"Hi, you wanna take over and earn yourself a couple of quid?" Bob addressed the young woman sitting on a crab pot keenly watching him use the high-pressure water jet to clean the weed from his fishing boat. He knew she worked at the local hotel and he'd heard stories about her behaviour but she wasn't in uniform and looked sad and angry and he wondered if she'd been sacked. "I need to fix the banding on the stem and the tide's coming in fast so I won't have time to finish cleaning her bottom and fix the banding. It's a good way to vent your frustrations and do some good at the same time."

"I'm not dressed for it."

"No problem if you don't care about your appearance. I can find you a smock and a pair of thigh boots and you can blast away the weed growth without harming anyone."

"Yeah, why not? There'll only be a row when I go back and they'll try and get me fired again."

"Thanks, I'm Bob."

"Patsy, and it's Patsy and not Pat."

Bob climbed the ladder on to the boat and returned with a pair of his rubber thigh boots and an oilskin smock, all far too big for her stocky figure. The boots she wore over her trainers and the smock came well below her knees. Other onlookers grinned but Patsy grinned too and when shown, attacked the weed and barnacles with vengeance, while Bob replaced the screws in the metal band.

"What do you think you are doing Miss Godbold? You should have been on duty an hour ago. Once again your grandmother refused to allow your dismissal." Peter Myers, the hotel manager stood on the quay and disdainfully looked down at her. Calmly Patsy turned the nozzle and blasted him for several seconds. Had he been a little closer the force would have knocked him over but instead it drenched him from head to toe. "You'll pay for that Pat, your bloody grandmother will have to listen to me now and you can pay for my clothes to be cleaned." Much as he would have liked to retaliate, he knew he didn't stand a chance. She stood eight feet below him, in six inches of muddy water and she had a weapon. Angrily, and dripping water with every step, he stomped back towards the hotel amid the laughter from a group of students who'd witnessed the incident.

"A friend of yours, Miss Godbold?" Bob grinned and mimicked Peter Myers's voice.

"Bosom pals!"

"Fancy having lunch at Meg's Café? I doubt you'll be popular in the staff room at the hotel. We can't do any more here until the tide floats the boat and it's not worth me going back to the farm workshop and starting another job."

At the table they began to get to know each other. "Am I guessing right, you are Mrs. Kincaid's granddaughter?"

"Yes, Sarah Kincaid is my maternal grandmother, you know her Bob?"

"Yes, but not socially. When there's no fishing work, I've a blacksmith's forge at the farm and do a bit of ornamental ironwork; the railings around the front of the hotel and the hanging basket brackets are my work so I've met her a few times. Seemed a reasonable old lady to me. You don't like her?"

"It's not that. She's okay I suppose, but it's mother, her daughter, she thinks I should go to university and learn the hotel business so I can take over when the old lady dies or becomes too infirm. Mother has her own antique business and doesn't want to get involved in the hotel."

"And you don't either?"

"I hate it. All that bowing down to people because they have more money and can demand service and have no respect for the staff. That's what got me into trouble this morning and why old Myers tried to get me sacked again. There's a snooty woman staying with her husband in one of the top suites, who is always making a fuss over something. I had to serve her at breakfast and after she'd sent me back to the kitchen three times and then said her egg wasn't cooked the way she wanted it, I'd had enough of her complaints and told her, "Stop acting like a spoilt bitch, there is nothing wrong with the egg, now eat your breakfast like a good little girl and make sure you wash your hands afterwards." I thought she'd have a fit but she asked in a loud voice to see the manager. Myers came and told me to report to his office but I went to my room and changed out of my uniform and walked out."

"And found me. You can't just walk out because of family pressures with them holding the purse strings, so you are more or less forced to stay even though the manager doesn't want you and you don't want to be there. What do you want to do? What would you like to do at university?"

"I don't know, is the answer to both questions. I don't want to go to university at all and with the low grades I got at college and the fact that I haven't applied for a place anywhere, although mother doesn't know that, I'm unlikely to get a place in any but the poorest universities and I'm unlikely to find a course I'd like. I'm not really academically minded. Blasting the hell out of that weed suited me much better."

"And so did blasting old Myers?"

"Yeah! Pompous git."

They sat chatting for a while longer and she learned that he took fishing parties out, did a little fishing and crabbing on his own account and, as he'd said earlier, did blacksmithing jobs between times.

"The 'Starfish' should be afloat now, fancy a trip out on her?" Bob asked, "We can go outside the harbour and put the net in and see if we can get a few fish."

