THE BOAT TRIP: Stampy And Squid

All Those Years Ago

TEN YEARS LATER

—STAMPYS POV—
I admit it was quite difficult trying to settle back into real life after returning from over a year at sea.
My home had barely changed, a few new flower pots, a few new cushions but excluding the minor differences, everything was exactly as it was before I left.
I remember the very moment when I saw Beth on the beach in Southampton just as we pulled our pathetic dingy to shore. Nothing has ever come close to that incredible feeling of setting foot on english land after so long away from it. Seeing Beth's face after months of not believing I'd ever see her again.
Squid and I were soaked to the skin, but that didn't stop Sqaishey from screaming with delight as she saw me and running as fast as she could towards me, giving me the biggest embrace I'd ever received in my whole life.

David, contrary to our previous plans of him staying at my house, decided to get the train back to Yorkshire where he met Nicole in the hospital with his baby boy, Ollie.
I had barely seen him for ten years until Courtney's funeral, where I began to see his true emotions leak from his eyes.
All those years ago.

Beth and I had since moved to the states. Admittedly neither of us were very happy there, but Beth hadn't been well enough to travel home again.

Beth died from cancer five years ago.

Since then I try to believe that I'll get over her, that I'm strong enough to move on.
But five years have past and here I am in Los Angeles, clinging onto the little life that I have left.

Squid didn't make the funeral. Because I hadn't told anybody that she had died.
We had a simple cremation... 'we' being myself and Beth. I didn't want to see anybody, I wasn't ready yet. Five years later and I still don't think I'm ready.
Squid found out eventually, one way or another, that Beth had died. He sent me love and wishes, none of which I had the competence to return. I was far too broken.
Then a few weeks ago I got a phone call from Squid saying that he was visiting Los Angeles for a few days for work and was wondering if he could stop in for a night to see me.  In the moment, I just said yes. I could hardly decline, it was only one night, he had no where else to stay.

