Mrs. Cook

by Marele Day

  Elizabeth went to the bedside cabinet, took out Endeavour letters from New Zealand, and read James’s description of a country ‘with valleys and hills luxuriously clothed with woods and verdure. It abounds with a great number of plants and the woods with a great variety of very beautiful birds.’ James sailed and charted the coast of it, each placename telling a story—Poverty Bay, which ‘afforded us no one thing we wanted’, neither provisions nor water; Hawke Bay, honouring Admiral Sir Edward Hawke; Cape Turnagain; Bay of Islands; and Cape Kidnappers, where the New Zealanders kidnapped one of the Tahitians aboard the Endeavour.

  The natives of New Zealand were the fiercest James had come across. He described the war dance they did, poking their tongues out and rolling their eyes up into their heads. They brandished their weapons and made loud grunting noises designed to send fear into the enemy. When a shot was fired, even if it felled a man, the others just kept coming. Again and again James had to win their friendship.

  Elizabeth was glad that James had safely left New Zealand, especially when the Adventure returned with tales of a massacre. The master’s mate, John Rowe, and eight men of the Adventure had gone in the cutter to gather greens. The next morning, when they hadn’t returned, a search party was sent, assuming the worst—that the cutter had been stove on the rocks. What they found was much worse than the worst. Evidence of slaughter and cannibalism—baskets of cooked flesh, scattered shoes and clothing, and the head of Furneaux’s Negro servant. It was bad enough when the Endeavour brought back tales of South Sea cannibalism, but this news, of natives eating not just their own kind but the flesh of Englishmen, both shocked and titillated London.

  Elizabeth wondered what James would have done had it been Resolution men. He admired the New Zealanders, and even knowing they were cannibals had found them ‘no more wicked than other men’.

  James had not given Furneaux an order to follow him, merely noted his own prescribed course. Furneaux made some attempt to join the Resolution but by latitude 61 degrees south, finding his to be the only ship, a tired ship at that, in the lonely ocean, had taken a course directly to the Cape of Good Hope, and after making another attempt, through the ice and the fog, to arrive at Cape Circumcision, had set a course back to England.

  Elizabeth admonished herself for wishing that it were her husband who had returned instead of Furneaux. Captain Fur-neaux had loved ones at home too. They would be as desirous to see him as Elizabeth was to see her husband. She prayed that the Almighty, and the elements, were treating James kindly and that he would return home soon.

  The house was spick and span, the best china ready. Elizabeth had made the usual preparations for receiving guests though she had little idea what to expect with the imminent visit of Omai. Mr Banks himself had taken the islander under his wing, dressed him, taught him to bow and how to handle a walking stick. All of London was talking of the exotic creature. The king had presented him with a sword.

  Elizabeth was dressed in her Sunday best, as was Nat. She had the kettle at boiling point, ready to serve tea, as she would any English visitor. She and Nat waited, listening for the approach of Mr Banks’s carriage. With everything at the ready, mother and son played backgammon.

  ‘Is he the one that ate Captain Furneaux’s servant?’ asked Nat.

  Elizabeth vigorously shook the dice. ‘We must not tar all islanders with the same brush. He is from Tahiti, not New Zealand. As for what happened to Captain Furneaux’s servant and the others, your father would not make a judgment on the matter till he knew all the facts,’ Elizabeth reminded their son.

  ‘The South Sea islanders aren’t all the same?’ Nat queried. ‘They speak the same language,’ he insisted, knowing that Tahitians aboard the Endeavour had been able to interpret as the ship sailed from island to island. Except when they got to New South Wales, which seemed to be inhabited by a different breed of men altogether.

  As Elizabeth watched her son take his next backgammon move, she thought of her Quaker friends and their edict that all of God’s creations, every plant, every animal and, especially, every human being, deserved the same loving attention. She attended the Church of England, in St Dunstan’s, but she still carried the Quaker light in her heart. She would treat the islander with the same courtesy as she would any freeborn Englishman. Yet she had a curiosity about this creature from the other side of the world. He came from a place she had only ever imagined.

