The Doryman (5 page)

Chapter Eleven

O
ne day was like the next in the Banks fishery. The men's hours became an endless round of rowing, baiting hooks, letting out trawl, hauling trawl, unhooking fish, counting fish, pitching fish onto the schooner, heading them, gutting them, tossing their livers and guts, throwing them into the hold, salting them, rowing, fishing. The only variation came from their meals, which the cook tried his best to make satisfying, and the dreams that filled their few hours of sleep each night. Through it all, Richard tried his best to ignore the queasiness that never left him and sometimes threatened to overwhelm him.

By the fourth day of fishing Richard was throwing up uncontrollably. He hadn't eaten much the whole trip because of his sickness, so before long he vomited green bile, which cut his throat with its bitterness. Then convulsive dry heaves overtook him. His eyes were bloodshot from the fruitless effort of throwing up. Tiny pinpricks of red appeared on his pale cheeks, put there by the force of his retching. As the men rose from their bunks in the morning dark, Richard found he could hardly stand up.

The men gathered around him after breakfast, the very smell of which made him retch even more. They said little but looked at him intently, trying to figure out if he was seized by seasickness or something even worse.

“Have some hardtack,” Matty suggested. “It's good for what ails you.”

“You'll be able to hold it down,” Larry Walsh added. “That's the thing for seasickness.”

Richard slowly shook his lolling head as he leaned against the bulkhead of the galley.

“Drink something,” said Danny, sounding worried for once. “You got to have water in you or you'll get the dry heaves.”

Richard nodded, meaning he already had the dry heaves, but the men misunderstood. One of them shoved a mug of water into his face. Richard licked his dry, cracked lips and stuck his tongue into the mug. He tried to drink a little. But he immediately began vomiting again and he couldn't stop himself. He sprayed drops of water and the bile that remained in his stomach all over the bulkhead and the floor underneath it.

Richard was almost too sick to feel embarrassment, but his face grew red and hot anyway in some sort of primitive, almost automatic response. No one said anything. One of the men backed into the galley to get a rag cloth and bucket.

“He's awful sick, that boy,” Matty said finally.

“There's no time for sickness here,” Steve said gruffly. “And there's nothing wrong with him that can't be cured.”

Without warning, he leaned his right arm back, then pulled it forward and hit the left side of Richard's head. Then the right. Then the left again. And the right. The thuds echoed in the boy's head, and he winced from the pain and the dizziness that enveloped him. But Steve went on boxing his son's ears till the boy almost blacked out.

“Give the lad a break, Steve, b'y,” Danny said sternly.

“He's fifteen years of age, for God's sake,” someone else added.

“And he won't be seasick anymore, I guarantee it,” Steve answered. He looked at his son on the floor now, shivering slightly and trying to hold in his whimpers. “Now get up and get to work,” he barked.

Somehow Richard rose slowly from the floor, his head feeling as fragile as an eggshell. He said nothing. He couldn't have spoken if he wanted to. He tried to focus his eyes on the steps in front of him. He ignored the men who still stood standing around him. Then he followed his father up top and to Number 2 Dory, where they would spend most of their day.

The air was cold and wet with drizzle and fog. It was hard to see beyond the schooner. Richard pulled his oilskins close to his body and got into the dory. His head was filled with pain and his stomach ached. Even worse, he felt an excruciating combination of shame and fear. But gradually he became frozen, all of him, his mind, his body, his heart. And, despite everything, he was able to carry on. Somehow he didn't feel as seasick as he had since the
Laura Claire
hauled out of the harbour.

Though the weather was miserable, the fishing that day was easier. There was a fish on almost every hook. For once, neither of them cut their fingers. Richard's seasickness levelled off to a manageable state and he tried to forget about the morning's events.

