Katie Fforde - Going Dutch

‘Say anything to me about what?' Marcus's voice caused both women to jump and emit small screams.

‘I'm going!' said Dora. 'Let me out of here!’

She pounded up the stairs to the wheelhouse where Jo and Tom were in charge. Tom was at the wheel and Jo was peering into the distance. She'd obviously had her 'nap' and Dora hoped she now felt calmer.

‘What on earth's the matter, Dora?' said Tom, blithely. 'Has the beast escaped? And if it has, did you close the door behind you? We don't want it up here.'

‘Oh God! This is worse than any beast! I think Carole is going to finish with Marcus although I begged her to wait until we got home. The trouble was Marcus appeared.'

‘He wanted a cup of tea,' explained Tom. 'I did offer to make it.'

‘Oh Lord, what will happen now?' said Jo. 'She is selfish sometimes.'

‘Actually we've been having a nice time down there. She's made a brilliant salad, and the lasagne's in the oven.'

‘Oh, fab! Did you find the garlic bread? It's next to the bags of frozen peas.' Jo hesitated. 'What did she find to make a salad out of? I haven't got any lettuce. We've used it.'

‘She's really imaginative when it comes to salad.’

‘That's good,' said Tom. 'I like salad.’

Jo and Dora looked at him. 'Real men don't like salad,' said Dora firmly.

‘That's right,' said Jo.

‘Rubbish. I like what I like.' Tom began whistling softly between his teeth, completely unabashed by the women's firm assertion that his liking for salad was somehow unmanly.

‘Well,' said Jo after a moment, 'I hope we don't find the salad all over the floor, if Macho Man here is so fond of it.' Dora chuckled. 'I do feel a bit sorry for Marcus, actually.’

‘Mm, being dumped is no fun,' said Jo.

Only Tom continued to whistle, unaffected by recent dumping experiences from either the dumper's or the dumpee's perspective.

Marcus seemed fairly unaffected too when he appeared in the wheelhouse holding a mug. 'Sorry, did anyone else want tea? I very selfishly just made one for me.'

‘I'm going to wait until we tie up and then have a big drink,' said Jo after a few seconds. 'I think I need one.’

‘Me too,' said Dora.

‘We're a good two hours away, Tom might need something before then,' said Jo, returning to her unofficial horizon-watching duties.

‘I'm fine for now, thanks.' Tom smiled at Dora and something in his smile made her blush slightly.

To her surprise, it was Marcus who came to her rescue. 'If you're not doing anything else, Dora,' he said, 'I think Carole could do with a hand down there. She wanted to know if Jo had a micro-plane grater. She wants to put ginger in the salad.'

‘I'll go and see,' said Dora and fled back down the stairs almost as fast as she'd come up them a few minutes earlier.

‘Well! What happened?' she said to Carole when she landed in the saloon. 'Did you finish with him?'

‘Yes! He was very calm about it. He said, "If you feel it's time to go I mustn't hold you back." He kissed my cheek. It was rather sweet.'

‘You don't mind that he didn't beg you to stay?' Dora felt that Carole might be the sort of woman who'd appreciate a bit of begging.

Carole laughed. 'Oh, Marcus doesn't beg. No, I was just pleased he wasn't too hurt really, because as you and Jo both said, it could have been terribly awkward. I'll sleep on the sofa tonight.'

‘Oh, good idea!'

‘So let's get this dressing made and then we should set the table,' said Carole firmly. 'And do you think we could open the wine yet?'

‘Definitely,' said Dora finding a bottle and a corkscrew simultaneously, 'although we won't be there for another couple of hours. I didn't think you did drink.'

‘Oh yes, just not all the time.’

Then a door opened at the top of the stairs. 'Any tea going?' called down Ed. 'When a man's been half drowned, he needs a cuppa.’

Ed's accident had changed things, somehow, and the women decided to stay down below during the last couple of hours of the trip. They had their separate reasons. Jo was quite frankly nervous and didn't want to see the huge ships and the occasional barge that made their vessel seem so tiny in comparison. Down below she could close her eyes and sip wine from time to time and pretend they were just on a jaunt.

Dora stayed because she didn't want to hang around Tom. Ed's accident really had made her see him in a slightly different light; she'd known he was fun and capable and had always respected him, but seeing him be so efficient, so thoroughly good in a crisis, made her realise just how worthy of respect he was. The accident had brought them much closer in some ways, but for Dora, their friendship had tipped into something a bit more unsettling than their previous mateyness had been.

Dora and Carole, who was keeping clear of Marcus for obvious reasons, did take a turn up at the bow together, but there wasn't a lot to see so they came back to the comfort of the saloon.

Jo had made snacks to keep the men going until they could eat properly, and tea flowed to such an extent that Jo began to worry about her tea-bag supply again.

‘Let's play cards,' suggested Carole, to Jo and Dora's complete surprise. 'Have you got any?'

‘Mm! Yes I have,' said Jo, springing up. 'I bought them, just in case. What shall we play? Old Maid?’

Dora and Carole looked at her in disbelief. 'Poker,' they said together.

‘I'll teach you,' added Dora kindly.

Rather to their surprise, Jo was not such a novice as they had expected and turned out to be very good at poker. By the time Tom called down to tell them they were missing all the fun, she had enough matchsticks to set her up in a nice little flat somewhere, if only they'd been exchangeable for cash.

They had heard the engine note change and their speed slacken right down and wondered what was going on. Jo used the excuse of putting all the matches back in the boxes not to rush up and see, but both younger women went up when Tom called.

The engine manoeuvres gave Jo mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety. It seemed amazing that in the early, early hours of that morning they'd still been in England, and now they were in Holland. They had another half a day to go before they reached Dordrecht, their final destination, but tonight they would tie up in a foreign country. Excitement sent her up the stairs just as they turned into the lock. She immediately went outside, not wanting to be in the way or, worse, called upon to do something she didn't understand. She stood next to Ed, where she felt safe.

‘It's enormous!' she said to him, referring to the lock. 'I've only ever seen locks on canals at home, or on rivers. They seem so tiny in comparison.’

Ed chuckled. 'This is small compared to some of them we'll see later. And not much rise to it, either.’

She forced herself to stand there and watch and not scuttle back down below. The trouble was, she was tiredand unsettled by lots of things, and in that mood she was extra liable to feel nervous. She glanced at Marcus in the wheelhouse. He was chatting on the VHF, and then to someone on the lock side. He was completely in control of the situation, a fact that didn't make him any less attractive.

Carole was with Tom, holding a fender, and he was making her laugh. Jo could see Dora holding one some where else. Did Dora mind that she couldn't join them and stop Carole snatching him from under her nose? Jo shook her head to try and force some reality into her brain. She really must track down some good supplements when she got home, something that would control her wretched hormones that needed a Richter scale to measure the soaring highs and lows. She wouldn't go as far as having HRT, not unless she really needed it, but she'd heard good things about black cohosh, wild yams and evening primrose. She'd always been very bad about taking vitamins but if she was going to feel like a teenager in the presence of a perfectly ordinary man, she had to do something. She'd preferred it when she'd had good reason to dislike him but now she had to admit he was actually being quite nice again and it unsettled her once more.