The Black Joke

by David Bramhall

  Chapter 9

  There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein (Psalm 104)

  Today was the last day of the holidays.

  “I'm going to see Aunt Gittins, do you want to come?” Pert asked Fenestra. She was at the kitchen table with a sheet of paper in front of her.

  “No, I have to stay in. I've got a story to write.”

  “What's it about?”

  “It's about this princess who lives in a castle, and is unhappy most of the time.”

  “Only most of the time?”

  “Yes. She's happy when she's playing with her pet mouse.”

  “What's the mouse's name?”

  “Mouse, silly. Mice don't have names. They're mice.”

  Pert moved towards the door. “All your princesses seem to be unhappy,” he said, “aren't there any happy ones?”

  “No. It's tough being a princess these days.”

  Pert decided to go down to the harbour before visiting Aunt Gittins, to see the pirate ship. It was a bright day, still cold but with a hint of spring to come. The seagulls were wheeling high over the town.

  He walked along the quay, stopping to say good morning to one or two fishermen he knew. They had their nets spread out on the cobbles, and sat on the mooring bollards, sewing and smoking. Their boats lay moored to iron rings in the harbour wall, rocking gently. They had odd names, like “Lady Bountifull” and “Here we goe” and “Second Chance II”. Pert wondered if the fact that she was the second “Second Chance” meant she should really have been called the “Third Chance” instead. Old Walter Glibbery's little boat, one of the smallest with no cabin at all and only one sail, was named “Better Times”.

  On the other side of the harbour hard against the stone breakwater lay a black-hulled sailing ship with tall sides and two masts painted white. She had a high-raked bowsprit with a yard on it. He turned and walked back so he could go along the breakwater and get a better look.

  Close to, she had a weather-worn look. Streaks of green algae from her scuppers told of waves shipped in rough waters, and her rigging, tarred in the old-fashioned way, was frayed and knotted. Her sails lay untidily along their yards, grey with salt and sun. A wisp of smoke rose from her little deck house chimney, and three rough-looking men were leaning on the rail amidships, smoking pipes and spitting in the water.

  He walked to the stern, and looked at the curved line of windows. That must be the Captain's cabin, he thought, and shuddered as he remembered the dark man and his sudden knife. In faded gilt letters under the windows was her name, The Black Joke, and her home port of Philipsburg. Pert didn't know where that was. It sounded German, or Dutch.

  He walked back along her side and spoke to the rough men. “Please, where's Philipsburgh?” he asked politely.

  One of the men took his pipe out of his mouth and spat over the rail deliberately. “St.Martin Island,” he said. “It's one of the Leeward Islands in the Carrib Sea. Who wants to know?”

  Pert had heard of the Leeward Islands, but the man pronounced it in a funny way, “Loo'rd”.

  “Please, my name is Potts,” he answered.

  “Oh, is it now?” The man glanced at his companions. “Well, my curious Master Potts, is you a seeker after knowledge?”

  Pert didn't know quite what the man meant by this. “Er ... yes, I suppose I am,” he said.

  “And does your seeking after knowledge extend to ships and the rollin' sea?”

  Pert was on safer ground here. “Yes. I can sail a boat.”

  “So per'aps you'd like to come aboard this 'ere wessel and take a look around, like?”

  “Yes, I'd like that very much.”

  “And so you shall, Master Potts as thirsts for knowledge.” The man sauntered towards the stern where a gang-plank joined the ship to the quay. “Come you along this way, Master Potts, andtrot you up this 'ere plank, and you shall see what you shall see.”

  Pert walked up the gang-plank carefully. It had slats of wood nailed roughly across it every foot or so, to stop your feet from slipping, but there was no hand-rail or rope to hang on to. The plank sprung under his feet, but he balanced himself with his arms and made it to the deck.

