Lightning Mary

by Anthea Simmons

  ‘Neither, I assure you.’

  ‘Then why are you always following me? Sneaking and peeking and running away? Watching what I’m doing? Sounds just like spying to me!’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit shy. And you are always so busy... digging or dealing.’

  ‘So you admit that you were watching me sell my ram’s horn to that lady! No doubt you thought to steal my findings or my money!’

  ‘No! No. I am just very interested in what you are doing. Fascinated, really, and . . .’

  ‘And what?’ I tried to sound as fierce as I could.

  He pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked straight at me. ‘I hoped you might let me help you. Come with you. Obviously, I’d have a lot to learn from you. You are so clearly an expert in this field. I am just an ignorant boy.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got that bit right. You are certainly ignorant,’ I said stoutly; but I had to admit that it was quite pleasing to be asked for help by one so much older and grander. ‘I learned all I know from my father. Why can’t your father teach you?’

  A strange look passed over his face. He seemed like to cry. Still a cowardly baby, then!

  ‘My father is dead.’

  ‘How?’

  He looked at me sharply, almost angrily. ‘You should not ask such things.’

  ‘But why? I want to know, and only you can tell me.’

  He sighed and sat down on the edge of a grave and then leaped off it as it if had burned his backside. I really thought he would cry then.

  ‘We don’t speak of it. My mother and I. We never speak of it.’ He was crying, his face becoming red and blotchy.

  Again, I found myself not knowing what to do. A boy should not be crying. Joseph would never cry.

  He wiped his face with a large handkerchief. I was still waiting for his explanation and maybe he could see that I was getting a little impatient for he muttered, between sniffs, ‘You aren’t a very agreeable person, are you? For a girl, especially.’

  ‘And you aren’t a very brave person, are you? For a boy, especially,’ I retorted, quick as you like. ‘Besides, who says girls have to be agreeable?’

  He gave an almighty sniff and rubbed his eyes furiously before saying, ‘And who says boys must always be brave? I hope, for your sake, that you never have to lose your father.’

  ‘Well, that is quite the silliest thing anyone could say! My father will not live for ever. Nothing does. Crying won’t bring your father back. Mother cries over the dead babies for days but none of them ever come back. Dead is dead. Nothing to be done but get on with living.’

  ‘You’re a hard creature. Hard as your “treasures”.’

  I let this pass. ‘So how did he die?’ I asked.

  Father said I was like a dog with a bone sometimes and at that moment I did not feel at all inclined to let this bone drop. Persistent is what I am and always will be.

  Henry’s face was reddened with anger now, not tears.

  ‘If you must know, he died of fever. In Jamaica. Our first visit to our plantation. He fell ill and then he died. He died a horrible death, wracked by pain. He spewed his guts up. He writhed in agony in his bed. He burned up with a fever. And then he died! Happy now? Oh, and it might also entertain you to know that my mother and I were shipwrecked and nearly drowned on our voyage back to England. There! Is that enough tragedy for you?’

  I was impressed. His father’s death sounded very normal to me, but to be in a shipwreck and live to tell the tale was a very interesting thing indeed! I had to know more! Henry, it seemed, could read minds, because he started to speak again.

  ‘I see that has got your attention, you fiend. Maybe you would also care to imagine how it feels to be robbed of your father, to see your mother spend her days crying, not eating, growing thinner and paler and then to have to leave your father behind in his grave and set sail and then—’ He stopped to blow his nose again. ‘Then to be caught in the most terrifying of storms, tossed about on waves as high as a cliff and then dashed on a coral reef with five other ships. The sea was full of bodies, bodies cut to ribbons by the coral, and we and the other poor souls who survived left clinging to the rocks, watching as sharks feasted on the dead and dying.’

