A Kiss, a Dare and a Boat Called Promise

by Fiona Foden

  “If we’d known she could be fixed up,” I add, “we’d never have left her with you.”

  “Leave it, Josie,” Ryan says quick.

  “But he was planning to sell her, Mum!” I yell. “He even had a buyer. He was coming to collect her tomorrow, I heard them discussing it.”

  “Get out of my way,” Bill snarls, taking a key from his pocket and unlocking the door which leads down into the cabin. “You’ve caused us enough bother already. It should be me who’s calling the police.”

  As the younger man goes to untie Promise from the railing on Bella’s deck, Vince storms forward, his face scarlet with fury. “Leave this boat where it is,” he roars. “Get off right now.”

  “And who are you?” Bill bellows, eyes blazing.

  “Never mind who I am. Just clear off and leave these people alone.”

  Bill stares at Vince. Mum, Kate and Ryan are all shouting at him, but it’s Vince who grabs Bill by the front of his oil-smeared T-shirt. “Are you listening to me?” Vince yells. “I know what’s happened here. These are decent people and you lied to them. Now get the hell out of here.”

  The punch seems to come from nowhere. At first, it’s impossible to tell who hit who. Someone screams, and I’m vaguely aware of Leon throwing a protective arm around my shoulders as Vince staggers back with a groan.

  “Are you OK, Vince?” Mum cries. “God, you’re bleeding, this looks bad…”

  “I’m all right,” Vince mutters. “Look, they’re getting away…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she insists, peering at his face. “We can’t catch them now.”

  “We should call the police,” someone shouts.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Mum cries. “I need time to think…”

  “We should stop them,” Leon announces, although none of us dares try. Instead, we all stand in bleak silence as Promise turns in a wide circle, then heads back upstream, taking my blue tin with her.

  When Leon and I hatched our plan to rescue Promise, I’d never imagined it would end up with a black eye and an emergency operation on my dog. It’s like when you tell lies – they stack up on top of each other in ways you’d never have predicted. Vince’s right eye is already puffy and purple – although, when we’re back at the Stag with Maria fussing over him, he almost seems proud of it. “I nearly had him,” he boasts as we all cluster around a pub table, which is laden with Mum’s vegetable curries and bowls of rice. Although they smell fantastic, I hardly feel like eating right now.

  At least Murphy will be fine, despite fracturing his leg, presumably by hitting the side of the boat as he fell into the river. I’m not sure how we’ll pay for the operation, but right now, that feels like the least of our worries. At least he’s alive, and being cared for by Charlie, Kate and Bella. The surprising thing is, Vince has said he can live with us in the flat. “He needs to be with his family after a trauma like that,” he says, forking in a great mouthful of curry.

  “We’d like that,” Mum says, smiling around the table. Apart from Vince, Maria and our own family, Leon is also here with us. When Chantelle wanders into the pub and her dad beckons her to join us, it feels like some strange, thrown-together family.

  “We’ve talked about the restaurant incident,” Vince tells her under his breath, causing Chantelle’s cheeks to flush bright red.

  “OK, Dad,” she mutters.

  “I think Josie deserves a proper apology,” Maria adds firmly.

  She flicks her gaze towards me. “Sorry,” she says in a whisper.

  “No, I mean a proper one,” Vince snaps, and I almost feel sorry for her, surrounded by so many watchful eyes – including Leon’s – not knowing where to put herself.

  “Let’s leave it for now, Vince,” Mum says kindly, dishing up a bowlful of curry for Chantelle. No one except me notices the brief, grateful look she gives Mum.

  Mum clears her throat. “I’ve been thinking,” she says, turning to me and Leon. “What you two did was pretty crazy, but it’s made me realize I gave up too easily the day we first took Promise to that boatyard.” Her eyes glint as she places her fork in her bowl. “I’ve called the police,” she adds, “to tell them there’s a dispute about the ownership of a boat.”

  “Brilliant,” I exclaim. “So what’ll happen next?”

  Mum grins. “I can easily prove that Promise is ours and has just had her name changed.”

