‘Ah,’ he grins. ‘So you’re the ones paying my wages.’
‘Fortunately, the sellers are picking up the bill for all this,’ I reply.
‘Lucky you. Repairs on a house of this age can cost a bloody fortune.’
It’s only the following day that what he said occurs to me again.
Our entire, already-optimistic budget-planning has focused on
buying
Pebble Cottage, then paying the mortgage and bills once we’re in. We haven’t put any thought into what would happen if any more of the ‘original features’ that the estate agent was wetting his pants over go belly up after six months. I’ve barely got the headspace to think about this as I’m walking into the Old School House.
‘Dan!’ Pete is legging it up the driveway, sweating like a Fray Bentos hot dog in a heatwave.
‘What’s up, my friend?’
He grabs me by the arm of my shirt and drags me back from the door. ‘Didn’t you get my text?’
It’s only then that I remember him texting at all. ‘Ah, sorry, mate. What’s happened?’
‘I’ve dropped a bollock. A massive one.’
‘Now you’re just showing off.’ He sighs. ‘Go on.’
‘I need to talk. In private. This is a sensitive matter.’
‘Let’s go up to the office then.’
‘I can’t,’ he says, with a constipated expression. ‘That’d mean walking past Jade.’
‘You’re normally very keen to walk past Jade.’
‘That was before The Colquitt Street Incident.’
He goes on to tell me a convoluted story about how he and Raj from the outreach team were in the city centre on Saturday night and they happened to bump into Jade and her friends. They went to Nolita Cantina, then Magnet, then a host of other places they were all too drunk to recall, at which point she said she was starving, so while her friends went home, he offered to buy her some chips.
‘This is ever so romantic so far,’ I say.
‘Don’t joke. She was really drunk.’
‘How drunk?’
‘She called me Paul twice.’
I stop myself from sniggering.
‘I offered to take her home in a taxi, thinking I was being gallant. Then when we got to her house, she . . .’ His voice trails off in an entirely uncharacteristic moment of coyness.
‘What?’
‘She tried to snog me.’
I slap him on the back. ‘Well done!’
He purses his lips. ‘Well, not really. The thing that was going through my mind was, “I know she’s wasted. If I was a gent, I’d pull away and tell her I respected her too much”.’
‘Is that what you did?’
‘No, I snogged her back.’
‘That’s beautiful, my friend. Well done.’
‘
No
. Not well done,’ he says grimly. ‘
She
pulled away a second later, saying: “What the hell am I doing?” And I apologised, so she said, “No, it’s me. I have no idea why I’m kissing you as I don’t fancy you IN THE SLIGHTEST. I think I’m making up for the fact that it’s been six years since I had sex”.’
‘Hasn’t she got a four-year-old daughter?’ I ask.
‘I didn’t want to split hairs,’ he replies. ‘Anyway, it gets worse. She phoned me on Sunday morning – to apologise – and assure me once again that she has NO FEELINGS for me whatsoever.’
‘Hmm. What did you say?’
‘I said that’s very reassuring. We haven’t spoken since,’ he says numbly. ‘We’ve been avoiding each other all morning. The whole thing’s a nightmare.’
I grab him by the arm. ‘Where are we going?’ he asks, as he starts sweating again.
‘Just get it over with. Act normal. Say, “Hey, I hope things won’t be awkward from now on,” or something like that. It’ll be fine. I’ll be there for moral support.’
We head into the reception and spot her, ending a phone call. He tries to fly up the stairs.
‘Jade, Pete’s got something to say to you.’
I realise I run the risk of him trying to murder me with a blunt pair of scissors when we get upstairs, but the man can’t live like this.
He swallows. She swallows. The atmosphere is so tense you could bounce a ball of Edam off it.
‘Have you got any staples?’ he squawks.
‘Yup,’ she replies, throwing a box at him as she picks up the phone and turns away.
Chapter 36
Gemma
Two weeks after I met up with Alex in Manchester, I still haven’t got my card back, despite his repeated attempts to arrange to get it to me.
I’ve been putting it off, pretending that I’m too busy at work right now to slip away like last time. Which obviously isn’t the real reason. The real reason is far more complicated – and one I’ve been trying hard not to think about.
