A Kiss, a Dare and a Boat Called Promise

by Fiona Foden

  He’s retired now and shut down his yard. Promise is booked in at a new place but, even though it is miles further away, Mum doesn’t really need any help to get there. She can handle our boat perfectly well by herself. She just wants company, that’s all. “We’ll make a day of it,” she’s telling my brother, while I gather up jam jars with burnt-out candles inside. “We can explore the town and get fish and chips. Charlie’s kindly offered to come and pick us up around teatime when he’s finished at work.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Ryan is talking as if she’s suggested a trip to the dentist’s.

  “Because … I thought it’d be nice for us to do something together.” Mum sounds hurt, and I wish he’d stop being so snarly.

  “Hmm.” He snorts. “Great start to the summer.”

  She turns, anger flashing in her eyes now. “Stop moaning, Ryan. I’m worried enough about how I’m going to pay for this work. Hopefully just a couple of planks will need replacing and it won’t be too expensive.”

  “Maybe the boatyard man will wait a few weeks for his money,” I suggest.

  “Why would he do that, Josie?” she snaps.

  Whoa … OK. “I just thought he might, if you explained.”

  “Explained what, exactly?”

  Oh no. After all the excitement of the party, Mum’s come back down to earth with a bump. I can tell she’s worried and stressed. “That we might not be able to pay it all at once,” I murmur.

  Ryan sighs loudly, and Mum’s face softens as she says, “This isn’t Frank, Josie. The guy sounded pretty grumpy on the phone, actually. We’ll just have to hope for the best, all right? The leak doesn’t seem that bad. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.” She musters a brave smile.

  I glance at my brother, then at Mum, and before I can stop myself, I’m saying, “I’ll come if you like, Mum. Ryan doesn’t have to.”

  “Yesss!” Ryan exclaims, punching the air. “Thanks, sis.”

  Mum gives me a quizzical look. “You sure, Josie? I thought you and Bella had plans for today…”

  I shrug. “Only swimming at the lake, and we’ve got all summer for that.”

  “Well,” she says, smiling, “I suppose it’ll be nicer to have someone with me who actually wants to be there, rather than acting as if they’re about to have their teeth pulled out.”

  This makes me sound so helpful and generous, doesn’t it? And I am – some of the time. But the truth is, because the other boaters are always popping in for chats, Mum and I hardly ever have any time together. Very occasionally, I wonder what it would be like to have a teeny bit more privacy, so it’s just us.

  Twenty minutes later, Ryan’s got dressed and wandered off with Murphy to Jake and Tyler’s boat, and I’ve told a slightly disappointed Bella that I won’t be around today after all. She wishes us luck and waves us goodbye – and we’re off.

  That sounds like we zoom down the river, hair flying behind us, but in fact someone with a bad limp could keep up with us. Murphy could outpace Promise, and he’s ten, eleven or even older (he was a stray – we got him from Dogs Trust – so no one knows his actual age). It’s more of a steady amble along the curve of the river, with dense woods, then gently sloping fields, on both sides.

  The occasional boat passes us, and the people on them give us a smile and a nod hello. The sun warms our faces as we chug along, not talking much, just enjoying the peace. We pass Frank’s old boatyard, the rickety shed all boarded up and looking as if it could blow down in a breeze. And finally, we start to see houses as the river takes us into a small town. We’ve almost come out of the other side of it when Mum spots a sign which says “McIntyre Boat Repair & Maintenance”. “That’s the place,” she says, slowing down the engine for the last few metres, then expertly guiding Promise alongside the wooden quay.

  We’re tying her up when a man approaches us. “Hi there,” Mum says, smiling. “I’m looking for Bill, he’s expecting us…”

  “Yup, that’s me.” He’s wearing dark blue overalls smeared with oil and paint, and has a bushy grey moustache that doesn’t match the raven black of his hair. “Blimey,” he adds with a chuckle, “it’s a wonder you got here in that old thing.”

