Two Left Boots

The quay was nearly finished. Bente had laid the grey cardboard pieces in rows beside the blue river. The last row didn’t fit. A gap showed the brown board underneath. Daan went on to the shops for a few things. He would be back at half past three.

Noor picked up a scrap of cardboard.

‘What would you like me to do with it?’ she asked.

Bente held her fingers beside the gap. ‘A paving stone to fit in here. Don’t glue it yet.’

Noor sat down. The scissors struggled through the double thickness. Her first stone was too long. She trimmed an edge off the second. Bente slid it into the gap and nodded, then took it out again to put glue underneath.

Wim came from behind the counter with a flat box. He set it on a chair and took out a folder of photographs. Farah was looking for a socket for a small lamp. She had tried the light above the exhibition, but it mostly shone on the empty coffee cups.

‘Could these go on display?’ Wim asked. ‘Some are from when we were building it.’

Bente wiped glue off her finger. ‘I want to look first.’

Wim gave her the folder. The first photograph showed the full-sized ferry. A man in a woolly hat stood by a barrier. It was Wim with fewer wrinkles and more dark hair.

‘He had the same nose then,’ Sami said.

Wim bent over the picture. ‘Good job too. Otherwise I’d have to get my glasses fitted again.’

Bente pushed the old photograph to the far side of the table. Beneath it was a sheet with three new pictures. One showed the half-built boat on a newspaper. The white roof lay beside it. The windows were still empty holes.

‘I thought you just glued the roof on,’ Noor said.

‘Then we couldn’t get inside,’ Bente said. ‘It comes off.’

She pointed to a narrow ledge inside the boat where the roof rested. She had painted the windows from the inside. In the next photograph her hand was in the cabin. Her forefinger looked much too big for the little door.

Wim tapped the empty windows. ‘That section used to be lower. On my drawing, anyway.’

‘The captain wouldn’t fit underneath,’ Bente said.

‘I wanted to make him a bit smaller.’

Bente looked at him. ‘He was tiny already.’

Wim pointed above the windows. ‘So I made this higher. Then the roof could go on without anybody losing their head.’

Noor studied the little faces in the photograph. She was glad Wim had changed the boat instead of making Bente remake all the people. A pencil line still showed where he had first planned the edge.

‘I don’t want this one up,’ Bente said.

Sami leant closer. Bente kept her hand on the photograph.

‘My fingers are in front of everything.’

‘All right,’ Noor said. ‘Not that one.’

Bente took it out of its sleeve, leaving the other two. Noor had only seen the boat from a distance. Now she could make out the tiny door and a passenger with a green collar. The roof rose a little above the windows. A full-sized passenger’s raincoat wouldn’t even fit underneath. Everything had to be smaller when you built a boat, except Bente’s hand.

The third photograph showed the model on its side. Under the hull was a thick brown layer.

‘Cork,’ Bente said. ‘From a big sheet. It crumbled everywhere.’

Wim nodded. ‘I swept up three times. The fourth time I still found some in my sock.’

‘That’s why you thought it hadn’t sunk,’ Noor said.

‘It should stay afloat,’ Wim replied. ‘Even with water on the deck. But I’d rather it was dry on the table already.’

He put the box under his chair. Bente searched the folder for a loose print. She found it between two sheets of tissue paper and laid it flat.

It was the picture from the window notice, only bigger. The light was off. Noor could see its yellow cover at the front, just below the white roof. On top of the roof were two red things.

‘Those,’ she said. ‘That’s the red I saw.’

Bente held a fingernail beside the shapes. ‘Boots.’

‘I thought it was a bucket. Or a really tiny flag.’

‘They’re two left boots.’

Sami drew breath. Noor looked up. He closed his mouth again and picked a loose piece of sticky tape off the table.

Bente turned the photograph a quarter-turn. ‘Look. The toes point the same way. I copied the first one, then remembered there’s another foot.’

Noor looked at her own shoes under the table. The difference was suddenly so obvious that she wondered how anyone could forget. Bente was already sliding the photograph back towards the folder.

‘They’re a lovely red,’ Noor said.

‘Yes. But both left.’

‘People can see that in the picture. You don’t have to put it in the caption.’

Bente held the folder open. Then she laid the print beside the photograph of the full-sized ferry.

‘This one can go up. Otherwise they won’t know what’s supposed to be here.’

She tapped the empty space on the river. Noor reached for the label lying there. It said MODEL OF THE OLD FERRY. She asked where it should go.

‘In front of the water,’ Bente said. ‘There’s still a bit of quay to add there.’

Sami pushed the last grey pieces towards her. One stuck to his finger. He peeled it off carefully and laid it with the others. He said nothing about boots.

In another photograph Wim showed them how he had hidden the light’s wire. Two batteries fitted under a cover inside the boat.

‘Those aren’t meant to get wet,’ he said. ‘When we get it back, I’ll check what’s got water in it first.’

‘We have to get it back,’ Bente said.

Wim put the folder down. ‘Yes. That’s why we’re looking again tomorrow.’

Noor wanted to fetch her map and say they knew where now. Her hand stayed on the buckle of her bag. They knew where they could look next. They hadn’t seen anything beneath that landing stage yet.

Farah finally found a suitable socket. The table lamp came on. A yellow patch fell across the picture of the model. Bente shifted it until the glare disappeared.

‘Will you write the caption?’ she asked Noor.

Noor sat up straighter. ‘What shall I put?’

Bente thought. ‘Built by Wim and Bente. And that it really floats.’

‘I can write small,’ Noor said.

‘Big enough for Grandad to read, though.’

Wim turned his chair towards them. Noor wrote a rough version first. She showed Bente before copying it neatly onto the card. Then Sami could slide it into the holder.