  ‘Mama,’ said Nat, ‘are you distracted?’

  ‘Why?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Because you threw a three and a six, but you moved a four and a six.’

  Elizabeth tracked her move, found that her son was right, and adjusted it accordingly.

  A jet of steam escaped from the kettle. Elizabeth removed the kettle from the fire in case it burnt dry. She had not seen Mr Banks since the business with the Resolution more than two years ago. He had not made reference to the matter when he sent word, asking, in the politest manner possible, if he could bring Omai to meet her.

  Several coaches went by on the increasingly busy road, and finally the one they were listening for stopped. Elizabeth abandoned the game, put the kettle back on the fire, smoothed down her skirts, and waited.

  Gates came into the parlour saying that Mr Banks, his sister Sophia, and a . . . gentleman were calling. Gates had been told who to expect, but still she announced the guests with a flurry and a twisting of her apron.

  None of her imaginings prepared Elizabeth for the creature that stood between Mr Banks and Sophia. She heard Banks say, ‘This is Omai.’

  ‘Oh my,’ said Elizabeth, taken aback.

  ‘O-may,’ Banks corrected what he thought was her pronunciation of the Tahitian’s name.

  Omai, dressed in velvet with white sateen and lace ruffles, and grey breeches, bowed low and said, ‘How do you do, Mrs Toot. I hope very well.’

  Mrs Toot? She remembered that when he had been introduced to King George the islander had said, ‘How do you do, King Tosh. I hope very well.’ There were sounds in the English language that he could not get his tongue around, just as there were sounds in the French language that Elizabeth found very difficult. Banks explained that the islanders lacked certain letters in their alphabet, the ‘c’ or the ‘k’, and the ‘s’, so that Omai called Dr Solander ‘Tolano’.

  Ten year old Nat was the perfect little gentleman, shaking the stranger’s hand vigorously and welcoming him to their house.

  He was beautiful, that was the only word Elizabeth could find for him. He had a flat negroid nose with a hint around the eyes of the Orient. The combination was most pleasing. His hair was long and flowing, and he wore no wig or powder. His lips were curvy, resembling bird’s wings ready for flight. His chocolate-coloured skin was smooth and had a sheen to it. Elizabeth took care not to feel that skin, to keep her hands to herself. Omai was not an exhibit in the waxworks museum. But Elizabeth couldn’t help staring at this creature from beyond the horizon, though she tried her best not to make it too obvious.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, looking at the game on the table.

  ‘It’s backgammon, sir,’ said Nat.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Omai.

  Elizabeth remembered hearing that, at the Thrales’ in Streatham, the islander had quickly learnt to play chess and backgammon. ‘Perhaps Mr Omai would like to play,’ suggested Elizabeth.

  Nat sat at the table, the islander opposite him picking up the game where Elizabeth had left off. He shook the dice and watched them roll out of the container.

  Whilst Nat and Omai played, Banks explained that Omai had been inoculated against smallpox, speaking of him in his presence the way a parent might speak of a small child. Elizabeth remembered the Eskimos who arrived in London in January 1773. Major George Cartwright, a fur trapper and trader, had brought them from Labrador. Large numbers of people had come to look at them, and the party seemed to enjoy their visit, but on their homeward journey, before they had even left Plymouth, they fell ill with smallpox and all but one had died.


  ‘Yes,’ continued Mr Banks, ‘we took him to Dr Dimsdale’s Institute at Hertford. He seemed quite affected by it, but we looked after him well—myself, Dr Solander, and my servant, James.’

  ‘He appears to be perfectly recovered now,’ said Elizabeth, falling into speaking of him in the same way. She seemed not to be able to avoid it and still carry on polite conversation with Banks.

  ‘Tea, marm,’ said Gates, bringing the cups and saucers, teapot, sugar and milk. It was the best crockery, and Elizabeth watched Omai as he accepted his tea, bowing to Gates, who blushed and began twisting her apron. Guests usually didn’t bow to her. The islander had obviously been schooled in the art of drinking tea, and picked up his cup, holding it between long slender fingers.

