Human Remains

of the wheelhouse.
    No, it wasn’t the tide, or the thought of the mismatched group of people who would be descending on my boat later today. There was something else. I felt as though someone had rubbed my fur the wrong way.
    The plan for the day: finish the last bit of timber cladding for the second room, the room that was going to be a guest bedroom at some point in the future. Clear away all the carpentry tools and store them in the bow. Sweep out the boat, clean up a bit. Then see if I could cadge a lift to the cash-and-carry for party food and beer.
    There was one wall left to do, an odd shape, which was why I had left it till last. The room was full of sawdust and offcuts of wood, bits of edging and sandpaper. I’d done the measurements last night but now, frowning at the bit of paper, I decided to recheck it all just to be on the safe side. When I had clad the galley I’d ended up wasting a load of wood because I misread my own measurements.
    I put the radio on, turned up loud even though I still couldn’t hear it above the mitre saw, and got to work.
    At nine, I stopped and went back through to the galley for a coffee. I filled the kettle and put it on to the gas burner. The boat was a mess. It was only occasionally that I noticed it. Glancing around, I scanned last night’s takeaway containers hurriedly shoved into a carrier bag ready to go out to the main bins. Dirty dishes in the sink. Pans and other items in boxes sitting on one of the dinette seats waiting to be put away, now I had finally fitted cupboard doors in the galley. A black plastic sack of fabrics and netting that would one day be curtains and cushion covers. None of it mattered when I was the only one in here, but in a few hours’ time this boat would be full of people, and I had promised them that the renovations were almost complete.
    Almost complete? That was stretching the truth a little thin. I had finished the bedroom, and the living room wasn’t bad. The galley was done too, but needed cleaning and tidying. The bathroom was – well, the kindest thing that could be said about it was that it was functional. As for the rest of it – the vast space in the bow that would one day be a bigger bathroom with a bath instead of a hose for a shower, a wide conservatory area with a sliding glass roof (an ambitious plan, but I’d seen one in a magazine and it looked so brilliant that it was the one project I was determined to complete), and maybe a snug or an office or another unnamed room that would be wonderful and cosy and magical – for the moment, it worked as storage.
    The kettle started a low whistle, and I rinsed a mug under the tap and spooned in some instant coffee, two spoons: I needed the caffeine.
    A pair of boots crossed my field of vision through the porthole, level with the pontoon outside, shortly followed by a call from the deck. ‘Genevieve?’
    ‘Down here. Kettle’s just boiled, want a drink?’
    Moments later Joanna trotted down the steps and into the main cabin. She was dressed in a miniskirt, with thick socks and heavy boots, with the laces trailing, on the ends of her skinny legs. The top half of her was counterbalanced by one of Liam’s jumpers, a navy blue one, flecked with bits of sawdust and twig and cat hair. Her hair was a tangle of curls and waves of various colours.
    ‘No, thanks – we’re off out in a minute. I just came to ask what time we should come over later, and do you want us to bring a lasagne as well as the cheesecake? And Liam says he’s got some beers left over from the barbecue, he’ll be bringing those.’
    She had a bruise on her cheek. Joanna didn’t wear make-up, wouldn’t have known what to do with it, so there it was – livid and purplish, about the size of a fifty pence piece, under her left eye.
    ‘What happened to your face?’
    ‘Oh, don’t you start. I had a fight with my sister.’
    ‘Blimey.’
    ‘Come up on deck, I need a smoke.’
    The wind was still whipping, so we sat on the bench by the wheelhouse. The sun was trying to make its way through the scudding clouds but failing. Across the other side of the marina I could see Liam loading boxes and carrier bags into the back of their battered Transit van.
    Joanna fished around in the pocket of her skirt and brought forth a pouch of tobacco. ‘The way I see it,’ she said, ‘she should keep her fucking nose out of my business.’
    ‘Your sister?’
    ‘She thinks she’s all clever because she’s got herself a