The Early Morning Swimmer

It was a quarter to four and Henry was already awake. He polished off the last dregs of his large mug of boiling hot peppermint tea, wrapped himself up in his overcoat, scarf, woolly hat and large fluffy towel, popped on his leather sandals and headed out of the door of the lonely cottage.
Henry had chosen this cottage out of about five or six similar looking cottages purely because there were no other houses within a half mile and there was only one narrow dirt track leading from the road off the B-road to the house.
Henry liked the fact that his cottage sat on a cliff top above a narrow strip of beach and the wild sea.
The cottage faced inland and Henry liked that he could see any visitors coming without needing to rig up sophisticated surveillance equipment, all he needed to do was look out the front window. It would be an intrepid and determined and maybe even a little crazy a visitor that came up from the other way and Henry supposed it only fair that if such a visitior chose that direction to make an appearance he should at least allow them the element of surprise.
Henry also like that the cottage was built out of stone and lots of it, the original builders of the house had paid due respect to the properties geography and built it like a fortress to withstand the nastier elements of a shore front location. It was built to withstand the frightful storms and winds that batter coastal regions from time to time and this as you can tell from the angry, jagged, feral nature of the rocks and cliff face was a particularly storm battered piece of coast.
Henry liked the seclusion of the cottage's wild remoteness. The cottage was straight out of a novel, picked up and made real by man's imagination. Not town planners, not housing associations, not Wimpey but a real, thinking person, thrusting urbanites have no clue a place like this even exists and that suited Henry down to the ground. He'd spent too long in cities and towns, elbowing commutors on tube trains and bashing briefcases and being poked by sharpened umbrellas and avoiding groups of lost, confused tourists and with the dirty, grey energy and the hustle & bustle and mass movement of hundreds of thousands of people.
When Henry was younger he'd joined in this chaotic scramble about the urban world but now that he was older, wider, or maybe more burnt out all he wanted was to be left alone as far away from Human life as it was possible to be. Especially after what the real world had done to Henry.
The cottage also came with a winding path down to the pebbly beach below which Henry now descended. It was the only way down to the beach without flinging yourself off the top or a precarious abseil down a jegged rock clifface. Henry wasn't about to do either of those things now but the state Henry had been left in by years of Urban hurly burly no one would have been surprised if Henry had taken the cowards short way down to the beach. Henry was in a much better place now though. His doctor was very pleased with his far cheerier demeanour. Perhaps swimming in the sea, baking bread and keeping bees was all the Human soul needed to be content. It's all Henry did and he was as happy as he'd been since childhood.
It was a long way down from his cottage at the top of the cliff to the beach, the stone steps were quite steep and it had been raining earlier in the night so they were wet enough to be dangerously slippery.
Henry negotiated the walk down the stone steps to the beach with an assured attention. You have to respect wet stone steps but if like Henry you made this journey every day you kind of get a feeling for how to make the journey relatively scare free and because Hery did make this journey every day he was comfortable enough with his experience of making his way down wet stone steps to make good, steady progress.
Henry liked his early morning routine, it was better than the one he'd left behind that's for sure. The only scrambling Henry did was too eggs as an energy reboot to go with a giant round of hot buttered toast, a whole pack of bacon, sausages, fried tomatos, baked beans, fried mushrooms, a huge bowl of porridge and as much fresh coffee as he could comfortably drink without bursting his bladder. But all this would wait til after.
After his swim. The sea was foaming away with a sort of idle threat, it had all of the appearance of a sea waiting for a likely sucker to take the plunge and dip a toe in the water before reacting furiously and having the toe dipper for it's own pleasure.
Henry though had become an experienced sea swimmer and he knew that if he paid the wild sea it's due respect then he would be able to make the most of it's wild fury. The waves lolled in over the pebbles, fizzing as it broke on the beach before retreating.
Henry waited until the surf broke in again, slipped off his overcoat, scarf and woolly hat and followed the water as it drained off the beach. It was cold but it had been now for a month and Henry was acclimatised to the cold and as you were taught at school dove straight in. Head first Henry submerged into the shallow water and followed it out until his feet couldn't stand on the sea bed and still be able to stick his head out of the water and swam out in a slow but determined front crawl towards the jagged piece of rock poking out of the sea about two hundred yards out.
