The Love Shack (6 page)

Guaranteed Fanny Magnet.

£195.

To call the monstrosity parked outside our flat the following morning ‘a car’ pushes every boundary of the dictionary definition. It is a rusting, backfiring, filthy lawnmower with windows – except that one of them is covered with the box from a 24-pack of Carlsberg, held on with duct tape. It possesses no passenger seat, just a gap where one once was. The other seats are brown – but not a good brown, like taupe or caramel. These seats could originally have been any colour of the rainbow, but have turned this shade due to a plethora of dubious-looking spillages. I can’t even look at them without wanting to scrub myself with a wire brush.

‘You asked for cheap and you’ve got to admit it was cheap,’ says Pete triumphantly.

‘This isn’t going to last five minutes,’ I tell Dan.

‘It’s not great, is it?’ he concedes. ‘But it
was
cheap.’

‘A hundred and ninety-five quid isn’t cheap if it’s not drivable. How did it pass its MOT?’

‘There are six months left on it, believe it or not,’ Dan says. ‘The seller admitted it has suffered some wear and tear since it passed.’

‘
Wear and tear
? There are vehicles that have done a tour of duty in Afghanistan that look better than this.’

Dan shrugs. ‘Well, it’ll do for now and if I need to sell it on as scrap, I will. Although we had no problems getting here in it. You never know, Gemma,’ he grins, ‘we could be lucky enough to end up with this for years.’

It takes longer than expected to pack up both cars, even with Pete’s help. Every inch of available space in the Fanny Magnet is taken up with bin bags of clothes, boxes of kitchen utensils and holdalls containing more stuff than I dreamed I owned. I had a clear-out before the move, but still found it difficult to throw a lot away, even the old CDs I know I’ll probably never play again, the three or four diaries I’ve accumulated over the years (though never get the time to write in these days) and, of course, my shoes.

Dan opens the door gingerly and, as Pete and I strain to hold back a bag of bedding, my boyfriend squeezes himself into position. He turns the key, and is rewarded with a noise like an exploding Spitfire crashing into the side of a mountain. The engine ticks over for several seconds and, deciding not to tempt fate by hanging around, I leap into my car.

I follow Dan, letting him set the pace. But the pace, it turns out when you’re driving a sixteen-year-old skip, is S-L-O-W. I register the looks of grotesque astonishment on other drivers’ faces as they overtake us.

We finally reach the country roads that lead to Buddington and, when forced to negotiate their narrow, winding contours and hills, it becomes very apparent that Dan’s car is not overburdened with suspension, judging by the way it’s jiggling up and down like the boobs on a Las Vegas showgirl. He gets round this issue by speeding up ahead of every bump in the road, so that the Fanny Magnet actually leaps in the air in a manner that I’m convinced must have shifted several of his internal organs.

We arrive at the imposing gates of Buddington Hall in a toxic cloud of smoke and frayed tempers.

The oldest surviving part of the house was built at the end of the sixteenth century, but it’s still immaculate. Timber framed with ochre-coloured plaster panels, there are ornate finials along the roof and two bays flanking a gabled porch. By my semi-detached standards, it’s huge – surrounded by stunning gardens, with terraced lawns and, courtesy of its position on the edge of a sandstone cliff, dramatic views of the Cheshire plains.

It’s been a few months since I was here and, as my car crunches after Dan’s along the driveway, it strikes me as a hell of a big place for his mum and grandmother to be in by themselves.

Dan’s car splutters to a stop and he gets out, stretching his legs and saying, ‘I feel like I’ve been shrink-wrapped for the last hour.’ He walks over and slides his arms around my waist.

He has this entirely uninhibited way of kissing me in public that caught me by surprise the first time. For all he cares, anyone can see; when the urge to claim a moment of tenderness takes him, it’s as if no one else even exists. And it’s impossible not to be swept along by this. Dan is unequalled as a kisser, so gently powerful that, every time, it gives me a momentary amnesia that lasts for several seconds after he lets me go.

I suddenly become aware of where we are.

‘We can’t smooch when your mum’s around,’ I object, but he pulls me closer in a way I find difficult to argue with.

‘Might as well make the most of it before I lead you into the lion’s den.’

My body instantly responds to him, and I feel unexpectedly and inappropriately turned on. Then a voice cascades across the lawn. ‘
Joyce, wait – I’ll ask Daniel, he’ll know.’

