Love Over Scotland

eventually took Dr Fairbairn off to hospital – to Carstairs – thought Bertie, would he be able to make friends there?

Perhaps not, but then maybe he would be able to invent a 326 Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates friend. That would keep him from feeling too lonely. He could call her Melanie if she was a woman. That would be nice. Or Sigmund, if he was a man. That would be nice too, thought Bertie.

104. Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates Sikispela moningtaim – or six in the morning – and Domenica made her way across the compound to Henry’s house. A heavy mist had descended, and the trees on the edge of the village were shrouded in white, lending the whole place a distinctly eerie feeling. Domenica shivered. She was cold now, but there was no point in bringing any warm clothing with her as the heat would build up the moment the mist burned off – and it always did that.

The pirates, she had noticed, left for work between seven and eight in the morning, which meant that she and Henry had an hour or so to prepare to follow them. Henry had a boat, she had learned, and they would set off in this and wait to follow the pirates at a safe distance.

Henry came out to meet her. He was wearing a pair of long khaki shorts that reached down to just below his knees, and no shirt. His arms, Domenica noticed, were scrawny, and bore tattoos of Chinese characters. Across his chest there was tattooed a large dragon rampant.

“I hope that this mist won’t keep them in this morning,” said Domenica, in Pidgin.

“No danger of that,” replied Henry. “Pirates actually rather like mist. It gives them the advantage of surprise.”

“I suppose so,” said Domenica. She shuddered as she thought of the victims’ feelings as the pirate boats appeared out of the mists, like wraiths. Since she had arrived in the pirate community, she had tried not to dwell too much on the fact that she was living in close proximity with criminals. There was a certain unpalatability to that, and yet, if one paused to think about it, Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates 327

one had to acknowledge that anthropology, like reporting, involved the observation of appalling or distasteful things. If anthropologists were to refuse to observe those of whom they disapproved, then whole swathes of human experience –

polygamy, undemocratic or autocratic authority structures, exploitative or repressive social relationships; all of these would remain unstudied. So there could be no corners into which the inquiring human mind should not probe, and that meant that somebody had to study pirates.

Of course of all of humanity’s strange sub-groups, pirates were perhaps in a class of their own. These people, Domenica reflected, were living outside the law and outside society. Being a pirate was as close as one could come to being caput lupinum; such a person could in the past have been knocked on the head as if he were a wolf, and it would not be murder. Such days were behind us, of course, but there were still people who were beyond the pale, outside the law, and who were liable to be hunted mercilessly.

Of course, one might say that it was their own fault; that they chose to be pirates. But had they really made such a choice?

One thing which her research had uncovered was that many of the people who lived in the village were the offspring of pirates themselves, and indeed came from old pirate families. For many, what they become is not really a matter of choice. We tend to follow the paths that are set out for us in our childhood, and if those paths are the paths of piracy, then it must presumably take a great effort to escape them. And not everyone is capable of that effort. It was the same, she thought, as one of those East Lothian golf clubs where many of the members were the sons of members, just like the pirates. It was all rather sad.

Henry fetched a small can of petrol from underneath his veranda and then indicated to Domenica that she should follow him down the path that led to the sea.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice kept low so as not to alert anybody of their departure.

“We go out to sea,” Henry replied. “Then we wait. When the pirates come out, we follow them and see what they get up to.”

328 Lost in the Mists Hunting Pirates

“But won’t they see us?” asked Domenica.

“No,” said Henry. “There will be many waves. Our little boat will be hidden in the waves. They will not see us.”

“But if they do?” pressed Domenica.

“Bot digim hol bilong solwara,” replied Henry casually.

“Yumitupela dae pinis. Pinis bot” (lit: Boat digs hole in the sea.

You and I die finish. Finish boat).

Domenica digested this information as they reached the end of the path and found themselves at the small cluster of jetties to which the pirate vessels were moored. These were long, black-painted boats to which powerful outboard motors had been attached. Bright paintings had been worked on the prows of these boats – pictures of swordfish, shells and the occasional dragon. Henry’s boat, a much more modest craft, had no picture, but was painted in a drab brown, reminiscent, Domenica thought, of the shade with which the Victorians liked to paint the anaglypta in their dreary halls and studies.

Henry held Domenica’s hand as she stepped gingerly into the boat. Then he himself boarded, whipped the small outboard engine into life, and untied the boat’s painter. In the heavy, mist-laden air, the engine was almost inaudible, like the purring of a cat. Domenica sat forward and watched the water slip past the side of the boat as they cleared the shallows that provided natural protection for the jetties. The water was flat and almost olive- coloured, and as she watched it, a flying fish suddenly launched itself into the air and skimmed the wavelets, a flash of silver against the green. “Pis bilong airplane” (lit: aeroplane fish), observed Henry, pointing at the ripples where the fish had re-entered the water.

They moved away from the coast and soon they were unable to see anything but the all-enveloping mist. Domenica wondered how Henry would be able to navigate in these conditions – was it some sixth sense, the inbuilt feeling for direction enjoyed by pigeons and cats? And pirates? Or was he counting on being able to see something when the mist lifted?

After half an hour or so, Henry cut the engine of the boat, sat back, and wiped his brow with the engine cloth. He smiled at Domenica.

At the Warehouse 329