The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie Read online

  Bellfairie was named after the doomed ship on which it was founded. Crashed on the rocks, she sank with her cargo of bells that still rang from the depths. The survivors decided to stay, using ship remnants for lumber. This, the Old Man said, made the sea angry. “She is unforgiving,” he used to rant. “No one was meant to live.”

  The ground had a magnetic quality, that’s what folks claimed. It brought ships to the rocky shore, held fog close, and pulled the moon so near that on some nights the whole town appeared inhabited by ghosts. Quark thought if he wasn’t careful, he’d be stuck forever, standing by his truck, shaking keys like a death rattle. Hunched against the salty chill, he headed towards what used to be Nell’s with its absurd sign, “Sushi Palace.”

  The bell above the door might have been the same that announced arrivals all those years ago when he worked there as a dishwasher. The booths were still rust-colored, but the tables were covered with red cloth, which he guessed were left over from Sushi’s, as was the gold sea dragon hanging on the far wall where a fishnet had draped for so long. To his relief the old counter remained, a slab of teak said to have been used as a lifeboat by shipwreck survivors, lined with bar stools and topped with silver napkin dispensers at reasonable intervals. People in Bellfairie liked their personal space.

  Quark was aware of an abrupt stillness settling on the place while he wiped his feet. Customers nudged each other, and jutted chins in his direction as he shuffled through the diner with his head lowered, a posture refined as soon as he was old enough to realize his size made others uncomfortable. He thought he heard someone whisper the old epithet, but quickly reassured himself it was imagined. After all, he was no longer taunted by boys.

  Too late, already sliding onto the stool, he recognized the sheriff sitting one seat over. Not that Quark had anything to hide; he just wasn’t prepared for serious conversation. The sheriff, absorbed in drinking his coffee, nodded and raised his finger to signal a passing waitress for more. She filled his cup and, without waiting for instructions, did the same for Quark, leaning close enough that he could easily read the nametag crookedly affixed to her uniform.

  “What ya havin’ this mornin’?” Dory asked, her tone pleasant, her face placid. Well, a person must get used to sailing smoothly along if she is named after a boat, Quark thought, chuckling, and she glanced at the sheriff.

  Quark looked down, pleased to see the menu still featured the old classics. He tapped number five. Dory twisted her neck to see.

  “Traditional or Belgium?”

  Belgium? Belgium? He resisted an impulse to shake his head. “American.”

  “Belgium are the fat ones, kinda like cake. Traditional are thin and crisp.”

  He waved his hand, as if it didn’t matter. “Traditional.” Dory nodded and walked away, her gait plodding with a limp, which reminded him of a girl he once knew.

  “Quark? It’s Quark, isn’t it?” the sheriff asked. “Good of you to come.”

  Taken aback, just as he had lifted his coffee cup, Quark caused a little spill. “You can’t do anything right,” he heard the Old Man grumble, though this was obviously imagined.

  “You know how he can be to reason with. Like flogging a dead horse.” The sheriff shook his head. “Kept sayin there was no need to bother ya. Kept sayin he was fine.”

  Quark tugged a reluctant napkin from the dispenser to wipe up the mess.

  “Just wanted to keep him from harm. Nick Rogers…can you believe that name? Sounds like his folks were expecting him to be a comic book character, don’t it? Anyhow it went to shit when Rogers got involved.”

  The sheriff stood and removed his wallet from his back pocket to extract a dollar bill he tucked beside his plate, cleaned of any evidence of the meal that had been there.

  “Didn’t think you’d make it, son.” He slapped a heavy hand on Quark’s shoulder. “But since you’re here, you should probably come to the courthouse. Scheduled for nine. Don’t expect much to come of it, but it’ll be good for you to make an appearance.”

  Quark couldn’t think of anything to say and, after a moment, the sheriff left, which was a relief. It wasn’t long before the waitress returned with his order. He hadn’t eaten a number five in years. The Old Man loved them too, Quark recalled, stabbing through the sauce to the American waffle beneath, cutting harshly, eager to taste the oysters in sherried cream, surprised when tears came to his eyes, happy no one noticed.

