Piratica

Five hundred year ago, they come. A band of pirates. One ship at first. They happen upon an isolated land, not by hook or by crook, but by mistake. They take it for a deserted place, they do. Bury their treasure, an' all. Aye. They come and go and come back again. That’s when they gets an idea in their heads. One among 'em had read a book. In Latin, an' all. Thebook, he says. Thomas More’s, like. And this was it—Utopia, he says.

~Oral history, recorded 6 June, 1952, London. Bruce Wetherby interviewing exiled Antipodean, Hubert Cutthroat (b. 1868, Piratica, The Antipodes)

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Mabel Grimsby's Heroic Half Hour on Radio Piratica FM 108.9

Mabel Grimsby: I’m here in the studio with Dr Roberta Glenda, of Brewers University. As I’m sure you’re all aware, Roberta Glenda’s first book, The Maelstrom, together with its luscious heroine, Berta, set the nation astir thirty years ago and forever after. It is a classic, in other words. And now Brewers is hoping Roberta Glenda can do it all again. It’s going all out to let us know that The Darling of the Antipodes, long thought to have drowned at sea, is still very much alive and kicking. And I have proof of life with me right here in the studio. Dr Glenda, thank you for joining me this morning.

Dr Roberta Glenda: It’s a pleasure, Mabel.

MG: Dr Glenda, tell me, how does it feel to be reborn, so to speak—having been considered dead for so long—that must have come as a bit of a shock?

RG: Call me Roberta, Please. Well—

MG: Not Berta?

RG: Well, not since I was a teenager. It’s Robbie, these days—

MG: Robbie, as I said, you’ve begun another novel. It’s on the same topic in a way, isn’t it—about the heart of the nation, I mean?

RG: Yes, that’s right.

MG: But this time, instead of a whirring maelstrom of nothingness, you’re going to find buried treasure. Tell me about that.

RG: Umm, well, it’s not strictly a novel. It’s more a mixture of fact and fiction—

MG: Right. So, are you calling this a novel or a work of academic research?

RG: A novel, I guess. Ultimately, it’s a work of entertainment. [Laughter]

MG: That’s what the publishers are calling it at any rate—and you’re gathering stories about inland, I believe?

RG: Yes. I’m interested in folktales about the inland sea or the mythical house at its centre. I was talking to someone just this morning, in fact.

[Cue thought bubble]

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Transcript of Interview with Ernest B.; conducted by Dr Roberta Glenda in her rooms, Arts Faculty, Brewers University, March 18th, 2019.

Roberta Glenda: Thank you, Ernest. Please take a seat.

Ernest B.: Oh, thank ‘ee, Miss. Here, this is nice, innit?

RG: Yes, it is. I just want to begin by saying how much I appreciate you coming in, Ernest. It’s so important to gather these stories before they’re lost forever.

EB: Right enough.

RG: So. What have you got to tell me?

EB: My wife were in here the other day.

RG: Was she?

EB: Yes, she were. Came home, she did, and what does she tell me? ‘You won’t believe who I just seen,’ she says. And she were right. I didn’t believe it—least, not ‘til now.

RG: Well, there you go.

[Long pause here]

EB: You want to know about the house inland, then, heh? And the inland sea?

RG: Yes, if you like. That’d be great, actually.

EB: I don’t know much about the house itself.

RG: Right.

EB: But I can tell you that the people were strange.

RG: Strange? How so?

EB: Well, when one of ‘em died, they’d close off the room, like.

RG: Really? Why would they do that?

EB: Dunno. But it was a bloody big house, so they could.

RG: Do you know how big?

EB: No, but it were big enough for ‘em to need servants.

RG: Servants? And how did you hear about this?

EB: From me nan.

RG: Did she tell you how she came by the story?

EB: No. But she told me summin more.

RG: She did? What was that?

EB: Twas ‘bout the inland sea.

RG: Go ahead.

EB: Well, it were shallow, like you said in yer book, see? The one with that luscious wench, an' all. Berta. Cor, she were a beauty that one were.

RG: And the sea? It was shallow?

EB: Yes. But it were very, very big.

RG: Big?

EB: That's right. It were wide and shallow, like a thin slice 'ad been taken off of the ocean and plonked right 'ere, in the middle of Piratica.

RG: Sounds enormous.

EB: That it were. It were so big, them that came first built and launched a galleon from its shores.

RG: Fascinating.

EB: Only the water was really shallow, right?

RG: Right?

EB: So, it fell over an’ sank. [Laughter. Goes on for some time.] It fell on its side, see? They cut the bottom off it in the end—so me nan says.

End of transcript

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Mable Grimsby: Right. That's an interesting story. Explains why the sea supposedly dried up and there's nothing but desert there now. And the locals? No mention of those?

RG: Well, I’m more interested in the story of the house. The myths about the locals and other bogeymen are quite separate, really.

MG: Separate?

RG: I mean… The stuff about bogeymen living in the desert at the centre of the continent, well, that's really just an old fable. The sort of story told to young children at bedtime. The house and the inland sea… have greater resonance in our society today. That’s as I see it.

