The Love Shack (20 page)

Gemma,

I’ve screwed up beyond words. I want to explain what happened but I can understand why you won’t give me the airtime.

I know you don’t want to hear from me again and I’ll respect that. We can pretend it never happened. But I want you to know, for the record, that every moment I was with you, I felt sick with happiness, and I now feel sick with regret. I just realised that I am an idiot. Because it’s taken until now to realise how much you burn me up, how much I love you. Yes, I’ll repeat it: I love you.

I can think of nothing or nobody I could love more.

Except perhaps the idea of you and me.

Dan x’

I sat in the hall of my flat and read and re-read the letter. I knew I didn’t want to be without him, but giving him a second chance felt instinctively wrong. I decided to sleep on it. Except I didn’t sleep. I tossed and turned all night, before waking early the next day to go to his flat, only to find that he wasn’t there.

His friend Jesse suggested casually that I head to the enablement centre where Dan was working as a volunteer helping street sleepers.

The prospect, I can’t deny it, filled me with trepidation. Yet I’d woken up deciding I couldn’t leave it a moment longer before speaking to Dan – and that’s what I was determined to do. Even if my determination began to fizzle out on the drive there.

I kept wondering if I was even allowed – as a fully paid-up Council Tax-payer with newly installed double glazing and gas central heating – to just march into a homeless shelter, uninvited.

I kept wondering what the clientele would be like, if they’d turn to look at me, like in
An American Werewolf in London
, before someone declared,
‘She ain’t from these parts.’

It even crossed my mind whether I was wearing the right thing: the dual occasions of a surprise rendezvous with the man who’d wronged me and my very first visit to a homeless shelter presented quite the fashion conundrum.

In my defence, the only previous experience I’d had with homelessness was buying a few copies of the
Big Issue
and knowing all the words to ‘Down and Out’ in
Bugsy Malone
.

Yet when I arrived, clutching my bag tightly across my shoulder, the place was surprisingly unthreatening. Noisy, yes. Rough round the edges, definitely. But not threatening.

A cluster of young, hollow-eyed men in broken-soled trainers were taking part in a group guitar lesson, breaking into laughter when someone played a dud note. An elderly woman in a long, tattered coat was waiting to see a doctor as she chatted quietly to a girl who looked no more than eighteen.

The smell of a stew cooking in the kitchen wafted through the reception area and anyone who arrived was directed to the queue for the dining room by an administrator in her thirties, in jeans, suede boots and with an over-arching air of efficiency. ‘Can I help?’ she smiled.

‘Um . . . I’m looking for Dan,’ I mumbled.

‘He’s in with Jim. I don’t think he’ll be long if you want to wait for him.’

She directed me to a meeting room at the back of the building and I stood along the corridor, my hands clenched as I adopted the peculiar air of someone trying desperately not to stand out, but not wanting to fit in too much either.

Finally, the door opened. An elderly man in a three-piece suit emerged first, followed by Dan. Dan went to shake hands, but the man clutched hold of him and gazed into his eyes. Dan smiled. ‘See you around, Jim,’ he said, patting him on the arm.

Then he turned and looked at me, and I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many emotions appear on one person’s face all at the same time.

I’d been in some rough pubs in my time but few compared to this, the lurid blood-and-vomit stains on the carpet, the elaborately-tattooed barmaid, the thick fog of smoke in the door threshold. It wouldn’t have surprised me if we’d had to duck under crime scene tape to enter.

But at least you could get a half of lager. Dan didn’t say anything about what had happened between us at first, darting around the issue as I asked about Jim. The old man had been living on the streets of various UK cities for years, then in a hostel in Liverpool. As a nineteen year old, he’d been part of the small British contingent of soldiers fighting in Korea in 1951 and ended up as a prisoner of war. When he returned, despite getting married and starting a family, he was haunted by what he’d seen. He became dependent on alcohol, lost his job and family – and the rest was, rather depressing, history.

‘What will happen to him?’ I asked.

‘We’re going to find him a home. We’re going to help him.’

And it was then, before he really explained anything about the last six lost weeks, that I looked into those eyes and decided I’d learned a valuable lesson, one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Some people deserve a second chance, no matter how long you’ve been apart.

