Page 16 of Oar Than Friends

Brooks let out a loud cheer next to me, along withseveral whoops and whistles from the other side of the room.

Coach thumbed behind him where the heist rules were carved into a wooden board and hanging on the wall.

‘As you know, they need to be returned twenty-four hours after we win the Boat Race.’

Brooks cheered even louder. We all knew that meant Coach wanted – no, expected – us to win the double.

‘Starting tomorrow, we will be on the water or in the gym every morning at six thirty, and every evening at five thirty. No excuses. You are expected to train outside of these times, but these two are mandatory. You are part of a team now; if you’re late your team is late. One, weekends will soon be spent training on the Tideway. Two, everything you do reflects on your team. Remember that. And three,’ Coach Lassiter looked over to me, ‘let’s welcome our new president, Arthur Osbourne-Cloud.’

The cheer which bounced off the walls was louder than the first two had been and blew away the black cloud I’d been living under since Sunday morning. I grinned sheepishly around the room, pulling my cap down further when Joshi and Frank joined in with Brooks’ whistling and Charlie set everyone off in chanting my name.

‘Mate, stop blushing,’ hissed Fellows. ‘It’s not presidential.’

Coach gave everyone a good thirty seconds before he called time, ‘All right, all right, that is enough. Oz, come up here.’

I groaned but pushed off the wall, and made my way through the group until I could see every set of eyes on me.

‘This morning’s training will begin with some light racing along the river. As President, Oz gets to pick his eight, though no guesses who will be on it, so we’ll be switching out after they’ve won the first sprint.’

I grinned back at him, looked around the room for my crew, and gestured them forward, ‘Come on, boys. Let’s show them how it’s done.’

Ten minutes later we’d all changed into our full-body racing skins and lightweight bodywarmers; it wasn’t the warmest clothing we had, but it was only September and two hours of intense cardio would have us sweating enough that we wouldn’t need it. Pete, as our coxswain, however, was wrapped up like Ranulph Fiennes about to set off on an expedition to the Arctic.

We picked up Blue Boat from the boathouse, and the eight of us hoisted it up on our shoulders to Pete’s command as he guided our steps to the water’s edge. Laying the shell carefully in the water, we held it steady while Pete got into his seat, and one by one the rest of us kicked off our shoes and stood with one foot inside the boat, the other on the dock until we were set to take Pete’s command.

‘Shove.’

We pushed off in sync, balancing ourselves while we all sat down and secured our feet into the shoes already locked in place for us.

‘Nice to be back, fellas,’ Pete grinned, as he fitted his headset ready to guide us through the session.

My fingers gripped around my oar, flexing against the smooth rubber handle. Even though I’d rowed almost daily, my hands had recovered a little since the WorldChampionships earlier in the summer, and the thick calluses which were usually present had reduced enough that I would feel the sting later.

It felt good to be back, good for the eight of us to be rowing together again. It was unusual for the team to stay the same year after year but by a stroke of luck, none of us had graduated since we’d lost last year. Now Pete had returned from injury, we would be unbeatable.

This year we would get our victory.

‘How’re you feeling, Marshy?’ I asked him, sitting directly in front of me, while I waited for everyone else to get settled.

I could already hear Charlie behind me psyching himself up.

‘Good. How’d you want to take it this morning?’

As stroke, it was my job to set the pace of the boat. Behind me, Charlie in seat seven needed to keep my exact strokes to direct the boys whose oars were on his side for how fast we were pushing through the water. We became human metronomes, mirroring our rhythms precisely.

‘Not too hard, need to ease Charlie into the early mornings.’

‘I heard that,’ came his voice from over my shoulder, and Pete laughed.

While the other guys were preparing their boats for the water, we drifted further into the middle of the river and I felt every ounce of stress from this morning melting off me.

As much as Oxford University was part of the blood I’d inherited from my father, being on the water came from my mother. Born into a family of shipping magnates, as achild she spent more time on her father’s yacht than dry land, and her days would start with a morning sail around the small island my grandparents owned off the Greek mainland, near Athens; the Parthenon in full view.

After she met my father, she’d moved to England full time, though all school holidays were spent back in Greece because‘three months of cold and rain is all I can manage at a time’. Greece is where my three siblings and I fell in love with the water in exactly the same way she had.

For my sixth birthday, I’d been given a rowing boat, which I proudly took out onto the small lake at our home in Oxfordshire, rowing round and round until my little fingers were blistered from the oars. Soon, my mother had taken me out in my first shell, teaching me how to set a rhythm with each stroke.

It was probably at that point my father began drilling into me the importance of my future as part of his side of the family. The political side. Something I have never given two shits about. But my father had seen something he didn’t like.

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