I had met Ruth at a dinner party arranged by a mutual friend and had been instantly captivated. We sat together and talked together all evening at the end of which she had agreed to go to the theatre with me on the following evening. The night following that, we had a quiet dinner in a secluded restaurant and for the next few days we met on a number of other pretexts until the Thursday when she asked me to join her for the weekend on her visit to her family home in Norfolk.
We drove up and arrived late. There was no sign of her father but her mother made me very welcome, serving a delicious supper before bidding both of us good night. We finished the meal and the nightcaps and made our way to our separate rooms.
I was first down to breakfast and her father greeted me politely then folded his paper and offered it to me. I refused it, saying that I would rather leave the outside world behind for the weekend.
"I know what you mean, I don't know why I read them really. They can be so depressing can't they?"
We talked about the general state of things for several minutes and then Ruth joined us looking, I thought to myself, like a fashion model. She was dressed in designer blue denim jeans with an opalescent white blouse and wore a simple gold chain draped about her neck that added that extra 'something' to her ensemble.
She greeted everyone, leaving me until last and then treated me to a particularly mischievous smile. It did not go unnoticed by the others and they exchanged those 'so that's how it is?' glances.
"I though that we would go sailing this morning if you fancy it, John?" she asked having declined a cooked breakfast in favour of coffee and toast.
"I'd love to. I haven't been in a dinghy for years."
This was indeed true, but what I did not say was that I had been besotted with the sport in my youth and when I last sailed, I had represented my university at quite a high competitive level. However, today that was irrelevant, as I would be sailing for the simple pleasure of a certain persons' company.
If we had ordered the weather especially for the day then it could not have been more perfect. A pleasant and gentle force-three wind blew from the west to ripple the peat-darkened water of the broad. We rigged the boat together in the boathouse that had been designed with sufficient height to allow this, thus avoiding the tricky operation of rigging a floating dingy in a breeze.
The breeze filled the jib sail as soon the little boat poked its nose out from its safe harbour and drew it into the open channel. With the main sail full it picked up more speed and glided forward, myself at the helm and Ruth, the willing crew, leaning outboard against the rise of the hull.
We sailed down the channel and passed the spit of land that marked the extent of the Collinson estate before entering the open expanse of the main broad. As we hugged the far bank, close-in on its reeded fringe, I had time to steel admiring glances at my crew-member with her hair and blouse flapping restlessly in the wind, the latter being pressed flat against her body, emphasising her perfectly shaped breasts and taut athletic stomach.
The wind was stronger in the open water making the sailing even more exhilarating. The hull rose higher out of the water forcing Ruth to hang further over the side to maintain the boats' equilibrium while I juggled with the main sheet and tiller to extract the absolute maximum advantage from the wind. I was in full control and Ruth now knew that I was, by no means, the in-experienced helmsman I had led her to believe.
"You've done this before I see?" she commented sarcastically then laughed out loud - a shrill laugh that could be heard above the hiss of the boat as it sliced through the surface of the water and the sighing of the wind trapped in the pocket of the main sail.
"Once or twice, " I replied, grinning wickedly.
We reached the end of the run with the wind before coming about to tack back to our starting place. I yelled the instruction for this manoeuvre as if it had only been yesterday that I was last on the water instead of eight years ago. Responding to my tone of authority, Ruth obeyed without question, ducking and switching to the opposite side of the boat as the wind tipped it. The jib swung to collect the air moving in from a new direction and the game little boat surged forward again on its new course.
I changed places too and the smoothness with which we performed our respective movements would have been a source of mutual satisfaction to a crew who had been sailing together for years.
After an hour the wind dropped and we found ourselves moving along more lazily and, without the forward thrust of the wind, were finding it more difficult to avoid the many cabin cruisers that chugged this way and that across the open broad. Saturday was always a bad day for sailing on the broads because many holidaymakers were taking their first faltering steps in learning to drive the motor cruiser that they had hired for the week.
Whilst in theory, power should give way to sail, the prudent yachtsman never put the rule to the test. Eventually we both agreed to abandon our efforts in favour of something less stressful.
Like all the Broads this one had been carved from the peat-rich flatlands of Norfolk in primeval times by toiling hands over a very long period of time and had finally filled with water to give one of the most unique waterway systems in Europe. The shape and extent of the ancient diggings was governed by the lie of the peat and often a broad would develop 'fingers' as the diggers followed the outline of a peat deposit which was surrounded by clay or gravel. These clay outcrops now lay slightly higher than the surrounding ground and had become covered in grass and vegetation whilst the dikes had filled with the silt over the centuries until they were little more that narrow reed beds accessible only to boats without a propellers.
Ruth guided us to such a dyke, one that she had explored as a girl and suggested that we take the dinghy some way up the channel by lowering our sails on entering the dike and raising the dagger board. Then, using only small paddles to propel us slowly forward, we made our way up the narrow creek until we reached a point some two hundred yards in where the dense reeds prohibited any further penetration. Paradoxically, while the reeds had stopped us progressing further up the dike, we had reached a small break in the vegetation on our right that allowed us to row right up to the bank and moor. Here we left the boat to gently bob up and down with the water as it flowed in and out of the creek in response to power launches passing by its entrance.
Because access to the channel was so overgrown, the flat area on which we now stood provided a quiet haven for anyone who was prepare to venture into it and which is why it had been a secret hideaway of Ruth's since she was a young girl.
The narrow fertile belt of land stretched along each side of the dike and was covered in that lush green grass, which only grows in May. The land rose gently away from the water, to merge into a thick screen of trees and shrubs some thirty or so yards inland.
We walked together, away from the boat, to the top of the rise. There, Ruth sat down in the cool shadows created by a copse of mature willow trees.
