Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

  As I said at the beginning, I knew the ending of my story before I began telling it. But maybe it isn’t quite the ending, not yet. I’ll live on for a while in Zita’s memory and in Allie’s memory. I’ll be part of their lives for as long as they live, just as Marty and Aunty Megs have always been part of mine. This story of mine will help me live on a little longer. And I want that. I want that very badly. Living a little longer is suddenly the most important thing in the world for me.

  But this is the end of the story, the story of me. What will happen to me soon is the end of everyone’s story. Not a happy ending, not a sad ending. Just an ending. Time to say goodbye.

  By Arthur Hobhouse,

  (brother of Kitty, and Marty, son of Aunty Megs, husband of Zita, father of Allie.)

  PS This story is dedicated to Zita. Kittys key and my copy of The Ancient Mariner are for Allie to keep.

  Part Two

  The Voyage of the Kitty Four

  What Goes Around, Comes Around

  I always liked messing about with boats, and in boats too. As Dad said, I’d been doing that just about all my life, from the bath to the Southern Ocean. I think I was born to sail, and I mean that. So when I set out on my great sailing adventure, it was because I wanted to do it. I’d been dreaming of doing it for almost as long as I could remember. I didn’t do it just because I promised Dad I would. That was only part of it. Yes, Dad had built the boat for us to sail to England together, to find Kitty together. And yes, it’s true that I try very hard to do what I say I’m going to do, to keep my promises. So of course I went in memory of Dad, but mostly I went because I wanted to go.

  He was just a bloke I met on a train, the night train from Penzance to London, and we got talking, as you do. To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention to him at first. I had my laptop out, and I was busy writing emails to Mum and Grandpa. Besides, I didn’t want to talk. I was tired. I wanted to get my emails done and then have a good night’s sleep. But we just got chatting. No, that’s not quite true. He started chatting, and I listened. I think I listened because he was funny, and because he was Australian, the first Australian boy I’d talked to face-to-face in months. He rattled off his entire life history in about a minute, before the train even left the station.

  He was called Michael McLuskie. Born in Sydney, went to school in Parramatta. Hated it. Spent all the time he could on the beach, surfing. Left school. Decided he’d go round the world searching out all the best surfing beaches he could find. Came to England, to Cornwall, to Newquay and St Ives. Big mistake. No one told him they didn’t do proper waves in England. You could find bigger waves in a teacup, he said. He’d spent the last couple of months sitting on drizzly grey beaches waiting for waves, and now he’d run out of money. He was going home, to sunshine, to Australian surf, the real kind, the rolling kind, the thundering curling kind, the riding kind.

  “You surf?” he asks me.

  “No,” I tell him. “I sail.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Have a Mars bar,” he says.

  And that’s how it all began, with an argument and a Mars bar. Six years on and we still argue from time to time, not that often. But when we do, we often patch it up by sharing a Mars bar. It helps us remember that train journey, the time we first met. It makes us smile, and it’s really hard to argue if you’re smiling. I know because I’ve tried.

  “So what about you?” Michael says.

  “What about me?”

  “Well, I’ve told you the story of my life, so now you’ve got to tell me yours.”

  “You’re just chatting me up,” I tell him.

  “Yes, I am,” he replies, “but tell me all the same. It’s a long journey.”

  He was right about that. It was going to be about eight hours through the night, and the seats were uncomfortable, so sleeping wouldn’t be easy. And besides, he was very persuasive.

  “What happened to your arm?” he says.

  I’d almost forgotten I had my arm in a sling. I’d already got used to it like that. “It’s a long story,” I tell him.

  “I’m listening,” he replies, flashing me his wide white surfer’s smile. “And you can tell me your name too if you like.”

  I told Michael my story (and my name) that night because I liked him. There, I’ve said it, and that’s the honest truth of it. To begin with I thought, I’ll do what he did, just rattle through my whole life history, get it all over with as quickly as possible. But once I’d started it didn’t work out like that, and that was because he kept trying to draw more out of me.

