Philly
I have to pinch myself to believe I am really doing it.
Me, in my nineties and minus a limb, being helped into a Laser dinghy and setting off into the Atlantic with Finn at the helm!
I can see how much it means to Dan. He shot me such a look of gratitude last night when I said how much I’d like to sail again.
I haven’t been out on the water since once of my grandchildren insisted on taking me once, when we were on a family holiday in the Inner Hebrides.
It must have been ... well, I stopped trying to work it out in the end. Decades ago!
I can see what a success the sailing camp has been.
The kids have obviously come on in leaps and bounds in terms of their confidence and the skills they’ve gained.
I watched as they put on their life jackets and helmets and rigged the little fleet of Toppers and Lasers that Dan had managed to assemble for the day, and even though their expressions bore traces of the tension and anxiety that are such a big part of their daily lives, there were no dramas.
Finn also looked tense as he prepared our Laser, and he steered well clear of the others, but at least he was there, joining in as best he could.
I was helped into the dinghy by Dan and Iain, feeling clumsy and awkward, already regretting this reckless folly, then I sat myself down in the well of the boat, trying to avoid the centreboard and keeping out of the way of the boom.
I’m not exactly agile when it comes to tacking and jibing, but at least I can shift my weight a little from side to side when instructed to do so.
I’m impressed to see how capable Finn is.
He scoots back and forth as we zigzag our way out of the harbour mouth and into the open sea.
How exhilarating it is to feel the breeze catch the sail and the boat start to gather speed.
I tilt my face to the sky and feel the years slip from my shoulders as I let the wind whisk away the tears that have begun leaking from my eyes.
It’s partly the dazzle of the sunlight on the waves, partly the emotion.
I feel like I’m flying again. In my mind, I hear Teddy telling me to take the controls of the first training plane I ever went up in with him, flying out over the Firth of Forth and the rust-red spans of the rail bridge; I hear Amy’s laugh as she exchanges a few words with one of the mechanics before swinging herself into the cockpit of an Oxford she’ll be delivering; and I see Ben’s face, looking just as he looked on the first day he took me up as my instructor, back in the days of my ATA training, his eyes smiling back at me, making my stomach loop the loop.
They are all there with us as we fly out across the water, seabirds swooping and wheeling in an ever-changing formation of wingmen above the mast.
I dab at my leaky eyes and glance at Finn, making sure he isn’t being made anxious by my reaction, but he’s as fully focused on the task in hand as he always is, concentrating on reading the tell-tales, making sure the little strands of green and red cotton are streaming straight back evenly on either side of the sail.
The wind is with us as we sail out to the first marker buoy and tack to round it.
‘That’s Fort Boyard over there,’ Finn says, pointing.
‘They’ll be going there with the big boat tomorrow.
’ If I squint, I can just make out a grey smudge on the horizon.
I smile and nod as he pulls on the tiller, adjusting our new course towards the next buoy.
I glance back to see the other boats following in our wake, and Dan and Iain not far off, holding back in the rescue boat.
Like Finn, the other children’s faces are a picture of focus and concentration, but the wind and the sun and the salt spray seem to have gently erased the tension and wariness from their expressions.
What a good thing you have done, Dan , I think to myself. What an achievement .
By the time we return to the harbour, my body has seized up with the stiffness of unaccustomed activity.
Dan and Iain have to haul me to my feet, and I limp over to perch on a low section of wall and attempt to regain a little of my dignity.
I watch the children sort out the boats, with minimal instructions from the adults.
‘Are you feeling OK, Philly?’ Dan asks, approaching with Finn at his side once they’ve finished. ‘It wasn’t too much for you?’
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ I say. ‘Finn, you were brilliant! Thank you for taking me out. I hope I wasn’t too much of a hindrance.’
‘No,’ he says, his face deadpan. ‘You were quite good ballast, actually.’
Dan draws a sharp intake of breath, and I can see he’s about to take Finn to task. But I put my hand on his arm to stop him, and he smiles instead as I guffaw with laughter, saying, ‘Glad to be of service in the ballast department any time, Skipper.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to join the others for lunch?’ Dan asks. We’d agreed the night before that we’d only stay for the morning session.
‘No thank you,’ Finn replies. ‘We have to go home for our Marmite sandwiches and then Philly will need to have a post-prandial pause afterwards.’
He knows me so well now. To be honest, I’m more than ready to get back.
All the excitement, and all those old emotions, have quite taken it out of me.
Dan comes home to have lunch with us too.
As I’m cutting the crusts off our sandwiches, Finn asks me, ‘What is there to eat when you go for tea at The Ritz?’
I see his father glance at him in surprise, although of course I realise what he is really asking.
‘Well, actually, I believe you have sandwiches quite like these ones. Only they probably have things like cucumber and smoked salmon in them, not Marmite. And then they’ll bring you scones with jam and cream, and the most beautiful little cakes, decorated with fruit and rose petals.
The tea will be served in silver teapots and poured into fine china cups.
It’s supposed to be an extravaganza. But I’ve never been. ’
‘So you never did meet Janina again,’ he says, carrying our plates to the table and pulling up his chair.
‘Sadly, no. I looked for her after the war ended, but I’m afraid her story was one like so many others.
Through my contacts in Intelligence, I managed to find out what had happened.
You’ll recall their surname was Krakowski – a Jewish name.
After the baby was born, they spent months hidden in the little village in the foothills of the Pyrenees.
Suspicion and jealousy were rife, though, and all the more so once the Germans had taken over the whole country.
Eventually, Janina and Jakub were betrayed by a French neighbour.
The Gestapo came and arrested them, and they were sent away to the camps back east. It was ironic, really.
They so wanted to go home to Poland and in the end they did – or, at least, to what had been their homeland before it was overrun by Hitler’s army.
I found their names on the Red Cross lists of people who’d been murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
Jakub Krakowski. Janina Krakowska. They were killed a few days apart. ’
‘The baby too?’
I sigh. ‘You know, Finn, the Nazis often didn’t even bother recording the babies that were killed. Or maybe Janina and Jakub’s tiny daughter died on the journey to the camp. The conditions would have been terrible, and many people did die en route, their names never recorded on any lists.’
Finn nods, then carries his plate over to the sink. ‘Shall we have a Prince chocolate biscuit for pudding?’ he says.
‘You go ahead. I’m not very hungry. And now I definitely need to go and have a lie-down.’ Those thoughts of Janina and Jakub weigh heavily on my mind, and I feel exhausted suddenly. ‘Will you be OK on your own for a bit?’
‘Of course. I’m going to do some maths.’ He studies his biscuit, then takes a bite, starting to nibble around the edges before making any inroads into the chocolate in the middle. It’s another one of those habits of his.
He pauses as I get to my feet, reaching for my stick. Then he adds, ‘I’m sorry you never had tea at The Ritz, Philly. I’m sorry you didn’t get Closure for Janina and Jakub and their baby either.’
What an old head that child has, and those young shoulders of his carry such a heavy load of anxiety, day in, day out.