The love shack, p.9
The Love Shack, page 9
Allie was a cautious, studious type, someone to whom I wouldn’t automatically have gravitated given that in those days my priority was finding a party and staying at it until I was only capable of crawling home. Yet from the moment we met, we clicked. We had nothing in common – partly because she’d grown up in Switzerland – but we had such a laugh. When I think about those days in our poky little room, with two beds, one sink and curtains that looked as though they must’ve been in the Domesday Book, that’s what I think of: the two of us with tears of laughter spilling down our cheeks.
The swim was the fourth she’d entered and the first I’d gone to watch, partly because I was mildly intrigued by what sort of lunatics were motivated to do such a thing.
I was on the edge of the lake, cheering her on as noisily as I could, when I noticed the winner emerging from the water. You couldn’t not notice him. He was improbably beautiful: all hard body, soft smile and general, Herculean gorgeousness.
It was an odd moment. It’d been years since I could recall fancying someone like that; so suddenly, so irrationally.
I was also thrown, I think, because in the years after Alex and I went our separate ways, I’d gravitated to scrawny blokes who smoked meaningfully and looked like they’d never seen daylight. Amateur psychologists might have made something of their passing resemblance to the object of my teenage affection – and his passing flirtation with Marlboros.
Yet here I was, at the edge of a lake, averting my eyes selfconsciously from a man who was the opposite of all that. Someone athletic and muscular, with a six-pack so defined it should by rights have its own passport.
Anyway.
That, I’d thought, was that. A cloudburst of attraction lingering briefly in the air, before floating away, forgotten.
After the race, Allie and I hit the Swan Inn, along with other competitors. I was at the bar, waiting to be served, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I span round, realised who it was and a pink glow bloomed on my neck.
‘You owe me twenty pounds,’ he said.
He might be a romantic these days and ask me to marry him (as a cynical joke, admittedly) twice a month, but the fact remains: they were Dan’s first, profound words to me. You owe me twenty pounds.
‘Sorry?’ I replied, which I admit wasn’t much of a comeback.
‘Twenty pounds. But don’t worry, I’d kind of written it off.’ His lips softened into a smile. My knees gave way slightly.
‘Sorry. You clearly don’t recognise me.’ It occurred to me when he said that, that he might be someone half-famous. Like an X Factor quarter-finalist from 2007, or a weather man who fills in at weekends on the local TV news.
‘Well, no,’ I confessed, feeling suddenly certain it was going to be the latter. He had the air of someone who knew his cumulonimbus from his cirrostratus, and I mean that only in a good way.
Ironically, I was the one whose appearance had changed most by then – my dreadlocks were long gone. He said later that he had only recognised me by the seashell tattoo on my shoulderblade, which he’d doodled on the edge of a contacts book he kept for years afterwards. That counts as possibly the only reason I’ve never regretted having that tattoo done.
We shook hands. It was the first time I felt his hand in mine and it was a window into his soul: warm, honest and strong. ‘I’m Dan. We met years ago. Five, maybe six . . . yes, it must’ve been six. You were in a bar in Liverpool and you were trying to get rid of your date. Then I bumped into you at the taxi rank.’
I looked at him blankly.
‘I obviously made an impression. Well, I gave you twenty pounds for the taxi. And you said you’d phone to arrange to give it back to me.’
I blushed fervidly. ‘Sorry, I just don’t remember this. And I’ve only got a tenner, which I was about to spend on these drinks.’
‘I don’t really want it back,’ he laughed. Then he paused, contemplating his next move. I wanted him to stay. Have a drink with me. Let me gaze into those eyes a moment or two longer.
‘Nice seeing you again,’ he said. And off he went, just like that, leaving my insides to collapse slightly at the sight of his back.
I’ve worked something out about myself over the years. When I decide I am interested in something, or someone, it starts out small, the grain of an idea, then it grows and grows until it’s so all-consuming I can barely entertain another thought in my head.
On the drive home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy at the lake. By the time I got back to my flat, he’d set up home in my head. The look of him. The smell of him. The everything of him.
