Going Dutch Page 6

  ‘Come in,' he said now and lifted a hatch. The steps down were even steeper and narrower than they were on The Three Sisters. Dora dabbed at them with her foot, not knowing if she should turn it in or out.

  ‘Go backwards,' Tom suggested.

  When Dora reached the bottom and turned round she saw that the boat seemed to have no furniture, built in or otherwise, and was nearly filled with a futon, several floor cushions and a sleeping bag. It was dingy and there was a distinct odour, a combination of unwashed sleeping bag, mildew and joss sticks. The part of Dora that was her mother inwardly recoiled.

  ‘It's – quite small,' said Dora, hoping her nose hadn't visibly wrinkled.

  ‘I'll open some portholes,' said Tom.'I keep them shut while I'm out because otherwise – oh, too late. I hope you like cats.’

  A cat so large it had probably had people reporting sightings of it to the police or the newspapers as 'the Beast of Thames-side' oozed through the porthole and landed at Tom's feet with a thump. Then it opened its mouth and yowled.

  ‘Horrible animal!' said Tom, nevertheless stroking it affectionately behind the ears. 'Has no one fed you?'

  ‘I've never seen such a huge cat. Is it yours?' asked Dora, impressed.

  ‘It isn't anyone's. It lives off us all. Talk about liggers,' he added. 'He's a real scrounger. I think his original owner left but he stayed on.'

  ‘He probably liked living on a bird sanctuary.’

  Tom laughed. 'To his credit, I've never seen him with a dead bird. And we all feed him, so what's his incentive to hunt?’

  Dora shrugged. 'He's very handsome. What's his name?’

  ‘Fluffy, or the Surveyor.'

  ‘What?’

  Tom shrugged. 'A surveyor was doing a survey on a boat once and the cat went down every gap and hole, whenever a plank was lifted, to check out conditions. Fluffy is far too kitsch a name for a cat like that, don't you think? Anyway, enough of this, would you like a drink?' Tom went to the bow of the boat where a two-burner gas stove and tiny sink indicated a galley area.

  ‘Mm. Something soft, please.'

  ‘I'll see what I've got.' He opened a cupboard beneath the sink and rummaged about while Dora stroked the Surveyor in self-defence. He seemed as greedy for affection as he was for food and she felt if she didn't stroke him hard, he might decide she was a tasty snack that Tom had brought home for him.

  ‘Sit down. There must be something here that isn't washing-up liquid,' muttered Tom.

  ‘Are you feeding me or the cat?' Dora overcame her squeamishness and subsided on to a cushion, more because of the limited headroom than anything else. She could only stand up right in the very middle of the boat. Tom had to hunch over even there.

  The cat moved on to her knee, spilling over the edges of her lap and on to the cushion, and Dora was beginning to notice the smell less when there was a knock on the top of the boat. Tom was still rummaging in boxes.

  ‘Hello! Are you up for a visit? Or are you naked?' called a husky female voice with a Cockney accent.

  ‘Come in,' yelled Tom, sounding relieved. 'Have you got any soft drinks at yours?’

  A young woman came down the steps. She had hennaed hair, black footless tights and a short net skirt. She was very thin and, while not pretty, had a quirky charm, like a subversive fairy.

  ‘Hiya, Tom,' she said as she kissed him. She regarded Dora through slightly narrowed eyes and instantly Dora felt fat and decidedly uncool. 'Who's this?'

  ‘This is Dora. Dora, this is Bib, she lives with her partner on a boat moored at the end of the island. An old pilot cutter.’

  Dora smiled and nodded, wondering simultaneously how anyone could be called Bib, and what a pilot cutter was like.

  ‘Hi, Dora,' said Bib, regarding her in a kindly, but rather disinterested way. 'So why do you want soft drinks, then?'

  ‘Dora's thirsty,' said Tom with a hint of firmness. 'I've got home-made wine for you.’

  Bib stretched and yawned, exposing her very flat stomach. She had a ring in her navel and black-painted fingernails. She curled gracefully on to a cushion. 'I haven't got no soft drinks, sorry. Hamo might have some ginger beer. He likes that stuff. He'll be here later.'

  ‘I'm popular because of the home-made wine,' explained Tom, although Dora didn't believe this was the only reason.