  Mum frowns as she steps on to the bank. “Her engine’s fine. We have it serviced every year—”

  “I’m not talking about her engine.” He laughs again, giving Promise’s gleaming wooden side a firm slap and looking her up and down as if he’s never seen such a sorry excuse for a boat in his life. Frank was never like this. He always praised us for taking such good care of Promise, and said he looked forward to working on her, that it was more like a hobby for him when an antique boat like ours came along. “How old is she anyway?” Bill asks abruptly.

  “Over eighty years,” Mum says as we follow him into an ugly concrete building. Greasy propellers, engine parts and pots of paint are strewn about on the dirty floor. The place is a mess. I can’t imagine Bill managing to fix anything properly, let alone our precious boat. Surely we could have found someone better than him to do the job?

  Still muttering about the state of our beloved home, he opens the door to a flimsy-looking glass-walled office in the far corner of the building. Taking a seat at the desk, he motions for Mum to sit opposite him. As there are no other chairs, I lurk in the corner, hoping we can get this over and done with as quickly as possible. “So … you think there’s a problem with the hull?” he begins.

  Sounding irritated now, Mum tells him about the small leak in the bilges – that’s the part underneath the floor. My gaze skims the dirty mugs littering his desk, and the old computer in the corner, covered in grubby fingerprints and splashes of what looks like coffee. “I’ve always looked after her,” Mum goes on, “so it shouldn’t be anything too serious. The whole hull was checked last summer, by Frank Jackson.” That’s right – Frank, who didn’t keep giving us sneery looks…

  Bill grunts, and I notice wiry grey hairs poking out of his nose. “Just out of interest,” he says, “I don’t suppose you know who built her?”

  “It was my granddad,” Mum says with a trace of pride, “when he was only eighteen years old.”

  Bill snorts as if to say, That figures.

  “He designed her himself,” she goes on, “and she was such a success that a company started building boats from his original design, all by hand. There used to be hundreds but as far as I know, Promise is the only one left.”

  “Hmmm,” Bill says. “I could tell she was someone’s wacky project.”

  I glare at him. How dare he talk about my great-granddad like that? He did something amazing, and was pretty famous, at least among people who care about boats. What’s with the “wacky project” stuff?

  Mum is fizzing mad now – I can almost smell it radiating off her – and she clamps her mouth shut as he makes some notes in a grubby pad. “I’ll have her out of the water by mid-afternoon,” he tells her. “Phone me at the end of the day and we’ll see what the damage is.”

  “OK,” Mum says, pushing back her chair with a scrape as she gets up. Although I’m not keen on leaving Promise with this horrible man, it’s a relief to escape from his stale, smoky office and step back out into the blue-skied afternoon.

  “It doesn’t matter if we like him or not,” Mum says as we leave the mess of the boatyard behind and start to head into town. “I just hope we can trust him to do a good job.”

  “Hmm,” I mumble.

  She turns to me and smiles. “Come on, cheer up. Let’s have a look around, make the most of the day. We’ve got a few hours before Charlie’s coming to pick us up.”

  “OK, Mum,” I say with a loud sigh. I try to enjoy our afternoon, I really do. Yet, as we peer into the horribly expensive gift shops on the high street, I start to wish Ryan had come instead, and that Bella and I were splashing about in the lake, then drying off and hanging out in the dappled sunshine
at the edge of the forest. Mum spots a museum in an old church, and we decide to go in, but the only interesting thing is a beehive which is half inside, half outside the building. On the inside, you can watch the bees all skittering about under a sheet of glass. They remind me of how I feel when strangers wander along the riverbank and stop to peer in through our windows. One morning, I woke up in my cabin to see a man’s big pink face gawping in at me. I screamed in shock and shouted for Mum. “I didn’t realize anyone lived here,” the man called back, mortified, as Mum ran out to see what was going on.

  After the thrilling museum, we have a picnic of baguettes and Cokes in a park where all the flowers are planted in neat rows. As a faint summer shower starts to fall, we shelter under a huge tree, where Mum pulls her mobile from her pocket.

