In at the deep end
Jeremy Clarke
On Saturday morning I woke early. I was in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar bedroom, fully clothed, with my shoes on. Curled up beside me was a woman I didn’t recognise. I lifted the covers and peeked underneath to see if she had anything on. She was wearing a blue dress. Tilting my head gave me an excruciating pain just behind my eyeballs.
I’d fallen off the wagon again. Why am I so powerless against alcohol? I’d left the house the night before brimming with health and optimism. Now I felt as if I was actually dying. What had caused the capitulation? I tried to piece things together. Party. One drink had led to another and I’d been to a party. Had I danced? I’d danced. I’d tripped the light fantastic. And had there been any drugs? There had. Snowdrifts of the stuff. It had been like a winter Olympics in the Rif Mountains.
The woman beside me stirred then sat up. ‘Hallo!’ she said. I was grateful for that. I thought a single glance at me and she’d become the actress in the silent movie who first claps eyes on the creature from the black lagoon. A stranger in the bed, however, seemed not to surprise her. Far from recoiling, she was glad to see someone.
But there was no time to deepen our acquaintance. ‘Is that the time?’ she said, springing out of bed. ‘I’d better get a wiggle on,’ she said, pulling open drawers. ‘I’m goin’ ’untin’.’ From my vantage point just inside death’s door, I could only marvel at this broad-minded, self-parodying woman — whoever she was. There was I, lying there like a dying duck; and there was she, fresh as a daisy, off hunting!
Then I remembered that I, too, had an unmissable appointment. As part of my effort to get out of the pub, I’d paid up front to join the local canoe club. The club meets as a convivial shoal three evenings a week to paddle up and down on the local waterways. How much better is gliding downstream of a golden summer’s evening, and seeing fish jumping or gnats, than listening to the same old gargoyles down the pub all the time? With three quarters of these heroes of the bottle you know exactly what they are going to say before they open their mouths. If the remainders’ conversation is less predictable, it’s only because their mental illness is of a more serious nature.
Before I could join the canoe club on a group paddle, however, I had to learn how to abandon ship in the event of a capsizing, and how to do an Eskimo roll. I had to learn this at the pre-season induction session for new members, which began at nine o’clock. I couldn’t afford to miss it. I hauled myself out of bed and staggered downstairs, where kitchen-table diehards — again, nobody I knew — were still passing the bong around. It came in my direction.
‘No bongs for me,’ I said unctuously, waving it away. ‘I’m off to do some Eskimo rolls.’ And 45 minutes later, still wearing my party clothes (minus socks and shoes) and feeling queasier than ever, I was sitting in a bright-yellow canoe, one of a small fleet of bright-yellow canoes, in the deep end of the local swimming baths.
Apart from jumping out of a plane, or running in a marathon, I can’t think of a worse thing to do while pole-axed by a hangover than to learn how to evacuate oneself from a capsized canoe. We had to capsize deliberately, then, while still seated upside-down under the water, beat our palms three times on the upturned hull as a distress call, rip off the elasticated spray deck and eject from the cockpit. If you managed to not panic, and to do everything in the right order, it was quite easy. Our instructor-in-chief, Steve, swam about between the canoes like a didactic tadpole. He and every one of the other canoeists exuded a kind of sober cheerful wholesomeness that I desperately envied, but from which I felt a long way away.
After that, Steve demonstrated an Eskimo roll, which is more difficult than it looks, owing to some complicated business with the paddle to be accomplished while submerged beneath the waves. We finished off the session with a game of canoe water polo, during which I capsized during a goal-mouth scramble, panicked, forgot all I’d been taught, came the closest I’ve ever been to drowning, and nobody noticed.
‘Please don’t drink the entire pool, Jeremy,’ said Steve, when he saw me come up choking and spluttering. Still, nearly drowning did wonders for my hangover, and by lunchtime I felt well enough for the pub again.
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