The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (6 page)

‘. . . like bacon!’ said the Captain, triumphant. ‘Well, shiny like bacon can sometimes be.’

‘She’s certainly quite striking,’ agreed the pirate with a scarf.

‘If you say so. Can’t say she made much of an impression on me. To be honest, I barely remember anything about her at all.’ The Captain trailed off, because, at that moment, through a porthole, he caught sight of Mary emerging from her cabin. She strolled across the deck, draped a delicate hand over the boat’s railing, and shook her hair loose in the breeze. For some weird reason the Captain was pretty sure that she managed to do all that in slow motion. He hopped off his desk and patted down his beard.

‘Anyhow, number two, can’t stay and chinwag all day. I’ve just realised that I should probably go and carry out my regular boat inspection.’

And, before the pirate with a scarf could point out it was Thursday, and that boat inspections were on Tuesdays, and also that they only took place every six years or so anyway, because the health and safety regime onboard was notoriously lax, the Pirate Captain had already barrelled out the door.

The Captain’s boat inspections were always pretty slapdash, because they mainly just involved him looking at the ropes and planks and barnacles and then nodding to show that he approved of whatever they happened to be doing. But today’s inspection was even less thorough than usual, because as soon as he was done approving of a blocky wood thing with a hole in it, the Captain forgot all about inspecting things and turned his attention to Mary instead. She didn’t seem to have noticed him, as she stood gazing out across the lake with a faraway look on her face. The Pirate Captain cricked his neck, narrowed his eyes, and decided that now seemed a good time to employ his patented conversational gambit, which was also known as ‘the standard protocol’ – first of all he would establish himself as
aloof
, then he’d be
funny
, and finally he’d be
deep
. It never failed to impress a lady and when it did, that was the exception that proved the rule, because it was foolproof.

Aloof

‘Excuse me,’ said the Captain, sauntering over to Mary. ‘Would you mind moving? You’re in the way of some vital nautical equipment there. This is a pirate boat, not a women’s changing room in a fashionable boutique.’

Mary looked down at where he was pointing. ‘I’m sorry, Pirate Captain. I didn’t realise this . . . uh . . . dead crab, is it? . . . was so important.’

The Pirate Captain poked the crab with the toe of his boot. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, because you’re a lubber. As it happens, that dead crab tells us how many sharks there are nearby. I’d explain how, but I’m not sure your vague Romantic brain would be able to handle the science. It’s something to do with barometric pressure. For your information, there are no sharks nearby.’ He did his nonchalant yawn again. ‘So, anyway, what are you doing out here on deck?’

‘I was just admiring the view, Pirate Captain.’

‘Hmmph! I’ve got more important things to worry about than
views
,’ he snorted. ‘Like destiny. I’m quite high-minded and
aloof
from the mundane, you see. You may want to look that word up in the dictionary, because you probably don’t know it. I’ll save you the trouble – “aloof” means “conspicuously uninvolved and distant”. That’s me all over.’

Mary seemed a bit put out, which was usually a sign that the standard protocol was working its magic.

‘Have I offended you, Pirate Captain? Because I’d say you’re being more “obnoxious” than “aloof”.’

The Pirate Captain thought he’d probably done enough ‘aloof’ by now. The trick was making the transition to ‘funny’ as seamless as possible.

Funny

‘Anyhow!’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘I heard a funny story the other day. There was a pirate and he couldn’t remember where he’d buried his treasure. So he press-ganged a classful of children and forced them to dig up an entire island and then – this is the funny bit – then he realised that he’d buried it on a
completely different island
. Ha ha! Imagine!’

‘Those poor children. That sounds awful!’

‘The
wrong island
. You can picture his face.’

Mary didn’t laugh. The Pirate Captain assumed that maybe she didn’t understand pirate humour and preferred blander land-based jokes. ‘Would it be funnier if he was a cowboy? No? Okay, what do you think of the Duke of Wellington? Imagine if he got his arm stuck in a door. I expect it would sound something like this . . .’

The Pirate Captain did an impression of the Duke of Wellington and then followed it with an impression of Queen Victoria trying to buy a tin of shoe polish and then a sequence of other famous people in situations that you wouldn’t expect to find them. Mary somehow continued to manage to keep from laughing. The Pirate Captain decided satire wasn’t really her thing, so he changed tack and just pulled a series of funny faces.

‘Well, Pirate Captain,’ said Mary after a few more awkward minutes had passed, ‘this has been . . . very interesting, but I think I should go and check on Percy.’

Deep

The Pirate Captain decided he’d better squeeze in the final stage whilst he still had a chance, so he stopped pulling a funny face and instead pointed at his eyes, which he tried to make look as big and caring as possible.

‘No need to run off, Mary. Can I call you Mary? Mary. Why don’t we talk about you and any feelings you might be having. I’m a very good listener.’

Mary stifled a laugh, tried to look the Pirate Captain in the eye and then had to look away again. He decided this was probably a delayed reaction left over from ‘funny’.

‘Let’s see now,’ she said. ‘I can tell you that I’m a feminist. I believe in the right of women to be treated as equal with men.’
¹³

The Pirate Captain took off his hat and held it to his breast. ‘Neptune’s teeth! I don’t believe it! I’m a feminist too. I thought I was the only one, but there are two of us! Every day I wake up and look out of my porthole at the big sky and think how awful it is that somewhere under that same sky, a woman is being overlooked for promotion or told to “give us a smile” by some builders.’

‘There’s rather more to it than that, Pirate Captain.’