As they rowed back to the schooner, Richard watched his father out of the corner of his eye. His mother, he knew, would be disgusted with what her husband had done to his son. But she'd probably be afraid to say too much. Instead, she would treat her son to lassie bread and talk quietly to him as he got into bed. She'd treat him like he was her little boy even though he was almost a man. There was no sense trying to say anything to Old Steve. Here on the St. Pierre Bank, Richard's life back in Little Bay seemed so far away now. Now Richard wondered: Was his father cruel? Was he mad? Was he human? Was he possessed by a demon or something? Did he know it hurt like hell to have your head beaten in?

Richard looked at Steve's uneven lips, sternly pressed together. He took in the sunken eyes, the long, thin hands, and the tightness of his father's body as he imagined it through the oilskins. He saw the baldness of the older man's head, the remaining hairs turned grey and white, and the crevices that were worn deep into his narrow face. The boy realized that he could not recall ever seeing his father smile. He watched the frantic way Steve rowed. It was the same frantic way he did everything. His intensity never wavered, onshore and at sea. He was not yet forty.

How old did Steve say he was when his own father first took him out here? Fourteen? No, younger maybe? Did his father box his ears, too? Did anyone say, “Don't be so hard on him, he's just a boy”? Richard saw the constant fear of starvation in his father's eyes. No, he didn't think they did say those things.

Richard didn't feel anger or hatred towards his father. He felt only fatigue. And a hardness in his chest that had not been there before.

Around them were low grey clouds and choppy dark waves. They were in the middle of a mizzling rain, marked by drizzle and a thick mist that seeped into the bones. There were no blackbacks or hagdowns sailing through the air. They could see no other dory. The water made the only sound, and it sounded angry.

Richard pushed his teenaged body into his large wooden oar and helped haul the dory back to the schooner.

Chapter Twelve

F
inally, Captain Brinton decreed that it was time to return to port. When Matty told him this, Richard was so relieved he let out air that he did not know he had been holding in. He hated it here in the middle of the cold ocean, the middle of nowhere, a godawful place where they did nothing but suffer from back-breaking work and bone-deep fatigue. He was sick of all of it: the hardtack, the salt beef that was parcelled out to them, the fish soup that they gulped down every evening. He had never experienced life as so fruitless and gloomy. He felt like a bear in the woods that does nothing but search for food. There was no joy, no happiness, never any laughter. Out here, there was only the trepidation he felt in the presence of his father and the Captain, worry about how many fish they were catching, and fear of the weather that could turn at any moment and take their lives.

Richard tried to take pride in his work – he knew that's what his mother would tell him to do – but somehow he couldn't always do this. There was too much fatigue in his heart and in his young body. Sometimes, although he would never tell his mother, there was even hatred, for the water, for his father, for the Captain and the damned Banks fishery.

He thought of these things as the
Laura Claire
headed around Chapeau Rouge. “Red hat,” he remembered Steve said it was called in French. He thought of the ladies on the streets of Burin, the ladies with the fancy hats with feathers coming out the top. Then he thought of his own mother and her big strong hands.
She will never wear a fancy hat
, he thought.

He knew, too, that he wouldn't be able to buy nice dresses from a store for his sisters. It had gradually dawned on him as the men talked and tried to joke about it that he'd never see money this trip. Nor any other trip this year. Maybe never. Instead, all his slaving might help erase a little of his father's debt, built up through two and a half decades in the Banks fishery. That's all his hard work would do, all it could do. It'd mean they'd have tea, some flour, and a bit of sugar, that's all. It'd keep them alive, but not prosperous, nor enjoying the rewards of their labour.

He remembered setting out that February day from Little Bay to Mooring Cove with his father. He recalled the anticipation he'd felt, in spite of the fear, and even the hopes he'd dared to feel. He laughed an old man's laugh as the keenness of his disappointment took hold. Things were the way they were and there was nothing he could do about it.

