The Love Shack, page 28
He squirms. ‘Ah. Hmm. Possibly. Hmm.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Hmm. Well, it’s . . . nothing’s set in stone yet, but . . . hmm . . .’
‘Rich. Tell me what’s going on! Why has the deal not been done today, as planned?’
He swallows. ‘The thing is, Gemma, it only happened this afternoon.’
‘What happened this afternoon?’
He looks genuinely sorry. Or at least genuinely scared.
‘The vendors let someone else go and view the house at lunchtime.’
I narrow my eyes.
‘I’m really sorry, Gemma. But they’ve made the sellers of Pebble Cottage a higher offer.’
Chapter 55
Gemma
‘Tossers,’ Dan huffs down the phone.
‘Bastards,’ I agree.
‘Time-wasting, moronic lowlifes.’
‘I hope they . . . they go to a restaurant tonight and someone spits in their food,’ I say.
‘Is that the worst you can do?’ Dan asks.
‘No, the first thing I thought was so bad, I couldn’t actually bring myself to say it.’ I flick on my indicator as I sit at traffic lights, talking to Dan on my hands-free.
‘So what now?’ he sighs.
A deluge of possibilities scramble through my mind. ‘We either walk away and write off the money we’ve spent on the house so far, or . . .’ I gulp before completing the sentence. ‘Or we match the new offer.’
‘Well, we can’t do that,’ he says immediately.
I don’t answer. He’s right, of course, we can’t.
‘Look, we’ll talk about this tonight, okay?’ he suggests. ‘I love you, Gemma.’
I choke up as I say the words back to him. ‘I love you too,’ I reply, as I pull up in front of Sadie’s terraced house.
Sadie and Warren live in Aigburth in south Liverpool, which has made my round trip home stupidly long tonight. But not coming here wasn’t an option, judging by how far into a black depression she’s sinking. Although she’s trying her best to stay positive, I have never felt sorrier for my friend than in the last few days. She’s now resigned to losing her job and, judging by the number of bridal magazines in the recycling tray, her wedding isn’t looking hopeful either.
‘Before we get onto my woes, has your house exchange happened?’ she asks, opening the door. ‘Tell me some good news, please.’
It takes all my will not to burst into tears. ‘We’ve been gazumped,’ I reply, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘At the last minute, someone’s offered them more money. We’ve been told we need to increase the offer if we still want the house.’
‘What sods. So are you increasing the offer?’
‘We haven’t got the money, Sadie,’ I reply with a knot in my stomach.
‘But haven’t you paid for half of the work to be done on it?’
I nod. ‘We could lose it all.’
‘So that’s it? No more house?’
The thought makes my blood run cold. ‘That’s not completely clear yet. The ball is in the owners’ court now – they haven’t accepted the other offer yet. They’re thinking about it overnight.’
Sadie reaches out and holds my hand. ‘Oh, Gemma.’
I feel my eyes get hot, before the words come tumbling out of my mouth faster than I can even think about them. ‘This house purchase feels as though it’s been doomed from the beginning. Every step has been torture. And . . . and if I’m honest, it’s taking its toll on Dan and me.’
‘You and Dan?’ She looks shocked. ‘You’re solid as a rock, you two.’
Once, I would’ve agreed with her. ‘These last few months, I’ve been permanently stressed about the whole thing. We’ve been completely broke, Belinda is driving him insane, and . . . I think it’s brought out a side to our relationship I’ve never seen before. I hate it.’
I’m omitting a crucial piece of information, I’m well aware.
‘You just need to talk to each other, be honest with one another. Have a chat with him tonight.’
‘And I’ve been seeing Alex.’
She frowns. ‘Who?’
I swallow. ‘My old boyfriend.’
Her eyes nearly pop out of her head. I can do nothing but sit and fill her in – on everything.
‘I take it Dan has no idea about any of this?’ she asks.
‘I don’t think so.’
She clutches my hand. ‘Are you seriously thinking that perhaps you should be with Alex instead of Dan?’
‘No.’ I lower my eyes.
