The Big Why

by Michael Winter

I took to watching Emily. To see a young woman hard at work. I tried not looking at her, but I liked to see the strain on her face. Exertion in the young is sensual. I imagined myself behind her, I held her as she bent over and turned the fish. That’s it, Emily. Now put your hands down. You dont even know I’m behind you.

  Rachel stacked the fish to press the water out. You got to keep it off the ground, Emily said, or the damp will take out the pickle.

  Rachel Dobie: Let nature do work for you is what I says.

  After a night in waterhorse the fish were ready to spread on the flake.

  The fish is in the woman’s care, Emily said, stretching. Leaning back. Now let me just put a leg between yours. Let me push you apart with my knee. How she stroked a strand of hair out of her face. The flies drove her crazy.

  A man catches the fish, Emily said, and the woman makes it.

  Rachel: We mind the children, flakes, house and gardens. All the men mind is the fish.

  Emily: Except for that one there.

  Yes, but he’s an artist.

  And they have a laugh at that. A really good laugh.

  25

  I sawed wood and sometimes I borrowed the Pomeroys’ dory and rowed over to Frogmarsh. The flakes extending off houses covered with fish. You had to spread the fish like they were your babies, Rachel told me. She wouldnt allow Tom to lay out fish. He isnt careful enough, she said. The most delicate stage of making fish, when it’s put abroad on flakes.

  I had become vegetarian in New York, but I ate the fish. Fish were triangles of white protein. Rachel showed me some lightly salted fish from last year. It was the colour of teeth.

  Rachel: What makes a beautiful fish is the amber colour. It looks like it’s flecked with flour, with no blood spots. No mark from the liver. A good nape, split down through the tail, with a thick, smooth, dry feel.

  Then I walked along the shore, to where Emily was. She smiled at my lack of industry.

  A good piece of salt fish, she said, you could hang on your wall. And hard. You could slice a man’s hand off at the wrist.

  She made a motion to slice off my hand.

  Tom Dobie thinks that’s you I’ve put over my door.

  Emily: It’s not much of a likeness, I’d say.

  I painted, with ink on cardboard, a picture of Emily Edwards tending the flake, a sheep in silhouette behind her, the jaws of black land surrounding her. Sheep and black jaws. I gave it to Tom Dobie.

  Sure I’m never making fish.

  That’s to remind you of the work the women do.

  Theyre always reminding me.

  Tom hung the drawing on the wall behind the stove. He studied it.

  He’d loaned me a half-ton vise that was used by the railroads. He’d brought it over in his wheelbarrow. A block of maple in the mouth of the vise. I was carving a picture of Tom in his dory. Everything you do not want in the picture, I said, you carve away.

  I peeled away shavings of light from his head and arms. How planned a woodcut must be. The ideal form present behind the wood. The emergence of dark and light — that it must be one or the other. The carving tool and the wood grain. It is important to consider the tactile joy of the work.

  26

  Kathleen pinned her hair up. Then she bent over to dig. She was planting a perennial in the rock garden. She checked a crevice to make sure it was connected to the earth by soil. Otherwise it won’t last, she said. The frost will kill it.

  The tomato flowers with six white petals. The seeds from Mary Bartlett. Her son Bob loves a good tomato. What was happening to Bob. No word. No one knew.

  Kathleen sat back and cut a slice of apple with a knife. She ate it off the knife. She was sitting back on her own legs. To save her dress.

  Could you live here?

  Kathleen: Let’s give it five years. It takes five years to decide anything.

  Okay we’ll live here five years. We’ll pretend we’ve been elected to office.

  She passed me a slice of apple on the blade of her knife.

  When you do that, I said, it looks so elegant.

  I could be in love with her. I was in love with her. The way she worked, I could funnel all the work of women into her bent frame.

  The original reason, she said, why people cut slices of apple with a knife is not because it’s elegant. It’s because they have false teeth. But I’m doing it because I’ve got lipstick on and I dont want to spoil my mouth.

