"Perhaps she would have bored her way in at last whether we wanted her or not. It may be that even Peter did not really bring her to the Never Land of his free will, but merely pretended to do so because she would not stay away." � J. M. Barrie, "To The Five: A Dedication" for the play Peter Pan

"Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a woman aboard." � Captain Hook

 

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Of course he looked familiar; was the child so sotted with her dreams fulfilled that she didn't recognize him? Or was it all a piece with her pretend, the big pretend that encompassed Pan and the boys' dreams altogether? She dreamed large and wide, that one, and small with the focus of a crystal lens. She dreamed, and the land trembled, shook, and re-formed itself. She dreamed the dream from within the dream, all the time marveling at the wonders she found there.

But what does the Father dream, curled in his kennel, wuffling in the fuggy dark? As his children slept under comforters quilted from their mother's wedding gown, Mr. Darling sleeps upon a pillowcase pieced from their christening shirts. That little patch of linen, embroidered with a bird by his wife's nimble, thrifty fingers, came from Wendy's bodice. White on white it was, with white flower buds tight around. It was a tiny dove perched on a branch, its wings closed, its head inclined in a graceful, drowsing bow. Safe, safe, it slept under Father's sleeping head. Does he dream his daughter home again, and safe? If only.

Mr. Darling's dreams, the formal ones, were packed neatly in a drawer. Before the tragedy, he used to take them out for inspection or pleasure like curios from foreign lands, mementos of places he'd never been. Each time, they were harder for him to stow away, but he did, under his wife's gentle, approving eye. He gave the practice up when the children were whisked off, and Mrs. Darling took it as more proof of his remorse. She was familiar with his remorse. Each night by custom she lingered over his bedside, as she did for her babes, sorting dreams, pressing wrinkled thoughts away for smooth awakenings. Mrs. Darling was a pearl beyond price.

Yet... what women want, in their dear, steely souls, is not always for the good of men. Oh, for their good, certainly, but to their liking, no. Not always. There were other dreams. There were dreams she'd never seen, that lived in deeper, darker places than his drawer or his bedtime mind. No, filthy one, not of that ilk, not dark descents into pitch-pits of naked limbs or child defilement. Not of splitting his daughter like a chicken or clawing into his sons' toffee reeking bowels. Steady, ghoul. He'd as likely rut the roast on the Sunday table, he'd as soon roll naked in the pastor's guts on the steps of the Exchange as look slantwise at a child, no less a child of his own blood and bone. And Mrs. Darling's. Are you mad?

No. Mr. Darling...Mr. George Darling, Esq., inhabitant of Bloomsbury, laborer in the Temple of the City, Husband, Father, owner of a dog...dreamed of the dark adventures and the grim, unholy deeds of the Villain He Might Have Been. He dreamed of a black and roiling sea; he dreamed of bloody decks above a creaking hull; he dreamed of steel and velvet and smoking guns. There but for the grace of Woman plundered he.

The shameful, hidden truth is that Mr. Darling suffered a peculiar past. At a tender age, on his first and only outing in Kensington Gardens, he fell from his father's boat into the Serpentine. He couldn't know, but to the dwellers in the park this splashy entry was eccentric in the extreme. Most children who found their way to Neverland fell from their prams and were rolled away by the fairies, or lay in the grass until closing and were eaten by bears. The young Mr. Darling, then carelessly known as Goo, had reached for a duck and overbalanced. The duck wagged her tail and swam away. A cluster of fairies playing water-tag saw him flail and sink, and after finishing their game, with the aid of a pelican they fished him out. As he lay gasping on the grass, the bird Solomon marked him with an X. First-graded baby boys, the A's and B's, in good season were sent along to Pan. Sad to say, the C's and D's and the lamentable E's -- there is no baby foul enough to rate an F -- were left for scavenging adults or bears. But a baby rated X was a rare and troubling thing, and the fairies of Neverland claimed him for themselves...in any case, Pan wanted none of him. They housed their oddity in a hollow log and fed him nuts and nasturtium flowers, or dock, when they thought of it. They kept him until he grew too large to be mysterious, and then traded him to the Piccaninnies for a badger cub. Indian he was raised, for many moons. No Indian mother would adopt him permanent. They were troubled by the X under his arm, by his ignorance of human speech, and by his unchanged baby eyes of forget-me-not blue. He had to be tied to a tree, to keep him from falling into the stream, the lagoon, large puddles, or the cooking pot.

