A Kiss, a Dare and a Boat Called Promise

by Fiona Foden

  “Just keep the box flat on your knee while you’re in Charlie’s truck, OK?”

  Now, of course, I’m choking with guilt. Since when did life become so horribly complicated? “Nothing ever happens around here,” Bella declared once as we lay on Tarragon’s deck, and I agreed that, for a couple of thirteen-year-olds, our lives were tragically uneventful. Right now, I’d give anything to have that ordinariness back again.

  Mum smiles, putting her arms around me and holding me so close, I can feel the beat of her heart. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed you into going shopping with those two,” she murmurs.

  I force a smile that feels as fake as the vase of faded yellow plastic tulips on the window sill. “I just don’t think I’m their kind of person, Mum,” I say.

  She kisses the top of my head. “Never mind, darling. I’ll figure out a way of discussing it with Vince or Maria and, anyway, you’ll have the whole day with Bella tomorrow. That’ll put the smile back on your face.”

  Just before I go to bed, I call Leon to tell him I can’t afford our trip. “We can still go,” he says. “I told you I’ve got some money.”

  “But you can’t pay for our fares and everything!” I exclaim. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “I want to come with you,” he insists. “It’s my choice, isn’t it? And it won’t cost that much.”

  I hesitate. It still feels slightly wrong, but how else am I going to get there? While Ryan is earning plenty of money, he’d never give me so much as a bean without a full interrogation of what I needed it for.

  “What happened to your money, anyway?” Leon asks.

  I pause. “Er … I had to use it for something else.”

  “Right. Well, it’s not a problem unless … you haven’t had a change of heart, have you?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “’Cause if we leave it much longer, the boat’ll probably be sold, won’t it? I’ve just checked the website again and it’s still on there at the moment.”

  I can’t help smiling at that. “You really care about this, don’t you?”

  “You know I do,” he declares. “So, will you call me when you’re at the bench in the morning, like we said?” Where we first met when I handed back Daisy, he means.

  “Yep,” I reply.

  “OK,” he says. “Good luck.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I say, trying to sound far bolder and braver than I feel.

  In fact, next morning, everything goes like a dream. Mum is preoccupied making steak pies and curries in the kitchen. I keep popping in, hoping to time my announcement for when she’s busy with everything bubbling away, needing constant attention. That way, she won’t be able to take much notice of me.

  “Mum,” I say, poking my head around the kitchen door for about the fourth time, “Charlie’s just texted me – he’s here…”

  “What, outside?” She’s grappling with a huge cooking pot filled with simmering tomatoey liquid.

  “Yeah, I’ve got to go now, though. He’s in a real hurry—”

  “Oh, hon, tell him I’m sorry, I’d love to see him, but maybe next time they’re in town…”

  “OK, Mum.” I force a big, bold smile, give her quick kiss on the cheek and leg it through the pub to the main door.

  “Josie, wait!”

  I whirl round to see her standing there in her sauce-splattered white apron. “What is it, Mum?”

  She has put down the pot and is holding out a transparent plastic box. “You forgot the tarts, silly girl.”

  “Oh, right.” I almost cry with relief as I take them from her.

  “Have fun,” she adds before darting back into the steamy kitchen.

  Once outside, I charge down the street, terrified that Mum will decide to pop out and say hi to Charlie after all. It’s all starting to feel horribly real now – less of a dare or an innocent day trip, and more like a completely mad thing to do. I run all the way to the scrubby little park by the florist’s, the tarts bashing around in their box, and land heavily on the bench. “Leon?” I say, gripping my phone. “I’m here now.”

  “Right – give me five minutes.”

  I slip my phone into my pocket, noticing the odd passer-by glancing at me, and feeling horribly self-conscious all on my own with my bag at my feet and a plastic box on my lap. As I wait, I mull over what Gemma said about Leon using me to make Chantelle jealous. Was she just making the whole thing up? If so, why would she do that?

