Port After Stormy Seas

'“Hey, Nigel!” Kev shouted. “We’re going on a boat-trip.” He was already at the gangplank.'

What happens when three incorrigible drinkers take an impromptu boat trip on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour? Why are the other day-trippers so relieved to get back to port? And what’s the tenuous connection between Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’, JP Donleavy’s ‘A Fairy Tale of New York’ and Joseph Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim’?

'Kev turned to the skipper. “He can’t swim.” He didn’t say this imploringly but did sound momentarily helpless.

'Clouds and seabirds floated across the skipper’s expression, over eyes that had seen hurricanes, freak waves, and worse. This sea was as flat as a spinster’s chest.

'“Then you better get in after your mate.” The skipper’s return to the bridge was no more purposeful than the way he ate his breakfast, brought his dog to heel or read the newspaper.'

‘Port After Stormy Seas’, a short story by Chris Bell, author of ‘Liquidambar’ (a novel); ‘The Bumper Book of Lies’ (collected stories); ‘Iniquity’, ‘The Vale of Health’, ‘Shem-el-Nessim’ (short stories); and ‘A Shelterless Man’ (poetry).