by Mike Gayle
I look up at Gerry, confused. ‘What’s that?’
‘Your new home if you want it. Kara’s been on the case for me. Apparently if you turn up there midday tomorrow with a deposit and a month’s rent there’ll be a double room with your name on it.’
‘Why does that address seem familiar to me?’
‘Because it’s the address of that party we went to, the party where you and Rosa got together.’ Gerry looks at me resignedly. ‘Do you still want it?’
I try to imagine myself living with my parents in a retirement bungalow in Worcester.
‘Doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice, does it?’ I reply. ‘Tell the landlord I’ll be there at midday.’
44
The dilapidated facade of 128 Whitehouse Lane, with its broken guttering, peeling paintwork and overgrown front garden in the grubby light of a truly grey and horrible Balsall Heath rainy day reminds me of every craphole of a student house that I’ve ever lived in. Twenty-three Charlotte Street, for instance, where I lived for most of my first year of university and which had a kitchen wall so damp that water would pool daily at the base of it; or 228 Manton Avenue, where our next-door neighbours would regularly break into our house and steal our stuff; or 91 Lingham Street where I discovered a family of cockroaches living in the airing cupboard; or finally 218 Bristnall Street, which although damp- cockroach- and burglar-free, was so cold come winter that I used to have to sleep fully clothed under three heavy-weight winter duvets. The day I moved out of Bristnall Street, I vowed that I was done with sub-standard rental accommodation. Never again would I hand over my hard-earned money to crooks and swindlers in return for a roof over my head and with the exception of the first place I lived in London (a house-share in Kensal Green with no running water) I stayed true to my word. So 128 Whitehouse Lane represents the biggest backwards step I’ve taken in the last twenty years. It’s the real-life equivalent of being three squares from the end of a game of Snakes and Ladders only to roll the die, and land on the longest snake on the board.
A full tour of the house by the landlord’s sportswear-adorned, headphone-wearing son, Kamal, disabuses me of any hope that 128 Whitehouse Lane might not be as awful as I recalled from the party. The kitchen, with its ancient and frankly dangerous-looking electric cooker, formica work surfaces and walls covered in brown ‘tiling on a roll’ wallpaper, looks like something left over from 1984; the green carpeted bathroom with full avocado suite and stick-on-the-mixer-taps showerhead looks like the before picture in a renovation project; and the living room is furnished with a number of sofas and armchairs (none of which match) that have clearly been picked up from a Salvation Army charity shop some time in the last fifteen years. Finally there is my room: an eight foot by eight foot magnolia box, with walls dotted with abandoned Blu-Tack, a cheap IKEA wardrobe that smells of old pizza, a pine chest of drawers that looks like it is held together with Sellotape and nautical-themed curtains framing the filthy windows.
‘So do you want it, boss?’ asks Kamal as we conclude our tour in the hallway. ‘Because if you do my dad says you need to stump up the readies now.’
Part of me wants to walk out of here without another word to Kamal, because a) he’s annoying and b) the house is obviously a dump, but with Rosa coming back to the flat today and the prospect of sleeping in the shop too awful for serious consideration, this is beginning to look like my only option.
‘Can you just give me a minute?’ I walk out of eavesdropping distance and dial Lauren’s number.
‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Matt, how are you?’
‘Not too bad.’ Kamal is playing some kind of game on his phone while nodding his head in a studiously cool manner to the music blaring through his headphones. Lauren is my only hope for a life free from any further interaction with this man. Is it too much to ask for a minor miracle? Is it too much to hope that in the last twenty-four hours she’s found a cash buyer for the house and hasn’t bothered to tell me? I could last three weeks in the shop if I knew that I’d have a stack of cash in the bank at the end of it.
‘Listen, I know it’s a long shot but I’m just wondering . . . any news about the house?’
‘ ’Fraid not,’ she replies. ‘There was a couple who came for a second viewing and seemed really keen but the agent got back to me yesterday and said that they’ve made an offer on the place next door.’
