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whathoThe remit was Simon/Garfunkel/Sparrow/Norrington - a desert island, both parties believing they're in the correct time line, Jack's borrowing Paul's guitar, Art and Norrington empathising about their high-maintenance partners and a campfire. Nothing was said about sense or quality. Hurrah.
I have no idea what to call it. I sort of want to call it 'Hearts and Bones', but probably I very much shouldn't. Suggestions more than welcome. Also, astonishingly, at just over 3,500 words, this turns out to be one of the longest fics I've ever written.
For Cee.
(ETA. Cee decided it should be called 'Hearts and Crossbones'. I heartily concur.)
Hearts and Crossbones.
The sun begins to come to earth, or actually not, as they're more mid-ocean than anything. It's starting that halfway decent and not altogether unpoetic trick of sagging a touch in the hindquarters and sinking hotly into the swell; it flattens and reddens and juicily stains the waves and the clouds and the evening, and buggrit it sideways to bloody hell thinks Sparrow when he pries his lazy lids open sufficient to see. He's tiptoed round these sandy boots, clashing blades and watching the sun sink low for God knows how many bloody wretched times till the water over his feet is beige with churning silt. He turns Norrington's cutlass aside again, circling him so he faces the blasted sun for a change, and that bores him rigid too.
'Tell you want,' he says. 'I propose a duelling shanty. A duelling shanty contest. What d'you say?'
Norrington won't answer while his eyes are full of sunset.
'I've got things to be doing, you know,' says Sparrow. 'Ship to captain. Booty to plunder. Thingies to whatsname.'
Again, Norrington doesn't answer. He only knocks Sparrow back with a wildly cheerful flourish, and Sparrow lands with a splash on a cluster of mussels and wearily blows through his teeth. They've been duelling non-stop from the rock-pools up to the high tide and into the shallows. Sometimes, at the ends of the days when his brain's as heavy as his coat with the salt, this duelling is the first thing he ever remembers.
He's looking inland now, at the clean white beach and the dense, dark line of green. Swinging the tip of his sword into the foam, he leans back onto his heels, frowning.
Norrington blinks and squares his shoulders. Sparrow's chest is unguarded. Running the man through the ribcage would be significantly less trouble than ever it had been in the past. But Norrington can’t do that any more than he could slay a sleeping man. He drops his free hand, relaxes his stance and prods his opponent seventeen attention grabbing times in the breastbone.
‘I’d be much obliged, Mr Sparrow,’ he says, ‘if you’d do me the honour of looking me in the eye prior to offering yourself up as a particularly bloody sacrifice.’
‘Stop fighting,’ says Sparrow.
‘No. And you could at least parry.’
Sparrow takes the point of Norrington’s sword between his thumb and forefinger and puts it distastefully to one side. ‘Pax,’ he says impatiently. ‘Stop fighting.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He points with his sword to something up by the tree line. ‘Twizzle yourself about a bit,’ he says. ‘There’s a spectacle of sorts to behold.’
Norrington snorts. ‘Precisely how much of an imbecile do you take me for?’
'Men,’ hisses Sparrow. ‘There are men. Not-us men.'
Norrington frowns. Pressing the flat of his blade into Sparrow’s forearm, he turns him through half a circle. Then he lets the tip of his sword sway into the edge of the water, knocking Sparrow’s down with it. He narrows his eyes. 'So there are,' he says.
Two unarmed men, walking down from the jungle, one a good foot taller than the other and furnished with an impressive crop of hair; the little one lingering a few yards behind.
‘I vote we call a temporary cessation to hostilities,’ says Jack, reeling backwards with a leer. ‘Honoured guests, you might call them. Don’t want them thinking their genial hosts ain’t so genial.’
‘That’s no secret.’
‘With you,’ says Jack, rolling forward again and pointing somehow with his elbow. ‘Best start fighting again. Don’t let them think we’re lovers. En garde.’
‘As the grave,’ says Norrington.
'Similarly,' says Sparrow, and puts a finger to his lips.
*
'Oh look,' says Artie, shielding his eyes from the dregs of the sun. 'Pirates.'
'I know,' says Paul, back-heeling a limpet into the foliage. 'Saw them, like, twenty minutes ago.'
'Well, we should go and talk to them.'
'You're very welcome.'
'Do you not want to talk to them? They might be interesting people.'
'No. I'm going to look for starfish.'
'Don't stick them to your face, okay?' Artie untwines a strand of dried grass from his working fingers and tries to blow a note through it. 'They're hell to get off.'
'I will... very much bear that in mind,' says Paul. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and mooches over to the rock pools. Artie stands with his shoulders braced and his feet apart, peeling his shirtsleeves back to his elbows and breathing more deeply than he needs to.
'The air is very good here,' he says. Paul twists a strip of bladder-wrack in his fist so all the sacs pop.
'I think they look very picturesque,' says Art, gazing over Sparrow and Norrington's heads. 'If I had pencils and paper and things I would very much like to sketch them.'
