Fantastic Metropolis

There is much commotion; feet pound the slippery deck. Old salts shout and spit curses into the gums of the storm. And then over all, a thinner voice, withered and desperate, far colder than the wind: “Come back, I only want to talk!”

Later, when the storm has died, Darktree returns to the deck. One of the longboats is missing. He is alone. He raps on cabin doors with knuckles: “Captain Nothing? Are you in there?” He has the entire ship to himself. What shall he do with it? He will release the French prisoners, and with their help turn the vessel. Eventually, if he steers in small circles, he will find Scipio again. But the question remains. What to do on board until that day?

He pulls into himself, desperately seeking a method of passing time until he can disembark on his isle. He finds needle and thimble, yards of cloth, among the stores. The prisoners are extremely agile, dangling from the spars by their fingertips. Just the sort of sailors who could swing from one vessel to another. He studies the length of cotton before him. It is not the right colour, pink does not quite convey the message, but it will suffice. He struggles to thread the needle, repeating to himself: “What to do? What to do?”

When Darktree runs the Jolly Roger up the flagpole, he is careful not to chafe his fingers on the rope. He grimaces and broods, and the crew ape his gestures. They are more obedient than he could hope for; he studies their language. French, he concludes, is harder than Latin. The rules of etiquette are abandoned; he converses with all. “What think you of Molière?” They work ceaselessly, they eat much fruit, but they never answer. He considers melting the cutlery to forge a silver cannon. There are practical difficulties. With a hatchet, he sharpens the figurehead into a spike. They must remain content with ramming fishing vessels and banana boats, singly or in bunches.

Where is Scipio? He has dizzied his head looking for it. It must be here somewhere! At night he pulls the end of his nose. He is suspicious of the stars. They have fled into new positions, as if caught during a seditious gathering; they have forgotten their original configurations. Or are the stars themselves new? If buttons can be replaced—which has happened to him—why not suns?

Under the Captain’s pillow, he finds a trumpet. Placing it to his lips and cracking a note, he is amazed by the result. The sea bubbles and seethes. Something like an armless octopus rises up by the side of the ship. A hatch opens and a figure emerges.

“Ho there! I am Franklin, an inventor. This is a submersible. You are English? God bless Queen Victoria!”

“I do not understand. Does King George no longer reign?”

“You have been away so long without news? Is it possible? Do you still toast George the Fourth?”

“There is more than one?” Darktree is bewildered. He does not wish to talk to a man who lives in a submersible. He calls for his officers. “Pierre! Bernard! Let us do away with this menace.” He was a gentle highwayman, but he makes a fierce pirate. It is something to do with his principles. There are no ladies here. Prisoners are executed at once. There is no plank to walk, but they are tumbled anyway: weighed down with cauldrons and cares.

Whenever he spies a French flag in the distance, he retreats. He does not want his crew defecting. Soon enough, if he does not provide cognac, they will mutiny. He paces the quarterdeck, not knowing the names of other decks. He dreams about his notebook, lost forever. Was this a necessary loss, part of a cathartic process? Is he free of his former, mud-spattered anxieties?

The life of a pirate is a miserable one. He longs for Hannah, Lucy, mugs of porter, the chase, the mountains. He tells himself: “I am happy, I am delighted.” The words are like tobacco in his mouth, black lies dribbling down his chin. He has paid a high price for his escape. And it is not a real escape, merely a temporary change of reality; the skip of a flea on hot embers. Soon he will shrivel.

At night, he dreams. In one, he is back in Whitby. He is standing on the Church Stairs that link the town’s main street to the graveyard of St Mary’s. A ship flounders on the sea. As he watches, a large dog jumps from the vessel and bounds up the steps toward him. Loading his new pistol, he bars the creature’s path. At once, the dog turns into a tall gentleman in a cape. Darktree waves his pistol. Reluctantly, the man hands over his wallet.

In another, his own ship is in trouble. Out of the storm comes the Pickled Finger, seeking companionship among doomed sailors. Darktree does not seek to evade the ghost ship. He calls to the phantasmagorical Captain: “Here I am! Come and talk to me. I am as lonely as you.” But the other, normally so eager to make contact, flees in panic. “No fear! It is you who are the ghost, not I.”

