The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie Page 21

  Hungry again, he had just begun to inspect the refrigerator’s meager pickings when he heard a car he thought was Healy, but when he went to look out the front window the entire drive was filled with headlights shutting off as if synchronized.

  He recognized many of the people who stepped out of the vehicles, though he didn’t know all their names. Most everyone wore black, which gave their heads a severed look in the inky light. He guessed they’d come from Phoebe’s funeral where he imagined they had mingled throughout the grieving rooms eating salads, pickles and herring off little paper plates balanced in quivering hands, determined to neither laugh nor cry but be solemn avatars, proof that despair can be survived. After all, who had not lost someone? It was startling to think of all the grief assembled in his yard, all those people being swallowed by the dark, kicking at the earth with their best shoes.

  It occurred to Quark to make an escape. He could slip out back and return later for his things. Yet, he remained standing at the window, watching. He thought he should be afraid but what he most felt was curious.

  What happens next, he wondered. Will it hurt?

  They didn’t move towards the house until Healy did. He wore his full uniform and, through some unexamined course of light, his sheriff’s star blazed.

  The knock was a surprise. It seemed so civil.

  33

  “The community has asked me to relay their apology.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was a mistake.”

  Quark nodded and moved to close the door, only pausing to peer at a white van slowly maneuvering up the drive.

  “Dory feels bad too,” Healy said. “You gotta understand. It’s been an emotional time. All the same, she is donating the food. You gotta appreciate that.”

  Quark just wanted to be alone. Please go, he thought. “Please.”

  “We want to have the launch for you,” Healy said. “We know she can’t sail obviously, but we want to do this right. We hope there’s no hard feelings.”

  Quark felt as though he’d been suffering a long stupor, maybe his entire life, only just then blinking to awareness.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got food and drink. Folks want to share some of their stories. All we need is your go-ahead.”

  “Okay.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Yes, all right,” Quark said.

  The sheriff nodded at the assembled. A few cheered while the rest returned to their vehicles for folding tables and chairs, Tupperware and paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils; moving in a flurry of activity that seemed oddly organized, as if they had set up picnics in Quark’s yard many times before. A young girl set candles on every table, followed by a woman who lit the wicks with a long match that seemed perpetually in flame. Several people began stacking wood for a bonfire, which made Quark nervous though he did nothing to stop them. It was the way things were done in Bellfairie. Besides, it was a cold night.

  It wasn’t Dory in the van but Tony. He unloaded containers and buckets, and bossed everyone around, dictating where to place the coleslaw, how to position the coffee and hot water carafes. When that was finished he walked over to Quark.

  “Can’t stay. But I’m man enough to admit when I am wrong.”

  “Okay,” Quark said. “Is Dory coming?”

  Tony didn’t give any indication he’d heard. He walked back to the van, got in, and drove away; the space he left quickly occupied by a truck loaded with beer kegs. Quark hadn’t anticipated that there would be alcohol. What could he do about it? What could he do about anything?

  He walked amongst them, careful to avoid the halos of light; once again thinking he might not mind being a ghost. He rather enjoyed the feeling of being amongst people eating, and talking, telling their stories about Thayer (a surprising number of which relayed humorous situations, judging by the laughter) without being expected to participate until, distracted, he wandered into the glowing aureole of bonfire blaze, and someone shouted his name. The single voice was soon joined by others, as if he had just thrown a winning touchdown. “Quark! Quark! Quark!”

  He stood rapt, like someone who had stumbled upon something sacred, until Brian came up from behind, slapped him on the back and handed him a paper plate filled with food that was hard to identify in the smoky dark.

  Quark was squinting at the mysterious blobs when someone with a talent for whistling cracked through the noise. He tamped down his irritation with those who continued talking. After all, it sometimes took a while to realize what was happening. The occasional shush and hush popped from various dark corners until finally everyone was quiet.

  A man Quark didn’t recognize stood on a folding chair, holding a red plastic cup aloft in a statue-of-liberty stance. “We’ve come to remember our friend and neighbor,” he said. “Most of us came from one funeral to here for what was supposed to be a launch, but it seems like someone had other ideas. I ain’t saying I know that for a fact, ok? I think we all learned our lesson about waiting to see the evidence, right?”

  The crowd murmured in agreement and Quark, confused, nodded too. It had been unfair of him to assume the boys had set the fire though, honestly, he still believed they had. He didn’t need to indulge his suspicions, however. Let the sheriff work things out.

  “I just wanna say we should, you know, try to remember Thayer tonight and forget all the other shit. A man deserves his own funeral. Even if his ship is gone, right? Maybe especially if his ship is gone.”

  The crowd raised red cups and cheered.

  “So here’s to Thayer, the saltiest sea captain Bellfairie ever knew. He’d just as soon spit at small talk, but if you went lookin’ for a man who settled his accounts with God, you never had to go nowhere else.” Quark observed several arms bob in anticipation of the toast’s conclusion but the speaker continued. “I remember once—”

  “Heya go, son.” Healy offered Quark a cup filled near to the brim. “Don’t worry. It’s soda.”

  The self-appointed toastmaster boomed, “And he says, I wouldn’t touch her even if I was the wind!”