  Leon is striding towards me now, and as his face breaks into a huge grin, I quickly push the dark thoughts away.

  “Hey.” He lands beside me on the bench. “So you did it, then. You managed to get away.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “It wasn’t too difficult.”

  His gaze drops to the box on my lap. “See you’ve brought supplies,” he says with a laugh.

  “Yeah, Mum insisted I bring them because she knows they’re Bella’s favourite.” I sigh as my gaze meets his. “That made me feel terrible, even more than all the lies. But I’ve kept reminding myself why I’m doing this – that it’s for all of us.”

  Leon nods. “And your mum still doesn’t know about the boat on the website or anything?”

  “No, not a thing. If she knew I was doing this, she’d have a heart attack.” I dig my toe into the ground.

  “It’ll be all right,” he says gently. “She’ll understand when you explain everything.”

  “Yes, I know.” Mustering a smile, I stand up, still clutching Mum’s box of tarts. “Think you’ll be able to help me get through this lot on the train?”

  Leon laughs, and tiny sparks shoot through me as his bare arm brushes against mine. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says.

  Of course, no one thinks there’s anything out of the ordinary about a boy and a girl on a train in the summer holidays. We’re just two friends on a day out, eating home-made strawberry tarts, drinking Cokes and looking out of the window as the scruffy buildings eventually make way for green, open countryside with the occasional village snuggled in-between fields.

  I glance at Leon, trying to imagine him with Chantelle, but I just can’t make them fit together in my head. He’s hanging out with you to make Chantelle jealous, Gemma said. Would anyone actually do that? Chantelle doesn’t even know we’re doing this today, so he can’t be here for any reason other than he wants to be.

  I sense him looking at me. “Nervous about this?” he asks.

  “Not really. Not yet, anyway.” We’re sitting opposite each other at a table for four. As there’s an old lady next to me and a younger woman beside him, I feel kind of awkward talking about it.

  “It’ll be OK,” he says. “We’ll just have a look. You’re not planning to confront him, are you?”

  I shake my head, wishing we could talk about something else. So I ask him about his little sister, Rosie, and whether the dare game is a regular thing of theirs. “Oh, yeah,” he laughs. “She’s mad about it. The thing is, though, she’s completely fearless, so I have to be careful about the dares I give her – because she’d go right ahead and do them.”

  I snigger, realizing it wasn’t entirely true when I said I wasn’t nervous, and wishing I were a little more like this five-year-old kid. “If Bill sees us,” I add under my breath, “I’m sure he’ll recognize me from that day we first brought Promise to his yard.”

  Leon nods. “Well, maybe I should be the one to go in and ask to see her.”

  “Yes, good idea.” I relax a little, impressed, as I always am, when Leon refers to a boat as “she”. “Er … and then what?” I ask.

  He laughs and finishes his Coke. “I have no idea. Look – we’re slowing down. I think we’re coming into Braidford.”

  “What, already?” The journey has flown by and the tarts have been scoffed. We get up and make our way towards the door.

  “Ex
cuse me!” the old lady calls after us. “You’ve forgotten this.” She’s waving the plastic box of crumbs.

  “Thanks,” I say, hurriedly taking it from her. As soon as we’ve jumped off the train, I drop it into a litter bin. “Sorry, Mum,” I murmur.

  “So … where to now?” Leon asks as we make our way through the station. It’s the nearest one to Bill’s boatyard. For the rest of the journey to Clingford, we have to take a bus.

  “This way,” I tell him. “It’s not too far – just a two-minute walk.” In fact, I know Braidford well. As well as coming to the big multiplex cinema here, it’s where we’d change from the bus to the train on our rare jaunts to London. There’s an arched metal bridge which leads us past a row of smart-looking shops, to where the country buses stop.

  I almost ask for tickets to Issingworth as we climb on to the bus – the small town where my old school is, and the closest place to our old mooring on the river. But we’re going further today. As Leon buys our tickets and the bus pulls away, it starts to sink in what I’ve really done.