Art splits the strand of grass. He frowns and plucks a lock of hair from behind his ear. To his surprise, it shrieks and the piratical types take a step back. Paul glances up momentarily and raises his eyebrows.
'I might write a poem,' says Art, rubbing the hair between his fingers.
'Please do,' says Paul, picking his nails with a razor shell.
'Are you going to write a song?'
Paul flicks his eyes sideways and snorts.
'Let me know if you do.' Art drops his lock into the breeze and looks back towards the shoreline. 'I'm going to wave to them.'
Paul pushes his shirtsleeve up to his elbow and ferrets around in a submerged crevice.
'Would you like to watch?'
'Thank you. No.'
Art nods and raises a hand. Paul emerges from the rock pool with a starfish fastened to the back of his wrist and looks at it critically in the twilight.
*
'He's waving. Look. Coo-ee.'
Norrington pirouettes back to Sparrow and smacks his waggling fingers down. 'What are we doing?' he whispers. 'Are we putting on a show of filthy comradeship so they think we're filthy comrades or fighting so they don't think we're…. '
Sparrow bares his teeth with silent laughter.
'Oh.' Norrington scowls, sits heavily on the sand and throws a smallish whelk into the sea. It washes back and lodges itself in the top of his boot. 'Just… Simply…. Do not in any sense oblige me to talk. Anyway.' He looks up. 'I'll presume they're no threat. If they're waving.'
'One of them is indeed waving. The other is apparently lobstering in a miniature lagoon.' Sparrow curls the left point of his moustache upwards and the right one down. He sways momentarily to three brisk bars of unheard music. He sidles close enough to Norrington that the commodore won't flinch too far away and undo his work. 'Though personally,' he says, 'I think maintaining a united front lest the gentlemen in question turn and pierce us somewhat in our, begging your pardon, flabby great underbelly... is most important.'
Norrington says nothing. He smoothes down a patch of sand still sodden from the receding tide.
Jack puts his lips pretty much inside Norrington's ear. 'I think we should unite our fronts.'
Norrington turns to him, making him topple with a herring-like slap onto his shoulder blades. He is disconcertingly unblinking.
'Or possibly in the alternative you'll be wanting to take up arms again,'' says Sparrow, a little dismayed.
Norrington pushes his upper lip into his nostrils. 'If I fall asleep in this puddle,' he says, 'will you continue to respect the truce you unilaterally declared?'
'You have my word,' says Sparrow, holding up his palms.
'I mean both truces. The fighting one and the… other one.'
Norrington hurls himself onto his side, facing away from Sparrow. He nudges the back of his hat so it tips over his eyes.
Sparrow flips onto his stomach. He glances over his shoulder and gives the retreating waves a meaningful glare. 'Are we sleeping like this? With our feet in the sea?'
'I am. You sleep wherever you damned well like.'
Sparrow thinks about it. He wriggles his body from side to side to carve out a comfortable trench in the sand.
'Begging your pardon,' he says, 'but do you not think we might somewhat drown if the tide turns before we're properly roused?'
'Possibly,' says Norrington.
'Well. Very good. And you're quite sure you don't yet wish for a resumption of earlier hostilities in re indulging your lust for my gallbladder? 'Cause I'm not overly fussed about yours.'
'I'm not a pirate. I'll not kill a man in his sleep.'
Sparrow grunts thoughtfully. 'Well. Very good encore thereof,' he says. 'I was getting a cramp.
And slowly he lowers his head onto his folded hands to watch the sea take Norrington or not.
*
As the light comes up, Paul re-emerges from the jungle with his fist around the warm neck of a weathered acoustic guitar and his knees knocking the back of its body as he swaggers diagonally down the beach. When he sees Art standing at the waterline with his bare toes in the shallows, he swings the guitar up onto his shoulder. The strap slips off the tuning peg where the faux leather’s all cracked and worn from the salt in the air and trails in the sand.
‘Look what I found,’ says Paul, his voice full of promise and pride, but parched in the heat and barely a whisper. Art whistles at the horizon and doesn’t even turn. Paul sidles closer, coughs and breathes in for another shot.
'Hey,’ says Art. He twists from the waist, one hand tangled up in his hair and throws out a sunbeam of a smile. ‘Look what you found.’
‘Yeah,’ mumbles Paul to the tips of his shoes. He swings the guitar down and balances it on his laces.
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘Ah.’ He jerks his head back. ‘In the jungle. Halfway up a cliff in a bundle of tree roots.’
‘Weird find.’
'Yeah.' Paul looks him up and down. 'You look like you've slept or something.'
''Course I've slept.' Art dips his fingers into the sea and runs them down his face.
'Did you find some kind of a hostel?'
'I slept right here in the sand. Just like the pirates did.'
'Aha.' Paul casts a quick glance down the beach at the snoring lumps of sodden cloth and braid. 'Anyway. I'm going over there. I have picking to do.'