MG: I guess, yes, treasure does mean more to most of us than bogeymen. But try getting a five-year-old to bed without ‘em. [Laughter]

RG: Yes, indeed. Anyway, the house and the inland sea—well, it’s the sort of story that survives beyond childhood, if you like. It has greater currency because of that.

MG: So, you’re saying there’s no such thing as a local? No bogeymen, like the ones in the fairytales? You’re not trying to revive that old chestnut? You know, all that guff about how we overtook a peaceful nation and turned Utopia into—well, something else?

RG: Dystopia? Yes, well. I am familiar with that line of reasoning. Apparently, the locals were teetotallers and we corrupted them or wiped them out, or something like that. Some people say that we're the bogeymen in actual fact.

MG: Pff! Corrupted? Hardly. I mean, who doesn't like a nice drop of rum?

RG: Yes, Of course. I'm partial to a warm toddy in the morning myself. Can't see the harm in it. But, whatever line you take—I mean, I’m not saying anything one way or the other. I haven’t planned to bring that element in, but perhaps I might, yet. It is a work in progress, after all.

MG: And, I see you’re styling the character after yourself, once again. Am I right? Is this character you, or Berta by a different name? And, is this who you really are, or an alter ego?

RG: Alter ego, perhaps. I’m not too sure at this stage. I mean, she’s fairly fanciful in these early drafts. I’m playing on the hype, if you get me. You mentioned the shock of coming back after thirty years to discover—

MG: That you’re a national sensation. Famous.

RG: Yes.

MG: Notorious, even. I'm sure you've read how, in recent years, a band of abolitionists have argued that the maelstrom was symbolic.

RG: Symbolic? Yes. Of course. I get it. That makes sense. Yeah.

MG: Yes, but they say that the maelstrom in that early work was symbolic of the drunken dissolution of society. They say that Berta's fall into the maelstrom represents the decline of our society into drunkenness, depravity, and whatnot.

RG: Decline [Laughter]. I wouldn't say that. Though, some say that the settlement of Piratica marked the beginning of the end. That the apocalypse began five-hundred years ago with our ancestors laying waste to the only society in the world capable of saving humanity from itself.

MG: And as for the drunkenness and depravity?

RG: Yes. Well, I was very young and hitting the bottle hard back in those days. When I wrote that book, I mean. I thought sobriety might be a good way to go. That's why I left the country, in fact.

MG: I didn't know that. I know many of us here in Piratica have dabbled with sobriety at some stage. That's no doubt the reason for The Maelstrom's success.

RG: Yes. Well [Laughs]. There's a rum stall on every corner, isn't there? It's hard to stay the course when you're faced with so much opportunity.

MG: So you got sober? Wow. How did that go?

RG: Fine. I make it a rule never to drink past 11 o'clock.

MG: In the morning?

RG: Yes, that's right. I have a toddy at breakfast and shot of spiced rum at morning tea. You should try it.

MG: Hmm. That'd put me out of business. You know our sponsor is the country's largest distillary?

RG: Sure. I'm not advocating abolition. I just think it's better if you stop at some point. I mean, drinking from morning 'til night—sure, it's okay for some—if you've got the intestinal fortitude, and all.

MG: Be that as it may. We've gotten a little offtrack. Tell me, Roberta. How does this story of yours begin?

RG: Oh. It begins with a heart-shaped locket.

MG: Really?

RG: Yes, the locket is worn around the neck of a comely wench named Robbie.

MG: Love the name. Robbie by nature, right? [Laughter.]

RG: [Laughs] Yes. Robbie stole the locket from an expatriot she met while travelling the high seas.

MG: This is sounding autobiographical, after all [Laughter], but I won't ask you to confess. And the story? It’s about the fabled inland sea and, as I understand it, our pirate heritage. The first ships, the first settlement.

RG: The buccaneers, that’s right. They’re supposed to have settled here in the middle ages. But—

MG: But this is fiction, what do you reckon? A bit of harmless fun.

RG: I guess so. But. I mean, colonialism is a form of piracy, right? We get bad press because of that. Because we're proud of our piratical heritage. But that doesn't make us colonialists. Sure, our ancestors murdered and maimed—they plundered and raped, etc. etc. But that was on the high seas. Never on dry land.

MG: Right. I get you. And we don't do that sort of thing now, do we?

RG: Look, a little larceny now and then—I mean, where's the harm in that? I don't mind being called a thief. But call me an imperialist? That's an insult I can't abide. I can't see that there's any evidence that there were locals living here before our forebears turned lubber and settled this island continent. It's just fairytales and silly songs about decapitation and the like.

MG: A bit of harmless fun.

RG: Well. Not strictly harmless, I guess [Murderous laughter].

MG: That's what we love about you Roberta Glenda. You go right to the heart of the matter. Now, your book, it'll be out next year in hardback and ebook?

RG: Yes. That's the plan.

MG: Fabulous. Dr Glenda, thank you for coming in and talking to me this morning.

RG: Pleasure, Mabel.

MG: Now, listeners, you’re in for a treat. We have the wonderful Jean Yarraville, fresh from a tour on Broadway in the feminist-musical adaptation of Treasure Island, in which she played the hero of that tale, Long Jan Silver. She’ll be reading an extract from Dr Glenda’s work in progress, Inland by Sea, at the end of this interview.

[Cue medley of popular shanties]