  This was quite the most exciting story I had heard since Noah’s Flood and that was not so very interesting as there were no accounts of sharks eating the wicked who did not have a place on the Ark. Henry could see the gleam of excitement in my eye for he continued, and I fancied he was beginning to forget to be sad for there was a light in his own red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Your blood would have frozen in your veins if you had heard the cries of the men as they tried to defend themselves against the mighty sharks with their great teeth and thrashing tails. The sea was red as any sunset. Red with blood. I saw heads and hands and limbs washed up by the tide. I saw great seabirds peck out the eyes and gorge upon the flesh. I saw sailors retch their innards up or soil their nether garments from terror at the sight. I saw—’

  ‘Enough!’ I had begun to feel ever so slightly sick myself. ‘How came you to be rescued, then? Or is this tale a web of lies?’

  He blushed a little. ‘Well, maybe there weren’t so many sharks, but men really were cut to ribbons on the coral; and this I swear is true: the sailors would have eaten me and a little girl also saved, if it wasn’t for the Commodore hearing of our plight and sending a ship to rescue us.’

  ‘Eat you!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Yes! Eat us! They were like ravenous wolves. They eyed us up like pies on a shelf. One of them pinched my arm to see how much meat was on it. My mother flew at him and he backed away but we were this far’ – he held up his finger and thumb just a hair’s breadth apart – ‘from having our throats slit and our bodies roasted over hot stones!’

  ‘Ugh! Disgusting!’

  ‘Ha! Not so brave now, are you?’ he crowed triumphantly.

  ‘Oh, I am not scared by your tale. I just think you would have tasted disgusting.’

  In truth, I was rather horrified. I could imagine hunger well enough. I had felt it often. But a hunger that would drive you to eat another person? I shuddered to think of it.

  Henry De la Beche was watching me closely, as if waiting for me to say more.

  ‘Well, that’s a fine story and perhaps we have something in common, for I am myself the survivor of a storm,’ I said, ‘and it does explain why you cannot learn from your father, him being dead.’ I saw him wince a bit at these words but the truth is the truth. ‘But how am I to profit from teaching you is what I should like to know?’

  He reached into his pocket and brought out a small notebook. ‘Here.’ He offered it to me and I undid the ribbon that was keeping its pages tight closed.

  It was full of drawings. Drawings of plants, of birds, of dogs and cats and, of more interest to me, stones. They were good. Faithful reproductions of the subjects. They looked alive or real. He had a skill I did not possess, that was clear.

  I could feel him watching me, waiting for a reaction. I handed him back his book and hid my delight behind a stern countenance, not unlike my mother’s when she feigns displeasure but she is secretly pleased with me.

  ‘Very well. You could be useful, but all the drawings you make for me shall have their own book, is that understood? I won’t have the treasures muddled up with cats and flowers.’

  He grinned at me and raised his hand to his head in salute. ‘Understood. At your command, Captain... Captain?’

  ‘Miss Anning will suffice. Good day to you, Frenchie. We will commence work tomorrow.’

  And with that, I left him where he stood, smiling fit to burst.

  7

  MY FIRST REAL FRIEND

  I did not tell Father about Henry, and Joseph seemed to have grown weary of teasing me. Besides, he had started work as an apprentice to the upholsterer and was too busy learning how to make puffed-up cushioned settles for the precious bottoms of the ri
ch, so I was left alone in my endeavours. Or not quite alone, now.

  I have always preferred to be alone above all else, but the truth is that I did feel a bit safer out there on the shifting ground at the foot of Black Ven when Henry was there too. Would God have spared him from being eaten by the sharks or the cannibal sailors only to have him caught and killed in a landfall? He may have been my lucky charm and, perhaps, I was his, for he did seem to be of a sunnier disposition than when first I met him.

  When his summer holidays began, he came out with me almost every day. It amused me that what was work for me was a holiday for him. Maybe being in school every day instead of just Sunday would have been a holiday for me.

  He had his faults. The worst was that he was easily distracted. One hot, July day, another French-sounding gentleman, very elderly, calling himself Mr De Luc (from Switzerland, Henry said) stopped to say good day. Of course, he did not speak to me though I could have told him a thing or two. Instead, he passed two hours or more studying the rocks and discussing with Henry what the layers might be and how they got there. I could see well enough that the sea helped make them the way they are, for I observed every day how she took things away and brought old and new things back again and piled them up. It was my belief that she found and uncovered creatures that had lived a very long time ago but were no more and that meant that Time was important too.