  I began my story just as the train jerked into motion,and began to groan and grind its way out of the station. As it turned out, I didn’t finish until the next morning. And I think I know why I confided in him as much as I did. It was because he listened so intently, seemed so riveted by every word I said. It was like I was telling my story to a little kid at bedtime. He just didn’t want me to stop, and he kept asking questions, kept wanting me to explain things more. So it wasn’t just me talking, it became more of a conversation between us than solo storytelling. And I had so much I wanted to show him, so much evidence: all the emails on the laptop, a typescript of Dad’s story (rather battered by now) and Dad’s copy of The Ancient Mariner, both of which I’d had with me on Kitty Four all the way from Australia. He loved the emails particularly, and he told me why too. It all became so real when he read them, he said, as if he was there on the boat with me.

  So that’s how I’ll try to tell you my story then, just as I told it to Michael that first time, but without his interruptions.

  Two Send-offs, and an Albatross

  Dad died just two weeks after I’d finally finished typing out his story. So he had his copy of it on his bedside table. He couldn’t read it by this time, but he knew what it was all right, and he was very proud of it. The last time he was conscious I sang him his song over and over again, till I was sure he’d heard it. “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, my fair Lady.”

  He didn’t open his eyes. But he squeezed my hand. He’d heard it.

  We gave him a good Cretan send off, the kind he’d have liked, all of us there, the whole family, and we sang our songs and danced our dances. Then we went out in a flotilla of boats, Mum and me in Kitty Four, and we sprinkled his ashes far out at sea, just as he’d wanted us to do. I read a few verses from The Ancient Mariner. I knew his favourite lines, so I ended with them.

  He prayeth well, who loveth well

  Both man and bird and beast.

  He prayeth best, who loveth best

  All things both great and small;

  For the dear God who loveth us,

  He made and loveth all.

  Just as I was finishing that last line an albatross came winging over us and floated above us on the air. Dad’s spirit was in that bird. I knew it and so did Mum—we didn’t have to say anything to know what the other was thinking.

  As we watched it fly away I told her about the promise I’d made to Dad: that once he was gone, I’d do the voyage we were going to do together on my own. I’d sail to England, do all I could to find Kitty, and then sail home again. I expected an argument from her—I knew how nervous and upset she’d been about the whole project, and that was with two of us doing it. But she just said very quietly: “I know all about your promise, Allie. He told me, and besides I know his story, don’t I? He was so proud of you. You go. You do it. It’s what he would have wanted. But when it’s done, you come back home, you hear?”

  Fitting up Kitty Four, and planning the whole trip, and all the sea trials needed to test out the equipment, took several months. Mum wasn’t going to let me go until she was quite sure everything on board was just as it should be. Grandpa was the same. He checked and double-checked everything. And all this time Mum was beginning the search for Kitty. She surfed the net, but that got her nowhere. She sent off emails to public record offices in L
ondon and all over England. Nothing. She wrote to one or two friends who lived there asking for their help. Everyone did what they could, but no one could find a trace of a Kitty Hobhouse born in London, probably in Bermondsey, at about the same time as Dad—though, like him, we could never be quite sure of when exactly that had been.

  We set up a Kitty Four website so people could chart my progress at sea, and follow me all the way to England. And there was a link to the whole story of the search for Dad’s missing sister asking anyone who might have any information about Kitty Hobhouse to get in touch. Maybe someone would read it. Hopefully someone would know something. We had hundreds of hits, huge interest, lots of good luck messages; but no one, it seems, had ever heard of a Kitty Hobhouse of Bermondsey, London.

  Mum didn’t give up. She and Grandpa used the press too. There were front-page articles in the newspapers, national as well as local. “Allie’s Epic Voyage.” “Allie Searches for Long Lost Auntie.” I did radio interviews, TV interviews. Grandpa liked the TV coverage best of course because the boatyard’s name was up there behind me: “Stavros Boats” in huge blue letters—bow to stern, the whole length of the boat, on my cap, on my wet weather gear, on just about everything. Grandpa was always there to stage the interview—he never missed a trick.

