Finally, a smiling young Jamaican man in staff whites pointed to my trunks.
‘Clothes off, mon.’
‘Pardon?’
‘This is a nekkid beach.’
‘Uhhhhh?’
Suddenly the slogan from the brochure came back to me: ‘Be Wicked for a Week’. And the penny dropped. I had booked my heavily pregnant wife on a week-long package holiday at a nudist resort where ‘sex on the beach’ wasn’t just the name of a cocktail.
Julianne should have killed me. Instead she laughed. She laughed so hard I thought her waters might break and our first child would be delivered by a Jamaican called ‘Tripod’ wearing nothing but sun-block. She hasn’t laughed like that for a long while.
After dropping Charlie at school, I detour to Bath Library. It’s on the first floor of the Podium Centre in Northgate Street, up an escalator and through twin glass doors. The librarians are boxed behind a counter on the right.
‘During the summer there was a ferry disaster in Greece,’ I say to one of them. She’s been changing an ink cartridge in a printer and two of her fingertips are stained black.
‘I remember,’ she says. ‘I was on holiday in Turkey. There were storms. Our campsite was flooded.’
She starts telling me the story, which features wet sleeping bags, near pneumonia, and spending two nights in a laundry block. Not surprisingly, she remembers the date. It was the last week in July.
I ask to see the newspaper files, choosing the Guardian and a local paper, the Western Daily Press. She’ll bring them out to me, she says.
I take a desk in a quiet corner and wait for the bound volumes to be delivered. She has to push them on a trolley. I help her lift the first one onto the desk.
‘What are you after?’ she asks, smiling absently.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Well, good luck.’
I turn the pages delicately, scanning the headlines. It doesn’t take long to find what I’m looking for.
FOURTEEN DEAD IN GREEK FERRY DISASTER
A rescue operation is under way in the Aegean Sea for survivors from a Greek ferry that sank in gale force winds off the island of Patmos.
The Greek Coast Guard says fourteen people have been confirmed dead and eight people are missing after the Argo Hellas sank eleven miles north-east of Patmos Harbour. More than forty passengers- most of them foreign holidaymakers- were plucked from the water by local fishing boats and pleasure craft. Survivors were taken to a health centre on Patmos, many suffering from cuts, bruises and the effects of hypothermia. Eight seriously injured passengers have been airlifted to hospitals in Athens.
An English hotelier helping in the rescue, Nick Barton, said those on board the ferry included UK citizens, Germans, Italians, Australians and local Greeks.
The eighteen-year-old ferry sank just after 2130 (1830 GMT) only fifteen minutes after leaving the port of Patmos. According to survivors it was swamped by the huge seas and sank so quickly that many had no time to don lifejackets before they jumped from the side.
The heavy seas and high winds have hampered the search for more survivors. Throughout the night Greek aircraft dropped flares in the sea and a helicopter from the Royal Navy’s HMS Invincible assisted with the search.
Turning the pages, I follow the story as it unfolds. The ferry sank on 24 July during a storm that caused widespread destruction across the Aegean. A container ship ran aground on the island of Skiros and further south a Maltese tanker broke in two and sank in the Sea of Crete.
Survivors of the ferry tragedy told their stories to reporters. In the final moments before the Argo Hellas sank, passengers were hanging from the railings and jumping overboard. Some were trapped inside as the ferry went down.
Forty-one people survived the tragedy and seventeen were confirmed dead. After two days a change in the weather allowed Greek naval divers to recover three more bodies from the wreck but six people were still missing including an American, an elderly French woman, two Greeks and a British mother and daughter. This must have been Helen and Chloe, but their names aren’t mentioned for several more days.
A follow up story in the Western Daily Press reported that Bryan Chambers was flying to Greece to look for his daughter and granddaughter. Describing him as a Wiltshire businessman, it said he was ‘praying for a miracle’ and preparing to mount his own search, if the official one failed to find Helen and Chloe.
A further story on Tuesday July 31 said that Mr Chambers had hired a light plane and was combing the beaches and rocky coves of the islands and Turkish coast. The story included a photograph of mother and daughter, who were travelling under Helen’s married name. The holiday snap shows them sitting on a rock wall with fishing boats in the background. Helen is wearing a sarong and Jackie O sunglasses while Chloe is dressed in white shorts, sandals and a pink top with shoestring straps.
A week after the sinking, the search for survivors was officially called off and Helen and Chloe were labelled as missing presumed dead. The newspapers took increasingly less interest in the story. The only other reference to mother and daughter concerned a prayer vigil held at a NATO base in Germany where they’d been living. The maritime investigation took evidence from survivors, but the findings could be years away.
My mobile is vibrating silently. No phones are allowed in the library. I step outside the main doors. Press green.
Bruno Kaufman booms in my ear: ‘Listen, old boy, I know you’re happily married and chief cheerleader for the institution but did you really have to tell my ex-wife she should move in with me?’
‘It’s just for a few days, Bruno.’
‘Yes, but it will seem like much longer.’
‘Maureen is lovely. Why did you let her go?’
‘She drove me away. Well, to be more precise she drove at me. I had to jump out of the way. She was behind the wheel of a Range Rover.’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘She caught me with one of my researchers.’
‘A student?’
‘A post grad student,’ he corrects me, as if resenting the suggestion that he would cheat on his wife with anything less.
‘I didn’t know you had a son.’
‘Yes. Jackson. His mother spoils him. I bribe him. We’re your average dysfunctional family. Do you really think Maureen is in danger?’
‘It’s a precaution.’
‘I’ve never seen her this scared.’
‘Look after her.’
‘Don’t worry, old boy. She’ll be safe with me.’
The call ends. The mobile vibrates again. This time it’s Ruiz. He has something he wants to show me. We arrange to meet at the Fox amp; Badger. I’m to buy him lunch because it’s my turn. I don’t know when it became ‘my turn’ but I’m pleased he’s here.
Dropping the car at home, I walk up the hill to the pub. Ruiz has taken a table in the corner, where the ceiling seems to sag. Horse tackle is festooned from the exposed beams.
‘It’s your shout,’ he says, handing me an empty pint glass.
I go to the bar, where half a dozen flushed and lumpy regulars fill the stools, including Nigel the dwarf, whose feet swing back and forth, two feet above the floor.
I nod. They nod back. This passes as a long conversation in this part of Somerset.
Hector the publican pulls a pint of Guinness, letting it rest while he gets me a lemon squash. I set down the fresh pint in front of Ruiz. He watches the bubbles rise, perhaps saying a small prayer to the God of fermentation.
‘Here’s to drinkin’ with bow-legged women.’ He raises his glass and half a pint disappears.
‘You ever considered the possibility that you might be an alcoholic?’