Almost But Not Entirely Quite Unlike Fan Fiction
The True Story of the Beautiful Mad Pirate Woman Angélique
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with any persons living or dead is, of course, purely a coincidence.
All of the characters and events portrayed are products of the author's imagination, the only exception being Captain Jack, who is largely based on a fictional character created by screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, portrayed by Johnny Depp.
For Kathleen and Moe who heard it first
For the Witches who watched and wondered
And for Captain Jack
One love
1Chapter One
I leaf through volumes of poetry, re-read scenes from plays I love, searching for stories like ours, people like us, someone like me. What would she do if she were in my boots? The problem festers, settles over me like a fog. I yearn for contact. Yearn and shun it at the same time. I thought I was so dear to you. And I am. But not as dear as I wanted to believe, I think. What did I want to believe? I wish I knew. You were the one who led me down this garden path, and I was the one who escorted us both out of there. Now I revisit the garden alone, if only in my imagination. Consider how enchanting and disenchanting it might be to call this place my own. Like silver-footed Thetis married off to her mortal husband to spare mighty Zeus the temptation. Like Helen revisiting the deserted streets of Troy, remembering all that was, all that might have been...
This ship has sailed.
We sailed together for a long time, you and me. And then one day we docked and you took your leave. I prowl the length of the ship, keep company with the Captain, gaze out at the sea in quiet moments and wonder where you are and what you are doing. Are you thinking of me too? I peek into your empty cabin sometimes, just to remember. Sometimes I imagine that I can still catch the scent of your cigars in there.
Is it love, then, what I feel for you? My heart aches, but frankly I don't know. I don't think I'd want to admit it. Certainly not to you. Probably not even to myself. I am but the pirate lass you once cherished. The renegade you held close to your heart and said you loved. Adored, even. I keep hoping for a word, a sign. I wish I could hear you say you miss the sea.
We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me hearties, yo ho!
Maraud and embezzle, and even high-jack.
Drink up me hearties, yo ho!
Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me!
There was a time when we used to sing it together. Now you seem to want to take me up to the Governor's mansion. Dress me up. Introduce me to a few people. Maybe you think that I would like it there. A pirate's life for me!
And yet, I wonder. Maybe I truly would enjoy it. The beds are warm and comfy. Good food, good wine, nice clothes and a modicum of amusement. I hate to admit it, but maybe I would be enticed by it all. If it weren't for the Governor's daughter. How long do you think it would take before she noticed your roving gaze? The way your eyes linger over me and caress my curves as you sit there sipping your fine wine? Oh you'd pledge your troth to her and behave every inch the upstanding officer she expected you to be. But still your eyes would wander and your nostrils would flare, yearning for a whiff of freedom again. Somehow, somehow, I touch you in a way that she cannot. Light a fire in your blood that she cannot.
Or perhaps I am delusional. Perhaps you have found your heaven on earth. Just because it doesn't enchant me very much doesn't mean that it shouldn't enchant you. How is it that you've changed so much? A pirate boatswain turned lowly lieutenant angling for a promotion. No longer one of a kind, but one among dozens, marching to a steady drumbeat of rules and platitudes as old as the sea. As for me, I'll take the sea.
I can't clearly remember how I found my way aboard. She'd been christened The Black Pearl, but really she was the ivory tower. Nigh uncatchable. The terror of the Spanish Main. Cap'n Jack's darling, his mistress, his one true love. Just like me to aspire to crew the most fearsome pirate ship in the world. Twas you who first saw through the disguise. Oh, and how well you knew what might happen when the other scallywags found out. Some would take merciless and full advantage, but a few would recoil in horror. It's bad luck to have a woman aboard.
Another captain might have marooned me on a desert island, but Cap'n Jack didn't care about that sort of thing. So long as Cap'n Jack can call the Pearl his own, he doesn't give a hoot whether the beggars, blighters and ne'er-do-well cads who sail with him are man, woman or beast. I was one of the boys and soon I was one of the best. Earned m'self a cabin in the officers' quarters with a window and everything. Your cluttered little cabin was right nearby. We spent many an evening swilling rum with Cap'n Jack and the boys, or enjoying a quiet smoke up on deck when the sea was calm, a canopy of countless stars stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. They were good times.
