Hard Tail (3 page)

When I got back to my big, lonely house, I found myself wandering from room to room, just on the off chance Kate might have come back. She had, as it happened—but she’d also gone again, taking the contents of her wardrobe and most of our CDs. Probably a few other things too, which I’d no doubt discover just when I needed them.

Well, two could play at that game. I packed a bag and loaded it into the BMW. Then, on a whim, I went into the garage and picked up one cardboard box marked “Evil Under the Sun” and another marked “Here Be Dragons”. I shoved them both into the boot of the BMW and set off back down to Jay’s. He’d been keen to have me in the shop the next day. Matt-minding.

The gorse bushes along the M3 were no longer burning bright, and the sky was a rich salmon pink that deepened to inky blue the nearer I got to Southampton. It was only June, but the warm air coming in through the open window tickled my nose with the fecund smells of summer. I sneezed a couple of times, then seemed to grow accustomed to the pollen. I breathed in deeply, while a dozen reckless bugs met a messy end against my windscreen.

As I pulled onto Jay’s road, it occurred to me that if the spare key wasn’t where he’d said it was, I’d be pretty much stuffed. I knew only one hotel in Southampton, the de Vere one down by the waterfront. The lounge at the front was an imposing pyramid of glass, and though I’d never stayed there, I doubted it’d be cheap. I really ought to start watching the pennies, seeing as Jay’s bike shop would put paid to me applying for a proper job for a while. And I’d still have to pay the hefty mortgage on the house in Mill Hill.

Which reminded me, I should probably get in touch with Kate so we could put it on the market. Depression settled on me like a worn-out duvet, lumpy and uneven. Maybe I hadn’t been in love with Kate, but we’d been comfortable together. I’d liked the house and enjoyed the experience of setting up a home with someone. Bickering over furniture and experimenting with DIY. (It’d been a short experiment. The guy we’d called in to fix the mess we’d made had visibly struggled not to laugh at our efforts.) And there was just something about a failed marriage that made me feel, well,
failed
.

What with all the pessimistic thoughts, I was mildly astonished to find the key where Jay told me to look, under the third mini-flagstone of the path across the postage-stamp front lawn. It was being guarded lovingly by a large family of woodlice, and I shivered a little as I wrested it from their leggy grasp.

Then I opened up the front door, hauled my bag inside and took a tour around my new, temporary home.

Jay had this knack of furnishing a place on a shoestring and still making it seem cosy and welcoming. The mismatched easy chairs in the living room were squashy and covered with an assortment of bright throws and blankets, and he had one of those L-shaped sofas that seem to beg you to stretch out and make yourself at home. There was a forty-two-inch TV and a small table beside the sofa that was just the right height to park a drink on while you watched. All right, the table was actually an upturned crate, but since it was covered with a stripey Moroccan cloth, who was to know or care?

Something about the room made me feel overdressed. I crossed the tiny hallway to check out the rest of the floor. Downstairs loo: the usual facilities, plus a small shelf of humorous books and a variety of vaguely (and not so vaguely) druggy knick-knacks. I wondered if Mum had ever been for a visit, and if so, what she thought about Jay owning his own bong.

Then I told myself not to be so daft—she probably thought it was some kind of Indian teapot or table lamp or something—and went into the kitchen.

And stopped dead in the doorway. There was a cat in the kitchen. A large, fluffy, ginger cat with an outraged expression on its face when it saw me. It hissed once, then stalked off through the cat flap, tail in the air until the very last moment.

Why the hell hadn’t Jay mentioned he had a cat?

Come to that,
did
Jay have a cat? I’d never owned one myself, but didn’t they usually come with bowls and litter trays, not to mention sad little rodent corpses on the doormat? There was no sign of anything like that in Jay’s cheerfully chaotic kitchen. I checked the cupboards. No tins of Whiskas or anything else with a picture of a cute fluffy kitten on it. There did seem to be a lot of tins of tuna, but that wasn’t conclusive.

Even I knew several recipes for tuna. Well, all right. I knew a couple of different sandwich ideas. And the cat flap might just be a relic from a previous tenant.

