by JL Merrow
All at Sea
By JL Merrow
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2019 JL Merrow
ISBN 9781646560820
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
All at Sea
By JL Merrow
I knew before we got there it was going to be the worst holiday of my life.
It was 1993 and I was eighteen years old, having just left school. I wasn’t bad looking—maybe a little on the skinny side, but hey, I’d been taking exams. I hadn’t had time to do a lot of push-ups and stuff. Anyway, skinny was in back then. Come to think of it, skinny’s always in. Anyway, I didn’t have a face full of zits, and I knew where to get a decent haircut and how to dress cool on sod all money. I should have been living it up in Ibiza, drinking all night and sleeping it off on the beach all day. Not building sandcastles with my little sisters on the Isle of Bloody Wight.
But I couldn’t have left Mum on her own with them. She was still reeling from finding out Dad had been having a midlife crisis—and more to the point, that he’d been having it with, among others: the new girl at the office; the sexy single mum over the road; and the nice lady who’d come round canvassing for the council elections. Mum wasn’t the only one reeling. I hadn’t spoken to the bastard since the day he’d run off to shack up with Ms Tory Canvasser.
So here I was staying in a cramped bed and breakfast in Sandown, Isle of Wight with my mum and a couple of giggling little girls, minus all my mates and any chance whatsoever of getting lucky this holiday. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
I hadn’t reckoned with the trip to the boating lake.
Laurie and Sarah had been begging for a go on the boats ever since we’d got here, so when we got up that morning and the weather had turned a bit too grey to make the beach inviting, Mum finally said yes. The lake was just across the road from the beach, and we walked down there along the sea front. Mum promenaded along the walkway at the top of the sea wall, while I raced the girls across the sand below, climbing the steps over the breakwaters as we came to them and then hurtling down the other side. Until they wore me out, those two, and I went and joined Mum while they carried on shrieking like seagulls down below us.
Mum was smiling for the first time in ages. “Look at those two,” she said. “Who needs Euro Disney?”
That’s where Dad had promised to take us, just the week before he left and all bets were off. Did I mention he was a bastard?
The boating lake was set between the kiddies’ playground we’d gone to yesterday and a mini golf course we’d probably get to by the end of the week if the weather didn’t improve. The boats for hire, a mix of paddle boats and rowing boats, were all lined up along one side of the lake, next to a little hut where they took the money. And when I say they, I mean he. God, he was gorgeous. Tall—taller than me—and lean, not skinny, with short dark hair that fluffed up on top and rippled in the breeze that was blowing in off the sea.
He had a voice like maple syrup on pancakes, which he was using to full effect to drum up trade. “Roll up, roll up! Get your top-of-the range self-powered floating conveyances here!”
Laurie giggled and tugged on my sleeve. “Josh, why’s he saying that?”
“He means we can hire a paddle boat here,” I said with only about one percent of my attention on my little sister and the rest firmly fixed on the vision standing by the boathouse. He turned and smiled as he saw me staring. I was vanilla ice cream melting under the hot chocolate fudge sauce of his gaze.
“This way, please, ladies and gent! Now, if I can just remind you: swimming in the lake is strictly prohibited, as is attempting to drown younger or older siblings, no matter how much they may be asking for it.” He winked at me as he said that, and I almost fell in the water.
Mum decided she’d feel more secure in a wide-bellied paddle boat, and the boat bloke and I held it steady while Mum and the kids climbed in. I wished I had the nerve to smile at him, maybe see if he was really interested or just messing about, but my gaze wouldn’t seem to shift from the bottom of the boat.
God knows why, but Laurie and Sarah loved that boat. They sat one on each side, turning the little handles as fast as they could, each trying to beat the other and make the boat go around in circles. I had plenty of time to lean back and gaze idly at the shore, hoping like hell my knock-off Ray-bans hid the fact I was ogling the boat bloke like crazy.
The sun had come out, and I guessed pulling in boats must be hot work, as he’d taken off his shirt. His sculptured, hairless chest was as deeply tanned as his arms and face. He was perfect. Every so often we’d swing near the boathouse, and I’d hear snatches of his tireless sales pitch—and laughter from the punters he was gently ribbing.
It didn’t seem like five minutes before that amazing voice rolled out over the water. “Number thirty-seven, your time is up. Come in, please, number thirty-seven, or I’ll be forced to deploy the torpedoes.”
We paddled back to the side to a chorus of “That wasn’t nearly long enough,” and “Can we go again, please?” I came to a snap decision. “Yeah, all right. I’ll pay.” I ducked away from Mum’s look of surprise and got out a couple of hard-earned pound coins from my Saturday job at HMV. “Think I’ll sit this one out, though.”
The girls were all, “Oh, Josh! Come on!” but Mum just gave me a funny look—half knowing, and half worried—and shushed them as the boatman pulled us into the side.