But you knew, as I knew only too well, that some of the pirates weren't over the moon about having a woman aboard. Had any of them attempted murder or mischief in the night, I knew, though it was unspoken, that you would have drawn your sword and leapt from your berth in a single bound to come to my aid. I'm sure they all knew it too. You're the most formidable swordsman aboard, save Cap'n Jack. Any who were prepared to overlook the fact that I was quite lethal on my own with my dagger and blade thought twice about clashing swords with you. It kept me safe, but it never came to that. Cap'n Jack wouldn't have condoned it.
And so we sailed the seven seas, through doldrums and storms, punctuated by many wild nights in Tortuga and other favourite ports. The Pearl was the only place Cap'n Jack and I called home, but you had yours. You came and went, as did most of the others. I knew that you cherished your time at home. Somewhere in the yearning and most tender places of my heart, I could understand that. But it had never been the life for me.
Above all, we were mates. Seasoned professionals. Hardcore pirates. And contrary to rumour, there was no intimate us. Only quiet, soulful moments when we were alone at sea and no land was in sight. There were times on those nights when I noticed that you were looking at me the way a man looks at a woman—not the way a pirate looks at another pirate. Sometimes I even got those looks from across the room in the midst of a raucous tavern in Tortuga. It made me wonder. But it was no wonder if you felt lonely when you were so far from home. There was a part of you that loved your home as completely as you loved the sea.
Then came the sad night when you went home and found your woman in the arms of another man. You were brokenhearted with loss, grief and the pain of thwarted love. You had loved her deeply and curled up tight inside to protect your vulnerability. You let the sea take you away from her forever, and refused to set foot on land for the next two years. Save for places like Tortuga, of course.
We're rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves.
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs.
Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!
We sang that often in drunken unison, staggering and swaggering through our favourite haunts, arm in arm with Cap'n Jack. Hardcore pirates all, all of us now bearing the scars inflicted by the landlubbing world. None of that namby-pamby wife-and-home rubbish for us! We drank to freedom. "And the Black Pearl," the Captain added, purring as if he were caressing a lover. We were each other's family, our figurative port in the storm. We had everything we could want. The Pearl was our home. I bedecked my cabin with velvet throws, animal skins and sparkling bits of boodle. We ruled the Spanish Main.
What could have called us back to the landlubbing world? But alas, fate did. Word came that you mother lay dying in Spanish Town. You booked passage aboard a passenger ship, disguised as a well-heeled, affable toff. T'would be such a consolation for your mother to gaze upon her son with her dying eyes and see him looking so respectable like.
Cap'n Jack and I sniggered at the thought of you wandering the upper decks of that passenger ship, escorting some bejewelled beldame to dinner. She would find you so charming with your burly good looks and soft-spoken manner. You'd gamble late into the night with the gents, careful never to roll up your sleeve so high as to show your tattoo. Bed a few lasses in the dark so they wouldn't see your scars.
Who ever reckoned that the Governor's daughter would also find you quite charming? But Cap'n Jack and I had forgotten that you'd been childhood sweethearts. And when you returned, you kept the waistcoats, hose, cravats and proper shoes. You stowed them carefully away, ready for use. No longer allergic to land, you welcomed periods of leave and headed to Kingston to see her. "Pfah!" said Cap'n Jack, dismissing it with a wave. "Let 'im 'ave 'is fling. He'll soon tire of it. Never fear."
I didn't fear. Most of the time you were aboard the Pearl with us. Comrades in arms. Fearsome as ever. Oh, but the Governor's daughter was smitten. She wrote letters, urged you to come join her as she visited your mutual childhood friends in Barbuda and Anguilla. Often you went, no doubt telling your friends that you were a merchant sailor. You even invited us to come join you and your friends in Nevis. "D'ye think he's going soft on us?" Cap'n Jack scratched his beard.
Our first mate Dirk and his missus, Josie, went. Unlike the Captain, they could pass for respectable. Josie said she'd never been so insulted in all her life. You reportedly sat there sipping your port, reminiscing with Dirk, pretending you couldn't hear a word of what the Governor's daughter was saying to Josie. Josie was too upset to tell us what she'd said but it must have been vicious. T'ain't right not to treat your mate's lady with less than high respect.
