A Boat, A Basket | Fortnum's Summer Stories

 

Introducing the first in our series of summer short stories: a surreal little tale of adventure

 

 

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'A Boat, A Basket' 

 

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We went out in a boat and came back in a basket, and to this day, nobody believes a word of it. But it went like this all the same.

 

The sky was blue beyond any man-made hue. Clouds of all types were on strike. The birds were singing, the ducks were ducking, and the wasps were too hot to bother anyone. 

 

It was just the two of us, but we packed for six anyway. Laney said – still does – that an empty picnic hamper is a crime against indulgence. Amen to that.

 

Anyway, we rowed our way to the tiny island in the middle of the lake. 

 

When we arrived, we tied the boat up, wobbled onto dry land and found a shady spot beneath a tall tree.

 

We tore a baguette in two, shared a few bottles of Champagne, took bites in turns from crisp apples and fresh pies. 

 

We fell asleep on the picnic rug, faces hidden under hats, bare toes in the sun.

 

I woke up first, so it was me who saw that the boat was gone. I shook Laney's shoulder – four times in all – each shake letting me a little deeper into the odd dream she was having. Like this:

 

Shake one: (serious) 'You, beard face. You.'

Shake two: (jaunty) 'Ha, tis' a precious jewel indeed!'

Shake three: (angry) 'Traitor! Blaggard!' 

Shake four: (resigned) 'To the sharks, of course.'

 

Before she could subconsciously condemn her foe – whoever it was – to death by hungry shark, Laney sat up, surveyed the scene, and asked me what I had done with the boat. 

 

But before I could even begin to protest, she had a plan.

 

First: eat everything we'd packed for this adventure. Second: drink every last drop of our cargo. Third: use our picnic hamper as a makeshift coracle and splash our way back to civilization, using our own four hands (the split, in case you were wondering: I used my two mitts, Laney used hers) as impromptu paddles.

 

The eating bit was fun. The drinking part was a pleasure. The prospect of capsizing in an all-too-small, probably not-entirely-watertight hamper canoe was neither.

 

To the naked eye, the picnic basket was too small to contain even one of us. But I stepped in and – well, I can’t explain it. You'd say it was roomy – spacious, even – if you'd been there. 

 

It held us both, easy as you like. Scout’s honour. 

 

We put out to water and a gentle summer zephyr blew us back to safety at a literal rate of knots. We floated to a stop on the shore, stepped back onto terra firma, fished our basket from the shallows, and headed back home. Easy peasy. 

 

Nowadays, Bill behind the bar's theory – ‘it was nothing more than a summer hallucination: too much sun, too many bubbles, and an overactive imagination’ – holds the most sway. 

 

But then again, Bill thinks picnics are ‘a hassle’ and he can’t even make a proper Kir Royale…so who are you really going to believe?