by Fiona Gibson
‘Here we are!’ she announces cheerfully as a ramshackle cottage comes into view. My heart seems to sink as it confirms my worst fears. Even in the dark, I can see that its roof is sagging and clumped with moss, its peeling walls possibly last whitewashed around forty years ago. It looks like the kind of place from which one leaves dismembered, wrapped in black polythene, then flung into a ditch or possibly devoured by her dog. There probably is no ‘Gary’. So this is how my evening ends: being subjected to all kinds of humiliations and pain, simply due to being a committed employee of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d opted for accountancy, like my dad.
I glance at Tanzie, who is marching along at quite a pace now, with Wolfie trotting alongside her. An ageing yellow van – actually more rust than yellow – is parked next to the house. I squint and read the writing on its side: ‘The Lino King’. I turn to Tanzie. ‘Whose is that?’
‘Gary’s,’ she says with a dry laugh. ‘He has a flooring business – only, lino’s not the only thing he lays.’
‘Sorry?’ I turn and stare at her.
Tanzie grunts in derision and stomps towards it. I frown, confused now. Did she mean ‘lay’ as in other women – i.e., implying philandering tendencies – or merely in a flooring context? i.e., Lino’s not the only thing he lays. He is equally happy to install vinyl flooring, tiles, carpet, slate – even cork, if anyone still has that …
I glance back at Tanzie, then at the van. There’s a badly-painted lion next to the lettering, with a luxuriant mane and a frankly terrifying human face. Or maybe the lion actually looks quite friendly, and it’s just my hangover setting in, triggering paranoia.
Giving the van one last, fretful glance, I follow Tanzie into the cottage, mustering all the courage I possess for meeting this Gary person, and my certain doom.
Chapter Seventeen
The cramped and dingy living room is dominated by a TV blaring out Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and the multi-tattooed presence of the Lino King himself.
‘Hey!’ He swings round from the screen and regards me with surprise.
‘Gary, this is Nate,’ Tanzie explains. She pulls off her rain-drenched jacket and jams it over a radiator.
‘Hey, Nate.’ He is solidly built with cropped dark hair, handsome in that beefy, action-movie-hero sort of way, and dressed in a tight black T-shirt and grubby-looking jeans.
‘Hi, Gary,’ I say, adopting a perky tone, as if I am friend whom he’s been expecting, rather than a stranger whose hangover is definitely taking hold.
As unobtrusively as I can manage, I check the time on my phone: 11.27 p.m. Definitely time to return to the relative sanctuary of home.
‘Nate’s a friend of Liv and Steve’s,’ Tanzie offers.
‘The driving test woman?’ he asks in a slow drawl.
Oh, God, I will Tanzie, please don’t tell him I’m a driving test person too – in fact, the very person who ‘failed’ you on several of your own tests. I can’t imagine my insistence that I’m just ‘a passive observer’ would hold much truck here.
‘That’s right,’ she says, unclipping her dog’s lead. ‘We, uh, got chatting when I was out looking for Wolfie and I said he could call a taxi home from here.’
Gary frowns. ‘Use our house phone, you mean?’
‘No, no, on his mobile,’ she clarifies. ‘It was just, um, a bit rowdy at Liv and Steve’s for making a call, and it’s still pouring down …’
He nods, apparently satisfied with this bizarre explanation as to why I have interrupted his evening. It occurs to me that, if this had been Sinead and I, then I’d have been the one out dog-hunting in the rain. ‘I did their kitchen floor,’ Gary tells me. ‘What did you think of it?’
I toy with the idea of enthusing over the excellent standard of work. However, right now I doubt if I could pull it off. ‘It was a garden party,’ I explain. ‘I didn’t actually go into the house—’
‘A garden party?’ he crows, adopting an aristocratic tone.
‘Well, a barbecue,’ I say quickly.
‘You said we were invited, Gary,’ Tanzie remarks with a frown.
Choosing to ignore this, he drops his gaze to the front of my shirt. ‘Were you in a fight?’
I glance down, registering for the first time that it’s not only muddy but also liberally splashed with pinkish liquid. ‘Oh, that’s just watermelon juice—’
‘Watermelon juice!’ he crows, as if I’d said asses’ milk, and I wonder now if everything I say will be deemed amusing enough for him to repeat.
