Katie Fforde - Going Dutch

‘Ed will certainly be back; Tom, too, possibly; and Michael said he might come down as well. We'll see who's available.'

‘Michael should come. All this trouble is for his barge, after all.'

‘Was it a lot of trouble?’

Jo blustered. 'Sorry! Did I sound ungrateful? It's just when Michael lent me the barge he never said it would have to go anywhere.'

‘Not what you signed on for, you mean?'

‘No. And it took a lot of organisation and you had to work really hard.'

‘But this is my work. It's what I do, with Ed when necessary.’

She was about to comment that it was funny sort of work when she remembered that gilding cherubs wasn't a run-of-the-mill way to earn a crust either. 'I suppose so,' she said instead, and went down into what had been, until very recently, her bedroom.

It was full of his being: his smell, his things were scattered about, but mostly it was just him. Determinedly, Jo looked in the cupboard for clean sheets and a duvet cover. As she had sneakily taken her own, goose down pillow, when she'd first moved out, she would just swap it back. It would save on washing.

Marcus was not particularly tidy, she realised. Philip, her husband, had been on the verge of being obsessively organised. As Jo was anything but, it had been a point of conflict between them. Until his defection, she had always seen this difference as good – they balanced each other and stopped either becoming extreme. Since then she had wished the Floosie joy of his neat-nik ways.

There was a pile of change on the tiny folding table, and a heap of clothes in the corner. She was just wondering what, if anything, she should do about them, when he came down the steps and appeared behind her, bending his head so he didn't collide with the roof. The space had never been large, now it seemed slightly more cramped than a Wendy house.

‘I don't want you to do anything except find the sheets,' he commanded, 'It's a mess.'

‘It's OK.' Instantly Jo had to argue. 'It's only some dirty clothes.'

‘Yes, but you shouldn't have to deal with them. Go and relax while I change the sheets,' said Marcus, tugging at the duvet.

She and Marcus spent the rest of the morning reading and resting. At least, that was what Jo did. She revelled in the lazy pleasure of just lying around, doing very little. Marcus heated up leftovers for lunch which they ate drinking lager and reading their books. Afterwards, Jo went for a little walk thinking how restful Marcus could be, and how much of a surprise this was to her.

When she got back he said, 'Right, time to get ready.’

‘Get ready for what?'

‘I'm going to take you out to dinner.’

Frantically she tried to find a reason not to go. 'It's still early!’

He grinned at her. 'We may have to walk a long way to find somewhere nice.’

With the bathroom door locked, Jo looked at herself in the mirror and wished she'd had a chance to see if Carole had left anything useful behind. Some evening primrose would have been something. She didn't expect a girl of Carole's age would have anything really hard core, like red clover, but Jo felt so agitated she would have clutched at any straw – even extract of wheat-grass.

‘You're going to a restaurant to have a meal, at the same time, presumably at the same table,' she told herself. 'It is not remotely a date. You'll go halves.' Then a smile appeared. 'Going Dutch is the expression; how appropriate that it should happen while we're actually in Holland!' And then she began the anxiety-inducing experience of getting ready to go out with a man she really, really fancied without a single wild yam for support. The certain knowledge that he couldn't possibly fancy her, given his taste for young things, did not help.

The hard part was not looking as if she'd tried too hard, she decided, wiping off the eyeliner that had got out of hand. Definitely no blusher. That was bound to clash with her first hot flush that would come tonight, sure as eggs were eggs. She had caught the sun a bit, which brought out her freckles – that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it had also made her nose a bit red. Could she convert the red into the sun-kissed look she would have preferred? By the time she had put on and washed off a lot of make up she looked sort of OK, certainly healthy, and with enough eye make-up to bring attention to what were once her best feature. If they still were, when a fine mesh of laughter lines fanned out from the corners, she couldn't possibly say, but it was the best she could do. Jo couldn't help remembering that the last time Marcus had gone out to dinner with a woman, it had probably been with Carole. Looking over the table at a woman of fifty would be very different from gazing at twenty-something skin and bright, wide-open eyes. It wasn't that she was trying to compete -she couldn't possibly do that – she just didn't want the contrast to put Marcus off his dinner.

‘You look wonderful,' he said, when she appeared in the wheelhouse.

Jo clamped down her instinct to say something dis missive and forced a smile. 'Thank you, you're looking pretty cool yourself!’

Now she looked at him she realised that a plain white linen shirt tucked into a pair of navy chinos were indeed rather attractive. They set off his tan and his curly grey hair. She noted this with a disinterest that pleased her. Any woman would have found him attractive just then, not just one suffering from hormone-induced illusions.

Jo had been leaping on and off The Three Sisters for months with no problems. Somehow Marcus standing on the dockside holding out his hand to help her made it incredibly difficult. She stumbled, he caught her and didn't let her go. He took her arm and they set off along the quay as one, Jo wishing she didn't keep bumping into him.

‘Where are we going?' she asked, when she felt sure she could speak without revealing her swimming senses.

‘Into town. There's a nice little restaurant I know there. It's a bit of a step but we can take a taxi back.'

‘I wish I'd worn my pedometer,' she said and then felt foolish.

‘Your what?'

‘You know, it's a thing you wear on your belt, or in my case my knickers.. Oh, why had she mentioned her knickers? They were nothing to do with him! 'You're supposed to take ten thousand steps a day, but it's really hard because the pedometer doesn't register every step,' she wittered on. 'It doesn't like going up hills and if you're just moving around the house it doesn't notice at all. Very frustrating.'

‘I can imagine.’

Jo decided not to try to make conversation and managed to keep silent up until they reached a street that was full of wonderfully tipsy old houses and antique shops. 'Oh, heaven!' she said. 'Look at the way those houses are leaning out into the street! It's a wonder they don't fall down! And those windows! Do you suppose they have shutters on the inside, or you'd never have kept warm in winter. And look at these shops! Can I cross over?’

She'd had forgotten she was with Scary-Marcus or she would never have suggested zigzagging down the street, running from one shop window to another.

‘Is Dora right about them having flea markets in Holland, do you know?' she asked.

‘She certainly is.' Marcus sounded amused, as if he was humouring a young child, but Jo found it endearing.

‘It's just I've started repairing small decorative items for Miranda's shop-'

‘I know.’

‘

. . . and if I could find some items for myself while I'm over here it wouldn't be such a waste of time.'

‘Waste of time?' His eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked down at her.

She smiled up at him, a little rueful. 'Did that sound rude? It wasn't meant to, but you know what I mean.'

‘You mean hanging round in Holland with me would be too boring for words.’