Art nods and bends to scoop another handful of water to throw into his face. 'I'll be with you in just a minute'. He turns dripping to watch Paul trailing the guitar to a nearby rock where he perches and tunes up, sparking harmonics off the twelfth fret.
*
Jack comes to face down in a face-shaped hollow. He raises one gummy eye from a lugworm cast. The pinkish sun sits very low on the horizon. It must be obscenely early. The sand on his lips chafes the blood to the surface when he rubs his mouth with the back of his hand. He spits, pushes himself marginally more upright and snorts the grit from his nostrils, heaves his weighty hair behind his shoulders and excavates his sand-clogged ears. He hears music. Quite naturally, he frowns.
Paul and Art are flanking a rock pool a couple of hundred yards along the beach. Paul is strumming a guitar and his lips are moving, but only Art’s much stronger voice drifts this far south against the tepid wind.
'Oh, they sing.' Jack bounces onto his heels. 'Wake up wake up wake up.' He takes Norrington's nearest shoulder in both hands and violently rocks him back and forth so all his shiny bits rattle.
'Hmph,' says Norrington, or something very like. Then he says 'What the…?'
‘They sing. The lovely jungle people. Let’s go and be serenaded.'
'I can't think of anything I'd rather…' says Norrington through a mouthful of grit, then he peels back an eyelid and sees that Sparrow's already cantering in a well-meaning zigzag across the beach towards the singers. He has an alarming list to starboard. Sighing, Norrington rolls onto an elbow.
Artie nudges Paul in the ribs. Paul fouls a fret and swears beneath his breath. When he glances up and sees the grinning pirate swaying into his personal space, he grips Art's wrist for two full seconds before he catches himself.
'Don't stop,' says Sparrow. 'Please don't stop. I love music. I love that song in particular. What d'you call it?'
'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' says Paul.
'Well done,' says Artie. 'You spoke to them.'
'Not terribly catchy,' says Sparrow. 'We can work on a proper name later. More song now. Chop chop.'
Norrington sidles up to the group and stops at a more than polite distance.
'Good morning,' says Art. Norrington nods at him.
'Song,' says Sparrow. 'More song. Beaucoup de song.'
Paul blinks. He turns to Artie. 'Where were we?' he says.
'Oh, I'll start. You pick it up whenever you're ready.' And Artie launches into the final verse. Paul flushes to his ears, finds the low harmony and strums as loud as he can. Sparrow smacks his lips and sits cross-legged on the sand. He bobs his head completely out of time and conducts an entirely different piece with his cutlass. Norrington stands very much poised and barely inoffensive with his nose pointing skywards and his hands clasping and unclasping in the small of his back.
There's a ten second silence after the last chord dies away while Sparrow gauges whether or not the song's properly ended. When Norrington nudges him with his toes in the small of the back, he sits up straight and applauds till his rings chime.
'Bravo. Bravo. Great singing voice,' says Sparrow, tipping his head at Art. 'Is he a eunuch?'
'Yeah,' says Paul. He looks up out of the corner of his eye too briefly for Art to notice. Art's humming some lacy harmony an octave higher than any of the rest of them can reach. He wouldn't have noticed anyway.
'It was worth it,' says Sparrow. 'It was worth every last excision. Sir, I thank you humbly for your pain.'
'I wrote it,' says Paul.
'He sings it better than you do,' says Sparrow.
Art turns the volume up a notch, hoping Paul might chip in with the melody.
'Are you finished?' says Paul.
'Pretty much,' says Art to his toes.
'Do you know any more songs?' says Sparrow.
'No.' Paul knocks the lower E down to a D. Art swings his foot in the sand.
'I know a great song,' says Sparrow.
'Oh gods,' says Norrington. 'Don’t.'
‘A very pretty lady taught it to me on an island not unlike this only significantly better furnished with rum. That song,' he says hoarsely while Norrington glowers, 'was liken as unto a treasured childhood memory for this girl. It was with a wholly conspiratorial and something a little more than sisterly air that she shared it with me. Not like she'd bandy it about with just any random bypasser. You got to appreciate that when I in turn pass it on to you as 'twere my great-great-grandmother's pocket watch. May I?’
Sparrow half slides the guitar from Paul's lap to his own. Norrington unsheathes and resheathes his sword.
'Hey,' says Paul, then the stale smell hits him and he flails long enough to lose his grip. He tries to mimic Norrington's recently lost grimace of edgy politeness as Sparrow launches into 'A Pirate's Life' in a voice monumentally husky and displaying a three note range. To his credit, he does hit all the right chord shapes, but one fret higher than they rightfully ought to be.
For the final strum, Sparrow raises his arm above his head, bringing it down with a flourish and missing the strings entirely, his knuckles pummelling into the rockpool. He rights himself, dusts down the instrument, casts around for vague approval and sings the last word a second time lest they didn't quite get it. Paul nods meaninglessly. Norrington flexes his fingers on the handle of his sword, turns and strolls away from the group.
