A Cornish Cottage by the Sea. Jane Linfoot
to stop my teeth chattering. I know from work, it’s crucial to set clear boundaries at the outset. ‘And h-h-how do I fit in? If you think I’m going to swim to shore for help when the damn thing breaks into pieces, you can bloody think again.’
‘Definitely no swimming – I can sail her on my own – but it’s better with two people because there’s more weight.’ He’s already jumped down into the boat and he’s pulling on ropes.
‘So you’ve brought me along as ballast?’ Of all the insults, that has to be the biggest yet.
‘Not entirely, it was more a spur-of-the-moment thing. You looked like you were really struggling back there.’ He looks like he’s agonising. ‘I wanted to save you from a crap afternoon.’ His hand grasps mine and in one pull I’m in and sliding onto a tiny plank seat, clinging onto the boat side behind me as it lurches, trying to look like I do this every day. As the oilskin’s Velcro prickles my chin there’s no time to wish that Dayglo orange was more my colour because I’m too busy watching the dark shiny water going up and down as the boat rises on the swell, and holding onto my stomach which feels like it’s a washing machine working a full load. If I said I’d rather make a quilt, revise that upwards. I can’t count how many quilts I’d have sewn to avoid this. More importantly, if this is being saved, I hate to think what being dropped in it would be like.
Meanwhile Barney’s leaping around like bloody Superman doing a million things at once; undoing ropes, pushing us off from the side, hauling up the sail.
‘Boom!’
The yell makes me jump so much I almost end up in the harbour. But I’m catching on here, I’d hate to come across as clueless, so I join in too but make sure mine’s louder. ‘Boom! Back at you!’
From Barney’s bemused stare you’d think he was the beginner here. ‘Sorry, that means “Mind your head!” – that’s the boom there.’ He’s pointing at this long pole at the bottom of the sail. ‘Boom! is what we shout when it’s about to swing across the boat, so watch out.’
‘Shucks!’ I duck and narrowly miss getting my skull caved in as it skims past my ear and silently thank Christmas it didn’t bump my head. Then, as Barney squats down at the back, some kind of stick in one hand, still pulling on a rope in the other, there’s this awful creaking, but we start to move away from the jetty and out across the harbour.
‘Okay on the side there?’
‘Great.’ My fake I’m-totally-fine-thanks smile would be way more convincing if my lippy hadn’t all just blown out to sea. Even though I look like Mr Blobby I attempt a nonchalant lounging position, but when I lunge slowly backwards there’s nothing to lean on. I’m sure I had many clips in my messy up-do, but it feels like the wind wrenched them all away and tossed them into the water, so I push my scarf into my pocket so I don’t lose that too. ‘Are you sure it’s okay going out in this gale?’
He pulls down the corners of his mouth and does a little wiggle on the stick. ‘Probably only a force two.’
Which means absolutely zilch, but I’m pretty proud of the way I exclaim about it anyway. ‘A TWO! Jeez, well, that explains why it’s so rough and windy.’
‘It’s like a millpond, Edie. I wouldn’t have brought you out if it wasn’t.’ He’s frowning at me. ‘Maybe you’d like to let go of the side and hang onto the sheet instead? Get a feel for the wind?’
‘Great, you’ve brought a sheet – I’ll wrap myself up in it if it gets any colder.’
He purses his lips. ‘The sheet is this rope here, you could pull it and hold the sail in place?’
‘Hell no. Thanks all the same.’
If I didn’t know better I’d think he was trying to hold back his smile. ‘So maybe you can tell me how come you’re less in love with sewing than the rest of them?’
‘I got off to a bad start at school.’ To be honest it’s a relief to have something to take my mind off the heaving of the ship. ‘The first ever lesson, the textiles teacher caught me holding a pin in my mouth.’ That was practically the only useful thing my mum had ever taught me about needlework. ‘Apparently teenagers giving sudden whoops and ending up in A&E with pins jammed in their throats is a massive Health and Safety issue.’ I know that I’m blurting and over-sharing, but I can’t stop. My only excuse, I must be a nervous sailor. ‘To be honest I’d have thought sewing through your finger with a machine was way worse. That’s what Bianca Hill from the other group in our year did. But, whatever, the teacher had a hissy fit and things went downhill fast from there.’ A lot like things have in St Aidan, come to think of it.
‘Okay, we’re going to swing the sail around and change direction in a minute, so hang on tight and duck … one two three, BOOM!’
‘Jeez, what the HECK … BOOM! To you too!’ There’s so much splashing and heaving and groaning it feels like we have to end up upside down, pitched into the water. I’m digging my fingers in so hard to the boat side I get splinters under my fingernails, but at the end of it somehow we’re still afloat, even if we’re at a crazy angle.
‘Okay, now come and sit the other side of the boat, and this time try to lean back as far as you can to get your weight out over the water.’ As he watches me make my way across, inching forwards on all fours through the puddles, I no longer give any fucks. The will to look stylish disappeared somewhere in the harbour car park, and I left my last shred of pride back on the jetty. I get there eventually, but he can forget leaning out.
‘So much chopping and changing. It’s hardly relaxing is it?’
He’s rubbing his fist over his mouth. ‘So, how far downhill did your sewing go?’
‘By the time we got to making dresses for GCSE, mine was the size of one of those things that you put your bed quilt inside.’
‘What, a duvet cover?’
‘That’s the one. Then I put the zip in upside down, and somehow stitched the front to the back so, even though it was the size of a house, it was still impossible to climb into.’ It’s all true, and at least it’s a better excuse for why I was completely failing to cut out Loella’s patchwork pieces. I’d rather not explain that my fingers won’t do what I want them to at the moment.
‘I can see why you’re traumatised.’ He’s spluttering into his fist. ‘Okay, we’re turning again, ready, and BOOM!’
‘Surely not? BOOM!’ But we are, and the whole damned heaving and splashing thing starts again and, before I know it, I’m on my hands and knees, crawling back across the boat again. Once I get back onto my plank seat with both hands safely clamped on the boat sides, I squint at him. ‘And people do this why?’
He shrugs. ‘Because it’s fun.’
That word again. ‘Not in my book it’s not.’
‘I’ve had more laughs in the last half hour than I have for a long time.’ He’s tilting his head at me and being ridiculous, because he hasn’t even broken into a grin. ‘I’m not sure you know quite how funny you are, Edie Browne.’
I give that the eye roll it deserves. Funny was how I was before, what he’s finding amusing now are my blunders.
With his deck shoes and tousled hair, and the shadows under his cheekbones set against the flashes of the dark water, he could have been parachuted in from a Diesel advert.
He coughs. ‘I know we’re only going slowly, but listen to the swish of the water as the boat passes across it, feel the rush of the breeze. I mean, look back at the harbour and the shore.’
I only screw my head around because I know if I don’t he’ll go on about it. Looking back from out here in the bay, I’m getting the familiar postcard view of the town with the higgledy rows of cottages rising above the cluster of masts in the harbour, and the seafront railings that stretch around the bay.
‘So,