  On the window ledge at home, there was a dead wasp that had been buried under dust and sand and leaves and more dust, and those layers were just like the layers in the rock. I knew the wasp was still there because I kept lifting up the layers to see what was happening to its body and there it was – a papery thing with all its juices dried up, but there nonetheless. If that body can be buried under all that matter, what creatures might there be in the cliffs?

  The Swiss gentleman talked and talked – quite like a preacher, if you ask me. I could only hear snatches of his ‘sermon’ as I worked. He used a lot of mighty long words and Henry, to my mind, pretended to understand all he said. Maybe he really did.

  Henry had made some drawings of the face of Black Ven and the Swiss gentleman liked them very much. I thought to myself that if he sold them to the gentleman, then I should get some payment. It stood to reason as it was only because I knew the paths and the tides that he could be out here safely, sketching away under my protection.

  But he didn’t offer to sell them, and when the Swiss gentleman turned to walk back to Charmouth, Henry’s eyes were shining with excitement.

  ‘He was much taken with my drawings and he has given me the most marvellous idea! I shall make a book showing the geology of our isles!’ he said.

  ‘Geology?’ How I hated to show him that I did not know the meaning of the word, for I always expected a rich boy such as he to take any opportunity to tease me for being ill-educated and ignorant.

  As usual, I was wrong to fear this. Henry was kind. He is kind. I should always remember that.

  ‘The study of rocks. It’s the scientific word, Miss Anning. From the Greek! “Geo” means Earth and the “ology” bit comes from a word, “logia”, meaning “the study of”. So, geology means the study of the Earth and a geologist is someone who studies the Earth. You are a geologist! A scientist!’

  I could barely hide the surge of pride at these words but I felt some alarm too. ‘Hush! Do not talk of science to folk round here!’ I warned him. ‘You’ll bring God’s wrath down upon your head! Or the wrath of the townsfolk.’

  ‘But many of your customers are scientists, and you are a scientist yourself!’ Henry seemed baffled. How little he really knows!

  ‘No, I am not and never say that I am. I am a treasure-hunter. I hunt for money not for knowledge. As to our customers, it is none of our business why they be interested in our wares. It is a matter of trade for us. We must struggle to make money where we can. We do not all live like you, Frenchie.’

  Henry blushed. He blushed very easily. He was ashamed to be rich. I liked him for that.

  ‘I am sorry that money is so hard-earned, Miss Anning. Maybe there are safer ways for you to get it?’

  ‘Piffle! What do I care for safety? Besides,’ said I, ‘tis better to be treasure-hunting than selling all your hair like poor Fanny Goodfellow.’ And it was! Much better.

  ‘Selling hair? Why would you sell your hair?’ He looked confused as any rich person might who has no idea of how we struggle, or maybe it was just that I had gone from science to trade to hair. It is how my mind works. I see connections.

  I told him how poor Fanny had the most beautiful long curls, the colour of ripe corn, but they had all been cut off by the barber and cut off so close to her poor skull that the skin was quite red and raw in places. They rubbed oil all over her bare head but it still stung like fury, Fanny said. She had to wear a scratchy woollen cap all through the winter, and for weeks after it was cut off she still had nothing but a few hairs poking through, like shoots of grass in the snow. Her hair was sold to pay for firewood and Fanny knew the barber would be back for more in a year’s time, once it had grown back.

  ‘It makes me quite sick to think of some grand lady, probably old, bald and toothless, parading about with Fanny’s lovely hair tumbling down her shoulders, I can tell you!’

  When I had told Joseph this story, he had just laughed and said, ‘Isn’t much call for your brown locks, Mary, even long as they be! Besides, the wigmaker would never get the tangles out!’

  Henry, however, looked horrified.

  ‘At least you don’t laugh as Joseph did when I told him about Fanny. Tis no laughing matter to have all your hair cut off in winter. Poor Fanny was so cold without her locks and she is still made fun of to this day... even more than me!’

  Henry looked at me sharply. ‘Who is it makes fun of you, Miss Anning?’