I decided I’d worry about it if it ever came back. I pulled one of the mismatched mugs off the mug tree and rinsed the kettle out thoroughly before setting it on to boil. Then I looked in the cupboard and sighed. I’d forgotten Jay only drank decaf these days. There wasn’t even a decent packet of tea in there—just some green stuff in organic, recycled teabags. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it was made from recycled leaves.

I flicked off the kettle and had a glass of tap water instead.

Then I started writing a shopping list, until fatigue hit me and I realised I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. I idly thought of opening a can of tuna, but there wasn’t any bread for a sandwich—at least, none that wasn’t cheerfully turning green and furry inside packets proudly (and redundantly) emblazoned with the boast, “No preservatives.” And besides, would the cat ever forgive me?

Better safe than sorry, I decided. I hunted around for takeaway menus before remembering what a ridiculous idea that was. By now too tired to bother trying to find somewhere on my phone, I ate some sugar-free, salt-free, taste-free baked beans straight from the can, Mum’s voice chiding me in my imagination all the while, then dragged myself upstairs. The second bedroom had been turned into an office, so I crawled into Jay’s king-size, unmade bed that still smelt faintly of Olivia’s perfume, and slept the sleep of the terminally knackered until morning.

Chapter Three

I was woken at seven o’clock on the first day of my new life as a shopkeeper by a cat jumping on my chest. As wake-up calls went, it was fairly effective. I opened my eyes to a mouthful of fangs looking like they were about to take my nose off, which, given the dead-mouse breath coming my way, would actually have been a mercy.

“Gah!” I’m never at my most eloquent when I’ve just woken up.

The cat hissed back at me, obviously not a morning person either. I shifted position, hoping it would get the hint and bugger off. Too late, I realised the flaw in that plan.

Claws. Twenty of them, or however many cats have—I was a bit busy cursing (all right, screaming like a girl) to actually count them, seeing as they were now firmly embedded in my person. “Off!” I shouted. Or possibly yelped.

The cat hissed at me again, then, mercifully, retracted its six-inch talons and leapt gracefully to the floor. I sat up, wincing, and surveyed the damage. For the amount of pain that had been involved, it was actually relatively minor, but it was just as well Jay wasn’t the sort to moan about a few holes and bloodstains in his sheets.

Then I remembered it was his bloody animal that’d done it, so what the hell was I feeling guilty for? I sighed. “Let me guess—that’s your way of saying it’s breakfast time?”

The cat, which for obvious reasons I decided to name “Wolverine”, yawned at me. Maybe it wanted to remind me about the other sharp, pointy things it had in its possession.

“Right, well, I hope you like tuna,” I said, sliding my feet into the zip-away travel slippers Kate bought me last Christmas. I’d bought her a new briefcase; she’d seemed quite pleased at the time, but it occurred to me now that these weren’t, perhaps, the gifts of a young couple deeply in love. Just how long had the writing been on that particular wall?

We padded downstairs, Wolverine staying at my heels, presumably so he’d be ready to take my feet off at the ankle if I tried to renege on the breakfast deal.

Tuna fish is not my favourite thing to smell first thing in the morning. I’m strictly a coffee-and-that’s-it-till-eleven sort of guy. I forked the can into a breakfast bowl while trying not to breathe. Perhaps worried by my show of aversion, Wolverine sniffed at it suspiciously before graciously deigning to eat. Relieved, I switched on the kettle.

Then I groaned, remembering the coffee situation. Was it possible to die from caffeine withdrawal? Why the hell hadn’t I driven around last night until I’d found a twenty-four hour Tesco? My preference for sleep seemed utterly absurd in the cold light of morning. In the end, I made myself a cup of organic decaf with three heaped teaspoons, hoping against hope the hippy manufacturer had been too laid-back to bother getting all of the precious pick-me-up out of the stuff.

Eight thirty a.m., I was standing in my boxer briefs in front of Jay’s wardrobe with a grumbling case of indigestion brought on by too-strong coffee, wondering what the bloody hell to wear. Obviously I’d brought clothes with me. It was just…none of them remotely resembled anything Jay owned, or seemed in any way suitable for my new career. I’d brought a suit, because—actually, why the hell
had
I brought a suit? I couldn’t see that going down too well in a bike shop. I’d packed some other stuff too, chinos and casual shirts—but none of that seemed right, either.

