Sylvanus Now (16 page)

“Matters not if I likes it. That’s what you smells like all time these days anyway, a smoked mackerel. Must be some fun, hogging around a fire all night, smoking and drinking.”

“I don’t smoke,” he snapped.

“Same difference if the fire’s smoking you. Ooh, go away from me, Syllie. How’d you like to be lying here sick as a dog and somebody arguing with you?”

His eyes widened in disbelief. “It’s not me who’s arguing,” he yelled. Seizing his cap out of the boot box, he swung out the door into squalling winds.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE BACK WALL

“B
EST TO NOT GO
near them when they’re like that,” said Manny.

“Best not to go near them no time,” said Jake over the rain pelting the canvas canopy above their heads. “Foolish as hens, women are; cluck, cluck, clucking, and half the time not knowing what they’re clucking over.”

“Ye-es, my son. Don’t suppose it got something to do with the rooster crowing in their faces, do it?” asked Manny with a wink at Sylvanus. “Jeezes, Syllie, get your face off the ground. Cripes, if that’s what you looks like around the house, no wonder she’s kicking you out the door.”

Sylvanus tried for a grin. “Who owns that new long-liner tied up by the plant?” he asked distractedly.

“Fellow from Hampden,” said Manny. “That’s three liners now, coming out of Hampden. Lot of new people getting into the fishing,” he added with a shake of his head.

“Well, you knows, old man, the way the government’s praising the fishery these days,” said Jake. “Cripes, everybody that left years ago is now coming back for work in the plants and on the boats. Some good now, trying to make the outporters better off when there’s more people moving back by the droves, taking the jobs. Too many people, too many people getting licences and buying boats. She’s won’t last, buddy, watch and see, she’s not going to last. I say, if we’re going to get that trap, we better get at it,” he ended, nodding at Manny. “The way the berths are going, soon won’t be room on the water for another net.”

Manny nodded tiredly. “Yes, b’ye, might as well. We’re buying a third trap,” he said to Sylvanus.

“A third!? Christ, how you going to keep up with hauling all them nets?”

“We’re getting rid of the flakes,” said Manny. “Sell straight to the plant in Ragged Rock. Easier, my son, it’s easier,” he quickly added as Sylvanus shrank back, looking like a youngster being abandoned on shore. “That’s what everybody is doing, giving up the flakes for the plants. Foolery, anyway, drying fish when the weather is always flying in your face. And besides, more money in selling green fish. Salt fish is going to the wayside.”

“Before you starts,” said Jake, holding up his hand to block the protest already registering on Sylvanus’s face, “we’re asking you to come with us— Give me a chance to bloody finish!” he said loudly. “It’s no good you out there jigging all by yourself. Mother’s always on edge, and you might want to start thinking about her getting on in years. She won’t always be able to run to your flakes, covering up the fish when a sudden rain takes on, and for sure you’ll never get that one you married out on the flakes, not from what the women says—”

Sylvanus near choked. “What the hell you talking about, Mother turning my fish? I pays your boys to do that.”

“The boys!” snorted Jake. “Up the woods all the time, building camps, that’s all the boys are good for. Most times it’s Mother running to your flakes.”

“By jeezes, it’s time somebody told me that, then,” roared Sylvanus, rising. “Them little bastards! I been paying them, and Mother doing the work?!”

Manny waved him back down. “Just hold on,” he said impatiently. “Melita and Elsie been helping her—and no, they’re not going to say nothing to you about it, not with Mother threatening them.”

“Oh, jeezes, don’t tell me no more,” cried Sylvanus.

“No more to tell,” said Manny. “Forget about that now. There’s no problem with turning your fish; the women’s fine with it. It’s the future we’re talking about. Things are changing with the fishery, and we got to change too if we wants to stay at it and do either bit of good. The youngsters are all growing up, and by jeezes, their wants are starting to outgrow them. Other fishermen are doing good without their flakes and selling to the plants—from what they says. And anyway”—he paused, patting his younger brother on the knee—“that’s what we got figured, and going off the head talking about it won’t do no good. So perhaps you can think about it for a while before you makes up your mind.”

“Already did,” cut in Sylvanus

“Yup, like Father,” said Jake. “By jeezes, you’re his spit.”

Manny shook his head irritably. “Just never mind all the arguing,” he said. “Nothing wrong with flakes and curing fish if that’s what a man wants to do. But,” and he lowered his eyes onto Sylvanus, “I’m getting out of it. And you’re welcome to come with us if you wants. And that’s all I’m saying.” He raised his mug of brew. “Come on, raise your jeezling mug,” he bawled out as Sylvanus took on a sullen look. “Brother, if them eyebrows keeps growing in, we’ll have to tie them up in ponytails so’s you can see where you’re going.”