  “There, young Master Potts,” said the man, “now you is aboard a proper ship, not some fiddlin' little fisherboat, but a real queen of the seas, what's ranged from the Americees to the Africees, an' seen some rare ol' sights on the way. She seen the black whale fish a-spoutin', and the dolphin a-leapin' in the bow-wave, and the little flyin' fish a-scatterin'. She seen the blackamores a-caperin' on the African beaches, she seen the rivers in the Americees that come down solid mud and turn the sea brown, an' she seen the pretty parrots a-fly between the trees, an' she smelt the green wind that blows off the jungle ... now, you come along back 'ere ...”

  And the man took him on a tour of the ship. They looked at the binnacle on the after deck, with the compass in the top of it, and Pert put his hands on the great wooden wheel and turned it a little way, and felt the resistance of the wooden rudder far below and the ropes that turned it. He looked down into the hold, a cavern of a place that smelled of turpentine and tar and other smells he didn't recognise, and he climbed halfway up the ratlines, the rope ladders in the rigging that led from the rail to the cross-trees of the mast. The man would only let him go up a short way, and then he had to climb down again.

  The man seemed kind, but there was something else about him that made Pert feel uneasy. Perhaps it was the way he didn't look at you when he spoke, but always seemed to be peering over your shoulder with his eyes screwed up, or perhaps it was the livid scar down one cheek that pulled down one corner of his left eye in a permanent wink, or perhaps it was the crude wooden handle of the seaman's knife in his belt, but Pert tried to keep his distance.

  The ship's two masts looked about the same height. “This 'ere's a brig,” the man explained, “an' a mighty fast one too, an' handy in a tight corner. Them's the courses ...” he pointed out the sails bunched along the crossyards on both masts, “and them's the stays'ls ...” indicating the fore and aft sails hanging in stops between the masts, “and them's the 'eadsails what go down to the bowsprit. And aft ...” he turned towards the back of the ship where a great sail lay furled between two enormous yards, the gaff and the boom, “she's the spanker, what keeps our head to wind and steadies us.”

  “And where does the Captain live?”

  “The Capting? 'E lives in the stateroom, right aft. You can't go there. 'E's not exactly the welcoming kind, if you know what I mean.” The man jerked his head, and spat over the side again. “You want to watch out for the Capting,” he said, leaning closer and leering unpleasantly. “'E'll spit a plump young chicken like you, Master Potts as wants to know so much, e'll spit 'im and truss 'im and send 'im to the cookhouse if 'e so much as looks at you!”

  He put his horny hand on Pert's shoulder, and hissed in his ear, “Where's yer Dad, Master Potts? Where's he at?”

  Pert wriggled away. “I don't know,” he said, “no one does. He vanished, years ago.”

  He thought it was time to go. “Thank you for the tour,” he said, “you've been very kind,” and ran along the deck and down the plank. The men watched him go. One of them called after him “Where's yer Dad, then?” but he walked away quickly towards the town.

  When he reached the base of the breakwater he turned and looked back. He hadn't noticed before, but in front of the hold and just behind the foremast (abaft the foremast, he told himself, not behind it, abaft it) was a hunched, sinister shape shrouded in a tarpaulin. There was another in the bows. Could they be guns?

  Two of the men were still leaning on the rail. One of them gave a mocking wave. The third man, the one who had talked to him, was walking quickly aft towards the Captain's quarters.

  Further down the quay he came upon Walter Glibbery. His little boat was tied up by the wall and rocking gently, and the old man sat in the stern with a net on his knees. A black bottle was by his side
. The Better Times was like its master, time-worn and decrepit but sound at heart. Her battered planking had been painted and repainted so many times it was hard to tell what colour she was supposed to be. Fish boxes lay between her thwarts, and coils of rope and a crab pot or two. Her old tan-coloured sail lay across the thwarts, wrapped round its single yard. Better Times had one mast and one sail, spread upon a single long yard, lugger fashion. She had no boom at the bottom of the sail. A boom spread the sail a bit better when the wind was aft, but it was one more thing to bang your head in a seaway, so most fishers did without.