‘The place next door’s up for sale too? What’s happening in Blackheath? A tribal exodus?’ It was meant to be a joke but it comes out wrong. I sound angry, bitter. This is as horrible as it gets. I’m going to be stuck in this run-down hovel full of students for ever.
‘Matt, are you OK?’
‘No.’
‘What’s wrong?’
This is going to kill me. ‘I need to borrow some money.’
There’s a silence. I feel my last drops of dignity ebb away.
‘How much do you need?’
I can barely get the words out. ‘A grand.’
She doesn’t miss a beat. That’s how guilty she feels right now. ‘I’ll call the bank and get it to you straight away.’
I return to Kamal who removes just enough headphone from one ear to hear me over the racket that he’s listening to.
‘What’s the score, bruv?’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Always nice to do a deal, innit?’ Kamal tries to shake my hand, gangster style, but I don’t engage. He looks at me, disappointed, while I wonder what Lauren is thinking right now. She used to respect, even look up to me and now I’m just some bloke who leeches money off her.
Kamal shifts uncomfortably. ‘Something wrong, bruv?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Everything’s just wonderful.’
Returning to the relative civilisation of well-heeled Moseley I stand in the communal gardens of Rosa’s flat finishing off the remains of a ham and cheese baguette I’d bought in lieu of breakfast. Screwing up the bag which the sandwich had come in, I drop it into the pocket of my jacket and fish out the keys to the main entrance acutely aware that I am making this journey for the last time. Now that most of my stuff is at the shop all that’s left inside is my holdall, and a jacket or two, and even with the half an hour I’ve factored in to tidy up the flat I’ll be long gone before Rosa arrives to reclaim what is rightfully hers.
My mind still churning over my decision to return to the crap housing circuit, I open the front door and hear a noise from the kitchen. I’m not alone.
‘I didn’t realise you were coming this early,’ I say as Rosa and Tory appear in the hallway. They’re still wearing their coats and boots, which suggests they’ve only just arrived.
‘Obviously not. How could you leave the flat like this?’
‘Look, I’m sorry. Just give me an hour to clean up and I’ll be out of your hair.’
Rosa shakes her head. ‘Just go, I’ll sort it myself.’
‘Please,’ I reply, ‘let me do this one thing, OK?’
‘No. I don’t want you here any longer than you need to be.’
‘Rosa,’ I plead, ‘is this really the way you want to leave things?’
‘What other way is there?’
I shift my gaze to Tory. ‘Any chance you could just give me a minute to talk to Rosa alone?’
Tory ignores me and looks enquiringly at Rosa, who nods and says, ‘Why don’t you make us a cup of tea and I’ll give you a shout in a minute?’
I need to deliver something worthy of having asked for Rosa’s undivided attention. I take a deep breath, take aim and pull the trigger on what could be my final round of ammunition. ‘I do love you, you know.’
‘They’re just words, Matt, unless you mean them,’ says Rosa, with a look of disappointment. ‘They’re not some kind of sticking plaster that makes everything better.’
‘I know you love me.’
‘I did, more fool me because you don’t love anyone but yourself.’
‘You don’t get it.’ I think about the Jason C
levelands, Aaron Bakers and Nick D’Souzas of this world, ‘I’m actually one of the good guys.’
‘Maybe and maybe not. Who knows? But this time around you just weren’t good enough.’
Days left until I turn forty: 7
45
The first thing I do when I wake up the following Monday morning is swear loudly. Not because I’m developing a case of Tourette’s syndrome, or because I’ve stubbed my toe, or because I’m depressed that it’s Monday morning. No, the reason for my expletive is because for a few brief seconds I am fully convinced that I am lying in Rosa’s warm bed, in Rosa’s warm flat, with Rosa’s beautiful long naked limbs curled around my body. It is a wonderful sensation. I feel secure and loved, I am happy, blissful even, nothing can touch me. But then I open my eyes and see the once-white, now grey dust-laden Chinese lantern-style light shade that hangs over my bed, which draws my eye to the cracked ceiling, which takes my gaze to the thickly painted woodchip wallpaper on the walls and the awful truth: I am a recently separated, about-to-be forty-year-old man, living in a house-share with a bunch of twentysomething ‘young professionals’ and like I’ve just been jabbed in the eye with a blunt stick, I give birth to an expletive-ridden, anguish-laden outburst, that would shock a sailor. That is how miserable this place makes me.