I catch Tanzie glancing at him in irritation, and wonder again what kind of ‘situation’ they had earlier tonight.
‘Well, I won’t take up any more of your evening,’ I say. ‘I’ll just call my taxi now.’ I start to scroll for the local cab company on my phone.
‘You need to warm up,’ Tanzie retorts. ‘Come through to the kitchen and have a cuppa with me. Then you can call a cab …’
‘Uh, well, just a quick one,’ I say, relieved to at least leave the room Gary’s in.
In the even dingier kitchen she tells me to sit at the table. ‘Give me your jacket,’ she commands.
‘Oh, no, it’s fine …’
‘For goodness’ sake, give it to me,’ she says, exasperation lacing her voice. ‘C’mon – the heating’s on. It’ll dry off a bit.’ Obediently, I take it off and hand it to her. She pushes up a row of bras on the radiator and stuffs it beside them. The demise of my marriage seems to have triggered a state of utter passiveness in me, to the point that I will do anything anyone – even a near-stranger with a comically tiny fringe – tells me to do.
Over the blare of Gordon Ramsay in the living room, Tanzie hands me a mug of tea and fills me in on her life. ‘It’s driving me mad, living out here,’ she announces. ‘Forty years old and I’m living in a dump like this. The only good thing is, the girl from the farm down the lane comes over to walk Wolfie when we’re at work. But, God, I miss the buzz of Hesslevale …’
I smile at that; whilst my home town is sizeable enough to have its own secondary school and several primaries, it’s hardly a metropolis. ‘Too sleepy for you out here, is it?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah, there’s that – and transport’s a nightmare. I work in Hesslevale and the buses don’t coincide with my shifts. I seem to spend half my life waiting in the bloody bus shelter.’ She takes the seat opposite and eyes me levelly across the table. ‘That’s why I was so desperate to pass my driving test.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I sip my scalding tea.
‘So, whereabouts d’you live, Nate?’
‘Er, in Hesslevale, actually.’
Tanzie blinks at me in surprise. ‘Really? In the posh bit, I suppose?’
I smile briefly. ‘Nope – we’re probably in the least posh bit …’ I glance briefly around the kitchen. There is barely more headroom in here than there was in the Wendy house. Chipped gloss-painted shelves are crammed with piled-up crockery, and a low-watt bulb with a yellowing shade dangles over the table. ‘So, what’s your job?’ I ask, merely to show polite interest.
‘I’m a waitress, for my sins. You know Burger Bill’s at the bottom of the high street?’
‘Yes, I do,’ I reply, although it’s not somewhere Sinead and I have ever visited. The sign in the window boasts MASSIVE FLAVOURS – which everyone knows just means bucketloads of salt. Still, I am hungry now, I realise. Ravenous, in fact, having only ingested fruit that’s approximately ninety-eight per cent water (okay, booze) since that lacklustre stir-fry with Flynn. I couldn’t face any of the barbecued offerings at Liv’s.
As if reading my mind, Tanzie fetches me a Penguin biscuit, which I accept gratefully. I devour it in two bites, then glance at my mobile on the table, wondering how soon I can make my escape without seeming rude. Tanzie gets up to prod at my jacket, announcing that ‘it’s drying out already’; she is a tiny thing really, barely five feet tall. Her level of concern is quite touching.
&
nbsp; ‘Like another biscuit?’ she asks, plonking a dented tin in front of me.
‘Yes please. You’re being very kind. Thank you.’
‘Aw, it’s no problem. Got a sweet tooth, have you?’
‘I suppose so, yes …’
‘We do great desserts at Bill’s,’ she goes on. ‘Tell you what – if you come in when I’m there I’ll slip you a knickerbocker glory on the house.’
‘Oh, that’s very sweet of you.’ Naturally, I have no intention of taking her up on this.
‘You will drop in, won’t you? Bring your wife?’