  “Ahoy, young Pert!” he called, “come aboard, come aboard! Come to visit ol' Walter, have ye? That's nice, come you aboard!”

  Pert climbed down the slippery iron ladder let into the face of the harbour wall, and stepped on board. There was a strong smell of fish. He sat on a thwart and grinned at Walter. This felt familiar and safe, despite the rocking.

  “Hallo, Walter, it's good to see you,” he said. “Have you been out yet?”

  “No, no, it's a bit too early fer I. Mebbe this afternoon, if the wind serves. Want to come?”

  “No, I can't. I'm going to see my Great Aunt Gittins.”

  “Ah, fine ol' girl she be, I remember she! Great dancer she were, in the day.”

  The old man wagged his head and smiled, remembering. “I'd've married she, if'n she'd 'ave me, but she wouldn't. Pity. She wouldn't've hit my old 'ead with no chair leg, like my missus do. No, she'd've used the whole chair!”

  He doubled up with laughter at his own wit, and took a draught from his bottle.

  “I've been on that ship over there, the Black Joke,” Pert said.

  The old man didn't look. He sniffed. “Ah, proper ship, she be. She've seen some sights, I be bound. An' done some deeds, too, I shouldn't wonder.”

  “Do you think she could be a pirate ship?”

  “Ah. Could be, per'aps. Could be. They say there's no pirates any more, but you never know. They thought they'd caught 'em all in the sixteens, but they never. And then they thought they'd put a stop to 'em in the seventeens, an' that was wrong too. An' they thought there were no more of 'em in old Boney's time ...” Pert knew he meant Napolean Bonaparte, “... when the navy were so big an' went scouring the seas for Frenchies and privateers, but up pops that ol' Benido an' led 'em a pretty dance!”

  “Is that Benito de Soto?” said Pert. “I've got a book about him.”

  “'E's in books now, is 'e? Ah, 'e was a bad 'un, old Benido. 'E caught the Mornin' Star, 'e did, off the Azorios on 'er way back from the Indies, an' e' did dreadful things, dreadful things as one can't 'ardly speak of. Mind you, it caught up with 'im, 'cos 'e battened the passengers down below an' scuttled the ship, an' they broke out an' plugged the 'oles with the ladies' petticoats, 'an sailed 'er home. An' then they spotted ol' Benido on shore, walkin’ down the street bold as brass, an' they cried out an' told everyone 'This 'ere's Benido, that naughty man what robbed us!' An' they took and 'ung 'im, an' good riddance, say I! Ah!”

  He took another draught. “An' they thought that was an end to it, but then they was Pirate Hicks, what they hanged on Bedloe Island an' they say ten thousand people came to watch 'im swing. An' they thought that was an end to it, an' up pops Bully Hayes, what was murdered by Dutch Pete, or so they say. Ah, they never goes right away, does pirates. There's always someone what thinks 'e can make a better livin' by robbin' than by honest sailorin'. Ah!”

  “Have you heard of Trinity Teague? Is he a pirate?”

  The old man sat up, his eyes aghast. “Trinity Teague, you say. Where'd you 'ear that name?”

  “I think he might be on that ship.”

  “Trinity Teague? Lor, love us! Trinity Teague? He disappeared forty years ago, along a' your granddad, and never 'eard of from that day to this! Trinity Teague? What makes you say that?”

  “I ... just heard he was back. What sort of man was he?”

  “Ah, a black-browed, broodin' sort of fellow, 'e was. Kept to 'imself, didn't talk much. Young, but a great sailor. 'E was your grandaddy's second mate, until the Great Storm ...”

  “And they disappeared together?”

  “Aye, vanished off the face of the ocean, they did. People talked, but it was just talk. One minute they was 'ere, walkin' round the town, an' the next they was gone. Now, young Pert, when are you goin' to come a-fishin' with ol' Walter, eh? There's mackerel out there with your name writ on 'em!”

  “I have to go to school tomorrow,” Pert said. “When the Easter holiday comes, I'll go with you.”