  “But how?” I ask her.

  “Every boat has a serial number on its engine, and I’ve got all the paperwork – I mean, the ownership papers from my granddad. And everything will match up.”

  “Really?” I gasp. “You mean you had the official papers all along?”

  “Yes, of course,” she says with a smile. Why hadn’t I known that?

  “So, what’ll happen next?” Leon asks, turning to Mum.

  “They’re getting on to it straight away,” she says calmly. “The police in Clingford know Bill McIntyre already. Although they wouldn’t give me any details, they did hint that he’s been involved in all kinds of disputes over the years.”

  “But…” Ryan frowns. “He won’t just hand over Promise, will he? He doesn’t strike me as that kind of man.”

  Mum smiles broadly. “He might not be, but this time he won’t have any choice. The police will impound the boat, just like they do with cars, until I can get there tomorrow with all the paperwork. I’ve already hired a car…”

  “I could’ve taken you,” Vince says quickly.

  “You’ve done enough to help us already,” Mum says gratefully. “It’s time we stood on our own two feet.” She looks round at Ryan and me. “This doesn’t mean we’re going to live back on Promise like before though, OK?”

  I nod, glancing at Leon. “Our mooring’s been taken by someone else anyway,” I tell her.

  “Yes, I know,” Mum says, “and anyway, I don’t believe we can just turn back the clock like that. So much has happened these past few weeks, and we need time to settle down and get our lives together again.” She blinks at me. “How d’you feel about that, Josie?”

  I catch Leon’s eye, then meet Mum’s hopeful gaze. “I’m fine with that, Mum. Honestly, I really am.” It’s true. It feels right to be here, even though Bella is miles away on the river. I gave her the silver ring back and, even though she protested at first, I said it was important for her to have it. I feel close to her every time I look at my finger and see the faint, paler line where it used to be.

  Ryan clears his throat and looks around the table. “I’m happy to stay too,” he says.

  “Well,” Mum adds, “I think I am too. Vince, Maria – you’ve been really good to us. The job’s a challenge, but,” she chuckles dryly, “I think I can handle it.”

  “I knew you would,” Vince says with a grin, “and I have to say, we’re getting quite a reputation for our food here. I’m delighted you want to stay with us, Helen.”

  As Mum beams with pride, I glance at Chantelle, amazed to see the smallest flicker of a smile. “I think you should stay, too,” she says quietly.

  “Really?” I ask.

  She nods as her cheeks burn pink.

  “If we do get Promise back,” Ryan says, “where will we keep her? I bet moorings cost a fortune in London.”

  Mum pushes back her hair. “That’s something we’ll have to figure out.”

  “There’s, um … a mooring at the bottom of our garden,” Leon says tentatively. “We never use it. Maybe she could stay there.”

  “But…” I say, frowning, “what would your mum say about—”

  “Never mind Mum,” he says quickly. “She doesn’t always get her own way, and I know Dad would love it. He reckons it’s a waste, us having our own private mooring with no boat to put on it.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” Mum says. Maria and Chantelle are clearing the table now, and to give
myself a few moments to mull all of this over, I get up to help.

  “So, looks like it’s all worked out,” Chantelle muses as we carry stacks of bowls through to the kitchen and start to load the dishwasher.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Her black-rimmed eyes look guarded as she glances at me. “I, er … I really am sorry about leaving you in that restaurant.”

  I shrug and, even though I’m still pretty mad about it, after today’s events it no longer seems like such a big deal. “You planned it all along, didn’t you?” I ask her. “That’s pretty twisted.”

  She looks at the ground. “I’ll pay you back. Mum and Dad say I’ve got to. I don’t have the money right now but I’ll give it to you when I do.”

  “OK,” I say lightly.

  As we load in the glasses and cutlery, I can sense her giving me quick glances. “I do think it’s amazing, what you did today,” she adds.

  “Mad, though,” I say quietly.

