Pirate Talk or Mermalade

by Terese Svoboda

  We are men complete now, we need no mother. For a scene in whalebone: “The True Mother Greeting Her Lads.”

  Surely the true father is dead. So many years have passed and not many live out their time.

  There are tales about fathers who die and leave their estate to those who have been stolen away. It bides us well to consider this.

  Not if he crawled out of the sea.

  Or died of the snot, like Jimmy. Or built the gallows.

  Or stole the bones of a whale with drink.

  Or a dozen others.

  A new woman we need more than a father. A woman to cook and carry the water.

  Aye, water is the point of all this.

  6

  Dead of Winter

  It’s too cold to even drag a nib over paper, let alone write my name.

  You’ll be writing on a block of ice in midwinter to learn the signing, that’s what she said. And here we are.

  Why must I sign a marriage contract? It’s just a delay, one of so many.

  It can’t be so difficult if she can.

  It’s easy for her. Her name is shorter by so many letters.

  Until she gets ours. She says I remind her of her sister.

  What—you?

  Some way I make my laugh.

  After I make my mark, you won’t need to laugh with her again. Oh, but what if someone sees how I sign and uses that for himself? I’ll make my money without all this writing, and as for marrying, she can sign for us both. Besides, I’m sure to topple the bottle just keeping the paper in order.

  My sister Kate, she said, would advance the argument thus: If he can’t write his name, he can’t give it to you.

  Peters is all the family she has. Oh, bother. So few of the seabirds yield the right nib for a seaman’s hand.

  You should have swum when she asked.

  Am I a donkey to be tested to see if it is worth the sale?

  You don’t swim either, no one swims in the sea if they can help it. I wouldn’t swim even for the bone.

  Or a wife?

  I need to spread my name with offspring, not with a nib.

  I don’t understand why she doesn’t put the test to someone else.

  I am a man of high quality.

  Just learn your name and write it or I will.

  Threats, idle threats. I suppose the devil needs a signature too.

  Put the curve there. I bought you a bit of tallow so you can see the paper after the sun sets.

  The sea takes an X. You can join a crew with just a mark. Why couldn’t Peters have taken up with someone less taxing?

  She’s slapping herself in the next room to keep the cold off, she’s tapping her cane.

  Waiting’s a good lesson for someone whose relation could drink up a whole whale’s bone, as he may well have. Not to mention my own waiting, my soul dragged out and around for these many months, trying to find out what she wants.

  It’s not Peters she wants. His signing is wrong.

  You have spoken to her in confidence?

  We were waiting for you to bring the paper.

  Ach—I’ll teach the teacher—about waiting. We will wait in the cold, and not write.

  I must’ve slept.

  You snored to heaven.

  What now? The ink has frozen in a puddle.

  But you managed it—look.

  I did that? I don’t remember—Is the fire out? Let me sleep just a little longer.

  I’ll take it to her.

  The tails be a little long.

  The way my sister would make it, if she were one of us. Your finger is stained.

  I dropped the ink.

  It is your hand on this paper.

  No, no. -Aye. I did it to reduce the steepness of my distress, having to listen to him all these months. Now the banns can be said and it can be over.

  You are female. I see it now.

  What? I am my mother’s son.

  There is more mystery under the roofs of bakers than inside your smalls. Let us all meet at Eben’s Kettle.

  Peters would hide the bone here, with the very weft of the sea underfoot, a smuggler’s hatch in the floorboard to load unseen from the water.

  It’s not in these rooms, neither of them, that I can discover.

  Are you wanting me for the bone or for myself?

  For your cleverness, for then others will know your teaching as my own wife’s, for your shapely hands, for your gentle way with a needle—

  At least you learned the courting well enough. Take the bone as my vengeance to Peters.

  There’s bone sticking out above the tideline—where the snow starts.

  We’ll return grateful, my dear. Then the banns.

  That’s a strange bit of singing she’s making.

  It’s the wind. The wind howls and chills her.

  Do you believe she’s a’witching, brother?

  She’s a woman, brother.

  Aye, she’s that. And found combing her hair at the sea.

  She combs her hair at all hours and places. I’m taking her to the parson to be married—not like Ma and her doings—and then I’ll build a house away from the sea, with the door facing the land.

  She won’t like that.

  It’ll be a relief to her. Is that Peters? Go to the turn in the road to see.

  I’ll pile the bone into the sack.

  She’s gone.

  You were sent to check the road—she’s gone?

  I looked behind the door and around and under it all and into the hatch hole. There’s her cane.

  She didn’t pass by here, I didn’t take my eye off the road.

  The hatch was laid open, the water swallowing there as angry as ever.

  Bother the woman. I don’t see her marks anywhere.

  She told me stories about a carpenter and his boards, why the horns are doubled on caterpillars, and how two Welshmen found gold in the mountains.

  Cap’n Peters will say we drowned her for the bone.

  Is she swimming under the ice? She does like the water here, even the icy water.

  That’s what queered Cap’n Peters to her, her winter swimming.

  She could be in the woods, naming the winter buds, getting past us. We will go walking and find her petting an ermine she’s found wild.