Ah, she must have registered my wedding ring. ‘Erm, the thing is, my wife’s not really a burger kind of person …’
She pulls a crestfallen face. ‘It’s probably not your date night kind of place, then …’
‘Probably not,’ I agree. Because nowhere is anymore. I clear my throat, aware of a creeping sense that I really shouldn’t be here, and that right now I would very much like to be safely installed in my own home. As Flynn is staying over at Max’s tonight, I won’t even have to put on a pretence of being normal. I’ll be able to slob around, a fine example of a newly-single middle-aged male with my muddied knees and juice-splattered T-shirt, probably reeking of vodka. However, I am also slightly concerned about the ‘situation’ Tanzie mentioned earlier. Surely Gary isn’t violent to her?
‘So, is it just the two of you here?’ I venture.
‘Nope, my youngest is still at home,’ she explains. ‘My other two are long grown up. Robbie works offshore as a commercial diver. He’s an underwater welder up in Scotland, works on the oil rigs …’
‘Really?’ I exclaim. ‘But surely he can’t be—’
‘I was a young mum,’ Tanzie cuts in with a smile. ‘Had him at sixteen, and he’s twenty-four now, so he’s properly qualified and everything. I’m very proud of him.’
I study this birdlike woman who’s raised a child to manhood, yet seems incapable of fully concentrating behind the wheel of a car. ‘I’m sure you are,’ I murmur. ‘I imagine it’s terrifying too, though …’
‘Life’s terrifying, isn’t it?’ she says blithely. ‘You just have to take things as they come and deal with it. And then there’s Ashley, she’s twenty-two, lives down south with her boyfriend. Just had a baby of her own …’
‘So you’re a grandmother?’ I exclaim.
She nods. ‘Yeah. Just the one so far. A beauty, but quite enough to be going on with …’ She beams. ‘And then there’s Kayla, she’s sixteen, still at school – in theory. Goes to Hesslevale High. D’you have any kids?’
‘Yes, just the one. He’s sixteen …’
‘Which school?’
‘Um … he’s at Hesslevale too. His name’s Flynn. Flynn Turner.’ It seems wrong, somehow, to share details about my family with a candidate – but then I am sitting in her kitchen, and she’d be bound to ask anyway.
‘What’s he into, then?’
‘Erm, the usual stuff – gaming, bit of reading, hanging out with his mates. And he plays guitar – that’s his main thing …’ She nods, clearly genuinely interested. I hesitate, knowing it’ll seem rude if I seem eager to leave, but aware that the conversation will probably work its way round to my wife. ‘I’ll just order my cab, if you don’t mind,’ I add, making the call.
Hello, begins the recorded message, you’ve reached Hesslevale Cars. All our operators are busy at the moment …
I sip my tea and wait with my phone still clamped to my ear, trying to adopt a casual expression so it doesn’t look as if I am desperate to get out of here. Tanzie smiles, and I find myself wondering whether she’ll book another driving test, or just give up; it sounds awful, but I hope she knocks it on the head. It’s extremely rare, but some people just aren’t cut out for driving. She seems terribly well-meaning – although she puts on a tough front – and after last time, with all the crying, I’m not sure if she should put herself through that again.
The cab company’s message rolls on and on over terrible tinny music. Tanzie checks my jacket again, taking it off the radiator and shaking it out, as if to try to accelerate the drying. I watch as something seems to catch her attention, and her expression changes. I follow her gaze to a small piece of folded paper, lying on her kitchen floor.
My printed-out copy of Sinead’s list has fallen out of my pocket.
As I jump up to retrieve it, Tanzie bobs down and grabs it from the floor. I stare at her, phone still gripped to my ear.
Hello, you’ve reached Hesslevale Cars …
‘They’re busy,’ I tell her as I finish the call abruptly.
She nods, still holding the folded-up list. ‘Well, it is Saturday night.’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
A smile plays on her lips. ‘I’d drive you home myself, but, you know—’
‘It’d be highly illegal,’ I say distractedly, sitting back down. ‘Erm, that thing you picked up. I think it belongs to me—’
‘Oh, does it?’ She peers at it as if she has only just remembered she has it in her hand. Gordon Ramsay is still shouting in the living room; something about this being ‘no way to store fish!’ I realise I am still clutching the Penguin wrapper as Tanzie unfolds the note carefully. What the hell is she doing? I seem to be incapable of asking her to hand it to me.
She is frowning thoughtfully at the list. For some reason, it must seem perfectly fine to her to examine someone else’s personal paperwork – something that’s fallen out of a pocket, and could be anything. ‘Er, Tanzie?’ I say. ‘That bit of paper there … it’s actually mine.’