  As I watched her eat this apple Kathleen became aware of me watching. She was uncomfortable with it. I wanted her to act a little now. Assume an air, work her wiles, seduce me. But she was a woman unable to totally lose herself, even in sex. She could not shake the stiffness of self-awareness.

  27

  I woke up to a sunny day and I was thirty-two. The hay was white and leaning. A chain of icebergs floated across the mouth of Brigus. I planted three of Gerald’s pear seedlings on the shelf of garden sloping down to the water. A Pomeroy pony came over to the fence, strong, stout, and blowing green snot on my shirt. A wild happy eye, bright and game. If we lived here ten years we’d be able to stand at the front door and pick fruit. I noted that it took seven hours for an iceberg to appear and vanish beyond Red Head. Growlers drifted up to the bridge. The bergs were strays, having calved from glaciers in Greenland, drifted south on a Labrador current, and taken a wrong turn, entering the dead end of Conception Bay. They will sail into Holyrood, grind on the bottom and melt.

  The caplin were sighted in Harbour Grace, Tom Dobie remarked. We watched a seiner on the horizon shooting out its nets. A seiner has a glass window in the floor so you can see the fish. The men of Brigus prepared cast nets at Jackson’s Quay, and Tom Dobie walked over in his new seaboots to say tonight was it.

  28

  They built three bonfires on the landwash at Jackson’s Quay. Fire to guide the caplin in. It was dusk. We brought the children over. A group of children were passing a burning stick around. Kathleen spotted Tom Dobie with a wheelbarrow and six empty barrels he’d rolled down for the caplin.

  Kathleen: How’s everything, Tom?

  Oh, the best of gear.

  The sun had sunk over the woods, and they were cooking a feed of pork and beans on the shore. They cut hanks of bread and we drank rum, our faces orange from the blazing fires. We raised a glass to Stan Pomeroy, for he loved the caplin. And the caplin were coming tonight.

  Tom Dobie: They will look like a force of bad weather. And they will strike fast and roll.

  Nine dories prowled around the caplin nets. And beside them ponies and carts in the water up to their axles. Twilight drawing the outlines of things. They will scoop up enough caplin to fill a thousand barrels. They will pull the carts up to the gardens, the ponies and the carts turning the long grass silver as they drag themselves up the hill. Some of the caplin for breakfast fish and some to the horses in hard days when fodder is scarce.

  The men were wading in a little with their cast nets. I lifted little Rocky onto my shoulders and searched the water.

  When you sees em, throw the net to the back of em.

  The water was black, the shoals green and blue. There were boulders and kelp fanning in slow motion, and I spotted a flounder sitting passively in the dark green, as though dark green became it.

  The green pitched to black. It swarmed black, then beat into a soft grey curve and then a slick of silver pins as the curve darted and separated around my feet.

  Theyre here.

  Tom Dobie slung his net and allowed it to sink in front of us. The black was filled now with slits of silver as the net bulged and caught around a heaving, independent bulk.

  Put your son down and offer a hand there if’n you dont mind.

  I handed Rocky over to Kathleen and lay hands on the net. We floated the mass to shore, caplin squirting free through the mesh, busting their silver guts to squirm
out and spawn. What an image of chiaroscuro. We dragged the heaviness up on the apron, the delighted mad haul while the sea cleared its throat.

  Now that’s enough for the gardens.

  The high tide arrived and the caplin crested and tumbled in the surge of ocean. So many fish just snapping there, trying to touch their tails while the children ran to the lip of the sea to gather up the shocked caplin, the small gash of their gills blinking like eyelids. The children scooped these frantic deaths into their arms and dumped them into carts and barrels, leaving behind a beach stained with custard-coloured eggs the texture of grit, a wave retreating, clicking the pebbly shore.

  We took our caplin in a tub on a gully stick across our shoulders and walked up the shore and over the path to Frogmarsh, Tom Dobie’s oilclothes gleaming with water and sweat, and as we walked Tom said, Okay change over. We walked on in the dark while groups of men around us did the same. All right change over. And at the top of the hill we stopped and laid down the tub and shared a cigarette and then, Okay, let’s go.