I resolve to get out of bed and take a shower but not before checking that the coast is clear. I’ve been here two days and although I’ve heard my fellow housemates, I have yet to see a single one of them, having set about a deliberate tactic of avoidance (showering early, eating late and staying in my room) and although on Sunday afternoon someone did knock on my door, I pretended not to be in. I don’t want these people to become my friends. I don’t even want to know their names. All I want is to get out of here as quickly as humanly possible because I’m beginning to fear that the damage this stay is doing to my psyche may be irreparable.
Double-checking the landing for signs of life I make my way to the shower and emerge ten minutes later fully dressed and ready for work. Although I don’t much feel like doing it even I can see that a distraction like work is going to come in handy. I grab a slice of toast, down half a carton of orange juice and console myself that with a friend like Gerry I won’t have to return here until after the pubs are shut. This lifts my spirits but after half an hour of trudging through the rain despair returns as I approach the shop and see all the volunteers huddled outside.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask Anne, deeming her the person most likely to give me a sensible reply.
‘The shop is still shut,’ she says briskly, ‘and there’s no sign of Gerry.’
‘Has anyone called him?’
‘I’ve tried three times and Owen has sent him several text messages.’
‘Maybe he’s not well.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ concedes Anne, ‘although I’ve been volunteering here for a good year and a half now and any time he’s not been able to turn up he’s always arranged for a key to be dropped off with me so that we can at least keep the shop open.’
Odd Owen nods in agreement, ‘It’s just not like him. What do you think we should do?’
Everyone looks at me as though I will have the answer and no one has done that since I gave up my job. I find it disconcerting. ‘I don’t know,’ I reply, ‘what does everyone else think?’
The responses are split between those who think we should stay and those who think we should go. As a group we decide on a compromise and opt to wait next door at Annabel’s taking it in turns to pop our heads out from time to time to see if he’s arrived. I try his mobile but after an hour without any sign, people begin to head home, until just after eleven thirty, all that’s left is me and Odd Owen (who for the best part of an hour has been extolling the virtues of the Tenko box set that he bought from the shop the week before).
‘I think I’m going to get off, Matt,’ he says eventually. ‘I’ve got an essay that needs to be in soon and I could do with the extra time to work on it.’
‘Of course,’ I reply, ‘I think I’m probably going to stay a little longer just to be on the safe side. Just out of curiosity though: I know Gerry’s place is where the old Britannic Insurance building used to be but do you know exactly what number he lives at? I might take a walk down there if he doesn’t turn up.’
Odd Owen shakes his head. ‘Not a clue, but do you want some company? I’m always up for a bit of amateur detective work.’
‘What about that essay?’
‘Who cares? Gerry could’ve been robbed by masked raiders looking for his millions. Right now he’s lying in a stairwell outside his flat bleeding to death praying that we’re about to come to his rescue.’
I throw Odd Owen my best ‘What did you just say?’ look.
‘That was too weird wasn’t it?’
‘Just a bit.’
Britannic Park is a development of upmarket apartments for monied professionals keen to avoid the city centre. It looks from the outside like a slice of ‘loft style’ living without the downside of being more centrally located like finding pools of vomit outside your front door or abandoned doner kebab innards on your windowsill. Essentially it’s a very large ornate building set in beautifully maintained lawns and a penthouse apartment here is exactly where you’d expect to find Gerry living out the bachelor pad dream on behalf of men everywhere.
‘This is amazing,’ says Odd Owen as we look through the window of one of the apartments and take in the stripped oak floors, white walls and large, expensive-looking works of art. ‘How much do you think places like this go for?’
‘No idea, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to cover the rent with your student loan.’
