Chapter Two: There is a history in all men's lives

Monteverdi, Bach and Purcell were stored on the iPod. Paperback copies of The Best of Men and Captain Blood were tucked into the hand luggage. Davida's laptop battery was freshly charged. She still felt unprepared for the eight and a half hour flight from Gatwick to Bridgetown.

She craned her head around and looked along the ranked seating of the 777, rapidly filling with ten-abreast economy-class holidaymakers. She had a window seat, thank deity-of-choice, but the wing and its single large engine shoved impolitely into her line of sight. She had a third of a day to look forward to, playing sardine in this airborne tin can, breathing recycled air and subsisting on plastic food. She should have taken a cruise ship instead.

A man was peering at the seat numbers of Davida's row. A little taller than average, and with a trim build that probably owed more to genetics than exercise. He had a rather ordinary face that was nevertheless quite attractive, and was the sort of age that made it hard to tell how old that was, although Davida placed him on the younger side of forty. British, Davida decided. Only the British could manage that utterly impersonal expression of politeness. He probably has some terribly responsible job and is very careful with his money. The faint lines of his face suggested he was no stranger to worry, but faced such things stoically.

Davida had dismissed her initial thoughts of a bank manager and spun herself the story of a medical specialist working in a private hospital before she realised that he was now sitting beside her, murmuring an apology for minutely intruding on her personal space as he settled in. Not far behind him a portly, elderly gentleman washed up on the shores of their little island of seats, the man's face reminiscent of a constipated basset hound. This last arrival arranged himself with much grunting and sighing, swallowed two small white pills, and promptly fell asleep.

Four hours into the flight and the elderly gentleman was still asleep. Davida had found, slightly to her surprise, that the gentleman immediately beside her was indeed a bank manager, that he was called Thomas Norrington, and that he was travelling to the Caribbean in the hopes of tracing a relative of his. Nobody that he had met, but, rather, the brother of his many-times-great grandfather, one James Norrington.

"We have a suspicion that he was quite the scoundrel," Thomas said, his rather inexpressive face compensated for by what had turned out to be a considerable capacity for intelligent conversation. "He wrote several letters to his family back in England, describing his career... or what he claimed was his career."

Davida made the appropriate sounds of anticipatory encouragement.

Thomas continued with a will. "According to his letter dated sixteen seventy-two, he had received a posting as a Naval Lieutenant on HMS Dauntless-"

"But," Davida put in before she could stop herself, "the first Dauntless wasn't launched until eighteen... I forget. Early nineteenth century, anyway."

Thomas lifted a mild eyebrow. "You know your naval ships?"

Davida confessed, quite truthfully, to being a History graduate.

"You'll probably see why I'm so suspicious of the letters then," Thomas said with a slight smile. "By the time of a missive ten years later he seems to have risen to the heights of Commodore at Port Royal, and talks of the sinking of HMS Interceptor-"

"HMS what?"

"Quite." Thomas said dryly. "There has never been an HMS Interceptor. There's a long gap in his correspondence soon afterwards and then he resumes his letters, this time describing himself as an Admiral serving the East India Trading Company..."

"An Admiral? I didn't think non-Naval fleet ranks went higher than Commodore, although I could be wrong. Which East India Company?" Davida asked, dubiously.

"He never specifies, but he implies that the Company is working hand in hand with the British Navy-"

"British?"

"...when, as I'm sure you are already aware, Britain did not even exist under that name until seventeen oh seven," Thomas continued, nodding.

Davida whistled through her teeth. "That's a lot of holes in the story. Could the letters be forgeries?"

"If they are then the forger did a remarkably good job of replicating the handwriting," Thomas said, although his tone of voice indicated that he was not closed to the possibility that the letters were indeed fakes. "There are earlier documents, you see, dating from before James left England, that we can be quite certain are genuine."

"So you decided to go to the Caribbean yourself to find out if there was any grain of truth at all in the letters?" Davida grinned. That was exactly what she would have done.

Thomas spread his hands, palms up, sketching a shrug. "I decided to take a holiday. The letters were a convenient excuse."

Davida laughed, and returned to her interrupted book.

Several hours later, both book and laptop lay almost forgotten in Davida's lap as she feasted her eyes on the view through the window, mentally blanking out the expanse of metal that cut it in half. The approach to Barbados was over water that really was as blue as the brochure photographs showed, a blue that shaded into turquoise closer to land. White caps crested the waves a short distance offshore. Reefs? Davida wondered, spotting darker patches shadowing the seabed, although she did not know if her guess was correct. Before she could ponder further they were inland, overflying splattered patches and stripes of boxy urban buildings and brown-and-green blocks of fields. The airport itself leaped up before them, with its roof of curious white pyramids, and beyond that a shoreline of what might be sand, and broken rock slabs which only grudgingly gave way to the grey runway that shimmered in the sun's heat.

The aircraft seemed to thrust ever faster as it descended, the eye deceived by the decreasing distance to those things earthbound, the changing engine-note misleading the ear. The infinite heavens contracted down to the immediacy of land. Above the open green and grey and dusty-tan expanse rushed the winged metal steed, vibrating with impassioned impatience as it neared the earth and stretched to touch it. Then all was noise and the press of air, the shuddering of straining flaps and spoilers and the drumroll beat of braking wheels thrumming through the fuselage and seat...

Davida sighed in irritation as the seatbelt lights switched off with a cheery yet annoying 'bing!'and those around her started to collect up their belongings ready to disembark. She saved her swiftly-typed paragraph and shut down her laptop. Perhaps she should write a blog; otherwise, that little word-sketch was destined to moulder forever on her hard drive, along with any number of other such paragraphs. She patted the headrest of her seat as she filed out into the gangway, the sleepy old gentleman and Thomas Norrington both already swept up ahead into the sluggish flow of passengers. She'd become quite fond of the flying tin can after all.

They disembarked right onto the tarmac, processing in a ragged stream over to the arrivals building. Davida heard some complaints from other passengers at the indignity of being required to walk, but she tuned them out. She herself was charmed. She had only to turn her head and the glittering Caribbean Sea lay at the horizon, laden with salt smells and history and promise.

The word 'azure' is so overused. If there is to be much seafaring in this novel I will have to be creative in my synonyms. Let's see... The solitary storm-battered galleon wallowed through the liquid glass of the waves: a ageing, aristocratic matron stubbornly sheltering her weighty jewels even with the finery of her clothing hanging in tattered shreds of canvas. Above her the sky broom of the Caribbean wind swept away the thick cobweb clouds; and through the haze of the lazuline horizon, gilded by the emerging sun, slipped the silent grey-sailed sloop, Golden... no... Witty Nell, prowling the cobalt deeps...

"Passport please."

"What?" Davida blinked. Images of tall ships and a spray-dusted ocean melded into railings and a uniform and a polite dark face.

"Passport please, mam." The customs officer moved a hand that Davida only then realised he'd been holding out expectantly.

"Oh! Sorry. I was miles away." Davida was too used to her own self to display much embarrassment, although she did wonder how long the poor man must have been waiting for her response. "Is it far to Southern Palms?" she asked as she handed over the required document. She was suddenly anxious to type that description up, before she forgot the shape and feel of it.

"Miss Davida Dunnock?" The customs official looked between Davida's photograph and her face, then nodded and handed the passport back, apparently satisfied. "Welcome to Barbados. Fifteen, twenty minutes if you catch a taxi."

"Thank you!" Davida smiled her thanks. The man could as easily have said nothing and waved her on her way; many customs guards would have done so. Fifteen, twenty minutes? I'd better type it up in the arrivals lounge...