‘Of course there is. You don’t need to tell me how hard it is to be a feminist in this cruel manly world. I’ve suffered more than anyone. You should hear the stick I get from other pirate captains for having Jennifer on board. It’s hardly her fault that, as a woman at sea, she brings terrible luck to the whole crew. I really don’t blame her for the misfortune she’s caused – the bankruptcy, my temporary madness, that business with the cannibal and so on. Because she’s more than made up for it with her can-do attitude. So, if you want to do any feminism here on my boat, feel free. And if you get taken with the urge to burn your petticoat, I have a large fireplace in my office.’

‘I appreciate the sentiment, Pirate Captain, although I’m not sure you’ve quite grasped what feminism involves. In fact, you sort of sound as if you have an ulterior motive.’

The Pirate Captain was pretty sure that ‘ulterior motive’ was just another way of saying ‘hidden depths’. He nodded.

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘If you knew how many hidden depths I had your pretty eyes would pop right out of your winsome face. Not literally of course – that would be disgusting. I wouldn’t envy the man who had to clean up a pair of popped eyes, especially given the state of this deck. I’m not sure we even have any cleaning products that work for popped eyes, although I suppose a general viscera cleaner would do the trick. You’d need some elbow grease and a decent scourer, depending on how long you’d left the eyes there because, between you and me, the lads can be pretty lazy and they’ve been known to leave organs lying about on deck for weeks, no matter how many times I tell them. Do you Romantics have the same problem?’

Mary shook her head. ‘Not really, Pirate Captain.’

The Pirate Captain remembered he’d been talking about something less interesting but more important. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve gone off on a tangent. What was I saying before I got on to popped eyes?’

‘You’d done “aloof” and “funny” and were about halfway through “deep”, I think.’

‘Oh yes. Anyway, I’m also a quarter Irish, one of the most sensitive ethnic groups.’

It was about now that he’d expect the attractive lady to swoon into his arms, but Mary stayed unexpectedly upright. A creeping realisation started to dawn on him. ‘Wait a minute. Did you just say “halfway through ‘deep’”?’

Mary gave the Pirate Captain a frank, but not unfriendly, smile. ‘I’m afraid so, Pirate Captain. I
have
enjoyed this chat a great deal, but I really think I should go to check on Percy. On account of him being my fiancée.’ She held up a finger with a ring on it, rather apologetically. ‘See you later, Pirate Captain.’ And with that, she turned on a shapely heel and disappeared below decks.

The Captain stomped back into his cabin, and made enough noise banging astrolabes into things to ensure that the pirate with a scarf would come and find out what was going on.

‘You’re not going to believe this, number two,’ he fumed, ‘but my patented Aloof/Funny/Deep method has drawn a blank.’

The pirate with a scarf looked sympathetic. ‘Sorry to hear that, sir.’

‘Possibly I got the ratios muddled. Maybe these Romantics require more of the deep and less of the other bits? Or perhaps she’s got the wrong sort of brain, one that somehow fails to respond to my natural magnetic pull. Like a broken compass. Yes, that’s probably it: she’s like a miserable, creamy-skinned broken compass.’

The Captain slumped into his armchair.

‘Also, she says she’s engaged to that Shelley fellow. It’s preposterous!’

‘Ah, well, that does make the situation difficult.’

‘I don’t see why! Look at me – I’m married to the sea, but I’m not letting that get in the way of things, am I? Besides, we’re on a
lake
at the moment, and you know what they say: whilst the big wobbly blue cat is away, the pirate mice will play.’

‘Oh well,’ said the pirate with a scarf, who found matters of the heart both confusing and slightly frightening. ‘Any sign of an impending adventure? I just bumped into Mister Shelley on the way to breakfast, and he seemed rather cross that nothing had got going yet.’

The Captain digested this news, and tapped his teeth. ‘You know what the problem is – curse of the intellectual! I’ve been
over-thinking
it.’

‘I suppose that
could
be the case,’ said the pirate with a scarf, doubtfully.

‘It’s time to employ my trademark direct approach. Listen up, number two: here’s the plan – we’re going to kill two fish with one cannonball. By which I mean metaphorical fish, obviously. One of the better-looking fish is Mary, and one of the fish is getting this adventure started.’

‘Is the cannonball metaphorical too? Or is it a regular cannonball?’

‘No, the cannonball is a
clever plan
, for which I’m going to need a couple of the crew, the remains of that seal carcass, and for you to run me a bath.’

Five

In The Grip Of Ghostly Gums

Byron, Shelley and Mary had barely got halfway through their inedible breakfast of muesli and fusilli when a strange unearthly wailing noise echoed down from the deck of the pirate boat. Nobody needed much more of an excuse to put aside their bowls in relief and hurry upstairs to see what was going on.

‘Oh! My word!’ exclaimed the pirate with a scarf, who was already out on the deck waiting for them. ‘Look at this poor creature!’

He pointed, slightly sheepishly, to a greyish lump writhing about near the mast. An eagle-eyed observer may have described it as looking a great deal like the pirate in red wodged into a hollowed-out-and-then-sewn-back-up-again seal carcass.

‘A poor seal pup,’ the pirate with a scarf continued, apparently unable to meet anyone’s gaze, ‘cruelly harpooned by Eskimos.’ The pirate in green popped up from behind a barrel, waving a harpoon and dressed in an oversized parka.

‘Eskimos?’
¹⁴
said
Shelley
,
incredulous
. ‘
On
Lake
Geneva
?’