  ‘Did you make it?' Dora looked around her, thinking it would be difficult to make a cup of tea, let alone wine down here.

  ‘No. My mother picks random fruits and berries and then doesn't know what to do with them. When they start to ferment she turns them into wine. My parents can't drink it, it's too disgusting, so they give it to me.'

  ‘Tom's parents wanted him to do law,' said Bib. 'They haven't got their heads round him being a boat boy yet, have they, love?'

  ‘Of course they have,' said Tom. 'They don't like it but they make the best of it.’

  Footsteps were heard overhead. 'That'll be Hamo. Hamo!' he roared up the hatch. 'Got any ginger beer, bottled water, anything like that?'

  ‘Nah – Jim might have.’

  Jim could have been on another planet and he would still have heard Hamo's call.

  Two men came thundering down into the boat. 'Hi, Tom! Oh, company.'

  ‘Dora,' said Tom. 'Dora, this is Jim and Hamo.’

  Dora nodded, reluctant to expose her middle-class accent until she had to. Which one was Jim and which Hamo she'd have to pick up as she went along. She shiftedalong a bit so one of the young men in ripped jeans and a T-shirt could sit next to her. He had tattooed arms, a shaved head and earrings all the way round his ear. The other one had dreadlocks, so once she'd worked out which was which, they would be easy to tell apart. Part of her wanted to go home.

  ‘Sorry,' said Tom eventually, `no soft drinks.'

  ‘Not even water?' Dora didn't fancy home-made wine. She knew it was likely to be strong and she didn't want to get drunk in unfamiliar and faintly threatening surroundings.

  ‘Make the girl a cup of tea,' said Bib. 'We don't like to drink the water unboiled,' she explained to Dora. 'It comes out of the river.’

  Dora swallowed and decided that home-made wine was not such a bad idea. 'I'll have what you're having,' she said, grateful that her mother would never know she'd been here.

  A selection of glasses and mugs filled with something the colour and consistency of cough syrup was passed round. Dora was given a glass and decided she was honoured. It had the remains of a cartoon character on the side and had once contained peanut butter.

  ‘So, Dora, you new round here?' said one of the men. 'Yes. I'm staying with a friend on one of the barges. The Three Sisters. It's a Klipper.' She looked at Tom.

  ‘They're big, they are,' said the other man.

  ‘So why stay on a barge, Dora?' asked Bib, her eyes narrow and enquiring.

  ‘I'm staying with my best friend's mother. I wanted somewhere near London, so I could look for work.’

  ‘Your best friend's mother? Why not stay with someone your own age?’

  Dora couldn't work out if Bib was being hostile, or if it was her own insecurities that made her think she was. Dora did sound rather prim, even to her own ears. 'I didn't know anyone else near London, and she offered.'

  ‘Cool,' said Bib. 'Cheers!' She raised her glass.

  Dora was forced to join in the toast and took the tiniest sip she thought she'd get away with. It made her cough.

  ‘It's OK after the first few sips,' said Bib, watching her.

  Dora took a bigger sip. 'So how do you all come to live here?' She guessed that Bib wouldn't leave her alone until she'd asserted herself a little.

  ‘Hamo an' me heard about the island and got the boat towed up. Jim was already here. It's a good community. Safe.’

  Instinct told Dora that Bib didn't mean 'safe' in the normal sense but she just nodded.

  ‘That means it's a nice place to live,' said Tom.

  ‘Pass that jug around again, mate,' said the one who Dora thought wa
s probably Jim.

  Tom dragged a demi-john from behind him and there was a lull while more wine was slopped into glasses and mugs. Dora's glass was still clutched in her hand.

  ‘So what sort of work are you looking for?' asked Bib, obviously determined to squeeze Dora for every bit of information she could.

  ‘Office work, mainly.'

  ‘So, can you do computers and all that?'

  ‘Yeah,' said Dora and buried her nose in her glass again. Bib looked around at the group. 'Cool.’