  You could leave, he thought.

  By the time Dory poured a refill, which was bitter and slightly burnt, just the way he liked it, Quark felt better. He glanced down the counter, looking for the discarded newspapers that used to litter the place, but all that remained of their once quintessential presence was something called Bridal Bliss.

  “You don’t recognize me, do ya?” the waitress asked.

  He willed his lips into what he hoped was a convivial smile before he saw it, the perpetually distressed countenance of—

  “Doris. Doris Lehart. Kindall now.”

  Quark struggled against an onslaught of memory, the face of the girl he’d known buried within the woman’s flesh. “Tony?” he asked, certain he misunderstood. Even in Bellfairie such a union was not possible. “You married Tony?”

  “That’s right.” She moved to give Quark a refill he blocked with his hand. “Thought I was seeing a ghost when you walked in.”

  He shivered.

  Dory graced him with her crooked smile before moving on to attend to other customers, returning only long enough to slap his tab on the counter. He set two dollars beside his plate, double what he’d have left if he hadn’t known her as Dolly Lehart with her collection of dirty stuffed animals she pulled in an old red wagon with a loose lug nut or, much later, as Whoredore. That’s what they called her. He cut a sharp look and, all the way at the far end of the counter, in the midst of pouring, she turned to gaze at him. He added another dollar then, worried it was obvious he was trying to assuage his guilt, considered taking it back, thought better, and walked to the cash register where he waited to pay his bill.

  A few words drifted from the gray-haired couple at a nearby table, the man intently drinking his coffee, the woman in her Bellfairie sweater leaning over a yolk-smeared plate. “Missing,” she said, “probably dead.” The man clicked his tongue which caused the woman to sit back so abruptly she knocked over a salt shaker. Right then the cash register rang. Quark turned to pay the girl who didn’t look old enough to be out of school, but what did he know of such things?

  “Are you on holiday?” he asked, handing her a ten.

  She snorted, counting his change before answering. “That’s right. It’s all a holiday now. Fun times.” When she closed the drawer he saw she was pregnant which, for some reason, made him blush. To make matters worse he tipped his imaginary hat at her and left Sushi Palace with the girl’s smirk embedded in his mind. She had dark hair, pale skin, and deeply red lips. Like Snow White.

  He spent the short drive from restaurant to his childhood home trying to remember the old fairy tale she reminded him of, but it kept getting mixed up in his mind, which created a disturbing montage, cartoon-like in its horror. How did she die? She fell asleep, right? No, that doesn’t make sense. She ate something first, didn’t she? A pomegranate? But before all that, she was given a golden necklace, fashioned by dwarves in exchange for sleeping with them, right?

  The game of distraction served its purpose. When Quark turned onto the old drive he felt magically transported, memories lurking along the way undisturbed until he was confronted by evidence of the reason for his extended absence.

  White stones glinted and glared beneath the morning sun, unhindered by what remained of those once-great sentinels reduced to jagged stumps. Without trees the house looked naked and, even sheltered in his truck, Quark felt exposed.

  He imagined snow falling from a metallic Bellfairie sky, flakes drifting to the ground, covering dirt, cracks, peeled paint and mismatched pots, all of Bellfairie smote by an icy
benevolence, even that girl lying in her open coffin, hands folded over her great belly, metamorphosed into a pleasant slope of white, a gentle hill of sleeping beauty.

  With a sigh, he spun the steering wheel, rumbling fifty feet down the drive before realizing he had a flat. He did not kick the tire or hurl stones as the Old Man would have. Instead, Quark shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the chill for the short walk back into town, following the blue cobblestone road he used to believe was the revealed spine of a buried dragon, his head bowed as though the sky sank into his massive shoulders, his limbs molten, every step a lunge.

