A Man's Reach; Chapter Two.
Chapter One- A Quiet Evening
Chapter Two: Pieces Of Me I Carelessly Lost
In which Sparrow is warned.
I woke up midday, on sheets, and not completely naked, which in itself was a novelty, these days. Then I remembered last night and sat bolt upright, checking myself over. I appeared to be still in possession of all my clothes, and completely sans barnacles, so far pretty promising start to the day.
There was a note sitting on top of a pile of clothes, next to a cold cup of tea:
Sorry, have had to go to Church. There is warm water in the bath by the fireplace, if such a thing appeals to you. Clothes are clean, and should fit you. Sorry couldn’t find you a hat, or new jacket. Help yourself to bread etc. Will probably have to go and check on Henry Basset. Will make sure he is uncomfortable for you,
Don’t know if I’ll see you later, you may want to get on, if so, high tide is at 4 in the afternoon.
James.
P.s: don’t steal anything. I will know.
Pompous git. Just for that, I slid a few items into my pockets and thought about leaving straight away, to try and stow away somewhere, catch the tide, and try my luck somewhere without Bassets. But gods, I felt awful. It wouldn’t be so bad if I just stayed until he got back, would it? ‘sides, it was safer to sneak out by night. And a bath would be nice. It would give me a chance to inspect the damage.
I stripped off those embuggered tarty clothes, and swore when I saw all the bruises. God Damn Basset, and all those who sail in him. Bloody good thing Norrington turned up when he did, cos let’s face it we all know what he was going to do to me, don’t we, and I’d rather not say it outloud, cos the thought makes me want to hurl all last night’s cheese and beef all over old Norrington’s fancy carpet and I don’t think he’d like that.
So, I’m afraid, lads and lasses you find Captain Sparrow rather brought low in recent times, a veritable skinny shadow of his former glory. With neither crew nor beloved Pearl, nor even fabulous hat, he’s resorted to rather less honourable tactics to try and get the blunt together to buy a new hat, hire a crew and steal ship. Cos, yes. I’d lost her. Again. Rather painfully. Again. But this time physically as well as emotionally painfully.
Now grateful as I was to Norrington, I was a mite suspicious about the whole set-up. I mean, you don’t go from a long-standing invitation to dance on nothing, to a “well, help yourself to the bread when you’re hungry”, without there being something in it for the benefactor. Do you? No. No you don’t.
However, no harm in letting Norrington’s ample parlour sustain me for a bit, because penniless as I now am due to my unfortunate and misleading luck with the cards, I didn’t have any other way of getting food or shelter. The sensible part was thinking “Bide your time, don’t do anything rash, and get the hell out before one of you does something you’ll regret.” But the less sensible part, which, to be honest, I’ve always thought of as the better three-quarters, was practically gagging for the Commodore, because he is honourable and good and a lot of other things most of the men and women recently hadn’t been.
The clothes were pretty close to my old ones, but nicer. Linen shirt, loose trews, some underwear. Picking them up, a roll of something black fell out of one of the pockets.
It was a stick of kohl. The Commodore had brought me some kohl. That was….thoughtful. No. I’m not tearing up, don’t be soft. It’s just not something you’d have thought he’d have thought of. For a second, I wondered if he was taking the piss. Then I thought, who cared? He’d given me back a little bit of the me that I’d so carelessly lost, and so motives didn’t really matter. In fact, the whole ensemble made me feel cleaner than any bath could have. Looking in the mirror, the red jacket over the new shirt, I just needed my hair and my hat back and I’d’ve felt like myself.
A little while after dressing and finding some food, I was feeling, if not quite the full shilling, then at least the full ha’penny, and no longer falling over when I tried to walk. For want of anything else to do, I drifted down to the docks near the fort. Just looking at the ships, you know, dreaming, as a man might when reality is not preferable. Even with the Commodore’s unexpected kindness, I was in a pickle and no mistake. More than a pickle; I was in the pickle, the chutney, and the jam, all at once.
There was a dark speck on the horizon, and for a heart-leaping moment I thought it was the Pearl. Nah. I hoped it was the Pearl. I knew it couldn’t be.
If I concentrated hard, really, really hard, I almost imagined I could hear her calling. A by god, was she pissed off. It’s not every man who manages to lose his first lady three times in the space of thirteen years.
Thirteen years? It couldn’t be that long. Let’s see. I got m’Pearl back…wazzit eleven years after Barbossa stole her first. Then there was that jaunt to the Orient. That’s twelve years. Then there was that business up near Boston and then back here.
Bloody Sodding Hell.
Still, now at least I had something to focus on.
Make that, something else to focus on.
