Climbing again toward the house, he reached the spruce trees, heard a rough motor. A boat veered toward the shore and he thought it was Dennis until he saw the scabbed paint, fray and grime. The dory idled. The man in the stem cut the motor, raised the propeller. Drifted in the fog. The man’s head was down, white stubble and gapped mouth. His jacket crudely laced with thrummy twine. Old and strong. Jerked up a line of whelk pots. Nothing. He lowered the propeller, pulled again and again on the greasy rope. The engine settled into a ragged beat. In a minute man and boat were eaten by mist. The motor faded south in the direction of the glove factory, the ruins of Capsize Cove.
Quoyle clawed up. Thought that if he got in there with axe and saw, set some pressure-treated steps in the steepest pitches, built a bridge over the wet spots, gravel and moss-it would be a beauty of a walk down to the sea. Some part of this place as his own.
“We thought the gulls had carried you off.” The smell of coffee, little kid hubbub, the aunt in her ironed blue jeans, hair done up in a scarf, buttering toast for Sunshine.
“Dennis was here in his truck. He’s got to go cut wood with his father-in-law. Said bad weather was coming, you might want to get the rest of the shingles on. Says it ought to take a day, day and a half. Left you his carpenter’s belt. Wasn’t sure if you had tools. Said there’s five or six more squares under that sheet of plastic. He’s not sure when he’ll be able to get back. Maybe by Wednesday. Look what he brought the girls.”
Two small hammers with hand-whittled handles lay on the table. The throats of the handles painted, one with red stripes, the other with blue.
But Quoyle felt a black wing fold him in its reeking pit. He had never been on a roof, never put down a shingle. He poured a cup of coffee, slopping it in the saucer, refused the toast made from Dennis’s wife’s bread.
Went to the foot of the ladder, looked up. A tall house. How tall, he didn’t know. Steep pitch of roof. In all Newfoundland the roofs were flat, but the Quoyles had to have a wild pitch.
He took a breath and began to climb.
The aluminum ladder bounced and sang as he went up. He climbed slowly, gripped the rungs. At the edge of the roof he looked down to see how bad it was. The rock glinted cruelly with mica. He raised his eyes to the roof. Tar paper stapled down. New shingles halfway. There was a wooden brace nailed above the shingles. Crouch on the brace and nail the shingles? The worst part would be getting up to the brace. Slowly he got back down to the ground. He heard Sunshine laughing in the kitchen, the tap of the small hammer. Sweet earth beneath his feet!
But buckled on Dennis’s carpenter’s belt, the pouch heavy with roofing nails, the hammer knocking his leg as he climbed. Halfway up he thought of the shingles, went back down and got three.
Now climbed with only one hand, the other clenching the asphalt pieces. At the top of the ladder he had a bad moment. The ladder rose up several rungs above the roof and he had to step off to the side onto the roof, to crawl up with the deep air beneath him.
He crouched awkwardly on the brace, saw that Dennis put the shingles on in tiers that he could reach comfortably, then set the brace in a new position. The tops of the spruces were like stains in the fog below. He could hear the slow pound of the sea. He did nothing for a few minutes. It wasn’t so bad.
Quoyle put his three shingles up behind him on the slant. Took one, slowly butted it to Dennis’s last, taking care to maintain the five-inch reveal. He got a few nails out of the apron, gingerly eased the hammer from under his buttock, got it out of the leather loop. He nailed the shingle. As he pounded the third nail home he heard a sliding sound, saw the two loose shingles he had carried up, slipping down. He stopped them with his hammer. Placed a shingle, nailed it. The third. It was not difficult, only awkward and breathless.
Now Quoyle balanced half a square of shingles on his shoulder, climbed back. It was easier, and he got up the roof without crawling, laid the shingles over the ridge and set to work. He glanced at the sea once or twice, saw the profile of a tanker on the horizon like a water snake floating in ease.
He was on the last row. It was fast now because he could straddle the ridge. The nails sank into the wood.
“Hi, Daddy.”
He heard Bunny’s voice, glanced toward the ground, but the glance stopped high. She stood on one of the rungs above the roof level, straining to put her foot on the roof. She held the hammer with the red-striped neck. Quoyle saw in a tiny vivid window that Bunny was going to put her foot on the roof, was going to step forward onto the edge of the steep pitch as though on a level path, was going to fall, to pinwheel shrieking to the rock.
“I’m going to help you.” Her foot reached for the roof.
“Oh, little child,” breathed Quoyle. “Wait there.” His voice was low but passionately urgent. “Don’t move. Wait there for me. I’m coming to get you. Hold on tight. Don’t come on the roof. Let me get you.” The mesmerizing voice, the father fixing his child in place with his starting eyes, inching down the evil slope on the wrong side of everything, then grasping the child’s arm, her hammer falling away, he saying “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move,” hearing the painted hammer clatter on the rock below. And Quoyle, safe on the rungs, Bunny pinned between his chest and the ladder.
“You’re squashing me!”
Quoyle went down with trembling legs, one hand on the rungs, his left arm folded around his daughter’s waist. The ladder shook with his shaking. He could not believe she hadn’t fallen, for in two or three seconds he had lived her squalling death over and over, reached out time after time to grip empty air.
12 The Stern Wave
“To prevent slipping, a knot depends on friction, and to
provide friction there must be pressure of some sort. This
pressure and the place within the knot where it occurs is
called the nip. The security of a knot seems to depend solely
on its nip.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
IT WAS like mirror writing. The slightest change in reverse sent the trailer on the opposite tack, and Quoyle squinted in the side mirror at reflections of opposition. Again and again it folded like a jackknife blade seeking its bed, and twice it gouged the new dock. He was sick of it when finally the thing went straight back and into the water. A trick to it.
Got out and looked at the trailer. Wheels were in the water, the boat poised. His hand was on the tilt latch when he thought of a securing line. That would be fun, launch the boat and watch it float away.
He managed to attach bow and stern lines, yanked the latch. The boat slid down. He got the winch line loose, scrambled onto the dock and made the boat fast. It was something of a two-man operation. Then back to the trailer, close the latch, wind up the cable. The fifty-dollar boat was in the water.
He got in, remembered the damn motor. Still in the station wagon. Carried it onto the dock, put his foot on the gunwale and fell into the boat. Cursed all vessels from floating logs to supertankers.
Quoyle didn’t see he’d mounted the motor in a position that would force the bow up like the nose of a bird dog. He poured in gas from the red can.
The motor started on the first pull. There was Quoyle sitting in the stern of a boat. His boat. The motor was running, his hand was on the tiller, wedding ring glinting. He moved the gearshift to reverse, as he had seen Dennis do, and gingerly applied a little power. The boat swung in toward the dock at the stern. Jockeyed back and forth until he was beyond the dock. Shifted into forward. The motor gave a low roar and the boat went-too fast-parallel with the shore. He eased back on the throttle and the boat wallowed. Now forward again, and rocks leaped up ahead of him. Instinctively he pushed the tiller toward the shore and the boat curved out onto Omaloor Bay. The water curled. Traveling on a glass arrow.