Jo awoke the following morning with a sense of doom so deep she had to check that no one had died. The moment she was properly awake she realised why: her ex-husband was going to be a father again and she had committed herself to going on a trip that genuinely terrified her. She got up, determined to clamber out of this Slough of Despond before anyone noticed she was in one. Her strange, personal ladder was to cook an old-fashioned Sunday lunch. It involved soothing, familiar tasks and the stress at the end always gave way to a sense of triumph. She needed to feel in control again.
Dora, unaware of Jo's different priorities, was intent on planning the trip to Holland.
‘So, where are we all going to sleep?' she asked. 'If Marcus has your cabin – are you sure you have to give it to him?’
‘Yes,' said Jo, who was peeling carrots. 'He has to be near the action, and it's quiet and comfortable.'
‘OK, then you must have my double cabin, I'll have the single, but where will Tom go? On the sofa?'
‘He could, but I'm not keen. I suppose we should clear out the glory hole.' She bit her lip at the prospect. She had managed to more or less ignore this space since she'd moved on to the boat, apart from the few ghastly times when its door had been opened during the parade of boats, and didn't really want to attack it now, when she had so many other things on her mind.
‘But where would we put all the stuff?' Dora asked. 'If it's Michael's, we can hardly throw it away. If only boats had attics. I don't think we saw a single barge with attic space, although they had everything else.’
Jo smiled in spite of her preoccupations. 'I'll email Michael and ask him. Really,' she went on, sounding less amused, 'I hate to sound ungrateful, but if Michael had lent me a country cottage he wouldn't have been able to ask me to move it, or with it.'
‘No, but he could have asked you to have the dry rot seen to, or some such. That would have been much worse.'
‘True.' Jo wondered if she should confide her terror to Dora but decided not to. 'But this trip to Holland is causing us both a lot of work.'
‘But it's going to be such fun!' Dora insisted, trying to conjure up some enthusiasm for them both. 'Tom was so thrilled when I rang him about it last night. He's coming over later to see how the plans are going.'
‘He's coming to check that I haven't chickened out, more likely,' said Jo. 'But if he's coming, he can help us shift stuff. His reward is Sunday lunch.'
‘I'll ring him. Why don't you email Michael and ask if we can chuck his rubbish?’
Jo regarded her young friend with her head on one side. 'I don't remember you being this bossy when you were a little girl, Dora.'
‘I've grown up a lot since then,' said Dora, 'and I learnt a lot from Karen.' She frowned. 'I think the real reason was that I let my mother make all those wedding arrange ments, and I never argued with her once. She chose the style of dress, the flowers, what sort of a reception we should have, everything. This was her day, I thought, John and I have the rest of our lives. Then I realised that I didn't want the rest of my life with John, and that I musttake control a bit.' She grinned. 'Which was why I ran away to live with you. A surrogate mother cooking Sunday lunch!’
Jo laughed. 'Except there seems to have been a bit of role reversal,' she said. 'Go and ring Tom. I'll try emailing Michael.’
Dora went up on deck, where the reception was better, to do this. She reflected what a really good friend Tom was. He not only made her have a lot of fun but he was really supportive, sort of like an older brother. Of course, Dora reminded herself, she didn't want anything else from him – that would make things far too complicated.
As Jo had declined help with peeling the potatoes, Dora decided to tidy her cabin, which hadn't had much attention since she'd started her job. She stowed away the bits and pieces that she had bought yesterday, wondering what would happen between her and Tom if either of them did want a relationship. He was a normal, healthy male, he was bound to want a girlfriend sooner or later. He wouldn't want Dora hanging around then.
A bag of woolly socks that she had last worn at school got filed neatly in the waste-paper basket. Her mother had made her take them, convinced that boats were all freezing cold, even in summer. She must be on the alert. If she got any hint from Tom that he fancied anyone else, she must make it clear that it was fine by her – she just wanted to enjoy being single for a while.
Jo came to her door. 'Michael was on-line, luckily, and he says we can throw away anything we like as long as Marcus doesn't think it might be useful.'
‘For goodness' sake! How are we expected to second-guess what Marcus will think! I wish I'd met him,' Dora added. 'It would make it much easier.’
Jo laughed. 'I expect we'll be able to tell if there's anything we might need to keep. Michael says we can put things we're not sure of in the forepeak.'
‘What's that?' asked Dora, horrified.
‘It's a tiny little cabin up the front end. It's a vertical glory hole. Instead of stuffing things in, you just drop them down. Like an oubliette, only for clutter, not people. There's stuff that's been there since before Michael bought the boat, I'm sure.'
‘You know what Karen would say..
‘And what you're going to say..
‘We should clear out the forepeak as well, and then we've got it if Marcus needs to bring anyone else along.’
Jo sighed. 'Let's consult with Tom, and I'll cook lunch.'