Chapter 30

Dan

Gemma and I actually experience some between-the-sheets action tonight. Only, it’s not between the sheets – we never get that far. It takes place when my mother, a force more omnipresent than God at the moment, darts to the shops to get some baking powder for a batch of rock scones, apparently unaware that she’s already achieved the required consistency with everything she’s cooked this year.

She is gone for nineteen and a half minutes, during which time we stumble up the stairs, rip off our clothes and have a frantic, Gangnam-style session, before washing, dressing and sprinting downstairs where we pretend to have been discussing mortgage rates.

‘Is everything all right, Daniel?’ Mum asks, peering at me.

Gemma scrutinises her magazine.

‘Fine, why?’

‘You’re sweating.’

I swallow. ‘I had to run to get something out of the car, that’s all.’

She tuts. ‘A young man like you should be fitter. You need to do more running.’

I look at Gemma who is gesturing at my crotch meaningfully. I follow her eyes to my zip, which is gaping open. I go to pull it up, but the damn thing is stuck, so I stumble out of the kitchen and upstairs to our room. My laundry is on the overdue side, but I know there’s another pair of jeans I threw in the corner this morning that will do. Only when I look, they’re not there. I lift up the bean bag and discover that it’s not the only thing missing. The basket is empty. A thought punches me in the guts.

When I get downstairs, I try to be diplomatic. ‘Mum?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I wondered where my laundry was?’ Gemma throws me a warning glance, as if I have some sort of
tone
.

Mum looks up. ‘It’s my pleasure, darling.’

‘Yes, I am grateful . . . but you don’t need to do it for me. I’d probably prefer it if you didn’t.’

She slowly turns around, a maleficent eyebrow cocked. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s just the privacy thing again. That room is the only part of the house that’s ours.’

‘I think you’ll find it’s
not
technically yours,’ she replies. ‘And while we’re on the subject, would you mind keeping it a bit tidier?’

I wonder for a moment if I’ve got batshit in my ears. ‘You’re asking me to tidy my room?’

‘Sorry, Belinda,’ Gemma steps in. ‘It’s my fault, I was in a rush before work this morning and—’

‘No, it’s not your fault, Gemma,’ I contend. ‘Mum, we’ve got all of our worldly belongings crammed into there so it’s little wonder things look a bit—’

‘I don’t want to make a big deal out of it!’ she interrupts. ‘And Gemma, I’m not blaming you in the slightest. I know exactly what Daniel’s like. He was the same aged fourteen. You should’ve seen the sort of thing I’d find under his bed in those days. There was one time when I actually found a—’

‘OKAY! I’ll tidy the room!’ I decide this is a good moment to go and get my laundry. I enter the utility room and find it stacked up in a big pile.

For a micro-second I forget myself and am actually happy to see it there, all sweet-smelling and pressed – before practically slapping myself on the face. That way lies insanity; one minute I’ll be enjoying having my laundry done, the next I’ll be fifty years old and still here.

I’m about to pick up the pile and take it to my room when Gemma appears next to me, her complexion anaemic with shock.

‘What’s up?’ I whisper.

‘She’s done mine too,’ she breathes, looking over her shoulder. ‘It’s really kind of her – very sweet actually. But I don’t want anyone handling my unwashed pants except me. It’s not like I’m not grateful,’ she continues, ‘just a little uncomfortable and . . .’ She picks up a shirt. ‘Oh God.’

‘What?’

‘She’s ironed my crinkle shirt.’

It’s fair to say that ‘crinkle shirt’ has suddenly become something of a misnomer. It’s smoother than Simon Cowell’s forehead.

I start laughing. I’m afraid I can’t help it. Then I notice something.

I move aside the T-shirt and pick up the jeans underneath. It isn’t just the fact that she’s put two massive creases down the front – the kind Des O’Connor might have had in his polyester slacks in 1972. I reach into the pocket and realise with a surge of dismay that she appears to have washed, tumble dried and then ironed my iPod Shuffle.

