“Then,” he said, cutting Sunshine’s pancake with the edge of his fork to quell her screaking knife, “we could shift across the bay for the winter. Consider this place a summer camp. Nutbeem is leaving in a week or two. His trailer. There’s not room for all four of us, but the girls and I could manage. If you could find a room. Or something. Wouldn’t Mrs. Bangs know of something?”
But the aunt was astonished. She had gone for a walk and looked at a pond. Now everything had rushed on like an unlighted train in the dark.
“Let’s sleep on it,” said the aunt.
In the morning five inches of snow and blinding sunlight, a warm wind. Everything dripped and ran. The white blanket on the roof wrinkled, cracked, broke away in ragged cakes that hissed as they slid down and crashed to the ground. By noon only islands of snow on the damp road and in the hollows on the barrens.
“All right,” said the aunt. “I want to think about this a little more.” Now that it was here, it had come too fast.
“Well, I wondered what happened to you,” said Mavis Bangs, the part in her black hair glowing like a wire in the rhomboid of sunlight. “I thought you might be sick. Or have trouble with the truck. M’dear, I was that worried. Or Dawn said maybe it was the snow, but it melted almost as fast as it come, so we didn’t think it was. Anyway, noon I went up to the post office and got your mail.” She pointed at the aunt’s table with her eyes. Importantly. She had jumped into the habit of doing small kindnesses for Agnis Hamm. And would get the mail or pour a cup of tea unbidden. Proffer things with invisible trumpets.
“It was the snow,” said the aunt. “You know how snow sticks to a dirt road.” She shoveled at the letters. “Fact of the matter we decided it would be better to look for something closer in for the winter. The house be more of a camp, you know. He doesn’t want the children to have to travel all that way on school days. So.” She sighed.
Mrs. Bangs saw it in a flash. “Was you looking for a house for the all of yous? I knows the Burkes been talking about selling their place for good and moving to Florida. They go down every winter. Got friends there now. A bungalow. They live in a Florida bungalow with a verandah. Mrs. Burke, Pansy, says they have got two orange trees and a palm right in the front yard. Picks the oranges right off. Can you believe it? Now that is a place I’d like to see before I die. Florida.”
“I been there,” said Dawn. “You can have it. Give me Montreal. Ooh-la-la. Beauty clothes. All those markets, you never saw food like that in your life, movies, boutiques. You can have Miami. Buncha rich Staties.”
“What’s the Burke place, then,” said the aunt offhandedly.
“Well, it’s up on the ridge. The road that goes out to Flour Sack Cove, but at this end. Like if you was to go outside and face the hill and start climbing-if you could climb right over the houses, you know-you’d about come on it. Grey house with blue trim. Very nice kept up. Mrs. Burke is a housekeeper. An old-fashioned kitchen with the daybed and all, but they got conveniences, too. Oil heat. Dishwasher. Washing machine and dryer in the basement. Basement finished off. Nice fresh wallpaper in all the rooms.”
“Umm,” said the aunt. “You think they’d rent?”
“I doubt it. I don’t believe they wants to rent. They been asked. I believe they wants to sell.”
“Well, you know, actually my nephew is going to take that English fellow’s trailer. Works at the paper. Mr. Nutbeem. He’s leaving pretty soon.”
“So you’d want a separate place, then.”
“Ye-es,” said the aunt.
“I believe the Burke place would be too much for one person,” said Mrs. Bangs. “Even if you was prepared to buy it. It’s got nine rooms. Or ten.”
“I’ve put quite a bit of money into the old house. It’s a shame. Just to use it for a camp. But getting back and forth is a problem. Like they say, what can’t be cured must be endured. I’ve took a room at the Sea Gull for the rest of the week while we work something out. Nephew and the girls are staying with Beety and Dennis. Kind of cramped, but they’re making do. Don’t want to get caught by the snow. But let’s not worry about it right now. What have we got on the schedule for today? The black cushions for the Arrowhead.”
“Dawn and me’s finished them black cushions Friday afternoon. Shipped ‘em this morning.”
The aunt looked at her mail. “You’re way ahead of me,” she said. She turned over a postcard and read it. “That’s nice,” she said, voice needled with sarcasm. “I thought we’d be seeing the Pakeys on the Bubble this week. Now here’s their postcard and they say they can’t risk coming up here at this time of year. Fair weather sailors, they. No, it’s worse. They’re having the job done by Yacht-crafter! Those bums.” The aunt threw down the postcard, picked up a small package.
“Who do I know in Macau? It’s from Macau.” Tore it open.
“What is this?” she said. A packet of American currency fell on the table. Tied with a pale blue cord. Nothing more.
“That blue…” Mavis Bangs hesitated, put out her hand.
The aunt looked at the blue cord. Untied it and passed it to her. With a significant look. It was not a cord, but a thin strip of pale blue leather.
29 Alvin Yark
“The bight of a rope… has two meanings in knotting. First,
it may be any central part of a rope, as distinct from the ends
and standing part. Second, it is a curve or arc in a rope no
narrower than a semicircle. This corresponds to the
topographical meaning of the word, a bight being an indentation
in a coast so wide that it may be sailed out of,
on one tack, in any wind.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
THE SINGLE advantage of the green house was clear at once. Quoyle, yawning and unshaven in a corner of Beety’s kitchen, was combing the snarls out of Sunshine’s hair and surrounded by affairs of toast, cocoa, searches for misplaced clothing and homework when Tert Card walked in, poured himself a cup of coffee. Dennis away and gone an hour before. Card looked at Beety, let her see him licking his mouth and winking like a turkey with pinkeye.
He stood then in front of Sunshine and Quoyle, clawing at his groin as though scorched by red-hot underwear. “Quoyle. Just wanted to let you know you should call Diddy Shovel. Something about a ship fire. You’ll probably want to go straight along. I put the camera in your car. See if there’s a chance for some pix. I’ll tell you, Jack Buggit is some smart. People would rather read about a clogged head on a ship than all the car wrecks in Newfoundland.” Took his time drinking his coffee. Chucked Sunshine under the chin and scratched again before he ambled out.
“I don’t like that yukky man,” said Sunshine. Feeling Quoyle’s anger through the comb.
“In love with himself,” said Beety. “Always has been. And no competition.”
“Like this,” said Murchie Buggit, hands blurred in demented scratching.
“That’s enough,” said Beety. “You look like a dog with bad fleas.”
“So did he.”’ And Sunshine and Murchie screamed with laughter until Murchie choked on toast crumbs and Quoyle had to slap his back.
But before he called the harbormaster the phone rang.
“For you,” said Beety.
“Hello?” He expected Diddy Shovel’s voice.
“Quoyle,” said Billy Pretty, “you stopped by Alvin Yark’s to talk about a boat?”
“No, Billy. I haven’t even been thinking about it to tell you the truth. Kind of busy the last few weeks. And I guess I’m leery of boats after what happened.”