Page 19 of Barging In
“She must have gone to the scrapyard years ago.”
“Lots of old boats get restored.”
“Well, this…” Her mum trailed off, then looked at Clem in confusion. “It can’t be?”
“It is.”
As her dad caught up to them, her mum turned to him. “Tom, Clem says it’s Florence.OurFlorence.”
He nodded. “That she is.”
“You knew?” she demanded, hands resting on her hips.
“Of course. I sorted all her licences, didn’t I? There aren’t many 1974 Hancock & Lane cruisers about.”
“I managed to find flecks of paint under all the layers and repainted her in the same colour.” Clem beamed, remembering the thrill of her discovery. “At least I hope it’s right. I don’t think any other period in history would produce orange boats.”
“It looks spot on to me,” her dad remarked, “but it’s been about thirty-five years since we sold her.”
“She’s truly clementine,” her mum remarked.
“Clementine?” Clem questioned.
“Yes. It was the name of the original paint colour. Didn’t you realise you were named after Florence?”
Clem couldn’t help the soft smile that tugged at herlips. “You let me think I was named after an orange when all along you named me after her.”
Her mum shrugged. “Well, now you know. Is she the same inside?” she added cautiously.
“Nowhere near, I’m afraid. I have installed a professional kitchen, remember. Come and look inside.”
Her mum remained silent until she stepped on board and turned to her daughter.
“Oh, Clem,” she murmured, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it’s her.”
“No? Then look at the tiller.”
Her mum traced the carved initials — CW, BW, and TW — on the wooden tiller, smiling as her fingers brushed over them.
“It really is her,” her mum sniffed as her dad squeezed her shoulders.
“She still has her original stove, too. She underwent restoration in the late nineties. They reversed her layout then, so you’ll find she’s a bit different inside. Go in.”
Clem slowly descended the steps behind her mum, giving her space to take it all in.
“Oh, this is a much better layout!” she enthused. “It never made sense to me why bedrooms were next to the stern. You’d have to traipse through to get to the galley or walk around the outside to make a cuppa.”
“It was useful, though, when you were little, Clem,” her dad added, looking around. “We’d shut the bedroom door, and you’d play safely in here whilst we watched from the tiller.” He hummed. “Takes me back. All the orange pine tongue-and-groove panelling has gone, though.”
“There’s still some left in the bedroom, but it’s painted thankfully,” Clem confirmed.
She glanced at her dad, but he seemed lost in thought.
“When you got too big, we had to sell her. It was for the best,” he said at last, meeting her eyes with a smile.
Her mum chimed in, her voice gentle. “You needed more space than Florence could give you, and we didn’t want her to feel like a prison.”
Clem found herself nodding, offering her parents the reassurance they seemed to need — that they’d made the right choice all those years ago. And they had. She couldn’t imagine growing up aboard Florence, the three of them crammed into such a tiny space.