“Like the pothead whales, that’s what he’ll be like,” said Jake, showing a rare moment of humour, “all the time running aground.” He halted, a dawning look widening his eyes. “By cripes, you don’t suppose that’s why they throws themselves aground like that every year, do you?” he asked Manny. “They got eyelashes stuck in their eyes and can’t see where they’re going no more?”

“Nay, suicide, my son—their women drives them to it,” Manny ended with a groan. “Because I tell you, buddy, women could drive a sunken boat to shore, women could.” Raising his mug, he washed back his words with a good dollop of brew.

Jake stared at him keenly. “Hey, you cast out, too?” He broke into guffaws as Manny gave a mock shiver. “Aah, go tell her you loves her, b’ye, that’s all you got to do, go tell her you loves her!”

“Shut your mouth,” said Manny. “Women is good in all ways—except when they’re looking my way. And that’s when I scuttles out the door like the dog. But I don’t be hanging my head over it all night, either,” he charged, leering at Sylvanus who was staring glumly into his brew. “What’s you pouting about now—the flakes or your wife? Bend over, my son, I kicks your arse. Go dig a hole, Jake, we buries him. Where’s that shovel? Go on home, b’ye, if that’s what you’re going to do all night, sit there and mope. And if it’s the wife you’re pouting about, you haven’t got a worry. Like the pup, she’ll be, cuddling all over you when you gets home. Yeah, that’s right,” he said as Sylvanus looked at him disbelievingly, “that’s what all women are like after a fight—nice and cuddly. What odds she just scratched out your eyes like the coyote, right, Jake? That’s the trick, right, Jake, telling her you loves her?”

Jake threw a mangy look at his house. “And never mind they throws your supper to the dogs.”

“Nay, don’t mind that stuff. Only because she likes dogs, she feeds them your supper, and that’s why you cuddles up to her like a pup, because she likes dogs. Guaranteed, my son. You listening, Syllie? Better be, my son, you wants to tame that woman of yours. You sees how Elsie is tamed, so you knows what you got to do now.”

“Yes, b’ye,” said Syllie.

“Yes, b’ye,” said Manny. “The Nows keeps their women happy because that’s what keeps us happy—when our women’s happy, right, Jake?” Manny broke into a hard laugh as Jake snarled back something undecipherable. “Look at him, look at him,” he roared to Sylvanus, “too goddamn joyful to talk. Yes, my son, yes, we knows your joy, we sees your joy all over your face, right, Syllie? All over his face. Come on now, let’s sing ’er up,” and grabbing Sylvanus’s hand, he held it to his heart, bellowing in a deep base,
“We got the joy, joy, joy singing deep in our hearts.”

“Jeezes, you’ll have her yodelling through the window, you keeps it up,” shouted Jake. “Shut your mouth, shut your bloody mouth. Jeezes! Screech owls, the both of ye,” he carried on as Sylvanus, along with Manny, buckled into laughter.

The flakes were forgotten as the evening wore on, and the brew kept flowing, and Manny kept up a steady tirade of nonsensical things. And with the fire warming his bones, and his face broadening from laughing, Sylvanus soon forgot his fight with Addie. Was late, real late when he found himself leaning closer to the fire, all the time nodding and grinning; even when nothing was being said, he was nodding and grinning. Time to go home, he thought, and stood up. His legs wobbled like rubber beneath him, and he wondered how long he’d been drunk.

“Now, enter like the lamb,” cautioned Manny as he set his sights onto the corner of the house and started staggering toward it. “Remember that—like the lamb.”

“Thought it was the pup.”

“Noo—yeah—noo, that’s later you cuddles like the pup. First, you got to get through the door, and that’s how you does it—enter like the lamb. Gets them right off if you bleats like the lamb.”

“That right, Jake? Bleat like a lamb?” asked Sylvanus, kicking his eldest brother’s foot as he stumbled past him. “Can you show me, Jake? Can you bleat? Just show me how you bleats,” he begged, and yowled as a boot in the arse from Manny sent him stumbling into the winds blasting through the neck.