  29

  I mowed the grass with a hand roller. I hooked up a seine net between two spruce posts. I gathered my friends. I had made friends and now I was presenting them with a tennis court. I served Dr Gill — he was wearing his suit and hat and standing well behind the baseline. He returned and I missed his volley. The Bartlett sisters cheered us, their arms around each other. I had invited the fishermen and their families, and most of them had laughed and said, politely, that they’d have a go in October — when they had time to play.

  Dr Gill served out the game. I blamed humps in the green, the net leaned in his favour, there was a wind in my face, the sun in my eye. The weave of my racquet was loose. I hadnt the proper footwear.

  Me: I am not the best at racquet sports.

  In fact, Dr Gill said, youre a poor loser.

  I shook his hand over the net while the audience of the Bartletts, Tom Dobie, and Kathleen and the children gave us a hearty clap. Marten Edwards and Bud Chafe came over and I offered my racquet to Marten and they carried on. Jim Hearn watched from his pharmacy door. Despite my poor performance it was a fine colonial afternoon.

  30

  We played tennis in the late afternoons. The hard ponk and swing. The thrill of a rally. Exerting yourself against a foe some distance away. Being friendly. I arranged a sign-up sheet — some of the fishermen got into it. Both Tony Loveys and George Browiny had a match. George Browiny, Tom told me, was always looking for a reason not to go to the wireless station.

  During the working hours I walked the fields and made sketches and studied landscape and seacoast. I watched children picking snails on the shore rocks. I went down to sketch Rachel Dobie and Emily Edwards still laying out the fish. Drawing allowed me to look. Tom Dobie and Tony Loveys were there too. Marten Edwards was mending the trap. They were worried. There was trouble with the fish drying. Tom thought it was flies, but Tony Loveys said it was the slime. The mixed weather was causing the fish to get a mould. They were scraping it off as they turned the fish.

  Tom: We threw a bit of salt on it, Kent, but he got in because of the bad weather. Havent been able to lay out the fish fast enough. It’s bacterial.

  Tony Loveys: Got to salvage what fish.

  We’ll re-salt and then wash him all again.

  If you see dun on him, Tom said to me, then you got to scrub it off or the fish will get dumb, wet, and broken. If you clean him he’ll be good, but some of it got the fly spits. You got to scrub that too, with water, and salt him and you got to kill the maggots, but my God what a bad grade we’ll get when it comes to cull.

  He showed me a fish with maggots. On the edge of the fish, where the edge doubled on itself. He pried that open and seven white maggots twisted slowly awake.

  Emily: And then if the sun comes out too strong sure you got to double up the faces of the fish, same as if it were spilling down rain, keep the sun off the faces, too much it sunburn the fish. Yes, if it’s not raining then the sun burns you. Got to put quilts up on the longers to shade the fish or bough it over.

  They share their concern with me the way theyve shared everything else. The men watching the women work. The rock slabs on the shore are worn. Covered in mats of blue mussels, periwinkles, kelp.

  31

  How’s the fishing?

  Tom Dobie was catching trout in the brook that runs through town. Smoky lying in the shade. Tom wasnt sure what I was asking.

  You mean the trouting. Theyre clever fish, Kent.

  He was putting them in a butt of water. I got a little hole up farther, he said. Dammed over. Raise these youngsters in it and catch them again in the fall.

  We walked the brook to the dam. We passed a horse, a shy one that moved behind the trees. Smoky went over to say hello.

  He’s got a hide on him, Tom said, that horse. Orstick.

  Smoky left the horse and sat down.

  What’s that mean, orstick.

  It’s German for lie down.

  I thought about that. No it isnt.

  I’m joking boy. It just means, Or I’ll get the stick. Orstick. Sounds German though, hey?

  We walked up to a spot near the horse, under the trees. About six yards across, the swelled banks of the brook. It was August, sweltering, and the mosquitoes were bad.

  You dont mind me taking a dip here, I said.