  “Hello, Bill?” she says to the boatyard man. “It’s Helen Lennox. I wondered if you’d managed to have a look at Promise yet.” She pauses, and I see her mouth setting into a frown. She’s nodding and saying, “Right … right…”

  And it’s obvious that something is not right at all.

  “What is it?” I hiss at Mum.

  Still clutching her phone, she waves me away as if I’m a buzzing insect. I know I’m small for my age but – hello? She’s carrying on her conversation as if I’m not even here.

  “What’s wrong?” I mouth at her. “What is it, Mum?”

  She shakes her head and turns her back to me. “I … I had no idea,” she goes on. “As I said, Frank Jackson had her out of the water last year and he never mentioned anything about rotten timbers…” My stomach feels as heavy as the dark clouds above. Rotten timbers? What are they talking about? “Fine,” Mum says quickly. “Look, my daughter and I are standing out in the rain here. We’ll come over as soon as we can.” She finishes the call, rams her mobile back into the pocket of her old, faded jeans and snatches my hand as if I’m a little kid.

  There’s a cafe at the far end of the park, made of glass like a pointy-roofed greenhouse. Still holding my hand tightly, Mum barges straight in and stomps towards a table for two. “What did he say?” I ask, perching on the seat opposite her.

  She bites her lip. “Seems that Promise hasn’t exactly lived up to her name, Josie.”

  “What did he say about rotten timbers?” I ask as the smiling waitress comes over to our table.

  “What would you like?” she asks.

  “Er … I’ll have tea,” Mum mutters. “Hot chocolate for you, Josie?”

  “Yes, please.” The sense that something bad is happening has left me feeling chilled.

  “Mum,” I start as the waitress returns to the counter, “please tell me what’s happening.”

  “Just give me a moment to think, Josie.” We sit in bleak silence, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from bombarding her with more questions. Mum nods her thanks as our drinks arrive, and as she stirs her tea, her forehead crinkles with worry.

  “Well, I assume it’s not good news,” I mutter finally, spooning froth off the top of my hot chocolate.

  Mum clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Josie. It’s just come as a horrible shock. He says virtually the whole hull is rotten, can you believe it? Reckons she’s a write-off. I can’t understand it.”

  “He’s talking rubbish,” I exclaim. The hull’s the whole underneath of the boat. I mean practically all of it. “She’d sink if it was,” I add, deciding I was right about Bill being a complete idiot.

  “Well, that’s what he told me,” Mum says firmly. “Reckons the wood’s like a sponge – you could poke your finger through it, he said. I can’t believe I didn’t know.”

  “Can’t he just replace the worst planks?”

  Mum shakes her head. “He seems to think not.”

  “Why not? Is it because of money? We could save up, find something to sell—”

  “He said it’s not a matter of a few planks, Josie. It’s the whole boat. We’ll have to get back over there and see for ourselves, OK? I just hope he’s got it wrong. Then we can take her to another boatyard to have the work done…” Mum looks as if she might cry now, but is holding it together for my sake. “I don’t know, though,” she adds in a shaky voice. “Maybe she can’t be fixed. I mean, I don’t have my granddad’s original plans for Promise, and people just don’t make boats like that any more.”

  “We can’t just give up on her,” I say firmly.

  “No, I’m not suggesting we do. But I think we should be prepared for the worst…”

  I jump up from my seat. “Come on, Mum. Let’s go and find out for ourselves.” I stomp towards the door with Mum hurrying behind me.

  “Excuse me!” The waitress charges after us as we step outside. “You haven’t paid.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mum says, blushing as she digs into her scruffy brown shoulder bag for her purse. She hands the woman some coins.

  “That’s OK,” the waitress says with a tight smile.

  My cheeks are burning too as we stand outside the cafe. “You’d never give up on Murphy like that,” I mumble.

  “What are you talking about, Josie?”

  “When something’s wrong with Murphy, we still get him medicine or whatever he needs. You’d never say ‘we should be prepared for the worst’ with him, like there’s no hope.”