Nice fellows, he thought of his brothers, weaving his way through the dark, nice fellows. “Bejesus, I’m not riding your back this night, hussy,” he muttered as the wind delivered a slather of spit from the sea against his face, “bejesus I’m not,” and he hurried his step toward home, yellow patches of light from the houses on his left divining his path, and his outstretched hands seeking an invisible railing against the seawater broiling a greyish white out of the abyss to his right.

His mother’s house drew near, and he saw her face in the window, watching out for him. “Been doing it since you was three. Don’t ask me to stop now,” she’d shushed him once, after his wedding night, when he’d complained about her still doing so. And she hadn’t stopped, either, still treating him like the youngster, he thought, and he stood grinning, waving at her as he passed by, trying to keep a straight line so’s she wouldn’t think him drunk and worry. The night turned blacker past her lamp-lit window. He staggered, trying to keep to the path and figure out the outline of his house through the darkness before him. His ears picked up the brook over the roar of the falls and the pounding of the sea, and he headed toward it. A window, he thought, weaving off the path and stumbling to find his way back, we needs a window on that damn back wall, that’s what we needs. What harm to have a little window to light the way home sometimes, especially if we’re to have youngsters, he thought solemnly. Yes, they’d have to have a window. He would tell her once he got inside—a window, we needs a window, Addie, a window to light the way home. That’s what he would tell her, then; but not in the rambunctious manner of the ram—
“Addie, we needs a window!”
—but real quiet like, “Addie, we needs a window on the back wall, just a small one so’s when we haves a youngster, it won’t go drowning itself in the brook, trying to get home— Heeyy!!” And he let out a cry as his feet slipped from beneath him at the same instant his mother opened her door, letting out the lamplight and showing him, too late, the brook broiling up to greet him.

“Christ!” he cried out as the icy water flooded his boots. Then, scrambling back up the little incline with the water squishing through his toes, he stood shivering, waving his mother back inside.

“Syllie! Did you fall in?” she called from her doorway.

“Naw! Get back inside.”

“Syllie!”

“I’m here, I’m here on the other side!” he roared, waving wildly. “Go on in. Go on!”

“Did you fall in?”

“No, cripes, Mother, get your head inside. Go on.” And as her door closed, he grunted, balancing himself awkwardly on one foot while pulling off the boot of the other and emptying it.

A gust of wind hit him full and he stumbled backwards, landing on his arse, cursing as he held his boot in his hand, trying not to let his socked foot touch the ground, while all the time wondering why not when it was more soaked than the ground he sat upon. “Might as well be riding your back, hussy,” he muttered, letting his foot flop down into the mud and hauling off his other rubber, “might as bloody well.” And clambering to his feet, he gulped as a squall of wind snatched at his breath, slathering him with another dose of spit.

“Blood of a bitch,” he cursed, and rising with his boots in his hand, he stood facing the wind, laughing as he staggered toward home, pitching and rolling as might a ship upon a stormy sea. Orange sparks flared out of his chimney and he knew by the sudden bursts Addie was digging at the fire with the poker and he sobered, his heart sinking. Was she cold? Was she scared of the wind screaming like the haunt through the head? She didn’t like the sea. She’d told him that. And now here it was roiling like the hag upon the shore, the froth of her fury gnashing like teeth just a few feet from her window. More flankers flared and he started running, his feet slipping and sliding beneath him. He made no more headway than when he was walking, but still he ran, no longer knowing how much of his gait was due to the brew, the wind, or his slipping and sliding on the muddied path. And all the time thinking as he ran, she’s cold, and she’s scared, she’s cold and she’s scared. Breathlessly, he arrived at his stoop, and remembering Manny’s words about the lamb, he paused, forcing a calm to his racing heart. Catching his breath, he pulled off his wet socks, his coat, his workshirt, and piled them in a heap beside his boots. Flattening his hair back off his forehead, he rubbed his hands on pants that were more soaked than the garments he’d just hauled off, and quietly pushed open the door.

It was warm inside. She sat quietly rocking before the window facing the neck, her feet propped upon the windowsill, a shawl around her shoulders, and the lamp burning steadily beside her as she read from that little red book about some God-hungry saint.

“Put in some wood, Sylvanus,” she said quietly, scarcely looking up as he entered. He gazed over the back of her chair onto the crown of her head, and at her little ankles propped upon the windowsill, levering her rocker back and forth, and the rest of her all snuggled inside a wool wrap. So small, she was, without her belly showing, like the little girl they would soon have (he was sure it was a girl), and his chest broadened, and feeling mammoth from his blustering in the big wind outside, he crouched now within this tiny kitchen he’d built for her and laid his hand upon the arm of her rocker.