And I would sail it across the Atlantic.”
“NUTBEEM!” roared Card.
“Oh go spell ‘pterodactyl,’ ” said Nutbeem, hauling on his jacket and tam-o’-shanter, crashing out the door.
“Christ, he’s forgotten the camera. Quoyle, Jack wants me to remind you about the shipping news. Go down to the harbormaster’s office and copy off the list of ships. You get the name, the date, vessel’s country of origin. They won’t give it to you over the phone. You have to go get it.”
“I was going to go this afternoon,” said Quoyle. “But can do it now. Where’s the harbormaster’s office?”
“Next to Pubby’s Marine Supply on the public wharf. Upstairs.”
Quoyle got up, put on his jacket. At least it wasn’t a wreck, all glass and dripping fluids, and the ambulance guys fumbling inside smashed mouths.
9 The Mooring Hitch
“The merit of the hitch is that, when snugly applied, it will not
slip down the post. Anyone who has found himself at full tide,
after a hard day’s fishing, with his painter fast to a stake
four or five feet below high-water mark, will be inspired to
learn this knot.”
THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS
HE DODGED through the rattle of lift trucks and winches on Wharf Road. Boats varnished with rain. Down along he saw the black coastal ferry with its red rails taking on cars, and the Labrador hospital ship. At the government dock orange flank of the Search and Rescue cutter. A dragger coming in to the fish plant.
Wharf Road was paved with worn, blue stone carried as ballast from some distant place. A marine stink of oil, fish and dirty water. Beyond the dives and bars a few provisioners. In one window he noticed an immense pyramid of packaged dates of the kind Nutbeem liked- Desert Jujubes -red camels, shooting stars on the label.
The harbormaster’s office was at the top of a gritty wooden stair.
¯
Diddy Shovel, the harbormaster, watched Quoyle’s yellow slicker emerge from the station wagon, watched him drop his notepad on the wet cobbles. Sized him up as strong and clumsy. Shovel had been renowned once for his great physical strength. When he was twenty he started a curious brotherhood called “The Finger Club.” The seven members were all men who could suspend themselves from a beam in Eddy Blunt’s cellar by a single little finger. Powerful men in those days. As he grew older, he complemented, then replaced, his physical strength with a stentorian voice. Was now the only living member of the Finger Club. His thoughts often stopped at that point.
In a minute Quoyle opened the door, looked through the windows twelve feet high, a glass wall into the drizzled slant of harbor, the public docks and piers in the foreground, and beyond, the sullen bay rubbed with thumbs of fog.
A squeaking sound. Wooden swivel chair spun and the terrible face of the harbormaster aimed at Quoyle.
“You ought to see it in a storm, the great clouds rolling off the shoulders of the mountains. Or the sunset like a flock of birds on fire. ‘Tis the most outrageous set of windows in Newfoundland.” A voice as deep as a shout in a cave.
“I believe that,” said Quoyle. Dripping on the floor. Found the coat hook in the corner.
Diddy Shovel’s skin was like asphalt, fissured and cracked, thickened by a lifetime of weather, the scurf of age. Stubble worked through the craquelured surface. His eyelids collapsed in protective folds at the outer corners. Bristled eyebrows; enlarged pores gave the nose a sandy appearance. Jacket split at the shoulder seams.
“I’m Quoyle. New at theGammy Bird . Come to get the shipping news. I’d appreciate suggestions. About the shipping news. Or anything else.”
Harbormaster cleared his throat. Man Imitates Alligator, thought Quoyle. Got up and limped behind the counter. The cool high light from the windows fell on a painting the size of a bed sheet. A ship roared down a wave, and in the trough of the wave, broadside, a smaller boat, already lost. Men ran along the decks, their mouths open in shrieks.
The harbormaster pulled up a loose-leaf notebook, riffled the pages with his thumb, then handed the book to Quoyle. ARRIVALS on the cover; a sense of money gain and loss, cargoes, distance traveled, the smell of the tropics.
Followed Quoyle’s gaze.
“Fine picture! That’s theQueen Maryrunning down her escort, theCuracoa . Back in 1942. Twenty miles off the Irish coast in clear sunlight and crystal visibility. TheQueen , eighty-one thousand ton, converted from passenger liner to troopship, and the cruiser a mere forty-five hundred. Cut her in half like a boiled carrot.”
Quoyle wrote until his hand cramped and he discovered he had taken down the names of ships that had called weeks ago.
“How can I tell if ships are still here?”
The harbormaster pulled up another book. Plywood cover, the word DEPARTURES burned in wavering letters.
“Ha-ha,” said Quoyle. “I’d think they’d get you a computer. These logbooks look like a lot of work.”
The harbormaster pointed to an alcove behind the counter. Computer screen like boiling milk. The harbormaster punched keys, the names of ships leaped in royal blue letters, their tonnages, owners, country of registration, cargoes, arrival and departure dates, last port of call, next port of call, days out from home port, crew number, captain’s name, birthdate and social insurance number. The harbormaster tapped again and a printer hummed, the paper rolled out into a plastic bin. He tore off pages, handed them to Quoyle. The shipping news.
Cracking grin that showed false teeth to the roots. “Now you’ll remember that we do it two ways,” he said. “So when the storm roars and the power’s out you’ll look in the old books and it’ll all be there. Have a cup of tea. Nothing like it on a wet day.”
“I will,” said Quoyle. Sat on the edge of a chair. Runnels of water coursed down the window glass.
“Get down,” said the harbormaster, pushing a cat out of a chair. “It’s a good range of vessels we get here now. Bold water in Omaloor Bay almost to the shoreline. The government put seventeen million dollars into upgrading this harbor two years ago. Reconstructed dock, new container terminal. Sixteen cruise ships pegged to come in this year. They don’t stay more than a day or so, but, my boy, when they sets foot on the dock they commence to hurl the money around.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Depends what you mean by ‘this.