He rifled through the closets of the cove’s empty houses to find a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of pants he could stuff with hay. Sweetland was a youngster the last time anyone bothered burning an effigy on Bonfire Night. It was decades since anyone even called it Guy Fawkes’ Night. He’d never known who Guy Fawkes was before Jesse looked him up on the internet and made his report, spelling the man’s last name and offering a thumbnail sketch of his claim to infamy. A radical from another time, a man involved in a plot to blow up the Parliament Buildings in London.
Sweetland had already forgotten what Guy Fawkes’s grievance was and how the plot came undone. There was nothing in the story to make him wish ill on the man’s memory. It was just a bit of mindless sport when he was a youngster, watching the vague shape of a person lifted over the conflagration. Like seeing the aftermath of suicide bombings on the news, or watching people ruin themselves in biking mishaps on YouTube. A vicarious thrill, to be horrified and somehow comforted at the one time. The crowd gathered close to the fire and shouting as the flames caught hold in the clothes.
He made the head out of a brin bag, also stuffed with straw, and he drew on the eyes and mouth with the last dribs of the yellow oil paint. Hung the figure on a hook in the shed, stepped back to consider it. That’s what’s left of you, Mr. Fawkes, he thought, for all your scheming. A few rags stuffed with straw.
It was pouring rain and cold on the morning of the fifth and it was only the thought of disappointing Jesse that kept him from skipping the event altogether. The weather cleared some in the late afternoon and he walked up the path at dusk with a yogourt container of kerosene and the straw effigy under his arm. His pockets jangling with half a dozen bottles of homebrew. Four potatoes wrapped in tinfoil stuffed among the beers. His breath white in the chill, the air smelling like snow.
The mound of scrap wood and brush was Sweetland’s height, with the tractor tires thrown on top. He made a torch with a rag on a stick of driftwood and soaked the rag in kerosene. Then he walked around the mound, pushing the flame into the wet underbrush until the fire caught in half a dozen spots and took up through the centre. By the time the early dark had fallen, the mash was alight with the blaze, so hot Sweetland had to stand twenty feet clear, and still he could feel his face burning. The bonfire made the blackness beyond its circle seem complete, as if the houses below and the ocean beyond it had disappeared into the void.
He waited until the fire had burned back a little and tied the effigy to a pole he’d cut for the purpose, holding it over the height of flame and the dirty rags of smoke from the tires. It was a full minute before the pants ignited and the figure seemed almost to explode then. Sweetland shouting into the darkness above the bonfire as the clothes shrivelled and fell away in burning strips.
He dropped the pole onto the mound and crouched in close to the fire, shielding his face with one hand as he placed the potatoes into the coals nearest the edge. He stepped back to where he’d left the homebrew and stood there in the heat. Raised a bottle to the flames. “Now, Mr. Fawkes,” he said.
There were half a dozen fires this size along the mash when he was a youngster. People gathered in clusters, or wandering back and forth from one to another. The men half-loaded on whiskey or shine, women trying to keep track of the youngest children. The night crackling with voices. Every year someone’s outhouse was dragged up the path and thrown onto a burning pyre, the dark erupting with flankers. The crowd cheering. He and Duke would take a run at them after the initial inferno had burned back, coming down in the coals on the far side of the largest fires, sending up a shower of sparks, occasionally setting their pant cuffs alight.
The tradition had all but died out on the island before Jesse arrived. The last few years the boy had helped Sweetland collect scrap wood and spruce branches near the Mackerel Cliffs. They weren’t allowed to set the fire anywhere near Vatcher’s Meadow or to burn tires or any other “hazardous waste” according to the letter from Rita Verge. Municipal regulations, she said they were. It wasn’t much above a glorified campfire they put together, but Jesse counted down the days to Bonfire Night the same as he did for Christmases and birthdays. He scorched marshmallows and wieners on alder sticks while Sweetland described the fires they had one time, the days and weeks they spent building the pyres, the mash lit up like a carnival midway till the small hours of the night. Promising the boy next year they’d haul his old outhouse up the path and burn it. Or steal a few tires or stuff an old shirt with straw. Next year, he offered every November. Next year.