  The men started talking about boats: which one was where, and why. Dora looked at the plywood revealed by the gap in the ragged carpet. She wondered why Tom had been so keen to show her his gaff – it wasn't all that marvellous. Maybe if his friends hadn't turned up he'd have told her his plans for it. Now she looked morecarefully she noticed some of the planks looked new, and had been fitted very carefully in place. She was a bit surprised he hadn't mentioned his suggestion that she work in the boatyard, but then guessed that he hadn't in case it made her feel awkward. It would have done, and she was grateful for his silence on the subject.

  Eventually she began to relax a little. Following the conversation she began to work out who was who and although these men were unlike any she'd ever met, she felt they were good-natured, even if they were people her mother would describe as members of the counter-culture. Bib's initial hostility was probably to do with her being the only woman in the group, and she had to make sure that Dora was no threat. The thought of being a threat to anyone made Dora bite the corner of her lip. She didn't want to be caught smiling at her private thoughts.

  Tom sipped his drink. 'Ugh,' he said. 'I'd forgotten how foul it is.’

  Jim, with the dreadlocks, reached into his back pocket and produced a tobacco tin, every inch of which was painted. He then produced a packet of papers.

  Dora felt her stomach clench. Of course she'd been around people who smoked a bit of dope but she had never fancied it herself. Was she suddenly going to be in a situation where she couldn't refuse without looking incredibly middle-class and snooty? Tom glanced at her and said, 'You lot stay here if you like, but Dora and I have got to go to a barbecue.’

  ‘Ooh!' said Hamo. 'I've never been to a barbecue,' he simpered. 'Can I come with you?'

  ‘No,' said Tom firmly. 'Come on, Dora.' He took her hand and heaved her to her feet with more strength than courtesy.

  ‘Sorry about that,' said Tom when they were crossing the bridge back to reality. 'They're really nice people, but I'd forgotten they can be a bit scary to girls like you.’

  Dora was indignant, although she knew exactly what he meant. 'What do you mean? I'm a grown-up, you know.'

  ‘But you need to get out more. We've agreed that.’

  Dora didn't answer. They'd reached the mainland now and she felt more confident. 'Let's go to the barbecue. That's getting out, isn't it?'

  ‘Not really. I'm not sure I really want to go now.’

  ‘Well, I do need to check in with Jo.'

  ‘Why don't you go and find her and then meet me back here and we can decide? I need to blag a shower off someone.’

  *

  Dora was leaning up against the rail of a barge when Tom found her. She had seen Jo and they had both made sure the other was all right, and now she had begun to get bored and was very pleased to see him. He smelt of shower gel and toothpaste and looked slightly damp but very clean. It seemed that his shower had given him extra bounce and enthusiasm.

  ‘Hello,' she said.

  ‘Hello yourself. Listen, why don't we go downriver to this pub I know?'

  ‘Aren't we supposed to be going to a barbecue?'

  ‘Well, yes, but there's only so much of the middle classes I can take.’

  Dora smiled at him. 'I'm middle class. And so are you.’

  ‘I know, but I'm trying to get over it.'

  ‘So why did you come to the rally?'

  ‘I thought I might pick up some work on something that actually moves. Now, do you want to come or not?’

  Not entirely sure if going with him meant handing in her membership card of the Middle Classes he so muchdespised, Dora considered. She didn't want to disappoint Tom, and nor did she want him going off without her. It wasn't as if she wanted to go to the barbecue either. 'What's the pub like?'

  ‘Nice.' He took this question as her agreement. 'Listen, I'll just go and ask Bill if I can borrow his tender and he can tell Jo where you're going.’

  Dora decided she would go with Tom to the pub. Recently, her resolutely middle-class, middle-England roots had started to bother her. But although she liked Tom, and he was very easygoing, she didn't feel entirely comfortable being alone with him. The trouble was, she'd forgotten – if indeed she'd ever known – how to be with a boy who wasn't John. She didn't want to give out the wrong messages by mistake. John, she considered, had hardly ever been a boy – he was always a young man. Tom would have called him a Young Fogey, she knew. Which would have made her, she supposed, a Young Fogeyette. She shuddered.

  ‘Right,' said Tom, bouncing into view. 'I've got Bill's tender. We're going downriver a bit.’

  Dora didn't ask what a tender was, assuming, correctly, that she would find out soon enough.