  She smiles then – the first proper one I’ve seen. “Completely crazy,” she says. “I’d never have dared. But then, you did have Leon with you…”

  “Yeah,” I say, resisting the urge to add, But I’d have done it anyway…

  She pulls out her shiny pink clip and shakes out her hair. “We were together for a while, did you know that?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say warily.

  “It didn’t really mean anything, though.”

  I look at her, not knowing what to say.

  “Anyway,” she adds briskly, “if you’re definitely staying, we should get Dad to do something about your bedroom – that nasty mustard colour on the walls, I mean. I don’t know how you can stand it. Shall I ask him for you?”

  “Er … that would be great,” I reply, suspecting that this is her slightly clumsy way of attempting to make amends. “Not today, though. Not when he’s sitting there with that black eye.”

  She smiles, and I do too. At least she’s trying – kind of. We might never be the best of friends, but it’s a start.

  “Hey, you two.” Mum has appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I think everyone has room for dessert. Could you lift that big tin down from the shelf, please, Chantelle?” She grins at me as Chantelle hands it to her. And when Mum takes off the lid to reveal home-made strawberry tarts, I think I might finally be hungry after all.

  When we broke up for the holidays back in July, I’d imagined the summer stretching ahead in its usual predictable way, like the stretch of river where I grew up. Bella and I had planned picnics at the lake, but beyond that, we hadn’t thought about it much. Back then – which seems an age ago now – summer just was. It unfolded, and we drifted along, turning browner by the day as we hopped between the boats.

  And how different my life is now, with my room painted a beautiful sky blue and Chantelle turning into the kind of girl I might even be friends with – maybe. Whatever happens, the day we collected Promise from the police pound and brought her down the river, past Bella’s boat and all our old friends, will be imprinted on my mind for ever.

  It took hours and hours. Mum, Ryan, Leon and I all took turns to steer, and I saw parts of the river I’d never imagined as we approached the city. Here, tall buildings crowded the peaceful water, and instead of ducks there were floating takeaway cartons and the odd shopping trolley or rusty bike poking out. The water was murky and it even smelled different. Then the riverbanks became greener again as we came into a smarter part of town, finally mooring at the bottom of Leon’s garden. His dad, Michael – an excitable man with wiry dark hair who looked delighted as we tied up – says we can keep Promise here for as long as we like.

  Naturally, Mum was pretty shocked when I showed her the contents of my tin. In fact, I felt awful as tears spilled down her cheeks. It was just the two of us that day, sitting in my old cabin together – everyone else was helping Michael to knock the bottom of the garden into shape, where he’d let it grow wild. “I’m sorry, Mum,” I said. “I should have told you I’d kept all this stuff.”

  “No,” she said, putting an arm around my shoulders, “I just wasn’t thinking straight back then – you know, I even thought about getting rid of Promise, too, as she reminded me so much of your dad. Luckily, Maggie and Phil persuaded me not to. They said it wouldn’t be fair on you or your brother to uproot you from everything you knew. I hated it, though, those first few months – everywhere I looked, there was something of your dad’s. I felt as if I could hardly breathe.”

  I swallowed hard and held her hand tightly.

  “Anyway,” she added, “giving away his things wasn’t fair on you or Ryan either. So I’m really pleased we have all of this.”

  Ryan was amazed, too, when Mum and I showed him the tin’s contents in his bedroom back at the flat. Then he produced his secret collection – a ratty old brown cardboard box which he’d kept hidden under his bed for years. It was full of old coins, keys and weird things like badges and even a tarnished necklace. “My treasure from my short-lived career as an archaeologist,” he laughed, looking at Mum and me. “And you two thought that metal detector was useless – that I never found anything.”

  “Why didn’t you show us?” Mum gasped.

  “Living on the boat, I had to keep something to myself,” he said. “These were my lucky charms.” I knew what he meant exactly: that not everything has to be shared. And it looks as if Ryan’s treasures were as important to him as Dad’s tin is to me.

  Mum smiled as the three of us studied the photos of Dad, the newspaper cuttings and his book of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. “You two are far better at keeping things safe than I am,” she told us. “I’m amazed I still had all the ownership documents for Promise, to tell you the truth.”