I made dinner that evening replaying the award-winning script of what I should’ve said after he’d tapped me on the shoulder. Yet, it was only as I lay in bed the following morning, in the half-world between sleep and full consciousness, that I remembered what he was talking about.
I’d been seeing some horrible guy at the time – I couldn’t recall his name, but I do recall he took me to an equally horrible pub.
Details of the evening started to appear in my head, like little spotlights illuminating one by one. I remembered the taxi rank. I remembered talking to Dan. Yet why hadn’t I phoned him? I raced to my bedroom drawer and dug out my old diaries, then sat on the floor flicking through the pages.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 2.15 a.m.
Keg Dixon is yesterday’s news. And so are my dreadlocks.
Earlier suspicions about Keg being a low-level arsehole were entirely confirmed on our fourth (and last) date tonight. Not sure what was worse: the fact that he ‘forgot’ his cash card and tried to pay for a round with a money-off coupon for ALDI – or his repeated assertion that I had ‘blow-job lips,’ which I was supposed to consider a compliment.
Anyway. I have met a gorgeous bloke. If it wasn’t two in the morning and my brain was functioning slightly better, I’d use more impressive prose. But in the absence of any luciditiness (is that a word?) I will simply say this: He has GORGEOUS eyes. GORGEOUS hair. And has a GORGEOUS voice.
He’s big, with proper biceps, so technically not my type at all.
I also think he might like me, even though am certain I’m not his type.
Am taking the dreadlocks out tomorrow, have decided for definite. Timing is sheer co-incidence, clearly – am not abandoning my quirky, unconventional identity just to try and pull Gorgeous Guy. Though if it works and I do pull him, then brilliant!
Anyway. Have Gorgeous Guy’s number so will stick two fingers up to my copy of The Rules and phone him tomorrow p.m. Signing off now as v. tired and think I may have onset of hypothermia after standing in rain.
I turned the page onto the following morning.
Sunday, 14 January 2005 – 11.45 a.m.
Worst Cold Ever. My nose is the same colour as my hair AND THIS IS THE LEAST OF MY WORRIES! Gorgeous Guy’s number has rubbed off my hand, so cannot phone him.
Is probably for the best. Thought I fancied him last night but in cold light of day, use of lip-liner in a potential boyfriend might be an issue for me. Hmm. Quirky, unconventional phase apparently is drawing to a conclusion.
Still, lip-liner or not, he was lovely, am sure of it. Off now to weep a little. And blow nose a lot.
As the six-year-old words in my diary played on me the day after the swimming competition, I got a growing sense that – whatever the score was with the lip-liner – I’d let this guy slip through my fingers once. Now, fate had brought us together again.
It was time to make sure fate and I stayed friends.
Chapter 14
Dan
I wake forty minutes before I need to on an uninspiring Wednesday morning and lie watching rain snake down the windows as the soft skin of Gemma’s cheek rubs against the bristles on my neck.
‘I’m going to get us something nice for dinner tonight,’ she murmurs.
I cuddle her into me. ‘That’d be lovely.’
She looks up. ‘We’ve got some important stuff to do afterwards, like deciding on a solicitor to appoint.’
I shuffle down to turn my attention to her lips, when someone takes what sounds like a lump hammer to the door. ‘Don’t be late for work, will you?’ my mother shrieks.
‘How does she think I’ve managed to get out of bed on time all by myself for the past twelve years?’ I grouch.
Gemma remains diplomatically silent.
I’d known today was going to be challenging and it doesn’t disappoint. By mid-afternoon, I’ve had five discussions with three people from an energy company who’ve cut off the gas supply to one of the properties a client of mine is in.
There is so much paperwork piling up on my desk that I could host the world junior papier-mâché championships and never run out of supplies.
And I’ve just returned from a visit that began when I discovered another client half-naked and carrying a two-litre bottle of cider outside his flat because, he claimed, he’d lost his key and his trousers had been stolen. By a police officer.
