Page 150 of You Float My Boat

‘Romeo and Juliet died.’

I didn’t get the chance to argue back as an ear-bleedingly loud whistle pierced the air, and once the ringing had stopped in our ears we all turned to Coach standing in the doorway. ‘Okay boys. It’s time. Get out there and win this race.’

‘Seriously?’ muttered Oz, as Coach walked away, ‘That’s it? No big “If you don’t feel like you’re going to die you’re not trying hard enough” motivational speech?’

Removing the headphones from my neck, I tossed them in my bag, pulled on my wellies and stood up. Taking one last look around to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

Baseball cap – check.

Sunglasses – check.

Heart pounding like it was about to break a rib – double check.

I threw an arm around Oz, ‘Come on, mate, let’s get this over with and go get our girls back.’

Violet

‘I can’t watch. I can’t watch this,’ I screeched, while making absolutely no attempt to turn away from the giant screen directly below us on the riverside.

It was like the BBC cameraman was deliberately trying to give me an aneurism from the way he was slowly panning over the Oxford boys as they walked out of the boathouse towards Blue Boat. Every time it stopped on Charlie – which IMO was a lot but also nowhere near enough – my heart gave a little excited pitter patter as it recognized its mate but left me wondering if I should seek immediate medical attention.

If only the helicopters overhead weren’t making it impossible to hear any of the commentary.

Stella peeled my fingers one by one from the vice-like grip I’d had on her arm. ‘Could you please try and contain the screeching at least until the race begins so that you’re then drowned out by everyone else?’

‘I agree,’ added Gordon, unnecessarily.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, peering out to the crowds lining the paths.

It was nothing but light and dark blue stretching left and right as far as the eye could see. Wall-to-wall Oxbridge supporters took up every available space on the banks, only occasionally broken up by the high-vis vests of the Metropolitan Police. A hundred metresaway, the stone arches of Chiswick Bridge were holding up thousands of spectators all clamouring for a view of the finish line.

Flags, scarfs and banners flapped in the wind; the giant Boat Race signs attached to all the railings were trying their best to loosen themselves from their restraints. In the last hour the wind had picked up enough that white plumes crested the choppy waters of the Thames. The buoys were bobbing viciously against the river wall, as seagulls swooped down and missed whatever they’d been hunting, only to fly back around and try again.

This was not going to be an easy race.

Taking a much larger than intended gulp of wine, I managed to swallow it without choking and turned back to the big screen. The Oxford and Cambridge Blue Boats were being held in place by the support boats. Oz, Charlie and my brother were in at the front – stroke, seven and six respectively – and I didn’t know if it was because they’d rowed together for a decade, or lived together and their lives were intertwined but behind their sunglasses and baseball caps you almost couldn’t tell them apart. The three of them moved in sync, gripping their oars, checking their hold, their faces impassive.

‘Is that the one Oz broke up with?’ whispered Stella as the camera zoomed into the Cambridge cox with her hand up, a tiny girl with dark brown hair, hunkered down in the stern.

I nodded, ‘Yeah.’

‘Have you met her?’

‘No, they broke up when Charlie and I were still faking it.’

God, that felt like so long ago, when it had been so cold the only thing keeping me warm had been thoughts of seeing Charlie every day. Without him, I’d have probably found some excuse to skip lectures so I could stay in bed. It was almost impossible to remember what my life had been like before; when I’d loved him from afar, when I’d only known him as my brother’s friend. Not like now, when the thought of missing out on any more of his life produced such a thick lump in my throat I needed to finish my wine just to swallow it down.

‘Okay, Gordy, Violet,’ Stella grabbed me as both coxes put down their hands and the umpire’s flag was raised. ‘Get ready to scream your heads off.’

Even though the start of the Boat Race at Putney Bridge was four miles of river away, as the crow flies it was less than two from where we were standing, and when the flag dropped and the race got under way I swear I could hear the thunderous roar of the crowd.

‘We’ve started strong,’ cried Stella, her eyes glued to the screen below, like she was privy to insider information, even though she could see exactly what I could see – the flotilla of support boats, umpires, and the two blue boat shells currently neck and neck at the two-hundred-metre mark. The entire course was still ahead of us.

All around us on the terrace, the crowds had gotten over the initial excitement of the start and the volume of chatter had returned to its pre-race levels. But my eyes may as well have been superglued to the screen. Every so often the cameras would switch from thedrones flying directly overhead to the ones attached to the end of each Blue Boat, just above where the cox was sitting, and we’d get a close up of Oz, or the Cambridge stroke.

‘Oz definitely looks way more chill than Cambridge, that guy’s face is bright red,’ Stella mumbled.

But I wasn’t watching Oz, because every time he appeared my eyes flickered behind him to catch whatever glimpse I could of Charlie. I didn’t blink. I didn’t want to miss a second, as his jaw popped with every mighty heave of his oar, and the crew powered forward.

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