  Mum thought the press coverage might be our best chance of tracking Kitty down. But no one phoned, no one got in touch, no one emailed. I got to thinking about what Dad had told me when he was a bit down once: that it had all been so long ago, that sometimes he wondered if Kitty had existed at all, that she could be just a figment of his imagination, that someone else could just as easily have given him his lucky key. So we could be looking for a figment.

  As usual Mum stayed positive. Kitty was real, she was sure of it. Kitty was as real as her key, she said. She would keep looking while I was gone. Sooner or later, something had to turn up. All through Dad’s illness she had been the same. Everyone around her only kept hoping because she did. Whatever made Dad feel better she made sure we did. Most of all he loved to see us dancing, all of us together, the whole family. “Let’s do it like we always do it,” she’d tell us, “so that he feels the joy in it.” Even when he died, she was the strongest of us all. It was Mum’s strength and determination that was to keep me going over the next five months. I could never have done it without her.

  Mum was my coordinator back at home on shore through email, and through Satphone in an emergency. We would keep in touch every day. Any technical problems, I’d let her know. She’d talk to the blokes in the boatyard, and they’d do what they could to talk me through repairs and maintenance. Any injuries and health problems, she’d ask the doctor. We’d thought of everything, we hoped. We were as ready as we could be. All set to go. But I wasn’t happy. There was a side to all this I was really beginning to dislike. Over the last weeks before I left I’d become a bit of a local celebrity, and I was finding the constant intrusion getting on my nerves. I just wanted to be gone. But I knew they’d be there, and lots of them, on the day I left. I wanted to slip away without anyone noticing, but Grandpa wasn’t having any of it. He wanted me to have a proper send-off, a Cretan send off. The press was important, he said. He was proud of his little girl, proud of Stavros Boats, and he wanted the world to know it. And what Grandpa said, went. So that’s how it happened.

  I’d never seen so many cameras flashing in all my life. “This way, Allie.” “Smile, Allie.” I showed my teeth – it was all I could manage. But that apart, it was a send-off I’ll never forget. The whole family turned out. Bouzoukis played on the jetty. They danced, they waved, they cried. Everyone from the boatyard was there, along with half of Hobart it seemed to me. All I wanted now was to be gone. I wanted the hugging and the tears to be over with. I just wanted to get on with it.

  My first big worry was the dozens and dozens of motor boats and speedboats and jetskis and yachts that were escorting me down the Derwent River and out to the open sea. They were all around me, some of them very close, too close. Eyes in the back of my head would have been useful. I tried to wave them away, but they seemed to think I was waving goodbye to them and just waved back even more enthusiastically. But once we were past the Iron Pot and out in Storm Bay they all turned back, and I was on my own at last. We had a good breeze behind us and Kitty Four was sailing like a dream. I’d always loved Kitty Four—she’d been a dream for so long – but I never loved her more than I loved her now. She was going to be my home for five months. We’d be doing this together, just her and me, and Dad, who’d built her to sail the way she did, and made me the person I was, and the sailor I was too.

  I sat there in the cockpit, the sun and the spray on my face, in seventh heaven—Dad was always counting heavens in his story, so I can too—singing London Bridge is Falling Down and drinking my first hot chocolate of the voyage. I was on my way.

  Jelly Blobbers and Red Hot Chili Peppers

  1600 hrs Mon 10 Jan 043’ 23”S 148’ 02”E

  out past Tasman Island. great start. lumpy bumpy sea. lumpy bumpy boat. nice of everyone to see me off, except for that bloke in his jet ski who nearly took my bow off he came so close. Anyways, he missed, so still in one piece. Kept crying when I looked back and saw you all waving, so that’s why I stopped waving after a while. wasn’t being unfriendly Grandpa. Every time I look up at the sails and see Stavros Boats I’ll think of you. And Mum every time I use the laptop I’ll be thinking of you. See you all in my dreams too from time to time, that’s if I get any sleep which isn’t likely.