I’m finally back at the Old School House, key and trousers recovered – predictably, not from a police officer – and all I want to do is start attacking my correspondence, with as little distraction as possible.
‘Big news on me and Jade,’ Pete announces.
‘Oh?’ I ask, unsurprised that the Daily Mail aren’t queuing up for an exclusive.
‘I decided I need to be bolder, so asked her to go for a coffee at lunchtime tomorrow. Or maybe a sandwich. I said I’d pay.’
‘Hey, Big Spender,’ I smile. A text arrives from Gemma, checking again that I’m not going to be late. I optimistically reply saying I should be on time.
‘I don’t want to look too keen,’ Pete continues. I decide not to tell him he couldn’t look keener if he’d bought the ring, booked the venue and had tickets for the honeymoon on the Isle d’Amour, a luxury resort for the terminally soppy.
Later that afternoon, I leave the office for one of my first meetings with a new client, Sheila. I came across her two days ago when she emerged, bleary-eyed, into the living room of another service user during one of my visits.
She’d been sofa-surfing for a while, though trying to pin down her last fixed abode was like attempting to discover the whereabouts of Atlantis with a Boy Scout’s compass. I discovered though, that she was forty-two, a sex worker, grandmother to a baby girl called Rose and that, despite a savage cough that rattled through her entire skeleton, she hadn’t seen a doctor in five years.
It struck me when we first met that Sheila might have been pretty once.
These days, her intensely blue eyes are all that remain of her old looks, despite clear efforts to maintain her appearance, with make-up and curled hair. Both were fighting a losing battle against years of substance abuse – crack, I’d guessed (correctly as it turned out). It had permeated every part of her, leaving her face gaunt, her skin grey and her lips parched.
I pick her up at 3 p.m. from her friend’s house and pile the bin bag full of clothes and pictures – her only belongings – into the boot of the Fanny Magnet. She follows me out and does a double-take.
‘Is this your company car, lad?’ she asks, clearly amused.
‘You could say that.’
‘If the fella sitting next to you got a BMW, I suggest you go and hand your notice in,’ she cackles.
Sheila spends the journey in the back complaining about the lack of passenger seat and telling me about her new granddaughter. Because, despite the fact that most of Sheila’s life history is a dysfunctional mess, featuring an abusive father, neglectful mother, care homes, pimps and a litany of other predictably nasty characters, she has managed to raise two sons. They’re eighteen and twenty, never went into care like Sheila and, as far as I can tell, are fully functioning members of society. Baby Rose belongs to the twenty year old; her mother is a girl he’s been with since school.
‘Do you see a lot of them?’ I ask.
‘Every few months. They live down south these days. I’ve only met Rose once.’ She looks at her hands. ‘They despair of me, my boys. Not surprising, eh?’
The flat I’ve found her is in a tattier-than-I’d-like house in an area that’s only leafy insomuch as nobody weeds their paths. But it’s safe-ish, dry-ish and it’s a home – something Sheila hasn’t had in a long time.
It’s obvious she’s over the moon about it. Which is just one of the reasons I’m so annoyed when I discover that the landlord has inadvertently given me the wrong key. And after learning on the phone that he’s two hours away in Blackpool, my only option is for Sheila and me to reconvene in a café down the road until he can get it to us.
It’s a busy place serving strong tea and heavily carbohydrated fare with prices scrawled on fluorescent cardboard stars. I buy Sheila a drink and a cake, which she proceeds not to touch.
The immediate priority when I take on a case like this is getting a roof over the client’s head. But that’s just the beginning: over the next few months, I’m going to help her become self-sufficient; set up her bills and a bank account, then show her how to look after them all herself.
She’s eager and accommodating until I try to book a GP appointment, when she fixes her gaze on me and protests: ‘I already know I’ve got everything!’
Then I raise the issue of her substance abuse and how we’re going to tackle it. This is usually the thorniest of subjects and it’s not hard to see why: the life of the average crack user tends to be more violent and unpleasant than most of us are used to. And nothing matches the ability of Class A drugs to neutralise that unpleasantness. It’s little wonder most of them would rather not have someone like me banging on about giving it up.