Art purses his lips. ‘I’m not entirely sure I can harmonise to that,’ he says.
‘What’s the first chord?’ says Paul, suddenly chipper, hoisting the guitar back onto his knee. ‘Give it again.’
'Ah,' says Sparrow, smiling and bowing his head. 'Adulation. Approval.' He flicks his eyes at Norrington's back and unnecessarily raises his voice a touch. 'And I'm trusting in due course that in return for this information there'll be an exchange of sexual favours.'
'Yeah,' says Paul. Art turns on his heel. 'Well, maybe.'
*
Norrington marches down to the water and lets the wavelets lap his shoes to a shine. Art slopes over to him, humming gently so as not to surprise him. Norrington, hearing him come to a halt a few feet behind him, clasps his hands in the small of his back. He clears his throat. 'There's something I've been meaning to ask, Mr… ?'
'Please. Call me Art.'
'Mr Art.' He cranes over his shoulder. 'How the devil did you come to be here?'
'Oh.' says Art. 'It's kind of a complicated story. Or not complicated. But pretty, you know, peculiar.'
'Try me.'
'Well, we were kind of rehearsing on an aeroplane and I questioned a couple of Paul's artistic decisions and he got all kind of polite at me and it was really very upsetting. I started watching The Wizard of Oz on the in-flight entertainment because I find munchkins very cheering and the next think I knew…. '
'Mr Art, I don’t believe I caught the meaning of one…. '
'I could tell. It really doesn't matter. Say. You're not a pirate, are you?'
'Certainly not,' says Norrington.
'I thought from a distance you were both pirates.'
'I am nothing of the sort. He is. And he's fleeing from a hanging. It's my duty to return him.'
'That's rough. And you looked so nice together.'
Norrington's back ripples liquidly beneath his jacket. 'I couldn't begin to guess at what you are,' he says.
'And he's a real pirate? I didn't think real pirates looked like that these days.' Art turns to him with a smile. 'So swashbuckling. The teeth are just great. What's your story?'
'Oh. I really haven't the foggiest. I fell asleep mid-hurricane through having stayed awake three full days trying to keep his wretched hulk of a vessel in my sight. I woke up sprawled on top of his vile carcass and the devil rolled out from under me before I could run him through.' He looks sideways at Art. 'What became of your boat?'
'Well, the aeroplane crashed.'
'There may be something to salvage if you ran aground.'
'Yes. But. There was no boat. There was an aeroplane.'
'I'm not entirely sure I…. '
'It crashed, in the sea, and then it sank, and we were washed ashore.'
'Then it matters remarkably little.'
'Yes.' Art wriggles his shoes an inch into the swampy sand. His stomach grumbles and his nose is beginning to burn. 'I'm surprisingly content,' he murmurs.
'Yes,' says Norrington. 'So am I.'
'I like it here. It makes no sense whatsoever and I'm kind of scared the moment we do something that makes any sense, it'll burst.'
'And this is how I wish it to continue. Neither losing him nor catching him.'
'Really? You two? Wow. I'm glad Paul and I don't try and kill one another with swords. I would really take offence at that.'
'Then you're absurdly over sensitive, Mr Art. The eye contact is surprisingly gratifying.'
For half an hour at least they watch the gleaming white waves till they're seasick and nearly blind from the sun. Art sucks his lower lip and buttons his waistcoat. 'Well. I need to get a fire started. We could use some breakfast.'
'That seems to have been taken care of.' Norrington nods up the beach. Paul and Jack Sparrow are dancing in opposite directions around a sizeable signal fire, linking elbows barn-dance-like every time they cross paths. 'I suppose there must've been rum after all.'
'Pretty,' says Art. 'If he's drunk on an empty stomach, he won't mind my cutting in.'
Norrington follows. 'I do hope they burned the guitar.'
Sparrow notices their approach, spins Paul loose and throws his arms wide to call them into the circle. Norrington takes his hand from the hilt of his sword as he strides into the smoke.
'En garde', says Sparrow, drawing like lightning, thrusting forward and tipping his blade directly into the fire. Norrington laughs with his lips pressed tightly together and hauls Sparrow away from the blaze by his collar. He bows and prods him backwards around the beacon with an imaginary sword, licking his lips as he wishes it through Sparrow's ribcage. Sparrow, not caring much about an imaginary punctured lung, catches him by the wrist and twirls him. Norrington bites his tongue and hangs on to Sparrow's shoulders, leaning away from the fire, otherwise letting himself be dragged more or less wherever. It'll do till they've slept again at least, he thinks. Like duelling without the bloody fingertips.
Art does pick up the harmony as he comes close enough to briefly place a hand on Paul's back as he swings past. When Paul cups a hand over his ear and staggers near enough to heavily lean against Art's side, he knows full well he's drunk. So Art gives his voice full rein, patting the sparks away from the thatch of his head, knowing tonight Paul won't walk off stage when he takes his solo.
