Going Dutch

by Katie Fforde

  ‘So sorry!' Dora appeared smelling of shower gel, her hair wet and curly. She picked up a slice of toast and put it into her mouth whole. 'You should have woken me earlier,' she mumbled.

  Jo smiled. 'You need your sleep. I know you were in late.' She felt a pang of envy for youth, which allowed you to sleep as long as you needed to.

  ‘Oh, did I wake you?’

  Jo hurried to reassure her. 'Oh no, not at all. I just happened to be awake when you got in, that's all. More toast? You might as well, I've made it already.’

  Obligingly Dora took it.

  ‘Did you have a nice time last night? It was better than I expected, I must admit,' said Jo.

  ‘Definitely. The quiz was really fun!'

  ‘Quizzes are always better when you win them, though we liked it too. What's Avocet like?'

  ‘Very sleek. Nice, but not quite enough like a boat for me.' Dora frowned. 'It's strange but I had had nothing to do with boats before a couple of days ago and now I think I could get to really like them.'

  ‘They do grow on you. The Three Sisters feels like home now.' Jo wiped at the couple of crumbs that had fallen from Dora's toast. 'Now, can I be rude and ask if you left the bathroom tidy?’

  Dora nodded, chewing the other slice of toast. 'Spick and span. I even wiped out the washbasin with my towel.' She swallowed. 'I've got another if using the washing machine is difficult.'

  ‘It's not, and I've got loads of towels too. I'd just bought a new lot when Philip… Philip did what he did, and I couldn't bear to leave them. I love towels.' The thought thatperhaps she should work in a towel shop or a major department store flitted in and out of her mind like an itinerant butterfly.

  ‘OK, well, I'll wash up. Then what would you like me to do?' Dora asked as she got up from the table.

  ‘Make the brownies?’

  Dora had obviously forgotten about the brownies. 'Oh yes. I'll put the oven on now. Where's the chocolate? And nuts? They won't be ready if anyone turns up at eleven. It is eleven, isn't it?’

  Jo nodded. 'But apparently if you close the door to your boat no one can come on. It's to give you a chance to see other people's boats.'

  ‘But you won't want to do that immediately, will you?' Dora appeared disappointed.

  ‘Oh no,' Jo assured her. 'We've worked this hard, we're going to open for business.' Her eyes widened in horror. 'Oh my God! Look at those cobwebs! How can I have missed them?'

  ‘I expect they came in the night,' said Dora, ripping open packets of chocolate and throwing them into a heatproof bowl.

  ‘You're very quick with those brownies. You've obviously made them before.'

  ‘Oh yes. I used to make them for John all the time. When he gets another girlfriend I must give her the recipe.’

  ‘Will you know if he gets another girlfriend?'

  ‘Of course. Everyone will tell me, don't worry.' Dora realised this was the first time in weeks she'd been able to mention John's name without wanting to burst into tears. Maybe I've finally turned a corner, she thought with relief. A night out with people who didn't know her or her history, and with whom she could just be herself, had been wonderfully settling.

  Jo had dealt with the cobwebs, catching them in a bit of kitchen towel, but had found a patch of mildew she hadn't noticed before, and was scrubbing at it with an old toothbrush when the first guests came.

  ‘Hello! Anybody aboard?’

  Jo rushed up to the wheelhouse to usher the couple in. She recognised them from the previous night but had no clue what their names were. 'Hello!' she said warmly. 'How lovely to see you!’

  They were a couple a bit younger and quite a lot thinner than she was. Sadly, not only could Jo not remember their names, she couldn't remember if she'd liked them. Being younger and thinner was only forgivable in nice people.

  They were certainly friendly. 'Hello, Jo. All right after last night?’

  What had happened last night that she might not be all right? Maybe they were just asking if she had a hangover. She smiled gaily, hoping she hadn't appeared drunk. 'Absolutely fine. You?’

  The woman grimaced. 'Bit fragile. But you didn't have brandy after the coffee, did you?'

  ‘No. I'm sorry, I can't remember, which is your barge?'

  ‘We haven't got one. We're thinking of buying one though, so we're doing our research,' said the man. 'Can I look at the engine?’

