The Love Shack (21 page)

She looks at me with big
Watership Down
eyes. I prepare myself for a torrent of emotional blackmail.

‘It says here that surveyors go completely over the top to make sure no legal action is possible. They list every little defect and make it sound far worse than it is. Look at those people on
Grand Designs
,’ she argues. ‘You’re always saying how much you’d love to do something like that. I can’t believe we’re going to be defeated by a bit of rot and rising damp.’

‘And cracked rendering and a distorted threshold step. The other crucial fact is that getting that mortgage was dependent on the house being valued at what we agreed.’

‘I agree we couldn’t buy it for the original price and not do anything to fix it up. But what about if we got the buyers to drop the price to cover the cost of the repairs?’

‘Rich said they weren’t going to budge on the price.’

‘That was before we had the survey. Even if this ended today and they tried to get new buyers,
their
survey would find the same problems. They’re going to have to address it.’

She puts her arms around my neck. ‘We’re destined to live in that house, Dan. And the alternative is staying here and starting afresh.’

Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like an argument I particularly want to win.

Chapter 31

Gemma

I refuse to panic about this survey. I refuse to believe that, when someone can restore St Paul’s Cathedral, a few loose tiles and damp in Pebble Cottage are insurmountable.

But I’m equally aware that unless the buyers drop the price, there’s no way we can continue with this purchase. So it’s time to negotiate. Hard but fair, that’s my approach. I just wish Rich would stop sucking his teeth.

‘They said no way. Not a chance. You’ve agreed a price and they don’t care what your man says.’

‘But he’s a qualified surveyor!’ I argue.

‘He could be a qualified orthodontist for all they care. They said there’s no damp in the living room.’

‘But he’s got the readings!’

‘Or rust in the gutters.’

‘But he saw it with his own eyes!’

‘And as for this potential issue with the electrics . . .’

‘Well, if they’re certain that’s no problem, perhaps they could stick their fingers in a toaster and turn it on full, then see what happens,’ I suggest.

He tuts. ‘There’s no need to be like that, Gemma. Look, I can totally see where you’re coming from. But there are other buyers around the corner. I’ve got six people on a waiting list to see it.’

‘What waiting list? You agreed not to show it to other people while it was under offer. This is
our
house, Rich.’

‘It’s not your house yet, Gemma. And it won’t ever be unless you can come up with the asking price.’

‘But Rich, even if I
wanted
to buy the house for £15,000 more than the surveyor says it’s worth, the mortgage company won’t give us enough money without the repairs being done. Plus,’ I say, suddenly having a surge of confidence, ‘all your other buyers are going to be in exactly the same position, aren’t they?’

‘No, actually. One is a retired couple who are downsizing so don’t need a mortgage. Lovely lady. She fell in love with those eaves in the porch and—’

‘Keep her away from MY eaves!’ I shriek.

‘Okay, okay! Look, I like you both and, hell yeah, I can totally see you both in that place. I’m certain you’d have more luck than Mr and Mrs Deaver and—’

‘The sellers? Why haven’t they had luck?’

‘Oh— I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Said what?’

He sighs. ‘Between you and me, the reason they’re selling is that they’re getting divorced. It’s messy. And bitter. This issue of the £15k is apparently the first thing they’ve agreed on in six months.’

It suddenly feels a bit odd to think that our lovely quaint cottage has been the scene of a marital breakdown.

‘Look, I’m going to go and speak to the vendors again,’ he informs me. ‘How about we put this proposition to them: they get some quotes on the main elements of the work that need to be done. If they’re acceptable, the work can be completed, you can send your surveyor back and see if you hit the jackpot on the valuation.’

I feel a bit breathless. This might put the final nail in the coffin of that early exchange I’d wanted, but at least it would put us back in the game. ‘You’d do that, Rich?’ I say, feeling a bit light-headed.

‘For you, Gemma, I would.’ He hesitates. ‘Have you and Dan been an item for long? I only ask because if you ever fancy – you know, a bit of a dabble . . .’

‘Goodbye, Rich,’ I say, and put down the phone.

Rich doesn’t phone for the rest of the day or the next day. During which time I whip myself into a frenzy of stress, determination and increasing certainty that, somehow, Pebble Cottage has to be ours.