The
Laura Claire's
first stop was Burin, where the Brinton family's enterprises were headquartered. Back through the passage of islands they sailed, their hold bursting with fish salted down. Back to the berth between Path End and Bull's Cove. Once again, the streets of the busiest town in the bay filled Richard's eyes and teased him with dreams. They would stay here a couple of days, to be spent unloading fish. Then they'd move into Mortier Bay, where they'd bring fish to the women who waited in Beau Bois, Little Bay, Creston, Marystown, and Mooring Cove.

During their first day ashore, Richard managed to get away from the
Laura Claire
and the fish-covered wharf alongside her. He felt the unsteadiness of his legs. Sea legs, they were called. It took him awhile to walk completely upright and straight without any difficulty. Many of the men landing here walked like this, so many that the harbour seemed full of drunks.

On the wharf he struggled to get his footing. Eventually he walked steadily, and then with the step of a man. He looked not at the muddy spring ground but all around him at the carpenters carrying lumber, the fishermen pushing wheelbarrows full of dead fish, the horses clip-clopping by, the sheep that scrambled up the hills that ringed the harbour. His toes were curled under in the boots that had become too small for him, but as he walked, he held his head high.

It didn't occur to him that Steve might be looking for him, that his father wouldn't approve of him taking half an hour to take himself off on a walk. He couldn't worry about such things now. He wasn't afraid of his father anymore. He was just desperate to have a few minutes to himself.

At the top of one of the hills, he saw a familiar blond head out of the corner of his eye. Yes, there he was, there was Peter Moulton crossing the path that led from one of the largest white buildings in the harbour to the other. Even at this distance, Peter seemed taller. His increased height made the confidence with which he walked even more noticeable. Richard watched him silently.

He thought of Peter's life, working ashore with his uncles the whole year round. Even in summer. He imagined the work the young man did, shaping from beautiful wood the boats in which the men of the South Coast would spend their lives fishing. Peter, he knew, would never be paralyzed with seasickness and have his ears boxed by his father as a cure. He'd never have to lick the blood off his hands on a cold, lonely offshore bank.

When he had met Peter weeks ago, Richard had wondered if he could do work like him, work that was filled with craftsmanship and comfort. He smiled at the thought of this, but his smile was rueful, even bitter. He knew now that such work could never be his. Fishing on the St. Pierre Bank, hauling the heavy wet trawls into the dory and ripping the fish off the hooks had told him somehow. He had learned his place in the world, he knew where his destiny lay – on a cold, wet sea in a dory – and he knew in his marrow he had no choice but to accept it. As he thought of this, something inside his body twisted. He would never even voice his wish to do the work of an onshore tradesman. He had learned not to, so he kept it to himself from that day on.

Chapter Thirteen

T
he
Laura Claire
pulled into the mouth of Mortier Bay after sailing all day. Her crew were happy to leave the cold, wet air of St. Pierre Bank behind them. It was warmer here in this little micro-climate, and they noticed the edge of comparative dryness in the April air.

As the schooner moved into the bay, Richard looked over and smiled, thinking how he would finally see his mother before the day was out. His hands were calloused and hard now, but his wrists were covered in water pups, blisters, that refused to heal. They'd been put there by the chafing of his oilskin sleeves against his skin. Were they ever tender! Worst of all, they sent pain right through him whenever he used his hands, to lift food to his mouth, to haul the last of the trawls back into the tubs, to pull a line, to cut the head off a codfish. There was no relief.

“You get used to those water pups,” Matty had said.

Richard doubted it.

He was pleased for at least one thing. His seasickness had almost completely disappeared. All the men were surprised by this, except, apparently, Steve, who said nothing whenever they spoke of it and marvelled at it. He would only look into the distance, his gaze directed at something far off.

Richard was relieved to no end. But he also felt a kernel of anger that it took a beating from his father to cure it. Now as they headed into Mortier Bay, he looked over at his father and saw again the deep curves that radiated out from the corners of his eyes, and the downward lines of his lips. His mother raised him with stories of Indians spearing eels in shallow pools in the darkness of the night, and walking deep into the woods to hunt bear and render the grease that was so special to them. The comforting feel of her soft body would always stay with him, as would the sound of her gentle voice. He felt happy, even loved, in her company. His father, though, had given him no stories. He realized that he hardly knew Steve, a man who seemed to spend most of his time in his own thoughts and said little.

