A Few Long Questions and No Short Answers
Life was idyllic. Life was beautiful and full of excitement. No matter how many positive affirmations Elizabeth muttered to herself out here on the littoral the outlook was still grim. There was no fresh water, just bootleg rum, no food except whatever fishes lived in these waters, no shelter worth speaking of and worst of all, the pirate was watching every move she made.
Irritated by his attention, she walked out a little further so that the warm waves would rush round her ankles and between her toes. All the pirate stories in the entire world couldn't have prepared her for the bloody- minded stupidity and sheer discomfort of an actual piratical lifestyle. Enough rum to make her seriously ill awaited her back where Jack was building something that was either quite a good bonfire or a rather amateurish hut.
"And so what now?" she said to herself, carefully lining up a row of footprints along the damp white sands. "Do I just wait here to be rescued or just make the best of what may be my final days? The chances are that we will both die before I am rescued."
The pirate seemed unfairly content to Elizabeth. She had walked to the other side of the island almost without realising she was moving. He was visible through the trees, idly pacing, sitting and drinking. There was a kind of unconscious grace in his movements which captivated her entirely against her will. His white eyes and white teeth were savage and bright against his sun-darkened face and all that mysterious kohl was smeared dirtily from his eyes to his sharp girlish cheekbones. Lost in her thoughts, her breath caught in her throat. Maybe the scuffle for her affections was a three-way scrap now?
She listened to him declaiming to the leaning palms and oblivious sands,
"Where the hell is she? I presume she's gone looking for victuals. Or possibly soap. All these upper class women positively reek of soap and colognes. Quite puts an honest buccaneer off his ravishing and romancing."
Elizabeth's main failing had always been her temper. She immediately assumed that Jack's idle words, not even intended for her ear, meant that her honour was under threat. She charged through the palms with confrontation on her mind. She felt let down; both Will and Norrington had spectacularly failed in their separate and competing duties to protect her from this kind of thing. Her hands made tight hard fists.
"Men?! Damn them all!" she hissed.
In a fury of kicked-up leaves and sand she marched over to Jack who was busy making himself one with the rum. She blustered.
"They are looking for me and they will find me! If you so much as look at me with an impure thought I'll have you hung!"
Jack rose and turned to face her. In a single step he was within inches of her, hands poised to take her roughly by the shoulders. Elizabeth felt a sharp echo of that first time they met, soaked through, cold steel at her throat and gasping for air. Fear and loathing and anger and shades of something else entirely lurched in her stomach. Oh, he's dangerous when he's this close. But due to the something in her stomach that she wouldn't dare put a name to, she can't let him out of her sight, either.
"I'm afraid I haven't got the slightest idea of what you're talking about, Elizabeth. Do explain." His words were quiet but so unexplainably threatening. Exasperated and a little afraid, all she could think to do was correct his etiquette.
"Its Miss Swann to brigands like you," she said, testily.
Taking a step back, Jack sheathed his sword. He seemed defeated and distracted and turned so she couldn't see his face. Still with self-defence on her mind, Elizabeth noticed that in the brief rush of movement that Jacks silver and black pistol had fallen from his belt and was lying unprotected and innocent on the sand. Jack spoke with an unusual note of sincerity in his voice. Elizabeth saw no reason to believe him any more than usual. People with their back turned can lie much more easily than when they are looking you in the eye.
"It was never my intention to harm you, Miss Swann. Or interfere with your honour for that matter. You're Will's lady and common politeness says I've got to at least pretend to respect that."
Elizabeth reached for the gun and held it tight. She made ready to fire, with the smooth cold handle pressed between her palms. She was shaking. She felt like she knew and didn't know why she was shaking as well. It was all very odd, just like the unfamiliar object tight in her hands.
"No," he continued, "my intentions towards you may not be entirely pure but I'm man enough to back down when I'm beaten." He walked a step further away from her, his back still turned. Elizabeth had the pistol poised to blow his heart clean out of his chest.