Sweetland fished the potatoes out of the coals and let them cool a few minutes at his feet. Opened the tinfoil gingerly, using his pocketknife to break the skin, steam snaking into the cold air. The roasted flesh dry and sweet and he ate three of the plain spuds, one after the other. He’d finished four bottles of the homebrew and he stepped away from the heat to piss into the blackness. The silence roaring out there beyond the fire’s chatter and he listened awhile after he was done, feeling the chill creep into his clothes. And something moved in the pitch, a scuffle near his feet that raised the hair at the back of his neck. The something slipped past him and Sweetland staggered to one side, turning in time to see the creature disappear around the bonfire. “Jesus fuck,” he said.
He crouched down and waited a few moments. Not quite able to credit what he’d seen. “Smut,” he said. He pursed his lips and kissed at the air.
The little dog appeared at the opposite side of the fire, peering at Sweetland warily. He called again but the animal lay down where it was, the head held high. He stood up straight and the dog got to its feet, backing away.
“All right,” Sweetland said. He retreated to the spot where the last potato lay on the ground, trying not to take his eyes from the tiny animal. He knelt and peeled the tinfoil away, cut a section of potato skin, tossed it toward the dog. He’d never known a dog to eat potato skin, but he guessed the creature was near to starved, wandering up on the mash alone all this time. It must have gotten loose before the last ferry and been left behind. A wonder it was alive at all.
The dog crept up to the food and sniffed a moment before eating it, then looked across at Sweetland. He tossed another section, a little nearer himself, and the dog crept that much closer. Sweetland talking softly all the while, asking the animal questions about how it had managed to miss leaving on the ferry and what it had done to keep itself alive and who was a good dog? Each bit of food he dropped closer to himself and the last morsel of potato he held in his outstretched hand. The dog considered it a long time before sneaking close enough to take it. Retreated a yard and ate the potato and then stared at Sweetland again. It was a ragged-looking thing, burrs and sticks caught in the overgrown black coat. The fur so long it was impossible to see the dog’s eyes behind the straggle. Sweetland raised his palms in the firelight. “That’s all I got,” he said. He wanted, more than anything he’d wanted in a long time, to touch the animal. But it moved away from him, closer to the heat of the fire. “You been living off my rabbit snares, I’m guessing,” Sweetland said. “Haven’t you, Mr. Fox.”
The word struck him then, the odd congruity. “Mr. Fawkes,” he said. “Mr. Fox.” He wished he’d brought up some sort of meat to offer the dog. But he didn’t move an inch for fear of scaring it off, even after it curled up and fell asleep.
The dog stayed close to Sweetland after Bonfire Night, following him at a discreet distance when he checked his rabbit slips up on the mash, coming by the house for food. The animal couldn’t be coaxed inside, though Sweetland stood at the open door with morsels of rabbit or salt beef. He dragged Diesel’s doghouse up from Pilgrim’s yard and set it in the lee of his own place, laying an old bath towel inside, and from the look of things the dog was making use of it. Before he doused the lamps at night he opened the door and called good-night. With no idea if it was within earshot.
There was a stretch of fine weather in the middle of November, mild and clear and calm, and Sweetland went out in the Lov
e Boat to fish each day. The little dog chased him down to the wharf that first morning and stood at the concrete edge barking its fool head off as Sweetland rowed into the cove. He sat the oars a minute and watched the ridiculous creature running back and forth the length of the dock, yapping so fiercely it reared up on its hind legs.
“What in Christ is it you wants?” Sweetland shouted. He turned about, rowing toward the wharf, and when he was within six or eight feet the dog made a suicidal leap for it. Sweetland twisted in his seat to catch it and there were a few seconds of thrashing and cursing before the boat settled. And by then the dog was curled on a folded square of tarp in the stern. It lay there as Sweetland rowed out to Wester Shoals and didn’t move until he’d caught his fish and hauled back in and stepped onto the beach. Sweetland dragged the dory above the high-water mark and tied the painter to a chain he’d set around the base of a rock. The dog still hadn’t budged when he leaned in for his fish. “You coming?” Sweetland asked, and it jumped over the gunwale, shadowing him up the path.