  I’ve told so many lies, and what exactly do I plan to do when we get there? What chance do we have of making everything right? It’s a breezy, sunny day, the dazzling blue sky streaked with thin white clouds. London, and the Stag, feel a long way away. “You’ll see the river where I used to live,” I tell Leon. “We might even spot Bella and Murphy.”

  “Really?” He looks delighted by this, but to me, this whole situation is starting to feel weirder by the minute. In fact, as the bus trundles along the winding country lanes, I start to feel distinctly queasy too – possibly from stuffing my face with six strawberry tarts on the train, but more likely due to Gemma’s announcement about Leon and Chantelle yesterday. OK, so it’s none of my business who he’s been out with in the past … but surely he could have mentioned it? I am living above her parents’ pub, after all.

  I stare pointedly out of the bus window.

  “You OK?” Leon asks.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Can’t be long now, can it?”

  I shake my head, and we fall into an awkward silence. It wasn’t like this when we cycled alongside the river at night, or hung out together in the summer house. Now, though, perhaps because I’ll soon be face-to-face with Bill McIntyre, I can’t shake off a horrible sense of unease.

  “There is something wrong,” Leon says, fixing his gaze on my face.

  I blink at him. “Well, something happened yesterday,” I mutter.

  Leon frowns. “What?”

  I blow out air as we pass through an impossibly pretty village, all rose-covered cottages like something out of a picture book. “I went shopping with Chantelle and Gemma and they decided they wanted a pizza, so…” As it all pours out – the puking incident, and me having to pay for everything – Leon sits there, aghast.

  “God, that’s awful,” he says when I pause for breath. “I can’t believe they did that! Why didn’t you say?”

  “I…” Peering down at my fingernails, I wonder how best to put it. “It wasn’t really anything to do with you.”

  “But…” He looks genuinely hurt now. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  I shrug.

  “Aren’t we?” he repeats.

  “Yes, but…”

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  Leon stares at me as I shift uncomfortably in the seat. The bus rattles along, taking a sharp corner too quickly and hurtling down a steep hill. My stomach swirls uneasily. “Gemma told me that you were Chantelle’s boyfriend,” I say quietly.

  “Did she?” Leon says.

  “Yeah. Is it true?” I ask, quickly adding, “I know it’s none of my business but, you see, after the thing in the restaurant, and way Chantelle behaves around me, it might just…” I break off and shrug. “It might explain a few things.”

  Leon exhales. “I’m sorry, I should have told you…”

  I slide my eyes towards him, wondering what’s coming next. “My parents used to be good friends with Vince and Maria,” he starts, “which might surprise you…”

  I nod.

  “Well, Mum hasn’t always been as posh as she makes out she is. But, as soon as the business started raking in the money a couple of years ago, she decided to reinvent herself. She got herself a whole new look, and started mixing with people who could promote the business.” As he smiles ruefully, I wonder what this is all leading to. “And she decided Vince and Maria didn’t really cut it as friends any more,” he goes on. “Dad just went along with it. It’s Mum who rules the roost in our family, as you might have gathered.”

  “Uh-huh,” I murmur. “I haven’t even met your dad.”

  “Well,” Leon continues, “that’s why Chantelle acts so weird with you. You see, we used to have all these holidays together with them. We went to Greece, France and Sicily together, all over the place, really. Chantelle could never be bothered with any of my sisters…”

  “Why not?”

  He laughs. “You’ve met them, haven’t you? They’re pretty feisty – Rosie especially – and don’t like being told what to do. And, as you’ve probably realized, Chantelle only likes people who do what she wants to do.”

  “Like Gemma,” I remark.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  We fall silent again, and I realize I’ve been so engrossed in what Leon’s been telling me that I hadn’t even noticed we’re nearly at the river now, and that soon we’ll glimpse the boats. “So,” I say, hardly daring to ask, “what happened between you and Chantelle?”

