Journey to the Sea

by Gil McNeil

  ‘I don’t like schools,’ said the man. ‘Never have. Never will. They teach children things not worth knowing. They try and change you. We don’t need schools. The only reason my son is at school is they’d have me up in court again or try and put him in care.’

  ‘Nevertheless—’ Miss Dunn began.

  ‘Look, Miss . . .’

  ‘Dunn.’

  ‘Look, Miss Dunn,’ said the man, moving closer to her. ‘Kyle and me, we get on well without school, we do all right. We don’t want people trying to change us.’

  ‘I like Miss Dunn, father,’ said Kyle. ‘She’s the best teacher I’ve had. She doesn’t try to change you.’

  ‘Well, I’m grateful for that,’ said the boy’s father, ‘but it won’t be long now before we’re moving on.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ asked the teacher.

  ‘We never stay in one place for long,’ said the man. ‘We like to travel, see the world.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ said Miss Dunn. ‘I’ll be sorry to see Kyle go.’

  ‘Thank goodness for small mercies,’ said Mrs Waterhouse in the staffroom the following week. She was rootling in her shopping bag for her knitting.

  ‘Did you say something?’ asked Miss Dunn.

  ‘That gyspsy child who was in your class. He’s gone. Well, that’s what our esteemed leader told me this morning. I should think you’re as relieved as he is.’

  ‘Relieved?’ repeated Miss Dunn. ‘And why should I be relieved?’

  ‘He was a little urchin, quite out of place at a school like this. He stood out like the proverbial sore thumb, didn’t mix, no uniform. Of course, they never stay long, these gypsy types, and they’re a damn nuisance when they are here. Well, it’s one less for you to worry about and I am certainly not shedding any tears that he won’t be in my class next term. I can’t have put my knitting in. That’s a devil. I wanted to finish that jumper this week.’

  ‘He was a nice little boy,’ said Miss Dunn to herself.

  ‘What?’ asked her colleague.

  ‘Kyle, he was a nice little boy and very clever too,’ said Miss Dunn. She took the sepia postcard of the harbour at Whitby, showing the gaunt abbey high on the cliff, the estuary crammed with boats, and beyond the great sweep of sand and the vast ocean. It was from the boy.

  ‘I shall miss him,’ murmured Miss Dunn.

  ‘Did you say something, Dorothy?’ asked her colleague, who, having found her knitting, was adjusting her needles.

  ‘I said I shall miss him,’ said Miss Dunn loudly.

  ‘You do say the strangest things, Dorothy Dunn,’ said her colleague, clacking her needles with a vengeance.

  THE SAILING LIFE OF RANDALL WILLEY

  JAMES LANDALE

  ‘HOLD TIGHT.’ RANDALL willey’s booming voice cut through wind and rain to the crew cowering below. ‘This one’s going to be big.’ The world-renowned sailor stood alone at the wheel, his eyes locked on the wave about to break over the stern of the yacht. A deluge of green water poured into the cockpit, submerging Randall so completely that he disappeared from sight. But somehow, miraculously, he emerged from the flood, shaking water but not the smile from his face. Shakespeare was wrong, he thought. It’s not love that looks on tempests and is not shaken. It’s men, men who are prepared to take whatever the sea throws at them. ‘Are we going to make it?’ a face cried from the companionway. A pale, fear-ridden face, drained of all artifice. Randall looked down. He pitied the crew, most of whom were lashed to their bunks, numbed by the ceaseless ferocity of the storm. ‘Of course we shall,’ he shouted to the hooded figure. ‘We’re going to be fine.’ Another wave slammed into the boat. Calm, absorbed in his task, Randall used all his experience to control the wheel, skilfully keeping the sea at his stern as he steered the yacht obliquely down each wave to slow its descent. All the while, his brilliant mind navigated furiously, mentally computing their position from charts stored away in his photographic memory. Suddenly the boom swung loose on the main sheet track and started thumping insistently to windward.

  ‘Randall!’ Mrs Willey inclined her head only a few inches when she spoke to her husband so as not to waste too much of the sunlight being reflected onto her neck from the mirror beneath her chest. ‘The washing machine’s playing up again.’ She was sitting, as she always did, semi-naked athwart the sun-lounger on the foredeck. Her legs were spread inappropriately wide so they could catch as much sun as possible. The mirror lay just above her crotch, propped up on a pile of old glossy magazines.

