milk if you have some.” He put the case on the floor beside his chair.

“No fresh,” Sweetland said. “Just tin.”

“Tin is fine,” the government man said. He took a BlackBerry from his coat pocket and held it to the window a moment.

“You’re not the fellow was out last time around.”

“I just took over the file.”

“You won’t get a cell phone signal out here,” Sweetland told him.

He shrugged. “The edge of the civilized world.”

“They was talking about putting up a tower years back. Never got around to it.”

The government man gestured past him to the counter. “You have a laptop there.”

Sweetland glanced over his shoulder, to confirm the fact. “We got the internet for long ago. Does my banking on that,” he said. “Bit of online poker. Passes the time.” Sweetland poured the tea and took a seat directly across the table.

“You’re not on Facebook, are you?”

“Look at this face,” he said and the government man glanced down at the table. “Now Arsebook,” Sweetland said. “That’s something I’d sign up for.”

“I’m sure it’s coming.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Given the state of things.”

It was an easy road into the subject at hand and he was surprised the government man didn’t take it, smiling out the window instead. Perfect teeth. They all had perfect teeth these days. Careful haircuts, accents Sweetland couldn’t place. This one might be from the mainland somewhere, for all he could tell.

“So,” the younger man said abruptly. “Are you coming to the meeting this afternoon?”

Sweetland almost laughed. “Not planning on it, no.”

“I couldn’t talk you into it?”

“Listen,” Sweetland said, “I’m not the only one who voted against this thing.”

“That’s true. Forty-five in favour, three against, by the most recent ballot. But as of yesterday, yours is one of only two households who have not agreed to take the package we’re offering.”