Frenchie will say that I am exaggerating and that I was, at all times, perfectly safe, and had nothing to fear, but he has not stared watery death in the face like I have or experienced the lurching forces of near drowning and lived to tell the tale.
After a trauma, the body becomes adept at recognising the warning signs that it failed to notice the first time round, and the senses become acutely alert to sensations that bring the familiarity of past death into the present moment. Thus, my body - my stomach and heart area in particular - are close friends with that feeling you get when you are about to fall and realise in split-second horror, that this fall could mean serious pain or infinite darkness accompanied by a growing pinprick of light and, depending on your beliefs, naked glowing harp-playing babies. The antidote to this feeling is wheeling your arms around in a windmill motion and leaning forwards - you know it well - but alas, when you're on a plane plummeting in turbulence, or a small, unstable boat, holding onto the tiller, this gesticulation just isn't possible, so instead, you have to risk pooping yourself by gritting your teeth and internalising the horror by pushing it down into your intestines.
Imagine the scene, if you will: Frenchie and I, young, adventurous, in love, glamourous, European. If it's easier, imagine a Ralph Lauren advert on a posh sailing boat, but reduce the boat by ten and replace 'windswept' with 'frizzy'. This is how Frenchie and I have spent our last two weekends in an attempt to break the monotony of plastic Singapore: we want to feel alive and free, with the wind in our hair and nothing but the wide blue ocean and some container ships and a twenty metre marker buoy in our path!
Frenchie, who believes in gender equality, has decided that I shall take the tiller once again today, and I am very pleased with this. The wind is strong, the sun is shining, I am in control of something and we are flitting along the waves being glamorous, as previously mentioned. Our first turn goes well: Bridget Clay would have been proud. I seat myself on the other side of the boat without becoming tangled in ropes or having to drop onto all fours and avoid the incoming Luftwaffe Boom. Very good. Very neat. Everyone feeling confident.
We carry on. The waves get a little choppier and we speed up. I refrain from telling Frenchie that the tiller is behaving badly and actually my arm is getting tired because I don't want him to think that I am undeserving of equality. We turn again. Everything is fine. I am still in control. We are sailing 'against the wind' apparently.
The waves get increasingly disagreeable. Frenchie keeps repeating things like, 'whoa, this is great' and 'look at us!' à la my father watching fireworks. In his excitement, he does not notice that I have been silent for some time, gritting my teeth against the increasingly difficult tiller and growing fear that my tension has clouded my knowledge of the fact that left means right and right means left. Frenchie, confident in my own abilities, informs me that we shall turn again, but this time, I will tell him what to do with the sail. All I need to do, he assures me, is think about which direction the wind is coming from.
I laugh, because clearly he is joking. I remind him that the sail is his job. He laughs, in hindsight because he thinks I am joking, not because he is agreeing that yes, he is joking. His laugh is sort of carefree and boyish. Mine is nervous and hysterical. I should have realised what was really going on.
We turn. The boat veers wildly to the right. This was not what I had intended. The Luftwaffe Boom whips round, as is it's wont. We replace ourselves on the other side, panicked, and nearly capsize. Before I can grab the tiller, the boat spins violently to the right again. Frenchie yells 'your head!' and I narrowly miss decapitation as the Boom swings over again.
I am now hysterical. What has gone wrong? I scrabble wildly for the tiller, because the tiller is the source of all control and we have lost control and are going to die. But the tiller cannot help us anymore. The tiller is under the impenetrable power of the waves and continues to push the small boat around and around in circles. The Luftwaffe swipe overhead and by the time I regain consciousness of my own actions in the thick fog of terror, I am on all fours in the middle of the boat, wailing at the oncoming wind, 'Frenchie! This isn't fun anymore! I don't LIKE IT!' like a frightened cartoon donkey braying at the moon, and still the Luftwaffe is circling overhead. It never lets up. This is the scenario of my death.
Thankfully, Frenchie reinstated the patriarchy and took charge of both tiller and sail and after a while, we were floating quite happily and calmly towards the container ships. I was still in a state of delirium at this point though and possibly asked for a divorce through my hicoughing tears. Meekly, Frenchie offered me the tiller again, hoping that jumping straight back on the beast would cure my fear but, from underneath my waterproof sailing hat, which I had pulled down over my eyes to hide my toddler tantrum, I simply told him that I didn't want the tiller, I wanted to go home.
Oh dear. Wasn't lying when I said I'd retired from the Li Hi lifestyle, was I?
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