Neither of these dreams are true when he wakes. A third, however, is more prophetic (is it possible to foretell an event that is already happening?). He thinks he is being bombarded by shells. A battleship with iron sides seems intent on ending his piratical career. He is sinking, his crew crowding the lifeboats. The hull splits like a nut; his bed slips into the sea. As he is immersed, something nips at his ear. He looks up and Scipio is waiting for him. In his mind, he makes for the island with vigorous strokes.

When he opens his eyes, he is on a beach. Strong arms lift him up. But there is something wrong. There are no togas. The men and women are dressed in long black robes. They wear powdered wigs. They bundle him aboard a train. The whistle blows; they are off. He cries out in panic, he holds his breath. What can possibly save him now? The train deposits him at a grand old courthouse. More arms come to bear him into the building. They place him in the Judge’s seat; they drape the required robes.

Before him, next to the gavel, Darktree sees the reason for this nightmare: the notebook, open at the first page. His portrait, smeared ear, snores back at him. Brushing his cheek, he sets in motion the real crab that dangles from his lobe. The resemblance is perfect. He cannot argue with their decision. With the gavel, he pounds the book to dust. His subjects cheer. The doors fly open; a sack of seagulls is loosed into the hall. There is a moral to this, but it is so obvious that he learns nothing. A man sometimes creates that which he seeks to evade. His notebook has corrupted Utopia.

He knows this is real. The explanation is too logical. The notebook provided answers; the Latin to English dictionary provided translation. There are train stations everywhere. Magistrates stalk the streets. It is not safe. The engines that power the locomotives are not perfect; the Captain was right about this. The seagulls are created from albatrosses, stunted with knotgrass and blows from an iron hammer. As Caesar among these people, he does not have to endure their enthusiasm. He sits on the sand and sighs over his lost innocence.

Darktree is an old man before he is rescued. He is walking along the beach one morning, when something rises out of the sea. It is not another submersible, but Hannah, who has never given up the search. He does not hesitate. Mounting her back, they skim home together, over the glassy waves. Home to Lucy, cabbages and muffins, but not necessarily in that order.

III. Gatling Gums

When Robin Darktree is washed upon the Essex Coast, he drowns the rocks in tropical tears. He has been carrying African salt in his eyes for two months, waiting for an occasion to spill it. Now he is home and unwanted souvenirs must be discarded. His clothes are stiff with the seasoning of a dozen seas—the ocean currents have different vintages, each with its own bouquet and aftertaste. Darktree’s beard and brows are brittle with seagull droppings set by squabbling winds.

Weeping finished, he clambers to his feet and leads his horse along the beach. In the damp sand they find a nautilus shell, protruding from the ground like an ear trumpet for a deaf shore. Darktree uproots it and peers into the opening. Inside the smoothness is a trapped flute. He is the great liberator of potentialities; he ponders how to make it give up its captive identity. There will be a struggle —shells are notoriously stubborn. He shakes it roughly; it is silent.

He needs a knife, but his own blade slipped from his belt just off the coast of Morocco. Turning the nautilus in his hands, he decides to improvise. The teeth of his horse are like chisels; he uses her grin as a lathe, fashioning an elegant piccolo in an octave of blinks. Curls of shell drift around his chambered ears.

Hannah, the horse, has caught a cold. She sneezes a cloud of chilly brine over her master. She has carried him all the way from the equator back to England, through storms and flotillas of ravenous squid, without a single snort of complaint. The ordeal has not improved her flatulence. Like Darktree, her neck is lacquered with twelve types of salt. Studying the low cliffs, she indicates a cave mouth.

Darktree urgently requires shelter and rest. Clinging to a swimming horse’s mane is an exhausting business. He allows her to deviate toward the mysterious fissure, easing the flute between his lips. An instrument with a husky tone, it appeals mostly to limpets and lobsters. Darktree’s music is rusty and undanceable. This is especially true of his new work, the melodies he created on his desert isle to pass the time. His problem is lack of crotchets—he cannot spell the word and is thus uneasy about inviting such notes into his compositions. He makes do with semi-breves, minims and quavers. But they are not grateful.