There were still a few cod around and he came in with three or four fresh fish the first couple of mornings that week. Two days in a row then he caught nothing more than dogfish, which he brought in to feed to the animal. Decided he would row toward the north-end light to try his luck elsewhere.
It was remarkably still for the time of year, the ocean like a mirror beneath him even after he cleared the breakwater. A fact that afterwards he thought should have been a warning to him. He had an easy job pulling toward the nearest bit of shoal ground to the east, though it was twice as far from the cove as Wester Shoals.
He put out his line and struck the fish right away. He couldn’t even get the jigger to touch bottom before the weight of a cod took the line and had to be hauled in. They seemed to be in a race to get out of the water and he filled the small pound at his feet in the space of forty-five minutes’ work. The last fish he hooked came up heavy, the weight on the line growing as it came closer to the surface, and it was a job getting the creature aboard without swamping the dory. A big fish, near the size of a small goat, he hadn’t seen anything the like of it since he was a child. Sweetland stood to manoeuvre the thing aft, where it kicked and flipped a few minutes before lying still. The dog jumping off its bed to avoid the slap of the tail’s massive fan, moving cautiously up to the bow.
Sweetland was still winded with the effort of bringing it aboard when he rolled up the line and set the jigger away. Jesus, it was a fish. He sat a few minutes just looking at the thing. Glanced to starboard then to see how far he might have drifted offshore and there was nothing out there but the white muffle of fog that had closed in without his noticing. He turned where he sat, as if he might see something more substantial to the horizon behind him. Fog snug as a blindfold in all directions.
“Well fuck,” he said, and the dog lifted its head to look at him. “Never you mind,” Sweetland said. He tried to place the sun but the light was so faint and diffuse he couldn’t say. The island lay to the starboard side when he first put out his line, but it was anyone’s guess whether he’d turned about as he worked. He shouted first to his left and then to his right, hoping to hear some answering echo off the cliffs, but the fog swallowed his voice. They were close enough to the north-end light he expected to hear some hint of the foghorn, which would help with fixing his location, and he sat still a long time, waiting for it to register. But it never did.
He put the line out to see if he might guess the way the current was running by its drift, but it sat plumb from the gunwale. It occurred to him the jigger hadn’t touched bottom when he was fishing and he might have drifted off the shoal ground altogether. He let it out to the full of its length without bringing up. Deep water. But he couldn’t be more than half an hour off the land and he started rowing in the direction he was pointed until he guessed half an hour had passed. He shouted over his shoulder a few minutes before turning and rowing in the opposite direction. He carried on an hour or so, to allow for the time he’d travelled the other way, then shouted uselessly into the wall of white.
He sat with the oars across his lap awhile, feeling like an idiot. He glanced over his shoulder to see the dog staring at him. He turned away and talked with his back to the animal. “We’re going to have to wait it out, Mr. Fox,” he said. “Might mean a night on the water, if we’re unlucky enough.”
He had no sense of time passing as he sat there. The fog settled closer and he sang aloud for the company of his own voice, the same dreadful children’s songs he’d sung to Jesse. The massive fish lying aft flickered occasionally. Sweetland drank a mouthful of fresh water from the Javex bottle and poured a drop into the bailer for the dog. He ate one of the cakes of hardtack he’d packed as a lunch, chewing the dry bread to a paste that he washed down with more water. He opened the one tin of peaches he’d carried with him, sharing the slices with the dog before he drank off the juice. He gutted a fish over the side of the boat, flicked the liver into his palm, and held it under the dog’s nose. It sniffed warily at the cold lump of flesh. “Go on, Mr. Fox,” Sweetland said, “it’s good for what ails you.” He cleaned three more fish and fed the raw livers to the dog, then rinsed his hands in the ocean. He sat up straight and turned slowly side to side. His arse was numb from sitting hours on the wooden thwart, his back like a strip of leather being twisted from both ends. He shipped the oars to settle into the bow, lifting the dog out of his way and setting it on his chest where it curled up and slept again.
