‘Terri – and my husband's Donald.’

Did she look hurt that Jo hadn't remembered? Jo didn't think so. 'Terri, such a pretty name, how could I have forgotten. Come and see the rest of it. Dora, my lodger, barge-mate or whatever you call it, is making brownies. I wonder if they're cooked?' If she got a job in a tearoom, she'd have to ask Dora for the recipe.

The smell of chocolate wafted out of the saloon in a satisfying way, and it looked immaculate, to Jo's eyes anyway.

‘Well, this is the saloon, where everything happens,' she announced.

‘It's very – cosy,' said Terri, obviously unable to think of anything else to say.

Jo couldn't think of anything either. 'Dora,' she said, brisker than she meant to be. 'Those brownies smell heavenly. Are they ready yet?'

‘I'm afraid not.' Dora was apologetic. 'About another fifteen minutes I think.’

Feeling despair creeping over her, Jo said, 'I'll show Terri the bathroom. I wonder if Donald's OK in the engine room?' If he wasn't, how, she wondered, would they get him out up the vertical ladder? The bathroom passed muster. Dora had hidden her wet towel and the towels that were left were neatly folded over the rail. The loo seat was down and there were no traces of toothpaste on the taps. There were definitely advantages to living a man-free life, reflected Jo as Terri exclaimed at finding a bathroom big enough to have a washing machine in it. Philip could never brush his teeth without spitting on the taps.

‘And what's in here?' asked Terri, pushing open a cabin door before Jo's shriek of horror reached her.

‘Don't go in there-’

Going in there was not an option. This tiny single cabin was the glory hole, where everything that hadn't got a home was put, where anything anyone had got bored with was stuffed, where the bag of rubbish Jo had mysteriously lost now presented itself.

‘I only rent this boat,' said Jo, having pulled the door shut with the nearest thing to a slam she could manage, given that a heap of old clothes had got in the way. 'Michael, who owns it, told me not to go in here.'

‘Oh,' said Terri. 'Like the room in "Bluebeard". He hasn't been married lots of times, has he?’

Jo laughed and relaxed a little. 'Only about one and a half times, so that's all right.' She was about to add, 'How about you?' out of habit, but managed to stop herself in time. 'Let's see if the brownies are cooked. I could do with a chocolate fix.’

The brownies were out of the oven, but hadn't had time to set. Jo didn't care, and insisted on serving them while they were still bendy. Donald had emerged from the engine room and proceeded to talk to Jo long and incom prehensibly about it. Her eyes glazed, she smiled and nodded and nibbled brownie-crumbs. Eventually voices from the wheelhouse brought her relief. 'I'd better let those people on board,' she said, and flew up the stairs again.

‘My husband helped himself to the engine room,' said a very young woman in a tight miniskirt and high-heeled shoes. 'Didn't fancy it myself.' She looked shy and uncom fortable, as if she'd rather be anywhere but on a barge.

‘Come down and have a brownie,' said Jo, spotting the reluctant partner of a barge fanatic. 'They're a bit soft still, but taste delicious.’

'Tell me they've all gone,' said Jo some time later, with her eyes shut. 'Tell me I don't have to answer any more questions, or apologise any more for the state of the little cabin.'

‘They've all gone,' said Dora, 'and now it's our turn to go and snoop around everyone else's boats. But you don't have to,' she added, regarding Jo's supine, possibly sleeping, form. 'We could just stay here.'

‘You wouldn't fancy going on your own?'

‘No.' Although she'd be disappointed to miss looking at all the other barges, Dora did not fancy inviting herself on board them, even if it was what everyone else was doing.

Jo opened an eye. 'No, I want to get my own back,' she said. 'I'll just put another layer of slap on.'

‘I should straighten my hair, really.' Dora ran her hand over the curls that were usually ironed into obedience.

‘I like it curly,' said Jo. 'It makes you look delightfully dishevelled. Bed hair,' she added. 'Isn't that what's it's called?'

‘I don't know, but it sounds good.’

Dora hoped that Jo wouldn't take too long putting on her make-up, and she didn't. She reappeared from the bathroom a few minutes later and said, 'Let the com petition beware. Now I'm going to open strange doors and run my finger over the surfaces looking for dust! Kim and Aggie have nothing on me!'

‘No one did that, did they?' Dora was horrified.

‘Well, no,' Jo conceded, 'at least, only metaphorically.’

‘Come on,' said Dora, not up to being metaphorical just then. 'Where shall we start?'

‘Let's find Bill and Miranda,' said Jo. 'We know them, it won't be so shy-making.’

The Hepplewhite was a replica Dutch barge that Bill and Miranda had had built a couple of years ago. Jo remem bered being told all this, and shared the information with Dora as they searched among the flotilla of visiting boats that were moored on a section of the river.

‘Oh, there it is,' said Dora. 'They've got it written in big letters on that thing at the back.'

‘It's a stern, Dora,' said Jo. 'I know very little about boats and what you call things on them, but I do know that much.'

‘I'll try and remember,' said Dora, penitent.

‘I'm so glad it's you,' said Miranda, when she saw them both. 'I'm not quite ready. I went on a bit of an antique hunt yesterday and I haven't found spaces for everything yet.'

‘Hello, Jo,' said Bill. 'And you must be Dora. Welcome aboard.’

There was a huge rectangular table in the middle of the saloon and it was covered with boxes and carrier bags.

‘See what I mean?' said Miranda, who had ushered them down. 'This table takes apart completely and all the bits stow away, and the saloon looks much better when it's down, but there's all this stuff.'

‘Well, you bought it,' said Bill good-humouredly.

‘I got such a good deal, I had to have it. But that was the trouble, I had to have all of it and some of it is rubbish, really. Look at this mirror.' She picked up a little mirror with a very elaborate gold frame.

‘But it's adorable!' said Jo.

‘It's terribly damaged,' said Bill. 'It's not worth trying to restore. You might as well just chuck it.'

‘Oh, you can't!' said Jo, taking it from Miranda. 'It could be so pretty!'

‘But it is very tatty. Look, that cherub has lost a foot, you can't see what sort of flowers those were, and about eighty per cent of the curlicues are missing.' Miranda, whilst obviously agreeing that the mirror could be pretty, felt obliged to point out its many flaws.

‘I'm sure something could be done with it,' said Jo, still hanging on to it. 'What's the frame made of?'

‘Carved wood, decorated with gold leaf,' said Miranda. 'Very tricky to restore.'

‘And you don't know anyone who could repair it?'

‘It wouldn't be worth trying to track someone down, and it's a rare craft,' said Bill.

‘Then could I have a go?' asked Jo, reluctant to put the mirror down. 'It would be such fun and it's so sad to think of it just being chucked away, or given to a car-boot sale or something.'

‘Have you ever done anything like that?' asked Bill. 'It's not easy.'

‘I've never done anything precisely like this, but I used to enjoy restoring things. I had a book with techniques in it, like French polishing, lacquering, things like that. I'm stubborn really. I don't like to be defeated.'

‘But do you really want to spend all that time? It would take ages.' Bill picked up a box, obviously intending to put it somewhere else, and then put it back, defeated.