  ‘What a lovely set,’ commented Sophia. ‘Staffordshire, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘So refreshing to see blue and white china that is not willow pattern.’

  Elizabeth smiled but said nothing. She was aware that Mr Banks was speaking to Omai in the islander’s native tongue. It was only a few words but she fancied she could hear the sea and the wind in them. She put down her cup and offered her guests little cakes from the china plate.

  She had almost bought the willow pattern, which depicted the story of two young lovers who are turned into bluebirds, but James’s revelation that the story was a Wedgwood invention, no older than the plates themselves, had put her off. In the end they had purchased a dinner service made by John and William Ridgeway, from Staffordshire. It had scalloped edges and was decorated with flowers, blue on white.

  Nat disappeared and returned with some of the knick-knacks James had brought back from the Endeavour voyage. He showed their visitor the hatchet. ‘Togee,’ said Omai. Then when Nat brought out the fish hooks: ‘Ba.’ Omai made the motion of a fish with his hand. Nat and Omai talked for what seemed hours, with inventive gestures and Omai’s exotic words.

  Elizabeth turned her attention to her other guests, complimenting Sophia on her rather dashing dress and pert little hat. Like her brother, Sophia remained unmarried. She was quite pretty, although there would be those who’d say her shoulders were too broad. She and her brother shared a house at 32 Soho Square, a large house with a now prodigious herbarium which Elizabeth had visited after the Endeavour voyage, as had half of London, to see the botanical specimens he’d collected. Elizabeth’s favourite was a plant from Botany Bay whose flower resembled a bottle brush. Its dull green leaves were thin and pointy but the crimson brush itself was feathery and soft.

  ‘Callistemon rigidus,’ Sophia told her the botanical name. She helped catalogue her brother’s specimens, and was also a collector in her own right. Apart from objects of natural history, she collected tokens that shops gave out, coins, visiting cards, books and newspaper cuttings. In particular, she kept the weather reports, and could tell you what the weather had been like on any day of the year.

  Sophia could also recite over fifty different expressions for being drunk, having clipped out and memorised the list she’d found in the December 1770 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine. ‘Drunk?’ she’d begin. ‘The fellow is more than drunk. He’s intoxicated, fuddled, flustered, rocky, tipsy, merry, as great as a lord, in for it, happy, boozy, top-heavy, chuck full, hiccius, crop-sick, cup-stricken, cup-sprung, hot-headed, pot-valiant, maudlin, a little how came ye so?, groggy, in drink, in his cups, in his beer, crank, cut, cheery, cherry-merry, overtaken, elevated, forward, crooked, castaway, concerned, bosky, in his altitudes, tipperary, exhilarated, on a merry pin, half-cocked, a little in the suds, as wise as Solomon, business on both sides of the street, got his little hat on, got a drop in the eye, been in the sun, soaked his face, come home by the village, clips the King’s English, keels, heels and sets.’ Elizabeth was not surprised to find nautical expressions on that list.

  Elizabeth collected a few newspaper clippings of her own. She went to fetch the one for Thursday 14 July 1774, concerning Captain Furneaux’s return. ‘Captain Furneaux brought with him a native of Otaheite, who was desirous of seeing the great king,’ she read, taking pains to clearly pronounce each word for Omai, who grinned broadly.

  They drank a second cup of tea, and Omai said something to Banks, who leant towards the islander, the better to hear him. Mr Banks nodded, then said: ‘Omai expresses a wish to see the Cook family’s marai. Your sacred place,’ Banks explained.

  ‘Our sacred place?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘I expect a visit to St Dunstan’s would satisfy the request,’ said Sophia.

  It took quite a while to walk to the church as Omai was much caressed and touched and looked at by every passer-by. He did not seem to mind in the smallest degree, and welcomed the attention as if he were born to it. Omai and Mr Banks walked in front with Nat, who pointed out to the visitor features of interest—the green where he and Jamie played cricket, or the place on the road where the stagecoach had been recently held up by highwaymen.

  Sophia and Elizabeth walked behind. ‘My brother deeply regrets his behaviour prior to the departure of the Resolution,’ Sophia began. ‘He’s not directly expressed those regrets this afternoon, but his sincere desire is that there be no ill will between himself and your husband. And indeed yourself, Mrs Cook.’