***
I have no idea what to call it. I sort of want to call it 'Hearts and Bones', but probably I very much shouldn't. Suggestions more than welcome. Also, astonishingly, at just over 3,500 words, this turns out to be one of the longest fics I've ever written.
For Cee.
(ETA. Cee decided it should be called 'Hearts and Crossbones'. I heartily concur.)
Hearts and Crossbones.
The sun begins to come to earth, or actually not, as they're more mid-ocean than anything. It's starting that halfway decent and not altogether unpoetic trick of sagging a touch in the hindquarters and sinking hotly into the swell; it flattens and reddens and juicily stains the waves and the clouds and the evening, and buggrit it sideways to bloody hell thinks Sparrow when he pries his lazy lids open sufficient to see. He's tiptoed round these sandy boots, clashing blades and watching the sun sink low for God knows how many bloody wretched times till the water over his feet is beige with churning silt. He turns Norrington's cutlass aside again, circling him so he faces the blasted sun for a change, and that bores him rigid too.
'Tell you want,' he says. 'I propose a duelling shanty. A duelling shanty contest. What d'you say?'
Norrington won't answer while his eyes are full of sunset.
'I've got things to be doing, you know,' says Sparrow. 'Ship to captain. Booty to plunder. Thingies to whatsname.'
Again, Norrington doesn't answer. He only knocks Sparrow back with a wildly cheerful flourish, and Sparrow lands with a splash on a cluster of mussels and wearily blows through his teeth. They've been duelling non-stop from the rock-pools up to the high tide and into the shallows. Sometimes, at the ends of the days when his brain's as heavy as his coat with the salt, this duelling is the first thing he ever remembers.
He's looking inland now, at the clean white beach and the dense, dark line of green. Swinging the tip of his sword into the foam, he leans back onto his heels, frowning.
Norrington blinks and squares his shoulders. Sparrow's chest is unguarded. Running the man through the ribcage would be significantly less trouble than ever it had been in the past. But Norrington can’t do that any more than he could slay a sleeping man. He drops his free hand, relaxes his stance and prods his opponent seventeen attention grabbing times in the breastbone.
‘I’d be much obliged, Mr Sparrow,’ he says, ‘if you’d do me the honour of looking me in the eye prior to offering yourself up as a particularly bloody sacrifice.’
‘Stop fighting,’ says Sparrow.
‘No. And you could at least parry.’
Sparrow takes the point of Norrington’s sword between his thumb and forefinger and puts it distastefully to one side. ‘Pax,’ he says impatiently. ‘Stop fighting.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He points with his sword to something up by the tree line. ‘Twizzle yourself about a bit,’ he says. ‘There’s a spectacle of sorts to behold.’
Norrington snorts. ‘Precisely how much of an imbecile do you take me for?’
'Men,’ hisses Sparrow. ‘There are men. Not-us men.'
Norrington frowns. Pressing the flat of his blade into Sparrow’s forearm, he turns him through half a circle. Then he lets the tip of his sword sway into the edge of the water, knocking Sparrow’s down with it. He narrows his eyes. 'So there are,' he says.
Two unarmed men, walking down from the jungle, one a good foot taller than the other and furnished with an impressive crop of hair; the little one lingering a few yards behind.
‘I vote we call a temporary cessation to hostilities,’ says Jack, reeling backwards with a leer. ‘Honoured guests, you might call them. Don’t want them thinking their genial hosts ain’t so genial.’
‘That’s no secret.’
‘With you,’ says Jack, rolling forward again and pointing somehow with his elbow. ‘Best start fighting again. Don’t let them think we’re lovers. En garde.’
‘As the grave,’ says Norrington.
'Similarly,' says Sparrow, and puts a finger to his lips.
*
'Oh look,' says Artie, shielding his eyes from the dregs of the sun. 'Pirates.'
'I know,' says Paul, back-heeling a limpet into the foliage. 'Saw them, like, twenty minutes ago.'
'Well, we should go and talk to them.'
'You're very welcome.'
'Do you not want to talk to them? They might be interesting people.'
'No. I'm going to look for starfish.'
'Don't stick them to your face, okay?' Artie untwines a strand of dried grass from his working fingers and tries to blow a note through it. 'They're hell to get off.'
'I will... very much bear that in mind,' says Paul. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and mooches over to the rock pools. Artie stands with his shoulders braced and his feet apart, peeling his shirtsleeves back to his elbows and breathing more deeply than he needs to.
'The air is very good here,' he says. Paul twists a strip of bladder-wrack in his fist so all the sacs pop.
'I think they look very picturesque,' says Art, gazing over Sparrow and Norrington's heads. 'If I had pencils and paper and things I would very much like to sketch them.'