  Jo indicated the square of metal that covered the engine compartment. She hadn't penetrated this space yet, having decided against it when she saw she had to step sideways down a vertical ladder to reach it. She had no idea if the engine room was like an operating theatre or a midden and she didn't much care. She'd abnegated all responsibility in that area. 'Help yourself.’

  The man swung back the heavy cover and looked down the abyss. 'Hm. Got a boiler suit I can put on?’

  Jo rummaged in the lockers under the seats that were built in round the table and produced one. It was Michael's. She had stuffed all signs of him into the locker when she had first arrived and was feeling particularly anti-men.

  Jo turned to his wife. 'You don't want to see the engine room, do you?' The woman was wearing white trousers and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. She shook her head. 'I want to see the cabin, where they would have lived in the old days.'

  ‘That's where I live now,' said Jo, trying not to resent the woman for looking good in a top that should have put pounds on her.

  But her little cabin was a picture, she decided. It had looked neglected and unloved when she had first moved on to the barge because Michael had always slept in the cabin Dora now had. But Jo had fallen in love with this little space and she'd made it her project. The redecorating had helped rid her of the sense of worthlessness Philip's desertion had left her with.

  Now, she lifted the wooden shelf that disguised the double doors as panelling, and ushered her guest down the three steep steps to the cabin. She felt proud and a little protective of her efforts. It had a thick, deep red carpet that instantly made it feel cosy and yet because of the white-painted tongue-and-groove boarding of the walls and ceiling and four large portholes, light danced over all the surfaces, making it a little sunlit haven.

  There was a double bunk, that could be taken apart to make a table, but Jo had got so fed up with sleeping on a ridge that she had bought a four-foot mattress. She wouldn't need to convert the bed to a dining table when she had the whole of the rest of the barge to dine in. The bed was covered with a patchwork bedspread she had brought from home, because it had been made by her mother and was, therefore, hers.

  Behind the panelling were lots of little cupboards and storage spaces that were fine for the separate, non-iron clothes that Jo lived in these days. There was even a tiny en-suite bathroom behind one door. The whole space became a shower unit, although Jo had never investigated how this worked as, owing to lack of headroom, you had to sit on the loo while you washed. She did use the washbasin and loo and had now put a little vase of flowers on the shelf. There was another vase of flowers in the bedroom part and all her clothes were stuffed away in the cupboards.

  ‘All it needs is a little stove,' she said to Mrs Stripy-Top, 'and it would be perfect.'

  ‘Where would you put a stove?' the woman asked, more appalled than curious.

  ‘I think it must have gone where this plate on the ceiling is.' Jo frowned. 'I'm not sure it's called a ceiling. Boats are strange places.’

  Mrs Stripy-Top laughed, and Jo decided to forgive her for being younger and thinner. After all, she did have smoker's lines round her mouth – she wasn't perfect.

  ‘So, are you looking forward to having a barge?' Jo asked.

  ‘I think so. I love your little curtains for the portholes. Two sets of curtain track! So diddy!'

  ‘I know. I'm not a net-curtain person, generally, but when I saw the two sets I just had to have some.' Michael hadn't bothered with them because he used one of the other cabins. 'There's a shower you can stand up in down the other en
d, too.'

  ‘I'd love to see.’

  Jo decided to make a confession. 'I'm terribly sorry, I've completely forgotten your name.'

  ‘Terri – and my husband's Donald.’

  Did she look hurt that Jo hadn't remembered? Jo didn't think so. 'Terri, such a pretty name, how could I have forgotten. Come and see the rest of it. Dora, my lodger, barge-mate or whatever you call it, is making brownies. I wonder if they're cooked?' If she got a job in a tearoom, she'd have to ask Dora for the recipe.

  The smell of chocolate wafted out of the saloon in a satisfying way, and it looked immaculate, to Jo's eyes anyway.

  ‘Well, this is the saloon, where everything happens,' she announced.

  ‘It's very – cosy,' said Terri, obviously unable to think of anything else to say.

  Jo couldn't think of anything either. 'Dora,' she said, brisker than she meant to be. 'Those brownies smell heavenly. Are they ready yet?'

  ‘I'm afraid not.' Dora was apologetic. 'About another fifteen minutes I think.’

