Chapter 1 #2
It was rare to see it written out like that.
One of the quirks of living on water was that I didn’t really have a proper address, and all of my post had to be sent to a PO box on land.
Nana Rose had tried to persuade me to direct my mail to her care home when I moved on board, but when the final demand notices started arriving in the post as well as by email, I was relieved I hadn’t succumbed.
My beloved grandmother was still as feisty as she had always been, but there was no escaping the fragility of her limbs beneath the jewel-coloured outfits she loved, which were all slightly too big for her now.
It was more important than ever to protect her from the fears which dominated my life.
‘Thanks Eric,’ I said, although gratitude was the last thing on my mind.
‘The payment’s due by September, as always. That work for you?’ he asked politely, though we both knew it wasn’t really a question.
‘Absolutely,’ I said, injecting as much enthusiasm into my tone as I could.
While living on water was undoubtedly less pricey than battling the rental market on land in Oxford, there were still some expenses which were unavoidable, mooring fees being one of them.
And given the popularity of the waterways around Oxford, the mooring fees were high.
I was in the extremely fortunate position of having a permanent berth for the Oxford Bookship, in a prime spot just a gentle stroll from the historic streets of Jericho.
Before I took over the vessel, it had belonged to Nana Rose, and she’d negotiated a long-term contract for its mooring location, which had since been signed over to me.
But it would only remain mine for as long as I could continue to pay for it.
The fees were calculated upon the size of the boat, and what the Oxford Bookship lacked in width, she more than made up for in length.
Sixty feet – or just over eighteen metres in modern money – of beautiful, traditional canal boat.
When I started out last year, it was an expense I’d naively planned to cover through a combination of profits and savings.
What I hadn’t anticipated was how little I’d have of either at this point.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Eric asked, as if he’d handed me a birthday card rather than a bill.
‘I guess so,’ I said, although I’d actually been intending to file the envelope away safely under my laptop in the cabin and study its contents on another day when I was feeling braver.
I glanced out of a porthole, hoping to see a crowd of customers heading down the towpath to give me the perfect excuse to get rid of my unwanted visitor and pretend this whole situation wasn’t happening, but no such luck.
‘Here goes,’ I said. I got a papercut as I tore the envelope open, which seemed like a bad omen.
Blood smeared on the thick letter paper as I unfolded it, and my immediate ridiculous response to seeing the figure written there was that no wonder the Oxford Boating Association could afford such luxurious stationery.
‘It’s had to go up a little,’ said Eric, a note of apology in his voice.
I tried to swallow the boulder which had appeared in my throat.
This innocuous, horrid piece of paper essentially signalled the death knell of my beloved business.
‘A little? This is more than a little.’ I quickly did the sums in my head, trying to stave off my rising panic.
Surely this had to be a mistake. Even in my worst-case scenario imaginings I’d never thought it would be this bad.
‘This is a 20 per cent increase. Even council tax doesn’t go up by that much in a year. ’
Eric nodded, as if he’d been expecting that response, then trotted out the party line.
‘The Association has done its best to keep the fees down. We wrestled with the accounts long and hard to minimise the increase. But as an organisation we can only absorb so many costs, and with prices for everything going up…’ His voice trailed off.
‘Anyway, I’m glad that business is going well. So it won’t be a problem, will it?’
He wanted me to reassure him. Pompous as he could be at times, underneath it all, Eric was a good man who genuinely cared about the canal and the people who lived and worked on it.
Nana Rose had spent nearly eight decades as the heart of the boating community at this very mooring, and I knew Eric was delighted that I was continuing the Bramble family tradition.
But being Nana Rose’s granddaughter would only give me so many privileges.
At the end of the day, the Oxford Boating Association had many miles of canal and towpaths to maintain, and they could only do that if everybody paid their way.
If I didn’t find the ￡4,500 fee by the end of the summer, the Oxford Boating Association would serve me with an eviction notice for my mooring, regardless of the chairman’s soft spot for my grandmother.
