All at Sea by Tim Fitzhigham

Author:Tim Fitzhigham [FitzHigham, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409050445
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

‘He’ll never sell ice creams going at that speed.’

Eric Morecambe

Andy pulled his boat into Folkestone Harbour as I rowed the battered bath behind. People gathered on the quay shouted out to us, ‘What happened?’

Andy looked down at me then shouted up, ‘I thought I’d let him make it this time!’

A cheer went up. Many of them I recognised as line dancers. They began to disperse. I’m not sure if they were there to welcome me or if they were just there walking off the effects of the previous night’s country-and-western-based overexertion. Either way, it was good to feel they might have turned up to welcome the bath home. The general happiness was mixed with tension. The tide had definitely turned and the water was going out: we had to get the boat and bath moored before we lost the water in the harbour.

We moored the bath at the inner slipway. Andy moored up slightly further out towards the outer harbour, near the low swing bridge that had claimed the showerhead a year before. I went aboard his boat.

‘What now? How’s the weather for an attempt to make it up to Dover in the morning?’

I could see the shock in Andy’s face mirrored in Chris’s sunglasses. He took them off and revealed that Andy’s shock was nothing compared to his own. They could both see the terrible state my body was in. I knew it too but was buzzing with the fact that I’d achieved what everyone thought was impossible and crossed the Channel.

‘Let’s have a look at the charts.’

Andy took out the charts of Folkestone and the stretch of the coast up to Dover and then on to Sandwich. I followed the line of the coast northwards.

‘Where’s London?’

In my head London wasn’t that much further than Folkestone by sea. As I looked at the charts it became apparent that London wasn’t even on the same charts as Folkestone. London turned out not to be on any of the charts Andy had on the boat. I looked at Andy. ‘I’ll get the atlas from the car.’

Andy laughed. ‘It’s not what we normally do at sea, but then we don’t normally row baths.’

I knew where London was of course and I knew where Folkestone was, but I think I’d been in denial and wanted them to be closer to each other. By ignoring their positions I think I thought they might move a bit nearer to each other to help me out.

We left the boat and headed to shore. Some of the remaining line dancers went to shake my hand. I smiled and showed them my hands apologetically. They winced, much as I’d have done if they’d shaken my hand. They congratulated me verbally and let me waddle off towards the car.

I overheard one lady turn to the man next to her as they wandered off towards the hotel, ‘So he’s come from Wales?’

‘No, France.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then – that’s much closer than Wales.’

Chris, Andy and I gathered around the atlas on the bonnet of the car.

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