The Family Picnic

I grasped the side of the boat with my fingers as we bounced along, white caps cresting the waves we sped towards Shell Bay. I turned into the oncoming wind, feeling it tugging at my hair, pulling the skin of my face tight against my cheekbones and driving the tang of salt up my nose.

Daddy held the tiller of the outboard engine lightly in his hand, gunning the dinghy towards our appointed location. Mummy, sat in the middle of the boat on the simple wooden bench seat, clutching the basket of goodies for our picnic between her knees. Her curvaceous bottom and thighs thumped up and down on the unforgiving wood and I knew she would be covered in bruises by morning.

“I can see them over there” I yelled, waving my arms as my voice was carried off into the wind. Daddy didn’t hear me and continued his trajectory towards the beach. Slowing as he approached, I called more successfully, “look, they are moored off the beach over there.” 

“Okay, we’ll go over to say hello before I run the boat ashore,” he replied.

Daddy skillfully manoeuvred us over to the small cruiser at anchor some way from the beach where my brother, his fiancé Joanna and her family were aboard, sipping wine from plastic beakers.

“Hello, Alastair, hello Jenny oh, Isabel lovely to see you too,” called Margaret, towering over us as we neared the boat. Lovely day for a picnic isn’t it, despite the rather bumpy sea. Why don’t you tie up here at the back of our boat? You can eat your picnic there while we have ours here - there isn’t enough room for everyone on board I’m afraid.”

Well, you should have seen mummy’s face, it was a picture.  She wasn’t a great sailor at the best of times and the idea of jogging up and down on the ocean wave, tied up behind her soon to be daughter-in-law’s parent’s boat, was not to be endured. 

“Why don’t we go onto the beach,” she replied. “So much nicer to have a picnic on the sand, don’t you think?”

“Well, no. I’ve arranged our picnic here, on the boat, with the table and so on. I can’t bear getting sand in the food. Don’t you agree, so annoying to be grinding tiny grains of grit between your teeth whilst eating sandwiches,” Margaret retorted with a snort of laughter.

Mummy grimaced and said under her breath, “I’m not staying here tied to the back of their boat Alastair. Take us to the beach.” Then to Margaret she said, “Actually, I think I would prefer to be settled on dry land, bobbing up and down is not good for the digestion you know. So, we’ll take our picnic to the shore. Richard, are you coming with us?” She said pointedly to my brother, who looked on with embarrassment, torn between the two matriarchs and his soon to be wife. 

Well, it was a no brainer really wasn’t it. What were the chances of dear old Dickie having the guts to stick with his family? Yep, absolutely zero. I mean we should have seen the writing on the wall then. And in fact, if I’m honest, I think this was the moment I realised my beloved and idolised bro, was lost to another tribe; there was no mistaking it and no going back.

Daddy fired up the trusty outboard motor and gently nudged through the swimmers, and surfers in the shallow water until we reached the shore, I jumped out with the painter in my hand pulling the dinghy up onto the sand, as Daddy hopped lithely out to help. 

Once safely established, mummy disembarked, having handed out the picnic basket, rugs, towels and various bits and bobs, which daddy and I carted to a nice space amidst other families equally intent on enjoying a sunny afternoon, on the soft sand of Dorset’s Jurassic coast. The picnic was unpacked and we tucked into all the delicious morsels that mummy had put together. I noticed all of Dickie’s favourites were there. Egg and mayo sandwiches, chicken drumsticks in the famous sauce that mummy made, enormous prawns, all kinds of different cheeses, a crusty French stick, celery, carrots carefully cut into batons, tiny tomatoes, beers, a thermos of coffee, plus sticky chocolate brownies for later. 

She scowled as she looked over to the boat where Richard, and, in her mind, the interlopers were raucously enjoying their meal. Daddy did his best to take her mind off the situation. Gazing around he commented on the clarity of the sky, how the sea was looking a bit calmer now, how delicious the picnic was, weren’t we lucky to have such a beautiful sunny day, not usual for England even in the summer and, as a last gasp attempt, he pronounced that he had read in the Evening Echo that the sand dunes were now home to a nudist colony!

Mummy remained stony-faced. Richard was her favourite, I knew that and, to be honest, I didn’t mind because I loved him too. He had been my hero from an early age; six years older than me he had been the central character of my childhood. He was always playing the fool, making me laugh and feel as though I was the only person in the world that mattered. In return, I wanted the best for him and that stretched to girlfriends, even though I realised they potentially usurped my position in his affections. But this latest one had resulted in full-scale immersion not only in her but the entire clan. Then he dropped us, his entire family, like a hot potato. I guess that’s not unusual; but it felt as though we had been hurled from a very great height onto rocks. And, guess what, we had shattered. 