Ah, you're bored. Less infant tattle, more blood, you say, and Goo would agree. Someone left him out in the rain, perhaps, or a mermaid dragged him from a rock; at any rate, one dark and stormy afternoon Goo tumbled into water once again, and thence into pirate hands. Smee snagged him on an oar, he claimed. Jukes caught him in a net. He never spoke, he never cried, and they found him a likely lad to join the crew. Noodler blooded him with a bite on his ear, and Cecco slipped a golden ring into the hole. They christened his X with grog and called him Grimmer, in hopes of great black deeds. Where's Hook, you ask? There was no Hook, not then. Interesting.

For years, or what passed for them, Grimmer Goo waged piracy from Kidd's Creek to the black lagoon. He nicked the nose of an Indian brave with his clever knife and fired a cannon ball through the sails of the Lost Boys' ketch. "Ye'll be Captain of yer own ship yet," said Smee kindly, as they tipped Red Sammy's head and body overboard. Wiping his hands on his belly, Smee missed the boy's wild smile. The demise of Sammy left the crew leaderless, which was no hardship for the nonce. Life was good in Neverland. Pan was an entertaining enemy, if inclined to strut and crow, and the Indians were alternately friend and foe. Grimmer watched the Lost Boys with disdain, and lured them to the mermaids' grasp when the chance arose. Life was filled with spice and danger, life was good in Neverland. And then She came. Some lumbering great Girl pushed in, all prying fingers and goggle eyes, clutching at Pan's heels, and ruined it. The pirates captured her, as they had Girls of the past. Pan rescued her, in their greatest battle yet, which killed off half the crew. "All to be expected, "said Smee, though he mourned his mess-mates' loss. Pan tied the remnant crew to the masts and danced around them with his Boys, waving looted cutlasses and dirtying the decks. The Girl pouted at being ignored, and cast about for some distraction. She noticed Grimmer Goo. She noticed he didn't speak. She noticed his blue, blue eyes. She noticed he was a Pirate Boy and Without a Mother and In Need of Reform, and wittered at Pan about it until he banished them both.

She left willingly (Girls must; willingly they come, and willing they must go). Smee shed a few more tears and cried, "Come back if you ever can, Lad!" (Boys never did), but that was that. She had a home to return to; Grimmer Goo had no idea whence he came, and no speech to tell what bits he could recall. The girl's mother didn't want such a curio; her father found him a Home, some kind of Home, to accomplish his reform. It wasn't horrible. They taught him numbers, they taught him to speak. They named him George, Darling, because of his mild nature and bluest eyes. He spoke in this recovered world, but nothing of his past. He remained forever shy and puzzled a bit about how to behave. He had the unsettled feeling for the rest of his life that the rules for this world were passed out and learned while he was away. He Grew Up, he was noticed and gathered in by Mrs. Darling, and was taken care of by her happily ever after.

So there. Mr. Darling lived outside of stories now, though he heard them through the nursery door. He was shy of Wendy, his astonishing firstborn, and loved her dutifully. He buried his early days, all days before the Home, so deep and dark that he never played the pirate with his sons. He carved a roast marvelously well, but never wagged a wooden sword to show them how it was done. He never took occasion to visit the Gardens or sit in another boat. He resisted the lure of the mighty Thames. He was a perfectly ordinary gentleman, working to support his household and following his neighbors' rules, when damn-blasted Pan was conjured by his daughter and stole his family away. His sons become Boys of Pan the braggart, his daughter become the Girl! Oh, Hell, oh burning tar. He crawled into Nana's kennel, isolated from his wife's white bed, and dreamed and dreamed with all his might.