  Quark suspected it was a cruel punch line, though everyone laughed. He raised his arm and drank, both relieved and disappointed by the sharp sweet flavor.

  He turned to thank his friend, but Healy had moved into the crowd and, while Quark struggled with cup in one hand and plate in the other, an older man stepped onto the chair. He looked vaguely familiar, but many of the older generation of Bellfairians sported handlebar moustaches and the squint-eyed expressions of folks who had stared too long at the sun.

  “Thayer was a private person. I ain’t gonna say too much about it but I think most of you know he stayed with me for a while. They say you can measure a man by who he is when he thinks no one is looking and I am here to tell you he came to our house with nothing but the clothes on his back and a bible.”

  “Amen,” someone called from the buffet table.

  “That’s right. Amen. So here’s a toast. To the saint of Bellfairie!”

  “To the saint of Bellfairie!” the crowd roared.

  Quark gulped the coke as though it were alcohol and, in fact, it did burn.

  Healy was the next one to take the chair, both hands raised as if about to give a benediction.

  “Before things get too far along, I wanna take care of some business. I will be collecting car keys.”

  A groan rolled through the crowd.

  “If you aren’t able to drive safely when it comes time to leave, and you don’t have a person with you who can, I’ll take you home. Stop by the station in the morning and I’ll bring you back for your vehicle. Heck, bring the kids with you. Show them where you didn’t drive off the bluff so you’ll be around for their next birthday.”

  “Jesus, Healy,” someone said, but Quark could hear the sound of keys rattling.

  After studying the plate he’d been given (featuring something that looked like sausage on a bun) Quark made the difficult decision to toss it into the trash. He
did not like to be wasteful but he could not eat meat, either. He walked beside the buffet, worried someone might slap him on the back again. Once his plate was filled with a few pickles and a huge helping of the lasagna he had heard someone complain about, saying it was all vegetables, he slid back into the shadows.

  As others stepped to the chair, Quark recognized his old classmates—the occasional name, or something familiar in a face—though they all seemed to know a Thayer who did all sorts of things the man Quark knew never would have.

  This Thayer helped plant a garden. “We just moved here and didn’t understand how nothing hardly grows, but he helped just the same. He looked so old, but could dig into that dry ground like a knife in soft butter. It’s a good garden now, and we remember him in our dinner blessing every night and thank him for our carrots.”

  Thayer had, shockingly, gone through a “bread baking period” the mention of which incited knowing chuckles and nods. “I don’t know of anyone who didn’t get at least one loaf, and the lucky ones got it warm.”

  Me, Quark thought. I never got any bread.

  This Thayer waved at someone’s child every morning. “Now she watches for him at the upstairs window, and just today she told me she saw him out there. I don’t know what she saw. Maybe it was a angel.”

  When someone tapped Quark’s arm he was so startled he almost dropped his plate but he braced the flimsy paper with both hands and saved his supper, his relief somewhat tarnished by the laughter that rose from the arm-tapper who turned out to be the waitress whose name he could never remember.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” She jutted her chin towards the orator on the chair. “You wanna hear this?”

  “It isn’t necessary,” Quark said. “Most of it isn’t true.”

  She laughed again. Unsure what to do, Quark took a bite out of a pickle.

  “Listen. I don’t mean to bother you, but I just wanted to tell you not to worry about the others.”

  “Ok.”

  “I think, we all do…well, not all of us, but anyway, it’s very big of you to accept our apology like you did. Some people take a while, that’s all.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  “And it’s gonna take time to get our heads around it.”

  Quark looked longingly at his plate.

  “I mean, to think it was Henry Yarly, all along.”

  Quark sighed. How could he have forgotten such an important matter? Henry. Dead.

  “I know, right? He seemed like such a nice man.”

  “He was,” Quark said. “He was a very nice man.”

  She peered up at him, her eyes slit. “See,” she said. “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s very decent of you to say that, considering how he was just gonna let everyone think it was you.”

  “Me?”

  “To think what might have happened if he hadn’t died with that girl’s heart.”

  “What?”

  “Oh my gosh, don’t you know? I can’t believe no one told you. Well, it just goes to show, don’t it? When Yarly died—they think it was a stroke or something like that—he had Phoebe’s necklace. They didn’t find it right away cause it was in his pocket. You must a seen it, it was on all the posters.”

  Quark licked his salty lips. “I’m sure many of those were made. There would be no way to be certain it was hers.”

  “Well, yeah. I guess. But, I mean, why else would he have it? He used to kill people’s pets and sacrifice them in the cove, you know.”

  “But that….” Quark knew he should explain how it was just a rumor started when he was a boy. He knew he should confess how he had found the locket, but when he looked at her face she beamed up at him in a way he’d never been looked at in his entire life, as if love were possible.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  “No, no,” she said. “You go. What am I doing? I didn’t mean to monopolease you.”

  The bonfire blazed an impressive flame around which revelers stood drinking from plastic cups, red dots of cigarettes marking exclamation points of tales shared about Thayer, the sea, whales and witches. Quark set his plate near the corner of a table, to make it look as if he planned to return shortly (in case anyone was watching) then escaped to the back yard which was dark and pleasingly quiet, the revelers’ noise muffled.