  For a second or two, Randall looked at her in blinking astonishment, the storm fading quickly into the recesses of his mind. In its place came the unexpected thought that his wife, thus exhibited, resembled a duck cooking gently in the window of a Chinese restaurant, crouched in sweaty rigor mortis, growing ever more shrivelled and brown as the day wore on. He struggled with the image for a moment, his incomprehension total, before he shook his head clear and turned to the loud throbbing coming from below. He did not care for the washing machine. Mrs Willey had insisted on it as a condition of her presence on the boat. But somehow it did not feel quite right. It was not just that it took up so much space. A washing machine, of course, did not just mean a washing machine. It meant installing a water-maker too. Mrs Willey had made it quite clear that she wasn’t going to wash her smalls in seawater, thank you very much. Both machines consumed so much electricity that Randall had had to buy a bigger generator. This, in turn, left the boat even more cramped, and even heavier in the water, points that held no sway with Mrs Willey, whose nautical ambitions were limited to sunbathing on a deck that was attached firmly to a marina pontoon. To Mrs Willey, a boat was simply a platform for her perpetual battle with pallor.

  But, Randall’s disapproval of the washing machine went further than the merely practical. He had a nagging suspicion that somehow it was unseamanlike. He did not think Sir Robin Knox-Johnston had washing machines on his boats. Sir Robin was Randall’s secret hero, an icon amongst yachtsmen he worshipped in private away from the self-consciousness of the sailing-club bar. Randall envied what he called ‘the cut of Sir Robin’s jib’ – Randall was a dedicated user of nautical cliché; it made him, if nothing else, feel more of a seaman – and he admired Sir Robin’s weather-beaten, bearded appearance, the way he looked as if he had just stepped off a boat, a spare length of line always to hand, just in case there was a sail that needed furling or a spar made fast. No, Randall sighed to himself: Sir Robin Knox-Johnston definitely doesn’t have washing machines on his boats.

  ‘Randall, what are you waiting for?’ Mrs Willey was becoming insistent. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You know my head’s been killing me all morning. That racket is not making it any better.’ Randall stepped below and gave the washing machine a clumsy kick and the banging gave way to a less violent rat-tat-tat-tat. He climbed slowly back up the companionway and resumed his seat in the cockpit so he could continue his study of the other boats. The marina was packed, heaving with neglected wealth, floating fridges whose lines were rarely slipped. Most of the yachts, like Randall’s, were white and French, flat-bottomed cruisers built for charter and the unknowing rich. Most, however, were bigger than Randall’s boat, a modest 28-foot sloop that aspired to cross oceans but rarely left port. He had almost bought the 32-footer in the catalogue but had inevitably gone for the cheaper option, deluding himself that four feet would not make much difference. He knew now how wrong he had been, but it was too late; his boat was poky and that was that. He contented himself instead by looking down, literally and figuratively, on those craft smaller than his: the day-boats, the luggers, the dinghies. But his eyes were drawn inexorably to the glorious, magnificent J-Class super-yacht, bobbing in the breeze like the thoroughbred that she was, tied up to her personal pontoon at the far end of the marina, her halyards tapping briskly against the mast.

  Randall stared up at the mountain of canvas and spars soaring above him into the sky. Each sail was sheeted tidily home, each driving
the boat on. Conrad, he remembered, talked of the ‘preposterous tallness’ of sailing ships. How true that was! In his hands, the wheel felt sure and firm, just a fraction of weather helm as he steered all ninety foot of super-yacht hard on the wind. ‘Make fast that line!’ he roared at a crewman, narrowing his eyes as he squinted beyond the bow. ‘Aye, aye, Mr Willey.’ Randall had enough to think about already without having to worry about some damn-fool hand not doing his job. ‘Gusting, gusting,’ a voice cried from the rail and the yacht heeled hard over. Others might have let off some sail, powering the yacht down, easing the pressure on the shrouds and stays. But not so Randall Willey. The billionaire industrialist and holder of the America’s Cup was not known for his caution. He had a mark to make and a race to win, and a few gusts were not going to get in his way. The leeward rail dipped beneath the water, sending puffs of spray aft. But none of the crew were worried. For at their helm they had Randall Willey, possibly the best helmsman in the world, and if he was confident they would reach the buoy on this tack, then that was good enough for them. Randall pulled his cap closer over his eyes, reading the wind like a pilot, riding the boat like a jockey. A wave bounced off the bow, sending an arc of cool water tumbling into the stern.

