The yellow plastic tables on the terrace outside the ferry-terminal bar faced directly into the afternoon sun. It was the last week of September and surprisingly hot. We’d been over to Roscoff for the day, from Plymouth, just for something to do, and we’d been uncomfortably hot all day, traipsing round in our sports anoraks and rucksacks. My boy said he was going for a wander, which I’m beginning to think is a euphemism for having a crafty fag.
We’d seen all we wanted to see of Roscoff, a pretty little fishing town full of sprightly old French people, with an open-air food market, very expensive, with middle-class stall-holders. And we were hot. We’d been there since sunrise and now we were lugging shopping bags full to bursting with bottles of hopefully sprightly old wine and packets of fags, as well as our rucksacks. So we tottered back to the ship at one o’clock, three hours before departure, thinking we could shower then lie on our bunks in our cabin. But we’d been badly advised. No foot passengers were allowed on the ship until ten minutes before departure. Neither of us felt like walking round Roscoff again, pretty as it was. So now we had three hours to kill at the ferry- terminal café.
The yellow plastic tables bore advertisements for Lipton’s Iced Tea. The cement terrace looked out on to a lorry park dotted with stunted palm trees. Separated from the lorry park by a 20ft-high chain-link fence was a vast concreted area on which cars and trucks queued prior to embarkation. Not much of a view. But with nothing but six cold wet English months to look forward to, I sat there basking wistfully in the hot sun like a man on a pier with a terminal illness.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in