  Feeling despair creeping over her, Jo said, 'I'll show Terri the bathroom. I wonder if Donald's OK in the engine room?' If he wasn't, how, she wondered, would they get him out up the vertical ladder? The bathroom passed muster. Dora had hidden her wet towel and the towels that were left were neatly folded over the rail. The loo seat was down and there were no traces of toothpaste on the taps. There were definitely advantages to living a man-free life, reflected Jo as Terri exclaimed at finding a bathroom big enough to have a washing machine in it. Philip could never brush his teeth without spitting on the taps.

  ‘And what's in here?' asked Terri, pushing open a cabin door before Jo's shriek of horror reached her.

  ‘Don't go in there-’

  Going in there was not an option. This tiny single cabin was the glory hole, where everything that hadn't got a home was put, where anything anyone had got bored with was stuffed, where the bag of rubbish Jo had mysteriously lost now presented itself.

  ‘I only rent this boat,' said Jo, having pulled the door shut with the nearest thing to a slam she could manage, given that a heap of old clothes had got in the way. 'Michael, who owns it, told me not to go in here.'

  ‘Oh,' said Terri. 'Like the room in "Bluebeard". He hasn't been married lots of times, has he?’

  Jo laughed and relaxed a little. 'Only about one and a half times, so that's all right.' She was about to add, 'How about you?' out of habit, but managed to stop herself in time. 'Let's see if the brownies are cooked. I could do with a chocolate fix.’

  The brownies were out of the oven, but hadn't had time to set. Jo didn't care, and insisted on serving them while they were still bendy. Donald had emerged from the engine room and proceeded to talk to Jo long and incom prehensibly about it. Her eyes glazed, she smiled and nodded and nibbled brownie-crumbs. Eventually voices from the wheelhouse brought her relief. 'I'd better let those people on board,' she said, and flew up the stairs again.

  ‘My husband helped himself to the engine room,' said a very young woman in a tight miniskirt and high-heeled shoes. 'Didn't fancy it myself.' She looked shy and uncom fortable, as if she'd rather be anywhere but on a barge.

  ‘Come down and have a brownie,' said Jo, spotting the reluctant partner of a barge fanatic. 'They're a bit soft still, but taste delicious.’

  *

  'Tell me they've all gone,' said Jo some time later, with her eyes shut. 'Tell me I don't have to answer any more questions, or apologise any more for the state of the little cabin.'

  ‘They've all gone,' said Dora, 'and now it's our turn to go and snoop around everyone else's boats. But you don't have to,' she added, regarding Jo's supine, possibly sleeping, form. 'We could just stay here.'

  ‘You wouldn't fancy going on your own?'

  ‘No.' Although she'd be disappointed to miss looking at all the other barges, Dora did not fancy inviting herself on board them, even if it was what everyone else was doing.

  Jo opened an eye. 'No, I want to get my own back,' she said. 'I'll just put another layer of slap on.'

  ‘I should straighten my hair, really.' Dora ran her hand over the curls that were usually ironed into obedience.

  ‘I like it curly,' said Jo. 'It makes you look delightfully dishevelled. Bed hair,' she added. 'Isn't that what's it's called?'

  ‘I don't know, but it sounds good.’

  Dora hoped that Jo wouldn't take too long putting on her make-up, and she didn't. She reappeared from the bathroom a few minutes later and said, 'Let the com petition beware. Now I'm going to open strange doors and run my finger over the surfaces looking for dust! Kim and Aggie have nothing on me!'

  ‘No one did that, did they?' Dora was horrified.

  ‘Well, no,' Jo conceded, 'at least, only metaphorically.’

  ‘Come on,' said Dora, not up to being metaphorical just then. 'Where shall we start?'

  ‘Let's find Bill and Miranda,' said Jo. 'We know them, it won't be so shy-making.’

  *

  The Hepplewhite was a replica Dutch barge that Bill and Miranda had had built a couple of years ago. Jo remem bered being told all this, and shared the information with Dora as they searched among the flotilla of visiting boats that were moored on a section of the river.

  ‘Oh, there it is,' said Dora. 'They've got it written in big letters on that thing at the back.'

  ‘It's a stern, Dora,' said Jo. 'I know very little about boats and what you call things on them, but I do know that much.'

  ‘I'll try and remember,' said Dora, penitent.

