We had been in Cannes for three, Tim undertaking press junkets, before we flew out of Good not to London – the place we dwell – but to Holland. We have a boat called the Princess Matilda that we had developed in 2005, the realisation of a dream that Tim and I had in the darkest days of his treatment.
“It all started when I was trying not to die,” Tim has said on several events, “this dream of going to sea, to circumnavigate the British Isles and past in a seagoing barge.”
It has not all been plain sailing, but we love our boat.
The Princess Matilda was moored in Hoorn, in Holland, after a key port and the base of the Dutch East India Company. It is now a common destination for recreational boaters, and the quay fills up at the weekend with boats rafting three or four deep alongside each other. We’d left the luxurious Carlton Hotel in Cannes at midday, and by five.30pm had been climbing above two neighbouring vessels to get to ours. Being on a boat centres you – no far more area services or housekeeping just Tim and me on our very own. We like this.
We’d been back on board for an hour or so, me opening the windows to air the stuffy boat, Tim checking almost everything was fine in the engine area. An critical piece of boat tools is a tube called a stern gland, which is packed total of grease to quit the sea drip, drip, dripping from the rotating shaft.
“It demands refilling quickly,” Tim mentioned as he washed his hands and checked how the white wine was chilling in the fridge.
Our neighbours on the up coming-door tjalk arrived on their boat just as Tim and I have been soothing on our rear deck: Ria and Ulrich, she Dutch, he German, both retired. They do not have a tv on their ship or a computer, but they have a cello.
Ulrich utilized to perform with the Hague Philharmonic and he gave us a recital prior to we left Hoorn the following afternoon. His wife looked at him with adoration as he played Dvorak’s Going Property Tim and I fought back tears as Ulrich had had an accident and for a couple of many years was unable to perform.
They had been sad to wave us goodbye, standing on their deck and viewing us until the Princess Matilda disappeared from sight.
“Ria says it’s what they had planned to do – ‘be a couple of maritime gipsies’ – but Ulrich’s no longer robust enough… I think we are residing their dream, hey Tim?”
“Remember that afternoon…”
“In the hospital…”
“I couldn’t even stand up to consider a p—?”
“You were rather ill…”
Tim and I travelled only a handful of miles that day soon after leaving our new pals on their marooned tjalk. The Princess Matilda crossed the satiny grey expanse of the guy-manufactured lake IJsselmeer. In the Netherlands, there is a well-recognized saying that “God created the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland”, but Tim was established to get by way of the barrage back into the North Sea to check out one of the Frisian Islands.
The skipper was on a mission he wished to commit “limbo” – the days waiting to discover out if Mr Turner had won any prizes in Cannes – to check out Texel, on the other side of the barrage. JMW Turner travelled extensively in the Reduced Nations and the last painting that Timothy had been doing work on, in character, as Turner was ‘Admiral von Tromp’s Barge at the Entrance of the Texel’. The island is 41 nautical miles from Hoorn and we planned an overnight end in the old seaport of Medenblick.
We never did go to Texel. Medenblick was as far as we got, since we had troubles with the boat. It was absolutely nothing significant and a boat engineer referred to as Robert – 6ft 2in and bald, with a complete-scale tattoo of a spanner on his tanned forearm – came to our rescue.
The Princess Matilda had to go to the boatyard for Robert to do more operate, so we also essential a area we could depart the boat at brief observe – should the want come up. Robert was happy to do this.
The boatyard was by way of a lift bridge and a lock on a canal. The citizens of Holland are patient people used to waiting in their cars, buses, bikes and lorries for boats to go through street bridges. Possibly it’s due to the fact Tim and I are English that we are often embarrassed about keeping men and women waiting while we glide along these inland waterways. This tends to make us tense, as well – but on this distinct Saturday morning, we had a small additional stress additional to the pot.
May 24 was the day the Cannes Jury would meet to choose what films and performers would be awarded the coveted prizes that evening. A automobile had been booked by the movie company to pick us up from the boatyard at eleven.30am (just in situation) and airline tickets booked on an afternoon flight to Good (just in case). I had ironed Tim’s dress shirt, which I had hand-washed the evening just before (just in situation), whilst Tim had filled the stern gland complete of grease – just in case we had to abandon ship. In the previous, we have returned to a boat the place the prop has half-submerged the engine. The little drips make a puddle, and the puddle a pond. This is identified as taking on water – also considerably of it and we sink.