“Ladies and gentleman, if you would care to disembark this way?” He held out one broad, tanned hand.
I took a deep breath. “Just me getting off, if that’s all right. I’ll pay you for them to have another half hour.” His hand didn’t waver, so I took it, my skin tingling at the contact as he pulled me smoothly out of the boat and onto the shore. “Thanks, mate,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound as breathless as I felt. I helped him push the boat back out—not that he needed my help—paid him, then sat down on the ground by the side of the lake, not far from his hut.
Now all I had to do was think of something—anything—to say to my idol that wouldn’t make me look like a total prat.
Ten minutes later I was still coming up blank. I jumped a mile when the idol in question dropped down lightly to sit beside me. “Too much excitement for one day already?”
I managed a grin. “Something like that.”
“Well, at least it wasn’t sea-sickness, then. I’m Rupe, by the way. Short for Rupert.”
“You poor sod!” I blurted out without thinking, then clapped my hands to my mouth as if I could stuff the words back in. “Shit. Sorry.”
Amazingly, he smiled. “It’s all right. An old family name. And apparently my mum’s always had a bit of a thing for bears.” I did a double-take. “She collects them,” he carried on casually. “Teddy bears, that is. She’s got several Steiffs.”
Which, in case, like me, you didn’t know, means posh German cuddly toys no sane parent would let a kid anywhere near because they cost and arm and a leg. And I don’t mean of the stuffed-with-fluff variety. “That’s nice,” I said, and immediately wanted to drown myself in the lake, where I’d apparently left both my brain and any pretension I might have to being vaguely cool. “I mean, that she’s got a hobby. That’s great.” I hid my face in my hands. God, drowning was too good for me. Far too good.
Rupe wasn’t laughing at me, but I had a feeling it was only because he’d been far too well brought up. “So how about you,” he asked, “oh mystery man of no name? Do you have any hobbies?”
Oh, bloody hell. Had I really not told him my name? “It’s Josh. And, uh, yeah. Cycling. I’m in a team.”
He raised one dark eyebrow and smiled at me, but didn’t say anything.
“What?” I demanded, uncomfortable under his gaze.
“Oh, just picturing you clad in skin-tight lycra,” he drawled.
I could feel the heat spreading up from my neck so fast it was a wonder my head didn’t explode. I opened my mouth—God knows what I’d have said—but Rupe suddenly scrambled to his feet.
“Sorry, duty calls. Back in a mo. Ladies and gents,” he said more loudly. “May I interest you in one of our fine conveyances? Ingeniously designed for the conversion of circular into forward motion—just think of them as the velocipedes of the water. Or paddle boats, if you prefer. No? Ah, I see you’re the more discerning sort. Perhaps one of these vessels would be more to your taste. They’re equipped with a state-of-the art streamlined propulsion system—or as we like to call them, oars.”
By the time he’d taken their money and helped the family into a rowing boat, I’d had time to think of something to say when he sat down again. “What do you do when you’re not working here?”
“Well, there is, of course, the theatre.” The way he said it, theatre had three syllables, and I realised where he’d got those ringing tones that set up unsettling vibrations inside me. “But apart from that, I’m afraid the boat thing is still something of a motif. I have a small dinghy moored off Bembridge I like to take out from time to time.” He gave me a sidelong look. “I was planning on a little jaunt tomorrow, as it happens. It’s my day off. If your family could dispense with your company for a few hours, you’d be very welcome to join me.”
My heart gave a little leap in my chest. “Yeah, I’d love to! Um. Do you always talk like that?” I added without thinking.
A dark eyebrow raised. “Meaning?”
“Well, no offence, but you sound like my headmaster. Only posher.”
“Ah. That may well be because my father is a headmaster. Retired, now—he’s seventy-three. Apparently I came as something of a surprise to the old dears. I think they’re still trying to work out whether it was a good sort of surprise or…”
I couldn’t imagine anyone back home in London calling their parents “the old dears.” Then again, no one I knew back home had a dad older than my grandad.
Rupe scrambled to his feet again as an Indian couple approached, and I looked out at the lake to see Mum and the girls heading back our way. “Wait—where are we going to meet tomorrow?”
“Here. Ten o’clock.” And with a last smile, he was gone, off to help the Indian lady get into the boat without dunking her sari in the lake.
“Made a friend, have you?” Mum asked as we walked back along the sea front. She had that worried look on again.
“Er, yeah.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing too noticeably. I still hadn’t told her about the whole gay thing. I’d been meaning to, honest, but what with Dad leaving…All right, maybe it was partly just an excuse, but looking at her face, thinking she’d looked about a decade younger this time last year, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. “Yeah. His name’s Rupe, and he asked if I wanted to go out on his boat tomorrow morning. So I said yes. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I thought you didn’t like the boats much,” Sarah butted in.