  Tom was very good at rowing. Dora sat back in her seat in the stern and watched him pulling the oars, some how making the little boat go where he wanted it to, with only the occasional glance over his shoulder for direction. At first Dora felt a bit nervous about being in the middle of a big river in such a tiny craft, but Tom quickly brought it into the side a little, where she felt safer.

  ‘We just had to get out of the current. We're fine here, in the eddies.’

  Dora decided she didn't need to know what an eddy was, and thought she'd more or less worked it out anyway.

  `So, tell me about this pub. It'll have to be good to make it worth all this exercise.’

  Tom grinned. 'I haven't noticed you taking much exercise, madam.'

  ‘Watching you is quite enough for me.' She made a face and hoped it wasn't a smirk.

  He laughed and pulled more strongly at the oars, his heels pressed against the stretcher in the bottom of the boat, his thighs taking the strain.

  ‘You'll have to row home again,' she said, as at last he directed the boat into a slipway.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see where he was going. 'Oh no, it'll be your turn then.'

  ‘But I've never rowed a boat in my life! We'd capsize or go round and round in circles.'

  ‘That is probably what would happen, but how have you got to be your age and not learnt to row? Now you stay sitting down while I get the boat up.' He leapt ashore and pulled the boat until the stern was ashore. Then he came and helped her out. 'Well?' he said.

  Dora, who thought it had been a rhetorical question, put her nose in the air. 'I'm very young and I've led a sheltered life.’

  Tom laughed. 'Maybe I should unshelter you. We'll start with getting you a drink you've never had before. Are you OK for sitting outside? It's a lovely evening.’

  The pub was crowded and almost all the tables outside were taken but Tom spotted one where the people were just leaving and nipped over to it. 'Right, I'll get us some drinks.’

  While he was gone, Dora watched the people around her and then the birds swooping and diving, catching insects. She tried to identify them; they were swallows, swifts or martins, but she could never remember which was which.

  They reminded her of Tom a bit, swooping and diving on life, apparently at random, yet purposeful.

  He put a drink down on a mat in front of her. It was in a half pint glass and was cloudy.

  ‘It looks like an enlarged version of a very dodgy urine sample,' she said. 'What on earth is it?'

  ‘Scrumpy, rough cider. Actually, it's a bit of a tough one to start with.’

  Dora took a sip. It tasted of vinegar that might have been apples a very long time ago. 'It's vile.'

  ‘But it's cheap.'

&nb
sp; ‘It's not fair,' said Dora, risking another taste. 'You invite me for a drink and then give me something only fit to clean brass with. Now that's something I know a lot about.'

  ‘What?'

  ‘Cleaning brass. My mother used to make me go and clean it for an old lady when I was a Brownie.'

  ‘How sweet. I can just picture you in a Brownie uniform.'

  ‘I had those culotte things and a yellow baseball cap. My mother used to help out. She made me sew on all my own badges, although the other girls' mothers always did it for them.'

  ‘Was your mother quite strict, then?'

  ‘Depends what you mean by strict.'

  ‘I mean – did she let you bunk off school to go to Glastonbury? Things like that.’

  Dora put down her glass so she could react with appropriate horror and disbelief. 'You have got to be joking! My mother wouldn't have let me go to Glastonbury even if it didn't involve bunking off. And she made my dentist appointments during the holidays so I wouldn't miss a second of school. It might have been because I'm an only child, she only had me to focus on.'

  ‘Right, a full-on mother then. I'm an only child too, but fortunately, my mother was a bit more laid-back. I went to my first festival when I'd done my GCSEs – it was after my exams so Mum was fairly cool with it.’

  Dora took time to imagine a mother as relaxed as that. Now she came to think about it, Karen used to go to festivals, but maybe that had been after Dora had started going out with John. She took the tiniest sip of cider she could manage so she couldn't actually taste it; it came a close second to the home-made wine. 'I haven't ever been to a festival. John wasn't into that sort of thing.'

  ‘John?’

  She hadn't meant to mention John, but as he was largely responsible for how she'd spent the most recent part of her life, he had been bound to crop up. 'Ex-everything. We went out for ever, were engaged. Not any more.'

  ‘So, are you suffering from a broken heart?' he asked with a lightheartedness that took away any embarrassment Dora might feel.