I pick it up between two fingers and examine the strange piece of modern art my plastic headphones appear to have moulded into. I put it in my ear and attempt to play it. To be fair to Apple, it tries its best to produce a sound, at least for a few seconds, before it makes the kind of noise you’d expect if you poured battery acid on a Dalek, then chucked it down a mountain.

I close my eyes momentarily. ‘When’s that survey due?’

‘Any time now,’ Gemma replies. ‘I’ve phoned them every day except today – I’ve been too busy.’

‘I’ll phone them now then,’ I offer.

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she insists. ‘I know who to speak to.’

We head into the living room, where Gemma phones the mortgage company and I log onto Facebook. I’m scrolling through a succession of updates, dutifully ‘liking’ several new baby pictures, when a post appears that stops me in my tracks.

‘What’s the matter?’ Gemma asks.

I glance back at the phone and decide to switch it off.

‘Nothing. You seem to have been on hold for ages.’

‘I could set up a dialogue with al-Qaeda faster than I could talk to Zoe in the New Lending Division,’ she begins, before she suddenly gets through to a phone operator.

‘The fact that we haven’t got the survey yet is holding the whole thing up,’ she tells the person. ‘As you’ll see from our notes, it was originally booked for . . . Oh. Oh really? That’s brilliant! Is there any chance you could email it to me? Thank you so much!’

She ends the call. ‘It’s back.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know until I’ve seen it. They’re sending it to my email address now.’ Gemma looks mildly nauseous with excitement. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? If the survey says the house is structurally sound, it’ll be all systems go on buying the place.’

And, more importantly, getting us both the hell out of here.

The survey is a disaster. Gemma reads it silently, in tortured contrast to her nervous babbling earlier, about how we mustn’t worry if there’s a
bit of damp
.

As we read through the document, including the bit that says it’s worth £15,000 less than the price we’ve agreed, I become convinced that the only option is to walk away. Even if the buyers agreed to drop the price, who wants to be lumbered with a clusterfuck of problems that read like this:

The property may have had previous structural repair and there is evidence of distortion and cracking, especially to the rear elevation wall which could be ongoing. Dampness is affecting the ground-floor walls . . . rot is affecting the skirting boards in the kitchen . . . inadequate ventilation has allowed defects to occur . . . defective mortar joints should be raked out and repointed . . . defective cement work on the chimney pots . . . disused flues to stacks should be capped and ventilated . . . areas of cracked and weathered tiles and open jointed ridge tiles to the roof require overhauling and repair . . . the electrical wiring may not comply with current standards as there are signs of some inadequate earthing and potentially dangerous fixtures and fittings . . .

About the only positive thing the surveyor has found to say is under the section marked
Conservatories
, which reads: There is no conservatory.

After the first five pages my mind goes blank; I barely know what half of it means. All I know is that there are reams of this stuff, reinforcing the impression that this house isn’t worthy of pissing in, never mind making, in Grandma’s words, our new love shack.

I reach for Gemma’s hand as a single tear slides down her cheek.

We hardly speak for the rest of the evening. There doesn’t seem to be anything to say. Instead, we watch a DVD, head to bed and fall into a dark, uncomfortable sleep, from which I wake when someone wallops me on the shoulder.

‘Oh sorry, did I wake you?’ Gemma’s face is two inches from mine.

‘Yes,’ I murmur, and roll over to go back to sleep.

‘I can’t sleep,’ she tells me. ‘I’ve been thinking about the house.’

I pretend not to hear.

‘Dan, you know the survey . . .’

‘Yes?’

She hesitates before speaking. ‘I don’t know what you think, but I’m still up for buying it.’

I sit up in bed and hope she’s joking. ‘WHAT?’

‘I know the survey wasn’t great—’

‘Wasn’t great? It couldn’t have been worse if it’d been on a rusty skip on the edge of a subsiding cliff.’

‘You’re exaggerating. Look, I’ve been researching this since two a.m. – about what to do if the survey comes back worse than you were expecting. Listen to this.’ She takes out her phone and starts reading from a website: ‘“As an interested buyer you do not have to walk away after a bad survey. One alternative is finding out how much repairs will cost. There may be things that can be easily fixed, without incurring high costs”.’