  “Ah, that's what. You see, we'll 'ave them mackerel for supper come Easter. It'll be mackerel this, an' mackerel that, an' mackerel for breakfast an' mackerel for lunch. Them mackerel, they'll be linin' up to jump in the boat by themselves, so they will! An' crabs as big as your 'ead in between.”

  Pert stood, swaying slightly with the motion of the boat. “I must go,” he said.

  “Ah, you cut along! You're a good boy, whatever people say. Never I saw a truer course than steered by you. Remember me to your Aunt Gittins, an' tell 'er she should come an' 'ave another dance with ol' Walter for ol’ time's sake, he he! We could still cut a caper!”

  And he waved his bottle, and giggled, and Pert climbed the ladder and set off for Aunt Gittins' house, full of thought. So Trinity Teague had known his grandfather. That seemed important, but he was not sure how.

  Aunt Gittins was Pert's grandmother's sister, and she lived at the edge of the town in a street of stone cottages which would be flowery and bright with window boxes in summer but for now just looked neat and well cared for. If you stood at Aunt Gittins' bedroom window you could see the roofs of the town falling away down the hillside, and the sea sparkling in the sun. Aunt Gittins was very old, over eighty, and sometimes Pert wondered if she would die and leave the house to his mother. It would be nice to live up here in the sun and watch the sea and not have to pay rent to Urethra Grubb. But Aunt Gittins showed no signs of being ready to die just yet. In fact she was a vigorous and cantankerous old woman who liked her own company and seldom sought anyone else's. She was tall and square-jawed, and wore little wire-rimmed glasses, and seldom smiled. She looked forbidding.

  Nevertheless she welcomed Pert nicely enough, and gave him milk and biscuits and made him sit at the kitchen table and tell her the news of his family. He also gave her the message from Walter Glibbery, which made her snort.

  “Walter Glibbery?” she exclaimed. “That old soak? Mind you, he's right, he was quite a dancer in our youth, and a charmer. But he was a weak man. A good fisher, they said, but weak and foolish and easily led. How that poor woman has put up with him all these years I'll never know.”

  “She hits him on the head with a chair leg,” said Pert.

  “Good thing too. I'd have done the same.”

  “He says you'd have used the whole chair.”

  “I probably would, I probably would. Of course, she wasn't much to look at, very plain girl she was. She probably knew he was the best she'd get, so she hung on to him. And she's clung on ever since, and he's been faithful enough to her, so perhaps one shouldn't criticise.”

  She looked out of the window, her mind elsewhere. Then she gathered her thoughts together.

  “Now, your sister Fenestra, you haven't told me about her. Why didn't you bring her with you?”

  “I asked her, but she was busy. She's writing a story. She writes lots of stories.”

  “Have you read them? Are they any good?”

  “Yes, I think so. She has very neat hand-writing.”

  “A funny little thing, your sister. Too much thinking, and not enough laundry and embroidering. But a good girl, not like Vernilia ...”

  “Was she as bad as Mother says?”

  “Worse. I tried my best to help, but once she got the idea that the boys were interested in her, there was no holding her. Who's going to listen to an old woman like me?”

  “I listen.”

  “So you do, so you do. So did y
our father, bless his memory. But Vernilia – ah, she was wild and wilful. It was a mercy when she went off with that sailor lad. Not that he had much going on between his ears, I should think. But at least it left a little peace for your poor mother.”

  “I wanted to ask about my father. Mother was telling us about when he disappeared.”

  “That was a bad business, and so unexpected. So unlike him. He was a steady boy, a bit of a worrier really, always anxious to do the right thing. You know he lived with me when he was a lad?”

  “Yes. After his parents went.”

  “Mascaridus went first, and then my sister Floribunda. They say she died of a broken heart, but it was more like shame. When they said he'd stolen that money she just couldn't hold her head up any more. Never went out of the house, but just faded and faded until there was nothing left.”