  4

  He didn’t even remember his mother, but when the judge cited Thayer’s murder confession (with all the gravitas of noting a shopping list) and named her as victim, Quark gasped as if sucker-punched, stunned until he realized—too late—everyone was standing. He rose under the bailiff’s pointed glare, for a moment afraid he would be indicted in this mess, but the judge simply turned away, disappearing through a door behind her desk.

  He had long suspected it, hadn’t he? Ever since Thayer brought home that albatross with blood dripping from her breast, presenting it like something beautiful, Quark had feared the Old Man’s brutality. Where would she have gone, so mysteriously vanished that there was no real explanation, only odd stories about her returning to the sea? What was it the Old Man used to say? “Your mother left puddles, not footprints.”

  Rogers (surprisingly toothy and freckled) left without acknowledging Quark’s presence, but the other attorney approached him with her head tilted as if she needed to make the adjustment in order to accommodate his stature. Better at mimicry than innovation in any social interaction, Quark resisted the impulse to tilt his own head. When she extended her small hand, he concentrated not to squeeze too hard.

  “I’m Coral. Glad you came.”

  “What did he do to her?” Quark asked, only realizing how harsh he sounded as she leaned back, eyes wide. Familiar with the way strangers misread his appearance—his extraordinary height, protruding brow and aggressive chin—he relaxed into a slump. “The sheriff didn’t say anything about murder.”

  “No. He wouldn’t.”

  Quark felt as if he had been clenching something in his heart, something thorny and dark which, upon release, became effervescent. He’d misunderstood! Of course he had. The Old Man wasn’t capable—

  “Only Rogers,” she said. “And I don’t think even he really believes it. It’s just ridiculous. Almost everyone knows Thayer suffers from dementia. You heard the judge. She was pissed, right? Quark? It’s Quark, isn’t it? I’m sure this is a great deal to process but you might want to check your attitude. A lot of people have been watching out for him for quite some time. Did you know he stayed with Sheriff Healy for a while?”

  “I did not.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have another appointment. I’m getting married. We should talk. Here’s my card.”

  “You’re getting married today?”

  “Cake tasting. Call if you think of anything, okay?” She sidled, crab-like, between the pews. “I hope you aren’t planning to shove off. I think he’ll need you when he finally shows up.”

  Quark resisted the impulse to shake his head no. “Yes,” he said, he would stay “at the old homestead.”

  She paused with her small hand on the massive door, rumored to have once been a decorative panel of the doomed ship captain’s private chambers, elaborately carved with petrels, gulls, whimbrels and moonbirds.

  “Everyone knows what happened. Everyone knows how she died. Everyone knows her body washed out to sea. My cousin, twice-removed, remembers Thayer walking the bluffs. She used to call him the crying man.” Coral smiled before opening the door, momentarily flooding the room with that Bellfairie air—briny, sweet and fetid, the scent of rotten eggs with clams in a bed of sea salt and fennel.

  Behind the judge’s chair hung a painting of pelicans, the largest striking her own breast with her beak. Quark hadn’t thought about the old story in years, how the mother pierced her flesh to feed the starving young; meant to convey the sacrifice of parental love. On Sunday someone would drape a cloth over the frame, and replace gavel with chalice, transforming the space from courthouse to chapel. He thought of dropping to his knees but couldn’t figure out what he’d do next. Clearly the notion was reflective of his exhaustion. He flicked the lights off on his way out the door which, in Bellfairie fashion, he left unlocked.

  Though Quark found the idea of going back to the house for a nap appealing, he walked in the opposite direction, surprised to discover how much he enjoyed the pull in his quadriceps that the sharp incline engendered, determined not to believe he’d missed Bellfairie or fallen for the attorney’s false compassion. Where was all that concern when he had been a tormented child, so afraid he took shelter in branches and graveyard, behind boulders on the shore, amongst the birds and dead and drowned? Where was the zeal for justice then?