‘You're just trying to get out of clearing out the forepeak!'
‘You've got it, sweetheart, but I took a lovely joint out of the freezer yesterday. I thought I might need to cook a proper roast today.' Aware that her strategy was working and she was now feeling a lot more cheerful, Jo con gratulated herself on her foresight.
Dora, who had finally picked up the fact that Jo was doing a roast dinner for therapeutic reasons, hoped it would include Yorkshire pudding, even if it was lamb.
Tom joined Dora when she was standing in the corridor of the barge, surrounded by bits of plywood, old life jackets, several rusted navigation lights that could have come off the Queen Mary, piles of rope and tins of patent rust remover.
‘Hi!' she said. 'You're just in time to tell me how much of this we can chuck and how much is useful.’
He looked at the heaps around her feet. 'Well, I wouldn't actually chuck anything, just sell it on eBay.'
‘We haven't time to fiddle about selling things on eBay! And do you think we should clear out the forepeak?' It wasa relief that she didn't have to explain what this was. 'Do you think we might need it? How many people will Marcus want helping, do you think?'
‘Well, he won't want passengers, that's for sure. But he'll want people who can steer, as well as handle a rope.’
‘Can you steer?'
‘Think so. Haven't tackled anything this size, though. It shouldn't make a difference, but it might.'
‘This lifebuoy looks terribly old,' said Dora, picking up a shabby orange horseshoe-shaped item with grey nylon tapes dangling from it.
‘Marcus will say, and I agree, it looks ancient. I'm not sure if they have use-by dates, but if they have, that's definitely past it. What else have you got in there?' He peered round the corner of the door. 'There's still a lot of stuff in here.'
‘Lots of that is Jo's. I'm only dealing with the stuff that's obviously boat-orientated. Do you want to look in the forepeak? It may be beyond us.'
‘Nothing is beyond us,' said Tom grandly, and disappeared.
He reappeared with the air of someone who'd just decided to row the Atlantic single-handed: he might live to regret it but it was the right thing to do. 'I do think we should clear it out. It could be a useful cabin. I think Marcus quite often brings someone he knows, in case no one on board can do anything.' He sighed. 'Now that's a job I'd like.'
‘What?'
‘Working for Marcus.'
‘I thought you were a boat-builder.'
‘I am, but anything to do with boats suits me.'
‘As long as that includes clearing them out,' Dora teased. He grinned. 'I'm afraid I'll need help with the forepeak.
I'll need someone to help haul the stuff up. We'll make a pile on the deck and decide what to do with it. If necessary, I'll borrow Hamo's van and take it to the tip.'
‘Hamo has a lot of vehicles,' said Dora, remembering the VW Beetle.
‘Yes. He sort of collects them. Or rather, people let him have them and he does them up. He's supposed to sell them on but he can never bring himself to.’
Having reassured Jo that they weren't just abandoning work on the cabin and were going to sort out the forepeak, they went upstairs and out on to the deck.
‘I wonder if Jo knows how many people Marcus will need or if he'll bring his special person,' said Dora, peering down the hatch of the forepeak dubiously.
Tom chuckled, 'I don't suppose he'll be that special. Just a horny-handed old salt.'
‘It might be a glamorous girl who's a dab hand at steering.' She chuckled. 'Or Carole.'
‘I'm sure Carole isn't a dab hand at steering.'
‘You don't know that! Just because she's young and pretty, it doesn't mean she's an idiot.'
‘I know that-'
‘And I'd have thought with your encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dutch barge world, you'd know who he usually took with him.’
Tom sighed, obviously peeved that this top item of barge-gossip hadn't ever reached him. 'I haven't actually met Marcus. I only know him by reputation.'
‘Well, if you're just all talk, let's get this cabin sorted out. Then we can put all the stuff for the tip together. You go down.’
Between them they hauled a large amount of what Tom defined as 'used timber', which meant off-cuts and sheets of marine ply with sections missing. Eventually the fore-peak was sufficiently empty of everything – mouldy mattresses, rotting rope and a huge quantity of paint, the lids permanently seized to the cans – for Dora to join Tom in it. She picked her way down the ladder carefully.
‘It smells,' she said, looking around.
Tom was indignant. 'You'd smell if you'd been full of all this junk for years.'
‘I wasn't being insulting, I was just stating facts. We need something to wash it all down with. Oh, hand me that dustpan would you? Is it damp because something's leaking, or because it was full of damp stuff?'
‘I don't know! What do you need to clean it with? You stay here and I'll go and ask Jo for it.’
Jo was feeling red-faced and harassed when Tom arrived in her kitchen demanding cleaning products. It was a definite improvement on feeling frightened and depressed.
‘Have a look in that cupboard there. I can't help you, I'm afraid, I've just discovered I've got to peel a whole lot more potatoes.'