My inability to relax isn’t helped by the fact that our solicitor, having been on a break to the Costa del Sol for the past two months, has embarked on a flurry of letter-writing, which costs us money every time she hits so much as a full stop. Most infuriatingly, I receive three letters from her on one day, each on a different subject-matter and each one sentence long. Our bill, meanwhile, is ratcheting up like the cherries on a defective fruit machine.

The cost of the solicitor, the searches and the surveyor are not the only things that will all be for nothing if the buyers don’t agree to do something with their house to satisfy the mortgage company.

In the sheer amount of time I’ve spent on this so far, I could’ve created a scale model of the Orient Express using only empty toilet rolls and used postage stamps.

Yet, when I sit and dissect the reasons I want this house so badly, it’s about more than that. It’s about the fireplace that I’ve always wanted, the fact that walking into that living room felt more right than anywhere I’ve been before. It’s that I’ve spent weeks dreaming about Dan and me decorating the kitchen with those glorious Fired Earth tiles (the ones we can’t afford), then spending lazy Sundays curled up in bed, reading the papers as the sunlight streams through the (apparently rotting) sash windows.

Then there’s Dan. I can’t allow him to live in this house with his mum a second longer than necessary. I always knew this had the potential to be bad, but I hadn’t appreciated
how
bad. Before we got here, if you’d asked me to describe Dan’s characteristics, I’d say he was unstoppably cheerful. Nothing gets to him. He doesn’t bring his work home, he doesn’t dwell on arguments. Yet, none of those seem to apply at the moment.

This is apparent when he returns from work on Monday night and enters the kitchen as Belinda hears the opening bars to ‘Copacabana’ on Radio 2 and decides to crank it up. She grabs him by the hands, shimmying wildly. ‘Her name’s CRAYOLA! She was a SHOW-GIRL!’

He smiles uneasily, disentangles himself and announces that he’s going to get changed.

‘You used to love dancing in the kitchen,’ she pouts.

‘When I was five, yes.’

‘You weren’t half as surly then,’ she says, ruffling his hair as he ducks out of the way like a grumpy Boy Scout. ‘It’s like having your father around.’

And at that, to my astonishment, Dan walks out.

Belinda and I are so shocked that we look at each other, bewildered.

‘What was all that about?’ she asks.

I don’t have a clue. ‘Probably had a hard day at work?’

Dan is in our room with his back pressed against the Marisa Tomei poster. ‘I didn’t mean to storm off,’ he says when I walk in.

‘Is dancing to Copacabana that bad?’ I ask incredulously.

‘It wasn’t that.’ He takes a long, slow breath. ‘Did I tell you Dad was coming home?’

‘You mentioned he was thinking about it. Why – has he decided not to?’

‘On the contrary.’ He holds out his phone and shows me his Facebook news feed, which features a picture of his dad, tagged in a bar – in Manchester.

The facts take a moment to filter through my brain.

‘He’s been in the UK for a week and a half,’ Dan says tightly. ‘Half an hour’s drive away. He mentioned weeks ago that he’d be here, and said he’d let me know when – but that was the last I heard from him. He didn’t tell me he was here, that’s how bothered he was about seeing his only son.’

I squeeze his hands and we sit on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh Dan . . . I’m sorry.’

Dan rarely talks about his father, but when he does, it’s clear that Scott’s continued indifference bothers him more than the fact that he left in the first place.

Dan lies back on the bed and looks up at the ceiling. ‘When I was little, I idolised him. I always assumed that because he was my dad, he was one of the good guys. An alternative never occurred to me.’

‘When did that change?’ I ask.

‘It’s hard to say. I remember once he told me he was going to take me to Alton Towers. I was about eight. I told Mum, I told my friends, everyone at school. I was so excited. Then on the morning he was due to pick me up, he never turned up. He just didn’t come. I remember sitting on those stairs, insisting to Mum that he’d be there sooner or later. But he never came.’

‘Oh Dan.’

‘He phoned two days later to apologise and say that something had come up but he’d take me soon. We never went. And that happened time and time again. He’ll have been with a woman,’ he shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. ‘God, I know it’s hardly child abuse. I don’t want to give you the impression I feel sorry for myself, because I don’t. Honestly.’