I had categorically refused to go, refused to don a dress and pretend I was someone's lady. I couldn't imagine being welcomed in a house like that as a woman pirate in trousers and boots.
"Why won't you go?" Cap'n Jack asked me. "He wants to see you, lass. He asks about you."
"I'm busy!" I told him. "Can't you see how busy I am?" I was cataloguing the swag down in the hold—an utterly pointless endeavour, but it was keeping me busy and so needed to be done. Cap'n Jack sat sprawled in a throne-like chair staring off at nothing in particular. He really couldn't care less about the swag so long as he has the Pearl, but the swag is what allows him to keep the Pearl and so it's necessary.
"Don't you like him, lass?" he yawned.
"Course I like him," I bristled. What a stupid question. "He's one of our best mates."
"D'you love him, then?"
"Of course I love him," I rolled my eyes. "Same as I love you. He's one of my best mates. We've been through thick and thin together."
"I meant," he arched his brows, "d'you love him?"
I set down my quill, turned slowly to face him again. "I love him the way you love the Pearl, yeah," I nodded.
"No child," he chuckled, "d'you love him the way a woman loves a man?"
I felt as if he'd skewered me with his sword and it hurt about the same too, or so I imagined. How could I answer that?
"I don't think so, no," I shook my head.
"Could you love him, then?"
I dropped to a crouch, curled up small and hugged myself. All my scars were aching. "I don't know if I could, Jack," I whispered. "And anyway, he's not my prize to claim."
"But if...?" he held up a finger, being prankish.
I scooped up a handful of gold coins and tossed them at him playfully. "I need a drink," I rose to my feet again.
"Best idea you've had all day!" he leapt up with a will.
Oh but the Governor's daughter never came aboard the Pearl. She didn't even know the Pearl existed. More and more, she wooed you to Kingston itself, no longer content to abide any port in the storm. You went willingly, and we let the wind take us where it would. Earned more here and spent more there. Sometimes I'd creep down the hall to your cabin and slip inside right quick before anyone noticed. Strangely sad to see it so tidy and empty. I dusted your books and table, aired out the room, smoothed the bedcover and fluffed your pillow. Just to keep the place ship-shape, of course. Sometimes I wondered why I bothered. I crept back to my own welcoming cabin. It was as cosy as a hug.
Months passed. We occasionally crossed paths with friendly ships and the sailors who crewed them. Sometimes we'd hole up together for an evening in a seaside pub somewhere.
"What news?"
Almost invariably there was talk of Barton. Lord how we hated the sanctimonious bastard—not to mention the pompous Governor who had made him commodore.
"I hear tell one of yer boys made off with the Guv'nor's daughter," laughed one of the sailors, a man by the name of MacGuire.
"How's that?" Dirk frowned.
"Engaged to Barton, wasn't she?" he winked at us.
"She was?" Cap'n Jack's lip curled. He'd never been able to fathom why Barton's mother hadn't drowned him at birth.
"Looks so good on him!" another cackled. "His precious, prissy chickadee run off to the arms of a pirate!"
"He's not to be hanged, is he?" Dirk wondered. Cap'n Jack and I had already put our heads together to plan your rescue.
"Naow! He's in like Flint!" MacGuire chuckled in evident astonishment. "Just been made cap'n of the Intrepid, he has!"
Cap'n Jack spit out a mouthful of grog, sprang to his feet and brandished his sword at him. "Wot? Sailing under Barton now, is he?"
"Ach, she's a spoiled little cockatiel, Cap'n Jack," MacGuire shrugged. "Her daddy refuses her nuffink. The Guv gave him the commission hisself."
Cap'n Jack stomped off in high dudgeon. I sat there stunned, unable to believe what I had just heard.
"She's a right cold little cunt," the other chap muttered. "Freeze a man's prick off, if you ask me."
"Pity she didn't shag Barton then," one of the boys joked.
I rose to join my Captain, felt a man's hand grab my wrist. The man's eyes were wide with something like fear as they stared into mine, but there was no malice in them. My blade was already at his groin.