‘Right.' Tom, apparently missing the significance of this, crouched down and began sorting through bottles of highly fragranced fluid guaranteed to get rid of stubborn limescale and kill all known germs. 'You don't happen to know who Marcus is bringing with him on the trip, do you? If he's happy with just me, we probably won't need the forepeak.'
‘You can ask him yourself,' said Jo, not feeling nearly as calm as she sounded. 'He's coming to lunch.'
‘Yikes,' said Tom, borrowing an expletive from Dora's vocabulary. He removed his head from the cupboard. 'When did this happen?'
‘He just rang up. He wants to check things, the fuel tanks mostly. Michael says they should be fine but Marcus won't take chances. I do wish Michael was here.' Ever since the break-up of her marriage, Jo had told herself she couldn't rely on men and didn't need to. But maybe doing without them completely took practice and she hadn't been single all that long. 'I didn't have to ask him to lunch, of course, but as I was cooking it, the invitation sort of came out.'
‘Shall I get Dora?' Tom had straightened up and was looking at her with such concern, Jo made a big effort to smile.
‘Oh no. You two carry on. But if there was a moment to get the things out of the corridor down here, so the bathroom's accessible, that would be terrific.’
Tom left, clutching a barrage of bottles, a scrubbing brush, a bundle of rags that Jo had rescued from the engine room, and the news that the myth that was Marcus was soon to he made flesh.
Jo stood in her galley considering lunch. There would be enough meat if she carved thinly. She'd already peeled extra potatoes but was it lunacy to try and roast them when she only had one oven? Sunday lunch therapy, which had worked for her so well when she lived in a house with a Rayburn and a conventional oven, seemed to have lost some of its beneficial properties. Was it because Marcus was coming and she wanted to live up to the reputation he had bestowed on her that she was a good cook that she was extra worried? She certainly wanted to be good at something when she was going to be so utterly useless on the boat trip. She looked at her watch for the hundredth time, hoping it held the answer to all her questions.
‘Would you like me and Tom to go to the shops for you?' said Dora, who had appeared while Jo was audibly going through her store cupboard in her head. 'Tom told me that Marcus is coming for lunch too. We need somehard-core cleaning products in that cabin, which includes gloves.'
‘Oh yes, could you? I've been caught on the hop, rather. It would have been fine if it had just been you and Tom but Marcus – well, Marcus is a guest. He'll need pudding.' She remembered how much he had liked the Eton Mess. It was a shame she couldn't do it again – it was so easy.
‘I'll make a list.'
‘Do you think he's a custard or a cream man?' Jo asked a few moments and half a shopping list later.
‘I haven't met him, Jo. Why not get both? Then if he doesn't like cream we can have strawberries another day.'
‘Thank you, Dora, you're a star. Now, you'd better take my card to pay for all this, and you'd better get some cash as well.'
‘But you can't tell me your pin number!'
‘Darling Dora, I've known you since you were a little girl. I think I can trust you.’
After Dora had gone, Jo rushed up on deck and shouted across the water to her and Tom. 'Gravy granules! I can't do without Mother's Little Helpers.’
'I do wish Jo had been a bit more specific than just "red wine" ', said Dora, looking at the rows of bottles in the wine aisle. 'I don't know much about wine.'
‘I'll choose it if you like,' said Tom.
‘You drink home-made wine a lot of the time. I'm not sure I trust your palate.'
‘My palate is fine, we just don't want to spend too much of Jo's money. Although I will buy a bottle. I ought to. I'm always having meals with you two.'
‘That would be nice but we still haven't decided what to have. John always chose the wine when we went out. I just drank it.'
‘Mm,' said Tom speculatively, in a way that made Dora glance anxiously at him.
‘But I can read a wine list as well as anyone! Honestly, you've got me so I daren't say anything in case you turn it into a dare.’
He laughed. 'I promise to give you lots of warning when I do it next time. I do admit that the first two were rather sprung on you.'
‘Kinda!'
‘You know one of them is to go to a festival?'
‘How could I forget?' said Dora trying to sound breezy and unconcerned.
‘So you can't say I've sprung that one on you. It's just a shame I haven't managed to get tickets for the one I really wanted to take you to.'
‘That is a shame.’
Tom gave her a sideways glance but let the subject drop. Dora was sure he knew exactly how unenthusiastic she felt about music festivals. She was glad that he changed the subject. 'Do you know why Jo decided to cook Sunday lunch today? It seems a bit barking to me, when she obviously doesn't do it every Sunday.'
‘Well, I'm not a mind reader, but I think it's to do with yesterday.'
‘Yesterday?’
Dora nodded, picking up a bottle of red that was part of an offer. 'What about this? It's a bogof.'
‘I'm all for buy-one-get-one-free.' He took the bottle from Dora and inspected the label. 'So what did you do yesterday?'
