Katie Fforde - Going Dutch

‘Did I?'

‘Stay with me, Jo.' Marcus did have a very persuasive manner, Dora noted. 'I promise I'll be on my best behaviour.’

Jo smiled vaguely. 'OK then. Besides, I haven't got anywhere else to go.'

‘I won't let the fact that you're not running off at the first opportunity go to my head then.’

Dora laughed. 'They have lovely flea markets in Holland. I've read about them.'

‘And Amsterdam is a wonderful city. We can hire a car and go there.’

Jo, outnumbered, admitted defeat and as she now appeared relatively happy to stay, Dora wondered if she was transferring her own doubts and anxieties about the festival on to Jo.

She also wondered if she was the only one who had a sense that life was going to change for everyone after the trip to their final destination, the old Dutch town, Dordrecht, that had been there longer than Amsterdam.

Ed was going back to a new grandchild, Carole would be on the lookout for a new boyfriend and, possibly, provider. Jo was staying with a man who had been secretly known to them as 'Scary Marcus'. How would she cope? Would she mother him into submission? Somehow Dora didn't think so. Unlike many men, Marcus didn't appear to want to be mothered. On the other hand, that might just be the bold front he put on for the world. Dora felt protective of Jo, who had been so good to her in her hour of need, but she was a grown-up, she could make her own decisions.

Dora had another opportunity to check up on Jo the following morning, after breakfast, when she found her leaning on the gunwale, watching the world pass. She'd done her packing and was all ready to leap ashore when Tom gave the word, trying to push aside her own anxieties about the festival.

‘I can't believe how much like my expectations this is..

Jo gestured to the passing scene. 'It's so satisfying to see there really are windmills, and sheep grazing the walls of the dykes, and people on bicycles.’

`Mm.' Dora didn't want to talk about the scenery, she wanted to know about the characters on the stage. 'Are you sure you're going to be all right with Marcus? I don't have to go to this wretched festival, whatever Tom says.’

Jo laughed. 'Are you looking for an excuse to back out? I don't blame you. I wouldn't fancy it at all myself.’

Dora chuckled. 'Well, I am quite anxious about it -camping with Tom's weird friends as much as anything, but I do want to go. I definitely feel stronger since coming on this trip. I hate to use the word "empowered" but I am a bit.'

‘That's really good! And what about you and Tom? You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to.’

Dora laughed. 'You're just like my mother, you say you don't want to pry, but you're desperate for the details really.'

‘That's what Karen used to say. And I must say she told me the maximum she thought I could cope with, which, in her opinion, wasn't very much. You don't have to tell me any more.'

‘OK, well I do really like Tom. But I don't feel I should consider another relationship so soon and anyway, I'm not sure how he feels about me. What do you think?’

Jo threw up her hands in surrender. 'Honey, I'm not Solomon! I don't know. I think you should just take it day by day and see how it works out.' She looked very anxious so Dora let her off one hook only to put her on another one.

‘OK. So what about you and Marcus? Tom says the work might easily take longer than ten days. Will you be all right for that long before we come back for the trip home?’

Jo looked towards the wheelhouse, as if Marcus might hear her from over eighty feet and a noisy engine away. 'He does have a strange effect on me, but as I'm going to have the menopause at any minute, I'm not going to take any notice.'

‘What do you mean?' Dora had lowered her voice too, to match Jo's.

‘Just because I feel all sort of faint when I'm near him doesn't mean I fancy him, it just means I need some special seedy bread or something. A friend used to rub extract of wild yams into her breasts.'

‘Oh my goodness.'

‘I don't know if I could cope with that, but I can cope with Marcus. If I did fancy him it would be awkward, but it's just fluctuating hormones. Maybe I should buy a fan in case I start having hot flushes.’

Dora digested this. Aware she knew very little about the menopause and its effects she hadn't previously picked up that it might make you feel all faint round one particular man. However, she didn't feel in a position to say this to Jo, who obviously had all the facts at her fingertips.

They arrived at the old port of Dordrecht at teatime. While Marcus negotiated his way smoothly through the canals to the boatyard, all three women stood together and watched the houses pass. 'It's wonderful to have canals actually in the town like this, isn't it?' said Jo.

‘They have them in towns in England,' said Dora.

‘But not in the middle of them, like this. I think it's great. We can practically see into the windows.'

‘It's weird that they don't have net curtains, or only in some houses,' said Carole. 'You've only got the plants to stop you seeing everything.'

‘Spoilsports, aren't they?' said Dora mischievously. 'Oh! They're lifting the bridge for us! But who's operating it? I can't see anyone.'

‘Perhaps it's all automatic,' said Carole. 'You know, I've never been on a trip with Marcus before, and I quite like this boating malarkey. I might join a yacht club or something,' she went on. 'Learn to sail.'

‘There are some very fit blokes who go sailing,' said Dora. 'We went with some friends years ago and the blokes were fab! Really fit in the way you mean, Jo, but also really fit in the way me and Carole mean, and very tanned.'

‘Mm,' said Jo, 'you won't catch me doing that, fit blokes or not. And it looks like we've arrived. I'm going down below to make tea for Ed. Oh! Hear that carillon – the church bells playing a tune? I think I know that hymn.' She went below, humming to herself.

They'd all been too tired to do much more than pack, tidy up a little, plan their various onward journeys and fall into bed early.

‘Paying-off day, it's always a scramble,' said Ed, the following morning, handing Carole's bag up to her. 'Everyone wants to get home as soon as possible, the minute they've got their wages.' He patted his top pocket. 'In euros, too.'

‘You were lucky with the flights,' said Dora, partly wishing she was flying home with Ed and Carole instead of getting on a train to a music festival. Although she was happy that she was going with Tom. They had both been paid too, although they had protested vehemently that they hadn't expected anything.

‘Aye. And Marcus was excellent booking it all on the Internet,' went on Ed, pulling himself up the rungs set in the dockside and joining Carole on the top. 'Is the taxi here yet?’

As it wasn't, Dora stayed chatting up to him. 'What time will you be home?'

‘Not sure, but with luck I'll be there before the baby. That's the important thing. Did Marcus sort you out with a train?'

‘Yes, all on the Internet too. There's one that goes direct to the town.'

‘And you're sure you don't want to share our taxi to the station?'

‘I've still got things to do. We'll just walk up.’

Then the taxi arrived and everyone was suddenly waving, and saying goodbye, and 'See you in a fortnight!' and then Ed and Carole were gone.

There was hardly time to notice their absence before Jo was asking Dora for the hundredth time if she was OK camping. 'It's not the sort of thing you want to do without notice. We only went once and I spent a fortune in the camping shop buying bits of equipment.'

‘We'll have to be all right, but Tom says there'll be lots of shopping opportunities.'