At the furthest corner of the shipyard, aboard a beached knacker of a barge awaiting long overdue repairs that might very well never happen, a very small crew was preparing for a sea battle of epic proportions.
"Batten down the hatches, you bunch of salty bastards," James roared from the top of the crumbling cabin. "Next man I spot with empty hands is going for a swim with the sharks!"
Billy and Rose, weighed down with length of dried out rope, scrambled across the deck, slipping in the drizzle.
"Ready the canon!" their captain commanded at top volume.
The canon was a dented barrel they'd managed to heave onto their vessel with extreme difficulty. It was now jacked up on a couple of bricks, waiting to be loaded with a huge wooden sinker. It took both Rose and Billy to lift the thing off the ground and they approached the canon slowly, cursing their lazy captain under their breaths.
"Spaniards portside! Lock and load, ye rotters!"
With one last massive effort, Rose and Billy dropped the cannonball into the barrel. It went in with more speed and weight than their construction could handle. The cannon dislodged from the bricks and crashed onto the deck, splintering the already fragile planks beneath it. The cannonball rolled out, disappeared over the side of the barge and straight into a tower of wooden crates holding empty bottles. The noise was terrific.
"Useless, the lotta ya," James hopped off his perch and came running to the side of the barge. "Now, that's not looking too good, this."
Indeed it did not.
The crates had tumbled and the shards of broken bottles littered the place like freshly fallen snow. Rose scanned the yard and saw her uncle Charlie's form approaching through the drizzle.
"Scram, youse," she advised the boys, nodding towards the nearby wall dividing yard from street.
"Are you staying?" Billy asked, already halfway over. "Are you mad?"
"It's grand," Rose said hopping off the barge and heading to meet her uncle Charlie. "If he thinks it was just me, he won't mind."
"See ye, treacherous wench," James called and disappeared over the wall behind Billy, and not a moment too soon.
"Sorry, uncle Charlie," Rose called out as soon as he was within earshot.
"Orright, Rosie?" Her uncle surveyed the damage and whistled through his teeth. "How'd you manage this?"
"The cannonball got away," she answered.
"A pirate, are you?"
"I was, anyway." Rose smiled at him, watching as he tried to arrange his face into a suitably stern and irritated expression.
"Look at the state of the place," he growled unconvincingly. "It's a bloody miracle you've not cut yourself to ribbons. Wait here."
Charlie disappeared behind a shed and came back with a shovel and a rake.
"Get rid of this," he ordered. "And then come find me, I've something that'll keep you out of trouble for a bit, Cap'n Shelby."
"Aye-aye." Rose saluted and took up the shovel.
It didn't take her very long to dispose of the broken glass by shoveling and raking it into the cut; the rain even stopped, so it wasn't altogether unpleasant. She took the tools back where they belonged and ambled across the yard to one of the storage sheds, looking for her uncle.
Wandering between the rows of shelves and crates holding god-knew-what, was a posh woman drinking gin.
Rose ducked behind a large wooden box before she could be seen. The woman was humming to herself, seemingly very content to be here, strutting around like she owned the place.
Rose was immediately irritated.
Women, especially nice-looking women drinking on their own to pass the time, usually had the intention of bothering her father; and when women bothered her father, the world was liable to tilt at a moment's notice.
Keeping low to the ground Rose made her way back to the door, when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye that made her slow down.
Abandoned on top of a barrel sat a very nice bag.
Silently Rose crept across and crouched behind the barrel. She poked her head around the side and saw the women at the far end of the shed, looking out over the yard. Rose reached up and took the bag down, clicking it open and rifling through the contents at great speed. Lipstick, powder, a folder with something dull in it about horses, a very nice silvery case containing cigarettes and a lighter and...Rose checked over her shoulder and assured herself that the woman was still busy looking at whatever she was looking at...a money clip, fairly laden with cash.