Dan’s mother Belinda is on the phone striding towards us purposefully. When she’s a few steps away, she covers the handset and, dispensing with formal hellos, asks: ‘Daniel: can you, or can you not catch pubic lice from the seat of a jet-ski? Joyce is phoning from the Caribbean.’

Dan throws me a weary glance. ‘I doubt it. Why would you think
I’d
know?’

‘I thought you had an
experience
?’

His mouth drops open. ‘No.’ He turns to me. ‘I have never, ever had pubic lice. I swear.’

‘No, I mean you’ve been on a jet-ski,’ she tuts, then returns to the phone. ‘Joyce, Daniel doesn’t think the jet-ski could be to blame. Who’ve you been sleeping with over there?’ Protestations echo from the handset. ‘You’re going to have to see a medical professional when you get back. What about the man who did your hysterectomy? You said he was good.’

Joyce apparently protests again. ‘Oh, I’d forgotten about the sexual harassment accusations.’ Dan’s mum rolls her eyes at us. ‘At least he dropped the charges against you.’

When she finally gets rid of Joyce, she throws her arms around me. ‘How’s my favourite daughter-in-law?’ The fact that we’re not married and she doesn’t have any other daughters-in-law has never mattered.

‘I’m fantastic, thanks, Belinda,’ I reply, squeezing her arm. ‘It’s incredibly good of you to let us stay.’

‘Oh, it’ll be a hoot!’ She turns and glares at the Fanny Magnet. ‘What on earth is
that
?’

‘My new wheels,’ Dan replies, marching to the car to remove the bouquet he bought this morning.

She pulls a face. ‘I’ll find a space round the back for it.’ She takes the flowers and sticks her nose in them. ‘Ooh, lovely. He never used to buy flowers before he met you, you know,’ she tells me. ‘You’ve got him well trained. Now, come on you . . . a kiss for Mum, please – you’re not too old.’ She grabs Dan by the arm and plonks a kiss on his cheek.

Belinda, who is in her late-fifties, is today dressed like Carole Middleton at Glastonbury: in sharp, slim jeans with a low-slung belt, Hunter wellies and a fur-lined gilet that appears to have sacrificed half a dead yak in the making.

She wears little make-up, but is naturally attractive, with noble bone structure and good skin. I’ve told Dan a few times that I hope I look like her when I’m her age, but for some reason he doesn’t appreciate the sentiment.

Despite the fact that I’ve seen first-hand what a flirt she can be, Belinda has never really had a Significant Other since her divorce from Dan’s dad Scott all those years ago.

This in itself isn’t unique. But in Belinda’s case – or rather, Dr Belinda Blackwood’s case – it’s something on which she’s built her career, a philosophy and an extremely lucrative empire.

Belinda was responsible for one of the biggest publishing phenomena to have emerged from the late 1980s:
Bastards
.

She was a psychotherapist in private practice when she started writing it, as a self-help book for women experiencing acrimonious divorces. But by the time she’d completed the first draft, she was in the throes of one herself – and it’s hard to imagine a messier example.

The final book was part-anthropological analysis of human behaviour and part thinly-disguised anecdotal prose plundered from the wreckage of her own relationship.

She concluded that men are evolutionarily programmed to spread their seed as far and wide as possible, yet in the modern world, we expect them to desist when they find a mate and marry them.

In the days when marriage was invented, life expectancy struggled to top forty years, therefore this wasn’t too much of an issue. Couples didn’t need to put up with each other for too many decades after the first flush of romance headed toilet-wards. Today, we’re living longer – and still expect couples to stick together for good. Yet those seed-spreading instincts have never disappeared, which explains why, after a few years’ marriage, many men won’t hesitate when they have the opportunity of mating with someone younger, prettier and more enthusiastic in the bedroom.

Not all of them are like this, of course. But the chances of finding a ‘good’ one – with the skills and inclination to suppress their polygamous instincts – are low.

The solution, Dr Belinda argued, is that women should shed long-held romantic notions and, rather than skip down the aisle thinking life will be one long fairytale, should regard men in more practical terms: as breeders. Then they should run.

That way they can have a lovely, simple life, raising their children in the company of their infinitely more reliable friends – and never have to pick up a pair of Y-fronts from a bathroom floor again.