"I mean, you do actually like the poor wretch, don't you? I'd hate to see him perish valiantly for the sake of some hussy who's too busy flirting with us honest pirates and bloody nobby naval officers to return his stupidly devoted affection. Wouldn't that be awful?"
She was scandalised, shaking more than ever. She gripped the gun harder. She spoke with anger and a quiver in her voice.
"You mean to addle my brain with liquor and lies and then have your way with me? Don't you!? You need to learn I'm not just some tart out on Tortuga! Good bye Jack."
She pulled the trigger.
Jack turned around and removed the inert pistol from her hands. Putting his face altogether too close to hers he said,
"Please, next time you decide to try and kill me, take the damned safety catch off so you don't damage my lovely gun. Thanks love."
He secured the pistol upon his person and offered Elizabeth a generous bottle of rum as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He indicated a bare patch of sand beside him.
"Sit yourself down here and tell me about your Mother."
***
The conversation flowed only too well after a little more time and a lot more rum. Jack spun fantastical tales of miraculous escapes and Elizabeth began to think that this particular piece of pirate scum didn't pose her honour half as much of a threat as she posed to whatever remained of his.
The sun crept down to hide behind the horizon for the night and left the sky in the care of the bright stars of the tropics. Jack's lumpen pile of wood was revealed to be a perfectly adequate bonfire and things seemed altogether rosy. Elizabeth had even ceased to care that she was reclining on a beach in her underwear with a known philanderer and seducer of women. In fact, Elizabeth had a plan and was just uninhibited enough to carry it to fruition. Staring out to sea and biting her lip she said,
"Do you really think they'll rescue me, Jack?"
He noted that maybe her words were bearing the faintest fringes of slurring. He decided that he too had a plan and that he was shameless and skilled enough for it to work.
"Or course they will. Governor's daughter, commodore's bit of fluff and then of course there's Will- ." He left the sentence hanging for a while and took a fierce pull of rum. "-but of course he's locked up in the brig of the Pearl and about to get his throat slit. Although I wouldn't rule out some earnest yet improbable escape effort. You see, like your good self, they think I'm duty bound to molest or otherwise ravish you."
It sounded like a threat, but it was delivered with a disarming leer so maybe it wasn't. Or maybe it was.
Jack continued, half to himself,
"Although of course I wouldn't do such a thing, regardless of the spirit or loveliness of the lady in question. There's far too much sand to ravish anyone here. It gets into all manner of places."
Elizabeth snorted with unexpected laughter at the strange man before her. She was sure she could blame her blatantly unwise plan and all his apparent charm and overall rakish attractiveness on a surfeit of rum. After all, Captain Sparrow was almost twice her age and he was absolutely nothing like Will.
The still, sticky air was cooling. In the flickering red light Elizabeth made an effort not to let her eyes meet the pirate's. Staring down into the sand she shook the rum bottle, stirring up the dregs.
"It sounds a little trite, Jack, but I'm terribly sorry I tried shooting you at all. I misunderstood you. I'm sorry."
Jack met this with raised eyebrows.
"That's not much of an apology, is it? You've caused me no end of trouble. Loads more problems than that! You totally failing to shoot me is the least of my worries, love." He waved his arms as if to indicate a whole world of trouble and strife.
"I'd have been able to pinch a ship and leave relatively peacefully if you hadn't have done your amateur acrobatics off the top of that damn fort. Then bloody Young Will wouldn't have had all his blood up against me and life would have been a little duller but probably much, much longer. To be honest, Elizabeth, I thought at first you'd be as dull as Will. But I am pleased to say I was so very wrong. You're totally awful but you're quite a girl; you remind me of my Aunt Annie. She taught me all I know, except the parts I learnt myself, of course. And all the bits I made up. Actually, I think she just taught me to curse; now I think about it. But anyway. "
Elizabeth laughed with a certain amount of abandon. She was playing chess now, watching the moves of the pieces of conversation and looking for the right time to strike with her Queen. Jack was eyeing her carefully and critically. He asked a risky question.