I realise that the kind of people who live in places like this are unlikely to answer the door to random strangers and so rather than ringing doorbells I suggest that we wait until we see someone coming in or out and ask if they know Gerry.
The first three we approach practically run away as if we’re about to mug them but then Owen gets chatting to a young couple out walking their dog and he calls me over. We show them a picture of Gerry on my phone and although the woman from the couple recognises him (she too had been a Pinfolds fan in her youth) she claims never to have seen him around the building. It’s a similar story with everyone else: even those who aren’t into music claim that a man as striking as Gerry would stick out a mile in a complex that is mainly populated by accountants, lawyers, doctors and dentists.
‘So what do we do now?’ asks Odd Owen, as the last of our respondents walks away. ‘He’s told us all a million times about this place but no one seems to have seen him.’
‘Well, think about it: most people have gone to work by the time Gerry’s leaving his place and given that he’s out at the pub most nights I’m guessing he doesn’t come home until they’ve gone to bed. It just shows us that most people around here don’t live the life of a semi-retired—’ I break off as my phone rings, and reach into my coat pocket to answer it.
‘Hi,’ says a female voice at the other end of the line, ‘can I speak to Matthew Beckford?’
‘That’s me. Who’s this?’
‘I’m calling from the Queen Elizabeth hospital on behalf of your friend Gerry Hammond. He’s OK, but last night he had an accident on his moped and was brought to us with suspected concussion. We’ve had him under observation overnight; the doctors are happy enough to sign him off for release as long as he has someone with him, and you’re the person he asked us to call.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
It’s after one o’clock by the time Odd Owen and I pull into the hospital car park in Odd Owen’s ex-Ministry of Defence soft-top Land Rover Defender, bought the previous summer from eBay. It’s hard not to feel like an extra from the TV series M*A*S*H but any such enjoyment is tempered by the fact that of all the people Gerry could have called, for some reason he has picked me. Some people might be flattered, but I can’t help conclude that anyone who has to turn to m
e in an emergency is someone with no other option. If that’s not the very definition of desperate then I don’t know what is.
Directed to the fifth floor, Odd Owen and I search the ward and find Gerry sitting in a wipe-clean armchair next to a regulation hospital bed. He looks a complete mess: there are scratches and bruises across his face, his left arm is in a sling, and the left leg of his jeans has been cut right up to the thigh revealing yet more bandage. He looks old, worn out, and a little bit scared. While I’m sure that with time and sleep he’ll be physically back to normal, on the inside I suspect something might have changed for good.
‘You OK?’
‘I just want to get out of here.’
‘No problem, we’ll have you home in no time.’
I help Gerry to his feet, while Odd Owen grabs his coat and the crash helmet that had no doubt saved his life, and the three of us make our way down to the car park.
‘Back to your pad then, Gerry?’ yells Odd Owen, starting up the Land Rover as I help Gerry fasten his seat belt. The noise of the engine is deafening, like the sound of twenty tractors all spluttering to life at once, and I can’t hear Gerry’s response so I bellow at Odd Owen to switch off for a minute.
‘Sorry, mate. What did you say?’
‘Head to Edgbaston,’ says Gerry.
‘Is that where that young thing you’re seeing lives?’ grins Odd Owen.
Gerry shakes his head.
‘So what’s there?’ I’m intrigued.
He looks out of the car window. ‘My wife and kids.’
46
While it’s unlikely that even the coolest of TV producers would think that the Birmingham home of the former lead singer of The Pinfolds might make a suitable choice for a revival of the classic TV panel show Through The Keyhole, even if they had I doubt whether any of the panellists would have guessed that the house we were currently gazing at from the relative discomfort of Odd Owen’s Land Rover belonged to Gerry Hammond. Not that there was anything technically wrong with it. It was a nice enough modern house with a neatly kept front garden and roses growing up the trellis near the front window that any family with 2.4 children, a dog and a Volvo would happily have called home, but Gerry Hammond? It just didn’t make sense. How could the man once voted the third ‘Coolest Man on Planet Earth’ by Melody Maker live in a place like this?