And that would be the end of the Oxford Bookship.
Sure, I could change my boating licence to a continuous cruiser one and start travelling around the rest of the UK’s waterways, but if trade was bad in a permanent location, it would be even worse in a scenario where I was having to move the boat to a different place every two weeks with zero chance of building up a regular clientele.
Besides, it would break Nana Rose’s heart to lose the long-held Bramble mooring.
And it would break my heart to have to move away from her and the rest of the Oxford boating community who meant so much to me.
This city had always been my home, and I desperately wanted it to remain so.
I couldn’t imagine myself living anywhere else.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said, doing my best to sound like the confident, successful business owner that I wished I was.
‘Marvellous,’ said Eric, looking relieved.
I must have been a better actor than I thought I was.
‘The bank transfer details are all on the letter. As I mentioned, the payment is due by September, but if you want to get it out of the way sooner, that’s not a problem.
Once you’ve made the transfer, you should receive an immediate automated response acknowledging that it’s arrived safely, as per our usual system. ’
‘Sounds good.’ There was definitely an edge of hysteria in my voice now, but Eric seemed oblivious to it.
‘Excellent. See you around, Molly love.’ Now business had been completed, he was back to calling me by my first name.
‘See you.’
Eric walked towards the door, then stopped in his tracks by the small turquoise trolley which displayed my latest sales promotion, a collection of books artfully wrapped up in brown paper.
‘What kind of books are you selling there? Nothing … inappropriate, I hope,’ he said, looking all uncomfortable again.
I managed a smile as I realised where he was going with his misguided assumption.
‘Don’t worry, the erotic literature is at the other end of the cabin.
’ Eric’s eyes widened in embarrassment, and I took pity on him.
‘They’re my Blind Date with a Book selection.
Look, they’ve all got labels with clues on them indicating the genre and key themes, but readers don’t get to find out the title or author until they’ve bought and unwrapped it. ’
‘Ah, that sounds fun,’ said Eric, visibly relaxing. ‘They do say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover after all.’
‘Exactly. It’s a good way of helping people to discover new authors, or books that they might have dismissed as being “not for them”. The right book always has a way of finding the reader who needs it.’
Eric raised an eyebrow at what he no doubt considered to be whimsy, but he shuffled through the selection, pausing to peruse a couple of the labels I’d spent so much time and effort writing.
‘A woman embarks on a mission to track down the “Awesome Andreas” whose name she’s drunkenly had tattooed on her back after a wild night out in Greece,’ he read out loud.
‘Goodness me. I’m glad it says it’s a romantic comedy.
The situation sounds like a complete nightmare to me.
I’ll get it for my granddaughter; it might be the kind of thing she’ll enjoy as a break from university finals revision.
Hopefully it’ll put her off getting a tattoo. ’
I wasn’t convinced it would have the effect he wanted.
Eric handed over a twenty-pound note, and I opened up my cash box to find the correct change, but he shook his head. ‘Don’t worry. You keep it. I’m delighted to have her birthday gift sorted and wrapped ready to go as well. You take care now, Molly.’
There was a hint of tenderness in his expression. Maybe I wasn’t such a good actor after all. I didn’t want to accept Eric’s pity-inspired generosity, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse it.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said.
He was nearly back on shore when I swallowed yet more of my pride and called after him.
‘Is there any chance of a payment plan for the mooring fees?’ If I could spread the cost out and trade improved, then maybe, just maybe I could make it work.
He softly patted Hilda’s wiry head before he replied.
‘I’m afraid the committee voted against offering payment plans several years ago. The decision is regularly reviewed, but unfortunately, I don’t think our position is going to change by the time this year’s fees are due. I’m sorry, Molly. I wish I could give you a different answer.’
His sympathetic grimace was nearly my undoing.
‘That’s fine, not a problem at all. Just thought I’d ask,’ I said as cheerfully as I could manage. ‘The money will be with you by September.’
Now I urgently needed to find a way to make that happen.