"They say you should marry a man who makes you laugh. How would you rate your beau in the comedic stakes?"
After some thought, chewing the idea and racking her brains she came to a more or less honest conclusion.
"You know, as horrid as this sounds, I don't recall ever laughing with him, only ever at him. I must feel a little sorry for him, I suppose."
Jack nodded in hearty agreement.
"He's a big wet blanket, that boy. Bit of a bore. Somewhat.strange in the head. If I was quite bold I'd suggest he doesn't quite have the balls to handle a feisty madam such as yourself." He illustrated his remark with a graphic anatomical gesture. Elizabeth feigned an expression of haughty shock and tried on the manner of a coquette.
"How dare you! You're shocking! But I don't know what you mean!"
"Well," Jack said, spreading his hands as if addressing a simpleton, "I infer from all the available evidence that our precious wunderkind is either a eunuch, a shirt-lifter or a decent morally-upstanding young bloke."
Elizabeth nodded sagely, playing along. Jack expounded his theory.
"Now he isn't a shirt-lifter, not after that little incident in Tortuga that he made me promise not to tell you about and he couldn't be a decent bloke because, with regards to the fairer sex there isn't such thing. We're all weasels and knaves and fornicators, Elizabeth -erm Miss Swann, every last one of us."
The argument was water-tight. Elizabeth completed the proof, wringing her hands together,
"So therefore he must be a eunuch. Oh, that's a cruel shame, Jack."
"It's a cruel shame indeed. Still, worse things can and do happen at sea," he said.
Jack seemed lost in some dark, traumatic thought. They supped in silence for a short while.
Elizabeth's head was pounding and dizzy but out there in the dark red light she had ceased to give a damn. She was intrigued and her plan was working all too well.
"Jack? If Will really is a eunuch does that mean he won't be able to, ah, beget children?"
Jack pulled a face and confirmed,
"Fraid so. You'll not be able to consummate your marriage either. Poor Will. Poor you. It's a very sad story. Eunuch meets girl, girl meets pirate, eunuch rescues girl from pirate and wins her hand but not very much else of her. Very, very sad. Almost as sad as the tragedy of Romeo and Margaret. Or Juliet, whatever the bint's name was."
Elizabeth made her face drop at this assessment of her future. She was going to pretend to cry, however ridiculous and immature that was. It wasn't all that hard. All the rum and hardship had built up in her and she broke out into ugly, forced sobs. She drew her knees up to her chest and covered her face shutting out the absurd and fascinating pirate and this dreadful paradise island.
Jack never knew what to do around crying women. He usually ran away if what he was saying or doing to a woman got her all teary. Here there wasn't much hope of escape so he had to make some attempt at consolation or something. Gingerly placing an arm round her and limply patting her in the region of the shoulder blade was the best he could come up with.
"There, there," he said with not very much improvement in the situation.
"There, there?" Still nothing.
"I could tell you about Will's incident in Tortuga if you think that'd help. It's a rather funny story actually."
Heavier sobbing and no response. It had got to the point where Jacks attention was wandering and he was contemplating going to fetch more rum when Elizabeth lifted up her face from her knees. She didn't seem to Jack to be particularly blotchy to say she'd been crying.
Her plan looked solid and complete. She asked him,
"A little ravishing wouldn't be out of the question, would it?"
Jack grinned at the night. He didn't even need a plan. This girl was wasted on the boy - to hell with politeness. 'Success', he thought.
Elizabeth proudly and boldly laced her hands round his dirty tanned neck and began to make discoveries.
She discovered his terrible raised white scars. She discovered a mouth that spoke poetry to gullible, liquor-soaked women.
She discovered that close-to, Jack's skin smelt like sea-salt and leather and heavy, rich church incense.
