Lou put the letter down, and then, fumbling with the strings, she tore off her apron, picked up a sign that said CLOSED, and half walked, half ran, out of the coffee bar and up the steps to the road above. She had to tell somebody, and Matthew would do. He would not be particularly interested, she knew, but she would tell him anyway. She had to share her joy, as Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.
Seated on a comfortable blue sofa in the coffee shop of Ottakar’s Bookshop, Domenica Macdonald was in conversation with her old friend, Dilly Emslie. Beside her, in a plastic shopping bag, lay Domenica’s haul from her trip to the bookshop: a racy biography of an eighteenth-century German princeling (or Domenica hoped it was racy – the cover certainly suggested that, but covers were notoriously meretricious), a history of aspirin, and a novel about a young woman who went 330
to London, discovered it was a mistake, and returned to her small town in Northumbria, where nothing happened for the remainder of the book.
“I almost bought a book about pirates,” Domenica remarked.
“Pirates are such an interesting subject, don’t you think? And yet there are very few anthropological studies of pirate life.”
“It must be rather difficult to do,” Dilly said thoughtfully.
“Presumably pirates wouldn’t exactly encourage anthropologists.”
Domenica took a sip of her espresso. “I’m not sure about that,” she said. “Most people are flattered by attention. And remember that anthropologists have studied all sorts of apparently dangerous people. Head-hunters in New Guinea, for example. Those people became very used to having an anthropologist about the place. Some of them became quite dependent on their anthropologists – rather like some people become rather dependent on their social workers.”
“But of course it’s a bit late now, don’t you think?” said Dilly.
“Today’s pirates must be rather elusive.”
“There are more than you imagine,” said Domenica. “I gather that the South China Seas are riddled with them. And they’re becoming bolder and bolder. They even try to board tankers and ships like that. They’re very piratical.”
The two friends were silent for a moment. There was a certain incongruity in discussing pirates in George Street. But Domenica had a further thought. “Do you know that pirates used to be quite active, even in British waters? They used to plague the south coast of England, coming ashore and carrying off the local women into captivity. Can you imagine going about your day-to-day business in your kitchen and suddenly having a large pirate bursting in and carrying one off ? What a shock it must have been.”
Dilly agreed. It must have been very disruptive, she thought.
Domenica warmed to her theme. “Of course, it might have suited some women to be carried off by pirates. You know, the plainer sort of girl may have found it livened up her life a bit, don’t you think? In fact, one might just imagine groups of plainer girls having endless picnics on likely-looking cliffs, just on the
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off-chance that a pirate ship might go past. Waving, perhaps, to attract attention . . .”
They both laughed.
“That’s enough about pirates,” said Dilly. “What about you, Domenica? What have you been up to?”
Domenica thought for a moment. What had she been up to?
The answer, it seemed, was very little. She had gone nowhere, she had stopped writing the paper she was working on, and she had hardly even spoken to her neighbours for months. It was a depressing thought.
“Very little,” she answered. “In fact, Dilly, I feel quite stuck.
I’m in a rut.”
“Impossible,” said Dilly. “I’ve never known you to be anything but involved. You do so much.”
“Not any more,” said Domenica. “I’m stalled.”
Dilly smiled. “You need a new project. A new anthropological study. Something novel. Something that will make waves.”
Domenica looked at the ceiling. A new project was a good idea, but what was there for her to do? She had no stomach for further theoretical speculation on method and objectivity, and she had no idea of what opportunities there were in the field.
New Guinea was stale these days, and the head-hunters were more concerned with human rights than they used to be . . .
Besides, it was politically incorrect even to use the term head-hunter. They were . . . what were they? Head re-locators? Or, by some lovely inversion, personnel recruiters?
“I have an idea for you,” said Dilly. “What about pirates?
What about a pioneering anthropological study of the life and customs of modern pirates in the South China Seas? You could live with them in their mangrove swamps and then sit in the back of their boats as they dash out to commit acts of piracy.
Of course, you’d have to be completely detached. You could hardly join in. But you anthropologists know all about detach-ment and disinterested observation.”
Domenica, who had been cradling her coffee cup in her hands as Dilly talked, now put it down on the table with a thud.