He came to know the ship again like the inside of his eyes. It was strongest and easiest to reach when he slept on the Wendy bird. Did Mr. Darling, knowing the joys of Neverland, really want his cherished daughter to Grow Up? To be a Mommy, to be a dear, dominating Wife? If the little bird were to unknot its threads and stretch its wings, to dip its breast in colored dyes, would it be only to take the short hop to the coverlet and Mommy-dom? The sad answer is, Mr. Darling didn't care. Fathers rescued their children: that was a rule he could grasp in his teeth like a knife. Pirates capture the Girl; it's Pan who rescues Her bubbled up from his secret past, but he closed his eyes tighter and dreamed on. The deck, the sails, the rigging; the Captain's cabin door. Clearer and clearer each night. But things had changed. Someone had altered Neverland. He recognized a few of the crew (Smee! Ah, bless him, Smee remained the same), though they looked slower and cruder and more cowed. There was some palaver about a crocodile he found mysterious. The sole crocodile of his acquaintance was a stylish copy of a Bayre bronze, supporting a clock, that was a wedding gift from Mrs. Darling's aunt. Reminding Mr. Darling overly of watery matters, it was relegated to the attic, then to the nursery, for the edification of the young.

Back to matters at hand, you say. Why the ship, to find his daughter? The ship was what he knew, and the pirates the strongest enemies of Pan. This night, he felt the deck beneath his naked feet, and the iron of Long Tom under his hand. Heads turned at the breath of his passage, but none seemed to see him clearly. "A spirit," said Noodler, squinting. "Another bloody, murdered hand," the one called Starkey shrugged. "Let the Captain sort it out. It's either of his making or dead afraid of him."

I'm not, thought Mr. Darling, and he wasn't. He was curious. Light leaked from the Captain's cabin as he approached. It looked different, too -- I'm taller. I'm a man, now. He wondered at that, a little. It seemed wrong. He picked a cutlass up and smiled at the feel of it in his hand. Unseen, he crept to the cabin door. With the point of the sword he eased it open and peered in. He smelled musk and gunpowder and melting wax. Candles gleamed from a harpsichord and brass lantern trim. The deck was oiled teak and there was a great bed of carved mahogany, curtained in red brocade. The Captain himself was a striking sight from behind, suited in claret velvet and lace and fine Spanish boots. One arm ended in cruel iron, a sharp and gleaming hook, set in a base of ivory or bone. He preened before a mirror, twisting one fat, black lock with the hook, turning to admire his yellow sash. There was something....Mr. D. edged through the door. He shut it sharp behind him, and Hook (he had to be Captain Hook, no other name would do), whirled to face him like a shot.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

Mr. Darling gasped. Oh, perfidy, oh dreams displaced.

Hook waved his hook before him in a wild sweep. "Smee!" he bellowed; but the faithful bo'sun was below, feeding the goat.

"Can you hear me?" Mr. Darling asked, and the Captain started at his voice.

"Are you another trick of Pan's?"

Hook came near enough to sniff, and Mr. Darling stood his ground. He could feel heat and substance, he could feel the stubble of his...of the Captain's cheek against his face, but the Captain was blind to his cutlass and moved as though Mr. Darling were bodiless air. What was real and what was dream? Ah, dream! His sleeping self grumbled on his pillow and turned about, and his dreaming self held still. I'm the real one, thought Mr. Darling. I used to be real here. I never should have left. That line of thought led nowhere promising, so he abandoned it. The Girl Wendy dreamed Hook into being as her Father's wish realized. Accident or intuition, or something in the blood? He half forgave the child her nursery sins. I'll take it on any terms, he told himself, and took an unnecessary breath. "No friend of that infernal boy. Consider me ... a kindred spirit. A spirit come to warn and give advice."