Life was idyllic. Life was beautiful and full of excitement. No matter how many positive affirmations Elizabeth muttered to herself out here on the littoral the outlook was still grim. There was no fresh water, just bootleg rum, no food except whatever fishes lived in these waters, no shelter worth speaking of and worst of all, the pirate was watching every move she made.
Irritated by his attention, she walked out a little further so that the warm waves would rush round her ankles and between her toes. All the pirate stories in the entire world couldn't have prepared her for the bloody- minded stupidity and sheer discomfort of an actual piratical lifestyle. Enough rum to make her seriously ill awaited her back where Jack was building something that was either quite a good bonfire or a rather amateurish hut.
"And so what now?" she said to herself, carefully lining up a row of footprints along the damp white sands. "Do I just wait here to be rescued or just make the best of what may be my final days? The chances are that we will both die before I am rescued."
The pirate seemed unfairly content to Elizabeth. She had walked to the other side of the island almost without realising she was moving. He was visible through the trees, idly pacing, sitting and drinking. There was a kind of unconscious grace in his movements which captivated her entirely against her will. His white eyes and white teeth were savage and bright against his sun-darkened face and all that mysterious kohl was smeared dirtily from his eyes to his sharp girlish cheekbones. Lost in her thoughts, her breath caught in her throat. Maybe the scuffle for her affections was a three-way scrap now?
She listened to him declaiming to the leaning palms and oblivious sands,
"Where the hell is she? I presume she's gone looking for victuals. Or possibly soap. All these upper class women positively reek of soap and colognes. Quite puts an honest buccaneer off his ravishing and romancing."
Elizabeth's main failing had always been her temper. She immediately assumed that Jack's idle words, not even intended for her ear, meant that her honour was under threat. She charged through the palms with confrontation on her mind. She felt let down; both Will and Norrington had spectacularly failed in their separate and competing duties to protect her from this kind of thing. Her hands made tight hard fists.
"Men?! Damn them all!" she hissed.
In a fury of kicked-up leaves and sand she marched over to Jack who was busy making himself one with the rum. She blustered.
"They are looking for me and they will find me! If you so much as look at me with an impure thought I'll have you hung!"
Jack rose and turned to face her. In a single step he was within inches of her, hands poised to take her roughly by the shoulders. Elizabeth felt a sharp echo of that first time they met, soaked through, cold steel at her throat and gasping for air. Fear and loathing and anger and shades of something else entirely lurched in her stomach. Oh, he's dangerous when he's this close. But due to the something in her stomach that she wouldn't dare put a name to, she can't let him out of her sight, either.
"I'm afraid I haven't got the slightest idea of what you're talking about, Elizabeth. Do explain." His words were quiet but so unexplainably threatening. Exasperated and a little afraid, all she could think to do was correct his etiquette.
"Its Miss Swann to brigands like you," she said, testily.
Taking a step back, Jack sheathed his sword. He seemed defeated and distracted and turned so she couldn't see his face. Still with self-defence on her mind, Elizabeth noticed that in the brief rush of movement that Jacks silver and black pistol had fallen from his belt and was lying unprotected and innocent on the sand. Jack spoke with an unusual note of sincerity in his voice. Elizabeth saw no reason to believe him any more than usual. People with their back turned can lie much more easily than when they are looking you in the eye.
"It was never my intention to harm you, Miss Swann. Or interfere with your honour for that matter. You're Will's lady and common politeness says I've got to at least pretend to respect that."
Elizabeth reached for the gun and held it tight. She made ready to fire, with the smooth cold handle pressed between her palms. She was shaking. She felt like she knew and didn't know why she was shaking as well. It was all very odd, just like the unfamiliar object tight in her hands.
"No," he continued, "my intentions towards you may not be entirely pure but I'm man enough to back down when I'm beaten." He walked a step further away from her, his back still turned. Elizabeth had the pistol poised to blow his heart clean out of his chest.
