Katie Fforde - Going Dutch

She smiled. 'The clues were quite easy.'

‘Well, sit down. I've got to do some digging.'

‘Digging?’

`Mm.' He picked up a spade that was stuck in the ground, went to where the trees were closest together' and started sending clods of soil into the air. Eventually he pulled out a bottle of champagne. He brought it over.

‘My dad's always going on about old-fashioned picnics where you bury the champagne three days before so it's cold. I only buried it this morning, but it was cold when it went in, so it should be all right.’

Dora sat on the rug, feeling a little shy. Tom produced a couple of stainless steel mugs from the hamper. 'I got these in India, when I went with school. They sold them by weight.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, I picked them out, and to find out the price they weighed them.'

‘Cool. You are lucky, going to India with school.'

‘You could go to India, if you wanted. Now, hold the mugs, I'm going to open this.'

‘But what are we celebrating?'

‘You achieving all your dares, of course. You're now officially a Brave Person.' He smiled at her but his eyes were serious. The champagne flowed into the mugs and he handed her one. 'Here's to you,' he said.

‘And to you.' They touched their mugs together and both sipped. Tom's gaze was intense. 'You were going to give me a prize,' she said lightly, setting down her mug, thinking that this was the prize, this lovely picnic.

‘I have got a prize for you, but you have to have it after lunch. Hang on, I'll put on another record.'

‘How on earth did you get all this stuff here? And I love the gramophone! It's the perfect touch.'

‘A ghetto-blaster wouldn't have quite created the atmosphere I'm after.'

‘Which is?’

Tom adjusted the way he was sitting. 'Romantic,' he said, without looking at her.

Dora's next mouthful of champagne was gulped rather than sipped.

‘Let's have something to eat,' he said when he'd wound up the gramophone again and put on another record. He burrowed in the hamper and brought out a foil-wrapped packet. 'Smoked-salmon sarnies. I made them last night.'

‘How did you get all this stuff here on a boat?' She took a sandwich although she wasn't really hungry.

‘I cheated. There's a rickety old bridge over there.' He waved towards the trees. 'We can go back in the car.’

‘I quite liked arriving by boat.'

‘I hoped you would.’

She smiled shyly at him. 'These are really nice. I didn't think I wanted anything really, but now I've started eating..

‘Have some crisps. And I've got hot sausage rolls.’

‘How did you manage that?’

He produced an old fashioned wide-mouthed thermos flask with a cork for a stopper. 'Try one.’

It was sinfully delicious. 'Golly, I didn't think they made sausage rolls like this these days.'

‘I got them in a deli – I think they make them themselves but they've got this really flaky pastry. Have another.’

Dora was about to wipe her greasy hands on her thigh when Tom produced a linen napkin. 'I found them in the airing cupboard. Mum never uses them because she says they're a pain to iron.'

‘They are lovely, though.' Dora thought that she had better make sure they were laundered before Tom's mother came home.

‘Have some more champagne.' He profferred the bottle. 'I haven't finished this yet.'

‘Then hurry up. We've got little éclairs for pudding.’

‘You didn't make them?'

‘No. But I want to give you your present.’

‘Why the hurry?'

‘I'm worried that you won't like it.'

‘But, Tom, I'm loving all this. The present doesn't matter all that much.'

‘Yes it does, but don't worry, it's only small.’

Dora relaxed a little. She drank some more champagne and then ate another sausage roll. 'OK, pudding time, if you're ready. You don't seem to have eaten much.'

‘Oh, I'm all right.' He dived into the hamper again and came out with yet another plastic box. 'Eclairs.'

‘These are truly yummy,' Dora said after she'd eaten two of the little-finger-sized morsels. 'They're as nice as the ones I had at that hotel.'

‘Good. Now, finish your mouthful. It's time for your present.’

Dora wiped her fingers again and sat up straighter. She had picked up on Tom's nervousness. Supposing the present was awful, revealing some unsuspected bad taste in Tom, who she liked so, so much? It was a fairly flat package, which meant it wasn't a ghastly ornament that Dora would have to have on display somewhere.

‘Open it,' he ordered.

Dora didn't feel obliged to save the brown paper wrap ping and was inside rapidly. It was a light, khaki-coloured purse on a string. 'Um – it's lovely,' she said cautiously.

‘It's a symbol,' explained Tom. 'Don't say it looks like a purse because of course it is. The symbolism is in the sort of purse it is.'

‘On a cord?'

‘It's for travelling. You keep it under your clothes so it's safe from pickpockets. You keep your credit card, your passport and your money in it.’

Dora moistened her lips. 'Oh, like your mother's, but why have you given it to me?'

‘I want you to go travelling, with me, when we've saved enough money.'

‘Oh Tom!'

‘In fact, Dad said he'd give us some money towards it because he says I saved him so much not wanting to be a doctor or anything expensive.’

Dora laughed. 'I love your dad.’

He looked at her earnestly. 'But how do you feel about me? Do you think you could love me too? Enough to go backpacking with?’

A sigh she had been suppressing for a long time welled up in Dora. 'Oh yes, I think I could love you. Enough to go backpacking with, anyway.'

‘Yesss!' Tom, who was already on his knees on the rug, tipped towards her so that they both fell on to the cushions together. 'I don't know how I've managed not to kiss you all this time.’

Dora was lying underneath him, laughing up at him. 'You don't have to manage any more, Tom!’

He laughed too and then his mouth came down on hers.

Jo was making salad. She had her big old striped apron on over her new linen skirt. She was wearing a new fitted cardigan over a vest top that she thought was far too low-cut but that Karen had approved of. The skirt was the colour of spilt tea and the cardigan and top were fuchsia. It had taken Karen a few moments to convince Jo that these colours were not too bright, didn't make her look like mutton dressed up as lamb and went perfectly with the handful of chunky jewellery incorporating the same colours that she produced while Jo was standing in front of the shop mirror. Karen had then made her buy some sandals which were so far from the sort of sandals you could walk for miles in that Jo felt they should have a warning label. When Karen escorted her, in the kind but firm way of a female prison officer, to have her nails done, she selected the colour for her toenails herself. 'You can have pale colour on your fingers if you want to, but you must be bolder with your toes.’

Now, as she bent to pick up a fallen lettuce leaf she admired her feet. She didn't like her legs much, although they did look much better now they'd been waxed and tanned, but she did like her feet, especially in her sexy sandals. Quite how long she'd stay in them, she couldn't predict, but she did tell Karen she wouldn't get out last year's Birkenstocks until her feet had had a chance to be admired.

Making salad was soothing. She chopped celery into translucent half-moons, leeks into rings that wouldn't have looked out of place as jewellery, and cucumber into tiny cubes. The carrots and courgettes she grated finely. Lettuce and tomato would only be added as bulk, at the last minute, but she had committed herself to filling the huge old French bowl she used to make bread in, so would need the Little Gems. As she sliced through four cherry tomatoes in one lethal sweep she thought about the salad Carole had made on the barge. It had been good, she acknowledged, but Carole hadn't had the range of fresh herbs to hand, as Jo had now. They would go in later, just before the garlic croutons. Jo loved leftover salad, and part of the reason for the enormousness of the one she was making was to guarantee it wouldn't all be eaten. She stopped chopping and went to hunt for a packet of petits pois in the freezer. Not too many, she decided, but they looked pretty against the cubes of red pepper. No sweetcorn though, Philip's digestion couldn't handle it. She laughed at herself. How easy it was to fall back into wifely ways.