It took him a good hour to make the short sea voyage to the rock. But that was about a par time for this time of year and he was happy enough to take a breather for twenty minutes and watch the seabirds circle and dive looking for their fishy breakfast for twenty or so minutes before heading make and making his own large, filling breakfast. He had loaves to make and wanted to get them in his oven before eight. It was a challenging timetable but it was about as challenging as it got during Henry's day these days. And he didn't really care a huge amount if he did make his deadline if he was honest but it did help him space his day nicely.
Henry said a farewell to his seabird friends and they responded by cawing wildly and swooping for fish. At least Henry choce to think they responded. They're birds after all they probably just cawed anyway.
Henry dived back in and made for his little pile of clothes on the beach, a dark black cloud was approaching from out at sea and Henry didn't especially want to be out swimming under that so he got a bit of shift on, making the return journey in well under an hour despite swimming against the current.
He swam until he got far enough to stand and then walked out of the sea. Henry was quite surprised, although his training meant he didn't show it, to find a man in a black suit holding his towel out to him.
"Morning Henry."
"What do you want?" Henry responded taking the towel from his visitor without too much of a hint towards courtesy.
"Now, now Henry can't an old friend drop by to see how an old colleagues doing?"
"No. No they can't. Again what do you want? And I'm not buying that whole old friends horseshit. You didn't like me and I didn't like you. You're a fucking arsehole."
"Henry, Henry. I'm offended. Ok maybe we weren't that close but respect. That's different. Uber-respect old mate, uber-respect. Best we've ever seen if you ask me."
"That's funny I don't remember asking. The key thing is even if I was the best ever, the important fucking word is fucking was. Was the best. Not anymore I'm out. So there really is no need for you to be here. You can fuck off back right now. And you still havn't answered the question."
"What question?"
"don't give me that fucking shit. You know you've been stalling. What the fuck do you want?"
"I've come to take you back. The old man needs you. He says it's urgent and you're the only man for the job. You can't say no to the old man Henry, you know that."
"No."
"Come on make it easy on yourself and come quietly."
"No."
"You really don't want me to come and make you come back."
"No."
"You wouldn't want that and I don't really want to do it."
"No."
"Come on Henry."
"No."
"I've come a long way, I've missed breakfast, I've nearly killed myself on those stone steps on the way down."
"No."
"And it's way too early to be pissing about argueing over whether you're coming back or not when you know that in the end, one way or another your are. So come on, we need you."
"Fucking no. You're not fucking listening. I said no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. A thousand million times no."
"Come on now Henry, let's not have any silliness. We want you back, we need you back."
"Thanks for that, obviously it's flattering to be wanted, needed even but I'll have to say. Thanks. But no thanks. Wild horses couldn't drag me back. I'm fine where I am and I'm retired. Fuck the old man and fuck you. So fuck off."
"No need for to make it nasty Henry. It was only a request. I'm told to use all possible means to bring you back."
"Well you'd better get your operational manual out then because I'm not fucking coming."
"Sounds like you leave me no choice Henry."
"Come and get it big boy."
"You really don't want me to do that."
"I'll be the fucking judge of what I want, remember I don't fucking work for you so fuck off you overgrown wardrobe."
Henry charged at the giant besuited figure standing calmly on the beach. Alas Henry either forgot that he was barefoot on wet pebbles or misjudged his opening gambit, the tall, box shaped, hulking stranger nimbly dodged to his left, Henry clumsily flopped about like a kipper, the stranger caught Henry under his armpits and delivered one sharp decisive blow with the outer palm of his free hand to the back of Henry's neck, Henry went to sleep, he would just have to wake up with a headache.
"Right. You're coming with me. Will they never learn. I fucking told him."
The stranger picked Henry's small pile of unsuitable clothes up, flopped Henry over his broad shoulders and left the beach up the wet, stone steps of the cliff face and off back to the real world.
Henry was going to be pissed. When he woke up.