In the shoes of a pirate - chapter 1
The explorer who became a pirate
McKay was a dreamer. Nothing destined him to become the greatest pirate of all time. He came from a modest family. His father was a shipwright and his mother looked after him and his two brothers.
An outstanding cook, she had passed on to him her passion for taste. He loved to hover around her as she began her preparations. She had the ability to make dishes vibrate, making aromatic aromas dance, kneading pasta, deglazing the day's catch. When he entered the family kitchen, his finger would sometimes wander into a spicy, aromatic marinade. His nostrils filled with the sweetness of elderflowers picked for fritters.
One rainy day in March, his mother gently chased him out of the kitchen, saying "go and see your father in the workshop, and take this cookbook back to Maddy, I can't make any of these exotic recipes. We don't have half the fruit and spices here".
Maddy was their nearest neighbour, although her house was about thirty minutes' walk away, on the way to her father's boat workshop. On the way, he stopped under a tree to leaf through the illustrated cookbook "Taino Delights". In it he discovered recipes for sweet potatoes, with flesh as thick as buffalo hide and as rough as field soil. The recipes described a subtle sweet, caramelised flavour in boiled, roasted, grilled, steamed or fried versions. Cassava, yams and fish preparations cooked in strange, handmade pottery containers. McKay was salivating and his curiosity was aroused by so many unknown delights.
He leapt to his feet and ran to Maddy's house, snatching a few leaves and branches along the way. He pushed open the door to Maddy's cottage with a bang, the foliage flanking his head, the cookery book in his left hand and a hazel branch flanking his left eye like a spyglass. He brandished the book and ran around the old woman shouting "I'm a taste explorer! I'm a taste explorer! I'm going to bring you back the most surprising taste you've ever tried!"
As the years went by, McKay went to his father's boat workshop every day to help him repair and work on the boats that docked. His father taught him how to repair hulls, frames and bulkheads. Father and son had a good reputation, but buying materials was sometimes difficult for their modest family. McKay was an excellent persuader and managed to get loans, but their business was faltering.
One day, a boat docked in the harbour. She wasn't new. Its hull had been tossed about by many waves, and the mast looked like a hundred-year-old oak. A smell of fir, iodine and shellfish seemed to cling to the frame. The linen sail was a faded white, patched in places. Yet it seemed as if the boat was talking to McKay. It was as if a new soul had moored in the harbour.
He approached the boat, whose name was emblazoned in green letters on the hull: "From Soil to Soul".
An old man appeared on the bridge. The workers looked up, frozen by the almost funereal sight. The man was stocky, his hair greying, stuck to his forehead by the sea salt. Almost completely toothless, he was picking at his three remaining snags with a fish bone. His calves looked as if they had been eaten by a shark and his arms, tanned by the sun, were lacerated by numerous scars. His laughter was hoarse and squeaky, each one ending in a long, fat, dull cough.
His arm was adorned with a tattoo of a ghostly, wandering woman weeping over a stream. He manoeuvred his boat with confident movements, tinged with a kind of mysterious elegance.
For the next few days, he was never seen leaving his boat. McKay, on his nightly walks, would see him, dozing on the beach, mumbling semi-poetic phrases, interspersed with anguished moans addressed to a vengeful woman. One full-moon evening, McKay would stare out over the Atlantic Ocean, his feet buried in the cool sand, thinking of the cookbook he had discovered as a child and its thousand gustatory delights, and wondering how far he would have to go to unearth the finest flavours.
The sailor appeared behind him, hissed "Hoi Boy" between his snouts and sat down beside him. "I can see your soul. Ya soul is pure. Let me tell ya some stories". For the next seven nights, the old man and McKay would meet under the dull light of the waning moon. The old man told him all about his adventures: his love for his ship, the treasures buried in dark caves, battles with sea monsters that seemed mythical to him, the thirst and hunger during his longest sea crossings, the woman with whom he was madly in love and whom he had abandoned to go back to sea.
At the end of the 7 nights, the old man looked at McKay and said "Ya good boy. Ya got the soul of my ship, now ya carry my story. I'm old now. Repair my ship and it'll be yours, ya will continue to write my story".
The next day, the old man had disappeared.
His boat was still moored in the harbour. McKay approached it and ran his fingers over the letters engraved on the hull: "From Soil to Soul". With a heavy heart, he whispered: "I'll sail your legacy, old man".
Over the next few months, he worked hard to repair the ship. He unloaded cargo and set up scaffolding. He repaired cracks, tears and deformations. He welded, riveted and replaced metal plates. He caulked, scraped paint to prevent corrosion and replaced damaged parts.
He worked with fervour and a passion that almost bordered on obsession. So much so that one fine morning, 'From Soil to Soul' was ready to cast off. And McKay, our adventurer of taste, was ready to embark on what turned out to be an epic adventure.
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