  Mum frowns at me. “I’m just trying to be realistic, sweetheart. Bill said Promise has had it, all right? And although I didn’t like the man, I can’t see any reason for him to lie to us.”

  “But Murphy’s old,” I argue, “and things go wrong with him sometimes…”

  Mum shakes her head. “He’s a dog, Josie! A living thing. That’s completely different.”

  Is it, though? As we head back towards the boatyard, I find myself wishing there was such a thing as a vet for boats.

  As soon as we arrive back at the yard, Bill starts prodding at Promise’s hull. “Look at these timbers,” he declares. “You can actually push a finger through the worst parts, see?” Mum and I can barely speak as he squashes his index finger right through the spongy wood.

  “God, Mum,” I whisper finally.

  “I had absolutely no idea,” she croaks.

  Bill nods smugly, crossing his arms as if to say, I told you so. “Anyway,” he adds, “you’re pretty lucky really. She might have sunk in the night and the two of you could have drowned.”

  “I wouldn’t call us lucky,” I snap back. As Mum fixes me with a stern look, I know better than to say anything else.

  When Charlie has finished work for the day – he paints signs for shops and cafes – he turns up in his beaten-up truck at the boatyard. Mum has already called him, so he knows all about Promise. “Hey,” Bella says, jumping out and giving me a heartfelt hug. “Dad told me what’s happened. That’s awful.”

  I nod, not knowing what to say, but glad she’s here anyway. As we drive back to our stretch of river (I can’t say “home” now, can I?), Mum tries to be brave, saying, “Promise had a good, long life. Nothing can go on for ever, can it?” I know she wants to seem strong, for my sake. I also know she feels as crushed as I am, and will be dreading telling Ryan when we get back. As usual, my big brother’s phone has been switched off all day, so she hasn’t been able to reach him.

  “What’ll happen to Promise, Helen?” Charlie asks gently.

  On the back seat beside me, Bella squeezes my hand. “She’ll be taken to a scrapyard,” Mum says flatly. “Bill says he might be able to use some of the timbers and engine parts, so he won’t charge us for having her taken away.”

  “God,” I mutter, staring down at my knees. “What’ll we do, Mum – buy another boat?”

  She shakes her head. I feel silly for asking, because we never have any cash to spare and I know we can’t possibly buy a new boat, not on the money Mum earns from her part-time job. That means we can’t afford to rent a flat either – anyway, there are h
ardly any around here. It’s all pretty rose-covered cottages and grand country homes. “We’re going to be homeless,” I mutter to Bella, my eyes filling up with tears.

  “Don’t be crazy,” she whispers back. “You can live with us.”

  “You know you can all stay with us for as long as you need to,” Charlie says, glancing back at me in the rear-view mirror.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” Mum replies.

  “And if there’s anything else Kate and I can do to help, Helen,” he adds. “We’re always there for you and the kids – you know that.”

  Mum nods but doesn’t speak. “It’ll be nice, having you staying with us,” Bella says, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I’m still feeling stunned as we arrive at the river and climb on to Bella’s boat. Kate hugs us, and Ryan charges over the bridge from Tyler’s boat to find out what’s going on. “Why all the hugging?” he laughs. His face soon crumples as Mum fills him in on our day. “But … what about our stuff?” he blurts out. “How will we get it all from the boatyard?”

  “Never mind that,” I snap. “What about our home, Ryan? Don’t you care?”

  He frowns, and a flicker of guilt darkens his brown eyes. Perhaps he really is craving a bigger, more comfortable home than Promise could ever be. “We’ll have to go and collect it as soon as we can,” Mum tells him patiently. “I’ll hire a van. God knows where we’ll store everything, though…”

  “We can help you pack up,” Bella says.

  “Yes, of course we can,” Kate adds, “and you can keep all your things here for as long as you need to.”

  “But where are we going to live, Mum?” I interrupt. “We can’t stay on Tarragon for ever, can we?”

  She meets my gaze. “Look, I promise we’ll sort something out. But in the meantime, aren’t we lucky to have such great friends?”