I could have borrowed something of Jay’s, I guess, but I’d have looked ridiculous—the jeans were all too short, and everything would be too baggy around the middle. Not that Jay’s fat, by any means, just solid and muscular in a way I could only dream of. Growing up (and up, and up) I’d heard all the beanpole jokes I could handle.

I could hear Jay’s voice in my head, last time he’d come to visit me and Kate, asking incredulously, “Don’t you even
own
a pair of jeans?” and I had to concede, maybe he’d had a point. In the end, I selected an old-ish pair of chinos and my least favourite Ben Sherman shirt.

And made another shopping list.

I got to Knight Rides—that’s the name of Jay’s bike shop—by nine fifteen, feeling like I’d already been up for half a day. Jay had told me opening time was nine thirty, but I didn’t want to be still pratting around trying to work out how to plug in the cash register when the first customers arrived. Turned out I’d been a little optimistic about how keen Jay’s customer base was. By the time Matt fell in the door ten minutes late, I’d been sitting behind the counter twiddling my thumbs for the best part of half an hour.

Consequently, when after his dramatic entrance he just disappeared into the back room, I felt cheated. Several people looked in the door or even stuck their heads into the shop before catching sight of me and doing an abrupt about-turn. Why? Did I look that off-putting? Or were they just thrown by not seeing Jay?

I wandered disconsolately around the shop, straightening all the handlebars of the row of a dozen or so bikes Jay had on display and whistling at the price tags. I rearranged the hanging bicycle locks in order of size, then colour-coded the helmets. When Jay got out of hospital, he’d probably kill me for messing up his displays. I checked my email to see if the recruitment agency I’d signed up with had got in touch. No luck there, but there was a tweet from Kate saying she’d be round for the rest of her stuff tomorrow.

I supposed I should be grateful she hadn’t broken up with me on Twitter. How would that have gone?
@WhatK8did => @MagicBeanCounter: Am leaving you for @AlextheGr8. Sorry. #ItsNotYouItsMe
. Looking at it that way, perhaps it was inevitable they’d ended up together. After all, they both had an “8” in their names.

I was a bit reluctant to leave the till unmanned, but, reasoning that we did, after all, have a door with a bell on it, I eventually meandered out to the back room. Matt’s hands were already black with oil practically to the elbow. He grinned up at me from derailleur level. “How’s it going? You find everything all right?”

My instinctive reaction would have been to smile back, but it was tempered by a couple of circumstances. For one thing, I hadn’t been aware there was anything I was supposed to be looking for and was racking my brains guiltily for any essential duties I might have neglected. For another, I was shocked anew at the way the black eye distorted his boyish, friendly features. “It’s a bit slow out there, actually,” I said, trying not to stare.

“Yeah,” Matt said, his voice muffled as he solved my problem by bending low over the gears he was, presumably, fixing. I was worried his shaggy brown curls would get irredeemably entangled in the chain. “There’s never much doing on a Wednesday. Everyone forgets we’re open at all, what with the half-day closing.”

“We have half-day closing?” I asked stupidly.

Matt looked up, a smudge of grease on his freckled nose. I fought the urge to wipe it off for him, because blokes don’t do that for each other. “Yeah, didn’t Jay say? We close at one on a Wednesday. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you not to bother coming in until tomorrow.”

I wasn’t. Bloody Jay.

“Oh, well,” Matt carried on, “maybe he wanted to start you off gently?”

“What, Jay?” I raised my eyes briefly heavenward. Thinking about my past with Jay often prompted a heartfelt prayer for strength. “Like he did when he thought I should learn how to swim and shoved me off the end of Bournemouth pier?”

Matt laughed. “Did it work?”

“No.” I grimaced at the memory. “Luckily there were some anglers there, and one of them jumped in to save me. I was only five.”

“Bet Jay got into trouble with your mum, then.”