"I mean, you do actually like the poor wretch, don't you? I'd hate to see him perish valiantly for the sake of some hussy who's too busy flirting with us honest pirates and bloody nobby naval officers to return his stupidly devoted affection. Wouldn't that be awful?"
She was scandalised, shaking more than ever. She gripped the gun harder. She spoke with anger and a quiver in her voice.
"You mean to addle my brain with liquor and lies and then have your way with me? Don't you!? You need to learn I'm not just some tart out on Tortuga! Good bye Jack."
She pulled the trigger.
Jack turned around and removed the inert pistol from her hands. Putting his face altogether too close to hers he said,
"Please, next time you decide to try and kill me, take the damned safety catch off so you don't damage my lovely gun. Thanks love."
He secured the pistol upon his person and offered Elizabeth a generous bottle of rum as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He indicated a bare patch of sand beside him.
"Sit yourself down here and tell me about your Mother."
***
The conversation flowed only too well after a little more time and a lot more rum. Jack spun fantastical tales of miraculous escapes and Elizabeth began to think that this particular piece of pirate scum didn't pose her honour half as much of a threat as she posed to whatever remained of his.
The sun crept down to hide behind the horizon for the night and left the sky in the care of the bright stars of the tropics. Jack's lumpen pile of wood was revealed to be a perfectly adequate bonfire and things seemed altogether rosy. Elizabeth had even ceased to care that she was reclining on a beach in her underwear with a known philanderer and seducer of women. In fact, Elizabeth had a plan and was just uninhibited enough to carry it to fruition. Staring out to sea and biting her lip she said,
"Do you really think they'll rescue me, Jack?"
He noted that maybe her words were bearing the faintest fringes of slurring. He decided that he too had a plan and that he was shameless and skilled enough for it to work.
"Or course they will. Governor's daughter, commodore's bit of fluff and then of course there's Will- ." He left the sentence hanging for a while and took a fierce pull of rum. "-but of course he's locked up in the brig of the Pearl and about to get his throat slit. Although I wouldn't rule out some earnest yet improbable escape effort. You see, like your good self, they think I'm duty bound to molest or otherwise ravish you."
It sounded like a threat, but it was delivered with a disarming leer so maybe it wasn't. Or maybe it was.
Jack continued, half to himself,
"Although of course I wouldn't do such a thing, regardless of the spirit or loveliness of the lady in question. There's far too much sand to ravish anyone here. It gets into all manner of places."
Elizabeth snorted with unexpected laughter at the strange man before her. She was sure she could blame her blatantly unwise plan and all his apparent charm and overall rakish attractiveness on a surfeit of rum. After all, Captain Sparrow was almost twice her age and he was absolutely nothing like Will.
The still, sticky air was cooling. In the flickering red light Elizabeth made an effort not to let her eyes meet the pirate's. Staring down into the sand she shook the rum bottle, stirring up the dregs.
"It sounds a little trite, Jack, but I'm terribly sorry I tried shooting you at all. I misunderstood you. I'm sorry."
Jack met this with raised eyebrows.
"That's not much of an apology, is it? You've caused me no end of trouble. Loads more problems than that! You totally failing to shoot me is the least of my worries, love." He waved his arms as if to indicate a whole world of trouble and strife.
"I'd have been able to pinch a ship and leave relatively peacefully if you hadn't have done your amateur acrobatics off the top of that damn fort. Then bloody Young Will wouldn't have had all his blood up against me and life would have been a little duller but probably much, much longer. To be honest, Elizabeth, I thought at first you'd be as dull as Will. But I am pleased to say I was so very wrong. You're totally awful but you're quite a girl; you remind me of my Aunt Annie. She taught me all I know, except the parts I learnt myself, of course. And all the bits I made up. Actually, I think she just taught me to curse; now I think about it. But anyway. "
Elizabeth laughed with a certain amount of abandon. She was playing chess now, watching the moves of the pieces of conversation and looking for the right time to strike with her Queen. Jack was eyeing her carefully and critically. He asked a risky question.