The point at which it becomes clear that I can procrastinate no longer occurs when he offers to drive over to Austin Blythe to give it to me there. The thought of him being anywhere near work – and the questions, explanations and introductions that would involve, especially to Sadie – is enough to make me aware that alternative action is required.
We arrange to meet in the car park of a country pub, the Goshawk, about ten minutes’ drive from work and on my way home. I warned him in advance that I won’t be able to stop for a drink, to which he responded:
Understood, Gems. (Though I WILL try and twist your arm) x
That made me smile. Which made me hate myself.
When I arrive, all the outside tables are full and he’s sitting on a swing in the little garden next to the pub. He’s dressed in jeans and a crisp white shirt that’s open at the collar. My pulse quickens at the sight of him and it occurs to me as he jumps off the swing that he’s far closer to the definition of classically handsome these days, something that never could’ve been said of him as a teenager.
‘One credit card,’ he grins, producing it from his back pocket.
I take it from him sheepishly. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’ve obviously paid for a holiday to Barbados on it. Don’t mind, do you, Gems?’
‘You might get a holiday in Butlins with what’s in my bank account, but that’s it.’ He laughs, prompting a reminder of how much I loved that sound once, how much I loved it when something
I’d
said made him do it.
‘Thanks, Alex – for coming all this way,’ I say.
‘Oh, it wasn’t far. Not really. Of course, it’d be worth my while if you’d stop for a drink . . .’
I glance at the tables. I really want to stay. ‘There’s not even anywhere to sit,’ I argue feebly.
An elderly couple start gathering up their belongings to leave. The lady looks up and spots us. ‘There’s a free table here!’ she yells, trying to attract our attention as if she’s on a desert island and we’re the first ship that’s passed in six weeks. ‘Come on – quick! I’ll save it for you both.’
Alex pulls this funny, puppy dog expression and I shake my head. ‘Don’t give me that look,’ I warn.
‘QUICK!’ she shrieks, as the entire beer garden turns to look. ‘It won’t be here forever. Come on – I’ve kept the seat warm.’
Alex nudges me. ‘She’s kept the seat warm – you can’t resist that, surely, Gems? Come on, I’ll buy.’
And although I hesitate for another second, I answer in the way I suspect I was always going to.
‘Oh, I suppose one wouldn’t do any harm.’
I enjoy it far too much. The wine. The sunshine. The everything.
The forty-five minutes I spend with him are both cosily familiar and strangely exhilarating. We talk, we giggle.
And he flirts. Which is the bit that puts me on edge, even if I know he can’t help himself and I make absolutely certain not to rise to his compliments. By the time I tear myself away, resisting his suggestion of another drink, I have this strange, and mildly uncomfortable, end-of-date feeling.
Which he doesn’t help by touching my hand as I go to open the car. ‘Come on, Gems,’ he grins. ‘Meet me again – you know you want to.’
It’s in his usual jokey style, but I feel a sudden need to get serious with him. ‘I can’t, Alex. I know how I’d feel if Dan was meeting an ex-girlfriend.’
It’s only as I say the words out loud that I stop to think about them.
How
would
I feel if the shoe were on the other foot? If Dan was meeting some gorgeous woman, a woman he’d once been in love with?
It would kill me.
Alex takes a step back. ‘Have it your way.’ Then he holds up his hand and with a teasing smile simply says, ‘See you around.’
When I arrive back at Buddington, Dan’s in our room changing into a clean T-shirt after work. He doesn’t ask why I’m late and this absence of suspicion only serves to fuel the guilt that started bubbling under my skin the second I left the pub. ‘Hello you,’ he says as I walk up to him and slide my arms around his waist. I don’t answer at first, just hold him close and feel his skin against mine.
‘Wow. That Old Spice must be doing the trick.’ Then he leans down and kisses me. I lose myself in the moment, relishing the future I’m going to have with him, once we’re finally in Pebble Cottage. A future I’m determined will happen, whatever stupid nostalgic feelings Alex might have stirred up.
I take off my shoes and sit at the end of the bed as it strikes me that Dan seems a little distracted himself.
‘Everything okay?’ I ask, reaching out for his hand.