  Quark longed for the clarity of his work: the small bones awaiting excavation, the delicate balance of preservation and decay, his quiet room filled with shadows beyond the orb of light that guided knife and needle. He had struggled to find his way in the world far from Bellfairie, and never once regretted leaving. Was he now expected to search for the Old Man? Why? What was he supposed to do with him, once found?

  5

  “You haven’t been around, son. I’m just sayin’. Nobody blames ya. What you need to understand is, it’s not like anybody believes him. Except Rogers who’s too green to be taken seriously. Especially once you showed up. I mean, it’s obvious.”

  Quark shifted against the confines of the small chair, the windows were inexplicably closed and the atmosphere stifling. “I’d like to see it.” He felt he shouldn’t have to explain. After all, this was his own father they were talking about, this was his life.

  The sheriff sighed as he lifted his feet off the desk to thumb through a stack of papers. When he didn’t find what he was looking for he turned to rifle through the file folders on the cluttered shelf, mumbling about “this damn mess.”

  Quark couldn’t fathom working in such disorder. What else is lost, he wondered.

  “Ok. Here it is. I suppose you know he was my guest. Stayed in the room off the kitchen. One morning I wake up and he’s gone. Left this on the bed. You can understand the situation I was in. I had to read it, but are you sure you wanna?”

  Quark took the paper. Imagine, that such a flimsy thing could cause so much trouble!

  Healy, apparently unable to neglect an opportunity for investigation any more than Quark could pass by a small animal without considering its skeletal structure, leaned back to watch.

  “I did not get much sleep last night,” Quark said to explain his trembling hand.

  Comes a time when a man can no longer avoid settling accounts. This is my confession. My ma said I had unnatural eyes. Quark does too. His little dark eyes like roe. Even when he was no more than a nipper he looked at me like he knew what I’d done. Do you ever ask how a man goes out on a ship with six souls and returns alone? What is survival? In that dark time when rats jump ship, choices are made. You probably know what you will do. You will be a hero. Am I right? It is easy to believe you will be brave. I thought it of myself. I was a captain who would go down with the ship. I was a captain who would die saving everyone. Their screams never stop. They started that night and never end. I can’t escape them. I would have died if not for that horse. I thought it was a nightmare until it swam close and I grabbed hold and climbed atop. Riding to hell. When I smelled the oranges I thought it was the scent of death. Yes, it is true, I found my wife there, but the sea never forgets.

  Where is Quark? I look everywhere for that boy but he doesn’t return. I know why. I fully confess I killed him with my fists. He used to glow like a lantern, always watching with his light. I killed his mother too, and loved her so. I killed that albatross for him. So he could be free. We are all curs
ed, don’t you know? He told me I was the devil when I cut down his trees, and I laughed. What am I? I am a poor shipbuilder weak in the waterways. I spread broken glass on the drive to keep away the spirits but they come closer and the trick won’t last. What have I done? What have these hands made?

  So ends this passage.

  Quark pretended he was still reading even as he felt his cheeks turn red, the telltale give-away of the flash of emotions he could not contain. For the first time he wondered if the Old Man’s precious shipbuilding book was nothing but incoherent ramblings. When Quark finally looked up it was into Healy’s gaze direct as an old dog’s, watching, waiting, patient and intense.

  “I am not dead, am I? Clearly he was speaking…what’s that word? Something like a lie? He didn’t really kill me, obviously. He did spread broken glass over the road, however. I got a flat.”

  The sheriff leaned forward, hand extended to take the paper. “Well, you know that’s a private drive. It’s not municipal business.”

  “I’m not saying—” Quark caught himself. Took a deep breath. “I can’t believe anyone is taking this seriously.”

  “Well, son, mostly I agree. Most everyone does. The judge agrees, which is a good thing all around. But now there is that issue, you know.”

  “What issue?”

  Sheriff Healy frowned and leaned back, his eyes steady on Quark’s face. “What do you remember about your mother?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You must have some memories.”

  “I do not. How could I? I was a baby when she died.”

  “You were eight.”

  “I was—What?”

  “Have it right here.” The sheriff tapped the open folder on his desk.