met up with Rupert Bartlett down at Chafe’s. I was buying supplies: nails, oakum, food. Bud Chafe told me that people did not usually buy on a day-to-day basis. They bought provisions, stores. They bought barrels and sacks and tubs. They sold the same way. They sold nothing for eleven months and then on one afternoon in the fall they hammered out a price for their fish. When the fish ran good, Rupert said, the price fell. When the fish were poor, the price was a little better. Bud Chafe smiled. Just a little bit better.
Rupert said his brother was back in St John’s on board the Morrissey .
I said, I thought he was captaining a collier. I thought he was in Holyrood.
Yes, but the Morrissey was put in dry dock to have her keel caulked. So Bob is there and soon he’ll be captaining a collier.
You mean he hasnt left yet.
The news was wrong. He’ll be here in a jiffy.
Bartlett would offload coal — I had ordered seven tons of the coal. When I made my order Bud Chafe’s pencil stopped.
Seven tons. Let’s see. Youve come in here and tried to buy four small potatoes, one onion, and seven tons of coal.
I said, I’m sick of being cold. My family is coming and by God I want to stoke that house like a furnace room. Seven tons, I figure, will do me a year.
I can sell a gallon of spuds. A gallon’s as small as I go.
By the time Bartlett rounded Conception Bay the ice had come in. We saw the collier, black with soot, at the ice edge. I watched through binoculars. Men coated in coal dust, pointing out a direction for Bartlett to steam through. He was trying to make it to the Bartlett wharf and tunnel. You heard the stokers encouraging the engine, the steam pressure build, black plumes belching from the sole stack, and you knew he was ramming her through the ice. I passed the glasses to Tom Dobie.
Tom: He won’t do it.
Men from Brigus were hired to help the crew punch through two hundred yards of ice. I got an afternoon at it. They used saws and pikes and poles to lever out the ice pans. They gripped ropes and tracked the collier through the cut channel. They were halfway into port when Bartlett got impatient. He waved them off. I had not seen him in action before. The men drop-ped their ropes and jogged away from the front of the collier. Bartlett guided the collier back to the mouth of the harbour and gave her full throttle. His momentum split the ice and carried him in a few boatlengths. A seam of black opened up ahead of him around Molly’s Island. He was fine and skilful until he got about a hundred yards from the tunnel entrance. He could have set her there and towed the coal ashore on sleds and ponies. But he ground the collier deep into the pack and wiggled her furious arse. A pan of ice nosed up and pushed a neat, silent hole through the neck of the bow. The collier sat there on top of the ice, quiet now, with a wide wound plunged through the side of her. Then she slipped down to sea level. Bob Bartlett and three crew stepped over the side and walked ashore, as if that was that. The crew all slunking backwards, watching the collier lean to port and sink, heavy with coal. Bartlett refused to look, just walked straight to the Bartlett tunnel and got a hand up onto the wharf apron.
I watched the deck creak through the ice, the water curl over the bow and lick at the masts. I had ordered seven tons of that coal. Now on the bottom of the harbour.
24
I was out of wood and getting cold. I was still sleeping in a tent in the upstairs bedroom, the room above the stove. A green canvas, heavy. Just to keep the heat in.
Wet sleet was on the kitchen window. Night. It looked like a fringe of silver tinsel. This was a time when I thought I was a good artist. Before I knew for sure that I was mediocre. Or is it middlebrow. What is the difference. It is true that I wrote letters to cubists, telling them they were wrong. Art should make you interested in life, not in art. Art is a by-product of living. I was against many
Rupert said his brother was back in St John’s on board the Morrissey .
I said, I thought he was captaining a collier. I thought he was in Holyrood.
Yes, but the Morrissey was put in dry dock to have her keel caulked. So Bob is there and soon he’ll be captaining a collier.
You mean he hasnt left yet.
The news was wrong. He’ll be here in a jiffy.
Bartlett would offload coal — I had ordered seven tons of the coal. When I made my order Bud Chafe’s pencil stopped.
Seven tons. Let’s see. Youve come in here and tried to buy four small potatoes, one onion, and seven tons of coal.
I said, I’m sick of being cold. My family is coming and by God I want to stoke that house like a furnace room. Seven tons, I figure, will do me a year.
I can sell a gallon of spuds. A gallon’s as small as I go.
By the time Bartlett rounded Conception Bay the ice had come in. We saw the collier, black with soot, at the ice edge. I watched through binoculars. Men coated in coal dust, pointing out a direction for Bartlett to steam through. He was trying to make it to the Bartlett wharf and tunnel. You heard the stokers encouraging the engine, the steam pressure build, black plumes belching from the sole stack, and you knew he was ramming her through the ice. I passed the glasses to Tom Dobie.
Tom: He won’t do it.
Men from Brigus were hired to help the crew punch through two hundred yards of ice. I got an afternoon at it. They used saws and pikes and poles to lever out the ice pans. They gripped ropes and tracked the collier through the cut channel. They were halfway into port when Bartlett got impatient. He waved them off. I had not seen him in action before. The men drop-ped their ropes and jogged away from the front of the collier. Bartlett guided the collier back to the mouth of the harbour and gave her full throttle. His momentum split the ice and carried him in a few boatlengths. A seam of black opened up ahead of him around Molly’s Island. He was fine and skilful until he got about a hundred yards from the tunnel entrance. He could have set her there and towed the coal ashore on sleds and ponies. But he ground the collier deep into the pack and wiggled her furious arse. A pan of ice nosed up and pushed a neat, silent hole through the neck of the bow. The collier sat there on top of the ice, quiet now, with a wide wound plunged through the side of her. Then she slipped down to sea level. Bob Bartlett and three crew stepped over the side and walked ashore, as if that was that. The crew all slunking backwards, watching the collier lean to port and sink, heavy with coal. Bartlett refused to look, just walked straight to the Bartlett tunnel and got a hand up onto the wharf apron.
I watched the deck creak through the ice, the water curl over the bow and lick at the masts. I had ordered seven tons of that coal. Now on the bottom of the harbour.
24
I was out of wood and getting cold. I was still sleeping in a tent in the upstairs bedroom, the room above the stove. A green canvas, heavy. Just to keep the heat in.
Wet sleet was on the kitchen window. Night. It looked like a fringe of silver tinsel. This was a time when I thought I was a good artist. Before I knew for sure that I was mediocre. Or is it middlebrow. What is the difference. It is true that I wrote letters to cubists, telling them they were wrong. Art should make you interested in life, not in art. Art is a by-product of living. I was against many
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