“What’re you doing?” A small, grubby urchin of a kid, with bright ginger hair and indeterminate in gender, was dangling upside from a railing above me.
“Listening.” I tried to quell the panic rising. It could be alright. They could’ve forgotten. Thirteen years was a long time by any one’s standards. Long enough to forget about a little debt.
The child gave me that perplexed look of childish interest that is found, you know, in children. “What for?”
“Ships and mermaids.”
“Oh.” It dropped down in front of me. “Can I join in?”
I gestured, “Why not? You gotta concentrate though.” It screwed its muddy face, to demonstrate how hard it was concentrating. After a few seconds it sighed, “I can’t hear anything.”
I wasn’t really in the mood for playing nanny, but then I didn’t have anything else to do, so I picked the kid up, and sat it in my lap. “Right, close your eyes, but don’t screw them up. Now, what’s your favourite song?”
“Umm………The song my da sings. He’s a sailor. In the navy. ” It pointed to the horizon. “That’s the boat he’s on out there.” My heart didn’t sink at all at that. “He’s going to be back this evening, my mammy says.”
“Is he now? Fine men, the navy. Some of them anyway. Well, mermaids like a bit of charming with singing, so you just go ahead and sing it.”
And damn me, but the little thing pipes up with what I recalled was the Seal song, which my ma who was about as Irish white sandy beaches and palm trees, which is not at all, used to sing, with the original words and everything. The song’s about a seal woman, who knows the skerries, and is singing a curse to some sealers who’re eating and if that isn’t a perfect mermaid charmer, I don’t know what is. And it worked too.
Two dark, streamlined heads with what I’d always think of as aristocratic faces popped up from the water, and the first, smiling with rows and rows of shark teeth, purred, “Hell- o! Don’t you two just look like lunch and pudding?”
The other, who seemed older, although you can never tell with the sea-women, shoved her, snapped, “behave” and turned to me, “Well met, little Sparrow, and young singer.”
I nudged the kid, “Say hello” I hissed.
Wide eyed, it whispered, “’lo”
The elder, head cocked to the side said, “Now, you’re a long way from home, to be singing a song like that.”
“Me’n’mam’n’da came from Ireland a little while back.”
“And where’s your mother now?”
The kid shook its head then, “’don’t know,”, but joy of joys, the cry of “Mary! Mary!” came from the other side of the dock.
The two mermaids vanished into the waves with barely a ripple.
I poked the girl, now I knew that that was what she was and not the androgene I’d thought she was in the stomach, “That your name, miss?”
“’s.”
“That your mum?”
“’s”
I grabbed her round the waist, and managed to restrain the gasp of pain when she accidentally kicked my chest, and stuck our heads through the railings, “Ma’am? This one yours?”
A red headed, bustling woman, in a mass of skirts, looking flustered, “Oh! Mary! There you are! Thank you! I hope she’s not been a trouble.”
I stuck the kid on the ledge, “No trouble at all.” I stood and bowed, “Jack Smith, Mrs…?”
“Flannigan.”
“Charmed to meet you both, Mrs and Miss Flannigan.”
She made a sort of half curtsey, “And the same to you, sir. I’m really sorry, I’ve got to get on. Her da’s back, and I really must get the side of lamb in.”
Mary grinned, “We bin talking to mermaids,” her mother picked her up, “And I sang da’s song, and they came and one of them threatened to eat me, but the other one told it off, an…” I watched them leave, and then turned back to the sea. The elder mermaid had resurfaced, with an expression like death twisting her face.
“Time’s run out. They’re coming for you, birdie. This time, Tia can’t help. And neither can we.”
I swallowed, “I don’t suppose I can…negotiate?” She gave me a look. “How long have I got?”
“It’s been twelve years, and fifty-one weeks. How long do you imagine you have?” And with a flick of her tail, she was gone.
I spent the rest of the day avoiding looking into the water. It was a dejected and ruffled Sparrow that made his way back in the gathering dark along the docks towards the fort. I wasn’t even entirely sure if it was wise to go back to the Commodore’s, what with…everything. And. Tomorrow, someone like him would have servants and tomorrow they would be back, so perhaps Norrington had been thinking of getting rid of me before then anyway. I had a week, though. Just a week. If I stayed here, I could devote more time to thinking out a plan. If I left, I might be caught somewhere I was vulnerable. Eh, more vulnerable.
A light in ground floor window caught my attention and I stopped. A silhouette of a man at desk, writing. The window slightly ajar. Really, commodore, work on a Sunday? The temptation was too great… I could hardly leave without a last hurrah…
Chapter Three: Essentials and Inessential s
In which James is interrupted.