  She sniffed, and blew her nose. “Your mother looked like going the same way for a bit, but she's made of stronger stuff. Not strong enough to cope with Vernilia, but strong all the same. Obadiah, your father, doted on her. She was a pretty thing, very quiet, but pretty. Fenestra takes after her. She was a Twitchett, you know. A good family, but all gone now. He thought the sun shone from her apron pocket, he did. Why he would ever have left her I just don't know. It must have been something dreadful.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Who knows? I know he used to think about his father a lot, even when he was a boy. He came to me when he was but eight years old, an only child, very sad and lost. I never married and never wanted children, but it was my duty to take him in so I did. But I know he always wondered what his father had done and what had happened to him. It might have been something to do with that.”

  “Might there be any other members of his family who'd know?”

  “There is no other family, dear. Mascaridus Potts didn't come from here, he was an incomer. A seaman, I think, who hove up here one year and decided to settle. Swept my sister off her feet, bought a boat – a good one, so he must have arrived with money – and set up as a skipper. He changed the name of the boat to the Bight of Benin – nasty, heathen name, I thought. I was always told it was bad luck to change a boat's name. Anyway, he soon became respected. People looked up to him. He was a big man, and hard, and he took no nonsense. But he was fair, and well-spoken. People like that in a man.”

  “I didn't know that. What's the Bight of Benin, what does that mean?”

  “It's a place in Africa somewhere, that's all I know. Yes, there was just him. He started the Potts family, and you're left to carry it on. Have you thought what you're going to do when you leave

  school?”

  “Yes. I'll go fishing with Walter, and learn from him.”

  “You make sure you learn the right things, then. He's got a few wrong things to teach.”

  “He's taught me a lot already. He says I'm as good a helmsman as he's ever seen. And I'll save money, and then buy a little boat and go on my own account.”

  She looked at him shrewdly. “That's a good plan. Start small, act prudent and work up. That'll do. And have you a little lady love yet?”

  “No,” he said, feeling embarrassed. “Well, there is someone ... but she doesn't know I exist, even.”

  “Ah well, plenty of time for that. Make something of yourself and she'll soon start to take notice, you mark my words. Girls are like that.”

  Pert kissed his Aunt, and set off home to see if there was any lunch. Sometimes there wasn't, but he'd had biscuits. On the way down past the church he came up with Rosella, marching her little brood behind her. He hurried to catch up, and said “School tomorrow!” but she ignored him and suddenly turned up a side street. Her train obediently wheeled to follow her, but the last two both turned. The tiny one grinned at him, and the other made a face and put out her tongue. That's good, he thought. That's progress, of a sort.

  There was no lunch at home, his mother said. Having to pay the rent five days early had upset the family budget, and although she had some sewing to do for the Widow Dolphin and a dress to make for Horatia Fencepiece's little girl, she hadn't been paid yet.

  “I had an idea about money,” Pert said, pouring himself a cup of water from the pitcher. “Why don't we take a lodger?”

  “A lodger? Where would we put them?”

  “I thought you might put them in Fenestra's room, and she could come and share the attic with me.”

  “I'm not sure that's a good idea,” his mother said. “Some great hulking noisy fisherman, smoking and dropping his boots on the floor ...”

  “I thought about that too. Mr.Surplice is not happy where he is. I don't think he gets enough food, and they aren't nice to him.”

  “He wouldn't get enough food here, either.”

  “But you could buy more food with his rent money!”

  “Well ... Fenestra, what about her? Kicking her out and sending her to the attic? That doesn't seem very fair.”

  “You could ask her. She might not mind.”

  In fact Fenestra didn't mind at all. When Pert put it to her she was ecstatic – sleeping in an attic with a mouse was the most romantic idea she'd ever heard. She would write stories about a little servant girl who lived in an attic and a mouse was her only friend and she'd be unhappy most of the time. Brilliant!

  Their mother said she'd think about it. She said it with her hand over her mouth, and Pert thought she was trying not to laugh.