  And now … well, the weeks have flown by, the cooler September days have turned Leon’s garden into a treasure trove of gold and copper leaves, and we’re due to start our new school tomorrow. Our uniforms are ready, our new school bags bought, our shoes ridiculously shiny. By “we”, I mean Ryan and me – and Leon too.

  “Dad reckons it’s time I got out into the real world,” he laughs as the two of us stretch out, with Murphy between us, on a blanket on Promise’s deck.

  “D’you mind going to school?” I ask.

  His smile warms me from the tips of my ears to my toes. “Of course not. You’ll be there, won’t you? And, compared to trying to control my sisters, I reckon it’ll be a relief.”

  I laugh and look up at the darkening sky. As long as Leon walks me home, we’re allowed to stay out late during the holidays. Well, of course Leon is – he’s as free as a bird. But Mum knows I’m safe here, and to me, it feels like home. Even our flat above the Stag does now.

  There’s no summer house any more, though. Leon’s dad was right that it was about to collapse, so he took it down amidst howls of protest from the three girls, and Leon moved all his stuff on to Promise. Now the whole of the inside is papered with maps showing all the places we’ll go to one day, if we dare.

  It’s dusk now, and Murphy scampers after me as I go down into the cabin to fetch candles in jars to bring up on to the deck. Then he curls up with Daisy, who looks like she’s his new best friend these days.

  Leon lights the candles, arranging them in a row along the edge of the boat. It almost feels just like it was before, especially since Mum stripped off Lily-May and painted back her original name. Except for one thing: she’s not my boat any more. She’s ours – mine and Leon’s.

  We watch the candles flicker until it’s properly night-time, then he kisses me under a dark, dark sky that hangs like velvet above us. And when I look up, there are stars – millions of them, twinkling just for us.

  I guess they were there all along.

  Acknowledgements

  Huge thanks to Cathy, Tania, Erin and my lovely friends from the long-ago narrowboat days, especially John B, Tobi, John T, Aman
da and Rob. Happy days on the Regent’s Canal – the only time I ever had a posh London postcode!

  Fiona Foden Q&A

  Like Josie, you once lived on a river boat. What was that like?

  I was living in London and happened to go on a boat trip down the Thames where I saw clusters of beautiful houseboats. It looked like the perfect way to live. So I managed to buy a scruffy old boat and lived on the canal in Islington, North London, where there was a community of boaters. We all became friends and hung out together. There was an amazing sense of freedom, and it was especially great in the summer when we’d all be lounging on our decks and having parties, with the occasional boat chugging by. I lived on my boat for two years and was heartbroken to leave!

  A Kiss, A Dare... is about first love, and how awkward that can be. What made you decide to write about it?

  The setting was my starting point – for years, I’ve wanted to write a story set on a boat, to try and convey the magical feeling of living on one. And from that, the storyline started to develop in my mind. I soon figured out that I wanted Josie to go in search of her “stolen” boat, and that she would have a boy with her. I love writing about friendships, crushes and falling in love, as they are universal and rarely as simple as we’d like them to be. That’s what makes them so fascinating.

  What was the first story you ever wrote?

  I started drawing cartoon strips when I was about thirteen and sent them to a comic which no longer exists, called TV Tops. They started to buy them for £5 a go which seemed like a HUGE amount of cash back then. When I left school at seventeen, I managed to get a job on a teenage magazine called Jackie (also long gone, sadly!) as a trainee writer. My various jobs there involved writing features and organizing the fashion pages, but I would also write the odd story for them, if an idea popped into my mind.

  What advice would you give young people who want to write?

  Feeling self-conscious can really get in the way of good writing, so the best thing is to make it as relaxed and pleasurable as possible. For me, when I was starting out, that meant writing stories in notebooks and not showing them to anyone for ages. That way, I didn’t feel pressured. Write as often as you can – every day if possible. Keep all your old stuff – it’s encouraging to look back and see how much you’ve improved. And remember that even your favourite authors started off just like you, scribbling away in notebooks.