‘We went back to her old home. It was horrid for her. She didn't say much but I could tell she felt as if her past hadbeen swept away by her husband's new girl. It really shook her confidence. I think the big meal is a way of reminding herself that she does have skills.'
‘But of course she's got skills! What about that restoration stuff she's doing?’
Dora shook her head and loaded the trolley with bottles. 'I know. I think the cooking thing represents what she did before and she wants to prove she isn't rubbish at it, or something.' The fact that Jo hadn't been able to have more than one child probably made her feel pretty worthless, she reflected, although she didn't share that thought with Tom. She also didn't think he was very interested in Jo's psyche but he was polite enough not to look bored. 'If we get six bottles there's quite a good discount, and it'll come in handy.'
‘I don't know if we should buy six bottles of wine with Jo's money,' Tom objected. 'I know, we'll buy three and she can buy three, then we don't have to feel guilty about eating with her all the time.'
‘I don't feel guilty,' said Dora primly. 'I'm a lodger. My meals are thrown in.'
‘I'll pay for the extra wine then. What else is on the list?’
‘Something to make crumble with, but we mustn't be too long. There's still all that stuff in the passage.’
The stuff had all been crammed back into the glory hole. The cabin had been hoovered and the table was set. Jo was kneeling on the floor staring into the oven as if it contained the secrets of the universe when Dora and Tom came back.
‘What are you hoping to see?' asked Tom curiously.
Jo sighed, slammed the oven door shut and got to her feet. 'The meat is already resting and now I'm trying to decide if the potatoes will ever brown or if I should take them over to Tilly's. She's got a fabulous state-of-the-art cooker. Did you get the wine? Goodo. Let's open a bottle. I'll need it for the gravy, anyway.'
‘We bought six bottles. There was a discount. But Tom's paying for three of them.' Dora looked at Tom, waiting for him to get his wallet out.
‘Oh no, don't pay for the wine!' Jo flapped at him as he reached into his back pocket. 'You're clearing out the forepeak, and coming with us to Holland – if Marcus agrees of course. I think you've earned some wine.'
‘Oh God, Jo! You've cleared the passage! We were going to do it!'
‘I got in a panic. He'll be here in a minute. You could organise it a bit better in the glory hole, so it looks as if it could be somewhere to sleep, eventually.'
‘I bought some flowers,' said Dora. 'They definitely are a present. They were reduced,' she added. 'So I bought two bunches.'
‘You honey! They're just what we need! Thank you so much. Put them in a jug. I think there's one that would suit.’
Dora put the irises in a jug, as instructed. Tom opened a bottle of wine and stowed the other bottles in the rack that was built into the worktop. Jo opened the oven door again. 'It's no good,' she said. 'I'm going to Tilly's with these. They're never going to get brown.’
Dora edged Jo out of the way and had a look. 'He's not even here yet. You're not going to put lunch on the table the moment he appears, you'll give him a drink first. I should think you've got time for them to brown. Why don't you take a glass of wine into the back cabin and make yourself tidy?’
Jo looked at Dora. 'You know, I think it's a good thing you've got bossy since moving in with me. Tom, pour me a glass of something soothing.’
It was cooler in her cabin. Jo put down her glass and burrowed in a locker for her make-up bag. Since the parade of boats, she had kept everything hidden away. When Marcus had inspected his quarters, she'd set up her dressing table again. It was only the surface area of a box of tissues, but she liked having a hairbrush and a lipstick to hand.
Now she tipped her make-up out on to the bunk and found the tube of cream that Karen had given her: 'Guaranteed to lift your eye-bags, Mum.' Sadly, she felt nothing could do that but as the cream did seem to encourage her make-up to stay on a bit longer, she found it useful.
Next she applied another expensive product, paid for by her, this time. This 'contained light-reflective particles', and a whole list of technical-sounding chemicals which promised youth-enhancing improvements 'to the dark circles and puffiness' under her eyes. She didn't really think you could apply youth from the outside, via a beautiful little pot, but she did it anyway, more from superstition than anything else.
Meeting her ex-husband's new woman yesterday, and knowing that Marcus also had a very much younger partner, made the normal insecurities that every woman has about their appearance even worse. She wasn't just keeping her end up with other women of the same age, she was trying not to look like a hag, knowing it was almost impossible, given her age. Compared to Samantha and Carole, she was bound to.
She sprayed herself with Chanel No. 19. As Karen had used to borrow this from her, she presumed it wasn't an old-lady scent. Then she dipped her fingers in a hair product also filled with gravity-defying properties, and teased at her curls. Why hadn't she noticed sooner how badly her hair needed cutting?
‘Jo?’
Dora's tentative voice made Jo put down the nail scissors just in time. 'Yes?'
‘A pinger has just gone. Do you want me to do something?'
‘No, I'd better come.’
Hastily, she hid everything again, and then went to see what had gone on in the galley while her back had been turned.