The door knocked at half five in the evening, the sun was low in the golden American sky.
I took a deep breath before I opened the door. A brief flash of all the memories we had had so many years ago flourished right in front of me.
It had been twenty years since the boat trip.
Twenty years since we had had a proper conversation. Ten years since I'd seen him in Australia at Courtney's funeral.
And there he was, standing at my threshold, his hair now grey.. we were fifty years old now, he was wearing a white shirt tucked into jeans, but he still looked roughly the same as he did all those years ago when I first met him.
"Hey!" I greeted, with the most enthusiasm I'd had in years.
"Hello, Stampy." He said, breaking into a smile as he hugged me. A hug I didn't think I needed, but I did. Nobody had called me Stampy in years.
"God, mate it's been ten years." He sighed with his head on my shoulder.
"I'm sorry- I should have called in... I've just been... Y'know-" I broke apart the hug, "come on in, I'll get your stuff."
"Oh don't be silly- it's just one bag." He laughed, returning to his rented Ford Fiesta (I wondered why he couldn't afford better) and taking out his bag and a bottle of Cotswolds' whiskey which he handed to me.
"Thought I'd bring a little piece of England to you if you can't come back to us." Said David, patting my shoulder as I bit my lips together briefly before thanking him and patting his shoulder, showing him into the kitchen.
"Wow- what a place you've got!" Exclaimed Squid, setting his bag down on the ground.
I admit I'd been quite proud of my house, it was a bungalow with a thirty meter by ten meter kitchen and dining room with a sofa and TV area at the end beside the huge glass windows overlooking the swimming pool. There was a small corridor into two separate bedrooms and bathrooms.
"How long have you been living here?" He asked me as I poured him a drink of the whiskey he'd bought me.
"Just short of seventeen years, I think." I told him, pouring myself a drink too.
"God- it seems like yesterday since..." David decided not to finish that sentence and took a drink of whiskey from the crystal glasses that Beth had bought me for my fortieth birthday.
"How's the family?" I asked him, offering him a seat beside me on the sofa as the sun went down.
"Oh they're.... okay- Ollie's half way through uni- he's doing animation." He told me, making me raise my eyebrows,
"Animation? Cool- I'll be happy to give him a job at Pixar when he's done his degree." I said,
"Christ; you're working with Pixar
now?"
"Yeah; producer." I told him, taking a sip of the whiskey and being immediately brought back to life back home in England.
I think David must have noticed my nostalgic gaze when he put down his glass and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"How are you?" Asked David, his blue gaze meeting mine as I looked down slightly.
"I'm alright, thanks." I said slowly and controlled, nodding sincerely.
"I can't imagine what you've been through- like... I'm really sorry." He sighed, his sympathy getting the better of him.
"Oh don't worry.. it's been five years, I'm getting better." I explained, breaking eye contact as I took another gulp of whiskey before filling up both our glasses again.
My eyes caught a glimpse of the picture frame of Beth on a table in the corner. It was when we were much younger, in our twenties.. I only longed to see her again.
"She'd be so proud of you." He murmured, seeing what I was looking at.
"Oh I don't know... I've done next to nothing." I Muttered, shaking myself out of the emotion that was drawing me back.
"Why don't you move back to England?" He asked me, biting his lip and looking hopefully up at me.
"To be honest... mate... I- I don't think I'd cope." I admitted, taking another chug of my drink.
"I'd help you, mate." He offered, patting my shoulders, "just friends, after all?"
I looked down and willed my emotional eyes to remain steady as I recalled that motif.
"Just friends..." I echoed, breaking a smile, "how are you, mate? How's your family?"
"Well it's okay now. This is my first month back at work." He told me, scratching his head.
"Really? What happened?" I asked, putting my glass back down on the coffee table as I noticed his fingers gripping the sofa and his gaze pointing downwards.
"My daughter Katie- I don't know if you remember her- she's eighteen now, she got in a car accident six months ago, lost both legs and has permanent brain damage."
I could barely speak, my jaw just dropped immediately in the shock. "Oh my god..."
"The driver of the other car died, but the passenger was fine and wanted to sue her." He sighed, "so... I had to do the court stuff... while trying to help her get better."
I covered my mouth with my hands, remembering Katie as a tiny baby during her christening, and as an adventurous young eight-year-old at Courtney's funeral.
"Christ... mate..." I breathed, feeling bad for even thinking about Beth. I hugged him hard, deeply and sincerely.
"How is she?" I asked.
"Well... she has good days and bad days... she knows who me, Nicole and Cooper are. She sometimes recognises Ollie... On bad days she remembers the crash and just freaks... we had to pay £2 million compensation... saw the cctv footage... it was Katie's fault. She'll never be who she was... she'll never be happy- sometimes... and I hate myself for this... but sometimes I think it would have hurt less if she'd died instead."
I could only imagine the stress that was going on inside Squid's mind right now; his beautiful eighteen year old daughter had lost both her legs and most of her mind so quickly.
"Where's Katie now?" I asked him, watching his red eyes swell.
"She's in a rehabilitation clinic at the moment- I'm trying to organise an elevator to her bedroom when she comes back home. Yeah... she'll never be how she used to be again." He sighed, "-I'm sorry I didn't mean to down the mood-"
"Mate... I-" I was finding it too difficult to articulate the right sentence, all my mind seemed to revert back to was that tiny happy child I saw so many years ago.