The book polarised reviewers (‘A must read!’ – the
New York Sun
; ‘Unmitigated drivel’ – the
Economist),
but flew off the shelves. It was followed up in 1993 with its sequel:
Complete Bastards,
and the trilogy was concluded in 1995 with
Complete and Utter Bastards
.

She invested the substantial proceeds of all the books on the Stock Market and, judging by the house, the Porsche and the indoor swimming pool, didn’t do badly.

To Belinda’s credit though, she’s extremely generous. Even before we started house-hunting, she tried to give Dan a lump of money that would pay for a deposit somewhere. Typically, he was having none of it. He’s always found the idea of sponging off his parents – neither of whom are short of a bob or two – abhorrent. As far as Dan’s concerned, if we can’t stand on our own two feet and buy this house by ourselves, we’re not buying it at all.

‘Mum, where do you want me to put all this stuff?’ Dan asks. ‘We need to start unpacking if we’re going to make two more trips.’

‘All your clothes can go in the little bedroom at the front. Gemma can have the walk-in wardrobe and—’

‘We won’t be unpacking
our bags
,’ Dan clarifies. ‘I just meant unpacking the car.’ His mum frowns. ‘We won’t ever be unpacking our bags. Not ever. This is a temporary arrangement.’

‘All right, Mr Independent,’ Belinda replies, grabbing him by the cheek and giving it a tweak. She turns to me. ‘He was just the same when he was three and insisted on wiping his own bottom.’

Chapter 7

Dan

As I head into the house, I remind myself that I spent sixteen years living with my mum, so a few months isn’t going to kill me. It’s not like I don’t love her – plus, I’m hardly alone. If I believe what I read, loads of people in their twenties and thirties are doing this to get on the housing ladder.

I enter the hall and cross the big oak floor that my friends and I would fight on as kids – not usually to the death, it was more your average rough and tumble. I breathe in a dozen childhood smells: furniture polish and old wood, cut grass and my mother’s freshly-cremated biscuits. The house was always full when I was a kid: of her friends, my friends, the sound of scraped knees and laughter, usually after we’d done something we weren’t allowed to. The list – from burying the contents of Mum’s entire cutlery drawer in the garden to taking a selection of her bras to school to attempt to trade them for football cards – was endless. My eight-year-old self was an arsehole, I’m afraid.

I abandon my bag and enter the kitchen, as a magnetic force pulls me to the fridge. I bypass a couple of ambiguous, home-made lumps and grab a Kit Kat, which is an undeniable improvement on the underwhelming ‘treats’ I’m used to when Gemma’s on a healthy-eating kick (pro-biotic yoghurts, I’m talking to you).

I look up as Gemma and Mum walk in chatting – and experience a bolt of optimism that makes me wonder if this set-up might be tolerable.

‘While I remember,’ Mum says, ‘we need to talk about the birds and the bees.’ I splutter asthmatically as a piece of chocolate becomes lodged in my windpipe. ‘Obviously, I’ll expect both of you
not
to partake in any conjugal relations under my roof.’

I let out a sigh as Gemma’s mouth forms a perfect O.

‘PAH! GOTCHA!’ Mum hoots, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. ‘Seriously, Gemma. You can go at it like rabbits for all I care.’

I just love this sort of thing, as you can imagine.

‘Dan knows,’ she continues to my girlfriend, ‘that I have a very relaxed attitude towards anything like that. And despite the circumstances, it’s important to keep your sex-life active and interesting. You’ve been together four years – if you don’t make the effort now, you risk things becoming stale.’

‘I think that’s enough, Mum,’ I say calmly, turning to Gemma. ‘She hasn’t taken her happy pills yet today.’

‘Don’t be cheeky,’ Mum says, swatting me over the head. ‘Besides, I’m serious. If you want to experiment with some alternative locations, Dan’s grandma and I will go out and give you free run of the place. The pool might be nice. Just make sure you check the
pH
balance afterwards. Of the water, obviously. Ha!’

‘Mum, stop. Please.’

She nudges Gemma conspiratorially. ‘He’s so old-fashioned. It was like the time I told him about the lesbian affair I’d had at school . . .’

‘MOTHER!’

‘Oh God, it only lasted a week,’ she tuts. ‘I don’t think that even made me bi-curious. More
bi-couldn’t-be-bothered
.’

We have been on the premises for nine minutes. It already feels like nine weeks.