  Like I said to Mum I’ll be writing emails whenever I can – you do the same, pleeeze – to let you know where I am, how I’m doing, how the boat’s behaving, what the weather’s doing.

  I’m really loving this already, the emailing I mean. I talk a lot to myself anyway when I’m sailing because it’s good to hear the sound of a voice, any voice, reassuring somehow, makes you feel there’s someone else around – silly I know. So these’ll be like talking emails. I sing a lot too, but I’ll keep my singing to myself. You’ll just have to imagine me up on deck belting out my Whitney Houston special in a force 8 or 9 – and ieeeiiieeei will always love you. I found myself humming London Bridge is Falling Down in the cockpit just now, like Dad did. I’ve got Dad’s cds – louis armstrong, bob dylan, the beatles, buddy holly. I’ve got “What a Wonderful World” on right now, one of Dad’s favourites when we were at sea together. Got my own stuff too – Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers, few others. Couldn’t take much, not enough room. piled high with junk down here, hardly any room for little old me. feel like a really big sardine in a really small can. Still it’s home for a few months so I’d better get used to it. just hope the pc keeps going. lot depends on that. And that’s down to the generator. Towing the turbine at 6 knots at present, so lots of amps. Amps = happy pc = happy me.

  Just want to thank all of you for everything you did to get me this far. Kitty 4 is where she loves to be and so am I, and don’t worry bout me too much. Got Dad’s lucky key around my neck so I’ll be fine.

  Wind gusting 30 knots. Lots of jelly blobbers all around come to say goodbye too I spect. Saw my first albatross. Now I know Dad’s out here with me, going all the way with me. See you.

  2000hrs Tues 11 jan 44’ 13”S 151’ 12”E

  Hi y’all. G’day. Settling in or trying to. Forgot how uncomfortable Kitty 4 really is. Didn’t dear old Dad realise you’ve got to live in a boat as well as sail her?

  Not enough room to swing a mouse down here. Sea kept me awake most of the night. Never shuts up, not for one moment. Banging and crashing all night, and if I got up never stopped chucking me about either. No consideration. I think she was just reminding me who’s in charge out here. Gave up after a while and went up on deck, had some hot chocolate, yummy, and looked at the stars, zillions of them. Can’t be any more beautiful place in the whole world than the sea at night when someone’s switched on the stars. Hope heaven really is up there. Thought of Dad. Think of him often. Miss him, and
when I miss him badly I talk to him. Tried to get some sleep again but I couldn’t. Too keyed up. I still can’t really believe I’m doing this, after all the years of building and planning, after everything that’s happened. I lay there listening out for problems, for any strange creaks or groans. Kitty 4 talked to me all night, telling me she was fine, that I wasn’t to worry. But once I start worrying I can’t stop. S’not really worrying, it’s just that my brain keeps churning things round and round and won’t let me sleep.

  Forecast was spot on. Wind from the north 50 knots. Funny how you forget things so quickly. You forget how busy you have to be. So much to be thinking about, so much to be doing and when it’s done there’s always something else. Which is why I’ve got to stop this and get some sail off………

  Back again. Read a bit of Dad’s story again in the night, the beginning bit with him being sea-sick. I’m lucky. Don’t do sea-sickness. Love reading his story because I can hear his voice in every word.

  Kitty 4 sailing beautifully. Big rolling beam seas don’t make it an easy ride, not for her, not for me. Still finding sea legs. Not hanging on hard enough, always banging my head. Big lump above my right ear. I’ll hang on tighter next time. Huge tanker out there. Ugly great monster. Saw an albatross again, think it may be the same one. I tried to take a photo of him, but discovered the digital camera doesn’t work. It did when I tried it out back home. I wanted to send pics on email, but now I can’t. Very fed up. Sorreeee. Thanks for all the emails. Yes, Grandpa I am taking the vitamins. Hope I sleep better tonight. See soon. A.