"They say you should marry a man who makes you laugh. How would you rate your beau in the comedic stakes?"
After some thought, chewing the idea and racking her brains she came to a more or less honest conclusion.
"You know, as horrid as this sounds, I don't recall ever laughing with him, only ever at him. I must feel a little sorry for him, I suppose."
Jack nodded in hearty agreement.
"He's a big wet blanket, that boy. Bit of a bore. Somewhat.strange in the head. If I was quite bold I'd suggest he doesn't quite have the balls to handle a feisty madam such as yourself." He illustrated his remark with a graphic anatomical gesture. Elizabeth feigned an expression of haughty shock and tried on the manner of a coquette.
"How dare you! You're shocking! But I don't know what you mean!"
"Well," Jack said, spreading his hands as if addressing a simpleton, "I infer from all the available evidence that our precious wunderkind is either a eunuch, a shirt-lifter or a decent morally-upstanding young bloke."
Elizabeth nodded sagely, playing along. Jack expounded his theory.
"Now he isn't a shirt-lifter, not after that little incident in Tortuga that he made me promise not to tell you about and he couldn't be a decent bloke because, with regards to the fairer sex there isn't such thing. We're all weasels and knaves and fornicators, Elizabeth -erm Miss Swann, every last one of us."
The argument was water-tight. Elizabeth completed the proof, wringing her hands together,
"So therefore he must be a eunuch. Oh, that's a cruel shame, Jack."
"It's a cruel shame indeed. Still, worse things can and do happen at sea," he said.
Jack seemed lost in some dark, traumatic thought. They supped in silence for a short while.
Elizabeth's head was pounding and dizzy but out there in the dark red light she had ceased to give a damn. She was intrigued and her plan was working all too well.
"Jack? If Will really is a eunuch does that mean he won't be able to, ah, beget children?"
Jack pulled a face and confirmed,
"Fraid so. You'll not be able to consummate your marriage either. Poor Will. Poor you. It's a very sad story. Eunuch meets girl, girl meets pirate, eunuch rescues girl from pirate and wins her hand but not very much else of her. Very, very sad. Almost as sad as the tragedy of Romeo and Margaret. Or Juliet, whatever the bint's name was."
Elizabeth made her face drop at this assessment of her future. She was going to pretend to cry, however ridiculous and immature that was. It wasn't all that hard. All the rum and hardship had built up in her and she broke out into ugly, forced sobs. She drew her knees up to her chest and covered her face shutting out the absurd and fascinating pirate and this dreadful paradise island.
Jack never knew what to do around crying women. He usually ran away if what he was saying or doing to a woman got her all teary. Here there wasn't much hope of escape so he had to make some attempt at consolation or something. Gingerly placing an arm round her and limply patting her in the region of the shoulder blade was the best he could come up with.
"There, there," he said with not very much improvement in the situation.
"There, there?" Still nothing.
"I could tell you about Will's incident in Tortuga if you think that'd help. It's a rather funny story actually."
Heavier sobbing and no response. It had got to the point where Jacks attention was wandering and he was contemplating going to fetch more rum when Elizabeth lifted up her face from her knees. She didn't seem to Jack to be particularly blotchy to say she'd been crying.
Her plan looked solid and complete. She asked him,
"A little ravishing wouldn't be out of the question, would it?"
Jack grinned at the night. He didn't even need a plan. This girl was wasted on the boy - to hell with politeness. 'Success', he thought.
Elizabeth proudly and boldly laced her hands round his dirty tanned neck and began to make discoveries.
She discovered his terrible raised white scars. She discovered a mouth that spoke poetry to gullible, liquor-soaked women.
She discovered that close-to, Jack's skin smelt like sea-salt and leather and heavy, rich church incense.