CLICK TO PLAY The Maiden Voyage of Walter Pizarro
Read by Cliff Chapman
A stormy night, west of Plymouth. A merchant ship bound for the Americas, the Paititi, is hurled aground by hurricane winds. Helicopters swoop in to save the crew as waves plunder the wreckage. Frenzied gulls wheel around the sinking ship. Along nearby beaches looters appear, waiting for containers to be washed ashore.
Four hundred miles away in Coventry, Walter Pizarro, a 37 year old estate agent, awakes to images of floating treasure. He’s fallen asleep with the TV on, with his clothes on too. Incredulously, he reads the caption on BBC News 24: Gold-rush Fever in Devon. Scratching his head he consults the glaring red digits on his alarm clock, which on first sight show 14:92, then settle to 04:32. He looks again at the TV pictures; searchlights show a bounteous cargo cut loose beside the wreck. A conviction so powerful sweeps through him that he feels he is floating in the air.
- No more mediocrity! No more a slave to the whims of investor groups and first time buyers. This is my destiny, my day of glory! I must go! he declares, eyes aflame with Elizabethan greed.
He repeats the word Sidmouth and, guzzling a mug of instant coffee, plots his course. If he leaves now he will be there by daybreak. He searches his wardrobe, tearing aside the trouser shirt combo for Wednesday’s viewings. Instead he selects a silver waistcoat, a crimson shirt, plus the admiral’s hat and pantaloons he wore to a stag weekend in Antwerp.
The only barrier now remaining between Pizarro and an inconceivable fortune is his 90 year old grandma who occupies the spare room.
- Grandmother, arise! Destiny calls!
But the old lady lies in a thick slumber, and misses his auspicious words. Patiently, he bundles her in a flurry of blankets into his BMW. Upon her lap he places two chisels, a mallet, and a bolt-cutter.
- We have not a moment to lose, grandmother, he tells her impressively.
Grandma’s response is unintelligible as her teeth remain in a jar by the bed. With the steely eye of a pioneer, Walter Pizarro releases the clutch and drives forth into the dawn of the unknown.
- Let nothing stop us now, he purrs, slowing at the red lights on the A46 slip road.
By 7.45 they arrive in the slumbering port of Sidmouth. On the coast road he sees gangs of early morning looters squabbling over a solitary container. The real treasures are out at sea, he tells his sleeping granny. Nearing the harbour he spies a small flotilla of fishing boats out in the bay: And there she is! The Paititi; its sinking bow jutting skywards. Around her, boxes of loose cargo bob on the lapping waves. Spirited, Pizarro bares down on a Portakabin where a yawning woman stands over a griddle.
- Fair lady, I have journeyed from Coventry. Across the M5 and along the by-roads of the A30 and A375. Grant me food to sate my hunger.
- Ooh. Bacon butty or fried egg bap?
- Bacon will do.
- And for your companion?
- She cannot eat. No teeth.
Still with breakfast in mouth, Pizarro stands on a rock and waves at the skiffs.
- Fithermen! Lend me your boaths. Fithermen!
The fishermen look back curiously at the stranger in the pantaloons. Finally, one comes over to investigate. Pizarro wipes the ketchup from his lips.
- Sir, how much for your boat?
- What do you mean?
- I wish to commandeer your boat.
- Why?
- I am duty bound on a mission to which God himself has sent me.
The fisherman looks at Pizarro with dead fish eyes; then looks seawards.
- It’s pretty choppy out there. It’s no place for a jolly. There are bits broken off the ship, weird currents, leaking chemicals, the engine might explode. They’re telling people to stay away.
Pizarro straightens his admiral’s hat and booms,
- I am aware of the dangers. I beg of you give me your boat.
- Sorry, I need it. I’m working.
- You will be handsomely paid.
The fisherman pauses to think, and casts his eye to a tiny, ravaged old rowboat in the harbour.
- Well, I might be able to sort you out with something. How much will you pay?
- You will receive your share of untold riches upon my return. How about five per cent?
- Sorry, fella, I need something up front.
- Oh. Do you take visa debit?
- Of course not, says the man, wiping slime onto his dungarees, I’m a fisherman.
- I see. Well I have no cash. I don’t know what else to give you.
Covetously the fisherman eyes the BMW.
- I’m not giving you my car!
Fool, thinks Walter Pizarro, in what would I hoard my treasure if I were to trade the car … And then a brilliant thought lands and stings his brain.
- Grandmother, come here.
With difficulty, the geriatric exits the car.
- You will take my grandmother in exchange for the boat.
- What! You’re going to sell your own grandma?
- Exchange. I’ll exchange her. You can have her for twelve hours.
- What would I do with her?
- She’s deceptively productive. Crochet, crosswords, no trouble at all.
- I’m sure she is, but that’s not the issue. I need insurance in case you damage my boat.
- Very well, you shall have cash.
- Well OK, but on one condition. You take oars instead of the outboard.
The fisherman remains firm; Pizarro has no choice but to agree.
Interrupting his righteous voyage he goes in search of a cashpoint at the nearby Waitrose. He returns to find the fisherman scraping water from the shell of a tiny one-man rowboat. Inspecting the derelict, paint-stripped vessel, Pizarro notes with approval what he believes to be the figurehead of a dragon on the prow. Cash is exchanged; the fisherman hands him two aluminium oars.