Squid then stood up and went to his bag, "I've got something to cheer us up." He told me, taking out what appeared to be a large photograph album, making me tilt my head back against the sofa and laugh,
"Is this what I think it is?" I asked as he sat down next to me and opened the first page.
"The Boat Trip.." I sighed, reading the title he'd so meticulously decorated in felt tip pens.
"Was bored one day and decided to print off all my old photographs." He explained, allowing me to flick through the first few photos of 'The Stamping Squid' launching off the port of Southampton.
"The Stamping Squid, what a stupid name." I chuckled, I had forgotten about the minor details of the motor yacht we'd sailed on all those years ago.
"Good times..." he laughed, one hand around the back of the sofa behind me and the other on one side of the album.
"Yeah- haha." I smiled at a picture I remembered taking of Squid standing at the bow of the boat with his arms in the air and laughing, living his 'Titanic' dream.
"Do you remember this one?" He laughed, pointing at a selfie of us running, it appeared, and also of other pictures of beautiful scenery.
"Wait- was that the gay bar I had to rescue you from?" I laughed, "Bay of Biscay in Spain."
The two of us laughed a lot at that, memories flooding back to me as I saw the photos of us at that dreaded disco.
From there were photos of the beautiful blue scenery I remember seeing on a daily basis. A world that seemed so alien to me now. I missed being on the boat so much, just me and my friend and absolutely nobody else.
I cast my eyes upon photographs of myself and Eva, and of the children she taught in the school. I remembered her horrible death, and how helpless and distraught I felt. I'd let her down and I'd let myself down.
There were few photographs between there and Australia, as I remembered those awful times where we fought each other and quite frankly hated each other.
But the photographs flooded back in when we reached Australia- from photos of me and Squid in a rubber ring behind the boat, then to photos of Squid visiting me in hospital, Squid and... what was his daughter's name? Sarah.
"She'd be thirty years old now." He sighed, "older than I was when we went out there."
"Oh my god..." I breathed, not thinking about how long it had been since Sarah died in the plane crash when trying to visit us in New Zealand.
"Shit... I'm such a failure of a dad." Muttered Squid, his eyes beginning to water while I wrapped an arm around his neck.
"You're not. You're really not. You've just had it really hard, really really hard. You don't deserve this." I told him, hearing his unsteady breathing close to my neck.
There were some beautiful photos of Squid and Nicole on our boat when we sailed around the north island. Photos of them in the sunset, just after they proposed to each other. There were photos of Sqaishey and I lying together in the sun, I cherished those memories of being young and healthy with her, her smiles almost made me cry.
A picture of me with my arm bandaged up after I was bitten by a shark made us chuckle as I sat comically with my lower lip poked out.
There was a photograph of Squid driving in what must have been Nicole's rental car, I saw him grin as we flicked to that page.
"Would that have been where your Ollie was conceived?" I chuckled,
"Shut up!" He laughed, turning over through pages of the completely blue Pacific Ocean which we crossed in three long months. I saw a picture of the note in a bottle that we'd found and brought back happy memories of my old life.
"Who was that old manager we had after Courtney left?" I asked, my mind casting back to Australia.
"Harry Ardtole." He reminded me, "he died only a couple years ago, he was in his nineties."
"Wow- How'd you hear?" I questioned him, remembering our posh old manager, FaceTiming him wearing shirts and ties in 40 degree heat.
"I went to the funeral- he'd moved back to Northern Ireland- I think his wife must have died soon after we came home. One of his carers contacted me for some reason." Explained David as I flicked through the photos of New York.
"God remember that conference..." I sighed, seeing photos of us all dressed up in tuxedos being escorted by beautiful red-haired ladies who had linked their arms in ours.
"We were drunk out of our minds." Laughed Squid,
"Oh god yeah- remember we got locked inside the conference room when we feel asleep?!" I recalled,
"-And then we were jumping from the rooftops."
"What the hell were we thinking?!" I cried, flicking elliptically through all the images of us all together.
When I eventually reached the end of the album I sighed, recollecting all those moments- that time in Ireland we were given LSD and went completely crazy.
The constant fear of Amud who turned out to be Tom..
The time the lady in Egypt stabbed Squid..
But that feeling of reaching England after so long...
"I still can't believe we managed that." Said Squid as we both looked out the windows at the dark night.
"Sailed around the world..." I breathed, longing for some meaning to my life after Beth was gone.
I looked at the clock, it was after midnight now, and I concluded that Squid was probably exhausted after working and travelling.
"I'll probably be gone when you wake up tomorrow- I've got an early start." He told me, lifting up his bags and walking towards the bedroom I had allocated him.
"That's alright mate. It was good to see you." I replied, "take care of yourself."
"Yeah, you too." He said, giving a sincere and thankful smile.
"Goodnight." I told, closing the door.
"Goodnight."