‘Are you sure?’
The answer is suddenly too difficult to say out loud. Because the truth is, I’m not sure about anything any more.
I’m on the way home, when I look at the text from Alex again, asking me to meet him on Friday. I close my eyes momentarily but all it does is make my head spin faster. I need, somehow, to get some clarity on this issue. And there’s only one way to do it. I start typing.
Okay, Alex. Where would you like to meet?
That night, Dan and I share a limp ready meal and some lettuce donated by Belinda. We snuggle up together afterwards, and for a moment I forget everything other than how warm I feel in his arms.
‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Why don’t we go for a drink after work on Friday like we used to? We’re going to know about the house one way or another tomorrow, so we can either celebrate, or commiserate. I’m just talking about the pub in the village – it’d be nice to have some proper time together.’
‘I thought you had a team-building night on Friday?’ I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. ‘Wasn’t that what you said?’
‘It’s been cancelled,’ he shrugs. ‘Not a problem, is it?’
I stammer, ‘N-not at all.’
‘If you don’t fancy it . . .’
‘No, I do. I just – I’d . . . I had something on, that’s all. I said I’d meet Sadie again. But I’ll cancel her.’
‘Don’t do that. It wasn’t a big deal.’
‘This isn’t either,’ I insist, feeling myself redden.
‘Gemma – go for your drink, your get-together, whatever it is. I’ll see you when you get home. We can watch a DVD on your laptop in our room – go really wild.’
I nod, feeling guilt spread through my veins. And wondering how long I can go on like this.
Chapter 56
Dan
It’s Tuesday night and I’m getting seriously concerned that Gemma is about to give herself a heart attack.
‘Why do they need another week to “think about it”?’ she says, slamming down on the bed. ‘Part of me wishes they’d just said it’s all off. I’m sick of it all.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ I reply, sitting next to her as she unwrinkles her brow. ‘Don’t give up yet. Going with the new buyers would be a massive ball-ache for them. With us, the survey’s out of the way and most of the legal work done. Our rivals might offer more cash, but if they go with them, they’d have to start the whole process from the beginning. And we all know how much fun that is.’
I go to reach out to her, but she rolls off the bed and stands up, oblivious. ‘To top it off, the solicitor I’ve hardly been able to get hold of throughout is suddenly phoning me for an update. When I’ve got nothing to update her on.’
She puts her hands on her hips and leans back on the dressing table. ‘Then there’s the mortgage company, who are also stalking me. Apparently the offer they made us has a sell-by date; unless we draw the funds by the end of the month, we can’t have them at all.’
She grabs her laptop and leaps on the bed again, opening up the Rightmove page for Pebble Cottage, presumably to torture herself. She starts scrolling through the pictures, and her eyes fill up. I put my arm round her and she sinks into me, sniffing back tears.
‘Dan, I just have an instinctive feeling about this . . . that this sale is going to fall through.’
‘Well, if it does, we will brush ourselves down and start again with somewhere else,’ I whisper, kissing her on the head. Then I try to get her to smile, but it’s obvious that nothing is going to make her do that right now.
Two days later, the sky is gorged with thunderclouds as I arrive at Sheila’s house – and find her, in her words, not in a good way. She’s weepy, she’s missed a GP appointment this morning and, judging by her laboured slugs of breath, has at some point in the last twenty-four hours been smoking a not insubstantial amount of crack. She begins a long story about an argument with her son after he refused to bring baby Rose to Liverpool. She’s angry and upset. And one thing’s clear: it’s breaking her heart.
Without seeing a doctor to validate her benefits claims, Sheila’s only source of legal income will come to a dead stop. So if she wants to keep this roof over her head, without having to hit the streets as a sex worker again, I need to get her to a GP, even if the idea terrifies her.
I decide to drive her to the enablement centre, where there’s an open access clinic this morning, her shoulders trembling as she cries throughout the journey. When we arrive, two gentlemen with battling lager fumes are conducting a lively discussion in the doorway; others await their sole meal of the day inside, some chatting in groups, others alone and silent.