  ‘For God’s sake Randall, can’t you even hold your drink these days?’ He looked down at his trousers where a large, dark patch was spreading moistly across his lap. He had spilt his gin. ‘On your special trousers, too.’ Mrs Willey was particularly proud of his trousers. They were red canvas, of a type she had seen worn by other sailors. She cared little for Randall’s hobby but took the view that if her husband was going to do something, at the very least he should look the part. So she had bought him a blue blazer with brash gold buttons from Austin Reed, and a white peaked cap from an advert she had seen in the back of one of the magazines they had at the hairdresser’s. And the red trousers. Randall did not like the trousers and was not unhappy to have spilt gin over them. The thing was, Mrs Willey had not quite got the colour right. The trousers worn by other sailors, as far as he could see, were of a lighter, more pastel red, as if faded by sun and salt. His trousers were of a brighter, bolder rouge, and tighter than perhaps they ought to have been. They were, to Randall’s mind, trousers of the sort more traditionally worn by children’s television presenters of ambiguous sexuality than by hardened sea dogs. So it was with some relief that he went below to change. Above him, his wife tottered over the deck, her stilettos scoring yet more marks in the already pocked teak. Randall winced but, as always, said nothing.

  ‘I’m going shopping,’ Mrs Willey announced down the companionway. ‘If you haven’t already forgotten, which of course you have, so I’m reminding you anyway, next door are coming for tea and we need some more sparkling rosé.’

  Randall sighed. He had forgotten to go to the off-licence that morning and she had not let him forget it. They’ll be quite happy with some Chardonnay,’ he said in token protest.

  ‘We’ve been through all that,’ Mrs Willey replied sharply. ‘The book was quite clear: “sparkling rosé is eminently suitable to serve on board a yacht”. I remember it distinctly.’ With that, she stood up, wrapped her corpulent midriff in the sarong she had been persuaded had come from Thailand, and picked up her handbag. ‘Now. When I come back, I want everything tidied up downstairs.’

  ‘Below,’ Randall muttered under his breath; ‘it’s not downstairs, it’s below.’

  ‘I want everything tidied up downstairs,’ she repeated, ignoring him. She paused, looked at her husband with a now familiar mixture of loathing and contempt. ‘So, can I trust you enough to leave you alone for twenty minutes?’

  Randall Willey stood at what was left of his mast, alone with the sea, his battered yacht carving a gentle path through the water at a steady four knots. He looked up at the jury rig, as he had every day, every hour, every minute of the last three months to check the sail, such as it was. Randall smiled a toothy smile through the tufts of his beard and thought: She’s got me this far, she’ll get me home now. His gaze shifted to the sun, high in the sky. Almost noon, he thought, and went below for his sextant. He took a few sights, looked at his watch, and did some astonishing mental arithmetic. ‘Not far now,’ he concluded. ‘Not far now.’

  The world-famous solo sailor had set out from France five months earlier to race alone around the world. But two months in, deep in the Southern Ocean, a wave to end all waves had turned his boat over and woven his rigging into a knot of steel spaghetti. His food was ruined, his water tanks breached and his electricity generator broken. But he had not given up. Oh, no, not Randall Willey. Not the man who had taught Ellen MacArthur everything she knew. He constructed a jury rig as best he could and sewed himself a new sail. He survived on raw fish and kelp, washed down by rainwater. He navigated as he had done as a child, by the stars and the sun, a true sailor shorn of modern fripperies and technology, relying on the essentials that had seen mariners safely home for thousands of years. And now, after all those days at sea, he was almost home. Already, despite everything, he was not looking forward to the attention his heroic return would receive. Perhaps he should simply carry on sailing, like the great Bernard Moitessier, and just pass the finish line and Britain by. But his reverie was broken by a faint buzzing on the horizon, a sound that became steadily louder as he made out the helicopter flying low over the waves. And so it begins, he thought. The aircraft swept past him, banked steeply and returned to take up a position just off the port bow, the sound of its engines ever more plangent, the vwoop, vwoop of the blades drumming into his head . . .