‘Yeah,’ she mutters with a dismissive wave of her hand. I watch her, astounded by her audacity as she starts to read it.
Perhaps that’s why I just let her do it: because I’m too stunned to stop her. Go ahead, then! You’ve given me tea and two Penguins, which you seem to think gives you the right to read my private stuff …
I don’t know if she’s a terribly slow reader, or if the passage of time has warped somehow, but it feels like forever as I sit there, knowing I could jump up and snatch it from her grasp – but what would be the point? She’ll have read enough to get the gist. She might as well be fully aware of my every shortcoming; in fact, perhaps Gary would like to read it too, when his programme finishes? From the living room comes his rumbly laughter and the pop of a can being opened. Clearly, Saturday night is in full swing around here.
Tanzie looks up, her gaze seeming to penetrate my frontal lobe. ‘What actually is this, Nate?’
‘Er, could I just have it please?’
She hands it to me and sits back down on the chair opposite. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. ‘I really shouldn’t have read it. I don’t know what got into me.’
‘It’s all right.’ I jam it into my jeans pocket.
‘It’s from your wife, right?’
I nod. ‘As you’ll have gathered, she’s not terribly impressed with me at the moment.’
‘Yeah, I can see that,’ she murmurs.
‘In fact, she left me ten days ago. I found the list one morning, and she’d already gone. So we’re separated.’ I glance down at my phone, wondering if an operator at Hesslevale Cars has become available yet.
She exhales loudly. ‘God, you poor thing. And she took Flynn with her?’
‘No, no – he’s still with me …’
‘The cow!’ she exclaims.
‘It’s not like that,’ I say quickly, because right now it feels imperative to explain that Sinead is not the baddie here; there is no baddie. Or, if there is, it must be me, with my poo-shirking tendencies and deep love of Springsteen which, clearly, I should have grown out of by now. ‘It’s been … tough,’ I add. ‘Tough for Sinead, I mean. I suppose most of it – looking after Flynn, the house, all the day-to-day stuff – fell to her …’
‘She sounds so resentful,’ Tanzie remarks.
‘Yes, she does.’ I pause. She has already branded Sinead a ‘cow’ for leaving Flynn with me. I dread to think what s
he’d call her if she knew about his condition.
‘Couldn’t she have told you, though? Given you the chance to work things out?’
‘I wish she had,’ I say with a shrug.
She shoots a quick look towards the open kitchen door. ‘Me and my ex – the kids’ dad, I mean – should’ve talked more and tried to fix things. We were idiots really. We had the first two kids so young, then Kayla came along as a little surprise and that kind of finished us off. I was stuck at home again – isolated and probably depressed – and I guess I blamed Neil for that.’ She pauses and shrugs. ‘Maybe we should’ve … I don’t know, seen someone. A relationship person, I mean. Everyone goes for counselling these days, don’t they?’
‘I suppose so,’ I reply, wondering if Sinead felt isolated too. I suppose the possibility has never occurred to me.
‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘Neil’s with someone else now, down in London – two more kids – and I met Gary. So here I am, stuck out in the wilds by myself for a lot of the time …’
‘But you said your youngest – Kayla – still lives with you?’
‘In theory, yeah, but she spends most of her time at her best friend’s Paige’s house. It’s all, “The Rileys this, the Rileys that”, with their shower that squirts you from all angles and a tap that boiling water comes out of …’ She snorts derisively.
‘Are teenagers really excited by boiling water taps?’
‘Seems like it.’ She laughs. ‘Anyway, never mind us. It’s you we’re talking about—’
‘Looks that way,’ I say with a faint smile.
‘All that stuff she put,’ she murmurs. ‘Can I see it again? The list, I mean?’
Hell, why not? I retrieve it from my pocket and hand it back to her.
Her face softens as she re-reads it. ‘What’s this about your bloody record collection?’
I shrug. ‘I have no idea. Maybe she’s just run out of tolerance where Bruce Springsteen’s concerned …’
‘Springsteen?’ She pulls a face, as if a foul smell has infiltrated the kitchen. ‘That American patriot crap by a guy in double denim?’