  ‘Oh, everybody,’ I said. ‘But I don’t make no mind. It’s water off the back of a duck to me.’

  I would not show weakness. It is not my nature. I was as good as any boy or girl... or any man or woman, for that matter, and they should not break me with their silliness or cruel ways. Nor would I let them speak ill of my father, who taught me more than I could ever learn in school and taught me so well that I might teach this pale, rich boy who was so much older and more learned than me and yet knew so little of the real world of the poor.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, head bent.

  ‘Why? It’s not any fault of yours!’

  ‘If it is of any consolation, I too am made fun of.’ His face was a deep, dark red.

  ‘You? Why should you be mocked?’

  ‘I am mocked because of my friendship with you.’

  Friendship? I had never thought of him or anyone as a friend. He was certainly useful to me, which was a good thing. I did not know whether I liked him speaking of friendship.

  ‘Piffle. More likely it is because I am low-born or a girl or younger than you!’

  ‘I think it is all those things and none of them.’

  I was confused. How could it be all and none? I looked at him sternly, for I do not like confusion any more than I think I like friendship.

  ‘You know how it is with bullies. They must find someone to pick on. Someone who is different in some way. Someone of whom they are secretly jealous perhaps.’

  At this, I laughed. ‘Who’d be jealous of me? If they are that foolish, they can’t be at all frightening! I should not give them the time of day!’

  ‘I’ll try to be like you, Miss Anning, and ignore them.’

  I was minded to discover who these fools were and teach them a lesson, but in that moment, I felt a new, strange urge which I could not ignore. I wanted to find a way to be kind to Henry.

  ‘You can call me Mary, if you wish. Since you think we are friends.’

  He smiled at me and stretched out his hand. Soft and white. I stared at it for a while and then I took it and we shook hands solemnly. Maybe it was good to have a friend. I felt warmth spread t
hrough my bones. A very curious feeling.

  8

  FROM MUD TO BUNS

  Will you look at that blue sky! How blissful this is, to be lying in the sun without a care in the world. After all that rain! I thought it would never stop.’

  Frenchie was lying on his back on a patch of scrubby grass at the bottom of the undercliff above Monmouth Beach. He was shielding his eyes against the summer sunshine and he was right. The sky was as blue as it can be and the sea beneath sparkled and danced. He was a lazy so-and-so, some days, and I didn’t mind telling him to his face.

  ‘Some of us’ – I said crossly, between gritted teeth – ‘some of us have work to do. Some of us cannot be lying around staring at the sky.’

  He sat up and pulled some bits of grass out of his hair. He looked sheepish. Funny term, that. Sheepish. I learned it from Mother. She said Father looked sheepish when he had been out with his friends or ‘his ragtag mob of addle-pated, bottle-headed boobies’ as she called them, not having much time for men who have taken too much drink.

  Anyway, Henry looked more like a dog that’s been caught piddling on a person and I’ve seen that. I really have! A fashionable lady got out of her carriage down near the Cobb, handed her dog (a pug that could lick its own eyes, its face was so flat and its tongue so long) to the footman who set it down on the ground. It looked up at him and then, bold as you like, lifted its leg and passed water all down his shiny, polished boots. He never said a thing. Just stood there, red in the face, while the dog suddenly remembered its manners and looked... well, looked like a dog who’s just piddled on a person. Then its rich mistress gathered the dog up and made a huge fuss over it as if it had been clever. I laughed and laughed and got some very angry looks, I can tell you.

  Anyway, that’s how Frenchie looked.

  Then he smiled. ‘But you love what you are doing, don’t you, so it’s no hardship for you, is it?’

  I growled and started hauling at the huge slab of earth and mud that had toppled down from the cliff top, loosened by a torrential downpour the previous night. It was nearly as big as a bed and as thick as my arm. I could see the gleam of something stuck between the layers like a flower pressed in the pages of a book. I just needed to get it on its side so I could give it a proper crack with my hammer, but it was stuck in the mud and I could not seem to get a proper grip on it. It was a moment for cursing as my father sometimes did, and I muttered some rude words under my breath which made me feel better, I must say.