"Sounds better than reporting for a smacked wrist or worse," Patsy laughed.

"Heh, wait up Patsy."

"Hi Karen."

A girl in hotel uniform hurried to them, "Please don't drown me with water when I give you the message," a huge grin spread over her face, "But Mr. Myers asks, no, orders you to return to the hotel immediately. I think he has arranged an appointment with Mrs. Kincaid."

"Just say that I've gone fishing."

Karen again laughed, "Yeah, and with that Bob Sayer, the silvery things that swim in the sea, won't be the only fishing he does. Enjoy yourself; you've been the main topic of conversation in the hotel all day. We had to hide our faces when the drowned rat came in!"

The afternoon proved a pleasurable one for both of them, and served to lift Patsy's depression at the thought of going back to the hotel and working again. Late afternoon, while they towed the trawl for the last time and sat drinking tea, she regaled him with tales of her exploits at the hotel that should have given her the sack, and when she finished, Bob again brought up the subject of Patsy's future. "Today you've shown me that you don't mind getting your hands dirty and helping out doing what would normally be considered a man's job. You picked up handling the boat quickly and showed no disgust at handling the fish and the crabs and that's more than I can say for some of the ladies that pay to come on fishing trips. You know about the other side of my work, the blacksmithing side, how would you like to try that? You'd certainly get your hands dirty and most of my customers are down to earth working people who would swear back at you if you swore at them." They threw the idea around for a while and Bob agreed to take her on a month's trial apprenticeship but then added, "I hope you try some of your tricks when you work for me."

"Why?"

"Because I'll get to take your trousers down and give your plump bottom a good smacking." Patsy laughed although fairly certain he was serious.

"Hi Gran, this is Bob Sayer."

"Good evening Mrs. Kincaid."

"I know who he is Patsy, what I don't know is where you've been all day although from the smell of fish, I can guess, but I'm more interested in why you've brought him here and what you have to say about your rudeness to a guest this morning and your dreadful assault on poor Mr. Myers." She couldn't keep the hint of a smile from her voice as she said it.

"We've a proposition to put to you, Mrs. Kincaid," Bob intervened.

Patsy enthusiastically explained the proposition.

"It's not as simple as you make out Patsy. From a hotel staffing point of view I would only be too glad to get rid of you, and you'd have been sacked before the end of the first week if you'd been one of the normal staff, in fact I doubt that you would have applied for the job. It's only because of your mother, that you are still here. She had grand notions of your taking over from me when I retire but we both know that would never work, so yes, I'd like to see you try something else where people skills are not so necessary. However, I will try and insist that you stay here and not move in with your employer. I know you are old enough to refuse that but at least you will have a place to stay if things go wrong between you and we may ask you to help out in the hotel in an emergency but I'll request the staff to give you work with the minimum contact with our guests. As I said, that would be in emergencies only when someone goes sick at short notice. Can we agree so far?"

"I guess so Gran."

"Now we come to your behaviour. Your rudeness to Mrs. Rendham-Carter actually amused her husband and he used your words to her at lunch when she complained about the trifle, but drenching Mr. Myers, went beyond a joke especially as it is pictured on the front page of the evening paper."

"No ... who?"

Mrs. Kincaid passed the paper with the headline, "DON'T ANNOY THE WATER GUN GIRL?"

"Fortunately a tourist took the photo and no one recognised you in that outlandish garb but as you can guess, Mr. Myers is not pleased, to say the least. He's still threatening to take the matter to the police unless I take positive action in dealing with you."

"I know what sort of positive action she needs," Bob grinned, "And so does she, we discussed what would happen if she misbehaves when she works for me; she'll get a good hard spanking."

"I'm sure that would be the best policy if you can get away with it these days." Her eyes closed as she remembered her early career and said, "Before I married Vincent Kincaid, I worked as a maid in a large hotel and at times, I too was a little too free with my tongue, nothing as untoward as your behaviour mind. One day I offended Lady Maccleson and the owner gave me the choice, dismissal or the strap. I chose the strap because jobs were scarce and I would have been dismissed without references. The housekeeper gave me twenty on my bare bottom and I howled my head off and could barely sit for days. It taught me a lesson."

"You expect me to take a strapping? In this day and age? No way!"

"Not quite but if your new boyfriend gives you a good hard spanking and Mr. Myers sees the result, that might be sufficient positive action to get him off your back. Would you be willing to do the task Mr. Sayer? From the look on your face, I can see you are only too willing."