Rose scoffed as she removed about half of the notes in it. Money clips, according to her auntie Ada, were the best way to spot a member of the bourgeoisie. People too good to bother with loose coins and so on. Rose shook her head. She emptied the cigarette box, save one, into her coat pocket, rolled up the notes and stuffed them down her sock, put the bag back and disappeared from the shed unnoticed.
As she rounded the corner she ran straight into her father, having a smoke with her uncle Charlie.
"Hello," she said casually.
"All done?" her uncle asked.
"All done."
"What's all done?" Tommy asked, raising an eyebrow at Rose.
"Grace O'Malley here had a heavy artillery misfire," Charlie said before Rose had a chance to open her mouth.
"How many times have you been told-" her father rounded on her.
"It's orright, Tommy," Charlie interrupted calmly. "No harm done, aye, Rosie?"
"None," she said quickly. "Not any. Not at all."
"Place has never looked better," her uncle chimed in cheerfully.
"The pair of you." Tommy shook his head. "Is our visitor still about?"
"In that one over there." Charlie nodded towards the scene of Rose's robbery. "Right, come with me, you."
Rose followed her uncle across the yard, looking over her shoulder to see her father disappear in direction of the posh woman. Everything inside her bristled.
"Who's she?" Rose asked as they made their way towards her uncle's live in shed.
"The cat's mother." Charlie jiggled the door and let her into the kitchen. "D'you want a cuppa tea, Rosie?"
"No, thanks," she said. "I've got somewhere to be."
"Well, pardon me for holding you up." Her uncle Charlie reached up and produced a small parcel from the top of a cabinet. "If you find time in your busy schedule, I've got it on good authority that you'll enjoy this."
"Whose authority?" Rose asked, folding open the paper and removing a thinnish book, Just William. "Do they let you into the bookshop if you can't read?"
"Cheeky little...give it back then," he growled. "I'll see if your cousin Karl'll appreciate it."
"I'm only messing." Rose flipped through the book.
"I know, Rosie girl." Her uncle returned her smile.
"Karl can read it after me...hang on. Why am I getting presents?" Rose was suddenly deeply suspicious. "It's not my birthday or-"
"So you don't forget how to read til you get back to school," Charlie interrupted. "And I did miss you coming round and smashing my yard to pieces. It's a welcome home gift. A late one."
"Oh." Rose blushed a little. "I...uhm...thank you."
"Right, off you go." Charlie cleared his throat. "Somewhere to be and all."
"Right. Yea. I see ye, uncle Charlie."
"See you later, Rosie."
#
Rose knocked on the door. There was no answer for so long she feared that no one was in, but then the coughing and scrabbling started on the other side.
"Coming..."
"No rush," she called back.
There was some more coughing and a noise like a chair falling over, being stood up and falling over again, and then Archie Parsons opened the door, red-eyed and crumpled.
"Good afternoon, Mister Parsons." Rose was feeling stupid and nervous at once.
"Little Miss Shelby," Archie Parson's made himself smile. "How's your da?"
"Fine, thank you." Rose took a deep breath. "I've got something for you."
"Oh?"
Rose dug into her pocket and produced the rolled up notes she'd liberated less than an hour ago. Archie Parsons looked at the money as though he didn't quite remember what is was or what it was for.
"We shouldn't have scared you the other day," Rose said shakily. "I'm sorry. This is for...uhm... for you."
Judging from Archie Parson's face he was not at all sure what Rose was talking about; so she simply took his hand and put the money in, closing his fingers around it.
"I'm really sorry, Mister Parsons," she said again.
"That...ah...that's alright, little Miss Shelby."
For a moment they just looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed, until Rose couldn't stand it anymore.
"Have a good rest of your day, Mister Parsons," she blurted and dashed off down the stairs, leaving Archie Parsons bewildered and many, many pounds richer on his doorstep.
#
A couple of evenings later, Rose was curled up in front of the fire, reading Just William, pleased to notice it was just as good if not better the second time around. All featured adults were basically imbeciles, whose mission in life seemed to be the prevention of any worthwhile activity a child might undertake. She'd not read a more truthful work of literature in all her life.
