‘It will be worth it. Just you wait.’
By the end of the following week, Abe is right. It is so worth it. With the pots of green and red paint in front of us, we can finally start painting the boat together. By this stage, even the neighbours are involved and Pieter and Lotte pop over with some fizzy drinks to keep our strength up and motivate us by reminding us what a wonderful job we are doing. Even Camilla walks past and smiles at me while she introduces us to her new, younger boyfriend, Rick. The happiness aroundNew Beginningsis contagious.
It takes another week before it is almost complete. The previous name of the boat has been painted over in red. I pick up the stencil so that I can write the new name with precision across the side. Now this is the moment I have been waiting for.
‘I’m so excited, Abe.’
‘It’s going to look wonderful. So, what are you waiting for?’ says Abe, looking at me with the thin paintbrush in one hand and the stencil in the other.
‘I’m scared I’ll make a mistake.’
‘Do you want me to help you do it?’
‘No. Thank you for offering, but it’s something I have to do myself.’
Taking a deep breath, I start painting the first letter. Then the second and the third.
I look at the first word, painted in a white fancy scroll: New.
‘Looks good,’ says Abe.
‘It does. Now for the rest of it.’
I paint in the B and then the E and the G and then my mind goes blank. It must be my fear of getting it wrong, but I have some kind of brain fog from nowhere and forget how to spellbeginnings. I look at Abe in disbelief.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
‘My mind’s gone. I can’t remember how to spell beginnings. I mean, is it two Gs and one N or the other way around? The pressure of getting it right has got to me.’
‘One G, two Ns.’
‘I can’t believe you can spell better than me and English is your second language.’
Abe laughs and then dips his finger in the white paint and splats me on the nose with it. I wave my paintbrush in the air to give him a warning.
‘Just wait until I’m done. It’s paint wars now,’ I tease.
‘Sounds fun to me,’ says Abe.
‘Right. No more messing about. I’m going to have to concentrate now.’
I focus so hard on getting the spelling correct that I bite down on my lip. Then slowly, I remove the stencil from the front of the boat and step back. There are no mistakes as I feared and thankfully the name is in a straight line.
‘New Beginnings,’ I say as I read it out loud.
‘Beautiful, well done,’ says Abe, giving me a kiss.
We stand back with our arms around each other and admire the houseboat.
‘You’ve done a great job,’ says Abe.
‘Wedid. It was a joint effort.’
‘Ah, it was all your idea. The colours, the name. I was just the assistant.’
‘I could get used to having you as my assistant. You know what would be nice now, my assistant Abe? A nice cold beer.’
‘I think we need something more than that. I have just the thing.’
