Chapter 3 - Part 2

This is where Isa's adventure is set. The sea arm connects to the North Sea on the left hand side (not in the map).

Chapter 3 – part 2

Not much later they skidded to a halt at the car park. Isa got down stiffly, wobbling a bit on her broken shoe. Remembering Dirk didn’t do hand shakes, she gave him a grateful smile and a nod. 

“Thanks ever so much. I don’t know what I would have done without your kind help.” 

His deep-sea blue eyes twinkled. 

“Screamed some more at the waves, probably,” he muttered. 

This time he didn’t catch her out quite as much. 

“Are you always this blunt?”

 “I didn’t mean to offend,” he said quickly. 

He looked as if he meant it, too. His gaze was direct and frank, the twinkle replaced by an innocent honesty. Isa felt herself drawn.

 “I mustn’t keep you,” she said with regret. “You will be expected at home, no doubt, Christmas dinner?”

 But Dirk gave a swift shake of the head. 

“I have no plans.”

 “No plans? Won’t you be having dinner with your parents?” 

“Nope.” 

“Who with then? You will not eat alone, will you? At Christmas?” 

“Yep.” (Copyright Renée Koopman – If you steal this, you are a very bad person!) 

She watched his eyes. Either he was telling the truth, or he was a bloody good liar. Seventeen, and then home alone? This shouldn’t be allowed, she decided. 

“Come home with me,” she suddenly blurted. “My girls will be there, it will be fun.”

 “Girls?” 

Dirk looked scared again. His sudden mood swings amazed Isa. 

“Nothing to worry about, they’re coming over for dinner, you’ll like them. Bobby is a student, she’s 19, and Suzan is 22, she’s a teacher in Belgium but over for the holidays. Older than you, but not that much older. Come on, Dirk, it will be good fun,” she repeated breathlessly. 

Still he hesitated.

“I have more than enough food! I always buy far too much, and then I’ll only feed it to Tom, and he’s too fat as it is.”

 “Is Tom your husband?” 

“What? No, he’s my cat.”

Isa suddenly felt deflated. Inviting Dirk wasn’t such a good idea, perhaps. But Dirk did an about-turn once again. 

“Okay, I’ll come. I can go get my bike later, I’ll lock it to the lamppost over there.”

The ride to the suburb of Nieuwenhoorn was uneventful. Isa didn’t like to talk when she was concentrating on the road, and thankfully Dirk seemed to sense her mood and kept his mouth shut. In no time at all she turned into her own street.

“Here we are.” 

She locked the car door and bent down to give Tom, who had materialised from under the box hedge, a quick stroke under his chin. 

“Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,” she tossed over her shoulder to Dirk, only to see him start at the threshold as if she had tossed him a dead rat. Isa, you stupid twit! she admonished herself. 

“It’s a joke! Honestly, come in, come in, make yourself at home.” 

She made herself turn around and marched into her house, hoping he would follow her as he had done at the harbour months ago. He did. Isa busied herself with putting the kettle on, guessing he would like tea better than her usual chilled tipple from the fridge. When she came back into the living area, she saw him standing in front of her bookshelves, intently reading the titles on the spines. 

“You like detectives,” he stated a fact. “And Art.”

 “Yes. I’ve made you Earl Grey, it’s the closest to ‘just tea’ I have, is that all right? What kind of books do you like?”

 “I don’t read,” Dirk said.
© Renée Koopman

Chapter 2 - Part 1

Ducks (photograph © Wibe Koopman)

Isa’s Sundays used to be filled with people. A husband, her two daughters, her Mum, friends. She used to rush around her kitchen from two in the afternoon; preparing dinner, chilling wine, making sure everything was just so for when everyone would sit around her huge teak dining table at six.

When did all this change? The rot started with her Mum dying of the cancer that had sneaked up on her five times previously. The sixth time the cutting and medicating couldn’t save her. Isa mourned her in silence. She wasn’t given to loud and public mourning. But she missed her mother terribly. 

Then, out of the blue, her husband of twenty-five years dropped a bombshell into their tidy lives. He had fallen in love with a woman fifteen years younger than Isa. And this woman loved him. Love! So he moved out. And moved in with his new love. Isa mourned the demise of her marriage as she had mourned her mother. Quietly, secretly, but not bitterly. Thus was life. Husbands left for greener pastures and greener leaves, one only had to look around the supermarket to see the evidence. 

But when in the course of one year both her darling daughters left as well, one to study International Business Law in Maastricht and one to teach abroad, Isa had to face down a huge urge to get seriously depressed. The wine hardly got the time to chill properly. (Copyright Renée Koopman – If you steal this you are a very bad person!) 

Her few true friends rallied round. But all of her not-so-true ones disappeared along with the Sunday dinners as soon as they got the message that Isa wasn’t her normal cheerful welcoming self. 

Isa got through it by working hard. How ever late it had got the night before, how ever many glasses of wine she had guzzled down in the evening, she was there in time for her first appointment of the day. Slowly, very, very slowly, she found she could smile, and then laugh again at the antics of het cat. 