He sits down next to me. ‘I keep thinking about the cost of Pebble Cottage,’ he confesses. ‘I’m worried about it, Gemma. About whether we can afford it once we’re actually living there.’
The thought that Dan might be getting cold feet again is just too much for my poor, beleaguered brain to cope with.
‘It’ll be fine, Dan. I promise it will be.’ And although I’m saying this as if I have a grasp on financial wizardry that would rival the BBC’s chief economics reporter, the reality is that I simply do not want to even contemplate the idea of putting a halt to this now.
I want to be in that house as soon as possible, with the man I love more than any other. Dan.
He shrugs. ‘Sorry. I’m sure you’re right. Things are just getting to me a bit.’
‘What things?’ I ask.
‘I still haven’t heard from Dad,’ he says, feigning indifference badly. ‘He could be back in New York by now.’
‘Have you tried phoning him?’ I ask.
‘Yes, and it went straight to messages. I’d already left one for him through his secretary, so I wasn’t going to leave another. I have some pride.’
The following morning when Dan is on his run, his words come back to me.
There’s no question that if his dad is thirty minutes’ drive away, he should at least make time to go for a drink with him.
I do wonder though, privately, whether Dan himself should be a bit clearer with his dad about the fact that he wants to see him. For all his father knows, Dan might not give a toss. His sentence –
I do have some pride
– says it all: he wants his dad to come running after him.
Which of course, he ought to. But maintaining a stoic silence isn’t going to make that happen. A wisp of an idea floats into my head, then it grows and grows until it’s so irresistible the only option is to act before I overthink it.
I sit up on the bed and pull my laptop from my bag. Thanks to Linked-In, the email address is astonishingly easy to find. My finger hovers over the keyboard momentarily, before I brace myself and start typing a letter to a man to whom I’m long overdue an introduction.
Chapter 37
Dan
For the first time since I started working at the Chapterhouse Centre, I begin to think about what would’ve once been unthinkable: whether I should try to get a better paid job.
At the risk of sounding like I’m delivering a Miss World speech, I’d always wanted to
make a difference,
which is why I’ve always loved working here
.
But is making a difference worth it if it means I can’t even scrape together enough to put a roof over the head of me and the woman I love? Is it worth the hassle, the hours and the distinctly unbrilliant wage-packet?
I tell myself as I glance in the recruitment agency window that I’m just looking. Window shopping does no harm.
By the time I leave twenty minutes later, I feel as if I’m walking out of a brothel: tingling from a dirty kind of pleasure, the knowledge that
I could if I really wanted
. Buy a nice car. Decent birthday presents for Gemma. Great nights out again. God, I miss our nights out from when we lived in Liverpool – the days when I could just come home and, without reference to the budget, spend the next few hours taking Gemma out to every bar we could manage without falling over. I recall with a rising melancholy how long it’s been since we indulged in that simple luxury.
I pull up the collar of my coat as I feel rain spitting against my face, then put my hands in my pockets and feel for my phone, rubbing its screen with my fingers as I contemplate making a call to someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time.
When I get back to the Old School House, Jade is at her desk talking to Alana, another housing support officer. ‘Is Pete in the office?’ I ask.
Jade holds her breath. ‘Think so.’
To say things have been difficult between the two of them since The Colquitt Street Incident barely covers it. Last week, when they found themselves in the hall together, they both rushed for the exits like the extras in
Snakes on a Plane
.
I’m about to turn to go up the stairs when something stops me. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea, Jade?’
She looks surprised. ‘As long as you’re making.’
The kitchen of the Old School House consists of a sink, a kettle, a toaster that sets your fingers on fire if you don’t whip the bread out quickly enough, and a big table in the middle, surrounded by chairs. I make the tea in brown mugs and hand her one, with a Jammie Dodger, the provision of which constitutes the sum total of staff perks around here.
‘I’m on a diet,’ she tells me regretfully, her eyes burning so fiercely that the edges nearly turn brown.
Then she picks it up and shoves it in her mouth. ‘These are okay as long as I log the points on my mobile,’ she explains after she’s finished, whipping out her phone and inputting data as if she’s Dr Who’s assistant. ‘Bugger. I’ve only got enough left for a carrot soup for dinner now. Ah well. What can I do for you, lovely?’