“We didn’t know what we were going to find, dear,” said her father, taken aback. “After all, there are cannon up there.”
“Well, all right, yes,” muttered Daphne, stumbling over her own anger. “They’re just for show.” The rage flamed up again. “But those guns aren’t! Put them down!”
His Excellency nodded at the men, who put their muskets, very carefully but also very quickly, down on the sand. Milo had just walked onto the beach to see what the fuss was about, and he tended to loom.
“And the flag!” said Daphne.
“Just hold on to it, Evans, if you would be so kind,” said His Excellency. “Look, dear, we mean no harm to these, er” — he glanced up at Milo — “nice people, but we must back up our claim to the Mothering Sunday Islands. We hold that they are just an extension of the Bank Holiday Monday Islands — ”
“Who’s we? You?”
“Well, ultimately the king — ”
“He can’t have this one!” Daphne screamed. “He doesn’t need it! He can’t have it! He hasn’t finished with Canada yet!”
“Dear, I think the privations of your time on this island may have affected you in some way — ” His Excellency began.
Daphne took a step backward. “Privations? There is nowhere I would rather have been than here! I’ve helped babies to be born! I killed a man — ”
“The one whose leg you sawed off?” asked her father, mystified.
“What? Him? No, he’s doing very well,” said Daphne, waving a hand dismissively. “The one I killed was a murderer. And I’ve made beer. Really good beer! Father, you must listen right now. It’s very important that you understand right now. This is the other end of the world, Father, it really is. This is the beginning. This… is the place where you might grant God absolution.”
She hadn’t meant it to come out. He stood there, stunned.
She added: “I’m sorry. You and Grandmother were shouting so loud that night and I couldn’t help overhearing,” and, since there was no point in being deceitful at a time like this, she also added, “Especially since I was trying hard to.”
He looked up at her, his face gray. “What is so special about this place?” he asked.
“There’s a cave. It’s got wonderful carvings in it. It’s ancient. It may be more than a hundred thousand years old.”
“Cavemen,” said His Excellency calmly.
“I think there are star maps on the ceiling. They invented… well — practically everything. They sailed all over the world when we huddled around our fires. I can prove it, I think.” Daphne took her father’s hand. “There’s still some oil in the lamps,” she said. “Let me show you. Not you!” she added as the guards sprang to attention. “You will stay here. And no one is to take over anyone’s country while we’re gone, is that understood?”
The men looked at His Excellency, who shrugged vaguely, a man who had been thoroughly daughtered.
“Whatever she says, of course,” he said.
His daughter took his hand and said, “Come and see.”
They started off up the path but were not out of earshot when Pilu walked up to the soldiers and said, “Would you like some beer?”
“Don’t let them drink it until they have spat in it and sung ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’ sixteen times” was the order from on high, followed by, “and tell them we need lamp oil.”
The first thing her father said when he saw the gods was “My goodness!” Then, after staring at things with his mouth open, he managed to say, “Incredible! All this belongs in a museum!”
She couldn’t let him get away with that one, and she said, “Yes, I know. That’s why it is, in fact, in one.”
“And who will look at it down here?”
“Anyone who wants to come and see, Papa. And that will mean every scientist in the world.”
“It’s a long way from anywhere important, though,” His Excellency observed, running his fingers over the stone globe.
“No, Papa. This is the important place. It’s everywhere else that is a long way away. Anyway, that wouldn’t matter to the Royal Society. They would swim up here in lead boots!”
“Down here, dear, I think,” said her father.
Daphne pushed the globe. It rolled a little way and the continents danced. But now the world was turned upside down. “It’s a planet, Papa. Up and down are just ways of looking at it. I’m sure people here won’t object to copies being made for all the big museums. But don’t take this place away from them. It’s theirs.”
“I think people will say it belongs to the world.”
“And they will be thinking like thieves. We have no right to it at all. But if we don’t act like stupid bullies, I’m sure they will be gracious.”
“Gracious,” said her father, turning over the word in his mouth as if it was an unfamiliar biscuit.
Daphne’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t go suggesting that grace is something you find only at the other end of the world, will you, Papa?”
“No, you’re quite right. I will do what I can, of course. This is a very important place, I can see that.”
She kissed him.
When he spoke again, he sounded nervous and unsure of how to put things. “So you’ve been… all right here? Eating well? Finding things to do… um… apart from sawing legs off?”
“It was only one leg, honestly. Oh, and a foot. I helped deliver two babies — well, to be honest I really only watched and sang a song the first time, and I’ve been learning about medicines from Mrs. Gurgle in exchange for chewing her pork for her — ”
“You… chew… her… pork for her…,” her father repeated, as if hypnotized.
“Well, she hasn’t got any teeth, you see?”
“Ah, yes, of course.” His Excellency shifted uneasily. “And did you have any other… adventures?”
“Let me think…. I was saved from drowning by Mau, who is the chief now, and, oh yes, I met a cannibal chief who looked just like the prime minister!”
“Really?” said her father. “Although, come to think of it, that’s not hard to imagine. And… er… and was anyone… did anyone… try to be… beastly to you?”
It was said so carefully that she nearly laughed. Fathers! But she couldn’t tell him about the giggling maids and the kitchen gossip, let alone Cahle’s jokes. She had spent a lot of time at the Women’s Place. Surely he didn’t imagine she walked around with her eyes shut and her fingers in her ears?
“There was a murderer. He was one of the crew of the Judy, I’m sorry to say,” she said. “He shot someone and then pointed a pistol at me.”
“Great heavens!”
“So I poisoned him. Well, sort of. But the Nation called it something like… what do you call it when a hangman hangs somebody?”
“Er… a judicial execution?” said His Excellency, a man trying hard to keep up.
“That’s right. And I broke another man’s nose with a clay bowl because he was going to shoot me.”
“Really? Well, I suppose poison would have taken too long,” said His Excellency, attempting to make the best of it. His face was ghastly in the lamplight, and it looked to Daphne as if it was made of wax and was about to melt.
“Now that I come to talk about it, it does all seem a bit… um… ” She trailed off.
“Busy?” her father suggested.
And then she told him everything else — about the way the moon shone over the lagoon, and how bright the stars were, and the mutiny, and poor Captain Roberts, and the parrot, and the red crabs, and the pantaloon birds, and the tree-climbing octopi and First Mate Cox, while the gods looked down. She towed him past the hundreds of white slabs around the walls, talking all the time.
“Look, that’s a giraffe. They knew about Africa! There’s an elephant farther on, but it may be Indian. This is clearly a lion. One of the stones that ended up on the beach has got a carving of a horse on it, and who would bring one here? But the carvings on these other panels don’t seem to show anything I can recognize, so I’m wondering if this section is some kind of alphabet — A is for apple and so on — but a lot of panels have these lines and dots around the edges, so I could be completely wrong. And see how often there is a hand somewhere in the carving! I’m positive it’s there as a guide to size. And over here… ” And so on, until at last she finished with: “And I’m sure they had a telescope.”