Some of the faces are new, others familiar, the long-term rough sleepers and hostel dwellers. Sheila stiffens as we shuffle past and her reaction, I’m fairly certain, isn’t just about her fear of the doctor. She doesn’t feel she belongs here.
The duty doctor can see her in fifteen minutes, so we head outside to wait. She drops her chin and refuses to make eye-contact with the old man in the tattered mac who stares at her. Her shoulders visibly relax when we’re outside.
‘You okay, Sheila?’ I ask.
As she turns to look at me, she shakes her head, searching for words.
‘I could’ve ended up like that.’ Her voice sounds like there’s glass in her throat today. ‘That terrifies me, lad.’
‘Sheila, you’ve come a long way – don’t forget that.’ My awareness that I sound like the script to a bad 80s soap opera doesn’t stop this from being true. ‘You’re living independently. You’ve taken control of your life. That was the aim in all of this. I know things aren’t perfect, but—’
‘Lad, that’s bullshit,’ she interrupts. ‘I’m still using. All those sessions you booked me in to – all those opportunities . . . I’ve thrown them away.’ She begins to shake and slumps onto the step. With her shoulders hunched, she looks like a tiny, malnourished old lady, years older than the reality.
She looks up and sniffs back tears. ‘I used to want to travel, you know. The girl I was best friends with at school became a hairdresser on a cruise ship. She had a hell of a life – went all over the place, and ended up living in Italy for ten years. She’s back here now, runs her own salon, she’s her own boss.’
She looks up, the rims of her eyes raw. ‘I’ve never travelled anywhere. Until you came along I spent every day of my life from the age of fifteen giving blow jobs and trying to get through the day without a black eye.’ Her jaw clenches. ‘I never wanted to be this person, you know – I never wanted this life. I don’t blame my boy. Why would he want his little girl near me? I wouldn’t.’
I sit down next to her. ‘Sheila, look up.’ Reluctantly, she does so. ‘I know how much you love that little girl – I knew it the day I met you. I remember you showing me the picture of her.’ Her lip starts trembling again. ‘How proud you were. How determined you were to turn your life around. And Sheila, you have done brilliantly. But you know what you’ve got to do to take the next step. There’s an Addaction meeting today. I can take you there myself.’
When she looks up, her eyes are heavy with disbelief that after all the times she’s failed to turn up, after all the opportunities she’s stamped on, someone is still prepared to believe in her.
‘It’s up to you,’ I go on. ‘You can make that step again. But this time, make it count. It’s up to you.’
A tear spills down her cheek. ‘Thank you, Dan,’ she says. It’s not just the fact that it’s the first time she’s properly said thank you that strikes me: it’s the first time she’s ever used my name.
‘So what do you reckon?’ I sit back. ‘Am I driving you there or what?’
She looks at me through her eyelashes. ‘I’d like to, lad. If you don’t mind.’
Alison, the administrator, pops her head through the door. ‘Dan, the doctor’s free.’
Sheila freezes, looking vastly less positive than ten seconds ago. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Course I will,’ I say, standing up.
But as we go to push open the door, a voice from the other side of the road calls my name. I turn around and hear one word slip out of my mouth. ‘Dad?’
I can’t fully compute the situation as I look at my father, then at Sheila. She brushes away tears and blinks.
‘Aw, are you his dad?’ She gets this gooey-eyed look on her face, as if she’s just finished watching a box-set of The Waltons. ‘Well, I take my hat off to you.’
Dad doesn’t know how to answer that one and frankly neither do I.
‘I’m serious,’ she continues. ‘To have brought up someone like this fella . . . you must be so proud. There is nothing this lad can’t get done. Nothing at all. He’s bent over backwards for me. I want to shake your hand.’ She walks over and grabs Dad by the hand. He is dumbstruck.
‘What are you doing here, Dad? I’m at work,’ I tell him redundantly.
‘I know,’ he says, extracting himself from Sheila’s grip. ‘Your office told me where I’d find you. I hadn’t realised I’d be interrupting . . . I’d wanted a chat before I flew home.’