  Randall sat up with a start. Someone was thumping on the side of the boat. He popped his head out of the hatch and saw his wife standing on the pontoon, bags of shopping at her feet. She was furious; he could tell from the way the fake tan on her face had turned a deeper orange and the sunburn on her cleavage glowed. The world’s most famous solo sailor said nothing, but helped his wife up the steps and collected the shopping bags. He watched as she squeezed sideways through the bulkhead door to the cabin, carefully protecting her new perm from any navigational hazards on the ceiling. She was talking but, to Randall, her voice had that faraway, disjointed feel, like the crackling chatter of a VHF radio that everyone ignores until the fearful trigger-word ‘Mayday’ startles and pricks the ears. Yet the word never came. Randall unpacked the shopping and stood in the galley, desultorily washing up the cups in the sink, and soon was far, far away.

  Randall’s boat was about to sink and sink fast. He knew it instinctively, he could feel it in his seaman’s bones. The craft was waterlogged, waves lapping over the gunwales as the ocean poured in below through the ruptured hull. There was no alternative. Without hesitation, Randall took out a knife and cut the line to the life raft. Had he not acted so swiftly the sinking yacht would have dragged the raft down with it, sucking his six crew to their breathless deaths. This was their only chance. Too bad he couldn’t join them. ‘What have you done?’ they cried as their raft floated rapidly away. ‘Don’t worry,’ the skipper shouted. ‘It’s for the best.’ And they watched as Randall Willey stood at the mast, proud, upright, the water at his feet, a final cigarette playing about his lips, as he did what captains did and went down with his ship.

  CHRISTMAS AT SEA

  Suhaili, 25 December 1968

  SIR ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON

  Extract from the diary written on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1968 by Robin Knox-Johnston aboard the yacht Suhaili, some 2,000 miles from Cape Horn in the Roaring Forties of the Southern Ocean, while making the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world. The voyage started from Falmouth, UK, on 14 June 1968, and was completed 312 days later on 22 April 1969.

  CHRISTMAS IS VERY much a family festival at home or on board ship, and indeed my last eleven Christmases had been spent on British India Ships. The thought of being by myself at Christmas rather ruffled me. For almost the first time since I left Falmouth I felt that I was missing out on something, and that perhaps it
was rather stupid to spend a whole year of one’s life stuck out on one’s own away from all the comforts and attractions that home offers. By now, Dad and my brothers would have brought in logs from the old trees in the garden, and the family would be clustered round a roaring fire in the drawing room, and thinking of going to midnight service at the village church in Downe. I recalled winter evenings at home when we played bridge. The memory of Mother as my partner humming ‘Hearts And Flowers’ and Diana asking Dad if she could go ‘Crash’ or ‘Slosh’ had me roaring with laughter. The warmth and fellowship of those scenes seemed to be in such contrast to my present circumstances that I brought out a bottle of whisky, feeling that if I couldn’t have the fire, I could at least give myself an inner glow.

  Two glasses later I clambered out on deck and perched myself on the cabin top to hold a carol service. I sang happily away for over an hour, roaring out my favourite carols, and where I had forgotten the words, singing those I did know over again. By the time I had exhausted my repertoire and had a few encores I was feeling quite merry. Christmas, I reflected as I turned in, had got off to a good start after all.

  The first words in my diary for December 25th are ‘Awoke feeling very thick headed’. Despite this, at 9 a.m. I drank to those at home, where the time was 6 p.m., and then began preparing a currant duff. I made an effort over Christmas lunch. I fried a tin of stewed steak and had potatoes and peas, cooked separately for a change, and to go with them I opened the bottle of wine that my brother Mike had given me and which I had been saving for this occasion. I rather overestimated on the quantity, though, and it filled me up, so the duff had to wait until the evening before I could tackle it, by which time it had gone soggy.

  At 3 p.m. I drank a loyal toast, wishing that I had been up early enough to hear the Queen’s speech at 6 a.m. my time. Somehow, gathering together to listen to this speech adds to the charm of Christmas. One becomes aware of people all over the world held by the same interest listening as well, and it makes the world seem a lot smaller. I wish that it was!