  ‘Mr Cook holds him in the highest regard,’ Elizabeth assured Sophia. ‘I believe he’s written to your brother, and I dare say he misses his genial company.’

  The air lightened. ‘What do you think of our illustrious islander?’

  Elizabeth felt an unexpected blush rise to her cheeks. ‘Polite and personable,’ she managed to say.

  The women paused to let a horseman pass by. Up ahead Banks and Omai walked side by side. Apart from the flowing hair of Omai, from the back it was hard to tell which was the islander and which the English gentleman.

  ‘Joseph took Omai to Yorkshire, a month or so ago. With the party was George Colman, the playwright, and his son. Young George was full of excitement when he came back, and hardly knew where to begin when I asked how he’d enjoyed the journey. At Scarborough, he not only saw the sea for the first time, but took a dip in it, from a bathing machine. Omai waded out into the tide, much colder I expect than his home waters. George waxed on about it, describing Omai as being made of mahogany, his body varnished by the gloss of the water, and “curiously veneered” the boy said.’

  ‘Veneered?’

  ‘Tattooed,’ said Sophia. Elizabeth knew of this South Seas practice—patterns and designs fixed into the skin by means of a sharp shell, or a fish’s tooth, imbued with an indelible dye. ‘From the small of his back downwards with striped arches, broad and black,’ Sophia elaborated.

  Elizabeth could not help but look at Omai walking up ahead and imagine his indelibly decorated body beneath those fine English breeches.

  Elizabeth was as naked as the day she was born. Unlike other dreams in which she found herself in such a state, she was neither embarrassed nor ashamed. She was Eve, before partaking of the apple. As completely unaware of her nakedness as the animals of the field. In her Garden of Eden trees dripped honey-scented flowers, creamy cupped pendulous flowers, with stamens thick with pollen. Brightly coloured birds adorned the trees, blue and yellow macaws. Butterflies and fireflies rose from her hair like a shower of fireworks.

  A light balmy breeze moved Elizabeth through the garden to a lagoon etched in moonlight, her toes caressed by tiny lapping waves and the soft nibbling mouths of fish.

  Elizabeth did not find it odd that a man appeared, clothed in English finery while she was naked. He danced to the rhythm of a drum, and with each beat took off a piece of clothing, throwing item after item into the sea where the flickering fish ate them till there was no trace of clothes at all. Elizabeth admired the line of his chest, the muscles of his arms, the buttons of dark brown nipples, his legs firmly planted in the sand, drops of water glistening on his thighs. He turned to show her his buttocks tattooed in striped arches, like the wings of birds on the willow pattern plates.

  Her bo
nes felt loose in her body, no hard or rigid parts to her, languid as the breath of warm wind which moved the coconut palms. The man was close, and now they were both in the water, lapped by its teasing ripple. Desire drenched Elizabeth, every pore of her body open to it. The man reached out his arms and enfolded her, a flash at the point of contact, but there was no sudden sensation, merely the languid desire rippling into the water. His lips parted, full generous lips, like the wings of a great bird preparing for flight. She was ready. Ready to receive his mouth, to be engulfed, like Leda, by his great wings.

  When he was a hair’s breadth from her, when she was about to dissolve into him, into the sea, Elizabeth woke up. Her hair was sticking to her cheeks, her heart racing. The pillow, which she was holding to her breast, was damp with sweat. She could smell James, the yeasty gamey smell of his passion, yet he was nowhere in the room. She had been dreaming. Of birds, and fish and the sea. A man. All quickly fading from her memory. Elizabeth rose and padded to the window—perhaps James was returning this very minute. She looked up and down the street, but all she saw was the soupy fog of a London morning.

  In June 1775, when Elizabeth had run out of Endeavour letters to reread, she received a fresh one. James was in Cape Town, homeward bound. All his brave Resolution boys were in excellent health, and James said to tell cousin Charles that ‘Mr Kendall’s watch had exceeded the expectations of its most zealous advocate.’