‘I didn’t even know you were in the UK,’ I point out. ‘Again.’
‘It’s only a flying visit. I wanted to talk. That’s all.’
Sheila’s head is moving backwards and forwards during this conversation as if she’s watching a lengthy rally at centre court in Wimbledon. When we stop, so does she, glancing once again at the door, where the doctor awaits her.
She suddenly looks broken and paralysed with fear – unlike my dad, who’s popped over in his $3,000 suit, having finally decided he fancies a fatherly confab.
‘Come on, Sheila, let’s get you seen by this doctor.’ I turn to Dad. ‘Sorry, it’ll have to be next time.’
I walk up into the centre feeling numb. I’ve spent so many years jumping when he asked me to, part of me thought I could never stop doing it. It’s an oddly liberating sensation.
We’re almost at the medical room, when Sheila turns on me.
‘You can’t leave your dad outside like that,’ she hisses. ‘Show some respect.’
I frown. ‘Do you want me to come with you to this doctor or not?’
She doesn’t answer at first. Then: ‘Fine. But I’m not at all happy about it, just so you know. It’s wrong.’
I’m only in with the doctor for a couple of minutes, when there’s a knock on the door and I open it to see Alison. ‘Dan, there’s someone outside who says he’s your dad. He’s attracting a bit of attention.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he’s in a Bentley for a start.’
Dad and I find two seats in the corridor, which has become dramatically quiet after the announcement that lunch is served. He looks ill at ease here, but what he says surprises me.
‘This is an impressive place.’
‘We do our best,’ I shrug.
‘I mean it, Dan. These people, the life they’re living . . . well, it makes you think.’ I get the impression it’s been a while since Dad did much thinking, at least about anything like this. ‘You know, your mother always said I was good with words. And she didn’t mean it as a compliment.’
I snort.
‘I don’t feel very good with words at the moment,’ he continues, ‘but I’ll have a go. I’m sorry about not turning up for the lunch. I was thoughtless and stupid, and all those things your girlfriend accused me of.’
‘My girlfriend? When?’
‘She came to see me – didn’t she tell you? It doesn’t matter anyway. The point is, I should’ve turned up. I can see you wanted me to meet her and – well, it was an important meeting I got caught up with, but that’s not the point.’
I feel a kick in the guts that makes me determined to say something I’ve never had the balls to say before.
‘No, Dad, that isn’t the point. And I’m glad you’re sorry about that – it’s appreciated. But, you see, I knew it would happen. It’s what you’ve always done. You did it when I was a kid and you’re still doing it.’
He doesn’t even try to argue.
‘Oh look, it’s not a problem,’ I go on. ‘I’ve learned to live with the fact that . . . well, that you don’t find me very interesting. It’s cool. We’re fine.’
The hint of an expression crosses Dad’s face. It could be regret, but no doubt I’m being optimistic.
He runs his hand over the stubble on his chin, concentrating hard. ‘Dan, I’ve been a crap father. I can’t deny it. But I want things to change between us.’
His words wash over me. I don’t even want to hear his promises any more. ‘Okay,’ I say coolly. ‘Then it’s over to you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean . . . fine. I’m up for it. A shift in our relationship, whatever you want to call it. But next time – you’re organising the lunch.’
He nods. ‘I hear what you’re saying. I do, son.’ He realises there’s nothing else to add. And I don’t feel inclined to fill in the gaps. He stands up.
‘I’ve got a plane to catch, but I’ll be in touch, I prom—’ But he doesn’t finish the word. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
I walk him to the door.
‘I liked Gemma, by the way.’
‘Right,’ I mumble.
‘She’s great. Balls of steel – and devious,’ he smiles, ‘but great.’
And he walks out of the door, leaving me thinking only of one of those words.
I tell Gemma about Dad’s visit that night as she’s pulling on her pyjamas.
‘I can see why you’d be sceptical,’ she says. ‘And you’re right to be. But you might be pleasantly surprised. I hope so anyway.’ She leans over and kisses me on the lips.