She managed to shoulder the burden of her daughters’ shock over the phone at their father’s midlife crisis, with carefully contrived humour, and clichés straight out of women’s magazines. “But don’t you hate him, don’t you hate her,” they would ask, and she would give a little chuckle (mentally patting herself on the

shoulder in the meantime; oh, how good you are at acting grown up!), and reply “No, no, how can I hate them for something as natural as falling in love? Don’t forget we had you, and you are worth it, all of it.” (Pat, pat, pat, and a quick trip to the off-license after work)

Anyway, Isa counted herself lucky in a way. Robert, perhaps feeling guilty, had agreed to a quick, harmonious divorce. Not for her the screaming rows, the spitting fits, the tug of war. She had, a whole bottle of Chardonnay gone, for a few minutes considered cutting up all his suits (weren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing?), but couldn’t find the scissors and then nearly fell down the stairs, so she gave up on that idea. Another cliché.

After a while things calmed down even more, and she found she could see Robert around town without wanting to throw her arms around his knees and beg him to reconsider. He couldn’t be more gallant about it all. Came round to fiddle with her dishwasher when it broke down. Offered to mow the lawn. Looked radiantly happy. Life with his young lithe wife certainly agreed with him. Isa swallowed her tears and ran to the CD player to put on Adele when he’d left for his new home.
© Renée Koopman

Chapter 1 - Part 2

Chapter 1 - part 2

Oh God, why do I always feel responsible for the oddballs of this world? she thought, and sighed. Part of her felt sorry for this stranger, and part wanted him to go away. She sighed again.

 “You’ve invited him, you stupid woman,” she muttered. 

“Are you coming in?” she called. 

A sudden smile lit up his face, a wonderful transformation. He came to her table and sat down, carefully placing his sketchpad face down on the table in front of him, and looked expectantly at Isa. She returned his look, confused. Now what? Oh, of course! She held out her hand. “I’m Isa. Citizen of Hellevoetsluis, mother of two, writer. Sort of.” 

“Pleased to meet you, Isa,” answered the boy formally. 

“And who are you?” Isa had to ask. 

“My name is Dirk.” (Copyright Renée Koopman – if you steal this you are a very bad person!) 

He looked deep into Isa’s eyes for a moment. Isa put her ignored hand back into her lap. 

“Citizen of Hellevoetsluis, no kids, student,” he added suddenly. 

“Oh, a student, are you? How nice. What do you study?” 

Great, at last, safe ground. She ordered a dry white Chardonnay for herself and heard Dirk ask for a cup of tea. When asked what kind of tea he wanted, he quickly answered “Just tea!”

 “What is your subject?” persisted Isa. 

“Illustrating. I go to the Art College in Rotterdam. I want to be an illustrator of books on ducks.” 

“Oh! Just ducks? Surely you’d want to do other books as well?” 

“No, ducks. Just ducks.” 

Oddball. Definitely. Isa stretched out her hand to his sketchpad. 

“May I?”

 “No!” Dirk put both his arms across the pad, the pleasant look on his face swiftly replaced by a fierce protective one. 

“Whoa, take it easy, if you don’t want me to look, I won’t.”

Their drinks arrived, and Isa took a huge gulp of chilled wine. She deeply regretted her invitation by now. She wouldn’t ever learn, would she? Working as a freelancer had warped her judgement. She always thought her natural rapport with people would help her in any situation, but it clearly didn’t in this one. And a nagging thought fought for attention in her head. She had come across this kind of behaviour before, hadn’t she?

 “Dirk,” she said softly, “ I mean it, don’t worry! Drink your tea and relax. I don’t want anything from you. Perhaps it was a silly idea to ask you to come for a drink. Yes, it was stupid of me. You don’t know me. I’m a complete stranger to you, and an old one at that. But I was bored, you see, nothing to do in this town on a Sunday afternoon. And I lost that stupid hat!” 

You are babbling, Isa, she thought. Shut up! Dirk looked at her. 

“You’re not old,” he said. 

He had eyes of the deepest blue she had seen, with almost feminine lashes, a thin long nose and a generous mouth with straight white teeth. Isa realised with a jolt that this was an extremely attractive face. The tension had left his eyes, and he had moved his arms so they now lay relaxed along the table. 

“Oh yes I am!” she contradicted with a smile. “Ancient! At least to someone like yourself. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

 “And you like to draw ducks?” 

“Ducks are beautiful animals. Have you ever looked at the feathers of a Mallard, I mean really looked? And at those of a Teal? Or a Dutch Hookbill? I have a whole bookshelf full of books on ducks, and watch every nature program that might feature them. Obviously at college they make me draw all kinds of things, boring mostly, but when I have the time I draw my ducks. I’m learning how to build a website, and as soon as I know how to, I’m going to have my own site featuring all indigenous ducks and the ones that come to our shores in Winter. I may take photos and then put the drawing next to the photo. What do you think?” 

Isa noticed his eyes flashing with enthusiasm, and his lean hands drawing imaginary ducks in the air, almost knocking over his tea. 

“I think that’s a very good idea,” she said kindly.
© Renée Koopman