Pirate Story 0.0

Introduction


I was born in a small shack in the Caribbean. More of a hovel then a house, really, but a home nonetheless. There was one room that I shared with my mother. We only lived there until I was seven, and so I can hardly remember it, but I doubt that any child could ever forget the peeling painting and the stench of mould. I can still see the rats crawling along the aching wooden floor, searching for dropped crumbs from our plates. They too were slim. Skinny. Skeletal.

"It will be better in England," she had said. "We can make something of ourselves. I promise."

"Why? People leave England to come here."

"We're going to England."

"I don't want to."

"We're going."

"Mama, please."

"Be quiet, Elizabeth. Just be quiet." She had begun to sob, running her fingers through her greasy hair. I seem to remember that it was always greasy, yet the colour of her locks is a mystery to me. "You don't know how hard I've worked to feed you. You don't know. You're just a child."

We went, of course. She spent most of the voyage below, her skin taking on a pale shade that I had never seen before. There was a doctor, Smyth, onboard. He said it was natural; fear, stress and the rhythm of the sea often causes sickness. He stayed below with my mother and the other passengers for the entire journey, tending to their needs.

I, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get away from the stench of the hull.

My days were spent on the deck with the sailors. I would watch them work, climb the rigging and take turns at the helm, with Captain's permission, of course. They told me stories, of pirates like Blackbeard and Bartholomew and Low. But my favourite was Anne Bonny, a woman that turned to pirating when her father made her marry a man she hardly knew. She was brave and beautiful and fierce. Even her fellow pirates feared her.

Mama, of course, disapproved of such stories.

Each night, I would sneak onto the deck to talk with the sailors on watch. They told me the stories, drinking their rations of rum. I would watch, sitting cross legged on the scrubbed wooden deck of the ship with my elbows on my knees, as they swung around with a sword that only we could see. They would fight off the vicious pirates. They would tell of the great captains. Their words filled my dreams.

It was hard to leave to leave them when we finally docked in Portsmouth. The Captain ruffled my dark brown hair and tossed me a golden coin as my mother ran down the gangplank, awau from the rocking of the sea.

"It was a pleasure, Miss Elizabeth. You look after your mother now. Smyth'll be checking in on her next time we're in port."

"Aye, sir. Please bring back more stories, sir."

"Aye, miss. Take care now."

Mama had made England to sound perfect. She told me of bright flowers and beautiful ladies in silk. She said that it was full of opportunities. She said I would love it. She lied. She often lied. It was all she knew. From the moment I stepped away from the old ship, I wanted to go home.

It had rained that day. It has hardly stopped since we arrived.

We were to stay with my grandfather and his wife. They lived in a townhouse of red brick a little way from the docks. It had a white door with a golden handle. A golden lion's head sat in the middle of the door holding a ring in his snarling mouth. There were three storeys to the house, with a large garden behind it, fenced off by a grey stone wall.
My mother put down our one patched up bag of torn and tattered clothes onto the white marble steps before raising her shaking hand to the lion door knocker.

"Stand up straight, Elizabeth," she said a she smoothed out my brown homespun skirts. "We have to look our best."

"Why?"

A man in a stiff white wig came to the door, his head held high and his eyes slanting down toward us. I fidgeted a little, and mama's hand pushed onto the small of my back. She smiled at him.

"Yes?"

"Is this Master Locke's home still?"

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, but it's important. I have a report on his sugar plantation in St. Lucia." He turned aside and we followed, mother carrying our bag. She turned to me, whispering in my ear. "Don't touch anything. Let me do the talking. Smile."

The interior was beautiful, filled with strange objects that I had never seen before and a few that I recognised; a stuffed baby crocodile, a caged green parrot nodding his head and rug like the ones our friends made back home. We were led past room after room, each with doors opening onto brightly lit rooms filled with cushioned chairs and fine paintings.

A man sat in a red velvet chair behind a dark mahogany desk. His back was hunched and his head down. He muttered numbers to himself, a pen making scratches on the crisp cream page of the leather bound book in front of him. The doorman cleared his throat into his white gloved hand and still the man did not look up from his work.

"You have visitors, sir."

"Seventeen shillings. Thank you, Stephen."

We were left with the counting man. He gave no indication that we could sit, yet my mother dumped our bag on the floor and sat in the red chair opposite the man. She rested her elbows on the table and stared at him. His brow furrowed in concentration and it was clear that her presence was unwanted. He finally lay down his pen and leant back in his chair staring at us.

"How may I help you?"

"Do you not recognise me?"

"That does not tell me what you want, Abigail."

"Take us back."

Silence filled the air. He stared at her, tapping his fingers together gently as he thought. I took the time look at him. His pale blue eyes were shrouded by the lines on his large forehead, yet they were quick and thoughtful. He had thin lips surrounded by a thinning grey beard on his double chin. The whole appearance of this strange man was somehow comforting, a wise man, a strong man.

He stood, reaching for a wooden cane with an ivory handle. I stepped back as he leant to look into my face. His hands were warm when he put his palms either side of my face, turning my head this way and that. Satisfied, he straightened and spoke again to my mother.

"I will take the girl, permanently. But you, Abigail, must prove your worth. You cannot expect to come back here after seven years and everything to go back to normal."

"Please."

"No. You made your choice when you left for that sailor."

"I made a mistake."

"No, Abigail. I'll give you twenty pounds a year but that's it."

My mother stood abruptly, glaring at the man.

"That's not enough." She turned to me. "Come, Elizabeth. We've wasted too much of this man's time."

"I said that I will take her." He stood between my mother and I. If I had not seen his face, I would have said that he was a young man from the way that he stood. Later I would learn that all the years he spent in the king's navy kept his bones supple. "She is not to be punished for your sins, Abigail."

"Keep your hands off her! She's my daughter."

I expected him to step back, but he did not. He acted as one who anticipated such a reaction. In a flash, he was standing behind her, his hands restraining her wrists as she kicked and screamed. Footsteps ran along the corridor outside, more than one pair. I shrunk into the corner of the room, fearful. A loyal daughter would have gone to help, but I feared my mother when she was in this state.

Once, when we were still in St. Lucia, I came home in the middle of a rainstorm, my clothes soaked through. She was crazed then, too. Richard, our neighbour, came over to find my mother dragging me up the stairs by my hair. He restrained her then, just as Master Locke did in his study.

The doorman came in, followed by the cook and the lady of the house. The latter fluttered around, screaming, her hand over her mouth as the two servants helped their master to hold my mother's limbs between them.

"Isabella, stop flustering and go see to the child."

Isabella was an elderly woman, not quite as ancient as her husband, but still past her prime years. She must have been pretty in her youth, for there were traces of a fine bone structure below the sags of her tanned skin. Her black hair, fighting the growing silver shades that had begun to spread, was pinned tightly onto her head. She extended her jewelled right hand to me and I recognised her pearly white smile between her full lips as the same as my mother's.

"Come, child. Let's get you something to eat. You must be hungry."
She ushered me out of the room, away from the screams of my mother. I noticed a young boy, just older than be, run out of the door. The woman smiled down at me, her hazel eyes gentle.

"Don't worry, child. You're safe now."