Art splits the strand of grass. He frowns and plucks a lock of hair from behind his ear. To his surprise, it shrieks and the piratical types take a step back. Paul glances up momentarily and raises his eyebrows.
'I might write a poem,' says Art, rubbing the hair between his fingers.
'Please do,' says Paul, picking his nails with a razor shell.
'Are you going to write a song?'
Paul flicks his eyes sideways and snorts.
'Let me know if you do.' Art drops his lock into the breeze and looks back towards the shoreline. 'I'm going to wave to them.'
Paul pushes his shirtsleeve up to his elbow and ferrets around in a submerged crevice.
'Would you like to watch?'
'Thank you. No.'
Art nods and raises a hand. Paul emerges from the rock pool with a starfish fastened to the back of his wrist and looks at it critically in the twilight.
*
'He's waving. Look. Coo-ee.'
Norrington pirouettes back to Sparrow and smacks his waggling fingers down. 'What are we doing?' he whispers. 'Are we putting on a show of filthy comradeship so they think we're filthy comrades or fighting so they don't think we're…. '
Sparrow bares his teeth with silent laughter.
'Oh.' Norrington scowls, sits heavily on the sand and throws a smallish whelk into the sea. It washes back and lodges itself in the top of his boot. 'Just… Simply…. Do not in any sense oblige me to talk. Anyway.' He looks up. 'I'll presume they're no threat. If they're waving.'
'One of them is indeed waving. The other is apparently lobstering in a miniature lagoon.' Sparrow curls the left point of his moustache upwards and the right one down. He sways momentarily to three brisk bars of unheard music. He sidles close enough to Norrington that the commodore won't flinch too far away and undo his work. 'Though personally,' he says, 'I think maintaining a united front lest the gentlemen in question turn and pierce us somewhat in our, begging your pardon, flabby great underbelly... is most important.'
Norrington says nothing. He smoothes down a patch of sand still sodden from the receding tide.
Jack puts his lips pretty much inside Norrington's ear. 'I think we should unite our fronts.'
Norrington turns to him, making him topple with a herring-like slap onto his shoulder blades. He is disconcertingly unblinking.
'Or possibly in the alternative you'll be wanting to take up arms again,'' says Sparrow, a little dismayed.
Norrington pushes his upper lip into his nostrils. 'If I fall asleep in this puddle,' he says, 'will you continue to respect the truce you unilaterally declared?'
'You have my word,' says Sparrow, holding up his palms.
'I mean both truces. The fighting one and the… other one.'
Norrington hurls himself onto his side, facing away from Sparrow. He nudges the back of his hat so it tips over his eyes.
Sparrow flips onto his stomach. He glances over his shoulder and gives the retreating waves a meaningful glare. 'Are we sleeping like this? With our feet in the sea?'
'I am. You sleep wherever you damned well like.'
Sparrow thinks about it. He wriggles his body from side to side to carve out a comfortable trench in the sand.
'Begging your pardon,' he says, 'but do you not think we might somewhat drown if the tide turns before we're properly roused?'
'Possibly,' says Norrington.
'Well. Very good. And you're quite sure you don't yet wish for a resumption of earlier hostilities in re indulging your lust for my gallbladder? 'Cause I'm not overly fussed about yours.'
'I'm not a pirate. I'll not kill a man in his sleep.'
Sparrow grunts thoughtfully. 'Well. Very good encore thereof,' he says. 'I was getting a cramp.
And slowly he lowers his head onto his folded hands to watch the sea take Norrington or not.
*
As the light comes up, Paul re-emerges from the jungle with his fist around the warm neck of a weathered acoustic guitar and his knees knocking the back of its body as he swaggers diagonally down the beach. When he sees Art standing at the waterline with his bare toes in the shallows, he swings the guitar up onto his shoulder. The strap slips off the tuning peg where the faux leather’s all cracked and worn from the salt in the air and trails in the sand.
‘Look what I found,’ says Paul, his voice full of promise and pride, but parched in the heat and barely a whisper. Art whistles at the horizon and doesn’t even turn. Paul sidles closer, coughs and breathes in for another shot.
'Hey,’ says Art. He twists from the waist, one hand tangled up in his hair and throws out a sunbeam of a smile. ‘Look what you found.’
‘Yeah,’ mumbles Paul to the tips of his shoes. He swings the guitar down and balances it on his laces.
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘Ah.’ He jerks his head back. ‘In the jungle. Halfway up a cliff in a bundle of tree roots.’
‘Weird find.’
'Yeah.' Paul looks him up and down. 'You look like you've slept or something.'
''Course I've slept.' Art dips his fingers into the sea and runs them down his face.
'Did you find some kind of a hostel?'
'I slept right here in the sand. Just like the pirates did.'
'Aha.' Paul casts a quick glance down the beach at the snoring lumps of sodden cloth and braid. 'Anyway. I'm going over there. I have picking to do.'
