Free A Shock to the System by Simon Brett Page B

Tara’s Dream. Robert provided a lot of statistics and details, but all Graham took in was that she was about twenty foot long, had four berths, but was ‘quite a nippy little mover’.
    Neatly Robert rowed up to the stern. ‘You hang on, make her fast, I’ll just open up.’
    He leapt nimbly from the dinghy into the well of the boat, while Graham clung to the transom. The combined motion of the two vessels compounded his queasiness. Water splashed up in little spouts between them. Graham struggled to bend and tie the stiff nylon painter round a rail.
    Robert, steadying himself against the lashed boom, moved forward to the cabin entrance. He reached into his pocket for a bunch of keys, selected the right one and opened the padlock. With a flourish, he pushed against the top hatch, which rattled on rails away from him, opening a little cockpit. Then he lifted out the vertical board and entered the cabin to stow it.
    His torso emerged from the opening and he waved.
    â€˜Come and have a look at her.’
    Graham didn’t enjoy the leap and scrambled into the boat. He felt absurdly unstable standing up in the dinghy, and not much better on the boards of Tara’s Dream.
    â€˜Surprisingly roomy, isn’t she?’ said Robert as his guest lurched into the cabin.
    It didn’t look roomy to Graham. Claustrophobia added to his unease. In the forepart four bunks were somehow crammed, shut off ‘when required for privacy’ by a thick curtain. The rest of the space, barely enough, Graham thought, for the two of them to turn around in, was ‘galley, dining area, everything else’. He was shown folding tables, seats that doubled as storage lockers, more overhead stowage and neat double gas rings behind a curtain recess. ‘Calor,’ said Robert, revealing the blue cylinder. ‘Hope the boatyard checked it was full. Tara’s cooked some wonderful meals here, you know.’
    Graham gave yet another nod and grunt of apparent interest. He didn’t like it at all. The cramped conditions reminded him of a holiday with his parents when they’d rented a caravan near Hunstanton. He had been in his teens, too large for such enforced proximity. The holiday had been another example of Eric Marshall’s penny-pinching, and Graham remembered he had made a vow at the time that, when he had the freedom to choose, all his holidays would be in luxury hotels.
    But the caravan hadn’t suffered from this awful rolling motion. With shame, he realised he was desperate to pee again, and had to disturb Robert, who was checking the free-running of a halyard, to ask what he should to about it.
    â€˜Head’s in there.’ Robert pointed to what looked like a cupboard. ‘Easier if you just go over the side. Not into the wind, though, or you’ll get your own back.’ He laughed coarsely.
    Graham felt exposed and ridiculous as he faced the picturesque frontage of Bosham and peed. The beautiful row of houses looked somehow formal and disapproving. No doubt full of retired admirals and other sailing hearties armed with binoculars. A huge picture window on the end house seemed to gaze at him with particular disapprobation. When he had finished, he slunk back into the cabin, hearing Robert’s feet booming overhead as their owner went through an interminable sequence of checks on the deck.
    Graham looked out dismally at the shifting rectangle of daylight visible through the hatch. The tiny high windows of the cabin were curtained and let in little light. The rigging chattered incessantly. The boat creaked and lurched in its endless irregular rhythm. He looked up at the grooves along which the top hatch ran, and longed for it to be closed. He looked at the Robson’s padlock on the vertical board and longed for it be locked up again. He longed to be on shore.
    Eventually Robert Benham’s grinning face appeared at the opening. ‘They’ve done a good job.