Upstairs Frances was putting Charlie to bed, which was going to take a while, so when Rose was done with the biscuit she was currently eating, there would be no problem in procuring another. And possibly another.
"Lovely," she said out loud, because it seemed like the right thing to do.
You had to know a good time while it was happening, otherwise there was no point at all.
She crammed the remainder of her ginger nut into her mouth, got up and went in search for more. To safeguard them from her brother's pilfering tendencies, the biscuits had been moved to the top shelf in the kitchen. Rose was balancing on the edge of the sink when the back door opened and her uncle Arthur appeared in the kitchen, swaying like a sailor on the high seas.
"D'you want a biscuit?" Rose asked pleasantly. "There's loads."
"Where's Finn?" The words seemed to be taking far too much effort.
"Dunno."
"Ah, fuck it." Her uncle leaned back against the open door and produced a thick envelope from his jacket pocket. "Geddown. Here."
Rose hopped off the sink and took the proffered envelope.
"Run this to Charlie's for me, aye?"
"Are you really, really, really drunk, Uncle Arthur?" Rose cocked her head at him curiously.
"That I am." Her uncle looked as though he might fall on his face any second.
"I'm not allowed out after dark," Rose pointed out.
"It's orright. You'll only be a minute. You're fast, aren't you?"
"If I get caught, I tell him you made me."
"You tell'im." Arthur was already feeling his way out the door. "You tell'im I had you at gunpoint, Rosie."
#
Being out in the night after what seemed like years and years left Rose breathless with glee. She raced down the street, cut through an alleyway and made for the shipyard at top speed, relishing the cover of the darkness, the deserted streets and the sounds drifting out of the pubs and the dark corners.
She climbed the wall to the yard and was about to run across to her uncle Charlie's quarters when something odd stopped her dead in her tracks.
There appeared to be music playing.
For a minute or two Rose stood very still, listening carefully to make sure she wasn't mistaken. The music, she was sure of it, was coming from the shed closest to her.
Acutely aware of the crunch of her boots on the ground, Rose crept towards the sound.
What'll I do when you're far away and I am blue...
Rose stopped herself from humming along. Silently she slid along the wall until she found a crack and pressed her eye to it. The scene that met her, framed by jagged metal, was almost too strange to be believed. Someone had set up a very nice dinner table for two in the middle of the shed. With candles and white table cloth and long-stemmed glasses. And next to the table, just within her field of vision, her father was dancing with a woman Rose didn't recognise.
What'll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to...
Rose hadn't seen her father dance since the wedding. She'd been furious that day; furious at the stupid dress they made her wear, furious at the pomp of it and the cake that was taller than her, furious with herself for sitting straight and picking at her food when all she wanted to do was turn the table upside down and scream.
When I'm alone with only dreams of you that won't come true...what'll I do...
The woman was resting her head against Tommy's collarbone, he had his chin somewhere near the top of her head, they looked like they were dancing in their sleep. The song was sad and they were in a messy, dank shed by the cut, but they couldn't have looked more graceful if they'd been in a ballroom. Rose knew she was witnessing something beautiful, but she was clenching her jaw so hard she feared her teeth might break.
What'll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to...
Why was it that Rose was forever the one watching through the crack in the wall, snatching bits and pieces of her father, why the bloody hell was that? Rose angrily swallowed down the rising lump in her throat. Even when she was in the same room with him she was on the other side of the wall.
When I'm alone with only dreams of you that won't come true...
They danced away from the table and Rose couldn't see them anymore.
What'll I do...what'll I do...
Rose wanted to bust into the shed and demand a dance of her own. She wanted to shout that there was not enough time for everyone as it was and there was no room for anyone new; to cry and rage and be held until it passed.
What'll I do...
She wanted to shout at him that she was the one who'd spend hours watching the top of the street in case the war was over and he was coming home. That when he'd found her sleeping on the floor in front of his bed it hadn't been because of her nightmares but because of his. That there was never a good time...never any bloody time...
What'll I do...
Rose walked home.