  She was always looking for someone to sign or to swim. Well, the ocean will keep her only for a few days or she’ll be found in the ice in the spring. Let’s go. We’ve got the bone.

  We can’t leave without her—

  There are fish in the sea, hungry fish looking for what they can find. If Cap’n Peters catches us, we’ll be judged wrong for sure.

  No, no, no.

  Stop up your eyes. She was my woman, at any cost, cripple or not. She was mine. Who’s that—Peters coming through the drift?

  It’s her, of course.

  It’s his saws and scythes. Run!

  II

  7

  1720 - Caribbean

  Mr. Shanks, Mr. Luggams—a fine day for the tropics. Not too buggy. All that sugar loaded on the Mary Stewart will attract the bugs.

  You bloody well threw yourself at them, you did.

  They’ll take us on, I know it. I’ve seen them around with the card players and darters, fetching up crew with a hard knock to the noggin. We’ll save them the trouble.

  Isn’t it enough that we fair escaped Cap’n Peters on the first vessel we found? Peters would’ve had us lashed to his bow if he’d caught us. To be caught as a pirate is bullocks’ worse.

  I’ve seen a pirate get off, go running down the street with the rope still tied around his neck.

  Idiot. I must talk to Sitwell. I overheard him say he had positions working with the watches and clocks. I’d be good twisting flax, preparing the strap to bind a watch to the pocket. It’s like the cutting of bone, the same careful fingers. Why, I’ll soon be buying bone from my wages, carving “The Shepherd Lad Standing against the Wolf” in a trice.

  He’s sure to have cutlasses, watc
h man that Sitwell is, sure to have swords in his cupboards as springs and tallow. You’re the one who dropped the bone when Peters was upon us.

  Two hills past the dock, Sitwell said.

  He just needs someone to lift his goods and drive his horses. A bought slave you’ll be to Sitwell.

  I say I must try his offer. I am the elder and I know my mind. Anyway, we can’t go home with Peters prowling for us.

  Here you could be a chimneysweep as well as a watchman, the competition’s not so great here as elsewhere, especially with so few chimneys.

  No chimneys.

  You could sweep, sweep your way up while I’ll be eating toad-in-the-hole three times a week on board a boat as black as soot—and you’ll be sooted. Instead of buried myself, I’d like to bury a chest full of treasure. It’s either the plague or the biting of insects that’ll get us here on land, dead as doornails. To the sea I say, to pirating.

  I hate the sea life. I worked the docks, I never did sail.

  Brother!

  Repairing the ropes and hawsers. Rope is in the family—at least Ma’s. I had all the tall tales of the life of the sea, without the spray. I did as Ma begged us—I stayed ashore.

  So sick you were of the tilt and slosh coming over, I did wonder your sudden loathing.

  Aye.

  My own brother making up a life he didn’t spend.

  Aye.

  But seeing Shanks and Luggams debouche the dock with all their booty, so brazen with their loads in broad daylight! And how they fill out their snuff with the dust of gold! I think those pirates who get hanged are done for the greater good of the thieving that is done to us, such as the removing butter from the dairyman’s cart.

  That butter was for Ma. And only once before I went to sea. Or did not.

  You’ve got the pirate blood in you, you just need the place to shed it. In a few strikes of the clock, Luggams and Shanks will put their feet upon the deck again, time enough for us to gather provisions, to buy that new blade you admired yesterday with what little coin we have left.

  These two do sail a big ship, with double masts. I don’t wonder at your temptation.

  Pirates are just sea folk who work for themselves. I think you lack the strength for the pirate’s life.

  I can lift a bull and anchor. I have the strength—on land.

  Beat me in the balls for a fortnight if pirates don’t do well with the ladies, that much I do know. They don’t cast out nets or drag long line, women come running to them. Not like that last woman you had.

  The pirates’ women invite their friends around to your execution, set a table with cakes and ale under the gallows, and bring your only child to it.

  Ah, but the mermaids don’t fear the pirates, and they’re thick as shrimp hereabouts.

  A mermaid is just a woman not grown, one who snatches at men and leaves the offspring to comb out her hair. Not a pretty enough picture for me.

  Shanks and Luggams have repaired to the fo’castle. They won’t be there long, the crew’s hauling sail.

  Go then, you don’t need me.

  Need has nothing to do with it. It is as a courtesy I’m asking you to come along, landlubber though you be, as your brother I’m asking you. Our trust be doubled and our profits too, onboard as pirate brothers.

  We may not be such brothers as you think, if Ma died true.

  We must hunt our true father and start our true lives. Our father will not find us, that’s for certain. Let’s roll the whale’s eye for an answer. Left, you pirate, right, you stay.

  Where did you come into that eye?

  Found it in a drift of sea spindle.

  It could be mine, part of the bone I tried to claim.

  You’ll drive me to the pirate life, with your bone found in every bone.

  Well, I know what’s good for me without throwing the eye. There’s your Luggams now. I’m sure he’ll take you onboard like lice to a bird.

  Mr. Luggams! Here!

  Be off with you. The ocean’s too much a cradle for a man so grown as myself.

