KK 1a

“Silly beggar,” she said. “Your dad’s a silly beggar, Michael, that’s what he is.”

“What’s he done?” I asked her.

“He’s gone off,” she told me, and I thought she meant for good. “He wouldn’t hear reason, oh no. He’s had this idea, he says. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, only that he’s sold the car, that we’re moving south, and he’s going to find us a place.”

My father did indeed seem a changed man. He was waiting for us when we got off the train, all bright-eyed again and full of laughter. He helped us with the cases. “It’s not far,” he said, ruffling my hair. “You wait till you see it, monkey face. I’ve got it all sorted, the whole thing. And it’s no good you trying to talk me out of it, either of you. I’ve made up my mind.”

“What are we doing here?” my mother asked.

“There’s someone I want you to meet. A good friend of mine. She’s called Peggy Sue. She’s been looking forward to meeting you. I’ve told her all about you.”

My mother frowned at me in puzzlement.

“Here she is,” he said. “Let me introduce you. This is the Peggy Sue. Our new home. Well?”

Considering everything, my mother took it pretty well. She didn’t shout at him. She just went very quiet, and she stayed quiet all through his explanation down in the galley over a cup of tea.

“It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, you know. I’ve been thinking about it a long time, all those years working in the factory. All right, maybe I was just dreaming about it in those days. Funny when you think about it: if I hadn’t lost my job, I’d never have dared do it, not in a million years.” He knew he wasn’t making much sense. “All right, then. Here’s what I thought. What is it that we all love doing most? Sailing, right? Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, if we could just take off and sail around the world? There’s people who’ve done it. Blue water sailing, they call it. I’ve read about it in the magazines.

“Like I said, it was just a dream to start with. And then, no job and no chance of a job. What did the man say? Get on your bike. So why not a boat? We’ve got our redundancy money, what little there was of it. There’s a bit saved up, and the car money. Not a fortune, but enough. What to do with it? I could put it all in the bank, like the others did. But what for? Just to watch it dribble away till there was nothing left? Or, I thought, or I could do something really special with it, a once-in-a-lifetime thing: we could sail around the world. Africa. South America. Australia. The Pacific. We could see places we’ve only ever dreamed of.”