Trimarans Crimps

Trimarans	noun: plural of trimaran; a three-hulled vessel, with two hulls flanking the main hull.
Crimps	1. verb, to crimp. To fold, bend or press into ridges.
	2. noun: plural of crimp. A tight wave or curl in the hair.

Spatulas Denouement would have been the perfect denouement to my adventure if it hadn’t led to a completely useless website.

I say completely useless; it consisted of a list of peculiar phrases translated into Japanese so if you ever find yourself stuck in Japan and needing to write down the phrase blocky wood patio furniture ( images ) or plump handled spatulas ( images ) then this is the website for you. But if you wanted to know who’d written the page, why they’d written it, how to get in touch with them or, more importantly, where the hell they were, the site was useless.

Trimarans Crimps, however, was surely as good a piece of fortune as has ever landed in my lap. It led to the website of the Marinestore Chandlery, a shop dealing in sailing equipment that was based in Maldon, Essex.

Essex! After two months of extreme travel and with the deadline almost upon me it was about to end in Essex. In the first two months of 2003 I had travelled over 71,000 miles. I had spent over 183 hours in aeroplanes. That means that in the first eight weeks of the year I had spent more than one week with bad leg room. In January and February, my average speed was over 50 miles per hour! And after putting myself through all that, all I had to do now to claim victory, was drive 41 miles.

I didn’t ring the Marinestore Chandlery. I didn’t email them either. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care if they wanted to meet me or not. I knew where they were, I knew their opening hours and so I knew it was possible for me to meet them. All I needed to do was to walk through their door and shake the hand of someone working there and I would have met ten googlewhacks in a row while complying with all of the rules laid down by David Gorman.

It didn’t take me much longer than an hour to get to Maldon, a pretty little town at the head of the Blackwater Estuary. I breathed in the salty sea air and it tasted of victory.

I stood outside the Marinestore Chandlery, a humble, modern, red brick little building and knew I was about to win. I was excited and I was nervous. Nervous because when I’d won, it would be over and when it was over I would have to come back down to earth. I’d shut Jake out but he hadn’t disappeared forever. The novel hadn’t magically written itself in my absence. Real life was still out there and pretty soon I would have to find my place in it once more.

But the overwhelming sensation was one of excitement. I was about to complete something huge. There were times during my googlewhack adventure when nothing in life had made much sense to me. There were times when I’d felt I was losing control but, if I could win, then it wouldn’t all have been in vain. Victory would give purpose to the last two months of my life.

I approached the shop, my heart beating faster and faster. I tried to compensate, breathing deeper and deeper. I paused at the door. My hand rested on the handle. This was it. This was the moment everything else had been building up to. Images of the recent past flashed through my mind; all the places I’d been to, all the people I’d met, and my heart glowed with pride and with love.

I took my hand away from the handle and fished my mobile phone out of my coat pocket instead. I wanted to share my excitement. I wanted to share the nerves and the pride and the love that was making my skin tingle.

My phone only knew one number. The last person to call me: Spendthrift Glaswegians: Eric.

‘Eric, it’s Dave,’ I said.

‘Hey, Dave,’ he said sounding nervous. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘I’m doing just great,’ I said, nineteen to the dozen, my words tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be heard. ‘I just wanted to say a proper thank you. I’m about to meet number ten and it’s all down to you. I owe you a huge favour. Any time you want anything, just call. I’ll be there in a heartbeat. I can’t believe it’s about …’

‘This is brilliant,’ said Eric interrupting my gushing. ‘Which one of them is it? Which one is number ten?’

‘It’s trimarans and crimps,’ I said.

‘What?’

I felt a pain across my chest. His ‘what’ was full of concern. He sounded worried. The excitement stopped turning and knotted itself up inside me, an unbearable tightness while I waited for him to expand and explain. It didn’t happen. There was silence.

‘What do you mean “what”?’ I croaked, my lungs struggling for enough air.

‘That isn’t the googlewhack I found,’ said Eric.

‘What do you mean?’ I yelled, the tension releasing itself in a scream, unleashing a torrent of words, twenty to the dozen, now. ‘What do you mean, it’s not what you said? I looked it up; it is a googlewhack! You don’t trip over them in the street, you can’t accidentally mishear one, it doesn’t make any sense, what do you mean?’

‘I’m being honest with you, Dave,’ said Eric. ‘I didn’t say trimarans crimps,’ he paused, ‘I said … Trimaran Scrimps.’

The air fell out of my lungs completely. I didn’t know what to do. I fell to my knees and let out a howl, a primal scream of fury as everything, everything I’d achieved in the last two months suddenly turned to dust. I heaved for breath. The salty sea air tasted of salt. I looked down at my right hand, the phone still connected to Eric. I raised it to my ear and heard:

‘I’m sorry Dave. Dave? I’m sorry … Dave?’