- Keep hold of them or they’ll sink.
But Pizarro is not listening. He drives the bolt cutter into the sand and kneels before it, whispering in solemn prayer. Meanwhile, Grandma, now alive to the day, extracts a long skein of knitting wool from her pouch.
Rowing is tricky at first; the fishermen laugh at his blundering strokes. Soon though, the rhythm comes; Pizarro paddles past his detractors, crazed with gold lust and laughing hysterically. The benign morning sea shows no sign of last night’s menace, and it is with wonder that Pizarro glides through the soft pink waters. Sloshing around the wreck are containers holding all manner of material splendour. Unable to believe his luck, or to control himself, Pizarro reaches for the chisels and sets to work. With such a small boat, he has to choose his sweep of goods with care. He resists taking too many of one item, and to begin with, only fills up with essentials; a cross country ski simulator, some golf club cosies, an Antony Worral Thomson Meat Grinder and Sausage Maker set. Fittingly for such a mission, he chances upon a trunk of Royal memorabilia, and helps himself to matching china mugs of the Queen and Prince Phillip. Every free inch of the boat is meticulously filled.
Happy with his progress, he reels in a crate of sparkling wine, pops one open and slugs in celebration. Here, he tells himself, is all I’ll ever need and more. He decides to call the office. Tossing his old phone into the sea, he transfers the sim into one of ten newly pillaged smartphones.
- Hayley, you should know that I won’t be in today, or tomorrow, or Friday for that matter.
- Are you drunk, Walter?
- I am attending to some extremely important business with my grandmother.
- You sound a bit funny, are you OK? Is that seagulls in the background?
- I have never felt better.
- This isn’t a very convincing sickie ...
- Everything will reveal itself in due course, you need not fret.
With that he rings off, slugs, and tosses the wine into the sea. Unable to resist, he paddles towards yet more containers. Onto the boat come a petrol driven leaf blower, a life time supply of Beard Tincture, an electric bean slicer, a Slendertone Flex Bottom and Thigh Toning System, a plastic guard to prevent banana bruising, a terracotta chestnut roaster, a toothbrush timer, a battery operated breadknife. I will never want for anything, he thinks, for the rest of my life.
Strangely though, the more he seeks to gather the more anxious he becomes. The boat fills up yet he is unable to stop.
He continues hoarding until distracted by the arrival of a young herring gull. It settles on the nose of the dragon and scrutinises him. Out of breath, Pizarro feels his face burning red. Watching the seabird move so freely, he realised that he has accumulated so much that he can no longer move his legs. The gull seems to mock him. Enraged, he jabs at it with an oar. The bird merely flaps, then pecks at a leg of cured Spanish ham Pizarro has fished in not because he likes ham, but because he thinks it will serve him well in the event of an Atlantic crossing. Annoyed, he takes another swipe but this time tragedy strikes; he misses the gull and chops off the head of the dragon, then watches in horror as the oar rebounds into the depths. With a clumsy, instinctive flail, he tries to retrieve it, but only succeeds in dropping the other oar overboard. Consumed by anger he pelts the hovering gull with a miniature smiling Buddha.
Not a problem, he thinks, I still have my arms. Gathering himself, he continues roping in items that on the high street would set him back a week’s wages, but here cost nothing at all. Yet there is no thrill any more. It almost stirs in him a sense of despair. He notices a leak and has to use the Royal mugs to bail himself out. Ok, he laughs nervously, it really is time to stop now.
A helicopter circles overhead, yet he is too proud to wave for assistance. Instead, he breaks open more cargo boxes in search of replacement oars. Finally, inside a shipment of adult toys, he unearths two plastic “Dirty Daddy” spanking sticks that are as good as, if not better than the original oars. He is also drawn to a rubber gimp mask that he feels lends him the finishing touches of a noble privateer.
Striking out for home, the wind picks up and rowing is tougher than before. Although the boat weighs a ton he grits his teeth and dreams of glory. Waves crash around him, yet he works the Dirty Daddies with tireless devotion. With the shoreline in sight, the victory march is interrupted by the dazzling reflection of a solitary container. This, surely, is the last of the treasure. He can’t resist. Cracking open the lock, he wriggles a hand inside to scoop the greatest prize of all; an imitation gold Papal crown studded with pink diamonds. As he crowns himself with a glory unknown for centuries, a short, sweet tear leaves his eye.
- This is all just … too much, he says, softly shaking his head.
He is right; the hull of the boat has split under the weight. He feels the water rising up his legs and around his waist as the boat bubbles down. It is useless to struggle; his legs are trapped by a new iron fireguard and a granite puma for the garden. There is no time for remorse; there is only time for one final tweet, a photographed self-portrait: Walter Pizarro, masked, bejewelled, magnificent: the last of the great buccaneers.
(c) Ron Hawke, 2012
Rob Hawke lives and works in London and dreams of nearly everywhere else. When not busy writing short stories and aborted novels, Rob works for a human rights charity.
Cliff Chapman grew up on the Isle of Man, where he did lots of theatrical things before tunneling out under cover of darkness to London, to train at The Actor Works. He also occasionally directs – including audio books for Fantom Audio.
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