‘But the broken promises must’ve hurt. Especially when you were little.’

‘You know what the most annoying thing is? It’s the fact that when I looked and saw that Facebook update, I realised how much this sort of thing still gets to me. I’m like a pathetic child. There’s still a part of me that wants his attention, his approval. Two things I should know by now I’ll never get.’

The following day, I have a meeting with a client in Chester so Sebastian has agreed to let me drive there from home rather than going to the office first. It means that I get a mini-lie-in for the first time in ages, registering a sleepy kiss from Dan as he heads out before turning over for another ten minutes.

When I finally prise myself out of bed, do my ablutions, then go downstairs, Belinda is midway through a Skype chat with her longstanding American editor, Angela, who appears to be in full flow. ‘We’ve got TV advertising, billboards and a major public transport campaign all launching in the week of publication. Our media team has everyone from Letterman to Ellen interested. You’re red hot.’ A look of surprise and mild delight appears at Belinda’s lips as Angela continues. ‘We want you to go in as heavy as you like with your message, Belinda.
That’s
what’s going to get the headlines for us.
The broad who told womanhood that men were surplus to requirements
– she’s back and ballsier than EVER.’

When the Skype call ends, Belinda turns to me. ‘It’s all happening. I’m starting to feel a little nervous now.’

‘Oh don’t, you’ll be amazing.’

My phone rings and it’s Rich’s number. The air vacuums out of the room as I answer it and dart into the hall.

‘Gem. Rich. I have news-eroony.’ He waits, like when they’re announcing the results of
The Voice
.

‘It’s curtains, Gemma.’

My hopes and dreams seem to vanish in that small but fatal sentence. ‘The sale’s off?’

‘No, I mean we need to talk about the curtains and carpets. About whether you want them and if so, how much you’re prepared to put your hand in your pocket for them.’

I pull myself together, and try to get my head around this. ‘Surely the more pressing matter is the survey?’

‘One’s dependent on the other, Gem.’

‘So if I buy their carpets and curtains they’ll pay for the work to be done?’

‘Ah, about that. They’ll get some quotes – for the windows, the damp and the guttering – and are prepared to go halves on the cost,’ he clarifies.

‘Ok-ay.’ I think about this. Going halves would be a fair solution. Sadly, there’s just the small matter of us having no access to more cash to do so. Dan would think I was mad for even considering it when we’re already over budget, but if the sellers
were
agreeable to it, I couldn’t possibly let the opportunity pass us by. A question drifts into my head about whether I could just spare Dan the worry of all this and try to find the money for half the repairs myself.

‘Well, I had hoped to buy my own carpets and curtains . . .’ As I’m talking I wonder what the hell I’d thought I was going to buy them with. At least this way, we’re saved the hassle and expense. ‘Okay. I’ll go halves, assuming the quotes are okay, on all the work necessary to meet our mortgage commitments. And for the curtains and carpets, we’ll give them . . . £500.’

‘Don’t make me laugh!’ he splutters. ‘Sorry, Gem, but I’m going to have to play
serious
hard ball with you. I’m not known as one of the toughest negotiators in the business for nothing. You’ll have to do better than that. Far,
far
better.’

‘How much did you have in mind?’

He sucks his teeth again. ‘Make it £510 and you’ve got a deal.’

I end the call, feeling like I got off fairly lightly on the curtains issue, so much so that when the phone rings again a second later, my first thought is that it’s Rich to tell me the sellers haven’t agreed to it.

But it’s not Rich. I recognise who it is the second I hear his voice.

‘Hello, Gemma. It’s Alex.’

Chapter 32

Gemma

I feel more nervous than I did that first moment we spoke to each other when I was fifteen, something I can only put down to Selena’s cousin’s Bastard Sangria containing more alcohol than I’d thought.

‘How are you?’ he asks.

I’d tried and failed, over the last few weeks, to recall the exact sound of his voice. It’s only now, when he speaks, that I realise how familiar it is, virtually identical to when he was a teenager except, perhaps, for a note of awkwardness.

Which both warms and surprises me. He is six months older than me and, when we were young, this seemed of huge significance: he was brimming with confidence. As far as my dad was concerned this made him ‘cocky’, but personally, I loved it. He was the opposite of me – and being his girl meant I felt like I could take on the world.