  ‘I'm so glad it's you,' said Miranda, when she saw them both. 'I'm not quite ready. I went on a bit of an antique hunt yesterday and I haven't found spaces for everything yet.'

  ‘Hello, Jo,' said Bill. 'And you must be Dora. Welcome aboard.’

  There was a huge rectangular table in the middle of the saloon and it was covered with boxes and carrier bags.

  ‘See what I mean?' said Miranda, who had ushered them down. 'This table takes apart completely and all the bits stow away, and the saloon looks much better when it's down, but there's all this stuff.'

  ‘Well, you bought it,' said Bill good-humouredly.

  ‘I got such a good deal, I had to have it. But that was the trouble, I had to have all of it and some of it is rubbish, really. Look at this mirror.' She picked up a little mirror with a very elaborate gold frame.

  ‘But it's adorable!' said Jo.

  ‘It's terribly damaged,' said Bill. 'It's not worth trying to restore. You might as well just chuck it.'

  ‘Oh, you can't!' said Jo, taking it from Miranda. 'It could be so pretty!'

  ‘But it is very tatty. Look, that cherub has lost a foot, you can't see what sort of flowers those were, and about eighty per cent of the curlicues are missing.' Miranda, whilst obviously agreeing that the mirror could be pretty, felt obliged to point out its many flaws.

  ‘I'm sure something could be done with it,' said Jo, still hanging on to it. 'What's the frame made of?'

  ‘Carved wood, decorated with gold leaf,' said Miranda. 'Very tricky to restore.'

  ‘And you don't know anyone who could repair it?'

  ‘It wouldn't be worth trying to track someone down, and it's a rare craft,' said Bill.

  ‘Then could I have a go?' asked Jo, reluctant to put the mirror down. 'It would be such fun and it's so sad to think of it just being chucked away, or given to a car-boot sale or something.'

  ‘Have you ever done anything like that?' asked Bill. 'It's not easy.'

  ‘I've never done anything precisely like this, but I used to enjoy restoring things. I had a book with techniques in it, like French polishing, lacquering, things like that. I'm stubborn really. I don't like to be defeated.'

  ‘But do you really want to spend all that time? It would take ages.' Bill picked up a box, obviously intending to put it somewhere else, and then put it back, defeated.

  ‘You used to make wonderful sugar flowers and things,' said Dora. 'Do you remember that ca
ke you made for Mum's fortieth? It was covered with flowers and butterflies.'

  ‘I'd been on a course,' said Jo. 'I used to go on a lot of courses.' She sighed, allowing nostalgia to make her sad for a moment.

  ‘Are you really interested in that old mirror?' Miranda seemed to sense the dip in Jo's mood.

  ‘Oh yes.' Jo brightened up. 'I love the old glass – it's really flattering.'

  ‘Then why don't you see what you can do? If it turns out well, I can put it in the shop and you can have the money. If you don't want to keep it,' said Miranda.

  ‘I can't really keep too much while I'm on The Three Sisters,' said Jo. 'And I don't even know if I can do it.' She couldn't decide if she wanted the challenge or felt daunted by it.

  ‘Have a go,' said Miranda encouragingly. 'And I have quite a lot of other bits and pieces that need restoring if it turns out you have a knack for it.'

  ‘Oh wow!' said Dora, finding a little dish with a recumbent nymph, currently without a head, along the edge. 'How would you repair her?'

  ‘Mm. Not sure,' mused Jo. 'I'd probably try to find another head of about the right size, to give me the basis, and then just fiddle and carve until she looked right.'

  ‘Tell you what,' said Miranda briskly. 'I'll put together all the things most in need of restoration and you can see what you can do with them. I must say,' she went on, 'I'll be thrilled if you do find you have a talent for it. Those small items are very collectable.'

  ‘I'll give it a go, and if I can't, well, you're no worse off.’

  ‘And now are you two going to look at my barge, or not?' asked Bill, sounding a little pathetic.

  ‘Oh yes,' said Dora. 'I'm looking forward to it.'

  ‘As long as I don't have to look at the engine,' said Jo. 'I don't do engines.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘They're all so different!' said Dora to Jo later as they walked along the jetty to where the next ladder down to the barges was. 'Imagine, a full-length bath with a separate shower in a boat!'