"Advice from a ghost." Hook twisted up his mouth. He backed into a great armed chair, sat with a flourish, and reached across his table for a decanter. He poured a draught of ruby wine and inclined his head in courtly invitation. "Do spirits indulge themselves?"

"Thank you, no," said Mr. Darling. He scratched his spirit chin with the point of his cutlass, a habit Smee could never break Grimmer of. He tried to think of the proper wording for a message from beyond. Hook looked impatient. "I come to warn you of a Bad Influence," he began.

"Do you speak of the Crocodile?" asked Hook, and Mr. D. was surprised to hear a tremble in his voice.

"No, I... I say, what is all this about a crocodile?"

"I was born two-handed," sneered Hook. "Have you come to tell me how old I am and guess my weight? A more ill-informed lubber of a spirit I've yet to meet."

Mr. Darling ignored the shriek of his inner Grimmer Goo and directed his wrath to prophecy. "I've come to tell you that Pan must be defeated. There's a new Girl..."

"Wendy," said Hook, licking his lips, and Mr. Darling shuddered at the sight. "Their Mother. She's tied up in the hold, with all the Boys."

"And you're waiting for Pan to come for her," said Mr. Darling, trying to move the plot along. He'd thought of another thing to say, from a play he once attended in the company of men.

"Pan's dead," gloated Hook, and Mr. Darling pitied him. This would be a pleasant place to show Grimmer Darling musing on the schism between dream logic and experience, but there is no time. Mr. Darling had his wayward Girl and sons to gather up, and his daughter's fantasy of himself to match in wits.

"What are your intentions toward the Girl?" asked Mr. Darling in Hook's own hollow voice. The Captain flinched in recognition.

"She'll watch the Boys parade the plank, and we'll keep her for our Mother."

Oh, his Wendy a Mother of Pirates! For a minute he wavered, and Grimmer felt envy's sharp sword; what Girl could resist such an offer, tweaking the nose of Pan? The Father squashed the pirate down. "You cannot force a Girl to be your Mother; it's shocking bad form. And besides," he said, in further inspiration, "women are fearfully bad luck on board a ship." Pan wasn't dead, Pan could not die and Neverland remain. A troublesome Wendy -- and Mr. Darling knew his child -- Pan might allow to join with pirates, but the Girl in danger would have to be redeemed. His sons, sorry to say, were small pieces in this game.

"She is a bit of a prig," mused Hook.

You should meet her Mum, thought Mr. D. He watched Hook rise and seek the outer deck, looking lost in thought. Like the faithful ghost, he followed close behind.

"This is my hour of triumph," Hook proclaimed to the sky.

"Better for Hook had he had less ambition," the answer came. Hook brooded. Hook paced. Hook glowered at Smee. And in Hook's voice the spirit countered, point by point.

"No little children love you," whispered Mr. Darling, at the last.

"Are the children bound in chains?" roared Hook. "Then hoist them up!"

Mr. Darling saw on the water the shadow of the despised Pan, and sighed. He settled back on a coil of rope and watched his alter ego rage, and threaten (Wendy's nightie must be replaced; the boys had grown another inch apiece, and would likely be out of their shoes). He watched the fateful final fight, pleased that his daughter imagined him such a doughty hand with a blade. He watched Hook's final desperate stand, watched as down he dove, into the jaws of ticking time, his last sight that of Wendy's face, beaming, his last sound the raucous crow of Peter Pan.

The last glimmer of Grimmer Goo, the ghost of the best Villain ever, took a final look around, and inhaled smoke and sea and blood. Smee glanced up from treading water overside, and winked.

Mr. Darling woke in his kennel from an interesting dream, to a crowd of children on the nursery rug. "Welcome back," he said, tears in his eyes, and opened wide his arms.