Hayling Billy

This is one of the first things I wrote at uni, I've never had the guts to carry it on. Maybe one day I will but here it is for you to have a peek at. 

The only person who had ever understood Billy was his grandfather but he was gone. Dead from a heart attack while on holiday in Gravesend. The wake had proven to be too much for Billy. The suit he was wearing was uncomfortable. The label under the collar was itching and he wanted to take his tie off. The stuffy atmosphere of reminiscence filled the Ship Inn. The man they were heartily talking about was not the man that had been an anchor during a time of much turbulence in life. Fresh air was what Billy needed. Fresh air. The smell of dried seaweed was what met him instead. A man stood near him looking out onto the inlet, the man threw the butt of his cigarette into the water and left Billy on his own.

  

The Inn was only a short distance from the bridge that served the Island on the other end of the stretch of water. Laughter and the mixture of multiple conversations spilt from the pub. The odd car passed the bright golden lights marking those leaving the Island and the red flare highlighting a journey home. The tinkle of sailboats rang out from the sailing club and those moored in the shallow waters that surrounded it. The large sunken pillars of the old railway line lay in ruins barely visible in the gathering gloom. The grandfather, a railwayman, had crossed those long removed tracks and Billy now felt it was time he finally made that journey.

                                                    *****  

Katherine was everything that Billy wasn’t. A straight A Student, prefect and much admired by her peers and teachers alike. An able horse rider she spent much of her spare time riding the trail that the old rail line had left. She was keen to conquer the waters that during the winter lashed the nearby shores with much violence to its southern shore.

   

Her sailing club was sheltered from the Solent by a natural harbour created by Hayling Island and Portsmouth. This was the perfect place to hone those skills that would eventually lead to days out to the Isle of Wight with her boyfriend David. Nights alone with the gentle sea and the gentle boy who was a fellow prefect at the grammar school. Sometimes she wondered if life was a little too perfect. With a place at an Oxbridge college virtually guaranteed she wished that life would throw up the odd anomaly to break her from her comfort zone. Weaving among the decaying pillars in her little boat her wish was to be answered as Billy jumped out of the heavens to send her boat spinning out of control.