The Summer of Secrets by Sarah Jasmon

most of the garage, the sides curving out above their heads. How long had it been since she had come out here? Months? No, longer. Helen felt a sense of shock at how big it was, as if it ought to have shrunk in the time she’d ignored it. She could never see it without picturing how it should be forcing the sea or canal or river down into a boat-shaped space, displacing that exactitude of gallons. It was her dad’s kingdom, his refuge, the millstone around his neck. Victoria didn’t stop to look. She was up the ladder and swinging her leg over the gunwale before Helen had crossed the garage floor towards it. Helen heard her jump down into the base of the boat, and started up the ladder herself. She stopped at the top and peered down at Victoria.
    ‘Why is there an office chair in here?’ Victoria was sitting in it, spinning herself around.
    ‘Dad likes to sit down there. He says it’s peaceful.’ The boat was grimy, bare apart from the chair, no longer the dream on Piet’s sheet of paper. She found it hard to imagine that it would ever look any different.
    ‘And how long have you had it?’ Victoria’s voice jolted Helen out of her thoughts.
    ‘The boat? As long as we’ve had the house.’ Helen lowered herself on to one of the crosspieces that might one day support the flooring. ‘Dad found it right before we moved. It was the first thing in.’ She sometimes thought that was when it had started to go wrong, when Dad had done nothing but bring the boat over, leaving her mother to deal with the removal men. They’d never heard the end of it, anyway.
    Victoria spun again on the chair, using the side of the boat to kick herself round. There was a slight shift in the boat’s balance, and she stuck her foot out to slow down, catching it on a strut.
    ‘It won’t fall over, will it?’ She was holding both arms out, as if she could keep it steady by mind power.
    ‘It shouldn’t do. It’s set up so my dad can get in.’
    ‘Phew.’ Victoria flexed her foot with care. ‘Don’t want to go capsizing before it even hits the water.’ She began to swing again, but with caution. ‘Especially when Piet’s getting interested. He’ll stay for longer if he’s got a project …’ Her voice tailed away.
    They sat in silence for a while. Helen’s mind went back to the previous night. Out here, in the quiet of the boat, the whole event seemed so unlikely. Again, she replayed it: Mick’s shouting, the smashed plates, the late phone call from her mother, and they retreated another step towards unreality. Opposite, Victoria sat with her eyes fixed on some distant point, and Helen felt an urge to tell her about it. She was trying to work out how to phrase it when Victoria’s voice broke in on her thoughts, and it was as if she was mindreading.
    ‘What does your dad do, anyway?’
    Helen paused before answering. ‘Not much these days.’ A picture flashed through her head: Mick sitting here, in the boat, for hours on end. That wasn’t what Victoria had asked, though. ‘He was made redundant.’
    She was instantly glad she hadn’t let on about anything else. That was her dad’s business, not hers to blab about. She remembered people telling her how redundancy was hard for someone like her dad, how he was likely to be a bit depressed. Especially with her mother leaving as well. She was swamped by a surge of emotion. Guilt about how she wanted to escape from him sometimes, a tenderness that she was the one who understood, relief that she hadn’t said anything about last night. That wasn’t him. He needed someone to be interested in his plans, to help him get on with it. He’d be OK then.
    ‘How come you stayed with him?’ Victoria was shifting on to her knees, arms held out for balance. ‘I mean, children usually go with their mother, don’t they?’ The chair wobbled under her as she carried on upwards, first on to one foot then the other. Her head was now level with the top edge of the hull. ‘You don’t