Art nods and bends to scoop another handful of water to throw into his face. 'I'll be with you in just a minute'. He turns dripping to watch Paul trailing the guitar to a nearby rock where he perches and tunes up, sparking harmonics off the twelfth fret.
*
Jack comes to face down in a face-shaped hollow. He raises one gummy eye from a lugworm cast. The pinkish sun sits very low on the horizon. It must be obscenely early. The sand on his lips chafes the blood to the surface when he rubs his mouth with the back of his hand. He spits, pushes himself marginally more upright and snorts the grit from his nostrils, heaves his weighty hair behind his shoulders and excavates his sand-clogged ears. He hears music. Quite naturally, he frowns.
Paul and Art are flanking a rock pool a couple of hundred yards along the beach. Paul is strumming a guitar and his lips are moving, but only Art’s much stronger voice drifts this far south against the tepid wind.
'Oh, they sing.' Jack bounces onto his heels. 'Wake up wake up wake up.' He takes Norrington's nearest shoulder in both hands and violently rocks him back and forth so all his shiny bits rattle.
'Hmph,' says Norrington, or something very like. Then he says 'What the…?'
‘They sing. The lovely jungle people. Let’s go and be serenaded.'
'I can't think of anything I'd rather…' says Norrington through a mouthful of grit, then he peels back an eyelid and sees that Sparrow's already cantering in a well-meaning zigzag across the beach towards the singers. He has an alarming list to starboard. Sighing, Norrington rolls onto an elbow.
Artie nudges Paul in the ribs. Paul fouls a fret and swears beneath his breath. When he glances up and sees the grinning pirate swaying into his personal space, he grips Art's wrist for two full seconds before he catches himself.
'Don't stop,' says Sparrow. 'Please don't stop. I love music. I love that song in particular. What d'you call it?'
'Bridge Over Troubled Water,' says Paul.
'Well done,' says Artie. 'You spoke to them.'
'Not terribly catchy,' says Sparrow. 'We can work on a proper name later. More song now. Chop chop.'
Norrington sidles up to the group and stops at a more than polite distance.
'Good morning,' says Art. Norrington nods at him.
'Song,' says Sparrow. 'More song. Beaucoup de song.'
Paul blinks. He turns to Artie. 'Where were we?' he says.
'Oh, I'll start. You pick it up whenever you're ready.' And Artie launches into the final verse. Paul flushes to his ears, finds the low harmony and strums as loud as he can. Sparrow smacks his lips and sits cross-legged on the sand. He bobs his head completely out of time and conducts an entirely different piece with his cutlass. Norrington stands very much poised and barely inoffensive with his nose pointing skywards and his hands clasping and unclasping in the small of his back.
There's a ten second silence after the last chord dies away while Sparrow gauges whether or not the song's properly ended. When Norrington nudges him with his toes in the small of the back, he sits up straight and applauds till his rings chime.
'Bravo. Bravo. Great singing voice,' says Sparrow, tipping his head at Art. 'Is he a eunuch?'
'Yeah,' says Paul. He looks up out of the corner of his eye too briefly for Art to notice. Art's humming some lacy harmony an octave higher than any of the rest of them can reach. He wouldn't have noticed anyway.
'It was worth it,' says Sparrow. 'It was worth every last excision. Sir, I thank you humbly for your pain.'
'I wrote it,' says Paul.
'He sings it better than you do,' says Sparrow.
Art turns the volume up a notch, hoping Paul might chip in with the melody.
'Are you finished?' says Paul.
'Pretty much,' says Art to his toes.
'Do you know any more songs?' says Sparrow.
'No.' Paul knocks the lower E down to a D. Art swings his foot in the sand.
'I know a great song,' says Sparrow.
'Oh gods,' says Norrington. 'Don’t.'
‘A very pretty lady taught it to me on an island not unlike this only significantly better furnished with rum. That song,' he says hoarsely while Norrington glowers, 'was liken as unto a treasured childhood memory for this girl. It was with a wholly conspiratorial and something a little more than sisterly air that she shared it with me. Not like she'd bandy it about with just any random bypasser. You got to appreciate that when I in turn pass it on to you as 'twere my great-great-grandmother's pocket watch. May I?’
Sparrow half slides the guitar from Paul's lap to his own. Norrington unsheathes and resheathes his sword.
'Hey,' says Paul, then the stale smell hits him and he flails long enough to lose his grip. He tries to mimic Norrington's recently lost grimace of edgy politeness as Sparrow launches into 'A Pirate's Life' in a voice monumentally husky and displaying a three note range. To his credit, he does hit all the right chord shapes, but one fret higher than they rightfully ought to be.
For the final strum, Sparrow raises his arm above his head, bringing it down with a flourish and missing the strings entirely, his knuckles pummelling into the rockpool. He rights himself, dusts down the instrument, casts around for vague approval and sings the last word a second time lest they didn't quite get it. Paul nods meaninglessly. Norrington flexes his fingers on the handle of his sword, turns and strolls away from the group.
