A wave of relief washed over Timothy as he spotted the empty bench on the leeward side of the ferry’s pilothouse. Gloom chased passengers below deck, where they crammed onto the already overflowing main deck, searching desperately for any empty seat. The prospect of solitude for the journey from the island to the mainland filled Timothy with a sense of longing. A bench in the open air offered considerably less discomfort than any annoyance that would arise of mixing at close quarters with others. From his vantage point the pilothouse obstructed the forward view, yet Timothy keenly observed the vehicles on the ferry’s rear open deck. Timothy settled in for a chilly journey. Timothy found the cool air tolerable; there remained little prospect of sudden outburst of rain.
The ferry’s
departure klaxon sounded causing the ring-billed gulls on the railing opposite Timothy to take
flight. Catching a glance across the upper deck to ensure he held the deck
alone, Timothy shut his eyes hoping for a catnap.
Moments later
Timothy heard the loud sigh of a person who completed a laboured climb up the
staircase. Timothy’s solitude suddenly ceased. He opened his eyes and observed as
the person – a man nudging sixty years of age – crossed the deck to take a seat
on the same bench as Timothy.
“Hey
mate”, stated the
man.
“Hello”, Timothy replied. (While Timothy
later appreciated that his curt response perhaps upset the man, he remembered being
pleased at that instant that the conversation concluded).
Where silence
of voice prevailed, the odour from the man; an unpleasant blend of diesel, perspiration
and seafood, was a journal of its own. A grimace contorted Timothy's face as the
overpowering smell hit him, a reaction the man couldn't miss. The man
instinctively shifted further away, a nonverbal expression of regret for the
unpleasant aroma. To be fair on the man, Timothy expected that the man chose
the upper deck as a means of keeping distant from the mass of passengers. In
any instance, the freely flowing cool air did little to dispense the odour.
“That’s
my truck there at the rear. The old white refrigerated four-tonner one with the
blue signage on the side. She ain’t much but she runs good.”
Timothy slowly glanced
over to the vehicles on the rear deck. He hoped his slovenly response indicated his indifference. There he saw a single truck amongst the numerous
cars. Indeed, the truck swayed at the very rear of the tightly parked vehicles –
it was the last of the vehicles boarded.
“The
ferry captain allows me on last as he appreciates that I like being first away that I may complete
my deliveries. Time is money and all. The customers like their clams fresh. Every weekday but Sunday I'm on this ferry. Occasionally, I slip captain a tray of clams to keep him happy.”
Timothy
glanced again to focus on the truck’s signage. He recognised amongst the blue
lettering the words ‘Spofforth’s fresh clams’. Timothy drew a connection
from the truck to the fresh seafood and diesel elements of the man’s odour.
Timothy
turned back to the man. Timothy was unsure of how to respond or if indeed a response was due. Any chance of contributing to the conversation
immediately dissipated as the man continued his monologue. Later Timothy would
reflect on how the man never offered his name. The prospect that the man was
named Mister Spofforth would remain a matter of speculation.
“For
years I delivered all sorts of things to many places. Lumber, whitegoods, soft
drinks, laundry powder, cattle, you name it. I crossed the whole country
through rain, snow and sunshine. I replaced punctured tyres and pumped diesel
at many a petrol station. Occasionally, I got lost on a new route or sometimes I’d
take a different route than usual just for the heck of it. I often travelled away
for days or weeks; hearing my wife’s voice only on the telephone. At times I
drove my own truck and at other times a company’s fleet truck. I ate poorly at
truck-stops. I slept badly in the truck’s cab or in cheap roadside motels.
Life was hard.”
Timothy noted that the journey was at a point where the island was no longer in sight. The man's voice thrummed with an undercurrent of determination as he continued his story. At the current rate the man would likely speak for the whole of the crossing. At a point within two hundred metres of the mainland destination, Timothy again tuned his ears to the man's story. The man said:
“Then I woke
up one day and it dawned on me. Clams. Lots of them. Clams all about me. I’d
lived all my life on an island that harvested and sold clams. I’d enjoyed
eating the clams. My wife loves cooking and eating clams. Middens of clam shells
left by the island’s original inhabitants. An annual island clam harvest festival in Summer that included the crowning of that year’s bikini-clad Miss Clam.
And then,
I said to myself ‘why not be the one to deliver the clams?’. My own truck, local
pick-up, local delivery, a standard daily schedule, restaurants that require daily
supplies of chilled clams, home each night to dinner with my wife. My! I could
even have clams for dinner each night – clam casino, clam chowder, linguine
with clams, vongole al vino bianco.”
 |
| From pexels.com; free and unattributable |
Sensing the
slowing of the ferry as it approached the dock, Timothy chose the opportunity
to thank the man for his story. Timothy stood to make his way to down to the
main deck. He observed the clam truck man looking up with a glance that indicated
that the story’s conclusion must be told. The man reached out to Timothy and
briefly held the sleeve of Timothy’s shirt to express the last words of the exchange:
Written as an
extension of part of an encounter the main character has on returning from a 1958
summer job on Long Island (Within the novel: A Widow
for One Year, by John Irving). In Irving’s story (page 184 of the Bloomsbury
hard cover edition) the trucker finishes with the words: “I kind of lapsed into
clams, you might say”. I used Google’s AI engine, Gemini, to generate the list of clam
meals.
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