This isn’t just about a physical addiction though: most users are friends with other users. So those who do succeed are usually the ones prepared to turn their back on their social circle. And can you imagine saying goodbye to all of your friends?
Yet Sheila insists that’s what she wants to do. She’s hoping to check into the Kevin White Unit, a detoxification centre that she knows has helped several people she used to hang around with.
‘We can’t get you in there straight away, Sheila. To be considered for a referral, you’ll need to demonstrate that you’re committed by going to the weekly clinics and the GP when you’re due.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t have to sit in a circle and say “My name’s Sheila and I’m an addict”, do I?’
I laugh. ‘You’ll have to go along to find out.’
It’s gone seven by the time we finally get into the flat, and that’s before I’ve shown her how everything works and settled her in. She steps into the living room silently as she takes in the fraying carpet and dodgy-looking patch in the corner. She swallows and looks at me, suddenly small.
‘Lad.’ I can tell she’s about to get emotional. ‘This is just . . . just brilliant.’
I get back to Buddington at gone nine o’clock. I enter the kitchen guiltily, clutching the only flowers I could find en route – from a Shell garage, which I am fairly sure negates all my theories about the power of floral gestures, and strays dangerously close to Men Behaving Badly territory. Gemma’s obviously given up on me and gone to bed, and I wince when I find an unopened bottle of Prosecco and some M&S profiteroles in the fridge. ‘That you, Dan?’ Mum calls through from the living room. ‘Come and have a little drink! I’ve just put Glee on – and made those caramelised nuts on the front of BBC Good Food. They’re lovely once you’ve got them out of your teeth.’
I put my head through the door. ‘I’ll pass, Mum, if you don’t mind. Tough day.’
‘Gemma said the same. Do you know she’d got a nice dinner in? If it had been me I’d be very unhappy about you turning up at this time. So where’ve you been? And who’ve you been with?’
My mother’s capacity for making me feel sixteen years old again is apparently infinite.
‘I spent the evening with a prostitute,’ I tell her.
‘Don’t be facetious, Daniel.’
‘I’ve been working,’ I clarify.
‘Until this hour?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s all part and parcel of the job sometimes, Mum.’ I wonder why I thought, even for a second, she’d try and be understanding.
Instead, she lets out a short, high-pitched hm sound. ‘I suggest you start asking them to pay you a bit more.’
‘I’m due a pay rise at the next review,’ I reply, not telling her that the last time I had one, it wouldn’t have covered the cost of a modest night out.
‘Hm,’ she says again. ‘So this is the norm, is it? Working this late?’
My blood suddenly feels several degrees hotter. ‘Mum, what does it matter to you?’
She frowns. ‘This is my roof you’re sleeping under, young man. Of course it matters to me.’
At which point I make my excuses and leave this odd Freaky Friday-style vortex.
Upstairs, I push open the door to our bedroom to find Gemma lying on her side, her back to me. I tiptoe closer and see that she’s reading.
‘Hi,’ I whisper, kissing her on her head.
‘Hi,’ she says, without moving.
I walk round the bed and produce the flowers. She examines the five wilting, psychedelically-coloured horticultural aberrations and looks underwhelmed.
‘They’re . . . gorgeous,’ she forces herself to say.
‘You’re a terrible liar.’ She laughs. ‘Sorry I missed dinner – and the house update,’ I continue. ‘And I’m sorry the best flowers I could get hold of look like they’ve been in a hit and run.’
‘It’s the thought that counts. I think.’ She rolls onto her back and smiles. ‘What was it this time? Squatters in your client’s flat or an alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon?’
‘Neither. Just something I had to do. Budge up,’ I say, sitting on the edge of the bed as she shifts over and I run my fingers through her hair. I feel dramatically better.
‘It was only an M&S meal anyway,’ she sighs. ‘I probably made it sound fancier than it was. Although I did get Prosecco.’