“Not the boats at the boating lake, daftypants. He’s got a dinghy, out in Bembridge.” I had a vague idea where that was. Somewhere on the Isle of Wight, anyhow, so it couldn’t be that far.
“Can we go?” Laurie bounced up and down.
“No! Sorry, but no.” God, if anything was going to stop me pulling, it’d be my little sisters tagging along for the ride.
Mum rescued me. “You can’t just invite yourself along, love. You and your sister can come to the beach with me, if it’s nice.”
As the girls swiftly decided beaches were way better than boats—because we’d done boats already and they were boring now—Mum gave me a nervous smile. “I’m so glad you’ve found a friend here, Josh.”
“Yeah. Me too,” I said, looking anywhere but at her. “Come on, girls, I’ll race you along the beach!”
* * * *
Next day when I got up the sky was that pure, clear blue you only get at the seaside. There was a soft breeze blowing in off the sea, promising to take the edge off the heat when the sun got high. I put on the best clothes I had with me: my baggiest jeans, which hung so low Mum couldn’t look at me without begging me to wear a belt, and my one, precious, pair of Calvin Kleins. And a faded Acid House t-shirt, but you couldn’t have everything.
“Make sure you put on some sun lotion!” Mum called after me as I ran down the steps of the B&B, paranoid I’d be late to meet Rupe and he wouldn’t wait.
“I’ll be fine, Mum. See you whenever, all right?” I gave a last wave, and legged it down the street to the sea front.
Butterflies zipped around my stomach like clubbers on Ecstasy as I neared the boating lake. When a horn sounded behind me I nearly jumped into the sea.
I looked around to see Rupe waving frantically from the wheel of the rustiest Ford Granada Estate I’d ever seen outside a scrapyard. He’d slowed to a walking pace, and a line of traffic was building up behind him. I ran over and yanked open the passenger door, waving an apology to all the people we were holding up. Nobody leaned on their horns or zoomed around us impatiently. It was another world from London.
“Josh! How are you?” Rupe asked as he put his foot down and we roared away at a heady 33 mph.
“Er, yeah, I’m good,” I mumbled, more used to greetings like “Awright?” that didn’t require an answer.
“And your mother and sisters?”
Just how much did he reckon would’ve changed since he saw them yesterday? “They’re great, yeah.” It occurred to me a bit late I probably ought to ask too. “Um, your family all right?”
“Oh, fine, good,” Rupe said heartily—and for the first time it seemed to ring false. I didn’t get a chance to ask, though, as he carried on briskly. “All set for a day’s sailing? It’s perfect weather for it.”
“Yeah—looking forward to it. Have you always lived on the Isle of Wight, then?”
“Oh, yes, absolutely. Although I’m only here for the summer these days, of course.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, I’m at college the rest of the time. Tit Hall, Cambridge,” he added. “We’re small, but perfectly formed.”
I tried to swallow around the inferiority complex that’d suddenly formed in my throat. “I’m off to Sussex in the autumn. To study physics,” I added, because at least that was something to be proud of.
“Physics? Sounds frightfully difficult. I’m reading English.” Rupe smiled. “Just an excuse to laze by the river with a stack of books, really. Still, gives me plenty of time for Footlights.”
“Footlights? Is that a club?”
Rupe laughed. “Well, yes, but not in the sense you mean. It’s the Cambridge University drama society. You’d be amazed how many people you see on television
came up through Footlights—Hugh Laurie was president in his final year.”
“What, the one from Blackadder?”
“The very same. And a whole host of them were in Peter’s Friends last year, of course.”
“Oh. I didn’t see that one.” It’d seemed a bit too posh to bother with. I didn’t say that to Rupe, though. We drove on, the road turning inland as the cliffs started to rise. Farmyard smells drifted in through the open windows, and once we’d passed a pretty little church and turned right fields rolled away in all directions. I realised I’d never really thought of the Isle of Wight as having countryside—just beaches. “Do you like living here?” I asked. “Isn’t it really quiet?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Rupe said, coaxing the car up a steep hill with ear-splitting changes of gear. I was beginning to wonder if I’d be walking back to Sandown. “But I won’t lie, it’s the sort of place you appreciate more if you don’t actually live here full time. Not exactly a hot-bed of the Arts, I’m afraid.”
“Not that I’d recognise one of those if it jumped up and bit me on the bum,” I admitted.
“Philistine. I shall have to see to your cultural education. I’ll send you tickets for my next production, how about that?”
“Er, okay. What’s it going to be?”
Rupe laughed. “Haven’t the foggiest! Something classical, perhaps—do you see me as Hamlet?” He launched into acting mode, steering the car with one hand and holding the other out so far he nearly whacked me in the face. “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio—you don’t mind me calling you Horatio, do you?—a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times—”
“How come it sounds a lot more suggestive when you say it? It was never that interesting when I studied it for GCSE.”
“Or perhaps something a little lighter?” His accent morphed into an uncanny imitation of John Cleese. “‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!”