"What?" I demanded.
"Only that he asked about you," the man answered timidly.
"He asked if you'd seen the Pearl?"
"No ma'am," he shook his head only slightly, not wanting to move too many muscles. "He asked about you, milady."
"Oh," I sheathed the blade again and gave him a small smile. "Thanks for the message."
My mind was a blank as I made my way back to the ship and walked up the gangplank. I could see Cap'n Jack pacing in his quarters.
"Lassie!" he hollered. Clearly he'd heard the tread of my boots on the step.
I sauntered into his cabin and dropped into a chair. "I don't think we need to kill him just yet, Jack."
"Kill him?" the Captain started. "No, we don't have to kill him," he concurred. "But we might."
You turned up in Tortuga again not long afterwards. My heart leap with joy at the sight of you.
"About bloody time!" you hollered up at us.
The boys on deck were muttering, a little confused.
I watched Cap'n Jack storm down to the dock brandishing his sword at you. You stood your ground, your arms resolutely folded over your chest, almost as if you were daring him to do his worst. Which is never a good idea. And yet somehow I knew there wouldn't be any bloodletting. You were in shirtsleeves, not in a ridiculous wig and uniform. I retreated to my cosy cabin. Should a skirmish ensue, I would know. An hour later, I heard the familiar tread of your boots outside my door. Then you knocked.
"Are you hiding?" you asked.
"No, changing," I lied.
I heard the clunk of your boots as you made your way to your cabin, heard the creak of the hinges on your door. I crept out quietly to lose myself in the madness Tortuga offered. It was hours before we crossed paths again.
"Giving me the slip, like?" you arched your brows.
"Be hard to do if you were aboard ship," I raised my glass in a toast. The boys laughed. You scowled at us all.
"We sail at dawn," you commanded. "Govern yourselves accordingly."
"This ain't the crew of the Intrepid, mate," one of the boys chuckled.
You gave him a withering look. "You didn't honestly believe that rubbish, did you?" you spun on your heel and stomped off.
I didn't see you again until much later. Cap'n Jack and I were holed up together in a favourite niche in a favourite haunt in our favourite town. In short, it was easy for you to find us. You ducked your head and entered our alcove, slid along the bench to join us. Almost before I knew it, Cap'n Jack had the tip of his knife at your throat. Cap'n Jack wanted the real story. No lies, no evasions, no audience either. There was always some truth in these rumours. MacGuire wasn't one to spin sailors' yarns.
You confessed that you had captained the Intrepid, but only for a week. Just some training drills for new recruits and such. Nothing serious. Never even left the harbour. Home for in time for dinner every night. But it had been good to be aboard ship again.
Cap'n Jack snorted. There was no need to explain how much he despised spies, betrayers and mutineers. You knew that as well as I did. Staying in the harbour amounted to dry-dock, in his opinion. Moreover, any ship that wasn't the Pearl was beneath his notice.
"You're not Barton's man, then?"
"Give me some credit!" you replied.
"All the credit you deserve," Cap'n Jack promised.
I spent another hour watching the two of you glower at each other then took my leave, pleading fatigue rather than annoyance. We sailed the next day. I heard the boys teasing you as I made my rounds. "The Guv'nor's daughter let you off the lead, did she?" I dawdled so that I could eavesdrop, wondering if you would say how long you were planning to stay with us this time.
Magic struck two nights later. The sea was almost perfectly calm and the moon so bright as to illuminate the ocean for miles around. A panoply of stars twinkled down on us, almost as if the Gods themselves were urging us to rest assured and take our ease under their watchful protection. One of the lads brought out a flute, another a mandolin. Dirk and Josie were dancing a jig. Cap'n Jack was holding court up in the stern, uncorking some rare vintage that he had (probably literally) unearthed somewhere. In the end, we sat alone, finishing our drinks and cigars, talking. We paused to say good night. I stole a quick hug, told you how good it was to have you back aboard the Pearl. You hugged me back. And then you kissed me on the mouth. Once. Twice. Three times. You sighed with contentment. I stepped back and touched your cheek. I was flattered, abashed, confused. You caressed mine. And then I fled to my cabin without a word.