Still light when he came to himself, but dusky enough he could tell it was late afternoon. He raised himself above the gunwale, scanning around, trying to pinpoint the sun before he lost it altogether. A glim over his right shoulder and he rowed in that general direction, toward what he hoped was the west, stopping now and then to call out and listen to the nothing beyond them. He carried on longer than it made any sense, just to have something to do with himself, for the warmth of the work, rowing until the night had settled full on the sea. He set the oars under the gunwales then and stood to piss into the salt water. He looked down at the spot where he knew the dog was lying. “What kind of a fucken bladder have you got?” he said.
He shook out the tarp in the stern to use as a blanket. Then he lay back on the bare wood to wait for daylight.
He woke to the dog growling, the ridiculous toy rumble of it on his chest. Still dark and the fog thick around them.
“What is it now?” he said.
The dog carried on awhile, as though it heard someone creeping outside a closed door, and Sweetland shushed him. He lay still, trying to identify what it might be. Picked out a shapeless sound in the distance, a low murmur so vague he thought he might be imagining it. The dog barked once into the darkness and Sweetland sat up out of the bow, his head cocked to place it. Could be the foghorn at the north-end light wailing out there, though he couldn’t explain why he’d missed it before now. A vessel in the shipping lanes maybe, warning others away. It was a fool’s game to chase after it, but he couldn’t help himself. He set the oars and started pulling in the direction it was whispering from. The dog standing in the bow when he glanced over his shoulder, staring into the fog and the black.
The sound grew steadier as he approached it, a hum underneath the blind night he was travelling through. What in Christ’s name was it? There wasn’t the distinct rise and fall he’d expect from a foghorn, just a muffled drone that suggested the outline of something solid when it wasn’t being listened to carefully.
He came back on the oars in a steady draw and he started singing to match the rhythm, an old-time hymn he was surprised to have called up. His voice clinging to the old rugged cross, like he was belting it out at a revival meeting. He paused now and then to listen, feeling each time on the verge of naming the drone as it grew more distinct, falling back to the hymn as he rowed. Stopped suddenly in the middle of a verse, the oars dripping water.
It was Tennessee Ernie Ford he was hearing, that southern baritone cutting clear through the
fog. “The Old Rugged Cross.” He’d been singing along even before he could say what it was he’d been hearing. The dog barked behind him, impatient to get moving.
“Shut up, Mr. Fox,” Sweetland said. He reached over the gunwale for a handful of the icy water, splashed it across his face. He didn’t think he would credit his senses if he was alone, if the dog wasn’t hearing the impossible song as well. It barked again while the music rolled over them. “All right,” he said. “Fuck. All right.”
It was another half-hour of rowing toward that voice before the sound of waves on the breakwater loomed at his back. Sweetland turned to follow the line of stones to the harbour’s mouth. Surprised to see they were coming toward Chance Cove from the west, as if they had somehow managed to circle the island. It was still dark, but the fog had lifted enough that he could make out the white of the church on the point as he pulled into the cove. And not a sound to be heard now he was in sight of the place. He looked over his shoulder where the dog was two paws up on the gunwale, the little tail wagging furiously.
He guided the boat toward the beach and the dog was over the side as soon as the keel touched in the shallows, away up the path toward the mash. Sweetland called after him, though he knew it was a useless gesture. He hauled the dory halfways out of the water, which was as much energy as he could muster. He tied the painter to the chain and walked up the path to his house in the black.
It was near noon before Sweetland woke on the daybed in the kitchen. He lit a fire and put on the kettle and a pot of water to shave. He opened the door and called out to the dog but there was no sign of it. The air suddenly seasonal, cold and cutting.
After he’d washed and eaten, he went down to the beach with three longers and a sheet of canvas under his arm. The tide had risen and the dory was floating free, still tied to the chain-rock. Sweetland hauled it in and dragged it up off the landwash. The fish were sitting in the three inches of bilge water at the bottom of the boat, too high now to consider eating. He tipped the dory up on its gunwale to shake them onto the beach, took out the drain plug and sluiced the mess with seawater. He laid the three logs beside the chain-rock and dragged the dory up beside them, turning it face down onto the longers. He tied the canvas over the boat and he took the oars back up the path and tucked them away in the rafters of his shed.
Sweetland Page 21