  Tom shook his head and looked at the horse. I stripped. You coming in?

  I’m not too smart when it comes to swimming.

  He watched me cannonball in with a peel of laughter. He saw me enjoy myself.

  Jump in, I said. I’ll look after you.

  He took off his clothes. He went over to where it was shallow. He was ginger about it. It was quite deep and it was true that he could not swim. I love throwing myself into cold water. He sat himself down in it. Smoky sat and watched.

  Tom Dobie: It’s lovely.

  I could not touch bottom.

  It’s freezing.

  He did a little dog-paddle.

  We dragged ourselves out and sat on the bank in the half shade, our elbows on our knees, shivering in the heat. Tom fished a stick of tobacco from his trousers. Then he leaned back. I liked the hair. It was fine hair and it was lazy up his shins and the backs of his legs. Then the dense patch around his cock. I decided to stare at his cock a bit, I was thinking of Gerald’s comment of my refusal to paint cocks. Tom’s was tight but lengthening out now with the warm. Thick and healthy. It was relaxed, he was at ease. His knees opened. He was letting the heat of the sun get to his groin. I liked the length of his legs and the shape of his ass. The hair merged in a line up to his navel. And that was it for hair. His bare, clean nipples and the circle of pink around them was small. It was the smallest of pink. The lines in his torso and arms were slender curves, not hard muscle, just gentle and strong. There was not a straight line on him. His complexion clear, his skin pale. Then I saw his eyes. He was looking at me the same curious way. He had, I realized, a body like my own, but more idealized. At least, more like the body I’d like to have, the potential of my own body.

  I should pour those trout in now.

  32

  Tom Dobie at my door. Jim Hearn, he said.

  Pardon me?

  He’s after having a conniption.

  A conniption.

  I was cutting the grass down on the tennis court, and he won’t allow me in no more.

  Is that right.

  I walked into town, past the merry cows. Down to Hearn’s pharmacy. I opened the door, but Jim Hearn would not look at me.

  What is it, Hearn.

  You can’t have the field.

  I decided to stare at his red-whiskered chin.

  Is it because you havent played. If you want to learn I’ll —

  I’ve changed my mind.

  Me: Hearn. You agreed.

&
nbsp; Not in any writing I have not.

  I took him outside. I beckoned him. Come here, I said. We walked to the field. I anchored the pick and leaned my chin on my hands.

  Now make me move, Hearn.

  Kent, I dont want to —

  I’m joking, Hearn.

  But he would not laugh.

  There’ll be no tennis court on my land. I’m barring you and I am going to St John’s now to secure that legal entreaty.

  There was something in how he carried his head. He held it back about two inches, as if he wanted the extra space to veer his head away from an assault.

  Something had turned in him. Something petty and he would not say.

  Tom Dobie used his hands when he talked. He’d stare you in the eye when he listened. Then look down at your feet when he spoke. He explained to me and Kathleen that Jim Hearn had no complaint towards me. His animosity was for Dr Gill and Mr Cantwell.

  I looked at Kathleen, trying to figure this one out.

  Tom: When he heard they was both members of the tennis outfit. He dont want Gill on his property. Hearn’s not about to have the other doctor on his land.

  But Hearn’s not a doctor.

  I mean Hearn’s doctor. The doctor who uses Hearn, Dr McDonald. He dont play tennis neither. Hearn and McDonald. See, McDonald sends his patients to Hearn. But Dr Gill sends his to Cantwell.

  And Hearn sees Gill and Cantwell playing tennis on his land.

  Hearn can be small.

  Me: A toad.

  Well, there’s not much to do.

  Kathleen: I think it’s understandable.

  Me: Let’s go talk to Gill.

  I walked over to the doctor’s office with Kathleen.

  Gill said, We can frighten him.

  Me: How’s that?

  We’ll grab him at the railroad station. On his way home from St John’s.

  Kathleen: Love.

  We’ll take him into my office. We’ll open up the cabinets. Nickel-plated instruments of torture. He’ll sign his house away.