Daddy suggested a swim and I agreed. We ran to the water laughing and catching our breath, realising that it probably wasn’t sensible to be diving into the waves and swimming with such gusto so soon after eating. But hey, we survived. Returning to our spot on the beach we towelled ourselves dry and I thought, I don’t mind eating on the sand, but I do hate how it sticks to your legs when they are wet. So, I was absorbed in brushing the sand off when suddenly Dickie threw himself down on the ground beside me.

“Hi everyone, having a good time?”

“I thought we were going to have a picnic together,” Mummy replied, “not with you out there on your yacht, whilst we are treated like second class citizens.” She couldn’t resist it could she. It was the moment she should have kept her powder dry, but she didn’t. The intervening silence said everything and nothing, until Daddy chipped in; “I fancy an ice cream. Anyone else want one – how about you Mama, a Cornetto?” 

Enthusiastically I agreed to a Cornetto, as did Dickie, whilst mother just nodded her head. Immediately he was up and heading off to the small shack that housed an ice cream and soft drinks counter further up the beach. We continued to sit there awkwardly, making small talk and watching what else was happening on the beach: families playing ball, young children running into the water and being carried out again by anxious parents and then, we looked over to see how daddy was getting on. 

The queue was long and he was right at the end of it, so the Cornettos were going to be a while. I sat watching his progress when out of the sand dunes walked a man and a woman totally stark staring naked. I had heard daddy say there was a nudist colony nearby, but I hadn’t expected them to make an appearance. Oh my god. I couldn’t help but think that if they had been good looking it might be different, but they were of indeterminate age with skin that sagged and wrinkled in places you didn’t want to know about. Her boobs hung like abandoned watermelons and I was transfixed as she went to stand in the queue behind my father. 

Daddy is not into nakedness. I am twenty and in all that time I have never seen my father in his skin. Long shorts and no top, yes. Swimming trunks, yes. But nude – never. Dickie, mummy and I sat staring at him, willing him not to turn around. If he did there was every chance he would do a runner and we would never get our ice creams. Fortunately, he struck up a conversation with the man in front of him, or at least we thought it was fortunate, but of course, the other man had to turn around to carry on the conversation with daddy and had a prime view of the woman, who had now been joined by the man with scraggy balls. I was sure he would say something to my father and we would suddenly see him scurrying in our direction, but no. What they chatted about I have no idea, but in due course daddy reached the front of the queue. He seemed to be having an in-depth discussion with the man behind the counter and there was a certain amount of pointing and gesticulating until eventually he returned clasping the requisite ice creams in his hands.

I leapt up to meet him, “Daddy, did you see who was behind you?” He looked at me quizzically, before replying.

“No. Why, should I have? Was it someone we know?”

“Gosh no, or at least I hope not! I turned him around and pointed to the couple, who were now licking ice cream cones and heading back to the dunes.”

“Good God. Where they in the line behind me?”

“They most certainly were. I thought that guy you were talking to, would have said something,” I replied bursting into laughter as I bit into the ice cream. He smiled and winked at me. Perhaps he had known all along? I always thought my father was so straight-laced but, maybe there were hidden dimensions I had yet to fathom.

I fell back onto the sand and allowed the sunshine to warm my skin as I licked my Cornetto and cogitated on the fact that in some ways, walking around in the nude must be quite liberating. Dickie was lying on the ground, close to mama, trying to make amends and offering to come back in the boat with us which pacified her, for the moment at least. The smell of sea, sand and suntan lotion lulled me into a soporific dream until guess what, Joanna and her siblings sauntered over destroying the hard won serenity. In no time flat Dickie was up, behaving like her pooch once again. In frustration I missed my mouth and dropped my ice cream in the sand. Damn, I’d just finished pushing the best bit down to the bottom of the cornet with my tongue and was looking forward to eating it. Well, there was no way I could eat it now. Best to dig it a grave and forget about it. And probably best to do the same on the whole afternoon, so I stood up and started packing things away.

Everything was soon stowed back in the boat, Dickie pushed it into the shallow water as daddy pulled the starter cord on the engine. Mummy was once again on the wooden bench and I had taken up my seat in the bow; we waved to those, including Dickie, remaining on the shore as we headed out of the bay and back into the open sea. 

THE END

Words: 1956