  Relieved he’d repaired the back door, Quark locked it then crawled, like a criminal in his own house, to the front window where he came to his knees to spy on his guests. Most of them were raising libations by some internal rhythm with the person who stood on the chair at that moment, a precariously teetering silhouette. He slowly drew the curtains shut so the movement would not cause attention, though everyone was likely already too drunk to notice much.

  He couldn’t risk turning on a light, but the rooms shimmered with bonfire glow. He searched the kitchen, stepping gingerly over the broken glass to open cupboards and drawers, sorry he’d done such a good job of clearing everything out. All that he had left was a cup, a plate, one set of utensils, a few sharp knives, the lobster pot and, neatly tucked in the side of a low cupboard, the baking sheet.

  The urn’s lid, never properly closed, was easy to pry off. He poured the contents into the pan, obscuring the shadowed imprints of stars leftover from cookie baking. He was not dismayed by the larger pieces of bone; but still. There he was. The Old Man. Quark cupped his palms over his eyes to gain his bearings. “Is this a life?” he asked.

  Careful not to block the dim light, his long finger traced spirals in the ash until he stopped and spiraled back. No piece was too small, and many were larger than expected though, when he had finished sorting, he still needed something long and straight for the hull.

  He unstacked the boxes he’d set aside, pawing through debris until, in frustration, dumping their contents onto the floor, finding glue and scraps of wood, buttons and string; good enough, but not what he was looking for. It came to him all of a sudden to use the flute. Once that was settled, he cupped the soft ash in his hands to pour back into the urn, thinking should anyone see what he was doing, whatever forgiveness he’d been granted would be rescinded.

  It was difficult to execute such fine work in such poor light. Yet, thinking of what the Old Man had done, Quark persisted. He wished he had better supplies, and briefly considered rummaging through the backyard debris, but worried someone would discover him and drag him back to the party. It wasn’t really supposed to be a party though by the sound of things—the hoots and screams of laughter, the shatter of broken glass—that’s what it had become.

  He hoped the tremble in his hands was just a result of weariness, not the warning sign of something he couldn’t control. He needed to be steady. Several times he paused to rub his palms together and stretch his fingers, a few times he got up to pace, turning his back on his creation so he could surprise himself with it, cautioning against despair when the reveal proved disappointing. He’d learned, long ago, how beauty rose from monstrosity.

  First, they were the bones of the human Quark knew as his father, moved by ligaments and desire into the gait of the man who—long after having left the sea—walked as though on a ship in unsteady water. Next, they were the fire, and the ash from the fire, pulverized to sandy grains and remnants of mortality, a life Quark struggled to reassemble. First, it was a macabre construction of bone and bits of wood like a puppet collapsed in its strings but, as the noise outside morphed into the deep silence of early morning before the birds sing, it became a ship; far too small for any person, but large enough for dreams.

  34

  Walking through the yard that morning with the urn clutched against his chest, he was reminded of a fairy tale where everyone is suddenly made to slumber. Brian and Tony lay on the ground which, Quark knew from experience, was cold and hard. A woman had fallen asleep on the buffet table, her face cradled in the pillow of her arms, her long untidy braid dipped into the potato salad. Several children—stuffed into a single sleeping bag someone had the foresight to bring—slept
near the bonfire where wisps of smoke rose into the gray sky like tattered ghosts.

  A dog appeared, wagging his tail so hard his haunches wiggled too. Quark leaned down to pet him and scratch behind his ears. “Who’s a good boy?” he whispered. “Here’s a good boy. Oh, yes, you are.” The dog followed for a while, but turned back before Quark reached the end of the drive where Healy’s car was positioned at an angle, making it difficult for any vehicle to leave. The sheriff was asleep in the front seat, snoring loud enough to be heard through the closed windows, a pile of keys spilled across his lap.

  Quark stepped carefully, his heart pounding against the urn. The worst thing he had ever done was to allow an entire night to pass with all of Bellfairie believing gentle Yarly had killed the girl. It was unforgivable. Perhaps he was a monster, after all. Maybe everyone had seen that dark element in him when he couldn’t. Maybe it had always been there, ignited by his birth.

  He walked past Sushi’s empty parking lot. There were no lights on, the closed sign hung on the glass door, the tavern beside it also dark, the post office too—expected on a Sunday—though odd that the flag still hung there, uncharacteristically forgotten.

  Even far from the bonfire, the air smelled of wood-smoke and, though the sun had risen above the roofline, the sky remained somber. Quark shivered in the damp chill. The whole enterprise might have been unbearable had not, just then, his hat tumbled in front of him. He carefully set the urn on the ground to make chase though, once landed, the hat remained still. He picked it up and, pleased to note it was not damaged, set it firmly atop his head.

  The place where Phoebe’s body had been found was returned to its natural state of broken shells and clumps of seaweed; the only reminder of the tragedy, a small, frayed section of police tape wedged between rocks. He watched the waves, comforted by their rhythm, and the gulls spiraling overhead, inhaling deeply the briny stinky scent of Bellfairie. In spite of everything, no place would ever compare.