7

MY FIRST REAL FRIEND

I did not tell Father about Henry, and Joseph seemed to have grown weary of teasing me. Besides, he had started work as an apprentice to the upholsterer and was too busy learning how to make puffed-up cushioned settles for the precious bottoms of the rich, so I was left alone in my endeavours. Or not quite alone, now.

I have always preferred to be alone above all else, but the truth is that I did feel a bit safer out there on the shifting ground at the foot of Black Ven when Henry was there too. Would God have spared him from being eaten by the sharks or the cannibal sailors only to have him caught and killed in a landfall? He may have been my lucky charm and, perhaps, I was his, for he did seem to be of a sunnier disposition than when first I met him.

When his summer holidays began, he came out with me almost every day. It amused me that what was work for me was a holiday for him. Maybe being in school every day instead of just Sunday would have been a holiday for me.

He had his faults. The worst was that he was easily distracted. One hot, July day, another French-sounding gentleman, very elderly, calling himself Mr De Luc (from Switzerland, Henry said) stopped to say good day. Of course, he did not speak to me though I could have told him a thing or two. Instead, he passed two hours or more studying the rocks and discussing with Henry what the layers might be and how they got there. I could see well enough that the sea helped make them the way they are, for I observed every day how she took things away and brought old and new things back again and piled them up. It was my belief that she found and uncovered creatures that had lived a very long time ago but were no more and that meant that Time was important too.

On the window ledge at home, there was a dead wasp that had been buried under dust and sand and leaves and more dust, and those layers were just like the layers in the rock. I knew the wasp was still there because I kept lifting up the layers to see what was happening to its body and there it was – a papery thing with all its juices dried up, but there nonetheless. If that body can be buried under all that matter, what creatures might there be in the cliffs?

The Swiss gentleman talked and talked – quite like a preacher, if you ask me. I could only hear snatches of his ‘sermon’ as I worked. He used a lot of mighty long words and Henry, to my mind, pretended to understand all he said. Maybe he really did.

Henry had made some drawings of the face of Black Ven and the Swiss gentleman liked them very much. I thought to myself that if he sold them to the gentleman, then I should get some payment. It stood to reason as it was only because I knew the paths and the tides that he could be out here safely, sketching away under my protection.

But he didn’t offer to sell them, and when the Swiss gentleman turned to walk back to Charmouth, Henry’s eyes were shining with excitement.

‘He was much taken with my drawings and he has given me the most marvellous idea! I shall make a book showing the geology of our isles!’ he said.

‘Geology?’ How I hated to show him that I did not know the meaning of the word, for I always expected a rich boy such as he to take any opportunity to tease me for being ill-educated and ignorant.

As usual, I was wrong to fear this. Henry was kind. He is kind. I should always remember that.

‘The study of rocks. It’s the scientific word, Miss Anning. From the Greek! “Geo” means Earth and the “ology” bit comes from a word, “logia”, meaning “the study of”. So, geology means the study of the Earth and a geologist is someone who studies the Earth. You are a geologist! A scientist!’

I could barely hide the surge of pride at these words but I felt some alarm too. ‘Hush! Do not talk of science to folk round here!’ I warned him. ‘You’ll bring God’s wrath down upon your head! Or the wrath of the townsfolk.’

‘But many of your customers are scientists, and you are a scientist yourself!’ Henry seemed baffled. How little he really knows!

‘No, I am not and never say that I am. I am a treasure-hunter. I hunt for money not for knowledge. As to our customers, it is none of our business why they be interested in our wares. It is a matter of trade for us. We must struggle to make money where we can. We do not all live like you, Frenchie.’

Henry blushed. He blushed very easily. He was ashamed to be rich. I liked him for that.

‘I am sorry that money is so hard-earned, Miss Anning. Maybe there are safer ways for you to get it?’

‘Piffle! What do I care for safety? Besides,’ said I, ‘tis better to be treasure-hunting than selling all your hair like poor Fanny Goodfellow.’ And it was! Much better.

‘Selling hair? Why would you sell your hair?’ He looked confused as any rich person might who has no idea of how we struggle, or maybe it was just that I had gone from science to trade to hair. It is how my mind works. I see connections.

I told him how poor Fanny had the most beautiful long curls, the colour of ripe corn, but they had all been cut off by the barber and cut off so close to her poor skull that the skin was quite red and raw in places. They rubbed oil all over her bare head but it still stung like fury, Fanny said. She had to wear a scratchy woollen cap all through the winter, and for weeks after it was cut off she still had nothing but a few hairs poking through, like shoots of grass in the snow. Her hair was sold to pay for firewood and Fanny knew the barber would be back for more in a year’s time, once it had grown back.

‘It makes me quite sick to think of some grand lady, probably old, bald and toothless, parading about with Fanny’s lovely hair tumbling down her shoulders, I can tell you!’

When I had told Joseph this story, he had just laughed and said, ‘Isn’t much call for your brown locks, Mary, even long as they be! Besides, the wigmaker would never get the tangles out!’

Henry, however, looked horrified.

‘At least you don’t laugh as Joseph did when I told him about Fanny. Tis no laughing matter to have all your hair cut off in winter. Poor Fanny was so cold without her locks and she is still made fun of to this day... even more than me!’

Henry looked at me sharply. ‘Who is it makes fun of you, Miss Anning?’

‘Oh, everybody,’ I said. ‘But I don’t make no mind. It’s water off the back of a duck to me.’

I would not show weakness. It is not my nature. I was as good as any boy or girl... or any man or woman, for that matter, and they should not break me with their silliness or cruel ways. Nor would I let them speak ill of my father, who taught me more than I could ever learn in school and taught me so well that I might teach this pale, rich boy who was so much older and more learned than me and yet knew so little of the real world of the poor.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, head bent.

‘Why? It’s not any fault of yours!’

‘If it is of any consolation, I too am made fun of.’ His face was a deep, dark red.

‘You? Why should you be mocked?’

‘I am mocked because of my friendship with you.’

Friendship? I had never thought of him or anyone as a friend. He was certainly useful to me, which was a good thing. I did not know whether I liked him speaking of friendship.

‘Piffle. More likely it is because I am low-born or a girl or younger than you!’

‘I think it is all those things and none of them.’

I was confused. How could it be all and none? I looked at him sternly, for I do not like confusion any more than I think I like friendship.

‘You know how it is with bullies. They must find someone to pick on. Someone who is different in some way. Someone of whom they are secretly jealous perhaps.’

At this, I laughed. ‘Who’d be jealous of me? If they are that foolish, they can’t be at all frightening! I should not give them the time of day!’

‘I’ll try to be like you, Miss Anning, and ignore them.’

I was minded to discover who these fools were and teach them a lesson, but in that moment, I felt a new, strange urge which I could not ignore. I wanted to find a way to be kind to Henry.

‘You can call me Mary, if you wish. Since you think we are friends.’

He smiled at me and stretched out his hand. Soft and white. I stared at it for a while and then I took it and we shook hands solemnly. Maybe it was good to have a friend. I felt warmth spread through my bones. A very curious feeling.