It was now 11.15, and every single time 1 of our phones rang, we froze. It was our eldest daughter, Pascale, asking if we had heard any information: “Has Dad won anything at all?”
5 minutes later, I acquired a text from Simone, one of the publicists in Cannes, saying: “I don’t know if you have to come back to Cannes, but as soon as I have an update I will allow you know…”
Tim was even now down in the engine space undertaking factors with grease.
“I might pack a bag,” I explained to him as I threw him a rag to wipe his hands prior to he shut the flap to the engine area.
“I’ll go and see if the auto has arrived.”
Two minutes later he was back and I was packed. “I just spoke to the publicist – she says we should wait in the auto, but I informed her we’d wait on the boat till we get any news, due to the fact if they really do not want me back in France, we can go by means of the subsequent lock and go up the cut. We can get to Texel that way and Robert can do the generator on Monday.”
There was an opened bottle of champagne in the fridge I poured us each a glass in plastic cups.
“Why really do not we lock up the boat, place the bag in the boot and drink this in the vehicle?” I advised.
Leaving a boat is not easy you should flip off the gasoline bottles, the water pump and fridge, get rid of rubbish and finally get off the boat. Ours was moored with the high, pointy finish on a pontoon, so Tim had to catch me as I sat down on the prow and dropped two feet.
The rubbish and bag was currently down there. “Where’s the bottle of champagne?” I asked.
“I believed you had it.”
“No, I left it in the wheelhouse.”
“I just locked up! Now I suppose you want me to go back and get it! I do not know why we’re going by way of this charade,” he mumbled as he climbed back on board Matilda. “A full waste of time… ”
Boatyards are untidy places, full of cranes, oil drums, chains and ropes to journey you up, but this one had a sleek black Mercedes-Benz with an immaculate driver up coming to a forklift truck. He didn’t raise an eyebrow as he opened the door for me to slide into the leather back seat.
Tim turned the corner of the boat shed, speaking on the cellphone, holding the half-full bottle of champagne in the other hand – I had place the plastic cups in my handbag.
“Dunno who that was,” he mentioned as he joined me in the back seat, “but he was French and explained, ‘Timothy, you have to come back to Cannes!’”
“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“Oh! Let’s have a drink.”
“Schiphol Airport?” the driver asked Tim.
“Yes – I think so!”
I poured a cup of warm Moët and we the two waved to the guys functioning in the boatyard. Then his mobile rang once again: it was the producer of Mr Turner. She advised him that she and Mike Leigh have been on the Gatwick Express (just in case) and had a phone get in touch with from Cannes telling them to go house.
“Someone advised me to come back!” stated Tim. “It need to be some type of joke – I do not know who I was speaking to…”
Then, to add to the confusion, my telephone bleeped I read through out the message from Simone, the film’s publicist. “Get yourselves on that plane and I will meet you the two at Great airport with a festival auto to get you back to Cannes.”
We considered about this for a handful of minutes. “Does this indicate you’ve won?” I asked Tim.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know.”
I sent yet another text to Simone “Just in situation, can I get an individual to do my hair and make-up, please? I’ve just got off a dirty, rusty boat and all I’ve acquired to dress in is a kaftan I found in a goody bag.”
When we arrived in Wonderful, Simone was at the airport with a festival automobile and two police outriders.
“The site visitors is poor – we have to get you to the Carlton as quickly as feasible. You have groomers coming to your space at five.30pm, you have to be down in the lobby for 6pm, and depart the Carlton at 6.05pm to do the red carpet at 6.15pm!”
“Does this suggest Tim’s won?” I asked as the automobile chased the motorbikes, going by way of red targeted traffic lights and roundabouts the incorrect way.
“I’m sorry, I’m not permitted to say,” Simone smiled.
“Did you turn the water pump off?” Tim asked me.
Drip drip drip…
‘The Princess Matilda Comes Home’ by Shane Spall (Ebury) is published on July ten. It is accessible from Telegraph Books for £13.49 plus £1.95 postage. To buy, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.united kingdom
Timothy Spall"s slow boat to the red carpet at Cannes
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