Art purses his lips. ‘I’m not entirely sure I can harmonise to that,’ he says.
‘What’s the first chord?’ says Paul, suddenly chipper, hoisting the guitar back onto his knee. ‘Give it again.’
'Ah,' says Sparrow, smiling and bowing his head. 'Adulation. Approval.' He flicks his eyes at Norrington's back and unnecessarily raises his voice a touch. 'And I'm trusting in due course that in return for this information there'll be an exchange of sexual favours.'
'Yeah,' says Paul. Art turns on his heel. 'Well, maybe.'
*
Norrington marches down to the water and lets the wavelets lap his shoes to a shine. Art slopes over to him, humming gently so as not to surprise him. Norrington, hearing him come to a halt a few feet behind him, clasps his hands in the small of his back. He clears his throat. 'There's something I've been meaning to ask, Mr… ?'
'Please. Call me Art.'
'Mr Art.' He cranes over his shoulder. 'How the devil did you come to be here?'
'Oh.' says Art. 'It's kind of a complicated story. Or not complicated. But pretty, you know, peculiar.'
'Try me.'
'Well, we were kind of rehearsing on an aeroplane and I questioned a couple of Paul's artistic decisions and he got all kind of polite at me and it was really very upsetting. I started watching The Wizard of Oz on the in-flight entertainment because I find munchkins very cheering and the next think I knew…. '
'Mr Art, I don’t believe I caught the meaning of one…. '
'I could tell. It really doesn't matter. Say. You're not a pirate, are you?'
'Certainly not,' says Norrington.
'I thought from a distance you were both pirates.'
'I am nothing of the sort. He is. And he's fleeing from a hanging. It's my duty to return him.'
'That's rough. And you looked so nice together.'
Norrington's back ripples liquidly beneath his jacket. 'I couldn't begin to guess at what you are,' he says.
'And he's a real pirate? I didn't think real pirates looked like that these days.' Art turns to him with a smile. 'So swashbuckling. The teeth are just great. What's your story?'
'Oh. I really haven't the foggiest. I fell asleep mid-hurricane through having stayed awake three full days trying to keep his wretched hulk of a vessel in my sight. I woke up sprawled on top of his vile carcass and the devil rolled out from under me before I could run him through.' He looks sideways at Art. 'What became of your boat?'
'Well, the aeroplane crashed.'
'There may be something to salvage if you ran aground.'
'Yes. But. There was no boat. There was an aeroplane.'
'I'm not entirely sure I…. '
'It crashed, in the sea, and then it sank, and we were washed ashore.'
'Then it matters remarkably little.'
'Yes.' Art wriggles his shoes an inch into the swampy sand. His stomach grumbles and his nose is beginning to burn. 'I'm surprisingly content,' he murmurs.
'Yes,' says Norrington. 'So am I.'
'I like it here. It makes no sense whatsoever and I'm kind of scared the moment we do something that makes any sense, it'll burst.'
'And this is how I wish it to continue. Neither losing him nor catching him.'
'Really? You two? Wow. I'm glad Paul and I don't try and kill one another with swords. I would really take offence at that.'
'Then you're absurdly over sensitive, Mr Art. The eye contact is surprisingly gratifying.'
For half an hour at least they watch the gleaming white waves till they're seasick and nearly blind from the sun. Art sucks his lower lip and buttons his waistcoat. 'Well. I need to get a fire started. We could use some breakfast.'
'That seems to have been taken care of.' Norrington nods up the beach. Paul and Jack Sparrow are dancing in opposite directions around a sizeable signal fire, linking elbows barn-dance-like every time they cross paths. 'I suppose there must've been rum after all.'
'Pretty,' says Art. 'If he's drunk on an empty stomach, he won't mind my cutting in.'
Norrington follows. 'I do hope they burned the guitar.'
Sparrow notices their approach, spins Paul loose and throws his arms wide to call them into the circle. Norrington takes his hand from the hilt of his sword as he strides into the smoke.
'En garde', says Sparrow, drawing like lightning, thrusting forward and tipping his blade directly into the fire. Norrington laughs with his lips pressed tightly together and hauls Sparrow away from the blaze by his collar. He bows and prods him backwards around the beacon with an imaginary sword, licking his lips as he wishes it through Sparrow's ribcage. Sparrow, not caring much about an imaginary punctured lung, catches him by the wrist and twirls him. Norrington bites his tongue and hangs on to Sparrow's shoulders, leaning away from the fire, otherwise letting himself be dragged more or less wherever. It'll do till they've slept again at least, he thinks. Like duelling without the bloody fingertips.
Art does pick up the harmony as he comes close enough to briefly place a hand on Paul's back as he swings past. When Paul cups a hand over his ear and staggers near enough to heavily lean against Art's side, he knows full well he's drunk. So Art gives his voice full rein, patting the sparks away from the thatch of his head, knowing tonight Paul won't walk off stage when he takes his solo.
***