  I’m good on the fo’castle, Mr. Luggams. I’ve had years of it.

  8

  Indian Ocean

  You don’t know the glory of being hung on a hook and dragged by your lip when you must leap from the water just to ease off the pain. Pull it out!

  It will leave a gash if I pull it straight. I keep seaweed at the bottom that defies the wounds of the flesh. How else does a fish last with a grimace of hooks?

  You departed so strangely, the winter upon us, and Peters fast approaching.

  It had to be.

  I have the whale’s eye still. Will that help?

  Don’t show it, there be sailors about even in the dark of this clouded night and the ship’s heaving to the gunwhales. It might roll away.

  I’m sorry to catch you.

  I’m glad to be caught. When I saw it was your hook, I rejoiced. Just wrench out the barb. I will brace myself against you and the rail, tight.

  There.

  That’s better. I have been hauled up by the mouth four times looking for you and your brother, each time promising this and that until they tossed me over.

  This fishy part is new and shocking.

  Not so new. The skirts all women wear to confound men hid it. The cane laughed at you.

  Strange, I don’t hear the ocean when I am beside you, the deck does not roll. I’ve been onboard for over a year now and nothing like this has ever happened.

  Night brings its own confusions. I will instruct you on the history of the night sky, as I have your brother about the sea. Four poles cut from saplings are given out at the world’s edge next to its furious wind, the one that enjoys whipping such poles when they are still barked and leafed. When the two ends are pushed into the earth, the wind rips so hard at the spaces between the curve they make with the other poles that the skin of the earth comes up at the edge like a rug upturned. This underside glows with the iridescence of underground creatures who have crawled by their own light inside the ground. Now they smolder in the night sky. Not everyone believes their light is made of fire because they’re so cold but lay your hand on ice and pull it up fast—it too burns.

  All the night talks when you talk, even with such a gash.

  Together we will tell Father you have been found.

  I know nothing about this father.

  Yes, you do.

  Stop grabbing at me, stop it. The water is fearsome, the ocean is death. I am alike in this with my brother—we do not enter the water.

  That is one truth you will have to pierce for yourself.

  I am a pirate now, and know only my own intent.

  Best for you to hold fast to the whale’s eye then, for luck.

  What kind of luck is that—it’s drowning you’re offering.

  I heard Cap’n Peters went under a fortnight after we sailed, swallowed up by a cup of tea, his heart crushed, losing you.

  He was in want, after your Ma departed, telling stories about her so even the sea could hear.

  Watch your bleeding mouth. Ma did not know his wants after you arrived.

  That’s what your brother says. Who can know the heart of a woman, especially one like your Ma?

  Perhaps it is my brother’s heart that is unknown.

  Tell him you’ve seen me treading the waters, go ahead.

  I would rush up the mast and shout your name but he’s not onboard, he didn’t take the oath, not seeing the pirate life for what it is, a port a’glitter at every call, swords a’plenty and no landholder taxing every tomorrow. My brother continues his oath against all water by staying off it.

  A sea of tears, perhaps.

  His letters are smeared, it’s true, but someone else writes them. Quiet, it’s Shanks abroad.

  A night catch! What a fisherman you are. I see from all the blood you’ve stuck it well. I’ll finish the gutting and offer you the liver if it’s of a size. Keep your hand on it while I fetch my good knife.

  Over now, qui
ck.

  9

  1722 Caribbean

  Give that back—it is my only shawl, it is the shawl you married me in.

  I haven’t had a watch to do for months—we can’t eat a shawl. We must trade it for bone so I can triple our profits.

  Go to the ends of the earth, and sail to where the serpents lie. To sell my shawl for an inch of whalebone—bone that’s no good even in a pot!

  People pay well for a picture on it—but there won’t be much left after I settle the chits you’ve written clear across the island.

  Better than written across my tombstone. How I rue offering you my timepiece for your improvements. For just a look, I said. And you looked and looked.

  It was you who took the glass off the works, who pulled the stem.

  You said I needed a minute hand, I said there were too many hands already.

  Gladness fills me to know those works have stopped. Now I will be cutting this bone, and people will like it. The port is a’swarm with new folk off the boats, and overseers who need to know when to quit the slaves. It’s busier here than London, it’s the center of the world in commerce—and in fashion too.

  You thought people would like a feather stuck on the works to brush off the flies.

  There are few who appreciate my timepiece thus far, with or without the flies, but with my improvements—

  Only fifty-three here keeping the time or the like, less your own watch which I hide, and the ships’ clocks, when they are in port. Even if you wind each of them every week, there are still only fifty-three to divide with Cyrus.

  He must be of noble birth to gather the business so quickly, regardless of what he says, a duke at least or a—

  He is too handsome by half, yes.

  I think you’d be just as pleased to be without a shawl, to show yourself.

  Oh, let the ocean take you.

  Cyrus, Cyrus—she’s yours.

  Close that window, you fool. It’s market day.

  I should be down there beside Cyrus, listening to him unhook the watches out of the waistcoats of the wealthy by his very words. Never has there been so many who needed oil in their works or their clockhands reset until he opened his shop.