  He pauses, those coffee-coloured eyes sending a rush of butterflies fluttering in my stomach. “We were just mates, messing around on the beach together,” he says. “But last summer, things changed. It was pretty obvious that Mum didn’t want to be in Corfu with Vince, Maria and Chantelle. She thought they were beneath her.”

  I nod, encouraging him to go on.

  “As the days went by,” he continues, “there was a definite feeling that this holiday would be our last one together. At least, it was obvious to Chantelle and me. So, one evening, we went down to the beach on our own to try and figure out what was going on. And it felt kind of sad, you know? Like an ending.”

  I nod. Oh yes, I know all about those.

  “And … we kissed that night,” he murmurs, looking down as his cheeks flush. “We were sort of together the rest of the holiday, and she was different then – not hard and full of herself like she usually is.”

  I take a deep breath, reflecting that that’s not quite the story Gemma told me. “What happened when you came home?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Er… this is going to sound really bad, but I realized I’d made a huge mistake. I didn’t want her to be my girlfriend. Me and Chantelle … sure, we were mates, but we’re totally different people. It was never going to work.”

  Ah, now I get it. Although I’ve only known her for a few short weeks, I can imagine exactly how Chantelle reacted to this. “So she wasn’t too happy,” I suggest.

  Leon shakes his head. “This makes me sound awful.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I murmur.

  “Well … she did take it badly,” he says quietly.

  “Was she really upset?”

  “More like furious, bombarding me with texts and calls. Kept going on about what people would say when they knew I’d dumped her – which I hadn’t, really. The holiday thing had only happened because the whole family situation felt so weird. Anyway,” he continues, “her parents weren’t impressed either, because they think their little princess should have whatever she wants. So that really finished things between our families. Although Chantelle likes to make a big thing of us still being friends…”

  As Leon stops and looks at me, I feel as if a little bird is fluttering around my heart. “I wish you’d told me all this before,” I say.

&nbs
p; He nods, looking shamefaced. “I didn’t want you to think I’m the kind of person who gets close to someone, then just dumps them.”

  I turn this over in my mind. So he cares what I think of him, which might mean he wants to be more than friends … or am I reading too much into this? “So what was with the big public display of affection in the Stag?” I ask.

  He frowns. “What d’you mean?”

  “Um…” I pause, hoping I don’t sound horribly jealous. “Well … I saw her throwing her arms around you in the pub, that first time you came round for me…”

  “Oh, God.” He laughs and shakes his head. “She kind of sprung it on me. I did think it was weird – but now I suspect it was for your benefit.”

  “What, to warn me off?” I ask with a grin.

  Leon shrugs. “Just one of her little games, I guess.”

  “But why—” I stop abruptly, all thoughts of Chantelle evaporating from my mind as I glimpse a flash of bright colours down on the river. “Look, that’s where I lived!”

  “Oh, wow. It looks amazing. Which one’s Bella’s boat?”

  “The green one.”

  “You were so lucky,” he declares. “I’d love to live on a boat.” I turn and smile at him. That day when we’d left the river, I’d truly believed my luck had run out. I’d never imagined I’d meet a boy who would make me feel as if anything was possible. He’s right, too. It does look amazing down there – even more amazing than I remembered. The river is as flat as a sheet of glass, and there’s not a soul around. There’s a space next to Tarragon, too, where Promise was moored. The new boat must have moved on.

  “That’s Kate, Bella’s mum,” I announce as she emerges through their cabin door. She is glancing around with a hand shielding her eyes in the sun, and looks as if she’s calling to someone, or something. And she is. Moments later, a little peanut-butter-brown terrier shoots out from the trees and scampers along the path towards her. “There’s Murphy!” I yell. “Look, Leon – that’s my dog!” I leap up without thinking, overcome by an urge to tell the driver to stop so we can jump off and run down to the boats. But instead, the driver shouts, “Could you just SIT DOWN? No messing about on my bus.”