George's dream of youth-recapturing adventure requires a little money and a small boat - nothing that his insurance couldn't cover. Only Beryl stands in his way.

The Anniversary

George closed the front door firmly, but quietly, in order not to wake the still sleeping Beryl. He always left promptly at 7.30 in the mornings and Beryl usually slept until about 8 o'clock. He had never been a breakfast person and preferred his solitude in the early morning, drinking cup after cup of tea in peace and quiet, although he would sometimes have the radio on quietly.

George Wilson hated his wife. This was a fact that he had come to terms with for some years now. Of course he never admitted as much to any other living person, certainly not Beryl herself. If she had any wits she would know and do the decent thing and leave me, he thought, but he knew that Beryl had little or no wits and leaving him was the last thing in her mind.

When they were young and in love, or so they supposed themselves at the time, things seemed different. Beryl was a jolly, friendly girl and not bad looking and they were content to drift along, getting engaged as a matter of course, and settling down into the routine which became their lives for twenty-seven years. They had two children, a boy and a girl, both somewhat brighter than their parents, who were now attending university and making their own lives.

For some time now, George had nurtured a dream. It had started as a vague indefinable longing and gradually turned into an all-consuming passion. He wanted to sail away in a boat, preferably before he was fifty-five, and capture some of that youthful feeling of adventure before it was too late. Who knows, if he hadn't met and married Beryl, he might have had the adventures he was now seeking. To prove he meant business, he attended navigation classes at the local Adult Education Centre and would talk knowledgeably of infrastructure and suchlike, to anyone kind enough to listen.

It wasn't so bad while the children were younger, but now they had fled the nest and he was left with the prospect of growing old with Beryl. The children had given them a common interest while they were at home, but their departure highlighted the yawning chasm between them. They had, to be blunt, nothing in common. No shared interest. Beryl thought his dream of sailing away was laughable and called him a dreamer - a latter day Walter Mitty. She certainly didn't take the matter seriously. To be fair to her, she did buy George a model boat, quite an expensive one too, so he could practise sailing on the village pond. Far from satisfying his longing for all things nautical, this simply fired his enthusiasm. He was even more determined to one day have a "real" boat.

Beryl, on the other hand, was content with her life and always had been. She enjoyed bringing up the children and housekeeping - and now she valued her part-time job. Her only objective, if you could call it such, was security in George's and her old age. Adventure was not on the agenda. She did not dream or aspire; she took as a matter of course what life had handed to her; she slept soundly every night and, if she dreamed at all, it was about the new kitchen she planned or which bulbs to plant for next spring. Everything was fine as it was. Poor old George would soon forget these silly notions of sailing away in some little boat. At any rate, this was George's reading of the situation.

George's job as a supervisor at Bestway Supermarket, a position he had held for some years, could not be described as fulfilling - but it paid well and, with no qualifications to speak of, he considered himself lucky to have a reasonably well paid and secure job. Despite that, he craved for something more.

The more staid and comfortable and middle-aged Beryl became, the more George's imagination was fired by the thought of doing something exciting before he was too old. He liked what he saw in the mirror; he had kept his hair and his teeth; and he was quite slim. He also kept himself fit. He jogged on a regular basis and prided himself on his firm abdomen and muscular physique.