Before Richard knew it, the Captain had dropped anchor. They were outside Little Bay, and Richard could easily make out his family's small white house on top of the hill on the east side of the fjord. On the shore he saw figures in long skirts that blew up like balloons in the wind; they had seen the schooner and were waiting! His heart jumped a beat at the thought of his mother standing there waiting for him.
Maybe Rachel will be there, too
, he hoped. They'd both be proud of him, he knew, and his little brothers would be in awe of him. They'd see him as a man now, he reckoned. It was a nice thought that gave his heart comfort.

The men lowered Dory Number 2 into the deep waters of the bay. This was Richard's cue to join his father in the little boat. Next they set down Dory Number 4, from which Larry Walsh and Val Kilfoy fished. They were going back home to Little Bay, too.

The deck was full of activity now as the men pitched salt fish out of the dark hold and into the dories below. The fish kept coming and coming. The Captain counted them, and when he saw Steve's thin lips move silently, Richard knew his father was counting, too. “Never trust the skipper or anyone else,” he had said firmly so many times as they'd fished in the fog.

Finally their dory was bulging with fish and the pitching stopped. Up to their hips in fish, Steve and Richard rowed towards their village, stroke by stroke. As they neared the shore, they jumped out of their boat and strained to pull it onto the beach.

*

Richard was in his mother's arms. “Oh, darling,” she said again and again as she hugged him tight, ignoring his wet, bulky oilskins. “You're all grown up.” Her eyes were darker than he'd remembered – they were almost black – though it had only been weeks, and she'd swept her long hair under her bonnet. Her skirt, wet at the hems, reached the rocks on the beach.

Then Rachel, lanky in a cousin's hand-me-downs, rushed up to the pair of them and pulled them apart so she could see her brother.

“You've grown taller,” she announced to the entire harbour. Then she opened her brother's jacket and sized up his chest and legs. “But you're awful skinny!” she added.

“Get to work now,” Steve interrupted, ending the reunion that Richard had conjured up so many times as he rowed back and forth to St. Pierre Bank. The women moved back and the men began filling wheelbarrows with salted fish; these had been fetched by the local boys. Steve, Richard, and the other men pushed the wheelbarrows over the beach rocks to their premises. Then they stacked the fish in tidy rows in their fishing rooms. It was too early in the year for the women to make fish – to lay it flat on the beaches where it could dry and cure in the sun. April drizzle and fog created a dampness that seeped into everything. So the fish would stay in storage until June.

His water pups aching – his mother hadn't noticed them during their brief meeting – Richard got back into Dory Number 2 with his father and rowed back out to the
Laura Claire
. The schooner's deck was awash in codfish, and when the dories reached the ship, the men rapidly filled them to the thwarts with it again.

After Richard dumped his last load of fish, his mother came over to him. “Go on up to the house,” she said quietly but firmly. He could see that she had planned to say this for some time, but Richard hesitated; he wasn't sure if he should go back to the schooner. That's what his father seemed to be doing. He didn't want to defy his father, or displease the Captain. But he wanted to go home and see his younger brothers and sisters. He knew they'd be impressed with him.

“Go on with you,” Elizabeth said, pressing the palm of his hand between her long calloused fingers. “Run on up now.” She nodded, urging him on.

So he did. His oilskins streaming behind him, he lunged forward in the direction of his home at the top of the hill. He ran and ran as fast as he could, leaving the
Laura Claire
, the drying fish, Dory Number 2, and his father far behind. As he neared the top of the hill, his jacket fell off and he left it there behind him in the late spring slush. He continued running, hard and fast. He was surprised to find his eyes filling with tears. He let out a dry, deep, solitary sob as he ran into the April wind and neared his home. But he didn't know why he was crying, for never had he felt so free.